How many reps for hardgainers

Everyday I get hundreds of emails from ectomorphs or as we will call them hardgainers about putting on muscle. Because of this, I decided to create this beginners guide to help you hardgainers put on the size you are looking for. During this article, we are going to discuss three different areas: Weight Training, Cardio, and Nutrition.

Each will be critical is your quest to become a more muscular you. The first mistake I see with all hardgainers is their weight training, because they are not seeing the results as quickly as they would like is that they usually fall into the trap of overtraining.

They spend too much time in the gym doing countless sets and reps in the hope this will lead to better muscle gains. The reality is that heavy compound lifts in the rep ranges should make up the majority of all hardgainers working sets. Your goal in the gym is to maximize strength gain in each workout while always maintaining perfect form.

Using compound exercises like this is going to be best for maximizing the total work that's been performed as they will stimulate the most muscle fibers during a single lift. Isolation exercise should not be a part of your workout program as they only focus on one muscle at a time, leading to far less than optimal results.

Below is a sample 3-day workout program for a hardgainer. Be sure to take at least one day off between each workout. Already have a Bodybuilding. Sign In. Don't risk doing a workout improperly! Avoid injury and keep your form in check with in-depth instructional videos. View our enormous library of workout photos and see exactly how each exercise should be done before you give it a shot.

Quickly read through our step-by-step directions to ensure you're doing each workout correctly the first time, every time. Cardio is an area of wide discussion with regard to hardgainers. Some people say do it, other say don't. I don't like it when anyone regardless of age, sex, body type stops doing cardio because I think some cardiovascular activity should be in everyone's exercise program.

The reason for this is that the most important muscle in your body is your heart. If your heart is not in good shape your body will suffer physically and basic health should always come first. Now that you understand my take on cardio, I don't want you hardgainers jumping on a treadmill at the break of dawn or going out for a 10 mile run every day.

Cardio should be done very sparingly. Just like your weight training keep it short and sweet. You want to be doing just enough to stimulate your heart but not to the point where you are eating up your hard-earned muscle. For instance, you could start with squats, then hit a dumbbell bench press and cable row. You can change up your workouts and shock your muscles more simply and safely by switching back and forth between periods of higher-rep training and heavy lifting.

Then spend the same amount of time doing sets of three to five reps, which builds strength more optimally. Repeating this contrast provides big gains over time. So you might start with two sets per lift and increase it to five sets over four weeks. In this case, Staley recommends including more leg presses and hack squats in your program to target the thighs more directly. I decided to attack the problem systematically and analytically, and the outcome was finding three or four effective exercises to address the specific areas that needed the most improvement.

With the goal of adding heaps of mass to your pecs, here are the exercises — both presses and flyes — that will help you past sticking points. Incline presses do a fine job of stimulating the muscle fibers of the upper pecs.

Set the bench at a degree angle to ensure that the resistance is placed on your pecs. A steeper incline will shift the emphasis to the front delts. Be sure to complete each rep with strict form. Begin with a light warm-up set of 20 reps, then perform three all-out max sets of six to eight reps.

Keep the movement slow and precise on the way down. Use an ordinary lockout at the top. In other words, as soon as you reach full extension, bring the weight back down in one continuous motion. This exercise works as a multi-joint mass builder much like standard barbell bench presses, but the unique angle the arms come across or inward at the end of the movement provides a better contraction and allows you to target your inner pecs. The Hammer Strength machine offers more safety and stability than a free bar, which requires balancing the weight.