Take 4 Capsules for Muscle Gain and Fat Loss

Lazy people all over the world have long awaited the invention of a pill that allows them to enjoy the benefits of diet and exercise without actually having to do any dieting or exercising. Sure. Give them a pill like that, perfect the whole virtual sex thing, and they’ll never have to leave the house except for when the bug man comes to tent the place. Well, we’re not there yet – on either of those scientific milestones – but there is a substance that comes closer to that no-diet/no exercise goal than practically anything else in the supplement world and it’s derived from the herb, coleus forskohlii. The active ingredient is called forskolin and it can do a variety of things for the body that you normally can’t get without dieting and exercising. It does this primarily by stimulating production of an enzyme named adenylate cyclase, which in turn increases levels of a cellular messenger called cyclic AMP, or cAMP for short. In turn, elevated levels of cAMP can have the following physiological effects: Increased thyroid secretion of T4 (increased fat burning). Increased testosterone levels (increased muscle, sex drive, fat burning). Increased production of protein kinase (which leads to increased levels of hormone-sensitive lipases (HSL), which helps break down triglycerides). Increased protein synthesis in skeletal muscles. Increased activation of brown adipose tissue (more fat burning, although through a different mechanism). Lowered blood pressure (healthier cardiovascular system). Inhibited platelet aggregation (less clotting). Increased vasodilation (more blood flow). Increased bronchodilation (more air flow through the lungs). Now if you were to take one of those lazy people I mentioned, put him or her on forskolin for a few weeks, and then give them a physical, he or she might well show improvement on a number of medical parameters, just by taking a couple of capsules a day. But imagine what could happen if somebody combined exercise with forskolin. You might really have something then. Lots of Studies The effects I listed above aren’t just hearsay or conjecture. Much of it’s been tested and validated through various studies, the highlights of which follow: Male subjects in a 12-week trial experienced a 16.77 +/-33.77% increase in total testosterone compared with a 1.08 +/- 18.35% decrease in the placebo group. Female subjects in an 8-week study lost a mean of 9.17 pounds weight, while experiencing gains in lean body mass (without weight training). The total body weight of a mixed group of men and women in a 12-week study decreased from 74.7 kilograms to 73.5 kilograms while experiencing increases in lean body mass (without weight training). The forskolin users in a mixed-sex group of 50 test subjects experienced a 1.78 percent increase in lean body mass (compared with a 0.20 decrease in the placebo group) and a decrease in mean body fat from 35.8 to 34.0 percent (while the placebo group showed an increase in body fat from 38.8 to 39.0 percent). Why Haven’t I Heard of This Stuff Before? That’s an excellent question, Leroy. Even though forskolin’s been around for a few years, it’s never really caught on, either in the bodybuilding world or the health/life extension world. I’m pretty sure that it’s because most companies that decided to produce it didn’t bother to isolate and purify the main ingredient – forskolin. They just collected up the dried leaves of the coleus forskohlii plant, ground them up, and put them in capsules, with or without Italian salad dressing. As lame as that approach is, it mighta/coulda worked in some situations, like maybe they lucked out and found a crop that was particularly rich in forskolin, the same way that one harvest of oranges might be richer in vitamin C than another. Otherwise, they’d be left with a completely ineffective product, thus tainting and damaging the reputation of the product with a whole generation of users. The only way to manufacture a potent forskolin product is by isolating the active ingredient (forskolin). Better yet, you could purify it and esterify it (bind it with a carbonate ester). The end product, forskolin 1,9 carbonate, would then be much more bioavailable and its efficacy in the body would extend from about 4 hours to about 12. That’s exactly what Biotest did in producing Carbolin 19®. Do I Need to Cycle Carbolin 19®? Many supplements and drugs initiate a biochemical reaction by binding to receptors – chemical groups of molecules that receive signals from other chemicals or other stimuli to initiate a chemical reaction. The trouble is, these receptors eventually get desensitized to the original signal. After a while, you need a stronger and stronger dose to initiate the same response, until, ultimately, no dose is large enough to get the chemical ball rolling. This is what docs and scientists mean when they say someone is “insulin resistant.” However, at least as far as fat burning goes, forskolin is what’s known as a
Origin: Take 4 Capsules for Muscle Gain and Fat Loss

