Several Weight Gaining Routines - Anthony Ditillo (1976)

 

The problems of the underweight physical culture trainee are varied and many. To be sure, such problems involve the most insidious mental hangups ("I simply cannot gain a pound!"), and also, metabolic efficiency may be hampered by too quickly accelerated speed. 

Therefore it is necessary for the average underweight trainee to study his physical type and situation with the utmost scrutiny. 

Gaining muscular bodyweight should be the easiest thing in the world. If we break down the various components of such a situation (that of gaining weight), we come down to a few well known and generally accepted, although greatly misunderstood, facts. 

In order for anyone to gain muscular bodyweight, one must first supply the body with its daily caloric and dietary needs and then oversupply these needs, as it were, with additional caloric intake to leave additional supplies for the body to draw on and to grow on. 

Now, in order for one to gain muscular bodyweight and not just additional fat, we must insist that our muscular systems become accelerated into additional growth by the most severe type of exercise we know of: weight training. 

Moreover, if one really wants to develop his muscular system to the greatest degree of growth possible on his particular bone structure, metabolism, etc., we must be sure that the KIND of weight training we undergo must be suited to our special needs (increased bodyweight and increased muscle mass).

Before we go into the actual training routines which I have found most acceptable in a weight gaining training period, we shall first of all discuss the first prerequisite to gaining muscular bodyweight; the proper diet. 

By now, just about everyone who is even the least interested in physical culture training should know that the proper diet will aid anyone in gaining additional bodyweight and maintaining a healthy physical condition throughout his entire life. 

However, even though the correct diet will affect just about anyone, in a positive sense, the correct diet is tremendously important to the man who wishes to increase his muscular massiveness. Here is the man who cannot afford to take chances when dealing with the types and kinds of foods he will or will not eat. For this type of individual is actually trying to achieve a complete physical metamorphosis, by was of correct training and correct eating. 

When we speak of the correct diet of an underweight physical culture student, we are also speaking of a very specialized field in the realm of nutrition. You see the average man who may be underweight would probably be told by his doctor to include more fattening foods in his diet, so long as he kept on eating the foods which were necessary for him to sustain his health. And in this case, the doctor would be partially right, for the easiest foods to gain weight on are the foods which are most fattening. These foods have the most calories and hence they will add weight to the body most readily. 

However, such additional bodyweight may, in fact, do more harm than good. When we increase the amount of fattening foods in our diet, we also increase our chances of becoming overweight and fat, after a long period of time, of course. 

But you'll have to admit it's not healthy to be fat. For the physical culture student, such a diet of including more and more fattening foods while the nutritious foods are held down to a minimum (after all, you can only fit just so much food into your mouth each day, so something has to give) would not do the job at all. 

For one thing, such a diet would not increase his muscular measurements to any degree, and since this would be the primary aim of such an undertaking, the results would prove negative no matter how many additional pounds were added to the individual's frame. 

Second, such overloading of the stomach with fattening foods almost surely aids in the developing of many internal disorders. Have you ever wondered why so many people are taking either laxatives or suffering from constipation and stomach disorders, headaches, etc.? Well, I for one feel that the deficient dietary habits which seem to run rampant throughout this country today must be at least partly to blame.

Now, as far as the physical culture trainee is concerned, he would suffer an even greater internal and external deterioration on this kind of "sugar and spice" diet because of the additional demands which he places upon his body by training with weights. He not only needs to follow a proper diet just for health's sake, but he must follow a diet which is filled to capacity with foods to grow on, or else he will fail quite miserably. 

Protein is muscle; muscle is protein. How many times have you heard that phrase repeated throughout all the various physical culture magazines? The statement simply means that there is only one food which will build muscle tissue and that food is protein. You simply cannot grow or develop correctly, in a physical sense, without supplying yourself with protein. Carbohydrates simply will not do the job. The only thing carbohydrates will do for you, in a muscular sense, will be to make you look like some east Asian native who has been deprived of protein for a very long period of time. 

Not only is protein the most important nutrient you can eat, but the KINDS of protein you eat are also of the greatest importance. 

There are complete proteins and incomplete proteins. The complete proteins contain all the essential amino acids and they can build additional muscle tissue. 

The main sources of compete protein are meat, milk, fish and eggs. A bodybuilder who is interested in gaining muscular bodyweight should literally SATURATE himself with these four main food groups. 

He should figure on at least 200 grams of complete protein per day, depending upon his physical size and his life style (how hard he works at his job, etc.). By oversupplying himself with complete protein, the underweight bodybuilder can usually look towards the other two food groups for balance in his diet. 

Natural carbohydrates should not be left out of the bodybuilder's eating regime. The reason is that natural carbohydrates will add roughage to the diet and also be used as a quick source of training energy. 

The best sources of natural carbohydrates would be the various fresh fruits and vegetables available at the local grocery store or market. When trying to gain muscular bodyweight, I do not feel that the average underweight trainee must hold down his consumption of these foods, however, he must first of all make sure that his diet of complete protein is not lacking. 

Fats are the third and final food group on our agenda. I honestly do not know too much about them, for I have always suffered from stomach acidity when I partook of fried foods, butter, vegetable oil, whole milk, etc., so I have made it a practice to stay clear of them for the most part. However, I do feel that they will help the average underweight trainee as a source of energy and I would suggest that he use them with common sense and intelligent restraint. Anyway, if he will drink plenty of whole milk, he will get all the fats in his diet that he will probably ever need.    

Last, but not least, we come to calories. The amount of calories that are necessary before you will obtain any appreciable weight increases are determined by the way in which your body works and the way in which you live. 

