Lean Bodies Consulting

1. Trainers that can’t train themselves.

Seriously. You’re a personal trainer, but I never see you train - ever. In fact, even if you did train regularly, I wouldn’t be able to tell. This really, really bugs me about the personal training industry. You’re a personal trainer yet you don’t look like you’ve applied any of your ‘knowledge’ to yourself.

Now I can understand if you have different goals - say for example, you train for strength, or performance in a sport and not for fat loss. Ok, fair enough. Then I hope you’re at least strong and better in your sport because of your training. Or maybe you’re a competitor (or even non-competitor) in your offseason, focusing on putting on some muscle. Fair enough. I’d expect that what you’re doing is getting you results - after all, you’re a “trainer”.

But if you’re instructing/training people who are interested in fat loss … and you don’t know how to get yourself in shape? You shouldn’t be teaching anyone anything. Again, fine if being lean, etc. is not your goal right now, but you should be able to get there when you want to - because you know how, right?

The trainers in my gym - they’re just your regular gym warriors - they’re not training for sport, for strength, etc. They’re ‘bodybuilders’ - you know - wanna get big and ripped? At least I assume that from watching them do the Flex magazine workouts. And yet … it doesn’t seem to be working.

Just because you have a certification, doesn’t mean you’re a trainer. We all have certifications. You know what I learned in mine? Not much, and nothing that changed my methods. I learned more from reading what other more experienced and smarter people are saying and doing. Certifications offer ‘perceived credibility’. Great trainers are built from a life of self learning, open mindedness and experience. And that should include being able to get a dedicated result in YOURSELF too.

2. “It’s all you!”

No it’s not. Seriously. It’s not. If you’re getting a spot for something (why I have no idea), and your spotter says, with his hands on the bar, “IT’S ALL YOU”, or tells you “nah man, it was all you”, you can be sure that it was not all you. Do your own reps already.

3. Upper Bodybuilders

Train your legs for crying out loud! Yes, it looks like you’ve had some success with your upper body, but geez man, you have absolutely no leg development, no glute development, no nothing. How many times can you train arms?

I think I am one of only a handful of people in my gym that train legs regularly - and hard. At the other end of the spectrum you have the guys - who when asked why they don’t train legs - say something like

“I do a few sets of leg extensions and leg curls each week. I don’t want my legs to get too big’”

Yes because it’s just that easy to get legs that are too big.

“I run”

Ok … is there a second part to that sentence?

“I play soccer”

That’s nice. We’re talking about leg training.

There’s not much more satisfying in the gym than a tough leg workout - some heavy FULL squats (not those shallow knee bends 9 out of every 10th person does … on the Smith machine), some heavy deads. This is the fun stuff. Or maybe I’m just twisted.

Got any of your own?

Ok, so we’ve established answers to the following questions in the first three parts of this series so far:

1. Would I have to do a bulk?

2. How long would I bulk for?

Alright, how about some practical steps? We’re not going to get into the training aspect of this right now as it’s a rather varied topic, so we’ll just keep the focus on nutrition - which really is what will be the final determinant of gains. By that I mean, I don’t care how hard you’re training, if you’re not eating enough to support muscle growth, you’re not going to be gaining size. Period. (exception to the rule - newbies and those new to ‘effective training’)

To go back to another point made in one of the previous posts - expect to gain at least some bodyfat. If you expect to stay lean, expect to stay the same. I’ll give you a few case examples:

1. I was emailing back and forth with a client prospect who has been solely focused on muscle gain for many, many months. She works with another trainer. In our communications, she ended up sending me her pre- and current ‘bulking’ pictures for review. First thing I noticed? Nothing. Literally, I couldn’t tell a difference at all. I asked her what the difference in weight was. The answer? One pound. I believe this was over the course of about nine months. ONE POUND. Now, it’d be great if there was some massive recompositioning here but there wasn’t - no visible changes. I questioned her on this and she said her trainer wants to her stay lean while gaining size.

