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The No Bull Muscle Building Plan

How to Add Slabs of Muscle Without Turning Into a Tub of Lard In
the Process
Defying The Curse of The Natural Muscle Seeking Athlete

By: Kelly Baggett



Copyright 2006 by Kelly Baggett. All Rights Reserved.


































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No portion of this manual may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic of mechanical, including fax, photocopy, recording or any information
storage and retrieval system by anyone but the purchaser for their own personal use. This
manual may not be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of
Kelly Baggett, except in the case of a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages for the
sake of a review written for inclusions in a magazine, newspaper, or journal and these
cases require written approval from Kelly Baggett prior to publication.

For more information, please contact:

Kelly Baggett
649 Fruit Farm Rd.
Hollister, MO 65672

Email: Kelly@higher-faster-sports.com
Website: www.higher-faster-sports.com


Disclaimer

The information in this book is offered for educational purposes only; the reader should
be cautioned that there is an inherent risk assumed by the participant with any form of
physical activity. With that in mind, those participating in strength and conditioning
programs should check with their physician prior to initiating such activities. Anyone
participating in these activities should understand that such training initiatives may be
dangerous if performed incorrectly. The author assumes no liability for injury; this is
purely an educational manual to guide those already proficient with the demands of such
programming.











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Table of Contents

Introduction..5
Defining the problem...5
What the heck are genetics anyway?...6
Were really no different than animals....7
What is muscle mass good for?...7
Genetics are quite powerful.....8
Bodybuilding A contradictory adaptation?...9
Genes and the Hunter-Gatherer.10
Spendthrift genes vs Thrifty genes11
Unfortunate seasonal residents..12
Native Americans vs African Americans..12
Why fat people build muscle and shed fat so easily?13
How hormones communicate13
Good vs bad genes.14
Variable genes15
What food does?....16
Hormones that build muscle hormones that eat up muscle.....16
Muscular variation Number of muscle cells is key.17
DNA Testing and Manipulation The future of sport......18
Making sure you create the right adaptations Inefficiency vs efficiency...19
The fed state=anabolic state...19
Summarizing the problem......20
Genetic Limits = Bull? (Powerlifters know mass).....21
How much does it take to build muscle?...22
The anabolic effects of under-feeding.......22
Fat loss benefits from over-feeding...22
Work capacity....23
Manipulating Insulin Insulin and fat burning Insulin and muscle growth...23
Training for mass...27
Various types of growth.....29
How important is fatigue?..32
Strength training vs size training...33
Neural efficiency you gotta practice...34
Bodybuilding and strength training...36
Forced Reps...36
Training Frequency?..38
Muscular vs Neural Recovery....38
Factors affecting neural recovery...40
Feeder workouts.44
Organizing the loads..46
Training to failure?....47
How many reps?....47
How many sets?.49
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Getting the most out of your training You have to eat!..50
Training for fat loss....50
Glycogen levels and carbohydrate requirements...51
Manipulating glycogen stores51
The need for cyclical training53
What you will probably love about this program..54
The No Bull muscle gain plan...55
The Diet.55
Training..61
Modifying the Scheme...68
Monitoring body composition70
Alternative plans70
Troubleshooting.71
Q&A...73

























5
Introduction

Regardless of whether youre a bodybuilder or athlete, male or female, young or old,
I know you probably bought this manual for one of 2 reasons:

1. Youve seen the ads and the transformations and watched other people gain 30
pounds of muscle in 8, 10, or 12, weeks, - all while simultaneously losing fat, and
you wish you could do the same. Youre unhappy with how much muscle you
carry or how much muscle youve built, yet you also may not be entirely happy
with the amount of fat that you carry either. You want to gain a significant
amount of lean body mass yet you cant really afford a traditional bulk-up.
Or:

2. You want to gain some muscle, but youre one of those guys or gals who busted
your butt so hard getting yourself lean, (or you have to bust your butt so hard to
stay lean), there aint NO way youre gonna compromise and allow some of that
ugly, nasty, fat to jump up and stick to your gut, or your butt.

Regardless which of those descriptions best fits you Im sure you know what you
want. You probably also know the situation and you know what the deal is. Being a
natural muscle-seeking athlete can be difficult. It's hard to build muscle without fat and
the worse your genetics are the more difficult it is. To start off, Id like to spend some
time talking about the problems people have building natural lean muscle and some of the
basic principles behind what Im going to talk about in this manual. Feel free to skip this
if you want and move ahead to the Program section on page 54 if you want.

Defining The Problem

Muscle growth occurs through a process of stimulation, signaling and supply.
Training stimulates muscles to grow. Your natural levels of various anabolic
hormones signal muscles to grow, and food supplies raw material for growth. Those
3 things together determine how effectively you put on muscle. Unfortunately, it could
be argued the most important of those factors is the one you have the least amount of
control over, and that is the growth signaling that occurs from various hormones like
testosterone and IGF-1. When you think of growth signaling, simply think of this as an
aspect of your genetics.

How important is growth signaling? Well, ask yourself this: When, during his
lifetime, does the average male gain the most muscle mass? When he trains and eats
well? Not necessarily. How about puberty? There you go. The average male gains
about 40 pounds of near permanent muscle during puberty, and thats without any
training. Now, what causes puberty? Changes in hormone levels.

Think of the difference between a male and a female? Its all hormonal.
Someone labeled with good genetics vs someone labeled with bad genetics? All
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hormonal. Whenever people take steroids theyre basically changing, or over-riding,
aspects of their natural hormonal signaling related to muscle growth. The hormonal effect
is so strong that in one study testosterone use all by itself, even in the absence of training,
was shown to stimulate an 18-pound muscle gain in 20 weeks. In another study, 3 groups
of people were divided up into the following 3 groups and followed for 8 weeks:

Group A: This group took 600 mg of testosterone per week and sat on their butt.

Group B: This group took no testosterone and trained with weights for 1 hour 4 days per
week.

Group C: This group took 600 mg of testosterone per week and trained with weights 4
days per week.

At the end of the study group A gained 9 pounds of muscle, group B gained 4.5
pounds, while group C gained 16 pounds of muscle. Look at that again. The people who
sat on their butts and took testosterone still gained twice as much muscle as the poor
souls busting their butts in the gym naturally 4 days per week! Those who trained vnv vnv vnv vnv
took testosterone gained 4 times as much muscle as the natural group.

It should be noted that in this particular study the natural training group wasnt
making any concerted effort to improve their nutritional status, yet with that information
it should be pretty clear why people take steroids. The damn things work!

Another important thing to note about this information is that we also tend to see
a heck of a lot of variance between natural athletes just like we do between steroid users
and non-steroid users. Youll see a few freakish looking natural athletes who preach
just train hard and eat right and you can do it. Maybe so, but chances are their
physiology is not like yours. If it were you probably wouldnt be reading this. If you
were to take a group of college football players and a group of typical IT workers and put
both groups on a bodybuilding program and charted the results, youd probably find
about the same muscle building variance between the 2 groups as you do between steroid
users and non-steroid users. Not really a happy thought, but hopefully we can do
something to bridge that gap. Lets talk a little bit more about genetics.

What the heck are "genetics" anyway?

When it comes to muscle building, we hear the word genetics thrown around as
often as any other concept. So and so has good genetics. I have crap genetics. What
the heck does this mean anyway? Well, genetics refers to the mechanism of hereditary
transmission and the variation of inherited characteristics among similar or related
organisms.

For our purposes, when you think of bodybuilding genetics, think of things you
have little to no control over such as the:

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A: Length and size of your bones

B: The length of your muscles and number of muscle cells you start out with

C: Length of your tendons

D: Hormonal tendencies


The end result of what happens when you place your body under a stimulus like
weight training is dependent on both your environment and your genetic code. With
regard to the stimulus of bodybuilding, the response is around 50% genetic and 50%
environment. Environment includes things like nutrition, training etc. When you
combine your genetics with the environment you get genetic expression.

The Amazing Bodybuilding Adaptation - We're Really NO
Different Than Animals..

The way physique enthusiasts look for and expect dramatic physical changes as
normal, ordinary, everyday occurrences is something I believe we all need to think about
from time to time. In no other animal species do you see mature animals make such
dramatic physical changes. Even though animals have more specific genetic tendencies
and less adaptability, I still feel the following is worth an illustration. How many times
have you seen mature adult animals of any species gain pounds of muscle mass? Think
about that for a second. The muscle mass a mature animal will carry is mostly
determined before it was even born. Large muscle mass increases normally dont happen
once adulthood has been reached and, for reasons having to do with our natural wired in
code for survival, humongous muscle mass increases really werent designed to occur in
humans to a great extent either. When a person hits their mature adult height and weight
that should be about it as far as muscle mass is concerned. Increased muscular
hypertrophy was designed primarily to make work and physical labor more efficient. In
the real world, lots of people do a lot of physical labor and do get .onc .onc .onc .onc growth, but still
dont really grow enough to change their entire physical structure. The fact that we are
able to over-ride nature and change our structure to such a large extent through
bodybuilding is something I feel we should really appreciate.

What Else Besides Work is Muscle Mass Good For?

From a biological perspective, a mammals physical characteristics such as facial
symmetry, teeth, structure, and muscle mass, tend to be a marker of the quality of that
animals genes. Being outwardly healthy and strong can help an animal or person do 2
things:

1. Survive
2. Reproduce
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These 2 things are also the same things that drive all life survival and reproduction.

The external features that express health and vitality contribute to both the ability
to survive (through the ability to do more efficient work), and increase the likelihood of
reproducing, as qualities demonstrating a good physical constitution also tend to make an
animal more attractive to the opposite sex, and for good reason. In the animal kingdom, a
good structure with a muscular, healthy body means that a mammal can probably defend
its family in event of a conflict and support its family being strong enough to work, hunt,
and find food. Those with good physical qualities are more likely to have an easier time
both surviving and reproducing than those with inferior qualities. The superiority of
good physical qualities is like a built in safe-guard to ensure survival of the fittest among
a species. Ive spent most of my life around deer hunters and all you have to do to see
this illustrated in the real world is look at bucks. During the rut, who is more likely to get
the doe, the scrawny one horned spike, or the big ol buck with a nice set of antlers? It
should be obvious that any species wishing to thrive and avoid extinction would do well
to ensure that the fittest of its species are the ones who pass along their genetic code.

So, besides making work more efficient, things like our natural level of muscle
mass also express our vitality, which is why, even in our modern day society, our primal
instincts play a large part in our behavior. Women find a fairly muscular man with a
good build, good teeth, and good facial symmetry (and perhaps a crap-load of money),
more attractive than a scrawny or fat man, and, even though the anorexic supermodel is
promoted as ideal, most men naturally find a more normal looking woman with good
breasts and a J-Lo booty, (indicators of good reproductive capacity), more primally
attractive.

In the animal kingdom there is nothing animals can really do about physical
qualities but we humans are different. Because we are so smart, we're able to cheat and
do things to over-ride some of the outward expressions of our health and vitality. If
you have naturally bad teeth you can get braces. Got bad skin you can get a face-lift. If
youre a woman with small breasts you can get a boob job. Got a big ol nose you can
get a nose job. Losing your hair you can get extensions. If youre too old you can just
take anti-aging hormones. If you dont like your skin color you can just pull a Michael
Jackson. If you dont like your sex you can change that. If youre fat you can either
starve or have liposuction. And if you have a less than optimal structure with less muscle
than you desire, you can change that too, - you can lift your butt off and eat like theres
no tomorrow.

But just to keep things in perspective, imagine if your dog didn't like the way he
looked and he went out in the backyard and started hauling around all kinds of crap from
one end of the yard to the other in an effort to resistance train and increase his muscle
mass? It sounds crazy, but that is more or less what we do when we body-build.

Genetics Are Quite Powerful.

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Additionally, many people lose sight of the fact that their basic structure and level
of muscularity are, for the most part, something theyre born with. People have no
problems interpreting the fact that the thick legs and musculature of their Pit Bull named
Buffy, (who sits on his butt 23 hours per day and does no exercise), was determined
before it was born, but when it comes to our own physiques, few people or observers
recognize the strong genetic connection. Instead, they give credit to a favorite sport,
activity, or exercise. You'll hear teenagers with naturally big legs say stuff like "Oh,
when I was 8 years old I used to ride my bike to school everyday and thats why my legs
are so big", and so forth.

I was reminded of this the other day at the gym. The "Power Team" was in town
doing some demos at a local church. One Saturday afternoon one of the performing
members came into the gym for a workout. This guy probably went 6'1 and 280 and
evidently was a defensive lineman for a major Div. I program at some point. Some young
kids went up to him and started talking to him, asking him how he got so big. Now, it
was obvious to me that this particular athlete was just naturally big. He had humongous
bones, humongous muscle bellies, and just lots of natural looking muscle. He'd probably
weigh 260 even if he never did a thing. Yet, when asked how he got so big, he said that
when he was a teenager he used to do a lot of work on a farm and eat a lot. The
conversation then went in the direction of, Yeah my uncle used to work on a farm as a
teen and got up to 250 lbs doing this, that etc." I'm sure most of you know what I mean.

Not to say that hard physical work doesn't account for something, but when
people compare and note the muscle mass differences between two types of dogs, like a
Greyhound and a Boxer, nobody ever accuses the Greyhound of being skinny because he
didn't do any physical work when he was a puppy, - and they never credit physical work
for the Boxers superior muscle mass. The huge difference in muscle mass between the 2
dogs is purely a genetic thing. Assuming a decent environment where they get enough
food and stay healthy, the size difference was mostly determined before they were born.

Additionally, if you were to resistance train those dogs you would probably see
the same sort of variation with regards to how much muscle mass they gain from
resistance training. The boxer would probably out-gain the greyhound at a rate
proportional to his already existing muscle mass. People are the same way. Some people
are naturally more like a Greyhound and some people are more like Boxers. Gaining tons
of additional mass won't come as easy for the greyhound, but it will probably fly on the
boxer with hardly any stimulation at all. That doesn't mean the greyhound can't gain a lot
of mass, but he's gonna have to bust his butt for it.

Bodybuilding A Contradictory Adaptation?

The bodybuilding adaptation could also be considered somewhat of a
contradictory adaptation for a couple of reasons. First, we still have the same genetic
code as our hunter-gatherer ancestors, many of whom faced harsh conditions like
starvation, which means were still genetically geared to survive harsh conditions. Thus,
nearly all adaptations by the body to stress are adaptations that make the body more
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efficient at dealing with potential hardcore stressors. In other words, any stress
encountered by your body will be dealt with in a manner that makes your body better live
to see another day based on its interpretation of your external world. Adaptations geared
toward survival are preferred to adaptations towards performance. Efficiency is
preferable to proficiency.

Think about that for a second. If you had to push a 300-pound wheelbarrow up a
mile hill each and every day, initially it would be a real challenge. Your hands would get
blistered, your arms, traps, and legs would get sore, and youd probably feel like you
were gonna die. Youd be huffing and puffing and probably be sore for days. After a
while though your body would adapt to make that task more efficient and youd be able
to push the wheelbarrow up the hill without any problems whatsoever. You might see a
few physical changes and a tad more muscle mass in certain areas, yet your improved
efficiency in pushing the wheelbarrow would likely greatly overshadow any physical
changes. In other words, youd get stronger and your ability to push the wheelbarrow
would probably improve 10 times, yet your muscle mass wouldnt increase all that much.
The same thing occurs to a large extent when we lift weights. We may or may not make
a ton of physical changes, but if nothing else we get better at tolerating the workloads.

Now, what makes our preferred adaptation sortve contradictory and helps explain
why it doesnt come easy is because our goal of bigger muscles and leaner physiques
could be considered an adaptation towards inefficiency. Getting stronger and increasing
the ability to tolerate workloads is relatively easy for the body to do, yet adding muscle
mass is a costly adaptation. Heres why: Bigger muscles burn more fuel and serve to
make your body more like a gas guzzling SUV than a Honda Civic. A big bodybuilder is
like a big fuel guzzling monster truck. He is terribly fuel inefficient. A big bodybuilder
burns up 3 gallons of gas just getting out of bed and walking to the bathroom. Now, why
would an organism designed to adapt to stressors EFFICIENTLY, make it easy to go
from operating like a 55 miles per gallon economy car to a 3 miles per gallon monster
truck?? Our bodies don't know that today we have a McDonalds and a supermarket on
every corner and an endless supply of food. Chances are your body is still trying to adapt
to the environment as efficiently as possible.

Genes and The Hunter-Gatherer

Many of our ancestors were periodically faced with food shortages, famines, and
harsh cyclical climates (depending on where they lived). Those who could survive those
conditions were the ones who would thrive. Obviously, lean and highly muscular bodies
(which burn up a lot of fuel), arent gonna do well when faced with food shortages.
Muscle is metabolically costly tissue and an organism seeking to avoid famine would be
best to avoid accumulating a whole lot of it. Those with very lean bodies and a lack of
fat obviously wouldnt last long in a famine.

To get to the point, if for whatever reason today we had to once again face the
same conditions our ancestors faced (such as periodic food shortages and harsh climates),
and we were also faced with the challenge of bodybuilding workouts; - those who would
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survive in the face of this stress would be the ones who could adapt to the workouts by
getting better at performing the workouts without creating a lot of unnecessary muscle
mass, and those who could hold on to and store fat more efficiently.

Thus, those who respond to bodybuilding with lean physiques and easy increases
in muscle mass (which require much more food to maintain), are those who probably
tend to express dominant genes from ancestors that never had to worry much about food
shortages. These genes probably come from ancestors that lived in year around warm
climates with year around food surpluses. Conversely, those who find it a big struggle to
increase muscle size and maintain a lean physique are those who probably express
dominant genes from ancestors that faced periodic harsh conditions. Thus, these genes
make them naturally better at dealing with food shortage and famines.

Spendthrift Genes vs Thrifty Genes

Next, Id like to talk about some of the different type of genetic tendencies that
have been identified by science that have a lot to do with what Ive been talking about
here. To help illustrate my points Im going to talk about some of the characteristics of
certain ethnic groups. I am doing this for illustrative purposes only so dont freak out and
think Im ragging on a certain ethnic group.

Spendthrift Genetics

There are some people who have metabolisms that seem to contradict what Im
saying about efficiency. Scientists call people with this inefficient type of metabolism
spendthrifts, because they adapt to stimuli by spending, or creating adaptations that
could be termed inefficient in the face of stress and starvation. The key characteristic of
a spendthrift is that when you overfeed them they tend to burn off calories instead of
storing them as fat. Additionally, when you diet them, they easily shed body-fat without
any metabolic slowdown.

We can also take this a step further and theorize that someone with a spendthrift
metabolism might have an advantage when it comes to acquiring pure lean muscle
(providing they eat enough). Whatever the case, what scientists call a spendthrift
metabolism probably evolved due to chronic year around food surplus. It should be
noted that one aspect both West Africa and tropical areas have in common is a consistent
year-round food surplus. For whatever reason, those from West African or tropical
ancestry tend to carry genes that allow more adaptations towards fuel inefficiency (easily
increased muscle mass and lean bodies), probably because harsher climates and dramatic
food shortages werent something faced by their ancestors.

Those from these geographical locations arent the only people termed
spendthrifts, yet for this purpose, they provide a pretty good example. Its also
interesting that West Africa is home to the biggest, fastest, and most powerful land
animals and most of the best athletes and bodybuilders can directly trace their heritage
here. All you have to do is take a look at the ethnicity of most of the best athletes in any
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sport where a high priority is placed on a lean and muscular body, such as football,
bodybuilding, track etc.

Thrifty Genetics

In contrast to a spendthrift, those who carry genes geared toward dealing well
with periodic food shortages (due to cold and/or seasonal climates), are known as thrifty
metabolisms, because their physiology quickly adapts to become efficient, or thrifty, in
the face of any sort of stress that could affect energy balance. These people adapt to
harsh metabolic stimuli (physical work and dieting), by becoming more efficient in the
face of stress. When you overfeed them they easily store calories as fat. When you diet
them they tend to hang onto fat and their metabolism slows down a lot. Theyre the ones
who would be surviving if a famine were to occur. As youll see in a minute, in the
United States, Native Americans are a good real world example of a thrifty metabolism.

Unfortunate Seasonal Residents

Now this picture should start to become clearer. Providing they eat enough,
those with a spendthrift type ancestry probably find it easier to respond to the stress of
bodybuilding with large increases in pure lean muscle mass (despite the fact that this
adaptation would require a surplus of food to maintain). They also definitely are able to
get quite lean without triggering the bodys survival mechanisms and thus slowing the
metabolic rate.

Those with thrifty genetics are the ones who train and train and train without
anything visual to show for it UNLESS they eat perfectly, train perfectly, or take enough
drugs to overcome their natural tendencies towards efficiency.

Just Compare Native Americans To African Americans.

To help elucidate the difference between a thrifty metabolism and a spendthrift
metabolism, we can compare Native Americans to African Americans. In the United
States, Pima Indians are a good real world example of a thrifty metabolism. They have a
natural tendency towards being hyper-responsive to insulin. This means they tend to
store more excess nutrients in fat cells. Insulin is hormone that helps push nutrients into
storage. The more hyper-responsive to insulin the body is, the easier it is for the body to
store fat for later use. Pimas also tend to have a low sympathetic nervous system (SNS)
output, (think natural amphetamine), which means their metabolisms tend to run rather
slow. So, combine a slow metabolism with efficient storage, along with a standard
American diet, and you get a propensity to become fat with any sort of caloric excess.

During caloric restriction, being hyper-responsive to insulin and having lower
SNS tone also makes it more difficult for the body to pull fat out of storage to burn for
energy. So, you have people that have a tendency to gain weight easily and struggle to
lose fat. Does that mean if youre a full-blooded Pima Indian that you cant develop a
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good body? No, it just means that, compared to the average person, you might have a
more difficult time staying lean.

