I came across this article on http://www.higher-faster-sports.com/****OrGetOffThePot2

[Ripped12]

I FEEL AS THOUGH HE IS TELLING THE ABSOLUTE TRUTH

If Muscle mass gains don’t come easy that might mean you think of yourself as a hardgainer. Now, back when I first started lifting, hardgainer’s had a very strict definition. They were defined as chronically stressed beanpoles with long limbs, metabolisms like hummingbirds, with a capacity for physical work so low they could simply look at a weight and overtrain. However, over the years the hardgainer definition seems to have evolved to include just about everyone. Hell, I've heard some people classify a hardgainer as anybody who isn’t black and doesn't take steroids, but let’s cut through the bull**** and get to the point, - the common theme any “hardgainer” has is a "perceived” difficulty in making bodybuilding gains.



I’ve found that most of the time it's “perceived” difficulty moreso then “real” difficulty and here's one big reason why: As much as anything else, the reason people fail to make gains is because they're guilty of paralysis by analysis. Yeah there's a time and a place to worry about the benefits of macronutrient percentages, linear vs undulated periodization, meal timing, box squats vs front squats, the merits of monounsaturates vs polyunsaturated fatty acids, high rep vs low rep training, galactose vs glucose, high volume vs low volume, which of the 5000+ available supplements are worth a damn, and about a billion other things, but when it comes down to it a lot of people just need someone to come up to them and say “Son, it’s time to **** or get off the pot” “You know what you need to do just do it.”



So Where Do People Screw Up The Most?


Probably THE one simple thing that causes more people to screw up and spin their wheels is diet. Regardless of how you definite it, the reality is, MANY people think they are hardgainers or don’t build the muscle they could because they eat like birds. That’s mainly what I wanna talk about today.



If you had a young 1000 lb bull in your back yard and someone offered you 1 million dollars to get him up to 1500 lbs I bet you’d find a way to get it done wouldn’t you? I also don’t think many people would have a difficult time figuring out the most basic and important thing that you do to get him there and that’s tie on the feed bag. (I know what you juiceheads are thinking but even those Fina and Synovex implants aren't gonna work unless he gets plenty to freakin eat).



Big Muscles Need Big Nutrition


At it's most basic foundation increased size requires increased energy intake. Big muscles require big nutrition and big nutrition requires big eating. Big eating is difficult when your obsessed with maintaining the lowest possible body-fat percentage and your diet revolves around boiled chicken breasts, tuna, and egg whites. Why do you think you never see powerlifters, football players, or throwing athletes that have difficulty putting on body-mass? Here’s one thing you can learn from them:



Muscle With No Fat Ain't Phat


The only people who can gain decent amounts of muscle without giving a little in the fat gain department are teenagers, complete newbies, guys with freaky genetics, and steroid users. For about 90% of the training population the absolute quickest way to make sure that you don't make a single gain in muscle mass over the next 6 months, 2 years, 5, 10, or even 20 years is to try to gain pure muscle without accepting a temporary bit of fat gain in the process. Most people don't want to hear this but out of all the people you see that lift weights consistently on a weekly basis that don't make gains this is the number one reason why right here. Yes, many people do train like crap too but even the most horrific training program will produce marginal results with enough nutrition. (If that weren’t the case then no teenager in the world would ever make a single gain). Now, any newbie can quickly throw on an easy 10 lbs of muscle mass, yet once you get those initial gains things become a bit more difficult. What typically happens is people do most everything right with regard to training and diet yet as soon as they see a little fat gain so they freak out and stop eating. That is a big mistake and here's why:



Food Is Your Most Potent Weapon For Mass Construction



Did you know that just sitting on your ass and eating excess food by itself can stimulate muscle growth even without weight training? Studies done on overfeeding consistently demonstrate that at least 35% of the weight sedentary people gain when they do nothing but overeat 1000 extra calories per day of crappy foods for 100 or more days straight is lean bodyweight.[1] In fact, underneath all that fat mass, the biggest sumo wrestlers on average carry more muscle mass then the biggest bodybuilders.2 The biggest of the big sumo wrestlers have an estimated lean body mass of 500 pounds. Yeah, they carry a lot more fat too but their goal is to get big and fat by eating junk and doing very little. Now, surely if a completely sedentary individual can gain 1 lb of muscle for every 3 pounds of fat eating crap and sitting on their butt you could do a lot better then that with more of a bodybuilding style diet and good hard training couldn't you? What would happen if you ate a crapload of decent high protein “bodybuilder” friendly foods and trained big with a goal of building as much muscle as possible while staying relatively lean? What would happen if you ate and trained your way up to a 50 lbs bodyweight increase with a 3:1 muscle to fat gain ratio? That's a humongous 37.5 lb muscle gain vs 12.5 lbs of fat. Have you ever met a person who couldn’t lose 12.5 lbs of fat? Me neither. Sound good? Here are some tips to get you there:



Make The Decision To Do It


First off it starts with a decision. You won’t find an advanced natural trainer who packs on a significant amount of muscle who didn’t make a solid decision to push his muscular bodyweight up. Twenty, 30, or 50 pounds of muscle ain’t gonna come knockin on your door asking you to carry it around. Make that decision and decide that you’re going to build that muscle and commit that this is what you’re gonna do.



