The Diet of a Hard Gainer

The primary rule of muscle building is not just weight training; it is feeding your muscles. Hard gainers need a surplus of proteins, carbohydrates and good fats scattered throughout the day to increase muscle mass and strength. It is recommended that they set their daily intake goal to be, in calories, 15-18 times their body weight.

To achieve this, hard gainers need to aim for at least 6-7 small meals per day to ensure adequate intake of food. In a nutshell, the basic components of a hard gainer’s diet are:

1. Proteins - Have a high intake of proteins, about 2g per every weight unit. Red meat (lean) is a very good source for hard gainers. You should also aim to consume more chicken and fish, especially salmon; nuts and peanut butter are staples.

2. Carbohydrates - These nutritional packets contribute a lot towards gaining weight. Junk and fried foods should be skipped; you should concentrate on heavy, starchy and complex carbohydrates such as pastas, oatmeal, whole wheat grain products (e.g. bagels), potatoes, vegetables, and bananas.

3. Fats - Concentrating more on the good fats like those found in nuts, olive oil and flax seeds are most rewarding.

4. Dairy Products - Whole milk is one of the most touted items on a hard gainer’s diet. Eggs are also a great source of proteins and fats.

5. Protein Supplements - Shakes and powders can help fill your dietary deficiency when you cannot eat as much, especially post-workout.

Sample Daily Diet Plan

First meal - Breakfast: Eggs, oatmeal with milk, and a banana.

Second meal - Midday snack: Peanut butter on bread or a serving of nuts/flax seeds, and a glass of milk.

Third meal - Lunch: Tuna sandwich and side of vegetables, or meal of pasta, 1 cup chicken or beef, and vegetables (e.g. broccoli). You can alternate pasta with brown rice.

Fourth meal - Second snack: Banana, glass of milk and peanut butter.

Fifth meal - Post-workout: Supplements rich in whey proteins, rolled oats with water or milk, and a banana.

Sixth meal - Dinner: Same as lunch.

Seventh meal - Third snack: Protein shake, or cottage cheese, milk and flax seeds.

And, as we’re constantly being told, pushing ourselves to the limit is the only way to make the best gains possible – anything else is stopping short or copping out. However, for some people, is there more to be gained by not training to failure constantly?

For some people, I truly believe training to failure too frequently causes negative central nervous system effects that will hinder progress. I think this for a few reasons. Here’s why…

Everybody is different. Not only physically but mentally, and both are interconnected. Now, it’s well known that even mental stress can affect muscle and strength gains negatively. And training to failure causes mental stress – plus, a lot of physical stress.

Some people can cope with physical and mental stress better than others; this is just how it goes. By not training to failure regularly, some people will be leaving a lot of potential gains on the table, while another group of people who attempt to train to failure regularly will cause themselves too much physical and mental stress and hurt their progress.

Trainees should experiment with training to failure regularly, sporadically, and stopping short of failure for certain periods and see what progress they observe to get a better picture of which training intensities work best for them.

It’s also worth mentioning that some people would get better results from training to failure regularly, but they underestimate how long it takes them to recover fully and could in fact benefit by training the same muscles to failure still, but training them less frequently. I’ve had some of my best results in strength and size by training my body parts very hard once a week.

EZ curl bars are cambered bars which allow the palms to be placed in a more neutral position as opposed to absolutely supine making the movement more comfortable. But, does it make curls more effective? According to respected strength coach Mark Rippetoe, author of the ever-popular Starting Strength book, no. In fact, he goes as far as saying EZ curl bars just “don’t work”. I’m sure you now want to know why, so this article will reveal why.

Not every curl (underhand, overhand or hammer/neutral grip) hits the biceps optimally!

When your palms are completely supine (upward), your biceps muscle fibers are in their prime pulling position – hence the reason why they go rock solid when flexed when your palm is turned towards you. The more you turn your palms away from you and flex your biceps, the softer your biceps go because the fibers are elongated and more bunched up.

