Weight Gain tips

[sugarcane]

Weight gain is a real minefield. I'm on a budget and really want to try and gain weight, with limited time and finance.

Can anyone suggest any nutritional and exercise programme that requires only a small amount of time per day and doesn't cost the earth? What kind of foods and excecises should I be concentrating on?

Thanks!

[stevenp]

Personally i wouldn't go for the expensive supplements - just make sure you eat lots of good quality protein eg fish, chicken, red meat as well as beans, lentils etc...

Exercise wise - focus on the major muscle groups - do squats, lunges, bench press, pull ups /downs, deadlift, dips etc... don't be doing the fancy stuff like cable cross overs and lat raises - while these are great, you want to do exercises that focus on more than one muscle at a time...Oh, and keep the reps below ten - maybe doing 3 or 4 sets for each exercise.

Hope it helps!

[insideouthealth]

I agree with what Steven seems to be saying - focus on the major muscle groups and compound exercises that work more than one muscle at a time - if you focus and have a planned workout, you should be able to do a great muscle building workout in 45 minutes. If you go to a gym then great - but it can also be done with a set of dumbbells / barbell and a pull up bar etc... I think for about 100€ you can gt enough for a home gym (thats 2 months gym membership!!)You have to train hard - do the reps til failure - not more than ten reps for each set...

Nutrition - don't be obsessed with protein - yes you need enough, but drinking protein shakes all day does NOT build muscle!! Weight training does!! Just be sure to eat some protein with each meal - eggs, meat, fish, beans, lentils, quinoa, milk, yoghurt etc are all great sources....

If you need a few tips I'm setting up a small one-on-one personal training studio at Kudo Academies, also doing some circuit training as well!


Happy training!

[sugarcane]

Thanks for the advice everyone. I shalln't be wasting more money on supplements then!

I much prefer working out at home, never been a fan of gyms myself. I'd recently been doing a combination of chin ups, dips and incline press ups on the equipment on the beach and started seeing some gains, but now due to my timetable I'm looking to buy something to use at home.

I've never been a huge fan of weights, so I was thinking about the HotGym, mainly for it's conveniently small size. I really don't want to have to invest in a bench and too many free weights so using a piece of equipment like this, and maybe with some dumbbells, what kind of exercises and quantities should I be doing to get results and how frequently?

Thanks again!

[insideouthealth]

The HotGym looks like a great piece of equipment, especially as it's small. I think if you were to buy one of those and a small set of dumbbells then you'd have everything you need (maybe a bench as well but you could use a swiss ball instead) Decathlon do some really good dumbbell sets with individual discs.

You need to be training at leat 3 times a week but 4 would be even better. Doing three or four sets until failure and ideally with less than 10 reps per set. With the equipment above you could do;
Chest press (with dumbbells)
Pull ups
Dips
Squats (with dumbbells)
Lunges (dumbbells)

Just a few ideas!

Why don't you visit http://www.commandofitness.net/personal_trg_online.php and take advantage of Karl's offer of a free sample workout programme? He's one of the top trainers on the coast...

[sugarcane]

Perfect, that all sounds totally do-able. Four times a week wouldn't be a problem at all, seeing as I'll have the equipment at home.

Thanks for the advice, once I get going I'll let you know how I get on