by Bri3626 » Mon Nov 07, 2011 1:16 pm
A lot depends on your genetics Mac and your ability to gain weight. Technically there are three body types. Endomorph, Mesomorph, and Ectomorph. Endos gain weight very easily (think powerlifter), Meso's (think bodybuilder) are inbetween but tend to be more muscular, and Ectos (think basketball players) tend to be the skinny folks. There are a ton of mixes inbetween but thats essentially it. Now if you eat a mass of calories and do nothing you'll gain weight. You eat a mass of calories and lift heavy weights chances are good you'll gain weight. But thats all possibilities. There are a lot of factors at work here.
First question is why do you want to "bulk up"? When I was a teen and joined the marine corps I had the same thought process because I thought that was the ideal. I'm basically an ectomorph and a very hard gainer. I ate 5000 calories a day at one point in the hopes to have the arnold mass but never happened. Point is I never really got fit. I worked out like crazy but somehow fitness eluded me. Sounds crazy but when I had the thought process to just get massive I never really stuck to a program or had goals to improve my fitness levels. I just kept switching back and forth. I blinked a couple times and all of a sudden I'm 40 something.
I've learned over the years that what I really want is to be as fit as I can be. Simplefit started me on that path. If all you want is to gain mass then I would recommend powerlifting and eating as many calories as you can. But, be forewarned, the mass you get may not be the mass you want. Everything is relative to your body type and ability to process it. Now if you want to be lean, muscular, and have the capacity to accomplish just about anything you want physically you found a great starting point. Simplefit can take you well into realms of fitness most people would never imagine and it's a damn good feeling to walk into a gym and workout at a level of intensity that almost no one there is even coming close to achieving. The people in Gold's gym stare at me like I'm nuts heh. At work they all want to know if I'm trying to kill myself and then stare at me like I'm nuts. I just smile and work harder.
The other thing to remember also is that all of us have to age and as you get older that mass effect you were trying to achieve as a young man isn't likely to help you much into middle age or older.
Knowing why you want to bulk up is likely your answer. Really think about that. Are you doing it to look good, feed your ego, feel good about yourself, get the girls, or maybe because young men are brainwashed into thinking that mass is more important? You may have other reasons but those seem to be the most common ones. I would look at it in terms of how fit you are. If you can bench press 300 lbs. does it matter what you weigh? If you can crank out 50 pullups does it matter? At what point do you consider yourself "bulked-up"? 160 lbs? 250lbs?
At 5'6" you most likely are not going to put a whole lot of "healthy" weight on but you will be amazed at how muscular you can look when you're shorter. As you do this program look into your fitness levels versus "bulking up". Make your goals from that standpoint and always work towards doing more and/or better at each workout. Soon I think you will find that "bulking" isn't so important to you and fitness is. That is the key to lifelong fitness and an overall wellbeing. Just my humble opinion.
"Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles, discouragement, and impossibilities: It is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak”
~Thomas Carlysle