6 Hard Truths About Building Muscle

There are a few hard and fast rules about building muscle that everybody knows: You need to be in a calorie surplus. You have to train hard. You need to recover from your training. Yeah, yeah, but beyond those three simple truths are plenty of other lesser-known muscle building truths. Here are six of them that you need to know to maximize muscle growth. 1 – Stop searching for the perfect body part split. One of the most common questions people ask is: What’s the best muscle building split? The answer? There isn’t one. Muscle growth comes down to training frequency and volume, so the more often you can train a muscle with higher volume then, theoretically, the more growth you can achieve. So training a muscle group twice a week should provide more growth than once a week. And three times a week should provide even more growth than twice, right? Sounds like a decent idea in theory, but then again so did communism, and we all know how well that’s worked out. When looking at specific training splits, the number of times you can train a muscle in a given week comes down to the volume you’re using, the load you’re lifting, your training history, sleep, recovery, and nutrition. In other words, it’s complicated. Let’s say your workout split calls for training legs on Monday and Thursday. Sounds great, until Thursday comes around and your legs are still so trashed from Monday’s session that you can barely peel your tender glutes off the toilet seat. The ideal training split comes down to how well you can recover. The better you can recover, the more often you can train a muscle group per week. And the more often you can train a muscle, the higher your weekly volume and the more muscle growth you can induce. Recovery comes down to a few different factors. Calories and food quality are important ones. The more energy you take in, the better your body can repair tissues and manage inflammation (up to a certain point). But calories are only one side of the recovery equation. Sleep also plays a huge role in the recovery process. You can eat all the calories you want, but if you’re not sleeping enough, your body can’t effectively utilize those calories to help you recover. The bottom line? Pick a training split you can stick with consistently and train hard. To become self-sufficient, take notes on the process and observe how you feel. As you educate yourself on what’s best for your body, you’ll be better equipped to optimize your workout split going forward. 2 – Get more sleep. No really. Muscles are broken down when you train. They’re built when you sleep. Sleep is the reset button on our body. When we sleep, our bodies increase the production of hormones like testosterone and growth hormone. Testosterone is obviously important for the growth and repair, as well as staying lean, but growth hormone is also extremely important. Growth hormone stimulates the release of IGF-1 or insulin-like growth factor-1. IGF-1 stimulates systemic growth and has an impact on every single cell in the body – muscle cells included. Sleep also has a big impact on two other important hormones: insulin and cortisol. Insulin gets a lot of hate when it comes to body fat storage, but it’s actually an extremely powerful anabolic hormone due to its nutrient partitioning abilities. And nowhere does this play more of an important role than in and around training. The more sensitive you are to insulin, the more receptive your muscle cells are going to be to carb intake. This means harder, more intense training sessions and better recovery, all of which culminates in more muscle growth. But a lack of sleep decreases your sensitivity to insulin, which means a poorer response to carbohydrates, poorer training sessions, and crappy recovery. (1) A lack of sleep also increases the production of cortisol (as a stress response). Not only does cortisol inhibit testosterone production, but it’s also catabolic – it promotes the burning of muscle tissue. Sleep is also the best stress management tool our body has to combat elevated activity of the sympathetic nervous system (which controls the body’s fight, flight, or freeze response). The more this sympathetic nervous system remains elevated (as opposed to being in a parasympathetic state, which is where we should be a majority of the time), the more cortisol it produces, and the more difficult it is to gain muscle. Make sleep a priority and you’ll notice a significant improvement in body composition. 3 – If you’re not growing, you’re not eating enough. Are you eating enough? Well, if you’re not adding weight to the scale, the answer is no. If you’re gaining muscle, scale weight is going to go up. That’s true of almost every situation. And if it’s not, you’re not eating enough, despite what your nutrition tracker is telling you. If you’re hitting the gym hard but not seeing the gains you think you should, follow this: Multiply your bodyweight x 16. This gives you your daily calorie target. Eat
Origin: 6 Hard Truths About Building Muscle

