How to Gain Weight Part 2

Teammates, fighting Mother Nature is difficult. Lots of younger athletes want to gain size – particularly for sports. Unfortunately, most of these athletes are fighting nature. Men and women in their early to late teens typically experience growth spurts. Loosely translated, they grow taller - not bigger. Your body grows at its own pace. Messing with your natural metabolism almost always does more harm in the long run.

Still want to gain weight? If you are interested in gaining muscle mass try the following. First, monitor your caloric intake. Slowly increase your caloric intake until you start to gain more fat than muscle. Believe me you will notice when this happens. Eat good amounts of protein, fat from natural oils, and nuts and seeds. Carbohydrates should come from fresh fruit and veggies. Try to avoid processed foods and white flour products. If you increase your calories, eat more lean protein and good fat. Eat a minimum of six meals per day.

Second, change your workout routine. Watch the number of repetitions and the amount of cardio you do. High reps and lots of cardio can actually decrease your ability to gain muscle mass. Lift heavy, with good form, and get lots of rest. Stick with this for a while and modify as necessary. You will see some size increments but be patient.

Remember, gaining weight is oftentimes harder than losing weight. Hope this helps you reach your goals. If you have any questions, post a comment and I will get back to you.

Mike Ryan
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Michael Ryan is the President and CEO of Intensity Nutrition LLC. Founded by former Navy SEALs, Intensity develops super-premium sports supplements for professional, semi-professional, tactical, and functional athletes. Intensity will launch in 2009 and welcomes any recommendations for product development. Mike and Alden met during “running remediation” at Basic Underwater SEAL (BUDs/s) training. Special thanks to BMC Pardue for the introduction.

Answers to Gain Weight Queries

Great comments Charlie Mikers! A couple of generic comments before I address specific issues. First, this is part 1 of a two part post. Second, most of the comments regarding weight gain were posed by younger athletes (teens) that were having a difficult time trying to gain weight - so keep that in perspective. Finally, nothing has ever, or will ever, replace proper nutrition. If you want to re-read the questions, check out the comments to my Part 1 post.

Joe G.: Everyone has a six pack - you just can’t always see it. Typically, for men, your abs start to show when your body fat is under 12% - better around 10%. For women it is a little more. To put this in perspective, the male model for the perfect push up is under 7% body fat. The best way to measure body fat is hydrostatic testing - immersion in a tank. Electronic impedance testing and calipers will also give you a baseline BF measurement.

Paul: I agree. It is absolutely possible to lose fat and gain muscle. People do it all the time. However, it can be very difficult for a novice to dial in their nutrition to the point where they maximize muscle gain without gaining excessive fat as well. As you pointed out, it is all about discipline with nutrition. Check out the second part of my post.

Jim: As Paul points out, you can gain muscle and be extra lean – but you have to watch your nutrition religiously. It also takes longer to build a pound of lean muscle mass that it does to pack on 1 lb of fat. So the gains take a bit longer to achieve. Finally, supplements aren’t inherently bad – as a matter of fact, they can be immensely helpful in achieving your fitness objectives. If used correctly and in the context of proper overall nutrition they are great. Much more on this later.

Mike Ryan

How To Gain Weight Part 1

CM SEAL Team blogger: Mike Ryan.

There have been some recent questions from those trying to gain weight. I'm here to share with the Perfect community some of my thoughts on the matter.

1. Be Careful What You Wish For: Gaining weight is not a typical goal in the fitness community. In general, those who wish to gain weight do so for two reasons

• to gain mass for sport specific purposes (football linemen)
• to build mass for bodybuilding.

If either of the above are your goals, there is a fairly reliable formula; eat everything that moves. Seriously. At a certain level calories are calories- and you need calories and protein to build muscle mass. But fat comes with those extra calories as well.

2. You Can’t Have Your Cake and Eat It Too: When athletes try to gain weight, they typically consume vast amounts of calories during a ‘bulking phase”. They do this so that they have the baseline caloric intake to offset the calories burned by exercise. But be careful. Most of these athletes ‘cut weight’ after they have reached a certain goal. Fighters, particularly those jumping up in a weight class, are famous for doing this. Many of the Mr. Olympia candidates do this as well. Have you ever seen a bodybuilder during a “bulking phase?” They look like a bowling ball with eyes. Totally unrecognizable from the ripped look they have during competition. Bottom line, if you bulk up, at some point you need to come down. If your goal is a having perfect 6-pack abs you don’t want to gain weight – you want to lose weight. As a guideline, your body fat has to be under 10% to show your ab muscles.

Part 2:
• Fighting Mother Nature is difficult
• Still want to gain weight?

Gaining weight is oftentimes harder than losing weight. Hope this helps you reach your goals. If you have any questions, post a comment and I will get back to you.

Mike Ryan
---------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Ryan is the President and CEO of Intensity Nutrition LLC. Founded by former Navy SEALs, Intensity develops super-premium sports supplements for professional, semi-professional, tactical, and functional athletes. Intensity will launch in 2009 and welcomes any recommendations for product development. Mike and Alden met during “running remediation” at Basic Underwater SEAL (BUDs/s) training. Special thanks to BMC Pardue for the introduction.