I move slow through my workouts, partly because I train at home so it takes time to set-up for different exercises and change weights on dumbbells in between sets. I end up resting 3-4 min between sets, so my upperbody days lately have been taking about 90 min and lower body days closer to an hour. I'm sure if you are proactive you could knock out every workout in an hour or less. Christian preaches 45 mins tops for cortisol control, but I'd have to fly through 5-7 exercises to make it in 45 mins and I just don't like training fast to where it's almost like a circuit.
Basically if you think you fit the bodytype mentioned in the easy-hardgainers article, then you likely have the genotype described below. Which is essentially a fast-twitch dominant ectomorph, aka ecto-mesomorph.
"A Type 3 with ACTN3 RR is what I used to call an “easy hardgainer”.
Typically a Type 3 will have more slow twitch fibers but if a Type 3 has the ACTN3 RR gene it will give him a higher ratio of fast twitch fibers and more capacity to recover from training and building muscle.
Physiologically they can tolerate a fair amount of volume in a session. Type 3 can do a high amount of volume in a session and the ACTN3 RR gene allows them to tolerate even more while still having positive recovery.
HOWEVER they still have the nervous system of a a type 3 meaning that they tend to be anxious and produce a lot of cortisol which can negate some of the benefits of having the right muscle composition to build a lot of muscle.
They will do better with:
- an emphasis on eccentric loading (slower eccentrics or even eccentric overloads)
- rep schemes in the lactic glycolysis zone (sets lasting 30-60 seconds). With an eccentric of 4-5 seconds (rep duration of 6-7 seconds) we are talking in the 4-8 reps range
- focus on few big basic lifts and do them frequently (2-4 times per week)… a daily undulating periodization (DUP) might be a good approach here, but still staying in the proper set duration range
- 3-4 weekly sessions to be able to better control cortisol levels
- 3-6 work sets per exercise (depending on reps and phase) with about an equal number of gradually heavier warm-up sets"
