Best way to build muscle for linebacker position?
Nov.15, 2009 in
Muscle Building Tips
I have been playing football for 3 years and I am currently a sophomore in high school And i am currently second string and the person in front of me is like a 210 pound senior. I am currently 160 pounds and I need help so I can gain muscle mass as fast as possible, I am wondering if there are certain vitamins and protein products I should use. I don’t want to use anything that has bad side affects such as acne and shrinkage because in high school you just want those kind of things if you know what I’m saying.
November 15th, 2009 at 2:39 am
muscle milk
November 15th, 2009 at 3:24 am
I don’t know of any magic pills or easy ways here.
The standard method is to take creatine and eat a lot of protein and lift heavy with compound motions.
This means you have to live to do squats, deadlifts, power cleans, lunges, burpees, side bends, push leg sleds, hack squats, grunt out push presses, calf raises, etc.
The same goes for your upper body. Benches, overhead presses, rowing, chin ups, shrugs, declined sit ups with weights in your hands and all the variations thereof.
Low reps with big weights and high intensity, plenty of rest between sets and eating everything in sight.
Just take a miltivitamin and some creatine.
Continue to lift through the offseason and whatever other sport season you might do. Lifting is cumulative and takes a long time to build up. Remember to whale on those sprints and agility drills too. Practice getting low. Push a car in neutral and hit leg sleds.
Good luck dude.
P.S. none of those supplements are worth your money. You’re going to have to gut out tough lifts.
November 15th, 2009 at 3:49 am
Protein powder of any brand will be fine as long as it is whey protein. Whey is the most biologically available protein in the market today. This means your body will recognize the protein and use it more efficiently for building muscles compared to other proteins such as egg protein or milk protein. Egg protein has sulfer and therefore has its own benefits that I wont get into right now because your choice is already clear and it is whey.
Whey Isolate is better than whey concentrate. So look in the ingredients section and make sure it has whey isolate listed above anything else. Most protein powders will mix whey isolate, whey concentrate and whey peptides.
Eat 5 meals a day. Each meal should contain atleast 40 grams of protein and atleast 120 grams of carbs. Also use flaxseed oil for cooking when you need to use oils. Flaxseed oil is healthy fat and you need this for your body to continue producing hormones. If you go on a strict high carb, high protein but minimal fat diet, not only is it the least effective way of cutting fat but it is also not good for your testosterone production.
GNC sells the multi-vitamins that are honestly quite expensive compared to other brands. But they work. Not sure if you should spend that much money just to be confident about your body absorbing the vitamins when you can get normal vitamins at Walmart for half or even third of that price.
If you feel tired at night, try ZMA. Its zinc-magnesium-aspartate. It helps you get better sleep and also increases your testosterone levels. This will not cause acne. Its not a steroid. Everything is done naturally and besides, its only minerals. Most athletes require more zinc and magnesium in their diets. That is why they came up with this.
Glutamine is a good amino-acid to take if you want to promote a positive nitrogen balance in your system. Your muscles grow only when there is a positive nitrogen balance and an abundant amount of protein to build muscles. Dont cut down on carbs when you are trying to build muscles. Also increase your daily calories by eating peanut butter sandwiches. Peanut has the good kind of fat. They actually made this peanut butter spread that contained egg whites and flaxseed oil. Each tablespoon would contain roughly almost 30 grams of protein. It tasted almost like real peanut butter if not better and was great for building muscles.
Sets: You should do no more than 8 sets per muscle group. Try to work 2 or 3 different exercises and perform 8 sets. Rest two days after working certain muscle groups. So if you worked on your chest on monday, dont work on your chest again till thursday or friday. Sometimes it is even better to rest an entire week.
Reps: Use weights that you can only perform 4 to 10 repetitions per set. If you can finish your last rep without struggling then you are not lifting heavy enough. If you were going for 10 reps then you shouldnt be able to do an 11th rep on that set. Having a spotter is always helpful but if you dont have a spotter then by experience you should know if you are about to fail on the next rep and stop.
