WEIGHT GAIN 101

PART 1

This is for all Ectomorphs. Yea you. The thin, skinny, tall, flat chested, rapid metabolism, nervous, can’t sit still Ectomorph. You want to gain weight?

If you’re not gaining weight, you’re not eating enough. You need to determine how many calories you’re taking in. Weigh yourself on day 1 first thing in the morning on an empty stomach. Keep track of all the calories you eat for 14 days. On day 15 weigh yourself again, if your weight has not changed by plus or minus 2 pounds this will work. Add up the calories for each day and divide by 14. The number you come out with is how many calories you need to eat each day to maintain your current bodyweight. Now to start gaining weight you need to add 300-500 calories to this number. Go 7 days then weigh yourself again. Slowly up the calories until you see an increase in weight.

Only try to gain 1-2 pounds a week. More than this on a consistent basis will lead to more increases in fat than muscle. Check your progress every 4 weeks with skinfold calipers and a cloth tape measure. If you’re desperately thin, a 10-pound increase consisting of 5 pounds of fat & 5 pounds of muscle is ok. A 2:1 ratio of muscle to fat would be ideal. Dont be afraid of increases in fat. As long as it’s not settling solely around your waist you’re ok.

There are 8 basic components of nutrition.

Calories – besides what was mentioned earlier, you should be eating at least 6 times a day every 2-3 hours. A rough example would be 7:00am, 10:00am, 1pm, 4pm, 7pm, and 10pm.

Protein – 1 gram per pound of bodyweight. popular choices are chicken, turkey, eggs, cottage cheese, milk, whey, lean cuts of red meat, fish

Carbs – up to 2.5 grams per pound of bodyweight. popular choices are whole grain brown rice, sweet potatoes, veggies, beans, whole grain breads and cereals.

Fats – 20-30% of total caloric intake. good fats can be found in fish, olive oil, nuts, seeds, natty pb.

Water – 1 gallon a day.

Fiber – 20-35 grams daily.

Vitamins & Minerals – this is easily covered with a daily multi-vitamin/mineral.


Supplements besides a multi-vitamin:

If you cant eat enough calories or meals you should consider using a gainer or high calorie MRP.

If you can’t eat enough protein you should consider using a protein powder.

After your workouts get in some carbs and protein immediately

These ideas will not turn you into a 220 pound ripped ultra low bodyfat % hulking monster of muscular might. If you weigh less than 150 pounds you should successfully reach 170-180 pounds, but give it plenty of time. When you get to this point, where you go from there will depend on genetics.

good start for nutrition.

everything is explained pretty clearly, but then you throw out 20-35 grams of fiber with no examples
This is the one thing I know I don't get enough of, and I am not sure of good sources for fiber...
please give some examples.
thnx

Also - an important note to make is that a good consistant weight training routine is a huge factor for gaining muscle.
train muscle groups once per week, and lift heavy with low reps (failure in the 4-8 rep range)

This is for all Ectomorphs. Yea you. The thin, skinny, tall, flat chested, rapid metabolism, nervous, can’t sit still Ectomorph. You want to gain weight?

ouch

You can get a lot of fiber from whole oats. Or your cereals for morning or mid-morning snacks. Other sources would be fiberous type carbs. Salads are a good source.. roughage..

Aber is posting about nutrition for the extreme etco.. so including training outlines wouldn't be necessary. As training for the ecto is the same as the endo and the meso. Train hard, less is more and that stuff. But nutrition can be a lot different as each person's metabolism is vastly different.

Good post aber.

PART 2

Nutrition was covered in part 1, this concerns training for the Ectomorph.

Most training programs you see are not meant for you:

No 3 on, 1 off, 2 on, 1 off or whatever training split

No training twice a day

No “I’m using Cutlers leg routine from flex”

No drop sets, supersets, strip sets, descending sets, pre-exhaust sets

No chest shoulder workout consisting of flat bench for whole chest then incline bench for upper chest then decline bench for lower chest followed by flyes and crossovers then shoulder press for shoulders followed by front raises for front shoulder, side laterals for side shoulder then rear laterals for rear shoulder

No 2-hour training sessions

No training just arms and chest unless you want to look like a light bulb.

