Bodybuilding for Teens

Occasionally I’m asked how teens should go about building muscle. For this newsletter, I’m going to assume that you (or your son) are a very skinny Chinese, 17-year-old guy who lives in Richmond Hill, works for Rogers TV, and is a budding photographer/videographer. Not that I know anyone like that. Strictly hypothetical 😉

Original Source: Here.

            So the answer is pretty boring: not much. There’s not much different when it comes to bodybuilding for teens, compared to bodybuilding for anyone else.

The only difference is that teens need to eat more to gain muscle, since they need to not just increase muscle, but also sustain the natural growth that happens with maturation.

Teens make the same mistakes as most others:

1. Not having a plan. Walking into the gym aimlessly and just doing whatever you feel like will not get you very far.
2. Having the wrong plan for your goals and body type. If you’re a naturally skinny person who needs to gain muscle, following a fat loss routine will do more harm than good. You’ll lose muscle in the process. Training for muscle gain is very different than training for fat loss.
3. Not integrating proper nutrition with your exercise. You need to drastically increase your calories to grow muscle. This is especially true if you have a naturally fast metabolism. Exercise by itself won’t put on new muscle. Exercise with proper nutrition will.
4. Not sleeping enough. Your body grows when you sleep. You don’t sleep, you don’t grow. If you’re a weight-training teenager, you need at least 8.5 hours. 9 or more may be better. And not just on weekends, either.

And of course, sometimes, despite doing everything right, you still can’t gain muscle. For instance, I once had a 34-year-old client, who for 2 years tried to gain muscle, but only gained about 2 pounds. Very disappointing. I questioned him about his training, nutrition, and sleep. Everything sounded fine. Then I had him fill out the 321-symptom questionnaire that we have our clients do during the Dream Body MAP Session, and discovered that he had the symptoms of low testosterone. After sending him to his doctor to get it checked out, our hypothesis was confirmed. After restoring his testosterone levels, he was able to gain 14 pounds over the next year.

Oh, and as for the theory that weight training in teens stunting your growth? Totally true. I’m 5’4. Before I started weight training, I was 6’4. You see what weight training does to you???

Just kidding.

The reality is that yes, weight training has the potential to stunt your growth, but the chances of stunting your growth are much higher with sports like soccer, football, hockey, basketball, and others. Not sports like weight training, which for the most part are slow and controlled.

Short Summary

• The only adjustment that teenagers need to make when trying to gain muscle is eat more to sustain both muscle growth and maturation.
• The biggest mistakes teens (and most people) make in the gym are:
  • Not having a plan
  • Having the wrong plan for your goals and body type
  • Not integrating proper nutrition with your exercise
  • Not sleeping enough
• Weight training does not stunt your growth