Contrast this to African Americans. If youre an African American you probably
tend to have naturally poorer insulin sensitivity, which, upon first thought, might seem to
throw a big wrench into the entire argument I'm making here, but in fact it helps verify
my argument. Insulin is a storage hormone. Why would an organism have enhanced
insulin sensitivity if it really didn't see a big need to store a lot of excess nutrients for
later use? It doesn't. So, combine naturally poorer insulin sensitivity along with a
standard American, (or whatever) diet (supplying excess calories), and you have a lot of
nutrition floating around in the bloodstream but have a hard time forcing that nutrition
into storage. But what if you add exercise into the mix? Exercise enhances insulin
sensitivity strictly in muscle cells. Thus, with exercise and increased calories you get
preferential storage of nutrients in muscle cells, but not fat cells.

Why Fat People Build Muscle and Shed Fat So Easily?

Now, think of what happens when the typical overweight fat guy with a big beer
gut gets in the gym and starts working out? They build muscle and shed fat like theres
no tomorrow. This is what happens when you train an insulin resistant person. They get
results like theres no tomorrow. But what happens when that same insulin resistant
person sits on their butt?? Well, because they have a lot of nutrients floating around but
have trouble storing them, they easily develop problems like syndrome X, high blood
pressure, obesity etc. This probably explains why active African Americans have an
easier time building muscle and burning fat than average (providing they stay active). Yet
it also helps explain why sedentary African Americans also suffer from more high blood
pressure, obesity, and diabetes then average.

Hormonal Communication

Now, lets talk a little bit about how the body carries out some of these genetic
tendencies. The body has an entire sensing and signaling system in place that allows it to
sense whats going on both internally and externally and how to best adapt at any given
time. Basically, your brain constantly receives signals from the rest of your body
regarding your food intake, body-fat percentage, how much youre exercising, emotional
stress state, and many others. It receives these signals in a variety of ways. Two of the
main ways are through changes in hormone and neurotransmitter levels.

Hormones are chemical messengers that send a message and tell the body how to
act. They are simple chemical messengers released by one cell in your body that latch
onto a receptor in another part of the body and send a message. Think of a bicycle
messenger. A bicycle messenger takes a message and hauls butt across town and delivers
that message. Your body does the same thing with hormones. An entire network of
hormones allows the body to sense whats going on and communicate internally with
other parts. A neurotransmitter is a chemical substance, such as acetylcholine or
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dopamine, that basically sends a message by transmitting a nerve impulse across a
synapse.

Good vs Bad Genetics

Now, we can identify and specify all kinds of specific genes and what kindve
messages they help send. Ill touch on a few of those in a moment, but unless you have
access to genetic testing that information probably isnt gonna do you a whole lot of
good. In this day and age, all you really need to know is that when we say someone has
good genetics, what were basically saying is that their hormones and neurotransmitters
are good at sending an overall message that says, build muscle and get lean. When we
say someone has poor genetics, what were really saying is that their hormones and
neurotransmitters are good at sending an overall message saying, stay skinny and store
fat.

You see, a persons natural outward appearance, such as the amount of muscle
they tend to carry and how easily they build muscle and shed fat, is largely dictated by
what internal messages the body is sending to the external parts, such as the muscles, and
what those external parts are being told to do by the internal signals. Things like food
intake, physical stress (exercise), body-fat percentage, emotional stress state, and others
all influence those messages.

The hormone testosterone is obviously good at sending a message that tells
muscles to get bigger, but the hormonal network is much more complex than that. Your
brain constantly signals the release of various hormones that send a variety of signals to
your muscles and other peripheral tissues, while your muscles release signals that
communicate back to your brain and tell it whats going on below. Increase this,
decrease that. So, your brain is receiving signals from the rest of your body via changes
in hormone and neurotransmitter levels telling it whats going on. At the same time, your
brain is sending signals back to the rest of your body, via hormones and
neurotransmitters, telling it what to do. Thats the basic gist of it. This gives the body a
great deal of adaptability. Levels of certain hormones can change positively or
negatively with regard to the aforementioned increasing or decreasing food intakes,
exercise, stress state, body fat level, and many other factors. Hormones also change due
to age.

Not To Go Overboard

Now, having said all that, genetic tendencies are not as absolute as what I
described earlier as far as there being just a thrifty group and just a spendthrift group.
Most people demonstrate a mix of both. There does exist a lot of variance and these are
only tendencies and not absolutes. For example, some people have great muscle building
tendencies, (or muscle growth signaling), but poor fat burning signaling. Some people
can burn fat like theres no tomorrow, yet would have a hard time putting on an ounce of
muscle if their life depended on it. Some struggle with both. Additionally, regardless of
what your genetics have a cnvcn., cnvcn., cnvcn., cnvcn., to do, your environment influences the ultimate
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expression. For example, you can take someone with Mr. Olympia type genetics and let
him lead a typical lazy adolescent life of playstation and x-box with no exercise and a
high sugar diet. Continue that into adulthood and by the time hes 25 hell probably look
like crap.

Take someone with a genetic tendency to be a fat pillsbury doughboy, throw him
in a 3rd world country, and hell probably be scrawny as heck from lack of food. Take
someone with Pee Wee Herman type muscular genetics and give him years of gym time,
ever increasing bar weights, along with large food intakes, and youll have a muscular
individual! Regardless of your genetic tendencies, if you wanna get the most out of your
genes you better figure out what the heck youre doing!

Variable Genetics.

Now, to illustrate how variable this hormonal network can be, just look at the
average 18- year old male and compare him to the average 50-year old male. Without
fail, an 18-year old male, even with the worst genetics, will still usually have an easier
time building muscle and shedding fat than a 50 yr old with superior genetics. Even in a
given individual, things are a lot more difficult at 60 then they are 20. So, it should be
obvious that hormonal signaling can change based on age. It can also change based on
environment.

Heres another example: Lets say we have an 18-year old male and we put him
in a beach cottage in Venice with an unlimited budget and 6 hours per week of in the gym
training time with a good personal trainer. We give him all the food he wants with
absolutely no stress whatsoever besides chasing after the ladies and training. We train
him for 6 weeks and see how much muscle we can put on him. Lets say we take his twin
brother and put him through a military boot-camp. We only allow him to eat 2000
calories per day of cheap food. We only allow him to sleep 3 hours per night. We yell at
him constantly to the point that hes near suicide. And we train him exactly the way we
did in the above scenario. Which twin will build more muscle? The answer should be
obvious.

Now, let me explain some of the things that occur hormonally during the 2
nd

scenario noted above: Our boot camp guy is stressed out with exercise and also underfed
so his glucose levels drop. The lowered glucose will cause a decrease in the levels of
insulin and an increase in levels glucagon, which serves to increase fight or flight
hormones epinephrine and cortisone. Overall, this places his body on alert status, and
makes more fuel available for the brain. It also causes a decrease in testosterone. This
process is magnified by negative stress. Therefore, fuel is shifted away from the muscles
and directed towards the brain. This leaves little nutrition left over to fuel muscle mass
increases. This lack of nutrition coupled with stress will eventually lead to a decrease in
testosterone, which leads to less protein synthesis.

Eventually, with prolonged food restriction (dieting), stress hormones will stay
elevated, appetite will drastically increase, and energy will decrease to the point of near
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zero. Therefore, our bodybuilding soldier will be tired and hungry as hell, and the last
thing his body will do is put on any muscle. It should come as no surprise that the above
scenario, lack of food coupled with stress, is not good for muscle building purposes. **I
should also mention that stress alone, even with ample food, can create that same internal physiology

What food does?

In contrast, eat more food, sleep well, and not only do you bathe your muscles in
nutrients and supply plenty of raw material for growth, but you also get an increase in
insulin levels, which serves to drive excess nutrients into muscular (and fat) stores. Add
exercise and you get preferential storage into muscular stores. Testosterone and thyroid
levels will be normal while cortisol levels will be low. The body will act hormonally as
if its in a well fed and stress free state. Therefore it should come as no surprise that a
well fed and stress free state is optimal for gains in muscle mass.

Hormones that build muscle Hormones that eat up
muscle

What primarily determines the variation in anabolic status between individuals (or
within a given individual), is the variation in levels of more anabolic hormones like
testosterone, insulin, IGF-1 and thyroid, - all of which are good at cin cin cin cin the body to
increase muscle growth. Conversely, catabolic hormones like cortisol are good at telling
the body to tear muscle down, or avoid building anymore.

Elevated levels and/or increased sensitivity to testosterone, insulin, dopamine,
nor-epinephrine, thyroid, serotonin, and several others are all characteristic of one being
in an optimal state for building muscle. Decreased levels of these would demonstrate the
inverse. Food intake tends to increase most of the above. Therefore, it should come as
no surprise that food intake, besides simply providing extra material for growth, is also
very important when it comes to creating the right hormonal state for growth.

However, someone with naturally superior bodybuilding tendencies will tend to
naturally have elevated levels and/or increased sensitivity to many of the anabolic
hormones listed above. Thus, they dont necessarily need extra food to stay anabolic as
much as the guy or gal with hardgainer type bodybuilding tendencies does. They will be
able to build more muscle on less food, (or eat more food while maintaining a leaner
body composition), than someone with the opposite characteristics. This is why you see
professional athletes who can half ass their diets and workouts and still gain 15 lbs of
muscle and shed 10 lbs of fat at the same time. Their natural metabolism and hormonal
signaling network screams out 2 very loud commands:

1. Build muscle, build muscle, build muscle!
2. Burn fat, burn fat, burn fat!

It should be noted that chronic overfeeding (which occurs from normal diet and
lack of activity), and age, both tend to cause a decreased sensitivity to many of these
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various hormones, which is probably one of the reasons why young people have an easier
time building muscle and shedding fat than older people. The absolute levels of various
hormones may not change a lot with age, but the sensitivity to them does. However,
establishing a short-term caloric deficit, or losing fat, can both increase the hormonal
sensitivity.

As youll see later, alternating periods of over and under-feeding allow one to benefit
from the positive anabolic effects of overfeeding, while maintaining the anabolic
sensitivity that comes underfeeding.

Muscular Variation

Yet another huge genetic variant that has little to do with hormones is the
variation in the tissues that the hormones act on, mainly the muscles. What were mainly
concerned with here is the variability in the number of muscle cells between different
individuals, particularly the number of fast twitch muscle cells. Muscular variability is
also related to the length of the individual muscle bellies, as one can't hypertrophy bone
and tendon.

The growth of the fast twitch muscles is primarily responsible for the increase in
size that comes from resistance training. There is not a ton of hard evidence that muscle
cells ever increase in number, although they definitely do increase in size. Therefore, the
number of muscle cells one starts out with is important for growth potential and is also
related to structure. An individual with naturally longer muscles and shorter tendons will
tend to have larger natural muscle bellies and will also tend to have more muscle cells in
a given body-part. Take a look at the calf muscles of various people. Some people have
a nice long calf muscle while others just have a tight little ball at the top. Those with the
short little ball have much less potential for calf growth because the tendons are so long
and the muscle belly is so short. This is what I mean when I say length of the muscle
bellies. To a lesser extent you see this in other body-parts as well, - biceps are another
good example.

Two individuals can also have nearly identical dimensions and muscular size yet
one of them might have dramatically more or less muscle cells than the other. The one
that has more total muscle cells in a given muscle, particularly fast twitch, will have more
growth potential. Therefore, if 2 people both have 12-inch arms, yet one has twice as
many muscle cells, he will also have a big advantage in his growth potential.

It should be appreciated that studies performed on bodybuilders indicate that the
muscle cells of elite bodybuilders arent much larger than those of normal folks, there's
just a lot more of them. To put this into simplistic terms, there's a damn good chance that
a young Ronnie Coleman had a crap-load of dormant muscle cells just waiting to respond
to training. In contrast, the 6'2 120 lb guy who bulks up to 200 lbs after 15 years of
training, (and has to eat like a horse and train like a madman just to avoid losing size),
may very well have bigger individual muscle cells than Ronnie Coleman, theres just a
lot less of them.
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Specific Genes, DNA testing, and Genetic Manipulation

All of these aforementioned adaptations and tendencies are influenced by our
DNA, which carries specific genes that give us our characteristics. The U.S. Department
of Energy and the National Institutes of Health began the Human Genome Project in
1990 and recently completed and identified the roughly 25,000 genes that make us who
we are. With the job complete, scientists have started using this knowledge to research
cutting edge cures for dozens of genetic disorders like diabetes, as well as uncover
revelations in fields like evolution, anthropology, molecular medicine, and forensics. In
fact, DNA testing, specific gene identification, and manipulation is already starting to
catch on in the athletic world. There are specific genes that are highly relevant to athletic
success that can now be identified. I saw an ad the other day from an outfit that tests
your blood for 16 different sports related genes and then gives you dietary
recommendations to enhance athletic performance based on the results of your genetic
tests.

One of these genes is MnSOD, which regulates the inherent ability to quelch
muscle damaging free radicals. By identifying the strength of this gene, an individual can
compensate by consuming a diet high in anti-oxidants.

Two other genes, IL-6 and TNF alpha, correspond to the production of cytokines,
chemical messengers that help repair the type of muscle damage caused by exercise.
Some people tend to overproduce these helpers and this can result in excessive soreness,
inflammation, swelling, fatigue, and a host of other overtraining related symptoms. A
natural antidote for a person that has a weak IL-6 and TNF alpha gene might be the
ingestion of lots of natural anti-inflammatory type foods like fish oil, along with very
gradual increases in training load.

Another gene is ACE, or angiotensin converting enzyme, which affects blood
flow, endurance, blood pressure and a host of other things related to both athleticism and
life span. High ACE results in poor endurance performance, but greater muscular
strength and muscular hypertrophy. Subjects with higher levels of ACE had a higher level
of Type II (fast twitch) fiber and intracellular glucose stores, whereas people with lower
ACE had higher Type I (slow twitch) fiber, higher degrees of vascularization, and higher
levels of interstitial glucose. From that you might think it would be beneficial to have
high ACE wouldnt it? Unfortunately, theres also bad news. Higher levels of ACE also
correlate well with high blood pressure, heart disease, and diabetes. Endurance type
athletes have the lowest level of ACE, have low levels of heart disease and other cardiac
related ailments, tend to have long lifespans, but are also about the furthest thing away
from ideal a bodybuilder would ever envision.

The Future of Sport..

In the not so distant future its becoming obvious were gonna have people trying
to manipulate and replace bad genes with good genes. It will be as simple as getting a
19
test, shelling out XX number of dollars, receiving an injection, and thats it. Parents will
be able to engineer their offspring exactly the way they want. In the athletic world, no
longer will environment and your natural genes be determining factors. These factors
will be replaced by the size of ones wallet and ego. Unfortunately, I think its gonna
take a long time to get it down to the point where bad gene can simply be replaced with a
good gene without any negative side effects. Take the case of the ACE gene for example.
Yeah, high levels of Ace would appear superior for purely anaerobic sports, but are also
associated with lower lifespans, high blood pressure, and a host of other negative stuff.
Im sure that wont stop some parents from wanting to manipulate their kids genes and
risk creating all sorts of problems in the process.

Genetics and Adaptation Efficiency vs. Inefficiency

Now, Id like to talk a little bit about creating the right environment for muscular
adaptation. From the previous rant on genetics, you know your body can adapt to the
training you throw at it by either becoming more efficient at dealing with the training
load, or by building bigger muscles to better deal with the training load. Your body
becomes more efficient at dealing with training by building up it's endurance and
recovery capacities so that it can complete the workouts you throw at it with less and less
of a challenge. It becomes less efficient by building bigger muscles. How do you ensure
that your body responds to the stress by building bigger muscles, rather than just more
efficient muscles?

Well, for one thing, you need to make sure that the body doesn't see much need to
create adaptations towards efficiency. The perfect scenario for these adaptations would
be high volume training done at a high frequency while under-sleeping and consuming a
negative calorie intake. Training on reduced calories already creates a stress and puts the
body on starvation alert. When you add in high volume training and mental stress, the
last thing the body will do is create more muscle.

The fed state = anabolic state

The anabolic muscle growth state is also known as the fed state. Have you ever
seen predators and the way their apparent mood and lifestyle fluctuates according to their
food availability. Take a pack of wild dogs. They'll chase an animal for days and when
they finally kill it the entire mentality of the pack changes as they feast over the next
couple of days. They go from being wired, anxious, nervous, sleeping little, and having
no interest in mating, to becoming extremely good-natured, napping constantly, playing,
and engaging in flirtatious behavior. The fed state is characteristic of laziness, happiness
and yes, also muscle growth. Now you know why pro bodybuilders do nothing but eat,
sleep, train, and have sex.

If you want the body to adapt by creating more muscle you need to make sure it's
in the ideal state to do so and that the signals you throw at it deem it necessary. This
means that on the lifestyle side of things you too need to be well-fed, get plenty of sleep,
and be emotionally stress-free. (It should come as no surprise why Venice Beach is
20
considered the bodybuilding capital of the world). Under those conditions, as long as
your training is on target, your body will respond with the most muscle possible.

If any one of those "lifestyle" factors is off, it will throw off the effectiveness of
your training. If you correct anything thats not optimal, you should see the results of
your training enhanced.

Summarizing The Problem

Now that Ive probably depressed the heck out of you, lets summarize these
points right quick: You know that muscle is built by a combination of training, the
anabolic signals your body produces that tell a muscle to grow, (such as testosterone and
IGF-1), along with nutrient intake, (which supplies raw material for growth). Training is
a given, yet if you don't have naturally good anabolic signaling (a.k.a. - good genetics),
you have to make up for that by providing more raw material for growth to occur.
When you first start training, you can typically get a growth response from
anything. Lets say you start lifting, eat maintenance calories and take your arms from 10
to 11 inches practically overnight. But then you get stuck. You change up your routine
but still nothing happens. What happens and why do you get stuck? Well, 2 things:
A: Assuming you vc stimulating growth through your training, the problem is, with your
current diet, the amount of nutrients reaching the muscle cells in your arms isnt enough
to provide the extra raw material needed to stimulate growth.
or
B: The amount of anabolic hormones circulating throughout your body isnt enough to
signal anymore increased protein synthesis in your arms.
Clearly, in order to get your arms bigger, you either have to eat more food or
increase your anabolic hormone levels. Since you dont take steroids, you have to stick
to eating. The problem is, the amount of raw material necessary for some people to gain
muscle, also means a lot of that raw material will spill over into adipose (fat) tissue,
which is why some hapless individuals will gain 2 pounds of fat for every pound of
muscle they gain, regardless of how clean their diet is. Thats basically the entire problem
summed up right there. Well talk about how were gonna deal with the problem later.
More On Eating.

Despite how I may have made it sound thus far, getting big and piling on a good
amount of muscle is not all that difficult. Eating excessive amounts makes people big vnv vnv vnv vnv
fat, but, regardless of genetic tendencies, a lot of that bigness is muscle. This is
particularly true for people that engage in resistance exercise or manual work (see "big"
corn fed country boys). Not only do fat people carry more fat than skinny people, but
they also carry more muscle mass than skinny people. Supplying excess raw material for
21
growth (aka eating), even all by itself, is very anabolic. In controlled studies, people
eating 1000 extra calories per day in the absence of any exercise whatsoever still gained
30% of their newfound scale weight as lean muscle mass. Even hospitalized anorexics
that are put on bed rest and force fed food so that they can reach a predetermined scale
weight still gain about 40% of their weight as lean mass.

Genetic Limits=Bull?

When you think about it, there is really no such thing as a clear genetic size
limitation for an individual. When someone talks about cnci. ini., cnci. ini., cnci. ini., cnci. ini., what they really
should be referring to is the amount of muscle mass you carry at a given body-fat
percentage. If you want to increase your genetic limit, simply get bigger overall. In other
words, you might train for 15 years and be 190 pounds of muscle at 7% body-fat and
think youve reached your genetic limit, yet train and eat yourself up to 300 lbs scale
weight and sure as heck youre gonna carry more muscle! I remember people saying that
legendary bodybuilder Steve Reeves had reached his genetic limit at 210 (or whatever)
pounds. Well, that was assuming he maintained his very lean condition. What would
happen if Reeves training normally and ate himself up to 250 pounds? Would he carry
more muscle? Sure he would.

If you wanted to carry 280 lbs of muscle mass a guaranteed way to do that is train
a few times a week and eat about 10,000 calories per day until you weigh 450 lbs.
Although you won't like the way you look and will probably die of a heart attack, youll
still carry a lot of muscle underneath that fat. Even at 40% body-fat you will still carry
over 270 lbs of lean body mass. Thats why the biggest sumo wrestlers on average carry
more muscle mass than the biggest bodybuilders.

Powerlifters Know Mass!

Everybody knows bodybuilders like to make fun of the eating habits and
physiques of powerlifters right? But when was the last time you heard of a powerlifter
having trouble gaining muscle? Powerlifters never have problems building muscle mass
BECAUSE of their eating habits not in spite of them.

In my opinion, the number one reason bodybuilders have a hard time growing is
because they don't eat enough or are scared of getting fat, yet thats also a legitimate
excuse because nobody wants to get fat right? In a perfect world we could get the
INCREASED anabolic effects of food while restricting the tissue gains strictly to the
lean compartment. People with good genetics can do exactly that. So can adolescents
going through puberty and people on steroids. They can all preferentially direct excess
food to the lean compartment instead of the fat compartment. The program I lay out for
you in this manual is designed to mimick those conditions.

How Much Does It Take To Build Muscle and Fat?

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On paper, a pound of muscle takes about 750 calories to build but in the real
world it actually takes over 3000 extra calories to build. Those calories have to come
from somewhere. A pound of fat takes 3500 calories to build on paper, but probably a
little over 4000 calories once you factor in the thermic effect of food. When eating a
1000-calorie surplus per day for 10 days, the maximum amount of fat that can be gained
(assuming none of the extra calories are used for muscle growth) is about 2 lbs. When
eating a 500-calorie surplus the maximum amount of fat that can be gained over a 10-day
cycle is 1 lb. (assuming none of the extra calories are used for muscle growth).
When eating a short duration 3 day surplus of massive amounts of carbohydrates, (like
10,000 calories per day), there is almost zero fat conversion from the carbohydrates into
fat.