The results show how effective that strategy is.

2. A client of my own who I worked with for a little over a year. We did a few cut/bulk cycles and yes she gained some body fat during the bulks. But she had a great mindset for all of it (vital necessity in my opinion) and had the big picture in front of her the whole time. The numbers will make my point for me.

November 19/07
Weight - 110 lbs
Waist - 30 1/4
Hips - 33 3/4
Thighs - 17
Chest - 31 1/2
Arms - 9 1/2
Calf - 10 1/2

Contrast that to her final biweekly:

September 16/08
Weight - 109.4 lbs
Waist - 24 1/4
Hips - 33 1/4
Thighs - 17 3/4
Chest - 32 1/4
Arms - 10
Calf - 11

The most glaring point there is that she weighs basically the same as her starting weight - but her waist is 6 inches smaller. Now that’s a recomp.

A successful bulk is obviously determined by the results gained - hopefully you’ve added some muscle and not too much fat. It’s fine to gain, gain, gain, but if you end up the same bodyweight and the same bodyfat - basically you look the same as you did pre-bulk - it doesn’t seem like you did very well. Now if you end up the same bodyweight, but you’re even leaner (see Case #2 above) then you definitely had a successful run. Gaining 20lbs only to lose 20lbs and look no different - that’s not a good bulk.

How much do I need to eat?

Enough!

You need to definitely have more energy coming in than going out. Again, insufficient food intake = no gains. Look around the gym - most people there are trying to gain some muscle, get stronger, etc. Are they? They appear to be working pretty hard and yet, a year from now, chances are they’ll look no different. Something isn’t working. Could it be what they’re doing/eating outside of the gym? Could it be that they train hard for 45 minutes (trying to bulld muscle?) and then they hop on the elliptical for 30 minutes PWO (trying to get the cuts?). It doesn’t work.

So how much food? I generally recommend that you start at an assumed maintenance intake. I say assumed because all of the predictive equations are just estimates. They’re not going to necessarily be 100% accurate, but it’s a starting place for us. If you’re not coming off a hard diet, around 15x total bodyweight is a good ball part. Pay attention to results though - if you’re gaining (beyond water and glycogen) then clearly this is not maintenance. If you’re coming off a hard diet, start a bit lower as metaoblism will be slightly depressed. Stay there for two weeks and reassess. Did the scale go up? Go down? Stay the same? Adjust accordingly. Assuming you were at maintenance, start adding calories. Again, we’re trying to avoid getting too sloppy so take it easy and just systematically raise them. Start at 10% above maintenance, stay there for a bit, and reassess. What’s happening? Nothing? Add another 10%. You basically continue to add calories until you start to see an upward trend on the scale, but not so quickly upward that it’s clear (in the context of expected rates of muscle gain) that you’re gaining too much fat per given pound of weight gain. If you are gaining too much fat, scale the calories back a bit. It’s all about a simple outcome based approach. Base your adjustments on your results.

I’ll touch on macros next time.

Continuing on with the answers to the following questions …

How long should I bulk?
How long do I have to bulk?

The first ‘it depends’ answer was to counter with the question of how much muscle do you want to gain?

To that we add the following:

2. How much muscle do you gain when eating in a caloric surplus and how much fat you gain when eating in a caloric surplus - or basically your muscle-to-fat-gain ratio. This basically refers to one’s partitioning ability - simply where the extra calories go. Does it wind up in muscle cells or fat cells? Ideally all of it would go to muscle, but sorry, not gonna happen. You might as well accept it now.

Now ideally at least more of the extra calories are partitioned towards muscle than they are towards fat. What affects this? First and foremost, genetics. Some people simply partition more calories towards muscle than others do. The less fortunate partition more calories towards fat cells than they do muscle. So on the one hand you might have someone gaining more muscle for a given weight gain and some gaining more fat than muscle (sucks!) for a given weight gain.

