The author and his wife, Lin-Li.
Photo taken from Mr. Steiner's book
"Below the Belt: Unarmed Combat for Women"
GAINING WEIGHT
Here's a straightforward approach to putting on some weight when you want it. Six to 12 weeks of this plan should do the trick quite nicely. Yes, of course some will be fat. It's a drug-free way to gain overall bodyweight quickly, one that worked in the past, will work in the present and, you guessed it . . . will work in the future.
Don't let its simplicity frighten you.
It seems that, aside from building ARMS, gaining weight is a major problem among weight-trainees, especially younger ones. And that's too bad, because putting on good, solid bodyweight is, even for a hard gainer, not too difficult . . . if he is prepared to expend some real effort in the right training and in seeing to it that he eats correctly.
To gain weight there are certain absolute rules that are required for success.
If you follow them, you WILL gain weight.
Here they are:
1) Work out only three times a week for only 45 minutes per workout. The amount of time you spend training is a critical factor, and you should see to it that no exercise period exceeds three-quarters of an hour. It may, however, consume less time, if you wish.
2) Get plenty of sleep and rest adequately. If you are between the ages of 15 and 22 you should get about nine or 10 hours of sleep every night. A bare minimum of eight hours is mandatory - regardless of age - who need to put on more bodyweight.
3) Avoid participation in any other sports, games or strenuous activities
until you have put on the desired amount of bodyweight.
4) Make a concerted effort to be calm and to avoid nervous emotional states or upset. Tension and anxiety can burn up calories like a day spent shoveling snow! 5) Train ONLY on the program given you and don't give in to the impulse to do ANYTHING ELSE!
6) Drink two to three quarts of whole milk every day. This is as important as your training for putting on weight. Some persons have used up to a gallon of milk per day to put on extra bodyweight.
7) Eliminate junk food entirely from your system Don't cut down on them - eliminate them!
Follow a wholesome diet, only. Use the sample menu plan given as a guide to making up your own weight-gain meals.
In a gain-training program you must become a sort of "specialist" as it were, on one exercise: the Breathing Squat.
Squats will transform you body. Even if you are a veritable wreck now (or a healthy guy looking to push his weight up by 10 or 20 pounds quickly) you can so significantly build up on squats alone that I am sure you will come to love this one exercise! Love/Hate?
"Love" is quite a tough one to define,
easy to limit with words, yet
hard to experience in
all its disguises.
Squats are hard work. But believe me, you will never be so well rewarded and paid back for effort expended as you will be from hard work spent on squats. Your gaining program will include exercises besides the squat - but the squat is NUMBER ONE here. Nothing even approaches the squat in results it can give or in the value it has.
Because of the crucial role that the Breathing Squat plays in your gaining program, I want to go over - step by step - everything involved in doing GOOD squats. Memorize the description that follows, first in your mind then over time in your body, and work at using it when you train.
1) Fold a thick towel and wrap it around the center of the bar. The goal here is not to find out how much you can suffer, or to train yourself to feel pleasure in pain. That's why sex was invented. Now, if the time of my writing was 2026, something like this would come in very handy . . .
. . . but since it's '76 still, something along these lines will have to do . . .
2) Get under the squat bar, which has been placed on racks and loaded (this method is more efficient than loading the bar after you have it on your back). Take firm hold of the bar in both hands.
3) Step back, away from the rack. Don't wander about aimlessly, take only the minimum amount of steps to get set, and don't piss around endlessly diddling about with your feet. Place feet about 12-14 inches apart and point toes slightly outward. Learn to get set up to squat with as little movement as possible; this is not a weighted walk, not cardio, not any of those things. Get a mirror and see how hilarious all that walking, twitching and endlessly switching foot position looks. Teach yourself how to walk out, how to get set up and the lot of it. You'll be glad you did and so will that damnable laughing mirror.
4) Lift your head up and take five HUGE, deep, gasping breaths through your MOUTH (make David Carradine proud) . . . fill your lungs and blow it out HARD! Take a sixth breath - HOLD IT . . . NOW . . .
5) Squat to slightly below parallel position with as flat a back as you can maintain. It is helpful to keep your eyes looking slightly up and ahead at an imaginary spot on the wall in front of you. This helps to keep good form and balance throughout the exercise that around 15 reps never seems to bloody-well end. "Fer fucksake, that's only 13? Ah hell, I feel great at this weight and the price of food ain't gettin' any cheaper . . . "
Stay focused, Soldier.
