posted
Ok, so I've been trying to gain weight for awhile now, I'm 5'10, 16 years old, and like 140ish lbs. I'm too skinny. I'm very athletic though and I play alot of sports.
My question is, does alot of running cause me to lose more weight? I know some exercises build muscle and cause you to gain more weight through muscle mass, which is what I'm trying to do. Does running build any muscle mass or does it just make you burn calories and lose weight? Right now I'm in soccer season and I run alot up and down the field and we run alot in practice. Is this causing me to lose more weight? I have 15 lb weights in my room, if I do arm curls and pushups would it help me gain weight? Any advice is appreciated.
Posts: 2054 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
Running long distances will tend to burn more fat. However, if you are a soccer player, it is more important to be fit than buff.
There are people here who are more involved in weight lifting, but as a soccer player, I say just get in the best shape you can, becasue the farther you can run, and the faster, the better.
Why do you think you are too skinny? IS it affecting your athletic life, or your social life?
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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posted
More weight and fewer repetitions will build muscle. Less weight and more repetitions.
Similar with running. Sprinting will build some muscle, but running long distances will only tone what you have.
That said, you're not that skinny, really. On the low side of average, maybe. I was about the same weight at 16, but I was 6'1". I joined the crew team in college, worked out regularly, and put on 15 pounds of muscle pretty easily.
As long as you're going to be playing soccer, focus on being in shape. You can do both-- be in shape and build muscle--but it's more time consuming.
I know what worked for me was the rowing machine, though. Built muscle and built stamina. But that's an extra daily workout on top of whatever you're doing for soccer.
Posts: 5264 | Registered: Jul 2002
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"IS it affecting your athletic life, or your social life?"
Well, the thing is in soccer I play center midfield and I have to get very physical alot to fight for the ball. I think more strength will help me. Also, it is a little bit about social. I'm sick of having a girl give me a hug and then comment on how skinny I am.
As soon as soccer season is over (which is in a couple of weeks, assuming we win State Finals ) I think I'm going to join a gym.
Thanks for the advice.
Posts: 2054 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
Running will not help you put on any appreciable lean muscle mass.
For that, you need two things: tons of good calories to turn into muscle mass and some messages from the muscles to the brain that they want and need to grow. The first comes from upping your intake and the second comes from weightlifting.
Every time you do serious weightlifting (such as a compound lift [one which involves more than one muscle group -- bench press counts, curls do not]), the exertion from lifting the weight causes tiny microtears in the muscle (which is where the soreness comes from). The muscle says to the body, "Hey, that was hard work. How bout I grow some so next time that won't be so hard, huh?" The body responds by expanding the existing muscle (which requires nutrients -- calories). This happens every time you lift, but if you lift once a month you'll never notice it. You have to maintain the muscles once you build them, or they will shrink (shrink's not the best word choice, but just for visualization purposes we'll keep it there).
This is why it's important to get into a regular routine, so that you're building on yesterday's growth today and tomorrow (though you don't literally want to strain the same muscle group on consecutive days).
Can't you lift at your high school if you're an athlete? I'm sure there is a coach or PE teacher who could lay out a basic workout for you.
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:Every time you do serious weightlifting (such as a compound lift [one which involves more than one muscle group -- bench press counts, curls do not]), the exertion from lifting the weight causes tiny microtears in the muscle (which is where the soreness comes from).
Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but you seem to be saying that exercises that are not compound don't cause microtears and, therefore, don't cause an increase in muscle mass. You're not saying that, are you?
Posts: 4625 | Registered: Jul 2002
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I personally got great results for about 5 months with a program from Mark Rippetoe. Being younger than me, you'll probably even get better results. He's a strength coach in Texas who specializes in young athletes. His typical trainee puts on anywhere from 20-40 lbs of muscle in 6 months.
He has a book called Starting Strength which is excellent. He outlines a program and describes in great detail the exercises (for example he spends a little over 40 pages coaching you on squats).
As El JT de Spang said, you have to focus on compound lifts. Don't worry about biceps, triceps, etc in isolation-they will get worked indirectly with your other exercises. You may want to check with your coach before starting any program to make sure it doesn't mess your game up, and with a doctor to make sure your healthy enough. Since it's probably about the offseason for soccer, now would be a great time to hit the weights.
Rippetoe's starting strenth program (the basics) is as follows:
Workout B: Squats 3x5 Standing Military Press 3x5 Bent over barbell rows 3x5
That's it. All you do is alternate workouts, 3 days a week- Mon: A, Wed: B, Fri: A, Mon: B, Wed: A, Fri: B, and so on.
