36 Pounds.com » Interviews

Interview with Strength Trainer Lee Boyce (The Guy Who Went From 185lbs to 240lbs and Helps Others Do So)

Adrian — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 18:53:28 +0000

Today I have a treat for you! ;) An interview with Lee Boyce, up-coming trainer from Toronto, Canada. I’m guessing he will become well known in the fitness industry one day so I’m lucky to catch him early for an interview :)

Here it is. Enjoy!!!

1. Who you are and what is your story with lifting weights?

I’m Lee Boyce, I work as a trainer and strength coach and primarily deal with intermediate level clients and sport specific clients around Toronto, ON. I used to be a skinny bastard myself – finishing high school at 185 at 6′3″. I started lifting weights more seriously at 18, for performance in my sport of track and field. I realized that my being a faster sprinter took more than focusing on bench press and biceps curls – the archetypal teenager’s bread-and-butter muscle groups. When I moved on from university track a couple of years ago, I decided to make training people and training myself my favorite hobby; Since I wasn’t playing a sport anymore, might as well try to get big! Currently I’m closing in on 240lbs and gaining.

2. What in your experience works best for skinny guys in terms of training?

Total Bodies. Many people use totals for a conditioning and fat loss tool, but if you put a skinny bastard through some good, heavy total body workouts that consist of mainly large, compound movements, they will grow. The key is to zero in on their levels of testosterone and growth hormone production in order to trigger muscle growth, and focusing on the big stuff will make that happen. I normally work in terms of movement paths for my skinny clients’ size programmes – a horizontal pushing and pulling day with a couple of vertical pushing and pulling days as a weekly cycle. The good thing about this kind of programme is that you can’t really “cheat” your way into a result. Getting new PR’s indicate notable strength gains in most of the lifts, and are 99% of the time accompanied by serious size gains.

A good example of a vertical pushing and pulling day would be a BB Deadlift, BB Push Press, and Bodyweight Pullups performed as a tri-set. All of which are done with a minimum of 70% intensity, for sets of 7-10 reps. The same idea could be done with a horizontal day with seated or wide grip rows, Bench press, and leg press or lunges. To get the necessary volume I’d recommend upwards of 5 sets of these rounds. There are many more examples of both vertical and horizontal pushing and pulling exercises, those are just a couple.

3. How levers (longer or shorter arms or legs, etc) change training? Any tips on this?

They make a huge difference with what kind of exercises to capitalize on. If you have long levers, like say, your arms and upper legs, you can take advantage of the ROM by choosing exercises that put those muscles through constant stress the whole time. Tall lifters with long arms can benefit from many variations of flies and lateral raises to develop the chest and shoulders, due to the force angles that are produced vs. that of a shorter lifter. Long legged lifters can have major quad development from front squats and leg extensions for the same reasons.

4. What about cardio for skinny guys? Sprints? HIIT?

Hell with cardio. You’re a skinny bastard trying to get big, remember? So what are you trying to burn calories for? If it’s because you want to keep your “6 pack” (which probably isn’t strong anyway), I wish you the best in gaining size fast.

5. How about nutrition? You are proponent of so called Clean Bulking or more traditional Bulk/Cut?

If you try to bulk as a skinny bastard with a “clean” diet, it’ll take you a year and a day to see the results you want, unless you’re eating INSANE amounts of food. Since that’s outside the realms of possibility for most people, let alone skinny bastards since they’re already not used to eating more than they normally should, going for some caloric density would be a better option. Gaining weight is mathematics – calories in must exceed calories out. Throw some good hard training in the mix and you’re going to grow. It’s as simple as that. Skinny bastards have a lot of unfair advantage over other bulk clients; They’re probably skinny because their metabolic rate is fast (duh). In foods like pizza, burgers, sugary pastries, etc, insulin transports glucose to either the muscle cells or the fat cells. Due to the “skinny bastard syndrome” you can afford to eat some crappy food and get away with not storing a bunch of body fat, since your muscle cells are more insulin-sensitive than their fat cells. And yes, focus on a bulking phase, and then just throw in conditioning workouts, a couple sprinting days per week and clean up your diet for you to lose any added body fat from the bulk.

