Big five workouts: A complete guide for the teenagers

Get better and bigger muscles

Big five workouts are the must to do exercises for you if you are a teenager who loves to build muscles. In this fast-paced world, it is getting harder and harder to invest time in oneself. From our hectic routine, we hardly get time for exercise.

It is the one thing that is somewhat deliberately ignored. Exercise is necessary for teenagers developing body. We are constantly bombarded by things that demand our attention.

The fact that you are reading it probably means that some hot, bulky teenager in a Netflix show caught your attention.

The way they cruise around in their luxury cars, flexing their bodies might have even turned some of you gay, or maybe your goal is to just look exactly like them.

Whatever your intentions may be, you will find some relevant pieces of information in this mass of words.

Why even bother to do workouts? 

Working out has lots of research-backed benefits and we all have heard that so many times that they are merely a cliche now.

It keeps your weight under a certain healthy limit, prevents fatty deposition along the blood vessels thereby significantly decreasing the chances of cardiovascular diseases.

Did I mention that it lifts your mood? And did I tell you about its ability to light up your dim, dull sex life? However, the one I find particularly important is its ability to cure depression.

Exercise is a better antidepressant than other enjoyable activities. Acute and chronic exercises both are known to have an antidepressant effect.

But if you are doing it to look like someone then instead of being the cure for depression, it might just become the source of depression

It reminds me of something I read in one of Simon Sinek’s books that the combination of your whys and hows are what sets you apart from the rest of the crowd.

This is something that you need to ask yourself. Initially, there might be beginner’s luck but once you hit a plateau and the going gets tough that is when knowing WHY you started working out truly matters.

So, knowing why you are doing something makes a hell of a lot of difference in the long run. 

Also read: How to Do Negative Pull Ups? Top 10 Pull Up Equipment Reviewed

A glimpse of the science behind the big five workouts

let us be honest it is tough being a teenager your body is going through a myriad of physiological changes induced by the sporadic outbursts of the hormone, particularly testosterone.

Your voice deepens, testicles descend, hair starts growing here and there. If only we could get bulky just like that but then again, every day is not Sunday either. Though you do not get bulky at the onset of puberty the foundation for getting bulkier has been set.

When you hit puberty, testosterone is added on top of the hormonal cocktail already flowing in your veins. It is like you are physio-legally allowed to have testosterone once you hit puberty.

You can only build muscle when there is a veneer of testosterone in your rushing in your blood.

A word of advice

Judging from the fact that you are reading this article, I can tell that you are all pumped up right now. Shoulders up, chest wide open, ready to take on the challenges. But there are some precautionary measures I would like you all to consider 

• Consult a physician before starting any workout plans. 
• Do not be so hard on yourself. you cannot get a ripped body overnight. 
• Do not overdo it. Squeezing in a week’s workout in a day is not going to do you any good 
• For those who have not hit puberty yet, the only thing you can do is strengthen your muscle, but you cannot build one.
• Heavyweights are a no-no as they may fracture the growing parts of your bone.

Now that I have warned you about the things that you should avoid. Some of you might follow the advice, some would rather rebel against the authority. It is what it is, but seriously guys if attracting chicks is your number one priority then I would say,’ health before hoes.’ 

Big five Workouts- One

Push ups

Push ups, the word gets thrown around a lot that you might have heard of it in your adolescence.

Now that you are a teenager, it is about time to get your hands dirty doing push ups. Just make sure to look up the correct posture for a push up. Even though it is a common exercise, yet many people do it wrong.

It is the best compound exercise out there that builds your upper body and strengthens your core. When you use your arms to lift your body against gravity, it exercises your chest and arm muscles such as the pectorals, triceps, and deltoids.

It also activates the muscles in the back, abs, and even leg. Since no special equipment is needed for it, all you need to do is your body weight to gain muscular strength and build.

Benefits

• Push ups are like a litmus test for your fitness. They allow you to judge your bodily strength.
• Greatly beneficial for building upper body strength.

Big 5 workouts- Two

Burpees

Burpees are great for building strength and endurance. It is like a modified push up where you do one push up and then leap back up as if celebrating one successful push up.

As funny as it sounds, it is a rather challenging, yet beneficial exercise. They involve a large group of muscles and thus are amazing calorie burners. 

Burpees use your body weight as resistance and the wide range of muscle groups that they heat are limbs musculature, core muscles along with hips and the buttocks.

BENEFITS

• It is arguably the best exercise if your goal is to build strength and endurance.
• Another potential exercise to assess the fitness of an individual. In WWII, it was adopted as a way to assess the fitness of the recruits.
• The amount of effort that goes into doing one set of burpees makes it a great calorie burner.

