4 POWERFUL Skinny Guy Muscle Growing Tips
Aug 4, 2020 mindpumpIf you are a skinny guy who wants to pack on muscle mass NOW, you have come to the right place.
I know exactly how you feel. I used to be a skinny, hard-gainer myself. My shoulders were so bony that my t shirts looked like they were on a coat rack. My arms were so small that my P.E. coaches would ask the other students to “go easy” on me when we played sports like volleyball. I HATED being skinny and that is what drove me to learn AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE about the science of muscle ADAPTATION (aka muscle building).
Over the last two decades I have learned a lot about why the typical skinny guys body does not build muscle like most. I solved the skinny guy mystery for myself and for my clients. I’ve personally trained hundreds of guys who found building muscle nearly impossible, and I have trained hundreds more through proxy (by training their trainers).
Although there is a lot that goes into proper training, diet, and lifestyle, there are some key factors that skinny guys MUST focus on and understand in order to pack on muscle. These factors are unique to skinny guys and are IMPERATIVE.
Alright, let’s get into it. Below are the 4 KEY FACTORS that can help skinny guys pack on lean MASS.
1. Train Your Whole Body 3 Times a Week
Popular bodybuilding “wisdom” says to hit each body part hard in the gym once a week and to allow it to “rest and recover” for the rest of the days of the week. Typical routines consist of working 1-2 body parts a day with a total of 10-16 sets. These workouts are known as classic body part split routines. They work great for a lot of guys, but they are TERRIBLY ineffective for classic skinny guys.
I stubbornly followed these body part split routines “hit each muscle hard once a week,” for years and gained very little muscle for it. Then, one day I looked up the routines of early muscle building athletes and strong men. I read about men like Steve Reeves, John Grimek, Clancy Ross and Eugene Sandow. These guys built their impressive physiques without drugs like steroids, and displayed proven muscle gaining results before the invention of supplements like creatine.
What I found was ENLIGHTENING. None of them followed a body part split routine. They all trained their entire body three days a week. After learning this, I immediately changed my own routine and was BLOWN AWAY. That summer I packed on 15 lean pounds of muscle and never looked back.
When you learn about the science of muscle adaptation, it all makes sense. When you lift weights with sufficient intensity, you damage muscle and send a signal to your body that says, “we need to repair this damage AND we need to get stronger so that this damage does not happen again.” This is known as adaptation.
We can measure this muscle building adaptation signal by looking at something called muscle protein synthesis. When the signal is elevated, it means the body is building muscle. When it is at baseline, you are not building muscle at all.
Studies on muscle protein synthesis clearly show that this signal quickly spikes after a workout, and peaks at around the 24-72-hour mark, after which is suddenly DROPS back down to normal. In other words, your muscles are building and adapting for about 1 to 3 days after a workout. The rest of the week they aren’t building, EVEN IF you are still sore. In fact, after the spike in muscle building has dropped, its VERY likely that skinny guys’ genetics tell their body to reverse direction since there has not been another recent adaptation signal (workout for that muscle).
Training each muscle once a week is KILLING your ability to build muscle. Skinny guys need to train the whole body more frequently than the average guy. Rather than performing 15 sets for chest on Monday, try doing 5 sets for chest on Monday, Wednesday and Friday instead. This will keep the muscle protein synthesis signal elevated throughout the week, thus resulting in muscle gain.
2. Do Not Train to Failure
Yes, I know, “no pain no gain.” All the Instagram steroid freaks tell you that “beast mode” and super intense workouts are the only way you will force your body to build muscle. This advice is not only wrong, it is literally SLAMMING the breaks on muscle building.
It’s true that intensity is important when it comes to muscle building. The body does need a reason to build muscle in the first place, and it will not do so unless it thinks it is essential. This is because muscle is a relatively expensive tissue requiring lots of resources and nutrients.
