Since I can remember I have always struggled to gain weight.No matter how much protein I could get in per day,I just didn't gain.The other problem was that my strength didn't increase either or unremarkably little.It was then that I had a little chat with a fellow martial artist.At this time I was practicing aikido.He was practicing muay thai.

Most people don't know this,but when your muscles are underdeveloped(referring to benching less then 2 thirds of your bodyweight),the muscle's grow and increase extremely slow.That would explain my next to nothing gain.I took his advice and started muay thai.This was one of my breakthroughs of gymming.When I joined muay thai it was quite difficult to finish the routines in the beginning,due to it's intense training,but enjoyed it because I could feel my body was getting a full muscle building cardio workout and in the same time I was learning a deadly self defence art.After 2 months of muay thai my body adapted the fitness levels required and I could do 120 push ups in 40 pushup intervals with 10 seconds rest in between.I couldn't believe my body's progress and I was toned with a decend 8-pack abs.At this point he told me I should start gymming again and to my disbelief I started higher where I left off.In the weeks to come my strength increased 3kg per week in 4 sets of 8 reps.I now bench more than my own bodyweight and only have 10% fat in my body.All of this just because my body reached a level of development where I could start gaining..thanks to muay thai.

As I mentioned this was only one 1 breakthrough in my gymming progress.The other one came in regarding of nutrition.As I said in the beginning I could never gain weight,just maintained what I have.Although muay thai did boost my weight a bit,gaining was still slow because muay thai removed basically every bit of fat and turned it into muscle.The other problem is that I only gained to a level where my body was perfectly balanced between muscle and fitness.While this still turns heads without a shirt,I really wanted to increase muscle mass,turning heads with a shirt on aswell.So I started to look for mistakes in my nutrition and there came my second breakthrough.Protein is not the most important supplement for a hardgainer,carbohydrates is.If the body does not consume enough carbs for energy,the body looks to more expensive source for energy aka protein.Both 1 gram of protein and 1 gram of carbohydrates contains 5 calories of energy.This means if the body runs out of carbs it starts using the body's protein(that is supposed to be used to build muscle).This is very bad news because 2 pieces of bread contains more than double the carbs(more or less 75g) than a whole meal replacement shake of protein(35g).Using expensive and limited protein for energy is like using a new ferrari for destruction derby..unacceptible.At this point I decided to consume a heap load of carbs per day.And I finally started gaining mass even when I decreased my protein intake per day.

The Combination these two breakthroughs took my bodybuilding progress to a whole new level that I could only have seen in dreams.Try it sometime.

These indications will help you a bit:

Daily nutritional intake:

(18-20)(Bodyweight in pounds) = Caloric Intake

1-2 grams of protein per lb. of bodyweight

The rest is carbohydrates