I posted this elsewhere but didn't get the kind of responses I was looking for.
Hard gainer vs. easy gainer
First of all, I'm not sure this is in the right section.
Which do you think is easier/better?
Is it better to be the type of skinny dude who eats everything in sight and has a hard time putting on mass (fat or muscle), or the dude who gains 10 lbs. just by looking at a pizza?
Let's assume skinny dude wants to add muscle and look cut and fat dude (easy gainer) wants to loose fat and gain muscle while getting cut. Who will have an easier time obtaining their goals?
What is your opinion based on what you have seen/experienced?
Thanks,
J.
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Thread: Hard gainer vs. easy gainer
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01-03-2013, 10:08 AM #1
Hard gainer vs. easy gainer
"Don't compare yourself to others, but to what you have been." - dvsness.
"...take whatever you want it's your body. Just don't come crying back because you've grown a set of tits and need to take viagra to get a hard on." ------- odw777
I went to a club last night. They played The twist, I did the twist. They played Jump, I jumped. They played "Come on Eileen"...I got kicked out.
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01-03-2013, 05:05 PM #2
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01-03-2013, 11:45 PM #3
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01-04-2013, 05:16 PM #4
Let's assume both types eat and train appropriately. Which one will have the easiest time reaching their goals?
"Don't compare yourself to others, but to what you have been." - dvsness.
"...take whatever you want it's your body. Just don't come crying back because you've grown a set of tits and need to take viagra to get a hard on." ------- odw777
I went to a club last night. They played The twist, I did the twist. They played Jump, I jumped. They played "Come on Eileen"...I got kicked out.
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01-04-2013, 05:30 PM #5
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01-04-2013, 10:06 PM #6
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01-04-2013, 11:14 PM #7
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01-04-2013, 11:48 PM #8
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01-05-2013, 01:09 AM #9
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I will bite.
usually a heavier person will have carried around the weight for some time and will have some amount of muscle to show for it, at which point all they have to do is cut the fat while strength training and they will be cut
On the other hand this skinny dude is skinny and will have to take the time to bulk and add muscle, then cut to show that muscle.
How fast that is done will be determined on individual variables that can not be predicted.
Your questions are not philosophical or intelligent. Rather more annoying.www.bikinisandbiceps.com
IG@bikinisandbiceps
MPH, CPT and Nutrition and Wellness Coach
No one is going to care more about your progress than you. Everyone else is too busy chasing their own. You either do what you need to do to progress, or you remain where you are. The choice is yours.
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01-05-2013, 01:38 AM #10
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i think the op has a valid question................as a hardgainer..i can eat tons and only get a fat belly..no fat deposits elsewhere that show/little progress on my muscle mass to..so when i cut.. i get to the same point i started.at......so it seems pointless to overeat..so i stay lean and look better..
a few mates of mine are big eaters and easy gainers....bulk up and cut at will.. to achieve far more mass than i can......
so some of us are stuck between a rock and a hard place..good question by the op..in my opinion..
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01-05-2013, 01:57 AM #11
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Its a pretty stupid question.
Its like asking whats better or easier being a girl or a boy, having straight hair or curly, being tall or short.
Its just meant to be a meaningless endless debate over who has the easier/harder time of life.
Someone like you is going to complain about how hard it is to gain muscle and how easy other people have it, while a heavier person will come in and say that they wish they were the skinny dude.
There just isnt any point in it.www.bikinisandbiceps.com
IG@bikinisandbiceps
MPH, CPT and Nutrition and Wellness Coach
No one is going to care more about your progress than you. Everyone else is too busy chasing their own. You either do what you need to do to progress, or you remain where you are. The choice is yours.
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01-05-2013, 02:08 AM #12
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01-05-2013, 02:42 AM #13
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01-05-2013, 02:43 AM #14
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Oh yes, i have it SOOOOOOO easy.
Cause, oh lets see shall we, my genetics suck, diagnosed with growth hormone deficiancy at age 5, which means that my hormones are so out of wack that i am truly a "hard gainer" of muscle and find it harder to lose fat than an average person. My body doesnt like to absorb b-12 out of my diet so i must over supplement with it or suffer from a host of issues, , and i am at the high end of height expected from someone who has had growth hormone replacement.
