The #1 mistake skinny athletes are making is not eating enough to recover from their workouts.
There are exceptions to this rule. And there are tons of wrestlers and boxers who starve themselves year round so they could fight in a particular weight class.
I’m just going to talk about my personal experience. If you get something out of it, that’s great. Because this is something that took me a while to figure out – and I worked out a lot too.
I Would Always Get Stuck
I was 17 here I think. This is my 3rd boxing match. I weighed 165
I always worked out consistently. Never had a problem with that. But I know I didn’t eat enough. At 16 I was 6’2 160. At 20 I was around 180-190. Now I am 200-210.
When I started doing heavier strength exercises like squats and deadlifts I would get stuck. I am 6’2 200lbs and even now my numbers are not very impressive (max squat 405×1, deadlift 405 x3).
I used to lift weights a bunch and then I would get stuck at like 315 squat x5 and couldn’t go up any higher. I would always have a harder time lifting as much as some of my training partners who were shorter and stockier than me.
I think a big reason that I was getting stuck was because I wasn’t eating enough. Especially when you factor in that I have an active job and workout like a maniac. I require a lot of food to keep that up.
if I don’t get enough food that means I won’t build as much muscle. I could even lose muscle. I am more susceptible to injury and I am less strong if I don’t eat enough (4,000-6,000 calories a day for me).
The biggest difference I saw in my lifting that got me from 315lb squats to 405lbs squat was the eating. As soon as I started to eat more I got stronger and all of my lifts went up.
The Draw Backs
1. If you get too fat (over 20% body fat) you are no longer as efficient as you could be in your sport. You are probably carrying around excess weight.
2. Its hard to force yourself to eat. It’s not pleasant and a lot of athletes go south right here. Just because they don’t feel like eating they skip meals or eat less.
The easiest way to get enough calories if you are trying to gain weight/strength is to drink whole milk. 1-2L per day should be plenty for most people.
Forcing myself to drink milk. I dont like the taste of it.
Power lifters like to recommend 1 gallon of milk per day when in a growing phase.
Remember you don’t start at a gallon a day. You start with 1/4 spread out throughout the day. Do it for a week. Then the next week you try 1/2 per day.
3. If you compete in a weight class you may not want to gain weight
If this is you then you’ll probably ignore this post anyways. But hear me out. I used to cut weight and as soon as I stopped cutting weight my results in competitions went WAY up. I went from losing most of the time to winning most of the time.