Cocktails bestaan uit 2 belangrijke groepen van ingrediënten: enerzijds de spirits (alcoholische dranken) en anderzijds de mixers (vaak een mix van een aantal fruitsappen en andere niet-alcoholische ingrediënten). De verhouding bij cocktails is meestal als volgt: 1 deel spirit + 2 tot 3 delen mixer. Hoewel heel wat mixers voor cocktails tegenwoordig kant en klaar in flessen verkrijgbaar zijn (vb. Margarita Mix, Piña Colada Mix,...) gaat er niets boven een drankje gemaakt met verse ingrediënten. Bovendien hebben Mixers uit flessen vaak een onnatuurlijke nasmaak.

Vermijd het gebruik van houten tandenstokers in uw drankjes. Ze geven na verloop van tijd kleine splintertjes af die gaan drijven in het drankje. Plastic tandenstokers bieden een oplossing. Zorg ervoor dat ze lang genoeg zijn zodat ze niet wegzakken in het drankje.

Presentatie is de helft van uw succes! Onderschat de kracht van garnering niet. Een schijfje citroen of een olijf mag dan wel een detail lijken, het is het zeker niet. Beschouw versieringen steeds als volwaardige en noodzakelijke ingrediënten van uw cocktails.

Ijs ijs ijs ! Je hebt nooit genoeg ijs. Zorg er dus voor dat je steeds een grote voorraad in de diepvries hebt.

Een goede shaker is essentieel. Gebruik geen geïmproviseerde shakers zoals twee op elkaar geplaatste glazen. De randen versplinteren gemakkelijk en bovendien lekken ze.

Wanneer je bij het inschenken van de cocktail morst op de rand van het glas, giet het drankje dan in een nieuw glas. Het glas gewoon afvegen laat een plakkerig residu achter.

Bereid je voor! Plan op voorhand wat je ongeveer wil maken en wat je zal nodig hebben. Heel wat werk kan je reeds op voorhand doen.
Basistechnieken

Zoutrand: om de rand van een glas van een zoutlaagje te voorzien (bv. voor het serveren van een margarita), ga je als volgt te werk:
wrijf met een vers stukje citroen rond de rand van het glas. Neem een ondiep bordje met een laag van +/- 1 cm zout en dip het glas hier zachtjes in. Beweeg het glas langzaam heen en weer tot een egale bedekking is bereikt. Denk erom het glas zeker niet wild rond te draaien, want dan zal het zout het citroensap gewoonweg absorberen en van het glas vallen.

Floating/Layering: vaak worden verschillende ingrediënten óp elkaar geplaatst zonder ze te mengen. Deze techniek vergt enige behendigheid en ervaring. Meestal gebruikt men hiervoor een lepel. Plaats de lepel in het glas en giet de vloeistof langzaam over de achterkant van de lepel in het glas bovenop het andere ingrediënt. Je kan eventueel ook langzaam langs de binnenkant van het glas gieten. Oefening baart kunst dus je weet wat je te doen staat!
Vooraleer je dranken in lagen gaat brengen, weet je best welke het "zwaarst" is. Raadpleeg hiervoor eventueel onze density-list.

Shaking: om te shaken gebruik je best een gewone bar shaker. 10 keer schudden is meestal voldoende, overdrijven is nutteloos. Cocktails met eiwit of room echter vereisen meer shakewerk (ongeveer 3 keer zoveel). Deze drankjes moeten goed geschud worden om het juiste effect te bereiken.

Ijs: voor cocktails wordt meestal gebruik gemaakt van ijsblokjes die onregelmatig zijn van vorm. Een eenvoudige werkwijze hiervoor is gewone ijsblokjes in een zak of handdoek te doen en ze vervolgens met een zwaar voorwerp(hamer,pan,...) stuk te slaan. Je kan ook een blok ijs invriezen en hiervan stukjes kappen. Sommige drankjes moeten "frozen" geserveerd worden. d.w.z. dat je ze mixt met ijs en eventueel ijsschilfers toevoegt om het drankje de typische textuur te geven. Breek de ijsblokjes zo klein mogelijk voor je ze gaat mixen.

(Written by Anthony Ellis)    

Now there are many other things that you can do to help you build mass, BUT these 10 things are the bare essentials. In other words, they are absolutely necessary for a successful program.

1. Weight Train


Weight training involves the use of equipment that enables variable resistance. This resistance can come in the form of "free weights" like barbells and dumbbells, machines that use cables or pulleys to help you lift the weight and bodyweight exercises like pull-ups or dips.

