Ok so what are the basic tools that every hardgainer should have for skinny muscle gain?

1. A Protein & Calorie Dense Diet

Since this makes up around 60-70% of your chance of success in skinny muscle gain, it’s at the top and and is a vital part of any hardgainers routine. Hardgainers need a good flow of protein and calories to feed that energy burning body daily and ensure a calorie excess at the end of the day. Protein helps repair and build your muscles after workouts and is also vital. 1.5 to 2g of protein per pound of bodyweight is a good start. Keep it healthy and ensure you have a good hardgainers grocery list to kick-start start some skinny muscle gain.

2. A Good Protein Supplement

I know I mentioned this above, but the truth is hardgainers often stumble at the protein hurdle and negates the hard work at the gym or home. A great way to ensure you get all the protein your muscles need is by supplementing your skinny muscle gain diet with a protein shake. The average shake provides around 30g of protein, 3 times a day that’s 90g already knocked off. The thing to remember is make sure you’re working out, if you take these shakes daily without working out, you’ll possibly get fat building up in the wrong places without seeing skinny muscle gain.

3. Accurate Results Recording to See Skinny Muscle Gain

It’s hard to express the importance of this tool, recording your results each time you workout is extremely beneficial to achieving your muscle building goals, especially for hardgainers. It is possible that muscles can become stronger and more utilized without actually increasing in size especially with hardgainers. Use whatever you like, charts in folders, or even excel spreadsheets. Recording your stats for poundage, reps, body size and skinny muscle gain is vital then, and extremely motivating when you see the results in front of you. Remember it’s not going to happen overnight!

4. Free-Weights At Home

Free weights are one of the hardgainers best tools for skinny muscle gain. Machines in the gym are effective, but those isolate certain muscles and help you out a little too. Hardgainers require and see great gains on compound exercises coming from free-weights. Compound exercises are exercises that work out multiple muscles areas at once, for example the bench press is great for skinny muscle gain. They help your muscles stabilize, teach them balance and take them right to their limits. Having access to free-weights at home will give always give you that extra option when you don’t feel like driving to the gym that day!

5. Commitment, Dedication, Motivation and Goals = Skinny Muscle Gain

Ok so there are 4 here but they all fall under the umbrella of positive thinking. Fire up your mind and make sure you have these 4 words covered and in your everyday life. Skinny muscle gain for a hardgainer can be tricky and many skinny guys just give up way too early. Get committed to having a healthier new you, imagine what you could do with a new you and make goals as to where you want your body size to realistically be in 6 months or a year. Stay motivated and dedicated on those cold mornings or off days, this is vital especially when sticking to a hardgainer diet. Look after these 4 parts and nothing will stop you achieving your bodybuilding and skinny muscle gain goals.

So what kind of foods should you be adding to a gain weight diet?

The popular calorie dense foods are also on the fatty side like salamis, biscuits, chips, beers, fried foods and chocolate bars. By now you might be picturing a mountain of these foods in your pantry and looking forward to eating them as much as you like right? Remember, high calorie foods is just what we need in a gain weight diet, but we want the healthy ones with good nutritional value, so where are they?

Dried Fruits – Taking the water out of fruits concentrates the sugars, for example a small cup of raisins will give you around 200Kcal. Or a few dried apple rings, 160Kcal. Their a tasty addition to your gain weight diet and healthy, so start carrying them with you throughout the day to snack on.

Canned Fruits – High in calories because they are generally soaked in tasty sugary syrup. Don’t add these to your gain weight diet simply because of the sugar overload you’ll give yourself, once in a while is fine and as a treat.

High Calorie Fruits - these are Passion Fruit, Grapes, Bananas, Pineapples, Avocados and Pears.

Nuts – Perfect for snacking on, these contain healthy monounsaturated fats and will provide you with a convenient daily calorie boost.

Peanut Butter / Sandwich Spreads – Check the nutritional values first, generally contain healthy fats and are also calorie rich.

