holabuster,
Two things I would recoomend would be some serious eating and almost exclusively focusing on your legs and back while in the weight room for the next 2-3 months.
For the eating part, you should be eating atleast 4-5 times per day and I would try to include protein such as peanut butter, yogurt, tuna fish and milk and carbs like rice, potatoes, pasta, oatmeal, etc.
One other "trick" I found invaluable for gaining weight was to get up in the middle of the night and have either a few tablespoons of peanut butter, some yogurt, or a protein milkshake.This breaks up the 9-10 hours between meals you experience when sleeping.This may be difficult at first, but you can easily acclimate.I drink so much water that I always got up in the middle of the night to use the restroom so I would just detour to the kitchen first, have my snack, use the bathroom and then go back to bed.This always worked great for me when I wanted or needed to add weight-notice I said weight, not muscle, as you can easily add fat while doing this as well.
For the weight room, definitely focus on leg and back movements.The muscles of the legs and the back are the largest in your body and will have the most dramatic effect when they hypertrophy.
Squats and/or deadlifts should be a key exercise for the legs and lower back.I would go heavy on one but not both once per week for the sake of not overly taxing the muscles of the low back.For the frequency, you could go heavy on squats/light on deadlifts one week and then light on squats/heavy on deadlifts the next:
Week one-
Monday
-heavy squats
Thursday
-light deadlifts
Week two-
Monday
-light squats
Thursday
-heavy deadlifts
I think the old 5 sets of 5 reps system works best for strength/mass building on big exercises like squats and deadlifts.You can do it a number of ways but I would use this one:
Use the first two sets of 5's as progressive warm-ups and the last three sets of 5's as your work sets using the same amount of weight.For example:
set 1-135ibs x 5
set 2-185ibs x 5
sets 3,4 and 5-225ibs x 5 reps
Try to add 5 pounds per week on your heavy days.The name of the game is progressive resistance, so train accordingly.
As you gain greater and greater strength and are able to generate more and more intensity, you slowly take away work sets and add more progressive warm-ups.For example:
set 1-135ibs
set 2-185ibs
set 3-225ibs
set 4-275ibs
set 5-315ibs
For your light days, do one warm-up set and four working sets with a bit less than your previous heavy day's working weight.Taking the first example:
set 1-135 x 5
sets 2-5-185 x 5
On the light days, the focus should be on improving your technique and allowing for recovery, not building strength or muscle.If the lighter weight feels like not enough of a challenge, then you can always reduce your rest intervals between sets by half or more.Instead of taking 3 minutes between sets, take just one.
On your heavy days, you can also follow the 5's with one or two sets of higher reps, like 8's or 10's with a lighter weight to add to your workload.This is optional.
For your back, I think you would do well to just focus on chin-ups or pull-ups, working up to the point at which you are tying weight plates around your waist for added resistance.My back didn't start taking off until I really focused on pull-ups.And if you think about it, the weight you use in pull-ups is typically more than you use in most other exercises like dumbell rows, lat pulldowns, pullovers, etc.Just make sure you do full-range reps where you start from a dead hang and pull until the bar touches your upper chest or lower.I would do pull-ups at least 2 days per week.
Hope some of this was helpful.Sorry about the book.
-Matt