For anyone trying to gain muscle, several things must be done. One is to train with heavy weights. By heavy I mean a weight that is challenging for YOU. The average guy in the gym usually works with a weight he can lift for 10-15+ reps. For mass gaining purposes, this is too light. Using an appropriate weight, you should only be able to do 4-8 reps. That's it! Using heavy weights and low reps puts your muscles and nervous system under much more stress than using lighter weights for many reps. This added stress causes the involvement and stimulation of more muscle fibers, which will cause rapid muscle growth.

For maximum muscle gain, the focus of your workouts should consist of free weight exercises. Not machines or bodyweight exercises. This is not to say that you shoud not use machines or bodyweight exercises, but they should not be the focus of your training. To get an effective, muscle blasting workout, you must stimulate the most muscle fibers as possible, and machines do not do this.

The main reason for this is a lack of stabilizer and synergist muscle development. Stabilizer and synergist muscles are supporting muscles that assist the main muscle in performing a complex lift. The more stabilizers and synergists worked, the more muscle fibers stimulated. Multi-jointed free weight exercises like the bench press, require many stabilizer and synergistic muscle assistance to complete the lift. On the other hand doing a bench press using a machine will need almost no stabilizer assistance. Click here for my favorite mass building exercises..

If you are working out at home, make sure you check out this site for some greate home fitness equipment.


2. Eat More Calories

The most important thing that I cannot emphasize is that you need to eat to gain weight. You need to eat like you've never eaten before. If you are not eating enough calories, you will NEVER gain weight, no matter what you do. In order to build new muscle, you must eat more calories than your body burns off, creating what is called a caloric surplus. To gain mass, you should strive to eat around 18-20 times your bodyweight in calories. The extra calories will be used by your body to repair muscle tissue that is damaged during the heavy workouts, and to build new muscle.

Now, when I say eat, I do not mean just anything. All calories are not created equal. In other words, some types of calories are not equal to others for gaining muscle. For example, if I said that you need to eat 2,000 calories per day to gain weight, and you eat 4 bags of potato chips each day, do you think you would gain muscle? Not likely. The majority of your weight would be fat. Why? Because potato chips, like most processed junk food, contains empty, totally nutritionless calories. These foods do not provide you with the correct nutrient breakdown essential for gaining muscle.


3. Eat More Protein

Without protein, your body will not be able to build new muscle. Years ago, a higher carbohydrate and lower fat diet was the rage, recommended by professional bodybuilders and trainers. They claimed that this was the only way to eat for muscle gain. Unfortunately, the only people gaining muscle on that type of diet were a genetically gifted few. The rest just got fat.

Carbs serve mainly as energy for the body, while protein provides the necessary amino acids to build and repair muscle. For muscle growth, carbohydrates are not as essential as protein and fats. High quality protein, which the body breaks down into amino acids, should be the center point of all your meals. There are many studies that show intense exercise increases demand for amino acids, which support muscle repair and growth.To build muscle, you should try to get at least 1g of protein per pound of bodyweight.

Whether you believe it or not, the fact is: High protein diets build more muscle when incorporated with intense training. Low protein diets do not. Period. Only protein can build muscle. Carbohydrates and fat cannot.

Here is one of the protein supplements that I recommend.


4. Eat More Often

To gain weight, you will be eating a large amount of calories. Unfortunately, your body can only assimilate a certain number of calories at each meal. For our purposes, eating three meals per day is not beneficial. If you had to eat 3,000 calories per day, then you would end up eating 1,000 calories at each meal. The average person can only use a portion of those calories. The excess will be stored as fat or removed from the body.

To enable your body to actually assimilate and use the 3,000 calories you will ingest, you have to reduce your meal size and increase your meal frequency. Splitting your calories into smaller, more frequent portions will enable food absorption and utilization of nutrients . I always eat six meals each day, evenly spaced out at three-hour intervals.

My goal is to provide my body with constant nourishment throughout the day. So if it typically takes about 2.5 hours to digest most meals, want to be eating another meal just as my last meal is leaving my stomach. I do this because my body is constantly in need of nutrients to repair itself. I do a lot of damage during my workouts and completely stress my system. My body is trying to "adapt to the stress," but in order to do this, it needs consistent fuel.

If I ate only three meals per day, then my body would be without nutrients for about six hours between each of those meals! This is unacceptable for skinny guys. Without food, your body will quickly begin to breakdown muscle tissue for energy.


5. Eat More Fat

If you want to gain muscle mass, you must eat enough dietary fat. Dietary fats play an essential role in hormone production, which in turn is responsible for growth and strength increases. I have never gained muscle on a low fat diet, though many people still believe that eating fat makes you fat. This is absolutely false. In fact, there is a very popular muscle gain diet that been around for years, called the "Anabolic Diet" that requires you to eat only fat! Butter, bacon, and heavy cream are all on the menu. Though quite extreme, this diet does work.

