bodybuilding for hard gainers

Bodybuilding for Slow Gainers

A lot of people know that genetics play a role in body building, and how well people can gain muscle. What most people don't know however, is how to best utilize their body type to gain the most lean muscle mass.

There are 3-main body types, or somatotypes. Mesomorphic (naturally muscular), endomorphic (a naturally more fatty individual), and ectomorphic (high metablolism, slow gainer.) I'm going to focus on the ectomorphic body type. This is what I am, and is typically the guy that's always at the gym working out but never seems able to gain any real muscle mass.

Diet plays a major factor. An ectomorphic individual is in constant need of calories. Any body builder needs a constant supply of protein and calories, but with this body type it is even more essential. You must wake up with a fast digesting protein source, specifically whey. I use it as creamer and flavor, mixing it in with my first cup of coffee.

Another good thing to take first thing in the morning is creatine. This gets it in your system early on and working through out the day to power and hydrate (bulk up) your muscle tissues. The thing to remember with creatine though is that you don't want to mix it with caffiene or anything else acidic, as it breaks it down. In fact, after mixing the powder form with water you want to consume it within 10 minutes as that will start to break it down as well. One thing you do want to mix it with is sugar. This is one of the few times you want to as a body builder consume sugar. By spiking your blood sugar level your body actually better absorbs and uses the creatine. Since I drink several cups of coffee a day (not the best for an ectomorph, but it's a habit), I mix my whey in with that through out the day and wait until I'm done drinking my coffee to mix my creatine with whey and milk separately from the caffiene. A lot of people don't realize that milk actually contains a good amount of sugar, so it's a good liquid to mix it with.

Now with regards to diet, the next thing to keep in mind is frequency and regularity. Your body is typically in one of two states, anabolism (muscle building) or catabolism (muscles breaking down). The goal is to prevent catabolism as much as possible. In order to stay anabolic you must consume protein and carbohydrates every 3-4 hours in order to feed your protein synthesis. For me this usually means a whey protein shake in a glass of milk, along with some form of complex carbohydrates. If you don't have carbs your body will burn the protein rather than use it for protein synthesis. A good complex carb can include whole wheats, brown rice, or granola cereal. Sometimes in the summer i'll lose my appetite and get to the point where I drink almost a gallon of milk a day.

The point is not just the overall amount of protein through out the day, which most consider a gram to a gram and a half per pound of body weight to be good, but also to spread it out through out the day. You're body can't use large amounts of protein at one time, and it doesn't store it for long periods either, so you must constantly feed it with high quality protein. My personal rule of thumb is to consume 25- 50 grams at each sittting. On the lower end for normal periods, and towards the higher end previous to, during, and/or after work outs.

Your body best takes in and uses protein during and immediately after an intense weight training work out, so you definitely want to utilize best this time of rapid absorbtion. Also you want to make sure that your body has creatine in it for the work out. Creatine is a daily supplement that you need to maintain regardless of whether or not you're working out that day, but a little extra when working out helps to fuel your muscles and aids with recovery. A typical dose is 5 grams of creatine monohydrate. Personally, i'd say to take a dose before working out and one afterwards. Creatine is an especially vital supplement for ectomorphs that want to gain weight.

Another important supplement is glutamine. I say this because it helps to counter catabolism from lactic acid build up during a work out. I like to make a shake about 30-45 minutes before my work out and mix about 25 grams whey, 5 grams creatine, and 5 grams glutamine in with a glass of milk. Doing the same immediately after a workout is a good practice as well.

During a workout i'd almost say the best thing would be pure water, or possibly simple carbs. I say this because it's actually been proven that dehydration decreases testosterone levels. So you want to stay hydrated through out the day, preferably with pure water. Anything with sugar, or caffiene in it will actually work against your goal of hydration.

Another supplement not specific to ectomorphs, but that can be useful for anyone is nitrous oxide. This isn't the kind you inhale as a gas, but comes in the form of pills. I say this because people i've advised in the past have actually misunderstood me. What this does is increase blood flow and it actually also increases your adrenaline. I'd recommend it about 20-30 minutes before a work out. Anytime i've used it i've had vastly superior strength and endurance. It doesn't seem to last for a long duration, but really helps when it does kick in, so maybe mutliple smaller doses would be best. Say 20 minutes, and then again immediately prior to your work out.

One good thing about being an ectomorph that other body builders tend to envy once we learn how to bulk up is that we cut up well. This means that not only should we consume extra calories while some body builders are only consuming lean protein, but that we can afford to.

The last consumption before you go to bed should be low cal though, a time when anyone has to be careful as it will not metabolize as quickly resulting in unlean weight gain. At this time you want to consume a slow digesting source of protein. Good examples of these are casein, and soy. They both come in a powder form for making protein shakes. Cheese is a good source of casein as well, and cottage cheese specifically is the best source as it's lower in fat and still puts a little substance in your stomach.

Night is the worst time for a body buider because you inevitably enter a state of catabolism without any food intake while you sleep. This is why you want the slow digesting protein just before going to bed. Another trick I used to use was to have a pre-mixed protein shake next to my bed. That way if I happened to wake up in the middle of the night I could drink some of it before going back to bed. It also is conveniant for in the morning when you wake up. At that time you can just finish it off if you hadn't through out the night.

Just remember not to mix creatine unless you're going to drink it within 10 minutes. It's also best to consume the creatine earlier in the day. Another thing to remember about this supplement is that although it can be a miracle supplement, especially for slow gainers, it's best not to take it too excessively. If you consume a lot of it it'll lead to excessive water in your muscle tissue. This will make you look large, but is the same thing that can happen with steroid use: it makes your muscle tissue less firm.

