For many thin guys around the world, gaining weight without using illegal steroids has been a challenge. For thousands of lean young men, the dream is to gain weight, but no matter how much they eat they remain thin. Some people are naturally thin; that means their genetic makeup is in such a way that the body burns more calories than others. The very basic method of weight gain is to eat more calories than your body burns off. By providing the body with more calories, this balance can be altered and body mass can be increased. BMI Calculator is of great importance in this context, which enables the body to absorb more nutrients from the food by increasing the level of certain hormones and increasing the muscle mass.

There are many incorrect beliefs and theories bout building muscle. The type of food to be eaten is an important factor which decides the type of weight gained, whether it is muscle mass or mere accumulation of fat. Some types of calories are not equal to others for gaining muscle; because most processed junk food contains empty, totally nutritionless calories. These foods promote accelerated fat storage, and do not provide the body with the correct nutrients essential for gaining muscle. High quality protein, which the body breaks down into amino acids, should be the centerpiece of all your meals. Intense exercise increases demand for amino acids, which support muscle repair and growth.

Another factor is the selection of the right type of weight training. Resistance exercises will help with muscle growth. Whereas aerobic exercises can result in the reduction of weight. For maximum muscle gain, the focus of your workouts should consist of free weight exercises, rather than machines or bodyweight exercises. To get a very effective workout, you must stimulate as many muscle fibers as possible, and machines do not do this. The main reason for this is a lack of stabilizer and synergist muscle development. Stabilizer and synergist muscles are supporting muscles that assist the main muscle in performing a complex lift.

The results of weight training can vary from person to person, and will usually depend on your consistency and commitment to your program. You should have the patience and motivation for building a powerful body with a consistent diet and exercise schedule.

Exercise Guidelines for building muscle:

Weight training involves the use of equipment that enables variable resistance. This resistance can come in the form of free weights like barbells and dumbbells, machines that use cables or pulleys to help you lift the weight, and bodyweight exercises like pull-ups or dips. The more stabilizers and synergists you work, the more muscle fibers stimulated. The exercises that work the large muscle groups are called compound (or multi-joint) movements that involve the simultaneous stimulation of many muscle groups. These compound exercises should be the foundation of any weight training program because they stimulate the most amount of muscle in the least amount of time. Multi-jointed free weight exercises like the bench press require many stabilizer and synergistic muscle assistance to complete the lift.

Free weight exercises like the dumbbell press or squat put a very large amount of stress on supporting muscle groups. You will get fatigued faster and not be able to lift as much weight as you did on the machine. But you will gain more muscle, become stronger very quickly and have a true gauge of your strength.

If you use machines in your program, they should be used to work isolated areas and only after all multi-jointed exercises have been completed. Beginners should begin with a limited combination of machine exercises, bodyweight exercises and multi-jointed free weight exercises. Before increasing the weight levels, they should work on becoming familiar with the proper form and execution of each.

The following are some proven basic exercises to encourage muscle and strength gain unlike any other exercises.

Bench Presses - works the chest, shoulders, triceps

Overhead Presses - shoulders, triceps

Pull-ups/Barbell Rows - back, bicep

Squats - legs, lower back

Dead lifts - legs, back, shoulders

Bar Dips -shoulders, chest, arms

To build mass, you must weight train with heavy weights. To consider a weight heavy, you should only be able to do a maximum of 4-8 reps before your muscles temporarily fail. A weight is considered ‘light’ if you can do more than 15 reps before muscle fatigue sets in. Heavy weights stimulate more muscle fibers than lighter weights which result in more muscle growth. Heavy weight training puts a huge strain on your body, so adequate rest and recuperation after your workouts is essential.

Eating guidelines for building muscle:

A high protein diet is an inevitable part of any weight training programme, importantly, protein derived from animal sources. Proteins you need to be concerned with are those found in whey, casein (cottage cheese), eggs, beef, poultry, and fish. Soy protein, tofu and bean curd are some alternatives. Eating the right amount of foods consistently will force your body to grow beyond what you may think possible. The diet also should contain an adequate amount of carbohydrates (potatoes, sweet potatoes, yams, oatmeal, cream of wheat, cream of rice, rice, beans, bread, pasta, all cereals) and fat. Green leafy vegetables and fruits also should be included.

When you train with weights, you should eat a minimum of 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight. You also must have protein at every meal. To enable your body to actually assimilate and use the all the calories you will ingest, you have to reduce your meal size and increase your meal frequency. Splitting your calories into smaller, more frequent portions will enable food absorption and utilization of nutrients.

