Need a good Bodybuilding workout for a 19yr teen

[BAyuuk]

I'm a 19year old college student, about 5'10" and 154lbs. I've been working out for about 2 years now, but I just go to the gym about 2-3times a week. I dont follow a particular routine made by a professional or anything. I just cycle through body parts. Ex: Bi tri abs, Chest and back, and legs and lower body. I'm fairly active, I jog usually about 3 -5 miles a week and also bike a fair amount. I've been trying to gain more muscle mass in the last 3-4 months so i've been on a low fat, high protein diet and when I go to the gym I work out with heavy weight, low reps, high sets. Problem is I've been about the same size for over 16months now and no matter how much I work out I dont get bigger.

Can anyone suggest to me better ways to get bigger and put on serious muscle mass. In addition to keeping a low body fat percentage so I can have a 6 pack and toned bod.

I could seriously use the advice..

 

[Gazhole]

The problem lies with your diet. There's no particular need for low fat or excessively high protein. Protein is very important in building muscle but a lot of people over-estimate how much they need. 1g per lb of lean mass is a good starting point. Fat is essential to your bodily functions including the production of testosterone, so long as you're eating primarily mono-unsaturated fats from things like nuts, avocado, olive oil, seeds, oily fish...you'll be okay. Coconut is a good source of saturated fat.

The simple fact is that you need two things to grow, in this order of importance:

1. More calories than you require.
2. Progressively overloaded training.

The first one means that if your body needs 3000 calories to maintain your current weight and body composition then eating 3000 calories or less isn't going to put you in a state where theres enough extra energy to knit all that dietary protein into new muscle.

What you need to do is track your calories, increase them by 500 for a week or so and see if you gain weight. If you do, great! Run with it and keep checking. If you don't gain weight, increase by 500 again and repeat that process. Eventually you'll gain.

The second point means that in order to stimulate muscle growth you need to give your muscles a need to grow. If you've been doing 3x10 for the last 5 years, for example, and stuck on the same weights, your body will have gotten really really good at doing that activity - no need to grow.

What you need to do is set up some sort of system to constantly increase the training stress on your body without out-stripping it's ability to recover from it. This is known as training periodization. Adding weight, reps, or sets over the course of the program are classic ways of doing this but you can do other things.

The thing you're gonna have to make peace with, though, is that if you want to get bigger you'll have to put up with getting a bit fatter or "softer around the edges" for a while. Clean bulking is a horrible misleading myth and isn't possible for most of us. Err on the side of caution and assume you're not special.

Read these threads:

http://www.ironmagazineforums.com/training/60741-designing-training-routines-cowpimp.html

http://www.ironmagazineforums.com/new-members-begin-here/97077-read-me-first-homework-1-newbies.html

http://www.ironmagazineforums.com/diet-nutrition/21113-guide-cutting-bulking-maintenance.html

And when you're done with those, i wrote a short couple articles on easy ways to bulk up:

getlifting.info » Bulking for Idiots and Lazy People: Part I (Diet)
getlifting.info » Bulking for Idiots and Lazy People: Part II (Training)

Enjoy getting massive.

 

[CaptainNapalm]

What gaz said above exactly. I'll tell you what worked for me so this is more of a personal success story but it will probably work for you too. As above mentioned, diet is most important so make sure you're consuming enough of the right stuff. In terms of training, I always grew best when my training involved more compound lifts and little to no isolation lifts. So try to put together a workout with the following exercises: Squats, deadlifts, shoulder press, bench press, pull-ups, chin-ups, bb rows and shruggs (or rack pulls my preference). Try to lift as heavy as possible in the 6-12 rep ranges (6-15 reps for squats) and try either executing more reps or more weight each week for each exercise and you should be able to pack on some good mass assuming you're eating and resting right along with getting good sleep every night.