Author: Michael Matthews

ASIN: B006XF5BTG

The best book on strength training I've read so far.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

STRENGTH TRAINING

1. Train each muscle group 1-2 times every 5-7 days
2. Train one or two muscle groups per workout (per day)
3. Do a total of 9-12 sets per workout
4. Do sets of 4-6 reps for (nearly) all exercises. This means that you’re going to be using weights that allow for at least four reps but no more than six reps (if you can’t get four reps, it’s too heavy; if you can get six or more, it’s too light). Once you hit six reps for one set, you add weight for your next set. The standard increase is a total of 5 kg (10 pounds). If you can’t get full reps, you’re using too much weight, and you’re increasing your risk of injury. Simply lighten the load, do full reps, improve your strength, and only move up in weight when you can keep it fully under control.
5. Rest 3-4 minutes between sets

Q: DO I NEED TO GO TO FAILURE EVERY SET? A: You don’t have to go to absolute failure every set. I rarely do. What I shoot for is reaching the point where I struggle to finish a rep and know I wouldn’t be able to get another without assistance (the rep before failure). If you feel you can maybe get it and want to go for it anyway, that’s fine, but you don’t have to train like this every set.

Your primary goal with every workout should be beating the previous week’s numbers, even if only by one rep. If you do that again the next week, you’re ready to move up in weight. You should know, however, that some weeks just won’t go like that. Sometimes you’ll only be able to lift exactly what you did the week prior. Sometimes you’ll even be a rep weaker. These things happen and don’t necessarily mean anything is wrong. Just keep working at it and you should see a slow, steady increase in weight lifted over time.

DIAL IT BACK EVERY 8 TO 10 WEEKS

Core exercises that you should do EVERY week: the squat, deadlift, bench press, and military press.

NUTRITION

Simply put, you can’t get fatter unless you feed your body more energy than it burns, and you can’t get leaner unless you feed it less energy than it burns. Contrary to (currently) popular belief, it doesn’t matter how many carbohydrates you eat or how high your insulin levels are throughout the day. Energy balance is the first law of thermodynamics at work: fat stores can’t be increased without the provision of excess energy, nor can they be reduced without the restriction of energy. That’s why research has shown that so long as they’re eating less energy than they’re burning, people lose fat equally well on high-carbohydrate or low-carbohydrate diets. The bottom line is that the types of foods you eat have little to do with losing or gaining weight. In this regard, a calorie is a calorie. That isn’t to say that you should eat nothing but junk food to lose weight, however. What you eat does matter when we’re talking about maintaining optimal body composition. If you want to lose fat and not muscle, a calorie is not a calorie.

Proper nutrition boils down to just two things:

1. Supplying your body with the nutrients needed to efficiently recover from your workouts.
2. Manipulating your energy intake to lose, maintain, or gain weight as desired.

You must first calculate your Base Metabolic Rate (BMR), which is easily accomplished by using the Katch-McArdle formula. Here’s how it works: BMR = 370 + (21.6 * LBM) LBM refers to lean body mass, and it’s in kilograms for this calculation.

Once you know your BMR, you can calculate your TDEE [Total Daily Energy Expenditure] by multiplying it as follows:

• by 1.2, if you exercise one to three hours per week,
• by 1.35, if you exercise four to six hours per week, or
• by 1.5, if you exercise vigorously for six or more hours per week.

I prefer to start with BMR and then add calories burned through physical activity, as determined by estimations or an activity tracker [Make sure activity tracker does not include corresponding share of BMR calories!]

Protein intake of 1.3 to 1.8 grams per kilogram of body weight

Best vegan protein combination: rice + pea protein

When you want to lose fat, your number-one goal is to preserve lean mass. You’re looking to lose between 0,5-1kg (1 and 2 pounds) per week when cutting, and if that sounds low to you, remember that weight loss that is too rapid is undesirable, as it means you’re losing a fair amount of muscle as well as fat.

EXCERPTS

Free weights are indeed more effective at building muscle and strength than machines.

The most effective ones are known as compound exercises, and they involve and activate multiple muscle groups. Examples of powerful compound exercises are the squat, deadlift, and bench press, which train a lot more than just the legs, back, and chest, respectively.

Guys who make the mistake of doing lots of ineffective exercises often believe the “muscle confusion” myth, which is the belief that you have to constantly change up your routine to “keep your body guessing” and make gains. This is complete nonsense. You’re in the gym to get bigger and stronger, and that requires four simple things: do the right exercises, lift progressively heavier weights over time, eat correctly, and give your body sufficient rest.

Constantly changing your routine prevents you from properly evaluating your progress. How can you know whether you’re getting stronger if you’re doing different exercises and rep ranges every week or two?

You see, if you don’t eat enough calories and get enough protein every day, you simply don’t grow. It doesn’t matter how hard you lift; if you don’t eat enough, you won’t gain any muscle to speak of. On the other hand, if you eat enough protein but too many calories every day, you can gain muscle, but it will be hidden underneath an ugly sheath of unnecessary fat.

If you don’t eat enough nutritious foods, you can change your body composition, but eventually you’ll develop vitamin and mineral deficiencies that impair both your health and performance, which in turn will limit your gains over time. When you know how to eat properly, however, you can gain eye-popping amounts of muscle while staying lean, and you can lose layers of fat while maintaining or even increasing your total muscle mass.

More is not always better in weightlifting. Many popular bodybuilder routines result in overtraining for a natural weightlifter. As a natural weightlifter, you must emphasize heavy, compound weightlifting if you want to maximize your results. High-rep routines that emphasize isolation exercises are extremely ineffective in the long run.

You don’t have to constantly change up your exercise routine to make gains. Instead, you want to progressively increase your strength on key compound lifts.

A progression in resistance optimizes strength gains and muscle growth. Researchers also found that working in the four- to six-rep range (80 percent of one-rep max, or 1RM) is most effective for those who train regularly. The conclusion of this research is simple: the best way to build muscle and strength is to focus on heavy weightlifting and increase the weight lifted over time.

Instead, from now on, you’re going to train differently. You’re going to spend more time resting than you’re used to, you’re going to perform exercises you’re probably not used to, and you’re going to lift a lot more weight than you thought possible.

One of the most common problems with the many weightlifting programs out there is they simply have you doing too much, whether in individual workouts or in total weekly training volume.

While many guys undertrain and thus underdamage their muscles, many more overtrain and overdamage them.

Studies have shown that, depending on the intensity of your training and your level of fitness, it takes the body two to seven days to fully repair muscles subjected to weight training. Considering the volume and intensity of the Bigger Leaner Stronger program, we can safely assume full muscle recovery is going to take four to six days.

Packing on slabs of rock-solid lean mass is, in essence, just a matter of following these three laws religiously: lift hard and heavy, get sufficient rest, and feed your body correctly.

Progressive overload is the primary driver of muscle growth, not fatigue or pump.

Here’s the truth, though: whether you want to call it “counting” calories, meal planning, or something else, to effectively lose fat, you have to regulate your food intake. You see, the metabolism is an energy system and operates according to the laws of energy. Losing fat requires that you keep your body burning more energy than you’re feeding it, and the energy potential of food is measured in calories.

The underlying scientific principle at work is energy balance, which refers to the amount of energy you burn every day versus the amount you give your body via food. According to the laws of physics underlying this principle, if you give your body a bit more energy than it burns every day, a portion of the excess energy is stored as body fat, and thus you gain weight slowly. If you give your body a bit less energy than it burns every day, it will tap into fat stores to get the additional energy it needs, leaving you a bit lighter.

