Hardgainers Part 18: Diet and Nutrition
This is the last installment of an eighteen part series of articles on hardgainers. The first seventeen articles dealt with training, but this article deals with diet and nutritional advice for hardgainers. Remember that two different hardgainers can vary greately in terms of what kind of training and diet they respond to best. It generally takes some trial and error to find the best diet, but you can start with basic guidelines that are presented in this article which is taken from chapter 18 of the book, Individualized Training Strategies For Hardgainers.
Chapter 18
Dietary Guidelines For Hardgainers
Diet is an important factor that contributes to muscle gains. While a good diet plays an extremely important role in helping hardgainers to gain muscle, it can also be overemphasized to the point of spending a fortune on supplements. While some supplements may prove to be helpful, I do not recommend that you spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on supplements every month to gain muscle. Instead of investing in large amounts of supplements, the focus of your diet should be on eating quality food.
I believe the majority of hardgainers will benefit most from a basic balanced diet. A balanced diet is derived from the proper caloric balance between protein, carbohydrates, and fats. The number of calories that should be derived from each category consists of approximately 40% carbohydrates, 30% protein, and 30% fat.
While the balance between protein, carbohydrates and fat is an important element of a muscle building diet, it is also important to eat highly nutritious foods and avoid junk food. Candy, desserts, and pastries do have a lot of calories and may help you gain weight, but it won’t be muscle. This is also true of most chips, fries, baked goods, deep fat fried foods, and any snack foods loaded with sugar or fat. If you work out hard, but fail to eat the right types of foods, you may find that your hard work doesn’t work. Low quality foods will produce a low-quality body, whereas high quality foods combined with high quality workouts will help to build a high-quality body.
Protein
If you are serious about gaining muscle, you must take in enough protein at every meal. Muscle fibers are primarily composed of protein and require protein in order to grow bigger. It is possible to eat very healthy foods but fail to take in enough protein. For example, you may eat a big bowl of oatmeal and a piece of fruit for breakfast, and have a large garden salad for lunch, followed by pasta and a serving of vegetables for supper. All of these meals consist of high-quality foods that are considered very healthy, but they are also very low in protein content. You would not build much muscle on this type of diet as you must include a sufficient amount of protein at every meal.
Quality protein comes from meats such as beef, lamb, chicken, turkey, and fish. Other good sources of protein are eggs and dairy products, although you should limit sugar loaded dairy products such as ice cream and sweetened yogurt. Some vegetarian sources such as tofu have a substantial amount of protein, but it tends to be a lower quality of protein. Most breads are low in protein, but Ezekiel Bread is a unique bread that has a moderate amount of protein per slice, and the protein quality is very high.
Ideally, you should take in 30 or more grams of protein at each meal including breakfast, lunch, and dinner. In addition, it would be to your benefit to add a couple of high protein snacks every day. These snacks should provide 20 or more grams of protein and should be eaten between meals, or before you go to bed.
Protein Supplements
You may find that there are times when you don’t have protein foods available for a given meal or snack. This is when a protein supplement would be very beneficial. Most protein supplements come in the form of a dissolvable powder that you can simply mix with water, milk, or a drink. I recommend whey protein powder as it is a high-quality protein and easy for most people to digest. In addition to protein powder, whey protein also comes in the form of pre-made protein drinks and whey protein bars. You can often find these at grocery stores, drug stores, and nutrition stores. A protein supplement is the easiest way to provide instant protein for snacks or meals that would otherwise be low in protein.
Carbohydrates
Most hardgainers should not neglect to take in adequate amounts of carbohydrates as they supply energy for your muscles to function. Just make sure that your diet is based on healthy carbs instead of junk-food carbs. Healthy carbs primarily come from foods such as vegetables, whole grains, fruits, and dairy products. Healthy carbs help to keep your blood sugar level balanced and often provide fiber to aid with proper digestion.
Of course, there are carbs that you should avoid or eat (or drink) in moderation as they tend to cause your blood sugar level to fluctuate up and down too much. This can lead to periods of low energy when your blood sugar is low, and make it easier to store fat when your blood sugar is high. The type of carbs that you should avoid are high in white flour and sugar as these are high impact carbs. Also, stay away from high fructose corn syrup. High impact carbs tend to spike your blood sugar level and are one of the biggest culprits for causing fat gain and undermining your overall health.
The Right Amount of Carbs for Your Physiology
In general, I recommend eating between twenty to sixty grams of carbs at each meal including breakfast, lunch, and dinner. If you have a super-fast metabolism, you may have to eat quite a bit more, and there may also be a percentage of people who benefit from a diet that is lower than normal in carbohydrates because they don’t tolerate carbohydrates very well. Symptom of this are poor digestion and stomach problems, weight gain, fatigue, and brain fog when you eat too many carbs. If you suspect that you don’t tolerate carbs very well, try limiting your carb intake to twenty grams per meal or less. If you try this and start to feel lousy, switch back to eating more carbs again. However, if you notice a marked improvement in digestion, energy level, and weight control, stick with the lower amount of carbs.
When To Avoid Eating A Lot of Carbs
Those who have a slow metabolism and are trying to lose fat should be especially careful about taking in too many carbs at the wrong time of day. Unused carbs that are not burned as energy or stored in your muscles as glycogen have nowhere to go and will be stored as fat. This happens when you eat too many carbs followed by several hours of inactivity. The worst time to eat a lot of carbs is before retiring for bed. I would also advise that you avoid eating a dinner high in carbohydrates. There are a couple of exceptions to this: the first would be if you are going to work out after eating dinner; the second would be if you have starved yourself of carbs throughout the day before eating dinner. Even so, if you are trying to lose fat, limit the carbs to 30 grams per meal.
Fats
Having enough fat in your diet is essential for promoting healthy metabolic function and for the utilization of various nutrients. If you are a hardgainer, approximately 30% of your calories should come from fat. If you have a fast metabolism and neglect to take in enough fat, you may find it very difficult to gain weight. Don’t neglect to take in fat, but don’t overdo it with fat either. One of the most important considerations in regard to fat is to be careful about the type of fat that you ingest, as not all fats are created equal.
There are three basic types of fats consisting of unsaturated fats, saturated fats, and trans-fat.
Trans-fat may show up as partially hydrogenated oil on food nutrition labels and trans-fats are often thought of as unhealthy fat.
Unsaturated fats come from vegetarian sources and fish, and are generally considered to be safe and healthy to eat.
Saturated fats are found in meats, dairy products, and eggs. There is controversy over saturated fats as some medical authorities believe that too much saturated fat can contribute to heart disease and other medical problems in some people. Others are not convinced that this is true and believe the true problem is over indulgence in high impact carbs and trans-fat.
Of all the types of fats, nutritional authorities generally agree that trans-fat should be avoided by anyone who is striving for optimum health. Trans-fat is most likely to be found in fried foods, baked goods, cookies, crackers, icings, packaged snack foods, and some margarines.
If your primary objective is to build muscle, lose fat, and be healthy, I would advise avoiding trans-fat. If you eat foods that contain it, only eat them in small amounts. Also, if your family has a history of heart disease, consider limiting the amount foods that are high in saturated fats. If you eat lean meats, low fat or non-fat dairy products, and remove the yolks from your eggs, you will greatly reduce the amount of saturated fat in the foods where it is commonly found. For those who find it difficult to gain weight and want to add fat to a protein drink, I recommend adding coconut oil.
Creatine
Creatine can be an extremely powerful supplement for gaining muscle and strength in a lot of people. Not everyone responds the same to creatine. Some people will find it to be tremendously beneficial, others will only receive a moderate amount of benefit, and others don’t respond to it. The only way to know is to try it and see if it helps you. Like any food or supplement, some people don’t tolerate creatine very well and may find that it upsets their stomach or that it causes some other side effect. Proponents of creatine insist that it does not cause kidney problems as long as you stay hydrated and drink plenty of water, but some medical authorities warn that it could cause kidney problems in a small percentage of people. I recommend that you listen to your body when using any type of supplement, and stop taking it if it causes any problems or health concerns.
Multiple Vitamin Mineral Supplement
In order to make sure that you are receiving an adequate amount of vitamins and minerals, I recommend taking a multiple vitamin and mineral supplement. Not everyone absorbs all nutrients in an optimal manner and some people may have a habit of selecting foods that lack an adequate amount of certain vitamins and minerals. A multiple vitamin and mineral supplement will help to counteract these problems.
Food Intolerances
Not all hardgainers have food intolerances, but some do, and it is one of the factors that makes it so hard for them to gain weight. Milk is a fantastic muscle builder for many people, but others don’t tolerate it well. Eggs are a perfect muscle builder for some people, but others will suffer with digestive problems when they eat eggs. Many people are also sensitive to foods that contain gluten. No matter how nutritious and healthy a given food is thought to be among nutrition experts, it is possible that it doesn’t mix with your personal physiology. If this is the case, avoid the food that is causing the problem and stick with foods that you can eat without digestive disorders or unwanted side effects.
The Blood Type Diet
One of the ways to solve the problem of food intolerances is to follow the Blood Type Diet. The Blood Type Diet is based on eating foods that are compatible with your particular blood type. This means the first step is to find out your blood type. You will either be a type O, type A, type, B, or type AB. Once you know this information, you will need to look online or find a book that tells you which foods are compatible with your blood type and stick with those foods. If you have tried weight gain diets, and you hate them because you find that they cause all kinds of digestive problems and discomfort, you may find that the blood type diet makes a very big difference in how much food you can tolerate. Some of you may find the blood type diet to be enormously beneficial.
Gut Health
The condition of your stomach and intestines determines your gut health. Healthy intestines are absolutely imperative for hardgainers. No matter how much food and nutrients you take in, you won’t utilize it properly if your stomach and intestinal tract aren’t working properly. Make sure you get enough fiber in your diet to keep your intestinal tract healthy. You can do this by eating plenty of vegetables as well as fresh fruits and whole grains. Take a fiber supplement if necessary and consider taking digestive enzymes and a probiotic supplement to maintain a healthy intestinal flora. And I’ll say it once again, only eat foods that are compatible with your personal digestion and avoid foods that cause any type of digestive distress.
Gaining weight
There is no single formula for eating to gain weight. The one thing that you must do is to take in more calories than you expend. The number of calories that a hardgainer should eat can vary greatly. Some hardgainers have a super-fast metabolism and need to eat at least 4,000 to 5,000 calories per day to gain any weight at all. If you are a hardgainer with a slow metabolism, 4,000 calories per day will be a nightmare that will make you feel awful. You must eat according to your personal needs and according to your own capacity for meal sizes.
Vince Gironda was one of the most highly esteemed trainers in the 1940’s – 1980’s. He claimed that huge meals often caused skinny hardgainers to lose weight because it messed up their digestion. This is why he advocated that hardgainers eat smaller meals five to six times per day because it was the only way they could take in enough calories without suffering the consequences of overeating during a given meal. I agree with Vince; make sure you spread your calories throughout the course of five to six meals per day instead of trying to cram them into two or three meals per day.
Losing Weight
For some soft or overweight hardgainers, the primary goal may be to lose body fat. I recommend the following ten guidelines:
If you have been habitually eating over 3,000 calories per day, start by restricting your calories to 1,600 calories per day. Don’t forget to include the calories in drinks when counting how many calories you consume each day.
If you continue to gain weight when eating 1,600 calories or less per day, you have a slow metabolism and need to decrease to 1,400 calories per day and do the workout designated for the hardgainer with a slow metabolism plus extra exercise.
Limit your meals to 400 calories or less per meal.
Limit your snacks to 200 calories per snack.
Make it a goal to lose one pound per week.
If you are not losing weight when restricting your calories to 1,600 or 1,400 calories per day, gradually decrease the number of calories per day until you start to lose one pound per week.
If you consistently lose two or more pounds per week, some of the weight loss is probably muscle and you should gradually increase your caloric intake until you are only losing a pound per week.
Eat meals that have a caloric balance of 40% carbohydrate, 30% protein, and 30% fat.
As an alternative, you can try restricting your carbs to 10% to 20% of you daily caloric intake. If you feel good when restricting carbs, keep doing it. If you feel terrible, return to a balanced diet where carbs make up 40% of you daily caloric intake.
Never eat excessive carbs or high impact carbs that contain sugar or white flour before you retire for bed or during a period where you will be inactive for several hours.
This is the conclusion of the series of articles on hardgainers. If you want to refer back to the previous articles, they are listed below; just click on the article you want to read. Best of training to you.
Refer back to the previous seventeen articles if you want to read the series of chapters from Individual Training Strategies For Hardgainers that are lead up articles to this article.
Hardgainers Part 1: Four Types
Hardgainers Part 2: Physiological Characteristics
Hardgainers Part 3: Conditional Hardgainers
Hardgainers Part 4: Intensity Responsive
Hardgainers Part 5: Volume Responsive
Hardgainers Part 6: Volume Responsive Training
Hardgainers Part 7: 8 x 8 Training For Volume Responsive
Hardgainers Part 8: Misinterpretation Of Rapid Gains
Hardgainers Part 9: The True Hardgainer
Hardgainers Part 10: Training Tresholds
Hardgainers Part 11: How Much Training Intensityprecisionpointtraining.com/…/hardgainers-part-13-microloading
Hardgainers Part 12: Add Weight At The Right Rate
Hardgainers Part 13: Microloading
Hardgainers Part 14: Hardgainers With A Fast Metabolism
Hardgainers Part 15: Hardgainer with Normal And Slow Metabolisms
Hardgainers Part 16: Workouts for Hardgainers With Normal or Slow Metabolisms
Hardgainers Part 17: High Volume – Low Volume Periodization
Hardgainers Part 17
High Volume – Low Volume Periodization
If you are a hardgainer, individualizing your training according to your own physiology is one of the keys to building muscle size and strength. Individualizing your training is a process based on systematic trial and error to find out how your body responds to different amounts of training volume and intensity. You can discover this by alternating back and forth between periods in which you perform high training volume and a lower training volume. This strategy is discussed in this article which is taken from chapter 17 of the book, Individualized Training Strategies For Hardgainers. You can read the chapter below.
Chapter 17
High Volume – Low Volume Periodization
A final strategy that any hardgainer can try is a periodization plan that alternates periods of high volume training with periods of low volume training. This type of training may prove to be beneficial for any type of hardgainer. Of course, hardgainers tend to over-train fairly easy when using high volume training, but there are ways to modify the use of high volume training to prevent the risk of overtraining. There are two things that must be considered in order to accomplish this:
First, the high volume training must be modified so that it is only moderately high.
Second, it must only be done for one to three weeks at a time.
Even hardgainers may find that they can tolerate a moderately high training volume for a short period of time. Some may only be able to tolerate moderately high training volume for one week, while others can tolerate it for up to three weeks. Some may not be able to tolerate it at all without overtraining, but those who find that they can tolerate it may discover that it is beneficial for them.
Moderately High Volume Training
When using a moderately high training volume, I recommend the 12-10-8-6 system. This is the same training system that I recommend for the volume responsive conditional hardgainer with a slow metabolism in chapter eight. The only difference is that you will only do two exercises for each muscle group instead of three.
