4 Workout Routines for Hardgainers to END Skinniness!

I used to drink shots of olive oil in order to gain weight.

No joke. Back when I was a skinny hardgainer, I was desperate to put on muscle. And completely clueless.

So, I tried everything. I did every routine, every type of diet, counted my macros, trained six days a week. I even took BCAAs (Branched-Chain Amino Acids) in between class in the bathroom stall! It seems kind of insane to me now, but you can’t say I wasn’t dedicated.

If only I had known the basic principles of weight training and nutrition I know today…

When you have a good, solid workout routine to guide you, it makes this whole process easier. I don’t want you to go through all the trouble I did.

Given that, I’ve compiled 4 of the best workout routines for hardgainers.

Several of these I’ve tried before, and the ones I haven’t have tons of testimonials. Let’s break down each of the routines. But, before we do that, we need to establish what makes a good hardgainer workout routine…

What Makes a Good Hardgainer Workout Routine?

You want my honest opinion?

The advice I give to hardgainers isn’t much different from what I would give to anyone else. The big difference is the emphasis.

Hardgainers need to be reminded about proper nutrition. They need to be reminded not to waste countless hours in the gym hammering away at useless exercises. And they need to be reminded of how to make progress in the gym.

Once you understand these principles, you can effectively use a hardgainer workout routine.

A Hardgainer Routine Needs to Focus on Basic, Compound Lifts

You will get more benefit and gain more muscle from big, compound exercises. Period.

The more quickly you improve your technique on these exercises, the more quickly you will erase your status as hardgainer.

Here are some benefits of compound exercises:

• Recruit more overall muscle than isolation exercises
• You can use heavy weights
• Easier to make progress (because the weight is heavier)

When I say compound exercises, I mean exercises like:

• Squats
• Deadlifts
• Military Press
• Rows
• Pull-ups

Of course, I’m not anti-isolation exercises. There’s definitely a place for them. But, if you are someone who struggles to put on weight, doing a bunch of isolation exercises means you’re simply burning more calories than they’re worth.

You’re going to burn calories in your workout. So, you might as well focus on the best bang-for-your-buck exercises.

Hardgainer Workout Routines Should be (Relatively) Low Volume

In weight training, volume is the amount of work you do in a given training session.

It’s usually measured by total sets per muscle group or movement pattern (push/pull/legs, upper/lower, etc.). Why isn’t high volume a good idea for a hardgainer?

Piggybacking on what we talked about in the last section, it simply burns too many precious calories. Calories are so vitally important for hardgainers since hardgainers burn calories too easily. And you’ll simply have to eat even more to offset it.

Not only that, but hardgainers usually have a difficult time recovering from all that volume. Doing too many sets will leave you too drained.

It’s a much better idea to focus on a few simple movements which you are consistently making progress with.

Speaking of which, the next principle to keep in mind is…

Good Workout Routines Need Progressive Overload

The easiest way to understand progressive overload is like this:

You can do this in a variety of ways. The classic way to achieve progressive overload is to add more weight to the bar. Indeed, this is the best long-term strategy. But you can’t continually add weight to the bar or else you’d be lifting dump trucks in no time!

The second-best method is to increase reps with the same weight.

Here are some other methods:

• Increase the amount of sets performed
• Increase training frequency
• Increase intensity through supersets, drop sets, rest pause, etc.
• Decrease time in between sets
• Increase time under tension (TUT)

However, all of these methods have quickly diminishing returns. So, I recommend sticking primarily to increasing the amount of weight or reps lifted.

Progressive overload is the key to any workout routine for hardgainers to actually grow muscle. You have to continually strive to achieve progressive overload or else your workout routine will not work.

Hardgainers Need to Eat Enough Calories to Grow

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, I need to highlight the importance of nutrition.

Most hardgainers simply don’t eat enough calories to gain weight.

The trend in the fitness industry nowadays is to “gaintain”. To eat the smallest number of calories possible to grow in order to avoid putting on any fat.

I think this philosophy does a disservice to hardgainers. Your ultimate focus has to be putting on weight. And, if you are a true hardgainer, you probably won’t put on much fat anyways.

So, always err on the side of eating more, not less.

4 Best Workout Routines for Hardgainers

Westside for Skinny Bastards

My personal favorite out of all the routines here, this classic template from Joe DeFranco is time-tested and proven to work.

It was the first routine I had long-term success with as a relative newbie. I used it for the second six-month training block of my first year of training. With pretty awesome results. My strength improved dramatically, and I put on twenty pounds.

Westside for Skinny Bastards is derived from the traditional Westside Barbell powerlifting routine. We won’t go into that here (DeFranco covers it in the article).

The routine went through three iterations, and I’ve linked the final (and best) one. DeFranco originally devised the routine for college athletes he was training who were struggling to put on muscle. He has some successful testimonials of his athletes at the bottom of the article.

The basic split looks like this:

MONDAY – Max-Effort Upper Body
TUESDAY – Dynamic-Effort Lower Body
WEDNESDAY – Off
THURSDAY – Repetition Upper Body
FRIDAY – Max-Effort Lower Body
SATURDAY – Off
SUNDAY – Off

OR

MONDAY – Max-Effort Lower Body
TUESDAY – Off
WEDNESDAY – Max-Effort Upper Body
THURSDAY – Off
FRIDAY – Dynamic-Effort Lower Body
SATURDAY – Off
SUNDAY – Repetition Upper Body

DeFranco also offers variations, and the only other one you might want to consider is the Washed-up Meathead Template, which replaces the Dynamic Effort Lower Body day with a “Vanity Day”.