6. What is the worst advice that could be given for skinny guys?

Lift heavy straight off the bat. A skinny guy hears or reads that you have to lift heavy to bulk. So he starts by lifting heavy. Well, it’s like telling Evil Kinevil to start by jumping the Grand Canyon. Ever heard of progression? The muscles are in no condition to be pushed to their near-limits from heavy lifting right at the start, and nothing will get accomplished. Movement patterns have to be established and embedded into the muscle memory before anything will even happen. Training for size is a combination of volume and intensity. If you have too much of one, and not enough of the other, you wont see optimal results. If you did front squats every week for a year, starting with the empty bar, and made a 5lb total increase in weight each week, by the end of the year you’d be front squatting 305. And I’d be pretty quick to bet that you wouldn’t look the way you did when you were squatting 45lbs. Progression is key.

7. Skinny-fat people. What are your philosophy of their training?

If you’re skinny fat, it means your body doesn’t have enough muscle. You need to start strength training and start NOW. Following any skinny bastard protocol, like the one I mentioned earlier, will help you do just that. Your added muscle will help increase your fat burning capacities too.

8. What are best resources in your opinion for learning about training and nutrition these days?

You can’t go wrong reading anything by Charles Poliquin. His principles of training can’t be refuted. Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe is a good guide to the major “big bang” movements that lifters need to learn. Specifically skinny bastards. I’m a writer for Testosterone Magazine www.tnation.com where you can find free articles by me and several other strength coaches about training and nutrition.

If you reside in Toronto (I know there are quite a few people visiting blog from Canada) and need a personal trainer who can help you out and who has been through the same you have been, I suggest you shoot him an email at lee@leeboycetraining.com (and I’m sure he could do online training with you if you want wherever you live) ;)

P.S. If you found this interview useful please ”Like” it on Facebook and share it with others on Stumble Upon!

Cheers,
Adrian

Success Story: Christian went from 97lbs to 138lbs

Adrian — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 21:08:09 +0000

Today I want to show you how Christian changed his life. He should be very proud of himself for this! He quit smoking and drinking (and quite possibly damaging his health real bad), started working out and gaining muscle. Now he is on path to completely change his life. I’m real glad my blog played small part in it! So please read this story ;)

Hi all, my name is Christian. Adrian asked me to tell you all a bit of my story on
how I went through with the guide I found on 36pounds.com.

Through my low to mid 20’s, I was extremely underweight and was not looking after my
health at all. I was a heavy smoker and drinker. My weight not long ago was around
44KG (97pounds). I actually got used to being underweight that I did not really
think much of it, but I could all ways tell each time I wore a pair of shorts I
would get stares just walking down the road.
As I neared my high 20’s, I was starting to get very sick easily, after going to the
Doctors to find out why I was all ways feeling sick and weak he told me it was time
to quit smoking and alcohol and do something about my weight.
I went cold turkey with the cigarettes and as a result, my eating habits increased
(which was normally 1 big meal a day to 3 meals a day). After dropping the
cigarettes and drinking my weight increased to just under 54KG (119KG).

A friend of mine told me that I should look into doing some weights to start defining the fatty
arms and stomach I was getting and he recommended taking some protein shakes and
creatine while working out. As I did not know much about weight lifting I did a search through google.com for
weight training for skinny people and it took me to this blog.

I started off doing the exercise recommended under Beginner guide for skinny people
twice a week. I would swap out what I did not have equipment (like leg work – I
would on my days of get on a bike while watching the telly) (Adrian’s comment: Bike doesn’t count!!! Do dumbbell squats instead of squats at home when having no equipment) ;)

I started this around July 2009. At first it was very hard as I had not done any
training at all that I was hardly putting any weights on the bars, but it did not
take long. What increased my motivation to keep going was as soon as summer arrived
( December ) I would start wearing t-shirts and friends and family would comment on
how my body had changed and how I looked much healthier which this made me push
harder during my training. As a result my lifestyle became more active.

1. Why did you start training? What was the motivation? (Maybe some event
Happened that made you go ?that?s it? I?m bulking up and changing my
Life!!!?)

I started training for the sole reason that I was feeling all ways weak. I was not
leading a healthy lifestyle and as a result I was most of the time sick. It was a
bit of an eye opener when I went to the doctors and he told me if I did not change
what I was doing to my body there could be a lot of problems down the road as I
age.

