Am I a hard gainer?

[Gardenzio]

Hey guys! How are you doing?

First of all, I'm not a english speaking person, so probably I'll make some mistakes, but let it go... In the past I had some trouble on speaking and writing in English, but here we are today! I only took my difficulty to speak and write in English to develop it more and more. By the way, let's go to what matters.

I do really like bodybuilding and all kind of exercises. When I was a kid, I did swimming classes e I always played soccer with my friends when I was at school. And nowadays I would not figure out how my life would be without doing some sort of exercise. So, I can say I was never a sedentary guy, I always did sports and the time when I stopped doing it was when I got injuried or when I really got sick. But the most part of my life was doing exercise.

But till the age of 18, I've never gone to the gym before, or I've never done strenght exercises, like calisthenics. When I was 18, a joined a gym near my house, and then I started to go there.

In the beginning I did a lot of mistakes, and listening to the guys that says "no pain no gain" and "You must train hard if you want to have real gains on the gym", I usually got overtrained, cause my workout was about 50 minutes and plus 20 minutes of cardio, every day, from monday to friday. So I had a lot of trouble to go to bed and have a good night, and nowadays I realized that I trained a lot on that time of my life. But I always followed those digital influencers on the youtube and always liked to know about the bodybuilding's world, about nutrition and about biomechanics or how to train correctly. Even so, I had never had real gain and results on the gym. I almost joined the gym with a kid of shape, and went it out with a little difference. But always going to the gym; if not to the gym, I went to a park to do calisthenics, or ride my bike, but never living a sedentary life.

Till now, I'm 24, and have a ugly belly fat, even tough it's not so huge (I saw skinny guys worst than me), but for sure I would like to get a greater shape.

Trying to join this journey to get a good shape properly, I've read almost 3 or 4 books about nutrition and exercise/bodybuilding. Those were: "Bigger, Leaner, Stronger", "Beyond Bigger Leaner Stronger", "The No BS Workout Supplements" and another one I don't remember, all those from Michael Matthews. I've also listened to the Bodybuilding.com podcast on Youtube or Spotify, trying to looking for some advices and figuring out what I was doing wrong with my nutrition and exercise.

I must also say that, in general, I always try to eat properly. For sure, some day I have funk food meals on Mc Donald's, for exemple, but it happens once or twice in a month. The rest of my diet is based on eating eggs, chicken, rice, fish, yogurt, and trying to follow a diet. But in general, I would say I have a good diet.

I still like getting in shape and the bodybuilding and exercise's world, but I have no idea why I haven't yet arrived on where I wanted to. Sometimes I think "Is my genetic good?", "Do I have any problem on my genetic?", "Am I a hard gainer?", "Would I only have great result if I go the steroids?" (I have no problems with those who use steroids, and maybe I would like to use them when I get older, not now).

So, I've written a lot. I would only like to introduce a bit of my story. In the upcoming posts I will put my shape's pictures here, and also my current diet and my current exercise (nowadays I'm only on calisthenics).

Thank you for your attention!

[Gardenzio]

Hey guys! I have I doubt: must I only post my posts here, on this topic, or should I create another thread?

By the way, let's go. I went to a sportist nutricionist (I guess that's the right name in english) twice on the past two months, and then he gave me a diet for me to follow, and I'm following it. On second december I gonna go to him again, and I'll share with you what kind of diet he gave me. I'm really on the mood to get in shape, and do really want it, cause I'm training since I have e18 years old, and I do really love exercising.

Because my goal is gaining weight and building muscle, I'm feeling that his amount of food the nutricionist gave me is not being enough for me to gain weight. I'm not seeing good improvement on my body, and maybe I'm getting some belly fat in this percourse.

Soon I'll share with you my current diet, and when I receive the other one on december, I gonna share with you too. And I must share my exercise routine on the upcoming days (maybe tomorrow). And post the pictures of my corrent shape as well.

[TheNoob7]

Tldnr

[SuffolkPunch]

I don't really believe in "hard gainers" as people with poor genetics who can't gain any muscle. There are usually other reasons why they don't progress. True genetic outliers are very rare (by definition). The more usual reasons are:
1. expectations - it takes years of consistent hard work to achieve results
2. fear of gaining fat. You have to eat in a caloric surplus to get to your target weight if it is above your current weight. This may involve some temproary bloating and some fat gain too. Losing fat afterwards is relatively easy thing to do.
3. Not understanding how hard you are meant to be working. The acid test is how many more reps you could do if someone held a gun to your head...
4. Some people do better on some schemes e.g. high vs. low volume, high vs. low reps etc. You must experiment, objectively measure your results over a long enough period of time and then use what works best

[Gardenzio]

** Current measures:
- Height: 170 cm
- Current weight: 70.5 kg
- Current body fat (measured by the nutricionist): 22% (which for sure is high)

