The Importance of Sleep for Hardgainers

Hi guys,

There are a few VERY important factors that every hardgainer must follow if you want to learn how to gain weight fast and build muscle mass. Some of the more obvious ones are a proper workout routine, diet, supplements, and hard work.

Every so often I'll get an e-mail from someone who claims he or she has applied each of those key factors for many weeks and still say they have trouble trying to gain weight and build muscle fast.

One of the lesser known ways to build muscle fast in record time is something that most people just plain don't get enough of these days: sleep.

I read an article recently saying that the average person gets about 7 hours maximum of sleep per night. Whether you are a hardgainer of not, getting at least 7 hours of sleep per night is absolutely critical, preferably 8 or more.

Here is a simplified form of how your muscles grow and why sleep is so important:

First, while you are in the gym lifting weights, you are actually tearing tiny muscle tissues as you perform the exercises. When you eat your food, the protein serves as the repair tool for your muscle tissue.

However, your body only begins to use the protein and the rest of the nutrients to repair your muscles when you are resting or asleep.

That means, if you don't get enough sleep, your body doesn't have enough time to recover your muscles fully, and when you begin your next workout you won't be 100% recovered, which means you won't get maximum results from your workouts.

In addition, when you are following a hardcore workout program on how to gain weight fast, it is HIGHLY suggested to get an extra hour of sleep each night for the last month of your program.

If getting enough sleep every night is difficult to do, then try to at least take a couple 20 minute naps whenever possible throughout your day.

Remember, if your goal is to gain muscle weight fast and you are a true hardgainer, it is always better to rest throughout the day as much as possible. That means if you can walk rather then run, do so.

If you can sit rather then stand, do so, and so on. The more rest you give your body in-between
workouts, the more you give it time to properly repair itself, and the better results you will get.

I'll talk to you soon,

Your Friend,

Derek Manuel
How to Gain Weight Fast

The damn simple truth about supplements

Hey guys ,

I am going to dispel one of the most misleading subjects as far as the best on how to gain weight fast and build muscle mass: Supplements.

Let me clear up all of the confusion about supplements right now by saying this:

No supplement will EVER substitute hard work, a proper diet, and the right attitude to gain weight and build muscle.

With the exception of the occasional meal replacement, supplements are meant to SUPPLEMENT, NOT substitute.

Supplements should be the last thing you add to your program. Supplements alone are completely worthless. They can add to the value of your progress only after you first apply a proper workout and diet.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not against supplements, but the BILLION dollar market today glorifies them to the extent that anybody looking for a quick fix can fall victim.

Why are they so successful marketing these supplements even though most of them have no evidence whatsoever that they can do what they promise? Because their targets are people who
want to learn how to gain weight fast and build muscle but don’t want to work hard for it.

Don’t become one of these targets. Separate yourself from the wannabe’s and become what few people are willing to work for.

Make a decision to yourself right now that you will not look for any easy route to get what you want. Use your common sense and you will remember that anything worth a great reward requires sacrifice.

But the reward is always worth the work, ALWAYS.

Supplements won’t substitute any hard work for you but if you use them intelligently and know which ones really work and which ones don’t, they can help your progress.

Now that you know what role supplements really play in gaining weight and building muscle, here is a list of the only type of supplements that are worth investing any money in. Keep in mind that most big brand names are in essence pretty much the same.

1) Whey Protein Powder or Bars
2) Creatine Monohydrate Powder
3) Meal Replacement Powders or Bars
4) Multi-Vitamins
5) Post-Workout Carbohydrate Drinks
6) Extra Vitamin C
7) ZMA

You can pretty much find these at any local general nutrition store or any major website that sells bodybuilding supplements.

Remember, supplements are NOT magic. They act only as an additional component to a proper workout program, but should be the last component in order of importance. A proper workout, a thorough nutrition and diet plan executed persistently plenty of sleep, and the right attitude is all you really need if you are a serious hardgainer wanting to know how to gain weight fast and build quality muscle. Focus on these elements FIRST, then you may consider a few basic supplements after.

I'll talk to you soon,

Your Friend,

Derek Manuel
How to Gain Weight Fast

Free Weights vs Machines When Learning How to Gain Weight Fast

Hey guys,

This week I want to compare the difference between free-weight exercises and machines.

Which ones are more effective? Well, if you want to learn how to gain weight fast and build maximum muscle mass, free-weights are hands down MUCH more effective then machines in general.

