Health & Fitness

How to Gain Weight

There are a lot of people out there who have a weight problem, but not the preconceived notion of a weight problem - they desperately want to gain weight.

William Herbert Sheldon developed a theory of three body types - ectomorph, mesomorph and endomorph. Those who want to gain weight are generally considered ectomorphs. Ectomorphs are described as tall; slender; small, drooping shoulders; long, thin arms and legs; and a fast metabolism.

  • Every workout session should be hard
  • You need to find out your rep max
  • Do each rep as slow as possible
  • Time each set
  • Change it up a bit

For men, you probably only want to gain muscle, whereas women may want to gain a little bit of muscle and more fat. Men are lucky as they have higher testosterone levels so they can gain muscle more easily, but really, no matter your gender you have to push yourself. The biggest problem I've encountered is that every workout session should be hard. Gaining weight should never get easier (unless you're just gaining pure fat).

How to Gain Weight

You should be eating a lot, especially if you're working out. Now, with working out, I've found that working out 2-3 days a week on one muscle group has increased my muscle mass on that area.

My failure/mistakes (that we can all learn from) was that I did circuit training (I was working out solely on my glutes by the way) and I would go from leg-press to dead-lift to lunges to step-ups, resting at the end of "one set". How much did I gain in muscle mass? Nothing. I was working out for 6 months, every other day, eating 5000 calories with 100g of protein. So although I was doing everything else right, the one thing that I was doing wrong was so important so I gained absolutely nothing.

To begin with, you need to find out your 1RM (rep max). Basically, you should barely be able to do the exercise once. If you can't do even one then try going down a couple of kgs/lbs until you find that certain weight. Find out your 1RM for every exercise and then calculate 60-80% of 1RM and that will be your maximum for each exercise. You will only choose 2 for each muscle group every time you exercise. Changing it up a bit is good as it shocks your muscle because you're doing something different.

While you are doing your exercise you should be doing each rep as slow as possible. I like to time each set and while I'm having my two minute resting period I write the number of reps and time in a chart. You should be aiming for 10 seconds each rep. Do 4 sets, 2 exercises, 5-10 reps, 2 minute rests.

Now, let's get onto diet. One thing I've learned, and I will probably get hell from a lot of people, it really doesn't matter what you eat. As long as you've got 80-100g of protein your main concern should be getting calories up there. The best ways of doing that is eating a lot of dairy. But, in a way, consuming as many calories in as little food as you can, can make your diet healthier for example drinking soda or soft drink is no match in calories to drinking milk.

  • Get 80-100g of protein
  • Eat plenty of dairy
  • Count your calories
  • Write down what you eat

One of the most important things to do is count your calories. It is so important for those who want to gain weight and those who want to lose weight. I've found that we either over or underestimate how much we're eating.

Thinking I was eating enough I counted my normal calories one day and I was eating 1600 calories, it was no wonder I was so skinny. So get a cheap notebook and write everything you ate that day. It's hard to know how many calories to consume though. There's one website that I swear by Calories Intake Calculator. I love it! I've always used it. For those who use kilo-joules instead of calories - you divide kilo-joules by 4.184.

This article is written by a woman who originally had a body fat percentage of 9.6 (below essential fat for women), a BMI of 15.6 and a butt (what I am working out on) of 88cm/34.6in. I now have a body fat percentage of 21, a BMI of 18.7 and a a butt (what I am working out on) of 99cm/39in. I've lived it and I've beaten my body type.

How to Gain Weight
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