When I first started working out I could bench 140 and curl 50 (each arm) and I weighed 151.
I’m now benching 220 and curling 70, but I only weigh 155 pounds! I don’t know how to gain weight, any tips?
If you could provide as much detailed info as possible about your current training and nutrition, it would be easier to give you solid advice.
To answer your question on how to gain weight, eat more food, pure and simple, no way around it. You need to eat more calories than you burn to gain weight, it’s very simple. Your nutrition will be responsible for gaining weight.
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Eat, lift, eat, sleep, repeat. Eat good foods in high quantities and avoid processed junk. Keep lifting (and please tell me you focus on more than bench and curls). Follow a reputable program as written until you learn enough to write your own.
If you’re struggling to get enough calories then eat 2 cups of rice a couple times a day with some chicken, red meat, or fish. Drink whole milk and eat peanut butter. Add good fats like coconut oil to your foods to add calories. Use the search function and you’ll find numerous articles and threads about this same issue.
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[quote=“freetoknowledge, post:1, topic:226015”]
I don’t know how to gain weight, any tips?[/quote]
Eat more in the next 7 days than you ate in the last 7 days. Repeat indefinitely.
Gaining bodyweight comes from calories. Gaining muscle comes from calories plus training volume. Fixing your food intake is the top priority, but it’s possible that you’re also not training right to build size.
What has your training looked like - exercises, sets, and reps? Also, what kind of timeframe are we talking about? Lastly, how tall are you?
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I know each of the previous replies nailed it, but sometimes I like to just repeat corrrect answers for the sake of reinforcing the right idea.
Eat more. Eat more than you think you need to eat. If you come back and say ‘I already eat a lot’, then the answer doesn’t change. It means you need to start eating more than a lot. You need to eat more food than you ate previously. If you add calories and you don’t gain the weight you want to gain, eat even more than that. Eat until the scale goes up. Force the issue.
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Really?? that would be a decent feat for a guy weighing 50lbs more than you. I imagine thats for like 2 reps and/or terrible form
Do you deadlift or power clean?
Once a week go nuts, see tip 36…
Lot’s of method available through the internet now a days. You can simply read the article from there. And just follow them in order to gain weight. Good luck!
I primarily do push ups and curls… because I don’t have a spotter. With push ups I do 1 set of 50, then 35, then 2 of 25 then 10 of 20 then endless of 15 until I can’t get up 7 push ups.
For curls, 40 each arm. First set 15, then do 5 reps of 10. Then 5 reps of 8 and then endless of 7 until I can’t get up 3.
My nutrienton diet mostly consist of Apples, (Blue/Black/Rasp) berries, and mostly pomegranates, with a lot of chicken intake possible 1 lb to 1/2 per day.
Download MyFitnessPal to track your calories and macros.
Start at 15cals x Bodyweight in lbs. Adjust higher if the weight gain isn’t fast enough.
Eat 1g/lb of body weight of protein. The rest of calories come from carbs and fat.
Sleep 8 hours every day.
Start a barbell lifting program. Google “starting strength” and stay on that for a year minimum. Squats, deadlifts, bench, row, OHP, pullups etc… many people work without a spotter. Here’s a secret, if you can’t handle the weight in a controlled manner than you don’t lift that weight. If 225 x5 is unsafe then do 215x5 until you graduate to 225.
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^^^
This. It’s pretty simple. Self preservation will help guide you. I’ve lifted alone for pretty much all of my training life with the exception of about 6 months where I had a training partner (can’t find any friends dedicated like me).
“My nutrienton diet mostly consist of Apples, (Blue/Black/Rasp) berries, and mostly pomegranates, with a lot of chicken intake possible 1 lb to 1/2 per day.”
Some people don’t even count carbs from fruits & veggies. As I mentioned before, eat rice and other starchy carbs before and after training. Plenty of info on this site about nutrition including when to eat certain foods.
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This is really confusing. Is your first post meant to say that you are bench-pressing 220 pounds and curling 70 pounds in each arm? Or was this supposed to mean that you are curling 70 reps with each arm using a 40 pound weight (kind of like what your second post suggests)? And for bench press, same question…did you mean that you do 220 push-ups?
Your diet is essentially berries and chicken, and you can’t figure out why you’re not gaining weight? I tend to go easy on beginners because you’re just learning, but come on man… nobody in their right mind would think this is the way to add body weight. I’m doubling down on the ‘eat more’ advice. There’s no way you’re eating enough to grow if this is what your diet looks like.
And I left the curl thing alone initially because it’s utterly absurd, but you’re using WAY too much weight if you’re actually using 50-70 lbs per hand. That’s simply not effective. For reference, I can’t remember the last time I curled more than 30 lbs per hand. I usually stick with 25. At your size, I’d say you should be working with 15’s or 20’s. This is NOT a knock on you. What I’m saying is that lighter weights are more effective.
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If all I ate were berries and fruit I could get in a three point stance and shit over a dump truck! Jokes aside, simply eat more. Have a big ass glass (actual measurement) of whole milk with every meal. My son is also trying to bulk and he has to eat a lot to keep up with his busy lifestyle, being a multi sport athlete. We have just started getting up 30 minutes earlier than we used to so he could get another meal in: 3 egg omelette, 1/2 cup of oatmeal w whatever he puts on it, and a big ass glass of milk. School meals with milk. When he comes in from school or practice he’ll get a heaping spoon of peanut butter and another big ass glass of milk.
I track daily and never document fruits and veggies. I have before but they don’t usually add that many calories so it’s not worth the hassle of plugging them in to MyFitnessPal.