How to bulk up? The healthy and normal way? (1 Viewer)

[DavidQc]

Hi all,
I've been meaning to ask.... all my life, I've been thin as a rail. Mainly it's genetics... but I've never been able to bulk up.

I used to work out in college... and gained strength and energy... but never really gained in mass.

What are your suggestions? Perhaps my diet is much too healthy... not enough protein and fat in my diet.

Also, work takes up nearly 60 hours per week for me... there has been no time for the gym. Very sad indeed. :frowning:

Any input from nutrition/health/fitness experts are welcomed!

I'm healthy... but would like to look better to feel even better. Also, I would prefer to gain healthy mass the normal and good way for my heart as well.

Thanks in advance!
Best regards,
David

 

[Matt Pelham]

I hate to break it to ya, but unless that changes I don't see any bulking up happening.

Anyways to gain muscle mass it's recommended you eat 1-1.5 grams of protein for every lb of bodyweight while. So if you weigh 160 pounds you should consume 160-240 g of protein each day, including rest (no gym) days. Stick to a regular schedule of 5 1-hour workouts each week, and find a good workout that involves heavy weights and lower (6-8) reps. Also try and get the maximum amount of sleep you can handle each night.

When you start to plateau after a few months I suggest using bodybuilding supplements (high quality creatine and glutamine) to break through and continue making progress.

Thanks the best advice I can give you. Some people are just genetically inclined to be lean and skinny, but anyone can bulk up somewhat.

 

[Gregg Shiu]

Hey there, as an Asian who's also a fellow skinny person, I've got pretty good experience on gaining some nice muscle mass.

not enough protein and fat in my diet

Yeah... you're gonna wanna work on that . Balanced diet has a lot to do with it, as exercise is more like how you get sculpted, but of course you need mass first. I'll try to give as much information as I recall, but I'm sure there's better sports nutritionist-type people on the forum who will do a nicer job of that in subsequent posts.

As long as you have a balanced diet, and add a couple more grams of protein to each portion, it shouldn't be hard to gain that mass. Also, I've heard from several people on our school's wrestling team that loading up and lots of carbs and starches was a really cheap fast way to get a bulky mass that could be toned down from cardio later on. Results, of course, vary, and I'm one who only could gain weight from protein. I recommend you try to get into habit of making about 20-30 mins a day for some sort of lifting with free weights or at the very least, pushups, situps, hindu squats, and any other calisthenics. Exercising with resistance is a great way at building up the size, whereas repitition gives the definition. If you know how to make smoothies, you can easily make a healthy snack even better with a few scoops of protein powder. Go to a Trader Joe's or somewhere like that to get it, as I've found it to be a lot cheaper than GNC and the like. It's also good to use it in drinks, yogurt, etc. if you don't mind the taste. I've also heard something quite recently that the human body can only process so much protein at one time, and the rest becomes waste... so actually eating a huge amount of protein in expensive bars/shakes/whatever could be a forseeable waste of money. Just remember that when you do get that mass, which I'm sure you can and will, you eat accordingly since more muscle will need more protein, or it will canabalize itself. Well, anyways that's as far as my help goes. Hopefully many will add to this and undoubtedly correct a lot of what I may have messed up on. GOOD LUCK David!

 

[DavidQc]

Matt, Gregg!
Thank you for your input.
I really do appreciate it.

Yes, I'm cursed with the asian genetics.
:frowning:

Matt - yes, I agree that I need to get back into the gym. I didn't intend to make it sound like I expect to get bigger by sitting at the office late each night.


My job is just killing me... and I need balance by dedicating time to focus on my health and gaining physical strength.

I love carbs and it's just amazing how I barely gain weight, considering how much I eat sometimes. My wife would agree. I will look further into nutrition and focus on protein to provide the much needed oomph to my workout.