So we have things like the aforementioned genetics, higher-than-normal testosterone levels and other optimally ranged hormones (lower cortisol responses, healthy thyroid levels, etc) as well as good insulin sensitivity in the muscles.

Scientists refer to something called the p-ratio when discussing the partitioning of calories. The p-ratio is again, largely influenced by genetic factors and varies little within a person. Diet, training, etc (basically lifestyle factors) have the potential to influence it about 5-15% - not very much.

So, that tells us there’s not a lot you can do to shift your own innate muscle-to-fat-gain ratio (or even your fat-to-muscle-loss ratio when dieting) beyond the relatively small (yet hardly insignificant) effect nutrition, training (and drugs) has on it.

So we obviously get that diet and training should be on point during a bulk. From a dietary standpoint, you obviously need to be certain you’re eating enough to sustain not only the growth of new muscle tissue but the maintenance of it as well. This is one of the biggest pitfalls of those seeking out more muscle - they don’t eat enough. You can’t build a house out of sweat people. No raw materials? No muscle. Ample caloric intake is the biggest factor to be aware of.

Training of course is important as well, but the supporting growth factors - hormones, caloric intake, etc. - determine how much you can gain and support. Training is just a stimulus. Many think that because they’re training heavy and hard, the muscle is just going to come as a result. Again, it’s just a stimulus - if the supporting growth factors are not there, it’s just not going to happen.

Ok, so this ties into the next point:

3. How much fat are you comfortable gaining? This is going to be determined by one, how much over maintenance you’re eating and two, the aforementioned muscle-to-fat-gain ratio or how well your body partitions extra calories. For those with better partitioning ability, more of their new weight is going to be muscle and less is going to be fat, so they’re probably going to have an easier time of it. For those less fortunate, it’s going to be a different story. They’re going to gain more bodyfat for a given weight gain. How much are you comfortable with gaining? Remember, you’re going to gain some. Expect not to and I guarantee you that you’re going to look exactly the same at the end of your bulk.

These three points are really the determining factors of the length of your bulk - how much muscle do you want/need to gain, how much muscle/fat do you gain when consuming calories in excess of maintenance (a requirement), and how much body fat are you comfortable gaining along the way.

More next time …

So in the previous post about bulking we touched on what determines whether or not you should consider doing a ‘bulk’ (I really dislike this word by the way), or not.

Again, let me just say to drive the point home, that bulking is not an excuse to get fat, get sloppy, etc. The point to a bulk is to simply gain muscle - obviously. However, a free-for-all caloric onslaught is a quick way to unnecessary fat gain.

I get asked questions like these quite often:

How long should I bulk?
How long do I have to bulk?

My previous answer was a simple, ‘it depends’, and the truth is, it does. How long a person bulks is going to be influenced by a number of things:

1. How much muscle do you want to gain? Clearly this is going to one of the big determining factors. The more muscle you need or want, the longer it’s going to take. To put that into context, the following are some generally accepted average rates of muscle gain for both males and females:

Males
Year 1 - 20-25lbs
Year 2 - 10-12lbs
Year 3 - 5-6lbs

Females
Year 1 - 10-12lbs
Year 2 - 5-6 lbs
Year 3 - 2.5-3lbs

You can see two things from the above quite clearly:

1. Males obviously have the potential to gain at a quicker and more substantial rate, all else being equal. (women averaging out to half the gains of males)

2. Muscle growth is a very slow process.

Don’t believe the hype behind those who say they’re packing on pounds and pounds of muscle - and staying lean at that - month in and month out; at least not drug free. They’re not. They may be packing on the weight, but I guarantee they’re gaining more fat than they should be. Yes, there are some who can gain at a quicker rate than others, but the above represents the average.

Now 10-12 lbs in a female is going to result in a very significantly improved physique, no question about it. Noel gained 11lbs of competition weight in one year, and the results were very obvious. So much so that it helped take her from an ‘also ran’ to a top contender.

