Need to gain weight&build muscle

kmart6

Hi all,

To be honest with you I'm someone who is not comfortable with my body and want to do something about it! I am an 18 year old male,5'10'' and 9 and a 1/2 stone. Putting on weight has always been a problem for me,no matter how much I eat I just never gain any. Recently I have purchased a home gym to try help with the building of muscle(now before anyone starts sayin I should go to the gym instead,the reason I don't go is cause I'm not comfortable as I said already)! How ever I know that I need to be gaining weight to be able to bulk up at all.

Can anybody help me on what I could do to try change this?!

Regards,
K

paulie.walnuts

You are me eight years ago (2 inches shorter though :-)).
Go to the gym and start being comfortable with what you have. If you go in there it will motivate you to get where you want to be. Hiding in your room using poor technique with limited weights is not going to get you there.
I was same weight as you when i started and am not a lean 12.5 stone and if i could do it so can you. Good luck and you're going to fill out anyways, learn from those in the gym.

crotalus667

kmart6 wrote:

Can anybody help me on what I could do to try change this?!

Go to the gym there will always be one other guy there smaller than you , anyway the most important person is in the gym “the gym instructor” ask for help instead of wasting months doing stuff that doesn’t work as I (and many others) have done in the past.

good luck
Ps
and start a workout log so we can track your progress

tribulus

You have to eat enough. Chances are you weren't/aren't.

Pretty much every teenager I've ever talked to about this think they eat a beastly amount of food, but really it's a fairly pathetic amount, without much protein! I was the exact same at that age.

Read the stickies thoroughly and this will help you figure out your calorific needs and give you loads of ideas of what foods to eat etc.

You should also post up your diet and training.

mack1

tribulus wrote:

You have to eat enough. Chances are you weren't/aren't.

Pretty much every teenager I've ever talked to about this think they eat a beastly amount of food, but really it's a fairly pathetic amount, without much protein! I was the exact same at that age.

Read the stickies thoroughly and this will help you figure out your calorific needs and give you loads of ideas of what foods to eat etc.

You should also post up your diet and training.

+1 for the above, and not just teens - my housemate is the same and he's 26!
Also, the below may be useful, it's from Berardi's Top 10 Lessons & Tips. The full article can be found here: http://www.johnberardi.com/articles/philosophy/jb_top10.htm
(As a former skinny guy JB is a well worth your time, he knows his sh!t! I am a former fatty and I still find value in almost everything he writes.)
But in particular lesson #3:

John Berardi wrote:

"Lesson #3: Skinny Guys, If You Want To Get Big, You’d Better Eat Big!

This lesson is one I learned the hard way, being a former skinny guy. Of course, it’s not necessarily applicable to everyone out there trying to gain muscle mass, but if you’re a classic ectomorph, lean and lanky, the story below is the most important you’ll ever hear.

Once upon a time, there was a scrawny kid named John. After two years of
training, at 5’8", scrawny John had only managed to hit an embarrassing 150 pounds at 10% body fat. With a goal of bench pressing his body weight, scrawny John toiled away for two years without reaching this achievement. Cursing the gods, believing he was doing "everything in his power" to gain muscle mass, scrawny John was about ready to give up and take up an endurance sport or something.

But just before exchanging his weight lifting belt for some cycling tights, he
had an epiphany! A friend of scrawny John’s went away to a football training
camp for a month and came back 15 pounds heavier. Begging for the secrets produced nothing. The friend told scrawny John that there weren’t any. Simply, he and the other guys at camp were taught to eat five or six big meals per day. Angry, scrawny John told him that he already did that.

But when scrawny John realized that he’d need to eat breakfast meals that
consist of 12 whole eggs, four packets of plain instant oatmeal, and four slices of rye toast; lunches that consisted of three whole grain bagels, a pound of lean beef, and a huge salad; and dinners that consisted of a full pound of pasta, a few cups of broccoli, and a half pound of lean ground beef, he understood where he was going wrong. And not only did he adopt these breakfast, lunch, and dinner strategies, he began eating five whole grain bagels slathered with natural peanut butter and drinking a couple of liters of protein drink throughout the rest of the day.

Sound absurd? Well, not only does it sound absurd, it looked absurd. But, after two more years, scrawny John wasn’t so scrawny any longer.

As you can imagine, scrawny John was me. Utilizing these feeding techniques, I went from a 5’8" 150 pound guy (at 10% body fat) aspiring to bench press my own body weight, to a 210 pound guy (at 12% body fat) bench pressing 315 for multiple reps.

If you think you’ve "tried everything," think again. You’ve gotta eat big to get
big."

Now that is what I call eating!

kmart6

Well act I would be one of the smallest people in the gym,only the women would be smaller! This gym has a serious amount of serious weight lifters who always weight around a machine that you might be usin if they want to use it,and generally thery are not available that much. I don't go to the gym for the simple fact that I'm not comfortable at the moment. The plan is to build up a bit and then start going there where I'd have a wider range of equipment!