Most people are overweight because of a diet high in simple carbohydrates, not from eating fats. If your diet is too low in fat, your body will actually make a point to store any fat it gets, because it doesn't know when it will get more. A low-fat diet will also lower testosterone levels, something we do not want when trying to gain weight. Studies have shown that dietary fat has a direct relationship with testosterone production. An increase in dietary fat intake seems to bring on an increase in testosterone levels. The inverse is also true. A decrease in dietary fat intake is usually accompanied by a decrease in free testosterone levels.

However, you don't want to increase your intake of saturated fats. Saturated fats are what cause disease and coronary problems. Though you will always have some saturated fats in your diet, your main focus should be to increase your intake of Essential Fatty Acids (EFAs).

EFAs are unsaturated fats that are necessary for thousands of biological functions throughout the body. Because they cannot be manufactured by the body, the must be provided by your diet. These fatty acids not only help increase testosterone production, but they also aid in the prevention of muscle breakdown, help to increase your HDL level (good cholesterol) and assist in hormone production. To get your recommended amount of EFA's, I recommend supplementing your diet with either Udo's Perfect Oil Blend (which combines omega- and omega-6), or Cold-Pressed Flaxseed oil (which is mostly omega-3).


6. Drink More Water

To make sure that your muscles stay hydrated, you must drink plenty of water. Dehydration can happen easily if you train hard. A dehydrated muscle, takes longer to repair itself than one sufficiently hydrated.

Drinking a sufficient amount of water not only increases your vascularity (more visible veins), but it will also help to quickly remove toxins from the body. Protein generates metabolic waste products that must be dissolved in water. Without enough water, the kidneys cannot efficiently remove these wastes.



7. Take a Multi-Vitamin

There are many supplements and specific muscle gain enhancing products that I recommend using in my book, but I have to remember that this is only the 10 most important elements of a successful mass program. So, I have to keep this brief and to the point. All of the other products will help, but they are not essential. So, I will only touch on two vitamins supplements.Multi-Vitamins and Antioxidants.

If you want to gain muscle, you must make sure that you are not deficient in any vitamin, mineral or trace element that your body needs. I know many people are going to disagree with me, but I believe that in this day, we absolutely need to supplement our diet with vitamins and minerals. I know that those who are against using vitamins are going to say that if we "just eat a balanced diet. . . ", You know the rest.

Well first, eating a balanced diet is easier said than done. America is the most overweight country in the world. Most people don't even know what a "balanced" diet is. Balanced with what? Experts will continue to spout, "eat a balanced diet," while Americans feast on nutritionless fast food and sugar.

Second, not only do our bodies have to deal with the ever-increasing external stresses of everyday life, they also have to combat nutrient-depleting exercise. Food today is, for the most part, nutritionless - almost totally void of the body strengthening vitamins and minerals it contained one hundred years earlier. Instead, we now ingest over-processed, fiberless meals, and under-ripened vegetables grown in barren, over-farmed soil, laden with pesticides.

How healthy can that be? If you want to ignore the facts and continue on about "balanced diets," fine. It's your decision. But I, for one, eat a balanced diet, and I still take a multi-vitamin supplements.

Many mult-vitamin manufacturers try to put "everything" in their product, but it's not necessary. At minimum, your multi-vitamin should contain the USRDA (recommended daily allowance) of vitamins A, B-complex, C, D, E, K and the minerals calcium, magnesium, zinc, iodine, selenium, and possibly iron (for women). Men should find a multi-vitamin without iron. You typically get more than enough iron from your food. Extra iron is needed only for menstruating women.

It should also contain other essential nutrients like biotin, chromium, copper, manganese, molybdenum and pantothenic acid.

There are some vitamins and minerals that are best taken separately. Vitamin E, vitamin C, folic acid and calcium are best taken at higher dosages. Many proponents of multi-vitamins cite that taking that many vitamins and vitamins together causes negative interactions because they compete with each other for absorption. For example: magnesium, zinc, and calcium compete for absorption; copper and zinc also compete for absorption.

But think about this for a minute. This is no different than eating different foods at the same time, as most people do. The vitamins and minerals in the foods compete also. Competition is expected and the body is designed to handle that. Here is a good multi-vitamin that I use.


8. Take Antioxidants

An antioxidant like Vitamins A, C, E, Glutathione, Glutamine, and Selenium are essential in preventing free radical damage, which is accelerated after the heavy trauma of weight training. Antioxidants protect other substances by being oxidized themselves. Here's a good antioxidant blend that I also use.


