Bodybuilding tips for hardgainers
I am a hardgainer. Sometimes it is really frustrating to see that our effort doesn’t transform to at least a bit of success, and it seems that we are doomed to be skinny and out of shape. Actually that is not true, there are a bunch of skinny guys out there that transformed themselves with hardwork and dedication, though it requires a bit of sacrifice. Besides, there is not too much help for us, since most people that look for bodybuilding info are fat people who want to lose some fat, however our way is the opposite.
Now, I am not going to specify the details of how to getting the ideal body since it depends on personal characteristics, these are going to be only a few general guidelines that will be really easy to follow. Most of them are from personal experience and experimenting and some others from books.
The importance of nutrition
The biggest problems for most hardgainers is that they don’t get buff, it is almost impossible to get bulked up. Most of the time it is caused by a quick metabolism, that is almost eat for nothing. To offset this problem we can eat several meals a day, what this method does is to slow down our metabolism, so that way our body gets recovered constantly during a day and we don’t lose fat. Once a thin person is hungry, his muscles are immediately burning fat, so be careful and try to avoid that situation. However, if you ever tried this method maybe you felt it was not very good for health, eating constantly may harm your stomach since it almost doesn’t have time to rest, and eating too much more than your normal habit may disturb your organism such bringing it up, losing appetite, feeling sick… though it generally gets you fatter. In fact, when I tried this method I got 4 kg in one week, I’d rather say that is pretty insane.
So I showed here the two extreme cases that I will break down here for clarification:
- If you eat in a normal basis, say 3 meals a day you don’t get fat. In addition, if you exercise, even if you don’t spend too much energy you will lose a lot of calories, that will make it hard for you to recover and don’t mention to get fat.
- If you eat too much out of your basis, say 6 meals a day it will be bad for you if you don’t burn it, or something worse, you will lose your passion for food. Sometimes if you eat a bit more your body will get used to your new schedule more quickly and with less secondary effects, but it may still not be enough.
Our solution:
Focus your meals on building muscles. This is something important you want to do. If you focus your meals to exercise schedule in the gym most of the calories will go to your muscles. So here is my recommendation.
Keep your 3 daily meals plus one meal after workout. It will bust your nutrition performance.
An efficient workout
As a matter of fact, workouts vary hugely depending on your physical status. You don’t have to lift too much weight in order to make your muscles grow up. It is actually an equilibrium between nutrition and workout. For hargainers our equilibrium is more difficult to reach so we have to adjust.
There are ways you can adjust your workout to your nutrition.
- When you are not eating too much, don’t either push yourself too much in the gym.
- You can bust your gym performance with an energy buster drink an hour before workout.
- Eat a real meal after workout, not a snack.
- If you have reached failure while working out stop and come back tomorrow, you don’t have to rest one day between workout days if you don’t need it.
The best way to work with your body without damaging yourself is adapting it to your way of working. If you exercise 3 days a week keep it, don’t skip a day unless you are ill or you don’t feel good. If you don’t have too much energy for workout, say you are tired, try at least to do some exercises, something is better than nothing.
Work out methods
Not every exercise works for everybody, and much less with hardgainers. Depending on your case you may try one or another, here I list the most basic.
- Heavy weight with less repetitions, for instance, use 15 kg dumbells with 5 repetitions each set.
- Light weight with more repetitions and less sets, for instance, 10kg dumbells with 20 repetitions per set.
- Or you can use a combination of both. Start with heavy weight and gradually decrease the weight or vice versa.
You must try all of this methods in order to find the one which makes it for you. Also remember that the examples are for instance purposes only. You have to take into account your age (if you are still growing don’t push yourself with too heavy weights it may harm you, the same applies to older people), your strength, your physical condition (if you have any injuries, malformations, etc…).
Overall comments about nutrition and workouts
There are still many specific details I didn’t mention, it is up to you to give them a try. Some of them might be concrete specifications about workouts. You should try every exercise it is available (depending on where do you workout) and you feel comfortable with it. Of course if any exercise harms you stop doing it immediately. Also have in mind that you must warm-up always to avoid injuries either with cardio exercises or warm-up exercises.
In nutrition you may need to eat variety, with this I mean, vegetables, meat (cold meat have high proteins concentrations which may help you), fruits, seafood, everything that gives you balance in nutrition and makes you healthy. that will not only make it easier for you to build muscles but also to have a healthy life. If you still feel a lack in nutrition you can try supplements but in general cases even for hardgainers it is not needed unless you are a professional bodybuilder.
After all you may feel that you lack time for doing all of these. So as I said if you want to do this, to build up a better body, increase your self esteem you have to sacrifice some other things you do.
I personally tried all these things, some worked for me others not, so you should take this tips into consideration and adapt them to your personal situation.
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