Pseudo-science perhaps? 

(ok, time to put on my sincere and more serious face)

I had been fooling around in the gym since I was 16. I am turning 36 in less than a month time. God knows I had wasted enough time following this or that “scientifically-proven” workout routine or nutrition plan. You name it, and I had tried it all.

Of course a lot of them worked. There is a great example for such a phenomenon, it is called “novice effect.” Say you put a completely sedentary guy on badminton practice 3 times a week. After a while, he will claim that badminton had helped improved his bench from 50kg to 70kg. We all know that’s crap.

Throughout the years my observation is as such:
A plan gotta work, simply, efficiently and effortlessly. No such thing you said? In reference to an underweight, tall, skinny guy like Kenny, here is the plan:

Workout plan
Go to gym 3 times a week, spend no more than 45min - 1 ½ hour there. You don’t need more than 3 times a week, you will not recover fast enough. Ditch cardio totally, ditch all those isolation exercises totally. Doing only squat, bench press, overhead press, deadlift and chin-up. Warm up properly, doing no more than 3x5 on each. Start with a low-ball number, like 50kg squat for an 80kg male. But up the weight on every exercise by 5kg for lower body, 2.5kg for upper body, every single visit. Make sure you note down all the weights used though.

Again using squat as an example, 3 times a week multiples by eight weeks, you gonna end up squatting 170kg. That is entirely possible. You will eventually stall or slow down. Once you cannot complete 3x5 on a given exercise, use back the old weight on previous visit. Also, eventually the weight increase will slow down to 2.5kg, 1kg, etc. What weight you end up at the end of 2 months times is depending on your will power, technique, recovery rate and makan plan. A good ball park figure for a novice is deadlift 2-2.5x bw, squat 1.5-2x, bench 1-1.5x, press 0.7-1x, chin @ bw 1 set > 20.

Makan plan
Of course eating clean is better than eating junk, it is so common sense that it goes without saying. But still, I rather be dead than eating only carrot, broccoli, tuna and protein powder. A good makan plan is one that you can stick to for the rest of your life. So go ahead and drink your tiger, eat your nasi lemak and whatever that you fancy.  Just, proportionally, eat more clean food that junk. More, much more, so that you can get 5000-6000 calories during the bulking stage.

The makan plan is intertwined with the workout plan. You really need that much calorie surplus to fuel your recovery and force your body to grow more muscle than fat to be able to lift heavier and heavier weight. If you don’t lift heavy enough, chances are you will grow more fat than muscle from the calories surplus. If you don’t makan enough surplus, you will not grow enough and recover fast enough to lift.

Now the question is clear-cut, how best to bulk another 10-15kg of lean muscle?

My proposition is simple, doable, and more importantly, can be done quickly; whilst brother Alien’s proposition is something like go to gym another 3-5 years (please correct me if I misrepresent you here).

It is so easy to tell whether it works or not. Just invest 2 months of time to try it out, which is just 5% of 3 years. What’s the down side?

p/s: I don’t body build, I lift weight.