Diet/Food/supplements to go with training to help bulk up?

otispunkmeyer

Well-Known Member
Joined
May 15, 2006
Messages
4,829
Location
Loughborough UK
Car(s)
'03 Skoda Superb (farewell :(), '06 Honda Civic ES
ill try this in here first then if it doesnt get much attention i may put it in the normal OT forum

im 6ft 3 and around 77kg.... according to charts thats a fine n dandy weight for my height but i still look a little gangly.

im a swimmer so im supposed to be quite lean, but i figure i could do with some more muscle for more sprint power. i dont need to get absolutely massive because then i wont be able to swim properly, but i wouldnt mind moving up to around 85kg or so.

so i have the gym work out ready... weight exercises specifically for swimming + additional ones also suggested to help swimmers (http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/jasonlezak1.htm). i have a core workout routine for swimmers ready (thanks to the australian institute of sport people) and also plenty of actual swimming!

i just need help with gaining the weight....which is where food/supplements comes in.

im pretty clueless here.... i know ill need carbs for the energy and proteins to help build muscle, but how much? what type? when to eat them?

i was thinking of trying supplements like creatine or whey protein...but again which ones best? when do i take them? should i take them or stick to natural stuff from food?

my goal for the coming months really is to get a bit bigger...., increase the size of my legs and chest in particular,.... and have more energy to do things

getting bigger might sound easy to alot of people.... but my body is strange, i find putting weight on difficult and i find keeping it on even more difficult...i got up to 77kg a few weeks ago, and thankfully its stayed.... usually when i stop gymming or exercising my weight drops a couple of kilos regardless of what i eat. its annoying. very annoying
 
Slightly OT, but while this can apply to an Olympic athlete that wants to remove even the slightest possibility of injury, it may not necessarily apply to you.

Getting the most out of the gym means being smart and not doing exercises that put a lot of stress on the knees and back such as power lifting exercises. That is why I do not do any squats, cleans, or dead lifts.
I have seen way too many people get injured doing these exercises, and the benefit you will get in the pool does not outweigh the chance of injury. I would suggest lifting 3 times per week doing exercises of every muscle group each time.

Squats/deads/cleans are perfectly safe as long as you pay attention to your form. I know that certain sprinters do weight training that involve these lifts.

As for gaining mass, lift heavy weights and drink a metric fuckton of milk every day. If you can eat proper meals with good balance of nutrients that you need, you probably don't need supplements. If you want to take supplements, a mixture of whey and casein is ideal. Creatine will give you a small, but probably noticeable, gain in energy, but you probably won't benefit too much from it. The reason creatine is popular among the upside down pyramid guys you see at the gym is because it causes water retention in muscles which makes them physically look bigger. However, once you stop taking creatine, you go back to what you looked like before.
 
@ bartboy9891

Totally agree, squats, deadlifts and other compound exercises should be done.. with a experienced person overlooking the trainee.

Proper nutrition with a little help from the supplements (whey/caseine) and hard work in the gym does miracles...

Try to focus your nutrition mainly on carbs and proteins whilst keeping fats on a lover %... you can find out more on the sites i put up in the previous post...
 
plenty of the creatine crowd where i go.... they look big but theyre not really all that strong in the grand scheme of things...

i have aquired a big list of foods and snacks for swimmers so i can look at that for ideas on what to eat. ill see how it goes with just the food first, then see what the results are before buying into supplements
 
plenty of the creatine crowd where i go.... they look big but theyre not really all that strong in the grand scheme of things...

i have aquired a big list of foods and snacks for swimmers so i can look at that for ideas on what to eat. ill see how it goes with just the food first, then see what the results are before buying into supplements

If you want to get big, the key is force yourself to eat more than you usually do. I recommended milk because it's pretty calorie dense and you can just use it to replace other things (except water) that you would normally drink. Plus it's generally good for you and tastes good in my opinion.

