In this 4-part hardgainer series, you'll get a basic but effective plan to build muscle and strength as a self-described hardgaining ectomorph. The first two parts focuses on defining what it means to build a strength foundation for muscle-building success.
Then I'll show you how to properly program the workouts and routines for maximum strength results by improving work capacity. In the last part, probably perhaps the most important factor of bodybuilding for hardgainers, you'll read all about successful muscle building nutrition.
I'll keep all the information as basic, simple, and practical as possible so you'll know what to do, but more importantly how to do it...how to build real muscle and strength the proper way as a hardgainer.
No fluff, no bullshit, just a straight practical guide for bodybuilding success. Let's get to it!
A Hardgainer's Dilemma
I've found that most people who label themselves in the category of "hardgainers" have never really trained and eaten properly to grow. When they don't see the results they want, they immediately throw their arms up in the air and subscribe to blaming their genetic makeup and parents for being born "that way" or "this way" as if they're some sort of freak.
This is a victim mentality that will not do you any good if you're after results. Shed that thinking away and stay positive. What's the point of over-indulging the self with negative beliefs if it's not going to improve on the situation? It's pointless. Rather, you should be looking at what other things you can do to overcome the problem. If the current diet and routines you're doing isn't working, then try something else! Don't repeat what doesn't work. That's just insanity, in its pure definition.
For every perceived problem, there's always a solution. And it's often right under your nose if you take a step back and go back to the fundamentals of training and nutrition. Because that's what fitness is all about: training and nutrition.
Yes, you're born with certain advantages and disadvantages physically, socially, and mentally but we can truly make the best of what we have by constantly trying to improve ourselves each and every day in all imaginable ways through goal setting, planning, behavior changes, and most importantly taking action with consistency and dedication to accomplishing a positive result.
I don't particularly like the term, "hardgainer" because each letter spells excuse, excuse, and more excuses. If you're a hardgainer, then so be it. You can still get freaking strong, muscular, solid, and built, if you play your cards right. Let's move on to how we do that. First, understand the hardgainer profile.
The Hardgainer Profile
The definition of a hardgainer.... one who is naturally tall, has lanky long limbs with mostly slow twitch muscle fibers (the ones used for endurance activities), narrow waist and shoulders, weak joints, small boned with far muscle insertion points, and low strength levels.
They have a very fast metabolism thinking it's impossible to gain any weight. However, once you actually see a hardgainer's diet and training program, you'll figure out why the hardgainer is not building any strength or muscle.
Jonas Brothers as ectomorphs
For example, a hardgainer weighing 135 lbs at 6 feet tall eats a 2,800 calories diet, trains 2 hours a day 3 days a week with 4 sets of barbell curls, bench presses, and crunches every workout. Look at that crap routine. That hardgainer workout sucks! No wonder he isn't gaining any weight or building muscle. Both the training and eating plan is wrong. Too wrong.
It's a real mistake to put categories, classifications, and labels to your self because often it limits the potentials of your ability. You'll constantly think you're a hardgainer as you build a low confidence radar while avoiding setting high goals for yourself. You'll admit falsely on your ability to build muscle. Negative thinking. It doesn't help you at all. We're all capable of building lots of muscle and strength no matter our body type and current state of fitness/physical condition.
So hardgainers have low absolute strength capabilities and average or poor endurance (if they've never exercised or played any sports seriously). Their joints are also relatively weak if they've never trained with weights in the past. They are also not used to eating a lot, much less go on bulking diets to gain muscular weight and build muscle.
Goals of a Hardgainer
So there are really just 3 top goals for a hardgainer to build muscle. First, you'll need to work on building a basic strength foundation to strengthen the joints and connective tissues surrounding the muscles. Then you'll concentrate on improving work capacity so you can adapt your body to higher intensity strength training workouts and more frequent workouts.
Finally, you'll need to start eating more, way more than you're used too. You have to learn how to eat more than traditional bulking diets, which is normally 500 calories above maintenance calories requirement. 800-1000 calories is needed instead. Don't worry about gaining fat since a hardgainer hardly has any fat on them. Most hardgainers can get away with eating a lot of junk and crap foods low in nutrient values but above all else, calories is what matters at this stage of the game.
3 Main Goals a Hardgainer Must Work On
1) Build a strength foundation
Why is a strength foundation so important to a hardgainer? It's simple. Imagine being able to deadlift 400 pounds raw, bench 300 + pounds, and squat 250 + pounds. Do you think you'll look like a weakling then? Try to work on the other compound movements like military presses, shoulder presses, chinups, and dips. If you can use a lot of weight on those lifts, do you think you'll still have small arms, legs, shoulders, and back?
Take the chinup for example. Now a normal chinup using just your body weight done for 12 reps is impressive for most people (since probably half of the population under 50 can't even do 5 perfect reps), but try wearing a weight vest or a weight belt and strap 90 pounds to it. Then perform the chinup for 12 reps straight. If you can, you'll have big biceps and a really strong grip to go along. The chinup is an excellent mass building compound lift that involves the entire back, forearms, and biceps throughout the movement.
Strength foundation on a bowflex?
