How Can I Prepare For The Army Tests AND Gain Mass?

I'm an 18 year old male and I weigh 135 and I'm 5'10". I'm what you would call a hardgainer so my body fat percentage is low. I'm in the Army so I need to do my best on my physical fitness tests, so I need to train on push-ups, sit-ups, and a 2 mile run, but at the same time I want to gain mass. I want to be able to do 71+ push-ups in under 2 minutes, 78+ sit ups in under 2 minutes and run 2 miles in under 13 minutes but at the same time weigh at least 180, any more that is just icing on the cake. How can I train to do all of that and train to gain weight at the same time? I've tried to do it but it's hard because I feel like I'm working too much, so my muscles aren't getting any time to rest. I've got great definition but no size.

There is no reason that a goal can not be accomplished if the it is meaningful enough. Identify how often and for how long you can train and this will be the initital stage of developing your program.

You are talking about adding almost 50 pounds of lean muscle mass to your frame. This is a lofty goal but possible over time if you make the committment. It just takes a dedication to following a great nutrition and training program. My question though is why is this number important to you and how much will it compromise your other goals?

I have trained individuals for militray PT and the FBI and can tell you that you can easily gain functional muscle mass if you understand and prioritize specific goals. I prefer to train these types of individuals with a 5-6 day a week program with brief training sessions. This is because you are going to try to develop the skills of performing push-ups, sit-ups, and pull-ups. These exercises will be your core movements and the rest of the training should be focused to address your other weaknesses. Since you did not list your current stats it is hard for me to give more concrete advice.

In our next issue of the Advanced Athletic Performance Newsletter we will discuss how to utlize density training to enhance strength-endurance. Be sure to take advantage of this knowlwedge by signing up at aaptraining.net. This will be of special interest for your goals.