9. Rest More Often

Rest is the most overlooked "skinny-guy secret". If you don't rest, you won't grow. Simple as that. Your body does not build muscle in the gym, it builds muscle while resting!

The key to successfully gaining weight is eating enough calories, training hard and then resting. No diet adjustments will make up for lack of rest. If you train hard in the gym, then you should be resting your muscles as much as possible. If you do not give them time to rest and repair, you will not grow. Period.



10. Be Consistent

O.K., so you want the secret to gaining muscle mass fast? Well, here it is: CONSISTENCY.

You can have the best diet, the best training schedule, join the best gym that has the best equipment, but without consistency it's all worthless.

Over the past 3 years, I've talked to hundreds of people who have successfully transformed their physique. Though most of them trained in totally different ways, there was one common denominator that appeared throughout each success story:

Day in and day out, they followed their pre-determined plan, consistently, without fail.

You must find the determination and drive within yourself to consistently put one foot in front of the other and see this through. If not now, then when?

"You never know what you can do, until you try to do more than you can." - Tony Blauer


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Think that this is too complicated or inconvenient?

Sometimes guys will complain to me about the perceived inconvenience of following a specific plan. I can see it's easy to make excuses, after all, I used to do the same thing.

Don't get caught up in this. The truth is, the hardest part any training routine is getting started. You've got to break your old habits and make new paths for yourself. Remember that saying,

~{!0~}Do what you've always done, and get what you've always gotten~{!1~}.

Read it again.

Before I really learned the right way to gain muscle, I trained sporadically. I worked out when I felt like it. One week I might have trained five days, while another week I would train once or twice. As far as my routine was concerned, I did whatever seemed interesting at the time. Never keeping track of my sessions or planning my routines. I had been a member of a popular health club for 8 years, yet I had managed to gain not one pound of muscle. I tried all the popular "weight gaining" products at the time. Very expensive stuff like Cybergenics, weight gainer powders, Boron, amino acid tablets, etc. The list goes on.

Needless to say, none of it worked. I began to give in to the fact that I just could not gain weight. "It's because I have a fast metabolism", I was told. I had been thin my entire life, and I would have done just about anything to gain weight. For years I did not know what it felt like to weight more than 138 pounds. I was even underweight as a child.

After I was born, I had to remain at the hospital for an extra seven days because of my weight. Understand, this was not just some overnight problem for me my lack of size had plagued me my entire life. In my teen years, I took up the martial arts in hopes of learning to defend myself against the much larger kids at school. Too ashamed of my appearance, I was rarely seen without my shirt in the summer time. To thin, I was not allowed to play sports in high school or college.

When I speak, I speak from first hand experience. I am not some guy who is naturally athletic, or genetically gifted. I had always been thin, and I would still be thin if I had listened to everyone around me telling me why I couldn't gain weight.

You can do it too; I'm not that special.

Anthony Ellis, a former 135lb skinny guy!

a) Chocolate-Peanut Butter Shake

1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
3 tablespoons creamy peanut butter
3 tablespoons chocolate syrup
1-1/2 cup chocolate ice cream

Blend in blender. Calories per serving: 1070


b) Strawberry Crush

2 cup frozen strawberries
1/2 cup crushed pineapple
1/2 cup water
1/2 medium banana
6 tablespoons sugar
1/4 cup lemon juice
2 tablespoons honey

Blend in blender. Calories per serving: 640


3) Peaches and Cream

1 cup milk
1 cup canned peaches
1 cup vanilla ice cream
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon vanilla

Blend in blender. Calories per serving: 630


4) Apple Pie a la Mode

1 cup apple pie filling
1/2 cup milk
1 cup vanilla ice cream
Dash of cinnamon

Blend in blender. Calories per serving: 525


5) High-Calorie Breakfast Shake

1 cup Half and Half
1 packet Carnation Instant Breakfast
3/4 cup ice cream

Blend in blender. Calories per serving: 505


6) Grape Slush
2 grape juice bars
2 tablespoons corn syrup
1/2 cup grape juice or 7-Up
1 tablespoon corn oil

Blend in blender. Calories per serving: 493


7) Orange Sherbet Shake

3/4 cup orange sherbet
2 tablespoons corn syrup
1/2 cup 7-Up
2 tablespoons corn oil

Blend in blender. Calories per serving: 480


8) Old-fashioned Milkshake

1 cup whole milk
1 cup ice cream

Blend in blender. Calories per serving: 420


9) Hot Chocolate

3 oz. milk chocolate
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon butter
1 cup Half and Half

Melt chocolate and butter.
Add vanilla and slowly stir in Half and Half, small amounts at a time.
Reheat to desired temperature. Calories per serving: 416

Gaining weight can be as challenging to some people as losing weight is to others. In addition, thin people get little sympathy from their peers, especially when their peers that are battling the scales in the other direction. For those of you who are overly thin, there are a few things you can do to beef up your body.