During the past 20 years there have been great developments in the scientific understanding of the role of nutrition in health and physical performance. A proper Diet Debate show that adequate dietary carbohydrate should be ingested (55-60% of total energy intake) so that training intensity can be maintained. Excess dietary saturated fat can exacerbate coronary artery disease; however, low-fat diets result in a reduction in circulating testosterone. So the balance between protein, carbohydrate and fat should be maintained.

So the focus on weight gain programmes must be on two components, lifting heavy weights, which will stimulate the largest amount of muscle fibers. Your body responds to this stimulus by increasing your muscle mass and secondly eat more calories than your body is used to. When you overload your system with plenty of protein and fats, your body has no other choice but to gain weight.

A Mass Gaining program is incomplete without the timely measurements to monitor your progress. Without it, you won’t know how exactly your body is responding to your diet and training routine. Just looking in the mirror and guessing is not acceptable. If you want to start getting great results, you must develop the habit of accurately tracking your progress. This also provides the motivation to continue with the weight gain schedule and for the further progression. So even though you have a very thin body type, and haven’t been able to gain weight no matter what you try, you will definitely succeed with a well planned weight gain programme.

Getting in shape takes more than aerobic exercise. While aerobics are an important component to overall fitness, you also need to incorporate muscle building workouts several times a week to achieve a well balanced exercise program.

The benefits of aerobics are well known. When you exercise aerobically you strengthen your heart muscle as well as your entire cardiovascular system. Muscle building workouts fine tune the body and make it better able to function and burn away fat.

There are two types of muscle building workouts that will either allow you to gain muscle mass or tone your existing muscle. The goal of a low rep, high weight muscle building workout is to increase muscle mass, or plump up the muscle to its greatest volume. Lifting heavy weight causes the muscle fibers to swell and you will notice a significant increase in the mass of muscle under your skin. The goal of high rep, low weight muscle building workouts is to tone the muscle and make it stronger without a significant noticeable change in mass. Women often perform toning workouts in order to sculpt their muscles and make them appear more defined and bodybuilders select programs that allow them to increase mass.

When people begin new muscle building workouts they expect results quickly. This is fine if your body is lean to begin with. But if you have a high ratio of body fat to lean muscle, you will have to do aerobic cardiovascular exercises to burn off fat in combination with muscle building workouts to build muscle in order to see the desired results. Eating a low fat diet composed of lean proteins and low carbohydrates is also helpful in building muscle and reducing fat.

One of the benefits of muscle building workouts, aside from larger and more toned muscles, is an increase in your body’s ability to burn fat. Even when you are not exercising, your muscles continue to burn fat more effectively when you perform a regular fitness program that includes muscle building workouts. Aerobic exercise strengthens your heart and improves the function of the cardiovascular system which is important in delivering blood to your muscles. But to continuously burn fat you need a combination of both aerobic training and muscle building.

It is a misconception that by working out you are actually building additional muscle tissue. We are born with the highest number of muscle fibers we will ever have and that will never change. What you are trying to change through muscle building workouts is the appearance of the muscle tissue, bulking it up and making the fibers larger and more defined.

The study, published in the Journal of Aging and Physical Activity, found that exercise, particularly strength training, affected mood in individuals over 62. According to Arent, one reason for that is what strength training does for seniors’ self-esteem. “Strength training prevents loss of muscle mass and bone density, conditions that can interfere with the independence and quality of life of an older person,” he says. “Mundane tasks that were once difficult, such as grocery shopping, are no longer an issue.” And when an older person can resume abandoned physical activities, like playing with grand-kids or gardening, it’s amazing how quickly his or her depression lifts.

Eye Exercise
Rub your hands together to make them warm. (You can shake them or hold them in front of a heat vent if you prefer) Then close your eyes. Cover your eyes with your warm hands. Make sure your hands do not touch your eyelids and that you do not rest your cheekbones on your hands. If you want to place the weight of your head on your hands, put the weight on the forehead. Then look at the dark. If you see spots or zaps of light, wait till you see the dark. Don’t hurry. Do this at least twice a day for 5 to 15 minutes.

Exercise also helps lower your blood pressure. Your lungs will also benefit from exercise as they become better conditioned so that activities such as climbing stairs will not make you out of breath. Muscles that are not used become small and inelastic, but aerobic exercise will help tone your body by increasing muscle size, strength and flexibility while burning calories. Exercise can also help alleviate stress and make you more productive, so choose something that you enjoy and stick with it.

Arm Exercise
1. bend your arms so that there is a 90 degrees angle at the elbow
2. swing the arms forward and backward so the elbow is high at the back
3. try not to swing the arms to high or across the body in the front (hands should not be above shoulder height nor should they cross the midpoint of your body
4. keep the angle at the elbows at 90 degrees throughout the swings

It seems that almost everyone from time to time will use family life as an excuse for not having any time to exercise, missing out on even a single exercise benefit.