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About
The Build Muscle
& Gain Weight
Fast Guide

My own frustration with trying to gain weight and build muscle led me to building this site. I was a skinny kid who stayed skinny well into my twenties. As is true with many people, both males and females, being so thin was something that really bothered me.

I tried everything I could to put some weight on. I was constantly on the look-out for quality information on how to gain weight and build muscle. This wasn't easy to find.

Eventually I did get the correct information and I did gain the weight I wanted. And with the correct information, building muscle was not as difficult or costly as many sources made it out to be. All it really took was training smart.

The goal of this site is to provide a quality resource for those seeking muscle and weight gain. It offers what I learned and continue to learn about building muscle and gaining weight. Hopefully it will help move those with similar aspirations towards their goals quicker, saving them time and money along the way.

1. This is a bodybuilding training site - It is not a fitness training site.

While closely related, there are differences. Fitness training puts the emphasis on physical conditioning with any physique improvements being pleasant side effects. Bodybuilding training puts the emphasis on physique improvements with any increased physical conditioning being a pleasant side effect.

There is also strength training and sport-specific strength training (and many other reasons to train). Again, the specific goals of these forms of training are not the focus of this site.

However, the basic mass gain strategy presented here is the same basic strategy that can be used to increase overall size and strength in athletes competing in those sports that benefit from such increases. There just isn't an effort to address the conditioning and specific-skill-set concerns for any individual sport.

This site has been mentioned in the New York Times as well as many other sites and publications as a reference for mass gain diet and training information. It is that, nothing more.

The site and its advice assumes that your primary goal is to significantly increase muscular bodyweight. The site encourages you to use natural bodybuilding training techniques in pursuit of that goal. The basic techniques presented here are the most proven ways to naturally add significant muscle mass in the shortest amount of time possible.

2. You will not find any weight or fat loss advice at this site (at least not much).

This is by design. I recognize that the majority of readers will have the overall goal of increasing muscle size AND achieving the lean, ripped look that comes with low body fat levels. The best way to attain this overall goal, however, is not by attempting to accomplish everything at once.

A primary tenet of bodybuilding training is that you train in distinct phases: You are either in a cutting or a bulking phase. Splitting your training focus between trying to gain muscle mass and trying to decrease your body fat levels is not the best way or the fastest way to physique-change. Read why here.

This site puts 100% of its emphasis on the bulking or mass gain training phase (just like you should do).

If your biggest obstacle to physique change is fat loss, you are on the wrong site. If this is the case, I highly recommend Tom Venuto's Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle program. Whether you need to lose a lot of fat or just the last few pounds to see some ab definition, this program can take you there. Read my review of Tom's program here.

3. The site is organized as a guide to designing your mass gain program based on intelligent strategy.

Instead of just throwing out a long list of miscellaneous bodybuilding articles, I have tried to organize the site in a way that the interested trainer can use it to build his program from the ground up.

In the left hand navbar on every page are five main categories: Program Design, Dieting, Supplementing, Weight Training and Tracking. Each one of these categories is a major component of a solid weight gain program.

The first listing below each category is bolded and acts as the main page for that component. These pages summarize the basic information, important points and link to pages that delve deeper into the various aspects of sound muscle gain strategy.

Alternatively, you can get to the site's information through the mini-guides, which are listings of all the articles on the site by topic. The mini-guides are linked as the bottom listing of each category AND on the bottom of every page of the site.

Unless otherwise noted, all the site's material was written by me. In addition to my articles, there are many articles from those I consider to be top experts in mass gain and related fields.

4. This site does NOT present a specific mass gain program.

Many people mistakenly assume there is a specific program on the site, a precise prescription of what to do this minute and then what to do the next minute. There isn't. Instead there are principles, suggestions, ideas and samples. There are ranges that most people would be well-advised to keep their programs within.

I do not believe there is any evidence that any one specific routine, diet or overall approach will produce the best results in the shortest amount of time for all trainers. There are many ways to skin the muscle gain cat. Many trainers have recorded incredible results and all have gotten there a little bit differently.

While all get there a little bit differently, very few venture far away from the basic principles and ranges presented at this site and get rewarded with significant results. For the muscle building program reviews section of this site, I have viewed the programs put together by many accomplished trainers. These programs rarely move outside this site's principles and ranges.

While successful and accomplished trainers seldom move outside these principles, the typical frustrated trainer has allowed bad advice and misinformation to take his program well outside of them. The solution is simple, come back into the light of these principles and ranges. This is where the big gains are.

I do believe there is extreme value in following a precise program. In fact, this is the course of action I recommend for all beginner and frustrated intermediate trainers. Mass gain at its base is not complex, but there a million ways to misinterpret and misapply your way to screwing it up. This is the reason I created the Muscle Building Program Reviews section of the site.

Even if I were to present a specific program, I could not do a better job of providing the precise information and necessary support to make the programs I rate with 5-stars such great vehicles to quick and successful mass gain. So, I leave it in capable hands.

5. This site is way too big.

Printed out, my best guess is that the text of this site would be rapidly approaching 1,000 pages. You don't need to read 1,000 pages to successfully gain significant muscle mass. Nor will you be necessarily any better off reading all of the 7,000,000 pages Google returns as results for "gain muscle mass."

95% of what you need to know in order to succeed at mass gain can be summed up in one sentence:

You must increase your calorie consumption and train with heavy weights and intensity while allowing the body adequate rest time.

Successful mass gain really isn't any more complicated than that. Everything else at this site deals with the particulars of understanding and best applying those things to your training program. To avoid immediate information overload, get the basics in the sentence above into your program and then work towards the particulars as you progress.

6. As large as this site is, it is NOT just a "grab-all" of the existing mass gain information available.

Of all the information out there, the majority is unfortunately crap. Eliminated from this site is:

• All the B.S. spewed by the supplement companies in an attempt to get at your wallet.
• All the B.S. spewed by the muscle magazines (which are actually the supplement companies) in an attempt to get at your wallet.
• All the training strategy taken from pro bodybuilders and other steroid users that simply isn't appropriate for the natural trainer.
• All the myths and illogical advice that exists and is routinely repeated in gyms and on certain web sites.
• All the immature logic used to prove or justify this or that when it actually doesn't prove or even say anything.
• All the unnecessarily complex talk put forth by certain individuals (in an effort to make themselves seem smart?) that just begs for misinterpretation from the average trainer.

It is the things above that make mass gain "complicated," more time-consuming, costly and frustrating then it need be. When you eliminate that noise, you can clearly see the path to significant muscle gain. This is what this site aims to provide.

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The site started as 5 pages and grew from there. The main fuel for the growth has come from site visitors who have written me and let me know what they didn't understand. They have given me suggestions and constructive criticism. From this the site has been shaped. If you have suggestions, comments or questions regarding the site, please contact me.

The site remains in a constant "bulking phase." I am always looking for ways to improve it.

If you have succeeded at reaching your mass gain goals or are succeeding, I encourage you to share your story and your best tips for others in the Weight Gain Tips section. This can help inspire and guide others to their goals. Please contribute.

You can keep up-to-date with the site by subscribing to the "Get Big" Ezine and/or through the RSS Feed.

Thanks for visiting the site and best of luck to you,

JP Clifford