It happens every year. The New Year comes and every scrawny twerp on the planet swears this is going to be the year that he slaps on an extra 20 pounds of muscle. But if you didn’t pack it on successfully last year, what makes you think this year is going to be any different? Seriously?

Did you spend hours in the gym with no results? Did you spend the last year blindly following the muscle magazines only to look the same as you do now? Did you spend the year filling your body with mysterious supplements that only make you sick? Did you watch your friends train less than you but get twice as big? Sound familiar doesn’t it? I thought so.

So the question is, how are we going to get a different result? The answer is simple. By doing something differently. Would you agree the best way to get the same thing is to do the same thing? And would you agree that the best way to get a different result is to do something different?

Give me a amen if you have decided that this year is going to be different. Give me a amen-hallelujah if you are prepared to be a different person and prepared to do something different this year. Commit to having your best year, and I’ll take care of you, providing you with the best skinny guy transformation program.

My Own Skinny Guy Experience

Trust me, I know. I was a skinny beanpole all through high school and university and gained the nickname Skinny Vinny. I gawked at my room mates how displayed copious amounts of rock-hard brawn on there frame. I was inspired by the spectacular ‘before and after’ pictures in bodybuilding magazines. I read every piece of bodybuilding literature I could, got misguided by a slew of personal trainers, experimented with every legal supplement I could purchase, but despite my efforts, my 12 week pictures looked nothing like the supplement advertisements. The cruel scale needle stayed the same like it was cast in stone. Perhaps I was doomed to be skinny for life…

Skinny Guys Must Play By A Different Set Of Rules

As a weight training enthusiast, figuring out the most effective workout routine can become an endless source of confusion and frustration. Every single fitness expert and magazine has a different training theory or training angle which becomes more confusing than a trip for Jessica Simpson at Home Depot!

Most skinny guys end up using routines designed and touted by those freaky monsters seen in the hardcore rags who have more than a little chemistry lab going on inside of them. Programs that include hitting the gym more than five times a week, focusing on 1-2 exercises per workout, 12-24 sets per exercise and overemphasizing isolation-type exercises. None of these components of a program helps improve the underlying foundation of a hardgainers success. Training to get bigger and more muscular, that is – your best body ever, must revolve around getting stronger and I mean really, really stronger. Increasing your strength remains the rock-solid foundation for defeating your skinny genetics and getting a head-turning physique this year.

Since the vast array of exercise machines came on the market, along with infomercials, instant result programs, and fancy dressed supplement ads, people are no longer willing to spend the time in the gym to build the solid strength foundation that is critical for long-term progress. Since you’ve read this far, you won’t be making that mistake this year!

Six Reasons Skinny Guys Must Focus On The Forgotten Factor: Strength

• Strength training is incredibly taxing on the body’s central nervous system. Increasing your central nervous system’s work capacity through heavy and/or explosive movements; you directly increase the ability of your muscular system to produce increased levels of strength.
• Strength training releases more growth hormone and testosterone. Using greater resistance loads than normal will release a greater abundance of these muscle building hormones necessary to maximize your genetic potential which will result in new muscle growth all over – especially on those lagging body parts!
• Strength training creates a platform to achieve more sets and reps. When you build a stronger foundation, your ability to handle heavier loads in the higher rep ranges will dramatically increase, resulting in some impressive muscular hypertrophy.
• Strength training benefits the smaller muscle groups as well. The pure strength movements do not just benefit the larger muscle groups such as the chest, back and legs but the smaller ones as well. An example: A skinny guy increases the amount of weight he can do on the bent over row from 135 to 225. The heavier poundages will result in significantly strengthening the assisting movers of the upper arm – brachialis and the brachioradialis – allowing him to curl much more weight on his curling exercises.
• Strength training involves the maximal amount of muscle fibers. To defeat your skinny genetics you must use the maximal number of muscle fibers in each set. Do you think lifting weights at 60-80% of your threshold is going to stimulate the maximal amount of muscle fiber? Think of your muscles as lazy. They would prefer to sleep this entire next year. They would prefer to stay small. They have zero interest in growing larger. That is something you want to do. The only reason they will wake up (get bigger) is if they are attacked. If they are exposed to an assault (heavy weight) they have not experienced before. Out of survival, your muscles will grow bigger to prevent the same assault from occurring again.
• Strength training does not eat up your precious calories. Unlike the 1-2 hour marathon training sessions that involve 12-24 exercises per body part or workout, strength training is much less demanding calorically. It does not burn up the calories your muscles need to grow because of the longer rests and shorter sets.
• Strength training leads to progressive overload. If you are thinking, “But I don’t care how much I can lift. All I care about is not being skinny anymore and building a good physique. I’m not a power lifter or bodybuilder.” I would reply that strength training is a fundamental principle of muscle growth because it leads to progressive overload. The only way to make a muscle grow is to subject it to unaccustomed stress. Progressive overload basically implies that when a muscle is subjected to an usual amount of unaccustomed stress and effort, the muscle must respond by getting larger to manage and cope with the new stress.