2. What was the hardest thing to do?

The hardest thing to do was to get into a habit of training 3 times a week. I used
to come home from work and go straight to the pub or just sit on the couch and watch
the telly. The eating was another problem. I was used to eating 1 or maybe two
large meals a day. It is still a challenge now, but slowly I?m am changing my eating
habits

3. What do you enjoy most with training?

What I enjoy after a session of training is how your body feels sore and tense. And
the satisfaction of know that the 40mins to 1 hr that you spent exercising will
benefit you in so many ways. Even the morning after when you wake up and you are
still sore it is a great sensation, knowing that you worked you butt of the night
before.

4. How do you feel with your new body?

I feel fantastic with my new body. I feel a lot more active. A lot more confident in
myself. It feels awesome when you bump into someone you have not seen in a while and
they tell you have great you look.

5. What could you advice to fellow skinny brothers who want to repeat your success?

I would just say put your mind to it. Even if you start once a week, you will slowly
see the results which will motivate you to keep going! Try not to focus a lot of
huge gains at the start. Get the routine going, the rest will come on its own.

6. What are your future goals with training?

After following the beginner guide for just over 6 months I will look into
following the 5×5 guide posted on this blog and try and push myself into eating
properly

Thanks!

Christian

Tola Went From 130lbs to 170lbs: How and Why

Adrian — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 23:04:59 +0000

This is a guy who in this life has gained 40lbs of muscle and has trained for long time, gained weight, then lost some fat and now has a great physique. Here is the interview with him:

1. Why did you start training? What was the motivation? (Maybe some event happened that made you go “that’s it… I’m bulking up and changing my life!!!”)

At first, my motivation for training was for my own personal benefits. As things progressed, my motivation has become more about inspiring and helping others to achieve the body of their dreams.

I got into weight training as a scrawny teenager. Growing up, I always looked up to my older brothers and wanted to be just like them. I practically participated in everything they did and so when they got into weight training, I did as well. I played sports in high school and did weight training casually to help me with my strength. However, with my high metabolism and all the sports I played, I never really gained any size. I entered college as a scrawny 5′10″ 130 lb freshman. That’s when I began to take weight training more seriously. I was at the school’s gym nearly every day and since I lived on campus, had access to three square meals a day at the mess hall. By the end of my freshman year, I had gained a solid 20 lbs.

I remember during my sophomore year in college, I entered Bill Phillip’s Body For Life challenge. Participating in that contest helped me to add about another 10 lbs to my frame. Once I was out of college however, my weight training went on cruise control mode. It often took the back seat to work and me trying to keep up with my mortgage, car payments and countless other bills that consumed my life.

It wasn’t until a little over a year ago, when I started a Body Transformation Challenge with my brother and friend, that I started to take my training seriously again. It was a 90 day challenge to see who could make the most dramatic change to their physique. We invited everyone we knew to join us in achieving the body of their dreams. We wanted the challenge to be accessible to all people; it didn’t matter whether you were trying to lose weight or gain muscle. Our goal was to show people that it was possible to make a positive improvement with your body in a relatively short period of time. We developed an online forum where contestants could keep a daily journal to track their progress and motivate, educate, and assist each other in achieving their goals. With the success of that first challenge, we repeated it a second time and we are now currently getting ready to start the third challenge.

I invite all your readers to take the challenge.

2. What was the hardest thing to do?

The hardest thing for me to do is to diet correctly. I enjoy working out and lifting weights – I don’t enjoy dieting. I’ve always realized the importance of a good diet, but never successfully implemented one in my life. For me, dieting has always been about what food was available at the time I was hungry. What was convenient and what I craved was usually what I ate. I also ate more for enjoyment and quite simply, to satiate my hunger.

It was only until I made a specific goal of lowering my body fat percentage, that I finally took dieting seriously. In a little over a year, I’ve been able to drop from 170 lbs at 20% body fat to 158 at 10% body fat.

It’s taken a while, but I’ve changed my mindset about food and nutrition. I now look at it as a way to complement and enhance my training goals and also to support my lifestyle choice of healthy living.

3. What do you enjoy most with training?

There are many things I enjoy about training. For one thing, I appreciate the aesthetics of having a lean, symmetrical and muscular body. If you look at art throughout history, you will see that the heroic male archetype has always been portrayed this way. From the “Riace Warriors” of ancient Greece to Michaelangelo’s “David,” the embodiments of male power, strength and courage are best depicted through a ripped, “chiseled” body.