How To Build Superhero Muscle

When a Hollywood actor bursts onto the big screen with some new muscle, there’s always a lot of hoopla surrounding what he did to obtain that look. The usual drivel from spaghetti-armed twat-waffles revolves around what his cycle looks like. Never mind that in some cases, like with Hugh Jackman, it took these actors years to transform their physiques into something respectable for the silver screen. And here’s a fun fact – a lean physique looks visibly larger onscreen than a gluttonous hot dog eating dad-bod. A lean 180 pounds on the big screen is far more appealing and actually looks more jacked than 240 pounds of neck rolls and love handles. I’ve talked with various Hollywood trainers, and there’s a “recipe” they all use to get their clients looking jacked for their roles. And it actually doesn’t involve growth hormone, testosterone, or clenbuterol. Sure, if the actor is overweight, the coach must work on getting him lean. If he’s needing more muscle, the goal must be to gain a few pounds of lean mass while keeping fat gain to a minimum. But there’s more to it than that. And this is what the average lifter can focus on if he’s wanting to achieve the superhero or action star look. Building the Top Shelf There are three areas of musculature coaches prioritize to get that “quickly jacked” look for their clients. It’s the top shelf of the torso: the traps, delts, and upper chest. Bringing up these areas as quickly as possible will give that “woah, he musta done a cycle!” look to their clients. When you combine that with a fairly lean physique, it pops on the big screen, and usually gives people the impression that the actor gained more muscle than he actually did. And yes, it can do the same for you. But first, you have to get your body fat low enough to show those muscles off. So before we get into the building portion, let’s talk about diet and cardio. Superstar Nutrition Believe it or not, the coaches that deal with these celeb clients aren’t surfing through PubMed to find the latest research to get their clients looking sharp. Here are the sentiments I’ve heard: “If they need to bulk up, I have them eat more and do very little cardio with a lot of heavy lifting.” “If they need to get lean, I keep all their food clean, feed them a lot of extra protein, and have them do extra cardio to get the fat off.” It’s almost like they took this approach right out of the Bro Bible… you know, the one that people slam all the time for being based on trial and error rather than studies. The truth is, bro-diets work. They don’t actually go against any science and they keep the process very simple. One other thing – the gaining phase was only implemented if the actor was lean to begin with. If not, it was accomplished before the force feeding began. Their guidelines are very much like stuff you’d read out of old muscle mags: Eat minimally processed foods and cut the junk out. Eat a significant amount of animal protein at each meal for fat loss and mass phases. Aim for five meals a day regardless of whether they’re in a fat loss or mass phase. During fat loss, carbs are minimized and kept to around the training window (before, during, and after). During fat loss phases, vegetables were increased at most meals for satiety. During a mass phases, carbs were increased, but not by a ton. Strangely enough, there was no talk of counting calories. As long as food was kept to minimally processed sources, it was simply increased or reduced in serving size for each goal. In other words, in the fat loss phase they simply reduced overall quantity of foods, rather than focusing on exact calories and macros. Before all the calorie and macro counting, this was also how Arnold and company approached their mass gaining and fat loss phases. I’m big on counting calories and macros, but I also know that if you’re simply selecting nutrient dense, minimally processed foods, you’ll often end up in an energy deficit, especially if you’re minding your portions, lifting, and doing some cardio. What About Cardio? There were a few approaches. Since there’s no fat loss benefit or advantage of HIIT over steady state moderate intensity cardio (1), they simply went with the one the client preferred. Trainers prescribed more cardio during fat loss phases and less during mass phases. It was never completely taken out during either time, just increased or reduced to reach the goal. For fat loss, a daily cardio session that was separate from the lifting was the norm. Ten to fifteen minutes of it post-weight training was commonly used during mass gaining phases. Training for the Yoked Look As noted, bringing up the traps, delts, and upper chest was the focus in all scenarios. Let’s break it down: For the Upper Chest As you might expect, trainers prescribed a lot of incline chest work. This meant incline pressing variations, incline flyes, and cable work. The two best variations here are the low-incline Smith machine press and the
Origin: How To Build Superhero Muscle