Simply put, you can’t get fatter unless you feed your body more energy than it burns, and you can’t get leaner unless you feed it less energy than it burns. Contrary to (currently) popular belief, it doesn’t matter how many carbohydrates you eat or how high your insulin levels are throughout the day. Energy balance is the first law of thermodynamics at work: fat stores can’t be increased without the provision of excess energy, nor can they be reduced without the restriction of energy. That’s why research has shown that so long as they’re eating less energy than they’re burning, people lose fat equally well on high-carbohydrate or low-carbohydrate diets. The bottom line is that the types of foods you eat have little to do with losing or gaining weight. In this regard, a calorie is a calorie. That isn’t to say that you should eat nothing but junk food to lose weight, however. What you eat does matter when we’re talking about maintaining optimal body composition. If you want to lose fat and not muscle, a calorie is not a calorie.

But here’s the thing with cardio: if you don’t also eat correctly, that nightly run or bike ride won’t save you. Let’s say you’re trying to lose weight and have unwittingly eaten 600 calories more than your body has burned for the day. You go jogging for 30 minutes at night, which burns about 300 calories, with maybe another hundred calories burned from the “afterburn” effect. You’re still 200 calories over your expenditure, and that means no reduction in total fat stores for the day—and maybe even an increase. You could continue like this for years and never get lean; instead, you could slowly get fatter. This is the most common reason why people simply “can’t lose weight no matter what they do.”

Doing a bunch of cardio isn’t enough to get lean. You simply can’t outexercise a poor diet.

The reality is that your body is “primed” for muscle loss when you’re in a calorie deficit, and by focusing exclusively on muscle endurance (higher-rep ranges), you’ll set yourself up for rapid strength loss, with the potential for significant muscle loss as well. The key to preserving strength and muscle while losing weight is to lift heavy weights. The goal is to continue progressively overloading your muscles, which ensures protein synthesis rates remain elevated enough to prevent muscle loss.

While research has shown that training a muscle results in increased levels of blood flow and lipolysis (the breakdown of fat cells into usable energy) in the area, it’s not in a large enough quantity to matter. The reality is that training the muscles of a certain area of your body burns calories and can result in muscle growth, both of which certainly can aid in fat loss, but it doesn’t directly burn the fat covering them to any significant degree.

You can do all the crunches you want, but you’ll never have a six-pack until you’ve adequately reduced your overall body fat percentage, and that’s more a function of proper dieting than anything else. Ironically, if you want an area of your body to be leaner, training the muscles without also ensuring you’re reducing your body fat percentage will only aggravate the problem. The muscles will grow but the layer of fat will remain, which will only result in the area looking bigger and puffier.

This is why I often repeat a simple rule of thumb: the more muscle you build, the leaner you have to be to avoid looking big and bulky. A woman who has built an appreciable amount of muscle (one or more years of weightlifting) will want to stay at or under 20 percent body fat to maintain the “athletic” look of toned arms, a tight stomach, shapely legs, a big butt, etc. For us guys, we need to stay at or under 10 percent for the look we’re usually after: fully visible abs, small waist, vascularity, “dense”-looking muscles, etc.

Rest assured, however, that you can lose as much fat all over your body as you want, and you can get as shredded as you want; you’ll just have to be patient and let your body lean out in the way it’s programmed to.

The key to preserving strength and thereby muscle while losing weight is to lift heavy weights.

This is only the beginning of the problems with the “crash” approach to dieting, however, that has you enduring severe calorie deficits for extended periods: You lose a lot of muscle, which not only leads to the dreaded “skinny fat” look, but it also impairs bone health and increases the overall risk of disease. Your testosterone levels plummet and cortisol levels skyrocket, which not only makes you feel horrible but also accelerates muscle loss. Your energy levels take a nosedive, you struggle with intense food cravings every day, and you become mentally clouded and even depressed.

So, the bottom line is this: you will need to watch your calories to effectively lose weight. You’ll have to stay disciplined and forego the snacks and goodies not worked into your meal plans. You’ll probably have to deal with some hunger now and then.

While a “calorie is a calorie” for weight-loss purposes alone, a calorie is not a calorie when it comes to optimizing body composition. What you eat matters very little if you’re just trying to see the number go down on the scale, but it matters very much if you’re trying to lose fat and not muscle. If you eat too little protein while restricting calories for weight loss, you’ll lose more muscle than you would if you had eaten an adequate amount. If you eat too few carbohydrates while in a calorie deficit, your training will suffer, your muscle repair will be impaired, and your hormone profile will become more catabolic. If you eat too little dietary fat, you can experience a significant drop-off in testosterone levels and other undesirable effects. As you can see, if you want your weight-loss regimen to be maximally effective, you want to restrict your calories but also eat enough protein and carbohydrate to preserve muscle mass and performance and enough dietary fat to maintain healthy hormone levels as well as general health. Adequate dietary fats are necessary to maintain healthy skin and hair, insulate body organs against shock, regulate body temperature, and promote healthy cell function. While that sounds complicated, it’s not. In fact, it’s probably the simplest way of going about dieting.

In terms of 24-hour energy expenditure, they found no difference between nibbling and gorging. Small meals caused small, short metabolic boosts, and large meals caused larger, longer boosts. By the end of each day, they balanced out in terms of total calories burned.

More and fewer meals per day are effective for weight loss and have no inherent drawbacks or advantages in terms of metabolic rate and appetite control.

Another study on the matter, this time from researchers at the University of São Paulo in Brazil, showed that splitting calories into five equal meals per day eaten between 9 AM and 8 PM, eating all calories in the morning, and eating all calories in the evening didn’t affect weight loss parameters or body composition.

You can lose weight by restricting calories without exercising, but adding exercise—both resistance and cardiovascular training—comes with some major benefits. The addition of resistance training to a calorie deficit preserves muscle and BMR, and it provides a substantial “afterburn” effect. Adding cardiovascular training burns more energy and thus more fat.

If you’re planning on getting below 10 percent body fat, I can pretty much guarantee that you’re going to need to include some cardio in your routine to get there. Fortunately, however, you won’t have to do nearly as much as most people think.

Well, an effective way to recover from the stresses of the “daily grind” is to simply relax. If you want to see this in action, the next time you face a willpower challenge, deliberately slow your breathing down to about 10 to 15 seconds per breath, or four to six breaths per minute. An easy way to do this is to exhale through your mouth slowly and fully with your lips pursed, as if you were blowing lightly through a straw. Research shows that simply slowing down your breathing like this increases heart rate variability and helps you better resist the effects of stress and strengthen your willpower.

Don’t confuse “relaxation” with “indulgent and inactive,” though. A bottle of wine and a 24 marathon isn’t going to help you. Instead, you want to engage in activities that elicit a specific type of physiological response: your heart rate slows, your blood pressure drops, your muscles relax, and your mind stops analyzing and planning. Everything just slows down. Research has shown that there are various ways to enter this state, such as going for a walk outside, reading, drinking a cup of tea, listening to soothing music, doing yoga, lying down and focusing on breathing and relaxing your muscles, and even gardening.

Another important part of keeping stress levels low is getting adequate sleep. If you sleep too little, too regularly, you’ll find yourself more susceptible to stress and temptation and lacking the “energy reserve” needed to keep your good habits in play and your bad habits in check.

Research shows that regular exercise reduces cravings for both food and drugs, increases heart rate variability, makes us more resistant to stress and depression, and even optimizes overall brain function.

What this boils down to is how much discomfort can you endure now to achieve a long-term goal? How well can you ignore immediate rewards and keep your eye on the bigger prize on the horizon?

Simple: we don’t want to lose something we have, even if we’re going to gain something of greater value later. It’s just human nature, and it’s why we tend to gravitate toward choosing smaller, immediate rewards over larger, delayed ones.

The silver lining, however, is that good behaviors and moods are contagious as well. If we hang around people who are generally goal-driven and happy with high levels of self-control, we too can “catch” these traits. Simply thinking about people with high levels of self-control—self-control role models, if you will—has been shown to increase willpower.

