Gain Weight Fast - Basics For Hard-Gainers

Do you want to gain weight fast?  Are you tired of being skinny?  Do you desperately want a way to gain weight and muscle fast?  Have you tried numerous ways to gain weight and only been disappointed at the results?  Join the crowd.

Believe me, I understand what you are going through because I've been where you are now.

I searched for years for ways to gain weight and it seemed like nothing worked.  No matter what I did, I just couldn't gain weight, let alone gain weight fast.  But I persevered and finally figured out the correct ways to gain weight fast.

I finally figured out that the routines in the muscle magazines, mostly touted by professional bodybuilders, just weren't going to work for me.  These were not the correct ways to gain weight fast.  At least not for me, or for all the other "normal" people out there.

Take heart.  It can be done.  Even if you've been skinny your whole life you can gain weight fast, add pounds of muscle and completely change your body.  I've managed to pack on significant muscle mass.  My incline bench press has shot from a measly 185 pounds to 380 for reps.

Granted, I'll never look like one of the guys in the magazines but I look a heck of a lot better than I did 40 pounds of muscle ago, that's for sure!  And yes, you can do it too!  No matter how skinny you are, or the lack of success you've had before, there are ways to gain weight fast and they will work for you.  Anyone can gain weight!

When I started training I weighed all of 170 pounds at a height of 5'10".  I told you I was skinny.  I was not lean either.  I tried all the routines and set combinations that I could get my hands on but nothing worked.  I didn't gain weight fast or gain muscle.  I got a bit stronger, but that was about it.  After discovering the proper fundamentals of gaining muscle mass, I am presently 210-215 pounds in contest condition.

I absorbed all the information I could get my hands on but still couldn't gain weight fast. But I was determined to find ways to gain weight and muscle.

They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.  This is so true!  Think about this for a minute.  Imagine someone that works out at the same gym you train at.  They have been training regularly for at least a year.  They never miss a workout.  You could consider them "hardcore" exercisers.  But, they look exactly the same today as they did a year ago.  Why? Because they are doing the exact exercises, with the same amount of weight that they were a year ago.  How can anyone ever make progress like that?  They can't!!!  Why would they ever expect a different outcome? Yet, this happens all the time.

Like those individuals, what I was doing obviously wasn't working, so I had to find something different.  Instead of just trying each new routine I read about, I began studying.  I began LISTENING to, not just hearing, what knowledgeable people were saying about the subject.  Then, finally, I discerned which was valid information and which was worthless.  I just knew if I kept at it, I'd find the way to gain weight fast.  It had to be out there.

As I studied bodybuilding more and more I began learning about such things as training intensity, volume, frequency, overload, etc. and how these things related to one another and affected your training progress.

I came to the conclusion that these training principles held the key, and not whether I did squats with a narrow stance, wide stance, toes in, toes, out, etc.  If I didn't have the fundamental principles in order, these things didn't matter much.

I realized that in order to gain weight fast, I not only had to train hard on the basic exercises, but I had to rest long enough between workouts to let my body recover and grow.  This was the only way I was going to gain weight fast and transform my skinny body.

You see, in my quest for ways to gain weight, I found out something very interesting that you don't hear about very often.

It seems that your body's potential for strength increases far outweighs your body's potential to recover, roughly in the neighborhood of 300% for strength, but only 50% for the body's ability to recover (granted this varies from individual - some may be able to increase their starting strength 400 or 500% or more, while others top off closer to 200%).

But the ratio remains intact.  Thus, as you grow stronger, you need to reduce your training volume and frequency in order to gain weight and muscle.  The stronger you are, the more time your body needs to recover from the stress of training.

Bench pressing 300 pounds puts a much greater stress on your body than bench pressing 50 pounds does.  Your body needs more time to recover from that greater stress.  Allowing your body to repair itself and overcompensate by growing muscle is the only way to gain weight fast.

You can't gain weight and muscle if you don't allow time for your body to heal and adapt to your training.

Even people who acknowledge the validity of this point, still advocate more and more volume and frequency for advanced trainees when this is the exact opposite of what needs to be done to gain weight and muscle.

If you want to gain weight fast, you can't follow the typical routines in the magazines, or the one's recommended to you at the gym.  Most likely, those giving out advice have never had to deal with the problem you have gaining weight and muscle.

There are a number of variations and ways to gain weight fast but they all have common characteristics.

Fundamentals of How To Gain Weight Fast

TRAINING

Train Intensely - You must work each set until you can't do another repetition in good form.  There is no point in stopping at a set number of reps (such as 8), if you are capable of doing 12.  Your body needs to be challenged or it will not adapt by building new muscle or burning off body fat.

Train Briefly - Your workouts need to be short.  This is a very important weight lifting tip. You should never need to do a weight lifting routine that takes over an hour.  If you are in the gym that long, you aren't working intensely enough.  You can workout hard or long, but you can not do both.  And to succeed in building muscle, you need to workout hard.

Train Infrequently - Your body needs time to recover from your weight lifting routine, so that in can adapt and grow.  If you train with weights before your body is completely recovered, you won't add new muscle and will eventually over train, a big no no.

Train Progressively - You need to constantly challenge what your body can do by continuing to add more weight and/or repetitions to your previous best effort as often as possible.  If you can bench press 250 pounds now, and 6 months from now you are still bench pressing 250 pounds, there is NO WAY you'll be able to gain weight fast and add muscle to your skinny body.

NUTRITION

Eat A Lot of Protein - At least 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight.  THIS IS THE MINIMUM!!!  One and one-half to two grams of protein per pound of body weight is even better.

Eat A Lot of Calories - If your goal is to gain weight fast, you most likely have little body fat and a high metabolism.  While in the gaining weight stage, don't worry about adding a little bit of fat during your gaining weight phase.  A good rule of thumb to start with is to multiply your body weight by 20 to get the number of calories you should be consuming each day.  This is the minimum amount of calories you should be consuming.

If you want to weigh 225 pounds you should be consuming at least 4,500 calories per day.  If you find, after a couple of weeks you haven't added any weight, you'll need to increase this number.  In order to weigh 225 pounds, you have to eat like you already ARE 225 pounds!

Eat 6 Meals A Day - This makes sure your body has the protein and calories it needs at all times.  It also allows you to eat the high number of calories that you need to add muscle mass.

Use Protein Shakes - This will make it easier for you to consume enough calories and protein each day, as well as making it much more convenient to have 6 meals a day.

As you can see, these fundamental tenants are not new theories.  The individuals that keep making progress year after year are applying the same tried and true principles that have always worked...Train intensely and progressively, get plenty of rest and eat more calories each day than you burn.  The rest WILL take care of itself.  IT'S THAT SIMPLE!!!