I just wanted to share my progress here since I’m kind of excited about it myself. A little history on this is that I’m the epitome of a hard-gainer/ectomorph. I’m naturally lean and musclular. After a lot of intense dieting and training, I bulked up to about 185. I was happy with this weight for a while and decided to just maintain it.
Shortly into my maintenance phase, I contracted Lyme Desease while mountain biking and lost 30 lbs in a little over a week. Not only that, but I developed a neurological disorder associated with Lymes calles Bells Palse and became paralyzed over half my face. The Lymes made me extremely run down and lethargic and I didn’t fully recover until 4 months later.
Determined not to let it keep my down, I hit the gym as soon as I could. I’m now 8-weeks into a 10-week bulking phase, and I now weigh 195 lbs from about 160’ish. I’ve put on some fat during the process, but I still have a visable 5-pack, so it isn’t much. I will be cutting for 2 weeks when I’m done bulking.
I’ve done all this with just proper diet and using meal shakes (N-Large by prolab), protein shakes (Absolute Whey by Prolab), glutamine and creatine. The greatest part is that I don’t feel like the extra weight as effected my speed or agility like it did last time. I still feel like skinny old me while doing althetic stuff except now I’m jacked. heh.
if u’r a hardgainer than I’m a no-gainer… I think it would take me more than 10 weeks to get up to 190… I woud have to eat every thing in sight… tuff deal with the Lyme’s… those tick’s is some bad mofo’s… good job… u must be tall or somethin’…
Congratulations, Ford. You’ve obviously worked very hard, particularly with the considerable setbacks you experienced. Good luck with the rest of your training!
Thanks guys. Sun Tzu, I was a no-gainer too until I found my niche. The N-Large shakes help tremendously. (600 calories/52 grams of protein) I also cut cardio nearly to nil when I’m bulking.
By the end of the 10 weeks, I’ll probably be 200-205 lbs. That would mean that I’d be around 190-195 after cutting the excess fat off. I’m 6’ tall.
LH Pai,
Glutamine is an important amino acid the body. It helps combat the rigors of hard training, dieting, and illness. It will help prevent muscle-protein breakdown, premotes cell volumizing, decreases recovery time, and strengthens your immune system. It also helps create glutathione, which is the most powerful antioxidant found in the body.
For people using glutamine, be careful, it’s an awesome supplement, but for some reason Optimum Nutrition’s glutamine always gave me diahrrea. That’s no fun. Only a small, 5g serving, too.
Hardgainers unite. The most I’ve ever been is 173, at 5’9" and 8% bf. This was on a very unclean (lots of daily pizza) diet of 5000 calories per day. Then I got sick of always being hot and sweaty (fast metabolism + tons of food = lots of heat being generated). Did you experience this at all?
I’m 6’ tall and this is by far the highest bf% I’ve ever had. Even before I even started working out at all, I had a 6-pack and what-not. I’ve experienced eating tons of calories and not putting on any weight and being excessively hot. I think all folks with a fast metabolism have gotten this at one time or another. Since I started a structured diet, I haven’t really had a problem even though it’s proetin-rich.
and ford, what was your diet like? i’ve just started a bulk gaining routine too for this semester - and i have the same stats as you did, 6’ tall, 155 lbs
i’m finding the hard part is eating enough, rather than the lifting. although my program is making me ten times hungrier than i’ve ever been. i drink protein shakes 3-4 times a day (when i’m hungry and dont have time to make a meal). lots of lean hamburger, tuna/fish, cold-cuts, sushi, veggies and fruits.
any particular times of the day you eat more than others? i hear eating before going to bed is good for gaining weight.
From my limited understanding, Glutamine is an aminoacid which aids in minimizing the breakdown of muscle tissues after your workouts, and helps to metabolize protein. I take it every evening as it aids in my recovery (as I work out almost on a daily basis).
As for diet, I would suggest finding out what your base metabolic rate (BMR) is and plan your meals/caloric intake around it. I’ve never had a problem gaining weight but for intance, my BMR is about 2050 calories a day. When I’m leaning out (which I’m doing now), I eat anywhere from 1700 - 2200 calories a day. When I’m in a bulking phase I eat 2900 - 3200 calories. If your metabolism is slow, you may want to decrease your intake by 10%, but as I eat five to seven meals a day it ain’t a problem. Also, I tend to avoid fruits and cold cuts. I focus primarily on whole foods (except for my MRP of which I consume 2 - 3 times a day).
