How Skinny Guys Can Get Big

In this episode, we discuss how skinny guys can get big.
We talk about what to eat, how to train and how to get big at home.

And we even get into age and the role it plays in gaining muscle.

• Genetics
• What type of protein
• Eat!
• Short training & avoid cardio
• Take the small wins

If you want your own questions answered on our podcast, then join our private Facebook group and share your ideas,  https://www.facebook.com/groups/muscletalk

If you'd like to learn more about International Protein, visit https://www.international-protein.com/






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A Thinkroom production - www.thinkroom.com

Transcript

Ash Horton:
Welcome to Muscle Talk where you'll get world champion advice about nutrition and stacking on muscle. Our host, Christina Envall. She's a three time world champion bodybuilder and IFBB professional, a food scientist and a founding co owner of our podcast sponsor International Protein. In this episode, we discuss how skinny guys can get big. We talk about what to eat, how to train and how to get bigger. Okay Christine this time, again, we're going to Google and we're seeing what people are searching. And one of the main things that people are searching is how to get big. And one of those subcategories of that search is how can skinny guys get big? So, do we want to unleash on that question?

Christine Envall:
We do. So, this is a personal search that you've been doing, isn't it, Ash. Hence why the skinny guys was in there.

Ash Horton:
Well, I don't know, I've got like 10 year old girl little man boobs at the moment. So, I'm not skinny. I'm skinny fat.

Christine Envall:
Skinny fat. No, so we want to turn the skinny guys into big guys and make them big and it's possible to a degree. So, I wanted to just preface this by talking a little bit about genetics, and we will talk about genetics on another podcast, but if you are a really skinny guy and I mean, not an Ash kind of skinny guy, but an actual person, who's an extreme ectomorph. Then you do have to be realistic about what you're going to get. You can still improve your own size, potentially up to 50%, I've seen some incredible, incredible gains on people who are extremely skinny, but those kinds of guys can potentially gain 20 kilos and still have a way of looking like they aren't stocky and bulky because of the way that their muscle shapes are, limb lengths, just that whole way that their body is structured.

Christine Envall:
So, I think the thing is to be realistic about what your genetics are. So, if you are an extremely skinny guy, don't look at a guy who has an extreme mesomorph body, thicker joints, more rounder muscle bellies and put that up as your idol, put that up as your goal, because you will be disappointed. So, I think it's really, really important that people put it in context of what it is that they're trying to achieve. But in terms of taking your own body from point a to point B, then there's some certain steps that you can follow and I will talk about those.

Ash Horton:
So, I'm just going to put you on the spot here. Of the different body types, who would be the prime example?

Christine Envall:
Of a-

Ash Horton:
Ectomorph.

Christine Envall:
An ectomorph. It's actually not from-

Ash Horton:
As a goal. If you wanted to make a goal, who would you look at as an ectomorph?

Christine Envall:
Okay. That is a tough one to put me on the spot there because I don't look at a lot of ectomorphs to be quite honest.

Ash Horton:
Not your thing.

Christine Envall:
Not my thing, so, sorry. I don't want to be ectomorphistic, but, I mean, a basketball player is a classic example of who is an ectomorph body. I'm going to be a little bit unfair because someone like LeBron James has probably got a tinge of meso in him and what he can build, but that would maybe kind of be where they would be looking at it. If you're going to bring it back into a bodybuilding, even the guys who do men's physique as starting to become more of your mesomorph type of bodies. A lot of people who maybe would compete in that particular category are somewhat ectomorphic, but it has progressed where it's, they're still heavily meso-ecto.

Christine Envall:
So, in terms of, I'm trying to think of someone who does triathlon, that type of physique, where they want the abs in. They've got a lot of definition, very, very lean, but they've got long lanky limbs and things like that. I can't think of a specific person off the top of my head. Can think of plenty of mesomorphs, can think of endomorphs, but ectos ... I'm thinking I think basketball and I'd say, think of the ones who are the most ... Giannis, if I've got his name right. He's one of the, I don't know even why I know a lot about, I guess, basketball physiques and that's who I always think of as an ectomorph. In terms of bodybuilding, there aren't a lot of highly successful ectomorphs, because it does tend to be dominated by the mesomorphs who carry a lot more muscle bulk.