Fear of Muscle: What Women Need to Know

Although great strides have been made in the war against female fear of muscle, or myophobia (CrossFit deserves much of the credit), muscle is still often regarded with curious suspicion and sometimes outright distrust in female fitness circles. Sure, on some level, most women these days understand that muscle can have value, but there’s still a significant amount of (unnecessary) trepidation about becoming overly muscular. On a certain level, women’s mistrust of muscle makes sense. After all, one of the most immediately recognizable masculine traits is conspicuous muscularity, a trait most women want to avoid. But muscle is certainly not a universally masculine feature. Beyond that, the inescapable truth is that women with the most admired physiques also tend to be significantly more muscular than the average woman. So let’s clear up the misconceptions and concerns that women often have about building muscle. 5 Things Some Women Don’t Understand Muscle is very difficult for women to acquire. This is especially true for women who are older and/or dieting. Any muscle you do gain is acquired very gradually – there will always be plenty of time to apply the brakes if you feel you’re becoming too muscular. Most women find that if and when they do build new muscle, they like it much more than they imagined. But, if they end up not liking it, no problem! It’s very easy to lose. Muscle is what gets (and keeps) you lean. It’s commonly known that men can eat more than women without consequence, even if you match them for bodyweight. More muscle is the main reason why. Muscle and Metabolism Interestingly, many people tend to think of metabolism as a mysterious external force, kinda like gravity – you can’t touch it, you can’t see it, but darn it, it sure comes to a screeching halt right after your 40th birthday, doesn’t it? (Your metabolism, not gravity.) Mmm, not really. “Metabolism” simply refers mainly to your energy expenditure. There are four primary categories: “Basal” metabolism:This is the amount of energy you need to survive. You need a minimal amount of energy to keep all of your organs functioning and to maintain key survival functions such as consciousness, respiration, temperature maintenance, and so on. Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (N.E.A.T.):This is the additional energy you need to perform any and all activity excluding formal exercise. This includes walking, work activities (from relatively sedentary work to manual labor), sitting and rising from chairs, pacing, fidgeting, household chores, literally any activity that isn’t “exercise.” Exercise Activity:The energy you need to perform, and recover from, any type of formal exercise. Thermic Effect Of Food (T.E.F):Whenever you eat food, it requires a certain amount of energy to process (digest, absorb, eliminate) that food. It takes between 5 and 15% of the calories in carbs and fats to process them. Protein requires a bit more work to process, requiring between 20 and 35% of its calories. All that being said, muscle beneficially affects total metabolic rate in three different ways: The training required to build additional muscle requires energy, both to perform, and also to recover from. Once acquired, this new muscle requires you to expend additional energy on a daily basis simply to maintain the new muscle. Both basal metabolism and NEAT increase. When you have more muscle, all activities are easier to perform, making it likely that you’ll do more of these activities, which of course, requires additional energy. So, gaining as much muscle as possible has a powerful impact on metabolic rate. Still, some women might have some psychological barriers to overcome. Why Women Think They’re Getting Too Big When They’re Not The Thanksgiving Dinner Effect Have you ever felt disgustingly fat after a huge holiday feast? Of course you have, but you haven’t gained ANY measurable fat after a single meal, no matter how gluttonous it may have been. But your attention has been diverted to your stomach, because it’s stuffed full of food. So you feel fat. The same phenomenon applies to lifting weights. Both during and after a workout, your muscles will burn from lactic acid accumulation and swell with blood. Both of these phenomenon focus your attention to your working muscles, which are now temporarily bigger due to being pumped. The Knee Surgery Effect I never noticed knee scars until I had knee surgery. But, the very day I got out of the hospital, amazingly, everyone suddenly had knee scars. Well, not really, but it’s just that I suddenly started thinking a lot about knees and knee surgery, which caused me to start noticing people’s knees and their scars. Similarly, when women start training, say, their legs, they often start feeling, noticing, and observing their legs, and often with the suspicion that muscle is being gained. And, needless to say, if a woman experiences a pump for the first time ever, she’s likely to mistake it for
Origin: Fear of Muscle: What Women Need to Know

Build Muscle Anywhere, Anytime

The idea that bodyweight exercises can build muscle might seem foreign to some people. After all, most people’s concept of bodyweight exercises are the stuff you see on cheesy workout DVDs. The truth is, bodyweight exercises can be extremely effective for building muscle, when done correctly. Muscles respond to force. When you lift weights, your body generates force to fight against resistance and create tension. That’s how the process of hypertrophy (muscle growth) begins. But what if you don’t have access to weights? Can you still create enough resistance and tension to build muscle? Absolutely. Here are some key bodyweight exercises you can do anywhere, anytime to help you build muscle. Then we’ll dig into the science. Push-Up Variations Push-ups are the bodyweight king when it comes to building a bigger chest and arms. Here are a few challenging variations: Full Stop Push-Up Get into a push-up position, bring your chest down onto the floor and come to a full stop. While keeping your core engaged and your back straight, push yourself up from the floor to full extension. Full stop push-ups eliminate any potential momentum or cheating during the exercise, putting sole emphasis on your chest to push yourself up from the floor. Isometric Push-Up These minimize momentum and add a pause. Bring your chest down toward the floor and come to a full stop two inches above the ground. While keeping your core engaged and your back straight, push yourself up from the floor to full extension. Eccentric Push-Up Slowly lower yourself to the bottom position and hold for about 5 seconds. Explode back up to full extension. You’re going to be feeling the time under tension while you lower yourself and then apply as much force during the concentric phase. Maintain proper form. Tiger Push-Up This is an amazing variation for the triceps. It’s almost like the Russian dip exercise, but on the floor. Set up in a push-up position with your hands about shoulder width apart. From there, shift your bodyweight back and come down to your elbows. You should be on your forearms with your hips raised up slightly higher than your starting position. Shift your weight forward onto your hands and push yourself up to full extension. Repeat for 10 reps and tell me how your triceps feel. Joe D. Pec Poppin’ Push-Up I’m borrowing this from Joe DeFranco because it’s a good one. When you’re in the starting position, think of pulling yourself to the floor by pushing your hands down and back into the floor. This helps you control the eccentric/negative phase and keep your shoulders set in place. When you get to the bottom of the push-up, press back up and hold. When your arms are fully extended, try to squeeze your hands together as hard as you can without moving them. Maintain this hard contraction for about 3 seconds. You won’t need to do these for more than 10 reps if you’re doing them right. Upper Back Exercises Isometric Y-W-T Lay on your stomach and extend your arms out into a Y formation with your thumbs turned up to the ceiling, squeezing your shoulder blades together as hard as you can for about 3-5 seconds. Pull your elbows back down towards your ribs so your arms are in a W formation and hold again for 3 seconds, squeezing as hard as you can. Finally, extend your arms out into a T position with your thumbs still pointed to the ceiling and squeeze as hard as you can for 3 seconds. That’s one rep. Do 6-8 of those and you won’t need any more. Another way to do this exercise would be to hold each position on its own for 30-40 seconds and rest for about 20-30 seconds before going again. No matter which way you do it, the idea is to contract your upper back muscles and squeeze your shoulder blades together as hard as you can to create an isometric contraction. Handcuffs This is the best bang for your buck when it comes to bodyweight exercises for the shoulders and upper back. It can also be a great warm-up for the shoulders while stretching the pecs. It also fires up the small upper back muscles we tend to neglect during heavy rowing exercises. There’s no way you can cheat this move or use momentum to your advantage, something that you often see when people do weighted back exercises like rows and pulldowns. Start in a prone position by laying on your stomach with your hands behind your lower back (like you’re being handcuffed). Extend your arms out straight by hinging at the elbow and begin to bring your arms to a Y position. Keep them locked and keep your thumbs turned up toward the ceiling. From there, do the same motion coming back, trying to make as big of a circle as you can coming around, and return to your starting position with your hands placed behind your lower back. You’re then going to retract your shoulder blades. While keeping your hands on your lower back, bring your shoulder blades back down, and repeat this entire motion for 10-15 reps. Legs You might think there’s no way to
Origin: Build Muscle Anywhere, Anytime