The first thing you need to do is to check with your medical doctor to make sure there aren't medical problems associated with your weight. If the culprit is that you're not eating enough food, then you'll need to pump up your portions. Unlike dieters who concentrate on reducing the calories they consume, you need to try to increase your caloric intake by eating high calorie foods and snacking at least three times a day. For your snacks, chose peanut butter or crackers, raisins, or nuts chased with juice or milk. You may even opt for a second sandwich. In your three square meals a day, consume foods with the most calories per serving, such as peas, cereals with nuts and raisins and dried fruits. Five dried figs have over 230 calories whereas two apples have only 160 calories. Juice is also high in calories. It is easier to drink a cup of orange juice at 111 calories than to eat almost two whole oranges to get that many.

If you consume an additional 500 to 1,000 calories, you should put on one to two pounds per week. But you may have to go slow at first and work up to those calories. While you should be eating foods from all five basic food groups, begin hunting for the foods with most calories per serving within each group. Since some thin people forget to eat sometimes, make sure you eat at least three square meals a day. Try not to start off a meal with soup, salad, or a beverage, which may fill you up and keep you from eating more caloric foods.

Any weight loss guru will tell you that fats are hefty in the calorie department, so in your case, make sure you're getting enough. Your diet should contain up to 30 percent of its calories from fat. For a person needing 2,500 calories a day, that translates into 83 grams of fat. To stay heart healthy, the majority of fat you eat should be from unsaturated sources such as vegetable oils, salad dressings, nuts, peanut butter, and fatty fish such as salmon. Add nuts to your salad and douse it with dressing for the maximum number of calories.

When it comes to exercise, strength training is the way you want to go. Be sure to eat extra calories to cover the increased calorie demands. This is an excellent way to beef up your body because of the muscle you'll build. However, always check with your doctor before beginning any exercise program! You may also want to seek the support of a registered dietitian who has expertise in strength training to design compatible menu and exercise plans.


52 ways ti gain weight:

Count how many calories you eat in a normal day. Don't change anything, just eat like you normally would and count how many calories you consumed. This is an extremely important step, so try to be as exact as possible. Also, weigh yourself.


Starting the day after you counted calories, eat 500 calories MORE then you normally do. So, lets pretend that the day you counted calories you counted 2000. For the rest of the week, you would now eat 2500 calories a day. Instead of eating 3 big meals a day or eating all day all the time, spread those calories out over 5-6 smaller meals. Eat one meal every 2 and a half to 3 hours. To get big, you have to eat big! Remember that.


Weightlifting! Get in the gym and lift! This is another important step to how to gain weight, so make sure you are doing it correctly. For more information on weightlifting workout routines and splits, read the workout routines and splits section.


At the end of that week, weigh yourself. You'll notice your gaining just after one week! Now, don't expect to see a 10lb increase. Gaining anymore then 1 or 2 pounds a week is unhealthy and means your putting on way to much fat. So look for 1 or 2 pound gains at the end of the week. Don't sound like much? You can be gaining 5-8 pounds a month!


Heres an important one. At some point, you will stop seeing weight gain. At this point, you will have to eat even more. So, when you stop gaining for at least 2 weeks, it means it is time to start eating an extra 250 calories a day. Every time you see you haven't gained weight for at least 2 weeks, add an extra 250 calories.


Stay away from fat! Even though weight gain is your goal, you don't want to be gaining fat. Get rid of the chips and candy. No more fast food, nothing fried. Stick to high protein low fat foods like tuna fish (and other seafood), chicken breast, turkey, lean meats, fruits and vegetables etc.


Protein is the building block for muscle. Without protein, dont even bother going to the gym. To gain muscle mass, you need to eat protein. Some people say eating 2 grams of protein per pound of body weight. I disagree. I say stick with 1 gram per pound. So if you weigh 150lbs, eat 150 grams of protein. And that means everyday, whether your going to workout that day or not, you still need to supply your muscles with the protein they need to recover for the next workout and to grow.


Also about protein.. you need it after a workout. Eat a can of tuna or something high in protein after your workouts to supply your body with the protein it needs to recover after the workout you just had. I have a protein shake after every workout.


