Everyone knows that you can part with extra pounds only through iron discipline, switching to a special diet, serious and regular exercise. But, no matter how strange it may seem at first glance, to increase your weight by at least a few kilograms (of course, gaining muscle mass, not fat) is a task no less, and perhaps even more difficult, than losing weight.
I can say this with complete confidence, since the basis of this confidence, as well as this article, is my personal and, I assure you, difficult experience in the struggle for the missing kilograms.
At one time, I weighed 66 kg with a height of 180 cm. Agree, such a ratio of weight and height can hardly be attributed to the standards of beauty and health. And I decided to fix this by gaining at least two or three kilograms of muscle mass for a start. If I knew then what it would cost me ...
Even if we do not take into account the fact that muscles are a corset that protects our musculoskeletal system, and stop only on the aesthetic side of the question, why do we need to gain muscle mass, then basically everyone will agree that a strong muscular body looks much better than a skin-covered skeleton - although it is possible that for some this appearance is very comfortable. And what should we do, those who are not satisfied with this appearance, but due to our physiology and genetics, we would like to change our appearance, but ... we can’t do anything?
It doesn’t work, primarily because we, who are underweight, tend to be ectomorphs, the samatotype, which is characterized by long bones, long thin muscles, narrow chest and shoulders, and an increased speed of neuro-impulse processes. We are emotional and prone to stress, usually sleep poorly and suffer from a lack of appetite, and to all this we also have a very high metabolism. Isn't it a wonderful set of natural data for a potential dystrophic? And all these features of physiology “reward” us with many more habits that aggravate our thinness: we ignore breakfast, and in general we eat somehow, we don’t follow the daily routine. Our excitable nature reacts to all events too sharply and violently, and we absolutely do not know how to relax - we constantly sacrifice our sleep and rest for the sake of supposedly urgent and very important matters. In a word, we are hardgainers - those who gain weight heavily.
Due to all these factors, it becomes extremely difficult to solve our problem, because it concerns such subtle matter as our mentality. We need to find the strength in ourselves not just to change our way of life, our habits - we need to change our very essence, become different people and learn to live under the slogan of bodybuilders, it would seem simple, but in fact it is difficult for us to do: “It is better to stand than walk; it is better to lie than to stand; it is better to doze off than lie down; better to sleep than to doze."
What exactly is needed to achieve our goal? Firstly, complete emotional control and good sleep, secondly, a competently and professionally built training process, and thirdly, a diet.
Well, with the questions “who is to blame?” and "what to do?" we figured it out, it remains only to find out HOW to do it, because the lack of an answer to this particular question can ruin our best intentions and best undertakings.
It was especially hard to force myself to eat when I didn’t feel like it at all. How did I deal with it? Of course, waking up with an alarm clock at 4-5 in the morning and forcing yourself to have breakfast is not the greatest pleasure. But I found a way out - I hung my photo above the bed, on which I didn’t like myself the most, and made a caption to it: “Do you want to be like that?” When I woke up, the first thing I saw was this anti-advertising, and it was a very powerful stimulus for me.
But it was still extremely difficult to organize a diet - I was able to transfer myself to seven meals a day only after four months.
First, let's talk about "our daily bread." The new diet of a hardgainer should be organized clearly and strictly observed, namely: the first breakfast at 4–5 o’clock in the morning, then five to six meals a day during the day, ideally it is better to refresh even seven to eight times a day, approximately every 2 .5–3 hours. Wherever you go, you should definitely have a set of balanced nutrition with an abundance of proteins and carbohydrates, in other words, food containers. For example, in one container - chicken breast with rice, in another - yogurt, banana or apple, in the third - nuts with raisins. You regularly and carefully eat all this food abundance throughout the day, regardless of business, circumstances and problems. The main thing is to eat - everything else later.
More vegetables and fruits, but keep in mind that they will in no way replace your mandatory intake of vitamin preparations. Drink at least 1.5-2 liters of water throughout the day. At night - an indispensable protein shake.
Physical activity makes the body work in an unusual mode, and it needs your help - the use of sports nutritional supplements, protein, amino acids, L-glutamine - everything that will help it recover faster.