Tip: Do This Finisher, Pack on Muscle

Back Off! Back-off sets are usually the first “finisher” a lifter learns. That makes sense because back-off sets are somewhat instinctive. Even someone who’s never read any articles about lifting will eventually stumble onto the technique all on their own. You do your 3, 4, or 5 heavy work sets and then, maybe having failed to get a satisfying pump, you reduce the weight for a final set and piston away until your gloriously blood-engorged muscles flame out. It’s bodybuilding’s version of an orgasm, complete with an O face. We’ve always assumed back-off sets work because, to a point, more volume is generally good, more time-under-tension is good, and a final set done with lighter weight and a greater number of reps taps into muscle fibers that only participated casually, if at all, in your main work sets. Even so, part of us wondered if these sets really did do anything to make muscle grow, or worse yet, were detrimental to muscle growth because maybe the back-off sets tapped too far into our recovery abilities. To find some answers, I dug up an older study conducted by some Japanese researchers who were also curious about back-off sets. What They Did Goto, Nagasawa, and their colleagues recruited 16 men and assigned them to one of two groups: Hypertrophy/Strength (HS) Hypertrophy/Combination (HC) During the first 6 weeks, both groups did leg presses and leg extensions using a hypertrophy-style regimen to gain muscle (10-rep maxes, short rest intervals, and progressively decreasing loads). After the 6 weeks were up, the HS group continued to work out another 4 weeks, this time performing a strength program where they did 5 high-intensity (90% of 1RM) sets. The HC group also continued to work out for another 4 weeks. Like the HS group, they also did 5 high-intensity sets, but they added a single set of low-intensity, high-rep work (the back-off set). Throughout the study (at weeks 2, 6, and 10), the researchers measured the muscle strength, endurance, and cross sectional area of the participants’ leg muscles. What They Found After the initial six weeks (during which the participants had practiced identical exercise programs), there was, predictably, no significant difference in the percentage changes of all variables between the two groups. After 10 weeks, though, the group that had switched over to the back-off set protocol (HC) showed significantly larger increases in leg press 1RM, maximal isokinetic strength, and muscular endurance in the leg extension. The cross sectional area of the quadriceps muscles of the HC group also “tended” to be larger. The researchers concluded the following: “A combination of high- and low-intensity regimens is effective for optimizing the strength adaptation of muscle in a periodized training program.” How to Use This Info There are various ways to do back-off sets. Powerlifters might do some work sets at 90% of their 1RM and then do a couple of doubles or triples at 90% of their work sets as back-off sets. This is done to build additional strength. Bodybuilders, however, generally drop their working weight by anywhere from 35 to 50% for their back-off set and aim to pump out an additional 25 reps or more until the muscles get all angried up and they can’t do any more. This, hopefully, gets them results similar to those noted in the Japanese study. One back-off set should suffice and while many lifters might choose to do them only on bench presses (mainly because they don’t have the cojones to do them on squats), there’s no real reason, outside your personal recovery limitations, that you can’t do a back-off set for nearly every body part in a workout. Most lifters wait 30 to 60 seconds between their final heavy work set and their back-off set, but many prefer the additional agony imposed by doing a back-off set immediately after the last heavy
Origin: Tip: Do This Finisher, Pack on Muscle

