Hellow Fellow T-Men and T-Teen and T-Senior Citizens!!! I am 17 years old and new to weight training. I do 2 or 3 full-body workouts a week using only basic, compound movements. I do a warm-up set and two working sets for every exercise. Everytime I come back to the gym I either use heavier weights or more reps for a given exercise. My rep range varies anywhere from 6-12. I am building strength but will this build muscle (assuming I have an excellent diet and get plenty of sleep every night)?
Well lets begin by saying this: at your age and T-levels, any excercise is better than no excercise! Furthermore you are going to allways make progress when starting a training regimen, no matter how wrong it is. Now the bad news, you are in the prime developmental stages of growth when you need to be considering establishing a foundation of good training techniques that will follow you throughout your lifetime so that you can attain the highest possible level of muscular achievement during your time as a serious lifter. I suggest that you re-evaluate your program, and stray from the “total body” approach and focus on one or two muscle groups a session(ie Biceps and triceps).
As long as your lifts keep going up, I’d stick with that routine. Make sure you eat enough. When you stop adding weight to the bar, consider doing another routine.
Sure this will build muscle. Just keep on hitting the weights hard and increasing your poundages. Absorb all the information you can off of t-mag and try not to get too carried away with trying to do too many things at once. When you’re first starting to lift weights, the first couple of months or so, most of the gains you get are neurological in nature. The strength gains come about as your muscles and mind/muscle connection get better at doing the movements. After this initial period the muscle gains will start to come as well. Just keep at it faithfully, eat right, rest well, keep a workout log and make some adjustments in your routine about every six weeks or so and you’ll do fine.
Way to offend anyone not in their teens 
- Nah - welcome t-teen. Your workouts sound like they slant more towards growth (generally 8-15 reps) than pure strength (probably 1-6). Id make 2 suggestions FIRST AND FOREMOST - diet, if you arent growing you need to eat more and at least 1 gram of protein/pound of bodyweight. You can throw in 1-3 extra meals incorporating tuna, cottage cheese or any other protein source or for ease just throw in some MRP shakes until the scales move up a pound or so each week (it has to - that extra muscle has weight.) The best way is to get onto Massive Eating in the Mag. You will grow. SECOND - Your approach to each exercise sounds good but Id go for a three day split - it allows for more intense workouts (ie better stimulus for growth) and more recovery time (the muscle grows for 3-5 days). Id do a 3 day split (push/pull/legs) but prefer a 4 day for maximum gains.
I’ve been doing 2 fullbody workouts per week according to basic hardgainer principles (I know most of you here probably don’t approve) for a bit under a year now and I’ve been constantly adding weight to the bar and a good 20+ lbs to my skinny bastard frame (with still quite a bit before I graduate from the SB rating). Just squat and/or deadlift hard and add a pressing and a rowing movement and GO AT IT! You might also want to check out dr. Strossen’s supersquats book and look further into breathing squats. Nothing you’ll ever do will kick your ass like they will…
T-Teen all i can say is read all the back isssues that will get u started and then read the scrawny bastard support groupo
Read the ‘youth gone wild’ article by chris shugert in previous issues section too. Good advice for young lifters there.
One thing i would suggest for someone your age is to eat as much as possible. You can put on so much quality weight at your age even if you eat pizza and burgers now and then. Pack on the mass early while it’s easy. My bro is your age and gained 45 pounds during winter and spring by training hard and eating everything in site.