Muscle Building For Skinny Guys Made Easy With 4 Key Steps

Are you struggling to put on pounds to get a muscular body? Buckle up because we’ve got the ultimate guide on muscle building for skinny guys.

To an observer, the journey from skinny to muscular should be a breeze: eat more and lift big. In other words, pile your plate with carbs and proteins, then convert them to muscles through weight training.

However, if you’re a hardgainer, then you already know that muscle building is not that simple. You can send your calorie count through the roof and spend your days hitting the gym but still come up short in muscle mass.

Why can muscle building for skinny guys be challenging? Oftentimes, it’s because you’re not eating right, you’re training too hard, and you’re not allowing enough time for recovery. Seriously, it boils down to those three common things and the supplements you’re using. Keep reading because we’ve covered all the info you need, but first things first…

What does it mean to be a hardgainer?

A hardgainer is someone who finds it challenging to put on muscle mass despite consistently lifting heavy weights. A hardgainer is also known as an ectomorph; which is a fancy way of saying “skinny”. The opposite of an ectomorph is an endomorph or easy gainer. Muscle building for skinny guys or "hardgainers" may not come as easy as it does for others, however, it is still possible and can be done.

There are four key factors when it comes to muscle building for skinny guys. Each aspect is an important component and should be considered to help build quality muscle as quickly as possible.

4 Important Steps To Support Muscle Building For Skinny Guys

Step #1: Skinny guys should make sure they are eating plenty of muscle-building foods in order to bulk up. This should include one gram of protein for every pound of your body weight per day. Throw in plenty of carbohydrates, healthy fats, and healthy, high-calorie snacks too.

Step #2: Train effectively so that you hit all your muscle groups in a balanced way.

Step #3: Allow time for recovery. i.e., get your daily dose of 8 hours of sleep, and have at least two rest days per week.

Step #4: Use the best supplements to support muscle building for skinny guys to get an easy extra boost of nutrients in addition to your meal plan.

How Should Skinny Guys Eat To Bulk Up?

To bulk up, skinny guys should eat a lot of proteins and plenty of carbohydrates. Proteins are the building blocks for muscles while carbs supply your body with energy. For that reason, proteins and carbs make the best foods to help facilitate muscle building for skinny guys. 

Combining proteins and carbohydrates and even healthy fats will increase your calorie intake while giving you the fuel you need to work out and build muscles.

Aim for 1 gram of protein for every pound of body weight per day. Thus if you weigh 120 pounds, you’ll want to eat 120 grams of protein every day. Oftentimes you’ll find that you can’t hit your target if you do 3 meals per day. Therefore, try eating every 2 to 3 hours. Snacking will help provided the snacks are rich in proteins and carbs.

It is also helpful to know how many calories you need to hit each day to successfully add quality muscle and weight over time. Below is a helpful weight gain calculator to help you assess how many calories you will need to eat per day to build muscle and gained weight.

Traditional bodybuilding favorites like brown rice and chicken are good. However, there are other protein-rich alternatives like fish (specifically, tilapia), lentils, and avocados. Any healthy food that’s insanely rich in protein earns a spot among the best foods to support muscle building for skinny guys.

Although proteins are the most important foods, muscle building for skinny guys requires plenty of carbohydrates too. If your body doesn’t get enough carbs for energy, it will start metabolizing proteins and muscles as a source of energy. Therefore, mix your proteins with healthy starchy foods like oats, potatoes, brown rice, and other grain foods.

More Dietary Tips To Increase Muscle Building For Skinny Guys:

• Don’t ever workout on an empty stomach. Without food for fuel – specifically starch – your body will metabolize muscle tissue for energy and you’ll lose your muscle mass.
• Add healthy fats to your diet. A single gram of fat packs a whopping 9 calories; no other food comes close. And yes, calories will help you gain lean muscles. So, if you’re a hardgainer, you may want to be friends with healthy fatty foods like cheese, avocados, nuts, eggs, and dark chocolates.
• Throw fiber-rich foods in the mix. Without fiber, your body won’t properly digest and absorb proteins. Therefore, if you’re a hardgainer, then you need to eat your fruits and veggies.
• Don’t forget probiotics. A healthy gut will improve your appetite while at the same time increasing the rate of protein absorption. As a hardgainer, that’s precisely what you want in order to increase your calorie intake.

Create A Workout Plan for Muscle Gain

One thing to get out of the way right off the bat: cardio exercises are not good when it comes to muscle building for skinny guys. They burn a lot of calories and will put you in a caloric deficit.

Some examples of cardio exercises are running, jogging, walking, and jumping jacks. Avoid them as much as possible if you’re a hardgainer.

With that said, how can skinny people become muscular? Keep in mind, more is not always most effective.

As a hardgainer, you do not need to intensely do every exercise ever invented. Instead, do a few compound exercises that use as many muscles as possible. In other words, focus on key lifts like bench press, squats, deadlift.

Compound exercises utilize multiple muscle groups. Large, multiple muscle lifts trigger the production of testosterone and growth hormones, which in turn enhance the development of muscle mass. 

