Of course responding to training quickly is having good genes but just because some hard gainer is gaining less muscle doesn’t mean his genetics are inferior, in fact if he does had a naturally broad structure with very well rounded muscles that means he has good genetics.

Look at greg kovas, the guy is simply the “largest’ and “heaviest” bodybuilder to ever walk the stage but his body looks like absolute crap because of awful shape and then look at guys like Frank Zane, Steve Reeves or Flex Wheeler, they aren’t giant mesomorphs but ecto’s with incredible genetic structures.

“If a person with hardgainer genetics lifts weights they will get more muscular, but will never look as good as someone with great genetics if they do the exact same diet and workout.”

It sounds factual, because it’s pretty darn close. The problem is the hidden “ego” the writer simply can not help but include. Either the writer is a hard-gainer with a low self-esteem, or it’s an easy gainer that is too stupid to understand what is insulting and what isn’t.

“” .. a person with hardgainer genetics … someone with ((great)) genetics ..”"

You see what he did there? He didn’t say someone with easy-gain genetics, he said “great” genetics. You don’t have to be very good in Algebra to figure out the math I’m pointing out here. David (the author) is saying if you’re a hard-gainer, you don’t have “great genetics”.

I disagree from a scientific standpoint. Short term, having a stereotypically “great” body makes you stereotypically more attractive. This is true as we almost always fall prey to stereotypes through popular marketing tactics. Long term, however, the remove of physical prowess from the human gene-pool has, over the course of thousands and thousands of years, benefited our human society. For example: women are most times attracted “genetically” to men that are physically strong. But, the fact is that physical strength is much less important and, frankly, inferior to that of mental strength by today’s standards.

This strong female mentality (and male combine) is the reason we sacrifice the super intelligent genes for our pool in favor of outdated needs included in super physical genes. The idea of being very strong has been held for marketing purposes. Men that are genetically more adaptable to physical training are also at a higher risk to physical and mental defects in the human body.

So, if you’re a “hard-gainer”.. fear not. The mesomorphs of the world can unit under one marketing banner if they wish, but that same marketing banner promotes skinny females that do not pass on mesomorph genes well. Humans are getting smaller, because we do not “need” to be big. Remember this, brains are superior to brawn. Always!

I found it really hard to put on weight, I used to be a skinny nerd :-). But I’ve found the more weight training one does the easier it is to keep the muscle on. The body’s muscle fibers or metabolism or something change their ‘set point’. For example, when I started lifting I had to overeat at every meal just to gain a few pounds and prevent my body from naturally becoming a ‘string bean’ (an old nickname of mine). I didn’t work out last summer due to a hectic internship, except pushups/situps and kept most of my muscle. Like Frank said, the hardest thing is just to make sure to eat enough.

One benefit I’ve found being a hardgainer, at least for me, is my body type is overly lean, so it is pretty easy to prevent fat from building up. Like I realized I had gained 8 lbs during vacation and it wasn’t muscle but then I promptly lost it in 1 week just by cutting back caloric intake and working out. Knowing that your body naturally wants to become a skeleton makes it much easier to figure out training plans to burn off the fat, since losing fat is easy and the hard part is gaining muscle.

Take guys like Frank Zane. He was genetically inferior to Arnold, but Zane beat Arnold. In fact, it is my opinion that Zane had the ultimate physique. And, in his mid-sixties, he looks FAR SUPERIOR to Arnold now.

For the hardgainer, the muscle gains come slower, generally come later in life, but they last. And that’s an important thing to remember.