The best evidence-based guide for hard-gainers to pack on muscles 💪🏻

Training

Choosing the right exercises, rep schemes and volume as a hardgainer will help to maximise our efforts in the gym.

Most skinny guys struggle to put on size when they do not have these variables down and instead use sub-optimal approaches when it comes to their trainings. Thus, explains why they are experiencing slower muscle growth.

Progression

Prioritise overloading our workouts and getting stronger over time.

The best way to do this is to stay consistent with our workout program and use a progression method to ensure we are overloading our exercises over time.

For eg, with the double progression method :

1. Increase our reps week after week on our exercises and do so until we successfully hit the top of the rep range every set.

2. Once done successfully, proceed to add a little bit of weight.

3. Repeat the process again. Ensure we are using the targeted muscles to move the weight by using proper technique to execute the exercise.

Nutrition

Eat enough to pack on more mass as a hardgainer. Start gaining weight at a rate of 1% of our bodyweight monthly since research indicates that it is the most effective rate of weight it gain to maximise muscle growth while minimising excess fat accumulation.

Tips to increase calorie intake as a hardgainer:

1. Increase our meal frequency instead of volume

Research has shown that increasing our eating frequency is more effective if we want to increase our daily calorie intake without impacting our appetite as much.

2. Make our diet less filling

Choose foods that are less satiating yet still calorie-dense foods such as white pastas, rice, muesli and bananas etc.

3. Avoid overeating protein

We know the importance of protein for muscle growth and recovery. It is also found to be the most satiating of the 3 macronutrients.

If you are struggling to consume enough calories, you will want to minimise your protein intake relative to your carb and fat intake. A protein intake of roughly 0.72g/lb of your bodyweight is enough to maximise your gains.

Hence, aim to hit this minimum protein intake daily instead of going way beyond that minimum which will result in increased fullness. Utilise more carbs and fats to boost your calorie intake as doing so will minimise fullness and make it easier for you to ingest enough calories daily.

Tracking gym performance and body circumference measurements

Ideally, our strength in the gym and the various body circumference measurements should be gradually increasing along with our bodyweight as that is a good indication that we are doing everything correctly and successfully putting on muscle mass.

However, if our weight is increasing but we are not seeing much improvement or plateauing in our performance in the gym and circumference measurements, then we may need to adjust our workout plan.

Muscle growth takes time and it will be a slow process but the end result will definitely be worth it.

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