The developing of muscular bulk and power is truly one of the most popular topics in the weight training field today. It seems that just about everybody who trains with weights is interested in developing muscular body bulk, power of immense proportions, or both simultaneously.
This situation is due, in part, to the numerous underweight and weak fellows who are presently weight training to improve their pathetic physical condition. And may I add quite affectionately that these average, underweight and weak young men are almost "fanatic" in their training interests and devotion.
We must not forget the many fat men who fit into this category. Do you underweights feel that you are the only ones seeking massive measurements and immense physical power? Do you think that only the thin man is interested in becoming as HUGE as possible?
Well if you do, you are quite mistaken.
It is not easy to go through life fat, overweight and weak. At least when you're thin you can fade into the crowd. At least when you're underweight you are unnoticeable.
Not so with the fat man. Everybody notices him! He's always the butt of some cruel joke and usually his physical size does not deter bullies from taking advantage of his unpleasant appearance, much to his displeasure.
So you see, whether you're fat or thin, short or tall, if you're an average young man who is presently weight training it's a good bet that you're trying to become bigger and stronger, and you are quite willing to do WHATEVER you must to succeed with this undertaking.
You'll try any training program which you see publicized as a bulking routine. You're sure to try ALL the various muscle building deinks which are on the market and for the most of you, these various things will enable you to gain to your heart's content . . . if you are willing to work and work hard.
But there are also a great number of men who we know and term as HARD GAINERS. The programs which work for everybody else just don't work for them. The drinks and dietary concoctions which help the average fellow bulk up to elephantine proportions just don't cause that great of a growth spurt to make them worthwhile for these hard gainers to use with any regularity.
It seems as if these poor fellows with such poor metabolisms, poor body leverages, poor appetites etc., just can't gain in the way they should on the average courses and training routines that are currently popular, even though they try hard and train whenever they are able, with great regularity.
Personally, I feel that these guys are expecting too much in good faith without a realistic self-accounting as to their natural abilities and ultimate capabilities.
There are too many would-be bodybuilders with the raw necessities for a fairly good powerlifter or weightlifter. There are also too many, short, rotund fellows straining their lives away to develop a 28-inch waist and baseball biceps.
This is all wrong.
There is no sense fooling yourself that you too can become Mr. America or the superheavyweight powerlifting champion if you just don't have the basic necessities to do either. You're only wasting your precious life away and most of your well-meant efforts are going right down the drain like the crystals falling in an hour glass with the passage of time.
And time cannot heal all wounds.
Now, just about anybody who sees me in street clothes considers me just a "regular" fat guy. This is not so when I am in the gym. For you see, I have found what works best for me as far as my physical type goes, and although the outer appearance may be smooth, the "underpinnings" are large, hard to the touch and powerful.
I realize that I can never even hope to stand on a posing dais in a physique contest . . . not unless Paul Anderson wins Mr. America!
And I also realize that there is not too good a chance for me becoming a champion at powerlifting. But this does not deter me from continuing my workouts with as much gusto and enthusiasm as I can possibly muster, for weightlifting and weight training is a big part of my life. It turns me on. It is my thing. And if you do not make it "your thing" (all you skinny and fat hard gainers), then I truly feel sorry for you and you will never become a normal, well adjusted person if you persist in going through life with the same attitudes you possess as far as your training is concerned.
Learn to be honest with yourself. If you have thin skin, a skinny but well-muscled body and have small joints, then you usually would have more to offer yourself if you concentrated on bodybuilding. If, on the other hand, you have always been overweight, but of a rather sturdy constitution, then perhaps powerlifting is for you.
You may also find that you don't fit into any particular category as far as hard gainers are concerned, yet you still are not able to gain as you feel you should. Then perhaps you should look to your diet for the answer. Of perhaps it is due to the way in which you train which is upsetting your accomplishments.
Do you really ENJOY the particular exercise movements you are presently employing in your training routine? If not, CHANGE THEM!
Do you enjoy the company you have at the present gym you belong to? If not, CHANGE GYMS OR TRAIN AT HOME!