I quit following the standard 7-day work out schedule many years ago. It just doesn't work well or make sense for an ectomorph. Instead i've designed an 8 day work out schedule. Every other day you have an intense upper body work out, and the day in the middle you reserve for building back up. This has made a huge difference in my overall results.

On your “off days” you can do a few sets of lower body, but let your upper body rest. I'd recommend no more than 3 sets of each form, ie 3 sets of bench press.

Day 1: Chest and tricep

Flat bench press with barbell or dumbells.

Flat bench with barbell, close grip.

Flat bench with dumbells, flys.

Day 2: Three sets of squats or lunges could help your testosterone stay high.

Day 3: Lower lats and bicep

Barbell or dumbell (lawnmower) rows.

Barbell or dumbell shrugs.

Rear delt isolation.

Bicep isolation/ curls, ie barbell or dumbell curls. Reverse grip with an easy curl bar or hammers with dumbells can be good.

Day 4: Three sets of calf raisers could help balance out your lower body. The way you angle your feet will determine what side of your calf you work. I usually angle my feet in so that I can better recruit my outer calf which has always been a little smaller.

Day 5: Shoulders and tricep

Incline bench press with barbell or dumbell.

Clean and jerk military press.

Front and mid delt isolation/ raisers.

Tricep isolation/ barbell skull crushers.

Day 6: A few sets of sit ups could help tighten up your abdominals.

Day 7: Upper lats and bicep

Pull-ups.

1) Wide overhand grip works the upper lats the best, which is what gives you the wide upper body look.

2) Narrow, underhand grip is excellent for the bicep.

Day 8: Rest

I have designed this work out schedule to require the least amount of equipment possible while still working every muscle group in your body in a targeted and efficient manner. Also keep in mind that you as an ectomorph you should never work out longer than 30-45 minutes. I get some of my best work-outs in under 20-minutes. Anything longer and you start the process of catabolism.... the very process it is most crucial to avoid.

You'll need:

1. A flat bench (preferably one that will go up to an incline. Upper chest really adds dimension, but isn't absolutely required to be done separately as a flat bench does do the whole chest.)

2. A barbell and some plate weight.

3. A pull up bar.

4. Dumbells. At a minimum get a pair of light weight ones. I have hand bars which allow me to put up to 105 pounds of plate weight on them.

5. Barbell. An easy curl bar can be good for doing close, wide, and reverse grip curls, as well as close grip skull crushers to work the outer tricep head.

One last thing to keep in mind is what's called muscle confusion. Basically the concept is to do different exercise forms in different ways to shock the muscles into growth. Your muscles plateau after awhile of doing the same thing and stop gaining strength and size. You want some consistancy to maintain what you have gained, but you also want to change up some. I usually keep the same exercises, but sometimes will do them differently. You can change your weight and reps, or change what forms of isolation exercise you do. Ie, you could switch from barbell to dumbell rows, do reverse grip instead of hammers, close and wide grip curls instead of mid grip, etc. or go from high weight, low rep, and temporarily do some lower weight, higher reps.

Now that we've examined diet for slow gainers, lets examine the weight training aspects. You have 3 different energy systems that fuel your muscles. Knowing this and how to activate each is vital depending on what your weight training goals are.

These are the creatine/ATP, the intermediate, and the cardivascular energy systems.

The cardiovascular energy system burns fat, and is where slow gainers don't want to be. You enter into this after doing sets longer than say 10 seconds, doing sets with little rest period between them, and basically anytime you start breathing harder you know you've entered into the cardiovascular stage. The intermediate is the transition from the creatine/ ATP going into the cardiovascular.

The creatine/ ATP energy system is the best one for power. It is where you as an ectomorph want to be. In order to stay in it, you want to preferably do 3-5 second sets. This means high weight that you can't do very many reps with. It builds your power and bulks up your muscle mass best.

This is important as it runs contrary to most body building programs. The difference between power lifting and body building is that power lifters tend to do more weight with less reps for the purpose of gaining power, while body builders will tend to do lower weight with higher reps in order to sculpt their muscles and cut up. The thing with slow gainers though is that we don't have a problem with cutting up, we're already cut up! So we want to focus on bulking and the cut will come.

So anytime you start to get out of breath, slow down. Make sure you get atleast 2-3, up to 5 minutes rest between sets. Push yourself hard during your set, but complete them quickly.

This energy system is also by chance the one that creatine supplementation aids. The muscles use ATP for energy. As they do however, it is “used up” and converted into the waste product ADP. Creatine naturally exists in the body and serves to convert the ADP waste product back into ATP for reuse by the muscle tissue. The body has a limited amount of creatine, although it is capable of retaining more than it typically has. This is where creatine supplementation comes in. It fills your creatine reserves closer to capacity so your creatine/ ATP fuel system keeps going. This allows you to do more weight and higher reps.

Another component of your training that makes you more like a power lifter then a traditional body builder is that you should focus more on compound forms like the bench press, squat, and rows over the isolation exercises like flys, curls, and isolation mid and front delt raisers. Now you still should do the isolation exercises as they target exact muscles rather then general muscle groups, but I always do a compound exercise first as they are best for adding general bulk.

The last thing to remember, but surely not the least, is that you don't get big when you're working out. Working out actually tears you apart and puts your body into a state of catabolism. You start growing after you stimulate your body by an intense work out and nourish it back into growth. With that said your rest between work outs is just as important as the work out itself.

If you follow these guidelines even a slow gaining ectomorph can gain significant muscle bulk. I am naturally about 125 pounds, but with my studying and applying what I have learned was able to gain about 40 pounds of lean muscle mass putting me up to about 165 pounds. I was actaully surprised to have a nurse ask me if I was taking anabolic steroids. And no, I never have.