Still Not Convinced That Strength Training Is The Answer To Your Best Body This Year?

How many people do you see with skinny arms that can curl 135 pounds? How many people do you see with no chest who bench press 275 pounds? How many people do you see with massive upper girdles that can dead lift 315 pounds? How many people do you see with chop-stick legs who can squat 400 pounds?I would say – not many. There are many more reasons why strength training will help you defeat your muscle unfriendly genes and get the body you deserve this year but I think you get the point. If ever in doubt, just take a look at the biggest guys in your gym. I bet they are lifting 3-4 more times the weight as you!

The 1 + 1 Skinny Guy Strength Program

Stage 1: 4 x 4 Strength Phase

Week 1-3

Stage 2 – 5 x 5 Strength Phase

Weeks 4-6

Stage 3 – 6 x 6 Strength Phase

Weeks 7-9

Stage 4 – 7 x 7 Strength Phase

Weeks 9-12

Weight Training Program Notes:

• You will notice Monday is a Quad Dominant day with Horizontal Pushing (Chest) and Horizontal Pulling (Rows). You will notice that Traps and Calves are opposite movements so have been paired up respectively.
• You will notice Friday is a Hip Dominant day with Vertical Pushing (Shoulders) and Vertical Pulling (Lats). You will notice Traps and Calves are opposite movements so have been paired up respectively.
• You will notice slight variation on some of the exercise selection. The exercise selection is not as critical as the load and set protocol. Feel free to tweak the exercises based on your personal preference. For example, if a Trap Bar Deadlift feels better for you than a normal Deadlift – go for it. If you know you will get better results with dumbell’s instead of barbells – don’t be afraid to follow your instincts and be involved in the training process.
• For some, the 6 x 6 phase and 7 x7 phase will be too much volume on muscle groups like biceps and triceps. Feel free to modify these to only 3-5 sets. The goal is to keep the weight the same the entire workout. If your weights start to drop than simply record the number of sets you were able to do and try to beat it next week.
• I am guessing 4 x 4 will be your first exposure to heavy lifting. Remember, next phase, you will be focusing on adding one extra rep to the same weight with one extra set hence the 1 + 1 Program. This program is based on increasing the amount of work you are capable of performing over a 12 week period.

  e.g. Let’s say you can do 185 lbs for 4 x 4 in phase one. Next phase, you will be aiming to do 185 pounds for 5 x 5. You might even be able to slip a few extra pounds on the bar, depending on the rate that you super compensate which will be bonus.

• For time efficiency, opposing muscle groups like Shoulders and Lats, Chest and Rows and Shrugs and Calves can be super set together. I would not recommend super setting your legs. This is your personal choice though.
• The 2 x 20 and 2 x 30 are unique additions I have added from my own personal experience. I have found, generally, that skinny guys responds better to higher rep ranges for the calves and traps.
• You will notice that Monday and Friday can be classified as your Heavy days and Wednesday is an opportunity to increase your body weight strength and prevent your metabolic system from de-training. These higher rep exercises will counteract and help balance out the dominance of central nervous system training occurring.
• The weighted abdominal work should come from Hanging Leg Raises, Weighted Ball Sit Ups, or Cable Crunches.
• You will notice this is a three day program which will be alternated every three weeks with a four day program. I might suggest taking a ? week off at the six week mark if any symptoms of overtraining are suspected. Take at least one week off from the gym at the completion of this 12 week program.

Cardiovascular and Flexibility Training Tips

• During phases 1 and 3 while you are doing only three day of weight training per week I would recommend the following:
  • At least two or three 20-30 minute cardio sessions placed either on your non-workout days on immediately after you weight training workouts.
  • Use the form of cardio that, in your experience, holds the most muscle on your body. For some, this will mean doing shorter interval cardio sessions. For some, this will mean going for a easy run or swim.
  • Incorporate the cardio work to enhance your muscle gain goals – not detract. For example, you might benefit from a easy swim workout after a heavy upper body day. You might benefit from a easy bike ride to loosen up from a heavy lower body workout. Use common sense when choosing your cardio activities. For example, don’t try out for the soccer team at the same time you are trying to transform your body!
  • Incorporate your cardio based on your nutrition intake. Remember, your muscles grow on calories so the more cardio you incorporate, the more overall calories you will need to counteract the lost.
  • Try to stretch at least ? the amount that you lift. Heavy lifting requires long and lengthened muscles to allow full range of motion. Shortened muscles perform weaker and slower and have a higher incidence of injury. If you are weight lifting 4 hours in the week, you should be stretching at least two. This means at least ? hour of stretching before or after you weight training workout. This is my personal recommendation, any less, and your body will screaming for a injury.

