Firstly you have to feed your muscles to really pack on the calories. This is where your diet comes into play. You need to eat the right food to be able to get enough vitamins, minerals, protein, carbohydrates, amino acids, essential fatty acids, glutamine, calories and creatine (if you are an adult that is). You also need to have plenty of water and fibre in your diet. You should have 5 - 6 meals a day, unless you are attending school where you should have a proper breakfast, a healthy lunch and a proper, healthy dinner (refer to nutrition and diets page for more information). You need water to help the body regulate and absorb vitamins, minerals, protein and carbohydrates. You also need to have water to keep hydrated. Water is one of the top 3 things you need as a bodybuilder. Every meal you have should be high in protein. Even if the meal isn't high in protein (for example if you go to have a meal in the pub) you should clean your plate because you need the calories! You can never eat to much when you are a hard gainer because you will find it hard to gain the calories.

Finally, Aerobics is a bodybuilders nightmare so STOP doing it. Aerobics will do nothing but burn your calories off (when you are trying to drastically put them on!), which, in turn reduces your fat and calories. You are trying to increase you overall caloric intake, and the aerobic exercise are counter productive. You should leave all of you aerobics, running, and other fat loss exercises out due to them doing the opposite to what you are trying to do until you have reached your target level.

You don't gain muscle or size without putting in the effort. This means that every time you enter a gym or where-ever you train you should push your body to its limit. You should also be punishing the muscle whilst training. This may sound obvious but what might no be so readily apparent is the way you lift the weights is also vital. This applies in two ways.

Firstly, you have to maintain control and correct form when you are lifting the weights. You should never just be throwing the weights about; you should be lifting with deliberate control and focus. This will give you the best results.

Secondly and finally, you can drop the machines and use the free weights. The majority of professional athletes, including bodybuilders, use free weights most of the time because of a couple of key benefits in comparison to any machine. Machines help you to support the weight, whether it be during some point in the reps movement point or laterally. When you use free weights, it's up to you to support the entire weight throughout the reps entire movement and motion. This is because you are not offered any help so you will struggle and put more strain on the muscle making the muscle grow more while doing the movement.

You should hit the sack as much as you can so you can fit 8 hours of sleep in a night. When you are sleeping at night you are also growing like you do when you eat.  

 

For more information on the part where you eat, you should visit the nutrition and diets page.