Body Building for Hard Gainers

The title of this article is quite misleading. I'm not writing this to mislead you I just know that there are truly a lot of people out there who would categorize themselves as "hard gainers". Let's look at what most people feel constitutes a hard gainer. Most of us feel that if we go to the gym and give 100% effort during our workout and we comply with a proper diet, there should be no reason why we aren't able to gain mass amounts of muscle. However, if you were to go to the average gym in your city you would notice that there are a lot of people there who don't seem to be very muscular but do tend to work out regularly. Surely they fit the description of a "hard gainer"? I hate to break it to anyone who's reading this article looking for some new ground breaking information to help hard gainers because there is none. The reason there's nothing new to help hard gainers is due to the fact that there is no such thing as a hard gainer. The first thing people who have trouble gaining muscle need to do is let that term go. That term is nothing more then a glorified excuse. And a lot of the health companies love preying on that term in hopes of you buying their products. The sooner you let that term go the sooner you will be able to start making gains.

There are not many things in life that you can't accomplish if you don't have the belief that you can do so. Body building is no different. You have already adopted the term hard gainer which means in the back of your mind you feel that you just can't put muscle on. How do you figure you will be able to gain muscle and lose fat if you don't have the confidence in yourself to do so? The first thing you need to do is eliminate any negative thoughts from your mind. The most important part of any project (yes building your body is a project) is to plan ahead. Make your goals apparent before you even start to consider lifting weights! Knowledge is the key to many things in life and gaining muscle is no different.

What most people who consider themselves hard gainers seem to do is, overcompensate and make their workouts too long and inefficient. The fact of the matter is, if you over train on a regular basis, you'll be lucky if you don't actually lose the muscle you already have. There is no need to add more reps and sets nor do you need to try the newest, hottest workout. You, for the most part, need to go back to the basics. Its not rocket science here it's actually quite easy. Stick to heavy compound exercises and make sure to do less then 6 reps per set. Also when using maximum effort you need to rest at least 3 minutes between sets. The 2 biggest mistakes trainees make when trying to gain muscle mass are a poor diet and poor recovery time. You can't work any muscles out more then once a week when doing maximum effort exercises. If you do so you'll be breaking your body down more then you could ever repair in order to gain muscle. Just like a car, when you put wear and tear on it you can't expect it to not need premium fuel. So why is it that we think we can go to the gym and work our bodies out without putting the best foods back into them? If you use heavy compound exercises, fuel your body with high quality protein and rest between workouts you'll see the gains that once eluded you, appear before your eyes. The hardest part of being a hard gainer is getting past the excuse!

Michael Russell Your Independent guide to Body Building.