Copyright © 2015 Guide to Gaining Muscle by Steve Hall Electronic books, also known as ebooks, are protected w
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Copyright © 2015 Guide to Gaining Muscle by Steve Hall Electronic books, also known as ebooks, are protected worldwide under international copyright and intellectual property law, the same as printed books, recorded material and other literary works. Under Copyright Law, “Literary Work” includes “computer”, “computer program”, “software”, and all related materials sold online, including electronic books (ebooks), and adobe acrobat PDF files. Copyright infringement, trademark infringement and theft of intellectual property are serious crimes. Copyright infringement is a felony and civil fines for conviction of such infringement now begin at $150,000 per infringement. Criminal fines for infringement begin at $250,000 and may also result in up to five years in prison. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: No part of Guide to Gaining Muscle may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying recording, or by any informational storage or retrieval system, without expressed, written and signed permission from the author (with the exception of brief quotations as used in reviews or discussion groups, with attribution to the author and source).
Disclaimer Before starting any new nutrition or training programme please check with your doctor to clear any exercise and/or nutritional changes with them before beginning. This material is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Steve Hall is not a dietician or medical practitioner, all information is intended only to help with the cooperation of your doctor, in your efforts toward desirable weight levels and health. The information provided should not be used above that suggested by your doctor, it is not presented with any guarantees of any kind. The information in this document is supported by research by various government and regulated organisations and peer reviewed studies. Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface Introduction Part 1 Nutrition Chapter 1: What We’re Consuming. Chapter 2: How Much We Need. Chapter 3: Where To Get It From. Chapter 4: How to Ensure Progress. Chapter 5: The Icing on the Cake by Citadel Nutrition. Part 2 Training Chapter 6: How We Build Muscle? Chapter 7: The Building Blocks of Muscle? Chapter 8: Revive’s Ultimate Lean Muscle Programme. Part 3 Everything Else Chapter 9: Mindset. Chapter 10: Sleep. Chapter 11: Tracking Progress. Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
PREFACE I have written this book because too many people are either spinning their wheels in an attempt to stay lean while getting bigger, or they’re adding needless fat to their physique. Neither of these situations are any good and to be honest I find it frustrating to see, as I have been there myself. I did the traditional ‘Eat Big to Get Big’ protocol and I have stagnated for far too long in an attempt to stay lean. I wrote this book to help prevent either situation arising, and allowing people to Get Big and Stay Lean. I am very jealous. Jealous of you because you have access to information I wish I had seen before I touched a weight or protein shake. The book is as it says comprehensive; I am going to go over nutrition, training, mindset, sleep, supplementation and much more. Leaving no stone unturned, providing a complete plan, allowing those who want to put on size without adding layers of fat to do so. All my prescriptions are evidence based, using the insights from some of the greatest minds in the fitness industry, including but not limited to; Alan Aragon, Brad Schoenfeld and Eric Helms. Alan is a nutrition researcher, with his research review he delves deep into the science and spits out the information to the lay public. Brad Schoenfeld ‘the hypertrophy expert’ is arguably the top researcher when it comes to gaining muscle mass, and he has used this to his advantage winning multiple titles as a natural bodybuilder. Finally, Eric Helms is also a natural bodybuilder who has coached hundreds to win titles on the natural stage, furthermore he is a researcher in the nutrition and training field. So we have nutrition, training and the aspect of coaching very well covered. The purpose of this book is to not only allow people to Get Big and Stay Lean, but also to educate and empower. Giving the reader the programme but also the knowledge to why what they Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
are doing works. Personally, I think this is extremely important. By the end of the book you will know; how much protein, fat, carbohydrates and calories to consume and why, how to get big and strong plus the core principles behind building muscle and finally touching on mindset, sleep and how to track progress. By combining all this you cannot fail to Get Big & Stay Lean. When writing the book I wanted to get all geeky, but remembered that the purpose is to guide the reader to build size, not to learn about the human metabolism. I have done my best to balance the science and the nerd inside me with the important information, providing both education but also the necessary application to provide results. Using what I have learnt from the seminars I have been to, the research papers and books I have read and the results I have gotten not only for myself but also my clients, to give you the complete guide to building lean muscle. I would like to thank personally everyone who has contributed to the book and encouraged me along my personal journey as a coach, natural bodybuilder and powerlifter.
Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
INTRODUCTION Who Am I? I am Steve Hall, first and foremost I am a brother, son and a friend, secondly I am an Online Coach and Personal Trainer, finally I am a Natural Bodybuilder and Powerlifter. My love for weight training developed at the age of 15, first out of curiosity and then I got addicted to seeing my body change and progress. Unfortunately the progress stalled, I came to the limit of my ‘newbie’ gains, for years I lifted weights, took protein shakes and yet nothing. The moment it all changed was when I unfortunately had a run in with a van. The injuries I suffered had me bed ridden and unwell for enough time for my weight to drop by more than 30lbs. Any ‘newbie’ gains I had made were gone. That along with my ill health left me unhappy and depressed. It was here I really Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
developed my knowledge of how to train productively and how to feed my body correctly for my goals. What I did in the past didn’t really work, so I knew that there must be a better way. I educated myself thoroughly, using a combination of books, seminars, and coaching qualifications. I used my newly acquired knowledge to quickly develop past my old physique. So much so that in 2011 I decided I wanted to compete as a natural bodybuilder one day, and in 2014 I began my contest prep. I placed in the top 5 in both the NPA and UKDFBA novice classes. With this knowledge and experience I help people across the globe reach their health, fitness and physique goals. Fitness and Health is my passion and to help others to achieve their goals is my mission, Revive Stronger together. Find out more about me: ● ● ● ●
Website: www.revivestronger.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/revivestephenhall YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/steveFitnessHub Instagram: www.instagram.com/revivestronger
Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
Who is this book for? “I have been training for a few years, seen good results, making great initial gains. However, I am now stuck, I am not seeing the steady progress I saw in the past”. Does that sound familiar? If so this book is for you. It is inevitable, the longer you train, the nearer you edge towards your genetic potential. Once you have got to this point you’ll have built a decent amount of muscle and strength. You’ve become more efficient and that means to progress you need to do more to tax your body enough to cause it to adapt. That in turn means you need to get a little cleverer with your training, one single session isn’t enough to spur gains. You're no longer a newbie. Plus you’re stronger, so you can deal with heavier loads, and these are very taxing. So, you cannot go heavy all the time. You need to train in a fashion that will produce enough stress to overload your body but also with enough time to recover to allow the adaption to take place. Inside this book you will get a periodised training programme that is designed specifically for you, organised in a fashion that’ll allow you to continue gaining muscle. It will balance stress and recovery to spur gains. However, even with the right training programme you will not get the results you desire without correct nutrition. Yeah, yeah we all know to get big, you need to eat big, but this only gets us so far. This book is for those who want to gain all the muscle and none of the fat. Eating big will get you big, big and chubby. Inside this book you will get a personalised nutrition plan that is designed to get you big while keeping you lean. Nutrition and training are key when it comes to gaining muscle mass. However, often missed are areas such as mindset, sleep and tracking your progress. Do you know how long you should sleep for? Do you get frustrated with your results and wish you Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
had a way round this? Do you wonder whether you should stop gaining and cut back some fat? All of these questions and more are covered inside this book. My mission is to provide results and educate, this is a comprehensive guide to gaining muscle, so you will get big, stay lean and know why. Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
PART 1: NUTRITION
Chapter 1: What we’re consuming. What I look to achieve with this chapter is to give you the bare basics of nutrition. With this knowledge you will then have a better idea about what foods are giving you, because our body doesn’t know if we’re eating an apple or if we’re eating sweets. Our body just sees nutrients, those being macronutrients and micronutrients. Calories Calories are our bodies energy source and they are derived from our macronutrients. Macronutrients Protein Protein is simply godly, widely known as the building block of muscle, protein is used principally for growth and repair. That means if we wanna build big muscles we have to eat protein. It is an essential macronutrient, that means we must consume protein in our diet, we cannot produce it in other ways. Per gram it contains 4 calories and along with growth and repair it plays a part in our immune and hormonal functions. Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
Carbohydrates Carbs unlike protein and fat are nonessential, which means we can function without consuming them. However, don’t think that means they’re useless, our body uses them as a short term energy source and as our activities intensity increases the more our bodies use carbohydrates. That means when we’re pushing, pulling and generally lifting heavy we’re using carbs. They are our bodies preferred energy source, meaning if you want to perform at your best in the gym, you want to eat plenty of carbs. Per gram they contain 4 calories, further to providing energy carbohydrates also come in the form of fibre, which plays an important role in a healthy digestive tract. Don’t underrate a healthy digestive tract, just trust me on that one. Fat Like protein it’s essential, needed for healthy hormone function, and it’s used as a long term energy source. As activities intensity decreases the more our bodies use it as a fuel (the opposite to carbs). So as you’re sitting reading this book, you’re burning fat as a fuel source. Per gram they contain 9 calories, and they are therefore the most energy dense macronutrient. So for those of us looking to gain size but struggle to eat, fat being so calorie dense can really help. Plus fat tastes damn good, what doesn’t butter make better? Oh and try melting a chocolate bar over hot oatmeal or a sweet potato, om nom nom. Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
Micronutrients, Minerals & Water Micronutrients and minerals are also found within our diet, just in much smaller amounts, hence micro. They are however very important, as a deficiency can cause harm to our health and performance in the gym. If we cannot perform our best in the gym, we limit our muscle building potential, a definite no, no. Officially they are organic and inorganic compounds, and we only need small amounts of them. Different foods hold various amounts, just like the macronutrients. The best way to ensure you are getting a sufficient amount? Eat a well rounded and balanced diet. That means no food banning or discrimination, variety is not only the spice of life, but the key to a healthy life. I will touch more on food selection later. Water is needed for us to live, without it we would die. It becomes more concerning the more endurance based your sport is and the higher the temperature of the atmosphere the activity is conducted in. So for us guys lifting weights in a air conditioned gym, we don’t have to drown ourselves in the stuff. However, just a 2% decrease in bodyweight from water can impact our performance, so we want to keep well hydrated especially around workouts. Hopefully that scares you enough into ensuring you are well hydrated, however, remember food contains water, and any beverage you consume is almost entirely water. How do you know if you are drinking enough? The approach I find best is to drink to your own personal thirst, if that isn’t specific enough then go for 1 liter per 1000 calories consumed or ensure 5 of your daily urinations are clear.
Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
Chapter 2: How much do we need? So now we know the basics of what a diet provides we can look into applying it specifically to each individual. Here I would like to be clear, there is no catch all ‘muscle gaining diet’, by that I mean we must adhere to the Principle of Individuality. Everyone is unique. Yes we all have the same basic biology but our nutritional requirements vary with age, goal and lean body mass. So diets based on macronutrient ratios, where we consume a given % of our diet from protein, carbs and fat are useless. As are diet plans, because not only is eating chicken, rice and broccoli hella dull, it also doesn’t adhere to the principle of individuality and won’t provide sufficient variety to one hit your micronutrient requirements or two keep you being consistent, because it is inflexible and restrictive. What Determines Our Calorie Intake? Our caloric burn is the total amount of energy we burn in a day and is made up of a multiple of factors. We first have our Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) the amount we would burn lying in bed, at room temperature on an empty stomach. The larger you are and the more lean mass you have the higher this will be. Hence why you see massive bodybuilders chowing down all the time. Then we have our Thermic Effect of Activity (TEA) the energy we use for formal activity. The more you move and the higher the intensity of that activity the higher this will be. Again this is why Michael Phelps needs 12,000 calories daily and can get away with eating a reported three fried egg and cheese sandwiches, an omelet, bowl of grits, three slices of French toast and three chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast. That man can eat! Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
Next is the Thermic Effect of Food (TEF) to get energy from our food we must expend some energy to fuel digestion. So everytime you eat something energy is needed to break it down, so you must use energy to get energy. Different macronutrients take differing amounts of energy to be digested, but we don’t need to get into that just now. Finally we have our NonExercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT) and NonExercise Physical Activity (NEPA). NEAT is all subconscious movement like tapping your foot and NEPA is any activity that isn’t classed as exercise, like washing the dishes. NEAT and NEPA vary massively person to person, it’s the wild card when it comes to estimating calorie burn. You see some people spontaneously move a lot more, and others are more sloth like, this isn’t something we can control. Also while two people may be the same size, weight and go to the gym 4 times a week, if one has an active job such as a builder, while the other is desk bound, their energy demands will vary considerably. When we combine all the above they come together to form our Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) and by all purposes this is what we are concerned about. Our TDEE is dynamic, unfortunately we do not always need the same amount of energy to maintain our weight all the time, if we did it would make things way too simple. If any of the above components of our metabolism change, so does our TDEE. For example, you switch jobs, from being a bar man to being office based. Your NEAT dramatically drops, because you are no longer on your feet and getting people drunk, you’re now sat down and the most movement you get is playing with your mouse. Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
As you can see our BMR makes up the most of our metabolic pyramid with TEF making up the least. Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
The Best Way to Determine Calorie Intake First I am going to tell you the best way to determine the amount of total calories you require, it isn’t the easiest, which is why I will also give you another way. What you need to do: using a food diary track your total caloric intake each day for a period of 2 weeks, during this time also weigh yourself in a consistent manner. By consistent I mean don’t go weighing yourself at 10pm after a night on the town and then two days later first thing after a shower. Try and weigh yourself every morning, after visiting the loo, but before consuming any food or liquid. And when I say keep a food diary, I want you to track everything, from the milk in your coffee to the after dinner mint. If your weight stayed roughly the same across the 2 weeks, say within a couple of lbs, you can average out your calorie intake and know that figure is approximately maintenance for you. If you gain or lose more than a couple of lbs, then you know whether you are above or below maintenance. This is the best way because it is completely specific to you, remember you are an individual, even if you are the same weight and train the same amount as your friend, there could still be stark differences in how many calories you burn. A Way to Determine Calorie Intake As you can tell the above method requires considerable time and effort, and I know not everyone wants to have to go through it. So a less accurate method is to use a generic calculation based on a few factors to give you an estimated maintenance intake. However, just like the method stated previously this one will require some manipulation to ensure you’re getting what you need. It also is very generic, remember that pesky principle of individuality, we are all unique and have different biochemistry, so we cannot expect simple calculations to work perfectly. Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
Estimated Maintenance Calorie Calculation: Body Weight in pounds x 13 to 16
Factors putting you at the higher range: male, high training volume, active job and low bodyfat % (sub 15% for males, sub 25% for females). Factors putting you at the lower range: female, low training volume, sedentary and high bodyfat % (over 15% for males, over 25% for females).
Example:
Subject: Female who works an office job who is lean and trains 4 times per week for an hour a time at 130lbs. So we have a sedentary female but she is lean and fairly active outside of her job, so we may choose 14 as her multiplier. 130 (lbs) x 14 (multiplier) = 1820kcal Here we can see her estimated maintenance calorie intake is 1820 There are a number of different calculations out there including; The KatchMcArdle Equation, Owen Equation, MifflinSt Jeor Equation, HarrisBenedict Equation, Aragon Equation, WHO Equation and The Cunningham Formula. They normally land within around 200400 calories of one another, and for simplicities sake because every calculation is an estimate I like to keep things simple by using the above.
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Calories So now you have a figure for the number of calories required to maintain your current weight, but we wanna gain muscle, so something needs adjusting. To build mass we require a surplus energy intake, that means eating more than we burn. Think of trying to build an extension to a house, you need some extra building material, without some additional bricks and cement there is no way you’re going to get that extension. In the same way we need extra calories to build more muscle. Don’t be that guy who in an attempt to stay lean doesn’t eat enough to grow. I’ve been there and all it leads to is a whole lot of staying the same. How much of a surplus depends on a few factors, and here we are trying to stay lean so the guiding influence is our training experience as that dictates the amount of muscle we can realistically gain overtime. Many experts in the field have tried to come up with rates of muscle gain for natural athletes according to years of ‘dedicated’ training, there are currently no studies conducted however. With the above being said there is no real way to know your genetic muscular potential, that is highly individual. Also note that I haven’t just said training, I have said ‘dedicated training’. Dedicated training means you have been following a training routine that focuses on the main compound movements and ensures progressive overload. That means you are making sure to get in movements that are multijoint, such as squats, deadlifts, presses and pulls, and you are either increasing the weight of these movements or the number of reps. This ensures that total volume is increasing and assuming good form, making sure to use full range of movement, you sir are training in a ‘dedicated’ manner. I will come back to training in a separate chapter, you’ll then fully understand how to train very effectively. Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
Using a combination of the experts recommendations and my personal observations I have come up with the following: Category
Rate of Gain*
Calorie Surplus*
Novice 2 years or less of 24lbs per month dedicated training
10 15%
Intermediate 24 years of 12lbs per month dedicated training
5 10%
Advanced 4+ years of dedicated training
N/A
Negligible
* Females can half this figure.
If we go back to our female office worker, we know she needs around 1820kcal to maintain her weight. She has only been training properly for a year, and therefore she can look to gain 12lbs a month and would want to be in a 510% calorie surplus: 1820 x 1.05 (105%) = 1911 1820 x 1.1 (110%) = 2002 She would therefore want to consume between 1911 to 2002 calories to gain lean muscle. So now we know how many total calories to eat. However it doesn’t end there, to best ensure we are growing lean muscle we need to be a little specific about where these calories come from. As I said at the start of the chapter, it isn’t as simple as using a given ratio, we need to be a little more specific. Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
Macronutrients Calories must come from somewhere right? Right. They come from the macronutrients; protein, carbs and fat. As stated before, protein and carbs contain 4 calories per gram, whereas fat contains 9. The amount we want of each is dependent on our goals, age, preferences, lean body mass, total mass, gender and lifestyle. I will go over some guidelines of how much of each you might want to shoot for. Starting with protein and fats, as these are essential finishing with carbohydrates. Protein Favourites first, let me introduce protein, as we know this is the building block of muscle, very important for someone looking to gain lean muscle mass. I recommend you consume between 0.8 1.2 grams of protein per pound of body mass. The older and leaner you are the closer to the higher end I would go for, and therefore the younger and fatter you are the lower you’ll shoot. Fats Next up fats, again there is a certain amount you want to get for health reasons, to keep your body functioning at its best. The amounts I advise are between 0.3 to 0.6 grams per pound of body mass or 2030% of total calories , I would go further towards the higher end the older you are and the more total calories you are consuming. Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
Carbohydrates The rest of your calories can then be made up of carbohydrates , the only nonessential macronutrient. Nonessential for living, but for getting the most from your workouts and to operate at your best day to day, they should be considered essential. The image above shows you two different nutritional intakes for the same person (me) but they’re a year apart. There is over a 2000 total calorie difference between the two, and as you can see protein is pretty much the same in each but fat and carbs are starkly different. In 2014 I had been dieting for many months and was under 165lbs whereas in 2013 I had been eating in a surplus for over a year and was over 190lbs. Yet in both I was maintaining weight. This shows a few things: our total calorie needs change as our situation changes and protein is the most consistent macronutrient as it is determined by lean mass. Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
Chapter 3: Where to get it from? You’re pretty close to getting started on eating for muscle. You know how much you need to eat and how much needs to come from each macronutrient. That’s calories, fats, carbs and protein sorted. That begs the question, what foods do we eat to get these macronutrients, and how do we ensure we get sufficient micronutrients? That is what this chapter is all about, where to get your nutrition. And don’t worry it isn’t going to be a list of ‘superfoods’ or a diet based around sweet potato, broccoli, chicken and peanut butter. It’s a diet that is based on preferences and is varied but with a foundation of wholesome, unrefined foods. You will learn to love everything you eat, and know it is taking you towards your goal of lean muscle mass.
Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
The Pillars of Flexiblity Ranges Now you have the ability to work out how many calories you want to consume and how much of each macronutrient you want to make up that calorie allowance. Here I want to add a note about preference, and how it is incredibly important to enjoy your diet. For example, some people love to eat protein, they live for a big steak, they therefore would want to opt for the higher end of the protein scale, and that is absolutely fine. The key here is being consistent with your nutritional intake, and if you can manipulate your macronutrients in such a way that makes the diet more enjoyable, you will be more likely to stick to it. Furthermore, if you were to follow the above process you would come out with some very specific numbers, and if you were to go by these you would really have to closely monitor everything you ate, or find yourself never ever getting the ‘right’ numbers. This is not a livable diet, that will destroy consistency, and therefore destroy progress. So, I suggest you round your calories to the nearest 100 and round your macros to the nearest 5 . Then just as you have a range for calories you can set a range for your macronutrients, for the typical person looking to gain lean weight I would go for a 10g range on protein and carbs, and a 5g range on fat. You can then work within these to hit within your calories. This will be much more enjoyable and makes things incredibly flexible, making the diet much easier to stick to. Making you more consistent. You will work out how many calories to consume then divide this into macronutrients using the above recommendations, these will then be guided by preference, rounded and given a range. By doing this you are consuming enough of the right amount of nutrients to produce the lean muscle gains you are after. Not only that but it will be productive, it will be easy and enjoyable, making the diet into a consistent lifestyle. Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
This might all sound like a bit much right now, so lets walk through an example, step by step, explaining each so that you can easily do it for yourself. Example: Subject: 25 year old male, weighing in at 183lbs at 14% bodyfat. He cycles 2 miles to work as a sales assistant each day, works out 4 times a week, plays football on the weekend and has been productively training for 3 years. He is therefore very active, due to being on his feet most of the day and with a large amount of formal activity as well. We can use this to dictate his activity multiplier: 183 (lbs) x 16 (multiplier) = 2928kcal Here we can see his estimated maintenance calorie intake is 2928 calories. With three years of training under his belt he is looking to gain 12lbs a month, and therefore wants to be in a 510% calorie surplus. 2928 x 1.05 (105% = 3074kcal 2928 x 1.1 (110%) = 3221kcal So to gain at this rate he wants to consume between 3074 to 3221 calories. Now we can divide these into the macronutrients: Protein: 183 x 1 = 183g (183 x 4 = 732kcal) Fat: 183 x 0.5 = 92g (92 x 9 = 828kcal) Carbs: 3074 (732+828) = 1514 divide this by 4 = 379g Calories: 3221kcal
Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
If our subject were to consume the above bolded numbers it would give the lower end of his calorie aim. However, as I said before, I don’t like aiming for specific numbers. So to make things a bit simpler I would round these out and give some ranges. To make things real simple let’s give a 10g range for fats and 20g range for carbohydrates and protein. So our male would aim for: Protein: 185 to 195g Fat: 90 to 95g Carbs: 380 to 390g Calories: 3200 to 3300kc al The Priority Scale The ranges really make the diet flexible, but there are some days we need to stretch this even further. This is where the priority scale comes in handy. This is a three layered scale, with the outside being the most important and inside the least. It allows you to know you are still making good progress, yet gives that extra bit of flexibility if so desired. Using this scale we can therefore get our priorities in order. Imagine you are out all day, making sticking to the ranges harder, or maybe you have a birthday meal, a night out or are going away for a few days. During these times you may require more flexibility than the ranges provide. In these cases you can look to this scale. Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
First things first, aim to get within the calorie range, this is because calories regardless of macronutrient intake control whether we gain, lose or maintain weight. Next up is to try and land within your protein range and then carbs and fat. That means you could trade up some of your carbs one day for a bit more fat, but you’d try and remain in your calorie and protein ranges. Heck you could go hitting layers 1 and 2 and see terrific results, especially if this allowed you to be consistent. Food Selection Now having read the above you are probably thinking ‘so I know how much I need to eat, but what foods should I eat to get to these calories, protein, fat and carbohydrates?’. And in comes the final pillar of flexibility, food selection, and you may have guessed, it is incredibly flexible. A brilliant way to present this is using Alan Aragon’s Healthy Diet Plate. I advise you follow a flexible diet; this means you can eat whatever foods you want, provided you hit your macronutrient numbers each day, pick mainly nutrient dense foods, and still get adequate fibre, vegetables and fruits. Yup you heard right, you can eat whatever you like, the one caveat being you must meet you micro and macronutritional needs. By default this means your diet will consist of mainly unprocessed foods. No food can be described as ‘good’ or ‘bad’, as the healthfulness of a food comes down to your diet as a whole. Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
The bullet points below should give you a better idea of how to ensure you’re getting enough of the ‘good’ stuff:
Consume a minimum of 10% of your carbohydrate in fibre, with a minimum of 25g (if you eat 200g of carbs, get at least 25g of fibre daily, if 300g then 30g of fibre). Consume a minimum of 2 portions of fruit and vegetables per 1000kcal. Consume a range of fats, including nuts, vegetables oils, animal fat and Omega3’s.
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Variation is Key You have probably heard of foods being described as ‘dirty’ or ‘clean’, I have a big problem with this because there is no clear definition. For one person dairy might be dirty but for another it might be clean, same might go for wheat or even fruit. Through the years our opinion on food has changed, we have been carb phobic, run from fat and now gluten free fads are everywhere. The idea of what is good/bad or clean/dirty has and continues to change decade to decade. No matter what you say, variation is very important, by limiting yourself to certain foods or food groups you are missing out on key micronutrients. This can and does lead to nutrient deficiencies and the diet you thought was ‘clean’, ‘good, or ‘healthy’ actually isn’t. Even when eating sufficient calories, if you do not have ample variation of food choices you can suffer nutrient deficiencies. For example Kleiner et al found that female bodybuilders were ‘remarkably deficient’ in calcium intake, likely due to their dairy avoidance, this was despite consuming adequate total calories. So your food selection should be guided by preference, hit the macronutrient ranges, should be varied and abide by the Flexible Plate. However, I must add if someone wants to consume all of their calories from unrefined, whole foods, that is OK too, so long as that is their genuine personal preference.
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Meal Timing When it comes to when we should get our nutrition I would like to refer to Alan Aragon’s Continuum of nutrient timing importance. In which he depicts that intermediate trainees who are seeking to improve body composition really do not to stress when it comes to when to eat. However, to maximise your chances of gaining muscle I would try and have 35 meals a day, splitting protein relatively evenly. Of course your prime focus should be on hitting total daily macronutrient guidelines. That is as prescriptive as I am going to get, because it simply isn’t necessary to stress about ‘anabolic windows’ or going catabolic. If you don’t provide your body with the macronutrients it needs by the end of the day, no ‘clever’ eating strategies are going to do jack for your results.
Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
Chapter 4: The Icing on the Cake? Supplements By Citadel Nutrition Many of us have made the mistake of placing an overemphasis on supplements, and the truth is your training and nutrition will be the most important factors in obtaining your fitness and nutrition goals. The usefulness of supplements is also a function of your overall training level, for instance for elite athletes, the difference between first and last place can be less than 1%. Supplements do and will help if you make informed and evidencebased decisions on which ones to use. This approach will also help you save much of your hard earned money. Making Good Supplement Choices Some key principles to consider when deciding on which supplements to take are:
Overall body of evidence. Nonproprietary blends. Effective Doses. Expert Review.
Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
Overall Body of Scientific Evidence When it comes to the overall body of evidence, you need to find out if there is scientific backing/evidence showing that the supplement you are considering will actually provide a positive benefit. This is independent of marketing hype or what your training partner tells you, you need to verify for yourself if the supplement ingredient or product you are taking is going to actually provide benefit. One of the best resources to do this is Examine.com. Examine.com synthesizes the studies done on supplement ingredients and takes into consideration factors like the number of studies and the significance of conclusions, as well as study design. This is a great first stop in making smart supplement decisions. Nonproprietary Blends Proprietary blends are bundled ingredients in which the amounts of all the ingredients in the blend are stated on the supplement label as one combined number. Simply put, the blend lists ingredients without the amounts. This practice is prevalent in the supplement industry and one of the biggest hurdles for you as the consumer to know what you’re putting into your body and to be able to determine if the ingredient in the product is at an effective dose. To the right is an example of a proprietary blend. Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
The FDA requires that the dietary ingredients in a proprietary blend be listed in order of predominance by weight. So in the example above, maltodextrin is the most abundant ingredient in the blend. Effective Doses Does the ingredient dose used in the product replicate the dose used in scientific studies of clinical trials when the ingredients’ effectiveness was established? There isn’t any point in taking a dietary ingredient if you aren’t getting an effective dose. Here’s an example of a nonproprietary blend with some proven ingredients – but at ineffective doses.
In the example above, the mix contains 30 mg of creatine monohydrate. The daily effective dose of creatine proven through research is 3–5 g. You can see that the mix is under dosed (by 100 times), so you won't get any benefit from that ingredient. Although creatine is a proven ingredient, it also has to be combined with an effective dose to ensure that you’ll see a benefit. Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
Expert Review Sometimes you may find it difficult to sift through all the research, or not understand the terminology used in the scientific literature. Sometimes you just don’t have the time nor interest to spend hours researching, and just want to know a trusted source to turn to for supplement and nutrition advice. Trusting and listening to expert advice is important, and most likely they will have a deeper understanding of mechanism of actions and synthesizing the overall body of evidence. In addition to Examine.com which we have discussed above, three experts we recommend you start with in your question towards supplement knowhow is Alan Aragon, Eric Helms, and Lyle McDonald.
