First time going to gym as an extremely skinny guy

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mphsmom

New member
Im 22 years old and i’ve never went gym before but im planning on starting next week , i m extremely skinny (6’0 and 119lbs) i eat like the average human being sometimes below average, i consume a lot of junk food (chips, cookies, chocolate, burgers…)
I have no idea what workouts i should do or how to get started , cuz i feel like if i dont see progress within two weeks i would probably just stop . Please guys i need help (this is also my first post on reddit)
 
@mphsmom Fellow former skinny guy here. When I was your age I was 6’ and 130 pounds.

Currently a lean 195 pounds.

If you are anything like I was I’m assuming you’d like to gain weight.

In my experience it wasn’t so much about what program you’re using. You can do pretty much anything consistently and see results.

For me it was all about diet. I thought I ate like a horse. And people around me were amazed at how much I ate and was so skinny. I eventually invested in a trainer that had me start tracking calories on an app. Guess what? I wasn’t eating nearly as much as I thought I was. I was probably getting around 2000 calories on a good day.

He put me on a plan to eat 3500 calories a day and man did it make a difference. And it was fucking hard! Eating has been way harder than the weights for me. Weights are fun. Eating isn’t. But by tracking it I was able to hold myself accountable and gained 15-20 pounds a year for several years in a row and then scaled back to maintain.

Can’t give up after 2 weeks though. This stuff takes time. You’re changing your body and your habits. Consistency is super important here.

That’s my two cents.

Best of luck to you.
 
@proangel I was looking forward to commenting more, but this just about sums up my story as well - great job. I was 6’3, 167 lbs and thought I was eating a lot too, but in reality, due to my metabolism (which I am thankful for) I was not eating enough to gain significant weight. Sometimes it is hard to eat a lot of calories and there is no “right” solution necessarily because we are all different. But I down a 1,300 cal 75g protein smoothie I make at home once a day. Sounds crazy, but that has helped me a ton. I have put on roughly 25 pounds in a year and a half, and of course going to the gym 4 times a week along with that.

You can get in the weeds with workout routines etc. but the best way to start, is to just show up. Try some new things, watch videos on form. And once you start seeing progress it gets addicting.
 
@arolo I use a Ninja as my blender, I find it a great brand and works well.
  • A couple strawberries
  • Pour a Premier Protein shake in it
  • 1 scoop of chocolate protein powder
  • 4ish tablespoons of powder peanut butter
  • 4-6 tablespoons of avocado oil (sounds gross, but you don’t even taste it, and it has roughly 120 calories per tablespoon)
 
@arolo if you can manage, add some oats, a banana and frozen berries for taste. Ive gained 12kg and id attribute the majority of it just to the smoothie
 
@mphsmom Good job on getting up the motivation to start. To begin with understand that your body will meed to get used to exercise. Start with some basic cardio stuff, and maybe some work on groups of muscles working together - so instead of bicep curls thing about large full arm chest and shoulder exercises on something like the rowing machine. Get on the cross trainer and do exercises like pushup, dips etc. If you do weights, start small and work towards bugger over a few weeks so you're not going in above your head and hurting yourself.

Once you've been doing that for a a few weeks your body will be much better prepared to start doing the things younwant it to do. As for food...well, eatlling healthier is always healthier but if you're gonna be doing more then you'll need to eat more nutrients to feed the muscle repair and subsequent growth so make sure you're giving yourself the energy you need before and the protein you need to rebuild and grow after.

Also, with anyone new to exercise I recommend understanding that nothing happens overnight, going too fast will get you injured and that will set you back very fast, and do things thatbate sustainable and fun. Sustainable for you, not environmentally sustainable. If you enjoy what you're doing then you're likely to do it more and be more motivated.