Christine Envall:
But bringing it back into, again, now that there's more categories that doesn't mean to say that an ectomorph can't compete in one of those categories, but they're not likely to be successful say in open bodybuilding, they will more be doing the physique type classes. So, unfortunately we'll have to have a bit of a think about that. A bit of a Google as to what you can expect, but it is so individual as well, because whilst that's a big, broad category, there's extremes within that as well. Because as I said, everyone kind of has a little tinge of the next layer up bordering up into the more mesomorphic blend.

Christine Envall:
Then they're obviously going to build muscle a lot quicker than someone who doesn't. The other thing I'm going to say is if you're under 25 and you're male and you're looking at different physiques, your physique can actually change really dramatically through those mid twenties. And you might start off as a 16 year old have been what you thought was very, very ectomorphic, but you actually thicken up and have a greater ability to build muscle. Once you kind of get through those mid twenties.

Christine Envall:
So, International Protein has an athlete, Patrick, he, when you see photos of him as a 16 year old, you would just be like, there's no way that this guy can grow a lot of muscle. He was extremely ectomorphic. Now, he's not going to be super thick, no heavyweight bodybuilder, but he's a very much has developed and built his physique. So, if anyone wants to look out Patrick on, I'm not going to pronounce his surname on International Protein. One of our athletes then you'll see what an ectomorph can probably achieve.

Ash Horton:
So, see on our, about us page, under sponsored athletes.

Christine Envall:
Yeah. If you go to International Protein, I'm sure at some point he's been on something that we've done or he's tagged us or something. So, yeah. We'll have to put a link to his Instagram or something like that so people can see what he looks like. Or maybe we'll get him on for an interview at some point, because I know he's been doing a lot in acting and different things outside of-

Ash Horton:
Actually it'd be great to get his story on coming from the ectomorph type body type and how he did stack on a bunch of [inaudible 00:06:28]. That would actually be a really good subject. [crosstalk 00:06:31]-

Christine Envall:
He'll be a future guest on Muscle Talk. But yeah, definitely. If you saw him as a 16 year old, you would think, oh my goodness, this guy is really, really thin. And obviously it's like eight to 10 years later, so it's a long slog, but he's definitely also developed. And that's why for a lot of young guys, they look at too early and think, oh, I'm not going to be able to gain muscle, but you're still growing through that phase. And a lot of men don't really mature from a physique point of view through into their 30s and even for professional bodybuilding, it's late thirties that the guys really start to come into their own, even though they are already massive. A lot of the maturity doesn't happen till much later. So, in this growing phase, if you are a teenager, then obviously you have a certain expectation around what kind of gains you're going to get.

Christine Envall:
But if you're starting at that age, you're having a distinct advantage because you're going to be, your body's still growing from the hormonal point of view. And then you add training, you add nutrition in, on top of that. And then you have an even greater ability to almost change the direction of how your body is going to go, as opposed to being in your mid thirties and starting and being extremely ectomorphic. And then what kind of result you're going to get. So, if anyone's listening and they are in that younger age bracket, then you do have a greater chance of, I guess, overall dictating and changing how your physiology is going to be into adulthood. So, start training early, start eating right, start training right. You're going to have overall a longer lasting effect, which will stay with you as you get into your later years.

Ash Horton:
So, the question was how can skinny guys get big. Did we cover that?

Christine Envall:
No, we didn't.

Ash Horton:
I totally deterred.

Christine Envall:
You totally deterred, you started talking about body types and what the expectation could be. Extremely off that. So, coming back to how skinny guys can get big. And obviously my number one thing that I wrote down here was eat, because we've talked about this quite a bit, but a lot of the time people underestimate how much they need to eat.

