How much do you squat?

[The_stray_cat]

How much should i squat?
Does squatting really stunt your growth since im still a teen?
I squat 90lbs and wanna be able to squat 120 soon.
I weigh 100lbs @5'2

[Boss Man]

Squatting is not likely to stunt your growth no, as long as you don't go to failure weight.

You're actually hitting just over 40kg's which for your size and body weight is pretty impressive I'd say, so be proud of that.

How many reps and sets do you do of squats an what age are you?

[The_stray_cat]

Last week i did 15 sets of 10 with 65lbs but this week i squat 90lbs, 4 x 10.
I'll be sixteen in a week.

[Boss Man]

Well if you were doing 15 sets of squats per week, then you did absolutely the right thing to cut down on the sets, because there is no need to do that much, so it's a good thing you cut back .

I'd say if you're training 3x a week on alternate days, then you should stick to 2 sets at a time and aim for 8-10 sets, so you'd be doing 6 sets a week.

Weight wise, this should allow for a bit less fatigue, so then you could increase what you lift, but I'd go for another 10lbs, (4.5kg) and see how that goes, so you'd be squatting your own body weight.

Remember though to make sure you're adapting what you do for hamstrings too, so if you do anything like lunges for example, do the same reps and sets, so you'd be doing 2 sets of that exercise, 3x a week on alternate days, along with the squats and other exercises.

You'd probably get away with another 10lbs on those, but you'd be wise to add another 5lbs on first to see then if it feels quite light for 8-10 reps, then go for another 5lbs after one set.

Remember that you shouldn't go to failure, as you're nearly 16 and trying to do any exercise that requires you to nearly struggle or actually struggle to hit the last rep, is not the way, even for big powerlifters, as they don't go to failure and you're a young Lady of nearly 16 years old, so failure is definitely not for you.

You want to be hitting good weight but feeling like you've got another 3-5 reps in you for now and keep this mentality for a few more months, as your bone structures won't achieve peak development until you're about 17.

This doesn't mean you lift a bit more then keep on doing that for months on end, as you could lift more every 1-2 weeks, but make sure you're not struggling at the end. You should start to feel some muscle fatigue setting in in the set, but if you find you're getting near the end and the reps start to feel a little slower, then you're getting close to the failure point, so cut off then, even if you're aiming for 10 reps and it feels like your reps are starting to slow down, due to the onset of fatigue and you stop at 7 reps, as the denial of the other few reps and the avoidance of failure would help you.

The more you do this, the more you'll learn to recognise what you can do and how your body feels when you do certain things and I want you to keep believing in yourself and keep looking for progress, because I want you to be proud of how you live, but I also want you not to push yourself too much too soon, as there will be time in the future to work a little harder all the time, but if you have to work to 85%-90% of failure effort for the next few months, not to 95% of it, then I say this because I care about you and I want you to be happy, progress well, get stronger, but also stay safe and feel in control and learning.

I hope you're training your whole body enough and not just focusing on one or two areas, as that's the best thing to avoid an imbalanced appearance, or have muscle imbalances that could affect how you stand, move and walk.

I can tell that you're a real sweetheart and how you choose to look after yourself makes me happy for you and I want you to be able to keep progressing in a happy and healthy way, because you ARE worth the time you are taking for yourself and because you will deserve whatever you gain from this.

We as a community will support your goals every step of the way if you want us to and all I want for you is to be become happier, healthier, fitter, stronger and to be careful, but also to enjoy yourself and feel good about yourself, because plenty of people your age start to get mixed up with bad habits and bad people and start wrecking their lives, but if you're strong in your mind and heart and you keep persevering, I am certain you can get great physical results and build yourself a good healthy body, that will potentially keep going for another 80+ years.

You're doing great, so chin up, keep pushing, keep believing, but remember you're nearly 16, so be careful and don't push yourself too much; just enough to be able to make a difference to yourself and get some progress and in several months from now, your body will be hopefully stronger and fitter and you'll have a bit more adult development and can start to allow yourself that little extra 5% effort, when your bones and muscles will cope with it better and I'm sure you get where I'm coming from

[The_stray_cat]

Thanks!

Also, I'm not sure if this is possible, but for rowing I need strong dense legs, but I don't want HUGE quads since I'm pretty short. Is it possible to strengthen while tone?

[Boss Man]

Yes, you could do regular weightlifters stuff, but you might find the sort of things that benefit the legs in the way you suggest is more powerlifter and strongman type stuff, like tyre flips, sprints pulling a tyre behind you, snatch, clean and jerk etc, as opposed to just doing things like squat and lunge type exercises as examples.

Having a good strong lower body wouldn't be a massive problem for you anyway and you could only develop so much relative to your bodies testosterone production, growth hormone production and other factors like calorie consumption, protein intake etc.

A person consuming 2,500 calories a day and 100g-120g protein, would have more limited potential than someone consuming 3,000 calories a day and 150g-200g protein regardless of whether they were or female, because when someone plateaued muscle wise, they would need to eat a bit more at least as often a plateau is not down to a workout losing efficiency it's down to inadequate calories and I've been there when you think it's a workout to blame and you change it, then 3-4 weeks later you change it again, only to realise that when you eat a bit more you start to progress again.

I would always advocate when people plateau to alter their diet first not the workout, if the diet changes didn't do anything, then the workout would need to change, but doing both at once wouldn't isolate the reason for a plateau and one change could possibly be counterproductive to the other, yielding no real change and more confusion.