Pure Fruit Juices – Apart from being very healthy and going towards your 5 a day, drinking pure fruit juices really help increase your caloric intake. For example, a 200ml glass of pineapple juice is around 100kcals, so 3 of these a day and you’ve got a 300kcal boost! Easy additions to your gain weight diet.

Yoghurts with Honey – Yoghurts are healthy for you, but add things like honey and nuts to increase its kcal content significantly.

Salad With Dressing – Salads can be super healthy, but a spoon or two of dressing can turn this into a kcal rich snack for your gain weight diet.

Starchy Vegetables – Broccoli, Peas, Corn, Carrots and Squash. Very healthy, will help you achieve your 5 a day and super additions to a gain weight diet.

Beans & Legumes – These are a great source of carbohydrates and protein, another ingredient for a successful gain weight diet.

So these are the key foods you should be looking to increase and add to your gain weight diet. Make sure you consume a variety of these foods, don’t let your body get used to the same recipes each day. Don’t be scared of the fat intake either, but try to keep it under 15-25% of your total calorie intake. You’ll start to notice the great health benefits of a gain weight diet, even more so when coupled with a muscle/strength building routine.

Hardgainer Diet Starting Points

Eat foods that are calorie dense, lots of calories packed in little amounts of food to maximize your hardgainer diet. Try to aim for a ratio of 25% proteins, 25% good fats and 50% carbs. You need to be looking at almost 20 calories per pound of your total body weight. Tone down your energy usage, and up your caloric intake. Take some time to devise a way you can split this up into 5-6 meals a day even if one might be a weight gain supplement. In these meals you’ll need a good dose of vitamins and minerals, all your essential fats and oils. A proper nutritionally packed hardgainer diet is a massive factor often overlooked in seeing weight gains.

One thing to remember is that if you’re not supplying your body with enough energy to replace what it uses, it will start “borrowing” from your muscles. Start keeping a log of how many calories you’re consuming in the day, keep a food diary this will help. There are many programs you can download like ‘calorieking’, which keeps a track of your new hardgainer diet and output through your daily activities.

High Protein Foods to Add to your Hardgainer Diet

Protein is the building blocks of your muscles, so you’ll need to keep a good track of this. Try to consume at least 1.5g of protein per pound of your body weight. If you’re not used to eating this much protein, try supplementation 2-3 times a day. Protein shakes are a great addition to a hardgainer diet, there are plenty of great whey protein supplements out there to help you reach a daily amount. Also try adding some of the following foods to your daily diet;

• Eggs
• Milk
• Chicken
• Turkey
• Cottage Cheese
• Beans, Soy, Tofu
• Peanut Butter
• Pecans
• Flax Seeds
• Fish Fillets or Steaks
• Beef Steak
• Weight Gain Supplements

So by following these few easy guidelines you’ll be effectively turning your diet into a hardgainer diet. Remember before embarking on any new weight gain supplements, try a little first in case of allergic or adverse effects. Making a few changes each day, introducing more of certain types of food will really kickstart your weight gain nutrition and body building goals!

Try to eat around 30 minutes before your workout, post workout take a whey protein shake with around 30-50g of whey protein. Work your way up to half a gallon to a gallon of water a day, especially if your taking creatine. A weight gaining diet to build skinny muscle means eating hard, but not in one go, it’s about spacing!

It’s best not to go from your usual 3 meals a day to 6 straight away. Try adding a meal every few days to your weight gaining diet depending on how your body takes it. If you consume too much too quickly, it will be stored as fat and not skinny muscle. Firstly before you start adding these foods to your diet, cut back on the junk. Ice cream, cookies, chocolates, they all taste great but instead of gaining muscle weight, you’ll be gaining fat. It takes dedication and commitment to stick to a hardgainer diet but it will pay off in skinny muscle!

