Hey everyone,
I have been reading through all the old stuff available here and it is some great stuff. On Monday I am starting my training and new diet. I am 6’5 and 150 pounds. I calculate I need around 3800 calories just to maintain my body weight. I would like to gain around 30 pounds of muscle.
I will be drinking Mammoth 2500, 3 times a day mixing in flax oil and a product recomended by my local health food store for weight gain called Oatrim. This is in addition to 3 full meals a day and a multivitim.
As for my exercise program I plan to use the Great Guns program(found here on Tmag) for my arms, then for my pecs bench press, inclined bench, and flys. My abs I plan basiclly to do a variety of crunchs with weights. As for my legs: quad extentions and flextions, squats and calf raises are in the plan. My shoulders and back are where I am having a hard time planning for.
Any suggestions or comments would be much appreciated.
I would suggest you take a look at ian kings “12 weeks to super strength” A twelve week program that focusses on the back and chest. Also their is enough direct arm work for your arms to still stimulate growth from this program along with your shoulders. It seems like this program would fit your goals better.
Depending on your level of activity,and according to your low bodyweight your maintenance is probably much lower that than, somewhere around 2000 kCal range. I guess you are a hardgainer, so you should up the cals as much as possible while keeping protein very high, around 1.5 g/lb lbm or higher. 30 lbs of lbm? I hope you realize it could take years of dedicated work to achieve that, especially if you are a hardgainer. Ditch the isolations and stick to compound movements - I suggest Beginner’s Blastoff Program.
You’re just beginning - start with the basics. Do bench presses, squats, deadlifts, chins, rows, - all the basic stuff that will form a good base for you.
Hey JS! Just a few suggestions here… I’m not sure what Mammoth 2500 is, but if it’s anything like most weight gain powders, don’t bother. Honestly, most of them are junk. They’re mostly sugar and poor quality protein. You can get the same number of calories by using a quality protein powder (insert Biotest plug here) like GROW mixed with milk and adding some natural peanut butter and fruit to it. As for exercise selection, just keep in mind that the Great Guns program is an arm specialization program. So, if the rest of ya is looking good, jump right in. If not, I’d suggest hitting some basic compound movements. Nothing will give you more bang for your buck than squats, DL’s, chins, rows, dips, bench, overhead press, etc. Throw in some isolation work on top of that if you feel like you need to address any particular weaknesses or areas that are “lacking”. Anyway, hope these are useful suggestions. Good luck with the training and diet!
Hey big guy, First off, congrats on actually finding T-mag, that is like the best thing you could ever do. NOW, first things first, just do the Big boy lifts, you know, the lifts that probably no one in you’re gym wants to do cause they are HARD. IE - Squats (all the way down sissy boy, none of this parallel crap…), Deadlifts (my personal fav lift.), Bench Presses, Power Cleans, Bent over rows (preferably one armed to avoid imbalance, thats how i do it. but whatever is cool with you), and pullups. Oh yeah, and curls on back day. DIET - OK, this might sound crazy to you but trust me IT WORKS, drink a gallon of SKIM milk a day in addition to 5 meals. You do that, you get huge, end of story. Oh, and ditch the weight gainer, I’m serious, walk over to the garbage and throw it away, it will only hurt you’re fitness goals…or barter it off to some neanderthal you know.
Unless you run marathons or something your maintenance is no where near that high. My advice: eat like a motherfucker, do the compound movements, AND read all the issues of T-mag.