For a more detailed look at the consumption of milk:
http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/re...ew-sports-drink-a-review-research-review.html
 
2ptazph.jpg


Not really, but the phrase has always made me laugh.
 
Slightly OT, but while this can apply to an Olympic athlete that wants to remove even the slightest possibility of injury, it may not necessarily apply to you.



Squats/deads/cleans are perfectly safe as long as you pay attention to your form. I know that certain sprinters do weight training that involve these lifts.

As for gaining mass, lift heavy weights and drink a metric fuckton of milk every day. If you can eat proper meals with good balance of nutrients that you need, you probably don't need supplements. If you want to take supplements, a mixture of whey and casein is ideal. Creatine will give you a small, but probably noticeable, gain in energy, but you probably won't benefit too much from it. The reason creatine is popular among the upside down pyramid guys you see at the gym is because it causes water retention in muscles which makes them physically look bigger. However, once you stop taking creatine, you go back to what you looked like before.

yeah i do squats and dead lifts... i sometimes swap squats with seated leg press because i find squats (and lunges) a lot more difficult to do.

this is what i currently do http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/jasonlezak1.htm with a few more exercises thrown in, an i have a core session that i do on alternate days.. but im thinking about chopping it up so i concentrate of different body parts on different days rather than going in and doing a whole body work out. i mean that program there can take anything up to 90 minutes to get through depending on rest and avaliability of equipment.

i thought about seperating off the leg stuff and chopping it in with some of the core routine

the hardest part is going to be eating enough food. and not just that....eating enough good food..... switching from white breads will be my start, and no more chips or crisps!!! hopefully when i sign up for LA fitness gym in loughborough ill be able to get help from the trainers there.
 
Last edited:
My brother used 4l of low fat milk per day preparing for the America's Cup, worked quite well - and didn't violate the team's ban of protein supplements.
Depending on your competition environment some people may look down on any unnatural helpers.
 
yeah i do squats and dead lifts... i sometimes swap squats with seated leg press because i find squats (and lunges) a lot more difficult to do.

this is what i currently do http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/jasonlezak1.htm with a few more exercises thrown in, an i have a core session that i do on alternate days.. but im thinking about chopping it up so i concentrate of different body parts on different days rather than going in and doing a whole body work out. i mean that program there can take anything up to 90 minutes to get through depending on rest and avaliability of equipment.

i thought about seperating off the leg stuff and chopping it in with some of the core routine

the hardest part is going to be eating enough food. and not just that....eating enough good food..... switching from white breads will be my start, and no more chips or crisps!!! hopefully when i sign up for LA fitness gym in loughborough ill be able to get help from the trainers there.

Ah that's cool, you could try a push/pull routine if you want something different. Example: bench and squat the same day and then do barbell rows and deadlifts the next workout day etc. It's hard to go wrong with squats/deadlifts + upper body stuff. But if you get bored you can do variations of those or even check out the Olympic lifts. I recently started doing elevated (by standing on some plates) snatch-grip deadlifts and it's my new favorite lift.

As for eating, as long as you are getting your nutrients in (vegetables and fruits are an easy source) you can eat pretty much whatever you want if you need to gain mass. Don't stress out about eating ultra healthy when bulking. Just get the calories and nutrients in and you'll be good to. But getting in protein is important, so you can pig out but instead of chips get burgers!

As for trainers, no offense to them, but most are just big guys that don't know a deadlift from a dumbbell curl. The problem with the big name gyms' trainers is that even if they are very knowledgeable, and some definitely are, they tend to get paid per client. And to hold onto clients, they tend to just recommend easy lifts that they couldn't possibly hurt themselves on. An example would be at the gym I went to for a few weeks. A trainer saw that I was doing deadlifts/squats and came over to give me some useful pointers. He then talked about how difficult snatches are to master and that overhead squats were the hardest lift he used to do. Then he went over to his client and told him to do seated leg curls to get strong legs...
 
Top