Q&A for: 25-Oct-05
827. Q:
hey mike, i'm 16, 140lbs, 5'8', not very strong, i've just started to work out 3 times a week and am taking Muscle Milk...how long until i see some real results? my chest and arms are my real weakness right now. legs aren't an issue, that's where most of my muscle is.
A:
If you have a good diet and exercise, then you should see first results real soon, within a month. It won't be anything spectacular, but you should see the difference. The longer you keep at it, the better the results become, of course.
If you're looking specifically to put on new muscle, then your overall diet is just as important as your gym workouts. Muscle Milk is a perfectly good supplement, but it will make very little difference if the rest of your diet is lacking. Without a lot of quality calories every day, your muscle growth will be minimal. Read my Nutrition article carefully and then fill out Mike's Fitness Guide specifying 'Gain Muscle' as your goal. It will give you a detailed daily diet suggestion. Then you can use it as a template to structure your own diet that fits your tastes and routine better. If you post your final diet schedule here, I'll give you feedback on it.
If you decide to go on a bulking diet like that, remember to gain weight slowly, about 1 pound every 2 weeks or you'll just end up with a lot of new fat. Gain weight slowly and most or all of it will be new muscle.
828. Q:
Mike, whats up with the new site? its so confusing and the archive is gone, anyways... im the guy from q591, bulking.. is eating a whole can of greenbeans w/ 8 oz. of chicken to much?
A:
The site is a work in progress. I got rid of the old big archive because it was getting out of hand. Instead you can see all the questions I ever answered right on this page (select month and day below) and use the search box in the upper right to look for specific topics.
8oz chicken is all good, but I'd recommend you ditch the can of green beans and switch to fresh or at least frozen green beans if possible. Canned stuff has fewer vitamins and is sometimes packed with preservatives -- not something you want. If at all possible, use fresh. If not, then try to use frozen (can microwave them real fast) instead of canned.
829. Q:
hello, I want to know is there any way improving neck and cheeks muscles i know its kinda weird question but me training since four months gained muscles everywhere except for the neck and cheeks . My problem is
1)my face doesnt look like of a guy gymming, it still looks very weak,
2)poor english sorry.
A:
Cheeks is not something you'll be able to develop in the gym, sorry. The way they look is mostly in your genetics. If you have a lot of extra fat on you, then the cheeks will look rounder and puffier than otherwise, but even if you lose the fat you won't have the angular jawbone look unless it's in your genes.
Neck is a little more in your control. If you do shrugs or deadlifts, they will build up the traps muscles that run from your neck out to the shoulders and down the upper back. They contribute greatly to the 'big neck' appearence. There're also machines specifically designed to work the neck muscles -- basically you'll be turning, lowering, and raising your head against resistance. You have to be careful with them, because you can pretty easily sprain your neck if you're not careful. You can also even buy (or construct) a gizmo that'll strap onto your head and attach weights and do the turning/raising/lowering the head against those weights. Finally you can even do wrestling bridge exercise where you form a bridge (your back is the underneath of the bridge) supported only by your feet and head -- but I strongly advise against doing this by yourself since you'll almost certainly cause an injury, possibly a severe one. My recommendation for the neck is to just keep doing shrugs and deadlifts as part of your regular workouts and your neck will build up.
830. Q:
i had c section 6 months back now i have a baby boy
how can i reduce my stomach and my back is there any prpblem doing thread mill and also doing stomach reduce exercises
A:
Congrats (somewhat belated) on your baby! :) First consult with your doctor and if she or he OKs it, then you can start on the program. Two things right off the bat... Treadmill is fine, but if you want to lose fat and make sure it doesn't come back your program should be structured mainly around weightlifting, not cardio. Cardio is great for you healthwise, but it's NOT the best way to lose fat and keep it off.
Secondly, don't think in terms of stomach-reducing exercises, but think in terms of burning off as much fat as possible all over. There's no exercise or pill or diet that targets just the stomach or just any one other bodypart. Instead you can have a good training and diet program to burn fat all over. As you burn it all over, you'll burn it in the abdominal area as well. But don't think that doing crunches or any one other 'stomach-reducing' exercise is going to make any difference. Your goal is to exercise ALL of your muscles to maximize the fat burn.
Having gotten that out of the way, what you'll need to focus on is having a good fat-burning diet and having a good whole-body program. I would strongly recommend weight training and not just treadmill/cardio. Weight training will not only burn the fat most efficiently, but it will also preserve your muscle as much as possible which will in turn prevent the fat from coming back. Cardio does not provide such benefits. You can (and probably should) do cardio too, but don't ignore weight training.
Please read my fat-loss article including the nutrition and weight training articles it references. Then fill out Mike's Fitness Guide specfying 'Lose Fat' as your goal to get a complete exercise and diet prescription. You should treat that diet prescription as a template and work it around to make it fit your tastes and schedule. But try to stay as close to it as possible, mainly just substituting equivalent foods (veggie for veggie, meats for meats, etc.) for one another. Once you're on the program, aim for weight loss of 1-2 pounds per week -- slower is better! If you're losing weight faster than that, increase portion sizes slightly to slow it down. Fast weight loss is not going to last! Lose weight slowly and you'll be sure to lose all the fat and keep it off afterwards. Good luck!
831. Q:
Mike, i was curious to know if you have man tits, does it prevent you from gaining mass on your chest. Can you still gain size in the inner part of the chest?
A:
Check out Q&A #814 from yesterday.
832. Q:
Hello Mike,can you please tell me good ab and chest workouts?