Naturally, I made mistakes, broke down, and it was worth giving myself an indulgence in something once, and this disgrace somehow imperceptibly dragged on for two weeks. Then he weighed himself and - a tragedy! - I lost 300-500 grams. Again he took himself in hand and drove him into the rigid framework of the regime.
It should be remembered that the main role for both weight loss and weight gain is played not by the amount of food consumed, but by its calorie content. The only difference is that in order to lose weight, we gradually reduce calories - every week by about 200-300 kcal - and when we gain additional weight, on the contrary, we increase them. In the first case, our goal is to "blow up" the metabolism, and in the second - to slow down. The main thing is to do everything gradually, perhaps even increasing the calorie content of your diet not every week, but only once a month, since any drastic change leads to a response from the body, and it, quickly adapting to new conditions, enters the so-called plateau stage, when with all our efforts, no change occurs. In general, you should prepare yourself for the fact that the process of gaining muscle mass will take you more than one month and even more than one year,
One useful tip from personal experience: immediately switch to 5-7 meals a day, if you are used to eating 2-3 times a day, it is very difficult. No need to replace the number of meals with huge portion sizes. Accustom yourself to a new way of life gradually, in stages: in the first week, eat three times a day, in the second - add another meal. Perhaps, if you follow the principle of gradualness, it will be more convenient for you to add one meal not every week, but every two or three. Our task is to make this transition for the body as smooth as possible and thereby quickly adapt it to new conditions. Otherwise, except for stress, our body will not receive anything, and we will not expect any positive results from it.
By virtue of my character, temperament and emotionality, I was used to achieving everything quickly, but here it was unrealistic to expect a quick result. I understood in my head that I would not solve my problems in three months - and probably would not solve it in a year - but I really wanted to achieve results as quickly as possible. That is why in the early stages of my struggle I made many mistakes. And the main one was that, trying to quickly achieve tangible results, I overtrained and did not have time to recover.
An unpleasant feature of hardgainers - the body's tendency to overtrain - requires a special training regimen. Increasing the time of training, approaches, the number of exercises will not bring any real result, but will only deplete and undermine our strength. Another principle of building the training process is suitable for us - little by little, slowly, but regularly and purposefully.
Training should take place no more than three times a week, and each training session should not exceed 40-45 minutes. The workout itself should consist of 5-7 basic exercises: squats with a barbell, deadlift, bench press and seated press. At the first stage, aerobic exercises are absolutely excluded, as well as all isolation exercises for individual muscle groups.
A waste of time and effort is to increase muscle mass in a single zone, pump up, for example, only biceps, ignoring work with other muscles. I assure you that you will not succeed, because nature, always and in everything striving for harmony, evenly distributes the balance of muscle mass throughout the body and such “beauty” as huge pumped up biceps combined with skinny legs, she will not tolerate.
Learning is light! And this light illuminated the whole long way to the goal for me. I read a lot of specialized literature, tried to understand the questions that interested me and to understand the processes that were happening to me as best as possible. This helped me a lot, if only because any conscious action is always much more effective than an unconscious one, not to mention the fact that the knowledge gained helped me avoid many stupid and offensive mistakes. Plus, this is a fascinating lesson, and today you can find a lot of information on a topic that interests me - in books, in magazines, on the Internet.
In general, the work of our body is based on the principle of balance. So, while we train, our body actively produces anabolic hormones - builders of muscle mass: insulin, testosterone. But as soon as the training is over, it just as actively begins to release into our blood the destroyers of muscle tissue - catabolic hormones, such as cortisol - a relic of our genetic makeup, created by nature over four million years. What is it connected with? Why did our body in the process of evolution learn to produce this harmful hormone that destroys the fruits of our labors and hinders success in the field of building muscle mass? The fact is that from ancient times to the present day, a person’s life for the most part did not depend on the size of his muscles, but on the ability to quickly make legs.
Now that we are more likely to suffer from lack of muscle mass than from its excess, cortisol works against us, nullifying the results of our hard months of training. But this can be easily avoided if its effect is neutralized in time: within 12-15 minutes after training, drink a carbohydrate-protein shake or eat something high in simple carbohydrates, which contributes to the release of insulin, which stops the action of cortisol.