But take a look at that - 10-12lbs of muscle sounds awesome doesn’t it? But look what it averages out to - about one pound per month. Doesn’t seem very significant anymore does it? But the reality is, it is.

More next time …

I get asked a variety of bulking-type questions a lot – mostly from females – so I thought I’d just cut and paste a question and answer it here for reference. My opinions here would not be gender specific, applying both to males and females.

Q: Still tossing around the idea of doing a figure competition. Would I have to do a bulk and how long would I bulk for?

A: Ok, just to put some context to the term ‘bulk’ here, it simply means eating at a caloric intake that is above your assumed maintenance calorie requirements for an extended period of time – with the obvious goals of adding some size and strength to your physique. It is NOT an excuse to get sloppy.

To address the first question – would you have to do a bulk? This is entirely dependent on three primary things:

1. What do you look like now relative to what a figure competitor (or whichever your goal physique is) generally looks like? For some, it will be obvious that yes, you definitely need more muscle if you’re going to hope to be competitive. Competing isn’t just a fat-loss contest. Good competitors have well developed physiques with strategically emphasized muscle groups (lats, delts, etc) in addition to carrying contest-levels of body fat … and yes, the developmental aspect takes time.

2. Do YOU want more muscle? What are your own goals and preferences for your physique? Some people like the idea of being more muscular than they are now; some people don’t. It comes down to your goals first and foremost. Only you can determine if you want more muscle.

3. Are you willing to gain a least some body fat? Or, are you presently lean enough right now that you can stand to gain a little body fat and not lose your mind?

To the issue of how long, the short answer is ‘it depends’. But that’s about as helpful as well, not answering the questions at all. I’ll be back to answer that question tomorrow.

Last week I wrote up a post called Spotters: You Don’t Need One where I explained why 9.9 times out of 10, they’re a waste of time and how their biggest ‘use’ is to stroke your ego and somehow have you believing you actually lifted that weight - when they said “it’s all you, come on, it’s all you!”

Well, rather than just leave that as my opinion - a very sound a logical one at that, here’s some scientific support to go along with it.

Increased number of forced repetitions does not enhance strength development with resistance training.

Some research suggests that strength improvements are greater when resistance training continues to the point at which the individual cannot perform additional repetitions (i.e., repetition failure). Performing additional forced repetitions after the point of repetition failure and thus further increasing the set volume is a common resistance training practice. However, whether short-term use of this practice increases the magnitude of strength development with resistance training is unknown and was investigated here. Twelve basketball and 10 volleyball players trained 3 sessions per week for 6 weeks, completing either 4 x 6, 8 x 3, or 12 x 3 (sets x repetitions) of bench press per training session. Compared with the 8 x 3 group, the 4 x 6 protocol involved a longer work interval and the 12 x 3 protocol involved higher training volume, so each group was purposefully designed to elicit a different number of forced repetitions per training session. Subjects were tested on 3- and 6-repetition maximum (RM) bench press (81.5 +/- 9.8 and 75.9 +/- 9.0 kg, respectively, mean +/- SD), and 40-kg Smith Machine bench press throw power (589 +/- 100 W). The 4 x 6 and 12 x 3 groups had more forced repetitions per session (p < 0.01) than did the 8 x 3 group (4.1 +/- 2.6, 3.1 +/- 3.5, and 1.2 +/- 1.8 repetitions, respectively), whereas the 12 x 3 group performed approximately 40% greater work and had 30% greater concentric time. As expected, all groups improved 3RM (4.5 kg, 95% confidence limits, 3.1- 6.0), 6RM (4.7 kg, 3.1-6.3), bench press throw peak power (57 W, 22-92), and mean power (23 W, 4-42) (all p < or = 0.02). There were no significant differences in strength or power gains between groups. In conclusion, when repetition failure was reached, neither additional forced repetitions nor additional set volume further improved the magnitude of strength gains. This finding questions the efficacy of adding additional volume by use of forced repetitions in young athletes with moderate strength training experience.