BUT, over applying intensity OVERCOMES your body’s muscle building adaptation signal. When push comes to shove, your body prioritizes HEALING over building. Although they often happen simultaneously, recovering and building (adaptation) are NOT the same thing. Lifting weights to failure is too much intensity most of the time, and this is ESPECIALLY true for the hard-gaining, skinny guy.
In fact, when I tell skinny guys to change JUST ONE THING in their workouts, it is to stop lifting to failure. Like clockwork, they ALL get stronger and build muscle faster right away. In a couple of weeks, many of them see results just from cutting sets 1-2 reps short of failure.
Next time you work out, lift hard and train intensely but do not lift to failure. Stop each set 1-2 reps BEFORE you fail. It will provide you with the right amount of intensity, not too little and not too much.
3. Eat More FOOD
This one is a tough one. You are probably thinking to yourself, “I already eat a TON of food.” Well, it’s probably still not enough. While most guys are dealing with a slow metabolism that is making them fat, you have a roaring hot metabolism that seems to burn off anything you eat.
In my professional training career, I have witnessed vast differences in metabolisms between individuals. I have had clients that gained body fat eating anything over 1000 calories, and I’ve had clients with similar looking body types and activity levels who could consume more than twice as much, without gaining a single pound.
Skinny guys have been blessed, or cursed, with very fast metabolisms. Your body will not build muscle if it does not have the raw materials to do so. If every calorie you eat is being burned, your body has nothing left to build with, not to mention that each pound of muscle burns more calories! This means that the more muscle you gain THE MORE YOU NEED TO EAT.
Ok, so how much? Research has shown that guys with fast metabolisms need to consume roughly 20-22 calories per pound of body weight. This means a 150-pound man would need to eat roughly 3000-3300 calories a day. Keep in mind, diet is never the same from person to person so you may be ok with a bit less, or you may need to eat even more than recommended.
Keep protein high at about 1 gram per pound of body weight. The rest of the calories can be evenly distributed between fat and carbs.
If this sounds daunting don’t worry. There are strategies that can help you eat the number of calories your body needs to pack on size.
One tip is to eat 4-6 meals a day. If you are trying to consume 3000 calories in just three meals, that means each meal is 1000 calories each. That can be hard, you can feel bloated and stuffed making it difficult to eat the next meal. Instead, break it up between more meals. 3000 calories in 6 meals is only 500 calories each, and this is much easier to digest and process.
Another tip is to drink high calorie shakes in between meals. Full fat milk blended with a protein powder and some fruit can easily add an additional 300-500 calories to your diet.
4. Get Good Sleep
Everyone skips this one and it is too bad. Good sleep ramps up testosterone production, amplifies your body’s ability to recover and build, and it helps with a healthy appetite.
That being said, it’s not so much the good effects of good sleep that are important to understand, it’s the profound negative effects of poor sleep that will CRUSH any attempts at building muscle. You can have the best diet, training, supplements…. EVERYTHING, and poor sleep will override it all.
When you aren’t getting adequate sleep, your body reacts with a stress response. It elevates the muscle destroying hormone, cortisol, and it drastically lowers the muscle building hormones testosterone and growth hormone. Your body literally works to NOT build any muscle when sleep is not adequate.
Remember earlier when I said muscle is expensive tissue? It burns a lot of calories and it requires lots of nutrients. Well, if your body thinks you are suffering from too much stress (lack of sleep clearly sends this signal), then it will NOT increase its caloric or nutrient demanding tissue.
Aim for 7-8 hours of sleep every single night. Prepare for sleep by shutting off all electronics 1-2 hours before bed, or at the very least, wear blue light blocking glasses. Light tells the brain that the sun is out, and it takes the brain an hour or longer to register that it is time to sleep. Going straight from being exposed to light, to trying to sleep, means that you are wasting an hour of sleep while your brain winds down.
There you have it, the 4 most important factors that can have a profound impact on muscle building for the typical skinny guy. Apply all four of them TODAY, and you should notice positive improvements within the next two weeks.