Pride is another effective weapon that we can use to overcome our willpower challenges. Research shows that imagining how proud you will be once you’ve accomplished your goals, who you’ll tell, and what their reactions will be can increase your willpower and make you more likely to do what it takes to make those goals a reality. Anticipating the shame and disapproval from others that comes with failure can also help you stay strong in the face of temptation, but it isn’t as powerful in this regard as pride.

Research shows that a willingness to think thoughts and feel feelings without having to act on them is an effective method of dealing with a wide variety of challenges, such as mood disorders, food cravings, and addiction. On the other hand, trying to suppress negative thoughts and feelings, like self-criticism, worries, sadness, or cravings, can lead to greater feelings of inadequacy, anxiety, depression, and even overeating. So, when you have disturbing thoughts, face them calmly instead of trying to sweep them under the mental rug. You don’t have to believe them or contemplate their meaning; you just have to accept that they’re there and be aware of them. Don’t read into them—just play them down. They’re not that important and will fade.

The problem with this is research shows that we can, at some point, “run out” of self-control juice, leaving us susceptible to temptation. Scientists have observed that, regardless of the types of tasks performed, people’s self-control is at its highest in the morning and that it steadily declines as the day wears on. Resisting sweets, fighting emotional impulses, keeping distractions at bay, compelling yourself to do difficult tasks, or even making trivial purchase decisions all seem to pull from the same willpower reserve. These findings have given rise to the “willpower as a muscle” metaphor: it only has so much strength, and every time you “flex” it, it becomes a little bit weaker. The positive side of the metaphor, however, is that you can train your “willpower muscle” like a physical one and make it stronger and more resistant to fatigue. Research backs this up too. We can increase our overall willpower by performing regular, small acts of self-control, like eating fewer sweets, tracking spending, correcting our posture, refraining from swearing, squeezing a handgrip every day, and using our nondominant hand for various tasks.

If sticking to a diet is your struggle, you could precommit by throwing out every bit of tempting junk food in the house and not buying it again, bringing a healthy lunch to work every day that you’ve prepared,

If you want to ensure you do your workouts, you could pay for an annual membership at your gym instead of going month to month.

The site allows you to set a goal and time frame, put money on the line, decide what happens with the money if you fail (it goes to charity, for example, or even to an organization you don’t like, which can be a stronger incentive), designate a “referee” who will monitor your progress and confirm the truthfulness of your reports,

inspiration on Pinterest, which you can find at http://www.pinterest.com/mikebls

Proper nutrition boils down to just two things: 1. Supplying your body with the nutrients needed to efficiently recover from your workouts. 2. Manipulating your energy intake to lose, maintain, or gain weight as desired.

We must first calculate our BMR, which is easily accomplished by using the Katch-McArdle formula. Here’s how it works: BMR = 370 + (21.6 * LBM)

LBM refers to lean body mass, and it’s in kilograms for this calculation. In case you’re not familiar with it, lean body mass refers to the nonfat components of the human body. You calculate LBM by subtracting your body fat weight from your total body weight, giving you the weight of everything but your body fat. Here’s how it looks:

lb (LBM)

Once you know your BMR, you can calculate your TDEE [Total Daily Energy Expenditure] by multiplying it as follows: • by 1.2, if you exercise one to three hours per week, • by 1.35, if you exercise four to six hours per week, or • by 1.5, if you exercise vigorously for six or more hours per week.

Some people prefer to start with BMR and then add calories burned through physical activity, as determined by estimations or an activity tracker, but I find this an unnecessary complication.

A high-protein diet is absolutely vital for building muscle and preserving it when you’re dieting for fat loss.

Protein intake of 1.3 to 1.8 grams per kilogram of body weight is adequate for stimulating maximal protein synthesis. They note, however, that more protein might be needed in the case of frequent and/or high-intensity training and in the case of dieting to lose fat (restricting calories).

(2.6 to 3.3 grams per kilogram of body weight) per day, are commonly recommended when dieting to lose fat.

The general rule of protein intake is that you want to stick to proteins that are easily digested and that supply plentiful amounts of the essential amino acids required by the body. To determine what these proteins are, we can turn to the protein digestibility corrected amino acid score (PDCAA) of various types of protein, which assigns ratings on a scale from 0 to 1 to indicate the overall quality of the food (with 0 being the worst and 1 being the best possible score).

With a middling PDCAA score of 0.47, rice protein isn’t too exciting. When you combine it with pea protein, however, it gets a lot better because of pea’s better PDCAA score of 0.69 and high amount of leucine. In fact, a rice and pea blend is often called “vegan’s whey” because its amino acid profile is similar to that of whey protein.

Once the amino acids make it into the bloodstream, your body can temporarily store (up to about 24 hours or so) excess amino acids in muscle for future needs.

So, to repeat, my recommendation is simple: get the majority of your daily carbohydrates from nutritious, unprocessed foods, which will incidentally be lower on the GI, but don’t be afraid to include a few higher-GI foods that you like.

If you don’t eat enough protein when dieting to lose weight, you can lose quite a bit of muscle, and this in turn hampers your weight loss in several ways: 1. It causes your basal metabolic rate to drop. 2. It reduces the number of calories you burn in your workouts. 3. It impairs the metabolism of glucose and lipids. As you can see, when you want to lose fat, your number-one goal is to preserve lean mass, and eating an adequate amount of protein every day is vital to achieve this goal.

The type of fat that you want to avoid at all costs is trans fat. In case you don’t remember, trans fat is a form of unsaturated fat not commonly found in nature. Trans fat is created artificially and added to food primarily to increase shelf life, and it’s bad news. Research has associated trans fat intake with a variety of health problems: heart disease, insulin resistance, systemic inflammation, female infertility, diabetes, and more.

Any food that contains hydrogenated oil or partially hydrogenated oil contains trans fats.

That said, the post-workout depleted state does create a nice “carb sink,” which you can use to enjoy a large number of carbs with little to no fat storage (as the body will not store carbohydrates as fat until glycogen stores are replenished).

Post-workout protein or carbs would only be needed if the cardio were particularly long and intense (longer than one hour, with a fair amount of sprinting).

Eating protein before working out, and especially a quickly digested protein high in leucine like whey, can help you build more muscle over time. I recommend 30 to 40 grams of protein 30 minutes before training. Eating carbohydrate before working out, and especially a quickly digested form, will improve your performance. I recommend 40 to 50 grams of carbs 30 minutes before training. [I wouldn't recommend it; first, your body already has some excess amino acids and glycogen stored. Eating prior to workout may make you feel bloated or sleepy.]

Eating protein after working out, and especially a quickly digested protein high in leucine, like whey, can help you build more muscle over time. I recommend eating at least 30 to 40 grams of protein in your post-workout meal. Eating carbohydrate after working out, and especially a quickly digested form, raises insulin levels faster and keeps them elevated longer, which in turn keeps muscle breakdown rates low. I recommend 1 gram of carbohydrate per kilogram of body weight in your post-workout meal, which you should eat immediately after exercise.

That is, a calorie deficit blunts your body’s ability to fully repair the damage you cause to your muscles through exercise. This is why it’s also easier to overtrain when you’re in a calorie deficit. This is why you generally can’t build muscle efficiently while restricting calories for fat loss.

If you’re not sure how to determine your body fat percentage, most experts agree that hydrostatic and dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) are the most accurate methods. The downside, however, is inconvenience and cost. Therefore, I recommend that you get a good fat caliper. The one I recommend in the bonus report at the end of this book is inexpensive and accurate to within 1 percent.

If you’re gaining strength but not size, you’re not eating enough.

HOW TO EAT FOR MAXIMUM FAT LOSS

You’re looking to lose between 1 and 2 pounds per week when cutting, and if that sounds low to you, remember that weight loss that is too rapid is undesirable, as it means you’re losing a fair amount of muscle as well as fat.

When you cut, you will first calculate a starting point and adjust as needed. Here’s where you start: • 1.2 grams of protein per pound of body weight per day, • 1 gram of carbs per pound of body weight per day, and • 0.2 grams of fat per pound of body weight per day.

