Why I am not progressing?

[jakralj]

So I have been working out for maybe 2 years from now, and I have noticed I didnt improve at all for the last year. I have tried all ways of training, and few months ago I have discovered gymnastic bodies. I am working out regularly, and still I dont improve in anything.

I dont know why, maybe it has something with the fact that I am 202 cm tall, and only 16 yrs old. If you guys have any advices, please help.

[Daniel Burnham]

At the age of 16 you should probably be progressing faster than the rest of us. My guess is that you aren't following a plan that is conducive to progress. Maybe post what you are currently doing. Also make sure you are getting enough food and sleep in.

My recommendation is to get the foundation program and see gains throught that.

[Jon Douglas]

What do you want to progress in, and what are you doing to get you there?

[Aaro Helander]

The first consideration is of course the most obvious one: You're not training hard enough. On the other hand, you being 202cm tall and only sixteen tells me that you have maybe gained a large portion of your height in the last few years? In that case you probably have seriously high caloric demands, and if your body has been stacking dozens of cms more height to your body per year, you might simply be undereating to add muscle mass to your already demanding frame.

 

Another thing is that you gaining height must also mean that you're gaining more muscle mass, and in pretty good amounts, and that there might be an upper limit for the possible amount of new tissue being built right now.

 

And all this just might be total BS, but I'm currently drinking my PWO which tends to put me into broscience mode!

[jakralj]

I started doing the F1 6 weeks ago, and right now, at beginning of my 6th week I failed to complete the workout. Before the F1, I used to do workout 6 days a week: on monday, wednesday, and friday I did 3 sets of pushups, 3 sets of pullups, 3 sets of bench dips and 3 sets of bodyweight rows.    on tuesday, thursday and saturday I did 3 sets of squats, 3 sets of box jumps, 3 sets of supermans and some running/sprinting.  Also every day I had ab workout which consisted of about 9 sets of different ab exercises.

 

Only thing I am not sure about is the food, I am pretty skinny (82-85kg) but I belive I do ingest enough calories, proteins and everything - I have about 5 meals with 600+ calories, I ingest 80+ grams of protein daily, and right after my workout I have my meal with about 25g of proteins.

[Joshua Slocum]

I started doing the F1 6 weeks ago, and right now, at beginning of my 6th week I failed to complete the workout. Before the F1, I used to do workout 6 days a week: on monday, wednesday, and friday I did 3 sets of pushups, 3 sets of pullups, 3 sets of bench dips and 3 sets of bodyweight rows.    on tuesday, thursday and saturday I did 3 sets of squats, 3 sets of box jumps, 3 sets of supermans and some running/sprinting.  Also every day I had ab workout which consisted of about 9 sets of different ab exercises.

 

Only thing I am not sure about is the food, I am pretty skinny (82-85kg) but I belive I do ingest enough calories, proteins and everything - I have about 5 meals with 600+ calories, I ingest 80+ grams of protein daily, and right after my workout I have my meal with about 25g of proteins.

I don't think you ingest enough calories. 3k is probably still a deficit for you. At your age and weight, you probably need closer to 3500-4500 calories, depending on your activity levels during the day. 3000 would be the bare minimum, if you have a light workout 3-5 days a week and are mostly sedentary otherwise. Get some more calories in you, and you should see more hypertrophy and strength resulting from your efforts. Make sure to get plenty of vegetables! 

 

An easy way to bump up your daily intake would be to add 1/4 c of peanut butter to your post workout shake: that's 350 calories right there. It's really hard to get 3500-4500 calories a day from just chicken, rice and frozen veggies, so you're going to have to take up some heartier foods. Full-fat dairy, nuts and legumes, avocados, and sweet potatoes are all pretty good options.

[Daniel Burnham]

I suggest cooking everything in butter. I prefer grassfed but you can pick that for yourself. Just don't use margarine. Another option is to eat nut butters like josh said or cheese. It's pretty easy to up calories and it tastes good too!

[jakralj]

I come from a pretty rural place, so food is pretty fatty here. We drink milk straight out of cows, pretty much everything is cooked in butter, etc. I love the peanut butter, but right now I cant find it anywhere. I do eat a lot of nuts, especially walnuts. The thing is that I dont really have appetite, and I think my meals are small.

Thanks for replys and advices, if you could just give me any advice on how to improve my appetite, I would be really thankful.

[Joshua Slocum]

I come from a pretty rural place, so food is pretty fatty here. We drink milk straight out of cows, pretty much everything is cooked in butter, etc. I love the peanut butter, but right now I cant find it anywhere. I do eat a lot of nuts, especially walnuts. The thing is that I dont really have appetite, and I think my meals are small.

Thanks for replys and advices, if you could just give me any advice on how to improve my appetite, I would be really thankful.

Foods high in fat and protein tend to be very filling. Maybe you eating more carbs would help you to eat more overall? 

 

How active are you throughout the day aside from doing F1 a few days a week?

[Joshua Naterman]

80 grams of protein is probably not anywhere near enough for you to really see developmental changes. 

 

You probably need more like 160g per day, with each meal or snack containing 25-30g of protein from some source or other. Each of these should also have carbs and fat, whether it is whole foods or powders or whatever else.

 

I also agree with the carbohydrate assessment... you really need to keep a food log for 1-2 weeks where you record everything you eat, and then do some internet research (along with reading food labels) in order to know how many calories you get each day and what the macronutrient breakdown is, both for the whole day AND for each meal.

 

That's a little bit of effort, but nutrition is like your workout: Lack of effort leads to a lack of results.

[FREDERIC DUPONT]

(...) still I dont improve in anything (...)

