Firstly, by no means am I a fitness guru. I have zero qualifications in that subject (I'm a physicist!) and I'm just gonna reitrate what worked for me. You see, I was never massively over or underweight. I was what you'd call average; 5'11, 175lbs, but not that ahteletic. I'd applied for the Fire Service and the Royal Marines when I was 18 (and politely declined offers) and so was still fairly fit from all that training years ago. This sort of training was mainly cardiovascular training, where a smaller bodyweight was ideal for drills like long distance running, pull ups, push ups etc. This thread isn't about that. This thread is about getting some size and some formiddable strength (and looks, if you care and want to go that route). If you want to be ripped and show off your abs, you can cut and work on that after you become a monster. Again, this is what worked for me.
Derek Poundstone. Massive yet still with one of the best looking bodies in the world. And some serious ball(s).
Now what annoys me the most is smaller people thinking they can gain lean muscle mass at a decent rate, always keep that sixpack (which you have from low body fat only!) and become the next Brock Lesnar or something. Similarly, larger fellas seem to believe starving themselves and running everyday will help them become small, which it will, but only for them to want to go the skinny-to-swole route straight after. This is a bad idea, you need dat mass!
Your general goals
Now the larger fellas out there have it easy. You're already massive. Start your strength training right away, throw in a bit of CV for your stamina and just eat clean (more on this later). You have body mass most aspiring powerlifters and strength atheletes spend years trying to attain. Conveniently, you've spent the best part of your life 'training' for your body mass by eating shit, so you've got a third of the job done already. I'll get back to you once I've addressed the skinnys, but for now stare at this guy.
Meet Zydrunas Savickas. Easily the strongest man on the planet. 6'3, 370lbs. Not one fuck is given about his gut.
Hey. Hey you, skinny guy. Want to gain lean mass on your 150lb frame? Eat. Literally eat whatever the fuck you like. At the moment you'll be on your 2000-2500kcal recommended diet. Hopefully a healthy one, but don't worry if it's not. Here's the plan. Pump that figure up by 1000-1500kcal. I know at first you'll think I'm crazy for just throwing a random number out there, but it's fairly easy (honest!). From my regular 2500kcal diet I was on at the start, I added an extra 1250kcal to see where that'd get me. That's only 4 pints of whole milk, or 2 pints, another meal in your day and throwing out all that 'light' shit you spread or dip in out your window. You'll want full fat mayo, olive oil drizzled on your pasta and bacon and cheese on everthing you can.
Now what you say? Strength training! Same as the fatties, you're gonna be strength training from day one.
This is you.
Training
What is appropriate strength training? Well in my (very bias) opinion, there's four. Bench press, Deadlift, Squat and the Overhead press. If you don't want to incorporate this into your routine, you may as well leave now. These four will get you massive. Now this is just me but rather than set a day for arms, chest, legs etc... i literally just set a day for these and throw in workouts that will benefit these in the long run (for example, dumbell flys on bench day, tricep extensions on overhead day etc). Oh look, 4/7 days. Sorted.
You should be using an Olympic barbell at least once per workout if you're doing the above four day split, which really just shines above everything else. Smith machines aren't that great. I'm not gonna be that guy who cums over free weights rather than machines, but if you aren't using them, you aren't exercising the full amount of muscles per workout. When you bench with a barbell, you're activating a ton of extra stabalizing muscles, and strengthening your core. With a smith machine, you're just pushing as hard as you can in any direction. Any component of your force is directed upwards regardless, and for all intents and purposes you may as well crawl up the bench and get your legs to help out as well.
NO! ...well go on then, but only if you're this good looking.
Squats are hands down the best exercise in the world. There's not a single part of your body that's not engaged, and you're working everything from your legs to your core to your back. Deadlifts are similar, but in my opinion squats are just that smidgen better. Remember to use a belt on anything above 80% effort squats and deads (and occasionally overheads). Using a belt outside of this effort range will no doubt increase your reliance on back support and you'll be weaker.