Why? The main reason is because free-weights require complete strength and coordination of the weight, so your muscles are forced to work harder.

If your muscles are working harder, then typically this results in more growth. If the motion of the exercise is helped guided through its path, such as with machines, then your muscles have much less stress when lifting the weight.

When you train with free-weights, your body must adapt to the range of motion on its own. This is why whenever you try a new exercise you have never done before it feels awkward or more difficult, even with light weight.

Since your muscles have to adapt to this range of motion, you develop a more overall solid level of strength, resulting in of course bigger strength gains which means bigger muscles.

This is not to say that machines are altogether useless if you want to learn how to gain weight fast and build muscle mass. They play their part for some exercises that you can't use free-weights for such as the lat-pulldown machine for your back.

However, since you are probably more concerned with gaining weight and building muscle mass as fast as possible, I'm going to keep it simple like always:

STICK TO FREE-WEIGHTS!

Gaining strength in barbell and dumbbell exercises, especially compound exercises, will always build much more solid, hard, muscle mass then machines, period.

If you have been using mostly machines for a while and haven't seen any results worth bragging about, then perhaps this is where the fault is.

I would personally recommend that to those who want to bulk up and build as much muscle mass as they can in the shortest amount of time, eliminate machine exercises completely.

So, to sum it up....

Machines are good for pumping and isolation exercises, and free-weights are for gaining maximum muscle mass and packing on serious pounds of muscle in record time. Remember that if learning how to gain weight fast is your number one priority.

I'll talk to you soon,

Your Friend,

Derek Manuel
How to Gain Weight Fast

How to make your training limits vanish into thin air

Today I’m going to talk about limits, what they are, what effect they have on your weight training progress, and I how to completely toss them out the window.

First off, what are limits?

The question we really should be asking is, are they real?

I like to describe limits as completely illusions. Though there are such things as limits, the majority of people today really have no idea what they really are, so in turn, they create illusionary ones.

Let’s look at the following paragraph I took from Randall Strossen’s book, IronMind: Stronger Minds, Stronger Bodies, which will open your eyes but more importantly have you think about what limits really are and what role they play on us:

"In the early 1920’s Henry “Milo” Steinborn squatted with approximately 550 pounds, which-beyond being a record lift-was viewed as close to man’s ultimate limit. Even by the mid-1950’s
this standard had only been nudged up to around the 600 pound mark. Enter the Canadian superman Doug Hepburn, who squatted 760 pounds in the mid-1950’s, a prodigious performance in the history of strength, but one which Paul Anderson completely
upstaged by cranking out 1160 in 1957…The fact that no one-even with drugs, squat suits, super wraps and super belts-has yet come within a hundred pounds of Paul’s mark is further
testimony to his colossal squatting ability. Once Paul Anderson had completely redefined conceptions of leg strength, however, others followed him into previously untouched territory, and by the end of the 1960’s, there were a handful of 800 pound squatters."

As you can see, as soon as a record, or limit, is broken, suddenly there become much more people who can match the previous record.

So what the heck is going on here?

Once every blue moon there comes someone who completely smashes all previous records.

He or she is a what we call a leader, a believer.

When others witness this, they follow. The leader is one who believes in himself and has complete faith that he or she can accomplish anything, and then goes and does it.

The followers just stay back and wait for someone to lead them, with no belief or intention of surpassing any limits themselves.

The truth is, the limits you create in your own head are the limits you create in your own reality. Focus on what you want to do and the heck with what everyone else is doing and what
has or hasn’t already been done.

Whether you want to break a personal record or a world record, you have with you 100% of every single thing you need to accomplish it. It doesn’t matter if everyone in the world does or doesn’t believe in you. You just have to believe.

So what are your limits? Are they holding you back from your progress?

Next time you write out your weight lifting goals, which I suggest you do if you aren’t already, try not to limit yourself, especially on your long term ones.

If it is something you really want bad enough, such as bench pressing 300 pounds or weighing 200 pounds of solid muscle, you will get it if you believe you will. I believe you can. In fact, I know you can.

Keep a close watch on the little voice in the back of your head that may be telling you that you are shooting to high or that you will never accomplish this or that.

It’s nothing but gibberish. Evict your inner doubts. Make it a formal process if you have to, but whatever you do, don’t ever, EVER doubt your abilities.

