Things like speed, power, endurance and quickness are important attributes to have when you're an athlete, pretty much no matter what sport you are competitive in. But in the world of high school, college, and the work force, having a body that you're proud of is king...
I started lifting weights when I was 16 with two traditional goals in mind: one - to become a good athlete, and two - to build muscle and gain some lean weight.
Ice Crusher
I knew I needed to add some muscle to my skinny frame for sports, but when it came to my group life I undoubtedly needed to add some size, and fast. Being a skinny guy surrounded by friends who all had 20 + pounds of muscle on me didn't make me the most positive guy in the group. I was the last to take off my shirt at the beach that's for sure. I mean, deep down I was a positive kid because of how I was raised, but when it came to girls I all the time idea they were looking past me to the guy with broad shoulders and a six pack standing behind me.
I wanted muscle, but I also wanted to become an athlete and there weren't any programs nearby that gave me both.
So, when I was 16 I started working out. All things I did I found in the bodybuilding magazines. I was doing the same workouts as the bodybuilders, the guys who already had all the muscle they needed, and a lot of them took steroids. I didn't have any muscle, and I wasn't about to take drugs either, so needless to say the workouts didn't work.
Why exactly didn't they work?
• There were just too many reps isolating muscles that I hadn't even began to create yet. I was burning too many fat having basketball institution 6 times a week, and workouts that lasted an hour and a half were just too much.
• I needed to be spending more time on developing the big muscle groups and building my strength. Lifting for high reps and isolating the smaller muscle groups was more or less a waste of time.
• Time was also a factor. I was spending far too much of it in the gym. If you're taking drugs, yah you can workout 5 or 6 times a week because they'll help your body recover. But if you're not, and especially if you're just a beginner, you need ample amounts of time to recover. Lifting 5 times a week was too much, I needed more time to recover, and because I wasn't getting it, I had a hard time adding the lean muscle.
• Due to the distance of the workouts, coupled with my basketball season, there was no way I could eat enough to add weight. I needed shorter, more intense training sessions.
What Bodybuilding didn't give me
Bodybuilding is great if all you want to do is build muscle, but if you want more than just muscle, if you want athleticism, power, speed And muscle, you're going to have to focus on more than just bodybuilding.
The "Unsuccessful Years"
Being an athlete in college was great, but being skinny sucked! It's not that I couldn't get a date, but I just felt like the "second choice" to most girls. I had some pretty jacked guys on my team who looked like men while I looked like a 15 year old boy, even when I was 20 and 21 years old. I was still killing myself in the weight room, my drive was up, my power was up, but my weight wasn't going anywhere.
I began to focus more on doing during college when I was in the weight room. As a result I began lifting more, and jumping higher. I was more remarkable and faster, but I was the same weight. I fell in love with this kind of training but like bodybuilding, it didn't give me the All things that I was looking for.
Power Lifting is great but...
I began focusing on Olympic lifts, plyometrics and powerlifting which began to yield results in drive and power, I even gained a petite bit of weight but I was 'good looking weight.' I was still playing basketball, not getting enough rest or inspiring enough fat to literally add size, but just focusing powerlifting didn't give me the convert in my physique that I had been looking for, for so long.
A nagging knee injury that occurred throughout my first season finally spelled the end to basketball. After a knee injury forced me to take a break from basketball, I spent a year doing pretty much nothing. Bodybuilding once again became my focus but the huge number of reps, body part splits and lack of power-focused lifting resulted in the same 'ol few pounds of fat gained, very petite muscle gained. Overall, I felt like crap. I swiftly realized that I needed a challenge, I needed something to push me and I needed a formula that would give me the gains, but I didn't know of whatever that in case,granted this, so instead I decided to take up boxing.
Fighting to Build My Ideal Body
I had all the time loved the sport and I figured it would be a lot easier on my knee than basketball was. There wasn't the jumping on a hard face like there was in basketball, not the same kind of stopping and beginning either, so I figured I'd give it a go.
I had kind of given up on gaining muscle at this point, spending years working my butt off but yielding zero results does that to you, and adding size was literally a negative when it came to the fight game because of the weight classes.
Instead of size, I now had to figure out how to pack as much muscle as I possibly could into my fighting weight, this also meant losing fat and getting my body fat % lower than ever at the same time! I hadn't even gained any lean muscle yet, how the hell am I going to build muscle and lose fat at the same time?!
My first few months of boxing went great, I fell in love with the sport and I loved fighting. I now had the challenge that I had been looking for, the end goal, something to portion my progress; however, the training we were doing out of the ring wasn't making me look or feel like I idea it would.
It was pretty much all endurance based training which didn't give me the power or the quickness I needed to be the best fighter I could be. Reps, reps, and more reps of bodyweight or at the most light weights is what we were doing, there weren't any explosive movements being added into our training at all. The more I trained like this, the weaker I felt and the weaker I looked.
When it came to a fight I felt weak and tired and I knew there had to be other way to both look good and become a stronger, faster, more explosive athlete. At this point I was fast and had power in spurts but I couldn't put it all together. I felt drained, worn down and exhausted and I knew I needed a change. But to be honest there wasn't a whole lot out there to help me.
Looks never completely left my mind either. I still wanted to build muscle and add lean mass to my skinny frame.
The missing piece of the puzzle
The problem...
