If you’re a hardgainer who wants to build muscle, but you’re frustrated because you don’t seem to be getting anywhere, and the standard hardgainer workout advice to “follow an abbreviated training program where your workouts are brief and infrequent” hasn’t worked, this page will show you what to do.
Here’s the story:
Once, I got an email from a hardgainer.
He’d been trying to put on muscle, following a training program that involved doing full-body workouts 2-3 times a week. Each full body workout comprised solely compound movements, with each set performed with a very high intensity of effort.
But no matter how much he trained or what he ate, the gains seemed so slow.
He felt like he was doomed to stay to stay looking the same way forever, and was seriously questioning whether it was ever going to be worth his effort.
Some say there’s no such thing as a hardgainer, just people that don’t know how to eat enough food.
Others swear that they stay skinny and underweight (the so-called ectomorph body type) no matter how many “hardgainer workouts” they do in the gym or how much food they eat.
Is there really such a thing as a hardgainer? How do they differ from others that have an easier time gaining muscle? And what should they be doing differently in the gym?
Is There Such a Thing as a Hardgainer?
Yes, there is such a thing as a hardgainer. Some lucky folks add muscle mass relatively quickly when they start lifting weights. They’re called “fast” or “extreme” responders.
For others, the results come much more slowly, even if they lift and eat the same. They’re known as “non” or “slow” responders.
In one study, for example, lifters spent 16 weeks training their quads [1]. Although everyone followed the exact same training program, there were large differences in muscle growth from person to person.
Most subjects increased the size of the muscle fibers in their quads by 28 percent. One in four saw outstanding results, increasing their fiber size by an average of almost 60 percent. But 26% of the subjects were non-responders, posting an average increase in muscle fiber size of precisely zero percent.
Labeling someone a “non-responder” isn’t entirely accurate, as there is usually a response of some kind [2]. It’s rare that months of training leads to no adaptation at all. Rather, what happens is that non-responders don’t respond in the way that an average person would.
In other words, when you start lifting weights, something is going to happen. But the something that happens isn’t necessarily going to be the something you want to happen.
And even if the something that happens is the something you want to happen, it’s something that isn’t necessarily going to happen as quickly as you’d like it to.
What Does It Mean to Be a Hardgainer?
The fact that hardgainers exist doesn’t necessarily mean that you are one. Are you really a hardgainer? Or just an “average” gainer with skewed expectations about how fast it’s possible to gain muscle?
Gaining muscle is hard work no matter who you are. Some people do build muscle more slowly than others. But I haven’t met many people who say that gaining muscle is easy.
What’s more, the fact that someone starts out skinny and scrawny doesn’t automatically make them a hardgainer. You can’t always tell just by looking at someone how well their muscles will respond to training.
There are people with a low baseline level of muscle mass, but with the potential for rapid growth [3]. Likewise, there are also people with a high baseline level of muscle mass who won’t see the same level of growth when they start lifting weights.
In other words, the fact that you’re naturally skinny doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll struggle to gain muscle when you start lifting weights.
What Makes a Hardgainer a Hardgainer?
There are lots of opinions about why hardgainers have such a tough time gaining muscle, from low testosterone levels to a super fast metabolism.
One theory is that hardgainers exhibit a magnified inflammatory response to training.
That is, an identical training program will lead to more inflammation and muscle damage in a slow versus a fast responder. And it’s this excessive muscle damage and pro-inflammatory signaling that’s putting the brakes on muscle growth.
Some people do appear to recover more slowly after a bout of resistance training. Studies show that these “slow recoverers” lose more strength after a workout, take longer to recover, and experience a greater degree of muscle soreness [4].
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Slow responders also show a greater degree of localized inflammation, which may interfere with the ability of muscles to respond to training [5].
Inflammation isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But too much of it definitely isn’t, with a sweet spot found somewhere between “too much” and “not enough” inflammation.
How do you go about reducing muscle damage and inflammation?
One way is to cut back on the amount of training you do. Doing fewer sets per muscle group, and training those muscles less often, will usually mean less muscle damage and inflammation.
This fits nicely with most standard workout advice dished out to most hardgainers, which is to follow an abbreviated training program, where your workouts are brief and infrequent.
Hardgainers overtrain very easily, the argument goes. They should stick to big compound lifts and avoid isolation exercises. The best workout for a hardgainer is one that’s short and intense, which is the only way their muscles can recover and grow.
However, I don’t think it’s as simple as that.
For one, I’ve not seen any research that separates the slow and the fast responders, then puts the slow responders on different training programs to see which one works best.
Much of the workout advice geared towards hardgainers is based on tradition and opinion rather than any solid evidence.
In fact, the authors of a study linking slow muscle growth with excessive inflammation think that slow responders “may require a greater stimulus or longer duration of the same stimulus to remodel/hypertrophy their muscle fibers.” [5]
In other words, they’re saying that hardgainers potentially require a greater stimulus rather than a smaller one.