Add 5 pounds to each exercise each day, as long as you are able to finish all 5 reps on each set. If you can't finish all reps, then repeat at the same weight until you can, then add the 5 pounds. This is a very aggressive schedule, and really only works for new lifters since it is linear progression and also hinges on your ability to recover quickly. There's only 5 exercises to learn so it's simple as well. It starts out feeling really easy, but trust me after a month or so, it gets crazy hard.
The only other thing to do is eat a lot. Like 3000+ calories a day, and get about 240 grams of protein a day as well. If you don't eat, you won't get big and you won't get stronger as fast as you could.
Remember this is a strength program (which also works for size since you're a begineer). You could maybe do this for 3-4 months, then switch to a program that does a higher number of repititions per set (around 15) to prepare for the season. The higher repititions will recruit different fibers in your muscles and will be better for endurance.
Posts: 1412 | Registered: Oct 2005
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posted
First of all, lots of girls like thin guys.
Secondly, be very very very very careful with squats. You can hurt yourself really badly.
Thirdly, the only thing I know specifically about soccer and muscles is from my physical therapist, who said that it's very important for soccer players to have strong muscles on the inside-side of the kneecap, where if they get really developed, they'll look like teardrops.
posted
You can get those knees from doing proper ATG (deep) squats. Like pH said, be careful, but don't be scared of squats. It's not called the king of exercises for nothing- it'll help you pack on more mass than any other single exercise.
Posts: 1412 | Registered: Oct 2005
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And, to keep those knees from getting wrecked, it is most important to keep the hamstring and quad muscles balanced. There is no knee muscle, but the balance will keep a knee less prone to injury.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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posted
Muscle weighs 16x times more than fat from what I hear. My mom also said that eating lots of bananas and milk at the same time puts on weight really quickly, I ate like 3 bananas and a couple glasses of milk at once each day and ended up gaining like 5 pounds by the end of the week. I don't know if its healthy though.
Posts: 1158 | Registered: Feb 2006
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posted
The guy that wrote the book I mentioned earlier tells his trainees to drink a gallon of whole milk a day. Posts: 1412 | Registered: Oct 2005
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You can actually get too much milk, y'know.
SoaP, I don't think it weighs 16 times more, but it is much denser. I've heard 1.5 to 2 times as much by volume, but that's completely unsubstantiated as far as I know. Maybe someone else knows better.
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Yeah I think that 16x is unreasonably large, but I can recall several times hearing it, especially from adults.
Posts: 1158 | Registered: Feb 2006
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quote:Originally posted by El JT de Spang: You can actually get too much milk, y'know.
Yeah, funny story about that from a guy on another forum. He thought he was supposed to drink a gallon the hour before training. While straining himself during squats he sort of....well, never mind, you get the picture.
Posts: 1412 | Registered: Oct 2005
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I think it's interesting how a lot of guys don't like skinny. I'd love skinny because then I could just work on getting the definition etc, but presently, it's "get rid of leprechaun belly so the abs are actually VISIBLE". Posts: 1236 | Registered: Mar 2002
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Ok, so I've started going to a gym across the street from my house with a friend. I don't really have a set routine yet though. I start off doing chest presses and just do them until I get tired and two a couple more sets of it. Then I just go to a couple of random machines, like the one for abs and one that does chest, biceps, and triceps, and a couple others, and just work until I get tired. I don't count my reps. Is all of this a problem? Should I try to get a set routine instead of just working till I'm sore and doing different workouts? I go maybe twice a week so working the same muscles in a row isn't a problem.
Another thing, alot of times after I work out I'm hungry and I don't usually have alot of food in my house. My mom or grandma makes a small dinner and that's basically all I eat when I come home from school. Alot of times I go to bed kind of hungry. I know this is bad, especially after I work out. So what I started doing is sometimes going to Subway's, but sometimes I'll also go to an unhealthy fast food place. Like Taco Bell or sometimes Burger king. Is it real bad for me if I go to Taco Bell and get like Beasn Burrito and a taco? Is it bad enough that I shouldn't eat them for the calories? My main goal is trying to gain weight and get bigger, so is it really that bad for me?
Posts: 2054 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
From your post, you said you wanted to gain weight and get bigger as your primary goal,.
Now pay attention to this next part: You cannot gain weight if you do not eat an excess of calories, no matter how much you work out. Again, you cannot gain weight if you do not eat an excess of calories no matter how much you work out.
It's normal to be hungry after the gym. Scientific studies have shown that your body will absorb the nutrients from food much more readily after working out. If you can eat immediately after you work out, that's the best. If not, try to eat within half an hour of leaving.
If your goal is to gain weight, you should never be hungry. By the time your body registers that it's hungry, it's probably already entered a catabolic state (it basically breaks down tissue to use for energy). If there were any justice in the universe, then it would break down fat, but unfortunately it goes for muscle first. That means when you're hungry, your body is busy tearing down what you're trying to build.
