Tips for the Thin Man...

WyoHnt300

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
Feb 18, 2015
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139
Location
Wyoming
Just looking to see if there are any good tips for the thin man on here from any of you formerly trained or educated diet and exercise folks. A little backstory, 6'5" 185, have always been skinny and unable to put on weight (good or bad,) in the past strength programs have added the strength w/o the weight it has been difficult to sustain the programs from a diet standpoint as my calorie counts started hitting the 11k+ levels/day. That's hard on the pocket book. Please don't take this as a fishing attempt for a free personal trainer, just looking for some possible tweaks or suggestions to help the body catch up with the metabolism.

I'm sure there is some info that I may have left out so ask away if there are questions.
Thanks,
Adam
 
Why do you want to gain weight? I was 6' 148#s when I was in college and before I found the gym. I'm definitely a hard gainer. After years of dedicated lifting I am 176-182#s depending on my current training. For the fastest possible strength and weight increases, stick to large compound movements like squats, deadlifts, and presses. Skip all the isolation and "core" training crap. Don't worry about eating some ridiculous amount of calories. If you are hungry, eat.
 
The wiry build seems to be more advantageous in the mountains. I am 6' and fluctuate from 185-200. My wife would say I look the best at 200+, but that's 15 pounds more I have to expend energy getting up the mountain each step. My knees definitely feel better at 185. That said, I can tell you what gets me up to 200: A lot of food, a lot of beer, and moderating activity levels. Christmastime usually does the trick!
 
I know exactly how you feel. You didn't say how old you are, but Elkyinzer is right.......the long lean muscles are great for athletics and an advantage in the mountains.

I'm 51 now and 6'6" 212lbs (+ or - depending on the time of day). My weight can fluctuate 10lbs in a day. Doesn't matter what I eat or how much of it.......it stays pretty much the same. The only way I have ever been able to gain weight is lifting. I have to lift max weight and fewer reps to make any gains, and strength also comes from that as well. I gained 13lbs of muscle in a month one time from lifting. But the thing is........whether I'm 185 or 225, I look exactly the same and wear the exact same clothes. It's those LONG LEAN muscles. You can expect gains, but don't expect some miraculous change of physique.

Ya, I tried the extreme calorie intake for 6 months years ago. I didn't gain an ounce, but lost $1000's in food costs. These days I just eat when and whatever I want and I don't worry about calorie counts. I usually lose 15-20lbs during elk season, but I get it right back afterwards. Used to take me 10 months to get that back, but now it's more like 2 months if I throw in some lifting.

Good luck. Enjoy the athletics while you can.........injuries are a killer when you get older.
 
I wish I had this problem 230# and 6 foot. Im working on dropping to 210 or so. Not easy at 46 but doable. Wish I had the metabolism of my younger years.
 
The strength programs you followed added strength but not weight? Sounds perfect for mountain hunting. Your goals as a mountain athlete should differ from a football or rugby player. It's good to build strength, but you don't need to bulk up too much. Stick to a good barbell program with working sets of 5 reps or less. You will gain strength. If the mass doesn't come with it, I wouldn't worry too much about it.
 
The strength programs you followed added strength but not weight? Sounds perfect for mountain hunting. Your goals as a mountain athlete should differ from a football or rugby player. It's good to build strength, but you don't need to bulk up too much. Stick to a good barbell program with working sets of 5 reps or less. You will gain strength. If the mass doesn't come with it, I wouldn't worry too much about it.

Agreed. Compounds lifts, low reps (3-6).

Good luck.
 
If you are younger than your mid 30s and lactose tolerant, you could try adding large quantities of whole milk to your diet -up to a gallon a day. That is a very efficient way to add fat, protein and calories to your diet. Drink a large glass every couple of hours in addition to your normal full meals. That gets you about 2,500 extra calories a day for less than $5. This is something you can do for cycles of 4-6 weeks and pack on 10 lbs or so. Some people put on as many as 20 depending on age. If you're older than your mid 30s, you should probably limit that Intake to 1/2 a gallon a day or less.

The problem you run into with pure strength training while underweight is that it is very difficult to keep improving strength without surplus calories. 6'5/185# is borderline severely underweight and you'll plateau quickly on a strength program if you don't put on some pounds. None of this is to suggest that you need to get fat, but you are likely going to look and feel much better 20 to 30# or more heavier. Probably no point trying to do this during hunting season though.

While low volume, high intensity (as suggested above) training is ideal, you are still going to need a baseline of muscle mass (not in a body builder way) which you don't have at 6'5/185. The hard truth is you are going to have to eat big and gain some weight unless you want to stay at that weight. No way around it. Eat or embrace being skinny. Virtually everyone around you is likely concerned with losing weight, so you cannot judge your calorie intake based on how most of your peers eat.
 
