Hard Gainer: Gaining muscle mass while remaining athletic

[Ford Prefect]

So I realized I was going to have some free time to play this winter. On the way are two 8-week old short haired puppies that will be here by the New Year, so I don't see myself being able to do much winter moutaineering and snow shoeing. Because of this, I decided to do another fun experiement with my body to see what it is capable of. I had given up all supplements this summer which caused me to shed a little weight. I dropped from 175-180 to 170-175 lbs. This must also be partly do to the fact that I had been hiking like a madman... In the past 6 weeks, I decided to start eating like a normal person with 3 meals/day and snacks in between, and sure enough I'm now down to 157-159 lbs. I shed the last 15 lbs in order to continue with my experiment.

I want to see how much weight I can gain while taking no supplements at all and maintaining a healthy cardio-vascular system. I've "bulked" on 3 seperate occasions before reaching between 185-200 lbs respectively. On my frame, 200 lbs looked huge. During those bulking phases, I always did very little if any cardio and supplemented my diet with meal shakes, protein powders, and creatine. This time out I plan to change that.

My diet will consist solely of vegetables, fruit, nuts, cheeses, oats, and meats. While I'm not going to punish myself and abstain from foods like breads, pastas, and some occasional junk here and there, I'm not going to eat them with any regularity. I'm not even going to religiously count calories. I'll try to "eat big" and go by feel how much I should be eating. Besides heavy weight lifting sessions, I will still be performing bodyweight circuits, gymnastic exercises, and jogging/climbing multiple times/week to keep in shape for the spring climbing season. While the training won't be as intense as that which I have been doing for a while, it will still allow me to jump right back into the swing of things come spring. My recreational exercise during the winter will be just snowboarding, and I'll be giving myself the entire winter until mid-April/May to perform this experiment.

My weight lifting will start with an olympic weight lifting focus until the New Year and then shift to bodybuilding for 3 months. The bodybuilding will consist of Ian Kings 12-week legs plan and chest/back plan. I figure I could gain 5 lbs of lean mass per month which would mean that I'll be carrying at least an extra 25 lbs of lean mass when all is said and done. As an example of my diet, this is what I'm going to eat (have eaten) today.

5:30am: Glass OJ
Workout
7:00am: Glass of Milk
8:30am: 1/2 cup rolled oats w/cinamon and a diced apple; 3 hard boiled eggs (no yolks); 2 cups of milk
Snacking: Almonds
12:00: Salad consisting of Spinach, Red Leaf lettuce, 2 hard boilded egg whites, 8 oz of diced chicken, broccoli, snap peas, carrots, grape tomatos, cucumber
Snacking: Almonds and diced pineapple
3:00pm: Salad consisting of Spinach, Red Leaf lettuce, 3 hard boilded egg whites, broccoli, snap peas, carrots, grape tomatos, cucumber; 2 meat balls
Snacking: Cheese and crackers
6:30pm: Dinner: Chicken or Beef dish with vegetables and milk to drink
Snacking: Cheese, nuts, and fruit

I realize I still need to plain old sugar surges, so I'm doing this with fresh squeezed fruit juice. I have a juicer and have made a whole load of pineapple/apple/kiwi juice. I'll drink it maybe 2x/day as I think I need it in order to add calories. I think it will be interesting to see if I can add weight with limitted fat since my other bulking phases have seen me as high as 9.5% body fat. I'll be taking skin fold measurements to determine my body fat percentage tonight (I'd guess around 7%), and I'll be taking measurements and pictures to track progress.

I'll post updates every 2 weeks as much for my own motivational benefit as for the sharing of knowledge. This should be fun. Without exception, at the end of all the bulking phases I'd felt bloated from all the shakes, tired of eating from the diets, and extremely unathletic and out of shape (despite looking good with low bf%) due to the lack of cardio. I'll find it interesting to see if I can add weight while eating good foods and remaining healthy.

[bodhitree]

Keep us posted man! Sounds interesting. I've been doing supplements, Lifting, and also some cardio, and i've managed to get to the heaviest i've ever been. I'm sure minus the cardio though, i would get huge.

[Akronviper]

The Ian King programs are great, both worked great for me. It will be interesting to see your results. Just by glancing it seems with the lower amounts of protein and the more cardio, it just seems like you will gain slower than you previously had. Good luck it will be fun to watch your progress.

[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.