Take The Challenge

Give the 1 + 1 Skinny Guy Strength Program a honest effort for the next 12 weeks and commit to making this year the year that you defeat your skinny genetics and build a body you can be proud of without spending any more time in the gym than you have to. Believe that you can do it. It can be done and it will!

By Vince DelMonte

Vince Delmonte is a competitive fitness model and personal trainer, as well as the author of No-Nonsense Muscle Building, a complete guide to building muscle for the hardgainer. Vince’s program includes extensive diet plans, complete weight training regimens, video tutorials, and full email personal training support.

Here are four ‘little known’ how-to-action-steps that will show you how to gain weight and muscle, even if you are underweight!

Are you sick and tired of people telling you how to gain weight. It probably sounds like this:

“All you have to do is eat, eat and eat some more to gain weight…”

“Weight gain is just a matter of eating…”

“You just gotta overload your metabolism to gain weight fast…”

“You can’t build a house without the bricks and mortar for gaining weight…”

Don’t throw me to the wolves quite yet. There is certainly truth to these statements and some of these analogies can prove quite powerful, I think I’m even guilty of preaching a few! But the problem with this advice is that it’s usually followed up with the same old reguritated blah, blah blah advice that only tells you what to do and does not reveal real world practical how-to-action-steps.

If you are someone who has struggled their entire life, trying to pack on extra muscle mass and still consider yourself underweight than you are not alone. I was once skinny and underweight myself…

People, predispositioned to skinniness, are commonly referred to as “hard gainers.” This is the cool way to label your scrawny frame despite the fact that your body turns into a Number 2 pencil when you wear yellow!

It’s not totally your fault you are skinny…

In the skinny guys defence, the reality is that you have been cursed with traits like Lamborghini type metabolisms, giraffe like limbs, and the strength of a senior citizen. You have to fight with every bone in your body to do something about your small frame and to keep up to your male buddies who seem to grow muscle just by sneezing – those muscle freaks pee me off just as much you!

Even though you might think your genetic deficiencies have sentenced you to a life of frailty and surprised looks when you tell others you lift weights; I am living proof that hard gainers with very ‘muscle-unfriendly genes’ can fight back against their genetics and gain muscle weight. I defeated my skinny genetics just after college and I am about to show you four tips that helped me climb from a 149 pound weakling to a rock hard 190 pounds in six months.

Trust me, no body has worse genetics, for building muscle and gaining weight, than a ex long distance runner who abused his body with 60-80 miles of running a week (for over 10 years)!

Skinny guys must play by a different set of rules.

If you are underweight than your first step to gaining weight is to understand that you must play by a different set up rules. I have said this before and will say it again,

“Taking advice from someone who can gain muscle weight easily,

is like taking money advice from somone who inherited a fortune

or is making money illegally.”

You must think outside the box and give up the excuse of being a “hardgainer.” It is time to stop listening to all the naysayers who have told you that is impossible to gain weight because of your genetics. Regardless of what you have been lead to believe, you do have the potential to build an impressive physique that turns heads and even intimidates!

If you have read this far, I am guessing you are ready to longer resemble a micorphone stand! You are prepared to overload your metabolism for muscle growth, to ensure you are never referred to as ‘undeweight’ or ’skinny’ ever again. Start following these simple steps and don’t be surprised if you gain an extra ten pounds of muscle weight in the next four weeks.

Four simple how to gain weight action steps to start growing like a skyscraper!

1. Double it up.

One of the most practical steps you can take is to double whatever you are currently eating in the kitchen right now. If you are eating one chicken breast per meal than cook up two. If you are only eating two slices of bread than make it four. If you are eating one handful of nuts than make it two. If you are using only two scoops of protein powder than make it four.

Most likely you are only a few dozen meals short of filling out your underdeveloped body parts and attracting the attention of that sexy girl at your gym. I assume you are already in the kitchen and have the food out. So would you agree, you really have no good excuse not to shovel down a greater percentage of calories by doubling it up!

2. Live your life around food.

Sure you know that you must eat every 2-3 hours but how well do you execute? Set your clock on a countdown timer to go off every 2 and ½ hours so that you reinforce the habit of eating literally not a second late for each meal! Don’t turn off the damn beeper until you start chowing down.