Forced reps - don’t do them.

Ok, I better qualify that to ensure that what I’m saying is very clear - 99% of the time and 99% of you, do not need to use a spotter - ever! Who and when would the 1% be? Someone like a powerlifter going for a big 1RM on the bench or the squat for example. BUT, the spotter would be doing what a spotter is supposed to do - be there just in case. A spotter’s job is not to help you do the lift. Another example where I can see the use of a spotter - again, doing what they’re supposed to be doing, which is not helping you complete reps - is getting a hand off when you’re benching so that so you don’t lose your tight set up under the heavier loads.

So are we clear? Spotters spot. They’re there to ensure safety; to ensure you don’t get pinned under the bar. Speaking of getting pinned, that reminds me of something that happened to me years back. I was training at a great gym in Windsor, Ontario and was benching. My last set I was just repping out with 225 and on my 12th rep well, I thought I had one more in me than I actually did. End result? Failed on the bench with no spotter. No matter what - that bar was not moving anymore. So, I brought it back down and rested it on my chest. You know, to rest and try again. Nope, no movement. Now, I was in a bit of a predicament.

“Is anyone going to see me? How embarrassing.”

“I hope no one notices I’m pinned here under 225.”

“Wait a second, I hope someone sees me and comes to help.”

“Hello? Anyone? Help? HELP!!”

Anyway, eventually I got some help and survived the 225.

Back to my point though …

See, deep down I knew I wasn’t going to get that extra rep, (in fact, it wasn’t even deep down) but I went for it anyway. With training experience comes the knowledge of when you’re going to fail. You know, you squeeze out your 6th rep and you just know you’d miss your 7th. I say, rack it right there.

What does a spotter do in 99% of gyms across North America? Helps you complete reps - multiple ones - after you’ve failed. Two points here:

First, training to failure.

There are times and places to train to failure, but training to failure all the time, on every set, or even most sets, is quite simply STUPID.

Which means secondly, going past failure, and doing forced reps, is STUPIDER. Yes, I just typed ’stupider’. :p

First off, what’s the point? I’ll tell you - ego. You see it with guys in the gyms all the time. The mystique of the 2-plate bench press -yay, 2 plates. So you have some 155lb guy with 225 on the bench and his buddy deadlifting it off his chest not just once, but for a set of 6 … and “it’s all you buddy”.

This isn’t a phenomenon unique to the bench press, or even guys for that matter. Here’s my point, if you’re after a set of 8 reps, and you need the help of a spotter to complete the last 3 reps - you went too heavy. You didn’t select an appropriate weight. You might think you’re doing it because your reflection in the mirror seems to indicate you are, but you’re not. If you were, you wouldn’t need any help. In essence, you’re lifting less anyway. An example to illustrate:

100lbs on the bar. You want 8 reps. You hit 5. Your spotter helps you complete the last 3. You do realize you’re no longer lifting 100lbs right? Could be down to 95, 90, 85, or whatever, but you’re not lifting 100lbs. Your spotter is lifting some of it. So, why not just choose the right weight to begin with?

So not only are you not lifting the weight anyway, and not only are you training to failure (which has its own set of negatives when done too often) but you’re also doing forced reps, and potentially multiple ones - and there is NO POINT. The cons outweigh the pros - and especially if you’re dieting and eating at a deficit where recovery is at a premium. The inroads repeated sets to failure or worse yet, forced reps, make into your CNS recovery are much too significant to be worth any potential gain you might (not likely) experience.

Seriously - what extra gain does that half rep (since you failed and didn’t get the full rep) offer you? Another con is that if you’re grinding out, hitting failure, going past failure, you’re going to build up more residual fatigue from that set which will negatively affect your subsequent sets.

