In Need of a GOOD Start

I just recently finished my football season and I’m about to begin my offseason routine, i want to put on about 20-30lbs. I wanted to throw this topic out so i can get some help; I want to know what type of supplemtns can i take to get me heavier other than my planned 6 meal a day plan, i dont want to do creatin i want to build a good frame but i also dont want to go on a fat weight gainer any help would be good thank you…

good ol fashioned creatine, 20mg a day for the first week, 3-5 mg a day every day afterwards for maintenence, as far as supplements…

Grow! and Surge tend to be popular on these threads

all kidding aside, these are two of the best supplements you can take.

ZMA works wonders, you can find that on here for cheap too. With the right workout and the right nutrition coupled with these supplements, 20-30 pounds in the offseason should be pretty attainable.

let me know if you have any other questions, im not nutrition expert, but i am a SSC trainer who works primarily with football players, and I play (will be playing starting spring time) for Indiana University.

the thing is with my offseason routine i dont want to go on creatine because we run 3 times a week 7am-8;30 am and i dotn want to be dehydrated and pull a muscle i did that last yr running track the running lasts 3 months so please give me a recomendation taht is why i dont want to go on creatin too much water …plz help me out thanks

2 years ago I was in your same situation, I had just finished football season and I was looking to put on weight. I ate 6-8 times a day (I’m an easy-hard gainer), took creatine and ZMA, and I managed to put on 40 pounds in a year, all the while actually getting faster.

My advice is to take the creatine, you’re not going to pull any muscles as long as you’re not a moron and warm up correctly and hydrate yourself propery. Also, don’t go like most football players do and just try to gain weight, I knew in the year I had that I wanted to gain size, but not at the expense of speed. Speed kills, there is no substitute for speed in football.

firts off thank you for the responses, i do want to keep my speed infact i want to get faster the thing is i will be doing speed training morning runs throughout the entire winter then in the summer iam goin to run track 3-4 times a week but i also want to put on alot of size so i can be the strongest i can be. I played at 240 and it was amazing i want to get over that hump and attempt to play at 250 but i also want to lean down. Iam still hesitant to do the creatine, but the ZMA for sure anything else i can look at??? thanks in advance

Hey, there, PP. Welcome to T-Nation! (grin)

In reality, supps aren’t going to help you achieve your goal. Your diet is going to help you achieve your goal. Your diet and the resistance training program you choose to follow.

Long-distance running and bulking are not complementary. Is the running optional? A better choice is a hardcore resistance training program that is predominantly compound multi-joint exercises.

Start reading everything here by John Berardi.

Some of the things you need to do to give yourself a running headstart:

  • Eat every 2 to 3 hours

  • Eat protein every meal – quality protein, not bars and shakes

  • Eat 1.5g of protein x TBW daily
    (TBW = Total Body Weight)

  • Eat .4g to .5g of fat x TBW daily

  • Eat fruit or green veggies (fresh or frozen), as wide a variety as possible, not predominantly salads at each and every meal

  • Optimize PWO (Post Work Out) nutrition and post-run nutrition (i.e., Surge) if you can’t be talked out of running

  • Eat starchy carbs in the whole-food P+C (Protein + Carb) meals PWO

  • And finally, count, measure, weigh and record what you’re eating into a food log. Get comfortable with a nutritional desk reference. Increase calories by 250 kcal on any week you don’t gain scale weight.

If you want predominantly lean muscle gains with minimal fat gains, you’re going to have to dial in your nutrition and get precise and work your butt of in the gym. Running ain’t gonna keep you from getting fat. More than likely it’s going to chew up hard earned muscle. With running, sprints would be highly complementary (and protective of LBM), but a whole bunch tends to be catabolic and work against a person’s goals while bulking.

Start reading! (grin) And if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask.

What sort of speed work will you be doing?

And what position do you play?

A little bit more information about yourself (max lifts, etc) could help all of us help you a little better.

Theres this new type of Creatine out its called Creatine Ethyl Ester. Its suppose to have great results with less water retention than Creatine Monohydrate. The brand name is called

CRE-X3

Its a little pricey and there hasnt been much news about long term effects so try at your own risk. But i dont think it could really hurt to try. Im thinking about buying some myself once i get some cash. So give it a try

Hey, I was just on Beradi’s site and if you go to his section on training http://www.johnberardi.com/articles/training/index.htm

He has a series called Pushin Iron for the Gridiron which should help.

[quote]Tampa-Terry wrote:
Hey, there, PP. Welcome to T-Nation! (grin)

In reality, supps aren’t going to help you achieve your goal. Your diet is going to help you achieve your goal. Your diet and the resistance training program you choose to follow.

Long-distance running and bulking are not complementary. Is the running optional? A better choice is a hardcore resistance training program that is predominantly compound multi-joint exercises.

Start reading everything here by John Berardi.

