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The hard gainer

Men's Fitness, April, 2005 by Alwyn Cosgrove

Q: I lift but I'm not packing on a lot of muscle, and my biceps never grow, Here's my training split ...

A: I don't need to see your training split. I can guess: You work chest on Monday, back on Tuesday, shoulders on Wednesday, and arms on Thursday. Then on Friday you do some leg presses, leg extensions, leg curls, and calf raises because it's "leg day." (Or you skip it altogether and just hit the bars early.)

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I've seen it hundreds of times, and I can tell you this: You aren't getting bigger because you're using too much energy training and not saving enough to grow. As a "hard-gainer," you should be working out three or four days a week, not five. You also need to work as much muscle as possible in every lift. Skip direct arm exercises and do chinups, rows, presses, and dips. Chinups hit your back and biceps, so when you're finished working your back, the smaller biceps are more than baked. Isolation exercises like curls rob the body of energy that could be directed toward growing muscle. (And that's magnified when you give arms their own day--making them work instead of grow.)

I know that's not what the big guys in your gym say, but if they're that big, they're not--and never were--hard-gainers.

Alwyn Cosgrove is the co-owner of Results-Fitness in Santa Clarita, Calif. (alwyncosgrove.com).

The hard gainer

Men's Fitness, April, 2005 by Alwyn Cosgrove

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