Moguls at Saddleback Ski Resort in Maine

Someone who is trying to gain weight should typically avoid cardio exercises. Cardio will cause you to burn a lot more calories than heavy lifting exercises, impeding your weight gain goals. Thus, us hard gainers usually stick to heavy weight lifting, muscle bulking activities.

One of the best muscle mass weight gaining exercises for your legs are squats. Squats work out virtually every leg muscle, targeting mostly your quadriceps, glutes, hamstrings, and calf muscles… (depending on your stance you can significantly alter which muscle groups are effected). The bad thing about squats is that it is easy for you to strain your back or other muscles from loss of balance, and it is very easy to strain from poor form. Teetering a few hundred pounds of weight on your shoulders is inherently risky anyways.

I can only think of one alternative to squats that is just as, if not more effective at targeting your core leg and back muscles… The activity I’m talking about is skiing, and not just any sort of skiing. I’m talking moguls. Big fat bushy moguls on steep skiing slopes that you pound into relentlessly at over 20 MPH on your way down the ski slope. What are the advantages that Skiing Moguls have over squats?

• Skiing doesn’t put any weight on your shoulders, you remain with a steady low center of gravity.
• Your entire body gets a workout when maintaining balance through moguls (from pole planting with your arms, to heavy leans with your back and abs, to the relentless hits you take with your legs), as opposed to mainly just your legs in squats.
• Skiing moguls keeps your heart rate up for a significantly longer amount of time than plain old squats without the lean fat burn of cardio.
• You get to be outside, enjoying nature!

Skiier hitting Moguls

(Picture right, skiier in lowest “squatted” position after just landing on the top of a mogul)

Of course, there is a significantly larger learning curve to being able to ski moguls than there is to learn how to do squats. I have been skiing Maine slopes since I was a toddler and consider myself a pretty advanced skier. Moguls are a pretty big deal in Maine. Most ski hills will have quite a few natural skiing areas either through the trees or trails left un-groomed to develop moguls. It was not until this year that I really got comfortable with moguls. There are a few reasons for this. Moguls are intimidating. The first few times you go down them, you will find it incredibly hard to stay in control. The backs of moguls are icey and they are usually on steep slopes. People often try and turn through the moguls and end up scraping down the back side of them (the icey part) and falling. Stopping can be difficult because of the large amount of ice usually associated with moguls. The next biggest reason people avoid moguls is the difficulty of the trails. Moguls are usually on the double diamond trails (You will rarely find moguls on a blue trail), double diamond can make for some bad falls and can be dangerous if you are a beginner that doesn’t know how to handle very steep slopes. For these two reasons, most people give up after one or two tries.

But there is an art to skiing moguls… And you probably wont even start to understand it until you have gone down the same mogul trail at least 5-10 times. People are used to turning to slow down, thus beginners try and turn around and through moguls on the icy parts and fail miserably… But the trick to slowing down on moguls is to hit the big bushy top of the mogul where all the loose snow has built up. The snow on top of a mogul is usually so loose and puffy that you could stop instantly if you wanted to.

Think of it like you are literally jumping from mogul to mogul, using the moguls as your fluffy landing pads. Once you understand how to start planning for which mogul you are going to “jump” to next, it gets much easier. And by jump, I dont mean you should be going air born. You should never actually get any “air” off the ground unless you’re purposely trying to.

Skiing Maine Moguls at Saddleback

Hitting these moguls requires a tremendous amount of leg power. If your legs cannot absorb each mogul hit like a shock, and then re-extend before hitting the next mogul, you will either lose control and fall, or you will do a jump off the mogul and end up in the air.

(Picture left – skiier using entire body to throw weight balance after hitting mogul, preparing for the next hit)

So how can I equate this to a squat like workout? Imagine that you have the barbell on your back, except it is empty, and instead of performing a squat, you are jumping down a large stair case, skipping 2-3 steps each jump, for about 25 stairs. Your legs go through the same movement as a squat but they are constantly absorbing energy. It really feels completely different than a squat because there is no lifting, gravity is just pulling you down into obstacles you absorb and move over… and its a very addictive feeling… And I assure you, in every was as difficult as good a workout as a squat, if not better.