Ash Horton:
You see a lot of skinny guys eating absolute crap too and getting away with it and all that sort of stuff. So, they feel like they can eat. Is there any specific foods that they should eat?

Christine Envall:
And that was something that I've written down here and the term empty calories comes up. And I believe that when you do see that, where people are eating a lot of crap food, like basically very fast food type food, which is very highly processed. And there's not a lot of other nutrients in it. I actually believe that those people are skinny because they're in a state of malnutrition. You're getting calories, but you're not getting all of the micronutrients that you need. And I've actually had an example of someone long time ago when I was at uni who was in that situation, like basically they were very, very thin and they basically lived off of McDonald's and they was forever saying, but I eat, but I eat, I'm always eating this junk food, but I just never gained weight.

Christine Envall:
And they ended up going to a dietician and got put on a proper diet and stacked on weight like that, because they basically, you can be calorie surplus or sufficient, but you can actually be in a state of malnutrition if you're not getting all of the micronutrients that you need. So, that is a very, very key point that when you're trying to get big, it's not a matter of just going out and eating a whole bunch of junk food and saying, well, I'm getting extra calories. So, now I'm going to gain weight. So, you do need to still be mindful of correct nutrition within there.

Christine Envall:
So, basic things, obviously protein being your number one to look at for making sure that you have adequate protein to support the growth that you're trying to get. In other podcasts, we've talked about that being around the one to 1.2 grams per pound, or looking at around 2.2 up to say 2.6, 2.7 grams per kilo of body weight when you're a skinny guy and maybe don't just target your body weight, but target your goal body weight, or 10% above your body weight as well.

Christine Envall:
So, there's looking at it like that as well, because if you're just trying to supply what it is that you have, but you maybe need to supply what you are aiming for. So, going past that. The other, calories is the second thing. They need to eat the extra calories. And that's where I was saying about they need to eat because you've got to support the extra calories. Now, people who are super skinny do tend to have faster metabolisms if it's not malnutrition that's basically keeping them in that state. So, just going 500 calories above may not be enough for those guys.

Christine Envall:
They may need to be going a thousand calories a day, because it could be proportionate to what their metabolism is. So, if they were requiring 3,500 calories per day, they might need 800 extra calories to get a significant growth to go along with that. So, how do they do that? Small frequent meals, obviously, because again, it's so personal, it's so individual what your appetite can be like. Are you a person who needs to eat six meals a day? Are you're a person who prefers to eat three really big meals a day? It really comes down to the individual. But I think the key thing is that in that 24 hour period, they get adequate calories coming from their protein and then the fats and carbs to support that. So, it's generally-

Ash Horton:
So, based on that, what kind of protein would you recommend for a skinny guy?

Christine Envall:
I think I would recommend a more sustained release type of protein so that it's because of how they generally are burning a lot quicker. Their metabolisms are going quicker. They need to have something that doesn't basically burn in and out of them too quickly. They need something-

Ash Horton:
So, not a WPI.

Christine Envall:
Only after training. And again WPI is good for after trainings you get that in, but I would probably have them eating that really good blend of fast, medium and slow release type of proteins, such as like what's in the extreme mass or even the-

Ash Horton:
Which is delicious by the way. It's honestly the nicest protein you'll ever drink.

Christine Envall:
Well, it actually, it was designed for people that, again, younger guys who were transitioning from having flavored milk, into having a protein supplement or a weight gaining supplement, and we wanted it to be an easy transition. So, it wasn't like this kind of weird WPI that as much as we make them taste good, it doesn't taste like Breaka or [Bega 00:12:35] or whatever the flavored milks are or Oak, depending on if you're from New South Wales or wherever. So, that was actually one of our goals was to make it be something that you would want to actually eat and something that would be easy to incorporate into your diet. So, that was the other thing. If it's hard to increase the number of meals, because obviously there's, you're eating a certain amount of food. You want to gain weight, you got a couple of options.