The Anabolic Effects of Underfeeding.

Underfeeding (aka dieting) can increase the anabolic effect of subsequent
overfeeding. During any period in which you burn more calories then you take in, a
catabolic state exists and you burn fat. Not exactly a cutting edge observation but true
nonetheless. The good thing about such a state is it also induces a state of anabolic
rebound. By rebound, I mean simply that temporary caloric restriction and catabolism
creates a pretty good environment for muscle growth once you do start eating normally
again. This is due to the body's response during caloric restriction in which all kinds of
anabolic hormones and receptors are up-regulated. This means that once you start eating
normally after a period of dieting you will temporarily be able to direct, or partition, a lot
of nutrients towards the building of active muscle tissue.

Have you ever noticed what happens when a competing bodybuilder diets for
months to get his body-fat levels down to 6% and as soon as the contest is over he starts
eating like he just got out of a concentration camp? What happens? Well, they eventually
do blow up like beached whales, yet for about the first 2 weeks, body weight increases at
an incredible speed with little fat gain. I remember years ago Dan Duchaine saying that
he thought the body could store amino acids solely based on the rate at which he
observed post contest bodybuilders putting muscle weight back on during their post-
contest binges. Part of this plan allows you to take advantage of this effect.

Increases in anabolic hormones cause muscle mass to accrue at a rate that often
can't be explained by calorie intake alone. Short term overfeeding can increase anabolic
hormones naturally. Gains of 2+ lbs of muscle per week are not uncommon given the
proper food intake and physiology.

Increased Fat Loss From Prior Overfeeding.

Overfeeding also heightens the fat loss effect of subsequent underfeeding. When
you eat a lot, not only does your appetite tend to decrease, (which can make driving your
bodyweight up a chore when that is your goal), but your body up-regulates your fat
burning hormones and fat burning machinery. This is why you always shed fat the
quickest at the very beginning of a diet. On a fat loss diet, the easiest way to keep
23
progressing once youve reached a sticking point is to eat normally for 1-2 weeks. Why
is this? Well, during a diet your metabolism slows down in an effort to keep you from
wasting away to nothing. Your body doesnt know youre trying to get that 6-pack or
look good on the beach. It only knows its being deprived of food and after a while it
will slow the metabolism to keep you from starving to death.

Eat normally for a while and your body goes, Oh ok we dont have to worry
about wasting away. Your metabolism will up-regulate and your body will be primed to
once again burn body-fat. As a perfect illustration of this all you have to do is look to the
real world: Who burns fat the fastest? The fat guy who normally eats like a pig and then
decides to go on a diet? Or the skinny anorexic who has been subsisting on green beans
for 6 months? Fat people who start exercising and dieting burn fat like crazy. People
who diet for weeks and months on end really struggle to lose any additional fat. For
someone with well-oiled fat burning machinery, (a.k.a. a well fed person starting a
diet), it is possible to lose close to 1/2 pound of fat per day through diet and exercise over
short periods of time.

Work Capacity

A word on work capacity: Those with better work capacity generally note better
gains from a bodybuilding standpoint, probably because they recover quicker from a
given amount of training. Based on my observations, dieting seems to have the same
effect on general work capacity that volume does. If you increase your training volume
your body will initially go into a semi-shock over-reached mode. However, if you reduce
training volume after a period of increased volume, your work capacity then tends to be
higher than it was before. The same thing seems to occur with dieting. In other words,
when a person restricts calories, their work capacity temporarily decreases. However,
when they go from low calories to high calories, work capacity seems to increase to an
extent greater than what could be explained by the increased calories alone. Alterations in
training and diet are excellent for increasing general work capacity.

Insulin and Growth Insulin and Fat Loss

I touched on insulin a little bit before but now Id like to go into some more detail.
The hormone insulin is one of the most powerful muscle building hormones but also
serves as a double-edged sword for a bodybuilder. It is a storage hormone released in
response to elevated blood glucose. Its job is to drive nutrients into storage. If you eat a
meal your blood glucose goes up. Your body will release insulin in response to that
blood glucose and the insulin will cause your muscle, fat, and liver cells to open up so
that they can store the nutrients that are floating around from that meal. Insulin is good
from a muscle building standpoint because it drives more nutrients into your muscle cells
for growth and storage. Obviously, the more nutrients you can deliver to a muscle cell,
the better growth you tend to get. This explains why low carbohydrate diets dont work
very well from a muscle-building standpoint. On a low carbohydrate diet blood glucose
is lower and theres not much insulin floating around. Unfortunately, insulin is also bad
from a fat burning standpoint for 2 reasons:
24

A: Insulin also drives nutrients into your fat cells.

B: When insulin is elevated your body turns off fat burning.

Indiscriminate Insulin.

Insulin does not discriminate between muscle and fat, which means, in addition to
driving nutrients into your muscle cells, it can also drive them into your fat cells. In a
nutshell, this means that in addition to making you muscular, insulin can also make you
fat. If you have very good skeletal muscle insulin sensitivity (as folks with good
genetics do), you probably secrete a relatively small amount of insulin in response to a
high glucose meal. You also probably tend to drive more nutrients into your muscles in
response to a given amount of insulin. If you have average or poor genetics, you
probably tend to secrete no no no noc cc c insulin in response to a high glucose meal. You also
probably dont have very good muscular insulin sensitivity, which means you probably
tend to drive more nutrients into your fat cells in response to a given amount of insulin.

Youve probably heard of in.vin c.i.vn.c in.vin c.i.vn.c in.vin c.i.vn.c in.vin c.i.vn.c. Insulin resistance is a state in which
the muscles become in in in insensitive to insulin and nutrients cant be driven in and stored in
the muscles. This occurs mainly due to chronically high insulin levels, resulting from
years of nutrient excess (aka Sedentary lifestyle and poor diet). When an insulin
resistant person eats a meal they get elevated blood glucose. They release insulin just
like a normal person, but over time their muscle cells dont respond to that insulin as
well, thus, they cant store nutrients effectively in the muscle. However, muscles become
insulin resistant before fat cells become resistant. So, even though an insulin resistant
persons muscles are resistant to insulin, their fat cells are still able to respond to it.
Thus, people with insulin resistance store the majority of excess nutrients in fat cells
instead of muscle cells.

Eventually, their fat cells stop responding to insulin, they secrete even more
insulin than normal, their pancreas stops producing insulin altogether, and they develop
diabetes. After reading that you might be wondering, Well, is there anything we can do
to improve skeletal muscular insulin sensitivity while lowering fat cell insulin
sensitivity? Yes there is. We can exercise and we can also keep ourselves somewhat
lean! Those 2 things will have the most dramatic impact on muscular insulin sensitivity.

How lean is lean? Probably somewhere between 7 and 17% for males and 12-
25% for females. Once a person gets over the top end of that range they will often start
to develop problems with poor muscular insulin sensitivity. Once theyre towards or
below the low end of that range, they develop problems such as hypoglycemia from
being TOO sensitive to insulin.

Being extremely hyper-responsive to insulin is almost as bad as being resistant to
insulin. When it comes to insulin sensitivity, there is a middle ground where things are
optimal from a muscle-building standpoint. Someone who is overly responsive to insulin
25
(such as the Pima Indians I talked about earlier), will tend to either over-secrete insulin in
response to a carbohydrate meal or be so sensitive to the insulin they produce that they
clear blood glucose too quickly resulting in a state of hypoglycemia. (low blood sugar).
What happens during an episode of hypoglycemia? You eat and 30 minutes later youre
starving again and cant control your appetite worth a darn. Insulin hyper-sensitivity
tends to occur the leaner one gets. Many lean athletes and dieting women in particular
suffer from hypoglycemia because they are OVERLY responsive to insulin.

**Insulin hyper-responsiveness can often be managed via a reduction of carbohydrates in the diet

Insulin Shuts off Fat Burning

Ok. Now, as I mentioned above, insulin also turns off fat burning. Here's what
happens: The rate limiting factor for getting fatty acids removed from storage and
released into the blood stream where they can be burned is an enzyme called hormone
specific lipase (HSL). HSL interacts with the fat cell to mobilize fatty acids. So, if you
increase, or activate, HSL, you get more fatty acids mobilized.

The way insulin stops the body from burning fat is by deactivating HSL. Thus,
anytime you increase insulin (through either carbohydrate or protein intake), you lower
HSL and tend to inhibit fat from being released. Fat intake can also do this to an extent.
Therefore, pretty much anytime you eat you inhibit HSL.

The primary activators of HSL are your bodys natural stimulants, adrenaline and
nor-adrenaline. These hormones latch on to whats called an adrenoreceptor and cause an
increase in something known as cyclic AMP (Camp), which activates HSL. The reason
crank (amphetamine) users get so damn skinny, and a big reason why stimulants are good
for fat loss, is because they increase levels of these 2 hormones, which help free up fatty
acids from storage. Anytime you lower insulin levels (diet), or exercise, you also increase
levels of adrenaline and nor-adrenaline. So, HSL frees up fatty acids. Insulin inhibits
HSL. Increased adrenaline and nor-adrenaline activate HSL.

What happens if you get elevated insulin and increased adrenaline at the same
time? This is what happens when you mix emotional stress with excess nutrition. Take
a look around at all the beer bellies and people with insulin resistance you see walking
around. It's the bane of modern society. If you have a lot of nutrients floating around in
the bloodstream, along with increased insulin (from eating too much crap), along with
increased adrenaline and cortisol (from stress), and you're not exercising, insulin will win
out. Not only will insulin stop the release of free fatty acids, but the increased adrenaline
and stress hormones will temporarily inhibit your bodys ability to store those nutrients in
the muscle. Thus, they end up getting stored right in your gut.

Now, insulin and adrenaline CAN be simultaneously increased during exercise
and the above doesn't occur because your muscles are making use of the available energy.
This is why you can sip on a carb drink while youre exercising and continue to burn fat.
26
After a bout of exercise you can eat and raise insulin while still continuing to burn fat
because all those nutrients are going to your depleted muscles.

Having said all that, typically in most situations, when insulin is high, adrenaline
is low and vice versa. During exercise insulin levels drop as adrenaline rises.

Just remember the following: Food intake, particularly food that increases insulin,
inhibits fat mobilization and adrenaline increases it. Insulin wins the battle. So when
insulin is high and adrenaline is low, fat tends to be stored. When insulin is low and
adrenaline is high, fat will be mobilized.

I should also add that how much fat is mobilized in response to increased
adrenaline depends on the blood flow to the fat cell and the type of adrenaline receptor
(adrenoreceptor) contained in the fat cell. Stubborn fat, like the thigh and hip fat on a
woman, or the waistline on a man, tends to have poor blood flow and is high in a type of
adrenoreceptor called alpha 2 that actually innii. innii. innii. innii. HSL in response to adrenaline rather
than increasing it. An alpha 2-receptor is also known as a .von .von .von .von {v .c {v .c {v .c {v .c adrenoreceptor.
One of the ways of getting around that problem is to stimulate fasting conditions, which
improves blood flow to the stubborn fat cell. You can also increase blood fatty acids,
which inhibits alpha 2 receptors. Both can be achieved by reducing carbohydrates in the
diet, which mimicks fasting, reduces insulin, stimulates adrenaline, and causes the release
of lots of fatty acids, which inhibit the alpha 2 receptors and allows more fat to be broken
down in stubborn areas. ** (For more on this entire process I highly recommend Lyle McDonalds
book, The Ultimate Diet 2.0)

So, the take home message is this: From a fat mobilization standpoint, we want
low insulin and high adrenaline levels. Both can be accomplished by altering diet. If you
cut calories and lower the carbohydrates in your diet, you decrease insulin, increase
adrenaline, and you burn more fat. If you exercise you also increase adrenaline. If you
take stimulants like ephedrine and caffeine, you also can increase adrenaline. All of these
increase the mobilization of stored fatty acids.

However, to optimize muscle building, we want a certain level of insulin present.
Remember that insulin is anabolic because it drives nutrients into muscle. A lot of pro
bodybuilders will use exogenous injectable insulin to jack their insulin levels up into the
stratosphere. They definitely get a lot of extra muscle growth doing so. However, a lot
of them put on quite a bit of fat as well, although steroids do protect against that a bit. As
natural trainees shooting for muscle mass gain we can optimize our natural levels of
insulin by eating more carbs and calories when our body is most receptive too them.

When you put that information together it should be fairly clear that the diet that
is optimal for increasing muscle mass is not necessarily optimal for decreasing fat mass.
Likewise, the diet optimal for decreasing fat mass is not necessarily optimal for
increasing muscle mass. Thats primarily why its so difficult to simultaneously get
bigger and leaner at the same time.

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More on how to take advantage of all of that later, but now lets move on and talk
about training. Ideally you should strive to get the most amount of growth from every
training session you do.

The Overview For Mass Training

Regardless of the specific nuts and bolts of your program, one thing is a no-
brainer: Your training should be based on your ability to demonstrate continual
progression in the amount of weight you lift and the amount of times you can lift that
weight. Over the years Ive heard about a million different recommendations for how a
person should train, yet the one recommendation Ive never heard is that you need to lift
lighter weights over time. The primary signals for muscle growth from lifting are
training load and training density.

Training load is of utmost importance and can be summed up as follows: You
lift a weight (load) and direct mechanical tension to the working musculature. During the
eccentric contractions your muscles are slightly damaged from the tension created. We
call this mechanical disruption. Your muscles adapt by getting a little stronger to better
deal with the load next time. They will also remodel and get bigger, but only if your
body is in the optimal hormonal state and enough nutrition is available for your
body to display adaptations towards efficiency. With each progressive increase in
tension or increase in load, the muscle has to again remodel and get bigger again to
handle it.

Training density can be summed up like this: Over the course of a workout you
create a lot of cellular disturbance with the volume of lifting that you do per unit of time.
This metabolic disruption turns your muscles into a fatigue wasteland full of metabolic
byproducts such as calcium and sodium. The muscle gets bigger so that it can better deal
with the cellular disturbances youre creating.

Or simply:

Training load- refers to the amount of tension you direct to the musculature and the
progression of that tension (weight) over time.

Training density- refers to work per unit of time. (which creates metabolic chaos)

Therefore, if you pick up a heavier weight, while also creating a lot of metabolic
chaos, your body should respond with a consistent increase in hypertrophy.

So that means I should just perform a lot of heavy low rep sets
with short rest intervals right?

No! I believe these 2 aspects of hypertrophy should be addressed separately.
Yes, you should try to pick up a heavier weight and yes, you should create some
metabolic chaos, and you should do both within the same workout. However, you
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should not try to do both at the exact same time in a workout. Heres why: Trying to
speed through your sets just so you can do more work limits the amount of load you can
throw on a muscle, while the very nature of lifting a heavy load limits the amount of
metabolic disruption you create. Simply put if you hurry and dont rest long enough
between heavy sets, your weights will be so light they wouldnt stimulate tension related
micro-trauma in a prepubescent piano player. Therefore, heres an example of how I
would prescribe a hypertrophy oriented workout: Let's say for instance you're working
chest:

Bench Press 2-4 sets of 6 reps with full rest intervals

This would be the primary movement during the workout. The main goal here is
to simply lift more weight or do more reps on this chest movement over time. I have to
give a lot of credit to Bryan Haycock for spelling out the importance of gradually
increasing loads. It should be appreciated that even 1-2 sets of an increased load
workout to workout or every couple of weeks creates enough additional tension to
stimulate additional hypertrophy. That means if you lifted 245 lbs your last workout for a
couple of sets, all things being equal, an increase to 247 lbs for 2 sets will be enough to
ensure continued progression.

After our bench press exercise, which wed do with long rest intervals so that we
could focus on placing more tension and load on the muscle, we would then address the
2nd aspect of hypertrophy stimulation, that being training density, or metabolic chaos.

So our next chest exercise might look something like this:

Density/metabolic chaos focus

Pec-Flye- 3-5 sets x 5-8 reps with 15-30 second rest intervals

On this movement our lifter would start off with a set of 8, stopping a rep or 2 shy
of failure. Next, he would rest for 30 seconds, perform another set, rest again, and repeat
this process for 3-5 total consecutive sets. He would shoot for 8 reps per set. If he
couldnt get at least 5 reps, hed decrease the weight.

Now, how would we progress on the training density movement? Our goal is to
accomplish more work in less time or generate a lot of metabolic disruption, so how do
we progress with that? Well, we could progress here several different ways, which Ill go
into detail on later, but the most popular are through increasing loads, increasing reps, or
decreasing rest intervals. In this particular workout our bodybuilder rested 30 seconds
between sets. For the next workout he might rest 25 seconds and continue on subtracting
5 seconds per workout (or week) until hes down to 10 or 15 seconds. These sets would
resemble "mini rest-pause sets. After progressing down to 10 seconds, he would then go
back up to 30 seconds and start over again but this time with more weight. As you can
see, the training density movement is gonna allow him to do a lot of work in little time.

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I should also note that combining training like this is not new or cutting edge by
any means. Parrillo used to recommend a bodybuilder start off training heavy and slow
like a powerlifter and finish up training light and fast with the emphasis on getting a good
pump. In Keys To The Universe, McCollum recommended starting out with 3 sets of
5 with long rest intervals and finishing up with 8 sets of 10 with short rest intervals.

Various other authors and trainers have recommended versions based on the same
principle. How you go about creating metabolic disruption is also totally up to you.
Creating metabolic disruption might mean you just do 1 or 2 higher rep sets of 12-20
reps, several sets with shorter rest intervals, a drop set, rest-pause, static-hold or
whatever. Regardless of how you go about doing it, I have found that when you combine
heavy training and light training into one workout you get a very good synergistic effect.
In either case, the focus of your workouts should be on your primary movements, where
the focus is on increasing loads. Creating metabolic disruption should be secondary and
just serve as the cherry on top. Its really something thats optional.

Volume

What about volume? How many sets is optimal when addressing hypertrophy via
load/tension? Well, assuming you trained close to the point of failure, even one set
would be enough to spark most of the hypertrophy thats gonna be stimulated through
tension. However, I prescribe more sets for 3 reasons: The first is simply because I dont
necessarily recommend seeking failure, thus youll probably respond better with more
than 1 set. The second is to maintain a certain level of volume. Although tension and
metabolic disruption are the primary hypertrophy signals, the volume of total work
(number of repetitions), is also important. Therefore, it's essential a minimal volume be
maintained throughout a training cycle.

Practice.

The third reason why I recommend multiple sets is to stimulate increased strength
gains through practice. Getting in more sets on a given exercise allows the
neuromuscular system to adapt to the movement and the load lifted. This allows the
nervous system to improve the mind to muscle link, and thus you improve your ability to
utilize what muscle you have (muscular recruitment and rate coding capacities), thus
increasing your strength. With the capacity to lift heavier loads, youll be able to put
more stress on your muscles.


Various Types of Hypertrophy

Ok, now Id like to talk a little bit about the different types of hypertrophy that occur
on the muscular level as well as the 3 trainable factors involved in size and strength.
These are:

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1. Sarcoplasmic hypertrophy
2. Sarcomeric hypertrophy
3. Neural efficiency.

Sarcoplasmic hypertrophy- This type of hypertrophy is a growth of the space
surrounding the actual protein structure of a muscle cell and contributes to the pump
everyone knows so well. It does not directly increase strength but can indirectly affect it
by increasing leverage due largely to the increased glycogen (carbohydrate) storage
capacity that it promotes. Training geared towards sarcoplasmic hypertrophy is
characterized by high volume and low intensity (load) with short rest intervals such as a
routine consisting of 10 sets of 10 with 45-second rest intervals. Training with a focus on
increasing the training density or metabolic disruption will stimulate quite a bit of
sarcoplasmic hypertrophy. This type of training also has a positive effect on the recovery
rate, circulation, and growth, because it stimulates capillaries that allow more nutrients to
reach the muscle.

Sarcomeric hypertrophy- Is an increase in the size of the actual contractual filaments of a
muscle. This type of growth increases size and strength directly. Training for sarcomeric
hypertrophy generally consists of medium to high intensity loads with medium volume.
Examples include 5 sets of 5, 4 sets of 8, 6 sets of 3, or something similar. Training via
the load method preferentially targets sarcomeric hypertrophy.

Neural efficiency- Is an increase in the number of motor units that can be activated at any
given time (muscular recruitment), and the efficiency at which you activate them (rate
coding). Simply put, its how efficient you are at turning on your muscles. This type of
training has little effect on size, yet does dramatically impact strength. Training for
increased neural efficiency consists of lifting very heavy loads with low to medium
volume and full recoveries, such as 5 sets of 1-2 reps with 3-5 minute rest intervals.

Reps---------Rest Intervals------Impacts
Low (1-3)-------Long--------------Neural efficency
Medium (3-8)--Long--------------Sarcomeric hypertrophy and neural efficency
High (8+)-------Long--------------Sarcomeric and sarcoplasmic hypertrophy
Low-------------Short--------------Sarcomeric hypertrophy
Medium ------- Short--------------Sarcomeric and sarcoplasmic hypertrophy
High-------------Short--------------Sarcoplasmic and sarcomeric hypertrophy

The training for each quality exists on sort of a continuum and you cant ov, ov, ov, ov,
separate them. However, you can create a preferential lean towards the type you want.
For example, 5 sets of 8 reps with 30-second rest intervals may result in a high degree of
sarcoplasmic hypertrophy, a small amount of sarcomeric hypertrophy, yet little or no
increase in neural efficiency. Five sets of 5 reps short of failure with 3-minute rest
intervals will increase all 3 qualities, but will affect sarcomeric hypertrophy the most.
Performing maximum effort singles and doubles will increase neural efficiency a great
deal, but will have only a small effect on hypertrophy of the sarcomere, and little or no
effect on sarcoplasmic hypertrophy.
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Thus, unless you go to extremes, you are likely to hit all 3 types, yet the degree to
which each quality is increased depends on the training. As a muscle-seeking athlete, you
obviously want to make your muscles as big as possible period. Therefore, you probably
want to create as much sarcomeric /)I /)I /)I /)I sarcoplasmic hypertrophy as possible. You need
a good mix of training methods which allow the muscle to both store as much energy as
possible as well as thicken the protein content of the individual muscle cells as much as
possible. You dont necessarily need to get stronger -- the strength is just a means to an
end. Increasing strength is important because it will enable you to make your training
more productive by boosting your capacity to call upon and fatigue a greater percentage
of muscle fibers with every single rep, set, and workout that you do. Youll soon see how
strength is necessary, yet vinin vinin vinin vinin for strength and vinin for size dont entail the exact
same approaches.

