Age 18
Size 134-138
Body fat % around 5
Years in training 3
Thinking about steroids
I?ve been training for the last 3 years. In the past I play basketball all day and all night, my problem is I can?t gain weight, I stop playing basketball, but can?t gain size only strength. Am freaking? strong for my size (my max for deadlift is 355, 210 bench press and 230 squat. Witch is not that much to you guys. I?m skinny 134-138 lbs 5,8 but get no fat on my body, seening my body is like seening a Bruce Lee movie. I use a lot of supplements at GNC to gain weight but didn?t work. Now I now it?s waste of money. I eat like a bodybuilder. Makes me mad about my size, all my idols are huge. The world am living in is unfair
It seems as though you are healthy, fit, motivated and focused.
It is important to realise that it is not the be all and end all. It takes years to puy on size, and patience is needed.
Do the things that you enjoy, it may be that you will never be like your idols (maybe a BB?). Just take some time and dont stress. It is nature to be a) impatient and b) lazy.
There is no easy way to go, just train effectively (question are you, the answer may be no), are you eating/resting well and just try to chill.
Give this a try… first quit buying twenty different supplements at GNC. Then just stick to a good protein powder like Classic Grow! don’t get Low-Carb you need all the extra carbs and calories you can handle right now.
Consider yourself one of the lucky ones in this respect you have a high metabolism and therefore you can eat whatever you damn well please! Translation go ahead and put away some extra pizzas and milkshakes with the money you will be saving. Make your protein shakes in whole milk uhm, they taste delicious like that,
You need to add calories in wherever and whenever you can! Add different high calorie concoctions into your shakes fruit, ice-cream whatever you can think of. See how lucky you are in that respect. With that money you are saving from GNC purchase some steaks and eat a couple three every week as well. You get the point eat everything in sight. Use Surge if you can before, during, and after working out.
Now when you train do only Squats on leg day, dead-lifts and chins maybe rows on back day, and chest and shoulder presses and dips, on chest shoulder day. Don’t stay in the gym beyond forty five minutes. Try to make your workouts brief, but hard short brutal bombings on the muscle groups and then take it easy for the rest of the day. Give a day in between every workout. It should be Monday legs Tuesday off, Wednesday back Thursday off, Friday chest weekend rest relax have fun and eat!
Try this and see if you pick up some more gains then you have up to this point. Best of luck to ya!
[quote]CodyJay wrote:
The world am living in is unfair
CJ[/quote]
This is an important lesson to learn early. Life is unfair.
Another leson is “Hard WORK pays off”
Eat everything in site, work your ass off in the gym by folowing one of the programs here on T-Nation, and listen to the members here. They are a wealth of knowledge.
not to disprespect you, but you’re way too young to know anything about anything regarding strength training/bodybuilding.
be patient, concentrate on learning the basic exercises and DOING them, and stop wasting money on supplements.
you need to be patient, at 18 you’re mtabolism is going crazy, especially considering you’re very athletic and burning a lot of calories through exercise.
devise a solid meal plan, stick to it, make sure you’re taking in enough calories and gaining weight over time, and make sure you’re getting stronger in your core lifts over time.
forget about AAS, most people aren’t meant to be huge and strong when they’re only 18.
also: try eating more real food instead of supplements if you aren’t doing so already.
Do us all (yourself included) a favor and post what you eat everyday for a week ie a food journal. For that matter a training journal would be a good idea as well. You haven’t learned how to gain without steriods. You yourself have admitted to that. That’s a good start.
Now the next step is to learn why and how to gain WITHOUT steroids. It may seem like a solution but in the longrun you’ll be putting yourself a a HUUGE disadvantage and perpetuating the negative stigma that is attached to steroid use.
[quote]Wideguy wrote:
Do us all (yourself included) a favor and post what you eat everyday for a week ie a food journal. For that matter a training journal would be a good idea as well. You haven’t learned how to gain without steriods. You yourself have admitted to that. That’s a good start.
Now the next step is to learn why and how to gain WITHOUT steroids. It may seem like a solution but in the longrun you’ll be putting yourself a a HUUGE disadvantage and perpetuating the negative stigma that is attached to steroid use.
I look forward to your feedback. [/quote]
Exactly. Keep a food log for a few days and report back. If you’re eating less than 3500 calories, you absolutely do not have the right to complain.
Oh, and your grammar could improve as well, but steroids or food won’t help you there:)
At 18, man, you’re probably too young to take steroids. There are a lot of risks involved with them, what if you are not done growing yet? You know what I’m saying? Plus, at this point, even if you did do a cycle of steroids and gained some mass, you have not yet learned how to retain mass naturally. How could you expect to retain mass you put on using steroids if you can’t retain it naturally yet? It would be a waste of money, bro. Maybe once you gain 20 or 30lbs naturally, you would be knowledgable enough about your own body to expect to keep steroid-aided gains.
Having a high metabolism myself, I would add to what the above posters said: Eat a lot of food. If I want to gain any muscle, I need to eat about 4,000 calories a day. I split that up into between 5-7 meals per day, depending on how long I’m awake.
With that said, I think it would be wiser to eat clean as much as you can, because throwing down a shitload of pizzas and ice cream is only going to gain you extra love handles. I enjoy the taste of clean foods now, and generally my body craves those kinds of foods over shitfoods anyway. I would supplement with protein powder, whatever variety is cheap and still decent quality.
