Letter to the Skinny Asian Guy at the Gym

Dear skinny Asian guy,

First of all, congratulations.  You want to change your body to become healthier and more attractive.  Working out will not always be easy but you'll reap the rewards eventually when you have a stronger body and mind.  You will notice that clothes look better on you and you will generally feel more energetic and powerful.  People will notice you more and you will get more respect from both women and men.  In the end, I guarantee that it'll be worth the investment.

Here is the bad news.  You either have no idea what you're doing or you think you do based on what you read online from bodybuilding articles.  You have to realize that following Arnold's Mr. Olympia training is not going to work for you.  His combination of genetics, experience, diet, and supplementation made his workouts work for him.  You have to realize that your situation is vastly different so your approach will have to focus on what works for most people starting out, not what worked for the Austrian Oak in the 1970s.

First of all, I bet your diet is your biggest limiting factor.  I've seen you for months at the gym and you haven't made much progress by lifting the same weights and having the same body.  You are 5' 10" and weigh 125 pounds, making you medically underweight.  I'm 5' 7" and I've been able to bulk up to 170 pounds with very unexceptional genetics.  I know a 5' 9" natural who has reached 215 pounds with less than 10% body fat (but he played football at FIU and has incredible genetics).  Your greatest challenge will be to significantly increase your caloric intake.  An old-school method is to make sure you drink a gallon of (whole) milk a day (GOMAD).  This will ensure that you meet the daily caloric requirement to grow.  Make sure to eat lots of protein (2 grams per pound of bodyweight) from poultry, beef, pork, fish, beans, and eggs.  Eat plenty of good carbs (e.g. brown rice, whole wheat bread, sweet potatoes, yams, oats) and fats (e.g. olive oil, canola oil, fish oil, avocado, walnuts, almonds).  Also, eat as many fruits and vegetables as you'd like.

If you cannot resist the urge to buy dietary supplements, go ahead and buy whey protein from your local GNC or Vitamin Shoppe (or online).  The best time to take it will be immediately after your workouts.  You can also take it before your workouts, after you wake up, and before you go to bed.  Creatine will also help you but this is secondary to whey protein.  I've never been a huge fan of casein but you can try drinking it before you go to bed.  I think ZMA is overhyped and overrated so most of you don't have to bother.  I think multi-vitamins are overrated as well.  Your body will be better off getting the vitamins and minerals it needs through food instead of a pill.  Make sure your diet is solid before you try to perfect anything else.

Now, let's talk about what you actually do at the gym.  Right now, your routine is pretty terrible.  Stop your cable crossovers, tricep extensions, preacher curls, leg extentions, dumbbell flyes, French presses, and whatever ab machine motions.  Those aren't what you should be focusing on.  In fact, ditch the machines altogether and just use barbells and your own bodyweight.  Here are the exercises you should be doing in order of importance:

1. Squat
2. Deadlift
3. Bench press
4. Shoulder press

These are the main lifts you MUST do.  If you focus your workouts on improving your numbers for just those four lifts, you will see much more progress than whatever you were doing before.  If you want a template to follow, try Mark Rippetoe's Starting Strength.  I like Jim Wendler's 5/3/1.

I don't care if you squat like a powerlifter or an Olympic weightlifter.  Box squats are great too as long as you hit the requisite depth.  Just make sure the top of your thighs hit at least parallel to the ground when you go down.  You can deadlift conventional or Sumo; it doesn't matter.  Just lift the damn weight off the floor.  You can use the double overhand, hook, or alternating grip.  If the trapbar will get you to do deadlifts, then use that instead of the barbell.

Make sure to hit the full range of motion for all the lifts.  For consistency, grip the barbell with your thumbs wrapped around, not too far out from shoulder width.  The thumbless (aka suicide) grip is okay for the squat but I wouldn't recommend it for any of the pressing movements.  Also, make sure your spotter on the bench press touches the bar only when you are clearly failing to lift it up after lowering it to your chest.

Obviously, my advice is all just to get you started.  You'll have to learn a lot more on your own.  I particularly enjoy material by Jim Wendler, Dave Tate, Ian King, Elliott Hulse, Louie Simmons, Christian Thibaudeau, Joe DeFranco, Charles Poliquin, Martin Rooney, Charles Staley, and Mark Rippetoe.  If you really can't resist bodybuilding literature, check out Gordon Lavelle, Mike Mentzer, Arthur Jones, Dante Trudel (aka Doggcrapp), Dorian Yates, and Mike O'Hearn.  Learn as much as you can to get the most out of your training.

A final note: make sure you are well-rested.  Try to get at the very least seven hours of sleep per night, but eight would be even better.  Your body needs to recover from all the hard training so allow your body to grow so you can become stronger and lift more for your next workouts.

That's it!  You can take my tips or ignore them.  Always be skeptical and find what works for you.  If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment below and I'll respond as soon as I get the chance.

Yours truly,
Lester

Note: In addition to the main lifts, here are some others that you may want to incorporate (I've used almost all of them but my favorites are in underlined bold):

1. Front/hack/overhead/Zercher squat
2. Clean/snatch (full/power/hang)
3. Row (barbell/dumbbell/upright/bent-over/T-bar/underhand)
4. Chin-up/pull-up
5. Dip (bench/bars)
6. Curl (barbell/dumbbell/reverse/Hammer/wrist)
7. Stiff-legged/Romanian deadlift
8. Glute-ham raise
9. Back raise
10. Good morning
11. Incline bench press
12. Lunge
13. Step-up
14. Hanging leg-raise
15. Close-grip bench press
16. Shrug (barbell/dumbbell)
17. Farmer's walk
18. Barbell hip thrust/glute bridge
19. Landmine
20. Push press/jerk
21. Floor/bridge press
22. Reverse hyperextension
23. Barbell rollout/ab wheel
24. Sit-up
25. Push-up

As you can tell, I don't care for the machines, including the dreaded Smith machines.