I have begun an experiment in mass building. This is unlike anything I’ve ever done before and to be honest it’s been the weirdest/hardest thing to do and I’m only 8 days into it. My past experience in fitness is with circuit training, trail running, endurance conditioning and crossfit, so this is new territory. I took a few weeks off after finishing my “12 Weeks of Change” before starting this new endeavor to allow my body to be fully recovered. My goal for the 12 Weeks of Change Challenge was to get stronger on my lifts, improve my fitness level, lower my resting heart rate and cut my body fat percentage while not losing muscle. My resting heart rate is now at 60bpm, my body fat dropped to 8.2%, my Fran time improved 30 seconds and I improved my lifts, but the downside was I dropped about 10#. After completing the last challenge and having a good bit of success I’m looking forward to this new 5 weeks.
The Skinny:
My goal is to gain 15# of muscle in 5 weeks.
Impossible… some say.
Maybe.
Maybe not.
You may be wondering what I’m doing to try and gain this weight. Without going into the details (which I plan on doing after the challenge).
Here are the basics:
Consume 3100 – 3500kcal per day
Consume +150g of protein per day
Eat clean
Lift 2x per week – full body workouts at 70-80% of 5 rep max f/2
That’s it. Sounds simple but there is much more that goes into it. I’m logging everything I eat, the supplements I’m taking and the workouts. Everything will be logged.
The craziest thing is the fact that I’m eating meat again. Before last monday, it had been over 4 years since I had consumed any animal protein. At this point, I can’t say if I’ll continue eating it or not. We shall see.
I’ll post from time to time over the next 5 weeks with updates, thoughts, etc. Then, near the end of May, I will post results.
Stay tuned.
WHOLLY FIT 
dude. 2x a week is nowhere near enough for gaining muscle. also your workouts need to target hypertrophy which is more volume, higher rep range (aka 8-12 reps, even 12-15 reps for smaller auxiliary exercises) do this workout: http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/shortcut-to-size.html . I seriously blew up when I did it. I can guarantee that the results you see on your current program are nowhere near what you are actually capable of gaining.
I’ll give it a shot after I do this experiment. Thanks for the link. It looks great!