While overeating is the more common mistake when cutting, some people tend to undereat. If taken too far, this can be worse than overeating, because it can cause significant muscle loss. During your first week or two of cutting, you can expect to be a little hungry at times and to run into some cravings. This doesn’t mean that you’re losing muscle or that anything else is wrong. It just comes with the territory, but it passes after a few weeks. A proper cut is not supposed to be a grueling test of your will.

After seven to ten days of sticking to your cutting diet, you should assess how it’s going. Weight loss isn’t the only criterion to consider when deciding if your diet is right or wrong, however. You should judge your progress based on the following criteria:

• your weight (did it go down, go up, or stay the same?),
• your clothes (do they feel looser, tighter, or the same?),
• your mirror (do you look thinner, fatter, or the same?),
• your energy levels (do you feel energized, tired, or somewhere in between?),
• your strength (is it going up, going down, or staying about the same?), and
• your sleep (are you exhausted by the end of the night, do you have trouble winding down, or has nothing changed?).

If you’re an experienced weightlifter, however, it’s normal to lose a few reps across the board when cutting, but you shouldn’t be squatting 30 pounds less by the end of the first week. If your strength drops by a considerable amount, chances are, you’re undereating and need to increase your food intake.

If you’re dead tired by bedtime, that’s not necessarily a bad sign. It’s common when people start training correctly. What’s important, however, is that you sleep long and deeply. If your heart is beating quickly at night and you’re anxious, tossing and turning in bed, and if you wake up more often at night, you might be overtraining or undereating.

A huge, killer diet trap that many people fall into is eating a lot of “hidden calories” throughout the day. Then they wonder why they aren’t losing weight.

Hidden calories are those that you don’t realize are there and account for, such as the 2 tablespoons of olive oil used to cook your dinner (240 calories).

These “little” additions add up every day and are by far the number-one reason why people fail to get results from what would otherwise be a proper dietary regimen. There just isn’t a large margin for error when you’re trying to maintain a moderate calorie deficit every day.

If your weight has remained the same for seven to ten days, and you haven’t gotten any leaner, and you’ve stuck 100 percent to your numbers, you simply need to move more or reduce your calorie intake.

BMR = 370 + (21.6 * LBM [lean body mass in kg])

This answers the question of how long you can cut for: you can cut until your intake reaches BMR, but don’t reduce your intake lower than that.

The average guy on a proper bulk will gain muscle and body fat at a ratio of about 1:1 (1 pound of fat gained for every pound of muscle. In terms of weight gain while bulking, you want to see your weight going up at a rate of 0.5 to 1 pound per week. Any more than that, and you’ll be gaining too much fat.

So, let’s get to the actual dietary numbers for bulking. Here’s where you start: • 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight per day, • 2 grams of carbs per pound of body weight per day, and • 0.4 grams of fat per pound of body weight per day.

Don’t think of a bulk as a license to eat whatever you want whenever you want it, as this will inevitably lead to excessive overeating and thus excessive fat storage, which will slow down your gains in the long run.

HOW TO EAT FOR SLOW AND STEADY “LEAN GAINS”

Generally speaking, guys switch to maintenance if they want to stay lean through a certain time period like summer or if they’ve achieved the overall body composition they want and are looking to simply maintain that look

Here’s your starting point for maintenance: • 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight per day, • 1.6 grams of carbs per pound of body weight per day, and • 0.35 grams of fat per pound of body weight per day.

Get at least 80 percent of your daily calories from healthy (micronutrient-dense) foods that you like.

The psychological effect we’re after relates to the hormone leptin, which regulates hunger, your metabolic rate, appetite, motivation, and libido, among many other functions. When you’re in a caloric deficit and lose body fat, your leptin levels drop. This, in turn, causes your metabolic rate to slow down, your appetite to increase, your motivation to wane, and your mood to sour. When you give your leptin levels a dramatic boost, however, this can have positive effects on fat oxidation, thyroid activity, mood, and even testosterone levels. Eating carbohydrates is the most effective way to raise leptin levels, eating protein is moderately effective, eating dietary fat has little to no effect on leptin levels, and drinking alcohol lowers them. Thus, a good cheat meal is a high-protein, high-carbohydrate, low-fat, and alcohol-free meal that doesn’t put you in a large calorie surplus for the day.

Don’t measure yourself by what you have accomplished, but by what you should have accomplished with your ability. —JOHN WOODEN

Well, while a small number of machines are worth using, such as the leg press machine or cable setup, the vast majority are inferior to dumbbell and barbell exercises in terms of producing bigger, stronger muscles. This includes the Smith machine, which has been proven to be less effective for squatting and bench pressing than the free-weight barbell squat and bench press.

To achieve maximum overload and muscle stimulation, you will train one or two muscle groups per workout (per day). While upper/lower and full-body splits can work if programmed correctly, they come with several drawbacks. The first is the fact that training multiple major muscle groups in one workout is very hard when you’re focusing on heavy, compound weightlifting. When you do six sets of heavy chest pressing, and then try to move on to heavy shoulder pressing, you simply won’t lift as much as you would if you saved your shoulder work for another day. By training only one or two muscle groups per day, you’ll be able to give your workouts 100 percent focus and intensity and train hard, without struggling through the systemic and muscular fatigue that comes with trying to do too much in a workout. Training several major muscle groups in one workout also takes a lot of time. I used to do long, 1.5 to 2-hour workouts and, quite frankly, didn’t look forward to many of them. I’m now in and out in no more than an hour and find that much more enjoyable, which helps me stick with the program for the long haul.

DO SETS OF 4 TO 6 REPS FOR NEARLY ALL EXERCISES

This means that you’re going to be using weights that allow for at least four reps but no more than six reps (if you can’t get four reps, it’s too heavy; if you can get six or more, it’s too light). Generally speaking, this is about 85 percent of your 1RM for each exercise.

Training with weights between 70 percent and 85 percent of 1RM produced maximum hypertrophy in subjects, although lower and higher loads also produced marked results.

A moderate training volume of 30 to 60 reps per workout produced maximum hypertrophy in subjects. As the load decreased, the optimal number of reps increased (that is, the lighter the weights you’re using, the more reps you want to do to maximally stimulate muscle growth).

training with weights that allowed no more than five to six reps is most effective for increasing strength and that resting up to three minutes in between sets is optimal when training in this fashion.

DO 9 TO 12 HEAVY SETS PER WORKOUT

Research and anecdotal evidence has shown me that 50 to 70 heavy reps performed with each major muscle group every five to seven days is a “sweet spot” for getting the most out of natural weightlifting.

REST 3 TO 4 MINUTES BETWEEN SETS

Basically, the whole point of resting between sets is to prepare your muscles to lift maximum weight in the next set.

The longer rest times are going to feel really weird. You’re going to feel like you’re sitting around more than you’re working out. But again, let the results speak for themselves. You’ll notice that you retain your strength much better set after set when you use proper rest periods, which is crucial for continuing to recruit maximal muscle fibers with each set.

TRAIN FOR 60 to 65 MINUTES

TRAIN EACH MUSCLE GROUP ONE TO TWO TIMES EVERY 5 TO 7 DAYS

DIAL IT BACK EVERY 8 TO 10 WEEKS

Heavy weightlifting can feel pretty brutal at first. It takes quite a bit of physical effort and mental concentration. Your muscles will ache. Your joints and tendons will have to adapt. As if all that weren’t enough, there’s more: it puts the central nervous system under tremendous stress as well, which manifests in subtle ways.

And the easiest way to “refresh” your entire body is to periodically reduce the intensity of your training or take a week off the weights altogether. Thus, between each of its eight-week phases, the Bigger Leaner Stronger program includes a choice between what is known as a deload week and several days, or even an entire week, off the weights.