Thanks again.
-David

 

[Benny G]

Here's one way to gain weight:

http://www.t-mag.com/nation_articles/238app.jsp

Here's a 2-part article that I find very interesting and would recommend it to anybody looking to eat better (but not necessarily to pack on the pounds):

http://www.testosterone.net/html/body_146mass.html

http://www.testosterone.net/html/body_147mass.html

 

[Benny G]

Here's a summary of the first article:

. . .here's the diet I generated:

8 AM, Breakfast: 6 whole eggs, 4 slices of whole grain bread, and 4 packets of instant oatmeal.

12 PM, Lunch: 1 pound extra lean ground beef, 1 cup cauliflower, and 2 large baked potatoes.

4 PM, Evening Meal: 1 pound of extra lean ground beef, 1 cup broccoli, and 2 large baked potatoes.

8 PM, Post-workout: half pound of pasta (weighed before cooking), 1 cup green beans, and half pound extra lean ground chicken.

Before bed: 6 whole eggs, 4 slices of whole grain bread.

Also, upon waking each morning I'd mix up a one gallon jug of water and somewhere between five and ten scoops of protein. In addition, I'd open a bag of six cinnamon raisin bagels and put peanut butter on each one. The protein drink and the bagels were to be consumed all day long when an actual meal wasn't being eaten. The motto was: "If I'm not chewing, I'm not growing." As soon as I'd finish each meal, I'd start right away with my protein shake and bagels and continue on them until the next meal. No lie.

 

[DavidQc]

Dear God... that's one way of killing your heart.
Sure, great way to pack on the pounds... but 12 whole eggs in one day?

That's not the road I'd want to go down.

But interesting info...
I'd be a fat ass in no time!

 

[Max Leung]

holy moly Benny...how do you keep the appetite up? My body has the uncanny habit of cutting my hunger like a valve on a pipe!

For example, I may be hungry around dinner time, but if I don't eat within half an hour, my appetite disappears completely. Almost as if my body was designed to cope with concentration-camp conditions or something. Hmmmm...

 

[Chris_Morris]

Great advice here.

Once you hit the gym, I would recommend this routine for muscle:

Hypertrophy-Specific Training

It is the only way I train now, and it's the only routine that (for me at least) actually gives the results it claims it will.

Chris

 

[Steve_Tk]

Well one thing to remember is your an individual, so what works for us might not work for you. Some of us have probably been working out for years and found exactly what we like.

First you need to get on a normal routine for food. Stop snacking completely. Stop drinking Soda. Stop eating potato chips. All that does nothing for you. You need to start with 4 big meals a day, and if you are eating right you will not want to snack. Basically you need your stomach to grow. When I started I ate so much in one sitting that just the swallowing of one more bite made me gag. But snacking and eating 6-7 times a day promotes faster metabolisms.

Then find a work out routine that works for you. There are hundreds out there. Just don't overtrain. If you are still sore then you need to give that muscle more time to grow. But also, one of the pitfalls, guys get in such a routine that they are not really growing anymore. Your mind is a powerful tool, and if you think "I can get 10 reps this time", then you will only get 10 reps when you could have probably busted out 13. This happens to everyone at some time, and you will notice it by not getting sore anymore. I personally am sore almost every time I work out a particular muscle. But for almost a year a couple years ago I was not working hard enough, just going through the routine.

But the main point, if you are not willing to sacrifice your snacking/eating habits and try to eat differently then you will gain zero weight.

 

[Bob Graz]

Here's a sure fire way to gain weight. Wait until you're about 40, you'll start gaining all the weight you want without even trying.

 

[Max Leung]

Ah, but how will you impress the girls and ward off the other men in the meantime?

 

[Chris Lockwood]

> Hypertrophy-Specific Training

Rather technical, but it sound like they're basically saying lift heavier weights. How is that different?

 

[Chris_Morris]

Not really. It keeping a constant load increase. You start at 15 reps to strengthen the tendons and ligaments, then you keep upping the weight to a rep-max and go on to the next rep amount. You're never really using "heavy" weight until near the end of the 5's microcycle.

