Building muscle bulk and less tone ?

Question

After reading some posts on this site I noticed there was a lot of body builders who know there stuff so Id like to ask a few things. Im 17 almost 18 and ive been working out seriously for nearly 5 months at first I used to much wieght and strained my muscles but then started to use less wieght and learned to do the exercises properly. Ive gained a total of 20 pounds but lately ive been working out hard and not gaining much wieght. My 2 best ideas of why im not gaining more wieght is that I may not be letting my muscles rest long enough i normally do a biceps and pecs one day and then tri's /back the next and take 1 day off a week. The other reason I think could be that im doing to many reps and to little wieght.

I do 3 sets total 12 - 10 - 8 reps

Should I be doing larger wieght and less reps like ive been reading and resting longer?

Answer 1

I think your first idea is probably on the money.  Lifting six days a week is a lot, especially for someone who's only been training with weights for five months.  If you cut back the number of days that you train, your muscles will get more rest, and you may be able to handle more weight.

You don't mention any lower body work.  75% of your muscle mass is in your lower body.  If you want to increase your total muscle mass, you really should be doing some lower body exercises.  People who work their upper bodies without doing any weight training for their lower bodies end up looking rather odd.

Answer 2

First off let me say, do your tricepts when you do your chest and do bicepts when you do your back. When you bench you use your tricepts also. Same as when you do your back you use your bicepts. As far as not gaining much weight, your genetics play a big factor in how big you can get. Also, your right around the time most people refer to as "plateauing". Try to change your excersize up some try doing more reps like 15 per set and make sure u fail on the last 2 or so. This will help you break that plateau. Also, make sure you are eating constantly. If your body doesnt have the energy and protein available to build the muscle, nothing is going to happen. You can also try supplements like creatine to help push yourself to the next level. Hope this helps.

6'2

205lbs

7% bf

Answer 3

Follow the push / pull routine coupled with good eating and you cant go wrong:

http://cagedanimal.net/viewtopic.php?t=8...

Answer 4

if you are seeing gains in some body parts and not others that tells you that your caloric intake is sufficient and the problem lies in either your training or recovery period of the lagging body parts.  if you are training heavy I wouldn't lift more than 3 days in a row.  at your age with ragging testosterone levels it's tough to overtrain but it's still best to give the CNS a break from heavy training every couple of days.

to stimulate hypertrophy you want to stick to using loads >80% of the 1RM with a time under tension of 45-60 seconds.  that typically equates to the 8-10 rep range.  so each set should take roughly 45-60 seconds to complete.  focus on the eccentric portion (lowering) of the lift as this is where microtrauma occurs to skeletal muscle.  I like to stick to the 8-10 rep range with compound exercises then use isolation  exercises with higher reps in the 12-20 rep range to hit the slow twitch muscle fibers.

your diet should be close to 30% protein, 50% carbs and 20% fats.  increase the cals by 10% each week until weight gain occurs.