As you might have guessed, fruits and vegetables are very important to your diet. Besides the fact theres no fat, they have the vitamins and minerals you need!


Drinks. The best thing to drink is water, and a lot of it. You need it. It will give you the fuel you need to kill yourself in the gym getting the body you want. Another good drink is low/non fat milk. Milk has a lot of protein in it. But if you like it, non fat milk is great for you. But don't forget about the water!


Diets. You have to make yourself a diet. Whether its a weight gain diet, or a weight loss diet, you have to get organized. Plan what your going to eat before you eat it. Make yourself a diet as low in fat as possible, and high in protein and then get yourself organized so that eating isn't a problem anymore. It becomes as easy as walking, you just do it without thinking. This way, theres no time to think about eating those potato chips, or not eating enough protein.


Carbs. People trying to lose weight should eat a diet very low in carbs while someone whose trying to gain weight can get away with eating the extra carbs.


Sleep! YES! Sleep! The easiest, yet most over looked step. Get at least 8 hours of sleep a night. Your going to need it!


Now the concern some people have about how to gain weight, is how to do it without putting on extra fat. Let me tell you how, YOU CAN'T! Unless you are using steroids, it is basically impossible to gain weight without putting on a little bit of extra fat. But hey, you want to see some weight gain right? Well then who cares about the little bit of extra fat you might put on while gaining. You will be able to burn that off later on, right now gaining is your main concern, so that is all you need to worry about.


One rule when making weightlifting workout programs for gaining muscle weight is to make sure to split it so that you aren't overtraining. Doing chest on Monday, then triceps on Tuesday, then shoulders on Wednesday will overtrain your triceps. Why? Because just about every chest and shoulder exercise works the triceps secondary. And almost every back exercise works the biceps secondary.


Work chest, triceps and shoulders on the same day, and biceps and back on the same day so that its ok if the secondary muscles get worked that day, because your doing them anyway.


Separate those muscles that work a secondary muscle so that they are far enough apart not to overtrain you. For example, do Chest Monday, triceps on Wednesdays, and shoulders Friday... and biceps Monday with chest, and back Wednesday or Friday.


Do chest and triceps Monday, and shoulders Thursday, and back and biceps together on Friday.


Carefully plan your meals with foods that will help you gain lean mass, not fat. I suggest 6 meals. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, and three other small meals scheduled throughout the day. The goal is to eat every 2.5 to 3 hours.


Focus on foods such as steak, chicken, fruit, milk, vegetables, cheese and assorted types of nuts. It's recommended to eat 4 - 6 pieces of fresh fruit a day, and at least four tall glasses of milk. Milk is a great, cheap protein source - take advantage of it. A sample snack meal would be a glass of milk, an apple, and a hand full of peanuts.


To gain weight, you do not NEED supplements, but they will help you gain the weight quicker. That's what they are, supplements to an already good diet and training program. Think of supplements as the finishing touch.


Drink weight gain shakes. The way this will help is by giving you a large quantity of calories in one small serving. It will provide you with 620 calories in one easy shake and is especially great for people who do not have time for breakfast, or snacks while on the go. Just mix a serving with water or fruit juice and gulp it down in a just a couple of minutes.


Creatine monohydrate: Most people gain 5 - 7lbs in the first two weeks of creatine use. If you are interested in quick weight gain, and increased energy for your workouts, creatine is definitely worth a go. Learn more about Creatine.


Buy new fitness duds. Let's face it: Good equipment is everything. Proper shoes, workout gloves, etc., that make it comfortable to walk, and clothes that make you feel good when you move, can act as an incentive to lace up the sneakers and hit the gym.


Shoes: The American Council on Exercise warns that athletic shoes will lose their cushioning after three to six months of regular use, increasing the susceptibility to knee and ankle injuries. Replace them periodically. Buy a comfortable sweat suit or shorts and a tee-shirt in hot-to-trot colors, such as bright red or orange, which are known to have an invigorating effect.


To build mass, you must weight train with heavy weights. By heavy, I mean a weight that is challenging for you -- not me, or anyone else. To consider a weight heavy, you should only be able to do a maximum of 8-12 reps before your muscles temporarily fail. A weight is considered "light" if you can do more than 15 reps before muscle fatigue sets in.


Keep your workouts under one hour. Short and intense!


Concentrate on free weight exercises that work the large muscle groups. The best weight training exercises for building mass are the simple ones. For mass, stick with compound free weight exercises like squats, deadlifts, bench presses, barbell rows, pull ups and bar dips.


Use heavy weights and low reps, rest 3 minutes between each set.