Strength does not directly equal more muscle but there is still some relation. Just look at some of the guys who squat 500 pounds. Do you seriously think their legs don't look big? Strength and muscle are not mutually exclusive. As you get stronger, you'll get bigger, provided you eat a lot and have your diet dialed in correctly for gaining muscle.
Also, if you work up to handling heavier and heavier weights with progressive training, you'll strengthen your joints and muscles while increasing bone density allowing the body prime opportunity for greater muscle gains. This is performance-based training. You work up to getting stronger and the muscles will catch up nicely.
Building a strength foundation also allows you to focus on using good form, which aids in injury prevention for the rest of your lifting career. Stronger joints, stronger bones, stronger tendons, stronger connective tissues, and stronger everything surrounding the muscles gives you an overall healthy strong body.
A hardgainer workout is simple and basic. No complex conjugate or undulating periodized programs that leaves most of us confused.
2) Improve work capacity
A hardgainer, when he begins working out, tires easily due to a lack of energy and work capacity. Work capacity is the ability to work out at a certain of time with measured intensity. If you have low work capacity, especially while starting out training with weights for the first time, you'll have to take time to build that up.
With low work capacity, you can't train at a high intensity level for a long period of time, nor can you train very frequently. Your workouts will be unproductive as you tire easily. Your physical fitness does not allow your workouts to be efficient. You have to build up and let your body adapt to the training loads an stresses first.
Hardgainers are generally not very athletic and they run out of breath easily. They're unable to handle a lot of high intensity and high impact work loads. So the goal for a hardgainer would be to improve his athletic potential and work capacity which allows him to work out longer and harder.
You'll have to place emphasis on building up slowly the number of reps, exercises, sets, and frequency of workouts over time. And your efforts will be compounded. You start with a moderate intensity (intensity with respect to weight) set/rep volume and low frequency, then gradually add in more exercises, sets/reps/total volume, and frequency as the weeks progress and you get stronger.
You progress based on how your body responds to the training. This is a step-by-step gradual progression. Not complicated.
3) Eat more food
Hardgainers make the mistake of thinking they're eating a lot when they're not even close to eating enough for building muscle and gaining weight. They may think at first they're eating a lot but once you break down the calories per meal, they're not actually eating nearly enough to satisfy the muscle building engine in the body. If you're not gaining muscle, the most likely culprit is in your diet.
This is simple thermodynamics. You must eat more than you burn in calories every day if you want to gain weight. If you want to lose weight, you do the opposite. A hardgainer is looking to build muscle. He must eat a hell lot more than the average non-trainee or couch potato. No way around this one.
A hardgainer diet involves eating a lot. If he eats only 2,000 calories, there's no way he's going to gain any weight, much less muscle weight.
Despite what many nutritional experts and authorities say about calories...calories in and calories out still counts to changing the way your body looks. The other factors like macronutrient ratios (how much protein, carbs, and fats you eat), meal timing, meal frequency, and supplements still matter but you must get the basic rule of calorie counting and consumption right first if you want results.
There must be that surplus, a number of calories above what you normally eat, or above maintenance requirement.
We'll go over the best foods in the recommend proportions for building muscle and strength as well as supplements you can take to "supplement" not replace your diet.
Chicken steak with mushrooms! yummm...
Factors of Muscle Building Nutrition
- 1) surplus calories consumption: the number of calories you eat to gain muscular weight, not fat weight, to gain lean mass you have to eat above maintenance (no way around this one, you must eat, eat, and eat some more, but this doesn't mean you pig out and get to eat all the garbage junk you want)
- 2) macronutrient ratio balance: the distribution of protein, carbs, and fats that make up your diet, in number of grams.
- 3) increased meal frequency: eating 5-6 smaller meals per day to increase nutrient partitioning benefits and keep you having a greater appetite (makes it easier to eat more when you split your meals into smaller portions and plates), it doesn't have to be 5-6 full meals, usually a combination of 3 full meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner) and 2-3 smaller snacks in between the big meals works best for many people's busy schedules
- 4) supplementation: not as important as you're led to believe by bodybuilding magazines and mass market advertising by supplement stores and brands, supplement companies are only out for one main goal: the bottom line in profits (most supplements suck, they don't work, total waste of money)
In each of the next 3 parts of this series, I'll go over, in detail, each of the above goals. You'll find out all the methods and principles to apply them into a total training and eating program for your hardgainer's body. I'll also list out some hardgainer tips for you to excel much faster than the average trainee.
Check out this video by a fellow hardgainer offering his top 3 tips to gain muscular weight. After reading the complete series, go back to this video and it'll make a lot more sense,
Now let's move on to The Hardgainer's Guide to Building Muscle: how a hardgainer should train in part 2 of this guide.
Train Hard. Train Safely. Train Smart.
- The Hardgainer's Guide to Building Muscle and Strength- part 1
- The Hardgainer's Guide to Building Muscle and Strength- part 2
- The Hardgainer's Guide to Building Muscle and Strength- part 3
- The Hardgainer's Guide to Building Muscle and Strength- part 4
If you have any questions, comments or input you want to add to this article, don't hesitate to leave a comment below or email me at ZQH245@gmail.com or ZQH250@gmail.com
photo credits:
jetalone
Zepfanman.com
Girl.in.the.green.scarf
JasonRogersfooddoggiraffebee
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