For many athletes, gaining weight can provide competitive advantage in sports in which speed, power, leverage, and mass are necessary attributes. Most athletes prefer to gain weight in form of lean body tissue rather than as fat, which does little to promote the enhancement of power and strength.

A variety of factors promote lean body mass gain and these include (but not limited to) prior heavy-resistance- training experience, genetic, predisposition, body mass, gender, diet, training program used, motivation and the use of anabolic agents. Body mass increase of approximately 20% during the first year of regular heavy resistance training can possibly be observed in 18 to 25 year old male body builder or soccer players.

Unless energy intake greatly exceeds expenditure, the majority of this gain will be lean mass. Its important to re-emphasis that individual response are quite variable and that initial gains greatly exceed subsequent gains, probably because one tends to approach his/her potential genetic early in the training program. After a few years of systematic training, gains may be only 1-3 % per year.

In untrained young men, initiation of a weight training program can produce initial increases in lean body mass of approximately three pounds per month, and this figure reduces considerably after three months unless energy intake is substantially increased. High intensity training including weight training coupled with increased energy and protein intake can produce gain of greater than 20 pounds of body mass per year with as much as 18 pounds being lean body mass.
In women, smaller gains occur due, in part, to a smaller initial body mass and lean body mass.

Total dietary energy is the most important nutritional factor affecting muscle gain. Building muscle requires a rigorous strength training program which tasks tremendous energy to fuel this type of exercise. A high carbohydrate diet allows for the greatest recovery of muscle glycogen stores on a daily basis, enabling the muscle to work equally hard on successive days.

How can I gain weight?
As surprising as it may seem, there are many individuals who are constantly trying to gain weight! As bothersome weight loss diets may be, gaining weight diets are just as inconvenient to the individual.

It may be difficult to believe that skinny ones have just as much of a hard time gaining weight as the over weight ones have of losing weight. The very skinny never seem to gain weight, even when they “pig-out!” First of all, you need to know if you are truly clinical underweight. This means look at the height and weight chart to identify if you are skinny. Sometimes, a small structure, a lean face may lead an individual to think they are skinny, but weight wise, you may fall into the normal weight category.

If there are no other medical reasons for you to be skinny, then it may be due to the lack of calories in your diet. Calories can be obtained from various foods:

• Fried/fatty foods: will make you gain weight, but it will be fat weight rather than lean body mass i.e. muscle weight.

• High protein diet: will also make you gain weight , but excess proteins are stored in the form of body fat not muscle mass.

• Carbohydrates: simple carbohydrates are the foods that contain sugar, these provide empty calories without the vitamins and minerals. Complex carbohydrates e.g. fruits, vegetables, dried beans, pulses, lentils whose grains and cereals, are preferred food choices in aiding weight gain.

As in weight loss program, the idea is to eat more carbohydrates and less fat in your daily diet.

The amount of food will vary from individual to individual based on your current intake, your height, weight, physical activity and percentage underweight.
In order to lose one pound of weight, one needs to be in a deficit of 3,500 kcals
(kilocalories), that is 500 calories less per day. The same applies for weight gain, one needs to consume an excess of 500 kcals daily in order to gain one pound of weight per week. Exercising is important in order to help build muscle mass rather than fat. For weight gain, a weight training routine is more appropriate then aerobic type of exercise program.

Weight training helps build muscle mass which results in weight gain. Some aerobic
workout e.g. walking, swimming, using the exercise bike for 20 minutes per person is beneficial to help in the overall health of the individual.
When trying to increase your daily intake, it may help if you include snacks during the day, try including 1-2 snacks along with your standard three meals per day.
Snacks foods should include bananas, nuts, fruit juice, sandwich, popcorn, bowl of cereal, banana milkshake etc.

Then we have the body builders who are constantly trying to gain muscle mass and get larger. Their way of doing it is by consuming large amount s of protein drinks. These proteins supplements are a multi-million dollar industry and have received a lot of hype in the past six years.

For those body builders taking supplements, they may realize that the excess protein is not healthy for the body, complications such as kidney diseases are common later on in life. One can achieve the same results i.e. building more muscle weight, if as part of the training program enough kcals from the carbohydrates were consumed!
Yes, this basically translates as eat more in order to develop more muscles. Eating more does not mean more protein foods, it is the carbohydrates e.g. breads, cereals,
pastas, chapatis, rice etc. that will help you gain the muscle mass.

Remember that when exercising, you need to give the body at least 1-2 days of rest during the week. Always warm-up and cool down during and after your workout routines.

Drink lots of water, at least 6-8 glasses per day. Try and not to push yourself to the point of exhaustion. Limit your weight gain to one pound per week.

BENCH DOC
Sundays12pm@yahoo.com