For strength training you don't really wanna be going up past 6-8 reps outside of a warmup. If you find that you can, you're not lifting heavy enough and you're holding yourself back. I'm not gonna go into too much detail here cos it's not that important. As long as your consistantly doing the main four, even for a single set each per week, you're gonna get big (very slowly but surely). Obviously put more than a single set in but you get the idea. Consistency is vital.
Recovery and Supplements
What's just as important as your gym time is your bed time. Exercising burns calories and makes you smaller. Eating and resting make you bigger. Sort of common sense stuff really. When I first started I worked out 6 days a week and slept 7 hours a night, pretty standard for the new-years-resolution-gym-goer. It was only when I found my optimum training routine (through trial and real working advice, NOT GOOGLE), I found myself physically incapable of sleeping that little and working out that much. I've now settled in to working out every other day and sleeping 9 hours minimum. Obviously this isn't omptimal for those with proper jobs (ah, the life of a student) but you'll have to figure something out; Perhaps less time on the internet at night and getting to sleep by 10, I dunno, I'll cross that bridge myself when I get to it.
Now onto the bane of bulking mythology. Protein.
'Bullshit, HARDCORE'.
Protein is essentially small bandages and plasters for every time you go to the gym. If you weren't already aware, working out rips and tears the muscle. When the muscle repairs itself, it gets a little bigger. Protein is your muscle's paramedic, helping speed up the process and reduce recovery time. That's it! Proteins promote cell growth and cell growth only. It won't help you gain lean mass, lift heavier or any other bullshit it says on the side of your whey powder tub, any excess gets poop'd out and congrats, you did a rather expensive one at that.
You should be on around 0.6-0.7g of protein per lb of bodyweight, roughly. That means you don't need protein shakes if you're less than 200lbs as your 4 pints of milk a day give you nearly half of that alone. Add in 1-2 meaty meals a day and you're easily gonna hit that. And it's not just meat either! Check a slice of bread's nutritional content. Two Sandwiches (ie, 4 slices of bread) gives you 16g protein, and that's not even counting your filling. Any extra protein that's not absorbed gets shit away.
Pictured above: Protein shake.
When you're finished with your bulk, protein shakes may become viable for your diet, depending on the route you take after that (Bodybuilding, fighting etc). Protein shakes do not help bulking, but they're a decent supplement for when you're on restricted calories (and only then!), for everything else just eat more and more!
Nearly all sorts of pre-workout supplement are a huge waste of money too. All it is is caffeine mixed with shit like NO etc. Bare in mind these are all the parts on the label you'll notice that emphasise may increase ___ etc. Stick with your basic caffeine. You can get 500x200mg servings for £4 online. Yeah it may taste ass but at least you're not spending £40 a month on some voodoo medicine that may increase some imaginary muscle-make-bigger levels. Caffeine will give you not only the energy in the gym, but it also gets you off to the gym in the first place!
Diet
I think I mentioned this a handful of times already in the article so it's about time I address it. A bulking diet isn't as complicated as the internet makes out. Eat your breakfast, have a snack, eat some lunch, have a snack, have some dinner, have a snack, then REST. Don't give me the hardgainer bullshit. Eat more. Sleep more.
On typical day I'd have oats with whole milk for breakfast, a banana and apple with more milk, 2 sandwiches & crisps (or tuna and pasta) and a yoghurt and milk (probably with nesquik this time), more oats with milk, battered cod and chips with peas, then fuck it have some more oats with whole milk. That, ladies and gentlemen, is a horrendous diet with pretty much zero variation and yet I'm still here live and kicking. To be honest, this was my diet for 4 months straight during the summer when I worked in a takeaway to fund uni. Fish and chips 6 days a week wasn't pretty but it was practical.
Not exactly recommended. Unless it's free of course.
Obviously there's so much variation you can add to this. If you wanna add nuts, a flapjack or a chocolate bar instead of oats, that'd be better. As long as you're getting a shit ton of carbs and calories, you can do whatever you like.
That's it.
