Dear Luis,
I wish someone would have given me this
advice when I was 15. It would have saved me a lot of frustration being skinny during my high school years.
By sophomore year in high school, you will be able to lift weights during PE class. Since middle school, you've been waiting for this moment to finally be able to lift some iron & get your muscles to grow.
You've been reading a lot of magazines, online articles and watching tons of YouTube videos to prepare you for this day in the best way possible. When it's finally time to step into the gym you will be the only one with an actual routine you got online. All the other students will be doing curls and bench presses every day working on their "show muscles".
But not you. You
actually took the time to learn how to work out to build muscle before lifting weights but there are a few things that only experience can teach & that's what I wanna give you right now.Â
Since you are just starting off you will want to focus on doing these compound exercises with good form: Squats, deadlifts, lunges, high thrusts, pull-ups, dips, push-ups, overhead pressing &
different leg raise variations. (I know your routine and all the articles you read said to do a lot of isolation exercises for our biceps, triceps, shoulders & abs but you will get faster results if you focus only on these compound exercises)
You have been told to do 4 sets of 12 reps with a slow & controlled tempo. That is great advice and it will allow you to practice good form on all
exercises. After a year of training like this; changing your sets and reps to 5 sets of 5 reps would be a great idea to start focusing more on getting stronger & not just pumping the muscles. The stronger your muscles are the more potential they have to get bigger.
Besides the gym, I know you play basketball & soccer almost every day with your friends. This is great because when you play
sports you develop athletism. You practice getting faster, jumping higher & getting your grip stronger - all of this combined gets your endurance up & keeps you losing fat so you can show off your hard earned muscles.
One thing that I struggled with the most during my muscle building journey was eating a lot. I know you've heard that in order to get bigger you must eat big & that is
absolutely true. It might be hard to eat a lot since you live with your parents and they are the ones that cook but you have to eat more if you want your muscles to grow. If you have been working out for a few months and are not getting as big as you expected to do here is what to do: Eat twice as much as you currently are doing.Â
It will be hard to double your food intake in one day so start
by adding more food every week. Something simple to start with is to eat a cup of cooked brown rice with every meal. This will help you get more calories and get you used to eating more food.
To summarize this. If you are skinny & wanna build muscle, these are the only 2 things you gotta focus on:
#1: Progressive overload - Focus on getting stronger at each compound exercise by adding more weight, doing more reps, decreasing rest time during sets or increasing time under tension (doing slower reps). If you are doing one of those 4 things every week you will always make progress in the gym.
#2: Be in a calorie surplus - You have to eat
more calories than you burn to grow so eat a lot more food than you currently do,
I struggled to put on weight during high school because I didn't eat enough and did too many isolation exercises. Those are the 2 things I want you to avoid during the start of your muscle building so you can actually gain bigger muscles, get stronger & boost your confidence.
Building muscle not only strengthens the body but it will also teach you how to stay committed to a goal, overcome obstacles & work hard. All these skills will translate into other areas of your life so you can do better at school & have the confidence to ask girls out.
I might have struggled to put on muscle mass
during high school but you don't have to. Put this advice to use and in one year you will transform your skinny body into a muscular beast.
When you are bigger & stronger do me a favor: Pay it forward and help someone else who is also struggling to build muscle. Teach them what you know so they can also transform their body & boost their confidence.
The world needs more strong & confident men like us :)
Here is to bigger muscles!
- Luis Carrillo
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Hopefully you learned a few lessons from my past mistakes!
