15 year old not adding pounds? Help!!

[Brad6260]

Hi. I have a strong background with sports nutrition but am stumped as to why my son is not putting on weight despite a very defined diet and exercise program. he is 15, 5'9 160lbs. Very strong,large frame. He blew through puberty at 13 very fast. He loves to weight train and does 20-30 min of cardio 3 x week. We are a very health conscience family and maintain a very healthy diet. here's the mystery? We bumped my son up to 5500 calories a day three months ago when he was gaining no weight at 3000 calories/day and he has only gained about three pounds. He's getting tons of good quality protein, high carbs and more than enough efa's. I do not believe in teens getting into the supplement game and his diet is high quality good natural foods. Lean meat,Nuts,Pastas, fruits and veggies. We do high calorie shakes as well. He trains about 1 hour a day and rotates the muscle groups. He's not lifting extremely heavy weight and again his cardio is good but not so much to be burning off a ton of calories. Fluid intake is so, so and were working on that. gets plenty of rest. I can't fathom why he is not adding the weight he needs for football.
Any suggestion would be very appreciated. Thanks

 

[ManoMan1117]

His weight gain will come with time especially if he is consuming that many calories a day, you say he gained only about 3 pounds, but what is the time frame that he gained that weight,,, at his age you goal should be 1lb every week or two,, also im not sure what his weight training program looks like but i would highly recommend a large portion of it be dedicated to deadlifts, squats, and upper body presses. Being so young i would not worry,, weight gain is inevitable with age. Stick with the diet you are doing now and those main lifts (with good form and coaching) and he will grow.. I was a running back in HS similiar situation, and it took til i got to college and start training with strength coaches there and doing those type of lifts that i really started to put on size.. hope this helps.

 

[ManoMan1117]

also

Make sure you are changing up the workout as far as Sets/Reps/Rest are concerned.. theres a bunch of material on this site that can help you with program design, so make sure you are not always training in with the same scheme... Switch up the phases,,, Stability/Strength/Power for 2-3 week cycles.

 

[Brad6260]

Mano,
Thanks for your thoughts. I agree that time will build him up. His 3lb weight gain has come over the past 60-90 days. I am certainly not in a crisis mode over this and frankly at his age I realize that his natural pysique could be anything from 5'10-180 to 6'3 -240 tbd.
As I said in my post I am more amazed from a matabolism point of view how that many calories would have no choice in any scenario but to show up as increased mass somewhere on the body.

Will has always been at the extreme top of the growth charts so it will be interesting to see where he goes with his natural body size. Mom and I are average with me being 6'0 170 but with a thin frame so who knows.

Thanks again for the input.

Brad

 

[DaMayor]

I think you're definately fighting a "battle" with a healthy, possibly raging, adolescent metabolism, lol.
Consider Michael Phelps and all of the hoopla that went on about his million calorie intake.....Its possible.
I admire your stance on the issue of suppliments. Too many young people getting drawn into the wrong approach/ bogus and often unhealthy products these days. Way to go, Dad.

 

[Spaullba]

You could try changing his cardio up. Just do like 15 minutes of 100 meter sprints with about 30 seconds of rest inbetween each, or just a timed mile. I play football for a semi-pro team and football is the kind of sport where you dont really need to be doing 20-30 minutes of cardio. Do a very high intensity, but short cardio workout and he would likely be better off. Thats what I do when I do cardio. Short bursts of high intensity running=football.

Also, you could try heavy weight low reps. Stay in the 4-8 rep range for most workouts and lift really heavy weight. Thats what has been the most sucessful for me in gaining weight.

On another note, it was extremely difficult for me to gain weight in high school, and now only a few years later (I am 20 yrs old) I can gain weight much easier.