I joined the gym back in the first week of January and have been going once a day since. I've definitely seen a difference. I feel pretty good after working out too. Makes me feel like I accomplished something. Anyone else work out or belong to a gym?

Pat I suggest talking to some of the older people at your gym or joining a website about body building and/or fitness. Once a day is way too much, you will see minimal to no gains and will hit plateaus at every turn. The overall consenus is either 4 days doing 2 body parts per day or 3 days at the gym doing a full body workout everyday. Your muscles need 72 hours to recover, you probably can't feel any negative side effects because you are young (which is very dangerous I might add).

Does anyone know how I can work out at home?
I just want some exercise (and for the muscles visible of course :p ) but I don't want to go to a gym...

Buy free weights and a bench. they are maybe all total $200 U.S. I don't know how old you are though so that would is a major factor. There is no point in working on visible muscles, you work the stabilizer muscles which then allow you to work the "visible muscles" more effectively.

Hmm, I don't know what stabilizer muscles are.

I'm just someone who wants to look a bit bigger at the chest.
And I have weights already.

Same age as Patrick, btw.

it's been a while so I can't give you real advice but to put you on the right track you need to work triceps, shoulders, biceps, (even forearms) and back so that you can lift the necessary weight to make a visible difference on your chest. But just my own advice do a full body workout, you can and will not get the same results by doing just visible muscle exercises and if you are only doing it because you want to look bigger in the chest you are doing it for all the wrong reasons and motivation will come into play.

That's my 2 cents lol

I joined in January, too... of last year. I guess I should start going back after my 9 month vacation from it. :rolleyes:

And guys - listen to DMC! Even though he's probably all of 120 lbs soaking wet, I think he knows what he's talking about.

155

I was into body building for 3-4 years but after arthritis and mono I became what I am today

How can it be bad for me? I love working out and I know that if I only go four times a week instead of every day, I'm gonna eat less and that's even worse for me.

It's bad because your muscles need 72 hours of rest to heal properly. When you are exercising you are tearing the fibers in your muscles, by not allowing them the proper time to heal (and grow) you are hurting yourself, your muscles and your body. I don't understand how not going to the gym everyday would cause you to eat less. Eating is 95-97% of body building and fitness, a good workout plan with a bad diet is useless but a good diet with a decent workout plan will still see huge gains.

Like I said you are young and have only been doing it for 6 weeks, so you will not see the negative side effects of it. A more practical reason that you shouldn't go everyday is muscle memory. Your muscle easily adapt to changes in your daily routine (muscles are lazy they want to do things the easiest way) so by doing the same routine, same exercies or just working them everyday you do not get the same return for the effort that you put in. I would bet that there are probably "resident pros" at your gym and if you are there everyday you will not see them there everyday (at least not working out everyday).

Just to add to that, I knew someone a few years ago who told me a story which I think relates to you. He was a football player in high school back in the 70's I think. Well bodybuilding was becoming a big thing and the coach said he wanted everyone in the gym doing bench presses everyday to build up their chest and give them an advantage over the people they would be facing. The first 3-4 weeks they saw huge gains then nothing, then they noticed they couldn't put up the same amount of weight, then they kept getting injured and were in constant pain. They didn't know back then that muscles need time to heal.

I don't know any good examples to demonstrate to you but basically think of your muscles as millions of fibers, when you exercise you break the fibers it takes 60-72 hours for them to come back together, fully repaired (and technically bigger) if you keep working them they NEVER have a chance to come back together and eventually you will start having serious injuries.
Youth is a very bad thing when it comes to body building, you don't understand your body and your muscles are able to cover up the warning signs that a 30-40 year old man would spot right away.

As DMC said, your muscles need time to recover - that's where the growth comes from. You can actually hurt yourself doing it your way.

You really shouldn't go to the gym every day, but if you do, it'd be better to follow something like this:

Day 1 - Lower body workout / stretching
Day 2 - Upper body workout / stretching
Day 3 - Treadmill (or other aerobics) (60 min)
Day 4 - OFF, or: Swimming / sauna / hot tub, etc
Day 5 - Lower body workout / stretching
Day 6 - Upper body workout / stretching
Day 7 - Treadmill (or other aerobics) (60 min)

If you have the time, do the treadmill every workout day for 30 mins afterwards. (I think you're suppose to do the aerobics after lifting if I remember correctly...?)

And I think you're suppose to do your real stretching after the workout, but must warm-up before.

As I said, it's been a while for me, but listen to DMC - and if you don't trust people on this board, then go to a board devoted to fitness. Or google some fitness sites. :p

You'll eat more if you're working out - your body needs it. That's normal, healthy, and not a problem.

This is just an example of one of the few 6 day workouts I was able to find on the inernet. Please notice the 6 days, that means you have 1 day off, also there are 3 sets of exercise. M-1 tu-2 we-3 THUSDAY-1 AGAIN etc..
It is giving the group it worked 72 hours to recooperate.

A normal high school/college kids schedule should be:

M-Gym
T-gym
W-Gym
Th-Gym
Fri,Sat,Sun- off. The reason being weekends are private time and/or homework time. Obviously when you get to college you night have to change the days depending on your school schedule.

Way to confuse him (and me) with that "schedule", DMC! Mine makes sense, right?

The first part depends on your goals, if its for body building then its cardio after, cardio burns energy and would decrease from energy and usefulness of your workout. If you are doing it for overall fitness I don't think it matters.

Stretching before workouts showed no difference in injury risk compared to not stretching. Everything in terms of weight, stretching, cardio etc. all has to deal with your goals. I THINK stretching before hand is for fitness because there is more blood flow through the muscle (think of your muscle like a ball of dough, stretching it causes it to be flat) if you area looking to just get "huge" then I don't think stretching is advised. Again my views are 4-5 years old and there may be new thought processes since then. I suggest going to muscleandfitness.com message board and looking up any post by a guy named "rev" or going to bodybuilding.com to look for exercise and diet plans.

