FORUMS > Gaining Weight Forum Rules

I train in Brazilian Jujitsu and Mixed Mixed Martial Arts . I would like to gain more muscle without going to far up into another weight class. I saw a guy at my last tournament that was huge but was in my weight class. And there is a guy in my class who has almost 17 in arms but only weighs 178.... or got himself to that for the competition. So my question is can you gain muscle mass without gaining too much weight? I weigh 164-7 and have no problem going into the 170-179 range but I dont want to go over. Is it possible?

Of course it's possible! You're 5' 8" and 165 now and your body fat looks pretty low (most likely less than 10%). So you probably have a lean body mass of around 148.5 or so. You could maintain your current body fat and gain 11.5 lbs of muscle and still be 178. 11.5 lbs is a lot of muscle. It going to take time though especially if you want to maintain your body fat as low as it is now. I don't know what your current weight routine is like but it says you train 5 times per week. If you want to gain muscle mass you need to work out hard and heavy and give your muscles plenty of recovery time between workouts. When I'm training for mass I find heavy workouts with rep ranges between 6 and 10 for 4 sets and training each body part once per week works for me. You can also do light and heavy days if you want to train each body part twice per week but make sure you eat well, get plenty of protein and plenty of rest (at least 8 hours sleep a night).

I think, in terms of competing, you're probably looking for more strength, as opposed to actual mass--though most guys look for more mass for aesthetic reasons.

I used to row lightweight, which meant I couldn't weigh more than 160lbs. But it took me 4 years after I stopped rowing to get back to the squat poundages I was able to do when I was training. It's all about doing very high intensity (i.e. high loads) at very low reps.

The other thing you have to remember is that your weight class is determined at weigh-in, not the time of competition. The guy you saw who was jacked, might actually be in a higher weight class than you, but manages to lose a couple of pounds of water for the weigh-in. He may also not be carrying much in his legs.

Mass is mass. If you want to put on 10 pounds of muscle, that's going to be 10 pounds no matter how you slice it (unless it's on a different planet). The only thing you need to control is avoiding unnecessary weight in the form of fat. I would time things according to your season. You will likely put on some fat if you're going to make any substantial gains in muscle mass--the going is tremendously slow if you're too obsessed about staying lean through a gain phase. So give yourself time to gain up, and adequate time to lean down, while preserving the muscle gains you've made in your gain phase.

But you can't add, say, 20 pounds of muscle mass without gaining 20 pounds of weight

"In this house, we obey the laws of thermodynamics!"--Homer Simpson

well I meant on the aspect of not gaining fat lbs and making gains. I dont want to loose my leaness

You'll inevitably gain fat, unless you're prepared to gain at an extremely, imperceptible rate. But it's just temporary.

get your diet squeeky clean and dont jump the calories up to a stupid amopunt figure over night.

Any excess of calories over and above what you are taking now will result in additional mass being added so take a sensible approach and increase it gradually that way you can claw it back if the fat starts to go on