Because the amazing truth is, you’ll only achieve what you believe. If you doubt yourself or you don’t think that you can achieve a certain goal or goals, then those thoughts and those thoughts alone are the only thing holding you back.

Think about that for a while. It may change your life and how you view everything about it.

I’ll talk to you again soon,

Your Friend,

Derek Manuel
How to Gain Weight Fast

The Correct Amount of Sets/Reps to Gain Muscle Weight Fast

Hi guys,

Are you finding yourself often confused with how many sets and reps you should be doing if you want to learn how to gain weight fast and build muscle mass as fast as possible? If you are, you are definitely not alone.

There are some general rules for this, but there are about just as many exceptions for this rule. But, since you are probably a hardgainer concerned with bulking up and slapping on pounds of muscle on you frame, then I’ll make it simple.

The general rule for size and strength is to use a relatively high number of sets with low reps; 5 sets of 5, 6 sets of 3; something that looks like this.

The amount of reps means that you will fail at around that number, so you’re going to use heavy weight. One thing to keep in mind is, whenever I say “heavy” throughout my newsletters that is a relative term.

What is heavy for one person is completely different to another, so make sure you understand that.

So, if you want your shoulders to look like you got a pair of football shoulder pads under your shirt, you would do about 5 or 6 sets of between 3 and 6 reps. Remember, this is only a general rule.

The point of low reps is to build strength. As you know from my past newsletters, strength is the foundation to size. The low reps means you focus on heavy weight and allow enough rest to increase the weight on a weekly basis.

Now, in one of my programs, in which I teach how to gain weight fast in the form of muscle as fast as naturally possible, the set/rep scheme is actually quite different from this. You actually perform only a few sets with relatively high reps.

To avoid confusion, don’t worry too much about how many sets and reps you do. Your main focus if you want to get huge is to get stronger, and, consequently, there are various ways of doing this.

The program that I advocate most is different from the low rep scheme but is still highly effective because of its design.

If you want to check out more about this program, you can find it in my eBook by clicking below to learn more:

How to Gain Weight Fast

As I said many times before, strength is the key to muscle growth. If you want to get bigger, you have to get stronger first. So structure your sets and reps with this purpose in mind.

Some important points to remember are this:

-Keep it simple; training for size means getting stronger, so don’t do too many exercises per muscle group so you can allow enough time and rest to recuperate and get stronger in just one or two compound exercises

-Use as much power and force in good form during your reps, DON’T do them slow so you can “feel the burn.” This will only limit the speed in which you will get stronger. Lower the weight in a controlled manner, but push/pull with all your might to get the weight back up. Otherwise YOU will get “burned”

-Take your time in between reps - that right – I said reps. Don’t rush them. If you need, take a few quick breaths between reps to gather your strength and focus. This will help you push the extra rep or two that will really boost your size and strength.

-When building up your strength, you will need to rest longer then the normal 60 seconds. For upper body exercises, take 2-3 minutes rest between sets to recover your strength and 3-5 minutes for your legs.

Remember, you need to train with heavy weights. Push the weight up with all the power and muscle you can, take a couple deep breathes, lower the weight slightly slower then when you lifted it, and do another rep.

You don’t have to count the seconds, but try not to rush your reps or go too slow. You’re not trying to run a marathon but you’re not doing tai chi either.

I’ll talk to you again soon,

Your Friend,

Derek Manuel
How to Gain Weight Fast

Is this fatal mistake limiting your results?

Hey guys,

This week I’m going to talk about one of the biggest causes of failure in most hardgainers. Read carefully because if you want to learn how to gain weight fast, you can't afford to make this same mistake. It wastes so much unnecessary time and effort that you wouldn’t believe.

There’s a guy that comes to my local gym. I notice him all of the time because every time I go to the gym, no matter what time of the day, he’ll be there. Nice guy, very talkative and friendly.

“Man,” I said to him one day in between one of his sets of curls, “I don’t see a mattress or any blankets anywhere.” He looked confused. I returned the look. “You mean you don’t live here?”

He laughed so loud even the guy with the blasting headphones looked up. “No, but I guess I do spend a lot of time here.” I was about to reply that he’s probably got more hours on the clock then the manager, but I thought about his laugh.

“How many hours a day do you train?” I asked.

“Oh I don’t know, it ranges from two to three hours a day, depending on my energy. Sometimes I’ll come back later in the night if I’m bored.” He gave me a wry grin, looked around, and said, “gotta build up those muscles, the girls love em!”