Stretching before your session is necessary to warm-up and loosen your joints, muscles and ligaments, while stretching after your workout helps to aid in recovery. When you stretch the muscles you just worked it will help to remove the lactic acid buildup in those muscles. Stretching helps in the removal waste from the muscles, and supplies them with much needed oxygen and nutrients. This will also help to alleviate some of the muscle soreness that accompanies heavy training.


Using food supplements like Meal Replacement Powders and whey protein help to eliminate the common problem of "not enough time", by providing you with an quick efficient way to get your required nutrients each day.


Deliver messages by hand. Send fewer interoffice emails daily. Hand deliver messages instead. While we are all geared into saving time, moving our mouse more often than our feet will, unfortunately, also reduce the amount of calories burned. Make a habit of getting up and delivering a couple of messages every day to fellow employees who sit the farthest away from your cubicle. The more you move, the more you will stand to lose.


Increasing strength and decreasing recovery time. Using vitamin and amino acid supplements help to minimize the negative side effects of weight training and speed your recovery.


Whey Protein - many people use Whey protein to help gain weight. Read more about it - Read "The Whey It Is".


I recommend that everyone should be taking a multi-vitamin, plenty of vitamin C, and glutamine.


Multi-Vitamin: Weight training increases the body's need for many minerals like magnesium and selenium. The multi-vitamin should ensure that you are not deficient in any major essential vitamin or mineral. Deficiency symptoms include muscle weakness and suppression of the immune system, muscle cramping and fatigue.


Vitamin C: Vitamin C essential to prevent free radical damage, which is accelerated after the heavy trauma of weight training. It is also essential is helping to repair connective tissue which helps decrease the amount of time you are sore. Vitamin C helps recovery so you can get back to training. A typical intake is around 3,000mg in divided doses. That would equal quite a few oranges!


Iron: Grown men do not need additional iron. They get enough from our food. Men and postmenopausal women should never take iron supplements unless they have iron-deficiency anemia, which is only diagnosed by blood tests. The body has no way to eliminate excess iron except through blood loss. Women who menstruate are protected from iron overload, obviously. Iron is also an oxidizing agent that can cause damage to the heart and arteries, and is a major risk factor in arteriosclerosis.


Glutamine - Glutamine is an amino acid that is produced by our bodies, but most of the time our bodies demand so much, that it can't create enough. You can supplement your diet with glutamine to increase levels of glutathione. Glutathione is a powerful antioxidant, which helps to combat the stresses of exercise trauma, and prevent muscle protein breakdown. Suggested intake is about 15g per day (in divided doses), which would be impossible to get naturally. Take one dose at bedtime.


Make it easy! Keep foods within easy reach. When you're shopping, remember that convenient packaging reduces the effort of preparing meals and snacks.


I will let you in on a little secret: Nothing ever goes as planned. No one ever makes the gains they expected when they expected. At some point, guys who have made incredible gains got discouraged and felt disappointed. But they did not quit. They stayed focused on their goals.


Change your workout parameters. If you have been performing the same weight training routine for at least 5 weeks and you are not seeing any further strength gains, you may want to consider changing your workout parameters (i.e. sets, reps, tempo, exercises). Any small change should be enough to continue your progress. For example, if you are performing your reps with tempo of one count up and one count down, you may try slowing down your reps for a count of one up and three down.


Take a before picture. And put it where you can see it everyday. This reminds you of what you used to look like, and what you will look like again if you stop training!


Write down your specific goal on a piece of paper (e.g. you want to gain 30 pounds of muscle and get your body fat below 6%), and either carry it with you everywhere, or hang it somewhere you will see it everyday.


Find a photo of someone who has the physique that you are trying to attain. You must be realistic when choosing this. Choose someone who is realistically achievable. Now hang that where you will see it everyday. Each time you look at your role model photo or read your written goal, you should visualize what you will actually look like at that goal and how you will feel.


Take your physical measurements every two weeks. This is a gauge of how well your program is working for you. It will show you how far you have come. You will also see what is and what is not working for you.


Give yourself a free day. Allow yourself one day out of the week to eat anything you want - without guilt.


Unfortunately, when you're trying to figure out how to gain weight, it's easy to ignore the most important limiting factor ~{!*~} your genetics. Specifically, scientists have isolated one particular gene that, through a protein called myostatin, actually slows your rate of muscle growth. Variations in myostatin genotype could explain why some people gain weight in the form of muscle far more quickly than others. Muscle fibers in elite bodybuilders, for example, are often no bigger than someone who has never picked up a barbell in their life. Their muscles are larger because they contain a greater number of small to average sized fibers.