I look at the body as a piece of art, much like a sculptor looks at a piece of marble. We create the masterpiece of our body, by chipping away at the unessentials, like body fat and unhealthy foods. We mold and shape it by building muscles. In this light, I view my body as an on-going project. It is something that will never be completed but I will continual to work on.

Secondly, I love the feeling I get after a good, intense workout. It is a mixture of seemingly contradictory feelings. On the one hand, you feel strong and powerful as your muscles are pumped full of blood. On the other hand, you feel exhausted and depleted as you’ve used up all your energy. It is a reminder for me actually, about the paradoxical nature of life itself.
Our muscles grow when we break them down. In the same way, we can only grow in life by breaking down our barriers.

Thirdly, I enjoy the positive benefits I get from being in shape. In addition to weight training, I also participate in activities such as basketball, rock climbing and jiu-jitsu. So being in shape, gives me more energy – both physically and mentally. Not only am I able to get more done, but I am also able to focus more clearly. These benefits are highlighted whenever I go for periods of time where I don’t work out. I can sense the change in my physical and mental well-being.

One interesting, yet welcome side effect I’ve noticed is that my posture has improved. By being more aware of my form while I do exercises, I am able to transfer that awareness to my posture. I find myself walking taller and straighter.

4. How do you feel with your new body?

I feel wonderful with my current body. It gives me confidence to know that I have achieved my goals. That sense of accomplishment is great. I am now transferring the principles I learned over to other areas of my life, such as my relationships and career.

Not only is the personal satisfaction worthwhile, but the external responses have been tremendous as well. I’ve received many compliments about my body. It feels good to know that other people appreciate and admire the fruits of your hard work. Guys, no matter what they say, women do prefer a guy who has a nice body.

While the compliments are definitely an ego-boost, they pale in comparison to actually inspiring someone to make a positive change with their own bodies. That is the best feeling I get about working out – the sense of fulfillment that it provides.

5. What could you advice to fellow skinny brothers who want to repeat your success?

My main suggestion for guys who are looking to gain muscle is to cultivate a lifestyle of healthy living. Instead of just thinking of short term gains, envision how having a muscular physique will enhance your overall goal in life. In this way, weight training will become a life-long habit, instead of a short-term fix. It will be something we enjoy doing, rather than something we dread. There’s no sense in doing something that we despise. If we look at weight-training as something we MUST do, then we are FORCING ourselves to work out. Where’s the fun in that?

In order to make healthy living a long-term habit, you must have your own reasons for working out. Don’t do something just because somebody else tells you. All too often, I see people start a weight training program, only to give up after a few days or weeks. They have countless excuses for quitting, yet not one good reason for doing it. That’s because they haven’t made their OWN reasons – they use other people’s reasons. Therefore, they don’t really believe in what they’re doing and once they hit an obstacle, it is easy for them to give up.

Realize that having a muscular body is just one component in the grander picture of living a healthy life. Continual gains, require continual advancements. You shouldn’t stop training once you’ve reached your goals. Aim for constant improvement. If your mindset is one of continual advancement, then you can never fail at achieving your goals, for any seeming failures are actually teaching you how to improve.

6. What are your future goals with training?

I have a few goals on the table at the moment. My first immediate goal is to add 10 lbs of muscle. I just came through a period where my goal was to lose body fat and lean up. Now, that I’ve accomplished this, I would like to go through a phase of clean bulking. I am looking to add 10 lbs of lean muscle. This will be my goal for the next Body Transformation Challenge. Ultimately, I envision my body to be 180 lbs and to maintain that weight at under 10% body fat.

Another goal I have is concerning my diet. I appreciate the benefits of a raw diet. I would like to eliminate animal meats/products from my diet and transition more towards a vegan/raw diet. One of my interests is seeing how this type of diet can support/benefit those of us who enjoy weight training and maintaining a muscular physique. This will be a new adventure for me, but one that I feel will be a great learning and growth experience.

Lastly, I want to be able to share what I learn about weight training, dieting and living a healthy lifestyle with as many people as possible. I feel that life itself is an awesome experience to enjoy and that by living a healthy life, we are best able to gain the most out of it.

—————-

Tola Seng is a pharmacist with a passion for creative growth and helping others succeed. A self-proclaimed “jack of all trades;master of life,” his interests include personal development, health, fitness, web design, film-making and photography. He maintains www.advancingman.com so he can share his passions with other “renaissance souls” and help them create the lives of their dreams

Success Story: Jair (gained 15lbs in 1,5 months!)

