Muscle Building Workout Plans

General Muscle Building Rules For Skinny Guys

Among the many ways to train if you are thin, you must be aware that some do work and some don’t. The reason why it might be difficult for you to gain weight is because you have a fast metabolism. That means that your body burns calories much faster than normal rate.

Here are some general and basic rules that you should follow; you should be able to easily integrate them into your current program to make it more suitable for your particular body and goals:

1. Setting a specific goal and creating a plan of attack. Instead of starting your exercises randomly, create a plan that will get you quickly and efficiently to the success you deserve.
2. Getting proper information for your specific condition. Most of the time, skinny guys take advice from people who never had weight gain problem. Then find someone who has walked your shoes. Someone who has been where you are.
3. Having a specific program to follow. This allows you to take action each and every day. There is no thinking, debating or guessing, you just have to do it. A specific plan provides necessary daily structure that not only keeps you on the road moving forward, it also helps to develop good eating and training habits that will benefit you long after you have reached your destination.
4. Having Confidence in yourself. Getting started for most people who begin a fitness program to improve themselves, will be half the battle. The other half will be staying motivated throughout the constant onslaught of negativity from others. Take care to negative words: a few of them can do serious damage, so never allow it! The most insulting things you hear may be from co-workers, acquaintances at the gym and even your own friends. That’s because people hate change. It makes them insecure, because they suddenly discover there’s more to you than they were probably willing to admit. They fear that you may actually achieve your goal. It makes them look less superior.
5. Stay focused and avoid overly critical or negative people. you must have faith and believe in what you are doing. If you have to, keep your business to yourself. One of my friends told me that when he first began his program, he stopped talking about what he was doing because he was tired of hearing stuff like "that’s impossible", "you are wasting time", "you can’t do that" and so on…, What is funny is that those people are now constantly bugging him for advice.

Don’t juge the validity of what a person says by how they look

Just because the guy is huge doesn’t mean he is spewing pertinent advice for you. Many people that have big physiques are big despite of their training, not because of it. I know some huge guys that know very little about training and dieting correctly. They can do whatever and still gain muscle; unfortunately we are not that way, so we much approach things in a more intelligent way.

Focus on using free weights

Free weights are preferred over machines for many reasons, but most importantly because they allow the stimulation of certain supporting muscle groups when training. Stimulating these stabilizer and synergistic muscles will allow you go get stronger, and ultimately build more muscle faster. Yes, some can most likely still build large amounts of muscle using machines, but why make it more difficult if you already have a difficult time gaining weight?

Focus on Multi-Jointed Lifts

Multi-jointed exercises are those that stimulate the most amounts of muscle fibers. Unlike isolation exercises which only work individual muscles, multi-jointed lifts work many different muscle groups simultaneously. Especially for skinny guys needing to gain weight, this is ideal because these lifts put your body under the most amount of stress. This is the stress that will shock your nervous system and cause the greatest release of muscle building hormones. This results in increased muscle gain all over the body.

You can still do some isolation work; however it should not be the focus of your workouts, and should only come after your multi-jointed lifting is complete.

Workout Infrequently

When we get motivated and start a new program, it’s natural to want to do something. We want to train and train and train. Thinking all along that the more you train, the more muscle you will build. Unfortunately, this could not be farther from the truth and this is the most difficult concept for many to grasp, simply because it involves less action, instead of more. 

More training does not equal more muscle growth.

Understand that the purpose of weight training is to stimulate muscle growth. That takes very little part of the process time. Once that has been done, the muscle needs to be repaired and new muscle needs to be built. That only happens when you are resting. The muscle building process doesn’t operate when at the gym but when you’re resting! If you neglect this necessary "non active" time, when will your body have a chance to build muscle?

Now, add in the fact that you have a difficult time gaining weight and the importance of rest increases. Important: Individuals who are naturally thin and have difficulty building muscle tend to require less training and more rest.

Focus more on the eccentric portion of the exercise

When lifting a weight, it can be divided into three distinct periods. The positive, the negative and midpoint. The concentric or "positive" motion usually involves the initial push or effort when you begin the rep. The midpoint is signaled by a short pause before reversing and returning to the starting position. The eccentric, or "negative" portion of each lift is characterized by your resistance against the natural pull of the weight.

For example, when doing push-ups, the positive motion is the actual pushing up motion. Once you have pushed all the way up, you hit the mid point. The negative motion begins when you start to lower yourself back down. Most would simply lower themselves as fast as they pushed up, but I recommend extending and slowing down this portion. Slowing down the eccentric part of the lift will help to stimulate more muscle growth. It actually activates more of the Type IIB fibers.

Limit aerobic activity and training

Do not do any aerobic activity when trying to gain weight. Aerobic interferes with the important "non-active" time body needs for muscle building and recovery. I do understand that people have lives and other activities that they don’t want to give up, so it must be kept to a minimum. It won’t hurt your progress as long as you don’t over do it. If you are doing more aerobic activity than  weight training, that’s overdoing it.

Don’t program hop

Suppose you’ve just read about a new muscle program or workout that is supposed to pack on the mass. Now, even though you had already started another training program a few weeks ago, you are tired of it and really want to start this routine instead because it sounds better.

These people are "program hoppers". They are very enthusiastic when starting a new program, but they never follow it long enough to actually see any results. They are easily distracted and love to drop whatever they may be doing to follow the latest "hot" workout or exercise.

Pick one that is focused on your current goal and stick with it. There will be plenty of time to try the others later, but NOT NOW.

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