Hardgainer Bodybuilding - 4 Simple Rules How To Deal With Overtraining

Most hardgainers usually think they have to train harder and more often than other guys that were blessed with better genetics... It is probably because of the abundant 'professional' advice that makes you believe that training more is the only answer to overcomming your skinny hardgainer genetics.

I know how it feels to want a great muscular body and be successful with good-looking women... But training harder and more often is not the answer to your frustration... In fact, it is only going to make things worse because by doing that, you will most likely put your body into overtraining zone. And as you may already know, overtraining is not what you should aim for.

The challenges hardgainer have to face are more complicated and therefore they require more "sofisticated" answers. It would be very hard to give you all of them in one article, so for now, let's just talk about how to deal with overtraining...

#1: Ignore those 'big rats' telling you to extend your training because you're a hardgainer. Find a training program which reflects and understands the needs of an ectomorph body type. A good hardgainer work-out system should not only give you the know-how to avoid overtraining but also tell you how to actually take advantage of it and gain muscle even when you hit 'plateau'...

#2: Your muscles do NOT grow while you're ripping them apart in the local gym! And hardgainers are specially challenged when it comes to recovery after working-out. My hot tip here would be to give your muscle tissues enough space to recover by giving them one day off between work-out days.

#3: Since the ectomorph body functions on different principles than the endomorph does, you will also need to adjust the time spent in the gym. While some people would advise you to keep your workouts shorter than 60 minutes, I say keep it under 45 minutes! And here's why: Training longer than 45 minutes causes the drop in your anabolic hormones response. You start losing your energy and instead of building muscle mass you actually start to burn your muscle tissue because your body is looking for the extra source of energy it needs. So in order to get the maximum results you have to keep your workouts rather short. An intense 35-minute workout will give you much better gains and your body will be also able to recover faster, which is essential to avoid overtraining!

#4: When you start to feel that you are getting really tired and have no energy during 2 - 3 workouts in a row (basically, when you feel like run over by a train for a week), you have to stop your training right away! Your body is telling you that you are pushing it too much and that you have crossed the line of overtraining. Once you are in the overtraining zone there ae two things you can do:

Take a complete week off of training and give your muscles the extra recovery time they desperately need. Your body will use it to repair the damaged muscle tissue building up your muscles bigger and stronger, so it's actually going to do more good to take that time off!

Do 'sub-failure' training, which basically means that during the workout you're stopping two to three repetitions short of muscular failure. You can train this way for 2 - 3 weeks and then go back to your "normal" work-out.

Andy Mikulka

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