18 years old... Need help with workout plan

[centimeters]

Hi all. I'm

[K.Shinedling]

Well considering you only have dumbells, you are limited to very few exercises. My advice would be hammer curls, normal curls, Dumbell press (for chest), push ups (also try diamond push ups), crunches, Tricep kick backs (YouTube it), and Dumbell Tricep extension. It's not much, but it's something.

[numero_uno]

I did not stop growing until I was almost 21 years old. I personally would not worry too much about gaining a lot of weight for the time being. And don't even think about steroids , at least unless you really want to struggle with hormonal problems for the rest of your life.

Anyway, if you are having trouble gaining weight, then you are not eating enough calories or enough protein. Further, at your height and weight, you must be very lean and have probably always been so. To build muscle, sometimes you have to be willing to put on a little "extra" weight to get there. You can cut it down later. Some people have a really hard time with that aspect.

If I can't get to the gym and I decide to do a workout at home with just my dumbbells, aside from many of the exercises already listed, I like to do rows, upright rows, forearm curls, reverse flys, military presses, shrugs, lateral raises, front raises, deadlifts, squats, and I also use the dumbbells as my pushup grips while putting my legs up on a chair or table to simulate an incline press. There are tons of exercises to do at home. If you are disciplined about it and have a good range of weights, there is really no need for a gym. It is nice to have a spotter, though.

If you can swing it, it would be good to invest in a bar or two, some plates, and a bench. You would have a basic home gym at that point and as long as you continue to use it, you will save a lot of money in the long run. In the meantime, google some of these exercises and watch the videos or look at the drawings to learn proper form. Start slow and light and work your way up. Each major muscle group need only be worked out once per week. There are lots of different splits or rotations you can do. Everyone has their own preferences. I am personally at a point where I don't always do the same routines consistently. I enjoy it more when I mix things up.

[auswest]

Plenty of db/bb workouts, invest in a bench and bar too if you don't already have, focus on compounds, a quick google will pull up some good beginner db/bb workouts, diet is essential to growth too.

[infantry13]

yea buddy during my first tour to afghanistan i was 18 years old and i spent so much time in the gym, and got very disappointed just cause i wasn't done growing yet. I did get stronger and bigger though, and we had about everything that you have in your basement there. You just have to be a little creative! also brother you gotta eat eat eat. My first team leader would force feed me 3 mre's a day after 3 meals a day haha! I just know i expected to look like a muscle man after a year and probably gained like 15 -20 lbs remember this is a life long quest ya know? I'm really happy with myself now, and I'm still aas free.

I did a really rudimentary routine when i was your age though.
Day 1 was chest and tri's: You can get a bench maybe to do flat DB press? if not that tour we cut the back off a chair and just rested our backs on the ass part of the chair. Like aus said you're gonna make your money with compound movements like that. Those days you can also do dips to hit lower chest. Some tri kick backs, and over heads. you can think of incorporating pushups in there too just too keep smoking yourself.
Day2 was back and Bi's: For that i mean lawnmower pulls with the DB, do some DB bent over rows. Then hit a couple bi exercises. Consentration regular curst and maybe hammers?
Day 3: REST!!!
Day 4: Shoulders. DB Military press, some of the standing flys basic shoulder workouts ya know?
Day 5: Legs: Lunges holding the two weights, some calve extensions you know get creative man
Day 6: Rest
Day 7:Repeat

Ok i know a lot of guys may disagree with this, but it was something that worked with me when i had next to nothing to work out with. Like i've heard on this site though man you don't get any bigger while you're working out you get bigger when you have food on the plate in front of you and you're eating it! Getting big is 60% diet 20% working out and 20% sleep/ rest

Good luck buddy, stay hungry

[Far from massive]

Hello fellow ectomorph here just a few yrs older (56) LOL. I raced road bikes in my 20s and my wieght at pro level was about 155 at 6.1 so we were in the same ball park LOL

Anyway one of the big things that will increase your wieght...and yes your arms and shoulders, is to develop your lower body. Lunges and Squats can both be done with dumbells, however a bar would be better.

Also your shoulder girdle is probably still developing, so as said above do shoulder excersizes flys, extensions, presses etc to buld your shoulders.

Now for your lats you can use a bench or chair (bench would be much better) to do lat raises with your dumbells, get a piece of pipe and attach it to the nearest tree and do wide grip pull ups by doing these you will build your lats and shoulders and get the v taper that the all the hottiies like.

Now do the curls and and concentration curls with those dumbells as well as tricep extensions with them and by doing dips between two chairs and you will start growing like a weed.

Lastly lots of sleep and food and not too many reps, remember you are trying to grow tissue so too many reps and workouts will not allow for recovery and growth.

Good luck,

FFM

[acadmia]

Stick with compound movements as much as you can such as bench press, shoulder press, squats.

[centimeters]

Thank you all! I'm certainly taking your advice. It's great to know there is a multitude of effective home exercises.

Also, don't worry. I know better than to take steroids given that I'm too young, I am inexperienced with building muscle, and I am still not at my final adult height. That being said, I am considering a cycle several years down the road when I have a great natural base. But like I wrote earlier, I'm not going for a buff look, more of a model look, and I think that with your advice I can definitely achieve that look naturally in a few years. So steroids might not be necessary for me.

[SportbikerKid]

I'm also natty, and had stats very similar to yours a year and a half ago. So, speaking from experience, this is what you should do:

Work on powerlifting with compound lifts. Make sure you focus on bench, squats, rows, deadlifts, shrugs, weighted pullups and dips. All you should concentrate on is increasing your max lifts. Lift with moderate volume and hit every muscle group and major compound lift 2x per week. Hitting your 1-3 rep max every time you train also helps push up your maxes. After you concentrate on compounds for a few months, you can slowly feather in isolation lifts at the end of your workout sessions.