When using the 12-10-8-6 system, you will do 12 reps for the first set of an exercise, 10 reps for the second set, 8 reps for the third set, and 6 reps for the fourth set. A second exercise for the same muscle group will then be done for another series of 12-10-8-6. Two exercises should be done for chest, back, and legs, which amounts to eight sets per muscle group. I also recommend doing the optional exercises for biceps, triceps, deltoids, and calves, but just do one exercise for each of these muscle groups. Each optional exercises should also be done for a four set series of 12-10-8-6.
The specific training intensity for each set is very important. If you push hard on every set, you will probably greatly exceed your training capacity and end up over-trained after the first workout. This is why you will start out easy on your first set and increase the intensity for each successive set. To be more specific:
The first set with 12 reps should be done with a weight that would allow you to do 25 to 30 reps if you pushed yourself, but you will only do 12 reps.
The second set with 10 reps should be done with a weight that would allow you to do about 15 to 18 strong reps if you pushed yourself, but you will only do 10 reps.
The third set with 8 reps should be done with a weight that would allow you to do 10 to 12 strong reps if you pushed yourself, but you will only do 8 reps.
The fourth set with 6 reps should be done with as much weight as you can handle for 6 strong reps. This means to use as much weight as you can while maintaining the ability to perform all 6 reps using a steady even rep pace. If you find yourself grinding out slow reps at the end of the set, you are using too much weight and will be at risk for overtraining.
After finishing a one to three week phase using the 12-10-8-6 system, switch back to the type of training that you were previously doing that is recommended in chapters 6, 14, and 16. The ratio of moderately high volume training to your standard way of training with lower volume should be done according to the following guideline:
Do one to three weeks of moderately high volume training followed by three to six weeks of lower training volume that is recommended for the specific hardgainer type that best applies to you.
The reason for switching back and forth between higher volume and lower volume training is that high volume training tends to accelerate your recovery rate in order to keep up with the increase in training volume. Once your recovery rate is accelerated, your body will still be programmed to recover at a faster rate when you first switch back to lower volume training. When you pair an accelerated recovery rate with the lower volume training that does not require as much recovery, you will recover more than you need to. When you recover more than you need to, your muscles will super-compensate, which means they will over-recover with added protein synthesis and added energy storage in the form of glycogen and creatine phosphate. The end result will be bigger, stronger muscles.
Switching between higher and lower training volume seems to work for some people, but you must go by your own results. If you switch back and forth between high volume and low volume training and it works, keep doing it. On the other hand, if you find that one type of training works better than the other, then stick with what works best.
The high volume and low volume workouts are listed in the next section.
Higher Training Volume for 1 to 3 Weeks
Exercise Selection
You can use the exercises shown below or substitute exercises of your choice for the given muscle group that you are training.
Number of Sets
Do 4 sets for each exercise.
Number of Reps — Intensity — Rest Between Sets:
1st set = 12 reps — Use a weight that allows 25 to 30 reps — Rest 30 seconds
2nd set = 10 reps — Use a weight that allows 15 to 18 strong reps — Rest 90 seconds
3rd set = 8 reps — Use a weight that allows 10 to 12 strong reps — Rest 2 minutes
4th set = 6 reps — Use the maximum weight possible for 6 strong reps. Don’t grind.
Training Frequency
Do this workout three times per week.
Lower Volume Training for 3 to 6 Weeks
After you have trained using a higher volume phase for one to three weeks, switch to a lower volume phase for three to six weeks. The lower volume training should consist of the same training that was listed for the hardgainer category that you fit into in the previous chapters.
If you are an intensity responsive hardgainer, refer back to the workouts in part 7 by clicking on the link to part 7 at the end of this article.
If you are a true hardgainer with a fast metabolism, refer back to the workout listed in part 14 by clicking on the link to part 14 at the end of this article.
If you are a true hardgainer with a normal or slow metabolism, refer back to the workout listed in part 16 by clicking on the link to part 16 at the end of this article.
It is important to notice that one to three weeks of higher volume training is simply a range of time instead of a specific amount of time. The same holds true for three to six weeks of lower volume training. If you are willing to experiment within the range of times given for each phase, you will discover the best amount of time to spend in each phase. Best of training to you.
Refer back to the previous sixteen articles if you want to read the series of chapters from Individual Training Strategies For Hardgainers that are lead up articles to this article.
Hardgainers Part 1: Four Types
Hardgainers Part 2: Physiological Characteristics
Hardgainers Part 3: Conditional Hardgainers
Hardgainers Part 4: Intensity Responsive
Hardgainers Part 5: Volume Responsive
Hardgainers Part 6: Volume Responsive Training
Hardgainers Part 7: 8 x 8 Training For Volume Responsive
Hardgainers Part 8: Misinterpretation Of Rapid Gains
Hardgainers Part 9: The True Hardgainer
Hardgainers Part 10: Training Tresholds
Hardgainers Part 11: How Much Training Intensityprecisionpointtraining.com/…/hardgainers-part-13-microloading
Hardgainers Part 12: Add Weight At The Right Rate
Hardgainers Part 13: Microloading
Hardgainers Part 14: Hardgainers With A Fast Metabolism
Hardgainers Part 15: Hardgainer with Normal And Slow Metabolisms
Hardgainers Part 16: Workouts for Hardgainers With Normal or Slow Metabolisms
Hardgainers Part 16
Workouts For Normal And Slow Metabolisms
There are different types of hardgainers. Fortunatley, workuots can be individualized to fit the needs of each type of hardgainer. This article addresses a specific workout that can be used for hardgainers with a normal or a slow metabolism as opposed to those with a fast metabolism. The workout is taken from chapter 16 the book, Individualized Training Strategies For Hardgainers.
Chapter 16
Hardgainer Workout For Those With A Normal Or Slow Metabolism
The specifics of the workout for hardgainers who possess either a normal or a slow metabolism are shown in this chapter. Warm up sets are discussed first, followed by the actual workout.
Warm Up Sets
Before doing the workout that is listed in this section, I recommend starting with some warm up sets. The amount of weight that you use for each warm up set is based upon a percentage of the weight that you will be using for your heaviest work set of the same exercise. Do the following warm up sets before performing your work sets for the same exercise.
1st Warm up Set: Do 10 reps using 50% of the weight that you will be using for your heaviest set.
2nd Warm up Set: Do 5 reps using 75% of the weight you will be using for your heaviest set.
3rd Warm up Set: Do 5 reps again using 75% of the weight you will be using for your heaviest set.
4th Warm up Set: Do 2 reps using 90% of the weight you will be using for your heaviest set.
Rest 30 to 45 seconds between warm up sets
Warm up sets are not necessary for optional exercises.
After doing your warm up sets for a given exercise, follow the procedures that are listed for the workout.
Hardgainer Workout for Those with Normal or Slow Metabolisms
Exercise Selection
You can use the exercises shown below or substitute exercises of your choice for the given muscle group that you are training.
Mandatory Exercises
Number of Sets
Do 2 to 4 sets for each exercise selected.
The exact number of sets is determined by your capacity for strong sets.
Number of Reps
Do 5 to 8 strong reps per set except for your last set for each muscle group.
Do 12 to 15 reps for your last set of each muscle group when doing upper-body exercises.
Do 15 to 20 reps for your last set of leg exercise.
Optimum Intensity
The last rep of each set should put you right at your limit rep or your marker rep. Don’t do grinder reps.
Rest Between Sets
Rest 3 minutes between sets for the same muscle group. Those with a slow metabolism should alternate between muscle groups from set to set. For example, do a set of bench presses followed quickly by a set of seated pulley rows. Return to bench presses within 3 minutes after your previous set of benches.
Training Frequency
Do full body workouts 3 to 6 times per week. Work out as often as possible without overtraining.
Exercise Variations
You may do more than one exercise per muscle group if you prefer, but stay within the boundaries of 2 to 4 sets per muscle group to avoid exceeding your capacity for strong sets.
Optional Exercises
If you choose to do any of the optional exercises for deltoids, biceps, triceps, and calves, do 1 to 2 sets of 8 reps for each optional exercise performed. If you choose to do crunches for abs, work your way up to 1 or 2 sets of 30 reps.
In the next article, another type of hardgainer workout will be discussed that is based on alternating between high volume and low volume training. Best of training to you.
Refer back to the previous fifteen articles if you want to read the series of chapters from Individual Training Strategies For Hardgainers that are lead up articles to this article.
Hardgainers Part 1: Four Types
Hardgainers Part 2: Physiological Characteristics
Hardgainers Part 3: Conditional Hardgainers
Hardgainers Part 4: Intensity Responsive
Hardgainers Part 5: Volume Responsive
Hardgainers Part 6: Volume Responsive Training
Hardgainers Part 7: 8 x 8 Training For Volume Responsive
Hardgainers Part 8: Misinterpretation Of Rapid Gains
Hardgainers Part 9: The True Hardgainer
Hardgainers Part 10: Training Tresholds
Hardgainers Part 11: How Much Training Intensityprecisionpointtraining.com/…/hardgainers-part-13-microloading
Hardgainers Part 12: Add Weight At The Right Rate
Hardgainers Part 13: Microloading
Hardgainers Part 14: Hardgainers With A Fast Metabolism
Hardgainers Part 15: Hardgainer with Normal And Slow Metabolisms
Hardgainer Part 15
Hardgainers With Normal Or Slow Metabolisms
It is often assumed that all skinny hardgainers have a fast metabolism. While it is true that many skinny hardgainers do have a fast metabolism, I do not assume that this is true of all skinny hardgainers as there are many who have a very normal metabolism, or a slow metabolism. Some skinny hardgainers are skinny because they don’t eat much, and they don’t eat much because they can’t tolerate high calorie diets without suffering all kinds of digestive disorders or other negative side effects. These skinny hardgainers must speed up their metabolisms if they ever hope to tolerate more calories than they can burn off. This explains the reasoning in this article behind some of the advice that is provided for hardgainers with either a normal or a slow metabolism. The article is based on an excerpt from chapter 15 of the book, Individualized Training Strategies For Hardgainers.
Chapter 15
Hardgainers With Normal or Slow Metabolisms
The Normal Metabolism
People who do not have a normal metabolism will tend to either be very skinny when they consistently eat a lot (i.e. over 4,000 calories per day), or they may be overweight, even though they don’t eat very much (i.e. under 1,500 calories per day). In contrast, if you have a normal metabolism, you will maintain a fairly even bodyweight when eating a normal amount of food that ranges somewhere between 1,600 to 3,000 calories per day. You may be overweight and still have a normal metabolism. If you are, the reason that you are overweight is not due to a slow metabolism, it is because you have been overeating (i.e. over 3,000 calories per day). You may also be very skinny and extremely lean. This doesn’t automatically mean that you have a naturally fast metabolism, it may mean that you eat less than normal (i.e under 1,500 calories per day) or that you are extremely active. However, when you eat a normal amount of food, and engage in a normal amount of daily activity, you are neither extremely skinny nor overweight.
I believe that hardgainers with a normal metabolism will tend to benefit most from the training in this section. The workout prescribed in this section includes a greater variation in terms of rep ranges. The variety of reps will develop different types of muscle fibers and the inclusion of higher reps will also tend to promote a pump. These factors make the workout in this section a better choice for muscle growth unless someone has a fast metabolism.
There are two things that are discussed in this chapter that are not necessary for the hardgainer with a normal metabolism:
The first is the additional aerobic workouts.
The second is a fast work out pace.
Both of the workout strategies listed above are specifically designed to accelerate the metabolism, which is not necessary for the hardgainer with a normal metabolism. Additional workouts and a fast workout pace probably won’t hurt those who have a normal metabolism, but these factors may not help much either. For those with a normal metabolism, the most important thing to consider in this chapter is to follow the guidelines for the number of sets, reps, and workouts per week. However, some hardgainers have a slow metabolism and the full spectrum of advice given in this chapter will be important for your success.
The Slow Metabolism
In a previous chapter, I pointed out that it seems to be widely assumed that all skinny hardgainers have a fast metabolism. I don’t make this assumption and I firmly believe that there are skinny hardgainers who have a slow metabolism. The reason they are skinny is because their bodies don’t tolerate high calorie diets without feeling stuffed, nauseated, and miserable. Those who feel like this when they eat a substantial amount of calories hate the discomfort that it produces, so they don’t eat enough to gain weight.
Other people appear soft or overweight in spite of not eating very much because they have a slow metabolism. Those who have a slow metabolism need to utilize training methods that will accelerate their metabolism whether they are skinny, soft, or overweight. The methods for accelerating the metabolism will first be listed, followed by an explanation of each method.
- Include some training in the 12-20 rep range.
- Train as often as you can without overtraining.
- Use a quick training pace.
- Do additional exercise sessions specifically designed to accelerate your metabolism.
Include Some Training in the 12-20 Rep Range
The workouts for the hardgainer with a slow metabolism may look very similar to the workouts for the hardgainer with a fast metabolism. However, one difference is that the hardgainer with a slow metabolism should include some training in the twelve to fifteen rep range for the upper body, and up to twenty reps for the legs. This is necessary to accelerate the metabolism.
Caution: Limit the 12-20 Rep Range to One Set per Muscle Group
The hardgainer with a slow metabolism should still do some heavy training in the five to eight rep range. The twelve to twenty rep range should also be used, however, it should be limited to just one set for each muscle group. More than one set of high reps for a muscle group can push the body into an endurance adaptation at the expense of a strength and muscle building adaptation.
Train as Often as Possible to Accelerate Your Metabolism
Another very important variable for the hardgainer with a slow metabolism is to include sufficient training frequency. Hardgainers tend to have a short muscle growth activation period after workouts and require frequent workouts in order to keep the growth process consistently activated. The underweight hardgainer with a slow metabolism also needs to train often in order to accelerate their metabolism enough to tolerate a sufficient amount of food to gain weight. My recommendation is that the hardgainer with a slow metabolism should work their whole body three to six times per week while staying within the boundaries of training thresholds during their workouts. The exact amount of training sessions per week should be based upon experimenting to find what produces the best results.
Use A Quick Training Pace
Long rests between sets will not do much to accelerate your metabolism. A quick training pace is much better. The problem with this is that you need at least three minutes of rest between sets for the same muscle group in order for that muscle group to fully recover before doing the next set. In order to speed up your workout, alternate back and forth between exercises by working one muscle group while another muscle group is resting. For example, after doing a set for your chest muscles, don’t just sit there for three minutes and do nothing. Do a set for your back and/or legs during the three minute rest period for your chest before returning to the same chest exercise three minutes later. Another thing to consider is to take very brief rests between easy warm up sets because easy sets don’t require as much recovery time before doing the next set. If you do these things, your workouts will move quicker and tend to stimulate your metabolism more.
Additional Exercise
If weight training doesn’t provide enough stimulation to cause substantial metabolic acceleration, additional exercise is needed. The additional exercise should not be super hard, long, or exhausting, as this will lead to overtraining and hinder muscle growth. You can choose one of the options that are shown below for additional exercise, or you can engage in some other form of additional exercise that you prefer.
Do 10 minutes of daily kettlebell training with a light kettlebell.
Do 10 minutes of body weight squats each day.
Alternate between easy jogging for 2 minutes and sprinting for 12 seconds. Do this for 10 to 15 minutes each day.
Choose to exercise on either a stationary bike, a treadmill, or an elliptical trainer for 10 to 15 minutes each day. Alternate between going easy for 2 minutes and very hard for 20 seconds.