It's the weight gain which is most importat at the moment though,cause I need that to try build muscle surely!?

tribulus

The weight gain is the muscle!! (And maybe a small amount of fat)

You need FOOD for the weight gain, read the stickies and get eating!

djhaxman

paulie.walnuts wrote:

You are me eight years ago (2 inches shorter though :-)).
Go to the gym and start being comfortable with what you have. If you go in there it will motivate you to get where you want to be. Hiding in your room using poor technique with limited weights is not going to get you there.
I was same weight as you when i started and am not a lean 12.5 stone and if i could do it so can you. Good luck and you're going to fill out anyways, learn from those in the gym.

Yeah, I agree with this, I find there are too many distractions when you train at home. Get to the gym!!! Don't mind what other people think about you, as someone who is just starting out training you will progress far more quickly at the start than people that have been training for years (I went from 9st 4 to nearly 11st in about 10 months and my diet was not that great). Just stick with it, you'll be surprised how quickly your weight and strength levels will increase. www.bodybuilding.com is a great site for training and nutrition articles.

AlphaMale 3OO

If your not comfortable going to the gym train in the environment where you will feel comfortable until such time you feel that you can make the step. It is difficult however, to achieve the same training intensity in your home due to inferior equipment and a less than favourable working atmosphere. The good news is that at 18, your natural testosterone is more than likely through the roof and if I knew back then what I know now, I would have utilised that fact for my own gain. Your growth potential should be pretty encouraging and coupled with the correct training intensity and a disciplined diet, there is no reason why you cant add poundage to your frame. For a person of your size I would say a caloric intake of around 2900 clean calories every day would probably be a good start but from here you must read the stickies and fit your diet around that! Remember eat lots of protein!

rubadub

kmart6 wrote:

no matter how much I eat I just never gain any.

How much do you eat? Have you calculated calories? If not you really need to get a digital scales and work it out.

crotalus667

kmart6 wrote:

This gym has a serious amount of serious weight lifters who always weight around a machine that you might be usin if they want to use it,and generally thery are not available that much.

"serious" by this i think you meen big there is no reason why you cant be "serious" when your lifting , as for them that hover over you ask them if they are waighting to use the machine if they are let them know how many sets you have left, after all you paid your money just like them , if you like to take a decent amount of time between sets ask them if they want to do a set inbetween your sets who knows you may make a freind :eek: or even a training partner the guys in gyms tend not to be the sort of guys that are P****s in school , infact a lot of guys start lifting tend to be the opisete (boy my spellnig is getting worse)

kmart6 wrote:

It's the weight gain which is most importat at the moment though,cause I need that to try build muscle surely!?

Not that much , alot of pros these days are keeping around a stone over their comp weight off season so you dont need that much weight Id just feed the workout feed and the recoverey that way what you put on will mainly be leanmass

hope this helps and remember thoes guys in the gym started off from scratch just like you have too


ps
post which gym you use and see if any of the guys on the board use it maybe they will go down with you for a workout who knows ?? no harm in asking this board is full of freindly people

the hoff

I would agree with almost everything that has been said and I was once like you but even skinnier! I used to be 6'0'' and 150 pounds! I was literally just a bag of bones! I now am about 180 pounds and the way I achieved the weight gain was by seriously altering the amounts i eat and what i eat (alot of carbs and Protein!) and exposing myself to a gym environment where i could pick up next exercises from my piers and improve my technique. So again I would reiterate the point that you really need to go to the gym to learn from the people around you many of whom were once like you and have blasted thro the ectomrph barrier! I felt the exact same as you the first few times i went into the gym and particularly the free weights area...but after a few sessions i realised that there were dozens of other guys in the gym like me and i really never got the impression that the 'big' guys were judging me. Just try and go to the gym for a few weeks and i promise you you will feel comfortable in your surroundings in no time!

ali.c

kmart6 wrote:

now before anyone starts sayin I should go to the gym instead,the reason I don't go is cause I'm not comfortable as I said already

Just so you know, people in the gym come in all different types and sizes, so if you are feeling uncomfortable about it, its really all in your head. Plus any "serious" lifters (if by serious you mean pretty big and lift heavy) that i have seen are usually the more friendly people in the gym. In fact anyone who is "serious" about it would probably give more a ****e about the effort you put in than what you look like or how much you lift.

Anyhow, as the guys have said, diet is so important, eat loads and lift as heavy as you can and see how your getting on!!

eroo

well,first off workout at home!i think its easier and you dont feel pressurised into lifting weight that is too heavy!start off lifting with a comfortable weight so that you get the form down right!
i find it easier to workout at home because i can listen to music REALLY loud!but,more importantly,i find it easier to motivate myself at home.i have pics of things i am really interested in i.e. Gard's,ARW.i use these pics for motivation;think about the fact you are training and if you keep it up you'll be fit like them!whatever pics you want to put up-put em up.whether its someone you idolise/admire or (like me) it has something to do with your career choices.motivation is a key factor in training!!
if you are unsure of form,go to the gym and ask an instructor!then you can workout at home+with proper form+motivation!!!!
-eroo