Adrian — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 11:35:59 +0000

Today, I want to post a Success story of one of the blog visitors – Jair’s story. They guy gained 15lbs in 1,5 months using advice of this blog. Most importantly though, he had enough guts and determination to eat enough and actually follow the advice and stick with it. Some people just read stuff, but don’t apply it as advised.

But Jair succeeded and agreed to share his story with us. He is inspirational for me and I hope for you too ;) Give this a read! ;)

Hello everyone, my name is Jair and I’m here to tell you about my success in weight/muscle gain. Throughout my teenage years I was always your average fun, outgoing, athletic guy. You would think I was happy with how my life was
going, seeing how I was captain of the varsity soccer team and had a lot of friends but what everyone did not know about me was that I wasn’t happy about my body and was very self conscious about how I looked. Finally I got fed up with being the skinny kid being picked on and signed up for a gym. I would work out three times a week for a few months but never really saw any gains, don’t get me wrong I got some what ripped but not exactly what I wanted. My whole issue was that I thought just going to the gym alone would help me gain the weight I wanted. So I quit the gym and just tried to cope with the idea that there was nothing I could do to get where I want to be. A few years passed before I actually started to do some real research on how to gain weight the right way. Searching on my computer I came across this website, “36pounds.com” Once I read through most of the blogs on the site, I understood what I was doing wrong all along. The blog that caught my attention first was the one on creatine monohydrate and I was definitely intrigued by what I read on it so with my workout plans I added taking creatine. As long as you take it and eat the right way, you should get some major results.
This site gave me the foundation to start off fresh and on the right path to success. Thanks to all the help I got from this site I’ve gone from weighing 129lbs to 144lbs. It wasn’t easy getting to 144lbs but having the determination will get you to your goal. I highly recommend anyone with my issue of being skinny and having trouble gaining weight to follow these guidelines. Here below are a few questions Adrian sent me to answer for you guys. If you have any further questions you would like for me to answer just give them to Adrian and he can send them to me so I could answer.

Thanks,
Jair

Questions:

1. Why did you start training? What was the motivation? (Maybe some event happened that made you go “that’s it… I’m bulking up and changing my life!!!”)

- I began training because I was tired of being skinny. I wanted to be like the guys in a movie called “Never Back Down.” My motivation was knowing that my younger cousins were bigger and stronger than me. Instead of being someone they looked up to, they had someone to pick on. That’s just not how things are supposed to be and I got fed up with being bullied by my own family so I began training hard and eating right.

2. What was the hardest thing to do?

- To me the hardest part was the eating. Most of the time I would only eat about two meals a day with some snacks every now and then. Going from eating two meals to six was super difficult but my motivation and determination helped me get it done!

3. What do you enjoy most with training?
- Getting that good feeling after having an intense workout. You feel stronger, muscular, appealing! Knowing that working out will help me out with my self-esteem issues sure makes it more enjoyable to do.

4. How do you feel with your new body?

- I feel great!!! My confidence and self-esteem is through the roof. Never in a million years did I think I would ever feel this way about my body but I’m still not close to being done and knowing that my body still has a lot more transformation to go through makes me keep fighting to reach my goal!!!

5. What could you advice to fellow skinny brothers who want to repeat your success?

- Never give up!!! Even when it seems like you’ll never get to where you want to be. Nothing is impossible! Just get your mind set on your goal and don’t let anything or anyone get in your way to achieve it! Make sure to eat, eat, eat! Healthy foods that is J This website is probably the best thing that could have ever happened to us skinny guys. Take advantage of the information given to us and use it! Believe me, it really does work if you follow a good diet and have a good workout plan. I would go with the 5×5 workout plan, to me it’s the best you could go with.

6. What are your future goals with training?

- First of all to gain a few more pounds and get ripped like the guys from “Never Back Down” and after I’m fully content with how my body looks, I would like to try and help out anyone that is going through the same problems I went through.

Thanx a million Jair!!!

