When I write an article I never know whether it's going to make an impact or not. For example, a recent article of mine, Training for Easy-Hard Gainers, made a huge impact and I was deluged with emails. Honestly, I was surprised. I wrote it mainly for a very wealthy dot.com boy who's an easy-hard gainer himself. (Yes, I did receive the new Hummer. Thanks, Dave!) But I never suspected there were so many other easy-hard gainers out there!
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Well, there are, and after reading the article they all wanted a program that would fit their special needs. I found myself in quite a predicament. Why should I take away some of my precious time just to write an article for the easy-hard gainers out there? The answer is simple: I'm a big softy and I want to help people. Also, I can't drive twice around the block in the new Hummer without needing a fill-up! Have you priced gas lately?
So here's a special program that'll help easy-hard gainers pack on muscle and help me buy a tank or two of gas!
If you haven't read my first article on this subject, I recommend you do so before starting this one. However, here's a quick reminder of what an easy-hard gainer is and how he should train:
Now that you're up to speed, let's get on with the show and go right into the detailed training plan!
This is a sample eight-week program built on two training phases: an accumulation phase and an intensification phase.
The accumulation period is higher in volume and lower in intensity. I don't mean that it'll be high volume and low intensity as this type of training is suicide for easy-hard gainers. But we will include a bit more work than during the intensification period. This will be done mostly by using extended set techniques, especially cluster sets and low-rep supersets.
The intensification period will have you move on to more of a limit-strength training approach to really target the fast-twitch motor units. Due to your fiber dominance, you should be able to gain a hefty amount of strength in this second phase, which will lead to significant size gains provided that you follow proper easy-hard gainer nutrition.
Each muscle group will be hit directly or indirectly twice per week. You'll be using an upper body/lower body split, so you'll be training four times per week. Ideally you'd use one of these two schedules:
I find schedule #1 to be the most effective for easy-hard gainers, but schedule #2 is often more practical.
The method of choice for this training session is going to be low-rep extended sets. An easy-hard gainer should keep his reps at 8 or less per set, so your objective here will be to perform 7-8 reps with a load that you can normally lift 5 times. To do so you select a load that you can lift 4-6 times (after 1-2 warm-up sets) and complete as many reps as you can.
When you reach a point where you know that you won't be able to complete another full rep, you rack the bar, rest for 10-15 seconds and resume the set trying to get 1-2 more. If you reach 8 reps after that second effort, the set is completed. If you're only at 6-7 reps, you can take a second pause before attempting one last rep.
Under normal circumstances a set will look like this:
The exercises you'll perform are the back squat, conventional deadlift, sumo deadlift and leg curl. Two or three sets of each are performed. So the workout looks like this:
This session will be much like the first lower body workout as we'll use the extended set method. The exercises selected will be the bench press, bent-over barbell row, barbell shoulder press, close-grip pulldowns (parallel grip) and dips. One to three sets of each are performed. The workout looks like this:
In this second lower body workout we'll use post-fatigue supersets. Remember that easy-hard gainers don't want to perform more than 8 reps during a set. These athletes should count one superset as a single set for one muscle group. So the total number of reps performed in both exercises of a superset should be no more than 8. That's 3-5 reps per exercise.
We'll use one compound movement supersetted with one isolation exercise. The compound movement will be performed for 3-4 reps and the isolation movement for 4-5 reps. Perform two supersets in your workout, each being repeated five times.
We'll use the same low-rep superset method, but we'll be performing three different supersets so each will only be performed three times.
Note: Some supplemental upper arm work (biceps and triceps) can be performed on any one of the upper body sessions (or both) but keep that to a maximum of 3 total sets for each muscle. Abdominal work is performed on both lower body days.
During the intensification phase we'll really focus on increasing maximum strength by forcing the muscles to produce maximum tension. While strength and size aren't correlated at 100%, easy-hard gainers are the ones who'll benefit the most from performing strength work when it comes down to stimulating muscle mass gains.
During this training phase you're going to be training more and less – more in the sense that you'll hit the whole body three times per week, and less in that you'll only be training three times per week instead of four.
The training schedule you use can vary, as long as there's at least one day of rest between each workout.
Note: Complete each workout with 1-2 abdominal exercises. You can also add 1-2 upper arm exercises, but only if you truly feel rested and energetic.
For easy-hard gainers this program will be extremely effective at stimulating both strength and size gains. However, understand that without proper nutritional support these gains will just not happen. Nutrition is key for everybody when it comes to gaining size and strength, but even more so for easy-hard gainers. Refer to the first article in this series for info on how you should eat.
While this program is built for easy-hard gainers, it can stimulate gains in most every trainee. It's just that it'll increase muscle strength much more than muscle size in all but easy-hard gainers. Still, it's a great approach to use, especially when coming off a stint of high volume training.
Give it a shot and let me know how you do!
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