Precision Point Training

Characteristics of Hardgainers

Hardgainers have physiological characteristics that make it difficult for them to gain muscle. Five of these characteristics will be explained in this article.

  1. Personal Workload Capacity

Optimum workload capacity refers to the amount of sets, reps, and weight that produce the greatest response in terms of muscle gains. 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. In other words, the high volume of sets causes the muscle group being worked to be much weaker at the end of a workout compared to the beginning. Hardgainers may also be able to train a muscle group well past the point of being at full strength and still feel good during and after a workout, yet fail to grow. The reason is because they have surpassed their optimum workload capacity in terms of responding with muscle growth.

The optimum workload capacity for hardgainers is based on repeating sets for a muscle group only as long as the muscle group is at full strength. If a muscle group begins to weaken during a workout, stop working it as you have surpassed your workload capacity for training at full strength. Most people will be able to train a muscle group for two or three hard sets at full strength. A smaller percentage may 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.

  1. Tolerance for Intensity

Tolerance for intensity refers to how much training intensity can be tolerated in the context of triggering 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 putting the weight down at the end of a set. Training beyond failure refers to forced reps where a training partner assists you just enough to lift the weight when 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 are often intolerant to high intensity training as it is too severe and causes overtraining. They are better off repeating reps of a set as long as steady even rep pace can be maintained. 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.

  1. 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 when they train a muscle group only as long as it is at full strength, and they refrain from doing 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 preferable to only working each muscle group once or twice per week, which allows too much time between workouts to cause muscles to stay continuously activated for growth.

  1. Muscle Growth Activation Period

The muscle growth activation period refers to the length of time that muscle growth is activated after a workout. This is also known as an anabolic state. Easy gainers often have muscles that stay activated for seventy-two hours or more. Even if their muscles only stay activated for seventy-two hours, they often have the ability to retain new muscle growth for a week after workouts. This is not the case with hardgainers.

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’s very little time in which they hold new muscle gains once the muscle activation period is completed. Because of the fact that 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.  

5. Metabolic Rate

It is not uncommon for hardgainers to have a metabolism that is either very fast or very slow. Either extreme can make it difficult to gain muscle. Hardgainers with an extremely fast metabolism must avoid training in a way that speeds up their fast metabolism to an even faster rate that burns calories before they can ever be utilized for muscle growth. They must train enough, but they must avoid speeding up their already hyper metabolism with too many sets, too many reps, or training too often.

The hardgainer with a slow metabolism has a different set of problems. He may be nauseated when he eats enough calories to gain weight. Even if he eats enough to gain weight, his sluggish metabolism may not utilize the nutrients well enough to gain muscle, and any weight gains consist of gaining fat. The hardgainer with a slow metabolism must accelerate his metabolism with the right type of training. This can be difficult because if he works out too much, he will over-train. 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 do some sets with lighter weight and higher reps to stimulate his metabolism. He will also need to work out as often as he can without overtraining in order to stimulate his metabolism. This is essential in order to tolerate and utilize the amount of calories necessary to gain muscle.

Some people have a normal metabolism, but they are still hardgainers. This is because they exhibit hardgainer characteristics in regard to the first four characteristics discussed.

Hardgainers are people who have a difficult time gaining muscle even when they first begin to train. Easy gainers find it easy to gain a lot of muscle when they begin training, but sooner or later, even easy gainers will find it hard to keep gaining muscle. At that point, they become hardgainers in relationship to gaining new muscle. If you are a hardgainer, or you are an easy gainer who is stuck, I recommend that you check out the information in the basics of PPT (click here to go to the basics of PPT). The precision point training principles will tend to work even if you seem to suffer from the five characteristics of hardgainers. Best of training to you.

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