Therefore, instead of doing isolation exercises like a reverse fly, front raises, or lateral raises, for example, do compound workouts like shoulder presses, squats, bench presses, deadlifts, pull-ups, push-ups, and overhead presses.

Full-body exercises are basically multiple compound exercises bundled together into a routine.

In addition to performing multiple compound exercises, full-body workouts also prevent you from over-training some muscle groups. Over-training a particular muscle group can decrease your body’s ability to build muscle.

Schedule Rest Days in Your Workout Plan and Get Quality Sleep

It may seem counter-intuitive, especially for skinny guys trying to build muscle, but rest is one of the most important things you can do. That’s right, rest and recovery are very essential to muscle building for skinny guys. Every time you sleep or rest, the body releases testosterone and growth hormones. These important and necessary hormones develop muscles and will help you bulk up.

Additionally, quality sleep and rest days help your muscles to recover and prepare for the next workout session. The thing is, your muscles tear with every exercise session. Without proper recovery, they will be too strained and stressed for your next workout.

Fatigue not only hinders growth, but it may even lead to muscle protein breakdown (this means your body will begin to metabolize muscles to repair itself), resulting in a loss of hard-earned muscle, a hardgainers worst nightmare.

Therefore, schedule 4-5 days for working out per week and leave the remaining ones for rest. And try as much as possible to get your 8 hours of sleep each day. If you frequently suffer from insomnia you can consider using a sleep mask, meditation, or other natural cures for sleeplessness.

Use the Best Supplements To Support Muscle Building For Skinny Guys

It can be challenging for anyone, regardless if they are skinny or not, to get all of the essential macronutrients from their diet alone. This is why supplements like mass gainers can be so helpful and effective. Mass gainers are high-calorie supplements full of helpful proteins, carbohydrates, and even fat. 

Adding these additional calories is often the extra boost necessary to increase muscle building for skinny guys. However, it is important to do your homework to ensure you are using a quality mass gainer to supply you with quality, beneficial ingredients.

Prolab N-Large2 Mass Gainer is a powerful Mass Gaining Support Formula created to promote muscle size, growth, and recovery on the hardest gainers featuring delicious flavors.

Prolab N-Large2 Mass Gainer

N-Large2 is packed with 6 pounds of weight gain protein powder and is an incredible weight gainer for skinny guys. Every serving supplies your body with high-quality proteins, energy-fueling carbohydrates, and 600 healthy calories for building and retaining muscles. Every serving of N-Large2 Mass Gainer contains:

• 52 grams of 80 grade WPC (whey protein concentrate)
• A special blend of high and low glycemic carbohydrates
• 5 grams of fat
• 600 calories per serving
• 44 grams of amino acids

Benefits of Prolab N-Large2 Mass Gainer

• Promotes muscle growth for hardgainers
• Replenishes glycogen after your workout session
• Contains fat which the body can burn for fuel instead of metabolizing your muscles
• High-calorie content gives you energy throughout your entire workout
• Can be used in addition to a diet rich in muscle-building foods for skinny guys without any side effects
• Makes a smooth, refreshing, and delicious shake

BCAAs are amino acids that support protein synthesis. This important process is vital for increasing muscle gains and facilitating recovery following intense workouts. BCAA's are the building blocks of protein and essential to ongoing muscle building for skinny guys, and anyone for that matter.

Prolab BCAA Plus is a muscle-preserving formula made up of the essential amino acids L-Leucine, L-Valine, and L Isoleucine known as branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs).

Prolab BCAA Plus

BCAAs are excellent for you if you’re a hardgainer. Prolab BCAA Plus is rich in branched-chain amino acids, specifically, L-Leucine, L Isoleucine, and L-Valine. 

These essential amino acids not only help your body build new muscles but also counter catabolic muscle mass depletion. BCAA Plus also contains Vitamin C and B6 to attack free radicals and support protein metabolism.

Benefits of Prolab BCAA Plus

• Enhances the growth of lean muscles
• Prevents the depletion of lean muscles
• Reduces fatigue and feelings of tiredness
• Jumpstarts the recovery process after a workout session
• Enables your muscles to produce maximum energy during exercise

Using quality supplements like N-Large2 Mass Gainer and BCAA Plus can provide an edge when it comes to muscle building for skinny guys.

Final Thought Concerning Muscle Building For Skinny Guys

When it comes to muscle building for skinny guys applying the four components outlined in this article can help you accomplish your goals, gain weight, and become more muscular. If you’re a hardgainer practice these four steps to grow and maintain muscle mass:

• Eat a diet that is full of muscle-building foods containing proteins, carbohydrates, and small amounts of healthy fats
• Focus on heavy compound movements rather than isolated exercises during your workouts
• Take time to rest and do your best to get good-quality sleep
• Incorporate quality muscle building supplements like a mass gainer and BCAAs

Along with this, stress will work against all of your muscle-building efforts. Therefore, you’ll want to keep your stress levels in check. 

Additionally, realizing progress will be your biggest motivator Use the mirror and a scale every so often to monitor your progress so that you can make adjustments to your diet or training along the way if necessary.