The more prone (overhand) your grip, the more of a mechanical disadvantage your biceps are in when performing curls.

Therefore, the further away from supine your grip becomes, the more emphasis is placed on the brachioradialis and brachialis elbow flexors and the less on the biceps brachii.

And… that’s precisely what an EZ curl bar does: Forces the grip into a less supine position!

Therefore, to build the actual biceps brachii a more supine grip is preferred. This also holds true for curls with dumbbells – the more supine throughout, the better it hits the biceps brachii.

For sure, the EZ curl bar will build the biceps and overall upper arm size, but it’ll never compare to a straight barbell for building the biceps brachii – so I recommend you do most of your curls with a straight barbell.

The fact is those with normal proportions (or better yet, shorter legs and a longer back), have much better balance and will get much more out of squats, particularly in so far as hitting the quadriceps. That’s not a cop out, that’s just common sense and I don’t care what anybody says.

If barbell squats are difficult for you and your quadriceps training is suffering, you could try the leg press machine which will enable you to handle much heavier weight without balance issues or lower back pressure.

This is how to use the leg press machine:
1.    Take your position on the leg press machine, butt firmly in place, back firmly against the rest to provide a stable, spine-free pressing position, and place your feet close together on the foot platform, toes pointing straight forwards or near enough, and feet quite low on the platform to target quadriceps (higher will add glute involvement, taking away from quadriceps).
2.    Press the weight up and release the break lever and then use hands to grip the handles to the side for stability.
3.    Slowly lower the weight until your knees are bent almost to their maximum range, then press back up with the whole of your foot – keeping your heel in contact at all times. Keep your knees going in the same direction as your toes are pointing to maintain a safe and stable pressing position, as you would do for regular squats.  As with all exercises, a smooth movement is important to avoid injury.

When you want to stop, or should you get into trouble at any time, always be aware of where the break lever is so you can lock the weight at the drop of a hat.

When we look at how our muscles develop, it can become obvious there is often gaping differences between the speeds at which certain muscles develop. Quads and biceps usually develop fairly quickly, while the traps are oftentimes slow to develop for most people. Why is this? And what can we do about it?

Building muscle is all about time under tension. This simply means the amount of time your muscle spends under tension of adequate weight (building muscle requires adequate time under adequate tension). Let’s consider the fact an average dumbbell curl will take maybe 1 second on the concentric and 2 seconds on the eccentric, that’s 3 seconds. Now consider how long the average shrug will take… probably less than 1 second for the entire up and down. That’s a lot less time under tension.

If we did 12 shrugs for 3 sets, that’d be 1 second x 12 reps x 3 sets = 36 seconds.

Compare this with the dumbbell curl scenario we’ve just mentioned, with the same rep and set scheme we’d get 3 seconds x 12 reps x 3 sets = 108 seconds.

That’s a vast difference.

Yet, many people who follow set-in-stone repetition and set schemes for all of their exercises condemn themselves to low time under tension for certain muscles which lack a large range of motion.

What’s the answer for shrugs?

Without doubt, the best solution is to go for more reps, more sets, or both. Mix it up. You can even try shrugging more slowly from time to time, but it seems to be that people get best results from shrugging very heavy weights in a more explosive manner – at least on the concentric. Case in point: Top strength coach Charles Poliquin ranks the Power Snatch as the best traps builder, and this movement is as explosive as they come.

Be sure that you use a lot of weight – the upside of limited range of motion muscles sometimes means they can handle much more weight – but be sure to not sacrifice your already limited range of motion in shrugs by using a weight you simply can’t perform full range, quality reps with.

Give higher volume a go for a month or two with different shrug variations to keep it fresh and see what kind of results you get. I’m betting they’ll be very favorable.

Your muscles are controlled by the central nervous system which controls the motor units which pull on the limited bunches of muscle fibers they’re hooked up to in certain patterns, which creates movement. Muscle building is a very taxing business for the body, and the central nervous system doesn’t like it, as it seeks to impose a constant state of homeostasis (no change).

