Working out

Hello I am a 15 year old male and I am looking to try and work out more often! So now instead of just trying to be healthy and active I actually would like to try and build some muscle. I heard it is not good to try and do that during my age because it may stunt your growth is that true? If so may I still try and build some muscle without hurting my growth?

 

I started when I was over 15, it's okay just don't overload yourself.

 

Thank you guys both for the help! I never planned to take steroids but something I did consider was protein powder. Is it alright if I have not too much but a controlled amount of protein powder to help gain weight.

 

I would say that if he was say, 13. It depends entirely on when he hit(s) his growth spurt.

@ OP how tall are you and how tall is your dad? Should be an easy way to figure out if it will have a significant affect on your growth if we have some benchmark numbers.

 

I am around 5 foot 10 and I am just under my fathers height as well but my grandfather was 6 foot tall and I just last march I had a major growths spurt of 30 pounds and in height 5 inches. I don't know if that helped just comment again if you need more information.

 

Lifting weights can damage your body heavily if you aren't prepared.

Wondering if you play a sport at your school? The sports programs usually help develop players, training conditioning and muscle building. If not, I'd suggest joining some team. If you aren't very athletic I'd join a big group like track or swimming.

You will of course need to find personal workout plans to do on your own, but It's just a helpful suggestion to do high school sports. Who knows, could land you a scholarship.

 

Working out at such a young age just to gain muscle mass will surely stunt your growth. You could begin working out to get in better shape but I wouldn't begin maxing or lifting heavy until you hit 17. I began working out at around 15 for hockey but it was more of endurance oriented, small weights for large amount of reps. If you're set on working out I would recommend also doing things such as resisted ab crunches if you try and get a big upper body but you have a set of rolls everyone will just laugh which happens quite often when people ignore the core or cardio aspect of exercising and think that if you can "lift" a lot you're in better shape then most people.

 

I started working out when I became 16, and I can say that I have a nice body shape from working out for 5months or so and I have a body shape chest etc arms are medium big and yeah but I don't put a lot of weight that's because I am still growing so I tend to keep it normal and good so yes its really up to you if you want to workout!

 

Good lord there is alot of confused people preaching "bro science" in here.

Shoop has been probably been the most spot on of the people who have posted thus far. No, lifting weights and eating protein (regardless of whether or not it is in a powder) will not stunt your growth. That bro science from the 60's. Peer reviewed/medical studies have proven that false.

Chloe, please do not assume that anything a personal trainer says is gold. Most PTs spend about 6 weeks doing some shoddy online course, then go work at a franchised gym spewing the same shoddy workouts for senior citizens. Most PTs are complete idiots. Just for the record.

@ OP, if you want to approach lifting from a logical, proven basis, do yourself a favor and go purchase "Starting Strength" by Mark Ripptoe. It covers the basics of various compound lifts and some light accessory work. It will be a great place to begin.

I will reiterate one of Shoop's points though, practice your form before you begin any training regimen, particularly if you are going to incorporate compound/olympic lifts (which you should!).

If you have any specific questions feel free to hit me up.

 

Meh honestly I would wait at least until I was 16 to start working out. I have seen it stunt my friend's growth when we were around that age. We were both around 5'4, he never grew taller, I grew to 6'1. Who knows maybe he was never supposed to be taller than 5'4 but I doubt it. At fifteen I would just work on getting in shape and doing simple exercises like pushups, nothing like a serious regime. I guess it is a personal opinion.

 

If you are already 5'10 I wouldn't worry about it stunting your growth at age 15. Don't get on any sort of stimulants or muscle builders (other than a high protein normal diet), focus on building the muscle naturally.

 

That`s true.
U dont need any extra protein for start.

Just start easy training and remember eat 5-7 meal in days.

"eating is very important when u wanna get some muscle
belive me".

 

Once you pass the barrier of pushing as much weight as you can regardless of the form and begin to see the benefits of not caring what the people around you might say if you aren't doing as much weight as them, you will be golden.

1. Diet
2. Working out hard
3. Mix up workouts when (preferably before) you start to plateau (don't do the same exercises every single workout in the same order for 6 months and expect to increase your strength linearly)

 

This is mad quote worthy. +1 Suppert

 

Agreed. Sorry Chloe, don't really know you or anything, but you just got wrecked in such an epic way it's worth noting.

Anyways, I'd say maybe you can do the Charles Atlas routine? It's all essentially with your own body, not needing to use weights or gym equipment or w/e. I had done that when I was your age, helped me build up some good muscle and isn't that hard of exercise that could end up screwing you up.

Would like to see what Shoop/Nate consider of it though, since they do after all have or at least seem to have a shitton of knowledge on that area, and I don't consider myself an expert on the matter.

 

Not true. Only lifts that require you to life a weight over your head stunt growth. This is only applicable to the super heavy, ones where you could do only 2-5 reps on

 

Deciding you want to take protein powder before you have even started working out shows you do not understand how long the task of building muscle is. No tablets or powders will shortcut this for you, it will take years to get the results you want. The benefit of protein powders is negligible.

I recommend heading down your local gym and having a few personal training sessions having told them your body aims. That's what I did, you will learn a lot of exercises from the trainer and soon learn what works best for you.
I still have my trainer twice a week but continue on my own 3 times a week using exercises I learnt from my trainer.

As for growth stunts, this will not happen. In fact the right training regime could help ensure you grow properly. My shoulders lean forward slightly as I am quite tall. My training has helped me to correct that.

 

The majority of these responses to the belief that lifting weights at your age will "stunt your growth are incorrect". Assuming you take the smart approach you need to work on your form WITHOUT weights to begin with in order to safely workout without the risk of doing harm to yourself. Lifting weights isn't the only thing as well. You could go to the gym everyday and eat like shit and you won't see a SINGLE gain, you might notice your muscles get harder but there won't be any significant gains occuring. It takes about a year or so of proper dieting and routine working out in order for your aesthetics to show in terms of muscle mass(depending on your genes).

Here's some proper dieting/lifting tips.
1. Regardless of what people say as long as you get your calories to meet your goal each day, it doesn't really matter if you skip breakfast or eat small meals consistantly or even just do 2 big meals.
2. Protein shakes themselves are expensive, your best bet would be to go on amazon and order my personal favorite "Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard Whey protein". Your grams of protein should equal or at least come close to your bodyweight in grams.
ex: I weigh 164 pounds, i should try to eat 164 grams of protein every day in a spread out manner in order to correctly gain mass. However, don't load up on just protein shakes, buy chicken breasts, organic fish/tuna and use those as methods to attain proten.
3. Count your calories, Macros, etc.
4. Don't try to show off, the fact that youre in the gym shows enough so don't try to impress people by lifting too much weight, we all started somewhere.

anything else shoot me a pm and I'll message you back.

EDIT: Read this, it will teach you EVERYTHING you need to know about how your body works, what working out routines work well, and dieting tips.

http://liamrosen.com/fitness.html