A lot of skinny guys look for “how to gain muscle fast for skinny guys” on YouTube or Google. But most of the time, they get some bad and confusing information that harms their bodies instead of helping.
Did you know that around 15% of people in the gym always struggle to gain weight? Some of them often mess up everything by accumulating fat instead of muscle. They try so hard to put on some extra weight, but the mirror always shows little progress, leaving them frustrated and stuck in a cycle of trying and failing.
Sometimes, they start eating anything they can find, even unhealthy foods, without knowing the harmful aspects. It’s important to understand that gaining muscle requires a structured process for actual results.
It’s true that some skinny people need to work really hard to gain those extra pounds. Despite their endless efforts in the gym and consuming multiple meals, they still don’t achieve their desired results. But don’t worry. This article will help you identify your mistakes, educate yourself on the fundamentals, and guide you in taking effective steps to break through the barrier and see visible results.
Why Skinny Guys Struggle & How to Gain Muscle Fast
A hard gainer is a person who struggles to gain muscle despite consistent effort in strength training and eating. These individuals are naturally slim, and this happens due to some internal issues within their body.
Genetics: Sometimes genetics limit your gains. The amount of hormone needed to develop muscle tissue is not produced sufficiently when a person is genetically disadvantaged. As a result, this slows down their progress significantly.
Slender Frame: Many hard gainers face this problem due to their body type. If you pay close attention, you will see that their shoulders, arms, legs, and bone structure are naturally much slimmer. As their physical space and volume are naturally limited, they face difficulties in gaining muscle.
Higher Metabolism: Hard gainers often have a common problem: a higher metabolism. This means their body burns more calories quickly before fulfilling their body’s requirements. As a result, even though they stay in a calorie surplus, they don’t see results. This makes their fitness journey much more challenging and difficult.
Limited appetite: A common problem, hard gainers often don’t feel hungry because of their faster metabolism problem. Consuming a large amount of food is necessary for muscle growth, which is very difficult for hard gainers due to this problem. Gaining muscle isn’t possible without staying in a calorie surplus.
Low Muscle Response: Hard gainer’s body doesn’t respond well during strength training and recovery processes. the main reason for this is that they are genetically at a disadvantage level and their body type and metabolism rate are also not in their favor.
Until finding out the root cause, you won’t be able to get your answer, “How to gain muscle fast for skinny guys?”
Ok so now that we’ve identified the problems. Let’s take a look at what the solution will be. To address this problem, you need to maintain three key factors.
- Nutrition
- Training strategy
- Consistency and patience
Muscle-Building Nutrition Guide for Skinny Guys Who Want Fast Gains
Nutrition plays a key role in muscle building, from fueling your strength to enabling faster recovery. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that nutrition is the foundation. But you have to design it according to your needs. Let’s break it down.
Calorie Surplus Guide: How Skinny Guys Can Gain Muscle Fast
In simple words, “eat more”—that’s the key. You can’t say that you just can’t eat more. Forget your excuse. If your target is to gain muscle, you must change this habit, because there is no alternative solution for muscle gain.
Staying in a calorie surplus means consuming more calories than you burn. You should add 10%-20% more calories than your daily requirement. However, don’t start your calorie intake by adding the highest amount all at once, as it can disturb your appetite. Start with 300 calories and gradually increase the size by 100 calories each week.
Our body burns calories to function properly, from operating organs to any movement like walking, talking, and even breathing. When it comes to building muscle, consuming extra calories ensures that our body has enough energy after regular functioning to support the muscle protein synthesis process. That’s why finding the right balance is important.
Macro balance to support muscle growth
Can I meet my calorie needs with any food? Many people have this confusion. Eating more isn’t enough; tracking what you eat will bring results. Nutritious food is important because how fast a skinny guy can gain muscle depends on how much nutrition they’re getting.
For optimal muscle growth, a research by Springer Nature Link has shown that it is very important to maintain the right proportion of nutrients in the diet of those who do regular strength training for muscle gain. According to the study, 50-60% of total calories should come from carbohydrates, 25-30% from protein, and 15-20% from healthy fats.
