What is the best body building advice you can give to a 19 year old intermediate lifter?

[chadbdullah]

[BoopBoopBeep]

Rest is important (even though I workout every day it's not repetitive groups). Lactic acid is a MF. I normally don't hawk product, but there's some stuff called Afterglow made by Biorhythm that's the best recovery drink I've ever had. I like doing the old p90x. Are there better, yeah, I just think it's fun. Anyway, I can burn out on doing supersets of that, take a glass of afterglow and be right back doing it again in an hour. It's pricey but of the probably 3 dozen i've had it's been the best. If you can't move you can't workout, and even hitting a different muscle group sucks sometimes. I do all my races in body armor...34-45lbs for now, depending on temperature. When I do a marathon I take a dose of that for the halfway point, do another dose at the end and I'm ready to race again the next morning. My cardiologist still lets me have it too, so that's a big plus.

Don't forget the minor muscles. Those are there to stabilize the major ones and provide a more cut look. May not visually notice as much at first, but it'll make a big difference in the end. It's like the people you see who don't have the v-cut on their pelvis under their abs vs those that dont, or only one v as opposed to the parallel ones. Those are small muscles (by weight) next to say, your tricep, sure, but those are the ones that make two people with the same weight/bmi look very different from one another.

In the end, do what you enjoy. You'll do it more, you'll do it better. Train smart not hard. If you're in the gym doing the same muscle group 3 hours a day you aren't working hard enough. It shouldn't take that long and YOU shouldn't be able to train that LONG if you're not a competitive athlete.

Good luck to you!

[exitseven]

Work out consistently , eat clean and get lots of rest. There are no shortcuts.

[exitseven]

Thanks for the MHO

[jennifer_bloom]

I would say don't over do it because your still growing, and make sure you eat vegetables so you don't get wrinkles when your older cause body builders are more likely to get wrinkles due to limited nutrition. Some of them sacrifice vitamins and minerals for protein foods and isolate their diet from essential food groups that would perpetuate their youth. The other thing is don't exercise when your sleep deprived cause I've heard of very young athletes that die of heart attacks cause they choose to go all out and full force when they did not get proper sleep or water before their work out. If you want to do something hard, build your tolerance for it over time, your young and you don't have to achieve all of your goals in one month.

[kylee2437]

Get a personal trainer, and do not ego lift. Being 19 years old gives you great capability to learn the right way, but if you are going to the gym with friends, chances are they are going to peer pressure you to lift heavy and that can result in severe injuries to the point where you can’t lift for years on. I currently have a personal trainer and she’s a huge blessing in disguise.

[JackCarter]

Till failure (muscular) !

[jahaims]

It's body dysmorphia. Body building isn't healthy.

[kylee2437]

Disagreed. Going to the gym and lifting has helped my body dysmorphia immensely.

[jahaims]

Body building and working out to stay fit/healthy aren't the same thing.

[kylee2437]

I am in a calorie deficit and lift weights, so yes I am body building and no it’s not body dysmorphia. That is a massive myth