What is a hard gainer?

[kuan]

In weightlifting, a hard gainer is someone who has difficulty gaining muscle. Why?

Is there a hard loser, and does being a hard gainer mean you're an easy loser?

[CdCf]

My personal, and thoroughly unscientific, opinion, is that a hard gainer is someone whose pain threshold is lower than for others. The "easy gainer" is able to push harder and ignore the pain or discomfort, while a hard gainer stops prematurely.
That's given they both train the same way and eat properly for their respective sizes.

Given identical workouts, at identical intervals, and with identical nutrition, I think the difference between an easy and a hard gainer would be fairly small.

[smoke]

a hard gainer is when you over-rotate a half gainer and do a belly flop

[kuan]

Yeah yeah, you guys are no help. :) Good try though CdCf.

[pegster]

Some people do not gain muscle easily. These are the 'hard gainers". It is largely genetics. And hormones. Also how long your limbs are (which I guess is genetic, isnt it? LOL!)

[Palsdude]

a hard gainer is when you over-rotate a half gainer and do a belly flop

I figured it had to do with diving off the bike on to the pavement :D

[kuan]

Actually I asked someone and they said it all has to do with the mix of fast and slow twitch muscles. If you have more fast twitch and you do heavy weights then you'll build even more fast twitch, and fast. Hard gainers have less fast twitch and more slow twitch.

[cycle242]

A hard gainer is 'usually' someone who has a fast metabolism. Combine with low to moderate appetite. Genetics and natural hormone levels are also important factors.

I have two friends who I’ve trained with for years in the gym. Both have the same type of metabolism. If they stop lifting they lose the muscle weight very fast.
This is what I’ve observed over a few years of lifting with them. Both have the “lose it fast” high metabolism and 6-8% body fat all the time whether or not they lift and work out. But one gains weight very fast when lifting and the other very slow. The major difference is that one has a huge appetite and pounds down everything in site. The guy who can’t gain the muscle weight, he thinks he’s eating a lot. But if you’d actually count up the calories he just doesn’t eat enough calories to pack on the weight.

I mean basically all those things still come down to genetic limitations too. Your calorie intake is just about the only thing you can control that can make a difference, unless you use anabolic steroids to over come that.

[oldspark]

My personal, and thoroughly unscientific, opinion, is that a hard gainer is someone whose pain threshold is lower than for others. The "easy gainer" is able to push harder and ignore the pain or discomfort, while a hard gainer stops prematurely.
That's given they both train the same way and eat properly for their respective sizes.

Given identical workouts, at identical intervals, and with identical nutrition, I think the difference between an easy and a hard gainer would be fairly small. Proof that this forum should not be taken seriously. :D

[ed073]

Hard gainer is a myth.


Some people just have unrealistic expectations from gym work and don't back up thier workouts with the optimal diet and recuperation plan.

[Trekke]

"I'm a real hard gainer. I have trouble adding size and gaining strength even though working my backside off in the gym on an abbreviated program. My out-of-the-gym factors are critical to my progress, even more so than for a "regular" hard gainer. Getting them in order is top priority if I'm to build muscle and might and achieve my goals. I've had to overcome many problems in order to get my nutrition, rest and recovery in good order to promote progress in the gym". Re: University or College Life, and Training

by Charlie Bass

[oldcrank]

Hard gainer is a myth.


Some people just have unrealistic expectations from gym work and don't back up thier workouts with the optimal diet and recuperation plan.

I agree . . . especially with the recuperation.

Look close enough at a hard-gainer, and you'll find overtraining lurking below the surface.

[oldspark]

There are three body types with one being the "hard gainer" of the three, that is a thin person who has a tougher time putting on muscle. No myth -hard cold facts.