Ensure you are eating your first meal within 15-30 minutes of waking up – absolutely no later. This first meal of the day should always consist of REAL food to flood your body will quality nutrients. I question anybodies comittment to gaining weight if they are too lazy to wake up 15 minutes earlier to eat a real meal.

Lastly, don’t be surprised if you are not gaining weight if you do not find yourself spending more time preparing food, more time eating food and more time cleaning your kitchen. You should notice you are spending more time in the grocery store and you should also notice a larger grocery bill each week!

3. Use BIG eating equipment.

If you want to bulk than you have to eat like Hulk. Do you think Hulk eats out of small plate, or a small bowel or a small cup? If you are aiming to get big and huge, you are going to require large amounts of food most likely close to double of what you are currently eating.

So get BIG eating equipment! Get a BIG cup, get a BIG bowel and get a BIG plate. Surround yourself with BIG. Most of the time hard gainers are nothing more than “under eaters.” If you struggle to complete a meal than a bigger serving on a bigger plate will look small!

4. Never train hungry.

How many times have you waken up, whipped up a protein shake and than headed off to the gym? Or maybe you had a long afternoon and missed a few meals and than attempted a weight training workout after work?

I thought this was common sense to avoid, until a few of my skinny clients confessed that they were showing up for their workouts having only eaten a piece of fruit and some crackers within the entire day!

After dropping the 45 pound plate on my foot out of shock they reassured me, they were not hungry. I sometimes screamed back, “Yeah, that’s because your metabolism is in starvation mode and shut right down you skinny pencil neck!”

I understand that training in the morning is the only time for some however I recommend to aim for a minimum of at least three solid meals in your system prior to eating. Or else the biggest meal of your day immedately after your AM workout. Would you take your car out on a long trip with a half empty fuel tank? Not unless you wanted the car to die and push it the rest of the way. So why would you take your body through a grueling training session on a empty stomach?

Here is my promise to you. You have the ability to gain at least another ten pounds of solid weight in the next four weeks by simply applying the advice above. If you are truly committed to your goals of gaining muscle weight and no longer being known as underweight than I believe you will rise to the challenge and take action! Are you with me?

By Vince DelMonte

Vince Delmonte is a competitive fitness model and personal trainer, as well as the author of No-Nonsense Muscle Building, a complete guide to building muscle for the hardgainer. Vince’s program includes extensive diet plans, complete weight training regimens, video tutorials, and full email personal training support.

Think putting yourself on a muscle building diet has to be a painful process? And that maybe muscle building recipes can be confusing? Whether your goal is fat loss or muscle building, getting proper nutrition is at least 80% of the game. If you don’t have that figured out, you are going to be a long time away from seeing results.

The good news is that your tastebuds don’t have to suffer if you don’t want them to. There are plenty of ways to get in your proper nutrition while keeping things interesting. If you think gaining muscle means suffering through can of tuna after can of tuna or pounding back a protein shake as fast as humanly possible, you need to think again.

Give one of these recipes a try and you’ll be surprised just how easy it is to eat right, achieve your goals and actually ENJOY your food at the same time.

Protein Fudge Nuggets

These are great to take to the gym as a post-workout treat or just for a snack to eat between meals. When you are trying to gain weight many of you really need to packing in the calories so you need calorie dense foods. These chocolate treats have it all.

8 scoops chocolate protein powder

1 cup oatmeal (can be ground depending on the consistency you’d like)

1/3 cup natural peanut butter

3 tbsp honey

½ cup milk

3 tbsp crushed peanuts

First mix together the protein powder, oatmeal, peanut butter, honey and milk. Form into small balls and then roll in the crushed peanuts to finish.  Note that these can easily be frozen in plastic bags and consumed on a later date.

Nutritional Info (1/10 of the recipe)

234 calories

6.7 grams fat

18 grams carbohydrates

25 grams protein

When you’re craving a good home-made pancake breakfast, give these a try. They are filled with slow digesting carbohydrates that will keep your blood sugar steady throughout the morning.

¼ cup oats

1/3 cup canned pumpkin

5 egg whites

1 tbsp ground flax

½ tbsp cinnamon

Splenda to taste

First heat a frying pan until hot and then reduce to medium temperature. After mixing together all the ingredients drop by spoonful onto the plan, flipping when bubbles start to form.

Makes about 5 – 4″ pancakes.

Nutritional Info (per recipe)

217 calories

23 grams protein

26 grams carbohydrates

4 grams fat

When you’re craving something sweet but are on a very low carb diet, there often is not a lot of options. This recipe is the perfect dessert that will give you plenty of protein and not much else.  Great for those on a very strict diet.