Strength Coaches, Sarcoplasmic hypertrophy, and
Functional Gains

A lot of strength coaches have belittled any bodybuilder who pursues
sarcoplasmic hypertrophy saying that they train for non-functional muscle. They say that
sarcoplasmic hypertrophy is just fluid and pump all show and no go. In their mind,
since sarcoplasmic hypertrophy is not real muscle and will dissipate rather quickly when
training is ceased, it shouldnt be sought after. This is where a lot of bodybuilders will
toss the strength coach recommendations right out the window and venture on to the
workouts that feel best for them.

So whos right and whos wrong? Should bodybuilders totally neglect pursuing
sarcoplasmic hypertrophy?

Well, you have to consider that what is functional for a bodybuilder isnt what is
functional for an athlete. A bodybuilder needs big muscles period! It doesnt matter
whether those big muscles help him run a 4.5 second 40-yard dash, squat 900 lbs, or
power clean 350. Muscle is muscle! The strength coach has a point in that sarcoplasmic
hypertrophy wont vic., vic., vic., vic., help an athlete accomplish those above tasks, so he sees this
type of muscle just adding extra weight that must be hauled around. Yet, whats
interesting is that these same strength coaches will recommend the ingestion of creatine,
which increases muscle fluid volume and probably contributes less real muscle than
even sarcoplasmic hypertrophy does!

Additionally, these same strength coaches will often recommend phases of 10 x
10 or other high volume methods prior to a maximum strength phase for the precise
reason that Russian and German strength coaches recommended these same phases. -
The sarcoplasmic hypertrophy gained on these phases indirectly helps strength and
sarcomeric growth because it has a positive effect on leverage, recovery rate, and
circulation. It stimulates capillaries that allow more nutrients to reach the muscle. This
means the muscle recovers quicker and more nutrients will be able to aid in the process of
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sarcomeric repair. So, not only does it contribute to a bigger muscle directly by
increasing the size of the sarcoplasm, it also indirectly helps the protein structures grow.

Its also interesting that functional is specific to the function. Form will follow
function. When looking at the difference between the muscles of a bodybuilder and a
powerlifter, a bodybuilder will have muscles trained to generate large amounts of tension
combined with large amounts of muscular fatigue. The fatigue comes about due to the
volume of training and shorter rest intervals.

The powerlifter, on the other hand, has muscles designed for one thing only, and
that is generating max tension. The powerlifter trains with low reps and long rest
intervals, thus, there is obviously a lot less muscular fatigue generated from his training.

How Important Is Fatigue?

Now, lets look at the difference between the two. The real key is how important
fatigue is for muscle growth. If tension were solely responsible for growth all anyone
would need to do to get big would be heavy negatives. Although tension alone is
responsible for most of the growth, it is not responsible for all of it. FATIGUE with
tension is probably responsible for about 5-10% of the growth in a big bodybuilder. That
means if you trained strictly like a powerlifter and ate your way up to the point where you
carried 200 pounds of muscle, you could probably get another 10-15 pounds of solid
muscle by increasing your training volume and increasing your density.

Another thing we can do when we talk about function is take the strength coaches,
gurus, and powerlifters accusing the bodybuilder of being "all show and no go" and put
him through the standard bodybuilders leg workout: Instead of squatting 700 lbs one
time, lets go to the squat rack and do 405 for sets of 10-15 for 4 sets. Next, lets move on
to stiff legged deadlifts for 4-5 sets of 8-10. Then hack squats for 2 triple-drop sets of 8-
10 reps each. Same with leg curls. Finish off with sissy squats. That might be a little
overkill, (in reality most of that workout would be junk volume as it doesnt take much to
stimulate fatigue related growth), but who's all show and no go in the task at hand?

Next, take a national level bodybuilder and put him on the powerlifters workout.
Nine times out of 10, regardless of how heavy the weights are, hell be complaining that
hes losing size due to a lack of volume.

Therefore, I recommend that if youre a bodybuilder, you most definitely
incorporate training for sarcoplasmic hypertrophy, just make sure you focus on your
tension training so that you continually progress in strength. Increasing storage in the
sarcoplasm will give you a visually impressive look and allow you to walk around with a
minimum of an additional 5-7 pounds of muscle via additional glycogen (carbohydrate)
storage. It doesnt take much time or volume to get this extra storage. In fact, brief bouts
of high-intensity exercise, like what I recommend for density or metabolic disruption, can
easily give you that extra growth.

33

Strength training vs Size Training..

Id like to touch a bit more on what I hinted on above when I said that training for
strength and size are 2 different animals. Lets say someone offers you $1000 if you can
go in the gym today and beat your PR bench press by 50 lbs. Are you gonna go in there
and get under the iron and really concentrate on squeezing and engorging your pecs as
much as possible so that you can "feel the movement"? Or are you just gonna concentrate
on blowing the damn weight up however you can? I would hope that if you're interested
in earning that $1000 you'd try to blow the weight up as easily as possible!

My point is this: Stimulating maximum muscle mass and training for maximum
strength are not one in the same. Don't get me wrong, muscle growth is correlated with
strength and strength is correlated with muscle size. However, the bodybuilder wants to
make the muscle strain as nv.n nv.n nv.n nv.n as possible so that it does more work. The strength
athlete wants to make the muscle strain as ic ic ic ic as possible so he can lift more weight. In
fact, I routinely tell athletes, "Don't strain," while I tell those interested in muscle mass
"Feel the muscle working."

To a certain extent, one can become stronger without becoming bigger, and also
become bigger without becoming stronger. If you want a real life example, just ask
powerlifters who have converted to bodybuilding and vice versa. Increased muscle size
will tend to give you some strength, as well as the potential for a great deal more
strength, but you still have to train properly to fully manifest that strength. Increased
strength gives you the potential for more size, but doesn't always equal more size unless
you properly utilize that strength to break down more muscle.

Training Like a Powerlifter vs Training Like a Bodybuilder
In the big scheme of things, the main difference in the training of a bodybuilder
and the training of a powerlifter should be that the powerlifter tries to lift as much weight
as possible on a few basic movements while making the muscles work as little as
possible and by taking stress off his weaker muscle groups. In contrast, the bodybuilder
should be trying to lift as much weight as possible on a slightly greater variety of
movements, while making his muscles work as hard as possible, and creating extra
tension in his weaker muscle groups. That extra tension and muscular work comes about
by training with slightly more reps with slightly more volume and performing exercises
in a way that he can zero-in on given muscles.
A powerlifter with skinny quadriceps will tend to spread his stance and sit way
back on his squat and bounce out of the hole, thus minimizing contribution from his
weaker quadriceps, while a bodybuilder with skinny quadriceps should be squatting with
a closer stance at a really smooth pace, perhaps even with a pause, to really cnnv.i:c cnnv.i:c cnnv.i:c cnnv.i:c the
tension on his skinny quadriceps.
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Powerlifting Squat Bodybuilding Squat
Since a bodybuilder is simply using movements to get at his muscles, he may
need to target and get strong on more exercises then the powerlifter, so that adequate
tension can be put on weaker muscle groups. For example, all a powerlifter cares about is
getting his bench up, regardless whether the work is done with the pecs, delts, or triceps.
A bodybuilder, on the other hand, wants to target and develop the muscles of his chest,
delts, and triceps. If he chooses to use a bench press and happens to have the type of
long-armed build that places 90% of the work on his triceps and delts, his pecs obviously
wont be receiving adequate tension. Therefore, hell probably want to add in isolation
movements specifically for his pecs. (A flye or crossover for example). The same is true
for other body-parts. Bodybuilders often use additional movements to target various
muscle groups and should focus on making bar weight increases on those. Other then
that, the principles should be nearly exactly the same.
If you want a "general" statement, it could be said that strength gains in the 6-20
rep range correlate more directly to size increases than does the maximum amount of
weight you can lift one time. Therefore, if you go from benching 135 x 10 to 155 x 10
you should get bigger as well.

However, this can be confusing because an increase in your 1 rep max will also
translate into an increase in your 8-10 rep max, yet if you achieve a 20 lb bench pr with
strictly low rep sets, you may not get all that much bigger until you utilize that strength
by performing some higher rep sets.

The Importance Of Neural Efficiency

Before you can hypertrophy a muscle, you first must be able to stimulate a
muscle. That sounds simple enough yet realize most people are only capable of
generating about 60% of their potential force in a given movement. That means that
when you really try to be tough and get underneath the bar on a heavy set of squats and
push with so much force that your eyes burst, youll have left no doubt that you gave it
your all. However, theres a good chance that you didnt come anywhere close to lifting
as much as you were potentially capable of for the amount of muscle you carry. To
illustrate this, just take a look at how strong some lighter weight powerlifters and
Olympic lifters are. The reason they can lift so much weight is because they're some of
the few athletes capable of utilizing nearly all their potential strength. What they have is
neural efficiency to the extreme.

35
The amount of your maximum force ocniv you can utilize is dependent on your
nervous system. Nervous system efficiency is dependent on complicated terms like
intramuscular coordination and rate coding. I prefer to keep it simple. Think of your
nervous system as a central battery or electrical power plant that your body runs off of.

All or Nothing At All

When a muscle fiber fires it either fires all the way or not at all. Muscle fibers are
bundled together in groups. These groups are called motor units. When a motor unit
fires so do all of the muscle fibers under the control of that motor unit. So, you cant
partially contract a muscle cell or have a muscle cell generate partial tension. It either
fires full bore and generates the max amount of tension that it is capable of, or it doesnt
fire at all. Now, each muscle will be made up of hundreds of motor units with each one
of those motor units consisting of hundreds if not thousands of muscle cells. The motor
units connect to your nervous system through neuromuscular junctions.

When you decide to contract a muscle, a message goes from your brain down
your spinal cord eventually crossing the neuromuscular junction and signaling the muscle
motor unit to fire. The motor unit receives the signal, fires, and all the muscle cells under
the control of that motor unit fire and tension is generated.

When you do something requiring little force, like lifting a spoon to your mouth,
few motor units are recruited. The more force you want to generate, the more motor units
are recruited. Recruiting all the available motor units requires a very high output by your
nervous system (battery), and it also requires that your muscles connect well to the
battery, so that each unit of ]vi.c ]vi.c ]vi.c ]vi.c will fire as many motor units as possible. Enhancing this
entire process can greatly increase strength in the complete absence of any size increases,
and thats what neural efficiency is all about.

You Gotta Practice

Increasing neural efficiency comes about by practicing lifting heavy stuff. The
more you practice a particular movement, the better you get at that movement, the better
your nervous system gets at coordinating its output and the muscle(s) involved, and the
better your muscles get at responding to your nervous system. This is how powerlifters
and Olympic lifters are able to get so strong. They repeat the same movements over and
over and over again with heavy weights, long rests, and little intra-workout fatigue. Over
time their nervous systems become very efficient at firing and coordinating all of their
available muscle cells and they become ultra strong relative to their bodyweight.

The relevance of all of this is that strength serves us 2 important things.

1. It allows us to put more stress on the muscle.

2. That stress can then translate into an increase in size.

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If you take 2 twins with the same bodyweight and body dimensions and one of
them squats 200 lbs for 15 reps and the other one squats 150 lbs for 15 reps, the stronger
one will be able to stimulate more hypertrophy per rep, per set, and per workout
because he's able to create more tension and use more muscle.

If you again take 2 twins, and all that you know is that one of them squats 250 for
20 reps and the other one squats 150 for 20 reps, you can be pretty sure that the 250 lb
squatter also has bigger thighs.

If you take 2 twins and one of them has been training as a powerlifter and squats
400 x 1, while the other trains like a bodybuilder and squats 350 x 1, it is impossible to
know which one will have bigger thighs. The only thing that is known is that the 400 lb
squatter has more potential for immediate hypertrophy gains.

What you should take home is that progressive strength increases are necessary,
but they don't always occur in direct correlation to muscle mass increases and vice versa.
This is particularly true when talking about 1-repetition maximums. Sometimes you can
focus on becoming stronger in a lower rep range, without a lot of muscle gain, so that you
can then utilize that strength to stimulate more muscular mictrotrauma by training with
higher reps. Conversely, sometimes as you increase volume and repetitions youll tend to
make good size gains without a whole lot of strength gain.

Bodybuilding and Strength Training

Now that Ive ragged a little bit on the strength oriented coaches, its time to do a
180-degree turn and rag on the training of bodybuilders! Open up any magazine or read
any article on bodybuilding and youre sure to hear about a million people telling you
that you need to train with gut busting intensity each and every workout and always strive
to lift heavier weights in the 6-12 bodybuilding specific rep bracket. Theres nothing
wrong with that but it rarely works as advertised. The problem is that people try to get
stronger by using methods and rep ranges strictly associated with bodybuilding training.
Powerlifting methodology is much more effective at increasing strength so why not use
some of it in our bodybuilding training? I still don't know why bodybuilders haven't
caught onto this yet. They'll say their main objective is to get stronger, but here they
are doing nothing but high rep sets, training a body-part once every 8 days, using high
intensity techniques like forced reps on each and every set, and doing all kinds of other
questionable stuff that any powerlifter with 6-months of experience would never be
caught dead doing. If you want to get stronger, the quickest way to do that is start
hanging out and training with a bunch of powerlifters. If you ever do youll probably get
really big and strong despite never seeing or using the majority of various techniques that
pervade in bodybuilding.

Forced Reps A Shining Example

Go into any gym on a Monday, stand around for 30 minutes, and count the
number of guys spotting each other and knocking out sets of 10 with forced reps on
37
bench press, incline bench press, and dumbbell bench press. Come back 2 months later
and count the number of these guys who are doing the same thing with the same amount
of weight. Next, go to a powerlifting gym and count the number of times you see anyone
receiving any assistance on vn, vn, vn, vn, lift, the number of forced reps you see, as well as the
number of sets above 8. I can guarantee you won't see many missed reps and you won't
see a single forced rep at a power-lifting gym.

One observation I made long ago is that it's usually the 135 pound benchers who
need a spot on every set and they're usually the same ones using high intensity techniques
each and every set. The 400 + pound benchers stop each set usually with a rep or 2 in
the hole and you almost never, EVER seem them doing forced reps. Now, my point is
that every bodybuilder I know tries to get stronger but most of them fail. Getting
stronger using strictly bodybuilding training practices can be a waste of time.

Borrow From Your Stronger Powerlifter Brethren..

In order to get REALLY strong, it helps if you learn to increase your strength like
a powerlifter increases his -- not necessarily over the c_v. c_v. c_v. c_v. same rep ranges or using the
exact same movements and training splits, but using some of the same type of
methodology. Its simple really. I recommend you target the load method of hypertrophy
stimulation. You plan out your cycle in advance. You gradually increase the load, drop
the reps, and you DON'T train with the sole intention of just getting a pump, or
tearing a muscle up. Not only will you get stronger, but you will get consistently
bigger too. Your strength will increase week to week because you have a plan. Over time
you'll become extremely strong over a varied rep range. Not only will your 10 rep maxes
be impressive, but so will your 5 and 3 rep sets, which will then carry over to the
poundage you life with on your higher rep sets.

Now, I know some people probably remember what I said earlier and are
thinking, Well low rep strength wont do me any good, in order to get bigger I need to
get stronger with higher reps right? Well, guess what the quickest way to get stronger
with higher reps is? Get stronger lifting heavy weights and then apply that strength to
your higher reps! Maximal strength builds strength endurance but strength endurance
does not build maximal strength. In other words, unless your higher rep sets are done
with a ridiculously light load, (less than 30% of your 1rm), you will increase the
poundage of your 8-20 rep sets the quickest by increasing the poundage of your 1-5
rep sets.

Lower reps build more maximal strength and they do it a lot quicker. In other
words, its generally agreed that if you can squat 405 pounds for 20 reps youre gonna
have some big legs. Now, if you wanna squat 405 x 20 the fastest way to do that is get
your maximal squat up to 575 as fast as you can! You can take a powerlifter who squats
575 straight out of the gym and ask him to squat 405 for 20 reps, and no, he probably
wont be able to do it right off the bat. Yet give him a few weeks on those higher rep sets
and hell be knocking it out much quicker then the guy who squats 315 for a max single
who tries to work his way up to 405 x 20 while never going below 8 reps on his sets.
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A Squat-Off..

To better exemplify what Im talking about, I remember reading about how
strength coach Glenn Pendlay once got beat in a bet with a guy who squatted about 200
lbs less than him for a single. Now Glenn's a big squatter, he's squatted over 800 lbs in
the back squat and 600 in the front squat. Evidently he bet another guy a couple of pints
of Guinness on who could do more reps on the squat with 400 lbs. The other guy did 20
and Glenn only managed 15. Keep in mind Glenn had trained strictly for Olympic lifting
and power lifting. That meant multiple sets of reps under 3 for years with heavy weight.
He's also a big 330 pound plus guy and when you're that big high reps aren't your best
friend. I'd imagine Glenn could count the number of times he's done 10+ reps in the squat
on one hand. The other guy was a bodybuilder though and was used to the higher reps.
Anyway, this pissed Glenn off so he did some high rep squats for a few weeks and bet the
guy again. This time the other guy again did 400 for 20 but Glenn did 500lbs for 20! Just
being able to squat a big 1-rep max didn't automatically enable him to do a big set of 20,
but it sure didn't take long to transfer that big strength into the specific set of 20!

Training Frequency

Lets talk about training frequency. How much frequency do you need?

One of the myths with regards to muscle growth is that a bodybuilder should
hammer the heck out of a muscle and then wait 72-96 hours before he hammers it into
oblivion again. This is one of those myths that comes from research that kindve got
misinterpreted and passed along over the years. There is tons of research on muscular
recovery indicating that a muscle can be loaded as often as every 48 hours! Research
shows us that muscle recovery can take place just fine even if the muscle is loaded 48
hours after an intense workout. In fact, many of the acute responses to training that signal
increased protein synthesis start to return to normal after about 48 hours.

Well, if this is true and its so important, why the heck aren't the biggest and
baddest bodybuilders training a body-part every other day instead of resting for an entire
week between training sessions? That's a darn good question and to understand the
answer it's essential that you understand the differences between muscular recovery and
neural recovery.

Muscular vs. Neural Recovery

Remember the nerves fire your muscles and your nervous system is like a central
powerplant. It should come as no surprise that the nervous system can fatigue just like
the muscle can fatigue. With neural fatigue, you can drain either the local nerves that fire
a given muscle, (the neuromuscular junctions), or you can drain the entire central
nervous system (the motor cortex, the cerebellum, and the whole limbic system/brain
stem area). Imagine it (the central system) being like a car battery or an electrical
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powerplant or something like that. Basically, you only have so much total nervous system
energy that you can give out per day and per week before your strength and energy level
begins to resemble that of a Navy Seal 6 weeks into camp. Your central nervous system
(CNS) is like a battery, yet its reserves don't grow like muscular protein reserves. Its
taxed when you train. Its taxed at your job. Its taxed when you dont sleep enough.
Heck, it can even be taxed when you think about something stressful. Not only that, but
the only real way you recharge it is by sleeping and resting.

The amount of CNS energy you have is fairly static, which is why we all have to
sleep and recover a certain amount from daily life stress. When the battery starts to get
low, everything is affected - you'll simply be low on whole body strength and energy.
The crash a junkie gets after an amphetamine or coke binge is a good example of
systemic central nervous system fatigue.

The local neuromuscular junctions (NMJ) get fatigued as well. Remember, they
are what connect the nervous system and muscle together. Repeated high intensity
contractions (training), causes them to fatigue. When the NMJ is taxed and fatigued, a
given muscle group will be short on strength until it's given enough time to recover. This
is because the charge that joins that muscle and the nervous system together is not
working optimally due to that fatigue. When the entire central nervous system is
fatigued, the strength and efficiency of all muscles will be negatively affected.

Now, its important to appreciate the fact that muscular recovery takes place a lot
quicker than neural recovery. In fact, the nervous system can take up to 5 times longer to
recover. So, even though you can torch a muscle and the muscle itself will be ready to go
again in 48 hours, the nerves that fire the muscles might still be fatigued. In fact, after a
balls to the wall training session, they (the nerves) can take up to a week or longer to
recover, which is where that 72 hour rule came from. Until the local nerves are
recovered, the muscles ability to exert force and your ability to generate strength will be
hampered. With regard to the CNS, it generally takes about 48 hours to recharge once
its been drained.

Its obvious that your muscles grow when you stimulate them. However, in order
to get to your muscles, you obviously have to fire both your central nervous system and
the local nerves that connect to your muscles first. The heavier the loads you're lifting
and the more volume you train with, the more you drain both of these.

As a beginner, you can inflict plenty of damage on your muscles and still have
plenty of CNS energy left over. A beginner can train the same muscles 3 times per week
and grow just fine because the threshold to induce muscle growth is low and, since
they're not very strong, they don't generate a lot of CNS fatigue. When things get a little
more difficult is when the volume of work necessary to optimally stimulate your muscles
also drains a lot of CNS energy. If you were to reach this point and were to continue to
train based strictly on muscular recovery it would lead to overtraining of the CNS and,
although your muscles would be adequately stimulated, your strength gains would be
totally nonexistent.
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One reason you often notice bigger bodybuilders training muscle groups more
infrequently than smaller bodybuilders is because, as you get stronger and stronger,
you're able to lift more weight thus each rep you're doing will create more neural fatigue
than before. So, a beginner might take one set to total failure and need 2 days to repeat
the same task. An advanced and very strong bodybuilder might need 7-10 days rest from
the same 1 set to failure. The stronger you get, the more stress you put on your nervous
system anytime you train. So, you reach a point where simply stimulating the muscle
optimally causes lots of neural drain.

