Guys, need some questions answered on working out/gaining weight, help?

[Anonymous]

For Lent I decided to kick start some habits to keep going on afterward. I'm 5 foot 9 inches, weigh 130 pounds, and my waist is 29.5 inches. BFP is 10% and BMI is 19.2.

I'm a scrawny guy, kinda thin, so I wanted to change that. I am trying to get up to 145-150 lbs. (Would that weight still be healthy for me?) and I want to get some needed muscle mass or inches. I have a workout planned out 3 days a week for cardio, legs, shoulders, biceps, chests, upper body, etc.

Is there any useful tips you can give me on how to get more muscle and a bit more weight (I'm an ectomorph btw)? I never really got into trying to do this except the occasional workout, but I see some guys doing stuff. Should I have protein supplements after workouts, or stick a protein based meal afterwards? Is there any effective workouts for gaining muscle mass? Anything to make sure I do or don't do?

It's a lot of questions but I figured if I'm going to get into this - I should do it right. I'll update if you need more info or clarification

[guy532]

If you want to look very cut, but necessarily big you should closer to 155-160...160 probably being ideal. When you first start working out DO NOT concentrate on a specific body part, only do full body. Before people start thrashing me on this let me explain. The reason you want to do full body first is so you don't too sore. Getting too sore is bad for a couple of reasons, first of all it hurts, secondly it keeps you from working out again, and third you can actually do some real damage that way. Being a little sore is great because it lets you know that you did a good job, but being too sore just puts you off from working because you'll start associating exercise with pain. So my first advice is to do full body until you no longer get sore then switch to specific muscle groups a day.

My second advice is to mix it up as much as possible to keep your body on its toes, that's the only way you're going to see good results. I see working out routines fall into one of four categories. The first being endurance (high reps low weight), balanced training (medium weight, medium reps), strength training (low reps, heavy weight), and finally speed training (very low weight, no rest, high reps). About every month and a half you should switch to the other category or when your body stops showing results. You should first start out with endurance that way you build up endurance (so complicated right? haha), then move to balanced, then speed, then strength. Just to let you know a lot of reps and low weight make you look bulky, low reps heavy weight gives you that tight look.

There are certain muscle groups that must be worked out everyday to show good results. There are usually just two (differs from person to person), your abs and calves. The reason you need to work these out everyday is because you're already constantly using them throughout your day that they need that extra kick to show an improvement.

Your diet is just as important as your exercise (if not more). It junk and your results will be junk. Eat a lot of fruits and vegetables and get a lot of protein. I find smoothies to be the best solution, not only are they quick and easy to make, they're healthy, you can put in as much protein powder as you want, and are DELICIOUS (if you actually know to make them well).

If you're going to do cardio, do it at the end of your workout that way what you burn up is fat and not just glucose (like you would if you did cardio in the beginning). I find the best cardio to be boxing and swimming the second.

[guy532]

ignore the grammatcal errors lol, I was too lazy to proofread

[Asker]

This helped a lot, but I still have a few questions. How much more weight should I go when moving from low to high weights and how much more reps when going from low to high? Also, you mean that lot of reps but low weights makes you look big, but the opposite makes you look toned and muscular? Finally, how soon should I eat protein after a workout and about how much? And I'm glad you mentioned cardio. I did it first cause that was how our set ups were in track.

[guy532]

It's not the weight that's really important it's how many you can do while keeping correct form. For endurance you want to do 15-20 reps (start with lower weight and increase so your reps decrease from 20 to 15). For balanced you want 8-12, and strength 6-2 reps. Speed training are exercises similar to the 300 workout for example...you try and do complete it as quickly as possible. People that do a lot of strength training tend to look "denser", while people that do endurance look "puffy"

[guy532]

I think you know what I mean by that. You want to try and balance it out and if you do it the way I described you should come out looking very toned. For example rugby players look dense (strength) while body builders look "puffy" (endurance). A lot people make the mistake of doing cardio in the beginning, think about it, you want to do cardio to burn off your fat and you burn more fat once your glucose reserves are running empty, that's why you burn off glucose first when lifting then burn

[guy532]

off the fat while doing endurance at the very end. The best time to eat protein is immediately after working out. However, when I used to be a gym rat I would drink about three smoothies a day (once in the morning, afternoon, and at night after my work out) I would still put some protein in the other smoothies, but about a quarter of what I would put in my after work out smoothie. Also, eat something high in carbs about half an hour before working out so you don't crash midway through your

[guy532]

workout...like a banana or apricot

[guy532]

Also just eat like crazy, completely pig out (not junk though look up some healthy easy recipes online, there's TONS of them...also sandwiches are easy to make and can be very healthy depending on how you make them, plus you can eat them on the go), I'm an ecto too so I know how hard it is to gain weight. I would be constantly eating, I'd eat more than my friends that weighed like 250 haha.

[guy532]

oh I forgot to answer how much protein you should eat...it's very debatable, but you should try to eat one gram of protein per pound that you want to be, so if your goal is 155 pounds try and eat around 155 grams of protein. Don't just 155 grams of whey though ha ha that's definitely not good for you. I think the most I took was 50 grams a of whey a day. Usually did 30-50. It really just depends on your diet and what you ate that day.

[guy532]

the last bit of advice I want to give you is to listen to your body. If something is not working change it. Every person has a different body and different weaknesses and strengths. For example I have a weak chest even though I worked it out harder than any other of my muscle groups, but I had very strong arms and back. Also take a hot shower after working out, not only does it make you smell better, but it also increases blood flow bringing in important nutrients to your recovering muscles

[Asker]

Thanks man, gave me a lot more info then I needed. Do you think I should start with balanced, strength, or endurance though? In the perspective of a guy who is kinda starting and has noodle arms xD

[guy532]

thanks for BA! You should start endurance first, you'll see results faster plus you won't tire out when doing balanced training and speed. Good luck and remember getting over the hump is the hard part...once you work out consistently for about a month or two you won't be able to not go to the gym.

[Michaelmwm19]

hey were the same height... the last time I was weighed was about a year or 2 ago and I was 150 I started lifting and got up to around 160 I baught whey protein shakes and ate more along with other suppliments like creatine but creatine really just tones you but I stopped working out and taking suppliments and no I have never taken or will ever take steroids do you do a lot of cardio maybe that's why your thin?

[Asker]

I did track for 3 years xD I did long distance, so I at least have awesome endurance

[Michaelmwm19]

haha nice I ran around the soccer field outside my house :D

[antonlikesmlb]

It depends on your goal, but 145-150 will be fine, it doesn't really matter how much you weigh if your primary goal is to look ripped. As far as working out, low weight with 15-30 reps is just as effective as high weight and low reps, but low weight works your fast twitch muscle fibers. I suggest doing no more than 4 sets of an exercise and no more than 22 sets per workout, otherwise it's overkill. Protein is absorbed fastest within a half hour of lifting. As far as protein supplements, I don't use them but I'm sure they are useful if your diet doesn't have much protein in it. Work your big muscle groups and leave isolation exercises for later. Also train your core a lot.

[guy532]

Like he said try to concentrate on the major muscles and find exercises that work out a lot of secondary muscles and group them together.

[Dhruva]

I now weigh 180 pounds. I used to be skinny. I started eating a lot of Dairy and Pronutro. Made me increase in size very quickly.