The whole food intake should be divided into 6-7 meals a day, and try to keep the portion of each meal a little larger. Carbs and protein are the main sources. Carbs will provide you with energy so that you can push to failure, and protein will repair the muscles that you damage, making them bigger and stronger than before. That’s how it ensures maximum results.
Carbs and protein are equally important for muscle building. 1.6-2.2 grams of protein and 4-5 grams of carbs are recommended per kg of body weight. For muscle gain, you need to make a habit of eating every 3 hours. It might sound a little uneasy, but you have to follow this for better results.
Supplements That Help Skinny Guys Build Muscle Faster and Safely
Creatine, protein, BCAA, mass gainer, fish oil, and vitamin D are some of the best supplement options for gaining muscle mass. Along with diet, using supplements can boost your results significantly, and often you’ll see much better outcomes than expected. These supplements are 100% safe to use.
Creatine is the most researched supplement. It increases your ATP level, which is the primary energy source used during short bursts of intense training. Creatine comes in various forms, but the monohydrate form is well-researched and affordable for everyone. Taking 3-5 grams of creatine every day can significantly increase your strength, which you can notice during your workout.
For protein, you can use either plant-based protein or whey. Since hard gainers’ protein requirements increase, it becomes tough for them to meet their protein intake from food alone. That’s why they need protein supplements to fill the gap. One scoop typically provides around 20-30 grams of protein. It’s easy to mix and also digests quickly. Some protein brands already include BCAAs, which means you don’t need to take them separately. BCAAs help provide all the essential amino acids needed for muscle building.
On the other hand, mass gainer is a high-calorie option that contains a combination of protein, carbs, and healthy fats. Besides, fish oil helps reduce inflammation, improve joint health, and boost recovery. Vitamin D is important for muscle function, immune health, and overall well-being.
Effective training strategies for hard gainers
Muscles grow when they break down. When you’re at the gym and exercising, you’re actually tearing your muscle fibers. Then, when you consume proper nutrition, it goes to those injured muscles, repairs the fibers, and increases their size. Now let’s find out what kind of training you should do.
Compound lifts for faster muscle gain
Compound exercises are movements where multiple muscle groups and joints are involved during the exercise. For those who are struggling to gain muscle, they need to focus on compound movements, especially for larger muscles like the chest, back, and legs, because when you work on bigger muscles, smaller muscles are also involved.
Moreover, bigger muscles grow faster and help support smaller muscles, increasing your overall strength and muscle coordination. Larger muscle groups also help improve your overall body composition. Exercises like bench presses, deadlifts, squats, leg presses, pull-ups, and bent-over rows are some of the best examples of compound exercises.
Use progressive overload to break plateaus
A simple concept—lift heavier, do extra reps, or add more sets than before—is called progressive overload. It’s all about pushing yourself to break your last record. This is a fundamental principle of muscle growth. When you add extra weight, you’re challenging your muscles. Even a shortened resting period counts as progressive overload, leading to more muscle breakdown and muscle hypertrophy.
A study from the American College of Sports Medicine found that without progressive overload, the body stops improving at a certain point. If you don’t give yourself new challenges on a regular basis, neither strength nor muscle mass will increase.
When someone follows the same routine week after week, they get stuck in a plateau, and their muscles stop responding because their body adapts and becomes used to the situation. The best way to break the plateau is to lift heavier than before.
For example, if you do a bench press with 40 kg, then next week, add 2 plates of 2.5 kg. Even if you can’t do more than 8 reps, keep pushing, and you will see your strength increase within the next week, allowing you to easily do 12-15 reps with that weight. Slowing down the tempo can also be a useful strategy. This increases the time under tension and workload for your muscles, helping to break the plateau.
Workout Variation to Speed up Growth
Preventing overuse injuries, hitting muscles from a different angle, engaging different muscle fibers, preventing plateaus, and boosting motivation—these are all benefits of changing your workout schedule, which is optimal for muscle growth.
Our muscles are very smart. When you change your workout split and start following a new one, your muscles get shocked and send different signals to your brain. As a result, your brain realizes that this muscle needs to be strengthened because it’s being challenged from different angles.
Plus, doing the same thing every day is really boring. But when we mix it up, it makes the process much more interesting, and the variety helps us stay motivated. So, change your split every 8-12 weeks and see the difference.