1 package sugar-free Jell-O (any flavour)

1 scoop Syntrax Nectar protein powder (any flavour – to match Jell-O)

Mix 1 cup boiling water with the Jell-O powder then stir in one scoop of the protein powder until dissolved.  Once that’s finished, mix in one cup of cold water and allow to set. Serve with low fat Cool Whip if desired.

Everyone needs a good cookie now and then but not everyone needs the damage to their diet. Luckily with these not only will you be getting a great dose of protein, you will be getting plenty of antioxidants from the blueberries.

2 scoops vanilla protein powder

4 egg whites

½ cup oats

1 cup blueberries

First combine all three ingredients so they are blended well. Then mix in blueberries and drop by the spoonful onto a greased cookie sheet.  Bake at 375 degree Celsius for approximately thirteen minutes.  Makes 10 cookies.

Nutritional Info (per cookie)

54 calories

6.5 grams protein

0.7 grams fat

5.5 grams carbs

Intramuscular Buffering Capacity

Finally, the last adaptation that’s seen with sprint training is the buffering capacity of the muscle. During glycoglysis, various byproducts are created such as lactic acid, and when these accumulate, it causes the extreme feelings of fatigue in the muscle tissues.

This then forces you to stop exercising as the fatigue sets in and often will be the end of your workout.

Overtime, sprint training will increase your ability to buffer these byproducts so that you can then workout for a longer period of time while maintaining that intensity.

So, next time you’re debating about whether to do a sprint training session or a moderate paced cardio session lasting for 40 minutes or so, opt for the sprint session.

The benefits you’ll receive are far more numerous and fat loss will be kicked up a notch as an added benefit. Keep in mind that for these type of benefits to occur, you want your sprints to last somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 seconds to 40 seconds, with a work to rest ration of about 1:2. Repeat this process a total of 6 to 8 times and begin and end with a five minute warm-up and cool-down.

By Vince DelMonte

Vince Delmonte is a competitive fitness model and personal trainer, as well as the author of No-Nonsense Muscle Building, a complete guide to building muscle for the hardgainer. Vince’s program includes extensive diet plans, complete weight training regimens, video tutorials, and full email personal training support.

Weight training involves the use of equipment that enables variable resistance. This resistance can come in the form of “free weights” like barbells and dumbbells, machines that use cables or pulleys to help you lift the weight and bodyweight exercises like pull-ups or dips.

Free Weights vs. Machines vs. Bodyweight Exercises

For maximum muscle gain, the focus of your workouts should consist of free weight exercises. Not machines or bodyweight exercises. This is not to say that you should not use machines or bodyweight exercises, but they should not be the focus of your training. To get an effective, muscle blasting workout, you must stimulate the most muscle fibers as possible, and machines do not do this.

The main reason for this is a lack of stabilizer and synergist muscle development. Stabilizer and synergist muscles are supporting muscles that assist the main muscle in performing a complex lift. The more stabilizers and synergists worked, the more muscle fibers stimulated. Multi-jointed free weight exercises like the bench press, require many stabilizer and synergistic muscle assistance to complete the lift. On the other hand doing a bench press using a machine will need almost no stabilizer assistance.

Since machines are locked into a specific range of motion and help to support the weight along that path, they fail to stimulate the muscles that surround the area you are working (stabilizers). This is a mistake. If your stabilizer muscles are weak, then the major muscle group will never grow!

Free weight exercises like the dumbbell press or squat, for example, put a very large amount of stress on supporting muscle groups. That’s why you will get fatigued faster and not be able to lift as much weight as you did on the machine. But you will gain more muscle, become stronger very quickly and have a true gauge of your strength.

If you use machines in your program, they should be used to work isolated areas and only after all multi-jointed exercises have been completed.

Beginners should begin with a limited combination of machine exercises, bodyweight exercises and mult-jointed free weight exercises. Before increasing the weight levels, they should work on becoming familiar with the proper form and execution of each. Soon, bodyweight exercises will become insufficient to stimulate growth and they will need to focus on more free weight exercises.

Multi-Jointed Exercises

The exercises that work the large muscle groups are called compound (or multi-joint) movements that involve the simultaneous stimuation of many muscle groups. These compound exercises should be the foundation of any weight training program because they stimulate the most amount of muscle in the least amount of time.

Here are the basic movements:

* Bench Presses (works the chest, shoulders, tricep)

* Overhead Presses (shoulders, tricep)

* Pull-ups/Barbell Rows (back, bicep)

* Squats (legs, lower back)

* Deadlifts (legs, back, shoulders)

* Bar Dips (shoulders, chest, arms)

I cannot overemphasize the importance of these exercises. Do not start an advanced weight training program without them!

