Gaining Weight but not Strength

I’m more than a little confused at the moment… I seem to be gaining weight, but not really gaining much strength with the bar. Can anyone shed any possible light? Stats are as follows:

23 years old, 180 lbs, 12% BF.
Eat ~3100 cals on workout days (about 260g protein) and ~2900 cals on off days.
Workout 4x per week, 2 upper and 2 lower days, 45 mins per session.

Have gained consistently around 0.5-1 lbs per week for the last 4-5 weeks, having been through a random spell of gaining 3 lbs two weeks in a row.

I know the usual advice when your lifts aren’t going up is ‘‘eat more’’, but surely in this case, that can’t be so, as I’m gaining weight…?

How are you training? More specifically than a split, what lifts, what sets and reps?

If you aren’t gaining strength, the majority of your weight gain is fat. It could be an incredibly bad diet, but more likely is bad training.

Even if it were just fat you’d expect his bench and squat to benefit a little, not to mention gaining muscle is not the only way to gain strength obviously. I agree, something is very wrong training-wise…

Hey all I also have the same problem as the OP

I have been putting on a good amount of size and pounds over the past month or so, but have not been seeing good strength gains. I dont think too much of the weight is fat as my ab visibility in the morning is the same as before and I eat very clean.

Is it possible that I don’t gain strength because I take almost all of my sets (especially so with the compounds) to failure, maybe causing too much CNS stress??

[quote]Ramo wrote:
How are you training? More specifically than a split, what lifts, what sets and reps?[/quote]

Tues (pm) + Sat (am):
Squats (4x8)
Sumo DL (3x12)
Single leg leg press (4x8)
Leg extensions (4x8) / Hamstring curls (3x12) (superset)

Wed (pm) + Sun (am): (alternating sets)
Chins (4x8) / Military Press (3x12)
DB BOR (4x8)/ Incline DB Bench (3x12)
EZ bar curls (4x8) /Dips (3x12)

For the 2nd workout in the week, the rep range swaps between 3x12 and 4x8.

Try a 3-5 rep range and up the sets.

Maybe a 5x5 routine would work good. And keep eating the way you are.

Here is my list of shit:

1 - It could be because you’ve been on your program for a while and are platueing.

2 - You might not be training hard enough.

3 - Not enough sleep.

4 - I’m not a huge fan of the workout you have set up; you might need more variety.

5 - The fact that your eating a lot doesn’t
mean it’s the right kind of foods.

I’ll call it there for now. Figure it out man, good luck!

Firstly, thanks for the feedback mate!

[quote]B rocK wrote:

2 - You might not be training hard enough.[/quote]

I push myself in each set, pretty confident I can’t squeeze any more sets out as I pretty much reach failure in the last few reps of the last set in each exercise. As mentioned, I superset or alternate sets wherever possible in my workouts, and I try to keep my rest periods down. How else can I improve how ‘‘hard’’ I train?

This may be an issue, but it’s been ongoing for a year or so now, so I doubt it’d be responsible for my recent worries. Long story short, I find myself waking up 1-2 times each night for the loo… bit concerned about how it’s affecting the depth/quality of my sleep.

The first few weeks I’d been making great gains, perhaps I’ve just grown ‘used to it’?

[quote]5 - The fact that your eating a lot doesn’t
mean it’s the right kind of foods.[/quote]

Also a valid point, but I put a lot of effort into calorie counting, staying clear of chocolate, sweets, sugary or simple carbs, and I’m eating around 250-300g of protein per day. My main problem is that (for convenience) a lot of my protein sources are ready-cooked, so I’m not sure about the preservatives etc they have added in, and I eat a lot of prawns. Would I be better off cutting out the pre-cooked stuff and just doing lots more chicken breast cooking etc myself? What about the prawns… good/bad?