Christine Envall:
You can either add in extra meals or increase what you're eating at each and every meal. That can be hard, because the volume can be an issue. People only can fit so much in their stomach, but sneaking in a scoop of weight gainer, not in a big shape because that bloats you up and fills your stomach up, but just eating it in a more concentrated form, sprinkling it into your breakfast, mixing it into other foods, having it kind of as a paste and things like that. Maybe that sounds a little bit strange eat, it sounds like baby food, but it's a good strategy if you're trying to gain weight or trying to get extra calories into your day. So, trying to fit it into your normal routine.

Ash Horton:
I don't think it sounds weird like sprinkling chocolate sprinkles onto your cornflakes sounds bloody good to me.

Christine Envall:
Well then yeah, but I just never know, because to me it's normal, but other people if I talk about making something into paste like baby food. They're like, oh what, you're an adult. What are you doing, doing that?

Ash Horton:
You've got to remember that this is chocolate and good chocolate as well.

Christine Envall:
Good chocolate. So, yeah. So, those are some options where you're just trying to get those extra calories in. So, you put them into as many different places as what you can. So, option one, add a couple of extra meals made up of shakes, make it up as directed. You can add up to 600 calories extra in one of those. So, it's a good place, a good starting point for extra calories. So, the food is one thing, but obviously skinny guys getting big isn't just about eating. They want to gain muscle. They want to gain some size and training is obviously the next thing. So, we need to train, we need to give the muscle a reason to grow.

Ash Horton:
And is there a particular way they need to train?

Christine Envall:
Yeah, with guys who, again, who is harder to gain, they don't need to do super long workouts. They don't want to be in the gym for hours and hours and hours. I want to keep it more like short and sharp. Hit the muscle, overload the muscle, but don't over fatigue the muscle.

Ash Horton:
So, what does that mean? Smaller amounts of reps.

Christine Envall:
You still need to be in the rep range for growth. So, you still want to be looking at that eight to 12 rep range. But you want to be looking at maybe two or three key exercises that you do. Sticking more around your compound exercises. So, things like your bench press, your squats, some barbell rows, just really compound movements, not so isolatory. Things where you can relatively load the weight up on, but go in, do your four sets. Probably three exercises on your larger muscle groups, just a couple of exercises, but targeting to go into that overload phase where you are doing as much weight as what you can for those reps.

Christine Envall:
Obviously you're not down in that low rep range, which has strength because skinnier guys can actually tend to be quite strong. And if they work in a strength range, they will just get stronger and stronger and stronger, but not gain any size. They will just be incredibly strong skinny guys. So, you do want to work in that higher rep range of that eight to 12, not up to the 20s and 25, because that's just going to also just work that muscle, but not give it ... like it's too much for it to sit into that growth phase. So, don't spend too much time in the gym, do give yourself adequate rest between the sets, but aim for as heavy as what you can handle for those reps.

Christine Envall:
And probably starting off at about four days a week, working out a program where they're doing about four days a week and eating those calories. So, they've got plenty of time to rest in between time and not doing six days a week and things like that. So, I think those are some of the key strategies for that. Minimizing cardio, again, may or may not be already doing cardio, but I would not, obviously you don't want to add extra cardio. If you're already doing cardio, you may want to back off the intensity for the period of time that you're absolutely trying to gain size.

Ash Horton:
Because skinny people tend to kind of float as they run. They can just run forever. And of course that's the worst thing you can do for gaining muscle.

Christine Envall:
It burns calories. So, again you can still do it and build the muscle. But if you're consciously trying to go through a phase of wanting to put some serious size on in a period of time, then it's kind of like the sacrifice that you make or the choice that you make to drop that out. If there's other reasons why you're doing it, like you maybe do another sport and you want to keep that cardio fitness. And obviously you're going to keep that in there. So, it depends why they're trying to gain the weight. A lot of guys who are on the skinnier side might actually be doing it because they need extra weight for the sport that they play. But having that body type, that ectomorphic body type, is still desirable there and they don't want to lose speed. They don't want to lose cardio fitness.