** My goal:
- Weight: 76,4 kg
- Body fat: 10%
- When: june 23, 2021.

Those two pictures below are of my current shape:

[Gardenzio]

I don't really believe in "hard gainers" as people with poor genetics who can't gain any muscle. There are usually other reasons why they don't progress. True genetic outliers are very rare (by definition). The more usual reasons are:
1. expectations - it takes years of consistent hard work to achieve results
2. fear of gaining fat. You have to eat in a caloric surplus to get to your target weight if it is above your current weight. This may involve some temproary bloating and some fat gain too. Losing fat afterwards is relatively easy thing to do.
3. Not understanding how hard you are meant to be working. The acid test is how many more reps you could do if someone held a gun to your head...
4. Some people do better on some schemes e.g. high vs. low volume, high vs. low reps etc. You must experiment, objectively measure your results over a long enough period of time and then use what works best

Thank you, man.

I'm aware by the fact we all must wait a bit to get on a good shape and we must have patience to get in shape, but in my case I've training for 6 years kk, and my shape didn't changed the way I would like to. So I asked me: "what's missing?"

I also know we must pay attention in the 3 main things to have good results on the gym: training, resting and dieting. For sure I'm not the athlete guy, but I always trained either in the gym or in the park (calisthenics).

Sometimes I also fall on the trap that says you should take steroids to have a great shape, and even though I have no problem in taking steroids or with those who already took it, I only think I'm too young for the moment. Maybe in my 35 or 40 I'll think about get on some steroids, but with a accompaniment of a doctor...

[Gardenzio]

Beyond all the posts we have on this website, what books you guys would reccomend for us to read?

Do you think "Bigger, Leaner Stronger" and "Beyond Bigger Leaner Stronger" are two good books to read about exercises and nutrition?

[Topah]

Hey guys! How are you doing?

First of all, I'm not a english speaking person, so probably I'll make some mistakes, but let it go... In the past I had some trouble on speaking and writing in English, but here we are today! I only took my difficulty to speak and write in English to develop it more and more. By the way, let's go to what matters.

I do really like bodybuilding and all kind of exercises. When I was a kid, I did swimming classes e I always played soccer with my friends when I was at school. And nowadays I would not figure out how my life would be without doing some sort of exercise. So, I can say I was never a sedentary guy, I always did sports and the time when I stopped doing it was when I got injuried or when I really got sick. But the most part of my life was doing exercise.

But till the age of 18, I've never gone to the gym before, or I've never done strenght exercises, like calisthenics. When I was 18, a joined a gym near my house, and then I started to go there.

In the beginning I did a lot of mistakes, and listening to the guys that says "no pain no gain" and "You must train hard if you want to have real gains on the gym", I usually got overtrained, cause my workout was about 50 minutes and plus 20 minutes of cardio, every day, from monday to friday. So I had a lot of trouble to go to bed and have a good night, and nowadays I realized that I trained a lot on that time of my life. But I always followed those digital influencers on the youtube and always liked to know about the bodybuilding's world, about nutrition and about biomechanics or how to train correctly. Even so, I had never had real gain and results on the gym. I almost joined the gym with a kid of shape, and went it out with a little difference. But always going to the gym; if not to the gym, I went to a park to do calisthenics, or ride my bike, but never living a sedentary life.

Till now, I'm 24, and have a ugly belly fat, even tough it's not so huge (I saw skinny guys worst than me), but for sure I would like to get a greater shape.

Trying to join this journey to get a good shape properly, I've read almost 3 or 4 books about nutrition and exercise/bodybuilding. Those were: "Bigger, Leaner, Stronger", "Beyond Bigger Leaner Stronger", "The No BS Workout Supplements" and another one I don't remember, all those from Michael Matthews. I've also listened to the Bodybuilding.com podcast on Youtube or Spotify, trying to looking for some advices and figuring out what I was doing wrong with my nutrition and exercise.

I must also say that, in general, I always try to eat properly. For sure, some day I have funk food meals on Mc Donald's, for exemple, but it happens once or twice in a month. The rest of my diet is based on eating eggs, chicken, rice, fish, yogurt, and trying to follow a diet. But in general, I would say I have a good diet.

I still like getting in shape and the bodybuilding and exercise's world, but I have no idea why I haven't yet arrived on where I wanted to. Sometimes I think "Is my genetic good?", "Do I have any problem on my genetic?", "Am I a hard gainer?", "Would I only have great result if I go the steroids?" (I have no problems with those who use steroids, and maybe I would like to use them when I get older, not now).

So, I've written a lot. I would only like to introduce a bit of my story. In the upcoming posts I will put my shape's pictures here, and also my current diet and my current exercise (nowadays I'm only on calisthenics).

Thank you for your attention!

you still have a long way to go buddy, depending on how long you trained you might still be able to gain beginner gains. you just have to keep at it im nowhere near where i want to be but i know that if i continue to grind it will come no matter how slow it is.