I recommend that you start with deload weeks, but if you don’t feel reinvigorated by the end of them and physically and mentally ready to hit the heavy weights again, then I recommend that you try no training whatsoever for at least four to five days before getting back to it.

In terms of how to eat on your deload week or week off the weights, if you’re bulking, you can reduce your calories to a maintenance level, and if you’re cutting, you don’t have to change anything.

once you hit six reps for one set, you add weight for your next set. The standard increase is a total of 10 pounds: 5 pounds added to either side of the barbell, or a 5-pound increase in each dumbbell.

If, after moving up like this, you only get two to three reps, you can reduce the weight by 5 pounds (leaving it at 5 pounds heavier than the weight with which you got six reps).

Your primary goal with every workout should be beating the previous week’s numbers, even if only by one rep. If you do that again the next week, you’re ready to move up in weight. You should know, however, that some weeks just won’t go like that. Sometimes you’ll only be able to lift exactly what you did the week prior. Sometimes you’ll even be a rep weaker. These things happen and don’t necessarily mean anything is wrong. Just keep working at it and you should see a slow, steady increase in weight lifted over time.

So, the rep timing I recommend is either the “2–1–2” or “2–1–1” timing. This means the first part of the rep should take about two seconds, which is followed by a one-second (or shorter) pause, which is followed by the final portion of the rep, which should take between one and two seconds to perform.

Ironically, training heavy is especially important when you’re cutting, because the name of the game is muscle preservation, and you need to keep overloading the muscles to accomplish this. So, train hard when you’re cutting and keep trying to go up in strength. Most guys experience an initial drop in strength when they switch from a bulk to a cut, but I’ve always managed to build my strength back up and end more or less where I began with little to no muscle loss (if I do lose any muscle when I cut, I can’t see it in the mirror).

Research has shown that the longer your cardio sessions are, the more they impair strength and hypertrophy. Thus, keeping your cardio sessions short is important when we’re talking about maximizing your gains in the weight room and preserving your muscle. Only high-intensity interval training allows you to do this and burn enough fat to make it worthwhile.

If you’d like to do a different form of HIIT cardio, such as rowing, sprinting, swimming, jump roping, or anything else that permits it, go for it. You can apply the same simple principles: relatively short bursts of maximum effort that spike your heart rate followed by low-intensity recovery periods that bring it down to normal levels.

Training for both endurance and strength simultaneously impairs your gains on both fronts. Training purely for strength or purely for endurance in a workout is far superior.

Therefore, I recommend that you separate your weightlifting and cardio sessions by at least a few hours, if at all possible. Personally, I lift early in the morning and do my cardio after work, before dinner. If there’s no way that you can split up your cardio and weightlifting, do your weight training first, as cardio first will drain energy that you’ll want for your lifting. While this arrangement isn’t ideal, it’s not a huge problem. You can still do well on the program. If you can, I recommend having a protein shake after your weightlifting and before your cardio, as this will help mitigate the muscle breakdown.

In terms of frequency, here’s how I do it:

• When I’m bulking, I do two, 25-minute, HIIT sessions per week.
• When I’m cutting, I do three to five, 25-minute, HIIT sessions per week.
• When I’m maintaining, I do two to three, 25-minute, HIIT sessions per week.
• I never do more than five cardio sessions per week, as I’ve found my strength begins to drop off in the gym if I do.

Out of the hundreds and hundreds of exercises you could possibly do, four reign supreme. If you neglect them, like I did when I started lifting, you’re guaranteed to never reach your genetic potential in terms of size, strength, and performance. These exercises are the squat, deadlift, bench press, and military press,

To nobody’s surprise, squatting strengthens every muscle in your legs, which doesn’t just increase the amount of weight you can lift—it also helps you run faster and jump higher, and it improves flexibility, mobility, and agility. And as if those aren’t reasons enough to squat regularly, it’s also an incredibly effective core workout.

SQUAT

I recommend that you always squat in a power rack or squat rack with the safety bars/pins set 6 inches or so below the height of the bar at the bottom of the rep. Do this even if you have a spotter. Position the bar on the rack so it cuts across the upper half of your chest. This might feel a bit low, but it’s better to have it on the low side than trying to tippy-toe heavy weight off the rack.

Get under the bar and place your heels at about shoulder-width apart, with the toes rotated out by about 20 to 25 degrees (your right foot should be at about one o’clock and your left at about eleven o’clock). When you’re ready to unrack the bar, bring your shoulder blades together, tighten your entire upper back, raise your chest up, and straighten your lower back. Put the bar below the bone at the top of your shoulder blades, solidly across your upper back muscles and rear deltoids. Do not put the bar on your neck. Use a narrow grip because this helps you maintain upper-back tightness. Place your thumbs on top of the bar. Notice how all of the weight is resting on his back, with none on his hands. This is important. The wide grip that many people use slackens the back muscles, which provide crucial support for the weight and transfers the load to the spine. Don’t follow their lead. This tight, hands-in position will probably feel a bit awkward at first, and you might need to improve your shoulder flexibility to get there. If you’re not flexible enough yet, that’s okay—get as close to the proper position as you can, ensuring that your shoulder blades are pinched and that the weight is solidly on your back (you’re not holding the load in your hands). As you continue to train and stretch, you’ll be able to get your hands in close.

Once you’ve unracked the weight, take one or two steps back and assume the proper squatting position as outlined above (heels shoulder-width apart, toes pointed out). Pick a spot on the floor about 6 feet away, and stare at it for the entirety of the set. Don’t look up at the ceiling, as this makes it hard to reach the proper bottom position, can throw off proper hip movement and chest positioning, and can even cause a neck injury. You’re now ready to start the downward motion, which is accomplished by shifting the hips back and sitting the butt straight down while keeping the chest up and the entire back straight and tight. Many people have the tendency to want to transfer the load to the quads as they descend and accomplish this by sliding the knees too far forward. Well, if your knees push too far past your toes as you descend, they’re put in a compromising position that can lead to all kinds of pains and problems, particularly with the patellar tendon under the kneecap. A good rule of thumb is that the forward motion of the knees should occur in the first third or half of the descent, and they should go no farther than just in front of the toes. Once the knees are out of the way and in place, the movement becomes a simple drop of the hips straight down followed by a rise straight up. The bottom of the squat is the point where your hips are back and slightly lower than your kneecaps (which causes your femurs to be a little lower than parallel with the ground). Your knees are just a little forward of the toes and the back is straight, but not necessarily arched, and at an angle that places the bar over the middle of the foot.

Once you’ve reached the bottom of the squat, you drive your butt straight up—not forward—and raise your shoulders at the same pace. To do this, you must maintain a back angle that keeps the weight over the middle of your foot. If your hips rise faster than your shoulders, you’ll start tipping forward, which puts heavy strain on the neck and back. Don’t think about anything but driving your hips…

Squatting too rapidly increases the shearing and compressive forces placed on your knees. Make sure your descent is controlled—don’t simply drop your hips as quickly as you can. Take a deep breath at the top of the first rep—when you’re standing tall—and hold it, tightening your entire torso. You can hold your breath as you perform the rep or exhale slightly (maybe 10 percent of the air you’re holding) on the way up, and then fill up with air again at the top. Don’t squat on a Smith machine, unless you have no other choice. It forces an unnatural range of motion that can be quite uncomfortable, and research has shown it’s less effective than the barbell squat performed with free weight.

Don’t point your feet straight forward, as this can increase stress on the knees. As the stance widens, the body naturally wants the feet to be parallel with the thighs. By twisting them in and squatting, you force an unnatural torque on the knees that can lead to bowing them in as you ascend, which increases the risk of injury.

Don’t use a powerlifter’s super-wide squatting stance unless you’re actually powerlifting. This type of stance does allow for more weight to be lifted, but it reduces the role of the quads in the lift. If you feel the need to squat with blocks or plates under your heels, it’s because you need more hamstring and/or ankle flexibility.

