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Hardgainer Muscle Building Tips
IF YA WANNA, YOU CAN DO IT! In bodybuilding, there are easy gainers and there are hard gainers (most trainers come within- the latter category - to a lesser or greater extent). If you are the former, you may well have competed in a contest or are probably seriously considering doing so. For let's face it, you are born to be a showmuscle strut-yer-stuff stud & animal bodybuilder: with those fabulous genes everything comes so much easier.
This doesn't mean to say that yer take it easy or don't have to work extremely hard and most often, balls-to-the-walls blood-lettin' style. Undoubtedly you do (in your own terms) but compared to the hard gainers, you "virtually only have to eyeball a weight to grow and slab-pak on that solid, dense, rock-hard muscle, that's burstin' out everywhere - often in perfect proportion and symmetry!"
EXTRAORDINARILY & AS STRANGE AS IT MAY SEEM: Often these God's of muscle (with a few notable exceptions) are incredibly poor trainers of other bodybuilders. Just because a guy has built himself an awesome physique, is no way a refection on his knowledge of bodybuilding or nutrition (although they invariably think it is!). NOR INDEED DOES IT MAKE THEM CAPABLE OF TRAINING A BEGINNER OR ASPIRING BODYBUILDERS WITH LESS IMPRESSIVE GENES THAN THEY THEMSELVES POSSESSS - for they just can't get to grips with a 'hard-trainer,' and often expect them to train and grow just like themselves, (although like everything, there are exceptions to this rule too, and a few top bodybuilders are extremely good).
But for most of these spectacular visions, it is more a question: that they should have developed way above 'mere good' anyway. Indeed, if they had been trained by "someone who really knows their stuff" most probably they would have become an even more spectacular muscular specimen and in half the time. Certainly: If they had had a real no-nonsense supervisor or bodybuilding Coach screamin' at 'em "MORE-MORE! And moreover finessed their specific leverage and POF angles" They would have undoubtedly, been driven into the ground to work their steel-butt off with balls-out intensity training
The truth is: that with a reasonable amount of hard consistent work, they just had to grow! Hard gainers - and if this, 'sort-of' includes YOU, don't worry, cos you're in real good company. Most bodybuilders throughout the globe are hard gainers.
This may have little or nothing to do with poor genetics but rather a combination of factors which simply add up to NOT knowing their own body and what it NEEDS to develop and GROW. FORGET about how Mr Olympia trains; it's totally irrelevant - anyway, he's hardly going to give away HIS secrets regardless of what you see printed in the mags.. YOUR body as every- body's is UNIQUE. As such you have to determine what works for YOU - AND YOU ALONE!
EVEN IF YOU DON'T POSSESS THE ATTRIBUTES OF THOSE GODS:
- Better bone structure
- Buscle tone.
- More muscle cells (and that 'more' can mean a hell'uv'a lot! "Yes, some - no, a great many - of well intentioned bodybuilders have drawn the "short straw!")
- Longer and fuller muscle bellies,
- Better natural shape,
- Smaller joints,
- Superior recovery abilities.
- Stronger appetites with a naturally
- Far greater digestive processing ability leading to
- Far less recovery time required through their
- Superior metabolisms. They may - and often do have -
- Fewer fat cells, and even those are
- Evenly distributed, instead of being deposited in one unsightly dumping area. They (the one's the muscle Gods must'ave blessed) may also,
- Easily convert fats to fatty acids without apparent muscle loss.(makes you sick don't it!).
THIS DOES'NT MEAN YOU CAN'T PAK ON THOSE HOT SLAB PAKS OF THICK, DENSE RIPPLIN; MUSCLE THAT LOOKS AS THOUGH IT'S ABOUT TO EXPLODE THROUGH THE SKIN ANY MOMENT! AND MAKES ANY COVERIN' OF CLOTHES A MIGHTY CHANCY BIZ. COZ: THOSE BULGES COULD SPLIT THROUGH THOSE JEANS AND TEE ANY MOMENT! So Don't despair! Bad or less-superior genetics means in no way that you cannot build muscle - and HOT, impressive muscle at that! REMBER: "It's not how you START IN THE MUSCESHOW GAME - that matters, rather, its HOW YOU FINISH THAT COUNTS! This of course applies to life in general, but is particularly apposite to bodybuilding.
OK, enough of this rap - what to do?
LACK OF MUSCLE GROWTH IS A COMPLEX PROBLEM AND IT IS SELDOM SOLVED WITH A SIMPLISTIC ANSWER. EVERY BODYBUILDER'S REQUIREMENTS ARE DIFFERENT and each ideally needs their personal formula which works for them ALONE! It takes a holistic solution to solve a complicated problem.EXPERIMENT- EXPERIMENT-EXPERIMENT! You will be creating muscle confusion anyway, which is a premier tenet (rule) of successful and intelligent bodybuilding. For F……ks sake, DON'T worry what others think.
If they laugh or verbally abuse you, they may have muscle but - most of it has taken over their "little" gray cells! DON'T believe the HEAVY brigade: that only more poundage means more muscle. Muscle (just like a few bodybuilders we all know) is not exactly intelligent! It just CAN'T judge what is heavy, medium or light. All it understands is stress force overload intensity on the target muscle which creates saturation failure.
INDEED MUSCLE AND STRENGTH CANNOT REALLY BE BUILT AT ONE AND THE SAME TIME - at different times certainly, and the one, aids the other over the course of time. Bodybuilders who ONLY favor HEAVY lifting may initially get strong and thick muscle due to the myofibril muscle fibres increasing in thickness IF they allow sufficient recovery time. AND providing they VARY their routine. If they don't do this a "sticking point" WILL very soon occur. Heavy lifting does not necessarily stimulate sufficiently for Growth to occur, it will however increase the strength of your ligaments and tendons. Pumping is needed to feed the muscle and promote recovery.
Conversely, sole muscle pumpers - who pump for the sake of it without intense stimulation- don't have the strength and thickness, or density of the heavy trainers, but instead, have lots of metabolic muscle and capillaries. Whichever muscle stimulation, it ALWAYS requires high intensity of overload to produce maximum productivity of growth. Most, if not ALL trainees, REQUIRE a combination of both styles of training.
Dennis Dubreil wrote an excellent series of articles for Iron Man. His system was referred to as The Fatigue Product Theory. It is still highly relevant today. FOR ALL BUT THE VERY FEW BODYBUILDERS. REGARDLESS OF SIZE, DEVELOPMENT or AGE.
BLOOD CIRCULATION is vital to a bodybuilder, There is a strong relationship between blood circulation and muscle growth. Unless the muscle tissue receives the FULL nutrients to bathe it and feed it, it will not - and cannot, grow productively.
EVERYONE KNOWS THAT A MUSCLE THAT FAILS TO PUMP UP IN TRAINING IS A MUSCLE THAT LAGS BEHIND; IT JUST WON'T GROW PROPERLY NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO.
There are three distinct phases to pumping a muscle:
- Increasing the amount of fatigue products
- Increasing the blood supply to enable it to be productively fed and nourished
- To flush out the waste products.
- When you see GOOD VASCULARITY you know automatically there is a good blood supply to that muscle.
- Consequently, that muscle receives maximum nutrient productivity through a strong foundation of: vascular, neuromuscular pathways and overall metabolic pathway efficiency. The look of that muscle almost gives the feeling of invincibility.