Pretty much all routines you see. Training programs for an Ectomorph have to be short and intense. Get in, workout, get out and then get plenty of rest and nutrients before next training session. Take at least 1 or 2 days off b/w workouts

These are the exercises you should concern yourself with: Squats, deadlifts, bench press, shoulder press, chin-ups, bent over rows, upright rows, cleans, dips, stiff-arm pullover, stiff leg deadlift

These are called compound movements because they hit more than one bodypart. Don’t waste time on isolation movements. These hit one bodypart and are useless for a beginning Ectomorph.

If you are of average height, roughly 5'7 to 6'1 and

your arms are less than 15 inches, don’t train them directly.

your chest measures less than 40 inches, do presses and dips only.

your calves are less than 14 inches, don’t train them directly.

I'm not saying that all this is useless, its just that ectos need to get their priorities straight. who do you think will grow the fastest: the guy squatting, deadlifting and pressing or the guy who never squats, hates deadlifts and trains his arms 3 days week???

now once you have some size, then add in the arm and calf work and more isolation movements to work the muscle more directly. dont put the cart before the horse. and remember this, presses and dips hit the triceps, rows and chins hit the biceps, deadlifts stress the forearms. theres your arm work.

Learn the mind-muscle connection. Don’t just lift the weight from point A to point B. Make the muscle work throughout the entire range of motion. Concentrate on the quality of each rep rather than on quantity of weight. If you can’t feel the muscle working and cramping as the set progresses, you’re probably using too much weight.

Your workouts should last between 45-90 minutes. Start off with fewer sets and more reps then work up to more sets and fewer reps. Build the foundation. The basics have worked before and always will work.

Cool.. the second part is where I focus on. Shorter workouts. Bigger compound heavy movements.

PART 3

For an Ectomorph, getting bigger doesn't just happen. You have to put in the time and effort 24/7. Remember this is a lifestyle; it's not something you can just do whenever you feel like, especially if you want results. You have goals you have to meet each and every day.

You have to eat X amount of calories each day.

You have to eat X amount of protein each day.

You have to eat X amount of carbs each day.

You have to eat X amount of fat each day.

You have to drink X amount of water each day.

You have to eat X amount of fiber each day.

You have to take your supplements, if using any.

You have to do your workouts lifting X amount of weight for X amount of reps.

You have to allow sufficient rest and recovery.

Each day make sure you hit all your goals. A way you can check this is to get yourself a calendar. If you did everything you were supposed to, put a checkmark for that day. If you didn't, mark an X and put what you didn’t do and the reason why. As time goes by, if you're not getting results you will start to see a pattern developing on your calendar. Like if you’re consistently skipping workouts, or neglecting your supplements or skimping on your protein intake.

At the end of your cycle, grade yourself. Take the number of checkmarks and divide by how many days in cycle and get a percentage. For example if you’re training for 10 weeks, that’s 70 days. Say you have 59 checkmarks; divide 59 by 70 and you get 84%. Consider anything below 70% not good.

Damn, that guy is pretty smart... he must be a fellow cajun.

D

All I know is Part 1, 2 and 3 are good and they are going to be newsletter material.

Great job abear.. this is the kind of stuff that isn't on the net that I bet many people wish they saw a long time ago. Especially the ectomorphs who are wondering why they never can gain any weight.

Thanks!

Hello,
As you see I'm new to the forums. I found this topic on google and I still have couple of questions. Before I ask my questions I would like to tell you that it was a huge hassle trying to just sign up for this website. I HAVE to use a computer that has no "Norton Internet Security" OR I have to fiddle around with the Security settings. That isn't something that most people know/like to do. I was lucky enough to have multiple computers in my home where I have computers that don't have any type of Security.

Little information about my body. I'm 2 months away from turning 23 and I've been 120lbs-125lbs for 8 years. I've been working out since September, usually going 3 times a week. I would do partial compound excercises and partial concentrated excercises. Since I read this article I know I need to change my routine. I bench about 90-95lbs.

My questions:

Calories – besides what was mentioned earlier, you should be eating at least 6 times a day every 2-3 hours. A rough example would be 7:00am, 10:00am, 1pm, 4pm, 7pm, and 10pm.

