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Hardgainer Tips and Tricks
If you are a hard gainer it means that you find it extremely difficult to increase the amount of muscle that you carry. You are probably very thin and eat whatever you like and never put on weight, which means you are predominantly Ectomorph.
So the first tip, which is nothing new is to eat more. But eating more burgers and fries will not help you add the correct weight to your body because the ONLY way that you are going to add more muscle is to get stronger as a strong muscle is a big muscle. The chances of you developing the same muscle size as an athletic Mesomorph would gain training with the same weight, are very small indeed.
The second tip is to avoid training past the point of failure. Which may sound like a contradiction when we know that low reps with a heavy weight builds muscle fast. As an Ectomorph you should know when you should train to the point of failure if you are ectomorphic.
The complexity of muscle growth in the predominantly slow twitch muscles of an ectomorph is something that has resulted in the controversial subject of training to failure. The bottom line for any hardgainers is to only reach the point of failure on the last rep of a set. The third tip for hardgainers is to make sure they get at least 8 hours of quality sleep. When you are sleeping your anabolic hormones like testosterone and HGH are released to speed up muscle repair and growth. When you don’t sleep enough your body releases Cortisol which is catabolic and not anabolic and you will lose muscle.
The fourth tip is probably something you already know and that is compound movements like squats, deadlift and bench-press will develop more muscle than isolated movements. It certainly does not mean you should never do isolation movements if you are ectomorphic.
Doing movements like scull-crushers to improve your strength in bench-press is an obvious option but there are many other isolation movements that would improve your overall strength. The fourth tip means that you should base your workouts around the big four compound movements.
The fifth and final tip for hardgainers who want to add muscle faster is always train with low reps after a good warmup and always train with a heavy weight. Plotting your progress in a training journal doing the big four will improve your results.
Sports science has conclusively proven that muscle increases in strength because of the physical adaptations from putting those muscles under progressive resistance. This means the stronger you get the bigger your muscles will get in order to adapt.
In conclusion it needs to be added that there are many tips that a skinny ectomorph could use to put on muscle. The five tips mentioned above are just a few that should be the prerequisite for any hardgainer to take on the challenge of muscle gain.
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Disclaimer: The information presented is intended to be used for educational purposes only. The statements made have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration (U.S.). Please consult with your own physician or health care practitioner regarding any suggestions and recommendations made.