They will overload your entire skeletal and muscular system like no machine could ever do, giving you and effective workout in a very short period of time. If you can only do a few exercises, then do these. They have been proven (and not just by me) to encourage muscle and strength gain unlike any other exercises.

Lift Heavy Weight

To build mass, you must weight train with heavy weights. By heavy, I mean a weight that is challenging for you — not me, or anyone else. To consider a weight heavy, you should only be able to do a maximum of 8-12 reps before your muscles temporarily fail. A weight is considered “light” if you can do more than 15 reps before muscle fatigue sets in.

Heavy weights stimulate more muscle fibers than lighter weights. It’s that simple. More muscle stimulation means more muscle growth.

Don’t Overtrain

Heavy weight training puts a huge strain on your body, so adequate rest and recuperation after your workouts is essential. If you are prone to train too often, several things happen:

You don’t give your muscles enough time to recuperate between workouts. If your muscles have not repaired themselves, you will not be at maximum strength for your next workout. Rest is essential. Other than eating, this should be your main focus.

You are setting yourself up for burnout or an injury. I know you are motivated and excited about working out, but don’t be careless. You must pace yourself, you want to be able to keep this up for a long time, not burnout before you reach your goals. I only weight train 3 times per week, that’s all. Anymore than that and I would not give my body enough time to repair and build new muscle.

Contrary to popular belief, you do not grow while working out, you only grow when you are resting.

Below is an example mass workout. I did 4 heavy sets for 4-8 reps each.

Wednesday (legs, abs)

* Heavy Squats, leg extension superset

* Seated Calve Raises, 4 strips sets

* Crunches (4 sets of 20)

——-

Friday (chest, shoulder, triceps, abs)

* Flat bench press, incline dumbbell flyes superset

* Shoulder press, side raises superset

* Tricep pushdowns

* Reverse incline leg raises (3 sets of 20)

——

Sunday (back, biceps, abs)

* Wide grip pull-ups, latbar pulldown superset

* EZ bar bicep curl, incline dumbbell curls superset

* Crunches (4 sets of 20)

Nothing fancy, but effective.

Former “skinny guy” Anthony Ellis is the author of Gaining Mass! The most widely used weight gain program in the world.

You wake up in the morning and look in the mirror.  Pleased with your appearance? If you more resemble the appearance of a long distance marathon runner than a world class sprinter, don’t worry, you aren’t alone. You just need to start following these weight lifting rules.

There are quite a few guys who simply have trouble packing on the lean muscle mass.  Whether their hormonal environment isn’t quite as favourable or genetics was just out to get them at birth, one thing is for sure and that’s that they need to follow a slightly different set of weight lifting methods than those who seem to grow muscle overnight.

Luckily for you, you’re taking the time to do your research about weight lifting so you won’t be destined to a life where it seems like a strong wind might knock you over.

First, one of the key factors that skinny guys need to remember is that they must avoid volume work at all costs.

Rule #1:

Get in the gym and get out! That should be your motto from this day forward. Repeat it. Breathe it. Live it.  Weight lifting is a calorie expensive activity and you need all the calories you can get at this point. If you are burning it up in the gym every single day, how do you expect to grow? You won’t.

You grow when you are resting and generally, the skinnier you are, the more rest you are going to need.

Now, that doesn’t mean you should park it on the couch for a few days in between your workouts.  It simply means that each weight lifting should not consist of set after set after set. Followed by a rest break to talk to that hot receptionist and then back to another twenty sets.

No, you’re workouts need to consist of ten-twelve or fewer sets where you are pushing yourself to the MAX. There is no room for sissy, light-weight work in your weight lifting program.

Which brings us to Rule #2:

Ditch the isolated exercises. Who needs them? You certainly don’t.

If your workouts normally include bicep curls, followed by tricep kickbacks, followed by leg extensions, followed by chest flys, followed by… you get the picture, you’ve got to change this pronto.  Remember, you’ve only got so much time you are allowed to be in the gym for. Don’t you want to get the biggest bang for your buck?  Likely you do, so that means focusing on compound lifts only. This includes weight lifting exercises such as squats, bench presses, deadlifts, rows and military presses.

Become friends with those exercises and you will have new muscles in the picture soon enough.  Toss the five day split program, get yourself on a good upper/lower or full body workout program and you have found the key to unleashing new muscle mass.

Now onto the next significant point. Cardio.

Rule # 3.

I know, I know, you want to be big, but you don’t want to be fat.  Let’s not worry about that at this point, because you and I both know you are a long ways from fat.

