If you are a hardgainer looking for a solution to their problems, well, it all starts on the plate and goes down to the digestive system!
However, food is just a way for you to give the body nutrients and substances, for it to create new tissue, which you refer to as “gaining weight”.
The question now is, what type of weight do you want to gain?
Your best bet will undoubtedly be a combination of active muscle tissue along with some fat.
THIS is how you will not just increase the number on the scale, but also create a more aesthetically pleasing body frame.
After all, eating all that food just to gain fat seems ridiculous, right?
In case you are a hardgainer who also happens to be relatively new to training, here’s what you can do to maximize your results and make the best out of the extra food you’re eating:
- Do Challenging Sets
The gym is all fun and games until your low-intensity warm-up is over and it is time to put the actual work in.
After the initial 10-15 minutes of prime time at the start of your workout, start engaging in challenging working sets that take you 1-4 repetitions shy from failure.
As your training experience increases, you can also include sets until full failure to create an even more powerful stimulus.
Generally, as a beginner, you are looking to do ~5 challenging sets per muscle group, per week and that number grows to 15+ as you advance.
- Rest Enough
Some hardgainers tend to be extremely skinny, which implies that their overall body structure is quite fragile.
For this reason, you do not want to burn your body out in the process of training for weight gain.
Give your body sufficient rest times both between sets and between workouts, to ensure that each tissue recovers enough.
This will massively help you reduce the risk of injury and sustain training performance in time.
Generally, you are looking to rest 2 to 4 minutes between challenging sets and 72-96 hours between each workout for a given muscle group.
- Stimulate Differently
The goal of most hardgainers is to get bigger and stronger, meaning that for that goal, different training stimuli should be implemented.
For the most part, weight training is defined by two primary rep ranges:
- The Bodybuilding Rep Range (6-15+ reps)
- The Powerlifting Rep Range (1-5 reps)
The first rep range allows for the more seamless development of bulk muscle growth, which means this should be the primary rep range to engage in as a hardgainer.
Oppositely, the powerlifting rep range allows for the development of maximum strength, as well as explosiveness.
This second rep range should be occasionally included in your training regimen, to stimulate increases in strength, which can then be translated in your bulk-oriented part of training.