Our Recommendations Taking all of the above into account, and the context of this book; getting big while staying nice and lean, we will make some supplement recommendations. We will go over the benefits of each and the amounts you need to take to see those advantages. Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
Creatine Monohydrate Supplementing with creatine increases your intramuscular stores of phosphocreatine, which allows your body to resynthesize an energy source in your body called ATP. In simple terms creatine increases performance during high intensity activities that require short bursts of energy like weightlifting and sprinting as well as activities that require a mix of short bouts and steady state energy. Creatine is probably the single most studied dietary supplement with hundreds of studies showing a positive performance benefit. We believe creatine is a must have performance supplement for strength/power athletes and beneficial to other types of athletes as well.
Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
According to the International Society of Sports Nutrition , creatine is the most effective ergogenic (performance enhancing) nutritional supplement currently available to athletes in terms of increasing highintensity exercise capacity and lean body mass during training. The most important thing is to make sure you’re getting a daily maintenance dose once loaded. You do not need to worry about when during the day you take it. Although maintenance doses as low as 2g/day have been shown to be effective, most of the research showing creatine’s positive effect used a maintenance dose of 5g/day, so we recommend 5g. Beta Alanine Supplementing with betaalanine increases intramuscular carnosine levels which helps reduce fatigue. It’s been shown to improve muscular endurance and strength/power when paired with creatine. In simple terms beta alanine reduces fatigue, improves muscular endurance, and helps with strength/power when paired with creatine. Betaalanine is another widely researched performance increasing supplement with 20 plus studies showing a positive performance benefit. If you examine the numerous studies of betaalanine you’ll find that the majority administered it in divided doses. Betaalanine has been shown to cause a histamine response – an irritating and Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
stinging/burning sensation in the skin (commonly referred to in bro circles as tingles but more scientifically referred to as paresthesia). We believe this is the reason why it was administered in divided doses. Based off the studies, it appears an effective total daily dose is anywhere from 2.4 to 6.4grams. 4 grams taken daily is a nice middle ground. Like creatine, betaalanine has no acute effects in terms of increasing performance. Some users report a slight stimulatory effect from the “tingles”, but the tingles do nothing outside the placebo effect in terms of performance. There is a loading period, similar to creatine, with betaalanine and it can take up to a month of supplementation to increase skeletal muscle levels of carnosine to the point of seeing a performance increase.
Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
Caffeine Ah good ol’ caffeine. From an energy, alertness, focus, and just combating sleepiness perspective I think most of us have a pretty good understanding of what caffeine does. We love it; we find that it gives us the extra boost to train with the intensity we like. From a dosage perspective it appears the sweet spot is 35 mg per kg. Therefore 200mg seems to be a nice catchall recommendation. Caffeine’s link to strength/power performance has not been established and more studies are needed. Some studies show a benefit and other studies show no significant advantage. Summary
Creatine Monohydrate: 5g daily taken anytime.
Beta Alanine: 4g daily taken anytime
Caffeine: 200mg pre workout.
Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
Chapter 5: How to Ensure Progress? Making Adjustments So you have been eating within your calorie range for a few weeks and your weight hasn’t budged. What do you do? As noted earlier our TDEE is dynamic, as you grow, so does your need for energy. Therefore, we must make adjustments as we progress. You might be in the opposite position, you’re gaining weight too fast. Again this can happen for a multitude of reasons, you might have over estimated your activity levels or maybe you no longer walk to work etc. ‘ RULE OF 100 ’ ... +/ 100kcal... In both cases there is a simple rule I like to follow, that is The Rule of 100. Brad Schoenfeld was the creator of this rule, and he suggests we make small 100 calorie adjustments. So if you’re gaining too slow, add 100. If you’re gaining too fast, subtract 100. Keep making these adjustments until you have hit your desired weight gaining goal. Caution, let things settle, don’t go adding/subtracting 100 willy nilly, wait a week or two before changing things again. Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
The Key to Results Everyone knows the saying that the key is consistency , this is never more true than with our nutrition. I mean I have used the word enough times in this book so far you’re probably beginning to get the picture. If you don’t consistently eat in a calorie surplus you will not gain very much muscle. However, if you eat far more than you need, you will gain muscle, but also a lot of fat. So the key to lean muscle is getting sufficient total calories from the right macronutrients day in, day out. So to be consistent we need a diet to follow the following key characteristics to a achieve healthy results driven diet: 1) 2) 3) 4)
Respects personal preferences. Covers macro and micronutrient requirements. Contain no unnecessary restrictions. Be socially acceptable.
If you were to follow and use the pillars of flexibility and use the calculations above you will nail the 4 points above on the head. Remember, building muscle takes time. This means we need to take a long term view, that means if we slip up one day, it is fine, get back to your diet the next. To gain lean muscle, you need to get the right nutrition in, most of the time. Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
PART 2: TRAINING
Chapter 6: How We Build Muscle. Next up is training, this goes hand in hand with nutrition. It isn’t 80% diet and 20% training, it is 100% both. Without a progressive, periodised and personalised weightlifting programme no matter what you eat, you will not build very much muscle. The same goes for training, even if you have the ‘perfect’ workout programme, without sufficient and personalised food intake, you will not build very much muscle. It is 100% training and 100% nutrition.
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Hypertrophy The Growth of Muscle Hypertrophy is the growth of existing muscle cells. We want it, we want it bad. There are two types; myofibrillar which is the growth of contractile fibers and sarcoplasmic which is an increase in the storage of glycogen and water amongst other things. There is also something called hyperplasia, which is the increase in the number of muscle cells, the degree to which this is possible is currently under debate.
Current research suggests hypertrophy is produced via three main mechanisms; mechanical tension, metabolic stress and muscle damage. Each is produced through different ways of lifting, and to build the most muscle possible it is important to achieve all three. Remember that all are intertwined, we are never solely training one aspect, and all three come together to give max muscle growth. We must develop our training to produce the best mix of these factors to gain the most muscle possible. Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
Mechanical Tension When we lift weights we produce mechanical force on the muscle, this force disturbs the integrity of our muscles, these are then converted into chemical signals that ultimately enhance anabolic signalling. The more weight you lift, the greater the amount of tension that is produced. This tension is considered to be the most important factor in muscular development, but it has an upper limit and once reached other mechanisms are needed to spur growth. So to produce mechanical tension we need to lift heavy, bring on the 15 rep max attempts. Metabolic Stress This refers to the buildup of metabolites and the reduced pH of blood, both of which can influence muscle remodelling. These build up as the muscle fills with blood and is starved of oxygen, there are various ways this can be produced. One being restricting blood flow, this can be done with an extrinsic source, such as the use of a cuff. Research on bedridden patients has shown that wearing a cuff can reduce catabolism, even without any exercise. Furthermore, when such a cuff is worn while using submaximal weights research has shown it can spur significant muscle growth. This can be very helpful when holding certain injuries and is called blood flow restriction (BFR).
Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
Metabolic stress produces various compounds that indirectly mediate cell signalling. Cell swelling is the phenomenon of increasing water within the muscle, this creates intracellular pressure in the cell. It is thought that this pressure is perceived as a threat to cell integrity and causes the cell to respond by reinforcing its structure. So to produce metabolic stress we need to achieve a pump, bring on the high rep bicep curls or BFR! Muscle Damage Lifting weights causes disruption to muscle cell’s structure, this leads to a compensatory response in which the cell grows to reinforce its structure. Think about someone throwing a punch at you, you’re sure as hell going to be ready for it if they try it again, just like the muscle cell, you are reinforcing your defences. It is produced when there is localised damage to the muscle tissue and is generally experienced as delayedonset muscle soreness (DOMS), and can last up to three days. We’ve all been there, aching after a tough leg session. The stress is perceived as a threat to the fiber’s structure, and it releases immune cells to the area. This in turn produces cytokines that activate the release of factors involved in muscle growth. Our muscle cells try and adapt to the perceived threat by reinforcing their structure, much like we saw with metabolic stress. As we adapt we no longer experience DOMS, this doesn’t mean we’re not growing, it just shows our bodies have got more efficient at dealing with training stress. Thus, when we try an exercise for the first time we are likely to experience DOMS, but after a few weeks, this will diminish. As our cells adapt we must use greater levels of intensity and variety to create any type of soreness. So the most well developed and advanced trainees will rarely experience DOMS. This is good, because it means we can attack weights fresh each time.
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So to produce muscle damage we need to vary our training, but not too frequently, this means using different exercises. In Summary We want to stress our muscles, so that they have to respond by growing stronger and larger. Essentially ‘No Pain, No Gain’. The way we do this needs to vary if we want to grow the most muscle possible, so we want to: 1) Lift Heavy Ass Weight (thanks Ronnie Coleman for that one). 2) Feel the Pump (Like Arnold always says) 3) Change up your exercises now and then.
