I finally joined a gym last year and did weights and yoga pretty consistently for a good nine months, but stopped around new year when I started seriously working on renovating my house. I spend every evening and weekend on that now (and for the foreseeable future) and figured it would be strenuous enough to keep me in shape, but I'm beginning to realize that's not the case. It's just not the right kind of work-out. I've always been a very skinny guy with OK eating habits (rarely drink, small healthy meals, lots of vegetables and an awful lot of sweets as well) so I don't need to lose weight, but I've lost all that muscle tone I worked for.
Anyhow this thread is inspiring me to give some time back over to real exercise again. I'm not so into a competition necessarily but I will definitely be checking in for encouragement.
Here's a question (maybe Hugman or TE can answer): what's the best sustainable way to alter my diet to gain some muscle mass (say 10 pounds) while working out? As an ectomorph I've always had trouble with this, and I've tried eating more food in general and with more protein, but it never seems to help that much. I gain a little but hit a plateau pretty quickly (not braggin'. it sucks looking like a gangly teenager in your thirties).
I'm a opposite body type but I'm thinking the same principles I use can be applied to you (?)
If you're serious about it you need to come up with a plan and stick to it the way you stick to plans to do some renovations on your roof say. You wouldn't half ass or cut corners on that--so take that same level of seriousness into your diet/training
For a hard gainer I'd say on the training side I say spit up your weight training and cardio, so weights Mon, cardio Tues. I'm not a big fan of aerobic cardio in general and especially not for a hard gainer I'd say limit yourself to 20 mins three times a week and make it more anaerobic like wind sprints and some stair work. This will turn cardio into more of a muscle building affair will still getting cardiovascular benefits.
On the weight side lots of compound movements, if your a guys that wants to pack on the muscle skip the dainty isolation exercises. You should have maybe 6 to 8 core exercise and the goal on those is to push yourself to lift heavier (sensibly of course) and in the lower rep range 6-10 versus 12-15 most generalists use.
so your gonna wanna do compound movements like:
military presses
barbell rows
squats
deadlifts
dips/pushups
On the diet side I would suggest eating 6 meals a day, I would suggest this for everyone BTW
It can be accomplished if you're serious and committed to have a healthy diet. I have done it it some pretty tough conditions and it can be done with a little pre planning and stick-to-it'veness.
Ok, 6 meals doesn't mean they have to be huge just a quick 1,2 punch to keep your calories up thru out the day. Should be one protein rich item and one carb rich item. The pure-er the protein source (grilled boneless skinless chicken breast, egg whites) the better. The closer you get to low glycemic carb source (brown rice, whole grains), the "slow burn" carbs, the better. So just as an example a quick midday meal could be a grilled chicken breast and a baked yam. Quick and easy you can have made that the night before or made a bunch of those on a Sunday for the week. Of course you can make you diet more complex by adding a green item like broccoli or some other leafy green but I'm just gonna keep it simple here, one protein-one carb = 1 meal.
for an idea of how to split up 6 meals this is something I been doing for years:
8am
10am
12noon
3pm
6pm
9pm
I could get into a whole thing about why i break it down like this but thats just an idea of how one can fit 6 meals in a day.
For a guy like me I stick the fattest meal in at the start of my day or midday and end with the lightest meal at night. But for a hard gainer stick that calorie rich fat meal at the end of the day, this closer to what the average person does anyway so it won't feels as weird as some of the other stuff. So I can see 6pm or a 9pm meal for you being a cut of baked salmon (protein rich but fatty) and a bread etc. The why of this would be boring.
damn, I over did this.
I reserve the right to come back and edit this to a more concise response.