If anyone wants to ask Jair something, leave a comment below with a question or email me at adrian@36pounds.com and I will definitely forward them to him ;)

If you liked this story, please share it with your friends: StumbleUpon it, Digg it or share it on Facebook etc. I want this story to be seen by as many skinny guys as possible ;)

Cheers,
Adrian

Lyle McDonald’s Advice for Skinny Guys Who Want To Gain Muscle

Adrian — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 11:25:24 +0000

Here it is guys! The interview I promised! ;) A well known figure in industry of building muscle/losing fat, Lyle McDonald from www.bodyrecomposition.com, agreed to answer questions about training and nutrition for skinny guys. The guy doesn’t tolerate BS, is straight-forward and knows tons of stuff. He has written some great books (like The Ultimate Diet 2.0 or The Protein Book) about nutrition. Guy has helped thousands of people with his advice already and now is sharing his knowledge with you!

Here are 10 questions I gave him. Some are a bit blasphemous (which makes the interview more interesting and useful!). Enjoy the interview!

1. Tell a little about yourself for those who don’t know you. If you have it, tell your message or vision that drives you!

Answer: There’s an old aphorism that mediocre athletes make the best coaches and this tends to be true. Guys who aren’t naturally gifted are usually the ones who go looking for better ways to do things. Naturally gifted athletes never have to examine what they are or aren’t doing right, and tend to make poor coaches. It’s the guys who aren’t great but with the drive that end up finding better ways of doing things.

And I was always a fairly mediocre athlete who wanted to be better. Couple that with obsessive tendencies and you get a guy who has spent 20 years studying every aspect of training, nutrition, supplements, recovery, mainly in an attempt to be a better athlete than he was. That I turned it into a career and was able to help other people is just a happy accident.

2. What are most common problems skinny guys have with training or nutrition when you get to work with them (or if they ask you about something, what is the most common question).

They don’t eat enough and they train in a stupid fashion. Ok, that’s two things and not necessarily uncommon to all trainees but the perpetually skinny have it even worse. But, in general, a hardgainer is a guy who doesn’t eat nearly enough to support growth and trains in a really dumb fashion. Usually they try to copy the training of pro bodybuilders who not only have good genetics but are on every drug known to god and man. Their information doesn’t apply to anyone not on drugs but certainly not the perpetually skinny guy.

But there are also a lot of poor ideas regarding hardgainer training out there that don’t really work either; if anything it’s the opposite of what they should be doing. Low volume, high intensity, low frequency training is generally a poor choice and they usually need more moderate intensities and higher volumes and frequencies to get anything approximating optimal growth. That’s in addition to getting them eating enough.

3. You are a nutrition specialist so you are one of the best guys to ask about it. How should the skinny guy eat? Is it Bulking or Clean Bulking? Is counting calories really necessary?

The perpetually skinny usually don’t have to worry about putting on much body fat, they invariably have physiological systems that prevent it. Not only do these folks tend to burn off excess calories through fidgeting and such, they tend to have hunger systems that shut down when they try to eat. That’s why they have such trouble putting on weight. They are protected from all weight gain, muscle and fat.

So the idea of clean bulking is simply idiotic for this population. So if you start feeding them rice, veggies and lean chicken, they can’t eat enough. They won’t be able to get enough food down the food hole eating that way. They need calories and lots of them and that means high calorie, energy dense foods. And you don’t get that from lean meats, veggies and rice.

4. What foods are best for skinny guys? Maybe they are very calorie dense or have a lot of healthy fats? I always recommend nuts, what else would you recommend, that might not be usually used daily in peoples diets today?

Despite what you read in the magazines, there are no best foods, although there are essential nutrients. Skinny guys need lots of protein, sufficient healthy fats and lots of calories. As noted above, trying to ‘eat clean’ or whatever crap tends to make it impossible for them to eat enough. They have to find whatever they can get down and this often means eating ‘junk food’ to get sufficient calories.

Now, I’m not saying to live on jelly beans and soda but things like peanut butter, ice cream, stuff with a lot of calories and some nutrition is the way to go. Basically, just finding a way to get the protein and calories in is the key.

5. Do you think supplements are necessary for skinny guys? Or do you think guys tend to rely on them too much?

Depends on what you’re talking about. The bodybuilding industry is based around selling lots of overpriced supplements and I see altogether too many people looking for magic bullets when their training is moronic and their diet isn’t correct. And until you get those two right, no supplements will help. And once you get those two right, you find that supplements don’t really add that much.

That said, various high calorie supplements, carbo powders, protein powders, etc. can be useful to help the perpetually skinny get in sufficient calories. Of course, even those aren’t necessary and mixing blender bombs (high calorie liquid drinks) from food works fine too.

