How Many Times Per Day Should A Hardgainer Eat?

September 4th, 2009 by author

If you are reading this article then you are more than likely already aware what a hardgainer is. If you are nor sure what it means then really it just refers to a person that has extreme difficulty increasing their weight be it fat or muscle! Often this may be due to that person having an overly speedy metabolism.

Metabolism also called metabolic rate is the rate at which your body uses up calories whilst performing the natural reactions required by the body to live. If your metabolic rate is very slow then it is easy to gain fat tissue as you are not using up as many calories at rest as someone who has a higher metabolic rate.

For supporting muscle gains we should be trying to creat a surplus amount of calories, this is difficult for hardgainers as they rapaidly use up their calories even at rest. So, what ways around this problem are there for hardgainers? Here is our how to build muscle up guide for hardgainers:

1) Keep the cardio workouts to a minimum. Aerobic workouts will clearly consume calories during the exercise but will also increase your metabolic rate so that you continue to burn off calories at a faster speed even when resting. You must avoid this if you are trying to create an excess number of calories.

2) Eat for two! You need to consume lots of calories. To do this, simply try to double the amount of food that you would normally eat at every meal. Purchase over sized bowls, which will stop you from forgetting this.

3) Eat 5-7 meals per day. This is critical to build muscle mass. Your body can only absorb a certain amount of nutrients at anyone sitting so spreading out the meals is also a good thing and ensures that your body is never waiting for its next meal. Eating 2-3 meals per day is claimed to slow down the bodies metabolism which is true but this doesn’t mean it is something that hardgainers sould do. Why? because your body can slip into starvation mode triggering the release of certain chemicals that will inhibit the muscle building process.

4) Make use of supplemements. Take advantage of the great and ever increasing amount of protein drinks and meal replacement drinks that are on the market today. These include extremely high amounts of exactly the correct ingredients you require. The best times to take them are immediately before and after a workout when your body has the highest demand for them.

Stop performing exercises like concentration curls and stick with classic compound mass building exercises. Your program should include: Squats, dead lifts, pull ups and bench presses. These are the easiest and fastest exercises that will build muscles mass fast in the correct places.

6) Stop performing so many exercises and sets. Growth can be stimulated in only 40 minute sessions consisting of only 3 sets for each body part and as few as 10 sets a session. More is often worse for hardgainers! trigger muscle growth in the weight room then get out sharpish to conserve your calories for muscle growth.

7) Drink ample amounts of water. It is required by the body for so many different muscle building chemical reactions that you really can not skimp on this one, not at all. Consume liquids regularly.

There we go, give those tips a bash. Be persistent with these for a couple of months before your judge them. Just go for it? I hope you found our how to build muscle up tips useful.