There are many people out there trying to lose weight, but then there are those who are on the other side of the spectrum trying to gain weight! You need a weight gain workout!
On top of losing weight in my life, I’ve also tried to put on some weight. In this post I’ll be going over how to gain it properly so you don’t end up gaining 40 pounds of basically all fat and like I did over the span of 4 months and looking like Jigglypuff.
Gaining weight isn’t necessarily a bad thing, all you hear about these days is people trying to lose weight. I’ve overhead people saying things “I want to lose weight no matter what it is, fat or muscle”, which is ridiculous. Muscle is what help you increase your metabolism to keep you leaner and looking better.
Gaining weight in the form of muscle is so important. For every decade you age starting from around your 30s, you lose roughly 5-8% of your muscle mass. That’s why it’s important to weightlift to put on muscle mass prior and to keep it when your body start to naturally lose it.
Then there might be some people who just want to gain weight in whatever form it is, whether fat or muscle. I’ll go into that as well.
This post will be everything you need to know about how to gain weight and I’ll even give an example of a weight gain workout
Best Weight Gain Workout Plan
Just chugged some falooda before writing this article. They lied about having kulfi in it, it was just vanilla ice cream. What a disappointment. If you don’t know what falooda is, it’s an Indian/Pakistani dessert, you should definitely try it out!
Anywho, if you’re looking for a weight gain workout plan, you’re in the right place. You’ll learn how to gain lean muscle mass and how to put on fat, if that’s something you are interested in.
1. How Many Calories Do You NEED?
This is ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL. If you are not eating enough, even if you are working out, how to do you expect to gain weight? The exception is if you’re completely new to weightlifting and want to gain muscle and lose fat; I’ll touch on that later.
If you don’t put fuel in your car (keep your smart butt comment that you have an electric vehicle to yourself, but haha you’re so funny) how do you expect it to run? Just like that, food is your body’s fuel.
I have an entire article dedicated to figuring out how many calories your body needs. The article is Calculating Calories. That article is EVERYTHING you could wan to know about calculating your calories. I’ll touch on some of that stuff here too.
So, how do you figure out how many calories do you need? Use some of the free calorie calculators online to get a rough estimate of how many calories you might need. Here are some of the ones I personally used in the past:
I personally took an average of the numbers I got and subtracted 500 calories as the number I got seemed to high to me. See what your body does when you do that. If you are losing weight, increase your calories by 200-300 calories the next week or two and see what your body does. Keep doing this until you start gaining weight at pace you are comfortable with.
If you just want to gain muscle, you should probably only need a surplus of 250-300 calories per week. I’m even comfortable sticking to my maintenance calories where I’m not gaining or losing weight and just working out as hard as possible.
To accurately document how many calories you taking in, I’d recommend the app, MyFitnessPal. I’d also highly recommend a food scale so you can accurately measure out your food, if you’re serious. I have an article about all the fitness equipment I use and include these both in it.
If you are new to weightlifting, you could most likely be in a caloric deficit and still gain muscle from just working out.
Your body can go through body recomposition as well, where you lose fat and gain muscle. So you might weigh the same, but look very different when you are new to weightlifting.
If your goal is to just gain fat and at a rapid pace, shove as much food down your throat as possible. When you look like a potato in a few months, you’ve reached your goal. I don’t by an means recommend this.
2. Weight Gain Workout
I’d highly recommend getting a gym membership so you can workout in order to gain muscle. Or you can workout at home if you have weights.
Having your body be put under the stress of weightlifting will allow your muscle to grow. If you are eating an excess of calories with that, you will gain weight.
Now, if you’re overweight or obese and have never worked out, you can gain muscle in a caloric deficit or by staying in your maintenance calorie range.
Please don’t be like me and think that more you eat, the more muscle you will gain. I decided to eat 4000-5000 calories a day while weighing about 185 pounds and gained 40 pounds in roughly 4 months. I looked like a ladoo. For those of you who don’t know what a ladoo is, it’s an Indian/Pakistani sweet that’s just a ball. To much extra calories will just turn into fat.
Below is an example of a full body workout for weight gain you can do. These are great weight gain exercises for beginners. Though, there is no specific exercise you HAVE to do. If anyone tells you that, they are lying. Do the ones that you enjoy.
