BlakeRogers's BodyBlog at Bodybuilding.com

Gaining Weight - What I've learned

Posted in General : Feb 27, 2013, 3:20PM

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I'm honored that you chose to ask me. Here's what I've learned:

Required for everything else:

Food... Period. The king of everything is calories. You should go for a good amount of food if you're trying to gain. For me, I've had times where I thought I was going to puke from eating. I ate clean (chicken breast, tuna, lean red meat, eggs/egg whites sweet potatoes, brown rice, and whole wheat bread).

I upped my calories by a lot in the beginning and gained about 20ish lbs pretty quick. After that, I stopped gaining and couldn't figure out why. I realized that I forgot to up my calories again to not only support the muscle I had gained... but, support new muscle growth. DO NOT stay away from carbs under any circumstances until you're happy with your weight and possibly want to compete. Eating needs to be more important to you than working out. Make sure you're getting enough fat too. If you have a smartphone I would recommend an app called "MyFitnessPal" badass for tracking calories. Aim for 1.5 - 2 grams of protein per lb of bodyweight and 3 grams of carbs. Get healthy fat in there too (peanut/almond butter, olive oil, avocados).

If you're not eating enough... no supplement or workout program will work the way you want it to (if at all). And you definitely won't gain.

Training:

Do Mike O'hearn's Power Bodybuilding (you can find it on bodybuidling.com) it's a great program. You have to make sure you're always lifting in beast mode with every f'ing ounce of willpower, energy, and your heart that you can muster. If you're not lifting heavy (whatever heavy is for you)... you won't get gains nearly as fast. Do NOT avoid deadlifts or squats. I made the mistake of avoid deadlifts and suffered because of it.

You can optionally stick with a more traditional bodybuilder routine which is 8-12 reps for about 4 sets per activity and 3-4 activities per muscle group. I would recommend doing 6-10 reps though, and resting 2 minutes (no longer, no shorter) in between sets on this kind of a program. Ignore super sets completely... at the very end of your workout feel free to end with some drop sets.

Sleep: You've probably heard it before, but here it is again. Your muscles don't grow in the gym... you tear them down in the gym. You need to sleep enough or your not going to make the progress you want (or even regress).

Supplements:

First, you don't NEED supplements. They can help you amplify what you're already doing... but, if what you're already doing sucks... you're screwed.

That being said... I would recommend this order of importance on supplements based on what you can do with your budget:

Multi-vitamin (Animal pak/Anavite are my favorites)

Joint supplement (Animal Flex)

Fish oil (doesn't matter tons on the brand)

Whey Protein for first thing in the morning and right after you workout.

Creatine Monohydrate : This needs to be cleared up. Con-cret is great. But, Monohydrate will help you hold onto a little more water (your body is over 70% water) in the muscle and keep it hydrated. Also, protein synthesis (process of building muscle) is very water intensive.

Pre-workout

BCAA's

That's about it. Hope it helps. Oh yeah.... Frank Kern (marketing badass has two commandments that apply to bodybuilding completely)

1) Don't **** around

2) Don't be a pussy

You do this, you're on you're way to a body of a greek god instead of a geek god

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Gaining Weight When It's Tough

Posted in Status : Mar 30, 2012, 9:55AM

Here's message I recently wrote to a fellow member who found it helpful. I wanted to share it with others:

Hey,

Saw your post about tips in gaining weight. My story seems pretty similar to yours in how low of a weight that I started. Anyway, here are some tips.

Always remember that calories ARE KING. If you don't have enough food to grow.... you won't. An easy way to calculate the calories you need would be to multiply your body weight by 15 and then add about 500-750 calories to that a day. If you can eat a little more, do it! The trick here is that you want "Clean" calories. Here's a 12 week mass gaining program that is pretty good. It includes diet and nutrition. Even if you just did the nutritional part of this program you would be doing good. http://www.bodybuilding.com/guides/male-20to39-muscle-building/nutrition For your workouts... I would recommend a traditional bodybuilder routine to be honest. I will show you the workout I'm about to switch to below. However, important to remember to get enough sleep (that means 8 hours). Big ass compound lifts are the key to mass... these are squat, deadlift, and bench press. They will help give you an edge over any other activity. Here's the link of what I am starting, I am pretty stoked about it: http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/growth-spurt-30-pounds-muscle-in-one-year.html

When it comes to calories, it can be hard to push that much down your throat. I know that. I don't know how many times I've felt like I was going to puke from eating so much. But, there's some good news. Once you eat a giant amount of calories for a few days in a row, your body expects it and it's not that hard. Also, weight gaining shakes (expensive but worth it) can help you get those extra calories. I'm starting "Serious Mass" by ON today.

I aim to inspire people (I saw that you do to). Let me know if I can help in any way. I think I'm going to start posting videos on youtube with supplement reviews and some workout stuff.

Live with passion,
~Blake

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