What’s more, when a team of scientists looked at the research linking slow responders and inflammatory signaling, they came to the conclusion that the jury is still out [6].
Here’s what they had to say on the subject:
“While preliminary evidence suggests that select mRNAs related to inflammatory signaling may be differentially expressed in low versus high responders, there is not enough experimental evidence to suggest low responders exist in a heightened inflammatory state during training periods.”
Here’s something else to think about.
Take a look at the figure below, which comes from a 2018 study on the subject of training volume and muscle growth [7].
The study looked at the effect of three different training volumes – low, medium and high. The low volume group did one set per exercise, the medium volume group did three sets, while the high volume group did five sets.
All three groups trained three days a week on non-consecutive days (i.e. Monday, Wednesday and Friday), doing the same exercises, for 8-12 reps per set. It was only training volume that differed between the groups.
The circles represent individual changes in muscle thickness in the biceps after two months of training, while the horizontal bars represent the group average.
As you can see, there were large individual differences in results, even with an identical training program.
There were fast and slow responders in all three groups. But what’s interesting to me is that the “slow responders” in the five-set group made faster gains than those in the one-set group.
To be clear, this isn’t based on a statistical analysis of the data. I’m just going by what I can see. Statistically speaking, there may well have been no difference in results between slow responders in the one-set group and slow responders in the five-set group.
However, it does raise questions about the advice given to hardgainers that they should simply do less.
Australian researchers report similar results in a study that looks at the effect of training volume on strength gains [8]. They found high and low responders in subjects doing two, eight and sixteen sets of squats per week.
However, the number of low responders was greatest in the low volume group. In contrast, more high responders were found in the 8-set and 16-set groups.
In some cases, the slow response to resistance training may be because someone is doing too much. In others, it might be because they’re not doing enough.
Put differently, there may well some hardgainers who respond better to higher training volumes, and some that respond to lower training volumes. Muscles can be made to grow with both approaches. People who don’t respond well to one may respond well to the other.
What to Do If You Are a Hardgainer
The first step is to take a closer look at what you’re doing outside the gym. There are often one or more factors unrelated to training that are responsible for putting the brakes on muscle growth.
Chronic mental stress combined with a low stress resilience, a poor diet or lack of sleep can all conspire to make building muscle more difficult than it otherwise would be. You need to make sure you’re eating enough, sleeping enough and minimizing external sources of stress.
“Try to out-recover the gifted elite,” says strength coach Andrew Heming. “If they sleep 7 hours a night, you might need 8. If they need 4,000 calories a day, you might need 5,000.
“While they may be able to get away with throwing food together, you might need a structured meal plan. If they can get away without naps, massages, and various stress management techniques, you might need to double down on them.
“Train hard. Recover harder.”
Don’t overlook this stuff.
It’s simple, basic and you’ve heard it all before. But if you’re serious about building muscle, it’s the consistent and relentless execution of the fundamentals that will get you there.
Nutrition for the Hardgainer: Calories, Protein, Fat & Carbs
Alongside a solid training program, the hard gainer will also need to make sure their diet is set up properly in order to build muscle and gain weight.
If you’re not eating enough of the right food, a hefty chunk of your hard work in the gym will be wasted.
First, the hardgainer should aim for 300-500 calories per day over and above their maintenance calorie requirements.
What does that mean exactly?
Let’s say that you’re able to maintain your current weight on 2500 calories per day. All other things being equal, you’d start to gain weight if you increased your energy intake to 3000 calories per day instead.
Those additional 300-500 calories represent a calorie surplus. And that surplus of energy would be used to fuel muscle growth.
Compared with some of the 5000 calorie dirty bulking diets out there, that probably doesn’t sound like much. But you can’t force your muscles to grow faster simply by stuffing yourself with food.
Extra energy that isn’t used to fuel your workouts, to help you recover from those workouts, or to power muscle hypertrophy, will just end up stored as fat. All of which you’ll need to get rid of at some point in future.
Some hardgainers do have high calorie requirements. They tend to burn off a lot of calories throughout the day, and have a hard time eating enough to maintain their weight, let alone gain any.
But once those maintenance requirements have been met, gaining muscle is unlikely to require a calorie surplus in excess of 500 calories per day.
Next, make sure that you’re eating at least 0.7 grams of protein per pound (1.6 grams of protein per kilogram) of body weight.
Eating more won’t do you any harm, but it’s unlikely to help you gain muscle any faster. For most people, 0.7 grams of protein per pound of body weight per day will do the job.
Ideally, you’d have a dose of protein within the first few hours after waking up, before a workout, after a workout, and before going to bed. Each meal should contain 20-40 grams of protein.
If you struggle to get enough protein from your diet, drinking 1-3 protein shakes (from whey protein or a similar high-quality source) represents a quick and simple way to get the extra protein you need to maximize the rate at which you gain muscle mass.
