I received the following question the other day and thought is was worth posting.
I am a 17 year old boy. I am skinny, like many of my friends; however, I find it annoying. I really want to build muscles. You know everyone wants to have a nice body and be able to fight back and stuff. Any advice is welcome… …“Jimmy” My Reply As you are aware, it is not uncommon for a boy to be very skinny at your age. However, knowing that doesn’t solve any problems. Before we get into discussions on gaining muscle, we first need to address what your actual goal is. Believe it or not, your goal is not to gain muscle weight, instead, that is just a means to your goal. You actually identified what you want in your question and assumed that muscle gain will provide that. You have stated that you want to “have a nice body, and be able to fight back and stuff”. Let’s just be frank, all of us men are the same. We would like to look nice for the girls and have people respect us on sight, but most of all, we want to be able to fight and want everyone to know it! You wish you were a bigger guy, a stronger guy, and a tougher guy. Since that is what you are really after, let’s set out on making that happen. Tougher Guy This is the part that is most important. I have seen scrawny little shrimps walk around with so much confidence, that large men are scared of them. I also knew a body builder (who used to be small) that is scared of his own shadow and intimidated by everyone. He still sees himself as the skinny picked on kid he used to be. Size is not the issue, the heart is. Being confident in yourself and also being confident that you can “defend” yourself will always win the day over size. Okay, so how do we get that confidence? It is attainable, but you have to be willing to work for it. You also must accept that it will take time and probably not be there by the time you graduate high school, but may show up during college. Step 1 Ignore anything a psychologist has to say about the matter. You won’t be confident until you know in your heart you can “handle your own.” Step 2 You won’t ever know that you can “handle your own” until you actually learn to “handle your own”. Therefore, you need to be in a class. These are your best options.
Step 3 Building Muscle. I recommend you do this in conjunction with your “martial art” training. It doesn’t need to take that long. You don’t need a gym. You certainly don’t need to listen to all those giant beef cake weight lifters giving you advice. Go out and buy a $20 pull up bar. Also get some dumbbells 5#, 10#, 15# and 20#. Then either purchase the P90X workout, or you can do the “P90X style workout” on my website. (link below). If you do the exercises six (6) days a week as recommended, you will see noticeable results in about 3 months. I hope this helps you. Now go get’em
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FitMart’s battle with Insanity went about as well as Custer’s battle at Little Bighorn. I may have to change the name of my exercise website to:.. … "Not-So-Fit-Mart"
That’s right, today I replaced my normal cardio routine with the Insanity Plyo Cardo workout in order to see what all the fuss is about. It is only 45 minutes, so how hard could it be?? Let me just walk you through my experience: I started the video in my workout room and made a firm commitment to myself that I would not modify any exercise, that I would not hit the pause button, that I would keep up with the trainers, and that I would finish. Hey, I’m in shape, right? I had already read that Shaun T uses interval training in his videos. I am a big fan of Tabata style interval training. (20 seconds of work followed by 10 sec rest) So I am looking forward to this. Alright, Shaun T doesn’t waste any time talking, but gets right to work. We start running in place. After running in place for a while, Shaun T moved straight into another exercise without breaking stride…. …Where is my rest break??…. I am beginning to realize, this is going to be one heck of an interval, …but I am committed. This “insanity” continued from exercise to exercise when at last Shaun indicated we had done all the exercises in this interval… Thank God!! …As we count down the last seconds, I dream of the rest break to come. …Of course it doesn’t… …instead Shaun announces we are going to repeat that entire circuit “double time”. By the way, double time, means twice as fast, but the same amount of time. …No Way!!… Well…. I keep up the pace and see it to the end of the 2nd circuit. All the time hoping that a rest break isn’t far away. ….NOT!…. Shaun tells us to repeat the circuit a third time and go faster!!!! …Long story short, I kept up with Shaun through this next circuit thinking I was going to pass out any second. When the end finally came, we only got a whopping 30 seconds of rest!!! ….Are you kidding me!!! That is when I heard Shaun T utter something that frightened me to my very core, …. “Alright guys, …we are finished with the warm-up” That was just a warm up!!… ...What small slice of Hell have I just embarked on?? Over the next 5-6 minutes Shaun allows us to stretch. This should be a much desired break, but oh no, he can’t even make stretching easy. No, he incorporates yoga into it, so you are still engaging muscles. We finish the yoga/stretch and I am about wore out, when Shaun T declares: “Lets start the workout” ….What??… …We haven’t been working out so far??… No, we apparently hadn’t been. As the upcoming circuits proved all by themselves. Well, I am proud to say, that I stuck by my goals all the way to the end. I didn’t hit pause, I didn’t modify anything, and I kept up with Shaun the whole time… …almost. I made it to the last round of the last circuit, when my body said ……“no more!”…. Yes, it shut down completely. No amount of will power was going to overcome complete and utter exhaustion. I tried, …oh I tried. My jumps became merely an unsuccessful attempt to go from a squatting position to a standing position. Push ups were nothing more than controlled decents to the ground. Up wasn’t happening. The rest was just a blurry memory of fatigue. In a nutshell, Insanity is… hard… hard… hard… It is not only not for beginners,… ... I don’t think it is for humans either. So, to all you Insanity Workout enthusiast out there… …you’re the bomb!! To all of you P90X enthusiasts out there… …you’re now just the “B” team. Wish me luck in the weeks to come, I am going to try each workout at least once. |