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