The amount of local and central CNS fatigue will depend on the following factors:

1. The level of intensity (percentage of 1 rep max)
2. Level of intensiveness (mental intensity)
3. The size of the working muscle group
4. The amount of micro-trauma created in a workout.

Size Of The Muscle Group

Let's start with size of the working muscle group. The bigger the muscle group,
the more drain it takes out of the CNS when contracting maximally. This makes sense
when you consider the CNS as a pool of limited energy, or a battery. Leg training would
be the most demanding while forearms and calves would be the least demanding. Try
doing 5 sets of 10 squats to total failure today and see if you can come back tomorrow
and set a bench press PR. Most likely you wont be able to. In contrast, you could do 5
sets of forearms to the max today and would feel no negative effects tomorrow. The
difference in recovery between the 2 is not from local neuro-muscular fatigue, which
will be equal in the legs and forearms, but from the greater central nervous system
fatigue induced by the squats.

As far as exercises go, the more muscle groups engaged and the heavier the load,
the more an exercise will drain the CNS. Therefore, deadlifts and squats would be at one
end while triceps kickbacks and forearm exercises would be at the other end. Unilateral
exercises are less demanding than bilateral exercises, so lunges would be less CNS
demanding then squats, even though the lunges might very well stimulate as much or
more muscle growth.

Intensity

Lets move on to intensity. As far as intensity is concerned, this refers to the
percentage of 1 repetition maximum lifted. Loads of 90% or more are the most
demanding, followed by 80-90% and so forth, all the way down to zero.

Anytime you train with CNS intensive whole body type exercises such as
deadlifts, squats, and cleans, while using a load of at least 80% and approaching failure,
you should go ahead and figure that it's gonna take a minimum of 48 hours for the aspects
41
of your nervous system associated with those movements to be 100% completely fresh.
Depending on the volume of the workout and how hard you train, it could take several
days. Additionally, any other highly demanding exercises you do in that 48-hour time-
span, even for different muscle groups, may be slightly affected because your "central"
nervous system will be at least slightly drained.

Therefore, if you did a lot of heavy deadlifts today and had an upper body
workout planned for tomorrow, you might not be at 100% strength in that upper body
workout. If you do an upper body workout today and a leg workout tomorrow, your leg
workout wont be affected to the same extent because the upper body workout won't
engage as many muscle groups and wont drain as much total CNS energy. This is why I
generally recommend off days after leg workouts.

Micro-trauma

Another thing that affects CNS fatigue is the amount of microtrauma created in a
workout. When a muscle is damaged, it releases inflammatory cytokines, which are
basically just inflammatory chemical messengers. Your CNS has receptors for these
messengers and when you create a ton of muscle damage thus causing your body to
release a ton of cytokines, trainability is compromised across the board. Youll feel tired,
stiff, run down and overall just feel like crap all over. In fact, the cytokine hypothesis is
one of the newer theories on overtraining.

Intensiveness

Intensity is often confused with intensiveness, which is the degree of mental and
physical effort put forth in a set. Bodybuilding magazines have long preached the
importance of training to absolute 100% intensity, or training until you puke. What
they're really saying here is train with 100% intensiveness. A set done to total failure
with forced reps and lots of psychological arousal techniques used before hand would
rank the highest on the "level of intensiveness" scale. Anytime you get mentally fired up
to train you increase intensiveness and thus the CNS drain.

In fact, soviet scientists used separate terms to distinguish between a mentally
fired up competitive max and an un-aroused training max. The difference in recovery
between a psychologically mentally aroused effort and an un-aroused effort can be up to
a weeks difference in the length of time it takes you to recover from that effort. So, a PR
you set when youre all alone in the gym is gonna be a lot less demanding recovery wise
than a PR you set in a competitive environment such as a lifting meet.

A puke inducing set of 20 rep squats with a 60% 1rm load is technically less
intense than a set of 3 rep squats with a 95% load, but the 20-rep set is typically gonna be
much more intensive and a lot more psychologically demanding. It could take a week or
more to recover from, whereas the 3 rep set might only take a couple of days to recover
from - especially if it was performed in a normal state of arousal. You can base the level
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of arousal off of your heart rate. When you lift in a high state of arousal you will tend to
have an elevated pulse rate prior to performing the set.

The same sort of comparison could be made for training to failure. A set of 80%
bench presses for 10 reps taken all the way to failure with forced reps performed at the
end might take 5 days to recover from. However, if you stop a couple of reps shy of
failure it'll probably only take a couple of days to recover from. (Which is a good reason
not to necessarily seek failure) Anytime your muscles are in a fairly fresh state (you're
resting 3 + minutes between sets or youre at the beginning of your workout), and youre
in a psychologically aroused state, (youre really fired up, taking stimulants, or getting
slapped in the face), vnv vnv vnv vnv you train to failure, - you increase the level of intensiveness, and
can greatly prolong the recovery time.

Keep Your Arousal in Check

For the most part I usually dont recommend using a lot of psychological arousal
techniques, particularly when you combine a heightened state of awareness along with
training to failure. You can do so occasionally, but the CNS drain from this type of
training is extremely high and will impact your recovery. It should also be noted that
stimulants like ephedrine increase levels of adrenaline and nor-adrenaline. Because of
this, they have the capacity to increase the intensity and intensiveness of your workouts
but can also prolong recovery time. Keep this in mind if you routinely use stimulants to
get up for your heavy workouts.

Ok. Now going back to the original 72-hour rule noted above: After an intense
high volume workout it WILL take an average of 72-96 hours before the nerves
associated with a given muscle have recharged enough to fire the muscles and create the
same level of tension as before. If you totally trash a muscle and use strength as an
indicator of when to trash the muscle again, you will probably have to wait at least
72 hours to regain all of your strength. Therefore, it should be no surprise that
bodybuilders who train at high volumes, (10+ sets per muscle group), or very high
intensiveness (HIT training), often have to wait up to a week or more between demanding
sessions.

The drawback to this is, as I already mentioned, many of the acute responses to
training that signal increased protein synthesis all return to normal in about 48 hours.
Therefore, training a muscle group only once per week is not optimal for hypertrophy, yet
training a muscle every other day would probably just tear down the nervous system. So
what the heck are we supposed to do?

Well, you could grow training once every 7 days yet at a much slower rate. You'd
spend a few days growing and the rest of the week returning to normal. By the time the
next workout rolls around hopefully you'd still have some of that increased size left over.
But with this approach the gains are probably gonna come fairly slow because you're
only getting in at best 52 workouts per year for a body-part.

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You could also train every body-part every other day. However, if you were to do
this it would severely limit the intensity, mental intensiveness, load, and volume that you
could train with. You'd have to make sure that your nervous system could recover during
the 2 off days between workouts. This approach is a valid option and does work well for
many people though. You can either split the body in half and train every day, or you can
do 3 whole body workouts per week. However, there are a couple of other options that
may give you better gains:

A: Hit a muscle group twice per week but dont totally torch it into oblivion. Stop short
of failure and keep the volume manageable (<10 sets per body-part)

B: Hit a body-part hard and heavy one day per week and hit it again later in the week but
with less overall intensity.

The following split helps illustrate both of those options:


Mon: Lower (Quadricep focused)
Squat: 4-5 x 6-8 with full rests
Stiff Leg deadlift: 3 x 6-8 with full rests
Leg press: 2 x 15-20 with full rests
Leg curl: 3 x 5-8 with short rests
Calf raise: 4 x 5 (5 seconds down, 5 seconds pause at bottom)

Tue: Upper (Chest and back focused)
Flat bench: 4-5 x 6-8 with full rests
Row: 4-5 x 6-8 with full rests
Pec Deck- 2 x 12-15
Lateral DB raise- 2 x 10-12 with full rests
Pulldown/chin: 3 x 5-8 with short rests
Triceps (your choice - preferably something compound like lying decline ez bar
extensions): 2 x 8-10 with full rests
Biceps (your choice): 2 x 8-10 with full rests

Thurs: Lower (glute/ham focused)
Deadlift- 4-5 x 6
Front Squat- 3 x 8
leg curl - 3-5 x 6-12 with short rests
leg ext- 2 x 15
Calf raise - 3 x 10-10-10 (triple drop)

Friday or Saturday: Upper (Shoulder and arm focused)
Incline Dumbell press 3-4 x 6-8
wide grip chin 3-4 x 6-8
Lateral- 3-5 x 8-12 with short rests
One arm DB Row- 2 x 12-15
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Triceps (your choice): 2 x 10-12 with full rests 3 x 8-12 with short rests
Biceps (your choice): 2 x 10-12 with full rests 3 x 8-12 with short rests

One workout for a body-part is fairly hard and heavy and is used to make progress
in strength and to stimulate a large amount of protein breakdown. The 2nd workout uses
different exercises. Its designed to stimulate the muscles and create some protein
degradation without killing the nervous system. Even though all the upper body muscles
are hit in workouts 2 and 4 and all the lower body muscles are hit in workouts 1 and 3,
the focus shifts from quadriceps and chest in workouts 1 and 2, to hips and hamstrings in
workout 3, and shoulders in workouts 4. We could call the 2
nd
workout for a body-part a
feeder workout, or a light workout. Its stimulating but not annihilating. It allows us to
avoid spending half week shrinking back to normal, yet it also allows our nervous system
to recover so that the following week we can once again be recovered and make more
strength and size gains. It will allow us to grow nearly twice as fast as we would if we
trained only one day per week, and will also allow us to do something to fill in the gap as
we prepare for our next "heavy session".

Feeder Workouts

A note on these feeder workouts - Bodybuilders have long had the mentality that
everything they do in the gym has to be full bore with 100% intensiveness in order to be
of benefit, yet this is not necessarily true. Researchers in the former Soviet Union
indicated that gains came best if high intensity days are planned infrequently and
approximately 70% of training was performed at a sub-maximal level physically and
mentally. In other words, you dont have to bomb blitz a body-part with 20 + sets to
failure and throw up in order to have an effective workout.

Examples of alternating Heavy/Light workouts:

What you will see here is another example of a heavy/light scheme. The first
workout will be a regular heavy chest workout. This workout will incorporate a
compound movement using the "load" method of hypertrophy stimulation followed by a
movement using the "density" form of hypertrophy stimulation.

Heavy Workout:

Compound Loading Movement (primary movement)

A1. Incline Bench Press- 4 x 6
- use 3-5 minute rest intervals
-3-0-x tempo (3 seconds down, 0 second pause, explode up)
- strive to lift more weight then you did the previous weeks heavy workout
- Ideally stop short of complete failure

Training Density Movement

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B1. Cable cross- over- 3-5 x 5-12 with 30-second rest intervals
- Perform 5-12 reps on your first set 1-2 reps shy of failure
- Decrease the load as needed so that you stay in between 5-12 reps
- 3-1-x tempo

Light Workout - 3 days later

The guidelines to make the above workout "lighter" for the compound loading exercise
are as follows:

- Use an exercise that indirectly hit the same muscle. (e.g. Military presses one day and
incline presses the next)

- Reduce the weight on the compound loading movement by 10% and keep the sets and
reps the same.

- Reduce the weight on the compound loading movement by 10%, keep the reps the
same, and reduce the sets by 40-50%.

- Perform a unilateral exercise for the compound loading movement while keeping the
reps and level of "intensiveness" the same (eg: squats in the heavy workout and lunges in
the light)

- Switch from barbells to dumbells while keeping the reps the same (eg: bench press to db
bench)

- Switch from free weights to a machine while keeping the level of intensiveness slightly
lower (eg: squats to leg press, chins to pulldowns, dips to bench press machine, BB press
to machine shoulder press)

For the training density movement, the workout can be lightened and the CNS
burden can be lowered here 5 different ways:

1. Switch from a compound movement to an isolation movement and keep everything the
same (hack squats to sissy squats)

2. Eliminate the training density exercise altogether.

3. Lower the volume (1-2 x 12-20 reps with 2 minutes rest instead of 4-5 x 5-8 with 30
second rests)

Any of those options will effectively lessen the CNS strain while still allowing us to
stimulate the muscle.

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What follows is an example where we repeat the exact same workout from above
but reduce the load by 10% in the compound movement while just performing a couple
of higher rep sets for the density movement.

Compound Loading Movement (primary movement)

A1. Incline Bench Press - 4 x 6 *with 10% less weight used in the previous session
- 3-0-x tempo

Density Movement

B1. Cable Cross-over 2 x 15-20
3-1-2 tempo

The lower loading used in this workout effectively lessens CNS strain, while still
allowing us to stimulate plenty of hypertrophy. When we hit the next heavy workout
we'll be good to go and ready to break down some more barriers.

Organizing the Training Loads

Let me ask you this...if you were guaranteed a 10 pound muscle gain from either
of these 3 "training options" which would you choose:

A. Sit on your butt for the next month and gain 10 lbs of muscle

B. Train 3 times per week for 1 hour for the next month and gain 10 lbs of muscle.

C. Train 5 times per week for 2 hours and gain 10 lbs. of muscle

I'm gonna assume everyone would choose A. Who wants to spend all day at the
gym to make the same gains you can get from less? I think we can all agree that nobody
interested in muscle growth would complain about getting the most growth stimulation
per rep, per set, and per session. Would you? No, I'm not gonna tell you that you can
gain muscle by sitting on your butt or make any other outlandish promises. What I will
tell you is how to maximize the returns you get on your training investment.

Facts About Load/Tension Training

When you lift weights to induce hypertrophy, you are causing physical stress to
the protein structures of the muscle tissue by contracting that tissue against resistance. As
far as tension goes, most of the damage occurs during the eccentric (lowering) phase of
the movement.

The purpose of every workout is simply to apply a stimulus and provoke an
adaptation by providing an increase in intramuscular tension.
47

Muscle tissue does not distinguish between rep ranges or the type of stimulus you
put on it. There isn't a magical number of repetitions or load that triggers a growth
response. The most important thing for stimulating hypertrophy by increased loading is
muscular contraction against more resistance than the muscle is accustomed to. This
increased resistance damages the structural fibers.

Fortunately, the muscle is sensitive to very small increases in load. This means
you don't need to train all out or to failure each session to grow as long as the load
you train with is increasing on a progressive basis and the volume remains fairly
constant.

Training To Failure Is It Necessary?

Let me ask you this. Can you recall the first time you did squats? If you're like
most people, a set of squats with one 45-pound plate on each side or less, not even close
to failure, was more than enough to completely torch your thighs and leave you limping
for days.

The amount of load necessary to stimulate hypertrophy will depend on how
accustomed the muscle is to resistance. Even one set of sub-maximal pushups is enough
to stimulate hypertrophy in someone who's de-conditioned, yet it might take 10 sets of
heavy DB bench presses at a near maximal effort to do the same thing in someone who's
trained hard for 5 years without any time off. The effort and load should increase over
time simply because the physical capacities to withstand tension are increasing. It's that
simple.

How Many Reps?
Realistically, any given number of repetitions per set can increase size or strength
provided the total time under tension for a set is somewhere between 0 and around 40
seconds. When I say time under tension (TUT), think how much time elapses from the
time you start a set to the end of that set. Zero and 40 seconds is quite a wide range.
Depending on how fast you perform your repetitions, this generally means the rep range
falls between 1 and ~15 reps or so. So, sets of 1 can increase strength and size, yet so can
sets of 12 or 15. Some body-parts seem to respond to higher reps and more TUT (20-40
seconds), while other body-parts respond to lower reps and less TUT (0-20 seconds).**
I have noticed over the years that muscles classified as flexors seem to really i[c i[c i[c i[c
lower reps, while muscles classified as extensors really i[c i[c i[c i[c higher reps. This probably
has to do with the fiber type makeup. The more fast twitch fibers a muscle contains, the
better that muscle tends to respond to lower reps and less TUT. In contrast, the more slow
twitch fibers a muscle contains, the better that muscle tends to respond to higher reps and
more TUT. Flexors also tend to contain more fast twitch fibers than extensors.
48
** Some body-parts such as quadriceps really respond well to even higher reps than what Im recommending here. Its not
uncommon for quadriceps to respond very well to reps in the 20-50 range for exercises like squats and leg presses
To figure out if a muscle is a flexor or extensor, think of the action of that muscle
and how it moves the joint. If it closes a joint (example: the bicep bringing your hand to
your shoulder and closing the elbow joint, its a flexor. If it opens the joint (example:
your tricep bringing your hand from your shoulder out towards the ground), its an
extensor. So hamstrings, biceps, lats, chest, traps, abs, and inner forearms would be
examples of flexor muscles. While calves, quads, outer forearms, triceps, glutes, and
shoulders would be examples of extensors.
Generally speaking, you will find the extensors tend to respond with a bit more
volume and more reps per set, which is one reason why 20 rep squats are so effective for
inducing quadriceps growth. The average person is not all that fast twitch in the quads
and thus responds better to more time under tension. In my experience, I consider
forearm extensors (think reverse wrist curls), as the one muscle you might be training that
is most oriented towards higher reps, as it responds best to sets that are about 40-60
seconds in duration or more. In contrast, hamstrings are very fast twitch and often
respond best to sets that are 15-20 seconds or less in duration.
Now, .cnn .cnn .cnn .cnn is nervous system + muscular system. Or how efficient you
are at coordinating your muscles and turning them on in the movement, plus how big
your muscles are when they turn on, which determines how much force they generate
when they turn on. Put those 2 things together and you have muscular strength.
The traditional line of thinking is that sets of 3 reps and below train primarily the
nervous system aspect of strength and make you more efficient at turning on and
coordinating the muscles. Sets of 6 reps and more train primarily the muscular system
aspect and increase strength by stimulating more muscle mass, while sets of 3-6 reps train
both equally. Thats a very broad and general statement and there are plenty of
exceptions
It can generally be agreed that stimulating muscle mass is a combination of the
total work done in the workout for a body-part (number of reps), the tension generated (or
the weight lifted), and less importantly, the density of the workout (how much time it
takes to complete). Thus, four sets of 10 reps can be better at stimulating muscle mass
than 5 sets of 5 reps, simply because there is quite a bit more total work involved with 4 x
10 (40 reps), compared to 25 reps with 5 x 5. Yet 8 sets of 3 will probably blow away
both 5 x 5 and 4 x 10, because the total number of reps is about equal in the first case and
obviously there will be a lot more weight lifted using sets of 3 compared to sets of 10.
So, why not just do low reps with lots of sets all the time? Well, a muscle can
only respond to so much stimulation workout to workout. It obviously takes twice the
time to do 8 sets vs 4 sets and its not necessary to lift more weight and do more sets if
you can generate a response from lighter loads. Any tension increase above what the
muscle is accustomed to will stimulate growth. Unfortunately, the muscle will also adapt
to a given level of tension and workload within a few workouts. Thus, if you start out a
49
cycle using 8 sets of 3 reps, after a few weeks your muscles will have adapted and you
wont be able to generate much of a growth response from those sets, much less from 4
sets of 10 reps or whatever. The muscle will have adapted to the greater tension and
loads in your 3 rep sets and youll either have to increase the volume or take an unloading
week or 2 to allow your muscles to decondition a tad so that theyll respond again to
lighter workloads once again. ** Thats why I often recommend people follow
something like this on their major movements:
Week 1 and 2- Sets of 8-12 reps
Week 3 and 4- Sets of 6-8 reps
Week 5 and 6- Sets of 5-6 reps
Week 7 and 8- Sets of 3-4 reps
Week 9 - off
Week 10 2 sets of 12-15
Week 11- start over with week 1

With this format, the load will be constantly increasing on a periodic basis as the
repetitions decrease. Once a peak has been reached, you unload, recover, and start back
over. Its also perfectly fine to use different rep ranges for different body-parts within a
training week.

(**Not everyone agrees with me on this but in my opinion an unloading week or 2 does allow the body to decondition enough to
allow it to respond to lighter loads once full training is resumed.)

How Many Sets?

The number of sets per muscle group on your primary movements will vary
depending on your individual preferences. Two sets will be fine for some people whereas
some will want to go as high as 6-8. In general, you would want the total number of
repetitions to stay fairly constant as the load is increasing over the course of a training
cycle. Heres an example:

Week 1 and 2- 3 sets of 8-12 reps
Week 3 and 4- 4 sets of 6-8 reps
Week 5 and 6- 5 sets of 4-5 reps
Week 7 and 8- 6 sets of 3-4 reps
Week 9 - off
Week 10 - start over with 3 sets of 8

As you can see there, the volume will stay relatively constant at around 18-24
reps, although a 25% swing in any direction would be fine. Keep in mind the above
example is just a guideline. The number of sets is really up to you and can vary as much
as you want during a cycle. The important thing is that youre adding weight to that
bar regularly!

50
Getting The Most Out Of Your Training You Have To Eat!

Now, having said all that, if you're doing heavy workouts that break down a lot of
muscle and stimulate a lot of growth, and youre NOT eating extra calories and nutrients
to supply material for that growth, your workouts are largely a waste of time. After a
bout of exercise, the first thing your muscles want to do is replace the energy (glycogen)
you just burned in them. A typical workout might burn 50 to 70 grams of carbohydrates.
Until you replace those carbohydrates and replete your muscle energy stores, your
muscles will not even think about growing. Thus, some type of post-workout nutrition is
essential. Once youve replaced depleted glycogen stores, you still have to supply enough
overall energy and protein over the next 48-72 hours to support the growth that youve
stimulated.

The point is that a true mass building workout performed on low calories is
largely a complete waste of time and serves only to increase the exercise set-point (the
amount of load and volume necessary to stimulate mass gains). Many lean gaining plans
incorporate periodic low calorie days coinciding with workouts that do nothing to
contribute to muscle growth.

