Building Mass?

[ssj245]

Im 160 pounds but I know that 20 lbs of that is fat and I have a nice big fat role around my stomach but I have skinny arms and shoulders, and I'm basically a skinny fat person if that makes some sense.

I have a few questions about gaining mass.

How long will it take for me to gain about 20lbs of muscle mass?

What kind of proteins will I need to consume the most...If I can only eat shakes will that do?

Where can I find a workout program that is designed for Hard gainers? (I've tried to weightlift but I never see any gains)

Im only 5'10'' will being bigger make me look better?

 

[Doggystyle]

Im 160 pounds but I know that 20 lbs of that is fat and I have a nice big fat role around my stomach but I have skinny arms and shoulders, and I'm basically a skinny fat person if that makes some sense.

I have a few questions about gaining mass.

How long will it take for me to gain about 20lbs of muscle mass?

Depends on how much your eating

What kind of proteins will I need to consume the most...If I can only eat shakes will that do?

My main sources of protien comes from turkey, chicken, tuna, cottage cheese, milk, steak, and protien shakes. never just drank shakes before, but i'm sure it cant be too good for you, best to get the most variety as possible, try not to rely on the shakes much. Stay away from the white stuff, pasta, rice, sugar, potato's etc... and get your carbs from whole meal, bread, pasta, brown rice and oats. Eat regually too, every 2-3hours.

Where can I find a workout program that is designed for Hard gainers? (I've tried to weightlift but I never see any gains)

Heavy compond exercises will work best, deadlifts, squats, pull ups, millatry lifts and bench presses.

Im only 5'10'' will being bigger make me look better?

who knows, would have to see a photo! But being muscular and chizzled has got to be better than "skinny and fat" as you put it!

 

[Doggystyle]

Oh and lay off the cardio if you want to bulk, it burns muscle as well as fat

 

[Kerpal]

Where can I find a workout program that is designed for Hard gainers? (I've tried to weightlift but I never see any gains)

Get the book "Starting Strength" by Mark Rippetoe. I'm skinnyfat too, I've only been doing his program for like 2 weeks and I've already gained some muscle and gotten tons of comments on how much better I look.

You can get it at Amazon.com It's like $30, I know it's a lot for a book, but trust me, it's worth every penny.

 

[PeterNorthisawesome]

Oh and lay off the cardio if you want to bulk, it burns muscle as well as fat

Not really if it burnt muscle then all those pros would look like tooth picks you just need to moderate and do 1-2 hours of intense so u don't overtrain. If u wanna get a sixpack cardio is essential.

 

[brucevangeorge]

Not really if it burnt muscle then all those pros would look like tooth picks you just need to moderate and do 1-2 hours of intense so u don't overtrain. If u wanna get a sixpack cardio is essential.

Cardio is by no means essential. You can just do circuit training. (It's like Cardio except with weights.)

AS long as you get your metablolism up it doesn't matter how.

 

[brucevangeorge]

Get the book "Starting Strength" by Mark Rippetoe. I'm skinnyfat too, I've only been doing his program for like 2 weeks and I've already gained some muscle and gotten tons of comments on how much better I look.

You can get it at Amazon.com It's like $30, I know it's a lot for a book, but trust me, it's worth every penny.

Great Advice!!!!

Like the above poster said. READ. Get all the info you can. Look through everywhere. Even the Musle Rags. Reat that garbage so you know good info when you see it. REAAAADDD!! Read whatever you can. Knowledge is power. And this knowledge will tell you how to be big and ripped.

 

[Duffty]

You need a simple home gym, flat weight bench, swiss/gym ball, barbell & dumbell. Good books on fitness e.g body for life program, men's health mag and some money for good 6 meal food & supplement. Then all you need to do is spend TIME doing the excercise.

 

[reyalp]

You need a simple home gym, flat weight bench, swiss/gym ball, barbell & dumbell. Good books on fitness e.g body for life program, men's health mag and some money for good 6 meal food & supplement. Then all you need to do is spend TIME doing the excercise.

skip the above.
search the H&F forum for posts by Warboss Alex, A-Unit, semag, and DIESEL, and read all of it.

the problem with a home gym is the possibility of injury and/or death. if you were to black out while doing bench press, and you had no spotters, it would be very likely that we'd be reading your obituary in the paper.

you might even PM Warboss Alex and see if you can talk 1-on-1 with him.

 

[brucevangeorge]

skip the above.
search the H&F forum for posts by Warboss Alex, A-Unit, semag, and DIESEL, and read all of it.

the problem with a home gym is the possibility of injury and/or death. if you were to black out while doing bench press, and you had no spotters, it would be very likely that we'd be reading your obituary in the paper.

you might even PM Warboss Alex and see if you can talk 1-on-1 with him.

If you have a power rack its okay. You can adjust the bars a little higher than your chest so it doesn't crush your ribcage into your spine.

 

[reyalp]

very true

i guess it depends on if you have the $300+ to drop on a power rack, or if you'd rather drop the $30/mo to join a gym.

 

[Cloud-uk]

Not really if it burnt muscle then all those pros would look like tooth picks you just need to moderate and do 1-2 hours of intense so u don't overtrain. If u wanna get a sixpack cardio is essential.

I agree.
There is a big difference between cardio and fat loss aerobics.
Very basic stuff here but with cardio you are targeting the heart, vessels and lungs. Think of it as weightlifting for your heart: if you work at about 70% MHR for about 30 minutes you'll accomplish this. The high intensity is the key here.
Now, for a young male weight gaining individual (a lot of people here) I can't see any reason not to do it. A more effective heart has so many health benefits- and if you do other sport other than weights it's going to be a plus.

