To achieve the maximum amount of weight gain in a bodybuilding program, you’ll need to eat hard. As anyone who has ever gained weight to any significant degree knows, gaining weight is not easy. Not only do you need to have the right training program, but you will also need to test your eating skills.

The reason many men struggle with their bodybuilding endeavors is because they don’t have a good understanding of the food side of things. They do a great job in the gym, but they neglect to spend enough time in the kitchen.

How do you expect to grow if you are not feeding your body enough nutrients to make this growth possible? You won’t, it’s that simple.

Maximize muscle growth

Now, if you want to maximize your muscle growth, there is a technique you can use that will help ensure that excess calories are used for muscle growth, rather than fat gain. Nobody wants to gain a ton of fat and have to diet later, so by using this strategy, you can be sure that the weight you do gain will look good.

Carb loading with muscle building in mind

You’ve probably heard of carb loading before. It is very popular with endurance athletes as they usually like to “carb load” before a very long run. Marathon runners need all this extra fuel to be able to cover all the miles that they ask their body to run.

As far as bodybuilders are concerned, carbohydrates will provide the energy that new muscle mass is made of. Therefore, if you want to maximize your muscle gains, you need to load your body with carbohydrates when you are most likely to use them.

Use of the post-workout period

When is the body most likely to use these carbohydrates? During the post-training period. This is when they are hungry to take this glucose and store it in the muscles, making you look fuller and much more muscular.

Also, metabolism will be at its highest at this point, so eating more calories only makes sense.

Design your workout to work with a carb load

To further enhance this carb load, you can also tailor your training. If you perform a glycogen-lowering workout immediately before your carb load, you will increase your body’s ability to store carbs and therefore reduce the chance that you will experience fat spillage.

A glycogen depletion workout can be defined as one where you’re performing a higher number of sets until you simply can’t do any more work.

Keep in mind that these sessions will be intense and not every session should take place, but once a week is a good plan to follow.

So, to work them into your program, do your normal weight lifting program the rest of the week, but then skip a day at the end and do a full-body burnout workout.

Do this in circuit training fashion (with less rest between sets as usual) while performing a variety of exercises for all the major muscle groups, such as squats, bent-over rows, military presses, chest presses, bicep curls, leg extensions, legs, lunges and pull-ups.

Once you’re done with your workout, start carb loading, aiming for about 5 grams per kg of body weight.

Eat this for about 3 hours and you should start to see significant results in terms of muscle gain within a month or two.