Training For Fat Loss

Now that Ive talked about training for muscle growth, lets talk about training for
fat loss. First, lets talk about vc{iniion vc{iniion vc{iniion vc{iniion. Regardless of how you do it, if you lose fat you
will get more definition (even if you train like a powerlifter). If you gain fat you will lose
definition (even if you are on what supposedly is a defining type of routine). A muscle
cant onc onc onc onc, all it can do is get bigger or smaller. You change the appearance of the muscle
by making it bigger or smaller and by increasing or decreasing the amount of fat covering
it, (or changing the color of the skin covering it a.k.a. getting a tan). Any time you burn
more calories than you take in you stimulate fat loss. Any type of activity can stimulate
fat loss. Cardio and intervals are often used for the specific purpose of burning calories
and fat, yet weight training can also serve as a very effective fat loss workout.

A full body workout consisting of 4 x 10 squat, bench, and power clean will burn
about 300 calories during the workout itself, about the same as 30-45 minutes of jogging,
but with the weight training the metabolism will stay elevated over the next 24 hours and
the body will burn an additional 700 or so calories on top of those burned during the
workout. This occurs due to both the stimulating effects the intense weight training has
on the nervous system and also due to the extra energy it takes your body to repair the
muscles. This metabolic v{c v{c v{c v{c vn vn vn vn does not occur to nearly the same extent with regular
cardiovascular exercise. The caloric after-burn from aerobic exercise or easy pink
dumbbell type toning workouts might be 50 calories or so. Thus, one way to burn fat is
to simply work hard in the gym with major compound movements and watch your diet.
However, remember what I said above about wasting muscle-building workouts. Why
work hard in the gym if youre not gonna eat and build any muscle from those workouts?
How do we get around that if we wanna burn fat?
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Well, when it comes to weight training, workouts performed while using loads of
40-60% of your 1 repetition max for ~12-20 reps per set do not stimulate much protein
breakdown. With this type of workout theres really not any muscle growth stimulus to
waste. Not only can these type of workouts serve as excellent calorie burning workouts
for people that dont like to do cardio, they can give the same fat loss benefits and after-
burn effects of intense weight training. These aforementioned workouts with higher reps
and lighter weight also have an excellent effect on connective tissue health and will also
deplete muscular energy stores (glycogen).

Glycogen Levels and Carbohydrate Requirements

The great thing about carbohydrates is they allow us to manipulate our anabolic
and fat burning status a great deal. Carbohydrates are stored as energy in the muscles and
liver in the form of glycogen. A normal 150-pound athlete will store about 300 to 500
grams of glycogen in his muscles and about 75 grams of glycogen in the liver. When you
consider that carbohydrate/glycogen gives us 4 calories per gram, thats a minimum of
about 1600 calories worth of carbohydrate energy stored by a typical 150-pound athlete.

Liver glycogen is mainly used to fuel our daily mental energy needs. Your brain
will probably use about 50 to 100 grams of glucose per day even if you sit around doing
nothing. Even as you sit and read this book, your liver will release glucose to fuel your
brain. In contrast to liver glycogen, muscular glycogen is used to fuel our muscles during
exercise. During a standard set of weight training you probably burn up about 2.5 to 5
grams of stored muscular glycogen per set. Now, the importance of the stored
carbohydrate energy isnt necessarily the amount of total energy that it supplies, but the
effect that manipulating that supply has on putting the body in either an anabolic muscle-
building state, or a fat-burning state. Remember that full glycogen stores are anabolic.
Since it obviously takes carbohydrate ingestion to fill up glycogen stores and
carbohydrates stimulate insulin, full glycogen stores are also associated with insulin and,
as mentioned earlier, insulin is very anabolic from a muscle-building standpoint.

We also have to consider the fact that each gram of glycogen you store in your
muscles brings along about 3 grams of water into storage with it. All that glycogen and
water associated with full muscular glycogen stores can and does provide for a lot of
muscular leverage and strength. The more carbohydrates you load into a muscle, the
greater your tissue leverage is gonna be and the greater your strength is gonna be.
Additionally, due to the fact that muscle growth is more likely to occur in full and well-
hydrated muscle cells, the greater your muscle building potential tends to be as well.

Decreasing Glycogen Stores

What happens when you decrease glycogen stores? Well, for one thing, the more
depleted your muscular glycogen stores become, the more fat you tend to burn. When
you decrease calories below maintenance and exercise, you burn up more glycogen than
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you replace. You also lower insulin levels and thus increase the activity of epinephrine,
nor-epinephrine, and HSL. All of those things increase the utilization of fat for fuel.

It is also interesting that temporarily depleting your muscle glycogen stores can
actually help you increase your glycogen storage capacity. Theres a rebound type effect
in glycogen storage capacity that comes from prior glycogen depletion. When you
deplete your muscles of glycogen the enzymes responsible for storing muscle glycogen
up-regulate. This is why endurance athletes have long practiced carbohydrate depletion
and loading prior to an event. Theyd spend several days training normally and
consuming a lower carbohydrate diet. Theyd follow that up with several days where
theyd pig out on carbs and replete those depleted glycogen stores. The end result after
depleting and loading is theyd end up doubling their muscular glycogen storage capacity
from an original 300-500 grams all the way up to around 800-1000 grams.

Due to the fact that lots of extra glycogen storage can make their muscles look
bigger and fuller, bodybuilders also practice the same strategy prior to a contest So,
while a bodybuilder might initially start off with a 500-gram glycogen storage capacity, if
he engaged in 3-5 days of low carbohydrate intake hed probably reduce his total muscle
glycogen levels down under 100 grams. If he then pigged out on high carb foods (carbed
up) for a few days, hed end up increasing his muscle glycogen levels all the way up to
around 1000 grams.

Lets say we have a bodybuilder that went from 500 grams of glycogen in storage,
down to under 100, and then back up to 1000. That would be a minimum of an c_v c_v c_v c_v four
pounds of water and glycogen resulting from the additional 500 grams of carbohydrate
storage above baseline. When you consider a depleted athlete goes from almost zero
glycogen all the way up to 1000 grams, it obviously takes a lot of carbohydrate eating to
get to that level during a carb-up. (For example, a whole box of cereal might have 300 to
400 grams of carbohydrate). One of the things some people like about carb-ups is you
can eat carbs like a pig for a couple of days and not have to worry about getting fat, as all
those extra carbs are used to replenish glycogen storage. Even though insulin will be
elevated and insulin drives nutrients both into muscle and fat stores, as long as muscle
glycogen stores are not full, ingested carbohydrates will always be used to refill or top off
depleted muscle glycogen first. Ingested fat, on the other hand, will either be burned or
be driven into fat cells.

It used to be thought that in order to provoke, or stimulate, a state of carbohydrate
storage rebound, a muscle had to be depleted of most all of its glycogen. For an activity
like weight training, Lyle McDonald estimates it takes 12-16 sets per muscle group with
each set lasting 45 to 60 seconds (about 15 reps) to deplete glycogen to the right level to
stimulate a good carb load. Competitive bodybuilders would exercise intensely and eat
near zero carbohydrates for days on end in an attempt to get their muscle glycogen low
enough for a good carb load. However, recent evidence seems to indicate a muscle does
not have to be depleted to such an extent. In one study on carb-loading, researchers used
just one 3-minute bout of intense cycling for glycogen depletion and followed that up
with 24 hours of carb loading. Despite the relatively low volume of exercise, athletes
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were still able to nearly double their glycogen levels above normal levels. So, simply
exercising intensely, lowering glycogen content a tad, and following that up with high
carbohydrate ingestion, can also stimulate a good anabolic rebound in glycogen storage.

Now, based on that information ask yourself this: What would happen if you took
a few days and lowered your caloric intake, decreased your insulin, exercised, and
depleted some muscle glycogen? Youd probably burn quite a bit of fat wouldnt you?
What would happen if you followed that up with several days of increased calories,
increased carbohydrate intake, and increased insulin? Youd store a lot of glycogen and
create a lot of leverage wouldnt you? What would happen if you followed that up with
about a week and half of hardcore heavy mass gaining strength training and eating?
Youd probably get really strong and stimulate a lot of muscle mass growth wouldnt
you? Yes, probably so. That, in large part, is what this program is all about.

The Need For Cyclical Training

It should be obvious that if you're a natural and you don't have those great
genetics that naturally scream out build muscle and burn fat, and you want to gain a
substantial amount of fat free mass and optimize the hormonal milieu necessary for that,
you're gonna have to eat a substantial amount of food right? That'll put muscle on you but
it'll also put some fat on you right? So, how can you approach the results of a steroid
user and gain the muscle without an iota of fat gain? Well, its really about impossible
for anyone to do that except training newbies, people experiencing compensatory catch-
up growth, (where they rebuild a lot of muscle they had previously carried), guys going
through puberty, and people with really good genetics.

However, one of the things you can do is create a hormonal milieu in your body
that screams, build muscle and alternate that with a hormonal state that screams "burn
fat"! After a period of combining those 2 phases you should be left with unadulterated fat
free mass. In other words, you have to alternate phases of mass gaining training and diet
with phases of fat burning training and diet. The old traditional way was to spend many
months getting as big as humanly possible while eating yourself up to a predetermined
scale weight. Youd then spend many months getting rid of the fat you accumulated.
That works for some, yet many people find they end up right where they started.

A more modern idea is to alternate short phases of mass gain, followed by short
phases of fat burning. This keeps you from getting excessively fat, while still allowing
you to put on muscle. This idea is not necessarily new. The first mass gain plan I
remember hearing based on this philosophy was Fred Hatfields Zig-zag plan. It didnt
really incorporate a training scheme, but on this plan you'd simply go 5 days consuming a
high calorie intake followed by 2 days consuming low calories. Next, there was
something called the ABCDE plan. This called for about 2 weeks of total engorging
yourself on whatever you wanted and training hard and heavy, followed by 2 weeks of
practically starving to death and lifting foo-foo weights. There have been a few other
plans based on the same basic philosophy, yet they all seem to share the common pit-
falls:
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A: Too much wasted training having you reduce calories and perform workouts that do
not conform to your dietary status and the hormonal state youre creating.

B: Not properly mixing and matching your training to potentiate your diet.

C: Too much tenacity and dedication required during the fat burning phase.

D: Training scheme not really optimal for progressive and consistent increases in
strength.

E: It takes several days on a mass gain phase to really get in the groove to the point
where you really start laying down some serious muscle. If you follow this up with more
than a few days of dieting, its really easy to get out of this groove.

I wanted to address those problems and come up with a better plan, so about 2
years ago I began experimenting. What I ultimately came up with is the "No Bull" plan
you're about to read, which involves a diet and training scheme that I feel corrects these
problems and is very effective and user friendly.

A Few Reasons You Will Probably Love This Program:

A: Most bodybuilders and muscle-seeking athletes love to eat - Some even live to eat.

B: Dieting sucks.

C: Longer periods of dieting suck worse than short periods of dieting.

D: Over-eating for extended periods of time can get old Particularly having to eat every
2-3 hours.

E. Cutting back on the calories for a couple of days is much easier after about 10 days of
good eating.

F: Cutting back on the calories for a couple of days often serves to refresh the mind and
body.

G: Progressively training with heavy weights is necessary to build mass and strength.

H. Most people tend to lean towards what theyre good at. Most muscle-seeking athletes
hate cardio and most cardio addicts hate lifting weights. If you wanted to be a cardio
king, youd probably be out running marathons instead of in the gym pumping iron.

I. One day of cardio every couple of weeks is a lot more tolerable for most people than 6
or 7 days of cardio per week.

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J: Workouts on low calories can be difficult, yet one weight-training workout every week
or 2 while on low calories should be tolerable.

K: Strength gains must be increasing over time in order for a plan to be effective.

The No Bull Muscle Gain Plan

Ok. Hopefully I havent wasted too much of your time with all that rambling, but
now its time to get down to the nuts and bolts take a look at the training and diet scheme
that puts all the aforementioned stuff together into is what is hopefully a semi-lucid plan
that you can utilize to dramatically increase your lean body mass, dramatically up your
strength, and do it all while, at the very least, staying lean, - or possibly, getting even
leaner. The basic plan Im gonna talk about is a 14-day plan. Yes, there are other plans
that I have experimented with and that I will talk about, such as the 7 day and 10 day
plan, but after testing this out with various people for various lengths of time, the 14 day
plan seemed to give the best compromise between effort and results.

The basic gist of the plan is a period of no holds barred, kick the doors down,
mass gaining workouts and mass gaining eating, followed by a brief period of fat burning
eating and fat burning workouts.

Through each mass gaining period your focus is on pushing your scale weight and
your muscular bodyweight up. Through each muscle-gaining phase you should gain a
nininvn nininvn nininvn nininvn of 5 pounds of scale weight. A lot of that will be water and glycogen so dont
freak out. Through each brief fat burning period you should drop at least 3 pounds of
scale weight (mostly water and glycogen).** The end result is, after each entire 14-day
phase, you should be v cv. v cv. v cv. v cv. 1 pound heavier, without any increase in body-fat. One
pound may not sound like a lot, but in 1 year thats 24 pounds of fat-free muscle
minimum. Go to your supermarket and look at 24 pounds of beef and tell me thats not a
lot.

**Those would definitely be minimum numbers. Most people will gain 7-10 pounds during the mass gaining phase and lose 5-10
pounds during the fat burning period.

The mass building and fat burning parts of the program require 2 different dietary
and training approaches. Lets talk about diet first.

Diet

Meal Structure

I recommend that you eat 4 to 6 meals daily. Your meals should include foods from the
categories listed below. The specific ratio of nutrients from each category will depend on
your particular training phase.

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Protein Foods: Most of your protein should come from fresh, lean protein sources such
as chicken breast, turkey breast, lean beef (flank or round steak, 90% lean ground beef),
fish, eggs, (egg whites in particular), milk, and low-fat cottage cheese. Protein powder is
good too.
Complex Carbohydrate Foods: The best sources of foods under this category are
oatmeal, rice, potatoes, sweet potatoes, beans (white, pinto, kidney black or lima), bread,
peas, quinoa, millet, and corn.
Fibrous Vegetables: This category includes green and yellow vegetables. The sources I
typically recommend include broccoli, green beans, asparagus, cauliflower, spinach,
lettuce, and zucchini, cauliflower, cucumbers, lettuce, spinach, and zucchini.
Fruit: Recommended fruits are apples, bananas, blueberries, cantaloupe, grapefruit,
kiwi, oranges, pears, and strawberries.
Dietary Fats: Make sure you include essential fatty acids (EFAs) in your nutrition plan.
Not only are they essential for health all the way down to the cellular level, but EFAs also
help in building muscle and fat reduction. Good sources are fish oil and coldwater salmon
In each of the above categories there are plenty of other oov foods that I didnt list, but
keep in mind those are just examples.
The Mass Gaining Diet

The goals for the mass-gaining phase are:

A: Replete muscle glycogen stores, increase tissue hydration, and leverage

B: Provide a constant surplus of protein and amino acids

C: Supply enough raw energy to keep the body in an anabolic state

D: Drive that scale weight up

To accomplish the above requires a mass gaining diet. That means during the
mass gaining part of this plan, depending on your metabolism, you will need to eat 500-
1000 calories above maintenance per day, with at least 1.5 grams protein per pound of
bodyweight. If you have a slow metabolism and easily gain fat you probably want to eat
about ~500 calories over maintenance. If you have a racehorse metabolism and easily
lose fat, you probably want to eat about 500-1000 over predicted maintenance. In
general, if you multiply your lean bodyweight x 15 and add 500-1000 calories to that,
you'll be about right. You'll have to experiment with this. In general you should probably
be gaining 5-10 lbs scale weight (a lot of water and glycogen) during each mass-gaining
phase.

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As youll see in a minute, the first 2 days of the mass gain phase you can and
should go a bit higher in calories, particularly carbohydrates. The first 2 days of the phase
you should be getting an average of around 3 grams of carbs per pound of lean body mass
per day. From there you might want to taper the carbs a bit down to 2 per lb. or
thereabouts - just depends on you and your metabolism. I dont want to make any real
hard and fast rules because the most important factor is that you eat cnovn cnovn cnovn cnovn during the
mass gain phase to grow.

Throughout the entire phase youll ideally keep protein at 1.5 to 2 grams per
pound of bodyweight. Fat and carbohydrate levels can vary depending on your
preferences throughout most of the phase, except for the first 2 days where fat should be
kept fairly low. Just dont forget about your essential fatty acids (EFAs). The rest of
your diet should be made up of good quality carbohydrates and protein. Ideally youd
take a post workout drink of protein and carbohydrates after all of your mass gaining
workouts. There's no need to overcomplicate the drink. A typical post-workout drink
contains 0.8 grams of carbohydrate per 2.2 pounds of bodyweight and 0.4 grams of
protein per pound of bodyweight. The carbohydrate would ideally come from a mix of
maltodextrin and dextrose, but something like Gatorade will also work. The protein
might come from whey. You can start sipping on it during your workout if you want.

Being Overly Obsessive

Im getting ready to give some sample diets for this phase, but before I do, let me
mention the fact that during this mass gaining phase you probably shouldnt be
obsessive-compulsive to the point of obsessively logging and worrying about everything
you put in your mouth. Worry about eating ENOUGH to get that scale weight up first,
and then worry about quality. Chances are pretty good the reason some of you reading
this havent built the muscle you think you should have is because youve been too anal
about what you eat. I encourage you to relax a bit and just eat. Regardless of what I say,
I know some of you will write me bugging the heck out of me asking if you can have this
or that on your mass gaining diet. But let me encourage you before you do that to think
in terms of the big picture and keep things simple.

Sample Diets:

Here is a sample days eating for a 180-200 pound individual during the mass gain phase:

Meal #1
2 cups cottage cheese
1 scoop protein
1-cup oatmeal measured before cooking

or... 3 whole eggs + 2 egg whites
4 oz. ground sirloin
Onions, mushrooms,peppers
1 slice cheese
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Meal #2
8 oz. ground sirloin wrapped in lettuce
and topped w/ diced tomatoes
1 large sweet potato or 2 cups rice
1 TBS mayonnaise
2 TBS mustard

Meal #3
2 scoops protein
16 oz. skim milk
1/2 banana or 5 strawberries

Meal #4
6 oz. chicken breast
2 slices pizza (hey a little junk aint gonna hurt much)

Meal #5
Postworkout
2 scoops protein
100 grams combined maltodextrin/dextrose
1/2 banana or 5 strawberries

Meal #6
2 cups rice, quinoa or millet
1 whole egg + 5 egg whites
5 oz. ground turkey breast
4 TBS salsa
6 fish oil caps

Note: All these sample diets are just that Theyre samples. Dont think you need to eat
exactly like the examples Im giving here.

Sample 2

Here is an example of a diet for a smaller woman.

Meal 1
1 whole egg + 3 egg whites
3 oz lean ground beef
1/2 cup oatmeal before cooking

Meal 2
5-ounce chicken (before cooking)
medium sweet potato or 1.5 cups rice

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Meal 3
5 oz. lean beef, chicken, turkey, fish, or sirloin steak
1 slice bread
1 cup vegetables
6 fish oil caps

Meal 4
Post-workout
1.5 scoops protein
75 grams combined maltodextrin/dextrose
pop tart
water

Meal 5
Omelet with 6-egg whites/1 yolk onion, bell pepper and tomato sauce - 1/2 cup cottage
cheese with 1 cup fruit

Fat loss Diet Phase

The goals for the fat loss phase are:

A: Decrease calories and insulin

B: Increase adrenaline and nor-adrenaline

C: Burn off some body-fat

D: Potentiate the body for the next mass gain phase

We accomplish A and B by reducing calories and carbohydrates, along with
perhaps taking some legal stimulants (a.k.a. fat burners). We accomplish C through
exercise and caloric deficit, and we accomplish D by exercising and depleting your
muscles of glycogen so that they will store more glycogen going into the next mass
phase.

Fat Loss Diet

The diet during this fat burning phase should be low calorie/low carbohydrate,
which means, depending on your metabolism, about 10-15 calories per pound of
bodyweight and 100 grams or less of carbohydrate per day. You dont have to starve and
you dont have to go on a zero carbohydrate diet, but 50-100 grams of carbs per should
be about right. At the very minimum, make sure you dont go below 1200 calories per
day. Protein intake should be at a minimum of 1 gram per pound. Make sure you keep
the protein intake up.

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If you like them, you might also want to use an appetite suppressant like Hoodia
or make use of stimulants like caffeine, ephedrine etc. How much? Up to 25 mg
ephedrine 3 times per day and 200 mg caffeine 3 times per day. If in doubt start off low.
Lay off the stimulants during the mass gain phase so that they will actually have an effect
when you need them during this phase. A lot of people ask, Well wont it be difficult to
go from eating like a horse in the mass gain phase and move right into eating like a bird
in this fat burning phase? For most people its actually easy. You tend to get so tired
of eating that the lower calories are often a welcome change. Youll probably be a bit
hungry in the AM at the start of the fat burning phase just out of habit, yet you probably
wont be all that hungry the rest of the day and should feel pretty energized.

Sample Diets For Fat Loss Phase

Sample 1

Here is an example of sample diet for a 200-pound individual during the fat burning
phase:

Meal 1:
6 egg whites, 1 yolk, 4oz beef, small grapefruit

Meal 2:
5 oz chicken breast, 1 whole egg & 3 Egg Whites, cup oats

Meal 3:
6 oz beef, cup of green beans or broccoli

Meal 4:
Protein drink 2 scoops whey protein - 1 TBS Flax Oil, 4 Frozen Strawberries,
12 oz Water

Meal 5:
8 oz chicken breast, 2 cups green beans or broccoli, 6 fish oil caps

Meal 6: 6 Egg whites w/ 1 cup omelet vegetables (onions, peppers)


Sample 2

Here is an example of a diet for a lightweight female during the fat burning phase:

Meal One
4 oz. chicken, 3 egg whites, 1 yolk, grapefruit

Meal Two
1 can tuna one piece bread
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Meal Three
4oz. chicken, green salad with romaine lettuce,
red pepper, tomato, cucumber, 6 fish oil caps

Meal Four
1 scoop whey protein, 3 strawberries, 1 tsp flaxseed oil,

Meal Five
4oz. chicken, broccoli,
stir fried tomatoes, zucchini, spinach or rolled up
chicken in romaine lettuce

Training During The Mass Gain Phase

Once again, the training required for the mass gain phase will be different than the
training during the fat burning phase. During the mass gain portion you should be
performing standard heavy bodybuilding workouts with an emphasis on lifting heavy and
increasing bar weights. Ive included some samples of how I recommend you might go
about it, but realistically, during this phase the workouts are really up to you.