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Chapter 7: Programming for Muscle Growth Programme Variables Now we know what the mechanisms are that produce muscle hypertrophy we can develop a training programme that combines them all. So you know we’re going to be lifting heavy, getting pumped and using a wide variety of exercises to do so. When creating a programme there are several aspects we can manipulate to bring about muscle growth, including; intensity, volume, frequency and modality. Next I will touch on each, before rounding off with a training programme set up to produce maximal hypertrophy. Volume Volume is the total amount of work performed in a period of time, this is therefore reps X sets. It is usually expressed as total load, this is reps X sets X load. For example, an athlete performs 5 sets of 5 reps at a weight of 125kg, to give a total volume load of 3125kg. With more volume we have increased time under tension, metabolic stress and therefore a greater total growth response to training. However, like all things, more is not always better, with more volume comes an increased risk of overtraining. This is because there is an inverted U response to training, thereby initially more volume leads to greater hypertrophy, but there is then a point at which we receive depreciating returns. Therefore, we must be careful when programming total volume. We can clearly see this below in figure 1. Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
Figure 1 The Inverted U Graph Diminishing returns Intensity Generally intensity is classified as the % of 1 rep max (1RM) used. With the higher the % the greater the intensity. We can split intensity into three main areas; low (less than 60% 1RM), medium (6585% 1RM) and high (90%+ 1RM). The higher the intensity the fewer total reps that can be performed, and each contributes to different mechanisms of hypertrophy. When using higher reps with lower intensity we produce a lot of metabolic stress, but see insufficient use of high threshold muscle fibres. Medium intensity allows us to work with around 615 reps, and this enables a spectrum of muscle fibres to be stimulated and allows for greatest total volume to be used. High intensity loads stimulate those higher threshold muscle fibres and create a lot of muscular tension. However, they do not produce very much metabolic stress nor can they be used at high volume. So you can see each rep range has its place, and therefore we will be using them all in our training. Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
Intensity can also be looked at as the amount of effort put into a set. As we all know, you can work with a relatively light load and still push it to failure, making for a pretty intense set. Failure is when we cannot produce the force necessary to overcome the load. You know when you get pinned on a squat, or you can’t lift the bar off your chest, that’s failure. This can be potent as the closer we get to failure the more muscle fibres utilised and the more metabolic stress produced. However, just like volume of load it has an inverted U relationship and if we go to failure too often, we can become overtrained or injured. If we’re injured, we cannot train, if we aren’t training we cannot promote muscle growth. So in general we will stay away from failure.
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Modality This refers to the choice of exercise, as we all know we can work our muscles using a variety of lifts. For example the quads, they can be worked via a squat, leg press, leg extension, lunge etc. Furthermore, we can vary the angle muscles are worked at, for example an incline, decline or flat bench press. Plus the equipment we use can also be changed, it might be a cable, a kettlebell, a machine, a barbell etc. Every lift can have its place within the right programme, the key is making sure you have a reason for every exercise you choose. None are better than any other for producing muscle hypertrophy, the best is to use a varied set of lifts. Working your muscles at multiple angles with many different exercises. Frequency When I refer to frequency I am talking about the number of times you workout a muscle group each week. After a workout protein synthesis upregulates, which is great, this is needed to build muscle. This lasts approximately 48 hours, which means it makes good sense to train muscle groups at least twice a week. Yes that’s right, no more training single body parts per session, it simply doesn’t promote optimal conditions for growth. Bye bye chest day, say hello to upper body day. There are multiple ways to split up your programme to achieve this sort of frequency, and the best for you will be the one that allows you to progress and fits with your lifestyle. Not only does increased frequency allow for our protein synthesis to be upregulated for longer periods of time, but it also allows us to get in more practice and with practice comes perfection. Our neuromuscular systems get more efficient, and lifts become smoother as our form improves, this in turn allows us to use more weight, and produce more overload. However, we must be aware that we need to recover, we cannot train the same muscle groups Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
every day, just like training with too much volume we increase our chances of overuse injuries and becoming overtrained. In Summary Therefore, you can see that we are manipulating volume, frequency, modality and intensity to bring about a training response. Each must be carefully programmed, because too little will limit growth but too much could lead to us being unable to train all together. Progressive Overload The above programming variables are all great and their proper placement in a training routine is important if we want to gain lean muscle mass. However, no matter how good your programming is, if you do not progressively overload your muscles, they will not grow. Why? Because our bodies strive to remain the same, this is called homeostasis, and it is a state our bodies love to be in. The human body doesn’t want to grow big muscles, so we have to force the issue. To grow we must force our bodies to adapt, and the way to cause this adaption is to provide progressively greater loads. Progressive overload can come about in a variety of ways, but the most common are increased weight or increased number of reps, these in turn mean more total volume. Without progressive overload our bodies don’t have any reason to grow. No matter how good a pump or mind muscle connection you get, if you’re not increasing weight or performing more reps, you won’t get any bigger. Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
Programme Development The key to programme development is the Principle of Individuality, just like nutrition, there is no ‘best’ programme, only a best programme for the given individual. Therefore, if you wanna pack on muscle it is no good looking at the biggest bodybuilders programme and copying it. It might be the best programme for him, but it certainly isn’t going to be right for you. Periodisation Periodisation is the manipulation of the programme variables; volume, intensity, modality and frequency in an attempt to optimise a given fitness component, in this case muscle hypertrophy. It is based of the General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS) theory, developed by Selye. Essentially our body goes through the following stages; alarm, resistance and exhaustion. The alarm and resistance stage are needed for muscle growth, but we want to avoid exhaustion, thus we periodise our programme variables in a way to get the right balance. Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
There are almost infinite ways to periodise a programme, and arguably a case can be made for any. The most well known and common examples are linear and nonlinear periodisation. Linear periodisation describes a programme that focuses on individual components for long periods of time, generally moving through hypertrophy, strength and power phases. A nonlinear approach however, attempts to develop multiple components over a shorter period of time. For the Revive’s Ultimate Lean Muscle Programme we are going to use a Daily Undulating Approach (DUP) a nonlinear method in which variables will be manipulated weekly.
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Chapter 8: Revive’s Lean Muscle Programme This programme is 4 weeks long and can be repeated over and over again, until progression stalls. We will be developing aspects of strength, hypertrophy, endurance and power all at once. The base programme is going to be set up with the intermediate trainee in mind, and we will be ensuring to hit each muscle group a minimum of twice per week. Most importantly, we will be growing muscle! Primary Movements The Primary lifts are going to form the foundation of our programme, they are the ones we will focus on progressing, all your accessory work will be in place to help these lifts. They’re multijoint and you’ll get the most gains from these. You’ll be benching and squatting twice a week and deadlifting once.
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Every week you will be working with loads 80% or greater than your 1RM, this is because when we use this amount of load we maximise the number of muscle fibres recruited, every rep, so the more used the more chance we have for them to grow. You could lift a lower % of 1RM and go to failure, but you’ll only maximise muscle fibre recruitment for a brief period. Conversely you could lift loads greater than 80% for fewer reps, but your volume will be lower and you won’t recruit any more muscle fibres. Not that those rep ranges don’t have their place. As the weeks go by you will gradually decrease your volume and increase intensity, each week squats and bench press will have two sessions, one ‘strength’ session and one ‘hypertrophy’. Deadlifts are a bit wild and really take their toll on our body, thus I only programme deadlifts once a week, and you will always be going heavy. This programme uses elements of what is called autoregulation. This simply means you have the ability to really go at it the days you feel good, and dial it back the days you don’t. Our bodies are not preprogrammed machines, so following a very rigid programming structure makes little sense. Thus, although you have a given predetermined number of sets to hit, you have rep ranges. So if you’re feeling good you may go in and hit the given sets and weight for the upper end of the rep range. Or maybe you had a late night and hadn’t eaten well beforehand, thus you fall at the lower end of the rep range. Once you can hit the upper end of the rep range for every set you want to increase your 1RMs, to again start over. In this sense we are following linear progression. Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