If you are younger than your mid 30s and lactose tolerant, you could try adding large quantities of whole milk to your diet -up to a gallon a day.

In high school and college I drank over a gallon of milk a day.......straight from the dairy, and always drank it right out of the containers. Never gained an ounce without lifting. My basketball coaches bought me super protein mixes at 2k+ additional calories per day, and I lost weight over the next 6 months. This was also during that time frame where I never stopped eating. I was called the "eating machine", but never gained an ounce without lifting. The OP sounds very similar.

Even at 51 I can eat all day and still drink a lot of milk every day and I still won't gain any weight unless I lift hard.
 
In high school and college I drank over a gallon of milk a day.......straight from the dairy, and always drank it right out of the containers. Never gained an ounce without lifting. My basketball coaches bought me super protein mixes at 2k+ additional calories per day, and I lost weight over the next 6 months. This was also during that time frame where I never stopped eating. I was called the "eating machine", but never gained an ounce without lifting. The OP sounds very similar.

Even at 51 I can eat all day and still drink a lot of milk every day and I still won't gain any weight unless I lift hard.

Sorry if it wasn't clear, but my suggestion of a gallon of milk a day assumed that the OP would be lifting regularly. Also, the hormones and metabolism of an active high school age male athlete is going to be an exception to almost any type of general advice for an adult male, even if they are extremely active. At 17, your hormones and metabolism are on rocket fuel.
 
At 17, your hormones and metabolism are on rocket fuel.

Some would say mine are still on rocket fuel.;)

It's odd, but the more I eat......the more my metabolism kicks in. The less I eat, the less it kicks in. Almost like it balances for whatever I'm doing.
 
I think the only advantage to gaining weight is being able to buy used clothes from the classifieds here. Seems like from the sizes I see the vast majority of folks could stand to lose a few pounds ha! 😀 I'm right there with you being a skinny kid but I still lift more than most guys 60-70 pounds heavier. That sure makes climbing mountains easier.
 
I would ask why you want to gain weight? Aesthetic? Performance? Other athletic/physical goals?

Light weight is good for mountain hunting (if that's your goal) and strength is not a limiting factor very often.
 
I'm a small guy too, working on getting stronger. I'm pretty strong pound for pound, but at 5'10" 145, I just don't have that many pounds. I can go and go empty or with a light pack, but throw 80 pounds on me and things change in a hurry. I've been doing free squats to failures it's a 40 pound pack 3 times a week and it has helped dramatically. My reasoning behind going to failure is that I also want to keep my muscular endurance up. That may or not be right, I'm sure as hell not an athletic trainer, but I've been pretty pleased with the results so far.


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Why do you want to gain weight? I was 6' 148#s when I was in college and before I found the gym. I'm definitely a hard gainer. After years of dedicated lifting I am 176-182#s depending on my current training. For the fastest possible strength and weight increases, stick to large compound movements like squats, deadlifts, and presses. Skip all the isolation and "core" training crap. Don't worry about eating some ridiculous amount of calories. If you are hungry, eat.

Spot on!
 
Lift hard (bench, squat, deadlift, overhead press) and progressively add weight to your lifts over a period of 5-10 years. It is entirely possible to get much stronger just from neurological adaptation, i.e. getting better at the lifts and developing an efficient neurological pathway. Hypertrophy is a time investment of training and eating for years.
 
Nice link, really helps explain how things work. Or should work😁 Coming from a running and cycling background, I've really underestimated caloric intake needs to gain muscle mass (as opposed to fueling long days training). I dropped a lot of carbs from the diet to offset a lack of endurance training. 5 months of eating right (or so it seemed) and hitting the gym 4 or 5 mornings a week has resulted in pretty good strength gains but a loss of 10 or 12 pounds along the way. 5'9, down to 145#. Time to start eating again!
 
Thanks for the info folks, definitely a lot to consider and try out. We'll get through this season and see what works during the winter!
 
I'm in the tall skinny camp too at 6'3" 165... I work out to gain strength though vs weight. I just want to be stronger. I totally get how that addition 20 lbs on the back changes the game for the thin man crowd. That said at least for me my power endurance is high which at times is also a boon. There is no magical be all... That said if you are interested in gaining power and size check out the book "Starting Strength". Do big lifts and forget many of the accessories. The 5x5 program is hard when done right and also one of the best programs invented IMO. My power has increased over the past few years and my weight well it fluctuates. In off season I gain by end of season I am back down to me. But then I am also a competative canoeist so I am piling that in too. Happy lifting.
 
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