Jump rope for 10 minutes each day.
Jump on a rebounder or trampoline for 10 minutes each day.
Work Your Way Into It
If you do any of the suggested additional exercise, gradually work your way into it unless you have already been doing it. While I suggested ten to fifteen minutes of additional exercise per day, you may need to start with four or five minutes every other day and give yourself a few months to slowly work your way up to ten to fifteen minutes per day.
While this article is basically designed to provide some training principles that apply to hardgainers who possess a normal or slow metabolism, the next article will present specific workouts for this particular lifting population. Best of training to you.
Refer back to the previous thirteen articles if you want to read the series of chapters from Individual Training Strategies For Hardgainers that are lead up articles to this article.
Hardgainers Part 1: Four Types
Hardgainers Part 2: Physiological Characteristics
Hardgainers Part 3: Conditional Hardgainers
Hardgainers Part 4: Intensity Responsive
Hardgainers Part 5: Volume Responsive
Hardgainers Part 6: Volume Responsive Training
Hardgainers Part 7: 8 x 8 Training For Volume Responsive
Hardgainers Part 8: Misinterpretation Of Rapid Gains
Hardgainers Part 9: The True Hardgainer
Hardgainers Part 10: Training Tresholds
Hardgainers Part 11: How Much Training Intensityprecisionpointtraining.com/…/hardgainers-part-13-microloading
Hardgainers Part 12: Add Weight At The Right Rate
Hardgainers Part 13: Microloading
Hardgainers Part 14: Hardgainers With A Fast Metabolism
Hardgainers Part 14:
Hardgainers With A Fast Metabolism
There are different types of hardgainers. Some have a slow metabolism, some have a fast metabolism, and some have a normal metabolism. In other words, not all hardgainers are the same. Each type of hardgainer requires training that is suited to their personal physiology. In this article, the focus will be on training for hardgainers with a fast metabolism. If you are a hardgainer and you think you fit into this category, consider trying the advice offered in the following article which is an excerpt from chapter 13 and 14 of the book, Individualized Training Strategies For Hardgainers.
Chapter 13
The True Hardgainer With A Fast Metabolism
The true hardgainer with a fast metabolism must be careful not to fire up his metabolism to the point where it becomes almost impossible to gain weight. The way to avoid an accelerated metabolism that is out of control is to avoid doing a lot of reps and a lot of sets. Anyone with a very fast metabolism will probably do better by sticking with five to eight reps per set while avoiding the ten to twenty rep range. They should also stay within their capacity for strong sets and only work a muscle group as long as it is at full strength. This will generally limit the number of sets per muscle group to two to three sets, although a smaller percentage of people may be able to stay at full strength for four or more sets.
Many trainers believe that skinny hardgainers should avoid frequent workouts and only hit a muscle group once or twice per week. Of course this is a good idea for those who have a muscle growth activation period that remains active for 72 hours or more without losing any muscle that has been gained. However, I disagree with using a workout schedule in which a muscle group is trained every 72 hours for people whose muscles do not stay activated that long after a workout. Those who are truly hardgainers often have a short muscle growth activation period after a workout. They will need to work out often enough to insure that the muscle growth process remains activated between workouts.
You may be a hardgainer who finds it best to work each muscle group only twice per week. However, most of you will need to do three or four full body workouts per week to keep your muscle activated. Of course if you work out three or more times per week, it is essential that you stay within the boundaries of your threshold capacities for strong training to avoid overtraining.
Chapter 14
Hardgainer Workout For Those With A Fast Metabolism
When you take into account all that has been discussed in reference to true hardgainers with a fast metabolism, the type of training that should be done is shown in this chapter. Warm up sets are discussed first, followed by the actual workout.
Warm Up Sets
Before doing the workout that is listed in this section, I recommend starting with some warm up sets. The amount of weight that you use for each warm up set is based upon a percentage of the weight that you will be using for your heaviest work set of the same exercise. Do the following warm up sets before performing your work sets for the same exercise.
1st Warm up Set: Do 10 reps using 50% of the weight that you will be using for your heaviest set.
2nd Warm up Set: Do 5 reps using 75% of the weight you will be using for your heaviest set.
3rd Warm up Set: Do 5 reps again, using 75% of the weight you will be using for your heaviest set.
4th Warm up Set: Do 2 reps using 90% of the weight you will be using for your heaviest set.
Rest one minute between warm up sets.
Warm up sets are not necessary for optional exercises.
After doing your warm up sets for a given exercise, follow the procedures that are listed below:
Hardgainer Workout for Those with a Fast Metabolism
Exercise Selection
You can use the exercises shown below or substitute exercises of your choice for the given muscle group that you are training.
Number of Sets
Do 2 to 4 sets for each exercise selected.
The exact number of sets is determined by your capacity for strong sets.
Number of Reps
Do 5 to 8 strong reps per set for each exercise.
Optimum Intensity
The last rep of each set should put you right at your limit rep or your marker rep. Don’t do grinder reps.
Rest Between Sets
Rest 3 minutes between sets for the same muscle group
Training Frequency
Each muscle group may be worked as little as twice per week if it works, but most people will need to do 3 to 4 full body workouts per week. Base your training frequency according to what works best.
Exercise Variations
You may do more than one exercise per muscle group if you prefer, but stay within the boundaries of 2 to 4 sets per muscle group to prevent exceeding your capacity for strong sets.
Optional Exercises
If you choose to do any of the optional exercises for deltoids, biceps, triceps, and calves, do 1 to 2 sets of 8 reps for each optional exercise performed. Only choose one exercise per muscle group. If you choose to do crunches for abs, work your way up to 1 or 2 sets of 30 reps.
Refer back to the previous thirteen articles if you want to read the series of chapters from Individual Training Strategies For Hardgainers that are lead up articles to this article.
Hardgainers Part 1: Four Types
Hardgainers Part 2: Physiological Characteristics
Hardgainers Part 3: Conditional Hardgainers
Hardgainers Part 4: Intensity Responsive
Hardgainers Part 5: Volume Responsive
Hardgainers Part 6: Volume Responsive Training
Hardgainers Part 7: 8 x 8 Training For Volume Responsive
Hardgainers Part 8: Misinterpretation Of Rapid Gains
Hardgainers Part 9: The True Hardgainer
Hardgainers Part 10: Training Tresholds
Hardgainers Part 11: How Much Training Intensity
Hardgainers Part 12: Add Weight At The Right Rate
Hardgainers Part 13: Microloading
Hardgainers Part 13: Micro-loading
Even hardgainers can gain muscle size and strength if they train smart and use micro-loading by adding weight to their lifts a little at a time. This concept is discussed in part 13 of a series of articles on hardgainers. The article is an excerpt from chapter 12 of the book, Individualized Training Strategies For Hardgainers.
Rate of Progression And Micro-loading
Micro-loading
I believe one of the best ways to make long-term progress is to use the micro-loading method, which simply means to add weight to your lifts in very small increments. Even hardgainers can keep gaining if they make it easy for their muscles to keep adapting to increases in weight, and the easiest way to do this is to use training thresholds in combination with micro-loading.
The basic strategy is to start with a training stress that is challenging enough to stimulate muscle growth while making it as easy as possible to recover. From this starting point, you add to your lifts in very small increments. Of course this can be accomplished if you start out by using thresholds as they provide training that is hard enough without being overly hard. If you don’t use training thresholds and choose to train to failure, I can’t promise that micro-loading will work. If you can barely squeeze out the desired amount of reps, it will always be hard to add anything to your lifts, even if it is a very small amount.
Assuming you are starting out with a training load that is not overly difficult, you can add to it in very small amounts from week to week. When you do this correctly, it will never feel as though the weight is becoming more and more difficult to lift, even though you will be lifting significantly more weight within a year.
If you start out with micro-loading as a beginner, you will probably be able to add a pound or two every week for the first year, and maybe even for two years. This means your poundages will increase by 50 to 100 pounds per year for the first year or two. By the second or third year, you may need to slow down and only add a half pound per week, which will result in an increase of about 25 pounds to your lifts over the course of a year.
The biggest problem with micro-loading is that most gyms and home barbell sets do not provide super small weight plates that allow small additions of weight. The smallest plates may only be two and a half pounds per plate which adds up to five pounds when you put a plate on each side of a barbell. In truth, the smallest plates in a lot of gyms are five pounds which will add up to ten pounds when you put one on each side of the bar. Most people don’t gain strength in ten pound increments, which makes it very difficult to keep adding more weight over time.
Fractional Weight Plates
Fortunately, a simple online search for FRACTIONAL WEIGHT PLATES will help you find very small weight plates that can be used for micro-loading. If you have two fractional plates that each weigh a half pound, you can add a pound at a time. You would need ten of them to progressively add five pounds, at which point you can replace them with two and half pound plates and start adding the half pounders each week again. At some point, you may need to add a half pound per week, in which case you would need quarter pound fractional plates for each side of the bar. I highly recommend that you get them if you are serious about long term improvements.
Olympic Barbells vs. 1 Inch Standard Barbells
One problem with fractional weight plates is that they are generally made for Olympic barbells. The ends of Olympic barbells are two inches in diameter, whereas standard barbell sets that are generally made for home use are only one inch in diameter. For standard one inch barbell sets, the best source that I have found for fractional plates are large washers that you can order from a store called Fastenal. You need to be very specific about the type of washers that you order in regard to two important criteria:
First, the washers should be USS (United States Standard Size). This must be specified when you order.
Second, you must order washers that have a hole that is one inch in diameter.
It takes six washers (three on each side of a barbell) to add a pound to your lifts. If you add one washer to each side of the bar per week, you will be lifting an additional seventeen pounds at the end of a year. If you add two washers to each side of a barbell every week, you will be lifting an additional thirty-five pounds within a year, which adds up to over 100 additional pounds in three years, and 200 additional pounds in six years. In other words, if you start out benching 100 pounds as a beginner, you’ll be benching 300 pounds in six years by adding less than a pound per week.
Machines and Fractional Plates
Some people use weight training machines instead of barbells. If this is the case, you can still probably add fractional weight plates to the machines when doing an exercise. Some machines are built so that you can put your fractional weight plates on top of the weight stack that you will be lifting. Also, a lot of weight training machines are designed to select the amount of weight you are going to use with a weight selector pin. All you need to do is put your weight selector pin into the weight stack as you normally would when selecting the amount of weight you are going to lift. Once the weight selector pin has been inserted into the weight stack, hang your fractional weight plate(s) on the weight selector pin from the hole of the fractional weight plate(s).
Time and Patience Plus Smart Training
Time and patience plus smart training will be your best friends if you are serious about gaining a substantial amount of muscle as a hardgainer. You will have a hard time gaining a significant amount of strength and muscle if you are not determined enough to stick with a precision based systematic training program over a long period of time.
Once you understand thresholds and how to progress in a systematic manner, you will be equipped to engage in workouts that will be productive even if you are a true hardgainer.
In the next several articles, more workouts will be presented, starting with workouts for the true hardgainer with a fast metabolism. Best of training to you.
Refer back to the previous twelve articles if you want to read the series of chapters from Individual Training Strategies For Hardgainers that are lead up articles to this article.
Hardgainers Part 1: Four Types
Hardgainers Part 2: Physiological Characteristics
Hardgainers Part 3: Conditional Hardgainers
Hardgainers Part 4: Intensity Responsive
Hardgainers Part 5: Volume Responsive
Hardgainers Part 6: Volume Responsive Training
Hardgainers Part 7: 8 x 8 Training For Volume Responsive
Hardgainers Part 8: Misinterpretation Of Rapid Gains
Hardgainers Part 9: The True Hardgainer
Hardgainers Part 10: Training Tresholds
Hardgainers Part 11: How Much Training Intensity
Hardgainers Part 12: Add Weight At The Right Rate
Hardgainers Part 12: Add Weight At The Right Rate
One of the biggest keys to making consistent strength gains is to train with the right amount of intensity and one of the biggest keys to training with the right amount of intensity is to progress at the right rate. If you add weight to your lifts too quickly, you will be forced to push too hard to complete the desired number of reps per set. Pushing too hard can hinder progress instead of promoting it. In order to train with the right amount of intensity, I recommend the use training thresholds which was discussed in part 10 of this series of articles on hardgainers. The good thing about progressing at the right rate is that it will help you to stay within the boundaries of training thresholds.
Since progressing at the right rate is important, it is the topic of discussion for the remainder of this article which is taken from chapter 12 of the book, Individualized Training Strategies For Hardgainers.
Chapter 12
Progressing at the right rate is a huge key to long term success! If you keep trying to rush ahead with heavier weights and more reps before your body is ready, it will eventually backfire. One thing that makes it so difficult to keep from rushing ahead before you are ready is the bombardment of ideas that come from the marketing and advertising industry. People want to persuade you to believe that there is a magic diet and training program that will make it easy for a hardgainer to gain muscle.
If you are a true hardgainer, do not expect gains to come easy because that would make you an easy gainer. People who want you to buy their bodybuilding programs are going to tell you that you can gain muscle fast if you just use the program they are trying to sell to you. They will show you examples of people who couldn’t gain anything until they suddenly exploded with muscle when they used the right type of training. Some of these examples may be true, but if they are, they are examples of conditional hardgainers, which are people who are hardgainers when they use training programs that are not suitable for their body type, but they become easy gainers when they find a training program that is a good fit for their physiology. Not every hardgainer becomes an easy gainer when they find the right training program. Most hardgainers are still hardgainers even when they use an ideal program, but even though it’s hard for them to gain, most can gain little by little if they are willing to train smart and be patient.
Do The Math
Every hardgainer should sit down and do some math before they start training. If you start with the expectation that you’ll be able to add weight to the bar every workout and gain a pound or two of muscle per week, you will probably be disappointed. If you are a true hardgainer, you must be content to make slower gains. You may find that you can gain five pounds of strength over the course of a month. This sounds like a very slow gain to many people, but if you add five pounds to your basic exercises every month, you will be sixty pounds stronger within a year. If you can keep gaining sixty pounds of strength per year for three years, you will be an additional 180 pounds stronger for your lifts. In five years, you would be 300 pounds stronger. Most likely, you won’t be able to keep improving by sixty pounds or more per year for more than a year or two, and then your strength gains will start to slow down to twenty or thirty pounds per year. The key is to keep gaining year after year.
If you are of average height, you can estimate that you’ll be able to gain about one to two pounds of muscle every time you gain an additional ten pounds of strength on your basic lifts. If you gain sixty pounds of strength within a year, you will be carrying an additional six to twelve pounds of muscle. Those who are taller than normal may gain a little more, and those who are shorter than normal may gain a little less. Once again, this may not sound like much, but small gains accumulate into big gains when you continue to gain little by little with consistent long term training.
The idea of training in a manner that promotes big gains through the accumulation of a series of small gains is best done through the use of microloading. This will be discussed in the next article. Best of training to you.
Note:
Refer back to the previous eleven articles if you want to read the series of chapters from Individual Training Strategies For Hardgainers that are lead up articles to this article.
