At his age, chicken and rice. When I was 16, I thought that shit was a made-up myth. Then, a couple of months later, 225, 275, 315 all in under a year. At 225 when I was 16. But at the same time, genetics, everybody thought my dad was giving me juice because we were just bigger guys. I hopped on juice before my dad did. He is 49 starting trt.

Edit: still swear by chicken and rice, I just mix it with different sauces.

16. He’s gonna be on a roll with the gym stuff. He’s gonna get confidence. He’s gonna build some lean mass. He’s gonna lose fat. He’s gonna feel his first tittie and he won’t be stopped. The only thing that will stop is his drive to gym like an animal consistently. He’s a child and they’re gonna get distracted on their fitness journey. He’s gonna get his heart broke and that’s gonna be his drive. His drive is gonna be a drug. The muscle gained will not be enough. More titties because more muscles. He will plateau. TREN. lol in all seriousness thank your steering him away from gear. Confidence will turn into what if I add test. He shot it once and he has access. You should give him the I’m gonna test you randomly and if you pop hot I’m not training you and a friendly smack to his face.

Man I just read through this thread, and you obviously have everything covered. I just wanted to say that this interaction might be the thing that lights the fire and motivates this kid for the rest of his life, who knows. Hat off to you on how you handled, and are continuing to handle the situation!

This is all to do with Generational age differences and what World we each grew up in. I am a little older than most on here, probably a decade older but during my later teenage years 16 plus when I properly began training first time round - there was NO social media or Youtube constantly pushing people who trained or did Bodybuilding in your face every single hour.

If you lifted weights back then you did it because you genuinely enjoyed the feeling of Grinding ass with weights, struggling with reps, getting skin splitting pumps and feeling FUCKIN GREAT but beaten up afterwards. You bought all the Bodybuilding Mags like FLEX and Musclemag and you read each page front to back trying to learn as much as you could from the guys interviewed in it.

You were over the moon if month to month you noticed you were getting 'a little big bigger and could add a few more kg's to the bar each week - thats all you needed to see to make you genuinely feel like you were progressing. Yeah you would continually ask yourself how the FUCK the guys in Flex magazine looked like they lived on a different Universe to yours and how in the hell they could rep 3 plate per side bench presses, some even with 4 but you just silently said to yourself they have a little secret somewhere along the line OR they took Steroids which you knew absolutely NOTHING about, and to be honest they sounded that scary you didn't want to know anything about them either.

This in turn is a STARK contrast to 99% of the kids that are going to the gym today. They don't really wanna bust ass in the gym to the point of exhaustion, couldn't care less about lifting hard cold Iron disks day in day out and certainly don't have the time to learn all about eating/nutrition/sleeping right/supplements. Hell they can't even be arsed to learn about Steroids and what each one does - All they know is they wanna look great, and realistically for them that should be happening within 1 to 2 months. Hence they need to get on steroids ASAP.

I commend you mate for giving this guy some solid advice and persuading him to get off the Test ASAP - I'm not sure how long you will succeed in doing that for or even if he will tell you the truth on what he is or isn't taking but I think the only proper way he can learn is to train with you for a few weeks to a month, and you possibly write down some sample meal plans for the day along with protein supps he should be taking etc. Because most of these kids don't have the passion or desire for lifting like we did they simply won't ever read and invest hours of personal time learning about all this stuff - you see them when they post up basic questions on here they could of found the answers to in 5 minutes if they had bothered to look on Google. It will be interesting to see how things pan out with him in a month or so's time

For me at that age it was sugar. As long as sugar was practically non existent from my diet I could eat just about as much as I wanted and was putting on just muscle just as fast.

Really interesting read, and I can probably offer some insight since I'm closer to that 16 year old's age than most people here. When I was 16-17 I started lifting as a joke, not taking it seriously at all. Sugary Gatorades, pre-workouts, junk food, staying up late, all the typical stuff.

It wasn't until recently I started noticing what the older guys were complaining about. Kids skipping the foundational work entirely and jumping to more gear than I've ever touched, and I've been on doctor prescribed TRT for two and a half to three years. They're just trying to accelerate everything. Marathon not a sprint, as always.

What you did here was the most responsible thing you could have done. He still has the natural capability to grow without taking such a drastic approach when his body is probably already doing most of the work.

The issue is these kids are lost. Low self-esteem, poor guidance, influencer comparisons, gear being easily accessible, it all feeds into it. But the answer is still the boring stuff. Macros, sleep, water, a decent training split, and patience. The real root problem is that dopamine receptors at 16 are completely fried from social media and instant gratification. They want results tomorrow.
Teach him patience however you can. Right now he's a sponge, this is the best time to instill that. The goal should be getting him to a point where he doesn't need your advice at all. That's when you know you've done your job.

Fuckin dumb kid. Peak age to really start packing it on easily just by eating, sleeping, and lifting heavy. Hell. That combination works at any age. Hopefully he listens to you.

I can tell you her is using the excuses because he did not put in the work or give it enough time he is expecting the results over night. You know what would help him the most and it would have helped me a ton, that is if someone who knew what they were doing would have taken me under their wing and had me workout with them. Show me the work outs each day for the different muscle groups and proper form. In a few weeks he will start to see results and it will start to change his way of thinking.

if he likes junk food, tell him to eat honeybuns with peanut butter as his cheat meal or whatever its called. at least then he will get carbs and protein vs like swiss rolls and that kind kf garbage which is just straight sugar n garbage. amd show him some pictures of people that didnt do gear right that have big man boobs and saggy skin and be like this is whats gonna happen to you if you start this young. at least try to delay his enivatable start of gear.

Kids have been ruined by social media

I wish anyone would've td me anything instead of figuring it out myself. I'm gonna say with what you've done already your awesome. And since he seems to have the performance enhancement bug, maybe hype up creatine... just so he's "on" something to feel special.

Personally I didnt see my best till I was about 19 to 20. 16 I just looked like a boy.

You might of just saved this kids life