Coach Thib,
You often write about nutrition for improved body composition, and for those looking to lean out, however I am curious as to your preferred nutritional methods of gaining weight (aside from peri workout nutrition, obviously the anaconda protocol takes care of that aspect) for someone who is not as concerned with leanness yet needs large amounts of muscle mass to excel at their sport (heavyweight wrestler undersized weighing 220).
I know you are a fan of carb cycling but for a more ecto athlete would you keep that or a similar method? Basically I am curious if you have used a system in between the extreme calorie counting and the eat anything you see methods and had success for those looking to gain size. Thanks for your time in answering my question.
[quote]datx21 wrote:
Coach Thib,
You often write about nutrition for improved body composition, and for those looking to lean out, however I am curious as to your preferred nutritional methods of gaining weight (aside from peri workout nutrition, obviously the anaconda protocol takes care of that aspect) for someone who is not as concerned with leanness yet needs large amounts of muscle mass to excel at their sport (heavyweight wrestler undersized weighing 220).
I know you are a fan of carb cycling but for a more ecto athlete would you keep that or a similar method? Basically I am curious if you have used a system in between the extreme calorie counting and the eat anything you see methods and had success for those looking to gain size. Thanks for your time in answering my question.[/quote]
I’m not a fan of any dietary approach. I try to understand how each one of them work and with whom they work best with. I can then select the approach best suited to each individual.
With ectos, obviously a higher caloric intake is needed, and even one day of low carlories might lead to slower gains (so cycling might not be needed or wanted), but oftentime the problem lies in absorption of nutrients rather than the sheer amount to consume. Ectos, real hardgainers, often have poor digestion. So even if they eat a ton of food they might not grow optimally simply because they don’t absorb a lot of nutrients.
I find pulsing with casein hydrolysate (or even whey hydrolysate… like Surge Recovery for example) to be very effective from them since it is very easily digested. In fact, a simple strategy such as ingesting 2 scoops of Surge Recovery 3-4 times per day between meals might do the trick.
Those with serious digestive problems could benefit from digestive enzymes (Digest force by Poliquin) and high doses of glutamine taken a few times throughout the day.