Fat loss aerobics is 40-70% MHR and works best at over 30 minutes. I'm bulking at the moment but I still do cardio (NOT ****ING FAT LOSS!!!) twice- three times a week. I've gone up from 9st5 to a bit under 11st in a bit under 20 weeks. That said I've been recovering from illness, not sure whether that helped (low starting weight) or hindered...

By the way what is the evidence that cardio eats up muscle? I'm pretty sure the body only starts to eat into the protein in the body after the carb and fat stores have been drastically depleted- like marathon depleted. I'll look into it...(see Edit)

Anyway, all I'm trying to say here is to avoid long jogs like the plague, but clock in a 30 minute high intensity burst on the interval days between your weights. Oh, and it doesn't have to be running- I skip. Like a *****:rockon:.

Edit:
Found stuff on protien metabolism-
Proteins contribute less than 2% of the substrates used during exercise of less than 1 hour.
Slightly more proteins are utilized as a fuel source during prolonged exercise.
During the final moments of exercise lasting 3 to 5 hours, protein utilization may reach 5-15% of the fuel supply (Berg A & Keul J 1980; Cerretelli P 1977; Hood D & Terjung R 1990; Lemon P & Mullin F 1980; Lemon P & Nagle 1980)
Protein can supply up to 10% of total energy substrate utilization during prolonged intense exercise if glycogen stores and energy intake is inadequate (Brooks, 1987)

Source: exrx.net​

 

[BuckwildNYC]

I'll probably get flamed for this post but I going to put it anyways with a quick backround story.

I've been working out since I'm about 16 years. When I started I was about 6'1 160 pounds. I'm a hard gainer. After years of dedication I got to about 6'4 220 pounds. I'm 31 now. Just recently a guy on my job has put me on to, dare I say it, steroids. Well I am now 250 pounds. I'm using a drug called Dianabol. It's a pill so you don't have to worry about injections. I do eight week cycles and then take off about a month. I have had zero side affects.

I know people are very scared of juice with all the negative publicity. Let me tell you, steroid use isn't what hurts you...........it's steroid ABUSE. I wish I wouldn't have been so scared my whole life and would have tried it much sooner. I wouldn't recommend using it if you are under 21 cause it might mess wih your natural growth.

It's up to you bro, if you want to live in the gym and get few to no results then keep drinking your protein shakes. If you want to see results virtually over night then get on the juice. I know I'll never go back.

 

[brucevangeorge]

I'll probably get flamed for this post but I going to put it anyways with a quick backround story.

I've been working out since I'm about 16 years. When I started I was about 6'1 160 pounds. I'm a hard gainer. After years of dedication I got to about 6'4 220 pounds. I'm 31 now. Just recently a guy on my job has put me on to, dare I say it, steroids. Well I am now 250 pounds. I'm using a drug called Dianabol. It's a pill so you don't have to worry about injections. I do eight week cycles and then take off about a month. I have had zero side affects.

I know people are very scared of juice with all the negative publicity. Let me tell you, steroid use isn't what hurts you...........it's steroid ABUSE. I wish I wouldn't have been so scared my whole life and would have tried it much sooner. I wouldn't recommend using it if you are under 21 cause it might mess wih your natural growth.

It's up to you bro, if you want to live in the gym and get few to no results then keep drinking your protein shakes. If you want to see results virtually over night then get on the juice. I know I'll never go back.

I agree. Abuse is the problem. As long as you know what you are doing and have done the proper research all is good. But hardgainers can gain weight the natural way too. It's called EATING. Even on gear, you STILL NEED FOOD. It's not a magical pill by any means. It just accelerates your progress if you do it the right way.

 

[Cloud-uk]

I'll probably get flamed for this post but I going to put it anyways with a quick backround story.

I've been working out since I'm about 16 years. When I started I was about 6'1 160 pounds. I'm a hard gainer. After years of dedication I got to about 6'4 220 pounds. I'm 31 now. Just recently a guy on my job has put me on to, dare I say it, steroids. Well I am now 250 pounds. I'm using a drug called Dianabol. It's a pill so you don't have to worry about injections. I do eight week cycles and then take off about a month. I have had zero side affects.

I know people are very scared of juice with all the negative publicity. Let me tell you, steroid use isn't what hurts you...........it's steroid ABUSE. I wish I wouldn't have been so scared my whole life and would have tried it much sooner. I wouldn't recommend using it if you are under 21 cause it might mess with your natural growth.

It's up to you bro, if you want to live in the gym and get few to no results then keep drinking your protein shakes. If you want to see results virtually over night then get on the juice. I know I'll never go back.

A lot of 'hardgainers' are actually people who are following bad routines/ don't have their diet down. It's good that you've got no side effects, but I wouldn't say that is a good reason for other people to try it.

The problem with steroids is that they don't act on the body, but on the signals that course through the body. You may not feel or express any behavioural differences, but what you are taking is affecting how you think.

Now, things like chocolate also affect how you think, so I'm not saying this is necessarily a bad thing, but steroids affect a lot of people a lot. More in the same level as illegal drugs. My question is can you USE something like steroids (in a non-medical sense), as you can't be a heroin USER (extreme example but you know what I mean)?

Pah, it's an individual's choice. I've seen some amazing changes to people's physiques via steroids, but I enjoy lifting. I think it comes down to whether you want to walk the journey and see the trees or take the car and risk crashing.