Please consult with your doctor prior to initiating any sort of weightlifting regimen to make sure you don’t have any health conditions that would prevent you from doing so. None of this is a substitute for medical advice from a licenses health care provider.
| Full Body Workout: 2-3x a week | ||||
| Number | Exercise | Muscles targeted (roughly) | Recommended Sets | Recommended Reps |
| 1 and 2
Perform the curls in between the leg press of squat of choice sets |
Leg Press or Squat of choice | Entire lower body and core | 3 | 8-15 |
| Dumbbell Curls or Easy bar curls | Biceps | 3 | 8-15 | |
| 3
|
Deadlift of choice (conventional/sumo/Romanian deadlifts/Stiff leg deadlifts) | Back and Legs and core | 3 | 8-15 |
| 4 and 5
Perform your lat exercise in between your chest exercise |
Chest press of choice (Dumbbell Press, Barbell Bench Press/Any chest press machine) | Entire Chest | 3 | 8-15 |
| Lat Pull Down or Dumbbell Pullover | Back | 3 | 8-15 | |
| 6 and 7
Perform incline chest exercise in between row exercise sets |
Row (chest supported row or cable row or dumbbell row) | Back | 3 | 8-15 |
| Incline chest (Incline dumbbell press/Incline barbell press/incline machine press) | Focus on upper Chest | 3 | 8-15 | |
| 8 and 9
Perform calf exercise in between shoulder exercise sets |
Shoulder Press (Using a barbell, or dumbbells or a shoulder press machine) | Entire shoulder | 3 | 8-15 |
| Seated calf raises or standing calf raises or calf press | Calves | 3 | 8-15 | |
| 10 and 11
Perform lateral should exercise in between tricep rope pull down sets |
Tricep rope pull down or machine dip | Triceps | 3 | 8-15 |
| Side lateral or Reverse Pec dec | Rear shoulder and trapezius muscle | 3 | 8-15 | |
This can be a weight gain workout for females and males. It doesn’t apply to any specific gender.
If you want to gain the most muscle over time, train for hypertrophy. This means putting your muscle under the most stress you safely can. By increasing your time under tension (time under which you are performing the exercise) you will experience more muscle growth. You don’t have to go into the gym and use the heaviest weight.
Make sure your form is correct. Focus on slowing down your reps to make it harder to increase the time under tension. This will also lessen the chance for injury as you won’t be using heavier weight.
My article on weightlifting has a lot of great information about weightlifting for complete beginners.
3. Misconceptions
There are no “weight gains foods” or “best exercises to gain weight” as I previously mentioned.
It may to be true that there are higher calorie food such as nuts and oils which will help you gain weight, but you don’t HAVE to eat/use any of them. It’s like when people say you have to eliminate carbohydrates (carbs) to lose fat; I’ve found that to be total bogus information. I’ve lost so much weight eating carbs every single day by making sure I’m in a caloric deficit.
Don’t go around eating boxes of Oreos or entire cakes either. I’m not saying don’t eat those foods, but make sure to have a well balanced diet.
It’s all about consistency. You might not see results in a few days, weeks or even months. It might take a few years. Especially to put on muscles mass, it takes years of hard work.
Also, if you’re a female that is afraid of weights, don’t be. You will not look like a man from weightlifting. You will have to use drugs in order to look like men. Women just don’t have the same amount of testosterone to look like men.
This post was all about how to properly go about a weight gain workout. If you follow a proper weight gain workout plan, you’ll be well on your way to packing on muscle over time
Disclaimer: I’m not your doctor. Please consult your doctor, nutritionist or any health care professional before making any changes in your own lifestyle. These blogs are just me sharing my knowledge for you reading entertainment purpose only. None of this is medical advice.
Other Posts You May Like
1. 7 Biggest Fitness Myths That Are Keeping You From Losing Fat
3. 5 BIGGEST Things About Aerobic Training (Cardio) Everyone Trying To Lose Fat Should Know About
Resources
- Dunkin, Mary Anne. “Sarcopenia (Muscle Loss with Aging): Symptoms, Causes, and Treatments.” WebMD, WebMD, 20 Nov. 2022, www.webmd.com/healthy-aging/sarcopenia-with-aging.
- “Preserve Your Muscle Mass.” Harvard Health, Harvard Medical School, 19 Feb. 2016, www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/preserve-your-muscle-mass.
- Volpi, Elena, et al. “Muscle Tissue Changes with Aging.” Current Opinion in Clinical Nutrition and Metabolic Care, U.S. National Library of Medicine, July 2004, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2804956/#:~:text=One%20of%20the%20most%20striking,60%20%5B4%2C5%5D.