For Hardgainers Only

By Tyler Kalmakoff
[Health & Your Life]
Want to build muscle and keep fat gains to a minimum?  Tyler Kalmakoff shares the secrets of a hardgainer.
Nobody said gaining muscle was going to be easy.  Even for people with reasonably cooperative genetics, putting on pounds of the good stuff is no small feat.  But for those men and women who have difficulty building mass, no matter how strict their diet and workout sessions are, it can seem impossible at times.

If you have four to six organized, intense, focused workouts every week and you consume large amounts of healthy protein laden food throughout your days, yet you still aren’t achieving your lean muscle mass and weight increase goals, then you, my friend, are a hardgainer.

Most hardgainers are also the type of people that can’t sit still and have ultra-fast metabolisms.  Though these people wouldn’t get any sympathy from the hardloser section at the gym, they might be able to salvage some gratitude from the muscle section.

To solve this problem, you, the hardgainer, must do a few things differently in your fitness program.  Take what I say into consideration, commit to it and I promise you’ll see gain before you know it.  And these changes will probably be a lot easier than you could have imagined.

Avoid Isolation

You can go hide in the back corner of the gym, just avoid doing exercises that isolate specific muscle groups.  The best examples of this rule are the hundreds of variations of biceps curls you see at your local gym every day.  Also, you want to avoid any other isolating movement or machine like triceps extensions, leg extensions and flyes, just to name a few.

Because you’re a hardgainer with a quick-to-act metabolism, your workout should consist of a low amount of reps, short sets and compound lifts.  In other words, attack your muscles quickly—ambush them—but stop short of kicking in the after burn.  Two to three sets and seven to ten reps of each exercise will maximize your precious hardgainer energy, without dipping into the energy reserves your body will need to actually build the tissue back up.

Compound lifts can be any combination of exercises that blend together naturally to work several muscle groups at once, like the bent-over-row/curl/military press combination.  More simple movements like the bench press, dead lift and lunge are also considered compound exercises, working multiple muscles groups at once.  Working multiple muscle groups on each exercise should always be the goal of a hardgainer.

Sleep, Rest, Relaxation

You hardgainers need more SR&R than the rest of us.  Recovery time is important for every gym-goer, but especially for you.  At rest is when your body repairs and binds the muscle tissue you tore apart at the gym.  This is why rest is paramount if you want to build it back, bigger than ever.

Your body produces a natural HGH (human growth hormone), which is at its highest levels during REM sleep.  This is because when you’re in REM sleep, your body—not your mind—is in its most relaxed state; the less stress hormone being released, the more HGH.  Hence why sleep, rest and relaxation is so important for the typical hardgainer.

If you need added incentive, besides increasing muscle mass, HGH also decreases body fat and improves bone density, energy levels, skin tone, immune system function and sexual function.

Now getting seven to nine hours shouldn’t be so hard, should it?  Didn’t think so.
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