The Men’s Health definitive guide for skinny guys to get BUFF.

Yuven Govender

Do you spend hours upon hours in the gym and see no results? Are you also skinny? Do you want to build muscle naturally without the unhealthy side-effects of steroids? Well, read on, this is the Men’s Health definitive guide for skinny guides to get Buff and ripped.

Mike Chang. Founder and CEO of SixpackShortcuts.com

From my personal experience, the main reason that naturally skinny guys find it hard to build muscle naturally is because they do not get the significant pump in order to build sustainable and long lasting muscle mass.

What is this pump I’m talking about? Professional trainer Mike Chang explains it as “When a muscle is trained, blood flow is diverted from many other bodily processes to supply this muscle with what it needs to perform maximally. The blood first needs to become oxygenated (which is done through gaseous exchange in the alveoli of the lungs) before it is pumped to the working muscles, where it is pooled, thus resulting in the tight feeling we call the pump”. Naturally, the more blood that pumps in the muscle you’re working on, as well as the surrounding muscles, the more nutrients your blood receives and therefore a larger pump.

Want to know how to ensure that your nutrition allows you to get the biggest pump possible? Well, after speaking to Mike Chang, I realised that, in terms of nutrition, it’s all down to low glycaemic carbohydrates. He stated that carbs like baked potatoes, yams, brown rice, pasta, and whole grain bread work best. “When you eat complex low glycaemic carbs, your body uses them like a fireplace would use a nice piece of oak wood. It burns it nice and slow and continues to fuel the fire right through the workout, thereby creating an incredible pump” according to Mike.

So now that you have the nutrition down, let’s get to how you can implement the pump in the gym. With the sheer amount of exercises for you to choose from, a metaphorical buffet, it’s difficult to know which one works best for you to see massive size gains. Well with agonist-agonistic muscle training, you ensure that the most amount of blood is pumped to the working muscle and the surrounding muscles.

The agonist-antagonistic training method is described by Mike as: “A muscle's ability to produce full motor-unit activation is enhanced when that action is preceded immediately by a contraction of the muscle's antagonist. The antagonist exercise seems to prime the nerves that force the agonist muscle to contract, priming them causes a stronger, more powerful contraction. This can help a trainer put on mass, as it enables the use of heavier weights, which will help to overload muscle fibres and force them to adapt by growing.” In other words, a pulling motion (like curling of your bicep) and a pushing motion (like the extension of your triceps).

Back in his bodybuilding heyday Arnold Schwarzenegger, believed that training agonist and antagonist muscles together was a smart way to increase strength and size. The major benefits of training agonist and antagonist muscle groups back to- back are added strength and power for the second exercise. As I’ve mentioned, research shows that when an agonist exercise follows an antagonist exercise, muscle strength and power are greater than if that second exercise is performed after just resting.

Right! With the theory done and dusted, here is an example of a training plan that will help you utilise the agonist-antagonistic method and maximise your pump.

Three-day split

Day 1: Chest/Back/Abs

Day 2: Quadriceps/Hamstrings/Calves

Day 3: Shoulders/Biceps/Triceps

Day 1 exercises

o   Back

§  Pull-ups(5 sets;            10 reps each)

o   Chest

§  Bench Press (5 sets; 20 warm-up reps in the first set, then 12, 10, 8, 6)

o   Chest and Back Superset

§  Underhand Dumbbell-Flys & Straight Arm Pull-downs (5 sets; 12 reps each)

o   Back Superset

§  Bent over barbell rows & face pulls (5 sets; 12, 10, 9, 8, and 6 for Bent over rows: 10 reps for each face pull.

o   Chest Superset

§  Dumbbell incline flys & Dumbbell incline press(5 sets; 12 reps each)

Day 2 exercises

o   Quadriceps

§  Squats (5 sets; 20 rep warm up set, then 12, 10, 8, 6)

o   Hamstrings

§  Romanian deadlifts ( 5 sets; 10 reps)

o   Quads/Hamstrings/Calves

§  Walking dumbbell lunges (5sets; 20 steps, 10 each way)

o   Quads

§  Leg extensions (5 sets; 12 reps)

o   Hamstrings

§  Leg curls (5 sets; 12 reps)

o   Calves

§  Calf Raises(6 sets; 12 reps)

  

Day 3 exercises

o   Bicep and Tricep superset

§  Tricep rope extension & Hammer rope curls (4 sets each; 12 reps)

o   Bicep and Tricep superset

§  French press & Alternating dumbbell curls (4 sets each; 12, 10, 9, 8 reps)

o   Bicep and Tricep superset

§  Single arm underhand tricep extension & single arm cross cable bicep curl (4 sets; 12 reps)

o   Bicep and Tricep superset

§  Standing behind the neck tricep extension( 4 sets each; 12, 10, 8, 8)

o   Shoulders

§  Overhead press (4 sets; 12, 10, 8, 8)

§  Lateral Raises (4 sets; 12, 10, 8, 8)

Follow this plan for 8 weeks, mix up the exercise with your personal favourites to keep it fresh.