I tried posting a link with that example but it didn't work

Basically what I was saying is that say you do chest exercise 1, biceps/triceps exercise 2 and legs exercise 3 (please don't but you get the idea) it would go 1,2,3 then on the 4th day you repeat exercise 1 so that its still 3 days in between

The workout you gave goes back to muscle memory, you always have to switch it up to get the best gains. Every 12 weeks you should change your workout routine so for 3 months you might do a 4 day different body part split, the next 3 you go 3 days a week doing full body, the next 3 you do one like JG did, the next time you might do a 5 day split with high and low energy on different days for different body parts.

I do the same exercises every other day though, except for the ab machine and treadmill. I do those every day.

Example of a week:

Sunday/Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday - 15 minutes on the treadmill, 3 sets of 12 working out the neck, 2 sets of 15-20 on a bicept machine, 2 sets of 15-20 on a chest machine, another 2 sets of 15-20 on a chest machine that works only the bicepts and chest, 2 sets of 12 on a bicept machine, 1 set of 20 on a different bicept machine, 1 set of 30 for my abs, then 1 set of 15 on both the left and right sides of my abdomen, and then 15 more minutes on the treadmill.

Monday/Wednesday/Friday - 30 minutes on the treadmill, 3 sets of 12 working on the arms, 2 sets of 20 working out the chest, 2 sets of 20 working out the back, 2 sets of 12 working out the shoulders with dumb bells, 1 set of 30 for my abs, then 1 set of 15 on both the left and right sides of my abdomen, and then 15 more minutes on the treadmill.

Though I exercise the some of the same muscles both days, the only 2 machines that I use everyday are the treadmill and abs. When I work the same muscle the next day, it's on a different machine.

Different machines don't matter, its still working the same muscles. I don't like the amount of reps you are doing either. For mass building you want to stay between 6-8 reps for 3 sets. For cutting (fat loss) or fitness you want to stay between 10-12. 20 reps is too much and only 2 sets is not enough. You want to stick to 3-4 different exercises (so 9-12 sets) for each body part.

Working your abs does nothing, the only way to get a 6pack is to lose fat which comes from either cardio or more importantly your diet. Crunches will strengthen your abs (I think that is mostly for stunt people and athletes though) but will not help with actually showing a 6 pack.

I personally do not like machines, they sometimes allow for too much cheating. I would rather see more dumbbells and barbells in your exercises because they work the muscle more. Machines IMO should be used for rehab because they work the muscle with weight but there is little to no risk of injury.

Wanna work out with me when you come out to Philly this summer?

Also Pat, I don't know what you mean by working "arms" you should target biceps and triceps differently. And there are no leg exercises on your workout. Leg extensions and leg curls, lunges and squats should be a staple for most workouts.

Yeh, I'm not really worried about the legs. I guess I could start working them out in school, but ehh, more concerned about upper body.

In all honesty if you have questions just ask. Anyone at the gym or online or anything that laughs at you for asking questions is a moron themselves. you really have no idea how seriously injured you can become by doing exercises wrong. I suggest lookin up sites that have videos you can download of people doing the exercises correctly.

If you want to look good, diet's a must. PLenty of protein. Fish, chicken, eggs, milk, cheese.

I must say, though; I have a Kurdish friend in Turkey who served in the Army, and he's really, really lean. He is also the strongest guy I ever met. He used to always give much bigger, bulked up guys arm wrestles and beat them every time.

I'd much rather feel as if I could take on the world than look. Though I understand that some people feel good by looking good.

Oh don't say that. Do you ever see guys coming out of the gym with huge upper bodies and little chicken legs From a anatomy (?) point of view legs are much more important than upper body. Most guys work biceps and chest because everytime somone says I work out the first thing a person says is let me see your bicep.

Is it bad for me to do the treadmill every day?

depends on your goals, I'm jogging my memory here so this could be a little off but if you are looking to lose weight and fat then I think 5 days is the cardio you should do (you should have at least 1 day of no working out)*from here on I know* if you are looking to gain mass then you want to do 1 MAYBE 2 days of cardio.

The thing to remember is that you can't gain muscle without gaining fat. That is why there are "mass building phases" and "cutting phases", when you build mass you gain muscle and fat, when you cut you lose weight, muscle(very little) and fat. You can't gain muscle and lose fat at the same time. And incase you are wondering there is no way to spot reduce, in other words a lot of people will say I want to lose weight but only in my legs (sorry to be sexist here but this is mostly from women, a lot of women like their breastst and butt but don't like their legs so they want to lose fat in their thighs while keeping their butt and breast the same size) so there is no way to just lose fat in one particular part of your body while keeping all others constant.

DMC apparently knows his shit, but he's not there with you. Probably the best advice for a beginner at a gym -- since they're already paying to be there -- is to hire one of the trainers for a couple/few weeks. He'll tell you what you need to do to meet YOUR personal goals, and more importantly, he'll make sure you are doing everything correctly to minimize injury. That's what they're there for.

As for cardio, you really need to do it correctly. Get a heartrate monitor if the treadmill doesn't have one, and pay attention to the HR charts on the machine. Start slowly and work your way up (warm up!) and STICK WITH the cooldown period at the end - they made that for a reason. If you just STOP, you're putting incredible strain on your heart. You really should get medical clearance before starting a serious cardio regimine...

Yo mang, I got some flaxseed oil and shit that will get you big in no time.

Oh yeah being that D-J posted that picture, don't start taking any kind of supplements (whey protein, creatine etc..) until you are at least 20 or talk to a doctor.