so what exactly is a hardgainer?

[skinnyfat]

Thanks, The Shit.

What confuses me is that I do a bit of intensity stuff. I run 10-12 x 400 once a week, run a dozen 200s once a week, do mile repeats, and all of my steady runs are on hilly trails with some pretty big climbs, so during certain portions of the run, I am working very hard. I know even my moderate mileage has probably eaten at whatever muscles I have, but I like running too much to stop. While I feel like a clown in the gym, I actually feel like I "belong" when I'm on a run, even though I'm by no means fast or anything.

Anyway, I put on 20 lbs, which is more than enough "bulking" for me. I ate pretty clean, but ate almost as much as I wanted, and lifted hard, but got fat.

 

[riskybizz007]

i think it comes from too much running. Somebody made the analogy b/w a runners body and a sprinters body. Very different. Runners are much more flabby and less muscular where sprinters are more musclular and a lot of them are pretty ripped. I think it's the running probobly eating at your muscles and leaving fat where it is. In essence your fat may not be being burned as much as muscle when you run.

 

[_jaap_]

i think riskybizz is right well more or less.
The running is making it hard for your body to build more muscle. Because to do this it needs a lot of cals and time and effort, if you run a lot your not giving it that chance your depriving it off cals and the time and effort it needs to build muscle. It spending those cals on recovering from the running.

Its also a consideration that to get that ripped look, i found that for me that wasnt attainable until i had build a significant amount of muscle mass. I was a skinny bastard before i got into bb, and was trying as hell to get those washboard abs. But i was just like you flabby but thin. Then when i got serious about eating and diet, i gained a lot of mass, and last summer i had my first ever set of washboards

 

[skinnyfat]

But doesn't not having abs just mean you are too fat? I mean, there are thin people with great abs, not because they have huge ab muscles, but just because there is no fat covering them. Meb Keflezighi has great abs and he isn't a big guy.

 

[My End Over Mad her]

it's the diet more than likely
look at bruce lee he ran sooo damn much
and did soooo much martial arts it was crazy
and on top of that did weight training
and he was cut like fuck
i think you need to just change the diet up

 

[DanielBishop]

I think the classification system is kinda screwed up. We studied it at university.... didn't make too much sense to me.

Endomorphs are short and stocky, ectomorphs are tall and thin....


.... so what if you're short with short limbs, but also very slender? I never figured it out.


I'd say I'm ectomorphic, and I have a very difficult time gaining muscle.... but at the same time, I naturally carry a lot of bodyfat and find it very easy to put on. So the metabolism thing confuses me.... I get the worst of both worlds.

Stupid genetics. Thanks a lot, dad.