Hardgainers Part 1: Four Types
Hardgainers Part 2: Physiological Characteristics
Hardgainers Part 3: Conditional Hardgainers
Hardgainers Part 4: Intensity Responsive
Hardgainers Part 5: Volume Responsive
Hardgainers Part 6: Volume Responsive Training
Hardgainers Part 7: 8 x 8 Training For Volume Responsive
Hardgainers Part 8: Misinterpretation Of Rapid Gains
Hardgainers Part 9: The True Hardgainer
Hardgainers Part 10: Training Tresholds
Hardgainers Part 11: How Much Training Intensity
Hardgainers Part 11: How Much Training Intesnity?
This is the eleventh installment of an extended series of articles on training for hardgainers. In the last article, the importance of training thresholds was discussed. Training thresholds promote the use of enough training intensity without overdoing it on intensity or volume. One type of training threshold revolves around marker rep training. When using marker rep training, the goal is to repeat workouts with the same weight and reps until enough strength is gained for the reps to become easier. This is in direct contrast to the way that many lifters think about weight training, as many lifters have a perpetual focus on making workouts harder. While it is true that there is a time to make workouts harder, you must allow them to become easier first, then harder. This is discussed in the second part of chapter 11 of the book, Individualized Training Strategies for Hardgainers, which makes up the rest of this article.
Chapter 11 Part 2
Harder Is Not Always Better
I am aware of a mindset that some bodybuilders have that the only way to keep gaining is to keep finding ways to train harder. In other words, if you are a beginner and you stop your sets three reps short of failure, it will eventually quit working after a period of time. You will have no choice but to push your sets to two reps short of failure, then one rep short of failure, and then all the way to failure in order to keep making gains. Continuing with this type of thinking, it is assumed that you will eventually stop making gains by pushing to failure and will need to do rest-pause reps, forced reps, and negatives in order to keep gaining. I do not believe in this training philosophy at all. If you are a true hardgainer, trying to push harder and harder will lead to a dead-end road. In fact, instead of always trying to push harder, you will need to learn to make progress by allowing the same weight and reps to become easier for a substantial amount of time before you make it harder. More explanation is needed.
Why Your Body Gains Strength
The main goal that your body is trying to accomplish when it gains strength is to make it easier for you to lift the same amount of weight and reps. If you are smart, you will learn to allow your body to accomplish this goal. For example, if you are starting a weight training program and it is hard to lift 100 pounds for ten reps, your body wants to gain strength so that it will become easier to lift 100 pounds for ten reps. In fact, every time you get stronger, it will become easier for you to lift 100 pounds for ten reps, which is exactly what your body wants.
Many people believe that they will immediately stop gaining as soon as the weight starts to become easier to lift. They firmly believe that the only way they can gain is to immediately add weight or reps as soon as they gain a little strength. For example, if they can lift 100 pounds for ten reps and they gain enough strength to push themselves to do eleven reps, they do eleven reps in the first workout where it becomes possible to do so. As soon as they are able to squeeze out eleven reps, they add weight in the very next workout and use 105 or 110 pounds which will usually limit them to ten reps again. The process starts over and they shoot for eleven reps or added weight whenever possible. The workouts never get easier because the training strategy is based on always pushing as hard as possible in order to add weight or reps whenever possible. This type of training violates the goal that your body is trying to accomplish when it gains strength as your body is trying to make it easier for you to lift a given weight. A misguided strategy is to do the opposite of what your body is trying to accomplish by immediately adding weight whenever possible and making the weight harder to lift instead of allowing the same amount of weight and reps to become easier to lift for a time.
Add Weight When Your Body Is Ready
Obviously, weight or reps must be added if you are going to make progress, but weight should not always be immediately added at the first hint of a strength gain. You can get stronger for a substantial amount of time by simply using the same amount of weight and reps from workout to workout. You can’t get stronger forever by using the same amount of weight and reps, but you won’t be using the same weight and reps forever, you will be using it until you gain enough strength to add weight without surpassing your capacity to stop at your marker rep. An example will help to explain this.
Let us imagine that when you bench press 135 pounds for six reps, the sixth rep is your marker rep. This means that you can only do five reps using a steady even rep pace, but fatigue causes your rep speed to start slowing down on your sixth rep. In order to make progress, your goal should be to keep repeating workouts with six reps until the sixth rep becomes easy enough to lift at the same rep speed as the first five reps. When you find that you can consistently make it to your sixth rep without slowing down your rep speed, you will be able to add five pounds without surpassing your marker rep, which is right at a threshold. When five pounds are added, repeat the process by doing enough workouts for six reps to become easier again.
By progressing in the manner discussed, you will be able to add weight from time to time without your workouts getting harder and harder to the point where your training intensity becomes too severe to make consistent gains. Instead, you will stay within the sweet spot of optimum training intensity which is right at the threshold between strong reps and weak reps. Using this method will allow you to make gradual but consistent gains instead of trying to make quick gains which are usually followed by no gains and a training plateau.
The bottom line is that one the biggest keys to successful training is to zero in on an effective training intensity. If you don’t train hard enough, you won’t gain size or strength. On the other hand, if you train too hard, your will over train and you won’t gain size and strength. Part of training with the right level of intensity is dependent upon progressing at the right rate. This shall be discussed more in the next article. Best of training to you.
Note:
Refer back to the previous ten articles if you want to read the series of chapters from Individual Training Strategies For Hardgainers that are lead up articles to this article.
Hardgainers Part 1: Four Types
Hardgainers Part 2: Physiological Characteristics
Hardgainers Part 3: Conditional Hardgainers
Hardgainers Part 4: Intensity Responsive
Hardgainers Part 5: Volume Responsive
Hardgainers Part 6: Volume Responsive Training
Hardgainers Part 7: 8 x 8 Training For Volume Responsive
Hardgainers Part 8: Misinterpretation Of Rapid Gains
Hardgainers Part 9: The True Hardgainer
Hardgainers Part 10: Training Tresholds
Hardgainers Part 10: Training Thresholds
In my early years of weight training, one of the most common inconsistencies I experienced when looking for training advice dealt with training intensity. Some lifters and bodybuilders insisted that if you didn’t train to failure you were wasting your time. Others such as Bill Pearl and Vince Gironda warned against training to failure. They believed it would lead to overtraining.
After years of trial and error, I discovered that the use of training thresholds led to the most consistent long term strength gains. Training thresholds give you a basis for determining how hard and how long to train. This will be discussed in this article which is part 10 of a series of articles on weight training for hardgainers. The article is taken from chapter 11 of the book, Individualized Training Strategies For Hardgainers.
Chapter 11
Training Thresholds
Hardgainers must use training thresholds. Training thresholds help you to know how to train hard enough and long enough without training too hard or too long. If a true hardgainer doesn’t train hard enough, they won’t grow, and if they train too hard, they won’t grow; they must learn to train exactly right. Hardgainers do not have much room for error in terms of how hard and how long they train. Fortunately, there is a way to determine precisely how hard and how much to train for best results; it’s called training thresholds. If you want to know the details as to why training thresholds are effective, I refer you to three free books that you can find at www.precisionpointtraining.com. These books include:
Overcoming Strength Training Plateaus
Strength Training Thresholds; The Key to Consistent Strength Gains
Strength Training Capacity; An Individualized Guide To How Many Sets
Training thresholds are based upon identifying your capacity for strong training. If you surpass your capacity for strong training, you will transition into weak training which should be avoided. Since strong training is important, it must be explained. There are two basic types of strong training; the first is strong reps, the second is strong sets.
Strong Reps
Strong reps refer to forceful reps that are performed while maintaining the ability to use a steady even rep pace within a set. This is generally possible during the beginning and the middle of a set. However, if you push past your ability to maintain a steady even rep pace, you will begin to fatigue and your rep speed and rep pace will start to slow down at the end of a set. These slower weaker reps aren’t as forceful and are called weak reps. The dividing line between strong reps and weak reps is what allows you to identify the threshold for how hard to push a set. Hardgainers should stop a set as close to the threshold between strong reps and weak reps as possible. In other words, do as many reps as possible using a steady even rep pace and stop; do not push past this point by grinding out slower weaker reps when you grow tired at the end of a set.
The Limit Rep and the Marker Rep
I refer to the last strong rep that you can perform within a set as the limit rep because it is the limit of strong reps that you can perform. I refer to the next rep as the marker rep because it marks the first rep where rep speed starts to slow down and a steady even rep pace can no longer be maintained. Hardgainers should either stop a set when they reach their limit rep or their marker rep. Stopping before this point is an indication that the training is not hard enough, and pushing beyond this point indicates that the training is too hard.
Strong Sets
Hardgainers must also be able to identify how many sets they should perform for optimum results. This is based on their personal capacity for strong sets. Strong sets simply refer to being at full strength when doing a set. Do not repeat sets in a weakened state. If you keep repeating sets for a muscle group to the point where you can’t do as many strong reps as you normally can for a set, you have surpassed your capacity for strong sets and are doing weak sets. Assuming you are pushing to your limit rep or marker rep, you will probably be able do two to three sets at full strength as this is the norm for most people. A smaller percentage of people may be able to do four or more sets at full strength, but everyone should train according to their own capacity to repeat strong sets.
Rest Between Sets
Rest time between sets is a very important aspect of training when considering how many sets can be done at full strength. If you don’t give yourself enough rest time between sets, you won’t fully recover before doing the next set and you won’t be at full strength for more than your first set. It generally takes at least three minutes for the same muscle group to fully recover after pushing a set to your limit rep or marker rep. This means if you do a set for your chest, you need to give your chest at least three minutes before doing another set for your chest muscles. However, you may do a set for a different muscle group during the three minute period in which you are resting your chest muscles.
Once a true hardgainer understands how to use training thresholds, he can do workouts that are based on the right amount of intensity and the right amount of sets. However, a true hardgainer must not panic and try to progress faster than his body is able to adapt; this will lead to overtraining and a training plateau. A hardgainer must be patient and add weight or reps to his workouts at a rate that corresponds with the rate at which his strength improves. Pushing ahead when your body is not ready will cause you to surpass your threshold capacities for strong training. This may appear to speed up your progress, but it will eventually lead to the inability to keep gaining. More in this in next weeks article which will be part 11. Best of training to you.
Note:
Refer back to the previous nine articles if you want to read the series of chapters from Individual Training Strategies For Hardgainers that are lead up articles to this article.
Hardgainers Part 1: Four Types
Hardgainers Part 2: Physiological Characteristics
Hardgainers Part 3: Conditional Hardgainers
Hardgainers Part 4: Intensity Responsive
Hardgainers Part 5: Volume Responsive
Hardgainers Part 6: Volume Responsive Training
Hardgainers Part 7: 8 x 8 Training For Volume Responsive
Hardgainers Part 8: Misinterpretation Of Rapid Gains
Hardgainers Part 9: The True Hardgainer
Hardgainers Part 9: The True Hardgainer
You can find stories all over the internet about hardgainers who started out small and hopelessly skinny. It seemed they had little if any ability to gain muscle. They tried every type of training they knew of in order to get bigger but nothing worked until they found a magic training system that ignited new growth that they never dreamed possible. My personal opinion is that these stories may be real, but they are not representative of true hardgainers. These guys actually become easy gainers when the training conditions were right.
Not all hardgainers are going to hit the jackpot by finding a training system that leads to sudden unbelievable growth, but they can still gain with a combination of good training and sufficient time. This is discussed in rest of this article which is part nine of a series of articles on hardgainers. The article is an excerpt taken from the tenth chapter of the book, Individualized Training Strategies For Hardgainers.
Chapter 10
The True Hardgainer
A true hardgainer can make progress, but they should not be surprised if their efforts to make rapid spectacular progress never materialize. A more realistic approach is to utilize training principles that lead to steady long term progress when time, patience, and precise training are applied.
Characteristics in Response to Training
True hardgainers often have common traits that make it hard for them to gain muscle. This was already discussed in the second chapter, but at this point, I believe a quick review of the common characteristics of a hardgainer will help you to make sense out of the training information that follows.
Workload Capacity
A true hardgainer does not have a high workload capacity and needs to avoid training a muscle group past the point of being at full strength.
Tolerance for Intensity
A true hardgainer does not generally tolerate the consistent use of high intensity training (i.e. avoid training to failure). However, hardgainers can generally tolerate the amount of intensity needed to make progress by stopping a set when a steady even rep pace can no longer be maintained.
Personal Recovery Rate
The true hardgainer will not recover well from constant high volume or high intensity training, but they can usually recover adequately when training volume and intensity are adjusted to their personal capacity for strong training, which is discussed in the next chapter.
Growth Activation Period and Retention Period
The muscle growth activation period and retention period after a workout are generally brief in the case of a true hardgainer. Too much time between workouts will cause a true hardgainer to exceed their muscle growth activation period and stop growing. They must workout fairly often (at least three times per week) in order to keep their muscles activated for growth.
Metabolism Types:
The Normal Metabolism
Many hardgainers have a very normal metabolic rate, but find it hard to gain muscle because they are not well endowed in regard to the first four characteristics that were just discussed.
The Fast Metabolism
The true hardgainer with a fast metabolism can and must take in a lot of calories or they won’t gain weight. If they truly have a fast metabolism, they may need 4,000 to 5,000, calories or more per day.
The Slow Metabolism
I believe the skinny hardgainer with a slow metabolism is the most misunderstood hardgainer. Contrary to what many people believe, some skinny hardgainers have a slow metabolism, even though it is often assumed that they are skinny because they have a fast metabolism. The skinny hardgainer with a slow metabolism often has a light frame and is very intolerant to big meals or weight gain diets. They simply don’t process food well enough to want to eat very much, so their overall caloric intake is low, which is why they are skinny.
A hardgainer with a slow metabolism may be perfectly content with eating 1,200 to 1,500 calories a day, or even less. If they stuff themselves full of calories they will become nauseated and suffer all kinds of digestive issues. Plenty of exercise is needed to stimulate their metabolism and their appetite. You may think that a lot of exercise would be counter-productive because it would burn calories and make it impossible to gain weight, but the opposite is true; getting plenty of exercise is the only way they can stimulate their metabolism and appetite enough to tolerate the amount of calories needed to gain weight.
Questions To Ask Yourself
You should ask yourself the following questions to consider whether or not you are true hardgainer.
Do you consistently work out on a regular basis yet fail to grow bigger or stronger from your workouts?
Have you tried hardgainer workouts that were guaranteed to put an end to your days of being a hardgainer, but you experienced little or no gains in strength or muscle size?
If you can answer yes to these questions, chances are good that you are a true hardgainer. True hardgainers are far more common than easy gainers, so don’t feel that you are abnormal if you are a hardgainer. You can still gain muscle, but you will need to learn how to train in a way that corresponds to your physical characteristics, which requires precise training.
Precise Training
Hardgainers can easily over-train by using too much training volume or too much intensity. At the same time, they need to train hard enough to gain muscle, and they need to train often to keep their muscles activated to grow. How can they do this without overtraining? The solution is to train with precision. Precise training can be accomplished through the use of training thresholds, which will be discussed in the next article. Best of Training to you.
Note:
Refer back to the previous seven articles if you want to read the series of chapters from Individual Training Strategies For Hardgainers that are lead up articles to this article.