Movement patterns certainly are engrained and recognized by the central nervous system. How else would a person be able to learn coordination to walk, lift a cup to their mouths or play the piano – and become ‘rusty’ (i.e. lose some of their effectiveness) at some activities in which they haven’t performed in a long time? Or, how is it the central nervous system fails to adapt quickly when you overdo something/over-train? That’s homeostasis.

Once the central nervous system identifies a frequent movement pattern and an outcome it sees as a threat to homeostasis (i.e. muscle building) it clamps down on positive adaptation by limiting your ability to progress on this movement. You will see your strength and speed slow or stop, and even your coordination deteriorate and become far more injury prone.

This is a temporary situation – the exercise isn’t useless forever, it’s just not going to be as beneficial to you as others will be for a while.

And the methods which tax the CNS the most cause the body to fight for homeostasis quicker, which is why the heavier you lift, the more quickly the exercise becomes ineffective and the more regularly you need to change in order to continue making progress – you’ve hit the CNS hard and it’s fighting back hard.

For the heaviest lifts of 1-3 reps, changing exercises every 2-3 weeks maximum will ensure you don’t get stuck as often. The best thing you can do is to learn about all of the different muscles and the positions in which they are best activated, and create a list of many different exercises for each body part and rotate them in a formulaic manner. The idea is to circumvent homeostasis, and the most effective way of doing this is to change the exercise/movement entirely on a regular basis.

When on a muscle building program, its basic practice to eat many smaller protein-based meals throughout the day to keep a positive nitrogen balance and remain in a state of anabolism (growth), but on a more advanced level is the issue of different proteins having different amino acid release rates. This brings up the question of suitability of different protein sources for different times of the day and different situations. What’s this about, and what effect can this really have?

 
What’s this talk of different amino acid release rates?

When you consume protein, it first has to be digested (broken down) before the body shuttles the amino acids to various parts of your body to carry out repair work on your muscles. Some sources of protein, for various reasons, are much quicker to digest and ‘release’ their amino acids (the building blocks of protein) than other sources of protein. In other words, they ‘get to work’ quickly. Others are slower to release and get to work.

 
It might seem like common sense to always choose the fastest, but the fact is, there are certain times of the day or certain situations when you could benefit from a slower, more sustained amino acid release. If you aren’t going to be able to eat anything for a certain period of time, for instance, a slower releasing protein to keep your muscles drip-fed would be best. This could be a situation which arises during your waking hours but certainly arises during your sleeping hours.

 
Other times, when your muscles are crying out for immediate protein – such as during breakfast or especially after a workout – then it’d make sense to choose the fastest releasing proteins to restart the rebuilding process as quickly as possible, en masse.

 
Two polar opposite proteins in terms of release speed are whey protein and casein, with whey protein being the fastest releasing, and casein being the slowest.

Muscle Building Protein

Casein can be bought as a powder supplement, but most commonly it’s gotten from milk. This also means you can consume cheese pre-bedtime if you prefer not to consume a lot of fluids before bed.

 
You don’t have to eat whey if you don’t wish to supplement; other outstanding muscle building proteins are eggs, fish, beef and chicken.

 
Of course, some argue that too much is made of the release-rate of proteins, and think the difference in results would be too small to concern oneself with. However – the same could be said about lots of different aspects of bodybuilding. When looked at on their own, the small things can often seem not worth bothering with, but when you put them together they can – and will – add up to something much more substantial.

