At the same time, the intake of food and drink must be increased, and all opportunities to rest when not actually exercising must be taken. One of the most beneficial foods of all for weight gaining is milk. But as whole milk is known to contain a good deal of fat of a type which raises the body's cholesterol level, a good protein powder mixed in milk and water taken two times a day makes an ideal drink. Added protein will give you the sort of weight gain you desire, not just fat. You are lucky in that you can enjoy milk puddings and ice cream. But even if you are thin and want to put on weight, keep down the amount of sugar and sweets you eat. You will find many of the health foods excellent.

Try to get an hour's extra sleep each night, and if the opportunity occurs, rest a little with the feet up after meals. Follow a resistance course for three months. This may do all you need in the way of packing on weight and muscle. If you want to be still bigger, proceed to a bulk course. Perform about 8 exercises for the major muscle groups. Do 3 sets of 10 repetitions for each exercise, with as much weight as you can handle.

By the time you have finished exercising with the weights, you should be breathing fairly heavily. Try to do a barbell course for one month, then switch over to a dumbbell course for one month. Or alternate from a dumbbell and barbell course every 2 weeks. Results should be good from these courses. Men training on similar lines have gained as much as 10 pounds in a single month. Remember, diet is the key and you must couple the exercises with extra health foods. Use heavy weights to make the exercises really work. Then get three full meals a day, plenty of milk and rest and results will surely follow.

To be successful, all systems of exercise must be progressive. Day by day, week by week, month by month, they must become harder to perform. Only in that way will muscles grow and strengthen.

If exercise alone made men big and strong, then manual workers would be the strongest and fittest men in the world. But as much of their work is often one sided, although they expend a great deal of energy when working, they do not necessarily have a good physique. Depending on the sort of work they do, they can be rather over developed in one part and weak in another. They do not become as fit and big and strong as physical culturists because the amount of exercise and work remains more or less the same every day and never increases. They become strong enough to do their jobs and no more. A sedentary worker who trains regularly can be just as fit and far less injury prone by using all the major muscle groups in a systematic way.

That is why a man who follows free exercise rarely becomes outstandingly strong and muscular, because it is so difficult to make free exercise progressive. Up to a point you can increase the difficulty of the exercises, after that you must rely on adding more repetitions to progress. Indian wrestlers are said to practice nothing but free exercises in their training. They certainly achieve some remarkable results, become very large though they are not noted for outstanding muscularity and they spend a great deal of time in training. Many of the old time wrestlers spent hours on free standing exercises, using a great many repetitions. They also consumed large quantities of food, mostly vegetarian, nevertheless some of them grew huge.

But I am sure that you have seen many of today's huge wrestlers, some of them weighing over 300 pounds. Most of them lift very heavy weights besides their wrestling training and are incredibly big and strong.

For the best results in gaining weight and adding muscle bulk, weights are the best answer. Obviously the amount of weight you use in your exercises depends on how strong you are and your current physical condition. Increases should be made only when you can handle more weight comfortably. Your body weight will increase steadily and not only will you pack on bulk, but you will look good and feel great.

If you are already in good physical condition, you can add more weight to the bars at a faster rate. Only in this way will your muscles be taxed to the maximum, forcing them to grow bigger and giving you more weight.