Complete Workout Guide for Skinny Guys Looking to Build Muscle

One of the main reasons people go to the gym is to get stronger and build muscle. For some people, building muscle comes easily; for others, it can be more challenging.

If you're someone who has been naturally skinny their whole life and struggle with gaining weight, you might have given up on the idea of bulking up. While it can take longer for people with a naturally lean physique (sometimes known as ectomorphs) to build serious muscle mass, it is doable with the right training, nutrition, and recovery.

Read on to get a complete workout guide for skinny guys who want to build muscle, including:

• Compound exercises

• Sets and reps

• Intensity

• Form

• Progressive overload

• Recovery

• Cardio

• Nutrition

• How often to train

• Example weekly schedule

• Best exercises

• Example workouts

If you are someone who struggles to build muscle, being intentional with the workouts you do is crucial. Here are some tips on what to consider when building a good workout programme for skinny guys.

Compound exercises use multiple joints and work multiple muscles; think exercises like squats and push ups. While many bodybuilding focused workouts will use isolation exercises (like bicep curls) to target and grow individual muscles, naturally skinny guys will benefit more from focusing on compound exercises for a few reasons:

Different ranges of reps and sets can impact the main outcome of your workout. A skinny guy workout plan should aim for a low to moderate rep range for most exercises, with higher weights. This keeps volume low, but intensity high, allowing for enough muscle tension for change without overdoing it.

In practice, this should look like:

• Reps: Keep within 6-12 reps, with most of your training aimed at 6-8 reps.

• Sets: 3-4 sets per exercise is ideal.

When training at a lower volume, it’s important to keep training intensity higher. This means choosing heavier weights that takes you close to failure when keeping within your rep range. If you’re aiming for 8 reps, you should be able to just achieve 8 reps with good form, and would fail at 9-10 reps.

Good exercise technique is incredibly important both for building muscle and for preventing injuries, as it allows the correct muscles to work as they should to complete a lift. If you can’t perform an exercise with good technique and range for all reps, drop the weight until you can. During each lift, focus on maintaining mind muscle connection to ensure the right muscles are doing the work.

Your body is very efficient at adapting to any stimulus, including exercise. As you get stronger, you'll need to increase the challenge of your workouts to force your muscles to continue to change. The easiest way to do this is to increase the weights or reps of your lifts. Learn more about progressive overload here.

Getting rest may feel counterintuitive when you want to gain muscle, but your body doesn't actually build muscle in the gym; it's during recovery that it begins to repair and grow muscle. Some evidence suggests that 'hardgainers' may experience more inflammation and muscle damage from workouts than non hardgainers, making rest even more crucial.

Because of this, an ideal gym program for skinny guys should only factor in 3-4 workouts a week to allow plenty of recovery.

If you are someone who struggles to put on weight, cardio can seem like the enemy as it increases your total daily energy expenditure (TDEE), making it even harder to gain weight. However, we do not recommend avoiding cardio exercises completely as they have so many health benefits, such as reduced risk of cardiovascular diseases and improved lung capacity.

Aim to include one to two short cardio workouts a week, sticking to low to moderate intensity to limit the calories burned.

What, and how much, you eat plays a huge role when it comes to building muscle. One of the reasons some people struggle with gaining weight is because they have a lower appetite and are eating less than they think.

To build muscle, you need to be eating at a calorie surplus and getting in plenty of protein. Once you know your TDEE, aim for a surplus of around 300-500 calories and track your food for at least a few weeks to make sure you are hitting this.

In addition to calories, you should also pay attention to your protein intake as the amino acids in proteins are used to repair and build muscle. Studies have found that just 1.4g of protein per kg of bodyweight is enough for protein synthesis, but if you find it difficult to build muscle you might benefit from bumping this up as high as 2g per kg.

When planning your workouts, you need to make sure you're hitting the right balance of training enough to stimulate muscle growth while getting enough recovery.

As mentioned earlier, an ideal workout schedule will include 3-4 intense workouts a week to ensure you are getting enough rest. To build muscle, it's recommended to work each muscle group at least twice a week to provide enough tension for change.

To achieve both of these, you'll need to utilise workout splits that hit each muscle group twice, in just 3-4 workouts:

• Full body x3

• Upper/ lower/ full body

• Push/ pull/ legs/ full body

• Upper/ lower/ upper/ lower

Here is what a weekly gym schedule for skinny guys might look like using one of the above splits.

• Monday: Full body

• Tuesday: Rest

• Wednesday: Upper (push focused)

• Thursday: Lower

• Friday: Upper (pull focused)

• Saturday: Mobility

• Sunday: Rest

We’ve already mentioned that compound exercises are best when it comes to building muscle for skinny guys. Here are some of the best exercises to include in your gym workouts; most of these have different variations so you can find the version that works best for you.

• Bench press

• Shoulder press

• Chest dips

• Lat pulldowns

• Rows

• Pull ups

• Planks

• Toe touches

• Pallof press

• Deadbugs

• Deadlifts

• Squats

• Hip thrusts

• Leg press

Ready to start bulking? Here are some workouts you can try as they are or use as a starting point to create your own workouts.

Start each workout with a 5-10 minute warm up that includes some light cardio and some dynamic stretches, and cool down with some static stretches after.

This workout targets all the major muscle groups and movement patterns and prioritises the use of dumbbells, which are easier to get to grips with as a beginner. As you get more advanced, you can progress to heavier dumbbells or barbells to make these exercises more challenging.

• Dumbbell bench press - 3 sets of 8-10

• Dumbbell shoulder press - 4 sets of 6-8

• Lat pulldowns - 3 sets of 8-12

• Dumbbell Romanian deadlifts - 3 sets of 8-12

• Goblet squats - 3 sets of 8-12

If you are a more experienced gym goer, using upper and lower workouts can be a good way to increase the volume your muscles work while still getting enough rest.

• Military press - 4 sets of 6-8

• Barbell bench press - 4 sets of 6-8

• Dumbbell incline chest press - 3 sets of 10-12

• Tricep dips - 3 sets of 8-12

• Lat pulldowns - 3 sets of 8-10

• Seated cable row - 3 sets of 8-10

• Face pulls - 3 sets of 8-10

• Rack pulls - 4 sets of 6-8

• Conventional deadlift - 4 sets of 6-8

• Hip thrusts - 3 sets of 8-12

• Leg press - 4 sets of 6-8

• Bulgarian split squats - 3 sets of 8-12

While not necessary, you may want to add some accessory exercises or workouts to focus on specific areas.

Compound exercises do work the core, but if you are after ab definition try adding this short ab circuit to the end of your workouts.

• Dead bugs - 45 seconds on, 15 seconds rest

• Plank - 45 seconds on, 15 seconds rest

• V sit ups - 45 seconds on, 15 seconds rest

• Toe touches - 45 seconds on, 15 seconds rest

• Repeat 1-2 times

Your arms get worked out when doing upper body compound exercises, but if building bigger arms is a serious focus you can try adding a couple of arm exercises to your weekly workout routine. Here are a couple of good ones to include:

• Tricep extension

• Bicep curls

• Tricep dips

• Reverse bicep curls

Get more advice on how to build muscle here, or if you're ready to get started find your nearest gym here.