Gain weight and Muscle 

Muscle Gains to get to your Ideal Body Weight!

Many people desire to gain weight and muscle for a variety of different reasons. Some want to gain muscle mass for their sport or activity they participate in and other do it for aesthetic reasons.

For me, growing up, I wanted to build muscle fast for the sport I played at the time which was rugby. I understood at the time that it was a very physical sport and that it made sense to put on some weight to not only improve my performance but also protect myself as I was a skinny kid up against big burly forward players.

Not knowing how to gain weight and muscle mass I made every conceivable mistake on the road to getting bigger. The most notably being not understanding Calories which was inexcusable if you’re attempting to build muscle mass or lose weight for that matter.

Simply put I wasn’t eating enough calories. I should have been eating 1000 Calories over my Calorie intake for maintenance of weight but I wasn’t, which lead much frustration after a whole summer of weight lifting with no muscle or weight gains.

Fortunately, I went to a personal trainer who was able to highlight this error on my part immediately. He explained to me that the main reason why I wasn’t building muscle mass was that I wasn’t eating enough Calories. 

I went on to inform him that I was ‘eating like a horse’. However, he explained to me that by stuffing yourself you actually eat meals less frequently.

At the time I was eating 3-4 big meals per day when in fact I should have been consuming 6-7 meals of medium size with Calories dense foods.

Calorie Dense foods to Gain weight and Muscle

• Whole wheat bread

• Olive or vegetable oil

• Dairy Products such as Yogurt, milk, cheese etc

• Protein shakes/bars

• Oats and granola bars

• Soups 

• Eggs 

• Meats

• Fruit juices

• Potatoes

 

Within 3 months of meeting him and taking his indispensable muscle building tips I had slapped on 10 Kilos which is over 20 pounds. I was amazed!

This success was primarily down to just eating more Calories!  

Another few pointers my personal trainer gave me on how to build muscles was on my Gym routines. At the time I went to him the rugby season had actually started which meant I was doing a lot of running, tackling and so on, for long periods of time, sometimes even for 2 hours. By having to doing this Aerobic exercise a few times per week I was told that I would never make significant gains in muscle and strength.

It was at this point that I decide to take a break out of rugby and completely cut out any Cardio and just stick to a weight training schedule as I was serious about building muscle fast. 

This reaped great benefits for me as the lack of Cardio wasn’t eroding my weight and muscle increases. This lead to me being able to consistently pack on 2-3 kilograms every month.

 A typical workout routine every week went from 3 Cardio sessions and 4 weight sessions to just 3 short whole body workouts. 

The Whole body workouts were comprised of heavy compound lifts such as bench press, deadlifts, squats and pull-ups which would last no longer than 40 minutes to ensure that my muscles weren’t being broken down too much.