Nervous, jittery persons are usually underweight. Slow moving, lethargic people can be underweight also, if the cause of their tiredness is due to lack of proper nutrition. 

Common sense tells us that the more work you do per day, the more calories you require to exist. This amount must be added to greatly if you are to gain any additional bodyweight. So you see, as far as calories are concerned, it is truly a personal matter. 

However, for the AVERAGE working underweight trainee, I would suggest that he obtain a simple calorie chart which gives the average caloric allowances for various bodyweights, pick the bodyweight that he wishes to try to reach, and merely see to it that his daily diet always approaches and even goes beyond this figure. This way he knows he is eating as much as he should. 

Note: A guy could always just add 500 calories or so to his daily eating and see what happens. It nothing happens add another 500 . . . and so on. 

We now come to the proper kind of EXERCISE SCHEDULE which is necessary for the increasing of muscular bodyweight. To be sure, the ways in which a fellow may train for such a goal are varied and many. Of course, time has proven the worth of certain training principles and it is from these principles that I shall endeavor to aid you. 

If I were to choose four movements which would work all the muscles of major importance in the body, I would choose the parallel squat, the deadlift, the medium grip bench press, and the medium grip bentover row. 

Note: You have to find out which major movements work best for you at this time in your training. As things are now, in selecting only four, I would choose the squat, SDL, chin, and dip for a weight gain layout. Dips and chins get the snub a lot lately, but once you get to challenging poundages they cover a lot of bodypart territory very efficiently. You have to find out what works best for you. And it may change over time. But do find which four work best for you, as you move forward into learning more about yourself with these toys and this hobby we love. 

These four movements will force power and muscular growth into just about all the major muscles of your body. However, you must be sure that your top set and repetition scheme will work with and not against such a choice of exercises. 

First of all, YOU MUST LEARN TO TELL WHEN YOU HAVE HAD ENOUGH. 

As the late Earle Edwin Leiderman used to say, "There's a little voice inside you which tells you when you should stop." 

This is quite true. Remember: you are trying to ADD to your physical proportions, you are NOT trying to define them. The amount of sets of each exercise performed will vary naturally with the particular schedule. However, your repetition scheme should always remain the same. 

I personally feel that in order for you to gain muscular bulk you must and should use heavy weights. 

Now, the heavier the weight gets the slower t he repetitions become in performance, and it is this slowness of movement which will work your muscles most severely. That is why I would not advise you to ever use more than 5 repetitions per set of any exercise movement which you use. This way, by constantly keeping the repetition scheme to 5 and under, you will be forced to perform each repetition and set with grit, determination and slowness and it is these factors which will enable you to gain as you should in muscular bulk.

A proper warmup and a final "pump" set can be used and these will naturally be of a higher repetition scheme. So remember: Stick to basic major muscle building movements and a high set, low repetition scheme, along with a high complete protein and high calorie diet for best results.

The following four routines are ones that I personally have used and I have also aided many an underweight trainee to gain on. They will be comprised of the aforementioned four basic exercise movements. [Note: I will sub in my favorite four in [brackets], no big change, no big thing, but they work for me]. 

The number of days per seek and the set and repetition schemes have slight differences in order for you to be able to go from one type of training schedule to another and therefore avoid suffering from mental and/or physical staleness.

At the end of each of the four routines are a few remarks concerning the proper performance of the routine for best results. 

TRAINING ROUTINE NO. 1

Monday/Thursday: 

1) Squat - one set of 10 reps as a warmup, followed by 5 x 5 reps using all the weight possible for each set. 

2) Deadlift [here I would sub SDLs]. Same as above. 

3) Bench Press [here I would use Dips]. Same as above. 

4) Bentover Row [here I would use Chins]. Same as above. 

TRAINING ROUTINE NO. 2

Monday: 

1) Squat - 1x10; 1x8; 1x6; 14; 1x2 and then 5 x 3-5 using all the weight possible.

2) Bench Press [Dips] - Same as Squat. 

Thursday: 

1) Deadlift [SDL] - same as above.

2) Bentover Row [Chins] - same as above. 

This kind of training routine is more severe and that is why you only do two movements per training day. You will be working these 2 movements quite hard and this will cause you to gain, providing you eat appropriately. 

TRAINING ROUTINE NO. 3

Monday/Wednesday/Friday: 

1) Squat - 5 x 3-5 reps using all the weight possible.

2) Bench Press [Dips] - same as above. 

3) Deadlift [SDL] - same as above.

4) Bentover Row [Chins] - same as above. 

This would be the ordinary every other day schedule for the ambitious, underweight trainee.

TRAINING ROUTINE NO. 4

Monday:

1) Squat - 1 x 10 for a warmup; then 8-10 sets of 3 reps using all the weight you can possibly handle for each set. 

2) Bench Press [Dips] - 2 sets of 10; then 3 x 5 reps using all the weight you can possibly handle for each set. 

3) Bentover Row [Chins] - Same as bench press. 

Thursday: 

1) Deadlift [SDL] - 1 x 10 for a warmup; then 8-10 sets of 3 reps using all the weight you can possibly handle for each set.

2) Bench Press [Dips] - 2 sets of 10; then 3 x 5 reps using all the weight you can possibly handle for each set. 

3) Bentover Row [Chins] - same as above. 

This type of routine would enable you to concentrate on one movement per workout for power and the other two for added muscular bulk. 

These four routines will aid anyone on good health in greatly increasing his muscular bulk. However, you will have to be sure to eat enough of the complete protein foods and get more than enough calories. It's the only way for you to grow. 

Enjoy Your Lifting!