Believe it or not, the wrong shoes can make squatting significantly harder. Bad shoes are those with a soft or unstable sole or raised heel, as this promotes instability during the lift, and those with too high of a heel, which shifts your body weight and thus your knees too far forward as you descend and ascend. By using shoes with flat soles or proper weightlifting shoes with a slight, rigid heel elevation, you’ll find it much easier to sit back onto your heels and engage your hamstrings and glutes more effectively. (You’ll find my shoe recommendations in the bonus report at the end of the book.)

Front Squat

The front squat emphasizes the quadriceps and core and creates less compression of the spine and less torque in the knees, which makes it particularly useful for those with back or knee injuries or limitations. It also makes it easier to achieve proper depth. Like the back squat, you set up for a front squat, with your feet about shoulder-width apart and your toes slightly pointed out. There are different ways to grip the bar, but I recommend the position used for the Olympic lift known as the clean, which looks like this: If this places too much stress on your wrists, you can alleviate this by removing a finger or two from under the bar, such as the thumb and pinky. In this position, the barbell sits on the front of your shoulders, which requires that your upper-back muscles work harder, that your torso stays upright, and that your chest and elbows remain up and forward. Don’t try to hold the bar above your shoulders with your hands, or your wrists will start hurting. It’s uncomfortable at first, but you want your shoulders to carry the load. Maintain this tight, vertical position for the entire lift. To begin the descent, take a deep breath and stabilize your core. Push your hips out and squat straight down, keeping your knees in line with the toes, until your thighs are just below parallel to the ground. You’ll notice that this pushes your knees a bit more forward than the back squat, which is normal. Drive through your heels to begin the ascent and keep your chest up, back tight, and elbows high.

BENCH PRESS

Setup A strong bench press starts with a strong base, and here’s how it works: Lie down on the bench and “screw” your shoulder blades in by retracting them in toward each other and down toward your waist. Create an arch in your lower back that’s big enough to fit a fist between it and the bench. Your chest should be raised, as if you’re going to show it to someone, and you’ll want to keep it “up” like this for the entire lift. Your grip should be a few inches wider than shoulder-width (about 22 to 28 inches, depending on your build). If you get too narrow, you’ll be relying too much on the triceps (incidentally, the close-grip bench press is a fantastic triceps exercise, but we’ll talk about that later), and if you get too wide, you’ll reduce the range of motion and overall effectiveness of the exercise.

Put the bar in the palm of your hand, not in your fingers, because this leads to wrist pains. Grip the bar hard. Try to crush it like spaghetti, as this will give you a little boost in strength. Create a stable lower body base by placing your feet directly beneath your knees, which should be angled outward, tightening your quads, and activating your glutes. The upper part of your leg should be parallel to the floor, and the lower part should be perpendicular (forming a 90-degree angle), which allows you to push through your heels as you ascend, creating the “leg drive” that you’ve probably heard of (the powerlifting style of bench press, with the heels elevated, is fine too if you prefer it). Once you’ve done all the above, you’ve put yourself in the position that you want to maintain throughout the entire lift.

Unrack the bar by locking your elbows out to move the bar off the hooks, and move the bar into position with your elbows still locked. Don’t try to bring the weight straight from the hooks to your chest, and don’t drop your chest and loosen your shoulder blades when unracking, because it will make you shrug the bar off with your shoulders. Research has shown that keeping your arms at about a 45-degree angle relative to your torso and using a medium grip are the best ways to protect your shoulders while performing the bench press. However, 45 degrees on the nose isn’t necessarily right for everyone—you’ll want to find the position between 30 and 60 degrees that is most comfortable for you. The lowest position above is about 20 degrees and commonly seen in powerlifting. The middle position is about 45 degrees and is what I find most comfortable. The top position is 90 degrees, which places the shoulders in a compromising position. The proper bench press movement is a controlled lowering of the bar all the way down to the bottom of your chest (over your nipples), followed by an explosive drive upward. The bar should move in a straight line up and down, not toward your face or belly button.

Don’t watch the bar as it moves, as this will likely cause you to vary its angles of descent and ascent. Instead, pick a spot on the ceiling to look at during the exercise and see the bar going down and up in relation to it. The goal is to bring it up to the same spot for each rep. Keep your elbows “tucked” in the starting position the entire time, paying special attention during the ascension (as this is when people usually flare them out to gain leverage). Increasing the angle relative to your torso makes it easier to get the weight up but puts undue stress on the shoulders.

Don’t allow your chest to go flat while doing the press, and don’t allow your shoulders to shrug or roll forward at the top of a rep. Keep your chest up, elbows tucked, and shoulder blades pinched and retracted. Use your legs to drive against the floor. This transfers force up through the hips and back, which helps maintain proper form and can increase the pushing force you can generate. Keep your butt on the bench at all times. If your butt is lifting, the weight is probably too heavy. The three points of contact that you should always maintain are the upper back (stays down on the bench), the butt (ditto), and the feet (stay planted on the floor). Don’t bounce the bar off your chest. Lower it in a controlled manner, keeping everything tight. Then, let it touch your chest and drive it up. Don’t smash the back of your head into the bench, as this can strain your neck. Your neck will naturally tighten while doing the exercise, but don’t forcefully push it down. When you’re lowering the weight, think about the coming drive up. Visualize the explosive second half of the exercise the entire time, and you’ll find it easier to control the descent of the weight, prevent bouncing, and even prepare your muscles for the imminent stress of raising the bar. (This technique is good for all exercises, by the way.) Make sure to finish your last rep before trying to rack the weight. Many guys make the mistake of moving the bar toward their faces on the way up during their last rep. What if they miss the rep and it starts coming down or misses the hooks? It’s not pretty. Instead, press the weight straight up as usual, lock your elbows out, move the bar back to the rack until it hits the uprights, and then lower it to the hooks.

Bench Press Variations

As a part of the Bigger Leaner Stronger program, you’re going to do two variations of the basic bench press: the incline bench press and close-grip bench press.

Incline Bench Press

The best way to ensure your upper chest doesn’t fall behind your pec major in size is to do a lot of incline pressing, Hence, my inclusion of the incline bench press in the program, which emphasizes the clavicular pectoralis more than flat or decline pressing. When doing this exercise, the angle of incline in the bench should be 30 to 45 degrees. I prefer 30 degrees, but some people prefer an incline closer to 45. I recommend that you try various settings ranging between 30 and 45 degrees and see which you like most. The basic setup and movement of the incline bench press is just as you learned for the regular bench press, with a small exception: the bar should pass by the chin and touch just below the collarbones to allow for a vertical bar path.

Close-Grip Bench

Press As I mentioned earlier, as you narrow your grip on the bar, the triceps have to do more of the work. This is undesirable when you’re focusing on training your chest, but it’s one of my favorite ways to train the triceps. When doing a close-grip bench press, your grip should be slightly narrower than shoulder-width and no closer. You’ll see many guys place their hands just a few inches apart, and this is a bad idea—it puts the shoulders and wrists in a weakened, compromised position. The rest of the setup and movement are the same as the regular bench press: the shoulder blades are “screwed” into the bench, there’s a slight arch in the lower back, the feet are flat on the floor, and the bar moves straight down, touches the bottom of your chest, and moves straight up. If your shoulders or wrists feel uncomfortable at the bottom of the lift, simply widen your grip by about the width of a finger and try again. If this doesn’t handle it, widen your grip by another finger width and repeat until it’s comfortable (but not so wide that you’re turning it into a standard bench press).

THE DEADLIFT

There are many mistakes you can make, but the major “no-no” is rounding your lower back during the lift, as this shifts much of the stress away from the erector spinae muscles to the vertebrae and ligaments.