Try this: 2 cups milk a scoop of protein powder, two tbsp peanut butter, a banana or two, some ice cream and whatever else you want to throw in makes a high calorie, nutrient dense, high-protein drink that will taste better than any mega-calorie mass gainer. Cheaper too. Mix one every day and drink it in addition to normal meals and you’ve added a lot of high-nutrient calories to the diet.

6. Your training philosophy for skinny guys. What would that be? Splits or Total body training 3 times a week?

Depends. For beginners, three time per week full body works best.

In the intermediate stage, an upper/lower split with each bodypart being hit twice per week or at least every 5th day usually works best although there are always exceptions.

Volume should be moderate (about 5-8 sets per bodypart with very few taken to failure) and weight should be added to the bar when possible to maintain a progressive tension overload. A combination of compound and isolation movements tends to work better in my experience than either extreme.

7. What is the place of compound exercises in training? Do you think they are best for skinny guys?

It depends. While there are certainly advantages to the big compounds a lot of skinny guys aren’t built well for them. Either they have mechanics (e.g. long arms which make benching problematic or dangerous) that make the movements difficult or their joints are too small that they get beat up by them.

Put differently, guys who are built to squat heavy tend to be built a certain way: good levers (usually shorter relatively speaking) and robust joints. They can pound away at low rep heavy squats and get away with it. A tall skinny guy may just get wrecked by that kind of training.

Here’s a case in point: tall skinny guys often have very long arms. If you have them bench to the chest, their elbows end up being so far below their torso that their shoulders take enormous stress. They also won’t ever move any decent amount of weight because triceps will always be so severely limiting due to the poor lever arm. In that case, a properly done flye or crossover might actually be the better movement for training the pecs. Yes, blasphemy I know.

The same goes for squatting. Tall skinny guys either have long torsos (making low back stabilization difficult) or long femurs (giving them a massive weak poin in the middle) that can make squatting of any sort difficult. Their low backs may give out long before their legs get trained or they may simply never move much weight due to the long lever arm of the leg. In that case, a good leg press may be a better choice. Yes, again, I know, blasphemy. But it’s reality.

But there are no generalities I can give here. So far as growth is concerned, the best exercises are the ones that let you train safely, work the target muscle, and apply progressive overload. Sometimes that is the heavy compounds but as often as not a properly selected isolation movement, or something kind of in-between, may be better.

But what ends up happening is that people who are built to weight train and grow well on low rep heavy compounds think that what works for them should or can work for everyone. And it’s simply not true.

8. What is the worst advice for skinny guys you have ever heard?

That they should train less frequently, with less volume and more intensity.

There is this idea that hardgainers need to do nothing but 2 short low
volume workouts per week or they overtrain. And that’s simply crap.
They don’t grow at all on that. 3-4 workouts per week is sufficient.

9. How would you recommend guys who are Skinny-fat to train and eat? First gain muscle and then get rid of fat? Or other way around?

You can’t cut bone. You need to have some muscle to define before you can define it. Unfortunately, a lot of skinny guys are neurotic as hell and always want to be dieting. But if they do that, they’re never going to gain an ounce of muscle. For these folks, taking the fat off is usually much easier than putting on the muscle. So put the energy where it belongs: get some muscle first so that when you diet down you don’t look like a concentration camp victim.

10. What guys do you think are best at providing training and nutrition information today? There is so much crappy information around, which guys do you trust and would recommend to learn from?

There are about 3 other people in this field that I will actually pay attention to, except for them all I read is research and textbooks. Those guys are Alan Aragon, Martin Berkhan and Borge Fagerli (aka Blade). These are guys with endless real world experience who read the research and know what they are talking about. Most everybody else is full of shit and I only read the nonsense they are writing about when I want to get my blood pressure up.

Now, what I take away from this interview is that I will have to give leg press a try instead of squats (or combine them) and I will go on a bulk instead clean bulk. I will give this 2 months and report the results you guys. This should be good experiment.

I want to thank Lyle McDonald again for taking his time and helping out skinny guys!

If you liked the interview, I really suggest you visit www.bodyrecomposition.com and read his stuff (while it’s not the easiest reading sometimes because of some technical stuff, it’s a must read still). I will also try my best to get other trusted people to do an interview like this too. It would be awesome to get a guy like Mark Rippetoes to give advice for skinny guys.

Best of luck with your gains,
Adrian