One of the most often asked questions to any strength coach or personal trainer in a weight room is "How do I gain muscle weight"? Or, "How do I gain enough muscle to look like the guys in the muscle magazines"?

In a recent Gallup Youth Survey, researchers found that among teenage boys (13 to 18 years old), 35% of them wanted to gain weight. If one out of very three teenage boys wanted to gain weight, that number would probably be 65% for the number of coaches who wanted their players to gain weight to enhance their athletic performance. This is basic premise of most muscle and fitness magazines. Thousands of advertising money is directed at sales promotion of the company's protein supplement products or latest supplement to gain high levels of muscle mass.

Most people do sit-ups or crunches as an ab exercise. While these are basically good exercises that can satisfy point 1, above, how many people use them in a way that satisfies point 2?

NFL scouting combines spend countless hours and large amounts of money covering the colleges and universities of America in search of giant men to play professional football. Colleges wine and dine the high school big men to lure them to their institution of "higher weight." Major athletic programs even have sports supplements available to their athletes at training table meals, after games and practices. The sports nutritionist is the newest "guru" to have on staff.

Where does the high school athlete and parent go to find sound safe answers in his attempts to gain weight and muscle size? Hopefully he will be able to go to you, his coach or athletic trainer, for these answers. What information should you give him? The TRUTH! Remember if your athletes come to you first and feel comfortable with the information that you give them, you have made a friend for life. But, if he is not comfortable with your answer, you have lost him to the health and vitamin hustlers of the fitness world. These people could turn him towards mega vitamin dosages, growth hormones and maybe even steroids. So you must be armed with good, sound, safe advice that your high school athlete will be able to understand. The following are some of the more common questions asked by athletes and non-athletes who want to gain muscle weight and answers to those questions.

1. WHAT FACTORS DETERMINE THE AMOUNT OF MUSCLE YOU GAIN?

A.) Caloric Intake - Stress to your athletes the importance of eating three well-balanced meals a day, every day. Athletes should eat from the basic food groups: two servings daily of milk and meat and four servings daily of bread and cereal, four from fruits and vegetables. Then if they are still hungry they should be able to eat from the "goodie table" of sweets and snacks. If one of your athletes is trying to gain weight, but unable to, maybe it is because he has poor eating habits. He may be filling up on empty calories, spoiling his appetite for more nutritious foods.

With that said, some athletes because of their fast metabolism will need to eat three regular meals, plus two to three smaller meals in between their regular or main meals. These could be anything from an extra sandwich and milk to a protein supplement drink or meal replacement bar.

"But how many calories should I be eating?" is going to be your next question. Stress to your athletes the importance of gaining and losing body weight slowly. Dan Riley, Strength Coach of the NFL Houston Texans in a Scholastic Coach magazine article, presented a very simple but helpful formula. Dan wrote that 3,500 calories in a pound of fat. There are seven days in a week. If you divide 3,500 by 7 you get 500 calories. That is the number of calories that you need to our of your diet a day to lose one pound of fat per week. If you want to lose two pounds of fat per week, you must double that number or count our 1,000 calories a day. The number of calories needed to maintain your present body weight can be found just by multiplying your body weight by the number 15. So a person weighing 150 pounds should eat about 2,250 calories to maintain his present body weight. A very non active person should use the number 12 (12 x's 150 lbs. = 1800 calories a day) and a very active person should use the number 20 (20 x's 150 lbs. = 3000 calories a day).

But what about gaining weight? I want to gain 20 pounds of muscle by the time football season rolls around!

There are about 600 calories in a pound of muscle. And believe it or not, to gain weight we still only have seven days in a week to work with. So 600 calories divided by seven days means I only need to eat about 86 extra calories a day to gain muscle weight along with maintaining my present calories expenditure, plus a well-rounded strength training program.

So all I have to do to gain weight is eat 86 extra calories a day and at the end of one week I will have gained one pound of muscle weight - right? Wrong! First, in order to gain muscle weight the muscle must be exposed to some form of stimulation. Stimulation in the form of a good, sound strength training program. Two, the proper nutrients must be found in the diet. If you eat three meals a day from the basic four food groups you will meet this requirement easily. And three, you must give your muscles sufficient time for rest and recovery from your strength training program. Three days a week of strength training, with a day rest between training sessions seems to work best.

B.) Age - Although one out of three teenage boys wants to gain weight, not all boys will be able to gain weight at the same rate and at the same time. A teenage boy of 15 does not have the same chance to gain weight as boy of 19. How come? What are the reasons behind this?

Two 17-year-old boys are the same chronological age, but they probably are not of the same age in terms of physical growth and maturity. A boy who has a more advanced maturation process will be able to gain muscle weight easier than the average boy of equal age. As you grow in chronological age, you will increase your ability to gain muscle weight. The world just never seems just right for us! When we want to gain weight - we cannot; and when we can gain weight easy - we want to lose it!