Ash Horton:
Yeah, sprinting would be different from running as well. Because [inaudible 00:17:44] like-

Christine Envall:
Sprinting is anaerobic, sprinting is power and working on your anaerobic systems, whereas running, jogging is working on your aerobic systems.

Ash Horton:
And Olympic sprinters are generally absolutely ripped, aren't they?

Christine Envall:
It depends on the sprinter and it depends on the genetics and which ... There's a whole bunch of other things that go along there. It's not just-

Ash Horton:
They're quite different from the long distance runners.

Christine Envall:
Absolutely. It's a different genetic body type, because it's a different energy. It's a different fitness component that's being used. As I said, it's power and it's an anaerobic energy system that's being used in that like extreme anaerobic, because it's like a 10 second period of time. That's your ultimate in using that very, very first energy system that you use. Even weight training kicks into the next system, because you're going up to like 45 seconds to a minute, which is a different energy system to that first 10 seconds. So, it's the extreme of power and anaerobic as opposed to running, jogging, which is definitely an aerobic type of activity.

Christine Envall:
But when it comes to cardio, as I said, it really depends on what the person's goal is overall why they're trying to gain size. If they're just wanting to go to the gym, don't want to be skinny anymore, then drop the cardio. If you're doing it because you're doing another sport, but you need to gain some size to be better at your sport, to be more powerful, to be more resistant to being tackled, for example, as a football player, then you would have to keep in all of your other training as well.

Ash Horton:
So, is there, if you are doing a mix of cardio and weight training? Would you do cardio first and then weight training afterwards or the other way around?

Christine Envall:
Ideally I would do them at two separate sessions. I would always prefer to do my cardio earlier in the day and my weights later in the day. I think we may have talked in previous podcasts about having the meals in your stomach, essentially you feel stronger. Some people may find that different. I would try to put them at separate sessions. If you absolutely had to do them at the one session, weight training first cardio after.

Ash Horton:
Okay.

Christine Envall:
Yeah. Cool. Now, my next point that I have around skinny guys getting big is set smaller goals. So, don't go, okay, I'm 70 kilos, I want to be a 100 kilos. That's too big of a change. That's too big of a goal. One, you may get disheartened because you're not reaching that goal. It seems so far away.

Christine Envall:
So, I would say incremental goals, like maybe you want to gain one kilo a week or maybe in a month you want to gain X amount or you want to increase your arm measurement or chest measurement or whatever it is that you're doing to measure that you've achieved what you're looking to achieve, set smaller goals so that you are constantly hitting those goals. And you're not getting discouraged because it's like these huge things so far away, but take the small wins. It might be that you put your shirt on and you feel like, oh, it's a bit tighter. And you know that you've put back size on and delt size on and just everything's kind of grown slowly, slowly, but I would definitely be breaking it down and putting those little milestones in and actually saying, yeah, I've done it, I've got it. And doing that.

Christine Envall:
So, that's definitely, and that's for anyone in anything, but don't make the goal so huge that it's all pretty much unobtainable. You need to make something that you can check off and achieve and then celebrate and keep going and achieve the next goal. So, that is another point that I had down. I covered off on the other one, which was kind of like the age thing where I said capitalize on age, if you recognize that you want to get into this and you are skinny, and you're younger, you got a really good advantage because you can take advantage of all the other things that are going on with growth within your body, still at that time. If you're older and you know, so you get to 40 and you're like, okay, I'm tired of being super skinny all my life.

Christine Envall:
It is going to be a slower progress, because you don't have that advantage of your body still being in a growth phase, but it's still possible. You may have to be more mindful of the type of foods you're eating in terms of the calories being in excess to a point, but not so much that it almost does start to accumulate on your stomach or wherever you don't want it to accumulate. But that is also part of it. You need to be mindful that you may have to sacrifice some cuts. Because a lot of the time to someone who is skinny and might pride themselves on the fact that they have a lot of definition. And it's again, making that decision between, am I willing to give that up? Am I willing to give it up for a period of time and then go into like a mini cutting phase?