He then started another set of curls. I think he was on his tenth set. I waited until he was done before I asked him the next question.

“Do you think that works? I mean, training so much? Don’t you think you’re over-training?” I asked.

“I’d rather over-train then under train, man. I want to get big as fast as possible, that’s why I train so much.” He looked around again with that wicked grin, “summertime’s almost here and I gotta look good for the chicks, man!”

By looking at his physique, I couldn’t understand the logic.

Too many trainees make the fatal mistake of training too much. They think the longer you train and the more often, the bigger muscles you’ll get.

Even if you want to build up muscle endurance, weight training for three hours isn’t necessary. But for hardgainers who are want to learn how to gain weight fast, it can detrimental.

If you want to learn to speak Spanish, spend as much time as you want working at it. If you want to read faster, read as much and as often as you can. But if you want to gain weight and muscle mass, LESS is more.

Here is a rule of thumb: You should NEVER train longer then an hour and a half a day if you are trying to gain weight and muscle mass. Anything longer is actually counterproductive, you might even lose weight.

Instead of doing a bunch of different exercises for dozens of sets five or six days a week, you’ll get much better results if you spend just an hour, that’s all it takes and sometimes even less, three days a week working on just a handful of compound exercises.

Work on them hard, obviously, and make your main focus on getting stronger.

Don’t get all caught up in the bodybuilding industry these days. 99% of the information in magazines won’t be of any use to a hardgainer, and may even hurt your training results.

In fact, if you haven’t noticed yet, 99% of the content in magazines isn’t even information, but instead full of advertisements and endorsements.

Back to the point.

Like I said earlier, one of the major causes of failures in hardgainers these days is over-training. They spend too much time in the gym when they don’t have to, when they’d be better off if they didn’t. When trying to learn how to gain weight fast it is actually much simpler then most people believe.

Short, highly intense, heavy, abbreviated workouts are they key here. These will produce much better results in much less time.

If you are the really dedicated type of trainer and you might have fallen victim to this mistake, this will sound like music to your ears. You no longer have to train for hours and hours week after week. You’re done.

No more three hour workouts.

No more slaving away at a bunch of different exercises for dozens of reps.

No more spending half your life in the gym!

Now don’t get me wrong. I love working out, and if you’re reading this, you probably do to. But training for hours a day will only HURT your progress if you are a true hardgainer. One hour a day for three days a week is all you need.

I’ll talk to you again soon,

Your Friend,

Derek Manuel
How to Gain Weight Fast

The Number ONE Exercise if you Want to Learn How to Gain Weight Fast

Today I am going to talk about just one exercise. Not just the exercise itself, but the way that it is supposed to be performed for if you want to learn how to gain weight fast.

Pay attention closely because if you are a true hardgainer, meaning you’ve tried EVERYTHING to gain weight and build muscle to no avail, then this may very well be the most important article you'll ever read if you want to learn how to gain weight fast

This one exercise, performed correctly, can and will put on more muscle mass on practically your WHOLE body more then any other exercise in the world. I stand by this claim firmly because I know from personal experience and countless others.

I have read numerous articles and success stories from hundreds of satisfied weight trainers easy and hardgainers alike who have gained pounds of muscle and body weight fast, very fast.

This exercise is no secret, but many people disregard it. The certain way that it is performed however, is surprisingly unknown to many weight trainers, personal trainers and even bodybuilding “experts.”

This exercise is so phenomenal that many programs, especially weight gain and bulk programs, consist of this exercise and only one or two more exercises, performed ONLY two days a week. That's it!

And people have gained MASSIVE amounts of muscle in record time.

I’m trying as hard as I can in not trying to sound like one of those cheesy sales people who offer ridiculous results in such a short time, but this is real.

Alright, have I built this exercise up enough?

To be continued until the next newsletter.....

Just kidding.

THE exercise on how to gain muscle weight fast, ironically, probably the most dreaded. Have you guessed it yet?

Squats.

But I’m not talking about just any type of squats, I’m talking about what’s called "breathing squats". The difference between squats and breathing squats is basically this: when loading up
the barbell with the normal amount of weight you would use for 10 reps, you instead do 20 reps with it.

“How” you say, “I’m I supposed to do 20 reps with the weight I normally use for 10 reps?”

Let’s look at how most people do their squats (for the few who do them): pretty fast paced, only taking a second or two rest in-between reps, and finishing without getting even remotely near failure.

