What's up, guys?
Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX.com.
So, today I've got Jessie with me.
You recognize Jessie, I'm sure, from his gummy bear fetish from a previous video.
It's not about gummy bears today.
It's about being a hard gainer.
Believe it or not, his gummy bear fetish does play into why Jessie is what he calls a "hard
gainer".
Now, first of all you may or may not be a hard gainer watching this, but you're going
to be able to benefit from this video because I'm going to show you three things that you
need to change – most of it is mindset – to stop being one, or stop even thinking of yourself
as one ever again.
Firstly, effort alone will not stop you from being a hard gainer.
Matter of fact, effort can confuse you as a hard gainer because nobody ever said "I'm
a hard gainer who doesn't work out."
They work out, they do everything, they put in effort, and it's just that they can't gain
muscle.
So they say "I really have a hard time putting on muscle, or making gains."
That's where the term comes from.
However, you have to stop confusing effort for the right type of effort.
I wanted to illustrate this.
I told Jessie – all I told him to grab was a pair of dumbbells here and then I would
choose an appropriate weight for him.
I asked him what he would grab on a dumbbell curl.
Okay, so Jessie, grab the dumbbells that you would choose.
He chose 30.
I chose 20s, by the way.
I've been doing this a long time.
I pretty much know what people should be using.
Go ahead.
Now, he's just going to do his curls.
Now, it doesn't look that horrible to people that see other people in the gym doing these
types of things.
He's swinging a little bit, yeah.
But I'm okay with that.
But look at some of the other things.
I'm going to point them out and be very picky, because it's for illustration purposes.
As he comes down he's turning his dumbbells down, away from himself.
Now, there's a reason why.
You can stop, Jess.
There's a reason why.
Instinctively, he's trying to do everything he can to make the exercise less difficult.
His body knows that.
Like, if I'm coming up, if I can start turning it down and away I don’t have to – I'm
not really eccentrically loading the bicep.
So it becomes an easier exercise.
It's just something he didn't consciously do, but it just happened.
You have to start becoming trained as to what you're really trying to accomplish if you
want to stop being a hard gainer.
I want you to force the muscle that you're trying to get to grow to actually grow.
So I want you, and you to start using the bicep and make sure that it is doing the work.
So that's why I chose 20s because they're going to be lighter, but you'll be able to
do what I want you to do.
Grab the 20s and I just want to see you if you can feel the difference.
So now, when I see curls I want to see you keep your elbows into your sides here, and
as you come up, really contract here.
Initiate from the elbow, contract all the way up here, get it – don’t go too far
because you could almost rest these things up here, right?
I want you to get right to about here and get some tension, and then when you lower,
don't let the dumbbells turn away from you.
Let them stay right here and face the camera, okay?
Now, as you can, if you get more advanced, you actually start to turn them – as we
talked about – as you're coming up, but I don’t really care about that at the moment.
So now come up, squeeze it nice and slow, and of course, down slow.
Right there.
Now you're already huffing and puffing because it's a much – yeah.
You're probably only at about six reps with this.
But the idea is – one more rep.
the idea is, quality reps will trump reps every single time.
A rep alone doesn't count.
A quality rep counts.
So you'll stop being a hard gainer when you stop thinking about how easy you can make
the exercise.
At least subconsciously.
The second thing that a lot of guys will do: they might be self-conscious when they go
to the gym.
I've addressed this before, I call it exerphobia.
They don’t address the exercises that will probably do the best for helping them to build
muscle all over and that would be your compound lifts.
Like deadlifts.
Like squats.
Like bench pressing the bar.
I don’t want to do a bench press.
I could get the thing caught on my chest and everybody in the gym is going to be laughing
at me.
There's a lot of psychological things that go along with being a skinnier guy in the
gym and being self-conscious about the lifts that we do.
It's far easier to stand near a dumbbell rack, grab some 20s and do this because I can kind
of hide in the corner.
Believe me, I've done it myself, okay?
I've done it myself.
I could be doing my little shoulder presses over here in the corner and I don’t have
to worry about trying to do some kind of clean and then a press.
So don’t allow yourself self-consciousness to steer you away from learning the right
way to do those compound exercises.
So again, I feel hard gainers avoid the hard exercises instead of actually attacking them
and learning them.
On this channel I try to cover those concepts so I can teach you the right way to do them
and empower you to go to the gym and do it.
Finally, let's talk about the gummy bears.
Let's talk about nutrition.
Jessie's not one to shy away from eating.
You should see how much he eats in a day.
The issue here is that he's not eating enough quality calories.
You can eat 5000 calories of shit, or 3000 calories of quality calories and it's going
to have a huge impact on how much muscle you build, okay?
Because you truly are what you eat.
You provide your body with the substrates to build and if you're doing it with all sugar
and no real substance – no micronutrients, no real substance that you're getting into
your body to allow your muscles to build and thrive, no protein, just a bunch of sugar
all day – you're not providing yourself with the building blocks to become a bigger,
sturdier, more formidable version of yourself.
So Jessie's issue here – as the issue for most people is – he's heard before "Well,
as long as I eat I'll be fine.
Eat big, get big."
I've taught them about the "eat big, get big" bullshit myth.
It's not going to help you.
Cut back if you have to, what you're eating, as long as you'll start trading in the junk
for more quality calories.
Again, 5000 calories of gummy bears, versus 5000 calories of chicken and rice; you're
going to have a profound difference on how your body responds in terms of developing
more muscle and new tissue, okay?
So again, we bring Jessie out here, but Jessie is in training here.
He's learning, as I hope you are.
He's happy – you're not here, I didn't capture you here and make you do this, right?
By participation, Jessie wants to be here because he knows that the things that we talk
about and are given on a daily basis can be helpful for a lot of people watching and willing
to do that.
By the way, Jessie, come over here.
He's actually starting to make some gains as he's getting out of this concussion haze
and we're starting to do some work.
You can see, the kid is starting to get some growth.
So we're going to keep working with Jessie in the days and weeks ahead.
You're here now.
But I want you guys to stay tuned as we continue to bring you videos like this.
If you have any other issues that you may have that you want me to cover, or help to
answer along with Jessie, I'm happy to do that.
Leave your comments and questions below.
In the meantime, if you're looking for a program that lays it all out step by step, and tells
you the right way to train, it tells you how to start getting over that exerphobia so you
can start doing the right exercises at the right time, the right way, and also, of course,
gives you a nutrition plan that will show you how to start increasing your calories
in the right way; then head to ATHLEANX.com and get our entire ATHLEANX training system.
In the meantime, if you've found this video helpful leave your comments and thumbs up
below and again, I'll be back here in just a few days.
All right, see you.
All right.
Flex, buddy.
Go ahead.