Hardgainers! Training More Often Wont Give You Better Gains!!!

When browsing bodybuilding forums for some advice for skinny hardgainers I found really interesting posts... There are some "experts" out there (the majority), which would give you really "professional" advice statig that if you are not able to gain muscle, you are simply not eating enough and/or your workout intensity or frequency s--k (are not right)! And then they would go on and say stuff like: You are not a hardgainer! You are not overtraining! You don't have bad genetics!!!

WRONG!!!

Do you want to know the truth? Yes, we are hardgainers! Yes, we overtrain easily!, Yes, we have bad genetics! (Believe me I know it from my own skinny-life experience...)

And you know what? The funny thing about these posts is that you would also find a disclaimer underneath them saying that really fat people are in a different category and should not follow these suggestions...

Seriously? How funny!!!

I mean... The overweight people are in a different category and the really skinny people are not? Come on!!! Give me a break!!!

Hardgainers, who are also called ectomorphs, really ARE different than the endomorphs (these are the guys that just gain muscle so easily, regardless the quality of their workouts or diet!!!) And because their body is different, their training must be different as well!

Ok. First, let's focus on the training and leave the diet out (for now)... In the next few lines we will talk about the correct training frequency for someone who is a hardgainer...

If we look at the average person, after working out a specific muscle group, it takes about seven days for that muscle to recover, repair itself and grow. A lot of people never use that full seven day recovery cycle. Plus the recovery time for hardgainers might be even longer! It depends upon how intense your training actually is. So what I recommend for hardgainers is to actually start with a basic three day workout routine that hits each muscle group with an intense workout only one time per week.

I would suggest using an alternating upper - lower - upper body workout. For example, on day one, do your shoulders and arms, so you're working on your upper body. On day two, do your legs, so you're hitting all the lower body while you're giving that upper body a little bit more of a recovery time period. And on your third day, do your chest and back. These are a much larger muscle group, but you've got a good rest over from the first upper body workout (shoulders and arms), because you had the lower body (legs) workout in between. Plus, by putting an extra free day in between each of those workouts, you give yourself a lot of recovery time. And for hardgainers it is really important to be able to really focus on regrowth and repair, because that's where the muscle gain comes from.

In the Hardgainer Project X program, which I'm using right now, there is a little bit different approach. It uses a series of specifically designed full body workouts that make the training even more effective than the split routine that I just went over. But for the average hardgainer, using that upper - lower - upper body workout can really make a difference in gains as well.

Enjoy the training and stay tuned for more Smart Hardgainer Tips!

"The Smart Hardgainer"
Andy Mikulka

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