With breathing squats however, you do them differently. After each rep, take three HUGE breaths, both inhaling and exhaling through your mouth to get as much air as possible, before your next rep.

Take in air until your whole chest swells up, then blow it all out forcefully.

Do them in this fashion for the first 10 reps. You will feel like stopping at 10 because it will be what you’re used to, but don’t. By now, your deep breathing will come naturally, and you may need to take 4 or 5 deep breaths in between each rep.

By rep number 15, your legs will start to tremble if they aren’t already. You will only have five reps to go, the biggest challenge yet. You will need to take anywhere from 5 to 10 HUGE and DEEP breaths before each rep.

Each rep will become a challenge of its own.

By the time you hit the 20th rep you will be completely wiped out. Your whole chest will be swelled up like a balloon and your legs will feel like noodles.

Immediately after you finish the squats, grab a light dumbbell between 20 and 40 pounds, lie down on a bench or across one, whichever is more comfortable, and do a set of 20 pullovers with them.

As you lower the weight, again, take a deep breath and get a really good stretch in your rib cage. As you bring the weight back up, blow it all out. Do 20 reps of these right after your squats.

The point of the pullovers is to stretch out your rib cage and permit more room in your upper body for growth. This will really expand your rib cage and increase the size and width of your chest and shoulders, giving you a huge and powerful look.

This isn’t the typical resistance exercise, so you don’t need to use a heavy dumbbell for this, just get a good stretch.

As you are probably thinking, this won’t particularly be a walk in the park. It will probably be the hardest thing you will ever do in the gym.

But the results are equivalent to the hard work. And WELL worth it.

And if you are a hardgainer wanting to learn how to gain weight fast, this is THE cure that will set you free from your skinny and weak frame.

Breathing squats, when performed properly and with an honest effort, will pack on more pounds of muscle in two months then anything in the world, assuming your diet is sound and you get plenty of rest.

The good news is you only need to do 1 set of 20, two to three days a week. That’s it. Once you do them a couple times, you will understand that is more then enough and you will feel like you’ve been run over by a garbage truck.

By the way, when you do them, you only need to do a few other compound exercises for the upper body, such as bench presses or bent-over rows.

The breathing squats will stimulate your body for muscle growth and weight gains like nothing else, so limit the other exercises to allow enough rest for your body to grow.

Here are a few pointers to make sure you the most out of your hard work:

1) Make sure you go ALL the way down until your legs are parallel to the ground. I see far too many trainees only go half way or three quarters of the way down. This is huge mistake and you
will be limited your growth substantially, so make up your mind right now that you will work hard and won’t cheat yourself.

2) Add at least 5 pounds to the bar every workout. If you do the squats twice a week that means an increase in 10 pounds a week; three times a week means 15 pound increase a week.

Unlike your upper body, your legs have a tremendous capacity of growth and strength, so adding 5 pounds each workout is very possible. You shouldn’t ever have to use the same weight as last week.

Remember, this exercise is more a test of will power then physical ability. You can do it if you believe you can. Shoot for at LEAST 225 lbs for 20 reps if you want any results worth noticing.

3) Remember to take in as deep of breaths as you can between your reps and the pullovers. The heavy breathing will add size and power like no other exercise so don’t take them lightly.

There you have it. If all else fails, breathing squats will be your savior if you are want to learn how to gain weight fast and build muscle mass as fast as humanly and naturally possible.

Give them an honest effort and get ready to throw out your old wardrobe and replace it with some bigger clothes.

I’ll talk to you again soon,

Your Friend,

Derek Manuel
How to Gain Weight Fast

How to gain weight fast with these key muscle building exercises

Hey fellow hardgainers

Today I want to clear up something that is so important for hardgainers to know. If you’re interested in learning how to gain weight fast and putting on pounds of muscle in record time, naturally you should ask yourself, “what are the best exercises to accomplish this?”

The answer is simple, but because the market is flooded with so much garbage all you hear or read about is either the latest supplement or “advanced” exercises.

If you really want to gain muscle weight fast then anytime you are introduced to a “new” or “advanced” way of performing an exercise, you’ll do yourself a world of good by throwing it out the window.

Too many times do I see curious skinny gym members look over at the “gym buff” doing some funky exercise upside down on an exercise ball with one leg up flailing a pair of light dumbbells
around thinking that if they learned how to perform that exercise they can look like him.

Forget about it.

