Hard Gainers
Ok , this one is for all the hard gainers out there. This message is coming from a ”hard gainer” so listen up and heed the advice of someone who used to weigh 150 lbs and now weighs 195. There are two things you must do in order to gain weight: eat more and lift heavy.
Eat More - A GENERAL guideline for getting enough calories in is to take your weight and multiply it by 2. So if you weigh 180 multiply that by 2 and that would give you 360. Now add a zero and that tells you how many calories you need, i.e. 3600. That should give you a very basic idea of how many calories you should be getting in. And yes, protein is important, but so are carbs and fat. A lot of other trainers say that you can add size without adding fat…I agree, you can. However, it’s very difficult and who really has the time and energy to commit to planning out proper nutrient profiles for meals.
The bottom line is your body does need protein, however, first it must have energy in order to shuttle the protein into the cells that need it the most. So, eat some starchy carbs (not too much and try to limit intake to before noon) and eat some fat (again not too much and try to limit intake to after noon).
Lift Heavy - You wanna be big? Lift heavy weights. Period, end of story. Don’t lift to failure, switch your program every 3 weeks, hit your upper body twice a week and your lower body twice a week but use different sets and reps schemes on either day, i.e. if you do 8 sets of 3 for upper body day 1, do 3 sets of 8 for day 2. But always have one day where you lift heavy weights for low reps for upper and lower.