If youll notice, for some of the sample workouts I have exercises broken down
into loading movements and density movements. The emphasis on a loading
movement is lifting heavy with long rest intervals. The emphasis on density movements
is creating a state of metabolic chaos and fatigue within the muscle. As I mentioned
before, I recommend you start off hitting a muscle group hard through load, and finish up
with fatigue. Creating fatigue might mean doing 1 or 2 higher rep sets, several sets with
shorter rest intervals, a drop set, rest-pause, or whatever. Keep in mind you dont have to
organize your training in that fashion, its just a recommendation.

Phase I - Mass Gain - Day 1-11

Sample Split

Day 1- Chest and Back (light shoulders and arms) (high calorie intake)

Day 2- Off (high calorie intake)

Day 3- Legs and traps (high calorie intake)

Day 4- Off (high calorie intake)

Day 5- Shoulders and arms (light chest and back) (high calorie intake)

Day 6- Light legs (high calorie intake)

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Day 7- Off (high calorie intake)

Day 8- Erectors, Traps, Chest, Shoulders, Triceps (high calorie intake)

Day 9- Off (high calorie intake)

Day 10- Lats, Biceps, Calves, Quads, Hams (high calorie intake)

Day 11- Off (high calorie intake)

A sample run-through:

Day 1:

Workout #1- Heavy chest and back, light shoulders and Arms

Loading Movements:

Incline DB Press- 3-4 x 8, 4-5 x 5, 5-6 x 4, 6-8 x 3 (lower the reps and increase the sets
every 3
rd
time you hit this workout)

T-Bar Row- 3-4 x 8, 4-5 x 5, 5-6 x 4, 6-8 x 3

One arm incline side lateral- 3-4 x 8-12

Density movements:

Pec-flye- 4-5 x 5-8 w/30 second rests

Pulldown- 4-5 x 5-8 w/30 second rests

Incline DB curl- 4-5 x 5-8 w/30 second rests

Decline Db Tricep ext.- 4-5 x 5-8 w/30 second rests

Day 2: Off

Day 3:

Workout #2 - Heavy Legs and traps

Loading movements

Squat- 3-4 x 8-10, 4 x 6-8, 5 x 5, 5-6 x 3-4 (change set and rep scheme every 3
rd
time you
hit this workout)

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Romanian Deadlift + shrug- 3-4 x 8-10, 4 x 6-8, 5 x 5, 5-6 x 3-4

Calf raise- 5 x 5 (with 5 second pause at the bottom)

Density Movements

Close Stance Squat- 1-2 x 15-20

Leg Curl or Glute Ham- 4-5 x 5-8 with 30-45 second rests

Seated calf raise- 4 x 15-20 with 20 second rest

Day 4: off

Day 5:

Workout #3 - Heavy Arms and Shoulders, light chest/back

Loading movements

Military Press- (3-4 x 8-10, 4 x 6-8, 5 x 5, 5-6 x 3-4) change reps every 3
rd
time you hit
this workout)

Close grip bench press- (3-4 x 8-10, 4 x 6-8, 5 x 5, 5-6 x 3-4)

Preacher Curl- (3-4 x 8-10, 4 x 6-8, 5 x 5, 5-6 x 3-4)

Density movements

Flat low cable crossover- 4-5 x 5-8 with 30 second rests

Pulldown- 4-5 x 5-8 with 30 second rests

L-dumbell raise- 4-5 x 5-8 with 25 second rests

Day 6: Workout #4- Light legs

Bulgarian Split squat or Lunge- 3 x 6-8/leg

Leg curl - 4 x 6

Calf raise - 3 x 20

Day 7: off

Day 8: Workout #5- Erectors, Traps, Chest, Shoulders, Triceps
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(Although its not written in, you would ideally vary your sets and reps every 3
rd
time you hit this workout as I described above)

Horizontal Pressing movement (DB bench press) - 4-5 x 6-8

Flye or crossover movement - 2 x 12

Shoulder lateral movement - 3 x 10-12 (use a triple drop set, strip set, rest-pause, or
static-hold on the last set)

Lying Triceps extension - 4 x 8 (use a triple drop set, strip set, rest-pause, or static-hold
on the last set)

Deadlift or Rack Pull 3-4 x 6-10

Day 9: off

Day 10: Workout #6 - Lats, Biceps, Calves, Quad, Hamstrings
(Although its not written in, you would ideally vary your rep range every 3
rd
time you hit
this workout as I described above)

Pulldowns or chins - 4 x 6-8 (Insert a triple drop set, strip set, rest-pause, or static hold on
the last set)

Curls - 3 x 8-10 (Insert a triple drop set, strip set, rest-pause, or static-hold on the last set)

Standing calf raise - 3 x 20

Squat - 3 x 6

Hack Squat- 1 x 15-20

Leg curl- 3 x 5/ 1 x 15-20 (Thats 3 sets of 5 followed by 1 set of 15-20)

Day 11: off

Training During the Fat Burning Phase

This is where we enter the fat burning phase of the plan. Heres a snapshot of
what it looks like:

Day 12: Whole body light high rep workout or intervals/cardio (low calorie intake)

Day 13: Intervals/cardio (low calorie intake)

Day 14: off - Light cardio optional (low calorie intake)

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Day 15: start over with day 1 (low calorie intake until after the workout and switch to
high calorie intake)

Day 12- The goal of day 12 is just to burn a bunch of calories, more specifically, burn a
lot more calories then you take in. On the diet end you do that by reducing your caloric
intake down around 10-15 calories per pound. Choose the lower end of that range if you
have a slow metabolism and choose the higher end if you have a fast metabolism. On the
exercise end, how you go about burning calories is fairly irrelevant. I know a lot of
people shun cardiovascular exercise, so Ive tended to lean towards prescribing a light
whole body light weight training type workout. Another option is combining HIT style
(high intensity) interval cardio along with normal cardio. If you do decide to do the
weight training, realize this training is done simply to burn calories and deplete the
muscles of glycogen and is NOT done to build muscle. Here is an example of how to set
that up:

Whole Body light workout Do a whole body workout consisting of 6-12 sets of
12-20 reps per muscle group with 40-60% of your 1rm. The stronger you are, the more
likely you'll have to use 40% of your 1rm. In general, if you can do more than 20 reps
for a given exercise, you're not going heavy enough. If you can't do at least 12-15
repetitions of an exercise with one-minute rest intervals, you're going too heavy.** Reps
will vary depending on the movement and speed of contraction. If you like to lift slow
you'll probably get 12 reps per set. If you lift pretty fast you might get 20. If in doubt
use the clock as a gauge shoot for a total time under tension of 45 to 60 seconds per set.
The muscle should be burning at the end of the set , but you don't need to go to complete
failure. Now, here are a few options on how to set your workout up.

Sample exercises to include:
Leg press, Stiff leg deadlift, Squat, Bench press, T-bar row, Pulldown, Shoulder press,
Pec flye, Lateral, Bicep curl, Tricep pushdown, Machine bench press, Machine row, etc.

Sample workouts:

Option A:

Set up a giant circuit of 4-8 different exercises and simply go from exercise to exercise
until you feel like stopping. You might go for 45 minutes or you might go for 1.5 hours.
Perform one exercise per body-part in a big loop. You can rest as long as you need
between sets, but the workout will tend to be more effective if you keep the rest between
exercises fairly brief (~1 minute or so). You might set up a circuit and hit an exercise for
quads, calves, chest, shoulders, back, triceps, biceps, and hamstrings all in succession.
Rest a few minutes and do another circuit. Straight sets will also work. It doesn't really
matter how you arrange the workout, but a minimum of 6 sets for major body-parts like
quads, hamstrings, chest and back is in order and 2-3 sets for smaller body-parts like
arms. Do more if you feel like it. Since this is a calorie burning workout and not a
muscle building workout, machines are ok too. Unless you feel like doing a crap-load of
cardio, you're gonna have to do this every cycle and your desire and energy will vary,
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which is why I'm not setting any strict rules. As long as you get in the gym and get
something done itll work regardless. Remember to use 40-60% of your 1 repetition
max. You don't want to create a lot of micro-trauma during this workout.

**Be careful with leg variations such as squats. A lot of people tend to go too heavy in legs when doing this workout. For that
reason, I recommend you stay really light and dont go below 15 reps on exercises such as squats, leg presses, and hack squats. Your
legs should be burning at the end of a set but you shouldnt feel like youre gonna pass out and throw up like you would if you were
doing a high rep set of legs with muscle growth in mind. To give you an idea Id recommend a 300-400 pound squatter start off with
sets of 135 on squats.

Option B: This is just like the above workout, but this time you set up several mini-
circuits. You go through each circuit 3-6 sets before moving on to the next. (This is my
personal favorite)

Circuit A:
Leg press, calf raise, pulldown x 12-20 reps each x 3-6 sets

Circuit B:
Stiff leg deadlift, Bench press, Curl x 12-20 reps each x 3-6 sets

Circuit C:
Shoulder Press, Hanging Leg Raise, Tricep pushdown x 12-20 reps each x 3-6 sets

Circuit D:
Squat, leg curl, pec flye, t-bar x 12-20 reps x 3-4 sets each

Option C: Combination HIT (high intensity) and regular cardio. With this option you
simply do about 30 minutes of intervals and follow that up with 20-30 minutes of normal
cardio.

An interval workout might consist of 1 minute sprinting on the treadmill at 10 mph, 1
minute jogging at 6 mph, followed by 1 minute walking at 3 mph for a total of 30
minutes. Follow that up with 20-30 minutes of normal cardio at about 70% of your
maximum heart rate, such as walking on the inclined treadmill at 3.5 mph and a 12%
incline.

You can also use traditional sprint intervals, such as running out on a football field, and
follow that up with some normal cardio of a totally different type. For example, Ive had
some people do the following workout:

On the football field 2 sets of 5 x 100 yard sprints at 75% maximum speed with 30
second rest intervals between sprints and 2 minutes between sets. (10 total 100 yard
sprints). Followed by 1 set of 3 x 200 yard sprints with 1:30 rest intervals. (3 total 200
yard sprints)

Followed by: Boxing on a heavy bag- 6 x 3 minute rounds or rowing machine for 20
minutes, or 20 minutes stairclimber.

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You can get creative and do whatever suits you.

Day 13- Low calorie/low carb + cardiovascular exercise or HIT
For this day the diet is the same as on day 6. Exercise is one of the following:

Option A: 20-30 minutes fairly easy HIT cardio
Option B: 40 minutes normal cardio
Option C: combine the 2

Sample of Option A:
30-minutes fairly easy interval sprints on treadmill (go fairly fast but not max speed).
Example: sprint 1 minute at ~10 mph, walk 3 minutes at 3.5 mph. repeat for 30 minutes
total.

Sample of Option B:
45 minutes of normal cardio at about 70% of maximum heart rate. (Incline treadmill
walking, stairclimber, elliptical, or whatever)

Sample of Option C:
12 minutes Tabata intervals: This consists of an easy 4 minute warmup followed by 4
minutes of 20 second sprint/10 second walk. Youd then follow this up with 20 minutes
of normal low intensity cardio.

or

15 minutes sprint intervals + 20-30 minutes low intensity cardio

Day 14- Off or optional 20-30 minutes low intensity cardio

On this day the diet is the same as the previous 2 days. Training is not required or
recommended, but if youd like to drop more fat, you can do the optional cardio.

After this day we start back over at day1.

Day 1-

AM: Optional 20-30 minutes low intensity cardio
PM: Start over with Workout 1 of the mass gain phase and start the entire cycle over.

I give you the option of doing a brief bout of cardio here in the AM. If you want to lose
more fat do the cardio. If not, dont worry about it.

Regardless, on this day you should continue on the low calorie fare until just before your
weight training workout. About 30 minutes before your workout you should slam a
combo protein/carb drink, or consume a meal consisting of 30-50 grams of carbs and 20-
30 grams of protein. This will give you some energy prior to your workout. After your
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workout, switch back to the mass gaining diet with particular emphasis on carbohydrate
intake for the first couple of days. From here just repeat the entire cycle over again.
Thats it really. For more specific information on the diet during the first 2 days see the
q&a section.

Modifying The Training Based On Your Preferences

You can arrange the training during the mass gaining phase anyway you want.
Divide the body-parts up however you want to as long as the basic principles stay the
same. A few other options include:

The 3-way split

Day 1- Back and biceps
Day 2- Legs
Day 3- off
Day 4- Chest and triceps
Day 5- off
Day 6- Back and biceps
Day 7- off
Day 8- Legs
Day 9- off
Day 10-Chest and triceps
Day 11- off
Day 12- Full body light workout (low calorie intake)
Day 13- HIT or Cardio (low calorie intake)
Day 14- Off or optional cardio (low calorie intake)
Day 15- Cardio AM, start over with day 1 PM

Play around with the order of the above to suit you

Option 2 Full Body Workout on Day 1 If you dont mind full body workouts this
option can work very well. (This is my personal favorite)

Day 1- Full body workout
Day 2- off
Day 3- Legs
Day 4- off
Day 5- Upper body
Day 6- Lower body (light)
Day 7- off
Day 8- Erectors, Traps, Chest, Shoulders, Triceps
Day 9- off
Day 10-Lats, Biceps, calves, Quads, Hams
Day 11-off
Day 12-Light whole body workout
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Day 13- HIT or normal cardio
Day 14- off

The full body workout on day 1 might look like this:

Full body with a bit more volume for chest and back:

Incline DB Press (3-4 x 8-10, 4 x 6-8, 5 x 5, 5-6 x 3-4)- change the reps each week
T-Bar Row - same set and rep scheme
Lateral 3-4 x 8-12
Squat- 3-4 x 6-8
Leg curl 3-4 x 6-8
Calf- 2-3 x 15-20
Pec flye- 2-3 x 12-15
Pulldown or chin 2-3 x 12-15
Optional
Incline DB curl 1-2 x 10-12
Decline Db Tricep ext. 1-2 x 10-12


Option 3- High Intensity Split

(This works good for high intensity types or hardgainers, who may have trouble
recovering with the above splits.)

Day 1- chest, shoulders, back
Day 2- off
Day 3- arms, legs, traps
Day 4- off
Day 5- chest, shoulders, back
Day 6- off
Day 7 - off
Day 8 - arms, legs, traps
Day 9 - off
Day 10- chest, shoulders, back
Day 11- off
Day 12- full body light depletion workout or HIT cardio (low calorie intake)
Day 13- HIT cardio (low calorie intake)
Day 14- off or normal cardio (low calorie intake)
Day 15- start over with day 1

If you really dont mind full body workouts you might like this option:

Option 4- Full body lovers split

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This would be for people who just loooovvee full body workouts. Each workout pick
about 5 movements and get after it. A sample workout might consist of Squat, Row,
Bench, Pullup, Shoulder press, Leg curl, and Arm curl.

Day 1- full body workout 2-3 sets of 8-12 on main movements
Day 2- off
Day 3- full body workout 3-5 sets of 3-5 reps on main movements
Day 4- off
Day 5- full body workout sets 3-4 sets of 6-8 on main movements
Day 6- off
Day 7- off
Day 8- repeat day 1
Day 9- off
Day 10- repeat day 3
Day 11- off
Day 12- light full body fat burning workout
Day 13- HIT or cardio
Day 14- start over with day 1

Monitoring Your Body Composition

Here is a simple way to monitor body composition: At least one time per cycle,
take your waist measurement and bodyweight first thing in the morning. Make a note of
any changes. The most important times to measure are the mornings of day 12 and day 1.
Each time you return to day 1, you should weigh more than you did the previous cycle
and your waist measurement should be within 1/2 inch of where it was the previous
cycle. The waist measurement can fluctuate a - inch or so just due to changes in body
water, so keep that in mind. Each time you return to day 12 you should also be heavier
than the previous week. This site has a really handle calculator you can use to track your
waist measurement and body-fat:

http://members.nuvox.net/~on.jwclymer/bmi.html - waist

Alternative 10 day cycle plan

The above plan has worked really well for virtually everyone that has tried it.
One man in his 40s was averaging a gain of almost 3 pounds per cycle, without any fat
gain, when he would normally put on 2 lbs of fat for each pound of muscle. That's why I
generally recommend people start off with the 14-day plan. However, those with slow
metabolisms, or those who find that they tend to put on too much fat regardless of what
they do, may do better with either a 10 or a 7-day plan.

A 10-day plan might look like this:

Day 1- Upper Body chest and Back (high calories)
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Day 2- off (high calories)
Day 3- Legs (high calories)
Day 4- off
Day 5- Upper Body shoulders and arms (high calories)
Day 6- Legs (high calories)
Day 7- off (low or moderate calories)
Day 8- Full body high rep workout or HIT cardio (low calories)
Day 9- Cardio, HIT cardio, or off day (low calories)
Day 10- off day (low calories)
Day 11- Start over with Day 1- (low calories until after workout)

Or:

Day1- Full body
Day2- off
Day 3- Lower body
Day 4- off
Day 5- Upper Body
Day 6- off
Day 7- Lower Body
Day 8 off
Day 9- High rep light-weight workout
Day 10- HIT/cardio


A 7-day plan might look like this:

Day-1 Full body (high calories)
Day 2- off (high calories)
Day 3- Legs (high calories)
Day 4- Upper Body (high calories)
Day 5- off (high calories)
Day 6- Full body high rep workout or HIT cardio (low calories)
Day 7 - HIT or normal cardio (low calories)
Day 8 - am cardio (optional) PM Start over with day 1 (low calories until after the weight
training workout)


Troubleshooting the program:

Problems
I'm putting on too much fat!

Solutions:

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A: Don't eat so much dang food during the mass gaining period! Cut your calories by
300-500 per day. You should probably be gaining 5-10 pounds scale weight during the
11-day mass gaining phase and losing around 5-9 pounds scale weight during the 4 day
fat burning phase. The end result is, after each complete cycle, you should have a
minimum of one pound of increased muscle mass.

B: Extend the dieting phase by another day. In other words, simply start your low
calories on day 11 instead of day 12.

C: Perform the optional cardio on Day 14 and in the AM of day 1

D: Add some low intensity cardio 2 or 3 times per week during the mass gaining phase.

One of those options oughta get you fixed up.

Problem: I'm not getting any bigger

Solutions:

Option A: Move the light whole body workout to day 13 instead of 12 and start your
low calories on day 13 instead of 12.

Option B: Eat more food during both the mass gain phase and during the dieting phase.

Option C: Eliminate the light whole body depletion type workout on day 12, and replace
it with a normal session of cardio.

Option D: Start your mass gaining diet on the morning of Day 1 instead of waiting until
just before your workout.

Problem: I'm not getting stronger and I'm feeling tired and over-trained.

Solution: Use the high-intensity type split I described earlier.

Problem: Im losing too much fat.

Solution: You have several options:

A: Extend the 11-day mass phase to a 12-day mass phase, and just reduce calories for 2
days instead of 3.

B: Reduce or eliminate the light whole body depletion type workout on day 12 and
replace it with a normal session of cardio.

C: Eat more food during your fat burning phase.

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Questions and Answers

Q: Should I start on the mass gaining phase or the fat loss phase?

A: Its up to you really but since the primary goal is muscle gain, I tend to recommend
people start off with the mass gain phase. You gotta get in the right frame of mind for
muscle gain and the best way to do that is to jump in with both feet and get right to it.

Q: How long should I follow this plan??

A: It depends on you. My general recommendation is to go off the 14-day plan after 4
consecutive cycles and take 1 or 2 easy weeks before getting back on the plan. That
means youd follow it for 2 months before taking a break. As long as youre seeing
consistent results, it shouldn't be too difficult.

Q: Can I spread the light high rep workout on day 12 into 2 days and just repeat
that same workout the following day at 1/2 the normal volume??

A: Yes, you can do that. However, the stronger you are the more that version will tear
you up as well. Doing the same workout on 2 consecutive days will be royally difficult if
you have any sort've strength at all - even if it is a light workout. If you want to do it that
way I would prefer you to split your body in half - train 1/2 one day and 1/2 the other.
You can go up to 12 sets per muscle group. I personally hate these types of workouts so
prefer to do them as infrequently as possible. One every 2 weeks is tolerable enough
though and it can be therapeutic for your joints. But yes, you can do it the way you
suggest. Here's an example of how it might look on the 7-day plan:

Day 1- off (eat high calories all day)
Day 2- 1/2 body (Chest, Shoulders, Triceps, Quads etc)
Day 3- off
Day 4- 1/2 body (Back, Biceps, Traps, Glutes, Hamstrings etc.)
Day 5- off
Day 6- 1/2 body light (chest, shoulders, triceps, quads)**
Day 7- 1/2 body light (back, biceps, traps, Glutes, hamstrings)**

** Perform 6-12 sets per muscle group

Q: Dont you have to be fully depleted in order to optimize the low calorie phase?

A: No, I really dont think so. Full depletion probably doesnt occur as readily as most
people think anyway. What makes the plan effective is cycling your energy intake, your
training, and the effect those things have on various anabolic hormones.

Q: What about supplements?

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A: In general, I dont recommend a whole lot of supplements as most of them are
ineffective and tend to interfere with people doing more important things like paying
more attention to training and diet.

However, I do feel that there are some that are effective enough to recommend:

For muscle gain and general health:

Protein powder -Use whatever you can afford (50 grams of bargain $5 Wal-mart
protein will build more muscle than 25 grams of $50 protein). The only protein you
wanna stay away from is crap like soy, which may negatively impact testosterone and
thyroid production.

Creatine- Will make you bigger and stronger no question and also has favorable effects
on the fast twitch expression. You DEFINITELY should be using creatine during the
muscle gain phase of this program. Take 5-20 grams of it per day. Thats quite a wide
range so if in doubt just take a teaspoon per day.