Gaining fat weight is going to be more a concept of diet than anything else so as long as you are being smart in the kitchen, you don’t need to perform hours of cardio to remain lean. Cardio is just going to further burn off precious calories that could have gone towards building you new muscle mass. For you, calories are a hot commodity and should not be spent on the treadmill.

If you want to keep up some cardio for general health sake, fine, but limit this to two or three twenty minute sessions per week – TOPS. And make it low to moderate intensity as well.  The only place you are to be intense is in the weight room.

This leads to rule #4.

REST! You’ve put in your effort at the gym, fed your body with some good food and now what? Plans to go out partying all night with your buddies? You might want to rethink that.  While you definitely want to maintain your social life while trying to gain weight – and you should – it should not come at the sacrifice of sleep.

Sleep is primetime when it comes to your body repairing itself and growing stronger so short-circuit sleep and you are short-circuiting your results. Just don’t do it. Period. It’s that simple.

Get ready for rule #5.

Technique.  Ever seen that guy in the gym who is hoisting so much weight on his barbell for barbell curls that it looks like he’s got more momentum going on than the Gravitron at the fair? He’s pretty much working every muscle in his body except his biceps. Not so beneficial.  Not only that, but give him two weeks and a hundred bucks says he’s out with back pain.

You must maintain proper form throughout your weight lifting, not only to prevent injuries but also to see the muscular gains you are looking for. If you cheat form, you are only cheating yourself.  If you don’t know what proper form is yet, book a session with a trainer or find yourself a spotter who can help you.

And now, bonus rule #6

Find a mentor.  You want someone who’s been there, done that. They used to be a skinny runt just like you and they’ve managed to overcome the curse and now tip the scales and dominate the weight room.  This guy will do wonders for your motivational levels. Don’t feel like lifting? Have a good look at his body.  You’ll want to pick that weight up after that. Furthermore, he can let you in on some of his tried-and-true secrets that just might be key for you as well.

So to sum up your new approach to your weight lifting sessions – get in, train hard and with proper technique, get out, eat and rest. Repeat this process over a few months without getting distracted or becoming too much of a party animal and you will make this the year you change your dreaded skinny image.

By Vince DelMonte

Vince Delmonte is a competitive fitness model and personal trainer, as well as the author of No-Nonsense Muscle Building, a complete guide to building muscle for the hardgainer. Vince’s program includes extensive diet plans, complete weight training regimens, video tutorials, and full email personal training support.

Are you looking to build some serious size, but can’t find much time to train due to a hectic, busy lifestyle? Then look no further, I have the routine for you!

The Ultimate Mass Routine

Muscle mass comes from hard work on the basic exercises, heavy weight, lower reps, taking each set to at least failure. It also comes from proper recovery and proper nutrition/supplementation. This routine is ideal for natural bodybuilders and people with busy schedules, but anyone can use it with great results.

This is the one I currently use and I’m working two jobs and seeing good progress with it. This is partly due to my current supplement stack – which I will outline later in this article.

Most articles like this – those pushing a basics only mass routine – tend to also push a full body workout, done 2-3 times a week. Sorry, but I just don’t see that approach as being productive. How can you do a tough full body routine, with exercises like squats, deadlifts, bench presses and expect to hit each one hard enough? As well, doing that 3 days a week – such as Mon-Wed-Fri leaves no real time for recovery.

You train on Monday and should just be getting pretty sore by Wednesday, if you’ve trained hard enough. Does it make sense to hit the gym at that point? No, it doesn’t.

Split Routine:

My approach is to use a split routine, training only twice a week.

But, if you only train 2 times a week, isn’t that too much time in between workouts for the same muscles? It can be, unless you design the routine the right way. You see, when I designed this, this was my dilemma: working two jobs for as much as 60 hours a week, many of those as 13 hour days, how could I effectively work out with really just 2 days available for training?

I solved this problem by making sure each workout has 1-2 exercises that stimulate the entire body: squats, deadlifts or power cleans. On back day, as you’ll see, I use power cleans as a warm-up, and then go into heavy deadlifts. Both of these exercises build overall size and power.

I have to combine legs with chest and shoulders, so I do heavy squats and heavy power clean and presses. Again, I’m stimulating overall size and power with these two exercises. As well, these really stimulate testosterone release.

Combine this with direct back/arm work on back day and direct chest/delt/tricep work on chest day and problem solved. Of course, your situation may be different and may allow for a 3rd work out, I’d do legs on their own day in that case.

Recovery:

Before I detail the routine, let me touch on recovery, one of my favorite subjects. When people talk about how everyone is different and responds differently when it comes to bodybuilding, one of the things that refers to is recovery.

