Help Wanted. GAA player looking to add lean mass and improve strength in off season

Lord Trollington

Hi there, I'm a complete novice at this so bare with me.

Its in the close season for GAA. I have 12-14 weeks before training starts back once more.
I'm 24, 73kg and 5'10.

Over the next 12-14weeks i wish to gain some Upper & Lower body mass and strength.

Firstly I will ask what protein supplements if any should I take? I plan to go to the Gym on Monday, Wednesday and Friday or at least 3 times a week.
How many grams of protein a day should i be consuming based on my body weight?
I dont want huge gains in bulk as i think this may slow me down, but i do wish for some lean muscle gains.
What are good sources of protein?Chicken, lean meat, fish, eggs, dairy?
What is the best diet, eat often and little or eat big meals less frequent?

Should I cut down on carbs and increase my intake of protein?

There is so much advice on websites out there,one website would contradict something you've read on a previous website, its unreal.
i'm hoping that there is a GAA player within here that does weights that can point me in the right direction.

Antisocialiser

http://startingstrength.wikia.com/wiki/Starting_Strength_Wiki

Im a footballer with roughly the same stats as you and im taking the off season to get as strong as i possibly can. Read this wiki indepth including the FAQ and you should be fine to start the program. If you eat and sleep enough and are consistent with your training i.e. actually go to the gym on your 3 set days and do the lifts i can see of no reason why you wont make the gains you want.

As i say im also a beginner but have already made substantial big gains in strength in just over a month of starting strength.

Doing a bicep curl while standing on one leg might work different body parts but these silly GAA coaching exercises that i observe to be promulgated are not how to get strong or how to increase core strength. Compound exercises e.g. squat, deadlift, press, bench press will make you stronger quicker.

The biggest help for me is that every question you could have about the program is answered for you so there is no bull****. Put the work in and you will see results.

Hopefully this helps mate, but im sure someone will be along shortly to correct anything i said wrong.

Good luck

Arctic89

Agree with ya on GAA coaches not having a clue how to develop strength but a massive +1 on using Starting Strength, used it 2 years ago to great effect but picked up an unrelated injury that stopped me training

Going back to Starting Strength and eating like a horse tomorrow and hoping to keep at it right until the start of GAA preseason in January.

Read through that website linked above and you should have enough knowledge to start working on it.

Lord Trollington

Thanks for the advice, i found that site pretty hard to navigate through, way too much text.

What kind of area's should i start with first, Upper or lower body?

What kinda of weight should i start off with, should i struggle to life it, or should i struggle to finish the final set of reps?

When and How often should i increase the weight and bu how much?

keane2097

whycliff wrote: »

Thanks for the advice, i found that site pretty hard to navigate through, way too much text.

What kind of area's should i start with first, Upper or lower body?

What kinda of weight should i start off with, should i struggle to life it, or should i struggle to finish the final set of reps?

When and How often should i increase the weight and bu how much?

Read the page you were linked FFS.

Every question you've asked is answered on it.

If you're too lazy to read a web page what hope do you have of training?

Lord Trollington

Excuse yourself there Keane2097, I'm training to build muscle, there will be nothing wrong with my committment.

I merely stated i found the site hard to navigate through, it used a lot of abbreviated terms which i am not familiar. I spent 2 hours on it last night and found none of what i asked.

If you've nothing to contribute to the thread done bother posting.

keane2097

whycliff wrote: »

Excuse yourself there Keane2097, I'm training to build muscle, there will be nothing wrong with my committment.

I merely stated i found the site hard to navigate through, it used a lot of abbreviated terms which i am not familiar. I spent 2 hours on it last night and found none of what i asked.

Go to f*ck. If you've nothing to contribute to the thread done bother posting.

On the page you were linked to:



Each of the questions you asked are answered in these couple of articles.

What did you read in your two hours?

Oh and excuse me obv.

Lord Trollington

Pontificatus wrote: »

I too question your commitment. It appears that if something is too hard you give up. You cant expect to be spoon fed. I'm not one for quoting the lord but here's my interpretation of Psalms 2:3:666 'fck off and help yourself'

Michael McIntyre spoke about gayLick players the other night, it appears to be true. The ghey obviously

What has the fact that i play "gayLick" got to do with anything?

I'm not expecting to be spoon fed, quite the opposite. I'm looking for a little advice, even if someone had a more user friendly website.

I didnt make the heading by the way, i posted in the wrong area and a mod decided on the heading.

keane2097

whycliff wrote: »

What has the fact that i play "gayLick" got to do with anything?

I'm not expecting to be spoon fed, quite the opposite. I'm looking for a little advice, even if someone had a more user friendly website.

I didnt make the heading by the way, i posted in the wrong area and a mod decided on the heading.

The issue is the fact that you came looking for advice and were pointed towards Starting Strength (which IMO is exactly the right program for you), and you came back the following day asking if you should start with "upper body or lower body".

You clearly didn't so much as glance at the page you were pointed to.

TommyKnocker

whycliff wrote: »

Excuse yourself there Keane2097, I'm training to build muscle, there will be nothing wrong with my committment.

I merely stated i found the site hard to navigate through, it used a lot of abbreviated terms which i am not familiar. I spent 2 hours on it last night and found none of what i asked.

Go to f*ck. If you've nothing to contribute to the thread done bother posting.

Mod Note:

Warning issued to whycliff for his ott abusive response to kean2097

Warning issued to Pontificatus for his response to whycliff (since deleted by poster)


M

d'Oracle

whycliff wrote: »

What has the fact that i play "gayLick" got to do with anything?

I'm not expecting to be spoon fed, quite the opposite. I'm looking for a little advice, even if someone had a more user friendly website.

I didnt make the heading by the way, i posted in the wrong area and a mod decided on the heading.

