Hey guys. Welcome to this quick coaching video where I’m to go over weight lifting strategies that will help you gain a pound of lean muscle a week until you reach your ultimate goal.
Now, the information in this video is specific to skinny guys who find it hard to gain muscle.
It’s for your eyes only. And if you could be so kind as to not share this with anyone, that’d be greatly appreciated.
So let’s get started.
First, what’s stopping skinny guys from building lean muscle mass?
Well, there’s nothing that actually stops us from building muscle, other than the fact that the majority of the muscle building programs are designed for mesomorphs to build muscle.
Weird huh?
So when you’re working your butt off in the gym, week after week, but seeing no results, it’s not because there’s something wrong with YOU. It’s because there’s something wrong with the program you’re following.
How can we tell the right muscle building program for skinny guys, from the bad one?
First, let me say that while there’s no ONE WAY to train, there are methods that are tailored to certain body-types. That better fit these body types. And other methods that fit very different body types.
First, you need to know what body-type (or somanotype) you are.
You, my friend, are what is called an ectomorph. It’s what I am as well.
We are naturally skinny, wiry guys. We have 6 packs when we’re younger, not because we have muscle, but because we have no fat.
We can seem to eat endless amounts of food, but still gain no muscle mass. We can train harder than all of our friends combined, but again, build no muscle mass.
So If i’m an ectomorph, how did I gain 32 pounds in 32 weeks?
I’ve already told you a few of the things I did…
1. I lifted lighter weights, for slower eccentric cadences.
2. I shortened my workouts, but upped my intensity.
My mentor, the guy I keep giving all of that credit to (and deservedly so), showed me a couple tricks that allowed me to shorten my workouts.
First, do you remember WHY you and I need to shorten our workouts, right?
To limit the release of cortisol, so we BUILD muscle without burning it?
Well, there’s another reason for it. Yes, we want to stop the release of cortisol (that’s HUGE), but we also want to completely deplete our muscle in as little time as possible. We want to walk out of the gym still having our blood pumping through our muscles. Then we can FEED our muscles and make them grow with proper nutrition (something we’ll cover in a video I have for you tomorrow).
We can’t completely deplete a muscle simply by doing a conventional 3 sets of 10 reps split. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great split, but we need more variation in our training, and more tension on our muscles than a simple set like this provides.
Part of this is cured with the cadence I mentioned to you the other day. Another part of it is cured with cadences I’ll tell you about tomorrow. The third aspect of the equation is the actual make-up of the set.
Instead of doing just one exercise at a time, then moving on to the next (which can make a workout as long as 2 or 3 hours), we need to double, triple, and quadruple our sets.
These sets are called supersets, giant sets, and quad sets. They can be done by focusing completely on one muscle group. Or they can be done by focusing on multiple muscle groups that reside in a similar area. We want to keep our blood pooled relatively close – as in our upper body, or our lower body. We don’t want it to cross over. Great for fat loss. Not for muscle building for shinny guys.
There’s a fourth set that my mentor taught me that I had never heard before. It’s not even technically a set because there are no scheduled rest periods. It’s called the “challenge workout” or “muscle list”.
It sounds simpler than it is because of the strategic way in which you have to lay out a workout. Without getting into too much detail (I’ll do that tomorrow), you have a list of say, 8 exercises. Each is done in back-to-back fashion. And each has a high rep count.
Now, where his list differs from any other method, is that you’re not trying to finish each exercise in one shot. No. You’re forcing yourself to fail. Each list has a failure count or goal. You choose your weight based on the reps you are to complete, and the amount of times you are to fail.
The result is a 30-minute workout to complete exhaustion.
You completely break down the muscle, raise levels of testosterone and HGH, while inhibiting cortisol levels. You also then repair this muscle tissue with proper nutrition (the second half of the method that we’ll talk about tomorrow).
So, in answering the original question:
How did a skinny ectomorph like me gain a pound of lean muscle a week for 32 weeks?
I know this is a lot of information that might not make sense. But it will.
The “method” that I’ve explained to you in part today, is made up of 4 unique sets that help us break down the muscle, without releasing cortisol.
These sets each have unique cadences that help you keep constant tension, and achieve the optimal time under tension for your muscles (something we’ll talk about tomorrow).
These sets also use strange rep counts that help us build our tip a, type b, and type IIB muscle fibers. Helping us build a full, dense, and lean muscle.
They ALSO boost our metabolic rate, helping us burn fat while we’re building muscle.
The sets my mentor taught me were eventually put into a complete solution to ectomorphism.
The strategic method that helped cure my lack of success in the gym. But the training is only one half of the equation.
Tomorrow I’ll tell you more about the training. And we’ll talk about the recovery aspect, as well as nutrition.
If you have any questions. Leave them in the comments section below.
Be Legendary,
Chad Howse.