Just started working out. What's best for gaining muscle

[(JJ)]

I play high school baseball and this offseason i've decided to try and get a lot stronger and bigger. i've seen a bunch of stuff for sale at my gym that claims to help with this but i really am in the dark as far as what works, and what i even want. can anyone more experienced offer some advice?

 

[MrS]

find a program called West Side for Skinny B4stards 3 by Joe Defranco.

 

[(JJ)]

lol alright. i'll look that up. just to give a mental picture, i'm 6'3.5" and about 180 lbs. but also i was looking for people's advice as far as supplements and protein shakes and stuff goes.

 

[HandyAndy]

Well, are you a beginner? Have you ever worked out before?

 

[Furyguy]

Here's your basic cookie-cutter bulking/gaining program, basically guaranteed to get solid results if you stick to it:

Bench Press, Squats, Deadlift. Five reps, five sets, every other day. As much weight as you can do without failing on any set, 1-3 minute rest period between sets. No other exercises or workouts. Make sure your form is as perfect as you can get it. Look for videos of good form online and go to forums.

Two things you need a lot of: Food, and sleep. Eat 4000-5000 calories a day if you can manage that much. 300-400g of Protein, 200-300g Carbs, under 150g Fat. Try not to eat fat and carbs at the same meal if you can help it. Don't eat big meals, eat every 2-3 hours. Sleep as much as you can every night, at least 8 hours.

Protein powder is the simplest useful supplement you can get as a beginner. Make sure it is Whey Protein, DO NOT get Soy Protein Powder. Any nutrition store should have some (albeit overpriced). If you want cheap stuff in bulk, I use Grow! Premium Quality Whey. Beyond that it's up to you. FlameOut is supposed to be one of the overall best supplements available, if you can find the stuff anywhere. Any other fish oil source is excellent for you, too.

Immediately after your workout should be your biggest meal of the day to help increase protein synthesis. Make a protein shake with whole milk, bananas, yogurt, berries, anything else you want to throw in there, and eat some other high protein food like turkey or chicken.

I'm not sure what these forum rules are regarding directing you to other sites/forums for advice so I'm not going to mention anything for now, but there's tons of resources out there if you look around.


Anyways, you can build a superior program for yourself if you do a lot of research, but this is a good one for beginners to start off with. And remember, if you don't diet right, you really aren't going to get jack **** for results. It really is that important.

 

[AKA FLEX]

I play high school baseball and this offseason i've decided to try and get a lot stronger and bigger. i've seen a bunch of stuff for sale at my gym that claims to help with this but i really am in the dark as far as what works, and what i even want. can anyone more experienced offer some advice?

Heavy weights, low reps, and eat steak. Take a multi and maybe some whey protein and get plenty of sleep. You don't need a ton of supplementation at your age.

 

[(JJ)]

Here's your basic cookie-cutter bulking/gaining program, basically guaranteed to get solid results if you stick to it:

Bench Press, Squats, Deadlift. Five reps, five sets, every other day. As much weight as you can do without failing on any set, 1-3 minute rest period between sets. No other exercises or workouts. Make sure your form is as perfect as you can get it. Look for videos of good form online and go to forums.

Two things you need a lot of: Food, and sleep. Eat 4000-5000 calories a day if you can manage that much. 300-400g of Protein, 200-300g Carbs, under 150g Fat. Try not to eat fat and carbs at the same meal if you can help it. Don't eat big meals, eat every 2-3 hours. Sleep as much as you can every night, at least 8 hours.

Protein powder is the simplest useful supplement you can get as a beginner. Make sure it is Whey Protein, DO NOT get Soy Protein Powder. Any nutrition store should have some (albeit overpriced). If you want cheap stuff in bulk, I use Grow! Premium Quality Whey. Beyond that it's up to you. FlameOut is supposed to be one of the overall best supplements available, if you can find the stuff anywhere. Any other fish oil source is excellent for you, too.

Immediately after your workout should be your biggest meal of the day to help increase protein synthesis. Make a protein shake with whole milk, bananas, yogurt, berries, anything else you want to throw in there, and eat some other high protein food like turkey or chicken.

I'm not sure what these forum rules are regarding directing you to other sites/forums for advice so I'm not going to mention anything for now, but there's tons of resources out there if you look around.


Anyways, you can build a superior program for yourself if you do a lot of research, but this is a good one for beginners to start off with. And remember, if you don't diet right, you really aren't going to get jack **** for results. It really is that important.

wow thanks bud but i'm curious, how much of a gain in size and strength will this type regimen bring? the main thing im not sure about is the 4-5000 calories a day. the reason i'm asking is that i dont want to get TOO big because i need to maintain flexibility and range of motion for pitching. some guys i see in the gym are jacked-up monsters, but i don't necessarily want that.

and HA, i've worked out some in the past, but it's never been for more than about a 3 month period, and it was required for baseball. i'm just taking over and doing it myself now.

 

[HandyAndy]

Those 3 he mentioned above are compound exercises, which means they work more than one muscle as opposed to arm curls. You need 3500-4000 calories a day to grow and your bodyweight or more in grams of protein, look in "the vault" stickied in the health and fitness section for more help

 

[Eugene123]

check out my post..

http://www.sosuave.net/forum/showthread.php?t=146657

I used to train for this thing called sasuke(ninja warrior) blehh its hard...

 

[Furyguy]

For a frame of reference, I started this program (lifting, diet, supplements all at the same time) 3 weeks ago. Since then I've put on around 10-12 pounds of muscle mass, upped my bench 15 pounds, my deadlift 20 pounds, and my squat 60 pounds (I had a really weak squat from neglecting leg work for far too long).

This kind of gain isn't commonplace, it really only can happen if you're new to lifting in general and really bust your ass the proper way. So my advice is take advantage of it while you still can, it's not the kind of thing you can replicate later in your career.

Physically I haven't changed much, except my chest and shoulders are a bit larger and more defined and I have much more definition in my quads now. That and an extremely heightened feeling of confidence to go along with it. I've also shed a bit of fat off my stomach, though that was never really my intention it just kind of happened. I think you're really going to see more strength gain than size doing this.

It's not something that you stay on for the whole three month period. Get 4-6 weeks into it and move onto something else. It loses it's effectiveness after this period of time anyways due to habituation. If you keep going you're really going to just wear yourself out to the point where you seriously risk an injury.

Cycle it up, do some arm/shoulder/abs/calves/glutes work for a few weeks, throw some cardio in there, and then come back to it a month or a couple weeks later and try and put on some mass again.

Regarding the food, the 4-5000 calorie thing really is ****ing hard to obtain. I usually do around 3500-4000 cal/day of good, wholesome foods. The 4-5k thing is more of an overambitious goal to shoot for (unless you are a serious powerlifter, in which case you probably throw back that much food no problem).

Don't be afraid to up the weight! I find myself lifting much more weight than I thought I could simply because I said "what the ****," threw the plates on there and went for it.

And if you're going to do this, be SMART and SAFE! Use a spotter, and don't get lazy on form and hurt your back or shoulders, either. Seriously, it's important.


Anyways, I don't think there's any program in the world where you have to worry about getting TOO big, if there was I think everyone would just stick to that all the time

Good luck, let us know how if this goes if you decide to use it or something similar.