A tape measure and bodyweight scales, once able to reliably tell you on a weekly basis whether or not you were making progress will no longer be able to give you decisive proof, and over time it’ll only become less obvious and require more faith. At this point, how do you know whether you’re really making progress or your muscle building efforts are in vain? Here’s 2 pretty reliable ways to tell…

1: You ache in the days that follow

A muscle which aches in the days which follow a workout is a muscle which has been worked beyond its previous capacity. Anyone can make a muscle ache if they hammer out endless repetitions and sets, however. I’m talking about the muscles aching by performing reps-sets within the common muscle building range (i.e. the accepted range for hypertrophy, and nothing excessive compared to your normal routine).
Such muscle aches are often mistakenly thought to be due to lactic acid build up which normally accompanies high volume training. However, even with low volume and no lactic acid burns we can experience muscle soreness, because the soreness isn’t from lactic acid but from micro-tears in the muscle fibers, indicating sufficient workout stress and that desirable changes (increases in strength and mass) are likely to follow.
You will also notice that your muscles start aching more upon changes of exercise and stop aching so much after you’ve performed the exercise several times consecutively. That’s because the muscles are adapting to the movement and the effectiveness of the movement is waning and change should be forthcoming.

2: You get stronger

As with muscle size gains, getting stronger will become a slower process with time, but the fact is, over the long term it’s likely to provide a much more microscopic view of what’s going on with your muscles than a tape measure or bodyweight scales. What I’m saying is, generally, strength gains will be much more noticeable to you than muscle gains, and although the connection between muscle size and strength isn’t as close as many think, it can be used as an approximate measure in the right context. The right context would be getting stronger within accepted muscle building rep-set protocols (i.e. bench pressing heavier this week with 7 reps 5 sets compared to the 7 reps 5 sets you did last week). If you get stronger in this context, chances are your muscles have gotten a bit bigger, too.

Conclusion…

Muscle building takes a lot of time so hang in there, be patient, take comfort from the above indicators and pretty soon the tape, scales and even mirror will confirm your progress, too.

Bench Press

Category 1: Compound exercises

Usually praised as the ‘best’ type of muscle building exercise, ‘compounds’ incorporate more than one muscle group into the lift. Therefore, a compound movement such as the bench press which heavily involves the triceps, deltoids and pectorals (and many more muscle groups) allows you to handle far more weight than would triceps extensions, deltoid raises or chest flys. This is because you are getting the benefits of the combined strength output of all these muscle groups.

 Compound exercises work the body as a system which tends to make compound exercises more effective for overall strength and muscle gains. However, one has to remember that the load is effectively being shared between each of these muscle groups to varying degrees – a fact many people overlook entirely.

 And therein is the big problem with compound exercises… you really don’t know how much of the current potential of each muscle group you’re truly using because you’re always limited by the weakest muscle group involved in the lift. Some muscle groups may be capable of far more weight but are in fact being held back due to a weak muscle group – a runt in the litter!

 In fact, one simple slogan which you absolutely must subscribe to (because it’s absolutely true) is ‘you’re only as strong as your weakest link’.
With compound exercises, you have limited ways of targeting the weaker muscle groups holding your overall lift back, so you have to think beyond compound exercises and break your training up into more precisely targeted exercises, which brings us to…

 Category 2: Isolation exercises

The antithesis of compound exercises is isolation (not to be confused with isometric!), which involve one primary muscle group to effect movement. Isolation exercises are best used to fill in the gaps the compound exercises can’t. You can use them to directly target weak muscle groups for strength purposes, to improve your compound lifts, or purely for aesthetic purposes. They really are invaluable and don’t let anybody kid you otherwise.

 An ideal bodybuilding/strength program will make the very best use of both of these exercise categories. It is an absolute fact that the very strongest and biggest people in the world did not get where they are by either banging away strictly with compound or isolation exercises but by smartly using a mixture of both. I strongly suggest you do the same.

Jack Lalanne

I was not born during the time when his shows “The Jack LaLanne Show” was popular back in the 60’s & 70’s. But I’ve heard a lot about him and have watched his many motivational and inspirational videos. Until today, many of his words of wisdom still remains in my heart and I will forever remember this great fitness legend.

Jack is the guy who can inspire you just from the way he talks. His charisma and his passion in fitness has change the lives of many who have watch and hear him speaks. Below is just one of his many videos you can find on YouTube:

RIP Jack. Your legacy and your impact on the fitness world will always be remembered.