Summary

Westside for Skinny Bastards is a fantastic routine for hardgainers who want a bit more spice to their routine. There’s a lot of exercises to choose from, so it’s hard to get bored with this one. If you follow the program, you will definitely be on your way to being a BIG bastard.

Jim Wendler’s 5/3/1

This now famous routine by powerlifter Jim Wendler absolutely exploded in popularity around 2010. Although I haven’t used it myself, I personally know many people who’ve gotten big and strong using it. Plus, there are endless testimonials online.

Jim Wendler developed this as a no-nonsense routine for getting in the gym and lifting without having to overthink everything.

It’s essentially an upper lower split, but what makes this routine interesting is the constant progression model. Wendler has you take 90% of your one rep max for a given lift and use that to calculate the rest of the numbers in the program.

This is how the sets and reps are broken down for the main exercise each day over a three week cycle:

• Week One: 3×5
• Week Two: 3×3
• Week Three: 1×5, 1×3, 1×1

The variation in reps keeps the program interesting. It also allows you to train in slightly different rep ranges, so you are maximizing different aspects of strength. There are also two accessory exercises for each workout which you will perform five sets of higher reps with.

Another reason I like this program is the planned deload every fourth week. Deloading is important for recovery, and you can read more about that here.

You can choose to do the three day or four-day split, although I (and Jim) recommend the four-day split for optimal progress.

Summary

5/3/1 is an excellent choice for anyone who wants to take the guess work of a routine out so you can focus on lifting. It’s a great routine for someone interested in powerlifting and bodybuilding (AKA powerbuilding). And the tons of testimonials over the years are a testament to its efficacy.

Classic PPL Split

This classic push pull legs split from Old School Trainer is a diamond in the rough.

PPL splits are one of the classic bodybuilding splits. They’ve been around since at least the ‘70s, and really came on in popularity in the ‘80s. There are several advantages to a PPL split:

• You can focus on each individual muscle group
• More recovery time in between muscle groups
• Simple to execute

You have three different training days in this split:

• Push (chest/shoulders/triceps)
• Pull (back/biceps)
• Legs (quadriceps/hamstrings/calves)

A Monday, Wednesday, Friday breakdown or similar works best.

This routine focuses solely on core, compound exercises.

The 5×5 method is used for the majority of the program. In the article, he doesn’t cover exactly how to do it. There are really two ways you can do 5×5: straight sets or ramping sets. If you want to understand exactly how to implement both styles, click here.

One aspect which differentiates this routine from the others is its use of the rest pause method.

Rest pause is a high intensity method which works like this:

Do one set close to failure
Rest 15-30 seconds
Do another set to or close to failure
Repeat 2-3 more times

It’s challenging, but it works. Rest pause is one of my favorite high intensity techniques for pushing your strength and size gains to the limit.

Summary

The classic PPL is an excellent workout routine for hardgainers who want to focus a little more on each muscle group. Although it doesn’t feature isolation exercises, you will get more than enough work in with the rest pause method.

GreySkull LP Program

You can grab the excel spreadsheet here

The GreySkull LP program is one of the most popular beginner programs out there.

It also functions perfectly as a workout routine for hardgainers. GreySkull uses a three-day-a-week total body training model. You’ll be training all muscle groups every session, but the overall volume is limited.

What I like about this program is it doesn’t have you squat three days a week like a lot of other total body programs. Instead, the day in the middle is reserved for deadlifts. Squatting three times a week is too much stress to recover from for most hardgainers.

The particular version of the GreySkull program I prefer is the Phraks version, which looks like this:

Day 1:

• 3×5 Overhead Press/Bench Press (alternating)
• 3×5 Chin-ups/Barbell Rows (alternating)
• 3×5 Squats

Day 2:

• 3×5 Overhead Press/Bench Press (alternating)
• 3×5 Chin-ups/Barbell Rows (alternating)
• 1×5 Deadlifts

Day 3:

• 3×5 Overhead Press/Bench Press (alternating)
• 3×5 Chin-ups/Barbell Rows (alternating)
• 3×5 Squats

The original program did not have you do rows. But, in this variation, rows are included. Rows are a fundamental compound exercise and I think every hardgainer should be training them.

The program also calls for accessory movements (smaller compound exercises and isolation exercises) to be performed after bigger compound movements. Though there aren’t any set weights to be used, progressive overload on these exercises is emphasized. The accessory movements should be done after the muscle they correspond to. So, if you are doing lunges you should do them after squats, not before.

The progression model for the compound exercises is a linear one, where you add a small amount of weight each workout. This can be calculated using the spreadsheet linked above.

Another unique feature of the program is the AMRAP (as many reps as possible).

For your main exercises on each day, the last set to be performed is an AMRAP set. As the name implies, you do as many reps as you can until you reach failure. This makes the program a bit more interesting by adding more intensity.

Summary

GreySkull LP is a safe option for hardgainers looking to make consistent strength gains. It’s a proven program with a linear progression model. The spreadsheet included takes the guesswork out so all you have to do is go in and lift.

Hardgainer Workout Routines Wrap Up

Trust me, you don’t have to stay a hardgainer forever!

It’s really just a mindset change that needs to occur. Once you begin to make progress and put on some muscle, you will realize that a lot of what was holding you back was in your mind.

Any of the four programs will work for you. They all have incredible track records.

However, you must follow the principles I outlined earlier, especially progressive overload and eating enough to gain weight. When you combine those principles with one of the routines I mentioned is when you will finally make gains.

Now leave that hardgainer status behind and lift some damn weight!

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