There are a number of people on here who have made good progress on the starting strength programme with information from that site.

Personally I think its very user friendly.
It does a great job of explaining the programme, in some places it does a better job than the books it is based on.

If you are not the kind of person who likes to read much, your best bet is to find a strength & conditioning coach.
The internet is usually a text medium. You won't do a good job of learning how to train from internet sources if you aren't willing to read and comprehend.

Pontificatus

whycliff wrote: »

Hi there, I'm a complete novice at this so bare with me.

Its in the close season for GAA. I have 12-14 weeks before training starts back once more.
I'm 24, 73kg and 5'10.

Over the next 12-14weeks i wish to gain some Upper & Lower body mass and strength.

Firstly I will ask what protein supplements if any should I take? I plan to go to the Gym on Monday, Wednesday and Friday or at least 3 times a week.
How many grams of protein a day should i be consuming based on my body weight?
I dont want huge gains in bulk as i think this may slow me down, but i do wish for some lean muscle gains.
What are good sources of protein?Chicken, lean meat, fish, eggs, dairy?
What is the best diet, eat often and little or eat big meals less frequent?

Should I cut down on carbs and increase my intake of protein?

There is so much advice on websites out there,one website would contradict something you've read on a previous website, its unreal.
i'm hoping that there is a GAA player within here that does weights that can point me in the right direction.

My initial responses were cnutish so i've delted them and will try to help if i can.

So:

To start you should test where you are at now in terms of strength and bodyfat. You should also write down everything you have consumed (food and drink) for the last few days and use that to have a look at your diet. This will give you a starting place, allow you to see where you want/need to get to and put a plan in place to get there.

You might want to have a look at the IP website and they work with two sucessfull Dublin senior teams and have given them good results in their S&C this year. http://www.informedperformance.com/

I wonder if Will or Barry might have the time to write an article on testing.

Lord Trollington

I appreciate the help and advice i'm being given dont get me wrong, as i said i'm new to this and found that site hard to navigate through.

I'm certainly not the type not to bother my hole to look at pages when given advice.
I looked through that site, i found some of the information very helpful, but as a previous poster eluded to it full of text and a lot of it there is no need for.

I've scanned numerous of websites the past 2 weeks since the season finished and i found loads of contradictory advice.

Squats are good for strength, bad for your knee's.
Tuna has loads of protein but is full of mercury which is baad for you.

I thought by coming on here, I would get the advice of someone who plays GAA,Soccer or Rugby and is in the same ship as myself.

d'Oracle

whycliff wrote: »

I've scanned numerous of websites the past 2 weeks since the season finished and i found loads of contradictory advice.

Squats are good for strength, bad for your knee's.
Tuna has loads of protein but is full of mercury which is baad for you.

I thought by coming on here, I would get the advice of someone who plays GAA,Soccer or Rugby and is in the same ship as myself.

Well come to the disproportionately Bullsh!t filled world of fitness.

Squats are only bad for your knees if you do them wrong.
I personally don't believe the Mercury Tuna malarky.

Lord Trollington

d'Oracle wrote: »

Well come to the disproportionately Bullsh!t filled world of fitness.

Squats are only bad for your knees if you do them wrong.
I personally don't believe the Mercury Tuna malarky.

I like tuna and would easily eat it every say, I see some portions have as much as 25g of protein which is the same as a protein drink.
But the whole mercury thing put me off eating it so often.

My diet is not great and I must address that firstly before anything else.
I skip breakfast and have done since i was about 12.
I dont eat often, but when i do eat i eat a good meal which would fill me.

I seen that some people advise to do this, whilst others say eat little and often so its hard to win.

d'Oracle

whycliff wrote: »

I like tuna and would easily eat it every say, I see some portions have as much as 25g of protein which is the same as a protein drink.
But the whole mercury thing put me off eating it so often.

My diet is not great and I must address that firstly before anything else.
I skip breakfast and have done since i was about 12.
I dont eat often, but when i do eat i eat a good meal which would fill me.

I seen that some people advise to do this, whilst others say eat little and often so its hard to win.

I tend to gloss over a lot of the complicated stuff. It seems impractical and stupid to me.

What I do accept is to get big & strong, eat lots and lift heavy.
From what I have read eating enough to grow is MUCH more important than how often you eat or how much you eat at each sitting.

Eat lots, eat enough protein and eat after lifting.

Lord Trollington

I dont want to get overly big, more strength than anything. A bit of bulk and definition.

I dont want to lose any of my pace,speed, reaction time call it what you will.

slightly Bigger & stronger biceps, triceps,shoudler and chest.

Stronger glutes, hams and quads.

keane2097

whycliff wrote: »

I dont want to get overly big, more strength than anything. A bit of bulk and definition.

I dont want to lose any of my pace,speed, reaction time call it what you will.

slightly Bigger & stronger biceps, triceps,shoudler and chest.

Stronger glutes, hams and quads.

Getting "overly" big is extremely difficult, requires enormous dedication and is not something that is going to happen to you unless you are seriously focussed on it.

Enfin, it's not something to worry about.

d'Oracle

whycliff wrote: »

I dont want to get overly big, more strength than anything. A bit of bulk and definition.

I dont want to lose any of my pace,speed, reaction time call it what you will.

slightly Bigger & stronger biceps, triceps,shoudler and chest.

Stronger glutes, hams and quads.

Stronger shouldn't make you slower, slower or slower.
In fact putting on muscle mass wont do it either.

Especially not over 3 months.
This is getting beyond the point where I am of any use.

I refer you back to Pontificatus's advice.

Antisocialiser

Putting 30kg on my below parallel squats has brought me from below average in the sprint session to in and about the leaders. You wont get slow from doing SS, you will get stronger = more powerful = faster.