How can a skinny guy gain muscle? 3 Muscle Building Rules for the Skinny and Hard Gainers

Figuring out how a skinny man can gain muscle isn’t always easy, especially if you’ve ever read a lot of what passes for advice in the fitness press. In fact, you could even be forgiven for thinking that the only way a skinny guy can gain muscle is by using the latest high-tech protein and supplement shake on the market.

Well this is nonsense. There are simple ways a lean man can gain muscle without relying on pills and potions. In fact, these are tips that natural pro bodybuilders are using to get ripped, muscular bodies…and many of them started out skinny.

Here are 3 of the best:

More calories = more muscle mass

I’d say the number one reason skinny guys don’t gain weight or build muscle mass is that they’re following a diet plan that doesn’t place enough emphasis on increasing their caloric intake…or worse, they’re not following a plan. diet at all!

This is a big mistake, since an increase in calorie intake is really the only way to increase muscle mass. Weight training alone will not give you the results you want. As the saying goes “muscles are built in the kitchen” and not necessarily in the gym.

To come up with a rough guide to your daily caloric needs, simply multiply your current body weight in pounds by 24. So if you weigh 150 pounds, you’ll need about 3,600 calories per day (150 x 24) to gain muscle mass.

Make sure these calories come from healthy sources like lean meats, fish, fruits, green vegetables, eggs, nuts, and beans. Divide your meals into 6 instead of the usual 3 to make it easier to reach your daily calorie goals and also to avoid spikes and dips in your energy levels and metabolic rate.

full body workouts

Another rule of thumb for how a skinny guy can gain muscle is to focus on intense full body workouts in the gym, instead of the usual split workouts you see most people do, i.e. one body part per day.

Split workouts aren’t as effective as full-body workouts for lean people gaining weight, since they typically only work each body part once a week, instead of 3 times in full-body workouts.

Full body workouts that focus on a core of compound multi-joint exercises such as squats, deadlifts, bench presses, etc. Allow the skinny guy to gain muscle faster by allowing heavier weights to be lifted on each exercise and reducing the chance of early fatigue in the smaller muscle groups.

As a general rule of thumb, the more muscle fiber you stimulate per exercise, the faster you will gain muscle.

lift heavy

Time and time again, many skinny guys fail to gain muscle simply by not lifting heavy enough weights and using the principle of progressive overload.

If the weights you’re lifting are too easy, you’re not doing yourself a favor, even if you’re doing a lot of reps. Since your goal is to know how a lean man can gain muscle, you need to work his muscle harder and force it to adapt to an increasing load.

By focusing on lifting more weight every time you step foot in the gym and reducing the number of repetitions to between 6 and 10 per set, you will significantly increase your potential for muscle growth.