 

What was your starting point, where are you at now & how are you measuring progress?

I am going to sound harsh, but unless you have precise measurements and benchmarks, the sweeping statement you are making is not very credible.

Nor is the [i train regularly - I don't make progress] - if you trained regularly, you would make progress - in spite of mistakes in programming, changing plans too often, and sub optimal nutrition. Are you keeping records (written) of your training times & frequency?

 

What are your expectations of "progress"? Aren't you just a little bit impatient, or mistaken in how fast it should come?

[jakralj]

How active are you throughout the day aside from doing F1 a few days a week?

 

Well I run 1-2 times a week, and I do some HIIT once a week(shadowboxing, sprinting/running etc.), and now with summer I go to sea a lot, I love swimming and so on..

 

 

I also agree with the carbohydrate assessment... you really need to keep a food log for 1-2 weeks where you record everything you eat, and then do some internet research (along with reading food labels) in order to know how many calories you get each day and what the macronutrient breakdown is, both for the whole day AND for each meal.

 

 

I tried to do that, but it gets very hard because 70% of food I eat are cooked meals with lots of components, and its simply impossible to measure how much of what ingretient is there in one portion. Also data on internet varies a lot - for example on one site I read that an average egg has 5.5g of protein, on other site it says 10g.

 

 

What are your expectations of "progress"? Aren't you just a little bit impatient, or mistaken in how fast it should come?

I know I am not impatient or anything. I remember when I started doing chin ups 2+ years ago, I could barely do one chin up. Only 4-5 months after doing some chin ups, even without any routine, I simply did some chin ups when I wanted to, experimented a little with tucked levers etc. I got up to 8 regular chin ups. And here I am, 2 years after I managed to max 8 chin ups, right now I can do 9 of them. I used chin ups for example, but its the same with every other exercise.

[Joshua Naterman]

When you get a bunch of different measurements, take one that's in the middle and use that.

 

Even if it's off, it won't be off by too much. Go by nutrition labels before you go by something on the internet. Chicken eggs will have 5-7g of protein, with 7g being a jumbo egg and 5g being  "medium egg". Most eggs are large, and have about 6g of protein. That is generally what I would go with.

 

It is not impossible to make a good guess as to what's in there. My suggestion is to look at what goes in, and actually measure it once as it is prepared. After you have a total, you can look at how full the pot or whatever is and make a fair judgement at about how many of your servings are in that pot, pan, etc. After that it's simple division.

 

You don't need to be accurate to a decimal or anything, but a good and achievable goal is to be within 10% of the real value. That's a doable process. 

 

The more you know about what you eat, the better off you will be.

[Joshua Naterman]

 

 

I know I am not impatient or anything. I remember when I started doing chin ups 2+ years ago, I could barely do one chin up. Only 4-5 months after doing some chin ups, even without any routine, I simply did some chin ups when I wanted to, experimented a little with tucked levers etc. I got up to 8 regular chin ups. And here I am, 2 years after I managed to max 8 chin ups, right now I can do 9 of them. I used chin ups for example, but its the same with every other exercise.

How tall were you then, and how tall are you now? If you have been growing, that can be part of it.

 

Aside from the fact that having longer limbs means you need to produce more force to move the same resistance (like your bodyweight during a push up or pull up),  growing taller takes a huge amount of resources, and you are still in the middle of your growth cycles, so you need even more food than you think. You probably don't need more fat, but you definitely need more protein than you are getting if you want to see muscular gains and I think you need more carbs as well, but that's more a guess than a fact for the carbs. 

[jakralj]

Actually my growth is really slowed down last 2 years. Right now I am growing only about 2 cm per year, and few years ago I would grow up to 12 cm a year.

 

Thanks for advices, I will try to increase my protein and overall calories intake, and I will let you know in a couple months is it working. Anyway, I am thankful for your help guys.

[Karl Kallio]

What are your goals?  If you have your pie-in-the-sky long term goal and the intermediate steps along the way it is easier to measure progress.

[Mats Trane]

So I have been working out for maybe 2 years from now, and I have noticed I didnt improve at all for the last year. I have tried all ways of training, and few months ago I have discovered gymnastic bodies. I am working out regularly, and still I dont improve in anything.

I dont know why, maybe it has something with the fact that I am 202 cm tall, and only 16 yrs old. If you guys have any advices, please help.

When was your growth spurt?

My guess would be the last year.

 

I have a son that has been training gymnastics since he was 7. He progressed realy good and got stronger and stronger. When he had his growth spurt he felt the same thing as you do and so did alot of his team mates. It will be mentally tough during this time but just keep going dont give up. If you can go through this period of time you will get out stronger than ever.

[emos]

I went through several years of going nowhere in various forms of exercise and sport. What helped me was ceasing to take too much advice from other people - especially those who have achieved the most in their field. I often found that while they were obviously the best at describing "what" the end result was, they rarely knew "how" - as it applied to me.

I remembered how I didn't seem to be much use at helping my schoolmates improve their grades even though I was always at the top of the class - and in other pursuits of mine in which I do well, it's never necessarily the best who know how to help those who are struggling. We all start from different points and have to travel very different roads. The guy who goes the farthest always had a head start and found himself in a fast car, on smooth roads. He had to drive, still, and avoid crashing - but his way was definitely easier. How much he takes advantage of that is up to him, and he obviously still has to keep moving to beat others in a similar situation.

Others are driving a clapped-up old banger that breaks down if they try to go over 30. Directions given by the former type may not apply at all to the latter, or may indeed prove harmful.

 

Once I understood this I was able to train (and eat, etc.) only in ways productive to me, and things got much better.