How do you get my report, entitled “Arms Race,” free of charge?

Buy Hardgainer’s Manifesto, of course. It’s an “unannounced” bonus for the Hardgainer’s Manifesto!

Q: I really want to improve my chest and arms to look better for the summer. Also my abs need toned up a little as well. Can I just do all chest and arm exercises as well as ab exercises and improve those areas?
Yes, you can! Unlike fat, which you cannot spot-reduce, muscle can be build on a body part by body part basis. So, you can absolutely build up your chest, arms, and abs to be in great shape by summer time.

But, I have to ask, why would you want to build a poorly-proportioned body? I’m jumping to the conclusion that your back, legs, and shoulders are at the same level of development as your chest, arms, and abs…

I’m not sure what kind of access you have to free weights; they are your best route to gaining size in your chest and arms. However, even if you have zero access to barbells, dumbbells, and benches, you can make HUGE improvements in your upper body just by performing simple body-weight exercises like Push-ups (for the pecs), Chin-ups (mostly for the biceps but they hit the upper back and shoulders, too), and Pull-ups (mostly a lat/upper back exercise).

Of course, you can do sit-ups, crunches, and planks for your abdominal region; these exercises require nothing more than you and a floor.

Work up to 3 sets of each exercise for as many reps as you can do. Do the whole routine once per day, 3-4 times a week. I wouldn’t even worry about adding any weight until you can do 5 sets of 25 or more for the upper body exercises mentioned.

Best of luck to you. You should be able to get a beach body in no time!

Welcome to the May 6, 2009 edition of hardgainer blog carnival.

Steve Faber presents Belly Fat Loser » Free Workout Plans – Number 1 – The 20 Minute Fat Loss Muscle Workout posted at Belly Fat Loser.

FitBuff presents First week of Raw Veggie’s – Workout Recap (April 12-19, 2009) posted at FitBuff.com’s Total Mind and Body Fitness Blog, saying, “Experimenting with a raw vegetarian diet as a hardgainer, crazy right? Hopefully, I won’t completely melt away over the next few weeks!”

Colin Timberlake presents My First Marathon: Remixes, iPods and Rookie Mistakes posted at colintimberlake.com, saying, “A hard gainer runs an impromptu marathon. Probably not the way you want to go about it…but it’s an experience!”

Dole Tanner presents Gynecomastia and Bodybuilders posted at GYNECOMASTIA-GYNO.COM, saying, “Some tips and information for male amateur and competitive bodybuilders (and all athletes even remotely considering performance enhancement) and some of the dangers that could be involved…including female breasts.”

Bret presents Gynecomastia: Are You Wearing Two Undershirts? posted at Modern Men’s Health, saying, “The growth of unwanted female breast tissue affects more men than you think. The culprit is often steroids… Think twice before you take shortcuts in the gym.”

Exercise

Colin Timberlake presents Improvising for Workouts:Bicep Exercises with Injured or Immobilized Legs posted at colintimberlake.com.

FitJerk presents Grunt You Wimp! – Increase Power In Your Workouts posted at FlawlessFitness, saying, “Today we are going to cover a controversial topic that can actually increase your power output by 20% when you understand how to use it!”

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of hardgainer blog carnival using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Next host: Muscle-Build.com

Technorati tags: hardgainer blog carnival, blog carnival.

Yes, Doggcrapp training. Named after a guy, Dante Trudel, whose screen name on bodybuilder forums is “Doggcrapp,” this system of training is extreme, but it might be something you want to read about.

The principles it follows are good to know about and DO, if only on a smaller scale than what DC’s proponents call for. T-Nation.com has an article about DC training and it’s quite good.

Were people really gaining up to 50 pounds of muscle in one year while training just three days per week? Was “extreme stretching” a viable methodology rooted in science, or was it a branch of mookonomics, the peculiar belief system of the most passionate but least informed muscleheads

How to Build 50 Pounds of Muscle in 12 Months

Note that this training system is meant only for advanced bodybuilders who have been training at least 3 years.

I am certainly NOT advising you to train this way; however, the concepts in the program are fundamental concepts that are time-tested and proven to build muscle.

I came across this article this morning and it brings back some old memories. Memories I’d forgotten.

T-Nation.com | Bigger Muscles Through HFT

The article above is about High Frequency Training, or HFC. It’s a great way to kickstart muscle growth in body parts that are lagging. HFC works something like this.

Say your lats are lagging your chest. Start a routine where, every day, you do one set of pull-ups. Say you can do 6 good reps on Day 1. On Day 2, try for 7. If you can’t do 7, that’s okay. As you know by now, each training day is different and sometimes you can do 6, sometimes 7. But over the course of 4 weeks, you should be able to do 15-20 reps.

HFC will make your lats grow simply by stimulating the muscles every single day. You are not in danger of overtraining because you’re only doing one set per day. Do the set as far away from your normal workout each day. It doesn’t matter that you worked your lats earlier in the day, either.

Just do one set per day and always try to do one more rep than you did yesterday.

I think the reason this method works so well (and it does, I can personally attest to it – having gone from being able to do 12 chin ups to 25 in a few short weeks) is two-fold:

1. Your body will try to adapt to anything you throw at it. By increasing the reps each day (or by trying to!), you force your body to continually adapt to a great load.
2. More importantly, you are getting stronger every day. This increased strength will allow you to lift heavier in your “normal” workouts. For example, your lat pull-downs will get easier as your chin-up progresses. You’ll therefore add more weight and reps to your lat pull-downs!

So, give HFC training a try for lagging body parts. You’ll be glad you did!

T-Nation.com | Bigger Muscles Through HFT