Entering college at the age of 18 can be a very transformative time in anyone’s life. For a lot of young men entering this world, it’s a time of change and evolution. Over the last few years, fitness has become a major part of society. Many social media platforms have been sharing multiple versions of a workout routine that they say works for anyone. As someone who used to be very skinny but active, I can honestly say that social media is a terrible place to get a workout routine from. I took to the gym and spent weeks trying different workouts for different parts of my body until I found the perfect workout routine to help guide you in the direction of your personalized workout.
The first thing to remember when creating a workout routine is that everyone’s body is different. So don’t focus on what everyone else is doing, focus on yourself only. Let’s start with some chest workouts. Bench pressing is an obvious start, but many people get the wrong impression from it. Benching is a great exercise to help build the muscles in your chest while also building your strength. Don’t ego lift and try to lift the most amount of weight you can every time. Put on a weight that you can comfortably do five sets of ten with. When you get up from that last set, you will feel a tightness in your chest. Use that same weight for about a week to two weeks before increasing it by another ten pounds. Once your chest is warmed up from benching, you can head over to the seated chest press machine. This machine will help you gain strength in your upper chest which gives you that pop coming down from your neck. Follow the same method as benching for this. Once your five reps are done, head over to the cables. Now it’s time to get the lower chest coming out to create that dip between your chest and your abdominal area. Crab the two cables and take a good step forward. Now pull both cables up and have your hands meet in the middle in front of your chest. You will feel a very nice pinch in your chest and when you finish these three workouts, take a look in the mirror at your chest.
The arms are my personal favorite part to work out. It’s such a good feeling walking out of the gym feeling like Popeye. Your shoulders, biceps, triceps, and forearms will all be worked out in these next few sets. Grab some dumbbells and don’t fool yourself with the weight. Do five sets of curls. Regular curls for your biceps and hammer curls for your bicep as well as forearm and wrist movement. Grab another dumbbell and place it behind your head with both hands. Now lift it straight up into the air and bring it back down. This workout will work out your triceps for a nice little warm up. Grab the dumbbell again with both hands and now carry it low by your waist and lift it up to your face. This will make your biceps feel very swollen afterwards. Once you’ve finished this round of workouts, head over to where you can use the black pulldown ropes. Take with you a barbell that isn’t too heavy for you. Now in a rotation sequence, do eight sets of curls and pulldowns. Doing eight sets of these will destroy your biceps and triceps and make your arms feel extremely swollen.
By now, you’re feeling very tight all over your body so you need a workout that can help you relax but also maintains productivity. Now we can move on to abs and cardio. Abs are very difficult to form, but with enough discipline you will see them forming their shape. Grab a medicine ball and head to a bench to do some sit ups on. Now the next few minutes of your workout will burn and will need a lot of dedication. Use the medicine ball to do 25 Russian twists and then immediately go into a set of 25 sit ups. Do this four times so you can reach a total of 100 reps for each. You are going to feel a very sharp pinch as you get up and you better believe getting up in the morning will be a challenge. Planks are some great abdominal workouts that will help you build a mold for your abs to fall into. Do a 30 to 45 second plank hold and then get on your side and do another 30 to 45 seconds on each side. Those will make you sweat and maybe even cry. Planks are painful. Now it’s time to end off with a nice run. Put on a nice song that gets you pumped and take a light jog as the song plays. This will help you get that last minute sweat in and burn off any calories that survived your workout.
These workouts are perfect for any skinny guy entering college and wondering what they should be doing when they first enter the gym. These workouts are meant to serve as a mold that each guy can build on and create a routine that helps them achieve their specific goal. This routine is meant to be tweaked and added to. It’s also important to remember that it takes time to see results so don’t get discouraged when you don’t look any different after a few days. Sleep and diet are also two major factors that will affect your transformation. Every guy that looks huge and strong started somewhere. If you put in the work and commit yourself to hitting the gym on a rigorous routine, you will find yourself hitting every single goal you set for yourself. Working out is a mental and physical activity. A strong body and a strong mind will lead you to the best things that life can offer.