As you can see, there is nothing terrible in catabolic hormones, another thing is that such a serious undertaking as building muscle mass requires us to know the processes taking place in our body and understand what we are doing.
When I learned to move the arrows to other goals and interests, over time everything returned to normal. What used to cause a storm of emotions has ceased to excite, and if stressful situations do arise, they pass incomparably easier. I can say that at that stage of my life I was much calmer than now.
Now is the time to talk about how to bring our emotional, excitable nature to a state of rest. I will disappoint you right away: there are no direct and clear answers to this difficult question, no specific recommendations - everything is very individual. Perhaps someone will need the help of a specialist, someone will cope on their own. For one, collective training will be the way out, for another, the best way to find peace is to relax in splendid isolation. The only thing that is necessary for everyone who has set himself the goal of finding peace of mind is strict discipline and regimen. They are the core that will support and strengthen you in this difficult situation, because the precise execution of simple but mandatory things: eat, go to a workout, go to bed on time - will distract you from all that is superfluous,
Of course, this is not easy, and you will have to sacrifice a lot for the sake of your goal. The least of what you have to part with is a midnight vigil in front of the TV, with a book or with friends. Instead, you will have to go to bed (by the way, going to bed at the same time every day is the best way to normalize sleep). There is another purely physiological need to avoid the influence of any severe stress: cortisol, already known to us, belongs to the so-called stress hormones. Every stress is another portion of cortisol in our body.
One of these stresses for a hardgainer who has embarked on a path to a new life can be that not all of his friends and relatives may understand, accept and, most importantly, support his new aspirations. Do not be discouraged: those who really care about you will always be on your side, and over time, a new life will give you new friends - like-minded people with whom you will be united by the same goals and interests. So everything will work out for you!
It took me five years to get to the weight of 85 kilograms. But still I did it! What has changed in life? Mass without force does not grow. And what man doesn't like to feel strong? If for a person losing weight, the main joy is the feeling of lightness, weightlessness of his body, then when you gain muscle mass, you have other joys, a different psychological feeling - a feeling of your body, strong muscles, your “weight” and significance, and you get nothing from this. less pleasure.
However, not only men, but also women suffer from lack of weight. For them, as well as for men, there is only one way to solve this problem - to gain muscle mass. But here one purely psychological snag arises: one has only to hint at muscle mass, as a woman immediately imagines herself as a pumped-up bodybuilder from the cover of a magazine. "Not this!" - they think and prefer to remain in their previous minimum volumes. But I already said in one of my previous articles that in order for a woman to pump up the same forms as a man, she, due to her physiology, needs to train forty times more than he does.
So women should not be afraid to become like bodybuilders, because this is already a professional sport, and it has nothing to do with health and beautiful body shapes. But a reasonably constructed training process can actually work wonders. I can give an example: a woman in the club was very competently and seriously engaged in the principle of bodybuilding. During training, she recovered by 7 kilograms of pure muscle and looked great: a strong body, a minimum amount of fat. In volumes, it did not increase at all, but the very desired form appeared, which many women so unsuccessfully strive for.
You need not be afraid, but do everything reasonably and use the services of specialists - this is the shortest and safest way to a real result.
Of course, if you sit at home, leaf through magazines and dream of becoming as beautiful as the girls from bright magazine pictures, but do nothing for this, then nothing will ever change. Life changes for the better only for those who are ready - and able! - change it yourself.
When I achieved what I wanted, I can’t say that I was at the pinnacle of bliss - I just got so used to it that diet and training ceased to be a daily feat for me, but turned into natural components of my life. The most important thing is that, having gone all this way, I can now recommend it to others with full confidence.
Will this strict regimen be observed for the rest of your life, or will it be possible to soften it over time? Yes, you certainly may. For example, over the years of training and dieting, my body has gained the necessary mass, adapted and now perfectly exists in a new weight category. But it's still better if you continue to adhere to at least the basic rules: five meals a day, training at least 2-3 times a week. Moreover, there is nothing heroic in this mode - this is just the normal, healthy lifestyle that everyone who cares about their health should strive for.
