What are the best exercises to gain weight?

Lisa_allenn wrote: »

Can you tell me some exercises which can help me to gain weight.

To gain weight you need to eat in a calorie surplus. 1) If you eat in a calorie surplus and run a good weight training program you will gain part muscle, part fat. 2) If you eat in a calorie surplus and don't train, you will gain mostly fat. If you are needing to gain weight because you are underweight and at unhealthy low levels of bodyfat, #2 isn't a bad thing.

Lisa - Good beginner programs are Starting Strength , Strong Lifts , or Stong Curves. Google them, pick one and follow it. Stong Curves focuses on the booty, if that is what you want. I would suggest run one of the others first for 2-3 months , then decide. Increase your cals a little bit , and eat sufficient protein

The calorie surplus is key, but there might be some specific advice about exercises depending on what your reasons are for wanting to gain weight. What goals do you have in mind that make you want to gain weight?

Giving your masseter muscles a good workout several times a day.

Lisa_allenn wrote: »

ninerbuff wrote: »

Exercise isn't for gaining weight. It's for conditioning and improving muscle. You need to eat in a calorie SURPLUS to gain weight. However if you're in a calorie surplus, training your legs, back and chest (all large muscles of the body) with progressive overload will help put on muscle which will have your weight going up.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

Thanks for the answer. I tried to eat extra calories to gain weight but it is not effective for my body. So I am asking all of you to suggest the best exercise to gain weight.

Adding exercises (any kind of exercises), while eating the same amount of food, will result in losing weight, not gaining weight.

Why?

To gain weight, you need to eat more calories than you burn. If you are not gaining weight now at whatever level of calories you're eating (whether you count calories or not), and you add exercise to your daily routine without changing anything else, the exercise will make you burn more calories than before, and you'll lose weight on calories that previously held your weight steady, or lose weight faster on calories that previously had you losing weight.

If you can't eat more volume, eat more calorie dense foods. There are ideas here:

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10326769/are-you-a-hard-gainer-please-read/p1

Lisa_allenn wrote: »

ninerbuff wrote: »

Exercise isn't for gaining weight. It's for conditioning and improving muscle. You need to eat in a calorie SURPLUS to gain weight. However if you're in a calorie surplus, training your legs, back and chest (all large muscles of the body) with progressive overload will help put on muscle which will have your weight going up.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

Thanks for the answer. I tried to eat extra calories to gain weight but it is not effective for my body. So I am asking all of you to suggest the best exercise to gain weight.

Not how it works. If you weren't gaining weight, your extra calories weren't enough to put you in a calorie surplus...it's not just some extra calories...you need to take in enough calories on a consistent basis that are in excess of your maintenance requirements. The only way to gain weight is to consume more calories than your body requires to maintain weight...just as weight loss occurs when you consume fewer calories than you need to maintain weight. And just like losing weight, gaining weight requires you to be in a surplus on a consistent basis...a day here and there isn't going to do anything.

There is no exercise that is good for gaining weight. Exercise is very good for you...but when trying to gain weight you have to understand that exercise or any increased activity increases your energy (calorie) expenditure which means you would need to eat that much more to gain weight. Your calorie needs are derived from your stats (sex, height, weight, age) as well as you day to day activity and plus any deliberate exercise. The more you move, the more calories you will require to maintain weight and therefore to also gain weight.

With my stats and daily activity and regular exercise, being a moderately active male, I need around 3,000 calories per day to maintain my weight. If I want to gain weight, I have to consume more than that consistently...to gain roughly 1 Lb per week I would need to consume 3,500 calories everyday. Just as an example. You can't really say I tried eating some extra calories and it didn't work...those calories have to put you in a surplus for it to work.

AnnPT77 wrote: »

cwolfman13 wrote: »

Lisa_allenn wrote: »

ninerbuff wrote: »

Exercise isn't for gaining weight. It's for conditioning and improving muscle. You need to eat in a calorie SURPLUS to gain weight. However if you're in a calorie surplus, training your legs, back and chest (all large muscles of the body) with progressive overload will help put on muscle which will have your weight going up.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

Thanks for the answer. I tried to eat extra calories to gain weight but it is not effective for my body. So I am asking all of you to suggest the best exercise to gain weight.

Not how it works. If you weren't gaining weight, your extra calories weren't enough to put you in a calorie surplus...it's not just some extra calories...you need to take in enough calories on a consistent basis that are in excess of your maintenance requirements. The only way to gain weight is to consume more calories than your body requires to maintain weight...just as weight loss occurs when you consume fewer calories than you need to maintain weight. And just like losing weight, gaining weight requires you to be in a surplus on a consistent basis...a day here and there isn't going to do anything.

There is no exercise that is good for gaining weight. Exercise is very good for you...but when trying to gain weight you have to understand that exercise or any increased activity increases your energy (calorie) expenditure which means you would need to eat that much more to gain weight. Your calorie needs are derived from your stats (sex, height, weight, age) as well as you day to day activity and plus any deliberate exercise. The more you move, the more calories you will require to maintain weight and therefore to also gain weight.

With my stats and daily activity and regular exercise, being a moderately active male, I need around 3,000 calories per day to maintain my weight. If I want to gain weight, I have to consume more than that consistently...to gain roughly 1 Lb per week I would need to consume 3,500 calories everyday. Just as an example. You can't really say I tried eating some extra calories and it didn't work...those calories have to put you in a surplus for it to work.

Stating the I-would've-thought-obvious here: The extra calories have to put a person in an actual real-world surplus as signaled by weight gain . . . not just what some calculator or tracker or something estimates to be a surplus.

Estimates can be wrong. It's not rare to see people in the weight-loss zones of the MFP Community thinking they should lose at X rate if at a calculator/MFP/fitness tracker estimate of those calorie needs, or maintain at calories that one of those things estimates. That's also not necessarily how this works: The estimates are close for most, but not everyone.

"Hard gainers" probably either have lower than average appetite (so it's hard to eat enough to gain), or higher than average calorie expenditure (so need to eat more calories to gain than the average person would), or some combination.

I think a lot of people just really don't understand how calories work or how the math works or how the various aspects of one's life relates to their calorie needs as individuals. My wife has a friend who's very skinny and underweight and she just doesn't understand how this works. She's working with my wife's trainer to gain some healthy weight but she just won't eat...or won't/can't eat enough to really put her in a surplus on a consistent basis.

She has a job where she's on her feet most of the day and also has a very small appetite, at least for regular eating. She'll often eat a large meal at a BBQ or dinner party or whatever...or she'll eat a couple slices of pizza on the weekend, but she also skips a lot of meals just not being hungry...and BBQs and parties aren't a matter of routine...but in her mind, those types of things should be making her gain weight because they are "bad" foods and should default to putting on weight.

She has thus far had a hard time following the trainers meal plan guidelines because it's too much food on a day to day basis for her everyday appetite.