I am a somewhat frequent "best answerer" on Yahoo Answers in the health- and fitness-related categories. This one comes from a newbie trainer who wanted to know how to build his body and what were the best foods to eat in order to do so.

Muscle-Building Foods and Exercise Program

The best and cheapest foods are REAL food like milk, eggs, beef, chicken, fish, and pork. Stick to high protein, calorie-dense foods if you're having trouble putting on weight. Don't worry about getting fat at this stage of the game – build up your muscle size and then cut down when you've built the size you want.

Stick to compound exercises like squats, deadlifts, overhead presses, bench presses, and chinups. Forget about doing curls, calf work, and ab exercises.

Start with one set of 10 reps for each exercise, done every other day. Graduate to 2 sets after a week or so; then 3 sets after 4 weeks, and finally 4 sets of each after 8 weeks.

Work out for 3 weeks, then rest a week. When I say "rest," I mean "do next to nothing." Let your body recover. Your metabolism will also slow down and be ready to hoard all the food you eat the following week.

Eat 6 times a day, minimum. Concentrate on the protein foods mentioned above and add in raw, leafy green vegetables, nuts, oats, and other whole grains. Potatoes and pasta are good, too.

Supplement each meal with a glass (8 ounces) of whole milk and one scoop of a high-quality whey-based protein powder.

Get at least 8 hours of sound, restful sleep each night, preferably during the same hours (i.e., 10 to 6 or 11 to 7). Consistency is key when it comes to all 3 facets here (training, eating, and resting).

Source(s):

"Everybody who's ever picked up a weight thinks he's a hardgainer."

There is a nasty little term that a lot of weight trainers use – "hardgainer." What is a hardgainer and how should a hardgainer train to promote maximum muscle mass?

I say "nasty" because every kid who lifts and doesn't gain 50 pounds right away thinks he's a hardgainer.

A hardgainer is someone who truly cannot gain weight. I know, I 've "been there, done that." A hardgainer is typically of the somatotype (body type) ectomorph, a lean body type that has little body fat and is very scrawny (not much in the way of muscle). Usually on the tall side. Long limbs. Angular facial features.

But you can be an endomorph and still be a hardgainer. I'd characterize a hardgainer not by how he looks but by how he responds to a "typical" bodybuilding training system.

Here's what I mean by typical:

• 4-day split routine, either push/pull or upper/lower body
• 5 or 6 meals a day, supplemented by protein powder or weight gainer
• Relatively active lifestyle (plays sports and/or supplements weight workouts with cardio like running or cycling)

The above is a typical bodybuilding training system (generically described, of course) that many beginning bodybuilders and weight trainers advance to after several months of steady progress in a basic program (note that I don't even consider calling somebody a hardgainer if they're just starting out – it's too soon to tell).

A hardgainer will have very little to no response from the above training system. In fact, he might even lose weight. This is highly discouraging, of course. Typically, a trainer afflicted with such a response will respond with a "more is better, right?" approach: He'll move to 6 days a week of training and double up on the weight gainer.

The Right Approach to Hardgainer Bodybuilding

In fact, working out more frequently and adding in more weight gainer couldn't be a worse approach to jumpstarting muscle mass gains for the hardgainer. Hardgainer bodybuilding requires a different approach. In fact, you could consider it an entirely different mindset.

Hardgainers should:

• Train less frequently
• Use fewer sets
• Eat quality food
• Rest more often
• Cut out all extraneous activity
• Curtail all ab training and cardio until sufficient muscle mass gains have been made
• Relax at all times (except when training when you really want to push yourself)

A while back, I wrote a series called Building Muscle in 30 Minutes a Day. In it, I described a simple way of building quality lean muscle mass in only 30 minutes a day. The aim of the series was to show anybody how to build a quality physique on limited time.

What I really wrote in that series was a hardgainer bodybuilding routine!

It was an adaptation of a book I wrote a few years ago called Hardgainer Manifesto, which was the system I used to gain over 60 pounds in less than a year after spending over 20 years training with little success. It was something I "stumbled" across after studying weight training, bodybuilding, nutrition, and "hardgainer systems" for decades.

I was the typical "scrawny (but scrappy) kid" – the kid who got sand kicked in his face like the old Charles Atlas comic strip ads. I tried everything under the sun and found nothing worked. So I made my own system. That's the short story.

The long story is that it took a lot of time to figure out. Suffice it to say that you could save yourself a lot of time and frustration by picking up a copy. Or read the series Building Muscle in 30 Minutes a Day. Either way, you'll come to a "hardgainer bodybuilding" solution that works better than anything else out there for a fraction of the time and price.

In my last post, I reminded you that it's Gold Card Week at GNC and I briefly mentioned that you would really want to read my next post (this one) because I was going to reveal to you the 5 supplements you need for building muscle. I've been in this game a long time and I'm here to tell you that most of the stuff you can buy in GNC or at Bodybuilding.com is ineffective at best and some of it is downright dangerous.

I'll talk about the dangerous stuff in a future post. Just note that it has to do with the so-called "fat burners" for the most part.

I will also share with you the ineffective ones right now. In short, they're the ones that I don't mention in this post!

In summary, I'm going to not only tell you the 5 supplements you need for building muscle, but I'm going to share with you my "layered" supplementation plan. At least I'll give you a glimpse of it.

My email subscribers will get the full lowdown on how I "layer" my supplement use to get maximum effectiveness for my chosen goal at the time. In short, there's a different program for maximum mass building, fat burning, maintenance, and power & strength. You can figure this out on your own, or you can subscribe to get the details "done for you."

