Thread: I'm dedicated & dying to learn. Where do I start?!

Hi everyone

I've been reading your fine site for the past week or so and I'm really impressed by the wealth of knowledge you guys and girls seem to have (not to mention how supportive everyone is!). So I figured I better register and start getting involved so I can learn even more about Body Building and really start seeing the "gains" (I'm picking up the lingo ) that I really want to achieve. I've been a member of internet forums before so I should pick up the flow of the site pretty quickly, and you can guarantee you won't catch me trolling or any of that B/S...respectful online member here.

Hmmm so a little about myself:
I'm just about 19 years old (nov.) and I graduated High School a couple of years ago. Since then I've been working at a local skate-shop and just trying to live life. Some of my obsessions are; skateboarding/snowboarding, mountain biking, jumping on my trampoline with an old skate deck or my snowboard, snowboard videos/games....and of course, working out! Snowboarding is a pretty physically demanding sport and this year especially I'm taking it pretty seriously and training pretty hard. I like to workout at home, I can pump my music, hit the punching bag, and play a little Amped on XBox between sets hehe My "home gym" consists of a nice curl bar, bench with incline/decline, punching bag, and a few random dumbells. The metal plate weights work pretty well (and I love the raw sound of metal clanging when I'm pumpin'!) but I'll probably need more pretty soon as I really start to grow.

Anyways I'll hopefully take some pictures, maybe even tomorrow, to give you guys a better idea of who I am and what I have to work with, so that I can get the feedback I'm hoping for.

A couple things to start off...
I've been excersizing regularly for a long time now, but I haven't really developed a lot of muscle mainly because that's not what I was aiming for. I wanted to be lean and healthy, always trying to trim those last few pounds hanging around. But during that whole time I noticed some muscle definition and now I want to build on that. So I gues you could say I'm new to Body Building but not at all new to excersizing, eating right, and healthy living.

Sooo...I'm wondering where to start really. I need to do some reading up on how much weight/how many sets. So far I've learned that when you're bulking you need to eat like mad (but clean food, I'm good at that), workout each individual muscle group seperately, and give your muscles plenty of rest. But how do I know how much weight is okay to use, and how many sets? I think I remember reading that 3sets/8reps is a good number for muscle building. I'm starting to read some of your fantastic journals and they are giving me an idea of how my routine is going to shape up.

So the short story is...
I'm new to bodybuilding but I'm in good shape, I eat well which means a pretty high protein diet to start, I want to start a workout program that will build lots of muscle, fast, and improve strength. And most important, I'm dedicated, commited, and diligent in my eating habits.
So I hope to talk to you all very soon
p.s. just call me Bodhi

Welcome Bohdi! Great screenname!