Also, I find its useful to take a full body photo of yourself in your pants before you start and keep that in a secure folder as it's just for you. Measuring tape and scales are unreliable methods of determining progress and you won't be able to see it yourself as it will be a gradual change and you see yourself daily. Going back to a "before" photo after a couple months and you'll see the difference. At that point take another pic and repeat in another few months great motivation if you can see results.
 
@jazzfore Thank u soo much
Isn’t it a bad idea to do cardio training like treadmills and stuff like that since im already so skinny and i burn calories quite fast?
 
@mphsmom the other thing i was going to add my friend is that cardio is really going to help you out internally, especially since you mentioned your diet consists of mostly junk food (don't worry i'm not judging you at all. i know all too well lol)

Granted I have broader and admittedly somewhat cloudy fitness goals. I just want to become healthier. So good cardio through regular running and swimming has always been important to me. I'm sure there is science out there saying that cardio kills your muscle gains, but i just feel like incorporating it will have benefits in the end
 
@mphsmom It's never a bad idea. I'm guessing you want to bulk up but to do that you essentially need to get your muscles to wake up and be ready for that first. If you go straight in with lifting to try and get gains then your blood flow to the muscles won't be there, your muscles won't be used to working together and your functional strength will be near zero.

Getting everything going to start with will set you up for better results much more quickly. I wouldn't do hours of running per se either though. Just...get your muscles into the habit of doing things before you go for harder workouts. And you can always focus on power cardio like a rowing machine that will help to build up your chest, shoulders and upper arms pretty quickly.

Ultimately if you're going from skinny while doing nothing, any exercise will get you to start toning up to begin with. You'll need to add the diet to get the weight up - or you'll have nothing for your muscles to build with anyway, but ultimately your body is a very clever machine. It will start to harvest more nutrients from your food if it starts to see a requirement for it.

By the sounds of it though, if youre eating junk at a fairly normal rate but not gaining any weight despite not eating, then it suggests to me that you're missing something from your diet. Do you get a good mix of carbs, fats and proteins or is it all just one group? If you're short on any one of those then your body is going to struggle to do anything much in either exercise or growth. Try and be a bit more rounded in what you eat and you might see some pretty noticeable changes.
 
@jazzfore Okey sir i will try to balance out my eating habits , also regarding getting my body familiar with training , it already is , i play football (soccer) once or twice a week for idk how long so im used to intense training sessions but i recently tore my acl which means i can’t do no exercices that require lower body strength, will that be a problem ? Also what is a good mix of nutritions that i need to eat per day in order to gain weight?
 
@mphsmom Oh I see. OK, if youre already playing sports then a lot of what I said is by the by. Still worth taking it slowly to begin with as a different style of exercise can lead to injury if you try too fast too early. As for food, I have to admit I'm not the most knowledgeable on the details on that side. But protein and carbs are useful for bulking so I'd just...eat more of them haha
 
@mphsmom I had a similar build and eating habits as you when I started. Super skinny, high body fat %. And I'm not gonna lie if you want to look aesthetic and lean with decent muscle mass, it's not going to happen over night.

My recommendation is to be in a 100-300 calorie surplus. The reason being, once you are above 15ish % bodyfat, you're more inclined to put on fat instead of muscle. You need to take it slow.

Workout each muscle group twice a week. Sets need to be between 3-8. Listen to your body. If you do 4 sets and you have to drop the weight more than 10%, quit. Stimulate your muscles, not annihilate. Less is more. Rep ranges 8-12. Focus more on progressive overload more than anything though. Sets should last 30 - 45 seconds rest 2min in between.

Nutrition should be 1.4-2.0g of protein per kilogram of body weight. The 1-2g per pound is a myth. Eat 80% clean foods 20% can be the foods you enjoy.

Ive been a personal trainer for 10 years and my degree is in exercise science and a minor in nutrition. Been lifting 15 years. Everything I recommend is the most recent research
 
@mphsmom Gym culture is totally different than what you may think. Most guys are totally helpful and non-judgemental and will be happy that you're there in the first place. So best of luck man.
 
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