The Mass Gain Experiment

For the next three months I am going to be playing around with an experiment with an aim to ultimately gain mass and strength. Taking into consideration Crossfit’s 10 recognized fitness domains and the necessity of optimizing physical competence in each of them, I will be working on my biggest weakness: strength. I have never had a problem with my endurance or speed. I came into Crossfit with an endurance background whereas most of the Crossfit world before getting exposed to crossfit came from a bodybuilding type regimen focused mainly on strength.
This experiment was first done by Robb Wolf and I will be performing my own by mostly mimicking his methods.

Methods for diet: Prior to starting the experiment I have been on 16 blocks and doubling the fat. I will be starting the experiment at 16 blocks with 5x the fat. This means that for example, a two block snack would be: 2 blocks carbohydrates/2 blocks protein/ 10 blocks fat. Every two weeks I will up my block prescription by 2 blocks. The extra fats will all be from healthy sources: almonds, peanuts, seeds, and oils. The food will mostly be paleo, but it will not be all paleo. I also plan on 2 cheat meals per week.

Methods for exercise: As far as my own personal workouts go, they will not be crossfit. A true crossfit regimen takes into account all of the 10 domains and trains them all on a regular basis. I will not be doing this. I plan to work mainly on strength training with doses of the other domains thrown in. I will be training major structural moves at or above my 6 or 7 rep max, sprinting and rowing short distances, as well as training the Olympic lifts and I will not be doing the 3 days on 1 day off scheme. However, this program will vary and I will not be sticking to this 100%, I’ll find out what model works best as I go. What I will have at the end of this experiment is results and a detailed log of the workouts and daily food intake documenting how I got there.


Other info: As far as I know, I am going to lose my abs for the duration of this experiment. My performance during high intensity workouts will also decline, but this is all short term. I know that I will be eating an inhuman amount of food and as Wolf stated, he didn’t feel well during his own experiment, but at the end of the 3 months I will be back to eating normally and on a true Crossfit regimen hopefully with some more muscle.


Everything starts Monday, November,17.