Recovery allows muscle growth to happen, but how fast you recover is based on individual differences, such as:
Age.
Whether or not you use steroids or are natural.
Your job (how demanding it is).
Your schedule (how demanding it is).
How long you’ve been training, to name a few.

Case In Point:

When I started back in 1980, I didn’t know about steroids, I worked a physical job for 9-10 hours a day, 6 days a week and tried to train on a high volume routine 6 days a week. I didn’t gain. Why? Because I was overtrained and underfed.

Had I cut back to a routine like the one I’ll be detailing here, ate more (there were limited supplements back then, and no shaker cups or water bottles, but protein powder was available, I could have taken a thermos of protein powder to work) and maybe tried to get some naps in, I would have made gains.

The point here is that you have to allow enough recovery time to allow growth to happen and you have to think about how your individual circumstances affect your recovery ability and make intelligent adjustments to maximize recovery.

The Routine

OK, here’s the routine:

Workout 1

Power Cleans – 1-2 sets to act as a warm-up
Deadlifts – 2 warm-up sets, 2-3 work sets, 6-8 reps
Bent Rows – 2 work sets, 6-8 reps
Reverse-Grip Bent Rows (biceps) – 1 set, 6-8 reps
Lat Pull-downs – 2 work sets, 6-8 reps
Abs

Workout 2

Squats – 2 -3 warm-up sets, 3-4 work sets, 6-10 reps
Bench Press to neck (upper chest) – 2 warm-up sets, 3 work sets, 6-8 reps
Power Clean and Press – 2-3 work sets, 5-8 reps
Close-Grip Bench Press (triceps), 1 set 8-10 reps
Abs

Performance Notes:

On warm-up sets, add weight with each set pyramid style, make your first working set your heaviest, then pyramid down in weight. Rest 1 to 1 1/2 minutes between sets. Take each set to positive failure, you can extend your sets past failure with techniques like rest pause – which works great on basic movements, and forced reps. Adding techniques like this enhances hormone release, especially growth hormone.

Keep on top of your form, don’t use cheating to lift heavier, and keep your reps smooth and controlled. As to set totals, these work for me. More is not always better, work these hard enough and more shouldn’t be an option.

I usually alternate incline presses with bench presses to emphasize upper chest work.

Workout 3:

If I had more time, I would add a third day and do legs on that day, those with time should do so. I would set it up like this:

Squats – 2-3 progressively heavier warm-up sets 4-5 working sets, 6-8 reps, go all the way down, don’t pause and come all the way up. Do your reps in one continuous motion, like a piston. Your first working set should be your heaviest.
Leg curls – 1 warm-up set, 2-3 working set of 8-10 reps.
Standing calf raises – 3 working sets of 15-25 reps, full motion on each rep.
If you do this, adjust workout #2 by taking squats out and adding 2 sets of Incline Presses for chest, and 1-2 more sets of power cleans.

Supplements/Nutrition

Supplement Stack:

Here is the supplement stack I am using along with this routine:
Whey protein
Creatine ethyl ester
Nitric oxide
Tribulus
Glutamine
A pre-workout energy drink that also enhances the pump by adding NO and creatine
A multi

While you can get more “formula” type testosterone boosters, and you should if you can afford to, as a combination of products designed to do one thing will always work better than one single element designed to do one thing.

This stack, as is, is one of the best current stacks available for adding size, strength, enhancing the pump and promoting energy. I would suggest that you follow label directions as to the timing of the nitric oxide and creatine, you should always take a multi with food, anytime of the day is fine. I would suggest taking 3 tribulus capsules 3 times a day, with a protein shake or meal.

Protein Intake:

Keep your protein intake to 1-1 1/2 grams per lb of body weight, eating every few hours.
Your food sources should be low fat sources such as:

Chicken
Turkey
Tuna
Lean red meat
Low fat dairy
A good whey protein powder works great for in between meal protein feedings.

Carb Intake:

As for carbs, shoot for 2 grams per lb. of body weight. If you weigh over 200lbs., up it to 3 grams per lb of body weight.
Stay with complex carbs:
Oatmeal
Yams
Brown rice

Except after your workout – take 40-60 g of protein to 40-60 g simple carbs, like fruit.

Fat Intake:

Keep fat low, many people take fish oil or flax oil soft gels to help them get their “good fat” intake.

Conclusion

I also keep two logs, a training log which everyone should be doing (I list the date, my routine for that day, rep and set totals, time started, time completed, how I felt and how the workout went) and a supplement log which insures my timing is correct and that I take what I’m supposed to take.

Whether, like me, you have no time or whether you adopt this to include one more day; this routine will pack on some serious size. Give it a try!

By: Jim Brewster Courtesy Bodybuilding.com