Tip: Simple Power Training for Muscle

How many lifters train to become more powerful? Do YOU make power training part of your program? Well, you should consider it. You’ll unlock more strength, more athleticism, and more muscle. How’s That Work? Power is the ability to produce force quickly. And remember, as you age you lose power twice as fast as strength. But a recent study by Franchi et al. showed that plyometric training is an effective intervention. It produces a rapid increase in muscle mass and power, no matter your age. Jumping, throwing, sprinting, and the Olympic lifts will heavily recruit fast twitch muscle fibers (which have the highest propensity for growth) as well as help improve your athleticism and prime your nervous system for the heavier strength training that follows. Luckily, this doesn’t require a complete program overhaul, just a few extra minutes and a bit of planning. Looking at the force velocity curve, the far left is max strength. This is the heavy stuff, and of course the loads don’t move very fast. This is where most lifters spend the majority of their time, and rightfully so. However, if you never venture outside of that, you’re leaving a lot of progress on the table. As you slide down the curve, the loads will lighten up and the speed of movement will increase. Knowing what you’re trying to accomplish will help you pick the right tools at the right loads for the task at hand. For example, if you’re performing 10 reps of hang cleans, you’re not really training strength-speed like you might think. The speed of the reps isn’t fast enough to be improving speed-strength either. You end up in a middle ground: doing things that make you tired, but don’t make you more powerful. Or maybe you’re using a medicine ball that’s far too heavy to throw fast enough to make any improvement in the speed-strength area, or “sprinting” for a minute or so. Again, the tools aren’t the issue, but the application of them needs to be better. How To Do It Better Before your strength training sessions, pick one or two movements from various sections on the force velocity curve that match up with the main movement pattern you’ll be tackling in your lifting. Here are some ideas: Squat Olympic lifts Box jumps Loaded squat jumps Heavy sled marches (10 yards) Sled sprints (10-20 yards) Single-leg hurdles Short sprints Deadlift Olympic lifts Heavy sled marches (10 yards) Sled sprints (10-20 yards) Loaded trap bar jumps Broad jumps Kettlebell swings Short sprints Upper Body Days Medicine ball throws: chest passes, lateral throws, overhead soccer throws, slams Keep your reps on the low end. Make sure the last rep of each set is just as explosive as the first. As a rule of thumb, do 2-4 sets of 3-10 reps. The lighter the implement, generally the higher the rep range (8 medicine ball throws isn’t the same as 8 dumbbell snatches). The trickiest part of training for power is figuring out how much weight to use on things like sled sprints and loaded jumps. Remember, moving with speed is the goal, not loading the movements up so heavy that you hardly leave the ground or are moving at the speed of smell. And don’t get caught up in the “more is better” game. More just means slower, and slower doesn’t equate to more
Origin: Tip: Simple Power Training for Muscle