Saddleback Ski Resort in Maine is one of my favorite ski locations. They have a huge variety of terrain, and the most “Steep Skiing” terrain in New England. This massive area of just Black and Double black diamond trails has a huge variety of conditions to offer, from glades and tree skiing, to steep groomed trails, and a lot of natural mogul skiing terrain. Definitely worth the trip and a lot bigger than you think!

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

2011 Starting Point - Progress Shot

So I have pretty much recovered and started making good gains again since my last blog posting (jeez that one was depressing). I am back to sticking to my diet and hitting the gym (And the Ski Hill) routinely.

One of the things that has helped me most this year is a new application for Android smart phone users, called “calorie count”. It is really designed to help people loose weight, however it can just as easily be used to help someone gain weight. It’s quite simple too…

calorie count app link

You literally scan the barcode, or do a quick search for whatever you are eating, and boom, just add it to your daily log. It also has a calculator built in which tells you how many calories per day you need to eat to reach your goals.

Currently my stats are: 3600 calories per day = a 1lb per week weight gain for me.

Thanks to this application, It has been easier to track what I am eating. Without precise counting, it is easy to say “ehh. I think I’ve eaten enough“.. Without really knowing if you are going to be gaining or losing weight for the day. With this application, I KNOW if I’ve eaten enough. The barcode scanner built in is what makes it really easy. Just scan, select servings, and hit save. Its database has hundreds of thousands of foods stored.

Give it a try. I absolutely recommend it.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Lost Bodybuilding Progress

Yea, its been another rough time period. I’m working 40 hours a week while in my last semester of college, and the end of a 3 year relationship… Life is busy, and it can suck really bad at times. My weight gain has suffered, but it didn’t have to. It’s easy to get into the mode of hitting the gym less often and skipping out on meals when you dont feel like you have time.

DON’T MAKE THAT MISTAKE!

No matter how busy your life is feeling, never forget the amount of stress you will be able to relieve at the gym. You need to let your trips to the gym be your release, your time away from stress; dont treat it as another speed bump in your day. Going to the gym should enhance your life, not get in the way of it.

Your diet is just as important. A shift into a busier lifestyle requires a shift in eating habits. My days got incredibly busy these past 3 months, so much that I was working through lunch breaks, skipping breakfast, etc. I’d tell myself, Oh, I’ll just have a really big dinner… but you know what, us hard gainers will NEVER be able to eat a big enough dinner in order to make up for all the calories we missed during the day, our stomachs simply cant handle that much food.

Again, this shift in lifestyle requires a subsequent shift in eating habits. You have less time, you need to plan ahead. It might be as simple as grabbing a pack of ramen noodles and eating them dry during lunch, or making a simple PBJ at home to take with you before leaving for the day… I mean hey, at least bring something mildly substantial! remember, when you are hungry, you are losing weight, and that’s a BAD thing… and that 300 calorie sandwich you brought with you to eat at work is going to be 300 less calories you need to make up later that night.

Point being, learn from my mistakes. Don’t let a change in lifestyle get in the way of your progress… Don’t let it even put your progress on hold… Because it will inevitably happen over and over again and keep you from ever achieving your goals.

Become more adaptive and learn to plan your meals in advance… Even if it means planning to stop at burger king on your drive somewhere to pick up a buck double.

My picture at the beginning of this entry demonstrates how important it is to adapt quickly to your changing lifestyle. I seem to learn all of these lessons the hard way, hopefully you will read this and be better able to recognize changes in your life that can indirectly effect you making progress and reaching your goals. I’ve been back in the gym and kicked my diet back into gear for about 1 week now. I’m definitely ready to reverse this lack of progress I’ve had recently.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Low Filling Foods:

1. Bagels – Cinnamon raisin bagels are my favorite. They go great with peanut butter. I personally can eat two of these bagels pretty easily for breakfast and have never found them that filling for some reason. The calorie break down is pretty high. 2 Bagels = 500 Calories. 4 Tbsp of Peanut Butter = 400 Calories. Add a glass of whole milk for 300 more calories and you’ve got a really nice 1200 calorie breakfast. A great way to start out the weight gaining day.
2. Steak – Steak is loaded with protein and almost no carbohydrates, little fat as well. This definitely wont help you gain fat weight, however it WILL help you gain heaps of muscle mass. A 1lb steak can have 80 grams of protein in it. You’d have to drink a gigantic thick and gross shake to get that many normally. Best of all I have no problem getting a 1.25lb steak down. Red meat always seems to be less filling that many other foods.
3. Hot Dogs – Did you know 1 hot dog (+ bun) can have 300 easy calories in it. Eat two of these to get 600 calories, drink some milk and you’ve got an easy 900 calorie lunch. 2 hotdogs used to fill me, but after some stomach stretching I easily got to a point where I could eat 3 and sometimes 4 in one meal
4. 

   Burger King Buck Double

   The Buck Double at Burger King. Just one of these bad boys has 750 calories in it. Its pretty easy to eat two of these plus a drink giving you close to 1800 calories in one sitting. Only costs $2.00 too

Things I stay away from:

1. Pizza… For some reason I have trouble eating more than 3 slices of pizza before feeling bloated and nasty. Plus its hard to drink milk with pizza cause they just don’t go well together. Pizza actually doesn’t have very many calories in it for how full it can make you feel (unless you are one of those crazy guys that can down an entire pizza on your own).
2. Chicken Nuggets (like McDonnalds). These have a high fullness factor while having relatively low amount of calories. 600 calories of McNuggets completely fills me, where I could have over 1000 if I got burgers instead.

Feel Free to comment with your own!

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Being a server at a restaurant is extremely stressful. You are CONSTANTLY multitasking, queuing up tasks for 3 or more tables in your head CONSTANTLY, running around doing things CONSTANTLY, not a moment to stop and chat… And then you have to put up with assholes that are impossible to please…

I don’t care how much you breath deeply, meditate, or count to 10, your eyes will twitch, your heart beat will increase, you’ll tense up your muscles unconsciously, keep your fists clenched, your shoulders up tight, and IDK how much Swearing burns calories but I’m sure its a lot.

Its just plain damn stressful!

I did make a shitload of money doing it, its probably the best paying part time job a college student can get averaging $15 an hour in tips alone at a modestly priced chain restaurant…. BUT I HATED IT!

I have a new job now, a job I love, everyday is fun and going to work is no longer work. I am never stressed, I am always relaxed… And guess what, I am gaining 1lbs a week on 2500 calories a day at 135lbs and counting… (Actually currently at 139.5lbs )

Moral of the story there are other parts of your life that interfere with your bodybuilding that you may not even realize. You might have to take some time getting other parts of your life in order before you can jump into improving your body. Fix all your annoying little problems and you might find bodybuilding becomes much more naturally.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

orange juice and cream

So you are sick of drinking milk, you need a break from it, but you still need a high calorie drink to gain weight. Well lately I’ve been craving orange juice, for some reason, but its hard to make the calorie sacrifice when I can be getting double the calories from milk… So what can I do?

Well here’s the recipe for a solution: Just add some 1/2 and 1/2 or cream to your milk. Remember those Popsicles Tropicana used to make that were vanilla with a coating of frozen orange juice on top? They are friggin’ delicious, well anyways that’s what your orange juice will taste like when you add 1/2 and 1/2 or cream to it. Not too much, but just a few tablespoons can bump up the weight gain ability by 100 calories or so, so use it at your own discretion until you think it tastes right.

And you still get the satisfying fruity refreshing taste of orange juice. Let me know what you think once you try this orange juice recipe.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

ready to drink protein shake

Protein Shakes are

• Nasty
• Kinda Expensive
• Thick and Nasty
• Leave you feeling bloated
• Convenience is the only pro I can think of

Steak is

• Delicious
• Low in Fat
• Extremely dense in protein
• Did I mention delicious?