I just want to chime in and say that when I was 18, I was disappointed with my size. All I could think about was getting bigger at all costs; not a healthy thing to obsess about. I, too, treated GNC like a buffet line - wrong answer.
You’ve got to be disciplined and truthful. Keep track of how much you eat, what you’re eating. Do the same for your training. No delusional thoughts of “oh, I’m training hard enough,” “I’m eating big.” Instead, live it.
Through finding this site and putting the knowledge gained to good use, I have managed to put on some quality pounds in the last 2 years.
Excuses about how unfair life is will get you nowhere. Every person on this site has had to overcome some obstacle that’s stood in their way, in pursuit of their goals. Life is unfair to everyone, it’s not an excuse, it’s something we must deal with and overcome. It’s possible. I highly suggest reading some of Chris Shugart’s blogs on excuses. They smack of motivation.
Listen to the people here, especially the ones who have learned enough to make an intelligent decision about AAS. These guys know their stuff. Seriously.
It may seem like an uphill battle, but, given time, any mountain will flatten out.
You’ve gotten good advice without being flamed by some of the elders so here is my contribution. A good routine that I just came off of was Chad Waterbury’s 10 x 3. Implimenting the 10x3 for your core lifts worked wonders, while taken in over 5,000 calories also helped I’m sure.
any idiot can gain weight when on gear with a shitty workout program. those are the guys who lose all the ‘muscle’ they gained on AS when they come off. what they don’t realize is that they never even gained a pound of muscle when they trained, only water.
you need to know how to gain naturally before jumping on gear. one step at a time. be one of the smart kids and wait a few years, learn what you can, then you can consider enhancement.
[quote]CodyJay wrote:
Age 18
Size 134-138
Body fat % around 5
Years in training 3
Thinking about steroids
I?ve been training for the last 3 years. In the past I play basketball all day and all night, my problem is I can?t gain weight, I stop playing basketball, but can?t gain size only strength. Am freaking? strong for my size (my max for deadlift is 355, 210 bench press and 230 squat. Witch is not that much to you guys. I?m skinny 134-138 lbs 5,8 but get no fat on my body, seening my body is like seening a Bruce Lee movie. I use a lot of supplements at GNC to gain weight but didn?t work. Now I now it?s waste of money. I eat like a bodybuilder. Makes me mad about my size, all my idols are huge. The world am living in is unfair
CJ[/quote]
Post your food log for the last week and let us be the judge as to whether or not you “eat like a bodybuilder”. THe reason I say this is because I used to be your size and complain that “I can’t gain weight” - Then I started to focus almost soley on my diet and treated lifting as an after thought until I got my diet in line. And it wasn’t until then that I started to log EVERYTHING I ate and thus started to make gains.
Do a search for the post “Bulking Tips for Newbies” - I found this thread very helpful…
Thanks for the advice guys
Keeping a food log is a good idea, to know my calories intake. I learned that I got to learn about myself. Am young (18). To be big. I got to gain it long-term. I allways thinking short-term
You can do it! Listen, you need to realize you are quite gifted. You have a very powerful nervous system. This is why you are strong but not packing on muscle. This is also why your metabolism is so fast. You want a powerful nervous system. You are 18. Take advantage of your high natural test levels and EAT. I predict You will need to consume between 4000-7000 calories a day to put on muscle. Yes, up to 7000 calories. I highly recommend eating a steak everyday if possible to gain muscle. In terms of working out.
Try low reps, 2-6, and 3 sets of an exercise. Forget cable curls and rope extensions. Deadlift, pull-ups, rows, incline press, overhead shoulder press, walking lunge, Abs - these will give you mass. And don’t do 20 exercises per workout. Focus your drive and let your heroes inspire you, while knowing you can not become them. You have been given lots of good advice in responses to your post. Utilize it!
I was in the same position you are. At 6’2", 160#, I was a bean pole. No matter what I did, I could not seem to gain mass. I am now up to 220, with low bodyfat. Your situation is not all that unusual.
Suggestions:
As has been stated, keep a food log. It is very likely you are not eating enough.
Check out John Berardi’s ‘Massive Eating’ articles.
Let us know what your training regimen is like. I used to do lots of high-reps (8-12) and could not gain mass. It turned out that I respond better to lower reps (1-4), and changing my workout packed about twenty pounds onto my body.
Relax. You are 18 and an ectomorph. You are going to have some difficulties putting mass on at the moment.
To re-iterate: EAT MORE. Lots more. If you are eating 3000 kCal/day, kick it up to 3500 for a couple of weeks. If that does not work, go up to 4000. At 18, you are burning fuel like a Hummer.
ROME WASN’T BUILT IN A DAY! GETTING BIG TAKES YEARS!
[quote]CodyJay wrote:
Thanks for the advice guys
Keeping a food log is a good idea, to know my calories intake. I learned that I got to learn about myself. Am young (18). To be big. I got to gain it long-term. I allways thinking short-term[/quote]
[quote]Prisoner#22 wrote:
ROME WASN’T BUILT IN A DAY! GETTING BIG TAKES YEARS!
CodyJay wrote:
Thanks for the advice guys
Keeping a food log is a good idea, to know my calories intake. I learned that I got to learn about myself. Am young (18). To be big. I got to gain it long-term. I allways thinking short-term
[/quote]