I've been the classic hard gainer. I don't have weight problems, but I've had trouble gaining muscle mass all my life. My body's weird: my legs are plenty strong, but my upper body's not. What I've been discovering is that I've missed some key ingredients.
My internist, Fred Frank, is an osteopath. Besides being a great doctor, he's given me super advice on my body mechanics. I asked him about two years ago about him doing adjustments to my shoulders, which have always been a problem for me. His reply: any correction he applied wouldn't hold because I didn't have enough upper body strength. Six months working with a PT later, I was back in Fred's office for a series of adjustments - and more back exercises and stretches. Result: my chronic shoulder pain's completely cleared up. On top of that, I breathe better and I've been able to cut my steroid inhaler use for asthma in half.
About two weeks ago, I got Shawn Phillips's new book, Strength for Life. He proposes a twelve week plan to get building muscle, and I hopped on the bandwagon.
His approach is different than what I've done before. He wants to train each muscle to exhaustion once a week. He does that with three different weight routines which never target the same muscles. The weight and rep pattern is interesting, too. Each muscle gets three different weight levels in each training session. The first is light - just to wake things up. The second is tougher, and the third is heavy enough to work the muscle to exhaustion in eight reps. He says most folks don't gain because they stop doing work before the real benefit kicks in.
I've been ungodly sore after the first week, but that's passing and I'm still jazzed about continuing. I'll report back on how I do...
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