Gaining Weight, No BS

I will try to make this post as concise and to the point as possible. For gaining weight, you need to focus on five things; Body type, BMR, calorific surplus, compound exercises and the rep range of the exercises you perform. Volume is also an important factor but is often neglected by most people.

1. Body Type: You need to know whether you have an endomorphic, mesomorphic, ectomorphic or a hybrid body type. Endomorphs are the ones who look big, have a good tendency to put on fat and have a big waist. If you are of this category there is a 99% chance you won’t be reading this. Mesomorphs are the ones who don’t put on fat easily but gain muscle easily and look muscular without much effort in the gym. These people often take their workouts for granted. Lastly, ectomorphs are the ones we call ‘hard-gainers’ as they find it very hard to gain fat or muscle and are generally very slim and long-limbed with a really high metabolic rate.

2. BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate): It is the metabolism of your body at rest or the calories your body needs on a daily basis to function properly. The more muscle you have, the higher its value. A high BMR means that you need to eat more to gain muscle and a low BMR means you need to eat less to gain muscle. For example, if you have a BMR of 3000 kcal, you will need to eat at least 3500 kcal per day, this is a bit on the higher side. If you have a BMR of 1200 kcal, you will need to eat at least 1700 kcal. Notice that there is a surplus of only 500 kcal in both people. But the one with the higher BMR is eating 1800 kcal more i.e. 150 percent more than his own BMR.

3. Calorific Surplus: This just means eating more calories than your BMR. This should be just right, not so much more than your BMR that you start gaining fat. But also, not so less that your workout negates the effects of this diet and you gain no weight or start losing weight.

4. Compound Exercises: Needless to say, you need to do exercises that recruit a higher number of muscles, so that your hormone levels are high enough to promote a massive muscle gain post-workout. Also, you need to perform these exercises with the right technique, to ensure enough muscle wear and tear so that you gain a higher amount of muscle tissue.

5. Rep Range: This is the number of repetitions you do in each set of each exercise. A generally suggested rep range for gaining muscle is 6-12 reps, but my personal advice would be to stay in the 8-10 rep range or 10 reps in each set.

"Volume" means the number of exercises and the number of sets you perform of each exercise; here it changes according to your body type and BMR. If you are an ectomorph, you would want to go lesser on the volume i.e. fewer sets and less number of exercises. If you are an endomorph, you would want a higher volume and a mesomorph has to have just the right volume to facilitate necessary muscle gain.

A combination of all these guidelines should assimilate the maximal amount of muscle and lead to a healthy weight gain. A few tips for the added edge, endomorphs should try to be in the 300-500 kcal surplus and ectomorphs can go as high as a 1000 kcal of surplus in their diet, in a few cases even as high as 1500 kcal. The last and most important tip of all, if you want to hit the muscle properly, follow the direction its fibers follow and perform the exercise in that direction.

Kshitij Vashisth
Owner, Fitविज्ञान

For any queries, feel free to email us at fitvigyaan@consultant.com