I’ve talked a lot of about weight loss and strength training, so I thought I’d switch gears and talk about weight gain for hard gainers. If you’re not sure what a “Hard Gainer” is, it’s those that are having trouble trying to pack on some mass and maintain it.
Most may think that you just need to pack on the calories by heading to McDonalds and “eating everything and anything”. This style of dieting will eventually pack on bad mass and make you feel a lot worse. The point of the post is to gain good weight and still be able to train or practice at a high level. So if you’re putting in junk to fuel your body, you’re more than likely going to feel like junk too. I don’t want to go too far into food sensitive and the absorption rate, so just know that if you don’t eat quality food this potentially will diminish the absorption rate of nutrients and minimize your body’s capacity to work efficiently.
With all that said, let’s jump into it.
Timing
It’s all about timing! :p
We all know the importance of the post-workout shake but the pre (before) and peri (during)-workout is also important for hard gainers. This not only helps you stake some more calories in but allows you to fuel up to train even harder during the workout.
Example:
- Pre-Workout: 5hour energy, glutamine, scoop of protein (you can use amino acids in place if you’re sensitive), and fruit. This set up will give you a nice energy boost through an energy booster, protein-aminos, and simple carbs.
- Peri-Workout: BCAA’s, simple carb drink. *The simple carb drink isn’t a necessity if you’re not working at a high intensity. With that said, you can just stick to BCAA’s on weight lifting days and for higher intensity training days take in the simple carb drink. After a few weeks, if you’re still having some problems gaining you can try the simple carb drink during all your workouts or use half the amount during lighter days.
- Post-Workout: this should be where you place the most calories. You can do it a few different ways:
- Complete smoothie- vegetables, protein, fats, and fruits blended up- I typically add in 5-10g of glutamine and 5g of creatine post workout. 20-30 minutes later eat a full meal including carbs, fats, protein, and vegetables.
- Amino acids, honey, creatine, and glutamine. 20- 30 minutes later eat a full meal including carbs, fats, protein, and vegetables.
- Protein powder, oats, creatine, glutamine, and a piece of fruit. 20- 30 minutes later eat a full meal including carbs, fats, protein, and vegetables.
- Sugary cereal. 20-30 minutes later eat a full meal including carbs, fats, protein, and vegetables.
Smoothies
Adding in “complete smoothies” into your daily mix can easily pack on a healthy 400kcals+ a day. A “complete smoothie” is one that has vegetables, fruit, protein, and good fats- this basically mimics a full nutritional meal. As a NYC personal trainer, I high recommend this to many of my hard gaining clients and even my fat-loss clients. How you use it will determine the outcome.
Example:
- Meal 1- Chicken and vegetable meatballs- a quick and easy breakfast for those on the run.
- Meal 2- Complete smoothie.
- Meal 3- Salmon, sweet potato, and asparagus.
- Meal 4- Peri- complete smoothie.
- Meal 5- Post workout- Amino acids, honey, creatine, and glutamine.
- Meal 6- Post workout full meal- chicken, rice pasta, and broccoli.
- Meal 7- complete smoothie
In this example you can see that we packed in 3 complete smoothies, say each smoothie equates to about 250-400 kcals that’s a minimum of 750kcal HEALTHY calories added to your daily routine. Multiply that by x5 days week and you have a total of 3,750 kcals a week added on. Just off the “complete smoothies” you’ll have a little over a pound of weight gained in one week!
And keep in mind that the smoothie doesn’t all have to be the same, they can be made of different ingredients:
- Peanut butter, banana, almond milk, carrots, and protein.
- Strawberries, blueberries, pineapple, green tea, spinach, and protein.
- Blood orange, coconut water, beets, pineapples, apples, and protein.
Increase Total Caloric Intake
My experience as strength and conditioning coach working with high level athletes, from division 1 to professional athletes, and currently personal training in Manhattan has taught me a lot about results. The key to getting results is making the task as simple as possible. Developing a strict diet, especially for an NYC fitness enthusiasts is probably not going to work. Most people working in New York City are running around Manhattan from meetings to meetings, and can’t be expected to eat a VERY specific meal i.e 5 egg omelet with bell peppers and avocado exactly at 2pm, it just doesn’t work that way.
Trust me, I used to think that the stricter the diet the better the results, but throughout my career working with elite performance training coaches and dietitians has made me re-evaulate that thought process. Here at Fusion Performance Training, we want results but we also need to make the process realistic. This is why we focus on a template per meal, this means you’ll want to try to hit as many of these categories with each meal:
- Vegetable
- Protein
- Good Fat
- Fruit
For the hard gainers, as long as you hit these categories and then increase your total meal size by a 1/4 of the plate you’ll be well on your way. These method allows you to pretty much eat anywhere and gives you the flexibility of choices within those specific categories.
Uptake More Carbs and Good Fats
Using the word carbs with personal trainers has become such a negative connotation, it’s like saying “Voldemort” – “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named”. It’s crazy how the fitness industry takes on fads with little knowledge, I guess this is why marketers love it so much…anyways for the hard gainers you need to take on more carbs and good fats. Both will help you pack on more good weight and allow you train even harder. Just make sure that you’re timing the carbs pretty well. Some people feel a bit groggy if they take in too many carbs, so take not of it as you’re up taking your carb intake throughout the days.
Examples of carbs:
- Sweet potatoes
- Potatoes
- Rice
Examples of good fats:
- Avocado
- Nuts
- Fish oil or just fish
Pump Up the Volume
All the points above are really focused on your diet. Now it’s time to talk about the good stuff, your workout! If you want to gain size you not only need to fuel correctly but you need to stimulate your muscles to grow. This means to put a relative load with a good amount of time under tension. A few ways to go about this is to:
- Do high reps 5×10, 3×15+, 3×12+
- Tempo- 4:2:1 4 second descent, 2 second pause, 1 second ascent per rep
- Super-Sets – Here you’ll stack two exercises that work the same muscle groups together.
- Ex: Back squats + leg curls 4×10/15
- Ex: Bench Press + pec flys 4×12/15
Whatever you move forward with just make sure that the weight is challenging enough to stimulate growth. For instance, if you can squat 225lbs for x20 reps but you do reps of 10, then you’re going to get those type of results. What you put into your training and diet is what you’ll get out of it.
*before you implement any of these methods make sure to consult with your personal trainer and doctor.
Make sure to leave a comment if you have any questions.
Stay strong,