Hard Gainer: Gaining muscle mass while remaining athletic

[abobo]

Yay hardgainers. I'm the leanest I've been in a couple of years. First I lost a lot of weight due to atrophy while being injured. While I've been recovering I've decided to compete in track and all of the sprinting has kept me even leaner than usual. I'm interested in your experiment because once the season is over I will probably want my 20 lbs back.

By the way, have you learned any new gymnastic skills?

[IronFist]

Holy s.hit it's Ford!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dude, you know I am very interested in your results.

[Ford Prefect]

Haha! I'll definately keep this updated. I think getting the calories is the hardest part.

Abodo,

I got a set of stil rings that are hanging from my garage ceiling, so I've been messing around on those some. Muscle-ups are so much easier on rings. I've been doing a lot more handstand stuff on the paralellettes. I still haven't gotten the straddle planche yet though. I can hold an advanced tuck planche for a decent amount of time but once I start extending my legs, I collapse. It's easy to see why most gymnasts are not 6' tall guys with long arms. I almost have a full front lever. I have the straddle down and I can bring my feet together, but still not well enough to pass as one, IMO.

One interesting thing is despite all the gymnast work I've been doing, my max amount up pull-ups have suffered and my bench plumetted. It lends to my theory that the people who do well in these strength events and seem to have a lot of carry over are people who are naturally predisposed to maximal strength events. We've all heard stories of the gymnast who tries benching and puts up 300 lbs the first time and what-not, but what lots of people fail to realize is that the gymnast is probably short and stocky, which is good for benching too. Also if they are a good gymnast then chances are he is genetically inclined to lift heavy things (ie create large amounts of tension in his muscles). In all likelyhood, he could roll off the couch after not doing a single thing for a year and still out bench most people.

This is kind of along the same line as talking about sprinting for fat loss and saying "look at olympic spirnters". True sprinting uses energy pathways best suited for fat burning, but olympic sprinters are olympic sprinters because of their innate abilities and natural body types. This seems like common sense, but many times I see the rationale for training one way or another is "look at (x athlete). They train this way, and they perform well and look well, so you can too!" Even some of it makes sense from a logical POV, so I like to mess around with this stuff and see what actually works for the average guy. I'm a little interested to see how fast it takes me to recover my previous strength levels.

[Ford Prefect]

Odd... Well, my scale says that I've gained 4 lbs, but it certainly seems like I've lost a little fat. I was wondering if maybe I was seeing things, but unprompted my wife said "your 6-pack is really popping out now" last night. I expected to gain weight, but I also expected some fat to be gained along with it. It will be interesting to see what the calipers say on Sunday.

[Mutant]

Interesting diet and training plan, Ford.
Sounds like possibly a good livable long-term diet if it works out.

Hey, did you ever do that Denali trip? If so, how'd it go? Summit?

[Ford Prefect]

Denali is a long ways away if ever. Rainier is next year though. I trained on other high peaks this year. Kilimanjaro (and African Safari) is the year after. The Greek Islands are mixed in somewhere in between too.

[Ford Prefect]

WOW!!!

Turns out I gained 6+ lbs of muscle and lost 1+ lbs of fat in the past two weeks. I think it can mostly be attributed to starting squatting again. My thigh diamater went up over an inch during this time while the rest of my body stayed relatively the same. That of course is a little alarming, but 2 weeks time and only 6 lbs spread throughout my body, I guess I wouldn't expect much to change past fractions of an inch.