[oldspark]

bs... i went from 130 to 205 in 18 month while in high school. Then you are not a hard gainer-not all people can gain muscle quickly. Do some research on it and you will find plenty of articles on it-I would look it up for you but you must know it all. :rolleyes:

[oldspark]

you said skinny people have a hard time gaining weight.. i was just saying that's all wrong.

oh.. perhaps you meant that some thin people have a problem with it. Not all skinny people but as a general rule hard gainers tend to be slender. http://bodybuildingpro.com/bodytypeinformation.html

[Bikepacker67]

Also how long your limbs are

How so?

I can see how longer limbs may make it "look" like someone has less muscle gained over a period of lifting, but the overall mass gained wouldn't change (and might even be greater, given the original # of fibers in the first place)

[IpedLnpadL]

Leverage. That's all it is. If you had a pole and were going to lift a bucket of water with it, would a shorter or longer pole lift more weight? The person with shorter limbs can push more weight and subsequently gains more muscle mass. I am a personal trainer. My 15 yr. old is 5'10", 197 lbs. and benches (one rep max) 285. His 24 yr. old brother, 6'5", 210 benches (one rep max) 225.

[Eatadonut]

Easy gainer, easy loser here. I can do just about anything I want with my body :) Just gotta get my cardio system in on the game, and I'll be set. 3 years ago I was all muscle at 5'10", 255, I'm now 6'0", 205, with probably another 15-20 lbs to lose to reach my optimum.

Moral of the story, hard gainer, in my mind, probably equals hard loser.

[timmhaan]

whenever i go to the gym i see a lot of losers.

[Eatadonut]

whenever i go to the gym i see a lot of losers.

oh, your gym has mirrored walls too? :(

[ed073]

whenever i go to the gym i see a lot of losers.


They're drawn like moths to a flame....

[webist]

I gave up my health club membership long ago in a dispute with the owner. I wanted the stairmaster machines placed on the first floor. He wanted them upstairs with the rest of the equipment.

[CdCf]

Leverage. That's all it is. If you had a pole and were going to lift a bucket of water with it, would a shorter or longer pole lift more weight? The person with shorter limbs can push more weight and subsequently gains more muscle mass. I am a personal trainer. My 15 yr. old is 5'10", 197 lbs. and benches (one rep max) 285. His 24 yr. old brother, 6'5", 210 benches (one rep max) 225.

You're wrong.
While it's true that leverage plays a part in how heavy someone can lift, the actual stress on the muscle doesn't have to be different because of that. The muscle is doing the work, and longer limbs just mean the weights at the end of them have to be lower.

Think about it...

Let's say you and a friend set out to curl a dumbbell. Your friend has forearms that are 0.40 m from elbow joint to the centre of the dumbbell's mass. Your forearms are 0.35 m.
And the distance from the muscle attachment point to your elbow joints is 0.05 m for both of you.

You can see that for your friend, the mechanical advantage for his biceps is 1:8, while you have 1:7.
If both your muscles are capable of resisting a force of exactly 1500 N, he will be able to hold a 19 kg weight, while you'll be able to hold 22 kg. So, you lift different weights, and you appear to be stronger, but in reality, your actual muscles are equally strong.

[IpedLnpadL]

Well, we agree to disagree. You are wrong about the end result. The shorter levered person will gain much more readily. If the same force is being exerted on both a long lever and a short lever, the short lever will be able to do more work/lift more weight. That's basic physics. Go to a weight room and look for all the lanky bodybuilders. I have been in this business 20+ years, I have a bit of experience, I'm not just making this up.

[CdCf]

We're talking about different things.
If you really do understand basic physics, you'll realise that in my example above, the actual force the muscle is subjected to (which is what determines how hard the muscle has to work, and thus how good a workout you get) is equal in both cases.
The shorter-limbed person will lift greater weights, yes, but the nominally weaker of the two could very well have stronger muscles. The muscle itself won't know the difference! You can simulate this for yourself by placing a dumbbell in your hand, and curl it until failure. Then, after resting properly, get a dumbbell that's around twice as heavy, and curl it resting halfway out on your forearm (hold it in place with your free arm). You should end up at around the same number of reps, and you'll feel just as tired in your muscle, provided you've done it correctly.

