Gaining weight and muscle for rugby?

Question

I started playing rugby at the age of 13 when I moved to Singapore, I'm now 15 years old, 120 pounds or 55 kilos and and 1.70 meters or about 5' 8". My weight is almost the same as it was when I arrived in Singapore from America. I'm not sure if it's the weather or genetics, but I have been trying to gain weight for quite a while, for my rugby with almost no results. I also want to gain muscle in my whole body, except I have been advised not to start weight training until my body is fully grown. Any advise is appreciated.

Answer 1

At that age you shouldn't worry too much about gaining weight, but if you want to you should be doing resistance training and trying to eat more red meat and a lot of complex carbs (whole grains). The advice you got about weightlifting isn't entirely bad- at your age overloading your body could stunt your growth, but if you start light and work on form, you should be safe. Ideally you could have someone more experienced watching and instructing you on form, and increase the weight you are lifting slowly. As long as you are using proper form and not trying to lift too heavy, you are definitely old enough to start lifting. If you lift, use compound exercises, like squats, deadlifts, bench press, rows, where a lot of muscle groups are involved in the lift. If you use barbells you will be able to handle more weight, but right now you are concerned with form, and staying balanced, so you should probably focus on dumbbells. Using dumbbells forces both sides of your body to work evenly, and requires more of the smaller muscles that work as stabilizers to be involved in the lift, so you will also get more work out of it. If you decide not to use weights, you can still do resistance training with bodyweight exercises. Dips, lunges, pushups, pullups, situps on an incline, squats, will all still put some muscle on you and make you a much stronger and better conditioned athlete. I would actually recommend that you start with these before you begin weightlifting anyway. Remember, you want to be a better rugby player, not just a bigger rugby player, so gaining strength, explosiveness, and speed will improve your play even if you aren't gaining a lot of weight. As far as diet, try to eat a lot of meat, eggs, milk, whole grain foods, and don't skimp on fruits and vegetables. Especially at your age, the biggest way you can contribute to gaining lean mass is to eat a lot of good food. You will get out what you put in, so if you put in too little, or a bunch of junk food, you will gain no muscle, and possibly fat. The good thing is at your age you can probably metabolize anything, but building good habits will help you down the road if you plan on sticking with sports.