Always start with the bar on the floor—not on the safety pins or on the rack. Your stance should be a bit narrower than shoulder width, and your toes should be pointed slightly out. You should stand with the bar above the middle of your feet (the top of your instep). Stand up tall with your chest out, and take a deep breath of air into your diaphragm (not your lungs), bracing your abs as if you were about to get punched in the stomach. Bend through your knees until your shins touch the bar and your knees are slightly past it, and then lift your chest until your back is in a neutral position and tight. Don’t overarch your lower back, and don’t squeeze your shoulder blades together like with the squat. Just push your chest up and your shoulders and back down. Don’t make the newbie mistake of bringing your hips too low with the intention of “squatting” the weight up. The lower your hips are below optimal, the more they will have to rise before you’re able to lift the weight off the floor, which is just wasted movement. Instead, you should feel tightness in your hamstrings and hips as you wedge yourself into what’s essentially a “half-squat” position. Your arms should be completely straight and locked and just outside your legs, leaving enough room for your thumbs to clear your thighs. Grip the bar by placing it into the middle of your palms, not in your fingers. Both palms should be facing in to build grip strength. The other grip option is the “mixed grip,” where one palm faces in (usually the nondominant hand) and the other faces out, which can allow you to lift heavier weight. You’re now ready to pull.

Drive your body upward and slightly back as quickly as you can by pushing through your heels. Keep your elbows locked in place and your lower back slightly arched (no rounding!). Ensure that your hips and shoulders move up simultaneously: don’t shoot your hips up without also raising your shoulders. You’ll feel your hamstrings and hips working hard as you continue to rise. Keep your back neutral and tight the whole way up, and try to keep the bar on as vertically straight of a path as possible (there should be little lateral movement of the bar as you lift it up). The bar should move up your shins and roll over your knees and thighs, at which point your glutes contract forcefully to bring you into a standing position. At the top, your chest should be out and your shoulders down. Don’t lean back, shrug the weight, or roll your shoulders up and back. The next half of the movement is lowering the weight back down to the floor in a controlled manner (yes, it must go all the way back to the floor!). This is basically a mirror image of what you did to come up. You begin lowering the bar by pushing your hips back first, letting the bar descend in a straight line, sliding down your thighs, until it reaches your knees. You then bend your knees and lower it down your shins. The back stays locked in its tight, neutral position the entire time. Don’t try to deliberately slow down the lowering of the weight, especially as you get the bar to your knees. The entire second half of the lift should take about one to two seconds. There are two ways of transitioning into your next rep: the tap-and-go and stop-and-go methods. The tap-and-go method has you tap the floor with the plates and move directly into your next rep, whereas the stop-and-go method has you fully release the plates on the floor for a second before starting your next rep. The latter is harder than the former but not necessarily better. It’s more a matter of finding what feels best for you. I prefer the tap-and-go method, but sometimes I use the stop-and-go method if I’m going particularly heavy.

Deadlift Tips

Wear long pants and long socks on the day that you’ll be deadlifting to prevent shin scraping. This can be caused by poor form but can also be unavoidable depending on the relationship between your limbs and torso and lower body. As with squatting, deadlifting in shoes that have air cushions or gel fillings or overly elevated heels is a bad idea. They compromise stability, cause power loss, and interfere with proper form. Get shoes with flat, hard soles or weightlifting shoes for your deadlifting and squatting and you’ll be better for it.

Stick with the overhand grip if possible as it’s great for strengthening your grip. As you get stronger, however, you might find that the bar starts falling out of your hands during your sets. If this happens, you can switch to the alternating grip and, if you like, include some grip-specific training in your routine, which you can find here: http://bit.ly/grip-training. Too wide of a stance or grip will make the exercise awkward. The deadlift stance is narrower than the squat stance, and it requires that the hands be just outside the legs. Try to crush the bar with your grip. If your knuckles aren’t white, you’re not squeezing hard enough. If you start the ascension with your hips too high, you’ll turn the deadlift into a stiff-legged deadlift, which is more stressful on the lower back and hamstrings. Make sure that you get your hips low enough in the starting position. A common mistake guys make is starting the ascension slowly, which makes it much easier to get stuck. Explode the bar up from the floor as fast as you can by applying as much force through your heels as possible. When you’re lowering the weight, if you break your knees too early, you’ll hit them with the bar. To avoid this, begin your descent by pushing your hips back first and don’t bend your knees until the bar reaches them. Don’t strain to look up while deadlifting. Keep your head in a neutral position and in line with your spine.

Deadlift Variations

Sumo Deadlift

The sumo deadlift uses a wide stance (1.5 to 2 times the width of your shoulders) to shorten the range of motion and limit the shearing force on the lower back. It also can feel more comfortable in the hips than a conventional deadlift, depending on your biomechanics (if you walk with your toes pointed out, the sumo might be better for you). The downside of the sumo deadlift is the reduced range of motion, which results in less work done, which means less overall muscle development. Nevertheless, give this variation a try if you lack the flexibility to do a conventional deadlift, if it just feels uncomfortable (certain people’s bodies are better suited to the sumo deadlift), or if it’s causing low-back pain.

Hex Bar Deadlift

The hex bar—or trap bar—deadlift is a great way to learn to deadlift, because it doesn’t require as much hip and ankle mobility to get to the bar and puts less shearing stress on the spine. It also allows you to lift more weight than the conventional deadlift, which might make it a more effective exercise for developing overall lower body power.

The conventional deadlift is more effective in strengthening the erector spinae and hip muscles, however, because the hex bar deadlift is more like a squat, due to the increased load it places on the quadriceps.

Romanian Deadlift (RDL)

The RDL is a variation of the deadlift that targets the glutes and hamstrings and minimizes the involvement of the quads and hip muscles. The RDL starts with the weight on safety pins or the lower portion of the rack. You use the same stance and grip as with the regular deadlift, and you walk the weight back a step or two. In the start position, your knees are locked, your chest is up, your back is straight and tight, and your eyes should focus on a point on the floor about 10 feet away. When you begin the movement, you unlock your knees just enough to put some tension on the quads, and your back should be slightly arched. Start the bar down the thigh in a straight line by pushing the hips back, and your torso should lean forward to keep your shoulders directly over the bar. The bar passes over your knees and travels down the shins, and you go as low as you can without breaking the extension of your back. Because of the increasing angle of the torso, you probably won’t be able to go much farther than a few inches past your knees, and that’s okay. In fact, if the weight is touching the floor, you’re doing it wrong (you’re bending your knees). Resist the temptation to relax the tension in the knees at the bottom by flexing them, as this transfers the load from the hamstrings to the quads.

THE MILITARY PRESS

The military press is the best all-around shoulder exercise you can perform. It’s a simple, easy-to-learn movement that allows for the safe lifting of heavy weights. There are two variations of the military press: standing and seated. The standing variation requires tremendous core and lower back strength to maintain balance, which in turn limits the weight you can lift. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with this, I find that heavy deadlifting and squatting every week builds more than enough core and lower back strength, and I prefer to use this lift to maximize the overload on my shoulders. Thus, I go with the seated press and recommend that you do the same. That said, the seated press requires a proper military press station. If your gym doesn’t have this piece of equipment or if you can’t rig something like it using a power rack and utility bench, then you can opt for the standing variation, which you can perform in a squat rack.

The Seated Military Press

Place your feet flat on the ground about shoulder-width apart with your toes and knees slightly turned out. Press your heels into the ground to keep your upper back and butt rooted in place against the back of the bench. Grip the bar slightly wider than you would to bench press (slightly wider than shoulder width) and place the bar over your wrists, not in your fingers. Your back should be in a neutral position and stay there throughout the lift.