Hardgainers Part 1: Four Types
Hardgainers Part 2: Physiological Characteristics
Hardgainers Part 3: Conditional Hardgainers
Hardgainers Part 4: Intensity Responsive
Hardgainers Part 5: Volume Responsive
Hardgainers Part 6: Volume Responsive Training
Hardgainers Part 7: 8 x 8 Training For Volume Responsive
Hardgainers Part 8: Misinterpretation Of Rapid Gains
Hardgainers Part 8: Misinterpretation Of Rapid Gains
Some people respond well to high intensity or high volume training on a regular basis. Even hardgainers may occasionally be able to make rapid gains in strength and size through the use of high intensity or high volume training. The problem is that the same training that causes rapid gains can transition into training that causes a sticking point. I believe that one of the most deceiving things that can happen to anyone involved in weight training is that they try high intensity or high volume training and experience rapid gains for a short time. This leads to the false conclusion that training that works for the short term must also work for the long term. However, what may be effective for a few weeks or months may suddenly stop working and backfire in the context of long term training. This is discussed in this article which is taken from the 8th chapter of the book, Individualized Training Strategies For Hardgainers.
Chapter 9
Potential Deceptions When Using High Intensity And High Volume
There will always be some people who are able to maintain steady long term progress using high volume or high intensity training. These are the people who should use these types of training on regular basis. Other people can benefit from high intensity or high volume training for a short time, but they really don’t derive steady long term benefits from either type of training. You must be aware of the difference between training methods that give you short term benefits as opposed to long term benefits.
It is easy for hardgainers to get sucked into training methods that cause sudden gains in muscle mass. A sudden gain in muscle mass is not a bad thing, but sometimes the same training method that seemed to work so good will also lead to a sudden sticking point and a training plateau. These types of methods can push your body into a state of high alert and cause quick gains, but the ability to keep gaining comes to a halt, and the gains often seem to evaporate.
Unfortunately, the idea of quick gains can be addicting, and anytime you see evidence of quick gains, it becomes easy to buy into the idea that you have finally hit the jackpot in terms of a training system that will produce massive results on an ongoing basis. Unfortunately, the quick gains are often a temporary phenomenon and you must learn to evaluate a training system on the basis of what it can do for you over the course of a year or more instead of weeks or months.
Six Circumstances That Can Produce Temporary Quick Gains
Quick gains tend to occur under six circumstances that are somewhat temporary. You need to be aware of this or you will constantly be captivated with a training system that once brought quick gains while overlooking the fact that it quit working.
The first situation in which quick gains can occur is in the beginning stages of weight training. Even hardgainers may find that they can add five pounds to their lifts from week to week for a brief time. This may occur at some point during the first few months of training and is the result of being in the beginner stage instead of the result of using an ingenious training method.
The second situation is seasonal training. If someone lifts for three months every year, they lose strength and muscle mass during the nine month time period when they stop lifting, but they can quickly regain their strength and muscle mass when they start training again. This is not new growth, rather it is the normal ability to quickly regain old growth due to muscle memory.
The third situation is somewhat like the second. You may have been a consistent lifer, but had to take a layoff off for several months. When you started lifting again, you found that you could quickly regain what was lost. Once again, these type of quick gains are not due to a superior training system, but they are the result of muscle memory.
A fourth situation is a teenager who consistently trains with weights. When they hit a teenage growth spurt that has nothing to do with the training method they are using, they suddenly gain a lot of strength and muscle mass.
A fifth situation occurs when a more advanced lifter uses a shock routine consisting of high intensity or high volume training. While visible gains may be made for one to three weeks, the gains are often followed by a training plateau.
A sixth situation can occur if you have been using high volume training on a regular basis and suddenly cut back on the workload with low volume training. Under these circumstances, your body may super-compensate with extra strength or muscle mass for a few weeks when using low volume training. This may lead you to believe that low volume training is always superior, but it was actually the high volume training that set your body up to gain more than normal when you switched to low volume training.
Any of the six situations can cause someone to experience quick results. The problem is that a person can keep remembering the training that produced quick results while forgetting that the same training strategy isn’t working anymore. The quick results can lead to a mindset that perceives that effective training should always work quickly. However, a more realistic point of view would be to prioritize consistent gains over quick gains that quickly come to an end. Consistent gains may not occur as fast, but in the end, more progress is made.
One reason that I feel it is important to address the six situations that can produce quick gains is because high intensity and high volume training often work under all six situations that were discussed. This can be misleading and cause a person to think that high intensity or high volume training are always superior. Sometimes this is true in the context of short term gains, but not necessarily in the context of a long term approach that ultimately leads to more overall gains.
While there are some people who can consistently keep gaining using high intensity or high volume training, this isn’t true of most hardgainers, and they need a different approach to training. They may be able to periodically use high volume or high intensity training, but not constantly.
The true hardgainer has physiological characteristics that must be matched with specific training elements if they want to succeed. There are no quick fix solutions, but the consistent application of precise training will pay off for those who are patient and diligent to apply it. This type of training will be discussed in the next article. Best of training to you.
Note:
Refer back to the previous seven articles if you want to read the series of chapters from Individual Training Strategies For Hardgainers that are lead up articles to this article.
Hardgainers Part 1: Four Types
Hardgainers Part 2: Physiological Characteristics
Hardgainers Part 3: Conditional Hardgainers
Hardgainers Part 4: Intensity Responsive
Hardgainers Part 5: Volume Responsive
Hardgainers Part 6: Volume Responsive Training
Hardgainers Part 7: 8 x 8 Training For Volume Responsive
Hardgainers Part 7: 8 x 8 For Volume Responsive
Volume responsive hardgainers are rare but they exist. You could argue that a volume responsive hardgainer is not a true hardgainer; they seem like a hardgainer until they include enough training volume. Once they include enough training volume, their gains begin to accelerate. This is the opposite of what most people will experience with high volume training as the majority of lifters will stagnate or go backwards with a lot of training volume, especially hardgainers.
The last article was based on what I refer to as 12-10-8-6 training which is a training method that works well for those who respond well to a lot of training volume. Another type of training that can be used for those who respond well to training volume is the 8 sets of 8 reps workout for each exercise. Examples of this type of training will be discussed in this article which is taken from the second half of the eighth chapter of the book, Individualized Training Strategies For Hardgainers.
Chapter 8 Part 2
The 8 Sets of 8 Reps Workout
A second workout option that can be effective for the volume responsive hardgainer is to perform 8 sets of 8 reps for each exercise. The 8 sets of 8 reps workout is often done in the context of only doing one exercise for each muscle group, however, the volume responsive hardgainer can do two, or even three exercises for each muscle group when training chest, back, and leg muscles. When it comes to the smaller muscles of the arms and shoulders, you don’t need to do two or three exercises for each muscle group. I recommend that you only do one exercise for each muscle group when training biceps, triceps, and deltoids. The exercises shown below provide some options in terms of exercise choices for each muscle group.
1st Workout: Chest and Back on Monday and Thursaday
8 sets of 8 reps High Volume Routine
Exercise Selection
You can use the exercises shown below or substitute exercises of your choice for the given muscle group that you are training.
Order of Exercises
Do eight sets for chest followed by eight sets for back. Keep doing eight sets in a row for each muscle group and alternate back and forth between chest and back every eight sets.
2nd Workout: Shoulder and Arms on Tuesday and Friday
The 8 sets of 8 reps High Volume Routine
I would disregard the heading over the exercises that says to do three shoulder exercises and two biceps and triceps exercises as you can get by on just one exercise for these muscle groups as they are small and already receive a substantial amount of work from chest and back work.
Exercise Selection
You can use the exercises shown below or substitute exercises of your choice for the given muscle group that you are training.
3rd Workout: Legs and Abs on Wendesay and Saturday
The 8 sets of 8 reps High Volume Routine
Exercise Selection
You can use the exercises shown below or substitute exercises of your choice for the given muscle group that you are training.
Do 30 reps for each set of crunches for abs.
Rapid Training Pace
The 8 sets of 8 reps workout is traditionally done at a very rapid pace. This means as little as 15 seconds of rest between sets, and 45 seconds of rest at the most. The same weight should be used for all eight sets. Since a rapid pace is used, light weights must be used to complete eight reps on every set. If heavy weights were used, fatigue would quickly set in by the third set and you would no longer be able to keep on doing eight reps for the rest of the sets. To avoid this, the amount of weight used should be about 50% to 65% of the weight that you would use if you were just doing one hard set of eight reps.
Train With The Right Amount of Effort
If you choose to do the 8 sets of 8 reps workout, you should be able to maintain a steady even rep pace for every rep of every set. Normally the first three to four sets of 8 sets of 8 reps will feel pretty easy. However, the short rests between sets will cause fatigue to build up quickly and it will become much more challenging to do eight reps by the eighth set. Even so, the last set should not be so hard that you must struggle to squeeze out eight reps. You should still be able to maintain a steady even rep pace without feeling like your muscles are screaming with pain. If you push too hard, it will be difficult to do more than one exercise for each muscle group without overtraining.
I don’t recommend doing 8 sets of 8 reps on a permanent basis unless you find it to be especially effective. It is more likely that you will be able to do the 12-10-8-6 routine (listed in the previous article) on consistent basis as it provides both lighter weights and heavier weights, which I believe are necessary for maximum development. Do 8 sets of 8 reps as long as it works, but switch to the 12-10-8-6 routine if you start to burn out or stagnate on 8 sets of 8 reps.
Option: Do 4 x 8; Rest 3 Minutes; Repeat 4 x 8
You may find that doing eight consecutive sets at a rapid pace creates more fatigue than you would like. An alternative is to break up eight consecutive sets into two groups of 4 sets of 8 reps. You would do this by starting with 4 sets of 8 reps with 15 to 45 seconds of rest between sets. After the first four sets, rest at least 3 minutes and then do another 4 sets of 8 reps with short rests between sets. If you choose this option (and it is a very good option), you will be able to use about 10% to 15% more weight than if you did eight consecutive sets. During the time you are resting a muscle group for 3 to 5 minutes between groups of 4 sets of 8 reps, you also have the option of doing a group of 4 sets of 8 reps for a different exercise that works a different muscle group. This is like super setting back and forth between two muscle groups, but you will super set back and forth every four sets instead of every single set.
Summary of 8 sets of 8 reps
Chest, back, and legs should each be trained with two or three exercises.
Shoulders, biceps, triceps and calves should be trained with one exercise.
Do 8 sets of 8 reps for each exercise.
Train each muscle group two or three times per week using a split routine.
Select a weight that is 50% to 65% of the weight that you can use for one hard set of eight reps.
Rest only 15 to 45 seconds between sets.
Adjust the weight and rest time so that you can maintain a steady even rep pace for every rep of every set. Never grind or squeeze out slow reps at the end of your sets.
As an option, you can divide 8 sets of 8 reps into 2 groups of 4 sets of 8 reps with at least 3 minutes of rest between each group of 4 sets of 8 reps. You will be able to use about 10% to 15% more weight if you do this.
In the next article, I will be discussing a misinterpretation of the results that can occur when using high intensity or high volume training. Both forms of training can shock your body into rapid gains followed by a training rut. You must learn to think in terms of consistent small gains instead of a single burst of quick gains if you want to improve the most over the long term. Best of training to you.
Note:
Refer back to the previous six articles if you want to read the series of chapters from Individual Training Strategies For Hardgainers that are lead up articles to this article.
Hardgainers Part 1: Four Types
Hardgainers Part 2: Physiological Characteristics
Hardgainers Part 3: Conditional Hardgainers
Hardgainers Part 4: Intensity Responsive
Hardgainers Part 5: Volume Responsive
Hardgainers Part 6: Volume Responsive Training
Hardgainers Part 6: Volume Responsive Training
In this article, a general workout plan will be presented for the volume responsive hardgainer who responds well to a lot of sets and reps for each muscle group. I suggest reading the previous article in order to determine whether you fit the qualities of this type of hardgainer. The volume responsive hardgainer is not common and is fairly rare, but the workouts in this article may be exactly what some people need. The workouts are taken from chapter 8 from the book, Individualized Training Strategies For Hardgainers.
Chapter 8
Workouts For The Volume Responsive Hardgainer
The 12-10-8-6 Workout
There are several ways that high volume workouts can be implemented and I will provide a couple variations. The first one is the 12-10-8-6 workout which consists of doing four sets for each exercise. The first set is done for 12 reps, the second for 10 reps, the third for 8 reps, and the fourth and final set is done for 6 reps. This sequence is used for each exercise.
When doing the 12-10-8-6 workout, all reps for all sets should consist of strong reps. Strong reps are being done as long as you can maintain a steady even rep pace from one rep to the next. If you grow overly fatigued during a set, you will notice that your rep speed will start to slow down at the end of a set. These slower weaker reps are called weak reps. When doing this workout, do not push yourself to the point where you must do weak reps. If you use too much weight, you will end up grinding out slower weaker reps at the end of your sets. This will lead to overtraining when doing high volume workouts. Make sure to only stick with strong reps for every set, including the last set of six reps.
When considering the amount of intensity that should be applied to each set when using the 12-10-8-6 workout, the first set should be easy and each successive set should increase in difficulty. To be more specific:
The first set with 12 reps should be done with a weight that would allow you to do 25 to 30 reps if you pushed yourself, but you will only do 12 reps.
The second set with 10 reps should be done with a weight that would allow you to do about 15 to 18 strong reps if you pushed yourself, but you will only do 10 reps.
The third set with 8 reps should be done with a weight that would allow you to do 10 to 12 strong reps if you pushed yourself, but you will only do 8 reps.
The fourth set with 6 reps should be done with as much weight as you can handle for 6 strong reps. This means to use as much weight as you can without exceeding your ability to perform all 6 reps using a steady even rep pace. If you find yourself grinding out slow reps at the end of the set, you are using too much weight and will burn your muscles out when the real goal should be to build them up.
I know that if you are intensity minded, you may think that it is a complete waste of time to do the first three sets because the intensity is too low. However, the application of a significant amount of training volume can have a powerful effect on muscle growth in some people, even if the intensity is not high. Also remember that the intensity will be fairly high on the fourth set of each exercise, but don’t make the mistake of pushing for high intensity on every set as you will end up overtraining if you use high intensity for a high number of sets.
Start Out Easy and Add On
Beginners should just do one exercise for each muscle group when using the 12-10-8-6 training program. After two months, two exercises can be done for each muscle group. If you feel that you are recovering adequately when doing two exercises, you can do three exercises for each muscle group after four months of training. It’s at this point that you will know whether or not volume training is for you as you will either start to thrive on this type of training, or you will stagnate. Many hardgainers will actually start to go backwards and lose muscle mass.
The only way to know whether or not you will respond favorably to high volume training is to try it and see how your body responds. Even if you don’t have a slow metabolism, it is possible that high volume training will be the best training stimulus for triggering muscle growth. If so, do it.
Individual Differences
Not all volume responsive individuals are the same in regard to the precise amount of volume that is best for them. Some may do best with 12 sets per muscle group, and others may be at the high extreme and find that 16 or 20 sets work best. In contrast, there are those who may not be true high volume responsive individuals, nor are they responsive to low volume training. These individuals respond best to a medium amount of training volume and should only do two exercises for each muscle group instead of three. Once again, the high volume responsive hardgainer is the exception and isn’t really a hardgainer. They may appear to be a hardgainer without enough training volume, but when they apply the right amount of training volume, they become an easy gainer.