Whether it works for him or not is irrelevant, the bottom line is that this type of exercise or anything like it will NOT work for hardgainers.

If an exercise is “new” I can almost guarantee it is far less effective then the simple, basic exercises.

Why? Because all of the best exercises for maximum muscle growth have already been accounted for years ago. They have and always will be the number one exercises for the single purpose of gaining weight and building muscle.

Nothing compares and they will never be bested.



Basic or compound exercises allow you to lift more weight, and if you read any of my past stuff, you know that the heavier weight you can lift, the bigger you will be.

With that in mind, what are compound exercises and which are the best if you want to learn how to gain weight fast and build some real quality muscle mass?

Compound lifts, or multi-joint lifts, are weightlifting exercises that use more then one muscle group, preferably 3 or more.

For example, the bench press is a compound lift because although the primary muscle used are the chest muscles, your shoulders and triceps are also helping to lift the weight.

Tricep pushdowns, however, are what’s called an isolation or single-joint exercise. Since this exercise just isolates a single muscle, your triceps, it doesn’t stimulate nearly as much muscle growth as a compound lift would.

Though there are many different compound exercises, you must focus only on those that stimulate the most amount of muscle and allow you to lift the heaviest amount of weight.

Here are the granddaddy of all compound exercises that you MUST include in your workout if you want to learn how to gain weight fast and expect to build maximum muscle mass in the least amount of time.

1) Squats (whole lower body)
2) Deadlifts (hamstrings, quads, traps, lower back)
3) Bench Press (chest, tricep, and shoulders)
4) Shoulder Press or Military Press (shoulders and triceps)
5) Bent-Over Rows (back, biceps, lats)
6) Pull-Ups (back, biceps, lats)
7) Bar Dips (chest, tricep, shoulders)

If your workouts don’t include any of these exercises, then don’t expect to grow very much, if at all. Also, try starting your workouts out with one of these exercises first, before you do any other exercises for that same muscle.

This will ensure you exert most of your energy into the most important exercises, the ones that will be most responsible for your growth.

For example, if you are training your shoulders, start off with the barbell shoulder press before you do any laterals, shrugs, or any other isolation exercise.

A couple of months ago, a friend asked me why he wasn’t gaining any weight and getting any bigger. So I asked him to tell me about his workout. You can probably guess what it was.

Sure enough, he was doing about five exercises for each muscle group, mostly isolation exercises. He wasn’t doing any lower body exercises whatsoever, and the only compound exercise he was doing was everybody’s favorite: the bench press.

I held myself back from slapping him upside the head, and here is what I did:

I gave him a simple workout that consisted of ONLY compound exercises, which in fact doesn’t look too much different from the list of exercises above.

I told him to just do a few sets of each exercise a few times a week and to focus on just adding weight to the bar every week.

Did he grow? About five weeks later he e-mailed me back and told me of his improvements. He weighed 18 pounds heavier and added around 20 to 30 pounds to each of the compound exercises I told him to do.

Is this a common result? For those who are willing to work hard on just a few compound exercises can expect results like this, even hardgainers.

Was it easy? No. He worked hard, just like everyone else who got results like this. No fancy supplements or advanced exercises, just hard work on the key exercises, lots of clean food and plenty of rest.

Now that you know the key exercises for maximum muscle growth in record time, I want you to use them! If you haven’t tried any of them before then you will be in for a treat.

They’re tough, they’re demanding, they take sweat and grit and everything you got. They’re not the type of exercises you can do while you hung-over or on 3 hours of sleep.

You have to have lots of energy, be properly warmed up, and fully concentrated if you want to get the most out of them.

But they will bring you more results then all of the other exercises put together. This is how to gain weight fast and build muscle mass like never before.

I’ll talk to you again soon,

Your Friend,

Derek Manuel
How to Gain Weight Fast

If you don't do this you simply will NOT gain weight or build muscle

Are you trying to learn how to gain weight fast, but are
having trouble gaining weight and building some
real, quality muscle consistently? Or maybe, when you first
started weight training, did you gain a little muscle and
body weight but then suddenly it came to a stop?

If you are not gaining any weight or getting any bigger, then
I suggest you take a serious look at your poundage’s.

I see so many weight trainers, easy and hardgainers alike go
day after day, week after week, and month after month
pushing the same weight they were doing last month.

They feel satisfied that they had a “good workout” because
their muscles are pumped and well exhausted by the end of their
workout after doing a bunch of sets of a bunch of different
exercises for one muscle group.

