Eating after a workout is probably just as important if not more as eating before. Muscles after a workout are screaming for food. If u don't have enough carbs or protein to feed your muscles after a workout your just breaking em down. I might look into some supplements high in carbohydrates if u want to bulk up. I used to get em in powder form and mixed w/ milk. If you don't like supplements, get something high in carbs that can be digested fairly quickly. I would mix the vanilla flavored supplement w/ bananas or strawberries for a better taste. Your going to bulk up w/ carbs but if you don't want to bulk up just really good muscle tone instead I would use more of a a protein based supplement or foods high in protein. It's not easy though finding the right foods and having to eat enough of them to get your body what it needs. But getting the right foods to your muscles in the first four hours after a workout are probably the most important. I'm sorry I don't have any tips to "feel energized" before going to the gym. Biglevi71 had some good tips on supplements. I think I used to use to same stuff. I know its a pain but u might track your food intake to be sure your getting the right amount of calories, protein, carbs, etc. You are what u eat. Remember its gonna take time to get back where u were. When I started working out again at a health club after a long layoff the guy put me on circut training (one machine right after another) and i about passed out. No oxygen in the blood he said. So be patient. I need to take some of your initiative and get back into it too!! Got a BowFlex a while back and my wife got a treadmill last month and my son and her use em more than I do. No excuses!

 

i have all the stuff i need to get a good workout at home...

but i bought a membership at the gym because i feel having people around makes me work alot harder, maybe im a bit of a show off?

 

I find the opposite is true, too many "distractions" at the gym.

Waxy

 

I'm 18 years old, am 5'8" tall, 190lbs. I'm not fat, but I've been lifting for 3 years off/on. My max on the bench press is 240lbs. I'm decent, but nothing special. I got the best tool I could ever have, a book for christmas. I used to listen to people who've had some experience in lifting, and I always got mixed stories. I go to the gym and I see 100 people doing 50 things 100 different ways. No one has an expertise in this area. The way we learn about our body in strength is by trial an error. Bodybuilding/strength training has been around for well over 100 years. This book I got is pretty popular, it's called "The Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding" by Arnold Schwarzenegger. If anyone knows anything about strength training, it's our friend Arnold. This book is about 2 and 2 1/2" thick, covers EVERYTHING. Get the updated version too. Cost 25 bucks and is well worth it. I've read most of this book, and now when I go into the gym, I see whos doing it right, and the 100s who do it WRONG, which sometimes are the bigger guys I looked up to. Arnold has 6-7 Mr. Olympia titles, and you can't get that without knowing a little about lifting. I suggest you go get this book, it also helped modivate me, and keep me going in the right direction. It breaks down every exercise, what to do for energy/nutrition, everything you need to know. It is very possible to get huge and not even have an injury past common muscle soreness, if you do it right. One of the hugest mistakes I see, is going too fast when lifting. Going up is called positive lift, down is negative lift. So you gain muscle strength on the positive, and ligament/tendon strength on the negative. When you go to fast, you basically drop the weight and don't get the strengthening of the ligiments and tendons you need. As you get up in weight, those ligiments and tendons become overstressed, and one day your going to come down and try to go back up again, and just loose it by tearing a tendon or ligiment. Stretching is also EXTREMELY important. It is a common misconception that huge guys have very little flexability. Some do and some don't, the reason is because some of them stretched and some of them didn't. Many of the biggest bodybuilders can bend themselves like a pretzel. Go out, get the book, and start feeling better about yourself and reach those goals you set, the right way.

 

Mustang
18 yrs old? The way u give your opinion round here I would have guessed u had a lot more years behind you. Years don't matter anyway its the experiences that count. Great tips though.

BuiltTough
Gets u out of the house. Better quit showing off for them ladies. Unless your single that is. Young bucks got it made!