Tracking Workouts for Long-Term Gains
It’s like a report card where you write down every piece of data from your sweat session. For example, note down which exercise you performed, how much weight you used, and the number of reps and sets. This data is important for keeping yourself accountable. It also motivates you by showing where you started and how much progress you’ve made.
A 2020 study found that people who regularly recorded their daily physical activity. For example, how long they exercised, what type of exercise they did, how many sets how heavy the weight was, understand their progress much better and were more successful in the long run.
Because sometimes we don’t realise how much progress we’ve made or how long we’ve been in the same place. But looking at the old workout logs, it is easy to understand where I was before and how far I have come now.
Tracking this data is like having a roadmap toward your goal. Sometimes people progress very slowly, but they never truly realize it. They don’t even notice how long they’ve been stuck on a plateau. If they had previous data, they would understand how much they’ve actually fallen behind.
Rest and Recover
Muscle actually grows when you’re outside of the gym and relaxing. But with skinny people, you’ll often see them working out the entire week without any rest, hoping that more exercise will lead to more muscle gain. And when they fail to bring any result, then they start complaining, but never try to understand how to gain muscle fast for skinny guys.
The reality is that during workouts, we are tearing our muscles instead of building. That’s why, if a skinny guy wants to gain muscle fast, he has to pay attention to your recovery process. Some of the best recovery methods are:
- Sleep
- Stretching
- Massage
Sleeping is the best recovery method of all. It not only recovers your muscles, but it also contributes to your overall health, from balancing hormones to supporting organ functionality. You must take 7-8 hours of sound sleep at night, ideally between 9 PM and 5 AM. During this time, your body releases growth hormones, which are optimal for muscle growth. It enhances your productivity and helps refresh your mind and regenerate your energy levels so that you can perform the next session more effectively.
Stretching is something you can start right after your workout session. It helps reduce lactic acid and cortisol levels in your body, which can disturb the muscle-building process. It also reduces muscle stiffness and makes them more flexible.
Massage is another good option for recovery. If you don’t have access to professional massage therapy, you can do this on your own. Massage your whole body with oil twice a week. This method will also help repair and increase muscle mass size, making them bigger than before.
Consistency and Patience: A True Formula to Gain Muscle Fast for Skinny Guys
Muscle building is a steady process. Since you’re a hard gainer, it’s natural that it will take you a bit more time. That’s why commitment and consistency are important. Always keep in mind that your mind will never work in your favor during this journey. You always have to ignore this and keep stepping forward, consoling yourself with the belief that, yes, it’s possible.
According to the Cleveland Clinic analysis, it takes about 6 to 12 weeks to get the first results of muscle gain. However, it can take up to six months to see major changes. So don’t lose patience.
Many people are disappointed when they don’t see much in the mirror in the first 2-3 months. This is where most people give up, because there are thousands of doubts in their minds. At this point, that’s the most important thing. Instead of listening to your heart, you have to believe – consistent efforts will bear fruit one day. Try to continue in such a way that it becomes your habit once in a while.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Calorie Adjustment & Meal Frequency: When you count your regular calorie requirement, keep in mind that you’re also doing strength training in addition to adjusting your nutrition plan. People often make the mistake of thinking they’re in a calorie surplus, but they forget to account for their regular activities, as strength training increases the demand for calories. You have to factor this in as well. People often think they’re in a calorie surplus, but in reality, they are in a calorie deficit.
Another mistake is consuming all your calories in 3 large meals. Don’t do that. Divide your total calories into 6-7 meals. This process will help you gain muscle while preventing the accumulation of fat.
Overtraining: Overtraining not only hinders your progress but also increases the risk of injury. Overtraining occurs when you push your body beyond its recovery capacity. To avoid this problem, you must know your limits. Hard gainers should take two rest days a week. This will ensure complete recovery and help you gain more muscle.
The Bottom Line
How fast skinny guys gain muscle depends on their body type and other factors. However, they can overcome this challenge and boost their gains by making a few simple adjustments. If you follow the advice mentioned above, you’ll quickly notice a magical change in your physique.
This transformation will not only change your physique but also increase your inner confidence. If you’re truly serious about your transformation, stay focused, work smart, and most importantly, believe in yourself and stay consistent with your commitment.
