This year, as many of you may know, I chose weightlifting to be my summer project. My goal is to gain as much strength and size as possible, and so far this project is going great! I've learned many things about weightlifting, and after a lot of research, weightlifting is definitely considered a sport. At turning 16, I honestly thought joining a gym was cooler than being able to drive, and I still think this. I love the pump that I get after I'm done, and at this point I feel like my day isn't complete if I don't go and work out in some way, I just love it! Because I'm on a 3-day split, I despise my resting days because I feel my day just hasn't been finished. I'm so glad we have been allowed to complete a project that interests us, because this definitely interests me. Below are some of the things I've done, learned, as well as my current lifting stats.
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Body Stats (Beginning/Current)
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Height: 5'8/5'8
Weight: 130/136 lbs
Body Fat Percentage: 6.4/6.6%
Lean Body Mass: 121.7/127 lbs
These are the core body stats. Since I've began, I've gained about 6 pounds, almost all being lean mass, which is very good. After doing research, it is very normal to be gaining very fast as a starter, as they are commonly called "noob gains". After a couple months pass, the rate will slow.
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Lifting Stats (Beginning/Current)
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Barbell Bench Press: 110/135
Barbell Parallel Squat 135/200
Barbell Deadlift 90/135 (Done a couple weeks ago, I have to update this :/)
There are a whole bunch of little lifts that I won't get into, they'll take too long to write about, I'll get into them in later blog posts. These are compound lifts, and are the major and most important ones. My routine consists of mostly compound lifts to obtain a good strength base before I start lifting more often later on. My lifts have greatly improved, and the main reason why this is will be explained in the DIET section.
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Diet
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The key to getting stronger, bigger, and adding size has nothing to do with how often you train, how much you can lift, what you train, or how you do it. Yes, of course it helps a LITTLE bit, but the key is DIET. You must have excess calories to get ANY bigger. Water is important, cutting simple sugars (sugars like pops and all that bad stuff) from your diet, and eating plenty of protein, carbohydrates and healthy fats.
My general rule of thumb, as well as what I researched, is 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight. For the last month I've been consumed about 140 grams of protein a day, and about 3,000 calories or more. As long as you're working out and eating clean foods and a lot of calories, you WILL not get fat. If you get fat, it can be cut later with cardio. Being a skinny guy, I don't have to worry about fat, I need to gain weight, so I'm not very concerned. My body fat is very low, and I can shed any of that unwanted fat very easily. I've been drinking about 64-100 ounces of water per day. I thought this would be REALLY hard, but it's actually pretty easy, and it's important to keep flushing your kidneys because high protein diets are hard on the kidneys. Overall, I've just been eating about 1k calories more than I used to, and I'm gaining lean mass.
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Routine
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The program is called Rippetoes. This is a world famous program created by a world famous powerlifter, and thousands of people have seen results with it. It's what I've been using for the last month, and you can't go wrong. I'm getting great results, as it's aimed for strength gains for the beginner. It's a three day split, and I work out on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. There are two different workouts, and you alternate them throughout the week.
Workout 1
3x5 Bench Press
3x5 Squat
1x5 Deadlift
2x8 Tricep Dips
Various weighted ab exercises
Workout 2
3x5 Standing Military Press
3x5 Squat
1x5 Bent Over Barbell Rows
2x8 Pullups
Various weighted ab exercises
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Overall
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So far, everything I'm doing is working very well. You can lift all you want, but you won't get ANYWHERE without a good diet. Yeah, I know it's summer. Yeah, I know I should be filling up on ice cream. Believe me, that would be nice! But what I'm doing is working and I couldn't be happier! If I had to put things how I believe it goes, Diet>Rest>Training.
Sounds like you've gotten this all figured out. This seems like a really cool thing to do.
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