So a Guy at my gym was drinking these things (over on the right). It’s a $4.00 (outrageous!) ready-to-drink can of flavored protein drink, readily available at GNC… A 12 pack will run you about $50.00, which in my opinion is INSANE! I guess this works out to roughly 8 cents per gram of protein. I can see convenience working in as a reason to have this

Rare Grilled Steak

stuff, but a diet high in meat should render it obsolete. I mean, just tonight, I went down to the grocery store and picked up a nice steak for $3.00 that has 75 Grams of Protein in it… The math on this one is 4 cents per gram of protein. The protein in a steak costs 1/2 as much as the stuff in that nasty can (this is actually one of the cheapest one’s I’ve found lately, usually its not more than $1.50 more though). Could he not wait to get home, fire up the grill and throw on a steak? I usually have time I guess if you are in a huge hurry all of the time you might need the nasty shakes.

But I have another point. People today seem to think getting enough protein is all about supplements and shakes, but it doesn’t have to be! Eat a few eggs at breakfast with some ham, toast and peanut butter, make milk your primary beverage throughout the day, have a meaty sandwich at lunch, and have a steak at dinner, and you are easily at 150 grams of protein in one day without even trying, without consuming one shake! Just eat more meat! Its really low in carbs, low in fats when its not fried; making hamburger patties at home on the grill with lean hamburger is another good source! I think people have forgotten how healthy meat is these days. Meat get a bad rap.

To further push against shakes, the amount of carbs and sugars shakes are usually loaded up with, at the end of the day, will usually transfer to a net amount of fat gain much higher than steak or any relatively lean meat in general. That shake may only say 8 grams of fat, but when you look down and it says 250 grams of total carbohydrates and another 50 grams of sugar (extreme case, read on), you know that’s just going to metabolize into fat anyways! And at that point, the everything comes back down to that single equation, are your calories in greater than your calories out (or vice versa)… Even some of the leanest ” PURE Whey Protein” powders will still struggle to hit the protein : net fat ratio of even some non-lean cuts of meat.

Just something to consider before you start downing shakes like crazy!

This post is dedicated to meat.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Oh well, progress can officially resume now.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Here’s how the night that made me quite went: I went out to the bars with my buddies on a Saturday night last weekend. I knew I didn’t want to drink much because I know I get hungover easily, so I paced myself reasonably well. Over the course of 4 hours I had 4 beers, that’s all. The resulting hangover was torture and its effects lasted for 3 days. Sunday morning I was completely crippled and confined to locations where I could lay down and pull my knees to my chest. I was dry heaving for hours. My appetite had completely gone for the entire day, and I _maybe_ got down 500 calories total. My appetite still had not returned for Monday or even Tuesday, It was impossible to force myself to eat enough to gain weight.

Finally today, Wednesday, I am feeling relatively normal. I finally got back into the gym, but I was barely able to repeat the sets:weight amount I had done my previous workout. After I checked my weight on the scale and found I had lost 2lbs!….  And for hard gainers, getting those two pounds back doesn’t come easily. It has set me back, probably 2 whole weeks.This isn’t the first time something like this has happened either.

I do stay hydrated, I’ve tried the oldest tricks in the books to avoid getting a hangover, my only explanation now is that maybe I’m somehow allergic to it? Maybe my great great grandparents hooked up with some Inuits a long time ago and I inherited the alcohol intolerance gene.

And that’s how I decided that enough was enough. If I want to continue making bodybuilding progress as fast as I want, I’d need to completely give up alcohol… Not that I particularly enjoyed drinking that much in the first place.

And so I move on. Have you ever given up anything in order to pursue fitness goals?

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

I work at Romano’s Macaroni Grill part time and our dishes vary hugely in their amount of calories. Some are as little as 500 calories, some are over 1500 calories, usually with little price difference.

It will be much more convenient to have the calories listed right in the normal menu rather than having to hunt down a nutrition menu or just guess how many calories I’m eating. Some restaurants don’t even have nutrition menu’s which makes calorie counting very aggravating!

Everyone who counts calories should be in favor of this right?

One of the dishes at the Macaroni Grill, the “Parmigiana Crusted Sole” has 1700 calories in it, and its not very filling… Its a mid-priced dish too. I wonder how it will effect consumer behavior /  the amount of people that order it once they see they are consuming 85% of their daily calories in one sitting!

Bookmark It

Hide Sites