TeenBodybuilding.com - James Sadek - Timing And Bodybuilding!

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James is training for the 2002 Australian Teenage Nationals.

Teenagers have a lot on their plates, and teenagers who train seriously have a lot more on their plates. I will try and suggest ways to maximize time.

How To Make The Most Of Your Day And Save Time

By: James Sadek

A lot of young aspiring bodybuilders still go to school, work a part time job, train with weights and do cardio most of the week, finish homework and assignments and then still have to eat, sleep, socialize and spend time with there families. Not too mention, watch TV and play video games.

Teenagers have a lot on their plates, and teenagers who train seriously have a lot more on their plates. I will try and suggest ways to maximize time.

There are only 24 hours in a day, there sometimes needs to be at least 30 to have a comfortable day but that's not going to happen any time soon so below is a list of ways to make the most of your time available and still trying to allow for about 7 to 8 hours sleep a night.

Cook In Bulk

I suggest cooking all meats and dividing all food be done in bulk. Take about 30 minutes about twice a week to cook all your chicken, red meat, and fish, also prepare tuna and put into bowls. Divide all food into desired number of grams and store in the fridge. By doing this it allows you when putting together the day's meals all you have to do is find the food, put it in a container and then finally put it in your bag.

I suggest cooking whenever is a good time for you, if you are so busy get up 30minutes earlier twice a week and cook as it will save countless hours cooking each meal individually. Try and split the cooking days up so you cook when the previous lot of food is gone or almost eaten so food is kept relatively fresh and tasty. For examples 2 good days during the week to cook would be Saturday and either Wednesday or Tuesday.

A great way to cook in bulk is the barbeque, double sided grillers or frying pans, where possible use either a spray on oil to minimize excess oil aka, saturated fat cooked into food as this is unwanted obviously or put foil down and cook on top of the foil.

"Pack Or Prepare All Meals For The Day At Once"

This idea is simple, but very, very effective. By preparing all meals that are needed for the day where you will be out or away from home it cuts a great deal of preparation and cleaning time out. It will also allow you to get in enough meals to either maintain what you have worked so hard for, or start putting on some serious size.

Either prepare your meals the night before and store them in the fridge or the in the morning before or after your breakfast just depending on when you have time to do so.

If you will be able to eat at home but do not have time to prepare each and every meal leave each of the prepared meals in a normal plate covered and in the fridge, if you must eat on the run buy some air tight containers and pack your food in those and take with you to school, work or wherever you must go.

If you need to consume protein/weight gainer shakes buy a shaker bottle, Bodybuilding.com sell the biggest shaker I know of, and they are truly high quality.

By preparing all your meals at once for the day it will reduce the times you have to clean up, and stuff around in the kitchen. I like to prepare all my meals except for breakfast and dinner, as I like to eat them fresh, hot and straight from the oven or fry pan depending on what I am having when the time allows me.

Buy A Meal Replacement

If time is so tight that you are finding you are eating all of your spare time away buy a meal replacement or a protein powder. These easily digestible shakes can be consumed within a few minutes if not seconds and have no preparation time. Some would say the ultimate meal, if you are lucky you will get one that taste really good also which wouldn't be too hard these days with so many quality choices and the variety around.

Some good choices for a quality meal replacement are:

These meal replacements are most proberly the ultimate meal as there is no mess, no preparation, adequate protein and carbs, and all the vitamins and minerals needed. I strongly recommend a high quality MRP; it's a must for eating on the run.

Eat For Nutritional Value, Not Taste

Ok, I know what your saying but when you haven't got much time its more important what you get into your system rather than how nice it tastes while its getting in your system. This will also reduce the time it takes to eat the food and prepare the food.

Spend Less Time In The Gym

By reducing the time you spend in the gym will allow more time for work, study or food preparation even sleep. I like to train for about an hour to an hour and a half. So I can keep this up I wake up a little earlier in the morning, I am used to this so it's no big deal. But if you train in the afternoon and need to get through your workout that usually takes up to 2 hours get it done in about 40 minutes. You save about an hour and 20 minutes.

Ways To Minimize Time In Gym:

Increase Intensity - By increasing intensity by reducing rest intervals it will cause your muscles to fatigue a lot quicker although it may cause you to drop in your weight lifted as the workout progresses if building muscle is your goal it won't make too much difference as you would have overloaded the muscle for growth.
Super Sets - By super setting your normal exercises will reduce the time of the workout by half or a third. This also raises intensity and will shock the muscle with maximum overload.
Tri - Sets - Much the same as super sets but will quicken your workout dramatically. The idea of Trisets is to continuously work your muscle using 3 different exercises using different weight and rep range for each one. So for exercise 1 you could do 6 to 8 reps, for exercise 2 you could use a rep range of 15 and exercise 3 shoot for about 10 reps. This will stimulate all the muscle fibers in a very short amount of time.

Don't Forget To...

Pack a fork with your meals, from experience it can be the most annoying thing ever.
Eat after workout meal, it is the ultimate time for building muscle after your workout. Always find time to adequately refuel the muscles.
Not skip breakfast. This will straight away put your body in a catabolic state and can have real negative effects if done on a regular basis.
Get enough sleep and get adequate rest and recovery.
Spend enough time with your friends and family, there should always be time for these 2 very important groups of people.

I hope this gives teenagers some ideas on how to maximize there time a little bit better to make them better bodybuilders, athletes and people.

Until Next Time,

jamessadek@optusnet.com.au