GAINING MASS

[fernandez123]

I was just wondering. Will I gain a noticeably bigger body with gymnastics training? I've been doing gymnastics for 2 months now. I've noticed some strength gains which is good! However, I haven't noticed any changes with my body. I'm wayy underweight by the way. About 50 pounds underweight

[Cole Dano]

If you are nearly 50 pounds underweight the biggest thing you can do is to eat more.

There is quite a lot of nutritional info available i the nutrition subforum, spend some time there and ask questions as needed. Still the main thing is eat more.

Here is a good thread to start off with -

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=4870

[Jeffrey]

Aside from a good diet you should give it some time. Initial strength gains is a result of better neuromuscular efficiency after that you will notice some hypertrophy.

[Paradox]

Phew, 50 pounds! Eating more is a good idea, like others said. But don't overdo it or you're just going to put on fat which is just going to make things harder when you exercise. I have been in your shoes, though, so you're not alone. I started out 36 pounds underweight (according to USA military charts). I eat 3 meals a day and my general rule is eat only when I am hungry and stop when I am satisfied. Not full. Satisfied. Seriously, don't overdo it unless you basically just want to shit your hard-earned money out.

I take in anywhere from 2000 - 2500 calories a day, generally depending on how much I exercised that day. I eat TONS and TONS of fruits and vegetables, and meat about 13 times a week (Chicken and Salmon are my main sources). Lots of rice and bread during dinner. Greek yogurt, granola, and fruit about 15 minutes after my workout. 2 - 3 glasses of milk per day. No junk food, no soda, no alcohol, and definitely no weed. A liter of water with a tiny bit of salt is consumed during my GST workout. This all isn't generally what people on this forum recommend, but for packing on muscle and losing fat at the same time, it helped lots. I supplement with omega 3 fats every day either from salmon, walnuts, or pills. Combined with 10 hours of gymnastics focusing on strength, not hypertrophy, and 15 hours in endurance sports per week I have lost about 7% fat and put on about 20 pounds in 7 months.

But, If you are really itching to gain some muscle even faster, http://kbforum.dragondoor.com/showthrea ... rrior+bear but you will need to eat even more. Personally, I choose pullups, pistol squats, and dips. I just added 2 extra glasses of milk per day and a whole sweet potato to my diet and it worked fine with this program (I did it for 4 weeks and put on 4 pounds :shock: during that period).

If you are looking to add muscle in certain areas for cosmetic purposes, then you can apply the volume training from that dragondoor link to a specific muscle group. For example, if your obliques upset you, then you can try 5 reps 20 sets with 1 minute rest of side plank lifts or windshield wipers once a week. Initially, the soreness will kill you for days. It will hurt very badly to the point where you can't do anything but sit on the couch all day, but it will do the trick.

Now some other forum-goer may come along and tell me something here is wrong, but this is 100% from experience. From one underweight guy to another, these are my skinny guy muscle building brotips.

[wwqll]

my general rule is eat only when I am hungry and stop when I am satisfied. Not full. Satisfied. Seriously, don't overdo it unless you basically just want to shit your hard-earned money out.

Just pointing one thing out - this might not be true for you. Most underweight people have to actually force themselves a bit to eat. Count calories, especially at start.

If I eat this way, I'm getting 900kcal a day without any kind of hunger...

[Blairbob]

Eat more, man.

Don't be afraid to eat. And don't be afraid to eat unclean calories. Junky food.

Train hard to make your body want to refuel.

Eat like a boss.

Think WhatWouldConanDo. Train/Kill/Fight. Eat, drink and be merry. Wench a bit. Repeat. Btw, if you read the stories, Conan never is a dumb brute. He plans for action. Plan your workouts, plan your eating. Go out and do it. Then go out and fun so it's all worth it.

Plan for action and carry it out. Envision yourself as a Gladiator. Train hard, eat to recover, reap the glory (or die in the process).

It's alright to eat carbs. You're going to need to do so to build muscle. There just isn't a lot of energy in protein and fat. Unless you can eat scores of fat. Unless you want to douse things in Olive Oil. Blech. Screw that.

Rice bowls with meat, Pizza. Triple cheeseburgers. Burritos.

I've had to deal with this with some undersized gymnasts. Let's face it, they were too small to do any other sport but gymnastics really (and it's a lot of fun). Gotta eat. If ou have a coach who works out hard and sits down and eats Boar sausage and cheese and fruit with ya, ya might eat. They need that ideal. You need to find it for you. A picture of Arnie or Klokov or Jotchev.

Part of not being able to eat a lot is just practice. If you practice eating like a monk, that's all that you'll be able to eat.

[Paradox]

Just pointing one thing out - this might not be true for you. Most underweight people have to actually force themselves a bit to eat. Count calories, especially at start.

If I eat this way, I'm getting 900kcal a day without any kind of hunger...

900 kcal without hunger? So, what you're basically saying is, you could eat 3 cups of ramen noodle and be satisfied for the day. While performing full body GST workouts 3-5 times a week. That's astounding. Hopefully, you meant to write all that in the past tense, as in before you started exercising. Because there is no way you can eat that little and still workout.

If you sit on your butt all day at work, drive everywhere, and watch T.V. - sure, 900 kcal seems possible. I've seen someone on 500 and it included losing a holycrapload of weight and a completely inactive lifestyle. She lasted about 3 weeks before the meat, wheat, and dessert binge started.