Now, the reason you're here

5 Supplements You Need for Building Muscle

These are the 5 supplements you need to be taking when you are trying to build maximum lean muscle mass:

1. Creatine Monohydrate
   
2. Whey protein powder
3. Desiccated liver tablets
4. Branch-chain amino acids or BCAA
5. Other "aminos" – ornithine, arginine, glutamine

I won't go through the "whys" or "how much" in this post. I'll be dedicating future emails to subscribers on these topics. For now, suffice it to say that these are your "top 5 muscle-building supplements."

If you want to save a LOT of cash, pick up a copy of Homemade Supplements, where you'll be shown how and where to source those supplements above as well as a whole host of others.

Building muscle in 30 minutes a day

Today's a day to relax. Or at least learn about it.

A critical component of any exercise program is recovery. It's just as important as exercise and nutrition. In fact, if you don't give your body enough time to rest and recover from the strenuous workouts you do, no matter what you do otherwise, your muscle gains will be minimal, if even positive.

Yeah, you could lose size even if you train right and eat right.

It's a sad fact. But it's true. I've seen super athletes fall from grace by partying too hard into the early morning. I've also been plagued myself by a significant lack of sleep for extended periods of time (years, decades even). I always rationalized my poor sleeping habits with a mucho macho phrase:

I can sleep all I want when I die.

Of course, this thinking is all crap. There's nothing good to be said about sleep deprivation. So let's lay it on the line right now: Get at least 8 hours of sound, restful sleep every single night. Here are a few other "Rules of Recovery" -

• Go to sleep at the same time each night.
• Avoid shift work if at all possible.
• If you must consume caffeine, do so only prior to 3PM.
• Rise at the same time each morning.

Try to abstain from these activities -

• Going to sleep full.
• Exercising immediately before going to bed.
• Consuming any caffeine after about 3PM.
• Taking any kind of weight-loss aids, like diet pills, as they contain caffeine and other stimulants.

Read more about sleep here.

Sleep isn't the only component of Recovery.

You also need to calm down and relax. If you want to build maximum muscle, you need to put your mind at ease and stop worrying about stuff. I used to be a worrier; it's a trait I got from my mom, who constantly worries about this, that, and the other thing. Fortunately, I have overcome this unfortunate mental characteristic. It's a long road, but it's certainly worth it.

Sit if you can stand, walk if you can run. That sort of thing. Conserve as much energy as possible throughout the day. You will find that you won't have to eat as much to get results, either.

It's really win-win.

There's more on Rest here.

If you follow the advice given in this series, you will most definitely be training and eating right. If you find that you still aren't gaining the muscle you think you ought to be gaining, look first at your recovery practices.

• Are you getting enough sleep?
• Do you fidget while working or watching TV?
• Do your ears ring (classic sign of overtraining)?
• Is something bugging you and making you sleep less soundly, for less time, or both?

That's it for this series. I hope you liked it – let me know in the Comments! Thanks for visiting.

To recap, this is the entire series, How to Build Muscle in 30 Minutes a Day:

• Monday – Basic Training
  
• Tuesday – Advanced Training
• Wednesday – Basic Nutrition
• Thursday – Advanced Nutrition & Supplementation
• Friday – Importance of Recovery

Building muscle in 30 minutes a day

Yesterday, we talked about basic nutrition. Today, we're going to "kick it up a notch," and talk about a specific eating program that will have you building muscle faster than Lou Ferrigno on anabolic steroids, bull semen, and gorilla growth hormone!

I've alluded to elements of this program before, not only in this series, but in quite a few posts over the years. Here are a few, just for background:

• Gallon of Milk a Day
• How to Consume More Protein Without Supplements
• Creatine Cycling
  

…and, as they say, much, much more!!!

I'll try to lay it all out in a schedule-format. This assumes you train mid-afternoon, say around 3pm. Adjust accordingly.

• Upon Rising – 2 Arginine tablets with a glass of water
• Breakfast – Eggs, toast, whole milk, vita-pak, 6 desiccated liver tabs, 5 grams Creatine
• Snack – Protein shake, liver tabs, creatine (same doses)
• Lunch – "Flesh" food like beef, chicken, fish, or eggs, whole milk, rice, liver tabs and creatine (same doses)
• Snack – Protein shake, liver tabs
• Pre-workout meal – Protein shake, liver tabs, branch chain amino acids, creatine, 30 minutes prior to workout
• WORK OUT, feel free to consume some protein shake during your workout too
• Post-workout meal – Protein shake, liver tabs, creatine, branch chain aminos, immediately after workout
• Dinner – Another round of flesh – beef, chicken, fish, or fowl. Rice, oats, other starchy foods. This is to be your biggest meal of the day. Vita-pak. Add milk as you grow.
• Snack – Protein shake, aminos, creatine, liver tabs
• Right before sleep – arginine, tryptophan, and glutamine

10 bullets (plus one for working out). Think you can consume all that? Build to it

Granted, two of those bullets aren't meals or working out – the first and last ones are there to a) break your all night "fast" (hence, why it's called "breakfast") and b) to set you up for sound sleep along with some growth hormone-inducing aminos.

On non-workout days, simply cut out the pre- and post-workout shakes. On Thursday (assuming you're training M-W-F), cut the supplements entirely. Give your gut a rest.

After 7 days, cut the creatine down to 2-3 grams where creatine is called for. The first 7 days' worth of creatine will build up a huge store of in-muscle creatine but then it maxes out and giving that high a dose is just wasteful.

Note that your muscles use creatine phosphate to produce energy when working out anaerobically. The creatine you ingest is converted into CP by the body and is stored in your muscles for quick energy.

That's it for today. Tomorrow: Recover tips and tricks.

Here's the rundown again on what we're covering this week:

• Monday – Basic Training
  
• Tuesday – Advanced Training
• Wednesday – Basic Nutrition
• Thursday – Advanced Nutrition & Supplementation
• Friday – Importance of Recovery