A hardgainer is a person who practices

bodybuilding Bodybuilding is the use of progressive resistance exercise to control and develop one's muscles (muscle building) by muscle hypertrophy for aesthetic purposes. It is distinct from similar activities such as powerlifting because it focuses ...

but finds it challenging to develop

musculature Skeletal muscles (commonly referred to as muscles) are organs of the vertebrate muscular system and typically are attached by tendons to bones of a skeleton. The muscle cells of skeletal muscles are much longer than in the other types of muscle ...

regardless of the amount of effort put in. The opposite of a hardgainer is an easygainer. Difficulty building muscle is often associated with the

ectomorph Somatotype is a highly disputed Taxonomy (biology), taxonomy developed in the 1940s by American psychologist William Herbert Sheldon to categorize the human physique according to the relative contribution of three fundamental elements which he te ...

body

somatotype Somatotype is a highly disputed taxonomy developed in the 1940s by American psychologist William Herbert Sheldon to categorize the human physique according to the relative contribution of three fundamental elements which he termed ''somatotypes' ...

, however other common reasons also include a lack of proper

nutrition Nutrition is the biochemical and physiological process by which an organism uses food to support its life. It provides organisms with nutrients, which can be metabolized to create energy and chemical structures. Failure to obtain sufficient n ...

, suitable

physical activity level The physical activity level (PAL) is a way to express a person's daily physical activity as a number, and is used to estimate a person's total energy expenditure. In combination with the basal metabolic rate, it can be used to compute the amount of ...

or not allowing enough recovery time for the stressed muscles to regain their previous state and then grow bigger (

overtraining Overtraining occurs when a person exceeds their body's ability to recover from strenuous exercise. Overtraining can be described as a point where a person may have a decrease in performance and plateauing as a result of failure to consistently perfo ...

). For the true hardgainer, the issue lies deeper beneath any of the required elements of muscle gain listed above. Those are typically either diseases that affect muscles and/or

protein synthesis Protein biosynthesis (or protein synthesis) is a core biological process, occurring inside Cell (biology), cells, homeostasis, balancing the loss of cellular proteins (via Proteolysis, degradation or Protein targeting, export) through the product ...

, or there might be a

genetic disorder A genetic disorder is a health problem caused by one or more abnormalities in the genome. It can be caused by a mutation in a single gene (monogenic) or multiple genes (polygenic) or by a chromosomal abnormality. Although polygenic disorders ...

that hinders protein synthesis and/or limits the maximum amount of muscles the body can hold to a relatively small amount for that person.

Muscular dystrophy Muscular dystrophies (MD) are a genetically and clinically heterogeneous group of rare neuromuscular diseases that cause progressive weakness and breakdown of skeletal muscles over time. The disorders differ as to which muscles are primarily affe ...

is a group of inherited diseases that are characterized by weakness and wasting away of

muscle tissue Muscle tissue (or muscular tissue) is soft tissue that makes up the different types of muscles in most animals, and give the ability of muscles to contract. Muscle tissue is formed during embryonic development, in a process known as myogenesis. Mu ...

, with or without the breakdown of

nerve tissue Nervous tissue, also called neural tissue, is the main tissue component of the nervous system. The nervous system regulates and controls body functions and activity. It consists of two parts: the central nervous system (CNS) comprising the brain ...

. Some

metabolic diseases Inborn errors of metabolism form a large class of genetic diseases involving congenital disorders of enzyme activities. The majority are due to defects of single genes that code for enzymes that facilitate conversion of various substances (substrat ...

affect the normal metabolic processes in the body: * Acid maltase deficiency * Carnitine deficiency *

Carnitine palmitoyltransferase II deficiency Carnitine palmitoyltransferase II deficiency is an autosomal recessively inherited genetic metabolic disorder characterized by an enzymatic defect that prevents long-chain fatty acids from being transported into the mitochondria for utilization ...

* Debrancher Enzyme Deficiency * Lactate dehydrogenase deficiency *

Mitochondrial myopathy Mitochondrial myopathies are types of myopathies associated with mitochondrial disease. On biopsy, the muscle tissue of patients with these diseases usually demonstrate "ragged red" muscle fibers. These ragged-red fibers contain mild accumulation ...

Myoadenylate deaminase deficiency Adenosine monophosphate deaminase deficiency type 1 or AMPD1, is a human metabolic disorder in which the body consistently lacks the enzyme AMP deaminase, in sufficient quantities. This may result in exercise intolerance, muscle pain and muscle cra ...

Glycogen storage disease type V Glycogen storage disease type V (GSD5, GSD-V), also known as McArdle's disease, is a metabolic disorder, one of the metabolic myopathies, more specifically a muscle glycogen storage disease, caused by a deficiency of myophosphorylase. Its inci ...

Phosphofructokinase deficiency Phosphofructokinase deficiency is a rare muscular metabolic disorder, with an autosomal recessive inheritance pattern. It may affect humans as well as other mammals (especially dogs). It was named after the Japanese physician Seiichiro Tarui (b. ...

Phosphoglycerate kinase deficiency Phosphoglycerate kinase () (PGK 1) is an enzyme that catalyzes the Reversible reaction, reversible transfer of a phosphate group from 1,3-bisphosphoglycerate (1,3-BPG) to Adenosine diphosphate, ADP producing 3-phosphoglycerate (3-PG) and Adenos ...

The MSTN gene also plays a big role in muscle development. It provides instructions for making a protein called

myostatin Myostatin (also known as growth differentiation factor 8, abbreviated GDF8) is a protein that in humans is encoded by the ''MSTN'' gene. Myostatin is a myokine that is produced and released by myocytes and acts on muscle cells to inhibit muscle ...

. This protein transforming growth factor beta (TGFβ) superfamily, which is a group of proteins that help control the growth and development of tissues throughout the body. This protein restrains muscle growth, preventing muscles from growing too large. Increased amount of myostatin portray deficiency in muscle development and increase of fat; on the other hand, smaller than normal amounts of myostatin greatly increase natural muscle mass, strength and decrease fat levels. There are no known health problems related to the myostatin mutations, and affected individuals are intellectually normal.

References

Bodybuilding {{Bodybuilding-stub