You may have heard the expression a thousand times but for those who haven't it often helps to identify exactly what your limitations are when it comes to exercise. A hard-gainer is a person who worksout to build muscle but struggles to see significant gains, even if they work hard to achieve results. They are likely to be doing many of the things that are closely associated with building mass but just don't seem to be able to put on weight, especially that which consists of muscle.
You may be reading this thinking "that's me" and you wont be pleased to know that it is most likely in your genes. This means you could be thrashing yourself during your workouts with little gains and your spotting partner could be doing exactly the same and getting huge at the same time. Similarly they may envy your high metabolism, which might be the route cause of your gain's productivity. But basic jealousy will lead nowhere for anyone, it's time to fight back and use some techniques crucially employed by the savvy hard-gainer to pack on the kilos.
Fighting Back
The realisation that it is in your nature doesn't mean that you are hopeless and there are ways to combat the seemingly eternal struggle of the hard-gainer, some of which may seem unproductive at first. One of the first questions you should be asking yourself if you are a hard-gainer is : "Am I participating in a mass gaining exercise programme, training intensely 5-6 times a week with sessions exceeding well over an hour?" If the answer is 'yes' then you are certainly over-training and there is no real way of justifying to yourself that this is a productive way to build mass. You need to be taking plenty of rest days between particularly intense workouts, and if you can't fit training all your muscle groups into three solid sessions then maybe you should consider changing how you split them up. To get straight to the point if you're training one muscle group per session you should consider two or even three muscle groups in future.
Splitting It Up
An example split for your weights program would be:
Day 1: Chest and Triceps
Day 2: Rest
Day 3: Legs and Abs
Day 4: Rest
Day 5: Back, Biceps and Shoulders
Day 6: Rest
Day 7: Rest
This may look like a lot of rest days, but if you are working intensely enough then as a hard-gainer you will require this time to recover and rebuild before 'overloading' your body again with another intense workout (even if the body parts seem unrelated to each other). If you get too restless on your days off then you can try some active rest techniques, such as cycling at a very low intensity for 30 minutes; This will help reduce delayed offset muscle soreness (DOMS) and help you to sleep if you're one of those people who can't nod off if they haven't expended enough physical energy during the day. But also be aware that it may boost your metabolism which could already an underlying problem for many hard-gainers (although in the case of fat-burning or general health a highly active metabolism is usually a positive thing to posses).
It may be more efficient for you to do a moderately intense abdominal workout as a rest day instead of the example split above and you could also dedicate more time to your shoulders adding it to your legs workout (day 3 in the example). This is just a possible suggestion, but the main principle here is indulging in plenty of rest, especially when you feel overly sore or burnt-out. You most certainly should organise your chosen workout so that you feel as fresh as possible when starting the next cycle of the workout (try to be fresh for day 1 or it will have a knock-on effect to your next session and the next).
Session Length
The length of your session should not exceed an hour and this includes any warm up sets etc that you perform. As a hard-gainer you will almost certainly start catabolism after this period of intense exercise which basically means that your body will start to eat into its own muscle to provide the energy for the rest of the session. This is at a molecular level, we do not mean you will start munching on your biceps, that would be more in the realms of self-cannibalism. On a more serious note, those who are determined to make progress and get fired up in the gym will undoubtedly find a strict one-hour duration hard to adhere to, but make sure you hit the showers once you reach that hour mark before you are tempted to do any more. That means even if you feel like you have some energy left, convince yourself that it'll pay off in the short-term and the long-term because it will. You should be able to perform well in your next session and with perseverance you will no longer use your own muscle proteins as fuel from your reserve tank.
Another plus point with the shortness of the session is that you are more likely to stick to the optimum rest period for mass gaining in order to complete an intense workout for all the desired body parts that day. The optimum rest period for gaining muscle mass is 60-90 seconds (some may argue as much as 120 seconds but we advise that this is strictly the uppermost limit - including time to change weight plates or ready spotters etc.) Cheat here by estimating or making excuses and you're cheating yourself by limiting your gains.
If this rest period between sets is not enough for you to perform 3 - 5 sets of 8 - 10 reps per exercise then consider leaving the ego in the locker-room and reducing the weight until you can do so consistently. Furthermore you shouldn't be blasting the reps out with a quick tempo, as this is more suitable for fat-burning. Try performing the exercise without too much speed in a controlled nature, hold at the middle portion of the move and return to the original position even slower (3 - 5 seconds). This may seem an odd way to grow in size, as you probably wont be lifting the heaviest you ever have or ever will - but it is about utilising the correct energy systems required and burdening the muscle in a way that increases the size of the muscle fibres once they are repaired.
Cut the Cardio
As we have already mentioned you can use active rest days if you are adverse to sitting as still as a swotty child in a classroom, but if your main priority is to gain mass then you should not indulge in much moderate to intense cardio vascular (CV) activity, if any at all (other than 5 min warmup/cooldown - but of course these should not be intense).
Calories, Calories, Calories
Nutrition is not this article's focus, but obviously it has a significant role when trying to gain mass (indeed it plays a huge part in any exercise regime). What does need mentioning is that if you are a hard-gainer partaking in intense exercise then you need to be consuming a lot of calories within your diet. Furthermore this will most likely need to be supplemented in order for you to chomp your way through well over the government's recommended daily calorie intake (2100 for men 1800 for women). These are guidelines for the 'average person', who is probably not training intensely enough to warrant eating any more than this guideline. As an exercising hard-gainer you need to be exceeding this amount so make sure that any mass gain shakes or bars you buy have plenty of calories per serving - with a carbohydrate source that is not basically all sugar. It is also worth mentioning that when looking for such a supplement that you should check how many servings you get with that particular product. Often brands will sell huge tubs of mass-gain powder for the same price as other brand's smaller tubs, making it look like a bargain at first glance. But sometimes tubs as nearly as heavy as 5kg can give you only 8 servings because of the giant or numerous scoops required to make a serving.
It may seem tempting to take your weight-gain supplements before going to sleep to help combat the 'fasting' that occurs during this time. This is sometimes recommended on the packaging but if it is indeed a calorie heavy one (which as we mentioned it should be) this will most likely be stored as fat as you are not burning it off quickly enough due to your minimal activity. However, you could use casein protein before going to bed as this is a source of protein that burns slower than the mass gainers (and whey protein). While this may not be the best supplement for gaining mass during your daily routine it is certainly one of the best for repairing your muscles during slumber so think about adding this to your shopping list too.
Mass Caution
One very important thing to mention about starting any mass training program is that beginners should first build up their muscular endurance as the overload created from lifting relatively heavy weights at a slow tempo will be too intense. Even if you are completely focused on gaining size you must first prepare the body with a suitable muscular endurance program aimed at beginners and develop from there.