Week 1 Reps Week Primary Move Workout 1 Strength
Workout 2 Hypertrophy
Squat
5x24 @ 80%
3x911 @ 60%
Bench
5x24 @ 80%
3x911 @ 60%
Deadlift
5x24 @ 80%
N/A
Week 2 Mixed Week Primary Move
Workout 1 Strength Workout 2 Hypertrophy
Squat
4x24 @ 85%
3x79 @ 70%
Bench
4x24 @ 85%
3x79 @ 70%
Deadlift
4x24 @ 85%
N/A
Week 3 Intensity Week Primary Move
Workout 1 Strength Workout 2 Hypertrophy
Squat
3x24 @ 90%
3x46 @ 80%
Bench
3x24 @ 90%
3x46 @ 80%
Deadlift
3x24 @ 90%
N/A
Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
Week 4 Test Week AMRAP ‘as many reps as possible’ (stop before form breakdown). EMOM every minute on the minute. *Note drop one set on all accessory movements Primary Move
Workout 1 Strength
Workout 2 Dynamic Effort
Squat
AMRAP@95%
10x2 @ 65% EMOM
Bench
AMRAP@95%
10x3 @ 60% EMOM
Deadlift
AMRAP@95%
15x1 @ 70% every 30s
A note on Dynamic Effort Dynamic Effort training has been called many things including; power and speed work. In essence they are all talking about the same thing: ‘Maximally accelerating submaximal loads as fast as possible’. That sentence gives us some clues, we now know we want to be moving the bar with speed and completing the rep as fast as we can. Furthermore, we also know we are using submaximal loads, which means weights lower than our 1 rep max. When we complete reps that require maximal force we improve the efficiency of our motor unit recruitment. That means when you’re going in the gym and picking up hefty loads, doing triples, doubles or singles, you’re generating maximal force to move the weight, thus training your motor recruitment efficiency. But we cannot sustain heavy lifting for long, you have a limited capacity to recover from this sort of onslaught, if you continued to hammer at these sort of loads you’d wind up injured. Respect the weight, or get injured. Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
In comes dynamic effort work. We can work on our motor recruitment efficiency by generating force quickly and explosively, requiring a coordinated and simultaneous recruitment of high numbers of motor units. Think of riding a bike along a cycle path, it is narrow and you have to really concentrate to keep in the area, you just can’t go all that fast. Then compare this to riding in an open field, you can go hell for leather, because you have all the room in the world. This is like our motor pathways, at first it is as if they are narrow and we cannot go all out, as we get more efficient at using them they widen and we can put more force through. So not only can you perform more reps overall, and thus perform more total volume. You’re doing a lot of reps with submaximal reps so can really practice on perfecting technique. Plus because it is a lower % of your 1 rep max you can recover from this sort of work much faster. I need to stress something here, you might think working with such low loads for low reps is easy. You might be thinking it sounds boring, dull or weak. That would be a mistake, and if you attempt such training with that mindset, you will have failed. Dynamic effort work must be intense. The ‘Test’ week is essentially a taper week and it’s used to allow you to recover from the previous work accumulated, looking to be stronger on the other side (supercompensation). The use of dynamic effort work at this time allows you to focus on improving form and you can recover better than normal, due to the submaximal loads used at lower total volume. Plus you get all the benefits from training dynamically. Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
Secondary Movements This is where we can have some fun, in terms of choice, and programming method. After you have hit the prime movements you will be tired, mentally and physically. The purpose of your secondary exercises is to support and promote the development of the primary movements, taking you closer to you goal of gaining maximal muscle. Here you will see the greatest variety of exercise, including singlejoint and unilateral movements. That means things like leg extensions, bicep curls and lunges. You will be looking to progress the weight and/or reps when you can. The way this will be planned is you will have a number of sets, say 3, and then a rep range, say 810. Once you can lift a chosen weight at the top end of the rep range for all the sets you will increase the load chosen.This is called double progression and may look like: Week 1) Incline Bench Press 3x810 30kg x 10, 9, 9 Week 2) Incline Bench Press 3x810 30kg x 10, 10, 10 Week 3) Incline Bench Press 3x810 32kg x 9, 8, 8 As you can see you started using 30kg and by the second week you were able to lift at the upper end of the rep range for all the sets, so you knew next week you needed to increase the load. Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
You would continue to use that higher weight until you again reached the top end of the rep range for every set. This is vital as to develop and grow we need to progressively overload our muscles. We want to avoid being comfortable, continuing to push for progress. As said previously we are utilising DUP and therefore we will be working on a variety of rep ranges across the week. An easy way to split this is on your heavy days you will perform your accessory movements in a 48 rep range and on your light days you will go for a 815 rep range, on your deadlift days I advise making all singlejoint exercises in the higher rep range and those multijoint exercises in the lower. Each will initially be performed for just three sets. The particular rep range you choose within those will depend on the exercise you select. As we begin we will only choose 46 secondary exercises to include on each workout, then as we get adapted to the work we can think about progressing this. It is always better to start with less rather than more. Remember enough is better, not more is better. Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
Picking your Secondary movements: Pick one exercise for each of the following movements. Upper Horizontal Pull Vertical Pull Vertical Press Tricep Bicep
Lower Hip Hinge Lunge Hamstring Calve Core
Full Body Pull Variety Press Variety Rear Delt Weak Points
Three sets of each, except calves in which you perform 46 sets. 48 rep range on ‘Strength’ days and 815 rep range on ‘Hypertrophy’ days. Combine antagonistic pairs e.g. perform a bicep curl, then tricep extension in a superset type fashion. This has shown to have hypertrophy benefits and saves time. Change your accessory moves every month.
Upper Body Main Secondary Work (examples) Horizontal Pull
Vertical Pull
Vertical Press
Seal Row, Pendlay Row, 1 Arm Row, Machine Row, Chest Supported Row
Chins, Pull Ups, Lat Pull Down, Moto Row, 1 Arm Lat Pull Down,
BB/DB Overhead Press (OHP), 1 Arm OHP, See Saw Press, Seated OHP.
Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
Lower Body Main Secondary Work (examples) Hip Hinge
Lunge
Romanian Forward Lunge, Deadlift, Straight Walking Lunge, Legged Deadlift, Reverse Lunge. Glute Ham Raise, Hip Thrusts, Good Mornings.
Core Plank, Ab Rollouts, AntiRotation Press, Leg Raises, Carries.
The Weekly Outlook You will be training 5 times a week, 2 upper, 2 lower and 1 full body session. I would always place all your strength work and hypertrophy work together, so if you lift strength upper on Monday you will want to hit lower strength in that half of the week. Anecdotally this tends to promote the best recovery. You can split the sessions across the week to suit you, it might seem like a lot to train 5 times without a break, but the body will soon adapt. So if you like to have your weekends free, feel free to do this. However, it might make sense to have Wednesday and Sunday as your rest days, to help break up your week. So for example: Monday Bench Hypertrophy Tuesday Squat Hypertrophy Wednesday Deadlift Thursday Bench Strength Friday Squat Strength Saturday Rest Sunday Rest Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
Can only train 3 days a week? Combine your Squat and Bench days & put some of your pulling assistance work with deadlifts.
Monday Bench & Squat Hypertrophy Tuesday Rest Wednesday Deadlift (additional pulling assistance) Thursday Rest Friday Bench & Squat Strength Saturday Rest Sunday Rest Can only train 4 days a week? Combine your Deadlift day with your ‘strength’ Squat day. Monday Bench Hypertrophy Tuesday Squat Hypertrophy Wednesday Rest Thursday Bench Strength Friday Squat & Deadlift Strength Saturday Rest Sunday Rest Rest Times, Tempo & Failure I like to keep things as simple as possible, especially for intermediate lifters, you can overcomplicate and confuse things no end. So when it comes to rest and tempo I like to keep it really simple. Rest periods will be largely dependent on how you feel, by that I mean I want you to rest as long as it takes for your heart rate and breathing to come back to base line, once here you’re ready to lift. Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
As you can imagine for multijoint compound moves you’ll get more out of breath vs. those isolation exercises. Now for tempo, all I wish you to do is control the negative and move the concentric powerfully. You can look into time under tension and try and manipulate this with slow negatives etc. but in reality a lot of the time as long as you are looking to progressively overload the movement it isn’t an issue. The RPE Scale Essentially a scale of 110 of how hard the exercise feels. It stands for Rate of Perceived Exertion and takes some getting used to, but is a great autoregulatory tool. 10 Absolute true max (avoided on almost all occasions) 9.5 Close to a max but you could grind out 1 rep. 9 You have 1 rep left in the tank. 8.5 You have 2 reps left in the tank. 8 You have 3 reps left in the tank Avoid failure when possible, only reaching it on higher rep isolation movements. Please work to form failure; the period at which you cannot complete a full rep with good form. So rest as long as you feel you need and lift with purpose and control. I’d also avoid failure whenever possible, aiming to always leave 1 rep in the tank. Programme Overview Training 5 times per week, 2 upper & lower body days with 1 full body workout. Reps and weight will be Undulated throughout the week, with 1 ‘Hypertrophy’ & 1 ‘Strength’ workout. Progression is to be sought every 3 weeks, as intensity is ramped up to finish in a ‘Test’ week. Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
Avoid failure, looking to achieve an RPE 89 in most cases. Secondary exercises changed monthly.
