Column 23 | Young and still at home

ANSWER

At the tender age of 14, you should be very cautious with strength training. Heavy basic exercises such as barbell squats should still be taboo for you, as they carry the risk of premature growth arrest. Instead, do mainly isolation exercises and basic exercises with moderate weights so that your tendons and bones, which are still in the growth phase, are not put under too much strain.

Personally, I am not a big fan of home training because, firstly, it is quite expensive to buy sufficient equipment and, secondly, there is otherwise too little equipment available to be able to train the body completely.

In most cases, the result is a one-sided load, as is the case with dumbbell training, for example, where you almost only do bicep curls: the biceps get stronger, while the other muscles lag behind.

If you do decide at some point to go to a gym (these days there is a gym in almost every big city with a monthly fee of less than 20 euros), make sure you ask for a qualified trainer who will explain all the exercises to you directly and individually and show you how to do them correctly.

FOOD

you want to gain mass, which is more than understandable for young people your age. The basis for gaining mass is first and foremost a positive calorie balance. This means that you have to consume more nutrients every day than your body can use. I estimate your daily calorie consumption to be around 2000 kilocalories. As a result, you have to eat around 2500 kilocalories per day to ensure mass growth.

The protein portion of your diet should be of particular importance, as muscles are made of protein and can only be built up by consuming more protein. Try to consume around 2.5 grams of protein and 1.2 grams of fat per kilogram of body weight.

You divide the rest of the calories into carbohydrates (as an advanced athlete you can increase this to three to 3.5 grams of protein). Based on your body weight, this comes to around 100 grams of protein, 50 grams of fat and 400 grams of carbohydrates. This should give you enough nutritional preparation to start a mass phase.

THE WORKOUT

When training at home, I recommend that you split the muscle groups of your entire body into two days. This is the most effective way for beginners and those who are slightly more advanced to ensure muscle stimulation. More advanced users should then ideally split their body into around four to five training days per week. This means that the entire body is only trained once a week. Divide it up as follows:

DAY 1: CHEST, SHOULDER, TRICEPS, ABDOMEN

DAY 2: LEGS, CALVES, BACK, BICEPS

For example, you can do the following exercises (but these are only intended as a guide):

DAY 1:

Breast: 3 x push-ups
Shoulder: 3 x dumbbell presses
Triceps: 3 x one-arm triceps extensions (with dumbbells)
Belly: 3x crunches

DAY 2:

Legs: 3 x squats (with dumbbells)
Calves: 3 x one-legged calf raises (with dumbbells)
Back: 3 x one-arm rowing (with dumbbells)
Biceps: 3 x dumbbell curls

Perform each exercise cleanly and in a controlled manner. Never cheat! Complete each exercise until muscle failure. Ideally, you should never train on two days in a row to give your body enough rest and time to grow. After about eight weeks, you can change exercises to expose your muscles to new growth stimuli.

If you ever get to a point where the weights at home are no longer enough for you, I recommend that you sign up at a gym before buying any more home equipment. There you can build up your body holistically and with qualified help. I wish you the best of luck!