Hardgainer

Welcome to Part 2. Picking up where I left off on Part 1 variability and variance is important to keep your muscles in a state of change in order to get them to grow. The body has been designed to adjust to changes and then fall into a rhythm. This rhythm stops you from growing.

Another tool that we will use to change things up is to alternate between 3 week periods of high volume workouts with 3 week periods of higher intensity workouts. Higher intensity only means that we will be workout out with heavier weights.

This constant change stresses the body and muscle into having to grow to make up for the difference in work being done, maximizing your growth potential. Doing the same program over and over only makes you and your muscles bored, thus no growth.

One thing that I don’t think enough is made of when it comes to weight lifting is form. Form is crucial to getting stronger and not hurting yourself. Proper form will make the difference in real gains and fake gains. What I mean by that is that you say you can lift a weight but you actually are swinging the weight.

This can cause serious injury and also cheats you of your gains. What I mean by cheating you of your gains is that you are not actually letting your muscles do the actual work that it requires to lift this amount of weight, so they don’t grow into the job. Set your ego aside and lift with proper form what you can lift.

Now we need to switch channels a little bit here. We have been concentrating on build the muscle and adding mass so lets not forget about doing things that will take away our gains. One of those things is aerobic exercise.

I’m all for being cardiovascularly fit and all but if you are a hardgainer than you need to minimize the calories that you burn. Every excess calorie burned through aerobic exercise has to be made up for with food. You will already be eating more than you ever have so I suggest just cutting back on over-doing your aerobic exercise.

Walking and riding a bike are perfectly fine as long as you aren’t doing them for more than 15 to 25 minutes a couple times a week. But running hard by playing a sport like soccer or basketball can hurt your progress. If you truly want to maximize your abilities you just need to keep the aerobic exercise to a minimum.

This goes back to our nervous system’s ability to recover. The hardgainer’s nervous system needs more rest so that it can supply the muscle with energy and hormones to recover and grow. Needless caloric burns take away from the growth and health of the muscle.

If you really want to make significant gains building muscle you should be working out with primarily free weights. The reason, well there are several, but the main reason is that free weights require your muscle to work harder and the stabilizer muscles are brought into play to balance the weight.

Working out with machines cheats you of some of your work because you are working in a 2 dimensional space whereas we are a 3 dimensional being. Whenever you move or do anything in life your body is working all the muscles in a 3 dimensional space and that’s how they are designed to grow.

Now I’m not saying that you should never use a machine. Some exercises are actually better done with a machine since it does isolate the muscle being worked, but for now we will be using barbells and dumbbells. Other exercises like dips use mainly your own weight in the beginning but you are moving through 3 dimensions of space using all of your stabilizer muscles at the same time.

Now you get a bonus, a complete Hardgainer’s workout. Just Click on the highlighted words below or right click and save for future reference.

Click Here –>Hardgainer’s Sample Mass Building Training Routine

If you are a hardgainer than you probably have one trait in common with all hardgainers. Well, actually you have the hardgainer trait also but the one I’m talking about is that you are probably weight training too much. Hardgainer Training is usually about backing it down a bit.

Being a hardgainer is frustrating so we tend to over do our workouts thinking that that will break through the barrier of our genetics. The truth of the matter is that you need to back it down a little. Three to four workouts per week is the maximum, and none lasting more than 60 minutes.

I know that you have read that you need to work your muscles to get them to grow but you can over do it and you just happen to be one of those people that can’t over do it and grow. You also have to back down your cardiovascular exercise. Burning calories is going against you so no 60 minute jogs or aerobics class. Low volume aerobic exercise for no more than 20 minutes will help you overcome your metabolism.

Your main goal here is to reduce your caloric expenditure and to increase your caloric intake. Everything that you do that burns calories is going against you and you need to seriously take this into account.

You have probably read or tried many different bodybuilding workouts by now and you have found that nothing is working for you. You now must realize that you are a hardgainer and you must do a hardgainer training workout.

Hardgainer Training Workout Principles

The 60 Minute Rule: Never workout for more than 60 minutes. You will only be wasting your time and energy if you do and you will also be hurting your chances to grow. In general your muscle building hormones like growth hormone and testesterone levels start to drop at 60 minutes.

Also your stored energy fuel is now depleted so you will start to eat away at your very own muscle tissue. Your carbohydrates that are stored in your muscle cells and liver and your glycogen, which is the spark that makes your muscles contract, is now gone. So STOP!

If you are stubborn and decide that you will continue know that you are heading down the overtraining road. This is no place to be, you get nothing out of it except ego. When you overtrain, your body doesn’t have enough of anything to recover properly, which leads to loss of strength and muscle mass.

