Strength Training Tips for Hardgainers
Jun 23, 2023 mindpumpHardgainers classify as individuals who struggle to put on weight and size. They tend to be naturally leaner guys. Personally, I’m a little jealous of you guys. You can eat whatever you want and never put on weight. If I even stare at food I start to add body fat. Of course, the grass is always greener. Today, I’d like to give some strength training tips for beginners looking to put on size.
Compound Movements
For starters, we need to focus on the best bang for your buck movements. These are compound movements like squats, deadlifts, overhead press, rows, and bench press. The beauty of these exercises is that they allow you to progress using a lot of weight, and they stimulate a lot of muscles per exercise. The bench press for example, targets your chest, shoulders, and triceps.
On the flip side, if you spend too much time focusing on isolation movements, it’ll only stimulate that specific muscle. That is totally fine as a tool, but what happens more often than not is, I see guys spending way too much time in the gym on arms and not enough time on bigger compound movements which will not only help those muscles grow the same, but hit many more along the way.
1 more rep!
Another mistake I see in the gym a lot is guys randomly picking a weight and doing it for a random number of reps. Or they just keep using the same weight for the same reps. I am very big on what gets measured, gets improved. Track your workouts! You should be aiming for one more rep or 5 pounds more than the week before!
If we want to build muscle, we need to continually provide a stimulus great enough to tell the muscle to break down and grow. Our bodies will adapt to the given weight you give it over time, so you need to keep further challenging that muscle to grow. Please note, this will involve getting out of your comfort zone and hitting moments where you are going to have to push it. Stay 1-2 reps shy of failure so you don’t risk injury or the inability to recover.
Frequency and Volume Matters
It’s not just about progressive overload. How much work you are doing total in a given week, for each muscle, is important. For beginners, you do not need more than 8-10 TOTAL sets for a given muscle in that entire week. If you are doing chest work that means in a given 7 day week you are only doing 8-10 TOTAL sets.
You could do all 10 of those sets in one day. The only issue with that is if you miss that workout, you’ll have now neglected an entire muscle group for a week. This isn’t good for progression. Try splitting it up over 2-3 workouts so that you can hit that muscle fresh and thus have the potential to use more weight. This can be a full body workout split or a push pull split.
Ensure a Caloric Surplus
Let’s not forget nutrition. We need to be in a caloric surplus to provide the resources to grow towards that lifting stimulus we place in the gym. You can find your TDEFF or maintenance intake, and then add 200 calories above that to begin the foundation for your bulk. That extra 200 calories will place you in a surplus to grow. Eat 1 gram per pound of bodyweight to get enough protein. The rest of your calories can come from a mix of carbohydrates and fats. If you want, you can target eating the bulk of your carbohydrates around your workout window to fuel the workout. They are an easily accessible form of fuel for short burst activity such as lifting.
Try to stick to whole foods, so your body gets the vitamins and minerals it needs along with the macronutrients listed above.