I meant to say eat until you're satisfied because in most underweight guys I've personally dealt with do have a decent amount of fat usually around 15%. Losing fat makes a difference in calisthenics. Pizza, triple cheeseburgers, and burritos will make someone put on mass, but is it healthy? Will the person feel good inside, or like shit? You get out what you put in.

I still say, eat until you're satisfied. If you're working out, chances are you'll automatically want to eat more than usual.

[Rik de Kort]

Eat more, man.

I'd like to reiterate this. Recently, I went on vacation with a group of friends. One of them thought he was eating a lot... until I proceeded to eat the same amount as him and then went out for dinner afterwards. Not to say he ate very little, he ate more than average and certainly more than the girls. Just that he didn't eat enough (he's something like 1.85m in the low 70's, I think).

Seriously, if you're underweight like that you should definitely track your calories.

[Nyikhaj]

Eat more, man.

Don't be afraid to eat. And don't be afraid to eat unclean calories. Junky food.

Train hard to make your body want to refuel.

Eat like a boss.

Think WhatWouldConanDo. Train/Kill/Fight. Eat, drink and be merry. Wench a bit. Repeat. Btw, if you read the stories, Conan never is a dumb brute. He plans for action. Plan your workouts, plan your eating. Go out and do it. Then go out and fun so it's all worth it.

Plan for action and carry it out. Envision yourself as a Gladiator. Train hard, eat to recover, reap the glory (or die in the process).

It's alright to eat carbs. You're going to need to do so to build muscle. There just isn't a lot of energy in protein and fat. Unless you can eat scores of fat. Unless you want to douse things in Olive Oil. Blech. Screw that.

Rice bowls with meat, Pizza. Triple cheeseburgers. Burritos.

I've had to deal with this with some undersized gymnasts. Let's face it, they were too small to do any other sport but gymnastics really (and it's a lot of fun). Gotta eat. If ou have a coach who works out hard and sits down and eats Boar sausage and cheese and fruit with ya, ya might eat. They need that ideal. You need to find it for you. A picture of Arnie or Klokov or Jotchev.

Part of not being able to eat a lot is just practice. If you practice eating like a monk, that's all that you'll be able to eat.

The stuff above: WORKS. And that is the best part of training. In addition: try to sleep a lot and sometimes work to failure.

[marcusuni]

http://mail.gymnasticbodies.com/forum/v ... 8&start=75

Read Joshua's post on page 6

[Kevin Oka]

Eat more, man.

Don't be afraid to eat. And don't be afraid to eat unclean calories. Junky food.

Train hard to make your body want to refuel.

Eat like a boss.

Think WhatWouldConanDo. Train/Kill/Fight. Eat, drink and be merry. Wench a bit. Repeat. Btw, if you read the stories, Conan never is a dumb brute. He plans for action. Plan your workouts, plan your eating. Go out and do it. Then go out and fun so it's all worth it.

Plan for action and carry it out. Envision yourself as a Gladiator. Train hard, eat to recover, reap the glory (or die in the process).

It's alright to eat carbs. You're going to need to do so to build muscle. There just isn't a lot of energy in protein and fat. Unless you can eat scores of fat. Unless you want to douse things in Olive Oil. Blech. Screw that.

Rice bowls with meat, Pizza. Triple cheeseburgers. Burritos.

I've had to deal with this with some undersized gymnasts. Let's face it, they were too small to do any other sport but gymnastics really (and it's a lot of fun). Gotta eat. If ou have a coach who works out hard and sits down and eats Boar sausage and cheese and fruit with ya, ya might eat. They need that ideal. You need to find it for you. A picture of Arnie or Klokov or Jotchev.

Part of not being able to eat a lot is just practice. If you practice eating like a monk, that's all that you'll be able to eat.

I can't condone that kind of diet. My father believed he could eat this way because he never got fat, but it was what was inside that totally screwed him up. He ate junk food every day whenever he was hungry, and because he was always skinny, thought it was okay. Now my father is dying from liver and pancreas failure, which after consulting numerous doctors for second opinions, was attributed to his poor diet. He never drank nor has anything like cancer.

Eat a lot, but eat a lot of quality foods. If you eat tons of vegetables and oats, there's not really a healthy limit if you keep switching them up, you can eat endlessly and still be healthy. If you eat nothing but junk food you will get micronutrient deficiencies and end up in the hospital.

[FREDERIC DUPONT]

(...) About 50 pounds underweight

Compared to what?

What are your actual height, weight & age?

[Andrew Long]

I agree that you need to eat more but you also need to eat right and not over do it otherwise you will just be gaining a lot offer with that muscle . Increase your caloric intake a lot if you nOtice to much fat gain then lower he amount a little bit until you are mainly gaining lean muscle. Don't be afraid of the fat but if you start to notice a bit of fat gain you are probably eatin too much or eating too much of he wrong things at the wrong time.

In short eat more but eat smart don't just stuff your face all day with anything

[Karri Kytömaa]

With bodyweight training it works quite nicely that if you eat too much, your weight will go up which means more load on the training which leads to using more calories. Eventually you will find some equilibrium. Obviously if you want to look ripped all the time, the process is much harder.