17 and Stressed Out. Bad Conditioning, Need Advice

You had a bunch posted earlier in this topic. Any reason you don’t want to follow those ones?

I quite liked the look of 5-3-1 for hardgainers, so I’m edging towards it. I was just wondering if that is optimal? Just want to browse my choices I guess lol

I also looked at P.H.U.L routine, is it any good?

Don’t worry about optimal; worry about effective. I guarantee you that 99% of the people trying to be optimal are getting the crap kicked out of them by the people who are following effective training with skull splitting effort and dedication.

Pick a plan, execute it with violent intensity, do not deviate for 6 months and you will be a monster.

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Trying to figure out what is “optimal” before you’re VERY experienced is a long, dark road. Reason being is that what is optimal for someone varies greatly; you have really know how you respond to certain types of training and develop an stout understanding of foundations. Put Jim Wendler, CT, and Dan John together in a room and while I bet they’d agree on many things, they’d probably have rather different views on best approaches for a single athlete.

What is best for your level, and frankly for most everyone, is to find something from a proven coach. If you want to get bigger, stronger, and leaner, I guarantee than ANY program you’ll find on this site coupled with a diet guidelines will get you there.

Fuck optimal. Find something that fits into your life and makes you excited to train, and run with it.

No matter how you look at routines or what’s involved in each, the fact is everyone is individually different…

What works for some won’t seem anywhere close to optimal for you… It might work to an extent, but it may not work as well as for others…

Get on a simple routine, test it out, see how your body feels and what changes occur… Then figure out what might be missing if anything…

First you need a goal and to make sure that the exercises you are doing MATCH that goal.

Don’t worry about food intake so much… Personally right now I only track calories and macros to measure what I eat and to see what I am taking in naturally at maintenance… So far I have not lost muscle and my bodyfat/weight is remaining…

Strength is not decreasing either and I don’t eat totally clean. I have finally found what macros work for me and I have been consistently hitting them more than what I previously had…

I just focus on progression. I don’t stress any longer about routine or diet.

Just start somewhere and stick to it. If you don’t stick to a program, you will not benefit anything… You’ll keep cycling starting over… keep a log of progressions and hit the gym hard.

That’s all you need to do… You have plenty of testosterone to benefit from as well.

Hit gym hard!! Eat when you’re hungry and just be smart about choices.

Being optimal is for well experienced lifters who are competing at something…

Thanks everyone for the input. It seems I have to find a proven program and stick to it and work my ass off on it. I feel stupid for not going on a proper program for the last year but I’m going to do it now

Unfortunately I have no idea how to judge what “the pizza was pretty big” means.

So… I can only say that you probably eat less than me, and I’m 5ft7, 168lbish.

That’s not a good thing, especially given your age.

Eat more. Try eating an additional pound of ground beef (preferably grass-fed) and 5+ eggs for a month and see what happens.

Curious; any reason you’d have him focus on food quantity vs quality at this point? I’d personally say endeavor to have a meat, vegetable and carb at every meal first, and then once you can do that for a month start playing with quantity after that. I have found too many beginners get too fixated on “lift big eat big” and never learn how to actually cook or prep a meal.

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I’m going to follow your advice and focus on quality to get into healthy eating habits then I’ll increase my quantity. Are protein shakes ok, not for replacing meat or eggs but just a before bed snack if I added oats with, which I started doing

I would like to second the hardgainer program. I just finished it and have had friends literally ask if I’ve been lifting more because I’m looking bigger. Also it was quite a fun program.

Listen to Pwnisher on nutrition. It doesn’t have to be complicated. I ate three meals:

eggs, oatmeal, milk
veggies, rice/bread, .5lb of meat
veggies, rice/bread, .5lbs of meat
and a protein shake after lifting

Definitely decided to go for the hardgainer 5/3/1 program after looking into it. Quick question about it: could I add an extra accessory exercise at the end of my workouts if I keep it light?

No. You’re already doing anywhere from 150-300 reps of assistance work per workout. It will work if you push hard and eat right.
I only did the low end of what was recommended and i still loved the strength and size results.

Thanks, I’ll stick to what it says :slight_smile:

Well, largely because there didn’t seem anything wrong with what he ate except a lack of protein and veggies.

And more food in general.

He made homemade pizza! I wouldn’t think cooking would be a big concern for him.

I assumed it was made by a parent, but if he made it himself, I think it would be a sign that some cooking training would need to happen just to know how to make a meal with meay and veggies.

I can cook my own food, but I need to get into the habit of making healthy choices and not be lazy when it comes to cooking

Healthy food choices can be lazy too. Many foods I eat at workdays are definitely lazy, but 90% of time they’re something that can be qualified as “healthy”.

Burning fat is the easy part of shaping your physique, so don’t stress too much about it. The thing about cutting weight is, if you don’t have an appreciable musculature underneath, you’ll never really look “lean,” you’ll just look emaciated.

If you keep your caloric surplus to about 200 over maintenance per day, you’ll experience very little fat gain. In fact your relative bodyfat% may even decrease.

https://www.t-nation.com/diet-fat-loss/bulking-diet-delusion

^This. Bulking and cutting is unnecessary.