Advice for a little man wanting to become a big man

To give you an idea of where I'm at, I'm somewhere around 8-8.5 stone, quite lean and it seems my genetics are dead set against me. My target is to gain mass and strength.

I'm a vegetarian, which obviously makes diet planning more complicated. I'm not too bothered about counting every single calorie, every single gram of protein, carb or fat. After all, everyone's body is different and different people respond to different things. What I will do is eat clean, healthy foods, and change it up as I need to. Eg: If I'm not gaining enough mass, I'll eat more. Over the last year or two, I've read loads about diet and nutrition.

What I think I'll struggle with is working out. I'll stick to dumbbells at the moment and wait until I have some actual strength before doing anything with barbells. At the moment, I can bench something like 12 kg

Is it a sensible idea for me to do a 2-day split of upper body/lower body to begin with? If so, how's this for an initial workout?

Upper body -

Shoulder press for shoulders, bench press for chest, bent-over row for back, and some chin ups as well.

Lower body -

Lunges and squats.

I've kept it to compound exercises only for now. The main issue for me is form. I can read loads and watch videos, but I don't think I'll get it perfect unless someone is there watching me. The thing is, I don't trust gym instructors that much, they've said some pretty far fetched things to me in the past. How could I make sure I'm achieving perfect form?

If I were you I'd forget the dumbells, do Starting Strength and drink 4 litres of whole milk a day.

You don't need perfect form so don't worry about that too much.

4 litres of milk a day? no need to perfect form?

Wut

Never heard of GOMAD? At 8 stone I'd be sucking it straight from the udder!

And no I don't personally believe form has to be "perfect". Strive for good form yes and work on it over time.

Want to get big? Man up and go back to eating flesh.

On a slightly more serious note, the key to "getting bigger" is big lifts, big portions, and a lot of sleep.

Dumbells are an ok place to start, but you'll find you quickly outgrow them once your nerves get used to the activation. Regarding form, it's pretty tough to get the exercises listed wrong, simply because you won't be getting heavy loading with any of them using Dumbells.

Do you have access to a gym? If so, I would have a session with the PT and see what they say. There are a lot of idiot PTs out there, but there are also a lot of good ones who know their stuff.

Regarding your routine, and assuming you get a decent lifting coach, I'd go straight it with the compound lower lifts: barbell squats and dead lifts. You don't have to try and shift 100kgs on your first go, but the exercises are much better overall than just the ones in your list.

Food: if you want mass, you are going to have to eat more. Simple as. As a veggie, that means nuts, lentils, soya protein (yes I'm aware of the ZOMG exaggerations surrounding soya), fish and dairy to name a few. Unless you don't do fish.

Finally, sleep: if you're working out properly, you will hurt a lot. Sleep will help your body heal. It also reduces circulating cortisol and prolactin (the latter if you sleep well and long enough). It also let's you recuperate your muscle stores of fuel (meaning better workouts).

And don't expect to wind up MASSIV in a month. Most of the natural physiques lifters and bodybuilders get is through hard work over months and years. I've put on 7kgs in four months and the pics in my thread look almost identical (I.e. a huge amount of food and lifting) at the end as the start. This stuff takes hard work and a lot of commitment to workout when you're wishing you were out with your mates or whatever.

But it feels awesome. And being strong is the icing on the cake.

^ good post!


OP, I'm sure you've asked for this kind of help before.

Stop using your genetics as an excuse. Any trainer or S&C coach worth their salt could make you grow as fast as anyone else if they could control every aspect of your nutrition and training. The random variable in this is you.

You HAVE to take your nutrition seriously, especially as a vegetarian.

You have to take your training seriously. This means not just sticking to DBs or machines for a while, you need to go balls to the wall from the start. Obviously, this means following a sensible progression too.

Take videos of your lifts and post them up for feedback, and check the exercise guide thread.

If you wanna grow you need listen to Hulk

How old are you TC? I wasn't as light as you, but I didn't broaden out until I was 30 and I never put any serious weight on until I started running and cycling regularly. I could never put much muscle on and still can't. You might just have to wait

Jonny69 said:

How old are you TC? I wasn't as light as you, but I didn't broaden out until I was 30 and I never put any serious weight on until I started running and cycling regularly. I could never put much muscle on and still can't. You might just have to wait

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You didn't eat enough or do the right sort of training probably

Thanks for the advice everyone. I'm quite lactose intolerant so loads of milk is out of the question

mrthingyx said:

Regarding your routine, and assuming you get a decent lifting coach, I'd go straight it with the compound lower lifts: barbell squats and dead lifts. You don't have to try and shift 100kgs on your first go, but the exercises are much better overall than just the ones in your list.

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I'd love to do barbell squats and deadlifts, but I'm just worried about form.

TheCenturion said:

Thanks for the advice everyone. I'm quite lactose intolerant so loads of milk is out of the question

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http://www.lactofree.co.uk/

Fear is the path to the dark side.

Hook up with a PT and see what they say. Take videos of yourself whilst squatting and post them here so the experts can advise you.

If you're lactose intolerant, buy some of the 'no lactose' milk.

You've had a lot of good advice on here, so the next stage is to go do it,

honestly get yourself to a good gym and talk to someone face to face and listen to what they say.

then after that work your nads off and stop blaiming genetics and a diet (plenty of ways around being a veggies).

Good luck. Being a Veggie i bet is 100times harder to gain mass. Tripple your protein intake. Id use a slow casein for morning and night with lactofree milk. And a fast acting protein through day.. im on one with 42g of protein a pop at the min.

^ you don't need slow release protein.

Pretty useful program picker for what you want to do fitness wise:

http://www.rohitnair.net/pp/

In terms of splits, I'm not a massive fan (I prefer compounds tbh) but Id recommend PHAT or 5/3/1 with a bodybuilding routine.

Basically, go to http://www.strstd.com/, put in your lifts and choose "Dave Tate's Periodisation bible" and you get a nice mix:

Warm Up
Compounds for base strength
Aesthetics and individual muscle excersises for hypertrophy and looks

Thanks for the advice everyone. At the moment, I will only be able to workout twice a week. So I guess I'll just have to make every session count.

TheCenturion said:

Thanks for the advice everyone. At the moment, I will only be able to workout twice a week. So I guess I'll just have to make every session count.

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At your stage, even body weir workouts at home will be useful, 2 times a week is a good start, but 3 is better