About being underweight, sometimes being too thin requires medical intervention. A physician can rule out hormonal imbalances, depression, and other hidden diseases such as anorexia or bulimia. Risks associated with being too skinny include complications in surgery and slow recovery after illnesses.


Try replacing foods such as diet sodas with good energy sources, such as fruit juice.


Power-pack each meal and snack. A few simple additions can add considerable amounts of nutrients and calories to your food. Add peanut butter to toast with honey or jam, dried cranberries and almonds or walnuts to oatmeal, low-fat cheese to crackers.


Try to limit greasy or fried foods. They take longer to digest and therefore diminish your appetite.

1) Pelvic Tilt:



Lie on back with knees bent ,press lower back into floor and breathe out as you lift pelvis off the floor
breathe in and slowly lower yourself back to start position.

2) Crunches knees bent:



Starting Position
Lie on your back with your knees bent and feet flat on the floor. Place your hands behind your head with the elbows out to the sides and pull your ABs tightly inward.

Pulling with the upper ABs, curl up and forward, raising your shoulders blades off the floor. Pause at the top and lower your shoulders so that they slightly touch the ground and repeat.

3) Leg raises-floor:



Starting Position
Lie on your back with your legs extended and your arms to the sides of your body. Pull your ABs tightly inward and keeping your legs fully extended raise them a few inches off the floor. Keep the knees slightly bent and the lower back pressed against the floor.

Pulling with the lower ABs raise your legs until they are perpendicular to the floor. Pause at the top and slowly return to the starting position.

4) Seated knee raises:



Starting Position
Sit on the end of a flat bench with the hands holding the sides of the bench. Raise your feet 2-3 inches off the floor with the legs extended(slight bend at knee) and lean your torso back so that your body is at a 45 degree angle from the floor. Maintain the lower back in a neutral position and pull the ABs tightly inward.

Using your ABs, simultaneously pull your knees towards your chest and your chest towards your knees. Pause, squeeze your ABs and slowly return both the legs and the torso to the starting position.

5) Bicycles:



Starting Position
Lie on the floor with your arms positioned along the sides of your body. Pull your ABs tightly inward and keeping your legs fully extended raise them off the floor. Keep the knees slightly bent and the lower back pressed against the floor.

As if you were pedaling a bicycle, bring one knee towards your chest while the other leg is extended and return to starting position while simultaneously pulling the other knee to your chest. This is a continuous movement.


6) Double Crunches



Lie on your back with your knees bent at 90 degrees. Place your hands behind your head with the elbows out to the sides and pull your ABs tightly inward.

Simultaneously bring the knees towards the chest slightly raising your hips off the floor and curl up and forward raising your shoulders blades off the floor. Pause, squeeze your ABs and slowly return to the starting position.

Fitness exercises multiply the muscle strength. This comes by a combination of larger muscles and a change in the way the nerves cooperate to control the body.
When you do fitness exercises, you force the muscles to perform extra work. You can speak of ~{!0~} overload ~{!1~} and the result is that both muscle strength and the muscle mass increase. This process is called hypertrophie. If a muscle experiences resistance when it is being tightened, the muscleproteines actine and myosine are demolished (this happens when you bring the weight back slowly to the beginning position).

During the rest period between 2 fitness trainings, the small cracks in the muscles are being repaired. This happens because new proteines are produced: the connective tissue is repaired, the muscle fibres become longer and the muscle in its whole grows in scope and strength.

The increase of muscle mass is generally the consequence of stronger becoming muscle fibres, rather than an increase of the number of muscle fibres in the muscles. When the fibres are repaired, actine and myosine are added and the number of filaments in the fibres is raised.

There are several types of muscle fibres. It is type II that is responsible for the increase in strength and scope of the muscles. This comes because this type of fibres are put to work when fitness exercises with weights are performed. How heavier the weight, how more type II muscle fibres are used.

More powerful muscles training
If you start with fitness exercisess, increased strength will come in the first place from the fact that your nerves can control the muscle more efficiently (neuromusculair adaptation). Only afterwards there are changes in the compactness or in the form of the muscle. This comes by the additive of muscleproteines (actine and myosine) to the muscle cells.

Still there is then little or no increase in the scope of the muscle noticeable. Only the compactness of the filaments is noticeable: the muscle feels more firmly and more tightly in a relaxed situation. When you don't change the fitness exercises, the muscules will stop to adapt: they will stop with growing.

When the fitness exercises are, however, adapted, the muscles itself must adapt also, as a result of which the muscles will increase in scope and compactness. 

Don't be discouraged  when a month hard training you see hardly results. The muscles are more tightly and more powerful, but the size comes just after the neuromusculaire adaptation. Hard working will always be rewarded!