If you tend to walk around hungry a lot, what helped me was increasing my fat intake, i.e. instead of eating low-fat cottage cheese or yoghurt eat the regular version of the product. If you eat a lot of eggs (eggwhites) start eating a couple of extra egg yolks. Increasing fat intake will help satiate your appetite. Just be careful and watch your caloric intake.
Eating before going to bed… well, usually I take a low-carb MRP shake or a protein shake. It seems to work pretty well for me.
Hard gainer here. I’m 6’4", 190. I spent most of college at 155. Since I’ve been home, though, I eat much more, so my weight has stabilized at a higher level. All I do for exercise are wrestling drills and PTP, so I don’t anticipate it changing too much.
Sorry Ford, i dont beleive you. Theres no way someone can put on close to 30 LBS of muscle in 8-10 weeks(even if some fat came with it.. Hell, the human body can only gain 12-15lbS of muscle in a year. Unless your using steroids, its not scientifically possible.
This sounds like one of those BS “magical” weightgainer commercials.
Good job on rebounding from the lyme disease though:D
AOF
Seems there’s hope for us all.
I eat lilke a horse and still can’t put on the weight.
I am starting a new program (weight and nutrition) this year - so let’s hope for some gains.
N-Large shakes taste bad but not horrible. I just guzzle them.
Arhat,
LOL! I hope that was a joke. This is the second time in as many years that I’ve made gains like this, and I’ve never done any steroids before in my life. Either I’m some kind of mutant from another planet or your info is off.
TJD,
I’m not sure if the first time I broke out of my hardgainer rut kind of broke my body into gaining weight or not, but the first time I gained weight, I was eating 5,000-6,000 calories a day. It was pretty bad because I was full all the time and I had to force myself to eat. This time around, I’m eating under 3,500 calories a day and doing fine. A typical day would look like:
Meal 1: Cereal & milk, N-large shake
Meal 2: (post workout) N-large shake
Meal 3: 4 hard boiled eggs, protein shake
Meal 4: Can of Tuna w/mayo, milk, protein shake
Meal 5: Friday’s Potato Skins (frozen variety), protein shake
Meal 6: 10-16 oz of Chicken Breast, grape juice
Meal 7: (30 minutes b4 bed) protein shake
My daily supplements were: Creatine (10 g), glutamine (15g), Flaxseed Oil for EFA’s (3 tbsp)
During the day, I’d snack on nuts and fruit, drink a lot of water, etc. The best thing about this diet is that I was rarely too full for my next meal and I was usually pretty hungry when it came rolling around.
Heh. I even wrote some articles for them about it which if you search hard enough, you will find.
This time around, I went with the straight bodybuilder approach. I’m working out 3 days a week.
Week 1-6: Day 1-Chest/shoulders/tri’s, Day 2-Legs, Day 3-Back/bi’s
In this approach, I’d pyramid 8 reps, 6 reps, 4 reps, 2 reps. At the end of the pyramid, I’d use the same weight I used for the 8 reps and fail with it. I’d also superset that with another exercise for the same muscle group. I also did some ancillary work in regular BB format of 3-5 sets of 10-15 reps.
Week 8-10: Day 1: Chest/back, Day 2-Legs, Day 3-arms/shoulders
This approach is similar to German Volume Training. I’d do 10 sets of 10 in my main exercises with 30-60 seconds rest. I’d then do some ancillary work in 3x10-15 format.
Week 11-12: same as first phase
This will be my cutting phase. Basically, I’m just going to try to maintain as much mucle as possible while cutting fat. I’ll cycle regular aerobic work with HIIT first thing in the morning before a meal.
I still havent gotten use to the mini-meal thing… it works for about a week than the food runs out… and I hate grocery shopping… plus the fact that I cant add weight… carrot sticks and such just don’t appeal to me…
I was using Westside Barbell’s conjugated periodization plan.
I just started reading and comprehending that style of planning… I like it… it might fit me better than the linear style… I have ADD when it comes to my weighttraining…