The Real Driver of Muscle Growth

Most people think the primary driver for muscle growth is volume, but most of these same people define volume as the number of sets you’re performing in a training session (not counting your warm-up sets, mind you). More accurately defined, volume is sets x reps x loading (weight). Total tonnage – that’s what really determines growth. Let’s take a look at a solid study that proves it, along with defining the exact amount of volume that builds the most muscle. Study Design Barbalho, et al. separated 40 experienced female lifters into four groups. Each group trained to failure using a different amount of volume. Average Age:24-25 years old Training Experience:At least three years Length of Study:24 weeks Note that a resistance training study done for 24 weeks is very rare. The usual is 8 to 12 weeks. We’re literally looking at six months worth of training with a 100% completion rate by the subjects. That means all 40 women who started the study finished it. Fantastic. The Program Each group did a different amount of total sets per workout: 5 sets per workout 10 sets per workout 15 sets per workout 20 sets per workout The program itself was done three days a week, hitting each muscle group once a week. Monday Training A. Barbell Bench Press B. Incline Barbell Press C. Barbell Military Press The 5 set group did 2 sets of bench presses, 2 sets of inclines, and 1 set of military presses. The 10 set group did 4 sets of bench presses, 4 sets of inclines, and 2 sets of military presses. The 15 set group did 5 sets of bench presses, 5 sets of inclines, and 5 sets of military presses. The 20 set group did 7 sets of bench presses, 7 sets of inclines, and 6 sets of military presses. Thursday Training A. Lat Pulldown B. Cable Row C. Upright Row The 5 set group did 2 sets of pulldowns, 2 sets of cable rows, and 1 set of upright rows. The 10 set group did 4 sets of pulldowns, 4 sets of cable rows, and 2 sets of upright rows. The 15 set group did 5 sets of pulldowns, 5 sets of cable rows, and 5 sets of upright rows. The 20 set group did 7 sets of pulldowns, 7 sets of cable rows, and 6 sets of upright rows. Friday Training A. 45-Degree Leg Press B. Barbell Squat C. Stiff Legged Deadlift The 5 set group did 2 sets of leg presses, 2 sets of squats, and 1 set of stiff legged deadlifts. The 10 set group did 4 sets of leg presses, 4 sets of squats, and 2 sets of stiff legged deadlifts. The 15 set group did 5 sets of leg presses, 5 sets of squats, and 5 sets of stiff legged deadlifts. The 20 set group did 7 sets of leg presses, 7 sets of squats, and 6 sets of stiff legged deadlifts. Rep Periodization The scientists periodized the training so that the lifters used different rep schemes each week. Then they rotated back around each month: Week 1:12-15 reps, 30-60 seconds rest between sets Week 2:4-6 reps, 3-4 minutes rest between sets Week 3:10-12 reps, 1-2 minutes rest between sets Week 4:6-8 reps, 2-3 minutes rest between sets This periodization model was repeated six times (there’s your 24 weeks). The Results The researchers tested the women’s 10-rep max on the bench press, lat pulldown, leg press, and stiff-legged deadlift at the beginning of the study. The scientists also measured muscle thickness of the biceps, triceps, pecs, quads, and glutes. The tests and measurements were repeated after 24 weeks. This is what they found: All groups showed significant increases in all muscle thickness measurements and 10-rep max tests. There were no differences in any 10-rep max tests between the 5 and 10 set groups. The 5 and 10 set groups showed significantly greater 10-rep max increases for lat pulldowns, leg presses, and stiff-legged deadlifts than the 15-set group. For the bench press, the results from the 5, 10, and 15 set groups didn’t differ significantly, but the 20-set group tested out the worst. In fact, 10-rep max changes for the 20-set group were lower than all other groups for all exercises. As for muscle thickness improvement, as you might expect, it correlated with the strength gains. The 5 and 10 set groups showed significantly greater increases than the 15 and 20 set groups in all measured sites. Muscle thickness increased more in the 15 set group than the 20 set group in all sites. The increases in the 5-set group were higher than the 10 set group for the pecs, whereas the 10-set group showed higher increases in quadriceps muscle thickness than the 5-set group. To put this in perspective, the 20-set group exhibited about a quarter of the gains that the 10 set group did. A Possible Flaw in Their Findings? The one argument against this study is that the subjects in the 15 and 20 set groups probably did too much volume in their sessions and exceeded their capacity to recover. If the work load had been spread out over more training days in the week, the outcome could have been different. Nice try, but they didn’t exceed their maximum recoverable volume in a single session! Look at the
Origin: The Real Driver of Muscle Growth