Nothing more. So you can ignore everything else on the internet with your chicken breast, protein shake and a salad bro-science diet and just get a shit ton of carbs down you. Hell, even bodybuilders don't eat that shit, it's potatoes, rice and pasta with their meat, and they're the ones who actually care about the minute shape of their rear deltoid and lower pec. You don't. You're strength training and getting some serious size. By all means go back to your salad when you're wanting to cut and flesh out those abs if you really care, but you're gonna have to get big first.
And when you finish a workout, there's an hour or so where you need carbs and calories. Going back to it again, protein will always come second to these. If you drink a protein shake straight after, you'll be full on ~200kcal and you won't get big, you'll shrink. Get some oats. Get some pasta. Three bacon and cheese Sandwiches etc, you get the idea.
5x World's Strongest Man, Mariusz Pudzianowski. "I eat everything. I do not follow any particular diet. I eat anything I want, anytime I want"
"My energy comes from my diet. Breakfast is 10 eggs and two to three pounds of bacon. Between meals, I eat lots of candy. In the morning, it will be several 3 Musketeers and/or Snickers bars; I need them for energy. Lunch, at 1 or 2 PM, is a double meal of a Polish pork chop, sauerkraut and potatoes. An hour later, I work out, then take lots of supplements: magnesium, creatine, amino acids, all that stuff, and more chocolate. Dinner is whatever meat I can grab—steaks, pork chops, bacon—plus more sauerkraut and potatoes. At 9 or 10 PM, I work out again. Afterward, I have a protein shake and more chocolate. At 3 or 4 AM, I wake up and have more chocolate, then go back to sleep until morning." Mariusz Pudzianowski, pictured above.
As shown by our mate Mariusz, if you train your ass off, you can genuinely eat whatever you feel like. 'Dem genetics' I hear you say. While that may be the part of the case, I also say bullshit; this guy trains 2-3 hours at a time twice a day, 6 days a week, I'm fairly certain he can afford to eat what he likes. Michael Phelps, Olympic gold medalist swimmer, who'll train 40+ hours a week boasts a 12,000 calorie diet consisting of bacon, pancakes and utter shit. He's athletically built to fuck and did I mention Olympic gold medalist? Yeah I thought so.
If you're one of those people who hasn't put on any weight for a while, it means your calorific intake and whatever you do during the day that could count as exercise are pretty much perfectly balanced. Similarly if you're on a weight loss diet, you'll take in less and exercise more. Hey presto, you're losing weight.
For anyone wanting to get huge, once you plateaux from your initial diet, you've gotta up your calorie intake. As you get stronger, you'll get heavier and you'll lift and do more. Then you'll plateaux again, and need to take that number up a notch again. Of course you won't start on Phelp's 12,000 calorie diet, but as you train more and more and lift heavier and heavier, a gradual process of increasing your daily intake will come into fruition. There, that's it, I promise. That's all you need to know about bulk dieting.
Finally, just a few words from one of my favourite fitness bloggers:
(This entire post is essentially a reiteration of his 10 rules of getting big, READ IT).
Quote - Project Goliath (www.ProjectGolitath.co.uk)
People think too much about this training stuff, its bloody simple. Eat lots train hard and stop being such a pussy looking for the pros workouts and the latest hormone supplement. Stop thinking about what protein to take, stop asking people on forums how to gain some muscle but stay lean. AND FOR THE LOVE OF GOD stop telling me that you don't want to get that big. Don't worry mate, its not gonna happen over night, your not suddenly gonna get 20inch guns and a 400lbs bench. Saying you don't want to get that big is like saying I want to stay small, its almost as if your setting yourself up for failure. STOP OVERTHINKING. Scratch that, stop thinking full stop. Its bad for you. Just shut up and squat and every time you think of a question do another rep and forget it.
For more details on getting strongman/powerlifting big, try these sites:
www.myprotein.com - £10 5kg instant oats, £4 100g caffeine (you'll need some digital precise scales).
www.sugdenbarbell.co.uk - uk based strength forum. bodybuilders beware.
www.projectgoliath.co.uk - strength athelete and blogger (pictured above, this reads very much like his own articles).
