Michael Boyle's Strengthcoach.com Blog

High school football season just ended so strangely, this might be the biggest time of the year not for weight loss clients but, weight gain clients. I get questions like the one below all the time:

“Mike,  my 16 yr old son is a junior and plays both baseball and football. Football just ended and he is looking for  a weight gain/  strength gain supplement to gain weight and muscle mass.”

Here is my answer:

Is your son in the weight room religiously twice a week? Is he training his lower body hard during both of those days? If the answer is no than the best supplement he needs is iron. I’m being sarcastic but honest. Kids who are trying to gain weight but not lifting are really just trying to get fat.

If he is lifting properly and progressively twice a week than add this simple change from my man Dan John. Eat 5 Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on whole grain bread per day. These must be eaten in addition to his normal meals. He must make them the night before and all five must be eaten before the next night. It works like a charm.

It is amazing how many kids are looking for the magic bullet. Here it is. Iron in the form of good lifting program. A good program consists of more than just a few days of bench press and curls. In fact, I could really care if the program includes bench press or curls. However, if I wrote programs for kids without these two I would go out of business. In my mind the Big2 these days are Trap Bar Deadlifts and Rear Foot Elevated Split Squats . Add in some chin-ups and the five peanut buttter and jellies and you have a real good weight gain program. To top it off, wash each sandwich down with some good old fashioned whole milk and watch the weight pile on.

Check out Dan John’s Mass Made Simple for some great stuff on weight gain.

This entry was posted on November 25, 2011 at 12:46 pm and is filed under Nutrition, Random Thoughts, StrengthCoach.com Updates, Training, Youth Training with tags Dan John, Gaining weight. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.