The workout templates for the 12-10-8-6 routine are shown in the next section. Three separate workouts are used in order to allow different muscle groups to be trained in different workouts. These three workouts are show below:
1st Workout: Chest and Back on Monday and Thursaday
The 12-10-8-6 High Volume Routine
Exercise Selection
You can use the exercises shown below or substitute exercises of your choice for the given muscle group that you are training.
Number of Sets = 4 per exercise
Do 4 sets for each exercise and three exercises for each muscle group for a total of 12 sets for each muscle group. You may do two, four, or five exercises if it works better than three.
Number of Reps — Intensity — Rest Between Sets:
1st set = 12 reps: Use a weight that allows 25 to 30 reps. Rest 30 seconds
2nd set = 10 reps: Use a weight that allows 15 to 18 strong reps. Rest 60 seconds
3rd set = 8 reps: Use a weight that allows 10 to 12 strong reps. Rest 2 minutes
4th set = 6 reps: Use the maximum weight possible for 6 strong reps. Don’t grind.
Order of Exercises
Do four sets for chest followed by four sets for back. Keep doing four sets in a row for each muscle group and alternate back and forth between chest and back every four sets.
Options
You may choose to work each muscle group three times per week. If so, simply add the triceps and biceps exercises to the first workout listed and do it Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and add shoulder exercises to the third workout listed and do it Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.
2nd Workout: Shoulder and Arms on Tuesday and Friday
The 12-10-8-6 High Volume Routine
Exercise Selection
You can use the exercises shown below or substitute exercises of your choice for the given muscle group that you are training.
Number of Sets = 4 per exercise
Do 4 sets for each exercise and three exercises for shoulders for a total of 12 sets. However, only do two exercises for biceps and two exercises for triceps, which amounts to 8 sets for biceps and 8 sets for triceps.
Number of Reps — Intensity — Rest Between Sets:
1st set = 12 reps — Use a weight that allows 25 to 30 reps — Rest 30 seconds
2nd set = 10 reps — Use a weight that allows 15 to 18 strong reps — Rest 60 seconds
3rd set = 8 reps — Use a weight that allows 10 to 12 strong reps — Rest 2 minutes
4th set = 6 reps — Use the maximum weight possible for 6 strong reps. Don’t grind.
After doing 4 sets, rest at least 3 minutes before doing another group of 12-10-8-6 for the same muscle group.
3rd Workout: Legs and Abs on Wendesay and Saturday
The 12-10-8-6 High Volume Routine
Exercise Selection
You can use the exercises shown below or substitute exercises of your choice for the given muscle group that you are training.
Number of Sets = 4 per exercise
Do 4 sets for each exercise and three exercises for each muscle group for a total of 12 sets for upper legs. Do two exercises for calves for a total of 8 sets, and do 1 to 2 sets of one ab exercise.
Number of Reps — Intensity — Rest Between Sets:
1st set = 12 reps — Use a weight that allows 25 to 30 reps — Rest 30 seconds
2nd set = 10 reps — Use a weight that allows 15 to 18 strong reps — Rest 60 seconds
3rd set = 8 reps — Use a weight that allows 10 to 12 strong reps — Rest 2 minutes
4th set = 6 reps — Use the maximum weight possible for 6 strong reps. Don’t grind.
After doing 4 sets, rest at least 3 minutes before doing another group of 12-10-8-6 for the same muscle group.
Do 30 reps for each set of crunches for abs.
Options
You may choose to work each muscle group three times per week. If so, simply add the triceps and biceps exercises to the first workout listed and do it Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and add shoulder exercises to the third workout listed and do it Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.
In the next article, another variation of high volume training will be provided for the volume responsive hardgainer. Best of training to you.
Note:
Refer back to the previous five articles if you want to read the series of chapters from Individual Training Strategies For Hardgainers that are lead up articles to this article.
Hardgainers Part 1: Four Types
Hardgainers Part 2: Physiological Characteristics
Hardgainers Part 3: Conditional Hardgainers
Hardgainers Part 4: Intensity Responsive
Hardgainers Part 5: Volume Responsive
Hardgainers Part 5: Volume Responsive
The stereotypical skinny hardgainer has a fast metabolism which makes it hard for him to gain weight or muscle size. A common strategy for skinny hardgainers is to prescribe brief high intensity workouts and a high calorie diet. The problem is that not all hardgainers are stereotypical as some have a slow metabolism and don’t respond very well to training until they develop the capacity to include a lot of training volume. This is the type of hardgainer that will be the focus of the rest of this article. The article is taken from an excerpt from chapter 7 of the book, Individualized Training Strategies For Hardgainers.
Chapter 7
The Volume Responsive Conditional Hardgainer
The second type of conditional hardgainer possesses a slow metabolism and is responsive to high volume training. High volume training simply refers to doing a lot of sets and reps which is what a volume responsive hardgainer needs in order to succeed.
Let’s look at the physical characteristics of this type of hardgainer.
Workload Capacity
Most hardgainers do not have a high workload capacity and tend to wilt when faced with a substantial amount of training volume. The volume responsive conditional hardgainer is an exception as his body comes to life and thrives when using high volume training. One reason for this is because his slow metabolism needs plenty of stimulation to wake up.
Tolerance for Intensity
The volume responsive conditional hardgainer may or may not be able to tolerate high intensity training. For the most part, it doesn’t matter because training volume is the main stimulus that is needed to trigger strength and muscle growth for these people. While the training intensity must be sufficient, it does not have to be high throughout the whole workout. Some high intensity training is necessary, but the majority of sets within a high volume workout can be completed while using only a moderate amount of training intensity.
Personal Recovery Rate
The volume responsive conditional hardgainer with a slow metabolism may not be able to recover very well with low volume training because of an inefficient metabolism that makes poor use of incoming nutrients. However, once they provide adequate training volume for their body, their metabolism becomes energized and they find it easier to recover. This is the exact opposite of what most hardgainers and most people experience when they lift weights. Most people recover better with a modest amount of training volume and find it harder and harder to recover as more training volume is added.
Growth Activation Period and Retention Period
The growth activation period and retention period of the volume responsive hardgainer is pretty much normal and lasts from 48 to 72 hours after a muscle group has been worked. For this reason, each muscle group should be worked two to three times per week. Anything less and their metabolism starts to slow down to the point of being detrimental to their ability to tolerate enough calories to gain weight. Without sufficient metabolic stimulation, they don’t process their food and nutrients well enough to build a significant amount of muscle.
Metabolism
The volume responsive conditional hardgainer with a slow metabolism has a metabolism that is nearly dead without exercise. For the most part, they are satisfied with less than 1,500 calories per day when not exercising. They will hate high calorie weight gain diets and will feel horribly uncomfortable, sluggish, and maybe even nauseated from high calorie diets unless they exercise a lot. High volume workouts are essential in order to stimulate their appetite and develop the metabolic capacity to tolerate enough calories to gain weight.
Are You A Volume Responsive Conditional Hardgainer with a slow metabolism?
When considering whether or not you may be volume responsive conditional hardgainer, start by answering the following questions:
Do you hate to over-eat because you feel uncomfortably full, sluggish, or even nauseated?
Are you most comfortable when you consume less than 1,500 calories per day when you don’t exercise?
Do you feel sluggish and lethargic when you don’t exercise and start to feel better and more energetic when you exercise on a regular basis?
Assuming you have been working out for at least four months and are in good condition, do you thrive more when you do ten or more sets per muscle group as opposed to doing less than ten?
If you can answer yes to all of these questions, consider doing the training routines listed in the next chapter. The most important question is the last question, so even if you answer no to any or all of the first three questions, the training in this section is still for you if you can answer yes to the last question and thrive when doing ten or more sets per muscle group.
Starting Out
The volume responsive conditional hardgainer may only make modest progress when he begins training with a typical beginner’s workout. The reason for this is because beginning weight training programs usually consist of a fairly low amount of training volume. Low training volume is generally the right thing to do in the beginning stages of training because it may take several months to develop the capacity to tolerate a lot of sets for each muscle group. However, when the volume responsive hardgainer eventually develops the conditioning necessary to tolerate high volume training, he will begin to experience improved muscle gains.
The type of training that the volume responsive hardgainer should do is based upon performing a variety of different basic exercises for each muscle group. The number of exercises in chapter 5 can be expanded by using dumbbells in place of barbells and adjusting the height of the incline bench when doing incline benches. The hand spacing for pushing and pulling motions can also be varied, and the foot spacing can be varied by using a wider or narrower stance when doing squats or deadlifts. In addition, front squats and variations of dumbbell squats can be done in place of regular back squats. This will provide plenty of exercise choices for high volume workouts.
In the next article, I will present workouts that should be done for the volume responsive hardgainer with a slow metabolism. Best of training to you.
Note:
Refer back to the previous four articles if you want to read the series of chapters from Individual Training Strategies For Hardgainers that are lead up articles to this article.
Hardgainers Part 1: Four Types
Hardgainers Part 2: Physiological Characteristics
Hardgainers Part 3: Conditional Hardgainers
Hardgainers Part 4: Intensity Responsive
Hardgainers Part 4: Intensity Responsive
How should an intensity responsive hardgainer train? You can learn how from this article which is taken from chapter’s five and six of the book, Individualized Training Strategies For Hardgainers.
Chapter 5
When considering how to work out, I believe that it is essential to focus on basic compound exercises if your primary goal is to build overall muscle mass. These basic exercises emphasize the biggest, strongest muscles of your body, including the leg muscles, chest muscles, and back muscles. One of the benefits of doing basic compound exercises for the upper body is that the arm and shoulder muscles will be heavily recruited to assist with the lifting. In the process of assisting the bigger muscles with the lifts, the arms and shoulders (or deltoids) are also built up. The basic exercises that are shown in this section are great for building size and strength, and are ideal for all types of hardgainers.
Many of the exercises shown in this section are based upon the use of free weights. However, if you prefer machines, there are usually machines that resemble the exercises or lifting motions of the free weight exercises shown. In other words, you can easily replace most of the free weight exercises with machine exercises that work the same muscles in nearly the same way.
When discussing which exercises to do, it is important that they be performed with excellent form. Good exercise technique allows the lifting stress to be properly distributed to the muscles involved in the lift. In contrast, poor technique can place joints and muscles in awkward positions and cause some muscles to be over-stressed, while others are not stressed enough. The results of poor technique can range from muscle imbalances and injuries, to the inability to consistently gain strength over time. While the next section does not give instructions for how to perform the exercises shown, instructions are provided in the Exercise Guide at the end of the book. Please take time to learn the proper way to perform each exercise; especially if you are new to weight training or are unfamiliar with any of the recommended exercises.
Mass Building Upper Body Exercises
Optional Exercises
When doing your workouts, you may also choose to include what I refer to as optional exercises. The optional exercises are designed to isolate some of the smaller muscles such as the biceps and triceps in your arms, and the deltoid muscles that make up your shoulders. These smaller muscles will get most of their size from doing the basic exercises listed in the previous section. In other words, if you don’t do these optional exercises, your arms and shoulders will still grow, however, you may find that doing the optional exercises proves to be beneficial in terms of added muscle growth or improved muscle shape.
Be very careful not to over-train your arms and shoulders with the optional exercises shown in this section. Remember that your arms and shoulders will have already received a significant amount of work from doing the basic exercises addressed in the previous section. A couple sets of curls, triceps extensions, and direct shoulder work is enough for most hardgainers.
Abdominal and Calf Exercises
Exercises for the abdominals and calves are also presented as optional exercises because they are not big mass building exercises. However, it is likely that some of you will want to include these exercises in your workouts because they can enhance the appearance of your physique.
Workouts For The Intensity Responsive Hardgainer
Once you understand which exercises to do, it becomes a matter of applying the right amount of intensity and doing the exercises for the right amount of sets, reps, and workouts per week. This will vary according to your body type and physiological make up. The ideal workout for the intensity responsive hardgainer is to stick with heavy weights that permit five to eight reps when using basic exercises. The reason for focusing on the five to eight rep range is that people who possess a very fast metabolism don’t need the added metabolic stimulation that comes from performing higher reps. After doing a few easy warm up sets, only two to four high intensity work sets should be done for each muscle group. Each work set should be pushed to failure, or within one rep of reaching failure.
If you fit into the category of the intensity responsive hardgainer, you have three options for how to organize your workouts throughout the week:
Your first option is to do full body workouts by training your whole body in each workout. Ideally, two or less workouts per week should be done, but those who need to work out up to three times per week should do so.
Your second option is to do a split routine where you split your muscle groups into two different workouts and each muscle group is trained twice per week over the course of four separate workouts.
Your third option is a triple split where you split your muscle groups into three separate workouts in order to cover your whole body once over the course of one week. This will only work for those who benefit from working each muscle group just once per week. An example of this program would be to train your chest, shoulders, and triceps in your first workout, then train your back, biceps, and abs in your second workout, and finish by training your upper legs and calves in your third workout.
Assuming that you are an intensity responsive hardgainer who only needs to work each muscle group once or twice per week, the next section will discuss how to warm up and then present workouts that give you three options for how to organize your workouts throughout a week.
Warm Up Sets
When preparing to do any of the exercises that are shown in the following workouts, I recommend doing the following warm up sets before doing heavier work sets for the same exercise:
1st Warm up Set: Do 10 reps using 50% of the weight that you will be using for your heaviest set.
2nd Warm up Set: Do 5 reps using 75% of the weight you will be using for your heaviest set.
3rd Warm up Set: Do 5 reps again using 75% of the weight you will be using for your heaviest set.
4th Warm up Set: Do 2 reps using 90% of the weight you will be using for your heaviest set.
Rest one minute between warm up sets.
After doing your warm up sets for a given exercise, follow the procedures that are listed for the workout you choose to do.
The Full Body Workout Twice Per Week
For the Intensity Responsive Hardgainer
Exercise Selection
Do a chest exercise, a back exercise, and a leg exercise. You can use the exercises shown below or substitute exercises of your choice for chest, back, and legs.
Number of Sets
Do 2 to 4 sets for each exercise selected.
Number of Reps
Do 5 to 8 reps per set for each exercise.
Rest Between Sets
Rest 3 minutes between sets for the same muscle group.
Intensity
Push each set to failure, or within one rep of failure.
Training Frequency
Do this full body workout twice (or less) per week; for example, Mondays and Thursdays.
Optional Exercises
If you choose to do optional exercises, you may include any of the following: curls for biceps, triceps extensions, lateral raises for shoulders, crunches for abs, and calf raises for calves. I recommend 1 to 2 sets of 8 reps for each optional exercise that you choose to do except for crunches. Work your way up to 1 to 2 sets of 30 reps for crunches.
The Split Routine for the Intensity Responsive Hardgainer
Exercise Selection
You can use the exercises shown below or substitute exercises of your choice for the given muscle group that you are training.
Number of Sets
Do 2 to 4 sets for each exercise.
Number of Reps
Do 5 to 8 reps per set for each exercise.
Rest Between Sets
Rest 3 minutes between sets for the same muscle group.
Intensity
Push each set to failure, or within one rep of failure.
Training Frequency
Train each muscle group twice per week over the course of four workouts per week.
The Triple Split for the Intensity Responsive Hardgainer
Exercise Selection
You can use the exercises shown below or substitute exercises of your choice for the given muscle group that you are training.
Number of Sets
Do 2 to 4 sets for each exercise.
Number of Reps
Do 5 to 8 reps per set for each exercise.
Rest Between Sets
Rest 3 minutes between sets for the same muscle group.
