Hey, I have recently joined my high school fitness/weight room.

However, I am worried as to whether there are any precautions I need to take so I can tone and build more muscle mass while at the same time not sacrificing speed or flexibility.

Comments?

I am an avid weight trainer, as most of you probably know, but I can't help give you advice unless you tell me what kind of a body you're trying to achieve.

If you want to put on overall size and mass, work with low reps and heavy weight, about 6-8 reps.

If you want put to on decent size, with some good cuts, do medium reps and medium weight, about 10-12 reps.

If you want to have a very lean body, with tons of muscle definition, do higher reps with low weight, about 15-30 reps.

Its a bit of a myth that becoming 'big' will slow you down.

Tyson has massive arms, but he's also got/ had, outrageous hand speed.

If you don't want to loose flexibility - carry on stretching!

Don't give way to vanity - at least not too much! By that I mean make your exercises functional, rather than just being able to shift tonnes.

Try and explode with the weight, rather than just pushing it out.

Don't get too carried away with benching, squating and curling, some guys I train with do. They can't deadlift a proportionate amount for instance.

Use free weights in preference to machines - you have to control the weight and use both sides of the body equally, rather than just grunting and shifting.

Remember your back and your legs.

Also, bodyweight exercises work! crunches, pressups, chinups - and vary them so you work different muscle groups. Spread your grip on the chinups, or change the grip. Pressups wide and narrow.

To get big: high weight low reps.

Endurance: low weight high reps.

Tone up - somewhere in the middle.

Be careful. I'm 19 - haven't grown upwards in a three years, I started lifting properly last year. - But if your still growing you don't want to be shifting a lot of weight.

I definitely more toned now than I was 18mths ago, but I'm also half a stone lighter because of my change in diet. It's definitely helped in throwing hard single and double shots.

UKFF will probably be more helpful. I hope some of thats of use to you.

Alec.

I am anturally well built for my size (I am 5'11 and about 160 pounds).

The reason I want to began weight training is mainly to even out the exercises I already do (as my left half of my body gets more during pushups than my right does, etc).

I am mainly looking to work my chest muscles, but not for huge bulk. Also, I want to strngthen my back to make my kicks better.

Deadlifts for the back.

Benching with a relatively narrow grip for inner chest. Get on the Pec Dec if you can. Also using dumbells,bend over at the hips to about 45 degrees. Look up keep the back straight and lift them off the ground opening your chest up as you pull the weights up beside your chest. - Get someone to show you.

Also for the back - get into pressup position, and lift one limb off the ground. Keep your back straight and body in line. Put that limb down after about 20/30 seconds and lift another one off the ground, do all four limbs. Repeat until knackered. You need good back strength just to hold a good pressup position for a long time.

If you want to shove your hips into a good front kick, you need good lower back flexibility. Theres a post burried on here somewhere regarding 'wall walking', check that out.

[This message has been edited by Yoseikan Student (edited 10-25-2003).]

I would go with YS on this but to add a little more.

Weight training - done properly can increase both speed and flexibility.

For power go for low reps - 3 - 5, Mass 8 - 12 and 15 - 25 endurance.

If you perform exercises such as squats, straight leg dead lifts, lunges (front and side) you should see your flexibility sky rocket (There were some heats of the Britains strongest man where a guy got all 5 atlas stones up and his celebration at the end was to jump into a side split!)

Just think of it like this:

Most people think/say big muscles make you slow.

That is why all the sprinters in the world are really skinny and all the long distance runners are as big as body builders.....

And those skinny sprinters jumping over hurdles are really inflexible?

Being very strong is the only way to safely achieve a suspended split - go to www.stadion.com/column.html and do some reading!

Use free weights in preference to machines - you have to control the weight and use both sides of the body equally, rather than just grunting and shifting.

I beg to differ. For a lot of excersises, I find machines to give me a much better workout and development than freeweights. I agree that you should do bench press and military with a dumbell or barbell, but when doing preacher curls, USE A MACHINE. This way you get a burn all the way through the motion, instead of the barbell/dumbell dropping on your shoulders, half way. This can't be prevented. I recommend using a preacher curl machine over freeweight preacher curl any day.

Also, for triceps, there's no better excersise than using a lat tower for pushdowns. That way you iliminate the elbow joint pain received when doing French presses.

I recommend using a combination of both... Here is something what my workout schedule looks like.

Biceps-alternate dumbell curls preacher curl machine, barbell/EZ bar curls.
Triceps-pushdowns, dips, arm extensions.
Back-pullups, lat pulldown.
Legs-leg presses, leg extensions, and calf raises.
Chest-bench press, pec fly.
Shoulders- smith machine military press, dumbell overhead presses.

WOW, all you guys really summed it up pretty well. Any thing else I can help with, let me know?

This is me not too long ago. http://mostmuscular.com/oktxbb/2002SWUSA/numbers/59f.jpg

[QUOTE]Originally posted by training:
WOW, all you guys really summed it up pretty well. Any thing else I can help with, let me know?

This is me not too long ago. http://mostmuscular.com/oktxbb/2002SWUSA/numbers/59f.jpg [/QUOTE]

ROTFL!!!!

Lol, thanks, all of you.

However, I also consulted my Senpei, and he advised against my wieght training at all for a number of reasons.

1) I am 16 and am not finished growing.
2) By hardening my body with weights, I will lose or counteract my ability to relax when I need to (in a fight for instance) at this point.

He doesn't recommend weight training until Nidan (second degree black) when people are fully developed and can relax.