Follow These Four Rules For Hardgainers and avoid the skinny look.
Building solid amounts of muscle mass is every bodybuilders goal. It’s the reason they wake up in the morning and prepare meals with a proper balance of macronutrients (protein, fat, and carbohydrates). Building that muscle mass the reason we get into the gym and follow a strict workout routine, diet hard and make sure there are no cheat meals, in hopes of seeing meaningful changes to our physiques. For the ectomorph, or a hardgainer, it is not that easy. A hardgainer is someone who can’t gain muscle or even body fat easily, the journey to building a heavily muscled form can be a truly arduous task.
For the ectomorph, putting on muscle could seem to be nearly impossible, and that is truly defeating for many people. It requires much more than dedication and the correct food choices. It takes more than desire and drive. You have to plan accordingly in order to see the results you so desperately seek. In this post, we detail a four rule routine for hardgainers that is guaranteed to help maximize your muscle gains.
How to Gain Muscle Mass as a Hardgainer
If you’re looking to gain size and mass as a hardgainer and you really want to have the body you’ve always dreamed about, then we have some tips to make you an awesome hardgainer with unlimited potential. Let’s take a look at how to build muscle as a hardgainer.
Consistency
Remember that part where we said drive and desire won’t be enough? Well that still holds true, but it’s a great stepping stone, especially for a hardgainer. If you want to see some change in your physique it means heading to the gym on a strict schedule, making sure to never miss the days that you are supposed to be training. Sure, taking a rest day here and there is essential for your recovery and growth, but maintaining the drive to continue to workout on a constant basis is the first half of the battle. Change in your physique may be slow going, but you won’t see change if you decide to take days off from the gym. Consistency in training and diet is a must.
Eat
Speaking of diet, eating is a major component to gaining mass. In order to build muscle you’ll have to consume more calories than you burn when you get in the gym. This means eating more calories than maintenance. Does that mean you should shovel whatever you want down your gullet? Nope! Eating anything and everything in sight will increase your body fat and can really just make you feel like garbage. Instead, eating more means that you should follow a macronutrient diet that has an emphasis on things like protein in order to feed that muscle and make it grow.
The problem is that getting in protein with a lesser amount of carbohydrates and fat may be difficult to do through your standard diet. That being said, people turn to protein powders to make sure they are getting enough of the macronutrient. For a solid protein powder to choose, the team at Generation Iron suggests Nutricost Whey Protein Concentrate.
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Progression
When most skinny guys look to build up muscle they hit the gym and perform as many reps and sets as possible going to muscular failure almost every time. While that may show great resolve and look really cool to other people in the gym, it’s not going to get you to where you want to go in terms of your progression When first training it’d be a good idea to start off with moderate weight, lifting for 5-8 reps, compound movements being great to stimulate growth. Does that mean you shouldn’t lift heavy? Hell no! Progressively increasing the weight over time should definitely be your goal in order to stimulate new muscle growth.
Rest and Recover
This is something that should be a no brainer, but unfortunately most people tend to forget when they’re busy thrashing their bodies in the gym. In order to see results, you must rest your body. You can eat all you want, lift all you want, be as consistent as possible, but if you don’t get adequate rest then you’ll see less than desirable results. You’ll see more signs of growth if you get 7-8 hours of sleep per night. Your muscles will thank you later.
Building Muscle for Hardgainers Wrap Up
Overall, building muscle mass is not something that is done solely through lifting, and hardgainers know that for sure. There is a lot that goes into the process, such as sleep, diet, and so on. All of these things need to be in check to actually put on muscle mass. Having trouble putting on muscle? Let us know in the comments below and be sure to follow Generation Iron on Facebook and Twitter.
