Exercise and Weight Gain

Heavy Weights

To build muscle mass for weight gain, you need to train with heavy weights, more specifically, heavy free weights. A heavy weight is one that is challenging for you. This means that it could be 5 lbs if you have never lifted a weight in your life.

You don't want to injure yourself, so challenge your muscles, but don't push yourself into injury! To ascertain if a weigh is challenging, try the following: complete 8-12 reps and if you muscles temporarily fail, you are using the right weight. Heavy weights will stimulate more muscle fibers, and therefore more growth, than lighter weights, therefore, additional muscle stimulation means additional muscle growth.

Muscle Weight Gain

To gain muscle weight, your muscles need to grow and get larger. Muscles need high calorie fuel and exercise to grow. With a combination of proper diet and exercise for weight gain, your muscles will grow and you will therefore achieve your weight gain goals. Without the exercise, the muscles can not grow. Without fuel, the exercise will burn calories, not build muscle.

Overtraining

When you are weight training heavily to gain weight, the exercise puts a strain on your body, so make sure that you get adequate rest and recuperation after each of your workouts. If you over train you are not giving your muscles enough time to repair which will impede the effectiveness of you next workout. If you are not at maximum strength you won't reach your muscular potential. You could also injure yourself. Make sure that you approach your weight gain and your muscle gain in a paced and balanced approach.

Aerobic Exercise to Avoid

There are some exercises that are better at helping you lose weight than gain weight. If you are trying to gain weight by building muscle, you will want to stick to weight training, the best anaerobic exercise. Examples of aerobic exercise that you may want to avoid include biking, jogging, swimming, running, basketball, cross-country skiing, jumping rope, roller blading and walking for fitness.

Weight Gain Exercises

Gaining weight with exercise works best when you target the larger muscles for growth and work to add muscle mass. Push-ups are excellent for adding weight to the upper body. Lunges and squats work best for the thighs while standing heel raises are highly effective for building the calves (works best on a step). Try crunches for the abs, and pull ups (if a bar is available) work well for the arms and back. All these exercises can add weight with muscle mass when combined with an appropriate weight gain diet.

Anaerobic Exercise vs. Aerobic Exercise

The reason that weight training is so effective for muscle weight gain is that it is anaerobic exercise as opposed to aerobic exercise, which is often recommended for weight loss regimens. Aerobic exercise includes running, walking, biking, aerobics programs and other exercises that burn calories without specifically building muscle mass. The term "anaerobic" is defined as "without oxygen." Anaerobic exercise uses muscles at high intensity in short bursts. When you are weight training and trying to maximize the benefits of anaerobic exercise, focus on all of your movements being short and fast.

Multi Joint Exercise

When using exercise to gain weight, you want to focus on working the large muscle groups that are commonly called multi-joint (compound) movements that simultaneously stimulate many groups of muscle. Compound exercises should be the basis of any weight training weight gain program because they offer the best results for the least amount of work (not that you won't be working hard!). These compound exercises include Bench Presses, Overhead Presses, Pull-ups/Barbell Rows, Squats, Dead lifts and Bar Dips.

Gaining Weight with Exercise

Some exercise will help to gain weight such as weight training where extra muscle mass adds to the body weight. Other exercise like running and cycling will burn calories and without extra calories you will lose weight, not gain weight. Remember though, that weight training raises your metabolic rate, so you will require more calories to maintain any weight gained through added muscle. A combination of proper diet, weight gain shakes and exercise for weight gain will maximize healthy weight gain with added pounds of muscle.

Weight Lifting Techniques

To maximize your weight lifting workout and build muscle mass for weight gain, lift hard for a short, intense period of time and then take time to recover until the next workout. You should focus on what are considered "big exercises" such as squats, dead lifts, bent-over rows, chin-ups and bench press. These exercises focus on many muscle groups but they are also focusing on the muscles that are easiest to build up. You should also increase your strength by adding a small amount of weight each workout. If you focus on building strength steadily, size will follow. If you are uncertain what to do and how to do these exercises or employ this technique, you could get help from a professional trainer or someone at the gym with experience. Don't be afraid to ask for help!

