Is it really as simple as some would have you think?
You’ve heard the regimen if you’re slender and
want to gain weight: Eat six meals a day (preferably spaced
not more than 2 to 3 hours apart), lift “heavy”
(preferably compound exercises), do weight lifting three
times a week, don’t do cardio, shovel down mega
calories, move as little as possible… yadda, yadda,
yadda.
For the slender among you: How’s that working out?
Are you getting big and strong? Or is the lethargy you feel
from too many calories only outweighed (no pun) by the
realization that your muscles are still puny while your
waistline begins expansion? That’s not a good road to
be on; believe me – I’ve been there and done it.
So what do you need to turn that around? Well, some good
advice based on physiological distinctions might be a nice
start. The advice you’ve been getting is so
simplistic you’d think the “experts” out
there are assuming you’re a Neanderthal. Think about
it: Eat more food… eat real often… lift real
heavy… sleep a lot… make sure you don’t
miss workouts – then you’ll “gain
weight”.
First of all, get the notion out of your head that you need
to “gain weight” and start driving it home that
you need to ‘build muscle’. Does this sound
like just a play on semantics? Not by a long shot. The
simplistic advice stating you need to take in more calories
than you burn off is the recipe for fat gain. That’s
what fat people (I being a former one) are inadvertently
doing. I don’t care how skinny you are; becoming fat
will not get you more dates or attention from your spouse
or significant other. It won’t make you more
assertive. Nor will it improve athletic ability or your
prowess in defending yourself when physically threatened.
Those are all things that are helped by having big, strong,
curvy, contoured muscles combined with a lean body.
So let’s contrast the process of gaining muscle with
gaining fat by focusing on a pound of size you'd want to
add to the possibly underdeveloped tissue of your
pectorals. You know if you can just “gain
weight” in your pecs, you’ll be bigger. So what
do you do? Why, a chest workout of course. And you make
sure to use big compound movements like bench press because
that’s what the experts tell you will build
size… and weight. You also ensure that your pecs
don’t get off easy – pushing yourself with
intensity of effort that leaves your chest region nearly
debilitated with soreness for the next couple of days.
You know it’s those crucial days following the
workout during which growth occurs. If you’ve worked
your pectoral muscles adequately to stimulate adaptation,
the contractile tissue of the myofibrils will have been
damaged. This tissue is comprised of two protein filaments;
actin and myosin. When you allow those filaments to fully
recuperate from the damage, they develop compensatory
tissue that’s similar to scar tissue on a skin
injury. If you work those muscles any time prior to that
compensatory protein tissue being constructed, it’s
somewhat like picking scab tissue off a skin wound. And
just as picking a scab off a wound will set back its
healing, so will working a muscle any time prior to its
full and ‘adaptation-inclusive’ recuperation.
This is the counter-productive scenario that’s most
often the cause of bodybuilding plateaus.
The full recuperation of your pecs will take a specific
amount of time, calories, and bodily energy. The amount
depends on how much damage was done. Yes, it requires a
hefty supply of protein and a few calories above your
non-bodybuilding maintenance levels. However, it will not
take place any faster just because you stuffed down a
thousand extra calories today if all your body needed was a
hundred extra calories for repair material and energy. In
fact, processing excess calories is a vigor-depleting task
for your body – potentially robbing it of the vital
energy it needs for myofibril repair. Can anyone say
“food coma”?
But what does the “bulk-up” crowd recommend you
do? First of all, they tell you that you need to
“gain weight” instead of ‘build
muscle’. Then they tell you that there are about 3500
calories in a pound of “body weight”. Then they
tell you to take in 500 calories a day above your
maintenance levels so you can put on a pound a week. And if
you end up not putting on this weight, they usually say
it’s because you’re not eating enough.
Exactly what kind of “weight” are we talking
about here?
Imagine that slab of pectoral muscle you’re trying to
add. You’ve blasted your chest on Monday and
you’re planning to hit it again on Friday. When
Friday rolls around, you unknowingly go to the gym with
“myofibril scab tissue” rather than fully
recuperated and adapted pectoral muscles. You hit your
chest with another workout because you feel fully secure
with the fact that you’re eating your prescribed 500
or 1000 extra calories per day.
But your broken down muscle tissue will still only grab
what calories it needs for the methodical process of
recuperation. It doesn’t move faster with the process
just because there are extra calories present. Now
you’ve just set your chest muscle recuperation
farther backwards and your body has all the joy of
processing a bunch of calories that were possibly unneeded.
And what if those extra calories get deposited as fat?
Well, then the “bulk-up experts” will tell you
that you’ve gained adipose weight that was necessary
for putting on the muscle weight. However, if your pectoral
recuperation keeps going in the wrong direction, you
won’t gain much muscle weight – if any. You
will have succeeded at “gaining weight”, but it
will be the kind that causes your chest to bounce when you
run toward a closing elevator door or a departure gate at
the airport. Anyone who sees my ‘before
picture’ on my website can witness the kind of chest
weight to which I’m referring.
So how come every ‘how to gain weight’ article
looks the same? I’m not sure. But I can guarantee you
that this one is different than most.
----------------------------------------------------
Scott Abbett is the author of HardBody Success: 28
Principles to Create Your Ultimate Body and Shape Your Mind
for Incredible Success. He is a certified fitness trainer
and a Master Practitioner and Trainer of NLP. To see his
personal transformation visit http://www.hardbodysuccess.com
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