Fish oils- Omega 3 fatty acids. Most people dont get enough. Take a minimum of 6
grams per day

Vitamin C: helps to control inflammation and cortisol

Magnesium: Helps with neural recovery and sleep. Take 100-300 mg a couple of hours
before bed.

Zinc: Most athletes are probably deficient. Helps with testosterone production

Apple-Cedar Vinegar: A capful prior to carb meals can improve glycogen storage and
may improve fat burning.

Basic multivitamin/mineral- Cant hurt anything

Branch Chain Amino Acids- May increase anabolism and allow you to build more
muscle on less calories. A typical dose would be 5-10 grams before your workout and 5-
10 grams immediately after. If youre eating a lot of calories and protein theres probably
little need to use BCAAs.

Supplements for dieting:

Ephedrine/caffeine stack- 12.5 to 25 mg of ephedrine 3 x per day along with 100-200
mg of caffeine per day. Providing you tolerate it and dont have any issues with its use,
its a very good for appetite suppression, fat loss, and also helps maintain muscle mass
during caloric restriction.

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Green tea- Prolongs the action of natural nor-epinephrine and is also a great anti-oxidant.
Seems to be somewhat useful.

Oral Yohimbine or Yohimbe Cream- If you can tolerate the stuff it can be useful
during the fat-burning phase to inhibit A2 adrenoreceptors (stubborn fat), and improve
blood flow to trouble areas. Its particularly effective for hip and thigh fat on a woman at
a dosage of .2g/kg bodyweight. I actually prefer the cream because the oral version can
create some strange side effects like anxiety, sweating, and heart palpitations. Its
actually used in clinical settings to induce anxiety. I dont know how much more
effective the cream is from an effectiveness standpoint, but the side effects are definitely
reduced compared to oral versions. (See Avant Labs Lipoderm Ultra)

Calcium: Important for females who don't consume enough dairy and may also help with
fat loss.

Q: In most of your examples you recommend weight training on an every other day
basis. Why is this?

A: I have found that strength gains are much more consistent training in this fashion.
Taking 48 hours rest between intense workouts allows your central nervous system to
recover. Training every day, even different body-parts, still puts a strain on your CNS,
which is why it can be difficult to push the bar weights up training every day or even 2
days in a row.

Q: During the muscle gain phase, should I be putting on a bunch of fat?

A: Not a bunch of fat, but put it this way - there shouldnt be 2 days that go by during
that 11 day muscle gain phase where youre not going up at least some in scale weight.
Youll probably find you will be the heaviest the day after a hard workout. This is due to
the fact that the micro-trauma induced from your workouts generates a bit of an
inflammatory response and youll tend to retain more water in your tissues. You should
be taking a fairly hardcore attitude towards getting that scale weight and muscular
bodyweight up during the mass gain portion. The body can grow very fast when its
being well fed. Does that mean that you eat like a stunk pig and pig out on pizza, KFC,
ice cream and Oreos every single day? No! But that means you should never go without
eating and if the only way you can do that is to have some junk food occassionally have
at it. Now, along with that good eating youre probably gonna gain a bit of body-fat. No
big deal. Thats what the fat burning phase is designed to take care of.

Q: Do I have to keep my diet ultra clean?

A: See above. Im not gonna tell you to go out and eat a bunch of crap, but I will tell
you that if you dont eat during the mass gain phase you will not have success. If you
wanna eat some junk occasionally have at it. The cleaner your diet is, the less fat you
will tend to gain. Can you still gain fat eating ultra clean? Sure. But if youre eating
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pizza and ice cream and drinking a 12-pack of beer EVERY single night dont be
surprised that youre putting on more fat than youd like.

Q: If I were gonna pig out, when would be the best time to do it and what would be
the best foods to do it with?

A: Definitely anytime after your workout on day 1, anytime during day 2, as well as
during the 2-3 hour post-workout period after all your mass gaining workouts. During
the first couple of days of the plan youll be refilling depleted glycogen stores and, for the
most part, regardless of whether that glycogen comes from oatmeal, cereal, or fat free ice
cream, it will all go to the same place. Youll actually continue to burn fat while repleting
those glycogen stores. Additionally, for people that have a hard time getting their weight
up, I also recommend they eat as much as possible during the 2-3 hour post-workout
period throughout the entire duration of the mass gaining phase, since the body is so
receptive to nutrition during that period.

Q: Do you have any more specific recommendations for the first 2 days of the diet?
I know when Ive followed cyclical depletion type workouts in the past like
Bodyopus and The Ultimate Diet 2.0 the plans called for 12-16 grams of carbs per
KG of bodyweight the first 24 hours of the high calorie phase.

A: Well, you shouldnt be fully depleted and not everybody handles carb loading the
same, so to an extent you gotta go by feel here. Having said that, remember I said I
recommended at least an average of 3 grams of carbs per pound of bodyweight per day
the first 2 days. That means from the time your workout is over on day one, to the end of
day 2, you should consume around 6 times your bodyweight in carbohydrate grams. So,
if you weigh 150 pounds, youd eat at least 900 grams of carbs combined over those 2
days. Immediately following your workout on day 1, youd want to have a post-workout
shake containing 1 gram of carbohydrate per pound of bodyweight and about 1/3 that
amount in protein. For a 150-pound guy, that's 150 grams of carbs and 50 grams of
protein. Id also recommend you take creatine with that drink.

During those first 24 hours after your day 1 workout, you can actually eat as many
complex carbs and as much glucose as you want, as long as you dont exceed about 100-
150 grams per hour. In the past I personally liked to indulge in rice krispies. You can
also drink the carbs if you dont feel like eating them. If you decide to do that (drink)
make sure you take in glucose, glucose polymers, dextrose, or maltodextrin instead of
fructose. Twinlab UltraFuel or Unipro Carboplex are examples.

So, if you feel like sitting around and drinking and eating a bunch of carbs every hour or
2 for the first 2 days have at it. If you notice youre putting on fat during that time span
you might wanna cut back. If you get it right, you should become very hard and vascular
(veiny) during those 2 days and on day 3 you should look very full and even leaner, as
your body sucks up those carbs like a sponge.

Q: Why should I not over-consume sucrose of fructose?
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A: Fructose (fruit sugar) is preferentially used to replenish liver glycogen and wont
impact muscular glycogen. Your liver can only store about 75 to 100 grams of glycogen
per day, while your muscles can store a nininvn of 300 to 500 grams. If you over-
consume fructose in excess of what your liver can store and use, the excess will convert
to fat. Sucrose is glucose and fructose, so its pretty much ok, but you probably
want to keep the total amount the first 24 hours down to around 200 grams total. Fruit is
typically glucose plus fructose. Itll also take quite a bit of fruit to add up to 75
grams of fructose. Glucose WILL replenish muscular glycogen as will dextrose,
maltodextrin, and starch (complex carbohydrates). Drinks like Gatorade are typically
glucose plus sucrose, so are also pretty much ok from a carbohydrate replenishment
standpoint. However, some sports drinks are fructose and sucrose, which are quite
terrible from a glycogen replenishment standpoint.

Q: I hate staying out of the gym. Can I do cardio during the muscle gain phase or
is there anything else I can do?

A: By all means if you like cardio feel free to do it during the muscle gain phase. Dont
go overboard with it, but 20-40 minutes of low intensity cardio isnt gonna kill you. If
you like going to the gym every day I suggest you do cardio; or just go in and work on
smaller muscle groups like abs, calves, and forearms.

Q: Can I adjust the schedule so that days 1 and 2 occur on the weekends instead of
on Monday and Tuesday?

A: Sure, adjust the schedule however you want. Dont be a slave to the system. What I
write are guidelines, but I encourage you to take it and adjust it to fit your needs.

Q: Instead of taking the tough approach like you recommend and going in and
doing a high rep workout and cutting back quite drastically on the calories during
days 12-14, cant I just cut back off on the food a little bit and maybe do some
normal cardio or interval work and make it easier and still get the same type of
results?

A: Yes, you can do that and still get good results. Some people can do that and get great
results. I have a friend whos put on nearly 40 pounds of muscle with nary any increase
in fat and all he does is reduce his carbs to under 100 grams every single weekend.
Thats it.

If you find that youre not gaining as much muscle as youd like and are actually
LOSING fat following the normal program, what you suggest would be the approach to
take. That would also be the approach to take if you just kindve get worn out and dont
feel like buckling down. In fact I often tell people to simply add an extra day to the mass
phase to make it 12 days, and just cut back a bit on the food intake on days 13 and 14.
Nothing really drastic. You might do some intervals on one of those days and itll work
fine. Having said that, the more you struggle to lose fat the less favorable that approach
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will work for you. Not that it wont work. Ive known plenty of people who have done
variations of that whose genetics are nothing to write home about. But I KNOW the plan
I suggest can work for even the most disadvantaged metabolisms. Like I say though,
dont be a slave to it and modify it to suit your needs.

Q: Should I consume a post-workout drink containing carbs during the fat burning
phase?

A: You can but I dont necessarily recommend it because that cuts into your daily
carbohydrate allotment considerably. Id prefer to spread the carbs out throughout the
day and if you have a post-workout shake just make it protein.

Q: What if Ive gone the 11 or 12 days and I have gained muscle but havent gained
any fat whatsoever. Should I still do the 3-day fat burning phase?

A: It depends on you. Do you want to reduce your body-fat while maintaining that
muscle? Or are you happy with where your body-fat is? If youre happy with your
current body-fat, no need to do the 3-day fat burning phase.

Q: Do I have to do the plan based on a 2-week cycle?

A: No, I set it up that way because most people tend to like things that fit a weekly
format. Adjust it to fit your needs.

Q: You recommend an unloading period after 4 consecutive cycles. How would
you typically go about doing that?

A: There are many ways to do that. The idea is to lower the load and volume and let
your body recuperate. Dont worry, youre not going to lose any size in such a short
period of time. You could just take a week or 2, split your body in half, hit the gym 2
days per week, and hit each muscle group with a 2-3 sets in the 12-15 rep range stopping
well short of failure. Or just do 2 fairly easy full body workouts per week.

Q: Do I have to take appetite suppressants like ephedrine and caffeine during the
fat burning phase?

A: No, you certainly dont. I wrote about them because they can be a useful option to
help reduce appetite. If you feel uncomfortable taking them its no big deal. Your results
wont be affected, youll just have to fight your appetite a little more.

Q: In your theory section you recommend training a muscle group heavy once per
week and light again the same week, but on this program there are only 2 heavy
workouts the 2
nd
week?

A: On this program that recommendation really only fits in with the first week. In the
first example I gave, on day 1 youd come in and hit chest and back heavy and shoulders
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and arms light. On day 5, youd hit shoulders and arms heavy and chest and back light.
Youd hit legs heavy on 5 and light on day 6. The following week everything would be
heavy, since youre only doing 2 heavy workouts.

Q: Can you be a bit more specific on how much I should be eating during the mass
gain phase?

A: Its hard to be all that specific because metabolisms vary considerably. I know one
guy approaching about 8000 calories per day who still sometimes has trouble getting that
scale weight up. In contrast, another person the same size might gain weight on only
2500 per day. If it were me, on days 1 and 2 I would eat 1.5 grams of protein per pound
of lean body mass per day, 3 grams of carbohydrate per pound of lean body mass per day,
and neglible fat intake. On days 3-11 I would eat 1.5 grams of protein per pound of lean
body mass per day, about 2 grams of carbs per pound of lean body mass per day, and
maybe 50 grams of fat per day. I would take in quite a bit more nutrition and food during
the 2-3 hour post-workout period then I would the rest of the time. On days 12-14 I
would eat 1.5 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight, 75 grams of carbohydrate per
day, and fairly neglible amounts of fat. I know by doing that Ill get the results I want,
but you might have an entirely different metabolism so you have to kindve experiment.

Q: How would you modify this plan for an athlete?

A: You wouldnt need to modify much at all. If youre that concerned with putting on
non-functional muscle, you might eliminate the density and metabolic fatigue
stimulating stuff (rest-pauses, high-rep, sets etc.), and stick to a rep range of 6 and below.
You might also insert some movement work like sprints or plyometrics prior to your
workouts on day 3, 5, 8, and 10.

Q: In all your examples you have us taking day 11 off. Can I train on this day if I
want to?

A: Yes, you definitely can. I assumed most people would be doing the light full body
workout on day 12 so I gave them day 11 off. You can still train on that day if you want
since the full body workout is light and wont interfere much with recovery. However,
most people just like to have a day off before that workout. Also, if you plan on doing
intervals and cardio on day 12 instead of the full body workout, you would probably
WANT to weight train on day 11.

Q: In the training examples you gave do I have to use the exercises you laid out or
can I choose my own exercises.

A: Definitely choose your own exercises. As long as youre training your body with
compound movements youll be fine.

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Q: You talk about the importance of eating and you make it sound like the more
you eat the better off you are. Isnt there a threshold where increased calories dont
do anything extra for muscle growth but just lie down more fat?

A: Yes, youre exactly right. There is a point where increased food intake wont do
anything extra for muscle growth, but will make you fatter. If I were to guess Id say its
probably at about 750 calories over your maintenance level per day. The hard part is that
as you gain bodyweight your maintenance intake is always changing and often going up
at a rate that cant be explained by bodyweight increases alone. As you gain weight, your
body tends to resist you by increasing your metabolism. So you end up having to eat
more and more to maintain or gain. Let me give you an example: You might have a 150
pound guy who starts off eating 3000 calories per day initially might be gaining at a rate
of nearly 2 pounds per week. Yet, by the time he eats 180 pounds, he might have to eat
5000 calories per day just to maintain his weight. See, the metabolism increased more
than the bodyweight. Thats why you have 250-pound guys eating 8 or 10 thousand
calories per day. They probably didnt start off eating nearly that much but by the time
they bring their scale weight up to a level that exceeds how much their body wants to
weigh, the metabolism increases dramatically and just maintaining bodyweight becomes
a chore.

Q: In the set and rep schemes you talked about such as 4 x 6 or 3 x 8 etc., do you
recommend a person add weight each set or stick with the same weight for all sets?

A: Either way can work fine but I would generally prefer the 2
nd
method. Say youre
shooting for 4 sets of 6 reps with 150 pounds. You get 2 sets of 6 reps with 150 pounds
on the first 2 sets, but lets say you only get 5 and 4 reps on the last 2 sets. As soon as
youre able to get 6 reps over all 4 sets, youd increase the weight. You can also combine
the 2 methods. In other words, increase the weight for 2-3 sets and maintain the weight
for several sets. So a 5 sets of 5 progression could look something like this:

Warm-up- bar x 10
Warm-up- 95 x 5
Warm-up- 135 x 5
Set 1- 185 x 5
Set 2- 205 x 5
Set 3- 210 x 5 (heaviest working weight of the day)
Set 4- 210 x 5
Set 5- 210 x 3 (came up just a bit short on the last set)

Q: Im setting my diet up during the fat burning phase and want to allow myself
100 grams of carbohydrates? Should I subtract grams of fiber when Im figuring
out my carbohydrate allotment?

A: Yes, you should subtract grams of fiber, since fiber is indigestible. For example, an
entire 1-pound bag of frozen broccoli contains about 15 grams of total carbs, but 5 of
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those are from fiber. So, each pound of broccoli contains about 10 grams of net carbs,
which youd count towards your daily allotment.

Q: Several Questions: You talked about insulin levels, glycogen levels,
carbohydrate intake, and fat intake.

1. Are you saying that as long as glycogen levels aren't full that carbohydrates
won't convert into fat?

2. Do most people that aren't dieting have full glycogen stores?

3. Since insulin can make a person fat and carbohydrates stimulate the most
insulin, I thought carbohydrates make a person fat?

4. What about protein? Does it convert into carbohydrate at all?

A: Good questions. Yes, ingested carbohydrates will be used to replace depleted muscle
and liver glycogen stores. These stores are generally NOT completely full in most
people. Contrary to popular belief, even when these stores are full, carbohydrates still
don't easily convert to body-fat. In controlled studies done to monitor carbohydrate to fat
conversion, people have been overfed 10,000 calories of carbohydrates for days and only
converted a couple hundred calories from those carbohydrates into fat. So how does
insulin help make a person fat? Well, for one thing the elevated insulin levels associated
with the carbohydrate intake inhibit the release of stored body-fat. Your body can either
use fat for fuel or it can use glucose. When you have elevated insulin and elevated blood
sugar levels, your body will be in sugar burning mode. In sugar burning mode, any fat
you ingest will be stored as body-fat. So if you want to eat high carbs and NOT get fat,
you pretty much need to make sure you keep fat intake to a minimum.

** Unfortunately, muscle growth seems to occur best in sugar-burning mode.

Now, what about protein? Yes, protein can either be used to repair tissues or it can
convert to glucose through a process called gluconeogenesis. Approximately 50% of the
protein you consume in excess of your daily demands can be used to convert to glucose.
So, let's say you require 100 grams of protein per day for tissue maintenance, rebuilding
etc. You decide to eat 200 grams. The first 100 will go towards repairing tissues. Your
body will then take the excess 100 grams and try to convert them to carbohydrate
(glucose). However, it is a costly process. Out of that extra 100 grams of protein your
body will only be able to make 50 grams of glucose. The rest is burned up in the
conversion process. Thus, protein is the macronutrient least likely to make you fat.


Q: Can I perform cardio on day 12 in conjunction with the whole body light
workout?

A: Yes you certainly can if you feel like you need it.

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Q: Can you review your philosophy on stimulation, supply, and signaling. Basically
it sounds like you're saying the body responds to increasing loads and increasing
volumes only as long as enough food is available?

A: Yeah that's true for the most part. Increases in size are really just protective
mechanisms to protect the body from large volumes of ever increasing amounts of
tension, or bar weights. The stimulation (or training) part of hypertrophy stimulation
basically sends a signal that tells the body that it must protect itself. The body responds
in turn. Here's an example that may help:

A few years back a friend of mine found this stray dog that must've been about a year old.
The dog was full grown and normal sized everywhere except it's neck, which was about
half the size it should've been. The problem was, someone had put a collar on that dog as
a little puppy and it had never been taken off. The dog's neck adapted to the collar by
inhibiting growth in the neck to keep him from growing into the collar and choking
himself to death. That is an example of a protective adaptation.

Basically when we train with weights we send our body a signal that says "OK body you
need to protect yourself from what I'm throwing at you." Of course we don't really say
that - ideally we would like our body to get bigger without us doing anything, but that's
how our body perceives our workout. To see examples of this "protective message"
amongst various athletes all you have to do is take a look around:

Gymnasts inherently have well developed lats and triceps in proportion to the rest of their
body. What is their body protecting them from? Probably the large volume of pullup
and dipping variations in their training. You also notice they have small legs and that can
be explained by the fact that they don't create much tension in their legs from training.

Powerlifters tend to have extremely big butts, spinal erectors, traps, and hamstrings.
What is their body protecting them from? Probably all the low bar squats and deadlifts
they do which engage a lot of glutes, erectors, traps, and hamstrings. (Interestingly
enough, even though powerlifters are not typically after size increases, the amount of
muscle they carry in those muscle groups will be better than most bodybuilders).

Then you have bodybuilders, who intentionally create excessive tension in ALL major
muscle groups, thus they tend to have well developed muscles all over.

So, we go in the gym and train our butt off in an effort to signal our body to protect itself.

Now, once that signal is sent the body can basically do 3 things: It can:

1. Get bigger and stronger
2. Get stronger (increase neural efficiency)
3. Get better at performing the same workouts (do nothing or stay the same)
4. Go backwards (Overtrain)

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Number one is what we want. We want to get bigger and stronger. Number two is what
occurs to a large extent with people like lightweight olympic lifters, wrestlers, gymnasts
and other people who compete in weight class events. They get a LOT stronger without
getting a whole lot bigger. Number 3 is what occurs with people who do the exact same
workouts with the exact same weights with the exact same diets at the exact same
bodyweight as they were doing a month, a year, 5 years, or ten years ago. Number 4 is
what happens when people overdo it. They simply run themselves into the ground and
get weaker.

Ok. Now, lets say your body makes up its mind to get stronger in order to protect itself.
That's a fairly easy adaptation as it doesn't require much of anything extra to carry out
that adaptation. The body simply makes better connections between your mind and
muscles. But let's say your training and recovery are proficient enough that your body
makes up its mind to get bigger in order to protect itself from what you're throwing at it.
It still needs enough nutrition floating around to carry out that adaptation.

We've all probably seen very skinny people who might have jobs as movers and such
who move heavy stuff all day long and are strong as ox. They do get a lot stronger yet
often don't get bigger because they don't eat enough. One of the things that anabolic
hormones do is lower the threshold of extra nutrition necessary to stimulate muscle mass
increases. They make the body more prone to say, "let's get bigger", and also make the
food you eat work better.

Q: How important is meal timing and combining? Should I separate carbohydrate
meals from fat containing meals?

It's not all that important in the big scheme of things but if it helps you better control your
macronutrients have at it. If you separate your carbohydrate and fat meals and have
protein at each meal you'll automatically tend to increase your protein to carb and fat
ratio. That in itself can be a positive thing if you're the type of person who tends to lose
control with your eating. Consuming the majority of your carbs around breakfast and
within a few hours after your workout can also be a positive thing as the body is best apt
to deal with them at those times. However, strict meal combining is not really necessary
because the effects of a meal last longer than just a few hours and insulin is not required
to cause fat intake to lead to fat storage.

Lets say you take 2 people and put both of them on 3000 calorie diets with 200 grams of
protein and 400 grams of carbs. Person A eats 6 meals per day with 3 protein and carb
meals and 3 protein and fat meals. Person B eats 6 meals per day with protein, carbs, and
fats at each meal. You're unlikely to find any differences whatsoever between the 2
because the total daily macros are exactly the same.




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Closing Thoughts

I sincerely hope youre enjoyed this information and you find it useful in your muscle
building efforts. If youd like to read more of my articles on the topic of building muscle
and shedding fat please go to the following link:
http://www.higher-faster-sports.com/bodybuilding.html

-Kelly