This is a BIG mistake.

No matter what you’ve read or heard, getting a good pump has
very little to do with muscle growth. All the “pump” means is
that there is a temporary increased blood flow in your muscle
tissue.

Though getting a good pump has a few benefits for
building muscle, you certainly shouldn’t gauge your workouts
by them, especially if you are a hardgainer and your main goal
is to learn how to gain weight fast.

There is a time and place for getting a good pump, and when
you are a hardgainer or a beginner (or both) trying to build
muscle mass, then this is definitely not it.

If your looking to gain weight and build muscle mass, you must
progressively add weight to your exercises. I don’t care who
you are, you can’t expect to build bigger muscles if you are
using the same weight over and over again.

You have to get STRONGER if you want to get bigger.

And I don’t mean increasing the weight once a month. If you
want to bulk up as fast as humanly possible, then focus
strictly on getting stronger at least every other week.

You can’t expect to look like the Incredible Hulk if your
sister is pushing the same weight you are.

Here’s why…

As evolution suggests, our bodies survival is based on
adapting to our environment. From all the way back to our
caveman days until now, our bodies have gone under many
changes in order to adapt and survive in the constantly changing
world.

Your muscles are no exception. Whenever you finish a heavy
workout, your muscle fibers adapt by recruiting more fibers so
they can cope with the weight if it is forced to try to handle it
again. As a result, your muscles will grow bigger.

As soon as your body becomes accustomed to a certain weight,
it will no longer grow. It will no longer need to!

You must constantly overload it with more weight then it is
used to handling.

From now on whenever you are doing a workout to gain weight
and build muscle mass, measure your progress by your strength,
NOT how good of a pump you get.

Keep track of exactly how much weight you use for each set on
each exercise, how many reps you did, and make it a goal to
slightly increase that weight at least every other week.

It doesn’t matter if you write it down on a palm pilot or the
piece of toilet paper stuck to your shoe when you walk out of
the bathroom, as long as you remember how much weight you
used and how many reps you did last workout so you can add a
little more on the next.

Don’t try to remember how much weight you used, because if you
forget you will hold back your progress each week by using the
same or less weight and therefore not getting any stronger, or
by adding too much weight too soon which will lead to set-backs.

If this happens constantly, you will waste days, weeks, and
even months out of your year in training. Can you see how
important it is to keep track of your poundage’s?

When first starting out, you may discover that adding weight
each week is not so tough and can be pretty consistent.

However, as you continue to weight train for a while you will
sooner or later hit what’s called a “sticking point” on one or
more of your exercises.

This is completely normal. From here, your increase in strength
will have to be slightly more gradual then before.

For example, though you may have been able to increase your
bench press poundage’s 5 pounds a week every week no problem
for a while, you suddenly are not able to perform the
pre-determined amount of reps of say, eight reps anymore.

Now, instead of increasing five pounds again next week, just
stick with that weight until you can complete the eight reps.
As soon as you can, try adding 2.5 pounds this time, or even 1
pound, instead of 5.

Remember, for long term results, slowly but surely is the way
to go.

You will always be much stronger after one year if you
continue to add weight in this fashion rather then trying to
add too much weight too fast and being stuck at that weight
for weeks and even months at a time.

Now that you know that in order to get bigger you must get
stronger, what is the fastest way to get stronger?

Keep your workouts SHORT and SIMPLE.

Marathon type workouts will only limit your growth and may
even cause you to lose weight if you train too much for too
long. You don’t need to do 5 different exercises for your chest
with 5 sets for each.

In fact, you will get a heck of a lot better results sticking
to just 1 or 2 compound exercises such as flat or incline bench
presses and just doing 2 to 5 sets each, 1 or 2 days a week.

Why? Because you will allow yourself enough rest to increase
the weight each week by focusing on just a few hard sets of
heavy weight on one or two major exercises.

So if you’ve been having trouble gaining weight and building
muscle mass, this may have been the major factor holding you back.

Make up your mind right now that you will train to become
stronger each and every workout, and you will be on the right
path to building some real quality muscle.

Eat plenty of good food, lift hard and heavy, get plenty of
sleep, and keep your workouts short and simple. This is
how to gain weight fast and build muscle mass in the most
effective and efficient way possible.

Train hard fellow hardgainers,

Derek Manuel
http://www.hardgainers-weight-tips.com