Skinny and trying to gain 20lbs

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Sandman0077

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Hello all! Let me begin with a short background of myself. 23 years old, 5'9", 125lbs. Spent the last five years in the Army, and just got out in June. Served in the Infantry as a Sniper with two deployments. I'm putting this out there not to brag, but to give you some context to my questions.

I've been skinny my whole life, never passing 125. I reached 145lbs and RIPPED during basic training, and we did only body weight exercises i.e. pushup, pullup, situp, air squats, sprints, long distance running, etc. Two months after basic training I shrank back down to 130. My only assumption was that I wasn't doing as many physical exercises all day long or eating as much.

During both my deployments I did the weight lifting and protein shakes. All that stuff. Supplements left and right. I went from 130 to 135, with very little improvement to my max reps/weight. Got back from Afghanistan in February and I'm now back down to 125.

I mention all this above because I can safely say (in my own opinion) that my body just cannot handle/will not improve using traditional weight training after 5 years of shakes and hitting the weights. I don't understand it because I've watched first hand others that I worked with get shredded doing the same things I was. I get that every person is different, but common now.

I just did a calorie calculator and it says I need at least 2500 to sustain (which I KNOW I haven't been doing these last few months). It said to add 500 to start building and so I'm at 3000. Okay, no problem, but what kind of body weight workouts should I be doing?

Like I said above, I know first hand that pushup, pullup, situp, air squats, sprints, etc work for me, but is that enough? I'm only looking to gain about 20-25 pounds. At 145 I was ripped, I'm assuming because my metabolism is so fast that I have no fat left to burn. I'm not wanting to get huge or bulky, just to increase my strength and thicken out a little bit. This isn't an overnight process, I know. Just looking for some tips from someone who may have similar experiences with weight training. I know that Cross Fit was becoming a huge thing in the Army before I got out, but don't have that much experience with it or access to a gym. Just at-home workouts.

Any and all advice would be great. Sorry for the long first post!
 
Gaining and keeping weight can be done using bodyweight or weight training with proper diet.
Training for mass means overloading in the 6 to 10 rep range at max for that rep range, so if you could do 12 with your 10 rep weight, increase the weight, in bodyweight this is usually a shift of position to make the leverage more difficult.

Diet reliant on supplements is rarely ever balanced. they usually miss out the very important complex carbs our bodies prefer for training and maintainence energy. 3.5 million years evolving to do that totally forgotten because of a few muppets wanting to sell protein as the fix all wonder food.
Diet is undoubtedly where you have lost the weight. If you aren't eating enough the body will break down muscle tissue for fuel, faster the less you are training, so that is why you haven't kept it.

Train well and eat balanced you will do fine.
 
Your fault hasn't been in lifting weights. As oldie pointed out (and as you acknowledged in your post), you haven't been eating enough to maintain weight, therefore you haven't maintained weight, therefore you've lost weight, including muscle mass. So it's not about bodyweight vs external load, it's about eating enough to grow.

You listed off some exercises and then asked "is that enough?" It was enough last time around, why wouldn't it be enough now?
 
Thanks for the input! My question of 'is it enough' was just to see if anyone had some suggestions to add. I appreciate the responses though.
 
I am not always nice to people or complimenary to what they do, because fitness is not the arena for ego massaging but is exactly the arena for avoiding danger. Ex-forces so you will have been used to that system.
I do however always commend people for coming here and asking for help when unsure, makes you far smarter than many who just plough through making the smae mistakes for years and often decades.
 
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