Christine Envall:
How do I want my body to look at the end of this? So, those are the other things that you need to take into consideration. Be realistic about what to expect based on genetics, which we talked about at the start. And then also what you're willing to sacrifice, because, again, a lot of the physiques that you see, you see the end product, you see them when they're in their ripped phase and you don't see the work in the state, how the body had to change to get to that. And how potentially there's times when the abs are gone or you're carrying a little bit more body fat, but that just comes off when you do that photo shoot or that competition. And we were always looking at the perfection. We're not always looking at the progress that goes with it. And part of the journey is obviously going through those phases and understanding what you're comfortable with and what's most important to you and that will dictate how you approach it in terms of how quickly you go for those gains.

Ash Horton:
Okay. Now the next question in the subject of how to get big is, it's an interesting one. I think it's a little bit laughable, but you'll answer this correctly. Is how can I get big in two weeks? Apart from obviously this isn't written here, but injecting yourself with oil and stuff like that.

Christine Envall:
Yeah, I will actually talk about that because that's not a long-term, I mean, it's something which is in bodybuilding and used.

Ash Horton:
Are you talking about the injection?

Christine Envall:
Yeah, the oil injections and stuff? And we've all seen the videos and that of people who've gone a little to the extreme with the arm that looks like, I don't know what, and the rest of the body that doesn't. And that's where, I guess, where it comes back to talking about what are your actual goals for you? How do you actually want to look? And I guess your own personal satisfaction of knowing that you did it versus it's some weird thing in your arm that potentially could go cancerous or hell knows what's going to happen to that or need to be chopped out or something, but I think that borders into body dysmorphia to think that, that looks actually normal or okay.

Christine Envall:
So, not really something that I recommend to go and get big in two weeks. Obviously the reality, if you're an ectomorphic person to get big in two weeks is not a reality. You can certainly gain weight very quickly in two weeks for not most people, again, for some people that would be an absolute struggle. So, the thing with getting big in two weeks, that's why I was talking about setting a realistic goal. If your goal is to gain two kilos in two weeks, that could be a massive change. All of the things that we talked about previously, making sure you're eating the right amount of protein, making sure you're hitting all your meals and not skipping, pretending that you got it, making an excuse for why you didn't eat it, like actually following your process, following your training program, you will do everything that you can to gain as much as you can in two weeks.

Christine Envall:
Obviously, if you want to just put your scale weight up, then you have a massive carbohydrate and salt meal and drink a lot of water and you'll gain a whole stack of fluid, glycogen storage weight, and well, basically water and glycogen storage. If you do a process like that. So, you can inflate your weight. Obviously muscle takes time to synthesize and to grow. So, the reality of gaining massive amounts of weight in two weeks is kind of not a reality. This is a long-term game. It's, we talked about Patrick at the start and how for him it has been like an eight or 10 year journey, which comes along with maturing physically, if you're already over 40 or over 30 you've already physically matured most of the way. So, you're not going to get that advantage of being also through a growth phase. So, probably give yourself a little more time would be my answer. Don't try to do it in two weeks, but I mean coming off a competition, it's very possible to gain 12 kilos in two weeks, but there's a lot of rebound water, glycogen storage.

Ash Horton:
So, what about creatine and products like that for people that are struggling?

Christine Envall:
Yeah, again, you can actually get some major weight gain. And again, a lot of it is water gain, because you're basically storing more water in the muscle when you're saturating your muscle with creatine. So, those things will help to do that sudden inflation of weight, but it's like, you haven't, bear in mind, you have not had time to synthesize new muscle tissue. So, you potentially will lose that as soon as you come off of the creatine or your body reaches an equilibrium, but those type of products will help obviously with your strength, which strengths relates to increased muscle size. We talked about that with the training program. So, it will definitely help with a training program where you're trying to build size, because you're going to get that ability to push heavier weight, which is the whole goal there to grow that size. And it does actually help with the synthesis of new muscles. So, creatine, again, you know that's one of my favorite supplements when it comes to strength and muscle gains to do that naturally.