I'm of the opinion that you do need a decent written routine. It'll help you set and achieve goals, track your progress, eliminate guesswork, and keep you motivated.
As for your last question about Taco bell, etc. I'm of the opinion that eating bad food to gain weight isn't the most effective way to do it. You'll gain a lot of fat with your muscle. Then when you want to cut the fat later on, it's very difficult to do without losing at least some muscle. Also, there's a ton of other health reasons to avoid fast food.
There's a lot of good weight lifting sites out there. T-nation is one, bodybuilding.com is another. They have all sorts of routines for all sorts of goals. The focus is on bodybuilding, but there's definitely stuff out there for us Regular Joes.
I've been going about 7 months and gained 29 lbs, 8 of them from fat. In order to gain weight I started eating 3000 good calories a day, gradually increased to 3500 as I gained weight. I started out with a basic conditioning program for a month, then moved onto Rippetoe's starting strength program I outlined in the post above, and then when I maxed out my gains there, I recently went to a hypertrophy specific program.
The main thing if you are serious about doing this is to have a plan. If you don't have a plan and goals, then it won't happen.
Posts: 1412 | Registered: Oct 2005
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posted
I'm 15, 135 and 5'9", and have basically the same problem that you do . Last year I weighed 115, but I just ate a whole lot of food and worked out a lot and ended up gaining weight fairly rapidly.(Like 2 lbs a week when I was focusing on gaining weight). It's fine to want to be bigger, but you don't want to gain weight too rapidly because you could get more fat than you can convert to muscle.
BTW, I did Dag's workout and improved my vertical by 3 inches Thanks Dag.
Posts: 1158 | Registered: Feb 2006
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posted
My trainer isn't terribly against my eating fast food, as long as I'm getting enough veggies and protein. I have trouble consistently getting enough calories already, though.
I try to keep Isopure around the house. I finally went and bought a case of it. The zero-carb drinks, not the powder. It's got 40g protein per bottle, and I try to drink a bottle a day, usually during my 3-hour classes.
This thread reminds me that I'm getting behind on working out.
posted
Trick to putting on weight in you're thin and fit is to be really slack over winter. Come out of it with weight training. Then go back to your regular types of exercise whilst continuing the weight training.
Don't join a gym. Just get a recline bench press. I can't find a picture but it's like a regular bench press except you lie downwards, giving you the option of doing uphill sit ups, and lifting the bar is a lot better for your chest.
[ November 08, 2006, 09:38 PM: Message edited by: cheiros do ender ]
Posts: 1138 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
So, I stopped working out for a bit and now I started again. A couple days ago I worked out my shoulders, back, and biceps and yesterday I did chest, triceps and legs. So I'm pretty much sore on every inch of my body. But not too sore, I kind of wish I was more sore so I'd know that it is working. I've been eating alot of protein.
I bought a powdered drink mix called Muscle Milk. Does anyone know if it works well? My friend told me I should've gotten another one called cytogainer, because cytogainer is for gaining weight and getting bigger, while muscle milk burns fat and turns it into muscle which actually makes you slimmer. I don't mind the building muscle part of it, but I don't want to get slimmer. I want to get bigger. Does anyone have any experience with these drinks?
Posts: 2054 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
The vast majority of supplements are designed to help you get bigger. There's no legal supplement known to man that will help you build muscle while simultaneously losing weight. You need calories to build muscle, and since you don't have any conscious control over what's done with those calories once you ingest them it's typical to overindulge while trying to bulk up. Then after you've reached the size you wanted (if only it were that simple), you go through a period of careful calorie reduction to cut fat.
That's the (very simplified) version of what professional bodybuilders do.
For you, though, supplements should help you get bigger if only because they supply you with more calories. If you really want to get serious, then you need to track (down to the gram) your daily intake of protein, carbs, and fats. Among other things (like coming up with a strict lifting regimen, for starters).
I can't give you a definitive answer to your specific question because I don't know squat about Muscle Milk in particular, and I don't have time to go googling. I don't know what's in it, or how big it is, or how often you take it daily, or for how long of a time period.
I feel certain that it won't make you skinny, though. Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
JT, I can't thank you enough for all the help you've given me on this thread and other threads about fitness. You've been incredibly helpful. Thank you. Posts: 2054 | Registered: Nov 2005
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. Last year I weighed 115, but I just ate a whole lot of food and worked out a lot and ended up gaining weight fairly rapidly.(Like 2 lbs a week when I was focusing on gaining weight). It's fine to want to be bigger, but you don't want to gain weight too rapidly because you could get more fat than you can convert to muscle. 
