My teenage daughter wants big arms

[Lisa]

I have a 15 year old daughter who is doing Starting Strength. She does actually want to gain weight. She told me she is sick of her 'noodle arms' and wants arms like a football player. She weighs 93 pounds at about 5’3", and that is just her natural body type. (She is healthy; if you just saw her and I didn't write those actual numbers, you wouldn't blink.)

She has made steady progress with Starting Strength, and since she is so light, by now she is getting close to squatting and deadlifting her body weight. Upper body lifts are also steadily progressing, slower, but as expected for females. I have a set of fractional plates to keep us girls 'unstuck' for as long as possible.

Yesterday she came home from school, grabbed her upper arm in disappointment, and asked me if it would be better to exercise every day, rather than the 3x a week.

I started contemplating and said maybe I can teach her complexes and high rep back squats (ala Dan John’s MMS). She went off to lift, and I had time to realize that was probably pretty stupid and if she did that, she would probably lose weight and strength. I told her that she is making great progress, she needs to be patient, and she just needs to really make a better effort to eat more and more often, and she needs to start weighing herself so we can tell what is working. (I never taught my daughters the habit of weighing themselves before.)

So two things...the first is - what are realistic expectations for mass gains in a 93 pound female? I have the Starting Strength Standards table, and her strength is progressing well according to the tables. The book talks about the demographic being young novice male and what are expected strength and mass gains or else YNDTP...I am not exactly sure how to manage her expectations on arm size. She is eating more than before, but she is just not used to eating a lot or eating often. (I told her she can stuff her locker at school with beef jerky and peanut M&Ms...she thought that was funny.)

The second question is about: Volume. After reading many other questions about volume in the forums, I'm almost scared to ask for fear of brutal mocking, but I guess I will anyway. She doesn't do any physical activity except walk to and from school, and she does Starting Strength 3x per week: Squat + Press or Bench + Deadlift. If we can make sure she is eating enough, and her strength is progressing, I would think added volume is good for gaining muscle. (And I mean more volume at heavy weight, not 'light weights high reps' stuff.) When you are squatting your bodyweight, but you only weigh 93 pounds, your volume is much less than normal SS program because you are not doing many warmup sets. Also, in my experience, and that of others, it seems like females need less rest and recovery time...and young people in general have better recovery. So if she wants to do additional work to add mass and seems like that is not interfering with strength gains, do you think it would be fine? If so, what is an intelligent way to add the additional work?

[Mark Rippetoe]

Very important: does she have an eating disorder?

[Lisa]

She does not.

Everyone eats dinner together - meat, salad and/or vegetables, and some carb (pasta, bread, whatever). We eat dessert, including chocolate or premium ice cream. She likes Funyuns. She just doesn't eat a lot, she doesn't eat if she's not hungry, and doesn't snack.

My mom was 99 pounds in high school, and my husband's mom was the same (until they had kids). I weighed 120 pounds in middle school...my other daughter (13 now) is 120 pounds. She is healthy too. The girls don't have eating disorders. Thank goodness that is not as common now as when I was their age...at least, as far as I can tell from them and their friends anyway.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Additional work cannot add muscle mass in the absence of a caloric surplus. She needs to eat 3000kcal/day and do the novice progression as detailed in the book.

[CommanderFun]

If by "volume" you just mean upping the workouts to heavy 5x5s, there's a reason those are usually only used in the intermediate programs. You'll require more recovery between workouts. If you're looking for training in the novice program that really gets at the arms, chins or supine grip pulldowns are great for that. But eating is key. I remember my time spent in the teenage demographic, even though it was about 20 years ago. I didn't have an eating disorder, but I was extremely malnourished. It was just the circumstances of my life. I never had time to have breakfast because I had to drag myself out of bed from barely even sleeping the night before, and the options for lunch in school were abysmal, so I just never had any. I'd eat quite a bit after getting home, but it didn't make up for it at all. It sounds like she is struggling with the need to eat more, and I felt that way too when I tried to improve my strength at that young age. I assured myself what I really needed was just to "train harder". But no amount of training is going to make up for not supplying your body with the raw materials required to build itself up.

[Lisa]

Thank you for the response. In hindsight, I'm sure it was annoying question where you have to keep repeating the same answer, but it means more for a kid to hear that from you than their coach/parent.

When my daughter came home today, I said "Mark Rippetoe says that you need to eat 3000 calories a day."

She said..."Okay, I know what a calorie is, but I have no context for that number."

"It means you need to eat more than Bob." (Bob is male, 6', 60 years old who has also been following Starting Strength...getting stronger but not seeing much muscle growth until he agreed to let me tell him what to eat. So far he gained 10 pounds while leaning out slightly. So she sees his meals, snacks, plus a protein shake or two.)

Her eyes got wide..."I need to eat more than BOB???"...<Sigh>...<Shrug>..."Okay." And she drank a glass of chocolate milk.

We follow the plan. Thank you for all that you do.

[Frank_B]

Be it on the podcast or on the forum, can we make “You need to eat more than Bob” the standard reply to people who inquire about their progress but are not eating enough?

[JorZed]

Have her do some curls after training

[Satch12879]

"You need to eat more than Bob."

New T-shirt, Bree.

[Lisa]

HAHA Yes, "You need to eat more than Bob" is working! You may trademark it for your own use.

Her gaining a full understanding of not just to eat more but wayyy more...(more than Bob!)...really did the trick. I'll give an update on weight gain one of these days soon, thanks!