This one is a no-brainer since it is part of most bodybuilding programs. Keep the rest between sets at a minimum. Ninety seconds is the most you should rest and this is for a very good reason. It keeps you on your toes the whole 60 minutes and it also turns your workout into a cardiovascular event.

This will maximize your output of growth hormone too, the powerful muscle building/fat burning hormone.The beauty of moving it along also enhances muscle voluminizing, which is when water goes into the muscle cells and makes you look firm and toned, you know, pumped.

You should not weight train for more than 2 days in a row. I know that you have a burning desire to get the body you always dreamed of but overtraining isn’t the secret. This is EXTREMELY important for hardgainers.

While some people have been genetically created to be able to recover easily from 6-day workout routines you are not one of them. It is common for most hardgainers to have trouble recovering and growing from 4-day workout routines.

We are all made differently and the hardgainer’s nervous system can become overloaded from two days of high intensity weight training. Nothing to be ashamed of, we are who we are. You can eat whatever you want and not gain weight, most people can’t, so it evens out.

If you do decide to go over the 4 day per week workout you must know that you are wasting your time and that your depressed nervous system will not be functioning at peak levels for you to grow muscle. Eventually your depressed nervous system will not only stop you from growing but will take away the gains that you have already made.

Another change to make in your workouts could possibly be the number of repetitions you do per set. This should be in the range between 6 to 15. The reason for these numbers is that it has been scientifically proven to maximize your growth hormone output.

This number of repetitions will give you a great pump, thus filling your muscle cells with water and nutrients that give them the ability to recover and grow bigger. The final reason is that you are not over-taxing your muscle and therefore losing control of the weight and injuring yourself.

(Note: This rule does not apply to the calves and abdominals as these muscles usually respond better to higher repetition ranges, in the order of 13-15 reps).

It is important that you make progress while you are working out. To progress means to add weight or reps every week or two. This increases the work load on your muscles which requires your body to grow to make up for it.

Realize that your progression can come in many forms, whether you are adding reps or adding weight. Just make your goal to continue to make improvements in muscle size and tone.

One thing our bodies have evolved to do is to become accustomed to routines. If you want to continue to make your muscles grow you must vary your hardgainer training workouts. Change is good and change can be as little as doing an exercise differently.

Like doing curls with dumb bells instead of with curl bar.Changing reps or order of exercises all make a difference to your muscle development. Even just changing the rest between sets works.

I’m going to stop the article here for now since it has become very long. I will post Part 2 very soon and will go into greater detail into hardgainer training.

Don’t you hate it when you have a workout partner and they are increasing in size and weight and you don’t seem to be keeping up? Or they are adding weight every 2 to 3 weeks to their workouts and you are still struggling with the same weight you already have?

Well my friend, you most probably are a hardgainer, that’s all. A hardgainer is a person genetically predisposed to have trouble putting on weight no matter what they eat and also putting on muscle when they follow the basic workout advice from the crowd. You need some hardgainer workout tips.

Don’t worry, its not the end of the world. You just have to make some adjustments to your workouts and your lifestyle to overcome your genetics. Easily done with the right plan and attitude. First thing to do is to stop doing what you are doing now and make some changes.

One of the first things to do is to change up your workouts in a dramatic way. We want to wake up your body and get your hormones and testosterone pumping. A simple technique is instead of doing a few sets of heavy weights switch it to a few sets with a 20 to 30 repetition count.

This will shock your muscles into growing. Add them to the end of your workout and then next week add them to the beginning. Change is good, especially when weight lifting. Your body had been designed to adapt to change and plateau, mixing things around overcomes that.

Another thing that is extremely important is to not do the same exercise all of the time. We need to add new exercises to the mix. This uses different muscles and also it uses the same muscles at a different angle, which is different to the body so it wants to grow.

Hardgainer workout training requires you to be diligent about not resting too long between sets. You need to keep the blood flowing and the pressure on if you want to get past your hardgainer tendencies. Too little rest is bad also so strive for about 45 to 60 seconds between sets.

Just because you are working to get a bigger body doesn’t mean all of your exercises have to be with weights. Every once in a while throw some push-ups and some pull-ups in the routine, or do hand stand push ups. You will be amazed how hard these are even though you are stronger.

But the most crucial part of the hardgainer workout tip that I can give you is actually about your diet. You have to make major adjustments here since your resting metabolism is faster than most people. You must be getting more carbohydrates and protein than the average person that is trying to gain weight and strength.

Supplements are very important for the hardgainer. You are processing your food faster so you need to replenish it with supplements to make up for the difference. You couldn’t eat enough to get your protein needs without supplements. So if you want to grow you must take supplements.

I don’t know what you have heard about building muscle but the most important thing, well, after you’ve actually worked out, is to get plenty of rest, and I mean sleep. You grow your muscles when you are sleeping. My hardgainer workout means getting at least 7 to 8 hours of sleep a night and so should yours.