Progressions You may find that after a few cycles of the above that your progress stalls out, so what do you do? An option would be to extend your cycle, so instead of having a 4 week cycle you would increase it to 6 weeks. You could then spend an extra week in the volume and mixed weeks, this would help promote muscle growth and help you in your intensity week. Alternatively, you could try adding in additional volume on your secondary exercises, by either adding in new exercises or increasing the number of sets. I recommend changing the modality of your secondary exercises at the end of each cycle, this will promote muscle growth. Furthermore, you could use your secondary work to improve your weak areas, for example if you struggle on the initial pull from the floor on deadlifts you could include some deficit pulls. Remember our main aim is to ensure we are progressing on our primary movements, as this shows we are progressively overloading our body, the key to growth. Another option would be to increase the intensity of your hypertrophy days, making the % used 5% higher, making the day more of medium to high intensity. Or maybe you add an additional light day, increasing the frequency of one of your primary lifts and adding in some additional accessory work. Essentially you’re manipulating: Volume, Intensity and or Modality. As you can see there are many numbers of ways the programme can be manipulated, key is that you do small subtle changes, using the Maximin principle, doing as little as possible to progress. This is important as it’ll keep your gains going for longer, meaning more lean mass building potential. Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
Cardio ? When it comes to cardio most see it as a tool to burn fat. Obviously when we’re looking to gain muscle, we are in a calorie surplus, therefore we ain't going to be losing any fat at the end of the day. So why on earth would you do cardio if you are actively trying to be in a surplus of energy and not a debt of energy? Surely it just steals calories that could be going into being used to add slabs of muscle to our physique. Also, we want to get big and strong, not good at running, cycling or rowing. Wouldn’t it take away from our main focus? This is what I am going to assess. First off, lets look at what cardio is; according to the American College of Sports Medicine, cardio, is any activity that raises our heart rate and respiration while using large muscle groups repetitively and rhythmically. Let me repeat that last bit, ‘using large muscle groups repetitively and rhythmically’, that sounds a lot like lifting weights. Yup, if you’re lifting weights you are doing cardio. However, depending on the intensity of cardio we utilise different energy systems. General Physical Preparedness (GPP) When we lift weights, it is normally pretty intense, at this intensity we are using carbs as our main fuel source. Therefore, what we tend to miss out on is the low to moderate intensity work. Plus doing intense cardio is hard, it takes its toll on our bodies, and although some may argue it can help build lean muscle mass, I’d recommend not to do it. So should we do any cardio at all? In my opinion yes, because there are numerous benefits to be found from doing small amounts of low to moderate intensity work that will improve our chances of gaining lean muscle mass. This is where General Physical Preparedness (GPP) comes in, Verkhoshansky & Siff in their book Supertraining define this as Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
‘the progressive development of motor skills through a wide variety of nonspecific exercises’. It’s role is to expose us to a wide variety of physical fitness tasks to enhance well rounded and healthy development. Exercises chosen are general in nature, but specific in function, allowing such improvements even though they are different than those of the desired sport type. In essence you get fit to train, we are building and or maintaining a functional base for our sport. GPP provides an exclusive role in our training programme: helping the formation, strengthening or restoration of the habits which enhance our sport, providing a means of educating different abilities that our sport doesn’t provide and to counteract the monotony of our training. Plus when we do this type of activity we pump blood through our muscles. Blood is how our body carries nutrients, if we can promote these to our muscles then they can make use of them more readily. Going towards building more muscle. Second, if you are not doing any sort of sport or have an active job alongside your weight training and you drop all your cardiovascular work, you’ll lose any conditioning you once had. This will lower your work capacity and your recovery between sets and workouts will be longer. However, if you can do some lowmoderate intensity cardio you’ll improve your work capacity, you’ll be able to use more load, and with more load comes greater gains. Third, when we overeat, those calories must go somewhere, this is called nutrient partitioning. If we train regularly our nutrient uptake into our muscles increases, and less is stored in places we’d rather it not such as fat cells. So some lower intensity cardio can help drive nutrients where we want, our muscles. The fourth and final reason I like to see some sort of cardio kept intact is because it helps us keep fat burning pathways active. We are already making sure to limit fat gain by being in a well calculated surplus, so this isn’t to burn calories. It is because Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
eventually you’ll want to try and drop fat at some point in the future, which I will be discussing in detail later. When looking to drop this extra fat we want to have the ability to use fat as a fuel, and by keeping in some cardio when gaining mass we maintain this ability. Thus when you go to diet down, your body will be better able to use fat as fuel. So we now know it is important to maintain some level of cardio in our regime. It can increase our recovery, inside and outside the gym, it’ll help direct our calories into our muscles and it’ll allow us to maintain the efficiency of our fat burning metabolic pathways. Cardio Protocol: It needs to be fun, different to your usual training and nonexhausting. Use a wide range of different movements and modalities. Kept to lower intensities, around 6070% of maximum heart rate. Performed for 15 30 minutes, 1 to 3 times a week. Exercise Selection We want to choose exercises that improve certain traits that are needed for our weight training, but generally neglected. As we are trying to build muscle mass we are using big compound movements such as squats, plus we’re getting pumped with bicep curls, so doing more of these isn’t what we are looking for. To get fitter at many different tasks we need to provide all round physical development therefore, for GPP should cover the full body, thus we need to include: a squat, press, hip hinge, pull and then a form of bracing, crawling and jumping. We will develop general endurance, strength, coordination and flexibility. Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
Examples: Three Rounds of: Kettlebell swing x8, Kettlebell clean x8, Goblet squat x8, Chin ups x8, Burpees x8 = 1 Round. Single leg RDL x10, Box Jumps x6 per leg, Clapping press ups x10, Renegade row x4 per arm = 1 Round. Press Ups x1m, Chins x30s, Squat jump x1m, Mountain climbers x 1m, Farmers walk 100m = 1 Round. Steady state cycling, rowing, swimming, walking, cross trainer at 6070% maximum heart rate. Notes If you’re struggling to eat enough to gain weight, drop cardio. If done on workout days do your steady state cardio on your hypertrophy days and more intense circuits on your strength days. Always post workout. If you find the circuit training impacts your resistance training then drop it and replace it with the steady state cardio. Personally I recommend 1x15 minute circuit and 2x15 minute steady state sessions. Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
PART 3: EVERYTHING ELSE
Chapter 9: Mindset In addition to training and nutrition, a key element to achieving your goal of lean muscle mass is having the right mindset. By reading this book you have now got the knowledge of what is required to build lean muscle mass, you know the most optimal approaches to reach your goal. However, you have to keep your eye on the prize but also on the process. Your Goal Well we know your goal, it’s to get big and stay lean in the process. However, I want you to be really specific about your goals. By specific, I mean give yourself a target body weight and strength to be at in the months to come. I want you to aim high, don’t be scared, because you can only get what you aim at. However, be realistic, if you’re 170lbs now you’re not going to be a muscle bound 200lb monster with six pack abs in a matter of years, let alone months. Go back to the nutrition chapter and select your realistic muscle gains. Set short, medium and long term goals. Your short term goals should be the processes required of you each day to meet your long term goal. I will come onto that more later. Your medium goals should be target weight and strength levels each month. Finally your long term goal should be your ideal physique. Because your goal is about gaining muscle you can put 100% into it, you don’t have conflicting goals such as dropping fat, so you’ll be much more efficient and get to your goal faster. Once you have your goal, ask yourself ‘why do I want to gain muscle?’ This is important, because by asking yourself why you Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
are adding emotion to your goal, and if you have a strong enough why, you can bare almost any how. Maybe it’s because you want to be more confident, look good naked, eat more, maybe your job requires it, whatever your why, make sure you know it. The Power of Habit Determination and willpower are great, but they only get us so far. Both of them are finite resources and we shouldn’t look to depend on them. When you have a hard day at work, your willpower and determination have been used up, they’re at an all time low, if you were to then rely on them to stick to your diet and get to the gym, you’d likely fail. Sure they’re good igniters of action, but after that they don’t serve us so well.
This is a picture of my streak on myfitnesspal (food diary), it is an example of what habits can do. I’ll be honest, I’ve not tracked every single piece of food over that time, but I have logged into the app, because it’s become a habit, cemented in my life. Mindset is hugely informed by our unconscious mind, only a small number of our daily actions are governed by conscious thought, the rest is unconscious patterns and perceptions. This is where habits come in, they’re the things we do without thinking, like brushing our teeth, putting shoes on before leaving the house or logging into myfitnesspal. American motivational writer Orison Swett Marden put it this way: “The beginning of a habit is like an invisible thread, but every time we repeat the act we strengthen Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
the strand, add to it another filament, until it becomes a great cable and binds us irrevocably”. We therefore want to make working out and eating according to your nutritional needs a habit. Why? As discussed earlier, the key to success is consistency, if we can make habits out of training and eating right, well we’re set. You will achieve permanent results by picking up new habits that are maintainable for the rest of your life. But remember, be patient, as everything is difficult in the beginning. The importance of the process So you want to build lean muscle mass? You’re tired of being skinny, but don’t want to add a load of fat. Our outcome however is going to be a reflection of our daily actions, what we eat, how we train amongst others. A goal without action is useless. If you lose focus on the process, you don’t reach your goal, you fail. Plan your actions, as without doing this you are much more likely to fail. Break your goal into smaller more manageable chunks, this will help stop you becoming overwhelmed. Then when you succeed in one of these goals you’ll be motivated to move forward, continually moving in the right direction. You must look to each day, eating right, training well. So your progress is determined by how consistent you are at getting those required daily actions. So don’t keep looking at the mirror and stepping on the scale, thinking ‘Am I there yet?’, focus on the process. It might be: I will log all my food today, Wednesday is grocery shop day, tonight I am going to get 8 hours sleep, I will train weekdays and take weekends off. If you smash these, you will demolish your outcome goal, you will Get Big and Stay Lean. You must do something everyday that moves you closer to your goal. Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
So next time you get frustrated, unmotivated or discouraged, think back to what needs to be done today, not on the months ahead. Focus on the task in hand, in the present moment. You vs. You Everyone can improve their physique above and beyond where it is today. Seek to achieve your own personal best. Stop looking at others to define your own worth and value. Remember throughout this book how every nutritional and training protocol is based on the principle of individuality. That is what you must remember, you are you, no one else has your genetics or lifestyle, so don’t look to others to provide your value. Having idols is fine, you can aspire to the physiques of others, but do not feel like you’re a failure if you don’t look like someone else. Take progress pictures, look back at where you have come from, and use these as powerful motivators to push forward. This will keep you on track and prevent you getting frustrated or disappointed, for no reason. Have drive to beat yourself, it’s you vs. you. Take responsibility for your actions, you decide how you act, the actions you take and therefore you are in control of the way your body looks. Success is being better than your past self, it is having the knowledge that you gave your all to become the best of which you are capable. Below is my body transformation to date, from 2011 to 2014.
Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
‘Revive Stronger’ Affirmation The above is an example of my affirmation, it is a statement of belief. I use this quote daily, I tag every post I make #REVIVESTRONGER. For me it means always progressing, improving and bettering myself, never satisfied, putting in the work to then revive stronger on the other side. This helps me to be as positive as possible about myself and my actions, so that I push out all the doubt or negative selfperceptions. Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
‘REVIVE STRONGER’ An affirmation is an excellent tool for the acquisition of your goals. Why? Because our mind is so powerful. Ever attempt a rep max attempt, or a new weight and doubt yourself? You missed that rep right. You talked yourself out of attaining the goal. Just like our mind can stop us progressing, it can positively enhance development. Whenever a doubt comes into your mind, or you find yourself thinking negatively, think back to your affirmation, soon enough those negative thoughts will subside. So I advise you to select an affirmation that means something to you, or go ahead and use Revive Stronger.
Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
Chapter 10: Sleep Sleep & Recovery So we want to build as much muscle as possible, that means we want to train at our best, and to do that we need to make sure we are not taking away from our ability to recover. Think about it this way, you could be the strongest, fittest, most hulk like person in the gym, but if you’re tired, hungry and freaking out about life, you’re not going to be able to lift like you should. Do not let this happen to you, sure life is life and sometimes we lack any sort of control over it, but we must focus on the areas we do have control over. The most important factor that’s going to impact your recovery is sleep. Sleep is literally magical, it can make or break our gains. We all know that sleep is a basic human need, it will make up about a third of your time on earth. Shut eye has been shown to impact our physical and mental health. If you ever feel drained, the best remedy is sleep hands down. Therefore, it is extremely important for us to understand how sleep impacts our performance and recovery and know what factors could affect sleep quality. So we can get the most out of our time of slumber. Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
Without getting too into the science of sleep I just want to note the two types of sleep, Non Rapid Eye Movement (NREM) and Rapid Eye Movement (REM). We first enter NREM and then there is a sequential four stages we pass through, ending in what many researchers call deep sleep before finally entering REM. Why Getting Enough Sleep Increases Our Gains 1) We learn better, meaning we move more efficiently, meaning more potential loads. 2) Our growth and repair is jacked up. 3) Our immune system is improved, we’re less likely to get sick, we’re more consistent. 4) It makes us happier, more confident and induces better choices. REM is otherwise known as ‘dream sleep’ and we spend 2025% of our time in it. REM has a major role in learning, so if we can stay in REM longer, we will learn tasks faster. Sure practice makes perfect, but research has shown that the brain continue to learn in absence of practice. This is important for those looking to develop muscle, because if you can learn how to perform movements faster you can increase the loads used sooner and create greater overload, leading to more gains. So practice plus sleep, makes perfect. Furthermore, when we sleep our bodies ability to recover increases and this peaks in the final stages of NREM. A few cool things happen during this time, that jack up growth and repair. Our metabolic activity drops to its lowest, so our bodies can focus on restoring itself, plus growth hormone is secreted. This hormone is very powerful and the best way to increase its production naturally is through exercise and sleep. Along with growth hormone, melatonin is also produced, and these two hormones have shown to promote immune function. This in turn helps reduce our chances of getting sick, and this is important, Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
because when we’re sick we cannot perform at our best, may miss training sessions and screw up our nutrition. Not only is sleep important to promote for the above reasons, but inadequate sleep is associated with poor decision making and lower levels of happiness and optimism. These two things could impact our training and nutrition. Imagine you’re tired, you cannot be bothered to cook, so you decide instead to order a takeout, and not bother trying to track your nutrition for the day. Also when the going gets tough in the gym and you need to have the right mindset, being positive and confident about hitting a weight, much harder when you haven’t got enough sleep. So good quality sleep is important if we want to stay on track. How Much Sleep Do We Need? No more thinking ‘sleep is for the weak’ or ‘sleep, pffft that’s a waste of time’, you now know sleep is absolutely essential to promoting muscle growth. But how much is enough? Well like our nutrition and training it seems the Principle of Individuality arises again, because there are many confounding factors involved when it comes to how much sleep is optimal for you. Having said that it seems that 8 hours according to current research seems to be the amount most adults need to perform at their best. However, we are not like most adults, we are looking to gain lean muscle and are training hard, it is therefore logical that we require more sleep. It has been stated that athletes should try and get 910 hours sleep during the day to optimise their performance, with 8090% of that being at night. Therefore, I suggest you try and get 810 hours sleep each day, which can be achieved through a combination of naps and prolonged sleep. Alternatively you can trial going to sleep when tired, not setting an alarm and sleeping enough so that you feel refreshed in the morning. Do this a few times, noting down how long you have slept, find and average and there you have it, the right amount of sleep for you to perform at your best. Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
How To Sleep Better Sleep is important, but good sleep is far more superior. Ever had one of those nights where you have been in bed hours, had loads of sleep, but you still feel like utter crap the next day? That is because the quality of your sleep is very important, if not more vital to get right than the time in bed. There are numerous things that can muck up your sleep, so instead of going through each one and why, I am going to give you a list of things that will improve your sleep. Sleep plays a central role in aiding shortterm and longterm recovery. It must be treated with respect, as it is as important as both our nutrition and training. Without adequate sleep we simply cannot perform at our best, even short term disturbances in our sleep can reduce performance, emotional wellbeing and immune function. It is so important that athletes even receive coaching on their sleep. So to get the most out of your training programme and nutrition we must get adequate sleep.
Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
Chapter 11: Tracking Progress Tracking Tools When it comes to making gains the most important thing is to be consistent with your nutrition, training and sleep. The phrase consistency is key must be so overused by me that if you were to collect pizza boxes each time I referenced it, well you’d have a massive bloody mountain of pizza boxes. Nailing your diet, training and sleep every single day without fail is going to see you become a beastly lean jacked machine in no time. There are some tools we can use to stay on track, and while they’re important to keep us consistent, they can also identify areas we can improve, allowing us to manipulate things when and as needed. Keep A Training Diary A training diary will allow you to not on track your weights, reps and sets but it’ll keep you focussed on the process. It is a massively important tool that far too many discount. The training diary keeps you accountable, you can see what weight you hit in the past and therefore know where you need to move. Furthermore, you can note down mood, energy levels or anything that might have contributed to the quality of the workout. These notes can help you continually progress and move forward. Remember, that which is tracked, improves. Whether it be a notepad, an excel spreadsheet or on your phone, make sure you record your training. Weighing Yourself It should come as a no brainer that you’re going to have to step on the scale at some point. As said before, you pick the amount of weight you want to gain at (for example 12lbs a month as an intermediate) and then adjust your nutrition to ensure you hit that. Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
However, a lot of people seem to screw this process up, maybe they weigh themselves in the morning one week, then two weeks later at night, maybe that night they had a massive meal just before, they’re going to be heavy right? Stepping on the scale and see they’re 6lbs up on two weeks prior. They stress out, ‘oh man, I have put on so much fat’ they decide they must therefore stop trying to gain and go on a cut. This is just one example of how you could completely throw yourself under the bus and ruin your progress. Weight fluctuates day to day, I won’t bore you with the reasons why just now, but know that today if you weigh in at 170lbs, tomorrow it would not be unusual to be up or down on this number by up to 5lbs. Furthermore, that is assuming you weigh yourself in the morning, under the same conditions. If you were to weigh yourself the same day, at morning and night, your weight will differ. So you need to consistently weigh yourself under the same conditions multiple times through the week. Plus because our weight fluctuates day to day, it makes good sense to take a weekly average, and compare that to the week before. Weigh yourself, first thing in the morning, before consuming food or liquid, after going to the bathroom, naked. Do this a minimum of 4 times a week and take an average for that week. For example, Monday you weigh in at 161.2lbs, Wednesday 163.4lbs, Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
Thursday 160.8lbs, Saturday 160.6lbs, you add these all up and divide by the number of days; 161.2+163.4+160.8+160.6 / 4 = 161.5, therefore your reference for that week is 161.5. You can then use that to compare to other weeks to make sure you’re where you want to be. So never panic over short term changes in the scale, the trend overtime is much more revealing. Keep your eye on the big picture. Take Progress Photos By taking pictures you have another tool to assess progress. They are important for many reasons; they can act as a massive motivator ‘wow look how skinny I was 2 months ago’. Furthermore, they can allow you or your coach to assess your weak and strong points. Maybe you have really large arms but small quads, you could then set up your training to prioritise your quads and focus less on your direct arm work. Not only can they identify weak and strong points of your physique, they can act as a check for posture imbalances. Maybe your shoulders cave in and therefore you need to stretch out your chest and strengthen your back. Small changes in posture can make massives differences to how our body looks and functions, so don’t discount having good posture. When To Stop? We’re after lean muscle right? There will come a time when your lean gaining will have to come to an end, because it is pretty much impossible to add only muscle to your physique. Using the above protocols you will have done everything in your power to reduce fat gain to a minimum, but over time it might add up. You will therefore want to end your mission to get big and look to trim down. Don’t get me wrong, there isn’t a time you stop gaining muscle, you can and will continue to gain muscle regardless of body fat levels. However, there is an optimal way to do it, and Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
plus this book is about getting big and staying lean, so...without further ado let’s get into why and where the cut off point is. There is something called the partitioning ratio (Pratio) this represents the proportion of lean body mass (LBM) you gain relative to the total weight gained. This ratio is governed by; hormones, genetics, diet, training and more. However, starting body fat percentage has the largest influence. The lower body fat you begin the mission of getting big the more LBM and less fat you put on. Therefore, overtime as we gain weight our body fat percentage may creep up, which in turn impacts our Pratio, and means we may start gaining LBM less favourably. So the leaner you are the more LBM you will gain in comparison to fat. This is however assuming you have been lean for a period of time, don’t expect the Pratio to act so in your favour if you’ve dieted down for prolonged periods of time. Without going into too much detail, when you restrict calories your body doesn’t like it, and its metabolism adapts, hormones adjust, and quite simply it isn’t ready to pack on a load of muscle. However, it is primed for gaining fat rapidly, this is why reverse dieting to some extent after a diet is a good idea, but that’s a massive separate topic for Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
another time. This was seen in the Minnesota semistarvation study, where men restricted calories for 6 months until reaching sub 5% body fat. When refed their bodies were primed to replenish fat stores, not gain LBM, and this was exactly what happened. It seems that when body fat gets to 15% for men and 25% for women the amount of fat we gain in comparison to LBM accelerates. Therefore keeping body fat levels below this is a good idea, the sweet spot for gaining LBM looks to be 1012% for men and 2022% for women. The picture of me above is at the peak of my offseason in 2013, I was up at over 190lbs, I actually was probably nearer 16% in this picture, but this is where I ended eating in a calorie surplus. Right so you’re at 15% (25% for women) and you want to cut down to get back into the sweet spot for getting big and staying lean. However, you know that when you’ve dieted down you don’t want to jump straight back into the mass gaining diet, because you’re body will pack on fat. Therefore, to get round this I suggest you maintain your weight post diet for at least 2 weeks before starting to pack on size again. This is to allow your body to normalise itself, and put you in a better position to gain muscle and not fat. So if you want to get big and stay lean ensure you only gain weight up until you reach the body fat cut off point, then diet down till you are at the lower end of the sweet spot, maintain for a couple of weeks and then enter your get big protocols again. If you continue to cycle like this you will be a lean, mean, jacked, hulk like machine in no time. Copyright Written by Stephen Hall
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