Some of the things you need to do to give yourself a running headstart:

  • Eat every 2 to 3 hours

  • Eat protein every meal – quality protein, not bars and shakes

  • Eat 1.5g of protein x TBW daily
    (TBW = Total Body Weight)

  • Eat .4g to .5g of fat x TBW daily

  • Eat fruit or green veggies (fresh or frozen), as wide a variety as possible, not predominantly salads at each and every meal

  • Optimize PWO (Post Work Out) nutrition and post-run nutrition (i.e., Surge) if you can’t be talked out of running

  • Eat starchy carbs in the whole-food P+C (Protein + Carb) meals PWO

  • And finally, count, measure, weigh and record what you’re eating into a food log. Get comfortable with a nutritional desk reference. Increase calories by 250 kcal on any week you don’t gain scale weight.

If you want predominantly lean muscle gains with minimal fat gains, you’re going to have to dial in your nutrition and get precise and work your butt of in the gym. Running ain’t gonna keep you from getting fat. More than likely it’s going to chew up hard earned muscle. With running, sprints would be highly complementary (and protective of LBM), but a whole bunch tends to be catabolic and work against a person’s goals while bulking.

Start reading! (grin) And if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask. [/quote]

First off, your response, as always, is always so incredibley helpful. Lol, whenever I offer advice to someone training for football, i usually add a reference stating “well that’s what I would do, but i think you should PM Tampa Terry and ask what she thinks”

That being said, i didnt want to include a reponse that had nutrition coming from me because of two reasons.

A) i figured you would see this thread and jump in with the nutrition, seeing as how knowledgeable u are

B) simply looking at his aviator, and the fact that he is preparing for the CFL, i was assuming that he had atleast a pretty solid diet going for him, so i just figured i’d give him some help in the sup area

Polish: im compiling that information for you, and on my flight home tomorrow, i will type up everything i think you will need, including tampa terry’s advice on nutrition and some of berardi’s diets, not to mention football workouts that I have my athletes run, and the ones they have us run here and indiana

on a plus side, we hired a new coach today! :slight_smile: really happy with this guy, he is the Miami of Ohio Football coach, and now he’s a hoosier!

hoosierdaddy, your advice also was solid! I have no doubt you do right by your athletes!

The things I threw out were just the basics. It may well have to be tweaked/adjusted as he goes if he wants to achieve his goals of adding scale weight. With protein & fat requirements being met on a daily basis, any increase in calories should be from carbohydrate sources. And since you can only eat so much green veggies, he’ll probably have to add in starchy carbs . . . which doesn’t mean pizza and beer, of course. (grin)

If it comes to that, my vote would be to add in more oatmeal, sweet potatoes, rice and pasta (spaghetti, anyone? (grin))

Theory is great. Application and consistency are far more challenging.

WOW, thank you so much to everyone who contributed for a helpful anwser this information is amazing…I will give you some more detail about me i play defensive end and middle linebacker and iam going into my last yr of ball before i can be drafted to play proffesionaly. The reason i ask for all your help is because i have lost alot since the season began and school was killing me that is why iam looking for a brand new start to things. So far all the anwsers have been great and i will be doing what is said…A little bit more about me ’

…My running includes track style sprinits for explosion 20s and 30s and even 40 meters sprints with interval rest, we also do plyometrics after sprints or on different days.

I know its going to be hard for me to gain but i will be only running 2-3 times a week so its not taht bad…I want to keep my agility and quickness but i want to improve my explosivness

MY numbers are not that great…225 for 13rps flat bench, 305 close grib bench press max1rep 4 sec down 1 sec up that was summer i cant do that now at all…back squat was also around 405lbs maybe one or 2 … I didnt really do power lifting stuff that much and dint have great numbers… I ran about a 4.78 40 metere sprint @ 240lb which isnt good compared to american athletes but i think its alright

I hope that can help…i have one more question should i build my body then once i get strong i can incorporate more powerlifting stuff…any help would be great thank you

Again thank you for all the great support i really aprecaite it Murat thank you for taking the time to do taht and tampa advice is nice i will hopefully get in contact with you aswell and evryone else thank you

If you are playing football you should already be doing power cleans, snatches, etc… these lifts will make you more explosive, which is precisely what you need in football… especially linebacker. I’d say if you have never gotten into these lifts, you have a lot of natural potential and will probably see great improvements in poiwer by doing a few oly programs. Seriously in my high school were were small only 100 kids per class. There were a few kids on the football team who lifted year round and 2 of them focused on doing explosive olympic lifts as well as thier squats bench and deads. These 2 kids mad it to D1 football and the rest of the kids who didn’t do any explosion lifts only made it to d2 or less. these 2 kids were by far more dominant on the field, they got places quicker and when they got there they had that burst of power to take someone out. well give it a try if you haven’t already and hopefully you will gain some explosive power and we can watch you on tv…