The Hardgainers Guide to Building Muscle

Once upon a time I would have firmly put myself in the hardgainer category. I hit a massive growth spurt in my mid-teens, hitting my current height of 6'2 at 16 years old. I still have the stretch marks on my knees, hips and armpits from my skeleton deciding it was going to go all "go-go gadget limbs" on me. When I went to uni at 18 I was 9.5-10 stone, so around 60-65kg.

At the peak of my volleyball career, I'd got myself to 76kg with a 7% body fat percentage. These days I'm sitting around 87kg with visible abs (but definitely not at a 7% body fat percentage). Fair to say I've gone from what the experts would call a "lanky streak of piss" to a much larger gentleman. Which may be what a few of you out there may be trying to do. You may have the aim of finally building some strength and muscle to help how you perform, but probably more likely to help you feel more comfortable and confident in your own skin. I know that has always been a huge motivator for me. But if you see yourself as a hardgainer, the likelihood is that you've tried to gain muscular weight many times before, to little avail.

Which is why I've decided to write this blog, "The Hardgainers Guide to Building Muscle", with 5 key tips you need to help maxmise your muscle gaining potential in a similar way to myself.

Tip 1: Drop Your Training Volume

The usual hardgainer train of thought goes a little something like this.

You see that you're struggling to build muscle, so you hit the Googles. You dive into bodybuilding forums, learn all about what the tops pro's do, from Arnold to CBum, with a little sprinkling of Zyzz in there as well. And you decide that you need to train like them. What you've tried before hasn't worked so you obviously need to turn it up to 11 and hit the gym like you've never hit it before. But the problem is that you are a hardgainer (well duh). But what that means, unfortunately, is that people like us are not genetically blessed. Neither in our muscle building capacity, OR our workout capacity. We simply cannot tolerate the amount of training volume a professional bodybuilder would. Especially when you consider that their training age is likely double yours, their entire lifestyle revolves around training and eating, and that they are likely lifting assisted (i.e. they're on gear). And you're just a very average guy training around your 9-5 job with no intention of hopping on a cycle to accelerate your progress (I don't promote or encourage that). And when you take a very advanced, high volume, high demand training programme and you apply it to a very underdeveloped, genetically ungifted physique, it can't tolerate the stresses you put on it. Which is why you get nowhere. Growth happens outside of the gym. In the recovery between your training sessions. The training session is just the stimulus to grow. So as a hardgainer you HAVE to cut back your training volume to give yourself a chance of recovering and ultimately growing. 3-4 sessions per week of 12-16 working sets will be plenty to get started with. Never doing more than 2 sessions on consecutive days and leaving each session feeling like you could have done a bit more. Then, gradually increase your training volume over time as your training capacity increases.

Tip 2: Prioritise Intensity

The downside of a lower volume training approach is that you have a lower volume training stimulus. To counteract this, you have to prioritise training intensity, i.e. weight on the bar. Because if you're going to have a smaller amount of training stimulus, each bit of stimulus you get needs to be big. I'm thinking plenty of big compound exercises. Multiple muscles working over multiple joints. Using the 5-8 rep range focussing on adding weight weekly/bi-weely and leaving 1-2 reps in reserve/RPE8. Squats, deadlifts, bench presses, bent over rows, pull-ups, military presses, single arm rows, RDLs, etc should make up the bulk of your programme. Finish your sessions with 3-6 sets of isolation work, mainly to help progress those bigger compound movements by bringing up weak points. Things like hamstrings, glutes, arms, abs, mid-back, calves (lol). Train these isolation movements in the 8-12 rep range, with a close proximity to failure (1 rep in reserve/RPE9). And most importantly, keep going with them. As a hardgainer you won't need variety anywhere as near as much as you need to just get stronger.

Hammer those movements diligently, for months (probably 12-24) until you get to some respectable benchmark numbers (1x bodyweight bench, 1.5x bodyweight squat, 2x bodyweight deadlift).

Tip 3: Understand Recovery As I stated before, training is just the stimulus to grow. The time between your training sessions is when you ACTUALLY grow. So you need to understand and prioritise your recovery as a genetically lacking hardgainer.

First and foremost, the best way to improve your recovery is to not trash yourself in the first place. So never forget the low volume approach and no more than 2 consecutive days of training. You're going to aim to use your 3-4 sessions per week to hit each major muscle group a minimum of twice per week, with at least 48 hours between hitting each muscle group. Now you've got training volume and frequency on your side, and you're giving yourself the best chance to recover, grow, and go again at 100% with your limited genetics. Outside of that, food and sleep are you biggest friends. I'm going to cover food in a bit more detail in tips 4 and 5, so I'll leave that for now. But when it comes to sleep, aim to get 7.5+ hours per night, within largely the same routine (same sleep/wake times), and make your sleep environment as conducive to deep sleep as possible. A pitch black, cool, and comfortable room, with no electronics and an old school mechanical alarm clock. Definitely not your phone and definitely no sitting on the end of your bed gaming until 2am 3 times per week. Bedroom activities should be limited to the big two, sleeping and sexing.

Now onto the food.

Tip 4: Increase Your Meal Frequency

Now a lot of hardgainers don't want to admit this, but they're shitty eaters. They'll be able to put away a massive meal and think to themselves that they're getting plenty in. But the reason that you managed that is because you've grazed at best throughout the day, having a maybe a big portion of a low nutrition breakfast and a couple of "meaty" sandwiches. That's not going to cut it. The standard 3 meals per day probably isn't going to force the issue enough for you. So you need to up your meal frequency, and have some actual filling nutritious meals. A breakfast that is high in slow release carbs, some fats, and contains at least half your bodyweight in kilograms in grams of protein (i.e. 70kg - 35g protein minimum). Peanut butter overnight protein oats is a great example of this. A significant mid morning snack including another 20g+ of protein. A proper lunch with half your bodyweight in protein again, and some calorie dense options to crank it up (chicken, bacon and avocado bagel for example, maybe even 2 of them). A pre/post training snack or mid afternoon snack to fill the gap between breakfast and dinner with another 20g of protein. And a main evening meal with half your bodyweight in protein again. Maybe even an pre-bed snack along the lines of greek yoghurt, berries and honey. And don't stress too much about being super clean with your eating. Sure, 80% whole foods is going to be great for your health, energy and performance. But 20% of leeway to help get the calories up is probably going to make your life a lot easier.

Tip 5: Prioritise Calorie Dense Foods

Tip 4 was heavily focussed on protein, but it shouldn't be your only priority. Calories are going to be king, and calorie dense foods as well as lean proteins are going to be your friend. This likely means both high carb (for training performance, muscle growth and daily energy benefits), but also high fats. For the pure reason that fats are more calorie dense. 9 calories per gram compared to the 4 calories per gram found in proteins and carbs. Things like dairy, oils, nuts, seeds, avocados, salmon, nut butters... And the daddy of muscle gain snacks... chocolate milk. These foods are going to help you get the calories you need to grow into your system regularly and consistently. Because at the end of the day, you're a hardgainer... and this is going to be hard. So prioritise your calorie dense foods and your post workout chocolate milk every day to make this challenge as easy as possible. If you want my expert help in tacking the hardgainer problem, and adding 10kg+ to your frame over the next few years, check out my online coaching page.