November 15th, 2009 at 3:52 am
For breakfast eat a big meal such as a five egg omelet, some type of meat, oatmeal, and a glass of milk. After wards work out for at least 30 minutes.
For lunch eat a a pound of pasta for energy and drink a protein shake. Do the same thing for dinner. An hour after wards do some calisthenics for about an hour and a half like swimming, running, or just exercises using your body weight.
November 15th, 2009 at 4:20 am
hey i understand how important this is to you trust me i am 26 and i was 180 in my freshman year. I bulked up by my jr. year i weighed 280 and was a line backer. I did it with creatine but understand there are serious consequenses. Really there are. The problem is your apitite will go up. You will not lose this new apitite so if you gain all that good weight and are done after high school and stop lifting it all goes to fat. I am know 300 pounds muscle turned to flab have back and knee problems.
I would consider a position that is a bit more your weight for example
depending on hight i would consider bulking another 35 pounds doing lots of squatting and jammers if you dont know what that is ask your coach. Then go and try out for saftey-free saftey wich is alot like line backer but you get more roaming privliges and you really get to nail some helpless people.
November 15th, 2009 at 5:04 am
help me im 5 9 118 pounds the WR’s ahead of me are 6 2 189 3rd 6 4 214 1st 6 4 228
November 15th, 2009 at 5:24 am
bench press
November 15th, 2009 at 5:34 am
hey bro, i can honestly relate to you, same thing happened to me, and I was even a SS/WOLB hybrid, so I didn’t need to be bigger! haha. Here’s all you need to put on healthy mass. Food! Increase your caloric intake and you’ll be full of energy for you and energy for your muscles to rebuild, but make sure it’s healthy! Protein is excellent at this, so eat up on healthy protein such as chicken. Red meat will do the same thing, but there’s more fat in it. Diet is the #1 thing I wish I would have known more about in HS, so read up! I can’t tell you everything you should know. just search for it, something like”football diet” or any body building article can tell you how to put on mass fast, but you got to know where to draw the line so you don’t end up at 260 haha. Also, make sure to consume your protein after you work out. I assume you work out with the team during the off-season, this is when you got to hit the weights and hit them hard! First comes strength, then comes mass. And remember to consume your protein shake (any protein powder+water=good enough, go to your local GNC or whatever and they’ll help you to find what you want) or a glass of milk and some carbs within 30 minutes after workout to fuel your muscles to rebuild. As for supplements or vitamins, you don’t need um really. Creatine makes you real puffy, so you might want to look in to that. I’ve never been on it, but what it essentially does is put water in your muscles, for mass and your muscles don’t fatigue quite as fast, so you can lift heavier. Vitamin pills are essentially useless, your body doesn’t do a good job at absorbing them. Just eat healthy to get your vitamins, or have some Total cereal for breakfast or something else that’s fortified with vitamins.
If any of this is confusing, shoot me a message, ask your coaches, or ask your doctor.
What I really want you to draw from this is healthy diet and hitting the weights.
November 15th, 2009 at 5:46 am
For a linebacker, you need more bulk. Like others said, you just have to eat more, supplemented by a lifting program that can turn the food into muscle. Maybe your football team has a trainer that can write out a meal plan for you.
For lifting, work on major groups – squats/leg press, pull ups, bench press, deadlift, etc. In other words, you don’t have to work on arms like curls, tricep extensions – these core exercises will work out these muscles.
You do have to work on “explosive” exercises – lunges, etc that get your fast twitch muscles involved. These help with initial bursts, vertical, and coodination.
Basically, in most cases it’s physics. Given two objects traveling at each other at the same rate of speed, the heavier of the two objects will transfer more negative energy onto the lighter object. So only two things (bluntly) can help the lighter object – more weight or increased speed.