You’ve been training hard in the gym and eating as much as you can to gain that hard-earned muscle, but it still alludes you. For the hardgainer, building muscle elicits frustration but with a few simple tweaks and lots of patience you can and will grow.

Simple tweaks for the hardgainer:

Tweak #1: Swap low calorie food with high calorie food.

Being a hardgainer means you should be eating more than the average person. Some people struggle with this because they are eating low calorie foods. Swapping them for higher calorie dense foods makes meeting your caloric needs easier and less of a chore.

Tweak #2: Sleep and lots of it!

Recovery should be a very high priority for you especially since your workouts will be short but intense.

Tweak #3 Cut the cardio.

Traditional cardio isn’t your friend in this scenario. The more active you are the more calories (and food) you will need. I would suggest a couple of HIIT (high intensity interval training) sessions a week and see how that works for you.

Tweak #4: Calorie surplus?

You will gain weight once you’re in a calorie surplus. As a hardgainer, you’re surplus will be quite high so slowly increase your calories until you start gaining weight.

Tweak #5: Stick to compound exercises.

Compound movements are your friend! Bench press, pull ups, squats etc have a great impact on your muscle-building hormones and more bang for your buck. Isolation movements (bicep curls, lateral raises, etc) should be minimized as they take valuable energy away from your compound lifts.

So there you have it! Some tweaks for you to implement into your lifestyle.

Gaining muscle is hard for most people but if you are patient and consistent you will get there!