C. Somatotype - Probably the most important factor in gaining muscular weight is what type of somatotype or body types your are. There are three basic types of body types - mesomorph, endomorph, and ectomorph. Endomorphs are large boned people with a chance to gain weight very easy - the offensive lineman in football. The ectomorph is very thin boned, and has a very lean body build - the cross-country runner. The Mesomorph is naturally very muscular and will gain even more muscle weight easy - the football running back.

When speaking of body types, most people are a combination of the general body types. The person that possesses the highest amount of mesomorphic characteristics will have the best chance of gaining muscular weight, while the person that has a high degree of ectomorph characteristics will gain fat weight easily.

D. Muscle belly length - Another important non-trainable factor that affects the amount of muscle weight you can gain is the muscle belly length in the major groups. The muscle belly is the amount of muscle tissue between the point of origin and the tendon where it attaches to the bone. The longer the muscle belly is, the more potential you have for adding muscle mass. If a person has short muscle bellies he will have a harder time gaining large amounts of muscle mass due to the length of the tendon.

A good muscle tendon to examine on yourself is your bicep of the front arm. Straighten your arm outward, now contract and pull your forearm towards the shoulder. Look closely at the space between your upper arm and your lower arm attachment at the elbow area. This is an example of the area we are talking about. The greater that area between the two bones; the smaller your muscle belly is going to be and the harder time you will have at gaining large amounts of muscle mass. The point of attachment is going to vary from muscle to muscle, and person to person. Just a few extra meters one way or the other could mean the difference of having a world-class physique and being another Barney Fife.

2. WHAT ABOUT THE USE OF PROTEIN DRINKS AND SUPPLEMENTS?

The importance of protein and gaining weight is grossly overrated. For a number of years it has been the general practice of athletes and weight training enthusiasts to consume large amounts of protein to gain muscle weight. This became the general practice because people believed that muscle tissue was made of protein, so in order to gain more weight we had to eat more protein. The muscle and fitness magazines do a great job at selling this concept to their readers. It seems each month they are coming out with a new and improved protein supplement to buy. While muscle tissue is made up of protein, about 25%, but the majority of muscle tissue is water, about 70%. The other 10-15% is lipids or important fats. So if you are wanting to gain muscle tissue you have to make sure you are staying well-hydrated and drinking lots of water.

3. HOW MUCH PROTEIN IS ACTUALLY NEEDED IN THE DIET AND WHAT ARE MY BEST SOURCES OF PROTEIN TO EAT?

Most people, especially athletes, eat more than enough protein, about four to five times more than is actually able to be used by the body. We are not able to store excess amounts for later use, so that excess is either passed on or stored as fat. Most nutritionists recommend .36 grams of protein per pound of body weight in the normal diet. So, a person weighing 100 pounds needs 36 grams of protein a day to meet his daily-recommended allowance.

4. I HAVE BEEN HEARING A LOT ABOUT AMINO ACIDS. WHAT ARE THEY AND HOW IMPORTANT ARE THEY IN GAINING BODY WEIGHT?

Protein is made up of four elements 1) carbon, 2) hydrogen, 3) oxygen and 4) nitrogen. These four elements combine with each other when protein is broken down into a number of different structures called amino acids, each one possessing an amino group, an acid and the remainder being different combinations of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and in some cases sulfur. These amino acids can be combined together in a variety of ways to form the protein necessary for the structure and functions of the human body. Thus protein is formed when two amino acids link together.

5. EARLIER YOU MENTIONED SOMETHING ABOUT REQUIREMENTS THAT NEEDED IN ORDER TO GAIN MUSCLE WEIGHT. WHAT WAS THAT AGAIN?

Basically you need three things to gain muscle tissue or weight; stimulation, nutrients and rest. If any of the three are lacking your progress will be slower. There is also a fine line or balance between them. Too much of one and not enough of another one will hurt your gains.

A. Stimulation - through a properly conducted strength training program. You should also concentrate on exercising the largest muscles of the body (hips, legs, back) first, on an every-other-day lifting program.

SAMPLE WORKOUT 
1. Leg press
2. Leg extension
3. Leg curl
4. Squat
5. Lat pulldown
6. Bent-over-row
7. Bench press
8. Chest flies
9. Dips
10. Side lateral raise
11. Seated press
12. Shoulder shrug
13. Bicep curl
14. Triceps extension

B. Rest - after a hard strenuous strength training workout, your body will need 48 hours to recover for the next strength workout.

C. Proper Nutrition - Eat a reasonable diet from the basic four food groups. An athlete trying to gain weight should also eat nutritious food between meals and at night.