Is it really as simple as some would have you think? Youve heard the regimen if youre slender and want to gain weight: Eat six meals a day (preferably spaced not more than 2 to 3 hours apart), lift heavy (preferably compound exercises), do weight lifting three times a week, dont do cardio, shovel down mega calories, move as little as possible& yadda, yadda, yadda.
For the slender among you: Hows that working out? Are you getting big and strong? Or is the lethargy you feel from too many calories only outweighed (no pun) by the realization that your muscles are still puny while your waistline begins expansion? Thats not a good road to be on; believe me Ive been there and done it.
So what do you need to turn that around? Well, some good advice based on physiological distinctions might be a nice start. The advice youve been getting is so simplistic youd think the experts out there are assuming youre a Neanderthal. Think about it: Eat more food& eat real often& lift real heavy& sleep a lot& make sure you dont miss workouts then youll gain weight .
First of all, get the notion out of your head that you need to gain weight and start driving it home that you need to build muscle. Does this sound like just a play on semantics? Not by a long shot. The simplistic advice stating you need to take in more calories than you burn off is the recipe for fat gain. Thats what fat people (I being a former one) are inadvertently doing. I dont care how skinny you are; becoming fat will not get you more dates or attention from your spouse or significant other. It wont make you more assertive. Nor will it improve athletic ability or your prowess in defending yourself when physically threatened. Those are all things that are helped by having big, strong, curvy, contoured muscles combined with a lean body.
So lets contrast the process of gaining muscle with gaining fat by focusing on a pound of size you'd want to add to the possibly underdeveloped tissue of your pectorals. You know if you can just gain weight in your pecs, youll be bigger. So what do you do? Why, a chest workout of course. And you make sure to use big compound movements like bench press because thats what the experts tell you will build size& and weight. You also ensure that your pecs dont get off easy pushing yourself with intensity of effort that leaves your chest region nearly debilitated with soreness for the next couple of days.
You know its those crucial days following the workout during which growth occurs. If youve worked your pectoral muscles adequately to stimulate adaptation, the contractile tissue of the myofibrils will have been damaged. This tissue is comprised of two protein filaments; actin and myosin. When you allow those filaments to fully recuperate from the damage, they develop compensatory tissue thats similar to scar tissue on a skin injury. If you work those muscles any time prior to that compensatory protein tissue being constructed, its somewhat like picking scab tissue off a skin wound. And just as picking a scab off a wound will set back its healing, so will working a muscle any time prior to its full and adaptation-inclusive recuperation. This is the counter-productive scenario thats most often the cause of bodybuilding plateaus.
The full recuperation of your pecs will take a specific amount of time, calories, and bodily energy. The amount depends on how much damage was done. Yes, it requires a hefty supply of protein and a few calories above your non-bodybuilding maintenance levels. However, it will not take place any faster just because you stuffed down a thousand extra calories today if all your body needed was a hundred extra calories for repair material and energy. In fact, processing excess calories is a vigor-depleting task for your body potentially robbing it of the vital energy it needs for myofibril repair. Can anyone say food coma ?
But what does the bulk-up crowd recommend you do? First of all, they tell you that you need to gain weight instead of build muscle. Then they tell you that there are about 3500 calories in a pound of body weight . Then they tell you to take in 500 calories a day above your maintenance levels so you can put on a pound a week. And if you end up not putting on this weight, they usually say its because youre not eating enough.
Exactly what kind of weight are we talking about here?
Imagine that slab of pectoral muscle youre trying to add. Youve blasted your chest on Monday and youre planning to hit it again on Friday. When Friday rolls around, you unknowingly go to the gym with myofibril scab tissue rather than fully recuperated and adapted pectoral muscles. You hit your chest with another workout because you feel fully secure with the fact that youre eating your prescribed 500 or 1000 extra calories per day.
But your broken down muscle tissue will still only grab what calories it needs for the methodical process of recuperation. It doesnt move faster with the process just because there are extra calories present. Now youve just set your chest muscle recuperation farther backwards and your body has all the joy of processing a bunch of calories that were possibly unneeded.
And what if those extra calories get deposited as fat? Well, then the bulk-up experts will tell you that youve gained adipose weight that was necessary for putting on the muscle weight. However, if your pectoral recuperation keeps going in the wrong direction, you wont gain much muscle weight if any. You will have succeeded at gaining weight , but it will be the kind that causes your chest to bounce when you run toward a closing elevator door or a departure gate at the airport. Anyone who sees my before picture on my website can witness the kind of chest weight to which Im referring.
So how come every how to gain weight article looks the same? Im not sure. But I can guarantee you that this one is different than most.
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