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.