 

all yall want to build more mass i got mass 6'3" 355 lbs ill donate a 100 lbs for free if you pay for the liposuction

j/k ive read your posts and am encouraged to start lifting again

when i was a sophmore in high school i weighed 225 and benched 195 and got lazy during my junior year dont know what happened maybe it was the alcohol but anyway im gonna copy and paste some of these things and use em to get me going again time to get that gym membership seeing how mom sold my weights in a garage sale 10 years ago

 

Mustang had a good point, every body is different and we will all respond somewhat differently. We has some guys on our team that were just naturally strong. When I was a freshman the kicker was stronger than me (don't tell anyone. He was a strong kid though), and now I have the 2nd highest benchpress in my colleges football history. Regardless you will get what you put into it, but some will get there faster due to dedication, and in some cases genetics. The only reason I took the protien in college was to try and get that edge. I was never crazy enough to try anything illegal, and now I am glad I didn't. Even protien has its side affects. It has been shown that a high portien diet, espcially liquid can casue hair loss. I still consumed a lot of carbs, but I wanted the extra portien. Mustang also mentiones stretching. That should be a must. This has been an interesting post. I wish we were like cars and could all do the same workout and get the same results. I was always jelous of my friend who was cut, and had the ladies. I was an offesive tackle/guard so I cleared the way on the field and in the buffet. In the long run I ended up with the pretty girl though. I hope people continue to post their replies as I am also interested in newer techniques.

Some more ideas for gaining mass. Super slows- do a repution very slow. Maybe a 8 count down and up. This shreds the muscles allowing blood to enter, in tern helping them to grow. Do negatives where you put a weight on that you know you cant do. Example- Put a weight you can't rep. on the benchpress. Have a spotter to help unrack the weight and to pull it off. Once to un-rack it let it down as slow as you can trying to push it up. This will help to gain mass, or at least it worked to me. My goal was always strength. I never worried about gaining too much mass.

Other info- There are some new studies that suggest some techniques like touching your chest with the bar during a bench press or going parallel on squats are not good for you. Basically on any press go until your elbows are at 90 degrees. That is all you need to do. Any more than that will be bad for joints and tendons. Also remember that there is a point that too strong is bad. Muscle is much easier to develop and strenthen than tendons. Tendons are almost impossible to work on. Trust me, after having my ACL reconstructed, I will work on a good balance to avoid any more injury, but now I am done with football so I don't have to worry about it as much, Got to run, good to talk to you guys, Levi

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by tankhead
[B]Mustang
18 yrs old? The way u give your opinion round here I would have guessed u had a lot more years behind you. Years don't matter anyway its the experiences that count. Great tips though.

You mean in this post, or others too?



The book I talked about gives you a basic training, advanced training, and the competition training schedules. Gives you all the techniques to train harder, better, and faster. There are many different principles to help you "shock" the body which will help you grow bigger faster. You muscles grow according to the stress you apply to them, they adapt to the work they do. So sooner or later, you have to make it more intense and also change your workout around. Here are some of the techniques.

Partial reps: When your too tired to do any more reps, do 1/2 reps.

Also, you can do some reps, put the weights down and weight 20-30 seconds, and push out 1 more...2 more...you'd be suprised how quickly your muscles recuportate. You shouldn't rest for more than a minute and 1/2 between sets anyway.

Negative Reps (or negative lifts): You put more stress on the tendons and supportive structures than the muscles, themselves. This is benefitial because you want the tendon strength to increase as well. Doing negative reps doesn't do much for muscle strength.

Stripping method: Starting off with a lot of weight and going down and down until you're too tired to do another rep. Each time you do this, you recuite more muscle fibers to do the work. Your muscle fiber might be all used up to lift 250lbs, but you still have unused muscle fiber left to lift 200--150..100 lbs.


Thats just 4 out of 10-15ish in the book. And my description was basic. There is a lot to learn and you'll be a huge step ahead if you learned it now vs not knowing.

 

No I mean everywhere. I see u a lot in the suspension, differential forums and u got my respect bud. Thanks for your post on me going from 32" to 35" tires.

 

I don't think I've had too many posts that were that gramatically incorrect. Just for the record, I know that "weights" refers to something heavy, and "wait" refers to time. I put weights twice instead of weights/waits. I guess I was a little off the ball, dinner was almost ready! haha.


No problem tankhead, I try to help the best I can.