By definition, a hardgainer is a person who has a difficult time putting on muscle mass or gaining strength no matter how hard they train in the gym or how hard they eat.
How about this for a thought ? Most lifters that believe they are hardgainers just don’t have a handle on their diet, training and recovery.
Here are 5 most likely reasons that make you a hardgainer:
1. Overtraining
This is maybe the most common mistake that bodybuilders make and one that limits them from realizing their full potential. We have been taught that in order to succeed at certain things in life, we have to work long and hard.
When it comes to weight training, the story is a little bit different thugh. Well, the “train hard” part is actually true. We have to train hard as far as intensity goes – obviously if you want to get big you need to lift big weights.
The problem starts when we apply the “more is better“ philosophy to weight training. I constantly hear people say –“I don’t want to train too much, I’ll look like those bodybuilders in the bodybuilding magazines, I’ll be huge” or “If you want to look like those guys from the magazines you have to work out every day, even two times a day”.
The logic sounds just right – if you want to be perfect at something, you need more practice. If you gained 3 pounds this month doing 3 workouts and 6 sets a week, then you should gain 6 pounds by training 6 days and doing 12 sets, right ?
When it comes to lifting weights, this philosophy is not true. The only thing the extra training will do to you is burn you out and frustrate you with diminished returns.
Your main goal should be becoming stronger on the big lifts, not to see how many sets you can do or how long you can stay in the gym. After a hard workout, what you need is proper recovery, rest and proper eating.
Related: How to recognize the 5 major symptoms of overtraining and get back to building muscle mass fast
2. Under-eating or Not Eating Enough
Under-eating is another huge factor that limits many trainees from gaining muscle mass. The largest percent of hardgainers fall in one of these two categories – they are either over-trainers or under-eaters. Research has shown many times that hardgainers usually overestimate the amount of food they eat on a daily or weekly basis.
Although such trainees may eat enough calories at times, they often compensate for those high-calorie days by lowering their calories in the following days or even drastically lowering the calories the same day when they ate their high calorie meal.
The simple fact is that, to gain muscle, you have to provide not only the proper training stimulus, but also the building blocks for the new tissue. This means that you need to provide sufficient calories and energy.
A great part of the overall caloric intake should come from protein . Quantities of 1 to 1.2 grams of protein per 1lb of body mass is what you need to aim if you want to build muscle. Of course you shouldn’t neglect carbs, healthy fats and fiber in your diet, as they play equally important roles.
3. Focusing Mostly on Isolation Exercises
Don’t get me wrong here, isolation exercises are not bad. They are a great way to work on details and give you the finishing touch to your body. Isolation exercises are also the fix for lagging bodyparts. But you should focus on isolation exercises only when you have built the base – a strong and a big body.
Until then – work on your compound lifts like bench press, overhead press, squats, deadlifts, rows, chin ups and pull ups. And of course throw in a few sets of curls and side raises here and there for aesthetics. Here are the best 8 compound lifts for building maximal size and strength.
4. Overdoing cardio
Including some cardio exercises can actually be beneficial to most of trainees. It can increase your appetite, keep conditioning up, it can help improve recovery and it keeps the fat burning metabolic processes running so you burn fat more efficiently.
However, too much cardio can hurt your strength and muscle gains. Two or three 20-30 minute, low-intensity cardio sessions a week should be ok and at the same time not too much to stop your gains.
Related: Does cardio make you lose muscle ?
5. Not sleeping enough
Lack of sleep appears to be one of the most prevalent issues in modern living. The majority of us suffer from sleep deprivation even though it is recommended that you receive seven to eight hours of sleep each day.
The body replenishes, rests, and repairs itself during sleep, which is an indispensable and vital necessity. Every tissue and cell depends on sleep for growth and development, immune system recuperation, optimal metabolic function, and other processes.
The likelihood of hormone abnormalities rises dramatically in the absence of consistent, high-quality sleep. Growth hormone, melatonin, appetite-regulating hormones (leptin, ghrelin), insulin, cortisol, estrogen, and testosterone are just a few of the numerous hormones the body generates when you sleep. Lack of sleep might result in insufficient testosterone secretion because the hormone is largely created during sleep.
Related: The Importance of Sleep for Building Muscle
So next time before you cry that you can’t build any muscle, check the above 5 factors and make sure one or more of them are not the reason for your lack of gains.