Conversely, if you've been training at home for some time and if you can possibly afford it, maybe what you need is to join a local gym. Perhaps the added interest of training with fellows with your own pursuits is just what you need to help you gain the way in which you've always wanted to.
But, no matter what it is you decide to do to stimulate your gains, remember to never perform an exercise on somebody else's word of it worthiness. You should always decide upon whether to continue a movement solely by its developmental value as far as YOU are concerned.
It doesn't matter if it's Mr. Universe's favorite upper back movement. What counts is if it will help YOUR back.
So, it would seem that in order to develop muscular bulk and power, we must take into consideration a few basic requirements before we can even begin to think about particular training routines for particular individual considerations.
Mel Hennessey
These requirements are:
a) a realistic evaluation of your capabilities and potentialities.
b) a decisive course of action after examining your physical potential.
c) developing a training routine which will fit your apparent training goal.
d) developing the correct living habits and mental attitude to see this goal through.
Since we have already discussed the importance of points a and b, we shall now move onto the last two requirements which will help in rounding out our success story, as it were.
And . . . we shall begin with the mating of life styles to various training routines for definite training goals.
After watching many, many fellows train for all sorts of various reasons, I have come to certain conclusions which I shall endeavor to reveal to you here and now, as to just how you should train, and why you should train this way, for whatever goal fits the situation.
If you have the basic physical capabilities to someday own a fine looking physique and this is your particular goal then there are some points you should remember to keep in order to gain as you should.
For one thing, you should rely on proper nutrition to stimulate bodyweight gains and take into consideration particular exercise movements on a secondary basis. This is because there are only a few basic exercises and the rest are merely variations of these initial and all-important select few.
HERE is where so many of you fellows go astray. You see these well-developed guys in the magazines performing how many different movements for various body parts and you feel that it is the selection of exercise movements which will make you or break you . . . but you couldn't be further from the truth!
The only reason these fellows train occasionally on these movements is to get themselves out of a training rut. They DON'T perform all these movements all the time and they DON'T perform ALL these movements all the time in the SAME workout! And although I told you earlier that you alone should judge what movements to do and what movements not to do, I was referring to movements which have proven themselves worthy of consideration, not mere figments of a writer's imagination used to fill up magazine column space.
Our would-be bodybuilder friend should concentrate on the BASIC EXERCISE MOVEMENTS.
He should perform his exercises in strict and correct style and he should endeavor to add additional weight to the bar whenever he possibly can for it is this continual increasing of resistance that aids so much when it comes to developing muscular bulk and/or power.
If he is not only interested in physical size but also in the increase of his strength, then he should strive to perform several sets of very, very low repetitions with as heavy as weight as he possibly can handle and he should perform this kind of extra heavy training at least once a week, better yet, twice.
As for his other training days, I would advise him to perform one movement per body part and from 4-6 sets of 6-8 repetitions per movement.
He should handle as much weight as he possibly can without breaking form and he should rest as long as necessary between sets to do full justice to each set.
Above all . . . HE SHOULD CONCENTRATE!
It would be ridiculous for me to attempt to tell such a trainee ALL he needs to know in order to succeed with his particular plan or course of action, for such a discussion would go on forever and this was not my initial intention in writing this article or beginning this topic.
What I am trying to do is take into consideration the cross section of all you hard gainers and to try and show you, by implication, the pitfalls and problems to avoid in order not to burden your with any more problems than your already have.
All of you must remember that YOU are your own best trainer. You should KNOW when you are training the right way for YOU. You should feel it INSIDE YOU!
And if this is the only point I get across to you in this article, I feel that all has not been wasted. All has not been in vain.
Back to our would-be bodybuilder. By remaining realistic in his observations concerning himself he should have no trouble in determining what exercise movements to perform, when to perform then, how to perform then and how often to perform them.
It's simply, really.
If he simply has enough patience (and he needs this or he will never succeed anyway) to experiment with the various basic exercises until he finds the ones which activate his muscles the most favorably, then he KNOWS just WHAT to do.
By remaining truthful to himself he also knows which body parts are the least developed and which ones are developed the most and through this encounter he knows by using common sense that the body parts which need the most work should be placed first in the training routine so that the energy factor is still high and the hardest work can be placed upon them.
