Supplements for Ectomorphs

Most supplements only supply you with one nutrient that isn't really going to help you as an ectomorph. They're expensive and generally worthless. The best way to put on mass is with a good, balanced diet. You should be consuming at least 3,000 natural calories a day. This leaves some room for a post workout shake, which is the only time I recommend really using supplement. Most other supplements are useless and won't help you make many gains at all; in fact, some might hurt your gains. Another thing to note is that weight gainer supplements give you a ton of calories but no fiber, which means they're no good for your digestive tract.

So why do supplement companies push them on us so much? Well, the answer is pretty simple: They're trying to make money. It's a bit more complicated than that; once you plateau, supplements can be useful in helping break past it and move on to the next level, but hard gainers don't have that issue. I've worked with a lot of skinny people and the problem is always that they don't eat enough. They think they eat a lot, but if you make them weight out their food and count their calories, you'll find that they're really not eating much at all.

Why creatine won't help a hard gainer:

Creatine is a supplement that can slightly increase your energy levels and will also hydrate your cells a lot more. This leads to your muscles filling up with water and appearing larger and/or bloated. This is not actual muscle gain and it will disappear as soon as you get off the creatine. It has no real affect on your muscles other than making them look ballooned. As for the energy gain; it's almost negligible and most people don't even notice it. What you will notice, however, are the more frequent bowel movements. Creatine should only be used when trying to break through a plateau when that little bit of extra energy will actually be useful.

The truth about NO products:

Most of these products claim to give you a ton of energy but really all they do is throw a bunch of caffeine your way so you feel like you have more energy when you really don't. This'll cause you to burn yourself out and will actually lead to overtraining and muscle loss in the long run. This is the last thing any hard gainer wants.