It's also using the principles of muscle recovery. Instead of having seperate days, you do a full body workout every other day. The actual muscle fully recovers in 48 hrs, then you hit it again.

Also, it keeps protein synthesis high. After a lifting session, protein synthesis in the muscle jumps up, hits its peak at 24 hrs and drops rapidly until it's back to normal at 36 hrs.

The FAQs on the message board answer alot of questions. I think the FAQ that directly answers your question is here . Note that these answers were composed by Blade (who has been with HST from the start) but are actual answers from Bryan himself.

Chris

 

[Chris_Morris]

Delayed-onset muscle soreness does not reflect the magnitude of eccentric exercise-induced muscle damage.

Nosaka K, Newton M, Sacco P.

Exercise and Sports Science, Graduate School of Integrated Science, Yokohama City University, Yokohama, Japan.

This study investigated the relationship between delayed-onset muscle soreness and other indicators of muscle damage following eccentric exercise. Male students (n = 110) performed 12 (12ECC), 24 (24ECC), or 60 maximal eccentric actions of the elbow flexors (60ECC). Maximal isometric force, relaxed and flexed elbow joint angles, upper arm circumference, and plasma creatine kinase activity were assessed immediately before and after, and for 4 days after exercise. Muscle soreness (SOR) was evaluated by a visual analog scale (a 50-mm line, 0: no pain, 50: extremely painful) when the elbow flexors were palpated (SOR-Pal), flexed (SOR-Flx) and stretched (SOR-Ext). Although 24ECC and 60ECC resulted in significantly (P

 

[Chris_Morris]

Oh yeah, BTW:

all my life, I've been thin as a rail

I hate you.




Chris

 

[Gregg Shiu]

It's also using the principles of muscle recovery. Instead of having seperate days, you do a full body workout every other day. The actual muscle fully recovers in 48 hrs, then you hit it again.

I did this at one point, and though it's VERY effective, I found the pain unbearable when the time came to drive, either home from the gym at night or just in general the next day. Maybe I should go back to that since I'm a bit more broken in now.

 

[DavidQc]

great info... thanks guys!


unfortunately... work is just taking over.
i have not been able to squeeze the gym into my hectic schedule.
:frowning:

 

[Brian Kleinke]

well about time a thread like this shows up

I'm thinner then a rail, and have almost no muscle mass :-/

I'm cursed with uber high metabolism, and I can eat anything and everything... or so it seems.

Though I don't think my stomach could contain all of that diet Benny found

 

[JonZ]

If your very thin,no matter what you eat,your going to have a har time putting on weight. But it can be done.

As saiyoull need to up your protein and the # of meals you eat during the day. Stick with stuff like chicken,turkey,tuna,steak,beef,beans,wheat pasta,eggs(whites),veggies,etc

-Keep your workouts under a hour
-If u do cardio do it on days your not lifting weights
-Make training intense and BRIEF!!!!
-No more than 4 heavy sets per exercise.
-Eat a protein supplement/shake/weight gainer
-Every 8 -10 weeks of training take a week off and let your body recover
-USE PROPER FORM!!! Slow movements,using your musles to move the weight. Never jerk it or swing the weight.

Day 1 - Chest,syhoulders,Triceps
Day 2 - Legs
Day 3 - Back,Traps,Biceps

If your thin,you probally have a small waste and can do abs twice a week.

- Stick with whats outlined above. You should work parts that work to gether on the same day. For instance, back exercises also work biceps,so you should work them on the same day otherwise your overtraining.

The key to getting bigger is to get stronger. If your getting stronger every week,your on the right track.

If your struggling weekly and not going up in weight or even find yourself going down - stop and re-evaluation waht your doing.

Dont be afraid to ask people in the gym if you have questions. Youd be suprised howmany will be willing to help. But ask someone whos in shape or looks good. Dont ask some one with lat disease (guys who walk around like thy have huge lats when they dont) how to do exercises.