I mean, yeah, man i have it sooo easy compared to a 20 year old dude who is 5'11 and 175.
I just dont see the point in sitting here moaning, complaining and debating it. Rather im bustin arse trying to make what i can of my physique. Other people have it easier than me, other people also have it harder than me. There are people who are in a wheelchair or only have one arm or leg or less than that.
My struggle is mine to make, others have their own struggle. no point in debating who has it harder or easier.www.bikinisandbiceps.com
IG@bikinisandbiceps
MPH, CPT and Nutrition and Wellness Coach
No one is going to care more about your progress than you. Everyone else is too busy chasing their own. You either do what you need to do to progress, or you remain where you are. The choice is yours.
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01-05-2013, 03:01 AM #15
"I just dont see the point in sitting here moaning, complaining and debating it." You just did.
Everyone's genetics sucks, I don't see why you're such a special case. Unless you're a phucking Olympic athlete or some ****, odds are you don't have the most favorable genetics...
I would gladly give you my height and weight in exchange for your hearing. I'm sick of people comparing me to wheelchair people. They use the excuse that my legs aren't crippled to treat me like I have perfect hearing, and then **** on me when they realize that I don't. These same phuckers would rather give up their legs than their hearing."ham boy"
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01-05-2013, 03:25 AM #16
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Actually, im not debating on why i have it so much better or harder, just EXPLAINING why i am saying the question is pointless and why your little comment was way off mark. I dont think im a special case at all. Like I said, we all struggle in some way.
And what does your hearing have to do with being a hard gainer??????
Also, sounds like you have a lot of anger issues, maybe you just need more hugs.www.bikinisandbiceps.com
IG@bikinisandbiceps
MPH, CPT and Nutrition and Wellness Coach
No one is going to care more about your progress than you. Everyone else is too busy chasing their own. You either do what you need to do to progress, or you remain where you are. The choice is yours.
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01-05-2013, 03:48 AM #17
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rockangel, forget it, just put him on ignore. He's trolled through the startingstrength.com forum, he's just some loser non-lifter who wanders random forums ranting about stuff. He might even have been banned from the forum, most likely just got bored though, trolls rarely last long as they get distracted when the midget scat porn in the other tab has loaded up.
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01-05-2013, 03:50 AM #18
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01-05-2013, 03:51 AM #19
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01-05-2013, 03:57 AM #20
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I dont think i even want to know what midget scat porn looks like. Poor trolls, maybe they didnt get enough hugs or something.
Besides, dude wants to argue about not having hearing. Knew a guy who was blind, a bullrider, durn good guitar player and composed music on his computer. Limitations are what you make them. No point debating it like the op wants to.www.bikinisandbiceps.com
IG@bikinisandbiceps
MPH, CPT and Nutrition and Wellness Coach
No one is going to care more about your progress than you. Everyone else is too busy chasing their own. You either do what you need to do to progress, or you remain where you are. The choice is yours.
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01-05-2013, 04:00 AM #21
- Join Date: Jan 2010
- Location: , United States
- Age: 42
- Posts: 5,036
- Rep Power: 18470
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01-05-2013, 02:22 PM #22
The only reason I asked this was because I have a friend who's a few pounds shy of 200 lbs. and is trying to get there. I'm a few pounds over 200 and I'm trying to get to 200 lbs. We're both trying to get to 200, but from opposite directions. It just got me to thinking, and I was just curious. Obviously, from the responses I got, I'm a dumbass for having this questioning thought. So much for thinking.
"Don't compare yourself to others, but to what you have been." - dvsness.
"...take whatever you want it's your body. Just don't come crying back because you've grown a set of tits and need to take viagra to get a hard on." ------- odw777
I went to a club last night. They played The twist, I did the twist. They played Jump, I jumped. They played "Come on Eileen"...I got kicked out.
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01-05-2013, 03:45 PM #23
Since there is no such thing as a hard gainer or easy gainer, it would depend on who works harder on their nutrition/workouts and doesn't cheat their nutrition/workouts. I use to be 150 lbs and thought I was a hard gainer. Then I started actually eating like someone at the body weight I wanna be at would eat. And now I'm 220 lbs.
