A lot of hardgainers complain how hard it is for them to gain weight. I used to be that way too. Then I started being serious and transformed my skinny frame into a big, muscular body. I don’t get mistaken for the skinny boy anymore! 🙂
I wrote a free guide on how this can be done, outlining the basic steps that need to be taken in order to do this and what type of information you should know before you begin:
How To Gain Weight
However basically all this can be summarized in 3 easy words:
1) Eat
2) Workout
3) Rest
Yes, it’s that simple! 🙂
For all of you that want to know more, here is some further information that can help you on your quest to become the big, strong dude you always wanted to be:
Motivation
First thing is motivation. If you are not motivated, you will never get anywhere. Your mindset is the key to achieving whatever you want to achieve. Figure out the bigger picture. Who do you want to be and then try to fit what role gaining weight and muscle will play in that.
Then try to figure out who you are. Some nice little concepts from psychology and especially its branch, neuro-linguistic programming, can help you in that.
Personality types and why you are the way you are
Doing these two thing will reveal what your strengths are and what you still need to work on. You can then perform a personal gap analysis.
This will help you in the next phase of your journey and that is setting actual goals. Actually many people fail in this initial phase, because they never set any goals!
How to set goals and actually achieve them
Nutrition
If you don’t eat big, you will never get big. The number one reason why most hardgainers fail at gaining weight and muscle is because they don’t eat enough. You need to eat more than your maintenance calories in order to gain weight. You should be eating from all three basic macronutrient types: proteins, carbohydrates and fats.
What are carbohydrates?
What is protein?
What is fat?
Most of your calories should come from normal food, although you can sometimes use supplements, such as whey or casein protein, in order to help you pack on the calories. However remember that these are just supplements and that means that they only supplement your eating efforts, not replace them.
The different types of protein supplements
Workout
Working out is all about the effort you put in. It’s not about what type of a routine you do, but instead about consistency and coming in and working hard (and smart). There are just some basic principles that you should follow, the main one being progressive overload, meaning increasing the weight you are working with.
Your routine should be based around compound exercises, as these recruit the most muscles.
Compound exercises to do if you want to gain weight and muscle
Before starting any fitness routine, try to figure out what your imbalances are. Most of us have some sort of imbalances, largelly due to our sedentary lifestyles. This means some muscles might be out of whack and if you don’t work on correcting these imbalances, you could get injured pretty easily, thereby undermining your entire effort.
You are imbalanced and so do something about it
Lifestyle
And remember all this should be reflected in your lifestyle. Your lifestyle has a huge impact on who you are and what you look like.
Your lifestyle will influence whether you get fat
Read the articles above. They will give you the basic information that you need in order to help you get started.
Good luck!