A Brief Grocery List of Foods to Start your Weight Gaining Diet and Building Skinny Muscle

• Fish & Seafoods – Fantastically healthy and packed with good oils and nutrients.
• High Calorie Breakfast Cereals – Add a little whey protein, add a few more nuts or raisins, great first meal for a weight gaining diet.
• Bagels – Very versatile and you can create great protein rich recipes.
• Legumes & Grains – High protein content makes these a great addition to a weight gaining diet to build skinny muscle.
• Mashed Potatoes – Full of carbohydrates that can be digested quickly by the body. Not very filling either which is good for hardgainers.
• Pastas & Rice – These are a great source of carbohydrates to fuel skinny muscle, various recipes possible to mix and match ingredients.

Foods to Snack on in a Weight Gaining Diet for Skinny Muscle

• Pretzels
• Protein Bars (watch the sugar content though)
• Nuts
• Apples

Start incorporating all these foods into your weight gaining diet in good amounts. Once again around 85% of your success in bodybuilding will be dictated by your nutrition. A good marker for healthy weight gain is around 2-3 pounds a week, so don’t forget to check the scales! Stick to your new diet for skinny muscle, stay committed and you’ll see results.

1. Using Too Much Energy Than Consumed – Everybody has a different job with various levels of intensity and energy usage. The more you do, the more calories are burned, pretty simple equation. So if you don’t replace the energy used on a daily level, you’ll lose weight, or stay a skinny guy not seeing skinny muscle gain. More calories consumed than used = weight gain.

2. Following an Incorrect Training Routine - Hardgainers often train with routines more suited towards easygainers. Less of the isolation exercises and more compound workouts are needed for skinny muscle gain, for example bench press and squats.

3. Inefficient Nutrition = No Skinny Muscle Gain – It’s all about calories and eating more of them than you consume. It doesn’t just end there though, hardgainers need lots of carb dense and protein rich foods to see healthy weight gain and build muscle.

4. Protein - To give yourself the best chance of seeing skinny muscle gain, at least 1.5 grams of protein per pound of body weight should be consumed daily! It’s a lot but with the right foods and some supplementation, you’ll be there in no time.

5. No Tracking – Hardgainers miss a trick with not keeping track of nutrition and workout stats. Calories, food intake and energy output should be monitored to make sure the body is getting enough replenishment. Watch the calories and protein, then watch the skinny guy transform into muscle guy. Record your weight every week or fortnight to track skinny muscle gain.

6. Commitment and Consistency – Easy enough, stick to it for a while, make some goals and stay committed to them. Don’t get de-motivated, good self-belief can boost your energy levels and lead to positive workouts and skinny muscle gain.

It may seem like each one may not hold much significance, but together they can really hold back skinny muscle gain and progress for great lengths of time. So just start paying a little more attention to these avenues to sharpen up your efficiency and success rate.

Skinny guys are referred to as having an ectomorph body in the bodybuilding world, usually those with a genetically smaller frame or a hardgaining metabolism that burns up everything in sight making it hard to build skinny muscle. So bodybuilding is a totally different game for hardgainers as it can get frustrating and de-motivating at times not seeing any change. So why is it so tough to alter an ectomorph body and add skinny muscle to it?

One of the problems lies in the way skinny guys train, most routines and information out there is created for easy weight gainers such as mesomorphs or endomorphs as opposed to the ectomorph body. These two types of bodies find it easier to gain muscle and put on weight. When an ectomorph body tries to build skinny muscle and train like the big easy gainer, the guy usually ends up pretty disappointed with the results or lack of skinny muscle. Even the supplements they take are burned up by their fast metabolisms in no time, especially when you combine that with the wrong kind of diet, an ectomorph body rarely responds to the wrong kind of diet!

Another key area as to why it’s hard for guys to build skinny muscle is that they just don’t consume enough calories and protein throughout the day. You’ll find a lot of the time, a guy is simply thin because he doesn’t really eat enough good food to change an ectomorph body. Calories and protein are key ingredients for an ectomorph body in restoring the energy used and building skinny muscle for a hardgainer. For a more detailed look at what slim guys should be consuming, have a read of our hardgainers diet article.

With a few daily changes to ectomorph body workouts and nutrition, it’s very possible for the slim guy to gain skinny muscle. So take a little time to read our articles for some great advice to set you back on track or even just to start you off in weight gain and building skinny muscle.