You are young, you are full of energy and you want to go to the gym to exercise and start lifting weights. So how do you get the most out of your time in the gym, get stronger and build bigger muscles in the shortest amount of time?
If you are in your teens or twenties, to really maximize your results, you must first get your ego in check. It’s not easy, especially since the number one reason young people start lifting weights is insecurity. Arnold Schwarzenegger became the biggest bodybuilding star ever, but it started because his brother always beat him up and his dad referred to him as his ‘daughter’. Nimrod was a common name in Africa, but when Nimrod King moved to Canada, he was mercilessly mocked by children, and he became the Canadian bodybuilding champion. There are many other examples, but suffice it to say, there can be a lot of emotion and ego involved in your decision to go to the gym.
Many others start lifting weights because they want to get better at sports: at school, after school, or on the weekends. While it is an admirable and appropriate decision, the ego often comes into the picture once they walk into the gym and see others there, or they have teammates or competitors working there as well. It’s easy to get caught up in all of this, especially if your local gym has a number of immature and insecure older lifters working there, the kind that goad you on or poke fun at less experienced or less strong athletes like you.
Here’s the scoop: You will never be able to build strength, build muscle, or burn body fat as easily as you can in your late teens and early twenties. You’re in the “sweet spot” for hormones right now, especially testosterone. Bodybuilding for teens is like a snowball rolling downhill: every year you get bigger and stronger, and every year your efforts take you further as your testosterone increases. Bodybuilding for people in their twenties is like speeding – your testosterone levels continue to rise into your 24s and then stabilize, without as much degradation as you’ll experience in your thirties and beyond. With adrenaline, testosterone, growth hormone and the like creating a ‘growth cocktail’ in your bloodstream, your teens and twenties are definitely the best time to lay the foundation for a fantastic body for life …
This is BIG news for boys in their teens and men in their twenties – it means they can build more muscle and build strength faster, so hit the gym regularly. It’s also great news for girls in their teens and women in their twenties … You won’t have to worry about building huge muscles, as your testosterone levels are much, much lower. But you will still get stronger quickly and your muscles will be noticeable for their shape and density compared to their size. And teens and twentysomethings of both genders will love the way their body fat levels drop as they burn off their remaining ‘baby fat’.
But this is where the ego usually takes over … Gyms are full of guys working their chests and arms like crazy, with just a little work on their back and legs. The results are seen on beaches everywhere: young men with impressive upper bodies and chicken legs (maybe that’s why shorts have replaced Speedo-style swimsuits). For women, they’ll spend hours on a treadmill, running at a steady pace the entire time, and maybe, just maybe, they’ll do a little light work with the smaller dumbbells. He goes after bigger arms, she goes after lower fat levels and a fitter body.
Not only are they both on the wrong track, but they are both wasting the best anabolic window of their lives!
Since your body chemistry is making this the best time of your life physically, this is the time to use the most powerful lifts to multiply your results. Forget doing a lot of isolation exercises for the chest and arms, men; in fact, at his age, training the arms directly is not necessary. They’ll get more than enough growth and strength gains from the big compound movements you use to build your biggest muscles. And ladies, nothing will burn more fat and make you stronger than doing the exact same exercises as men.
What you should focus on is squats, deadlifts, bent rows, pull-ups (eventually weight pull-ups), bench press, and vertical rows. Period. Those 6 exercises, done correctly with the right amount of weight, will make you completely stronger – your biceps, triceps and forearms will get stronger and bigger just by being the assistants during your big lifts. For boys and men, decide if your main goal is size or strength; While the two go hand in hand to a great extent, the different workouts favor one over the other. For strength, keep your reps low – keep only 5 reps per set, using the heaviest weight you can move while maintaining perfect form and completing 5 to 10 sets of each exercise. To shift the focus to size, lift weights that only allow you to do 8-12 reps, taking 4-6 seconds per rep, for 4-5 sets.
Most girls and women, on the other hand, are not training for muscle size, but for strength and speed for other sports or just to get stronger, as well as reducing and maintaining lower levels of body fat. For this, use the same set and rep scheme as above to build strength. Start with whatever weight you can handle correctly at first, no matter how light, and add more weight as your body gets stronger. Don’t let anyone in the gym give you a hard time or tell you what you should be lifting; Go for the strength you currently have and raise the amount of weight you lift as your body allows. Forget all the little ‘toning’ and ‘shaping’ exercises you’ve heard of or read about – nothing will burn more calories than big compound exercises like squats and deadlifts.
Sticking to those ‘Big-6’ exercises for at least your first few years in the gym will put you on the path to the best physique your genetics will allow you. Combining a lot of cardio or isolation exercises will only rob you of the energy you might be putting into your compound lifts and slow down the time it takes your body to recover from each workout; Obviously, the higher your energy production, the longer the recovery time. . If you still feel like you have a lot of energy after your workout, next time add one more set to each exercise or simply slow down with each rep; Either one will move you further.
On the subject of steroids and other injectables, it’s simple: You don’t need them and you don’t want them, no matter what your trainer, friends, or local gym rats tell you. Male or female, if you constantly exercise lifting heavy weights, it will still take YEARS to even get close to your genetic potential, so why spend your money on enhancements now while your body has that powerful NATURAL blend to aid you in your quest?
Another benefit you get from your hormonal cocktail is faster recovery between workouts, assuming you make sure you get 8 hours of sleep a night or more; remember that your body only repairs and rebuilds itself while you sleep. For most people in their teens and twenties, the best results in the gym will come from a full-body workout performed on three non-consecutive days a week: Monday, Wednesday, Friday, or Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, for example. . Make sure you learn and follow the healthy nutrition guidelines and stay hydrated, get enough sleep, and you’ll be shooting towards your best body at a rapid rate; just do your best not to let your ego turn into a series of speed bumps along the way or worse, take you down a dead end. If you are going to lift weights and expend all that energy in the gym, it would be foolish to settle for anything less than the best possible results!