Intensity
Push each set to failure or within one rep of failure.
Training Frequency
Train each muscle group once per week over the course of three workouts per week.
In the next article, I will discuss a different type of hardgainer, which is the conditional hardgainer with a slow metabolism. Best of training to you.
Note:
Refer back to the previous three articles if you want to read the series of chapters from Individual Training Strategies For Hardgainers that are lead up articles to this article.
Hardgainers Part 1: Four Types
Hardgainers Part 2: Physiological Characteristics
Hardgainer Part 3: Conditional Hardgainers
Hardgainers Part 3: Conditional Hardgainers
This article is an excerpt from the book Individual Training Strategies For Hardgainers in which I discuss the concept of a conditional hardgainer. Sometimes I refer to conditional hardgainers as pseudo hardgainers or fake hardgainers because they start out looking like a typical hardgainer who is extremely skinny with very little muscle. They may also start training and fail to gain much muscle, but with the right type of diet and training, boom! they begin to explode with muscle. This is the type of hardgainer that is often featured when someone wants to sell a training system that promises miracle results for people with terrible muscle building genetics. The deceptive part about this is that conditional hardgainers don’t have terrible genetics, they have genetics that respond to a specific type of training. This will be discussed in more detail as you read the next excerpt of chapter 3 and 4 from Individual Training Strategies For Hardgianers.
Chapter 3
Conditional Hardgainers; The Lucky Ones
In order to define a conditional hardgainer, it helps to start by defining an unconditional easy gainer and an unconditional hardgainer. An unconditional easy gainer is someone who finds it easy to gain muscle regardless of the type of training they use. It doesn’t matter if they use a lot of sets, a few sets, high reps, low reps, a high training frequency, or a low training frequency, they are still going to gain a lot of muscle. On the other hand, an unconditional hardgainer will always find it difficult to gain muscle even with ideal training and an excellent diet. It’s not impossible for them to gain muscle, but the gains will rarely come quickly and easily.
While there are unconditional easy gainers and unconditional hardgainers, there is a different type of person which I refer to as a conditional hardgainer. Conditional hardgainers often start out thinking they are hardgainers because they happen to be using a training system that doesn’t work well for their particular physiology. However, if they switch to a type of training that is well suited to their physiology, they suddenly find that they can quickly gain a lot of muscle. This is true of the first two types of hardgainers that will be discussed, which are both conditional hardgainers.
The Conditional Hardgainer With a Fast Metabolism
The first type of conditional hardgainer possesses a fast metabolism and responds extremely well to high intensity training. He doesn’t usually respond well to high volume training because it produces the wrong conditions by speeding up his hyper metabolism too much to gain weight. However, he does respond well to a lot of calories and short high intensity workouts. This type of hardgainer may also be able to gain muscle by hitting each muscle group just once or twice per week.
The Conditional Hardgainer with a Slow Metabolism
The second type of conditional hardgainer possesses a slow metabolism. Low volume training does very little to stimulate his muscles to grow, but high volume training does. High volume training stimulates his metabolism, which is exactly what he needs to activate his appetite and his muscles.
Of all the types of hardgainers, conditional hardgainers are more of the exception and will prove to be the lucky ones if they find the right type of training. The physical characteristics and training needed for these hardgainers will be addressed before discussing more common types of hardgainers.
Chapter 4
The Intensity Responsive Hardgainer With A Fast Metabolism
I think more training programs are designed for the intensity responsive hardgainer with a fast metabolism than any other, but they are only one type of hardgainer. The truth is, they become an easy gainer when they do the right type of training. People love to market stories of this type of hardgainer because they start out looking pathetic and hopelessly skinny. They have tried working out to gain muscle but nothing seemed to work. After much frustration and fruitless effort, they happen to find a magic training system that results in massive muscles in a short amount of time. Some of these stories are real, but they are the exception, not the rule. While their success is dependent upon brief high intensity workouts, they are fortunate to have genetics that allow them to be highly responsive to this type of training.
The physical characteristics of the intensity responsive hardgainer with a fast metabolism can be summed up as follows:
- Workload Capacity
The intensity responsive hardgainer with a fast metabolism may have plenty of energy for high volume training, but high volume training will destroy their gains because it speeds up their hyper metabolism to the point where calories are burned off before they can ever be utilized for muscle growth.
- Tolerance for Intensity
This type of hardgainer can easily tolerate high intensity training and is highly responsive to it.
- Personal Recovery Rate
Recovery often happens quickly, but recovery is not the problem that this type of hardgainer must contend with; the greater problem is a fast metabolism. Quick recovery makes it possible to work out often, but those with a fast metabolism are better off keeping their metabolism under control by working out less often if possible. This depends upon the length of their muscle growth activation period and retention period.
- Growth Activation Period and Retention Period
This type of hardgainer is often blessed with a huge ability in terms of possessing a long growth activation period after a workout. This simply means that their muscles stay turned on to the growth process longer than normal. They don’t need to work out every 48 hours in order to keep their muscles activated for growth. When they train a muscle group, it will stay activated for at least 72 hours after it is trained, and it may retain new growth and strength for up to a week after a workout. This promotes the ability to work each muscle group two or less times per week and still gain muscle. Those with a fast metabolism and a long muscle growth activation period are often better off using a lower training frequency. The lower training frequency keeps their naturally fast metabolism from accelerating completely out of control to the point of no muscle growth. On the other hand, if an intensity responsive individual does not happen to have a long muscle growth activation and retention period, they will need to work out more often and eat more to compensate for doing more workouts.
- Metabolic rate
This type of hardgainer has a very fast metabolism which hypes up to an even faster rate if they engage in high volume or high frequency training. They should not train long, and if possible they should not train often if their goal is to maximize muscle gains. Fortunately, all that’s needed is a moderate amount of high intensity training that is done on an infrequent basis. This keeps their naturally fast metabolism from going out of control and allows their food to be converted into muscle.
Questions to ask yourself
Can you eat 4,000 calories or more per day and still stay very lean without exercise?
Can you consistently perform high intensity workouts for more than a few weeks and continue to grow stronger over the course of several months or longer? If so, you respond well to high intensity training.
When you perform low volume high intensity workouts for a muscle group, can you rest that muscle group for at least 72 hours and still gain strength on a consistent basis? If so, you can use a low training frequency and only need to train each muscle group once or twice per week.
If you don’t know the answers to these questions, you should try low volume, high intensity, low frequency training to see if it works for you. If you have tried this and can honestly answer yes to the questions that are listed above, you may be a conditional hardgainer who has a fast metabolism and is very responsive to high intensity, low frequency training. If so, consider utilizing the workouts that are suggested for this type of hardgainer.
Intensity Responsive with a Slow or Normal Metabolism
It is also possible that you have a slow or a normal metabolism but are still very responsive to low volume, high intensity training. If this is true, the workouts designed for the intensity responsive hardgainer are for you. More will be discussed on specific exercises and workouts for intensity responsive hardgainers in the next article. Best of training to you.
Note:
Refer back to the previous two articles if you want to read the series of chapters from Individual Training Strategies For Hardgainers that are lead up articles to this article.
Hardgainers Part 1: Four Types
Hardgainers Part 2: Physiological Characteristics
Hardgainers – Part 2: Physiological Characteristics
In this article, the physiological characteristics that make it difficult for hardgainers to gain muscle and strength are summarized. The article is based on an excerpt that is taken from chapter two of Individualized Training Strategies For Hardgainers. The book can be found on Amazon and you can read the excerpt of chapter two below:
Chapter 2
Physiological Characteristics of Hardgainers
Each person has individual physiological characteristics that determine how easy or hard it will be to gain muscle. Easy-gainers are well endowed in regard to the factors that make up each characteristic, and hardgainers tend to be lacking in regard to the muscle building factors that make up each characteristic. The good news is that when the physiological factors are identified, training strategies can be developed to compensate for physical deficiencies while maximizing potential. The physiological characteristics that make up each person’s physiology determine the type of training that should be done. These characteristics are based on the following five factors:
- Personal workload capacity
- Tolerance for intensity
- Personal recovery rate
- How long muscles stay activated for growth and retain growth after a workout
- Personal Metabolic rate
In order to be clear about the meaning of each factor and how they relate to the characteristics of hardgainers, each will each be explained one at a time.
- Personal Workload Capacity
Personal workload capacity refers to the optimum amount of sets, reps, and weight that produce the greatest muscular gains in response to a workout. A person who gains muscle easily may be able to train a muscle group well past the point of being at full strength in order to stimulate maximum muscle growth. Those who gain under these circumstances have the ability to benefit from working a muscle group to the point where it is much weaker at the end of a workout compared to the beginning.
Hardgainers do not usually benefit from training a muscle group into a weakened state. The optimum workload capacity for hardgainers is based on repeating sets for a muscle group as long as the muscle group remains at full strength. The amount of sets that can be done at full strength is based on individual capacity, not a universal number that applies to everyone. Most people will be able to train a muscle group for two or three hard sets at full strength. A smaller percentage will be able to stay at full strength for four or more sets. Each person must learn from experience how many sets they can do at full strength for each muscle group.
- Tolerance for Intensity
Tolerance for intensity refers to how much training intensity can be tolerated when the goal is to trigger maximum muscle growth. High intensity basically refers to training to failure or beyond. Training to failure simply means to do as many reps as possible before fatigue makes it impossible to do any more reps within a set. Training beyond failure refers to forced reps where a training partner assists you just enough to lift the weight when you can no longer complete a rep without a little help. Easy gainers can often tolerate a lot of training intensity and may find it beneficial to train to failure or beyond.
Hardgainers must train with enough intensity to trigger muscle growth. However, hardgainers often find that they do not tolerate regular high intensity training in the context of growing bigger and stronger from it. Hardgainers may be able to tolerate high intensity training in terms of feeling good after they do it, but in terms of growing bigger and stronger, their bodies don’t benefit from it. Most hardgainers are better off repeating reps as long as a steady even rep pace can maintained during a set. However, when rep speed starts to slow down at the end of a set, the set should be stopped. Slow, strenuous, grinder reps at the end of a set should be avoided.
- Personal Recovery Rate
Personal recovery rate refers to the amount of time it takes for a muscle group to recover between workouts. Hardgainers may find it difficult to recover from workouts consisting of too many sets or too much intensity. However, they can often recover within forty eight hours or less when they train a muscle group only as long as it is at full strength, and they refrain from squeezing out slow grinder reps at the end of a set. If a hardgainer can perform the right type of workouts that allows them to recover within forty-eight hours, they can work out fairly often. This is important because hardgainers often have muscles that will only stay activated for growth for a short time after a workout. Those who fit into this category need to workout often in order to keep the growth process consistently activated.
- Muscle Growth Activation Period and Retention Period
The muscle growth activation period refers to the length of time that muscle growth is activated after a workout. This is sometimes referred to as an anabolic state. Easy gainers often have muscles that stay activated for seventy-two hours or more. Even if their muscles don’t stay activated that long, they often have a long retention period, which simply means they have the ability to retain new muscle growth for a week after workouts. Those who find it hard to gain muscle are not as fortunate.
Hardgainers often have a muscle growth activation period of only forty-eight hours or less after a workout. If they don’t work out soon after the muscle growth period is complete, their muscles begin to atrophy; there is very little time in which they retain new growth once the muscle activation period is completed. Since hardgainers tend to have a short muscle growth activation period, they must work each muscle group fairly often; generally three or more times per week. The only way to train this often without overtraining is to train just hard enough to stimulate muscle growth, but no harder than necessary. This shall be explained in greater detail in future articles on training thresholds.
- Metabolic Rate
Many hardgainers have a normal metabolic rate, but still find it hard to gain muscle because they are not well endowed in regard to the first four physiological factors that were just discussed. However, some hardgainers find it challenging to gain muscle primarily because of an extreme metabolism that is either extremely fast, or extremely slow.
The Fast Metabolism
Some people with a fast metabolism are hardgainers because they are not well endowed in regard to the first four muscle building factors that make up their physiology. Other hardgainers with an extremely fast metabolism may actually be able to gain muscle pretty easily once they eat enough and engage in workouts that don’t accelerate their metabolisms to become even faster. Those with a fast metabolism are often better off if they avoid doing any more sets, reps, or workouts than necessary. Why? Because it will speed up their hyper metabolism to be even more hyper and cause calories to be burned up before they ever have a chance to be utilized for muscle growth.
The Slow Metabolism
The hardgainer with a slow metabolism has a different set of problems. Not all skinny hardgainers have a fast metabolism. A slow metabolism is what causes some hardgainers to become nauseated when they eat enough calories to gain weight. The result is that they remain skinny because they don’t like to eat enough to gain weight. Others find that their sluggish metabolism does not utilize nutrients well enough to gain muscle and any weight gains consist of fat.
The hardgainer with a slow metabolism must accelerate his metabolism with the right type of training. This can be difficult because if he tries to workout more in order to stimulate his metabolism, he is at risk for overtraining. On the other hand, if he doesn’t work out enough, his metabolism will remain sluggish. The hardgainer with a slow metabolism will need to do some heavy training, but he will also need to do some sets with lighter weight and higher reps to stimulate his metabolism. In addition, he will need to work out as often as possible in order to stimulate his metabolism, but he must know how to do this without overtraining. Accelerating the metabolism is essential in order for those with a slow metabolism to tolerate and utilize the amount of calories necessary to gain muscle.
Individual Differences
Each person is different and must train according to his own characteristics of his own physiology. This will be addressed when describing each type of hardgainer in future articles. The next article will begin with conditional hardgainers who don’t gain well when using training methods that are not well suited to their personal physiology, but who discover they are easy gainers when they find the type of training that matches what their physiology requires for strength and muscle gains. Best of training to you.
Hardgainers – Part 1: Four Types
I am going to start a series of articles about hardgainers. The articles will be taken from a book I wrote titled, Individualized Training Strategies For Hardgainers. This book can be found on the home page of this website and on Amazon.
The reason I wrote this book is because I feel it is often assumed that the physiological characteristics of hardgainers are all alike. This being the case, it is assumed they should all train alike according to a stereotypical training methodology designed for hardgainers. Many hardgainers do fall into the stereotype, so I don’t consider the stereotypical training to be wrong, however, I do not consider it to be complete as many hardgainers fall outside the stereotype in terms of the type of training they should use. This is the main emphasis of the book and will be discussed throughout the series of articles. Since this is the first article, it will feature the introduction and the first chapter.
Introduction
All hardgainers have one obvious characteristic in common; they find it hard to gain muscle. Beyond this obvious characteristic, there may be significant differences from one hardgainer to the next. I don’t believe there is a universal type of hardgainer that applies to everyone who has a hard time gaining muscle. In other words, there are several types of hardgainers. Hardgainers may vary in regard to how much, how hard, and how often they should train. In order for a hardgainer to engage in effective training, they must have a way to formulate a training strategy that matches their own physiological characteristics.
Some people believe that hardgainers need brief intense workouts with plenty of recovery time between workouts. In addition, they should eat, eat, eat, and then eat some more. No doubt, this is a good strategy for some hardgainers, but I don’t believe it is an optimum strategy for all hardgainers. If you are a hardgainer, you may find that high intensity training will quickly lead to over-training. You may also find that your muscles don’t stay activated for growth during long recovery times between workouts. It is also possible that you don’t tolerate enough calories to gain weight unless you engage in a type of training that stimulates your metabolism. The bottom line is that you are more likely to succeed when you have a strategy that takes into account the specific type of hardgainer characteristics you possess.