As for fat, that can vary from 20 to 40 percent of your total calorie intake. And there’s no rule that says it has to be the same from one day to the next. Some days you might eat a little more fat, some days a little less.
Once protein and fat are taken care of, the rest of your calories should come from carbs. Ideally, most of those carbs should come from whole foods, which provide your body with plenty of vitamins, minerals and other nutritional benefits.
The Best Hardgainer Workout Routine: Does One Exist?
There is no single best hardgainer workout routine that’s going to work equally well for everyone, all of the time. That’s because people are different, not just in terms of how fast their muscles grow, but also in terms of the type of training they respond best to [9].
That is, some people might be slow responders to a particular training program, but tinkering with some of the variables gives them better results.
If your muscles haven’t grown from heavy weights and lower reps, they might respond better to lighter weights and higher reps, or to an increase in training frequency.
Two people can respond very differently to the same training program. The “best way” for one person to train may be very different to someone else’s “best way.” Just because a particular style of training works well for some people doesn’t necessarily mean that your body will respond in the same way.
One variable with the potential to have a big impact on your results is training volume, which I’m defining here as the number of weekly sets for a given muscle group.
While you need some volume for muscle growth, too much is going to hinder your progress, and too little will have the same effect.
I’ve not seen any research that attempts to identify how training volume affects muscle growth in hardgainers. However, it has been done in the field of endurance exercise.
In one study, subjects who saw little or no gains in cardiovascular fitness following a six-week low-volume training protocol made much better improvements when they upped the dose of training [10]. In fact, none of the participants were classified as “non responders” after the higher volume of exercise.
In another, increasing the amount of exercise reduced the rate of nonresponse by 50%. At a fixed amount of exercise, increasing exercise intensity eliminated the rate of nonresponse completely [11].
I can’t tell you exactly how many sets to do, and nor can anyone else. Research can point the way, but it only tells you the average response in a group of people.
That’s why it’s important to experiment. And the logical way to go about doing so is to start out with a lower training volume and gradually work your way up.
How Can a Hardgainer Gain Muscle?
The first step is to hit the reset button on your training. Whatever it is that you’re currently doing in the gym, stop doing it, and take a week or two off.
As soon as you’re back in action, start out a relatively low training volume. By low, I’m talking about 3-6 hard sets per week for the main muscle groups. Divide this across 2-3 training sessions.
As I mentioned earlier, hardgainers may have a greater than normal inflammatory response to training, which could be partly responsible for their slow rate of muscle growth. A reduction in training volume means less muscle damage and less inflammation, which may be just what you need to make your muscles grow.
However, this is just a starting point. If, after a couple of months of solid work, you’ve made no progress, then it’s time to start ramping up the volume.
Keep a training diary to monitor your progress, and adjust volume until you find the right balance between recovery and growth.
Use your performance in the gym to guide you. If you’re able to lift more weight for the same number of reps, or do more reps with the same amount of weight, that’s a good sign that what you’re doing is working.
The precise location of this sweet spot will shift over time in response to changes in diet, sleep, and stress levels. Your tolerance for volume won’t be as high when you’re busy, short on sleep and not recovering as well.
Finally, make sure to increase your training volume gradually. Some people may need a higher volume of training to make their muscles grow, but will have to work up to it slowly. Take your time, be patient and give your body the chance to adapt.
My Preferred Hardgainer Workout Routine
If you’re a hardgainer who wants a simple but highly effective workout routine you can use to build muscle, this is the sort of thing I’d recommend.
As you can see, there’s a mix of both isolation and compound exercises. Several of the compound exercises are done with relatively heavy weights, for between 5 and 8 reps (which represents around 80 to 85% of your 1-rep max).
Workout 1: Monday & Thursday
- Barbell Bench Press 3 sets x 5-8 reps
- Wide Grip Lat Pulldown 3 sets x 8-12 reps
- Incline Dumbbell Press 3 sets x 8-12 reps
- Single-Arm Dumbbell Row 3 sets x 5-8 reps
- Dumbbell Shoulder Press 3 sets x 5-8 reps
- Incline Dumbbell Curl 3 sets x 8-12 reps
- Triceps Pressdown 3 sets x 8-12 reps
NOTE: If you’re strong enough to do a minimum of 5 pull-ups for 3 sets, do pull-ups instead of pulldowns.
Workout 2: Tuesday & Friday
- Barbell Squat 3 sets x 5-8 reps
- Romanian Deadlift 3 sets x 8-12 reps
- Leg Extension 3 sets x 12-15 reps
- Seated Leg Curl 3 sets x 8-12 reps
- Standing Calf Raise 4 sets x 5-8 reps
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See Also
- Muscle Evo – a training program for people who want to build muscle and get strong while minimizing fat gain.
- MX4 – a joint-friendly training program for gaining muscle as fast as humanly possible.
- Gutless – a simple, straightforward, science-backed nutrition system for getting rid of fat.