Vince Delmonte is a world-renowned trainer who specializes in putting tons of lean muscle mass on skinny guys, affectionately known in the training world as “hard-gainers”.

You guys know who else used to be a “skinny” guy? Me!

And you know what group of athletes is traditionally known for being weak, or too skinny?

(Building suspense…)

If you said basketball players, give yourself HUGE pat on the back, because most of them are super skinny!

Let’s get right to it. Here is Part I, with Vince Delmonte.

Alex: Now I’ve done my research, I know all about you, but for those who don’t know, Vince, can you just tell us a little bit about yourself?

Vince: Sure, I’m 29 years old and I live in Hamilton, Ontario. I got into bodybuilding kind of by fluke and I have quite an uncommon story. I actually used to be a long distance runner. I was a national level tri-athlete and I went to university to compete at the collegiate level and had a lot of success from that.

Later on, I grew into a fascination with building muscle in my 2nd year of university when I roomed up with 8 super buff dudes, where I was certainly the odd one out in the group and got nicknamed “Skinny Vinny”. It obviously wasn’t the coolest nickname a guy wanted to have during his college years.

So after I graduated, I had to figure out what the heck I was going to do for the rest of my life. I had a kinesiology degree, similar to yourself Alex, and the only thing I could see myself doing was coaching people.

I really wanted to get in to the fitness world so I became a personal trainer. The only problem was I didn’t look like a trainer.

So I set a plan for myself, a six month goal to basically apply everything I had applied into my running and endurance training, towards the gym, to see if I could have the same success. I literally hung up my running shoes, stopped running and after six months, I went from 149 lbs. to 190 lbs. I wasn’t the biggest guy in the gym even after the transformation but I basically say the muscle that I gained during that time was life changing in every sense of the word.

That happened when I was 22 and I continued my career as a personal trainer fairly successfully for the next 6 years. Over that period of time, I basically recorded my entire system on how to build muscle specifically for skinny guys and hard-gainers into a muscle building course that includes a book and a bunch of other stuff, that’s available through my website. And, now that’s what I do full-time, I help guys on the Internet transform their bodies.

Alex: Wow, that is one heck of a transformation. I don’t if people out there realize this, but adding 41 lbs of muscle in 6 months is an incredible feat. I know you went from tons of running to no running, but regardless, it’s pretty remarkable, and I think it says a lot abut your system and your success

Vince: Thanks Alex.

Alex: No problem. Your system is for the skinny guys and the hard-gainers. A lot of basketball players also suffer from the “skinny syndrome,” getting pushed around on the court and just being out-manned and out-muscled. What are the most common mistakes that hard-gainers striving to put on muscle are making?

Vince: That’s a good question. There are a number of things. The first one is people traditionally, basketball players included, often take advice from the wrong people.

Most of our information comes from bodybuilding magazines and from elite professional bodybuilders who are on lots of drugs and not only that, but they also have a genetic advantage and are using a style of training that is very conducive to themselves as people who have a very good recovery rate. When you mix a hard-gainer with a method of training that is completely contraindicated with their body type, you end up with a lot of frustration, along with very, very slow to little or no growth at all.

So, taking advice from the right source of information is probably one of the first things a hard-gainer can do to start moving in the right direction.

Alex: Great point. You know, I say something along those lines to people all the time, that if you read magazines, you’re probably going to gain a little stupidity, but if you’re reading real, credible training books, you’re probably going to get smarter.

Vince: Yeah, I ask people,” Would you take money advice from someone who won the lottery or somebody who inherited a fortune?” (Editors note: Think about that one.)

There are a lot of principles that need to be taken into account and modified and pretty much anyone who is a hard gainer, or more specifically, typical athletes, need to follow a different set of rules, not completely different, but there’s lots of little tweaks that can be made to maximize their time in the gym.

Alex: Now, basketball players are typically hard-gainers and, this probably contributes to the hard-gainer mentality, but they’re playing 5 or 6 days a week, burning up so many calories and burning up so much energy non-stop and that obviously contributes to them having so much trouble putting on muscle, along with getting advice from the wrong places.

So, what would you do in that situation? You know a lot of basketball players can’t really afford to do what you did, to completely stop running. Five or 6 days a week is clearly way too much, I preach that all the time, that instead, they can go 2 or 3 times a week and still get the same benefits, and then, they can devote some time to some other things.

Vince: Oh yeah, I totally know where you’re coming from. Well, the first thing to understand is that your muscles do grow on calories. And they also grow based on the hormones in your body. So, first off, if a basketball payer wanted to build some lean muscle mass, and he doesn’t have the caloric support, it’s going to be very difficult to do that. Training a couple days a week, playing a few days a week, he probably, and I’m just estimating, is going to need 4,000 calories a day and that’s a task in itself.

Now, if the caloric support is there, then you also need to make sure the hormonal environment is solid, and that’s related to over training. If you’re over training, even if you’re eating enough, its going to be difficult to put on any weight.

Another thing to focus on is gradually increasing your weights, you’ll probably want to see about a 5% increase a week. Focus on short and infrequent workouts. The good news is that for building muscle, you don’t have to go 5 or 6 days a week. If you can get in 3 full body, quality workouts a week, heck, basketball players could probably gain muscle going hard 2 days a week truthfully. That’s really all you need. Just get in there, go hard and make sure you schedule times to go in to the gym when you’re fresh.

Even despite all the metabolic activity players are doing, with proper hormonal environment, with the right amount of calories, I’m again guessing around 4,000 calories, plus 2-3 high quality full body workouts; they should see great gains in both their size and strength.

Alex: That’s definitely some good news for all the players out there who think they have to give up one thing to get the other. If you listen to Vince, you obviously don’t have to.

Another thing I want to add about the over training is that its not just going to affect the muscle building, it’s also going to affect the player’s performance on the court. That is a huge reason why most basketball players out there might want to tone it down if they’re still going 5-6 days a week. It is just not necessary and often counterproductive.

Vince: Exactly, plus you don’t want to be sore when you go to practice or have a game. You want to be fresh.

Alex: Absolutely, and that comes back to being smart about your training and having a long-term plan, another thing basketball players NEVER seem to have.

Stay tuned for Part II coming soon, where we’ll cover the benefits of more size and strength, some problems coaches are still making today, a sample program from Vince and his top 3 posterior chain exercises!