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01-06-2013, 07:20 AM #24
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01-06-2013, 11:07 AM #25
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08-04-2015, 04:30 PM #26
I am an easy gainer. In my experience in training and training with others who wore hard gainers it appears that my journey to being ripped is easier than my heart gaining friends. It is easier for me to add muscle mass and fat and it takes less time for me to cut fat then for my hard game friends to gain muscle. If we work in the same intensity and have the same dedication then in my experience I as a hard gainer have the shorter route to the goal of being ripped.
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12-19-2019, 10:05 AM #27
This thread is obviously from more than half a decade ago, but it was one of the first results that popped up on Google, so I think it's worth adding my input here in case anyone else winds up here in the same way I did.
First of all, 70%-80% of the population are "average gainers". Most of the "hard gainers" you hear about are actually average gainers that are doing something wrong; not eating enough food, not training correctly, or most commonly, afraid to put in the work and experience the pain that is required to build muscle.
The reason I stumbled upon this old thread is that I recently discovered that I am, as I have long suspected, an extremely "easy gainer". I never had to do any strength training beyond some push-ups here and there to have defined muscles. However, when I decided to really get into bodybuilding roughly 4-5 months ago, I adopted a very generic, cookie-cuter 5-day split. My strength and size shot up in the first 2 weeks, then stopped, then started to slowly go down each week. It's true that I am cutting, but only roughly 500-750 kcal/day, which is 1lb-1.5lb/week. This, for all intents and purposes, should not have happened. As it turns out, my assumption that easy gainers can train harder without overtraining is actually the opposite of the truth. Easy gainers must do LESS volume than average to see bigger gains, focusing almost entirely on compound movements and for basically everything except calves and abs, limit each set to 8 reps at an absolute maximum. This is because of the high fast:slow twich muscle fiber ratio. Easy gainers should also minimize fat intake (10%-20%/day of almost entirely healthy fats) and focus instead on carbs, once their protein goal has been met, of course.
Hard gainers, on the other hand, typically have raging metabolisms that rip through fat like no other, but also rip through muscle. The average hard gainer needs upwards of 2g/lb protein to build any sort of mass and the caloric intake of a silverback gorilla. The average hard gainer has an incredibly high ratio of slow:fast twitch muscle fibers; the exact opposite of an easy gainer (big surprise there). Slow twitch muscle fibers are built for endurance, so achieving hypertrophy is far more difficult for them. Hard gainers should still start every workout with a compound lift relevant to the day's split, but should also add a larger than average amount of high rep sets to their workout to stimulate the slow twitch fibers as much as possible.
That all being said, and I cannot stress this enough, the vast majority of people are average gainers, meaning they have a relatively even ratio of fast:slow twitch muscle fibers, and will respond well to a beginner cookie-cutter program. Other than my height (I'm 5'5" rofl), I hit the genetic lottery. I can gain much more muscle than average by doing less work than average. I joke that it's compensation for my stature.
Note: There is a relatively accurate test that you can do to check what type of gainer you are. It isn't perfect, but it can usually at least give you a ballpark estimate. It's incredibly simple: For all of the core lifts, do one set of 80% of your 1RM to failure. The fewer reps you can do, the easier of a gainer you are. It seems like it should be the other way around, but it's not. 6-10 is about average. 8 and you're average, but towards the "hard gainer" side. >10 and you are a hard gainer. <6 and you are an easy gainer. <4 and you are a very easy gainer. To put this into perspective, I can do 2-3 reps of 80% of my 1RM across the board.
So, to answer OP's question (not for OP but for anyone who stumbles upon this thread as I did, mind you; I'm aware of the thread's age), being an easy gainer is much, MUCH better for muscle. Getting lean is a bit harder, but not nearly as hard as putting on size is for the hard gainer. Hard gainers also tend to be very fat later in life because as they age their metabolisms slow down, but their food intake does not. Being a hard gainer does mean you can eat pretty much whatever you want sometimes even well into your 30s or even 40s. Hard gainers are also excellent runners or any other type of endurance athlete given their high ratio of slow:fast twitch muscle fibers.
Personally, I love being an easy gainer 99% of the time, but seeing my hard-ish gainer friend eat 2-3 1/2lb burgers frequently and still be a stick reminds me that there are upsides and downsides to everything.ISSA Personal Trainer, fitness research enthusiast, computer programmer, and a huge nerd.
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