Big five workouts- three

Squats

Ever saw a toddler struggling to get from one end to the other? Their struggle comprises of two movements: Toddling, of course, and squatting in the middle of their journey.

Squatting is one of the best exercises if you are trying to add on muscle mass. It is a strength exercise that involves sitting uncomfortably on an imaginary chair. 

 Squatting is a compound movement which means that it employs most of our muscles. It recruits almost all the lower body muscles such as quadriceps femoris, hamstring muscle, and gluteus maximus along with the core muscles.

All this, coupled with the fact that squatting is a natural position for us and that we are genetically programmed to do it, merits its inclusion in the big five workouts. 

Benefits

• What makes squatting best for building muscle is its ability to challenge most of the muscles of your body. 
• Not only they will strengthen and build your muscle, but they are also beneficial for your bones. 

Big five workouts- four

Plank 

Planks are known for building core stability, but they also engage the rest of your body. It might just be the simplest exercise out there, yet one of the most impactful ones when it comes to results. Doing planks is quite straightforward.

Think about the time when you were a kid and you would lie on your stomach crying your heart out, except in a plank it is now your arms job to support you, and your abs must be taut all the time. 

The plank not only targets the abdominal muscles but also the core muscles lying on the region between the pelvic and the pectoral girdle. For a strong and stable core, planks must be in your big five workouts.

Benefits

• Holding a plank for just one minute at a time can create a resilient torso.
• Plank not only strengthens your core muscles but also helps in building them.
• Planks improve core stability, and a strong and stable core leads to lesser injuries.

Big five workouts- Five 

Triceps dips

The triceps dip is a great exercise to strengthen your arms and shoulders. Whatever workout plan you may follow make sure to accommodate this effective body weight exercise in your big five workouts.

This exercise is like when you lean back against a wall or a dip bar, but then decide to shape shift yourself into a chair, a classic position. 

Triceps dips are an upper body strength exercise that primarily targets, you guessed it right, triceps. Other muscles it fires up are the pectoralis, deltoid, and rhomboid muscles.

If you want to shove heavy people or things away, you have to your triceps, man. Fun fact: when you accidentally push on a door that screams PULL in block letters, you are using your triceps ONLY and no brain. 

Benefits

• The core is an important aspect of our body, so it is no wonder that a lot of workout plans out there revolve around the strengthening of the core. Triceps dips have proven to be quite impactful in this regard.
• Strengthening the muscle can prevent injuries. 
• There will not be any muscle imbalances. Most of the time when working on biceps, one forgets about the triceps and they look peculiar against the hypertrophied biceps. 

Reasons why your workouts plan might fail

Assuming that you have finally identified your big five workouts, it is time to know the common mistakes people make that can lead to an epic failure of your workout plan.

The American Council of Exercise (ACE) points some common obstacles that sabotage our plans.

• Expecting drastic results too soon:

We all fell prey to this kind of mindset at least once in our lives and it can be quite disheartening. Good things take time in the material world. If we could just cut back on our chimerical dreams, then it would be much easier to follow a plan.

• Making lame excuses 

to not workout is going to disrupt your momentum and it is going to take a hell of lot of willpower to exercise next time. Say no to cheat days.

• Not scheduling in recovery days

I have already said before that over training will not help you reach your goals faster. When the primary target of your workout plan is muscle building, it quite literally tears your muscle fibers asunder.

And it is through the repairing of these ‘torn’ muscles that you get bulkier. So, if you do not take a rest day, it is not going to increase your muscle mass because fibers repair upon resting.

• Engaging in negative self-talk.

You are already exerting yourself physically, there is no need to add in the mental strain as well. It is quite natural to get demotivated when results cannot be visualized.

But there is something I picked up from the book, Atomic Habits, that goals and plans only take you so far, you need a system that produces superior results.

• Overestimating yourself 

is also a hurdle in the quest for steady progress. Though we just talked about how negative self-talk and underestimating yourself can be problematic but overestimating yourself can have a much more harmful effect on your health. It may make prone to injuries.

CONCLUSION 

Workouts are really important for your overall health. At this point, you have the information you need to get started. But one thing that you should keep in mind is that CONSISTENCY IS THE KEY.

Here is an idiom as old as Rome itself that ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day, it is as true for your body as it is for Rome itself.

Do not expect to go into the transition the way Captain America underwent: one minute skinny, next minute ripped body. Science fiction at its best.

Instead of focusing on the outcome, focus on your efforts as James Clear clearly said in his book that our primary concern should be paving the pathway that leads to better results.

Instead of focusing on where we are right now, we should pay more attention to where we are heading from here. In the end, I bid you all adieu in the famous words of Obi-Wan Kenobi, may the force be with you!

For further reading you can check out our these blog posts:

Read More: How many exercises per workout?