Aren’t you overwhelmed by the endless confusion in the training world?

Don’t you often flip-flop from one training routine to another? 

And aren’t you fed up with making minimal or no improvement?

If you want training and bodybuilding success, find an expert mentor.

The all-new HARDGAINER 2.0 digital magazine is your expert training mentor. The feast of expertise and experience in every issue of the magazine will guide you, inspire you, and motivate you.

It will remove all the guesswork and confusion from your training. You’ll have an honest, trustworthy, consistent, and reliable source of effective training information.

HG 2.0 is the digital rebirth of HARDGAINER print magazine, which ran from 1989 to 2004. But HG 2.0 isn’t a digitalization of the issues of the print magazine. The two magazines are separate entities with different content.

HG 2.0 looks like a magazine, though, not a website. And you’ll be able to read it across your devices. 

But for the best experience, read HG 2.0 on a computer, not on a phone. The larger the screen, the better.

As from issue #11, though, you can also print the magazine if you prefer to read it in paper format.

Although the final issue of HARDGAINER 2.0 was published on August 10, 2024, the entire 33-issue collection will be available indefinitely, just like the entire 89-issue collection of the HARDGAINER print magazine.

HG 2.0 gives you real-world, from-the-trenches, non-doctrinal content you’ll relate to, from real-world authors you’ll also relate to. 

It shows you what really builds muscle and strength for drug-free trainees with normal genetics and busy lives. HG 2.0 has the proof! 

Discover lots of success stories, and find out how you can be successful yourself!

But it’s free of synthetic (drug-fed) physiques, training nonsense, and ads.

“Why did you bring HARDGAINER back in digital format?” you may ask.

Because its message is still sorely needed today.

Here’s Mark Houghton, a physique-focused trainee, and a writer for HG 2.0. He’s a drug-free example of the effectiveness of the training methods that HG 2.0 promotes.

Mark, age 47, in Manchester, England, September 2012, at the British Natural Bodybuilding Federation’s British Championships. He won the Overall Masters’ Champion and was also awarded a Masters’ Pro Card from the Drug-Free Athletes’ Coalition (DFAC).

Here are the covers of our first eleven issues:

And here are six of their tables of contents:

“Why should I trust you, Stuart? What are your qualifications for publishing HARDGAINER 2.0?”

Since 1989, I’ve dedicated my working life to helping people like you build muscle, might, and health. I’ve been a steadfast voice of honesty and reason in the training world. 

And I’ve helped countless trainees. 

But I’m not an armchair coach. I built myself up from a skinny youth to 195 pounds, and deadlifted 400 pounds for a set of 20 reps, drug-free. 

And I still train seriously today, at age 65.

I have 51 years of training experience and 15 years of publishing and editing HARDGAINER print magazine, and I’ve written several acclaimed books, including BRAWN, BEYOND BRAWN, and BUILD MUSCLE LOSE FAT LOOK GREAT. 

Furthermore, I’ve had over 1,000 articles published in magazines other than HARDGAINER. Most of them were in mainstream bodybuilding magazines in the US and Europe, although my articles were, paradoxically, non-mainstream in their content. For 22 consecutive years, I wrote a monthly column for Britain’s leading bodybuilding magazine.

Today, though, I’m much more knowledgeable about training than I was when I published HG print magazine, and a better writer and editor.

But the lessons I teach through my publications aren’t based on just my journey. They are a fusion of the experiences and acquired wisdom of generations of drug-free bodybuilders and strength trainees.

HG 2.0 is based on the same principles that HG print magazine was founded on. It’s a one-of-a-kind, feast of inspiration, motivation, and premium instruction for building muscle and strength without using bodybuilding drugs. 

“Please give me more proof that the methods you promote work.”

Here are three more drug-free examples of the effectiveness of the training methods that HG 2.0 promotes, which work for both strength and physique, and for men and women.

You may not be interested in competing in powerlifting or bodybuilding, but the training methods that the trainees shown in this post applied with great success will also work for you when you apply them properly, as HG 2.0 reveals.

 Here’s Chuck Miller, a strength-focused trainee and coach, and a writer for HG 2.0.

Chuck is a master strength coach for HG 2.0 who also wrote for HARDGAINER print magazine. Chuck has trained with weights for over 35 years, always drug-free. He has won multiple regional and national powerlifting championships, and totaled Raw Elite three times—twice in the 198-pound weight class and, most recently, at 220. On April 20, 2013, at age 43, Chuck achieved his best powerlifting total to date—1,600 pounds—with a 600-pound squat (shown here), 380-pound bench press, and 620-pound deadlift. He made those lifts despite two major challenges: He is a type 1 (insulin-dependent) diabetic, and he overcame a tibial plateau fracture in his left knee at age 38 that required a plate and five screws to fix. 

In each issue of HG 2.0, the contributing authors provide a distillation of training savvy from their combined hundreds of years’ experience.

When you access that great wealth of powerful experience, you’ll quickly become an expert yourself.