In order to facilitate hardgainers with a way to determine what training strategy they should use, four types of hardgainers are discussed in this book. The strategies are based on training that matches the factors that make up your personal physiology. First, you must know how to train within your capacity to tolerate training volume and intensity. In addition, you must also learn to train within the scope of your personal recovery rate, the amount of time that your muscle stay activated for growth after a workout, and your metabolic rate.
Knowing these physical factors will not make it easy for most hardgainer to build muscle, but it does make it possible. If you are willing to gain the knowledge to develop a precision training plan that matches your own physiology, your efforts can accumulate into big gains over time. The rest of this book is designed to help you accomplish this.
Chapter 1
Four Types of Hardgainers
How should you train if you are a hardgainer? It depends on your personal physiological characteristics. Different hardgainers respond to different types of training because there are different types of hardgainers, and this book will address four types.
While you may not fit perfectly into one of the four types of hardgainers, the tendency will be to fit more into one category than the others. This will give you a starting point for understanding the characteristics of your own body, which will give you a better understanding of how to train. Since four types of hardgainers will be discussed, the logical starting point would be to identify each type. The four types consist of:
- The Intensity Responsive Conditional Hardgainer With a Fast Metabolism
- The Volume Responsive Conditional Hardgainer with a Slow Metabolism
- The True Hardgainer with a Fast Metabolism
- The True Hardgainer with a Normal to Slow Metabolism
In the next article, a brief summary that describes the physiological characteristics of each type of hardgainer will be given. Best of training to you.
Jump Higher With Strength Training
Strength training has benefits that go beyond just getting stronger. Athletes often find that they can throw better, kick better, run faster, and jump higher when their strength improves. This article will focus on the benefits of strength training to help you jump higher.
Olympic Weight Lifting and Jumping
Olympic weightlifters (who compete in the Clean And Jerk, and the Snatch) must combine explosive moving with heavy lifting. When both strength and explosiveness are developed to a high level, an athlete will usually excel at jumping. You can see the Korean weight lifting team demonstrating their jumping ability in the video below:
Powerlifting and Jumping
Some powerlifters also have exceptional jumping ability. Fred Hatfield was an exceptional squatter and an exceptional jumper as were Ed Coan and Franco Columbu. Johnny Condito is another powerlifter known for his squatting ability. His strength translates into outstanding jumping ability which you can see in the following video.
You can see an example of how strength and jumping ability often go hand in hand in the next video.
Three Factors That Help You Jump Higher
For the most part, the ability to jump high comes from three main factors which include:
- Strength
- Explosive speed and power
- Form and technique
Identify The Factor You Need to Improve at To Jump Higher
If you want to improve your jumping ability as fast as possible, you must identify which factor needs the most improvement. For example if you are already squat twice your bodyweight, but you can’t jump very high, the most probable cause is lack of explosive speed and power. In contrast, if you find it very hard to squat your body weight, the starting place for a better jump is probably a basic strength training program to improve your squatting strength.
Build Strength with 3 x 5 using 80% of Your Max Squat
If you need to improve you strength in order to jump higher, work up to three sets of five reps with 80% of the maximum weight they can lift for the squat.
Build Explosive Power with 8 x 3 using 30% to 50% of Your Max Squat
If you need to improve your explosive speed and power in order to jump higher, do eighth to ten sets of three to five rep using 30% to 50% of the maximum weight that you can lift for the squat. Make sure to lift the weight with as much speed and force as possible while maintaining the best form possible.
Include Power Jumping
The exercises in the following videos will also help you if you need to develop explosive power for jumping.
Avoid Fatigue
When developing explosive jumping power, do not do high reps within the same set. You must avoid fatigue as it robs you of the ability to train with explosive speed and power. Stay fresh and strong when training to improve your vertical jump.
Jump Training Can Increase Your Strength
Those who are primarily interested in getting stronger may find that the various aspects of jump training actually facilitate an increase in strength and a better squat. Many powerlifters include jumping and plyometrics in their training protocol. If your main goal is simply to get stronger, think about using the training information from this article as it may aid your strength gains. Best of training to you.
For jump programs from elite jump coaches, check out the following links:
Cycle Your Workouts With Marker Rep Training
This is the second article out of a two part series about the marker rep. The goal of the articles is to clear up misconceptions that lifters have in regard to how to apply the marker rep.
Defining The Marker Rep
Just to review, the marker rep refers to the initial point in a set where a steady even rep pace can no longer be maintained and rep speed starts to slow down. For example, if John can do ten reps with 235 pounds when bench pressing, but he can only maintain a steady even rep pace for seven reps, and the eighth rep starts to slow down, his marker rep falls on the eighth rep. When performing marker rep training, John would not do ten reps, even though he has the ability to do so, instead, he will stop at his marker rep, which is his eighth rep.
Add Weight When The Same Workout Becomes Easier
If we continue with the same example, John will keep repeating the same workout with 235 pounds for eight reps when benching. Why repeat the same workout? Because the goal of marker rep training is to keep repeating the same workout until the marker rep becomes easier. In this case, the eighth rep is the marker rep and it should become easier to the point where it can be lifted as fast as the previous seven reps. All eight reps should look the same in terms of rep speed. This signifies that John has become stronger and is ready to add five pounds to his bench press.
Add Weight When The Same Cycle of Workouts Becomes Easier
When referring to John’s example, we can see that he used the same weight and reps in every workout. This can create the misconception that when using marker rep training, the same workout must be performed again and again until it becomes easier. The problem with this is that many lifters prefer to change the amount of weight and reps from workout to workout instead of repeating the same workout. Those who prefer to change the weight and reps from workout to workout can still use marker rep training, but instead of repeating the same workout until it become easier, they will repeat the same cycle of different workouts until the cycle becomes easier.
A Weekly Cycle
Since most lifters prefer to change the amount of weight that they use from workout to workout, I will provide an example of how to use a brief training cycle in conjunction with marker rep training. This could be done by doing three different workouts in a row within a weak. The first workout may consist of using a weight that causes you to hit your marker rep on your tenth rep. The second workout may consist of a heavier weight that causes you to hit your marker rep on your eighth rep, and the third workout may consist of a heavier weight that causes you to hit your marker rep on your fifth rep.
When using this method, you are stopping at your marker rep for all three workouts, but the marker rep falls on a different rep for each workout. If you keep repeating this same weekly cycle of workouts, all three marker reps will eventually become easier, and you will be able to add weight to each workout. This allows you to vary your workouts when using marker rep training.
A Three Week Cycle
You may also perform a longer cycle and repeat it until it becomes easier. An example of a three week cycle is shown below:
Week 1
Workout 1: 10 reps x 225 pounds
Workout 2: 8 reps x 235 pounds
Workout 3: 6 reps x 245 pounds
Week 2
Workout 1: 8 reps x 235 pounds
Workout 2: 6 reps x 245 pounds
Workout 3: 5 reps x 250 pounds
Week 3
Workout 1: 6 reps x 245 pounds
Workout 2: 5 reps x 250 pounds
Workout 3: 3 reps x 260 pounds
Once you have completed the three week training cycle, you must evaluate whether or not your marker reps during week three have become easy enough to do as fast as the previous reps in each set. If so, you can repeat the same cycle with an additional five pounds. However, if your marker reps are still slower than the previous reps of each set, then you should keep repeating the same cycle without adding weight until your marker reps have sped up to the same rep speed as the previous reps of each set. At that point, you can add weight and repeat the process.
The main point that you need to understand from this article is that marker rep training is performed by repeating the same workouts, or the same cycle of workouts, until the marker rep(s) have become easier. This allows you to vary the amount of weight and reps used in your workouts, but it requires you to be consistent in terms of repeating the same cycle of workouts until it becomes easier.
What is the point of letting the same cycle of workouts become easier? It allows your body to accomplish the primary goal that it is trying to achieve when it gains strength, which is to reduce the amount of lifting stress that you experience by making it easier for you to lift the same amount of weight and reps.
In the next few weeks, a new book on marker rep training will be released on this website. The book will provide examples of periodization strategies with marker rep training. Best of training to you.
Problems And Solutions With Marker Rep Training
How hard should you push a set? Should you push to failure, or is it better to stop before you reach failure? If you stop before reaching failure, how do you know when to stop?
I personally believe that one of the best places to stop a set is at the point of reaching the marker rep. The marker rep occurs at the initial point in a set where a steady even rep pace can no longer be maintained and rep speed starts to slow down. Why is this a good place to stop a set? Because it forces a lifter to push to the point of achieving sufficient intensity without demanding so much intensity that overtraining occurs.
While I often advise lifters to stop a set when they reach their marker rep, there are at least four potential problems that can occur when this advice is followed. Each problem is listed below along with discussion and advice on how to deal with the problems.
Problem #1
People misinterpret the meaning of a steady even rep pace.
Discussion and Advice
A steady even rep pace simply means that a lifter lifts with consistent rep speed and consistent form throughout a set. Every rep of a set look the same in terms of speed and form. Maintaining a steady even rep pace does not mean that the upward portion and downward portion of a rep must last the same length of time. A lifter may lower the bar faster or slower than they lift it, but they are still using a steady even rep pace if they perform each rep the same way in terms of speed and form.
Pauses Between Reps
Some lifters may pause at the top of a rep, while others may pause at the bottom of a rep. Some may pause at both the top and the bottom of a rep, while others don’t pause at all between reps. All of these styles fit into the meaning of a steady even rep pace as long as each rep is performed with the same rep speed throughout the same set. Those who pause between each rep should pause the same amount of time between reps instead of switching between long pauses, short pauses, and no pauses. When pauses between reps are constantly changing between long pauses, short pauses, and no pauses, the rep pace will appear so uneven that a marker rep cannot be determined.
Problem #2
Not all lifters perform their sets in a textbook manner that makes it easy to determine where the marker rep falls. Marker rep training is based on an identifiable point in a set when rep speed obviously starts to slow down. Some lifters may not have an obvious point in a set where rep speed suddenly starts to slow down, instead, their rep speed slows down in such a gradual manner that it is difficult to identify a specific point where the marker rep occurs.
Discussion and Advice
Lifters who make a deliberate choice to lift forcefully and make a conscious effort to maintain a steady even rep pace will usually be able to do to so. Some try to pace themselves by holding back on the amount of force that they apply into their reps at the start of a set. They do this in order to have more strength left at the end of a set. This approach to lifting will cause a very subtle decrease in rep speed throughout the set instead of an obvious decrease in rep speed at a specific point in a set. The bottom line is to exert plenty of force into each rep until it becomes obvious that the same level of force and speed can no longer be maintained.
You don’t have to lift with all-out maximum force and rep speed to the point of excessive strain, but you should push fairly close to maximum force and maintain a steady rep pace as long as possible.
Problem #3
Some lifters never maintain a steady even rep pace when they perform a set; they tend to vacillate between faster reps and slower reps at indiscriminant points throughout the set. This makes it impossible to divide a set into two sections consisting of a first phase where a steady even rep pace is maintained, and a second phase where rep speed starts to slow down. When this problem occurs, it becomes difficult or impossible to determine where the marker reps occurs and where to stop a set.
Discussion and Advice
Advanced lifters who have mastered their lifting technique generally begin a set using a steady even rep pace. If they stop using a steady even rep pace, it is usually because of fatigue, not because of poor form, lack of control over the weight, mindless lifting, or a lack of body awareness.
There are exceptions to this as advanced bodybuilders may change the pace or speed of their reps if they are emphasizing a longer squeeze at the top of some of their reps, or a deep stretch at the bottom up their reps.
There are also powerlifters who slowly descend and pause at the bottom of their first rep of a set. From there, they maintain a steady even rep pace until their last rep when they pause at the bottom of the rep before completing the upward portion of the lift. This is often done on the first and last rep of a set of bench presses to imitate the legal form for a powerlifting meet. I also know of an excellent squatter who always does a slow first rep to get the feel of the exercise. He then pauses for an extra second before proceeding with a steady even rep pace for several reps until he pauses again right before doing his last rep.
Even though some lifters may perform their first and last reps slower, they use a steady even rep pace for the rest of their reps, and consistently perform their sets the same way every time. This type of training still fits within the context of marker rep training.
Beginning and intermediate lifters often have a greater tendency to lack rhythm or consistency in how they perform their reps. Some of them haven’t learned how to balance or control the weight, nor have they learned exactly how they want to perform each rep. They may lack a consistent lifting groove and may apply a lot of force into some reps, while lifting casually on others. All of these things can lead to an inconsistent rep pace when proceeding through a set.
When using marker rep training, one of the first things a lifter must learn is to be consistent in terms of using the same form and the same rep speed from rep to rep. A conscious awareness of practicing these things must developed when utilizing marker rep training.
Problem #4
Some lifters deliberately perform slow reps throughout an entire set. This may eliminate the distinction in speed between strong reps and weak reps, because all of the reps are slow, not just the final reps at the end of a set.
Marker rep training does not work very well for lifters or bodybuilders who prefer slow reps from the start of a set to the finish of a set. These lifters never reach a point where rep speed slows down because it is slow to start with.
You must exert force, speed, and power into each rep. This will lead to an obvious point in a set when you can no longer maintain the same amount of force and rep speed, which will make it easy to identify the point at which the marker rep occurs.
Those who prefer to utilize very slow reps for marker rep training may be able to do so, but they will have to go by feel instead of by rep speed. When going by feel, a lifter must identify the point in a set when the reps suddenly feel more difficult and the whole body suddenly tightens to a greater degree than previously. If a lifter doesn’t feel these things until the very last rep of a set to failure, there is no reason for them to use marker rep training.
My hope is that the issues that were addressed regarding marker rep training will help to clear up any confusion about how it is to be carried out. I will discuss some other important questions that come up in regard to marker rep training in the next article. Best of training to you.
An Exercise That Builds Your Whole Back
One of the best deadlifters on the face of the earth is a powerlifter by the name of Cailer Woolam. One of his favorite exercises is somewhat like a deadlift and a bent-over row combined into the same lifting motion. This exercise builds the whole back including the lower back, spinal erectors, lats, teres major and minor, and the trapezius muscles. In addition, it will require a substantial amount of work from the legs including the glutes, hamstrings, and quads. Cailer explains how to perform this exercise in the following video:
Ronnie Coleman has fabulous back development and is massively strong. When going heavy on T-bar rows, he uses both his legs and his back to produce the lifting momentum necessary to pull the weight up to his mid-section. You can watch the way he performs his T-bar rows in the in video below:
Work Your Way Into This Exercise
I want to emphasize two things:
First, it would be best to learn how to do both deadlifts and bent-over rows before trying to combine the two exercises together into a single exercise. Once you have developed the back muscles necessary to perform this movement, start out light and work your way up in weight over a few months. I would not do this movement if you have back issues such as injuries, soreness, or structural weakness that won’t hold up when doing this movement.
Second, don’t ignore other back exercises such as seated pulley rows, lat pulldowns, or bent over rows that are done with very strict form.
If you are looking for an exercise to help your back, try this modified row technique as it has the potential to develop your strength and overall back development. Best of training to you.