A:
For a big chest workout, check out the chest day (Tuesday -- ignore the ab portion of it) in this program. For abs, I honestly don't focus on big workouts simply because ab functional strength should come from sports and exercises like squats, lunges, and deadlifts and because ab appearence (the 'six-pack') is dependent not on how much you exercise abs, but on how low your body fat is. So you can pick the ab portion from that same workout I gave you for chest and it'll be as good as any other ab workout.
Remember that whether your goal is to build muscle or lose fat (including getting the 'six-pack'), your diet is easily as important or even more important than your workouts. I recommend that you check out my Nutrition article to learn how to structure your diet to reach your fitness goals.
833. Q:
What exercises burn fat and help one to lose weight?
A:
As far as specific exercises, you need to do the ones that involve as much of your muscle mass as possible because it is by working your muscles with heavy weights that you'll burn the most fat (and keep it off afterwards!). So exercises such as squat and deadlift are most appropriate (you can find them here). But in general, for best results you need a good fat-burning diet and a heavy whole-body exercise program. Please read my fat-loss article for the details.
834. Q:
how do i lose my belly fat?
A:
You need a good fat-burning diet and a heavy whole-body weight training program. Please read my fat-loss article for the details.
835. Q:
Mike, once again the guy from 591. i have a little bit of man boobs but you said to bulk because its my 'prime time to gain muscle' ive heard some place say not to do decline benches because it makes them more visible, should i do that?
A:
Yeah, I would agree with that. If you want to try and offset your man boob problem, prioritize incline bench press instead so you can develop your upper chest. And do plain flat bench press instead of decline.
836. Q:
how many calories do i use walking for 15 mins at a little faster the just walking but not jogging
A:
Figure about 120 calories per mile for an average person (speed doesn't really matter, only total distance matters). In 15 minutes you probably cover right around 1 mile, so you burn around 120 calories.
837. Q:
How many grams of protein are included in a boiled sligh slice of turkey?(as we buy them on the supermarket?)I work somewhere and i buy them to fill my body with protein the hours of work.Its eat 2 meals like these (plus a special kind of bread)when i work so i keep my metabolism active during even my job hours.
A:
I can't really say without seeing exactly what you buy, but it should have a nutrition facts label right on it which will tell you how many grams of protein per serving. As a rough rule of thumb, assuming you're have an average physique, try to get 10 grams of protein per hour. So if you eat every 3 hours, you'd want 30 grams of protein in each meal. The bread will have 5 grams or so, so the other 25 grams should come from turkey. So you can look at the label and see how much you need to eat to get 25 grams.
838. Q:
Hey Mike, I'm 13 years old, and recently lost about 25 pounds. I went from.. 140-145 to now around 120-125.. it was mainly a diet of .. skipping meals..and eating next to no junk.. and doing workouts each night.. now.. I'm finding myself afraid of gaining the weight back..as winters starting.. I have a membership to a gym.. but rarely go..as I'm always by myself.. I wanna stay 'ripped' for vacation .. any ideas of things I can do to stay in shape?.. like a plan?
A:
First off, I strongly advise against trying to lose any more weight. Whenever you lose significant amount of weight at your age you jeopardize your future growth! Instead of losing weight, focus on being active and eating well (which it sounds like you're doing -- good job!) and your body's development will take care of the rest. Getting and staying in shape is easy for a teenager as long as the diet is not complete junk (unfortunately it too often is).
So with that in mind, I'd say you normalize your diet and stabilize your weight. Continue to eat healthy, but don't skip any meals. Instead have several small healthy meals throughout the day. Check out my Nutrition article to learn how to structure your diet. Again, don't try to lose any more weight. Just eat enough to maintain your present weight. But eat healthy. In 2-3 years you'll be entering your main growth spurt when you can really put on muscle if you wanted to. If you learn and maintain a healthy diet till then, it'll be a piece of cake for you to switch to a bulking diet to gain muscle aggressively when the time comes (bulking diet is described in that same article).
For your training you can do anything from at-home workouts, to sports, to the gym... As long as you follow a healthy diet without weight gain and stay active in any way you'll keep your present physique or only improve it. If you're interested in working out at home, check out my no-equipment program.
839. Q:
how many caleries should a thirteen year old eat
A:
That's a little too little info for me to answer. Fill out Mike's Fitness Guide specifying 'Gain Muscle' as the goal (because that's what your body is doing as you grow) to get a rough idea (the diet is at the bottom -- just look at the last line with protein/carb/fat/calories summary). Note that it's only a rough guideline, not a prescription by any means. The only real rules you should follow as far as your diet at your age is to eat healthy stuff with lots of veggies and fruits and not lose weight quickly (or at all actually, unless you're significantly overweight).
840. Q:
How many calories does situps burn
A:
Please see Q&A #632.
841. Q:
what's a good way to boost your metabolism for the start of the day so it stays higher for the next several hours? besides cardio, what could be done with a home dumbell, barbell set and a general home environment?
A:
Single best way to boost metabolism in the morning is to have a nice big healthy breakfast with plenty of good carbs like old-fashioned oatmeal (my favorite) and/or whole fruits or berries. Check out my Nutrition article to read about how to have a metabolism-boosting diet and to see sample diet plans from which you can get breakfast ideas.
As far as exercise alone, I would definitely recommend weightlifting over cardio for metabolism boost. You can do this program every day if you cut it down to just 1 set per exercise or do this program, also with just 1 set per exercise. Both of those will give you a full-body workout for maximum metabolism boost and by not overdoing them (keeping to just 1 set per exercise) you can keep doing them every day.
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