Help For Hardgainers

By Jeff Kilmartin

I feel I need to address this issue because many people are confused by the term Hardgainer. The term was first popularized by Stuart McRobert, and itself refers to the genetically average male - or in other words someone who has a hard time gaining muscle. McRobert believes that only a small portion of the population (5-10%) are genetically gifted enough to make gains regardless of how they train or eat, and that the majority of the population has to train and eat smart to develop. McRobert advocates an abbreviated training approach combined with intensity cycling to ensure development for the genetically average.

Since it's origination the term Hardgainer's meaning has been confused by other bodybuilding authors who use the term to refer to the genetic minority, those who absolutely can't make big gains no matter what they do. So why did these other authors confuse the term? Well simple, they don't want their readers thinking that most people fall into the hardgainer (or genetically average) category because then nobody would buy their magazines with their steroid freaks in them. They want you to think that you can look like the guy on the cover some day if you buy their magazine.

Because of this confusion, people unfamiliar with the writing of McRobert tend to feel labeled by the term Hardgainer. "Oh I'm a hardgainer so I'm never going to bench 280." Thats not what McRobert intended when he came up with the term. In fact McRobert says that the most genetically average trainers have the potential to bench 300, squat 400, and deadlift 500, in fact most of these lifts are surpassed by genetically average trainers!

Being a hardgainer means you're genetically average (or in other words you are not unlike 90-95% of other weight trainers) and it doesn't mean that you have to give up your dreams of physical development. What it does mean is that you have to stop training in an unproductive manner.

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