Get Your Diet Right


John Parrillo used to say that a bodybuilder should match his training to his diet instead of trying to match his diet to his training. I couldn’t agree more. Devising a complex training scheme without a solid diet is like building a house on sand. Your eating is your foundation for muscle gains and without it nothing happens. Get your support system in place first.





It Starts With Protein


Multiply your bodyweight by 1.5 grams. That's the minimum amount in protein grams you need to shoot for each day. Get a watch with a timer and set it to ring every 3 hours. From the time you get up until the time you go to bed you better make damn sure that you eat or drink a protein meal within each 3 hour time-span not including your post-workout drink. Whether you go high carb, high fat, moderate carb, moderate fat or whatever with the rest of your food choices is up to you but regardless of what type of diet you’re on, protein intake is a must. No excuses.


Having Trouble Eating Enough?


Someone smart once told me that the word protein comes from a latin word that means "comes first". I don't know if that's true or not in the real world but by-god I can tell you it's true in the muscle gain world. Now, what I’m about to suggest I’m not recommending everyone do and I don’t want you to use it as a copout just to give you an excuse to eat junk, but if you’re currently stuffing yourself to the hilt with veggies, oatmeal, sweet potatoes etc. and other clean foods as your prime energy sources and you find it difficult to eat enough to gain you need to change something so here’s what I recommend for some people:



Eat your protein first at each meal and as soon as you slam that down your throat go ahead and eat whatever the hell else you want to until you're full. When you sit down to eat go ahead and clear all the protein off your plate first. Once you've done that go ahead and go your own way with the carbs. One hundred calories worth of pancake syrup will build just as much muscle as 100 calories worth of apples or potatoes. Yeah, I know the syrup isn't considered "healthy" or whatever but screw it. If your limiting factor is how much food you can get down your throat then you need to get more calories and if that means consuming the junk carbs then have at it. Once you're eating enough calories to get the scale creeping up in the right direction you can worry about everything else.



Back when I was a teenager I remember reading an article by IFBB pro Dave Fisher that gave that exact advice. He would make sure he got enough protein in at each meal but after that he’d go his own way with the carbohydrate intake. That meant he'd go ahead and finish off his eggs, chicken, steak or whatever protein source at each meal, but after that he'd load up on toast with jelly, kiddie cereal, pancakes, and anything else he desired. At the time I was stuck at 125 lbs bodyweight trying to forcefeed myself 3500 calories per day of ultra-clean foods. I was either eating or cooking constantly and pissing off everybody else in the house with my hostile takeover of the kitchen. The bad thing is I still wasn’t getting enough food to gain weight. I started incorporating some of Dave’s advice and got the scale moving up. The protein is what's gonna build the muscle but it's gotta be supported with enough overall calorie intake. There’s no way you can get fat unless you’re first eating enough calories overall to gain weight

[LongLefty]

yeah makes sense, don't think it's gonna shock anyone to read. My opinion has always been that bodybuilding broken down is 45% diet, 30% training, 15% genetics, 15% rest, and 5% knowing how to add.

[MakeABanana]

Good article. Repped.

[W.I.N.]

yeah makes sense, don't think it's gonna shock anyone to read. My opinion has always been that bodybuilding broken down is 45% diet, 30% training, 15% genetics, 15% rest, and 5% knowing how to add.

45+30+15+15+5=110%

wut?

[AlwaysTryin]

My opinion has always been that bodybuilding broken down is 45% diet, 30% training, 15% genetics, 15% rest, and 5% knowing how to add.

Was this an attempt at being funny lol

[alan aragon]

"Multiply your bodyweight by 1.5 grams. That's the minimum amount in protein grams you need to shoot for each day. Get a watch with a timer and set it to ring every 3 hours. From the time you get up until the time you go to bed you better make damn sure that you eat or drink a protein meal within each 3 hour time-span not including your post-workout drink."

^Proof the article was written a loooooong time ago. Overall not a bad article except for the above.

[LongLefty]

45+30+15+15+5=110%

wut?

c'mon didn't ya pop always tell ya to give 110%???

Was this an attempt at being funny lol

Haha you bet!!! Attempt? You lol'd so it was a success not an attempt ;-p