That skinny people (who also tend to be long-limbed) gain muscle more slowly, is most likely genetic, and has nothing at all to do with leverage.

Another thing, a given amount of muscle mass, and a given amount of muscle mass gained, will look proportionally bigger on a person with shorter limbs. Another factor to consider...

Only if actual muscle strength, and actual lean muscle mass gained, are measured, statements like yours can't be made.

[IpedLnpadL]

Granted, short muscles and leverage aren't the entire picture. I was simply trying to make it understandable in layman's terms since he didn't ask for a Physics lecture. However; physically speaking, shorter arms have a shorter distance to travel and thus less work to do,
work = force x distance.
This means that for the person to lift an amount of weight (concentrically) in an amount of time requires less power to do so than the person with longer arms wanting to execute the lift in the same amount of time. Which can be shown as

power = work / time.

For example to move 100kg 60cm requires 590 joules of energy (joule is a unit of energy which we use to describe the amount of work done). To execute the lift requires in one second for the person with shorter arms, 590 watts of power (assuming the distance is approx 60cm). For the person with longer arms (100cm, which is an extreme exageration) it would require approximately 980 watts. Thus the shorter the arm length the less power required to lift a given weight (concentrically) which means usually shorter arms can do more reps. This is an over-simplification and should not be taken literally because of the many other factors involved--like muscle girth, etc.

[CdCf]

IpedLnpadL, again, you're simplifying things. You're once more talking about people lifting the same weight. Yes, of course, if a longer-limbed person lifts the same weight as a shorter-limbed one, the former will have to work harder.

But someone who works out will (or should) use weights to match his or her own body, and not use the same weights as someone else. If a person is told to do three sets of eight reps for a particular exercise, then, correctly done, that person will get an equal workout to anyone else following the same instructions, regardless of how long or short their limbs are. I can't see how you can't see that! :)

And you're right, MERTON, someone with longer limbs will normally have more room for muscle.

If we had thicker bones in our arms, and the biceps muscles attached much farther from the elbow joints, we'd be pretty strong, without needing stronger muscles...

[IpedLnpadL]

No, you're wrong. Here's why: how many long limbed clients have you trained with lower attachments? 9 out of 10 long limbed people have a higher attachment and therefore SHORTER, SMALLER muscle. So, if this shorter, smaller muscle with a higher attachment is being pushed by a long limbed person vs. a shorter, smaller, low attachment person who therefore has LONGER, BIGGER muscles..then we're back to leverage. Back to what I said in the beginning. Go to the gym and count the tall people with low attachments vs. shorter people with low attachments. You're basing your theory on what does not exist in 9 out of 10 cases. If I was my mother's brother, I'd be my uncle.

[CdCf]

No, you're wrong. Here's why: how many long limbed clients have you trained with lower attachments? 9 out of 10 long limbed people have a higher attachment and therefore SHORTER, SMALLER muscle. So, if this shorter, smaller muscle with a higher attachment is being pushed by a long limbed person vs. a shorter, smaller, low attachment person who therefore has LONGER, BIGGER muscles..then we're back to leverage. Back to what I said in the beginning. Go to the gym and count the tall people with low attachments vs. shorter people with low attachments. You're basing your theory on what does not exist in 9 out of 10 cases. If I was my mother's brother, I'd be my uncle.

Am I writing in Urdu or something?
Go back and read my posts again...

You have to agree that what really counts is the amount of force/stress the muscle itself is subjected to, in a line between its two attachment points. That's all the muscle knows about. It has no idea whether it's trying to lift 10 kg on a 1-metre arm, or 20 kg on a 0.5-metre arm.
That's why leverage doesn't matter at all for building muscle.

Of course, for any given muscle volume, the shorter-limbed person will be able to lift greater weights, but that's not at all what you've been talking about in your latest posts. Separate building muscle and using muscle mass already gained - they're two different things!!!

[ed073]

Urdu...

funny. :)