Is Exercise Necessary for Weight Gain

You don't have to work out to gain weight. Gaining weight takes eating more calories and nutrients each day than you use, whether through exercise or your normal daily routine. Working out can help with weight gain by increasing muscle mass because muscle is heavier than body fat. So, if you are maintaining a weight that is not optimal, you need to increase calories. If you are working out, you will need to increase your caloric intake exponentially to make up for the calories you are burning with exercise.

Gym Memberships and Weight Gain

A membership at a gym can help you exercise to gain weight, but home equipment works just well. Without equipment, regular strength exercises like push ups, pull ups, crunches and leg lunges can build muscle mass and gain weight. Be sure to add the high calorie weight gain shake when you workout to replace any calories you burn during your exercise routine.

Tummy Exercise Myths

Our bodies are genetically conditioned on how we lose or gain weight. Interestingly enough, the first place where we gain weight is the last place where we lose it. We cannot reduce only the part we do not like. Once we lose fat from our body, we lose inches everywhere even where we do not want to lose.


The problem with tummy muscles is that we do not generally exercise this muscle in daily life. It is not greatly challenged from climbing stairs, bending, stretching or walking. We, therefore, have to make a special effort to encourage it to come back into line. The movements have to be small and controlled and depend on the effort put in by the exerciser to get really good results. Secondly during pregnancy, as the baby grows inside the muscle (transverse) is pushed forward. A huge amount of stretching is going on and tends to leave the muscle loose and hanging forward after the birth. It is essentially the lack of strength left in this muscle which allows the tummy to sit in that rather round forward position Mothers would recognise from after birth.
In all cases it is the lack of exercise for this muscle which causes it to become loose and give the 'pot bellied' appearance. 


Myth No. 1: By doing some midsection exercises one can reduce 'love handles'. Fact: You cannot reduce fat from a certain targeted area of your body just by using exercise alone. And the abdominal area is no exception. So if you want to get a flat stomach and to reveal your abs, losing the fat covering them is the way to go. And the only way to do this is to lose fat proportionately from your entire body by burning more calories than you consume.


Myth No. 2: You have to do tons of crunches

Fact: Overuse of crunches will only shorten your abs, pull your head forward and gives you a bad posture. To reduce fat in your bodies, you need to do cardio exercise and eat nutritious foods in reasonable amounts. In simple language 'burn more calories than you consume.' The cardio helps to burn that stored fat and the lower calorie diet forces the body to use the accumulated fat for energy.

In addition, the crunches and a total body workout (with weight training) helps the body to increase muscle mass. Muscles burn fat; fat does not burn itself so, the more muscle we have, the more fat our body uses for energy, so we lose weigh faster. If you only do crunches, you will develop your abdominal muscles and strengthen them. This will reflect in better posture and less back problems, but you will not be able to see your abdominal muscles because they will be covered with fat.


Myth No. 3: Exercise is more important that nutrition.
Fact: Diet is one of the key factor when trying to get a flat tummy. Plan your nutrition in advance, to avoid dietary downfalls. Focus on protein, green vegetables, fiber-rich fruits, and zero calorie drinks such as Green Tea and water. Avoid all sugar.

Myth No. 4: You must do train your tummy every day
Fact:You don't need to do direct tummy training every day. Instead, train them twice per week and use non-conventional exercises such as Mountain Climbers and Stability Ball Jackknives to reduce the stress on your low back. Avoid the overuse of crunches and sit-ups in your training program. Instead, beginners, should focus on abdominal endurance with planks and side planks, and work up to more advanced exercises, but still avoid doing hundreds of crunches lying on your back.


Concentrate on increasing daily incidental activity. Reduce the use of labour saving devices like remote controls etc. Rearrange the house or office environment so that it is physically inefficient making movement mandatory. Try standing or, even better, pacing when chatting on the phone. Park further away from the entrance of a shop, and use the stairs instead of the elevator.