Probably everyone dreamed of a great shape: pumped up muscles, abs cubes and so on. Especially such dreams are typical for adolescents, because at this time they want to stand out and not be like everyone else. From this article, the reader learns where to start bodybuilding for a teenager.
The teenage years are the best time for sports
Why is that? During the growth of the body in the blood, a huge amount of hormones is concentrated. Many people think this is bad. This is partly true, because in transitional age, mood changes very often, and puberty occurs. However, excess hormones can be directed in the right direction.
Sports activities in adolescence are particularly effective. As you know, growth hormone helps to build muscle and reduce body fat. Just this hormone in adolescents is very much in the blood. That is why, if from this time on you begin to build your body, you can achieve the highest results.
Bodybuilding: what age to start
What is bodybuilding? This word comes from two English words: body and building. The first means "body", and the second - "construction." It is easy to guess that the combination of these two words implies the construction of your body, that is, muscle pumping, burning fat.
Since bodybuilding includes exercises with extra weight, you need to be very careful about the exercises so as not to harm your health. At a young age, the body is not yet ready for high physical exertion, so you should not heavily load the body up to the age of 12-14 years. Then, when the body grows stronger and stronger, you can add exercises with weight, but small. All weights in the gym need to be increased gradually - as strength indicators increase.
The conclusion is: the beginning of bodybuilding training should be postponed until 14 years. But it is imperative to remember that the body is not yet fully strengthened, so it is contraindicated to train at the limit of its capabilities.
Preparation
If a beginner first came to the gym, most likely, the muscles are not yet ready for high loads, so it should be easy to train the first days, that is, perform exercises for beginners. In bodybuilding, this can be push-ups from the floor, pull-ups on the bar, bench press for an empty bar, lifting light dumbbells for biceps and so on. Such training can be arranged every day, so that the muscles are accustomed to the loads.
After a week, you can increase weight or increase the intensity of training. So, having trained according to a certain program for some more time, you need to take training to a new level again, so that muscle mass builds up, and the muscles become stronger.
Training duration
Bodybuilding for teens should not be too exhausting, so do not exercise for too long. The optimal time is 40-60 minutes. This is quite enough for a warm-up, exercise and a hitch after class. Training for more than an hour can only bring harm to the body. However, if the experience in sports is large enough, then you can, of course, increase the time, but you need to focus on your feelings. If you feel tired and unwell, you don’t need to force yourself to train.
Frequency of classes
At this point, teenage bodybuilding will be different from adult. In addition to the fact that during adolescence, adolescents have high levels of hormones in the blood, they also have an intense metabolism. This means that all processes in the body occur faster, including the restoration of muscle fibers.
For example, if an adult needs 2 to 8 days to recover the muscle group after training, then this time may be less in a teenager, which means that you can train more often. But there is no certain interval through which classes should be conducted. You need to focus on your feelings. If a day after a workout, you feel lightness in the body and energy, then this means that the muscles are ready for work. If, on the contrary, there is clogging and fatigue, then you should give the body a rest.
Exercises
How to start bodybuilding? What to focus on in the first place? What exercises are optimal? You should create your own program for beginners in bodybuilding. It is necessary to determine what days will be the training of a particular muscle group. Already from this, exercises are selected that involve this particular muscle. For training, it is recommended to perform from 2 to 3 exercises per muscle group. The number of approaches in each movement can range from 2 to 4.
Bodybuilding for adolescents should not include any specific movements. Performing basic exercises is the key to progress. Therefore, you should do routine exercises for each muscle group:
- On the back: pull-ups, pull of the vertical block, draft of dumbbells in an incline.
- On the chest: bench press, push-ups on the bars, push-ups from the floor.
- On the biceps: lifting dumbbells on the biceps, pulling up on the bar.
- On the triceps: push-ups on the uneven bars, a dumbbell press from behind the head, extension of the arms on the block standing.
- On the thigh muscles: squats, leg press, leg extension in the simulator.
- On the calves: burning, jumping.
These are the main exercises with which you can make excellent progress.
Sports nutrition
If you look at experienced bodybuilders, you will notice that they use special supplements.
Sports nutrition is just an addition to the basic diet. Teenagers believe that using “magic” powder can grow huge muscles. This is fundamentally not the case, since the same protein is just the protein found in the same meat, fish and eggs. But no one sees conventional foods as magical means to build muscle.
Sports nutrition is no substitute for regular foods, so teens should not get carried away with powders. Still, ordinary foods, in addition to proteins, fats and carbohydrates, also contain vitamins, minerals and other useful substances, which is not found in sports nutrition. For a growing organism, beneficial elements are extremely important.
Mistakes
Consider the list of mistakes that neophytes make in the world of sports:
- Unbalanced diet. As already mentioned, the growing body needs vitamins and minerals. Their intake can be provided only with good and nutritious food. Empty foods (chips, sweets, fast food and more) will only harm your health and not saturate the body with useful substances.
- Disproportionate body. It often happens that a person really wants to pump up, for example, chest or biceps and completely forgets that there are still back, legs and other muscle groups. With successful training, he will be able to achieve results on a specific muscle, while others will lag behind. This does not look very attractive, so you should correctly distribute the training of all muscle groups. The trainer will help.
- Neglect of technology. Teenagers, wanting to bring the body into shape, begin to walk into the gym and perform exercises haphazardly. This is prohibited. Firstly, incorrect movements reduce the effectiveness of the workout. Secondly, it is very dangerous, because training with weight heavily loads the joints, tendons and ligaments. If the exercises are performed incorrectly, they can be damaged and forget about sports for a long period of time.
- Lack of sleep. If a teenager takes on himself, then he should follow all the points that affect progress. Sleep is one of the most important factors. On average, a person needs 8 hours of good rest per day. If there is not enough sleep, the body does not have time to recover, which means that progress will slow down.
- Too many workouts. Sport is, of course, good, but in moderate doses. If you exercise intensively every day, the muscles, firstly, will not have time to recover, and secondly, the nervous system will be depleted, which will lead to drowsiness, fatigue and loss of strength throughout the day.
Tips
- Warm up is an important part of an effective workout. Heated muscles can do more work, which means that the lesson will be much more productive. If you neglect the warm-up, you can stretch the muscle or even get injured.
- During training, be sure to drink water. In the process of doing exercises, the body spends its resources, including moisture. Therefore, it is necessary to replenish fluid reserves in a timely manner. Also, water helps to speed up metabolism, the removal of harmful substances.
- The phone and other people should not distract from the training process. Rest between sets should be fixed. During this time, you do not need to be distracted by different things. For example, talking with a friend can take much longer than 2-3 minutes of rest between sets.
- Music gives confidence, so you should train with your favorite tracks. This is especially effective in intensive training, when immediate inspiration and motivation are needed. Music can give a charge to further repetitions.
Conclusion
As you can see, bodybuilding for adolescents can be of great benefit and obvious results in terms of body transformation. The most important thing is the desire to do. If he is not, classes will be ineffective. First you need to set a specific goal, and then build a plan for achieving it and follow it. This is the only way to reach the top.
Anyone can take up the construction of his body. In this case, it is not necessary to go to the gym. Instead of weights, for example, water or sand bottles can be used. If there is a desire, then you can find any ways to study at home. For a year of bodybuilding, you can achieve impressive results.