You are young, you are full of energy and you want to go to the gym to work out and start lifting weights. So how can you make the most of your time in the gym, get stronger and build bigger muscles in the shortest amount of time possible?
Whether you are in your teens or early 20s, to really maximize your results you must first control your ego. It’s not easy, especially since the number one reason young people start lifting weights is insecurity. Arnold Schwarzenegger became the biggest bodybuilding star in history, but it started because his brother was always hitting him and his father referred to him as his “daughter.” Nimrod was a common name in Africa, but when Nimrod King moved to Canada, he was mocked mercilessly by children, and he became the Canadian champion bodybuilder. There are many other examples, but suffice it to say that there can be a lot of emotion and ego involved in his decision to hit the gym.
Many others start lifting weights because they want to get better at sports, at school, after school, or on the weekends. While that’s an admirable and appropriate decision, ego often kicks in once they walk into the gym and see others there, or have teammates or competitors working there, too. 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 make fun of less experienced or less strong athletes like you.
Here’s the scoop: You’ll never be able to build strength, build muscle, or burn body fat as easily as in your teens and early twenties. You are in the “sweet spot” of hormones right now, especially testosterone. Bodybuilding for teens is like a snowball rolling downhill: each year you get bigger and stronger, and each year your efforts take you further as your testosterone increases. Bodybuilding for people in their twenties is like sailing at high speed: Your testosterone levels continue to rise until about age 24 and then level off, not dropping as low 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 20s is definitely the best time to lay the foundation for a fantastic body for life…
This is GREAT news for boys in their teens and men in their 20s: it means you can gain more muscle and get stronger faster, so hit the gym regularly. This is also great news for teen girls and women in their twenties… You won’t have to worry about building huge muscles, since your testosterone levels are much, much lower. But you’ll still get stronger quickly, and your muscles will be noticed by their shape and density rather than their size. And teens and 20-somethings of both genders will love the way their body fat levels drop as they burn off the remaining ‘baby fat’.
But this is where the ego tends to take over… Gyms are full of guys who work their chests and arms like crazy, with only a little work on their backs and legs. The results are being seen on beaches everywhere: young men with stunning upper bodies and chicken legs (maybe that’s why boarding shorts have replaced Speedo-style bathing suits). For the ladies, you’ll be spending hours on a treadmill, running at a steady pace the entire time, and maybe, just maybe, doing some light work with the smaller dumbbells. He is looking for bigger arms, she is looking for lower levels of fat and a fit looking 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 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 your chest and arms, guys; in fact, at his age, training the arms directly is unnecessary. They will 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 are squats, deadlifts, bent-over rows, pull-ups (eventually weighted pull-ups), bench presses, and upright rows. Period. Those 6 exercises, done correctly with the right amount of weight, will make you totally strong: 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 largely go hand in hand, different workouts favor one over the other. For strength, keep the reps low: only do 5 reps per set, use the heaviest weight you can move while maintaining perfect form, and complete 5-10 sets of each exercise. To shift the focus to size, lift weights that only allow you to do 8-12 reps, taking around 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 reduce and maintain lower levels of body fat. For this, use the same set-rep scheme as above for building 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 at the gym give you a hard time or tell you what you should be lifting; focus on the strength you currently have and increase the amount of weight you lift as your body allows. Forget all the little ‘toning’ and ‘shaping’ exercises you hear or read about – nothing will burn more calories than big compound lifts like squats and deadlifts.
Sticking to those ‘Big-6’ exercises for at least your first two years in the gym will put you on the path to the best physique your genetics will allow. Mixing in a lot of cardio or isolation exercises will only rob you of the energy you could be putting into your compound lifts and reduce the time your body takes to recover from each workout; obviously, the higher your power output, the longer your 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 just slow down each rep; either one will get 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, your friends, or the fans at the local gym tell you. Man or woman, if you work out constantly lifting heavy weights, it will still take YEARS to even get close to your genetic potential, so why spend your money on enhancements now that your body has that powerful NATURAL combination to help you on 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 early twenties, the best results in the gym will come from a full-body workout done three non-consecutive days a week: Monday, Wednesday, Friday, or Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, for example. Make sure you know and follow the healthy nutrition guidelines and stay hydrated, get plenty of sleep and you’ll be shooting towards your best body at a fast pace; just do your best not to let your ego become a series of obstacles in the way or, even worse, lead you down a dead end. If you’re going to lift weights and expend all that energy in the gym, you’d be foolish to settle for anything less than the best possible results!
