How To Build Muscle?

[LeeDynastyy]

I am 16 years old and I just got a gym membership at LA Fitness. I am a marathon runner, so I only weigh 145 pounds and I am 5'11. Can youguys recommend me some exercises? What should I do in the gym to develop broader shoulders and bigger arms? What should I eat?

[AdamThomas]

If you continue to run marathons you'll struggle to gain any weight at all as long distance running is catabolic as opposed to anabolic (catabolic = eats away at muscle, anabolic = builds muscle). Plus if you did manage to gain muscle it will affect your running negatively because more muscle needs more fuel, and so your body will burn calories and run out of energy faster. A better form of cardio for somebody hoping to gain muscle is shorter more intense stuff such as sprints or high intensity intervals.

As for exercises, big compound exercise that work many different muscles on one movement are best, so things such as squats, deadlifts, bench press, dips, overhead press, chin ups, barbell rows. Forget isolation exercises like bicep curls, they're pretty much useless for an athlete, and your arms will grow anyway. To build muscle fast, do those exercise for 5 sets of 10 each with a weight you can only just manage to complete the last set with, split between 3 days, so say upper body push movements on a Monday, upper body pull movements on a Wednesday, and lower body exercises on a Friday. As you get stronger make sure to add weight to the bar.

[LeeDynastyy]

Wow, extremely informative, thank you so much. You are right about the marathons. I'm going to have to cut them down, and eventually focus on just sprints. I am kind of addicted to the endorphin rush that long distance runs provide, but it is very time consuming, and I understand that it will make me skinnier. Can I add you and contact you later on?

[AdamThomas]

No problem. Of course you can. Look up 5x5 stronglifts, that's a good routine for a beginner and there's diet advice on there too.

[WeaponZero]

The single most important thing to note as a beginner, which you are, is that despite your goals you need to be training your whole body. Otherwise you will end up killing your joints in the long run and causing back problems as well. So forget what you think the areas you want to work on are.

[Levin]

calisthenics?

[WeaponZero]

@Levin calisthenics works as does weightlifting. The most important part of it is that as beginner it's incredibly easy to develop muscle imbalances so regardless of whether you're a runner or not or regardless of what your goals are your strength training should be focused on training your whole body with equal intensity.

[Anonymous]

Lift weights, take a class and get some instructions I on it

[Josht11]

Here you go covers a lot:
https://liamrosen.com/fitness.html

[LeeDynastyy]

Wow, looks really informative. I read the couple paragraphs in the beginning and it seems readable. Will read the WHOLE thing tomorrow morning.

[Josht11]

yeah once you read it, you can basically set out a rough diet plan (since you want to put on weight won't need to be that strict) and also exercise routine.

[NotMyUsername15]

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^^^^^

[FINTECH2000]

Such a troll I swear lol

[BeerFarts]

Lift hard & heavy, eat big, and get plenty of rest!