The growth potential of your muscle could be very good, but the likelihood of it being as good as a female who was 5ft 10", would be less likely through not unrealistic, but you'll get good results if you persevere and do the right things with training and diet and you'll find you do get stronger and look great as well, but the main thing is to focus on the whole body, as a good strong torso, shoulder and arms, will be the biggest key to adding more power and speed to your rowing prowess and almost certainly be a bigger factor in that side of your rowing improvement than leg strength, as obviously you don't row with your legs, but the whole body should be focused on .

However to get stronger right now, you'll need some more calories unless that is you've already started to eat more, as you'd initially improve physically eating what you currently eat, but that wouldn't last long and potentially you'd hit a brick wall in 10-12 weeks, as a lot of young people train and probably don't address their diets as well, so they build strength based on their recurrent diet and stutter early on.

We have had guys before coming on here before who are 16, 17, 18, claiming to need steroids or creatine after 3 months, because they stalled and when they tell us what they eat, they say stuff like 4 meals a day and probably around 1,500 calories and 80g-100g protein a day, so that's why they stall and the things they claim they need to start using they don't.

As a side note on creatine, I don't know if your coach has ever suggested it to you to help boost your power, as rowing is an explosive sport and obviously you do need good arm speed and utilisation of fast twitch muscle fibre, but I normally don't recommend it for females as I think it works best for big guys, but females have been known to benefit to some extent and being a natural substance that your body makes, it's legal in sport as it's not on an IOC banned substance list.

That might be a consideration for the future however not now.

[The_stray_cat]

Thanks!

Rowing actually is more legs and back surprisingly,

Coach said try casine? Whats your take on that?

[Boss Man]

Do you mean casein, or creatine, as casein is a slow digesting protein found in dairy products and can be bought as a supplement.

Protein contains 4 calories per gram in most cases, but Casein contains 8 calories per gram.

This is good for last thing at night to preserve muscle mass when you sleep.

If your coach means creatine, then creatine is a substance that is used to boost power output as I stated before and may be of some, but I heed caution, limited benefit.

Basic monohydrate causes some water retention, whereas others like kre-alkalyn and ethyl-esther, supposedly cause a bit and in the latter none allegedly.

If you take them it's better to use something like simple sugar E:G: glucose / dextrose energy drinks, or grape juice for example, as that helps with the way they're used more so than using water.

The product breaks down into something called Creatinine which is a mildly toxic byproduct and does this in around 5-15 minutes, so swift consumption is best after preparation.

Avoid Creating serum as that does not remain stable and is rubbish.

Kre-alkalyn to knowledge comes in capsule form whereas certainly monohydrate and I think CEE are in powdered for.

You can do something called a loading phase where you use 4 x 5g scoops a day, in 4 separate intervals, so roughly 4 hours apart and you'd do this for 5-7 days, then take 5g a day to maintain levels.

Minimum usage is 3 weeks and then 1 off and some people go for the maximum usage of 3 months and then 1 off. You can't take it 365 days of the year as that could have detrimental effects on the kidneys, but in your case I'd go for 2 months on 1 off and cycle it like that if you do use it.

You would be best using it after training sessions, so when you finish rowing and when you finish weight lifting and when you're having an off day from any training take it first thing, or around 24 hours after your previous dosage. If you have one or two days where you train and do weights as well, take it after the weights I'd say.

You can also avoid the loading phase and just take 5g per day if you wanted to.

So it just depends on whether your coach advised you to take casein or creatine.

[The_stray_cat]

He said casein instead of creatin, said it was better for me
To keep on weight.

[Boss Man]

Yes, casein will help, because of the slow digesting nature of it and if you took it before bed, you'd get what's known as an anti-catabolic effect, where muscle mass you were gaining could be helped to grow and be protected from minor losses, for around 6 hours during sleep.

You may not know this, but around 40% of your protein intake can be converted to glycogen, which is a stored form of glucose, the carbohydrate all dietary carbs become and the muscle glycogen, not liver glycogen, is the main glycogen energy source used during exercise and this process involving protein works best when there's insulin stimulation, so having carbs with the casein at night would work and carbs have some effect on sleep patterns in a good way.

You could mix the casein with something like powerade, but it might taste a bit funny, or you could add something into the casein when it's mixed with water like crushed oats mixed in, or make a smoothie type thing by adding a few blended strawberries or some blended banana as examples.

If the powder tastes a bit funny in some way which it might, you could experiment with one or more things like vanilla essence, ground ginger, ground nutmeg, cinnamon, honey or mocha powder. and see how that worked out, whilst giving consideration to the carb sources I mentioned earlier.

Casein can sometimes give people a little bit of a bloat, but most get little to none, but it's something to beware of. If you're not entirely sure what I'm referring to, by bloat I don't mean a puffed up inflated appearance, I mean a slight feeling in your stomach as if you've got a bit of excess air in it.

Casein will work after weights session to help you build muscle, but it's not essential as a good meal will be more than adequate and if you used a powder a more quicker digesting powder like whey would benefit better then and one with carbs already in it and the things I mentioned above related to improving taste if needs be, or a carb free whey powder with added carb source as mentioned above and any relevant taste alterations, but for now the casein could help you and would be best 10-60 minutes before bed, with the considerations to added carbs and taste manipulation mentioned above.

I also mentioned to you the other day about the negative connotations surrounding caffeine and oxygen in the blood in relation to stamina, so I don't need to do that again .

Hopefully everything I said makes sense and you find some success using a casein product .