The majority of the time, training to one rep shy of failure is as close as you need to be and will offer just as much benefit as you’re going to get/need/want, etc. Sure, hit failure every now and then, but it shouldn’t be your goal. The point isn’t to kill yourself in the gym week in and week out. Cycling intensity is an important aspect to long term progress. To qualify that a bit further, failure isn’t always a bad thing - your accessory/higher-rep/bodybuilding-type sets can be taken to failure. It’s not like 12 reps to failure of preacher curls is going to be a big deal. Mind you, 11 likely would have been just fine.

So, your higher rep work can be taken closer to failure (in order to get all the fibers recruited) and your lower rep work, should not be.

Another rule of thumb - the more volume you’re doing the more you should be avoiding failure. THe less volume you’re doing, the more you can play with failure. (not forced reps)

So how heavy do you go? The reps or rep range you’re shooting for determines the load you select. Yes, over time your goal is to be adding weight to the bar, but when you can actually do so - on your own. Use the highest level of resistance you can lift for the designated number of reps with perfect form. And remember that how you lift how much you’re lifting trumps how much you’re lifting. You’re training muscles, contracting muscles under load. In physique pursuits, it’s not just about moving weight; it’s about applying maximum tension to the muscles you’re targeting. See the Q&A in this newsletter archive for more.

And never attempt a rep you cannot complete with perfect form. Ugly reps don’t count.

Check your ego at the door. Do your own reps.

I just put up an article I was asked to write for a print magazine in the Q&A/articles section of the website.

You can read it here

Periodization of the Undulating Type

So in the first of my two blog posts about shoulders I had mentioned that I’d post up what I have been doing for my own shoulder rehab - with full success I might add.

It looks like this:

1. Thoracic Extensions on a Foam Roller
2. Shoulder Dislocations
3. Supine One-Arm Dumbbell Protractions and/or Scapular Push Ups
4. Behind-the-Neck Band Pull Aparts and/or Scapular Wall Slides
5. Prone Internal Rotations
6. Prone Trap Raises

I would do this as often as I could - it was nearly daily. I was doing 10-15 reps of each movement, sometimes two sets.

I put together a youtube clip of the above exercises just in case you don’t know what some of them are. I couldn’t convert the Scapular Push Up clip I have so that’s not included. (seems so boring without any music added to it :lol:)

Ok, back with more on the shoulder issues …

Some more key points:

We always hear about doing the right things in the gym, but what we’re doing outside of the gym is arguably just as, if not more, important. Think about it. How long do you train? An hour? Contrast that to the other 23 hours of the day. Your body is going to adapt to what you do most often. For example, if you have a sit down/desk/computer job, you’re going to have postural adaptations that are going to influence everything discussed in the previous blog post. Tissues can adapt in as little as 15-20 minutes so if you fall into the above category (I do), a good recommendation (courtesy of Bill Hartman again) is to take what he calls, ‘postural correction breaks’. Bill recommends this be done approximately every 15 minutes where you’re consciously correcting your posture. For example, all you have to do is either sit or stand as tall as possible. What this does is it helps to reposition everything closer to optimal alignment.

So, you desk jockeys. Sit up … at least every 15 minutes or so. This is going to impact on the overall health of your shoulder arguably more than your gym warm up, your exercise selection, again because of how much more time you spend outside the gym .. potentially at a computer like me.

I’ve been forcing myself to do this pretty regularly. But it’s easy to forget so I simply use a timer on my watch and set it for 15 minutes and every time it goes off, I take my little posture correction break. Adding to the ’sit tall’ recommendation I also, with my arms hanging down at my sides, externally rotate my arms so that my palms are facing forward. So your shoulders will go both down and slightly back. You’ll feel a nice contraction in your scapular retractors as well. So what this ends up doing, and it’s a good thing, is help to shorten the lengthened muscles on the back side and lengthen the shortened muscles on the front side.

Gotta go. Time for a postural correction break.