Mr. Hard Gainer will also find out through thoughtful practice just HOW to perform certain movements for best results. He'll know because he'll FEEL the difference when he hits the right speed, tempo, etc., and when he finds this out he'd be a complete fool to disregard it!
This also goes for HOW OFTEN to train.
Let's face it . . . when you over-train you become tired and irritable and when you under-train you don't progress. It's as simple as that. Why complicate matters any further than necessary? Temper your training to suit your present feelings and you won't be far from wrong.
As far as diet is concerned I feel that here too, it is a case of self-deceit. You should know when you are eating correctly! Why? Because because a fellow doesn't have to be a genius to know what NOT to eat.
If you're too thin and you want bigger muscles then increase your protein intake along with your intake of carbohydrates and fats but keep the last to at a lower pitch compared with the increase of protein intake.
If you're somewhat fleshy, then once again reduce the carbohydrate and fat content and increase the protein intake to a higher level.
Yes, I know I'm oversimplifying things.
This is my intent!
I WANT ALL YOU HARD GAINERS TO STOP MAKING THIS TRAINING THING MORE DIFFICULT FOR YOU THAN IT NATURALLY IS!
And what about our fat fellow?
Well, he will eventually fall into one of three categories: a fat bodybuilder who trains to make himself more pleasant to the eye, a bulky, fatty-type of powerlifter who either competes or doesn't depending upon his ultimate capabilities in this respect, or lastly, a fellow like me, one who neither competes as a powerlifter nor tries to look like a bodybuilder but who tries to combine both sports to suit his individual yearnings and desires.
If you fellows want to mostly improve your physical appearance then you also must be honest with yourself and you must follow the suggestions I outlined for the thin fellow with like pursuits. You also must be very strict in your dieting and must not go in for the heavy weight lifting because you will find yourself gaining too much weight. You should confine yourself to becoming slimmer and more attractive but not possessing much in the way of either definition or great power. For although there are exceptions to every rule, the flabby overweight trainee hasn't much to speak of in either direction.
However, by following sound nutrition and sound training routines and by applying them to your own individual situation, I am sure, in due time, you will be delighted with the outcome.
The overweight fellow who possesses a fair degree of power along with an ability to put on bulk quiet easily might do well to consider powerlifting as his course of action. There have been many, many one-time overweight youths who have fit this bill: Paul Anderson, for example. Once again, sound nutritional habits must come into play. You should make your protein intake the center of your eating regime for you want to gain mostly muscle to further your powerlifting career. Fats and carbohydrates play second fiddle here. As far as exercise movements are concerned, there are once again basic exercises which have been employed for years by the various lifters and these are the ones which our friend should choose from. He also, like his counterparts, must choose the style, tempo, consistency, regularity and amount of exercise he needs to further his aims and to gain as fast and as easily as he can.
And once again, since he is his own best trainer, he must go by his inner feelings to determine just how he should set up his training program.
Last, but not least, we come to the "in betweens." The skinny fellows like you and the fat fellows like me who either don't care to go either way in the extreme as far as physique or lifting competition is concerned, but still and all, want to continue training and want to embrace both training methods and philosophies.
For us, the road is rather simple. We must use both light and heavy weights to stimulate both the development of muscular bulk and power and we must learn by experiment just how frequently to train and how to train in general.
This kind of knowledge does not come from out of a book.
I can't give it to you and you can't give it to me.
It comes from a combination of hard work and experimenting with the various proven training exercises, programs, etc., until we find the right combination that fits our needs and we have enough sense to all along be aware of our intrinsic differences and our particular capabilities.
As I mentioned earlier, this article doesn't propose to have all the answers. I am merely interested at this particular time to propose to you hard gainers various questions and suggestions which I feel may be of help to you in gaining and training along the lines you always wanted to do.
If you are patient, if you tune in to your inner feelings you will eventually succeed in your training expectations, provided they are properly formed goals based on sound judgement and not wishful thinking.
If this is the only point I have made in this article, then I am at peace.
Then I am satisfied.
Enjoy Your Lifting!
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