I needed help. I think we can all agree with that statement. I had read All things I could find online, read the magazines, but I wasn't getting what I wanted.
I was positive in who I was, I was positive in the fact that I could cope myself, but I wasn't positive with how I looked. I looked like a boy when my friends looked like men.
Feeling like girls were looking through me felt like crap and may have been something I cooked up in my own mind, but when I added the muscle, I undoubtedly got more looks. I'm not even that big of a guy. I'm not huge by any means, but I'm muscular and athletic, and have a build that got me noticed by girls, and at last got me noticed by the right girl.
The fix...
Knowing that I needed help was one thing, but literally getting the right help was a totally separate ball game altogether. Nothing online seemed to help, nothing on Tv and I couldn't find the right literature to fix my problems, so I looked for a job.
There was a gym about 30 minutes from my house that focused primarily on training high level athletes. They had professional and semipro teams on their roster of clients, as well as 'weekend warriors' who wanted to get in good shape and become good athletes. I applied for the job as a instructor and got it. My first few days there I got to shadow the head instructor at the gym and the guy literally knew his stuff. I watched him train a few pro football players who had similar 'obstacles' to mine: one of the things they needed to perform was to articulate and even growth their explosiveness and power, but also articulate their mass during the season. The things they were doing were pretty cool. Lean muscle and explosive power was the traditional focus, I know that I had to add endurance into the mix as well.
I ended up talking with him for a bit at the end of the day and telling him about my multifaceted problem. Over the next month he gave me a lot of great training tips, separate theories, what not to do and what to do for each aspect of my training that I needed to improve.
Let the Testing Begin...
The Steps I Took that Lead me to Success
• I began lifting 3-4 times a week, depending on my split, which was so much good than the 5 or 6-day splits I had been previously been trying to pull off. I was allowing my body the time and rest it needed to properly recover in order to see the benefits of the training I had been putting my body under.
• I also began eating better, with more veggies, more lean proteins and more nutrients before and after my workouts. Before this, I wasn't giving my body the fuel it needed to build muscle. If your body has no fuel source - in the form of carbohydrates, fats or proteins - it will burn whatever's there, sometimes this means burning muscle muscle. Eating healthier also keeps you healthy, gives you more energy and helps you recover.
• For the time being I also kept up my 'in the ring training,' but no longer took part with the team when they did the 'out of the ring' work. I was looking results by the second week, noticeable results. I was faster, strong, had more endurance and undoubtedly had power. I also felt more muscular as well which is important in my mind.
My instructor wanted to know what I was doing differently that led to my success, I showed him and he was undoubtedly curious.
My next fight I won by decision, then the following one by Ko. Pretty soon after that my instructor put me in payment of the "out of the ring training" for our whole boxing team - for all the guys who were literally fighting that is - and everybody began looking similar improvements. I was training guys, myself included, for intense bursts within the 3 minutes of a round rather than just plain and steady work throughout.
I was feeling great with my boxing, but I now wanted to see how far I could take myself with these gains in the gym.
I had been able to add muscle into my fighting weight, but could I translate this into adding pure lean muscle and literally start looking the numbers go up on my scale? I was still in the gym sparring and working with the other fighters, but my fighting took a backseat to the thing I had been trying to do since I was 16 - create my physique to be something that I was proud of.
And so I went to work... On myself.
How did I do?
Over the next 8 months I gained 32 lbs of lean muscle!
I changed my diet and added more fat but also ate 'clean' and had the right stuff at the right times. Along the way I made adjustments to my programs incorporating separate techniques, reps, sets, and times for each.
My results shocked me and undoubtedly shocked all of my friends, especially the ones who I didn't see during those 8 months. I was now over 180 lbs of lean muscle, I could cope myself, I continued to improve my athleticism because of the training I was doing, but I looked like a man, I no longer looked like a skinny petite kid.
The muscle I gained was lean, I wasn't walking nearby with any 'muffin tops' or rolls nearby the mid-section and I could still compete in the ring, on the basketball court or on the ice good than I had when I was competitive in each.
I had found my "perfect workout", a habit that made me look better, feel better, and perform better!
Here's an example of what I was doing in the gym:
Monday - Lifting + Shoulders
10 petite warm-up - everyday even if not written
A. Heavy set - 5 sets of 5 reps - 90 seconds rest
1. Deadlift
B. Giant set - perfect all 3 exercises for 10 reps each - 60 seconds rest after each set
1. Standing Push Press
2. Kettlebell Clean
3. Lateral Raise
I. 2 burnout sets
1. Hamstring curls - 30 reps
2. Bent over lateral raise - 50 reps
Tuesday - Back + Triceps
A. Heavy set
1. Bent over row
A. Giant set
1. Lat pulldown
2. Seated Row
3. Chin-up
I. Giant set
1. Skull crusher
2. Seated triceps press
3. Cable pushdowns
Wednesday - Rest -
Thursday - Quads + Calves
A. Heavy Set
1. Bench Squat
A. Giant Set
1. Front Squat
2. Hack Squat
3. Squat Jump
I. Giant Set
1. Seated calf raise
2. Weighted calf raise
3. Body weight calf raise
Friday - Rest -
Saturday - Chest + Biceps
A. Heavy Set
1. Bench Press
A. Giant Set
1. Clap push-up
2. Incline bench press
3. Incline fly
I. Giant Set
1. Barbell curl
2. Incline curl
Preacher curl