Should I be eating a whole meal? When I eat a whole meal, I eat until I'm full and no longer can eat anymore. Usually that makes me not hungry for 4-5 hours.

These are the exercises you should concern yourself with: Squats, deadlifts, bench press, shoulder press, chin-ups, bent over rows, upright rows, cleans, dips, stiff-arm pullover, stiff leg deadlift

If I have a schedule of Monday, Wednesday, Friday... How should my work out look like? Should I do all those excercises in one day?? What would be the best way to divide those excercises?

Thank you all very much... (yes I know this post was 1 year ago, it is still helpful)

P.S. I use "Optimum Nutrition's Whey Protein" and I do like the taste of it. Does anyone know if their "Mass Gaining" ones taste the same???

I dunno what is lately, but I just can't seem to fit the 3500 calories + 1 gallon of water per day. It's one or the other. :)

Anyways, this is an awesome article. I found out this stuff on my own and have been following it since july. Gained approximately 14lbs since then and my legs/back/chest are A LOT more muscular than before. If you follow this man's advice, I guarantee you will se results very soon. You just gotta stick to it and find someway to integrate this routine into your lifestyle.

Good point SolidGlobe. This link is moving to the TOP and it's going into the DB toolbar.

ha, i get on the board and see this at the top of the page. ha cool

truthfully i wrote this in 1998 i think it was. this kind of info is out there but you have to look for it which is a shame. most of the info you'll find is geared towards those who are on "gear".

beejay my opinion about meals is take the total amount of calories you eat in a day and divide it by the number of meals. so say 3000 calories total a day divided by say 6 meals would be 500 per meal. now meals dont have to be full blown gourmet occasions. they can be as simple as chicken breast with sweet potato or brown rice. they can be cottage cheese, natty pb and some milk. base serving sizes on how much you need per meal.

as for exercises, like i mentioned concentrate on the major compound movements. a little isolation work is perfectly fine, i'm implying not to devote an entire workout for arms just to say. however you want to divide them up is fine. some do upper body/lower body, some do push/pull, some do splits like quads/calves, chest/shoulders, back/arms, etc

so say you want to do push/pull so one day do pushing exercises, take a day off, then do pulling exercises, take a day off, then repeat. now granted with this kind of routine you wont develop horseshoe triceps, peaked biceps and striated quads. like they say build the foundation first, work on the finishing touches later.

hey abear I'm new to this forum but you sound like you are very educated.....have you heard of the max-ot program? let me know what you think!

I'm a full blow ecto.  I've been working out on/off for 2 years trying to find the right work out plan, but have really cracked down on my research recently as I am trying to gain weight to tryout for a Division 1 Soccer team in college. Skills aren't the problem for me, I have been muscled off the ball for too long, and my chest size is just laughable (I have an extra rib across my sternum that i would love to cover).... so as you can see I'm desperate.

I have done tons of research on this and have come to many of the general conclusions you have posted, but I am not as familiar on exercises.  I understand that i should do compound exercises, but I'm having trouble as too which are compound and which are isolated.  Inc and dec, are isolating, but that only leaves flat bench and fly's for chest? there must be more than just those two, most of the excercises everyone lists as compounds are for shoulder and back, but my chest is I cant get any results (genetics, the extra rib..idk??)...

Im horrible at counting what i eat, so i just try to eat 1)more in general 2) high protein/carb/fiber/calories like you listed, but i just havnt gotten around to counting, my biggest mistake maybe? but i found to increase your appetite, since i only ate 3 big meals.. was to start by eating just fruits and other healthy snacks inbetween meals until your appetite grows, that and the obvoius carb,water, protein intake after lifting.  Ill gladly give more info it thats not enough, but my upper body is seriously lacking, meanwhile i can leglifts squats ect. just as much as my friends that are heavy lifters, its pretty sick.

Any help on specific excercises for chest days would be appreciated.  The semester starts soon and my roomate and I are on the same schedule to make sure we get this done, and I am completely motivated and have the time to do it.. i just want to get it right.  Also what, if any, supplements should i think about taking (protein, weightgainer, creatine/no2) all these success stories are nice, but none of them are from ectos....
thanks a lot