Question About Getting Bigger

I’m fourteen and I’ve seen plenty of promoting of getting bigger around here and other places. However, I’m at 15% body fat and I’m not sure how smart it would to increase that number while I’m still playing sports. Could somebody help me out??

Not a lot of detail provided, but in general at 14 don’t worry about bulking/cutting.

As far as weight training, focus on learning to lift properly. Try to find someone in the gym that knows what they are doing and ask for pointers.

As you start to get better technique, just worry about steadily increasing the weight while maintaining form.

If you stick to the basics for the most part and you consistently add weight or add reps at the same weight you’ll make progress. The key is consistency, forget about bulking, cutting, and any plateau busting techniques, you don’t need them.

In summary, learn to lift properly, slowly add weight to the bar and do it consistently. I guarantee this will keep you progressing for a couple years without worrying about anything else.

BTW- Taking every week-end, holiday, vacation, exam time, try-outs, playoffs, tournaments and any time you have something else to do off doesn’t add up to consistency.

Eat, lift, and read. At 14 your going to be growing so much over the next couple years. As long as you are lifting and eating halfway decent that bf number will go down easily. From the fact that at 14 your worried about bf% (, I am a little worried you might be lookign too hard at teh wrong things.

Don’t be afraid of food and or eating, as long as its pretty clean you should be good (meats, eggs, milk, fresh fruits and veggies, etc.) and your bf will go down.

And be careful for who ask for advice at a gym. Just cuz a guy is big doesn’t mean he has a clue. This site is a great reference tool, so when people at the gym tell you things like “smith machine squats are better than regular squats” come here and check. Also there are a lot of sites with videos of lifts with some good form. Get one of your boys, watch the videos, go to the gym and try to correct eachothers form.

Your starting nice and young, get the diet tight, and the form tight, and in no time you will be moving some serious iron (and have a lower bf% without worrying about it at all).

Good luck lil man

[quote]TBoZ1244 wrote:
Eat, lift, and read. At 14 your going to be growing so much over the next couple years. As long as you are lifting and eating halfway decent that bf number will go down easily. From the fact that at 14 your worried about bf% (, I am a little worried you might be lookign too hard at teh wrong things.[/quote]

I’m not worrying about my bf% where it is right now. I’m fine with 15% but if I bulked I was thinking that I might be getting too high to be playing a sport like basketball.

Thanks for the advice though, guys.

[quote]Eielson wrote:
TBoZ1244 wrote:
Eat, lift, and read. At 14 your going to be growing so much over the next couple years. As long as you are lifting and eating halfway decent that bf number will go down easily. From the fact that at 14 your worried about bf% (, I am a little worried you might be lookign too hard at teh wrong things.

I’m not worrying about my bf% where it is right now. I’m fine with 15% but if I bulked I was thinking that I might be getting too high to be playing a sport like basketball.

Thanks for the advice though, guys.[/quote]

Thats good. Some people get caught up on a number way before they should worry about it. Like one of my boys boys waited 2 months to get his bf measured before going on a diet so he would “know where to start” (which normally would be semi-ok, but the kid was 320lb at the time and clearly whether he was 30-50% he needed a diet the same way regardless). Not comparing you to him in any way, just some people worry about numbers the wrong way.

BBallers typically are afraid of lifting heavy cuz they are afraid of getting bulky and slow. If you ball enough, I don’t see that happening. Embrace the weights, they are going to make you stronger and more explosive and a better basketball player for a long time.

And when you say “bulk”-you don’t need a bodybuilder offseason bulk where you gain 20lbs in a month. I know my first couple “bulks” were done incorrectly. Just eat the right foods and eat enough and you will grow bigger, faster, and stronger.

And just so you know. I played bball my whole life (AAU for 6 yrs on a team that went to nationals when I was 14). And at 6’4" I never dunked. My senior yr of HS I was 190-200 could just grab the rim. I started taking legs serious when I got to college and my freshman year put about 150lbs on my squat.

Didn’t play ball or anything that involved jumping that year. When I came back my sophmore year played some intramurels and could put the ball down pretty easy at 220. Thats another 20-30lbs but my vert increased atleast 8-10 inches without doing any jump specific work.

So lifting weights and getting more LBM is only going to help you with sports.

[quote]Eielson wrote:
I’m fourteen and I’ve seen plenty of promoting of getting bigger around here and other places. However, I’m at 15% body fat and I’m not sure how smart it would to increase that number while I’m still playing sports. Could somebody help me out??[/quote]

I gained 62lbs and I can now jump a couple inches higher than I could then. So as far as gaining weight for sports if your squating the only thing I think would suffer would be your endurance. But if you continue running while your bulking I dont think you would lose that either. It would just be harder to put on weight.