Q: I am 14, a male, and i wiegh about 115 and I need a good beginner workout program that can bulk me up for highschool. I have dumbells and and a bench with a bar. I really dont know any good exercises but i would like for you to tell me some good ones that will help me gain muscle all around.

A: First of all, keep in mind that you're still young and haven't hit your main growth spurt. Therefore you must be very careful when you exercise and not push yourself so hard that you risk injury. A serious injury can permanently stunt your growth, which is probably the last thing you want. So when you do exercise, do it under adult supervision whenever possible and do NOT go to failure on any exercise.

Having said that, you can most definitely start getting stronger and putting on muscle at your age. Muscles come from having a good diet even more then from having a good workout program. Therefore you'll need to eat and eat quite a bit. You can try my Fitness Guide to see a suggested diet, but it's meant more for adults -- since you're still very much growing you should increase the serving sizes it suggests by at least a third. You won't follow that diet exactly, of course, but it should give you an idea of a good muscle-building diet. Aim to gain at 1-3 pounds of weight per month.

The Fitness Guide will also suggest a workout program for you that will require gym equipment. If you're completely unfamiliar with weight training, read this first. With your setup you'll be able to do almost everything the Fitness Guide suggests except things like barbell squats (substitute with squats holding dumbbells by your sides), pulldowns (substitute with pullups) and incline bench press (substitute with flat bench press).

If you want to keep it even simpler, then you can do the following 2-3 times/week: DB lunges (2 sets), bench press (2 sets), pullups or bent dumbbell/barbell rows (2 sets), upright rows (2 sets), skullcrushers (2 sets), bicep curls (2 sets) and crunches (2 sets). You can find the video and description of all these exercises on the Essential Exercises page.

Once again, remember to choose moderately heavy weights and NOT push yourself all the way -- stop your set when you feel you have 2 more reps in you. Once you reach 16 or 17, you can start going to failure more, but for now concentrate on learning good form of all the exercises and preparing the strength foundation for your prime muscle-building stage between 16 and 25 years of age. Good luck!