Sailors, ignore that siren song.
Piss off bitches, we're tryin' to squat over here.
Can the eerie music and meet us later in Scylla, Sisters.
6) Come up on a (muscle) rebound and forcefully blow out all the air you've been holding in. REPEAT until at least 20 (preferably 25) squats have been done. You should, on occasion, do THIRTY squats in this style.
When you've finished your squats you should be completely wiped out. If you're not, and if you can walk easily to your flat bench to do your pullovers, then you've been relaxing and not working hard enough.
Don't be a bozo and wind up crippling yourself.
The walkout's a lot easier this way though, I gotta admit.
Don't do that!
After the squats do 20-25 deep-breathing and stretching pullovers or Rader chest pulls or light weight stretchy-breathing flyes. Use a very light weight here, an empty bar or 10, 15 lb. dumbbells.
The method of doing squats just outlined is so effective that no amount of praise from me can fully make you appreciate it's worth, to say nothing of the stimulation to the entire organism it brings. Don't believe me, just ask the Sireens, buddy.
If you will DO THE SQUATS, you'll know what I mean, and you'll see noticeable gains within a month, providing your follow ALL the rules, regs and recommendations given.
If your willpower does not give up (and who's in charge of that if not you), then a two to three month period of gain-training will make you look like a new person about to have a baby, he jested. Keep an eye on your weight gain if you're not a thin near-newb; things can get out of hand in those two or three months if you're already at a fair-to-middling bodyweight.
Handling heavy weights in this breathing squat style is desirable, but not 100% necessary . . . depending. You do not have to exceed bodyweight on the bar, but as your bodyweight rises, so must the squat poundage.
After one month of gain-training with bodyweight and getting this deal down and solid, it's a good plan to begin striving to go above this poundage.
Here is your complete gaining schedule:
1) Warm up with dumbbell swings. I set of 10-12 reps.
2) Bench press. 3 x 5, very heavy.
3) Bentover barbell row. 3 x 6 or 7 reps, as much weight as possible.
4) Squat. 1 x 20-30 reps.
5) Pullovers, or Rader pulls, or breathing flyes.
The program above, coupled with the following menu framework will cause you to put on weight like a baby dinosaur. A suckling hippo. An emotionally distraught rhino with an eating disorder. Two Ton Tony Galento on a takeout binge trying to match George Foreman bite for bite. When Arnold went on this program his appetite was high level, reaching a point where he uncontrollably ate a chunk of Franco's left quad which would explain that Mr. Olympia mess. While in prison and operating on such a motherfucking high level with this program Wes Watson the San Diego Dego ate two bulls in one sitting and washed them down with three dozen hooped-in hardboiled eggs pickled in his own urine and now it's time for an intermission . . .
Read 'em and eat:
Breakfast -
2 large glasses of milk (or three medium)
6-8 eggs, any style
Ground beef patty or small steak (pork is not your enemy)
3 slices of whole wheat toast and butter
Fresh fruit
Mid-morning -
2 or 3 big sandwiches (hamburgers, tuna, chicken, beef, pork is your friend)
Dinner -
2 large helpings of steak, chops, etc.
A large tossed fresh vegetable salad
Pasghetti dish or baked potato
2 large glasses of milk fortified with add-ins
Evening snack -
One large glass of milk fortified with add-ins
A thick peanut butter sandwich or one-and-one-half of medium thickness.
Add-ins are infinite in number when making blender drinks.
But then, my counting skills ain't all that great.
But then, my counting skills ain't all that great.
Such a diet is intended, I must warn you, ONLY for the very skinny, underweight and frail person (who will never be able to come even close to holding down all that food much less assimilate half of it before it hits the shitter. Work up gradually; eat what you can and add a little more each day. Doug Hepburn says, er, said, I mean really, time is a joke . . . said the Rep is King and over time moved up his poundages to an incredible level, near Wes Watson levels actually . . . in this case, my friend, the Mouthful is Queen so put on that crown and grab a sammich.
By following similar squat programs and diets, some trainees have gained up to 100 pounds of bodyweight. But then, why bother with what someone else did or does? You be You and find out what that individual can do. It is hard work to be sure, but when the results begin to show you will know that it well worth the effort.
As you can see, this method of gaining weight is not at all complex.
Don't let its simplicity frighten you.
Enjoy Your Lifting!
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