How can I get buff and strengthen my bench press?
Okay…this is like my first time asking a question on Yahoo 😛 I know this question gets asked a LOT on Yahoo Answers, but I wanted a more specific response.
Anyways, I’m Asian-American (more specifically, Chinese) and within the last several months I’ve been trying to work out and get a strong upper body (mainly arms, chest, back muscles) for a variety of reasons.
I’m 16 and like 2 months, 140 pounds (gained a little weight due to mainly muscle I think) and like… 5 “10 – “11. I’ve always been pretty tall/skinny for my age, definitely taller than most asians and thin. I guess I’m kinda athletic, not compared to the atheletes at my high school, I’ve done sports when I was a kid, and have done martial arts for a few years (just restarted a month ago) and overall I think I’m reasonably athletic for an Asian bwahaha..when I say this I mean a lot of Asians I know aren’t athletic mainly because they’re kinda lazy when it comes to sports and such, of course I know some athletic Asians too..ANYWAY –
So basically my genetics (in my opinion) let’s see… my dad is sort of athletic, when he was in high school (back in Hong Kong lol) he did track (long distance running) and played basketball, he used to be 5″9 but now he’s shrunk a little…he’s actually short for his family tree believe it or not.
My mom..is quite unathetlic – she’s 5 feet tall (her side of the family is short) and has flat feet and anemia, the first of which I inherited somewhat (I have pretty low arches in my feet) but thankfully I don’t have anemia….I think my blood cells are slightly smaller than average but nothing serious.
So like, when I first tried bench pressing at my friend’s house, I could only do about 75-80 pounds, this was like my first time benching anything, so yeah… I’ve been doing perfect pushups (those little handle things) for a few months now, they’re pretty good, but my arms have only been toned and sometimes when I work out hard my biceps/triceps get kinda big, but they lose some mass by the next day. So my dad recently got us membership at a good gym, it has treadmills and such (for him) and pretty much all the weights/machines I would need to get buff. So I tried the bench press, I tried 95, could do 10 reps on that but my form is kinda unbalanced. I could probably go up but I haven’t tried yet. My friend told me (he can bench like 180-200) that to increase your bench press/rip your muscles, you do a weight that you can do 5 reps on, then increase it so you can do 4, then 3, then 2, then 1. Is this a good method? Also for my diet – I eat some meat but probably not nearly enough protein that would help me get buff quickly.
So yeah, I’m pretty weak I guess, I just recently put on weight (due to puberty and such) because I used to be very thin, so maybe my muscles haven’t caught up with my height/weight yet…you know what I mean. Well, I just wanted some advice on how to increase my bench press steadily, so I have a direction to go for the next couple months when I go to the gym.
My friend who has the bench press at his house (he’s Filipino) at first we were about the same, he worked out more so he could do like 90 at first, got up to like 105 within a couple months (he wasn’t working out hard) but a couple days ago he told me he tried 118 and could do it quite easily (10 reps at least) and said he’s gonna try 125-130 soon. He’s a little taller and about the same weight as me I think. I’ve always been more all-around athetlic than him, but he’s getting buffer…hehe
So yeah…advice?
Thanks Knuckles :D, other than nutrition I’m really looking for a good work out plan, so a detailed work out plan would be much appreciated