Rip Away the Fat, Not the Muscle

Use these basic, but often neglected, strategies and you’ll lose body fat pretty darn fast. And the best part? You’ll keep your hard-earned muscle. Rule 1 – Eat Plenty of Protein Protein is a dieter’s best friend. Most people are already aware it helps build muscle, but we tend to forget that protein requirements actually go UP as calories go down. So as you decrease your intake of carbs and fat in an effort to lose adipose tissue, protein intake becomes more critical because it’ll help prevent muscle loss when dieting. Not only does dietary protein help preserve lean muscle when your calorie deficit is high, but it also helps you feel more satisfied and less hungry, which helps you stick to you diet. Additionally, because of the thermic effect of food (TEF) protein consumption also speeds up your metabolism by about 25 percent. Remember, the thermic effect of food is the energy you expend digesting and assimilating what you eat. What, When, And How Much? Lean meats like chicken breast, turkey breast, and lean fish certainly fit the bill. There are also some types and cuts of red meat that are 90% lean or more. Egg whites, greek yogurt, and high-quality protein supplements like Metabolic Drive® Protein round out what should be your protein staples. The two most important times to have protein are before and after resistance training workouts. This is especially important when your goal is to keep all your muscle, which not only looks good, but also helps keep your metabolism high. Then just disburse your protein fairly evenly throughout the day. How much should you have? A simple, yet good rule of thumb is one gram of protein per pound of your bodyweight. So if you weigh 200 pounds, eat 200 grams of protein per day. Let’s say you’re going to eat five meals a day. Then simply have about 40 grams of protein per meal (which includes protein shakes). Sure, you could go a bit higher if you’re fairly lean and your energy output is high; and yes, you can go a bit lower on your protein intake if you’re overweight. But other than that, if you wanna burn fat in a hurry without losing muscle, you MUST master this first rule. Rule 2 – Eat LOTS of Veggies The vast majority of vegetables have very few calories, yet contain an array of micronutrients and phytonutrients that enable your body to perform optimally. Veggies are usually fibrous carbs. This means it’s a vegetable that’s high in fiber (and water) yet low in energy-producing carbs, and therefore low in the amount of insulin secretion caused. So they’ll help fill you up and keep you full longer, improve your health and performance, while having negligible calories. Not prioritizing vegetable intake is probably the primary flaw I see among physique athletes and lifters. It’s a mistake I made too. I’ve since realized micronutrient intake from a variety of vegetables is a critical component of any good diet. What, When, And How Much? Most vegetables qualify as fibrous carbs, but not all. Here’s a partial list of some of the more common fibrous veggies: Asparagus Bell peppers Broccoli Brussels sprouts Cabbage Cauliflower Celery Collard and turnip greens Cucumber Green beans Kale Lettuce Mushrooms Onions Peppers Spinach Summer squash You can, and often should, also eat up to one large tomato or carrot per meal. Now, when should you eat veggies? Every meal. The only justifiable exception is perhaps pre-workout to avoid being too full during training. If you have a high-tech intra-workout drink like Mag-10®, skip the veggies. How much? Consider a portion to be at least one cup or four ounces scale weight. But more would be even better, especially with variety. It’d provide even more physique-optimizing micronutrients and help optimize your pH (acid, base) level. You really can’t go wrong eating just about any amount of fibrous carbs. You’ll generally get full long before consuming too many calories. That reminds me of high-level bodybuilding client who asked if he should be eating fewer vegetables. After inquiring about his specific intake, he said he was eating an entire one-pound bag of mixed veggies with his last meal or two, every day! Given that he was steadily getting more and more ripped, I said, “Have at it!” By the way, he came in shredded, glutes and all, and we never lowered his veggie intake until right before the show. Rule 3 – Have Healthy Fat With Every Meal I hope you got the memo that dietary fat doesn’t automatically turn into body fat, and the other memo regarding all fat not being created equal. If not, consider these your memos, and welcome back from wherever you’ve been hiding. Dietary fat is a good source of steady energy, partly because it doesn’t lead to blood sugar spikes and the highs and lows in energy that come with that. Fat is also unique in that it doesn’t lead to insulin secretion (which actually blunts fat burning). In other words, eating fat doesn’t hinder fat-burning, whereas eating carbs can. Healthy fat also has
Origin: Rip Away the Fat, Not the Muscle

Tip: Go Heavy to Retain Muscle

Keep Lifting Heavy While Getting Shredded You’ve been training hard and heavy on basic movements while trying to gain as much muscle as possible. Now that you’re on a diet you must give your body a reason to hold on to this new muscle tissue. High-intensity strength exercises (in the 70-100% range) are better than low-intensity strength exercises (in the 40-70% range) while dieting. The higher training loads help you preserve strength and muscle while on a reduced calorie diet much better than super-high volume/low-intensity workouts. Believe it or not, the human body is more interested in survival than being a hulking hunk of manhood (or a chiseled Wonder Woman). So energy reserves such as body fat are more precious than muscle tissue since the latter actually consumes energy. When calories are dropped, we enter a survival mode and the energy-costly muscle mass goes away – it’s broken down into amino acids and then transformed into glucose for energy. To keep your muscle mass, you must give the body a reason to do so. Will lifting light weights do it? No. You need to continue to lift heavy, otherwise some muscle will go to waste! You’ve Been Lied to We’ve been brainwashed by the muscle magazines to believe that you should do high-rep training for definition. This is absolutely ridiculous! Sure, you use a little more energy during your workout, but think about it: the higher the training volume you perform, the more energy you need to recover from your workout. The more glycogen you burn while strength training, the more carbs you’ll need to recover and progress. If you’re on any kind of cutting diet, chances are that you’ve lowered your carb intake quite a bit. So you need more carbs, but you’re actually giving less to your body! Furthermore, while on a hypocaloric diet your body has a lowered anabolic drive, meaning that it can’t synthesize as much protein into muscle as it does when you’re eating a ton. A super-high volume of work leads to a lot of microtrauma to the muscle structures. A lot of microtrauma requires a great protein synthesis increase, which your body can’t do at this point. So if you use high-volume/low-intensity training while dieting, you’ll break down more muscle and build up less. Not exactly good news. Perhaps one of the greatest benefits of high-rep training is an increase in blood and nutrient flow to the muscles, but if you have a reduced amount of nutrients available in your body, this benefit is pretty much wasted. Repeat after me: I will use my diet and cardio/metcon work to stimulate fat loss. I will use strength training to maintain or gain muscle. That’s the bottom
Origin: Tip: Go Heavy to Retain Muscle