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Hardgainers must read!!
I found this on Ironman's site and i found it very informitive. i tried to edit out as musch of the advertisements as I could.
Eat—and Then Eat Again
The first step any hardgainer should take to accelerate progress is to eat more nutritious calories and more meals. Six meals a day is the norm for almost any serious bodybuilder, with 20 to 40 grams of protein at each of those feedings. If you don’t get enough calories and protein, your hardgainer metabolism will chew up muscle for energy—and then you’re on the vicious circle of train, build some muscle and then burn it off before it can accumulate. Such is the nature of the hardgainer energy furnace. Top
One solution to the need for frequent feedings is meal replacements, and one of the best formulas for that purpose—developed specifically for hardgainers—was created by a nutrition guru who emerged in the late 1950s. His name was Rheo Blair, né Irvin Johnson, and his dietary concepts were based on a frequent intake of milk-and-egg protein in a base of specific fats. While his radical strategies were ferociously attacked and ridiculed by the majority, they proved their merit again and again, transforming hundreds of bodybuilders who had been struggling to put on muscle. Hardgainers became easy gainers in a matter of weeks. Blair presented his ideas in Iron Man magazine, with many before and after photos as proof, and he eventually catapulted muscle-building nutrition to a new level that set the stage for unprecedented gains by almost everyone who used them. Here’s one example, the metamorphosis of the prototypical 99-pound weakling: Top
A recent guest at the Blair house was a 15-year-old boy. This youngster’s diet prior to coming to Los Angeles would probably be considered excellent by most health authorities. [He ate] a heavy concentration of meat, brewer’s yeast, wheat germ, whole-grain cereals and breads, and ample fruits and vegetables. He also consumed both meat and soy protein supplements and took a host of vitamins and minerals. Yet, despite all the careful consumption of so-called health foods, the boy weighed 99 pounds at 5’9” with very poor skin tone and a weak muscular system. He stayed at the Blair house for 90 days and lived exclusively on a concentrated milk-and-egg-protein supplement mixed in half-and-half, with special vitamins, minerals and other supplements designed to meet his individual requirements. During this three-month period he gained 51 pounds. The changes in this boy from both a physical and emotional standpoint were so amazing that many people who [knew him] couldn’t believe he was the same person. His weight gains were all muscle, and his waist [measurement] stayed the same. [Iron Man, Dec. ’67/Jan. ’68] Top
It wasn’t just 99-pound weaklings who benefited, however. Advanced bodybuilders flocked to Blair for his revolutionary nutrition regimens as well—and made the best gains of their lives after implementing the strategies, as evidenced by the following excerpt from an Iron Man article by Howard Sanford Young:
After being on Rheo’s program for only three weeks (and I know this is going to be hard to believe), I made more gains [in that three weeks] than I had in the past six years. I put almost a half inch on my arms, and previous to Rheo’s program I was unable to make my arms grow, no matter what I did or ate. After two months I made fantastic gains, and they were all muscle. I [put on] almost 20 pounds, and I didn’t look like an overstuffed sausage, which had always been the case when I went on a muscle-bulking program before. I felt much better and my energy was almost limitless. This last point is most important, as I am very low energy, and I overtrain easily. Rheo’s program was almost a miracle to me in that respect. It was a pleasure to complete a workout without that washed-out feeling. Before, I often had trouble sleeping because I frequently overtrained—sometimes using only four or five sets per bodypart—but this was certainly not the case while on Rheo’s program. [Iron Man, May ’67]
Cortisol, the stress hormone that can eat muscle tissue, has gotten a lot of attention lately. It’s been connected to everything from heart disease to ulcers. Bodybuilders are familiar with it because when cortisol is high, the body consumes muscle for energy, an effect that’s part of the fight-or-flight mechanism. Top
Our 4-million-year-old evolutionary biology accounts for your overproduction of cortisol. It’s one of the by-products produced as your body prepares for an emergency. Every time you encounter stress, your body produces cortisol and smothers muscle growth. That’s one of the reasons high-strung people, a.k.a. hardgainers, have a hard time putting on weight—too much cortisol smothers muscle growth. It’s like throwing a wet blanket on a campfire. Stressors, such as your job, relationships, finances—plus intense training—over-amp your stress circuits, causing cortisol levels to rise and remain elevated. Fortunately, phosphatidylserine, a soy-based lipid, has been shown to control cortisol, disarming the catabolic bomb and enabling you to break through old genetic-cortisol limitations and unleash your mass potential. Top
One scientific study, performed by professor Thomas Fahey, Ed.D., of California State University, Chico, established the ability of phosphatidylserine, or PS, to significantly reduce blood cortisol during and after bodybuilding-type workouts.3 Fahey’s study built on prior Italian studies that found PS lowers the cortisol that’s produced as a result of endurance exercise.
PS is a breakthrough bodybuilding supplement, especially for hardgainers because a big part of their problem is high levels of cortisol. If you can control your cortisol so it’s not abnormally high, you stoke your anabolic environment—and that’s a bodybuilding boon for hardgainers who are trying to…
[Ironman Magazine]
This had a lot of nice things in it for people tryin to get out of that hardgainer rutt and I thought u guys would like to see it.
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