Building Muscle For Hardgainers!
Are you a hard gainer looking to build muscle? If so, I would highly suggest continuing to read this article as it will provide you with no BS information, no strings attached! Only the information that will be beneficial to you and your pursuit of building muscle for hardgainers!
So what will this article entail?
- What You Might Be Overlooking
- The Two Priorities
- You Gotta Keep With It
With that being said, let’s get to the information!
Don’t Overlook These Things!
One thing that occurs with many people struggling to gain muscle is they’re not doing what they think they’re doing. Many people honestly believe they are eating enough food, or training hard enough; when in reality, they’re not!
This is typically because of two things. The first being they are inexperienced and don’t have much knowledge about ensuring they are completing the steps needed to grow muscle.
Or, they might just not be committed enough to the process. If you expect to grow muscle while also not putting in the effort, that could very well be your issue.
With all this being said, how do we not overlook these things? For nutrition, it is important to understand your maintenance calories and ensure you are eating in enough of a surplus to effectively grow muscle.
When it comes to the effort side of things, you either want it or you don’t. You will either stay consistent with your nutrition, or you won’t. You will either push yourself during your workouts, or you won’t. It’s up to you.
No one is perfect. Everyone struggles with effort, myself included. I am happy with my effort for fitness-related things, but not happy in my effort for other goals of mine.
We all have room for improvement, but it is about starting, getting done what needs to be done and staying consistent.
The Two Priorities:
Nutrition:
Now that we know two primary things to not overlook, it is important to understand these priorities and why they are significant.
First, let’s discuss nutrition. When your goal is purely focussed on gaining muscle, a calorie surplus is the most optimal way to accomplish this. Why? Because it supplies our body with the calories it needs to cover its daily jobs and activities, fuels the energy-intensive process of gaining muscle, all while providing a great deal of energy for our training sessions!
How do we know if we are in a calorie surplus? One approach that I like for those who don’t have an idea of their calorie requirements is the combination of using a calorie calculator while monitoring any changes in their weight.
How does this work? Well, you would use a calorie calculator to estimate your maintenance calories, then eat at this amount for at least 2 weeks. You would then take a starting weight and weigh yourself every day for this minimum of two weeks. From there, you would take the average of your weekly weigh-ins and see how/if your weight fluctuates over these two weeks.
After this, you can determine what or if any calorie adjustments should be made. For example, if your weight didn’t change, it is pretty safe to say you have found your maintenance calories. Now, you can look at increasing calories by 300-500. This amount will ultimately depend on how lean you currently are, how fast you’re wanting to gain muscle and the amount of body fat you’re ok with gaining.
Training:
When it comes to training, the overall process is simple. Use enough volume per muscle group per week to stimulate muscle growth, ensure you are challenging yourself enough and make sure you are applying progressive overload.
There is a ton to discuss on this topic, which is why I will link an article at the end focussed specifically on this!
Sticking With It:
So… all this newfound or reinforced knowledge and guidelines are fine and dandy. These guidelines help give you a plan to achieve your goals. However, the plan you have to achieve your goals is only as good as your ability to execute it.
You need to ensure you are staying consistent with whatever plan you implement to achieve your goals if you want the plan to work. It only makes sense… right?
Consistency is key. I am not saying perfection. But consistency.
P.S – Usually, I write a whole conclusion section but I feel like this is a great way to end the article. With that being said, have a great rest of your day, and thank you!
Here are some other articles that may be beneficial for your knowledge!
How to Create a Workout Program
Until Next Time,
Kohl Johnson
Please refer to my liability disclaimer to ensure you know who is responsible for use of this information after reading.
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