If you couple a routine that fulfills all those requirements with a bulking diet, you should be benching in the mid-high 300's and squatting in the 500's in under 2 years. From there, you'll have a solid base to take lifting in any direction that you desire.

[Armykid93]

yea buddy during my first tour to afghanistan i was 18 years old and i spent so much time in the gym, and got very disappointed just cause i wasn't done growing yet. I did get stronger and bigger though, and we had about everything that you have in your basement there. You just have to be a little creative! also brother you gotta eat eat eat. My first team leader would force feed me 3 mre's a day after 3 meals a day haha! I just know i expected to look like a muscle man after a year and probably gained like 15 -20 lbs remember this is a life long quest ya know? I'm really happy with myself now, and I'm still aas free.

I did a really rudimentary routine when i was your age though.
Day 1 was chest and tri's: You can get a bench maybe to do flat DB press? if not that tour we cut the back off a chair and just rested our backs on the ass part of the chair. Like aus said you're gonna make your money with compound movements like that. Those days you can also do dips to hit lower chest. Some tri kick backs, and over heads. you can think of incorporating pushups in there too just too keep smoking yourself.
Day2 was back and Bi's: For that i mean lawnmower pulls with the DB, do some DB bent over rows. Then hit a couple bi exercises. Consentration regular curst and maybe hammers?
Day 3: REST!!!
Day 4: Shoulders. DB Military press, some of the standing flys basic shoulder workouts ya know?
Day 5: Legs: Lunges holding the two weights, some calve extensions you know get creative man
Day 6: Rest
Day 7:Repeat

Ok i know a lot of guys may disagree with this, but it was something that worked with me when i had next to nothing to work out with. Like i've heard on this site though man you don't get any bigger while you're working out you get bigger when you have food on the plate in front of you and you're eating it! Getting big is 60% diet 20% working out and 20% sleep/ rest

Good luck buddy, stay hungry

Sorry this isn't related to this thread but this gives me hope for my future deployments lol

[Big Rob78]

There's this big, bald, white guy on youtube that shows you home workouts, impravised workouts, self spotting. search: home workouts, cant rember what they are called though. he has a few diferent videos for each bodypart. don't overtrain and make sure to be eating 4+ eggs every morning, lots of good food and say away form GNC's.

[manmanman]

Big rob , do you mean scooby? And he wears that hat?

[Big Rob78]

Just checked and yes, it would be scooby. Don't know about the hat though? What do you think of that guy? when you search "Home Workouts" on you tube, there's always a ton of girls in swim suites just trying to get attention, which is cool unless you are there to learn.

[Bevsta123]

when your that light the main thing you can look into is your diet in my opinion, your also better off investing in a barbell and bench, you will benifit a lot out of them two, buy buying a barbell it opens your door to 4 of the big 5 movements. Squats, Deads, Bench & Military press. Pretty sure you could easily pickup the newspaper and check in the classified section im usually hitting lucks with people selling weight sets for under 100$ (usually includes Bar, bench + some weights)

[jsn23]

Hi all. I'm 18 and I've always been very thin and lanky, so I've finally decided to get help with making a workout plan.

About my exercise experience: most of my exercise has been cardio. For 3 years I had to walk home from school, which was quite a long ways, and almost entirely uphill. But as you can imagine, all that did was keep me thin as a twig and the only place it built muscle was in my calves (and the gains in my calves were moderate at best). So finally last summer I decided to commit to a push up regimen, which was great, but, once again, did nothing to build muscle. I was still left looking like a stick... But a healthy stick I suppose.

But now I finally have a set of adjustable dumbbells (that go up to 50 lbs), and since I'm off of school, I have time to use them. Unfortunately I won't have access to a gym till after summer, but I was wondering if you guys could help me figure out a plan using what I have. For example, helping me with what muscle groups to do on which days and what exercises to do on those days (and of course allowing weekends for rest) would be great. I know that having only dumbbells isn't exactly optimal for exercising, but I'm under the impression that there are a lot of exercises that they can be used for, especially in conjunction with exercises that use body weight.

My stats:
Age: 18
Gender: Male
Height: 6'1"
Weight: 145
BF: <10%

I wasn't kidding when I said I was lanky, haha. As you can see, even though I'm a tall person, I am really really light.

So given my stats and past experience, clearly gaining muscle mass, or any weight for that matter, isn't my strong point (For example, I've grown an inch in the past six months, but I STILL haven't gained any weight), but I'd like to gain some muscle. I'm not going for a huge, buff bodybuilder look, since it's not really necessary or practical for me. Instead I just want to put on a decent amount of muscle and have a lean, muscular physique with good definition (so a muscular fashion model look would be a good example). I'd especially like to get my body fat down and get my abs showing as well. I guess you could say I'm going for more definition than size, but having a decent amount of size is important. I don't want to be scrawny and lanky like I am now. But lean is good. And I know that this will take well longer than summer to achieve, but right now I'm just looking for a plan/schedule/regimen that will get me started and can carry me through at least summer, and hopefully longer.

Also, I know that there is a lot of nutrition that goes into this look I'm going for, so I'll post this in the nutrition section sometime later, unless any of you have nutrition advice.

And if anyone knows what a good target weight would be, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Please let me know if you need any more information. Thank you for your help!

If you can get a hold of a barbell your set, if your looking to get big, just stick with the big movements, if your trying to get big you only want to stick with squat, bench press, deadlift, shoulder press, etc... the movements that work multiple muscles at the same time will make the biggest impact