Ash Horton:
But it's not going to happen in two weeks. It's just going to retain the water, which is going to increase weight.

Christine Envall:
Yeah, but I guess, psychologically it could be enough of that kind of motivation and kick like that is a possibility, but you have to keep up the training. You have to keep it up. You can't just after two weeks drop it and say, well, I'm done. And that's I think with anything, unfortunately, or fortunately, there's never an end point with this. You know what I mean? You can train, but if you stop training for a year, depending on who you are, how long you've trained, your genetics, all of those kinds of things. 12 months later, if you don't train for 12 months, you bring 10 people back who all trained to a point and then stop training for 12 months, they will all have gone backwards in their physiques, loss size, different things, but they will all have done it to a different degree, depending on all of those factors. How long they've trained, what their genetics were, what type of training program they used coming into it, what they did with their diet whilst they were not training.

Christine Envall:
So, it's not something that you get to a point and then you end and then you have the perfect body and it just stays like that forever. It doesn't happen. So, with any of these things, particularly the guys who are struggling to gain weight, they will always have to be mindful that they do need to keep their calories up. They do need to keep their protein up and their training up, or they will lose those gains. And that's anyone, mesomorphic, ectomorphic, endomorphic it's going to happen. But if it's harder to get there, it's probably going to come off a little bit quicker. So, whatever you're doing, it's a process. It's an ongoing thing. And it's not something that you can get to a point stop, and then think that it will stay there forever. You can go into a maintenance phase and hold it there. And that is not as hard as continuing to gain, but you can't step back to doing nothing.

Ash Horton:
Right. Okay. So, the next question and the final question is how can I get big fast at home? That's what people are searching. Clearly that's got something to do with COVID, but let's answer that question to the best of our abilities.

Christine Envall:
Yeah, I think having not gone through a long lockdown ourselves, but knowing a lot of people who have, I think the key thing that the people who wanted to gain a lot of size or get big at home is literally getting some basic equipment that allows you to bench press, squat. We talked about the compound movements being really important for gaining size. So, if you get yourself a decent bench to be able to bench press on, your barbell enough weights, and you can do squats, bench press and dead lifts, you're probably moving in the right direction to be able to get big at home. And I think those three exercises, obviously are designed because they do bring in the entire body. Obviously you need to, with a barbell, you can then do bicep curls. You can do skull crushers with triceps or close grip bench press, a number of different things.

Christine Envall:
So, you need to look at what equipment you have and allows you enough weight to be able to do a basic workout like that. That's how you're going to get big at home. You still got to eat, do all those things, but you need to have some type of reliable resistance training equipment. You can do barbell, basically a good amount of weights, a barbell and a bench you can actually do quite a lot. And then you would obviously add to your collection with some dumbbells. And I think that not having to worry about any kind of cable equipment or anything like that, like if you didn't have access to any of that, you could do a reasonable workout, excuse me, and you would be able to not necessarily get big, but you're going to be bigger than if you didn't have those things. So, I'd be looking at some really basic equipment like that.

Ash Horton:
Cool. So, summary is eat more.

Christine Envall:
Eat more and eat more frequently.

Ash Horton:
And eat good foods.

Christine Envall:
Yeah.

Ash Horton:
And not McDonald's.

Christine Envall:
Yeah.

Ash Horton:
And get some decent equipment if you are having to train at home.

Christine Envall:
Yeah.

Ash Horton:
And still eight to 12 reps.

Christine Envall:
Yep. Eight to 12 reps.

Ash Horton:
And the exercises that aren't sort of isolating one muscle group.

Christine Envall:
Yeah. That's your basic core for anyone who's hard gaining who just wants to get some good foundation, stick to your compounds.

Ash Horton:
Okay. Thank you very much, Christine. I'm sure a lot of people took good value out of this.

Christine Envall:
Cool. My pleasure.

Ash Horton:
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