The training approach promoted in HG 2.0 that works so well for men, also works for women. Even a little additional muscle improves appearance and yields substantial health benefits. Aerobics alone won’t do and are overrated, and tinkering with bands and tiny dumbbells also won’t do. 

Serious training is needed for serious benefits for women.

Here’s an illustration of the effects of serious, drug-free strength training for women: Gina Traynor, age 42. Gina also contributed articles to HG 2.0.

 And here’s Ian Duckett, another physique-focused trainee, and a writer for HG 2.0.

Ian also wrote for HARDGAINER print magazine. Here he is, age 42, just before he won his weight division at the UIBBN 2007 World Natural Bodybuilding Championships.

Here’s your biggest problem in the training world: INFORMATION OVERLOAD

There’s a tsunami of training information on the internet, including social media—from the excellent to the abysmal. And much of it is free. 

But it endlessly confuses you and prevents you from improving your training and physique. 

The nonsense, fraud, and endless commercial messages that have always blighted the training world are even more widespread today.

Even many of the so-called “drug-free” online “coaches” and “YouTube personalities” are anything but “natural.” And some of them describe themselves as “evidence-based,” yet promote advice that’s just as useless for most trainees as the mainstream content found in muscle magazines during the decades before the internet took off.

So today’s revved-up deluge of misinformation further distracts the masses from what really works for drug-free trainees, and wreaks havoc among those not properly educated in how to train.

Good training information is easier to find today—through computers, tablets, and phones—but it’s too little, too scattered, not articulated adequately, and not promoted powerfully enough. 

For you to make sense of it all, and separate the wheat from the chaff, you must be properly educated in how to train without drugs.

Start that process by rejecting all training instruction from drug users.

HARDGAINER 2.0 gives you the solution because it provides training clarity. 

“How?” you may ask

Because HG 2.0 will focus your attention on a single, time-tested, time-efficient, and highly effective way to train—abbreviated training properly applied. But this trustworthy, specialized approach has different interpretations, to accommodate the needs of all trainees. 

Then you’ll rid yourself of the information overload and confusion that has ruined the hopes and dreams of countless physique and strength buffs. And be on your way to your own training success story.

“But what is abbreviated training, Stuart?” 

The vast majority of drug-free, genetically typical trainees can’t recover from conventional training methods—which mean split routines of four or more workouts per week, and typically three or four work sets for each of three or four exercises per body part. So a reduced volume and frequency of training is the way to go for most trainees. 

And that’s where abbreviated training comes in. Not only is it a way more effective approach when properly applied, but it’s also way more sustainable because the time commitment isn’t excessive. 

You’ll perform a much-reduced volume of training but a much-increased quality of training, and be in the gym only two or three times each week. 

And if you’re blessed with better-than-average genetics, abbreviated training will be even more effective for you.

When properly applied, abbreviated training focuses on what matters most:  

1. The best exercises for you

2. Excellent exercise form

3. Intensity of effort

4. The right volume and frequency of training for you

5. Excellent recovery

6. Safety and sustainability

7. And making progress, not merely clocking up time in the gym

Some forms of abbreviated training employ an abbreviated list of exercises but apply volume and/or frequency of training that are excessive for most trainees; and, sometimes, their exercise selection and recommended form are high-risk. Those forms of abbreviated training don’t apply the fundamental principles as I do.

HG 2.0 promotes abbreviated training properly applied, which is appropriate, safe, and effective for all drug-free and genetically typical trainees, and can be sustained over the long term.

Here’s another huge problem you probably struggle with: NOT STICKING WITH GOOD TRAINING PROGRAMS

You probably flip-flop from one training program to another. And even when you find a good program, you probably don’t stick with it long enough for the magic to happen.

HARDGAINER 2.0 gives you the solution because it teaches you effective implementation.

How?

Firstly, HG 2.0 will motivate you to stick only with good training programs—one at a time, though. And secondly, it will keep you on target for success by providing you with encouragement and success stories from real people who train in this manner themselves, along with other powerful content.

Some of HARDGAINER print magazine’s most knowledgeable and trustworthy authors contributed exclusive, new articles to HG 2.0 alongside exclusive, fresh content from other exceptional authors, including some from a new generation of writers and coaches.

Whether you’re a man or a woman; a bodybuilder or a strength trainee; use free weights, machines or a mixture of the two; or train in a home gym, commercial facility or elsewhere; HARDGAINER 2.0 will help you no end.

And it’s for all gainers, not just hard gainers, and for both young trainees and not-so-young ones. So whether you’re 20, 40, 60, 70, or any other age, HG 2.0 is for you. 

“How many pages does HG 2.0 have, how often is it published, and how do I subscribe?”

Each of the first 25 issues has 60 pages, but information-dense ones that will actually help you. The issues are free of ads. Those first 25 issues were published monthly. 

But as of May 2023 (issue #26), HG 2.0 became an alternate-month publication, just like the original print edition was for its entire 89-issue run.  

Issues 26 through 33 have 90 pages each. 

We’re currently deciding on the best way to make the issues of HG 2.0 available. Please revisit this page in late-December, 2024, for further information.