Vince Gironda's Weight Gaining Tips

Vince Gironda—the famed "Iron Guru"—had some of the wildest tips and techniques for building muscle than any bodybuilding trainer who ever lived. Not only that, but he was solely responsible for some of the best training programs ever invented.
A little lesson from the past: Sometime in the late '90s (I can't remember the exact year), Charles Poliquin published his "German Volume Training" in the pages of the now defunct, but on the whole outstanding publication Muscle Media 2000. (This was before MM2K became just plain ol' Muscle Media, and from then on just plain ol' sucked!) German Volume training was decidedly effective, true, but Poliquin marketed it as some kind of new, "revolutionary" program, which it, sorry to say, clearly wasn't. It was the old standby "10 sets of 10" regimen that I had written about in IronMan magazine as early as '94, and the very program that Vince Gironda created at least 30 years before that. (If you want an even crazier program, try finding Gironda's original 8x8 program, which is way harder than just doing 8 sets of 8 reps on an exercise.)
As sound as Gironda's training advice was, his dieting advice was just as good, and probably even more revolutionary. This was a man who, in the 1950s, didn't win the Mr. America contest because he was too ripped! You did NOT read that wrong. The judges, at the time, actually deducted points from his score card because of his extremely low bodyfat levels. They found it too unnatural. (The picture at the top of this article was taken sometime in the '50s, during his competitive days.)
Gironda was, obviously, way ahead of his time. When competitive bodybuilders were actually expected to get that ripped for competitions, they came to Vince for advice.
He also had very sound advice, tips, techniques, and programs for bodybuilders needing to gain weight. Below are a few of his tips taken straight from the Iron Guru's mouth:

Drink water during your workout. Drink at least one pint after each muscle group worked, but dont' drink out of a fountain, because you swallow air.
It's a necessity to eat three good, generous meals a day. Even more beneficial, if time permits, is six small meals per day. Include a lot of broiled meats, baked potatoes, stewed fruits, eggs, brown rice, thick soups, stews, nuts, and natural grains. Be sure also to include lots of green and yellow vegetables.
Drink a pint of certified raw milk in addition to your regular meals at 10am, 2pm, 4pm, and one hour before bedtime.
Give your food a chance to digest thoroughly by lying or sitting with your feet propped up on a high footstool after each meal.
If you take your lunch to work, be aware that the best sandwiches for gaining weight are made with 100 percent whole wheat, pumpernickel, or rye breads. Ground beef patties, tuna with mayonnaise, turkey, meat loaf, avocado and bacon, peanut butter and bacon, and cream cheese all make excellent high-protein, high-calorie sandwiches.
Don't miss a workout unless you're ill or it's absolutely imperative. Remember, your whole bodybuilding program is based on regular habits
It's essential to get sufficient rest and sleep in order to fully recuperate from your workouts and for muscle growth to occur. I recommend eight to nine hours of sleep each night.

Gironda's advice still holds to this day.

Bodyweight Training and Beyond

High-Volume, High-Frequency Bodyweight-Centric Workouts for Transforming Your Physique Part One: Bodyweight Training and Nothing But If you are going to achieve good results no matter your goals—be it strength, hypertrophy, or a combination of the two; whether you want to be “lean and mean” or big as a house—then you must learn to balance the 3 training variables of volume, frequency, and intensity. (Intensity in this article, unless otherwise noted, will be how it is used in strength training circles—as a percentage of your one-rep maximum, not as the manner it's used in bodybuilding vernacular, which is how “hard” you train.) As I have often explained, two of the variables need to be high—or, at least, one high and the 2nd one moderate—and the remaining variable needs to be low. The exception to this is if all of the variables are moderate in a program. Because of this stance, it means I have never believed that there is o...

Skill Training as Size Building

AKA: The 90% Rule for Mass and Power Some Thoughts and Programs on “Skill Training” as a Method for Gaining Size and Strength In my recent essay “Heavy and High,” I suggested that the key to gaining mass for the natural bodybuilder lies in the ability to do programs that utilize both heavy weights and a high workload. When a lot of modern bodybuilders think about training for hypertrophy, they largely think along the lines of training hard and then coupling this with plenty of rest and recovery. Almost every program you encounter—whether you read about them, watch a YouTube video discussing it, or have a casual conversation about them with a fellow gym-goer—revolves around the balance of “intensity” with rest days after workouts. The harder, or more , you train then the more you should rest. I’m not denying here that workouts do, and should , involve those considerations, but I prefer lifters to think in terms of workload and work ...

Bodyweight Training and Beyond - Part Two

Hybrid Methods and Programs Utilizing Bodyweight Training AND Weighted Workouts For Part 2 of our series, we turn to the hybrid method of training where you combine bodyweight training with weighted workouts. There are several different ways that this can be done, and the methods that apply to one also apply to the other. You can combine bodyweight training with weights in the same session or you can keep the two separate, doing weighted workouts on one training day and bodyweight only on the other. A great benefit of the 2nd approach is that you can still use high-frequency training without the need to go to the gym 5 to 6 days per week. Even if you prefer lower-frequency routines, you can go to the gym just once or twice per week and then do bodyweight training at home another one or two days. If the reason that you have for not training more, or not sticking to a training r...

C.S. Sloan's Integral Strength

Search This Blog