To begin the descent, take a deep breath, tighten your abs and glutes, and press your chest up. Bring the bar straight down toward your clavicle, and keep your elbows tucked like you would during the bench press (don’t force them to stay right at your sides, and don’t let them slide too far behind you). Tilt your head back to allow the bar to pass your nose and chin and look forward, not straight up. (This is why a full bench doesn’t work for the military press: you can’t tilt your head back to get it out of the way and are forced to lower the weight lower down your chest, which is incorrect.) There should be a slight arch in your lower back at the bottom of the lift, but don’t overdo this as it can cause injury when you start loading more and more weight. If you’re arching too much, the weight is probably too heavy. Once the bar has reached your clavicle, raise it straight up along the path of descent, and once it passes your forehead, shift your torso a little forward and squeeze your glutes. Keep raising the bar until your elbows are locked: your shoulders, traps, and back should be tight and squeezed.

The Standing Military Press

The standing press is performed in exactly the same way—you’re just standing. The bar rests on the squat rack at the same height as if you were squatting, and once you’ve unracked it, the movement is as described above. To recap: place the feet and grip shoulder width apart, grip the bar like the bench press, keep the back neutral, descend straight to the clavicles, tilt the head back while looking forward, raise the bar along the same path, shift the torso forward slightly, squeeze the glutes, and lock out.

The exercises I recommend are the ones I’ve found most effective for building a big, strong body. They are listed in order of seniority (the first exercise is what I feel is most important for developing the muscle group, the second is second-most important, and so forth).

While there are an overwhelming number of exercises we could do to train the various muscle groups in our body, a small minority actually deliver the goods (Pareto’s 80/20 principle at work).

You can find links to videos on proper form for all exercises in the bonus report.

CHEST

• Incline Barbell Bench Press
• Incline Dumbbell Bench Press
• Flat Barbell Bench Press
• Flat Dumbbell Bench Press
• Dip (Chest Variation)

These are the exercises you must master, if you want to build an impressive chest. Period. Forget cable work, dumbbell flys, push-up variations, machines, and every other type of chest exercise out there for now. They just aren’t nearly as effective as the above core, foundation-building lifts and are only for advanced weightlifters who have already paid their dues with the heavy pressing to build big, strong pecs.

BACK

• Barbell Deadlift
• Barbell Row
• One-Arm Dumbbell Row
• Pull-Up
• Lat Pulldown (Front and Close-Grip)
• T-Bar Row
• Seated Cable Row (Wide- and Close-Grip)
• Chin-Up
• Barbell Shrug

SHOULDERS

• Seated Barbell Military Press or Standing Barbell Military Press
• Seated Dumbbell Press or Arnold Dumbbell Press
• Dumbbell Side Lateral Raise or One-Arm Dumbbell Side Lateral Raise
• Rear Delt Raise (Bent-Over or Seated)
• Face Pull Barbell
• Rear Delt Row
• Dumbbell Front Raise

LEGS

The quadriceps is a group of four muscles that compose the bulk of the muscle on the front of the thigh.

The back of the leg is dominated by three muscles that contract the hamstring

These are the exercises I’ve used to dramatically improve my own legs, and they will do the same for you:

• Barbell Squat
• Front Squat
• Hack Squat (Sled, not Barbell)
• Leg Press
• Barbell Lunge (Walking or In Place)
• Dumbbell Lunge
• Romanian Deadlift
• Leg Curl (Lying or Seated)
• Calf Raise (Donkey, Standing or Seated)
• Calf Press on the Leg Press

Working legs is very simple. Rule #1: Always do squats. Rule #2: Always do squats. Rule #3: You get the point. The bottom line is that every leg workout should begin with either the back or front squat, with the former focusing on the hamstrings and the latter on the quadriceps.

I’ve tried a lot of calf routines, and I’ve learned a couple of things: Like the abs, the calves seem to recover from workouts more quickly than other muscle groups and thus can be trained more intensively. I’ve yet to find concrete scientific evidence of this.

The calf routine I’m going to recommend works as follows:

• Do two calf workouts per week with at least one day in between each.
• Do six sets per workout.
• Use a 2-1-2 rep tempo: two seconds to full contraction, a slight pause while contracted, and two seconds to release.
• Once you hit the top of your rep range with a given weight, add 10 pounds.

Here are the workouts:

Calf Workout A

• Standing Calf Raise—3 sets of 4 to 6 reps
• Seated Calf Raise—3 sets of 4 to 6 reps
• Rest 2 to 3 minutes between these sets

Calf Workout B

• Leg Press Calf Raise—3 sets of 8 to 10 reps
• Donkey Calf Raise (or Leg Press Calf Raise)—3 sets of 8 to 10 reps
• Rest 1 to 2 minutes between these sets

The proper form with these calf exercises is simple: at the bottom of a rep, your heels are as low as they’ll go and you feel a deep stretch in your calves, and at the top of a rep, you’re up on your tippy-toes like a ballerina. Many people simply use too much weight and can’t make it anywhere near as high as they should at the top of their reps and then wonder why their calves never get bigger or stronger. Don’t make the same mistake.

ARMS

Now let’s get to the exercises, starting with the biceps:

• Barbell Curl
• E-Z Bar Curl
• Dumbbell Curl
• Hammer Curl
• Chin-up

Let’s move on to the triceps:

• Close-Grip Bench Press
• Seated Triceps Press
• Dip (Triceps Variation)
• Lying Triceps Extension (“Skullcrusher”)
• Triceps Pushdown

CORE

The full six-pack look requires both low body fat levels and well-developed core muscles, and that means doing two things: Reducing your body fat percentage. Our rectus abdominis doesn’t start showing until we reach the 10 percent range, and the rest of the core muscles don’t pop until we reach the 8 percent range. Just know that no matter how great your core muscles are developed, you will not achieve the look you want if your body fat percentage is too high.

Building a great six-pack requires that you do both ab exercises that train your rectus abdominis and exercises that train the other core muscles that complete the look we want. What are the right exercises, then?

• Cable Crunch
• Hanging Leg Raise
• Captain’s Chair Leg Raise
• Ab Roller
• Air Bicycles
• Flat Bench Lying Leg Raise
• Decline Crunch

One of the biggest ab training mistakes most people make is that they don’t perform any weighted ab exercises. The result is the ability to do a bazillion crunches or leg raises . . . but with abs that look small and underdeveloped. The abs are like any other muscle: they require progressive overload to grow, and that can only be accomplished by adding resistance to exercises. You don’t have to add weight to all of your ab training, but you must do some if you want abs that pop. I’ve found that abs seem to respond best to a combination of weighted and unweighted work. Here’s how I like to do it:

• Do a set of a weighted exercise like the cable crunch, captain’s chair leg raise, or hanging leg raise for 10 to 12 reps (you can add weight to the latter two by snatching a dumbbell in between your feet).
• Go directly into one set of an unweighted exercise, to failure.
• Go directly into one set of an unweighted exercise, to failure.
• Rest two to three minutes.

Do three of these circuits two or three times per week, and your abs and obliques will develop. In terms of developing the rest of your core muscles, heavy compound weightlifting exercises like the deadlift, squat, and military press, get the job done better than special “core exercises,” particularly when performed with heavy weight. Nothing else is needed here.

Lift weights three to five times per week, with four being better than three, and five being better than four.

If you’re going to train three days per week:

• Day 1 Back & Biceps & Abs
• Day 2 Chest & Triceps & Calves
• Day 3 Legs & Shoulders

Option 1:

• DAY 1 BACK & BICEPS & ABS Barbell Deadlift—Warm-up sets and then 3 working sets Barbell Row—3 working sets Wide-Grip Pull-Up or Chin-Up—3 working sets (4 to 6 reps per set, weighted if possible) Barbell Curl—3 working sets 3 ab circuits
• DAY 2 CHEST & TRICEPS & CALVES Incline Barbell Bench Press—Warm-up sets and then 3 working sets Flat Barbell Bench Press—3 working sets Dip (Chest Variation, weighted if possible)—3 working sets Seated Triceps Press—3 working sets Calf Workout A
• DAY 3 LEGS & SHOULDERS Barbell Squat—Warm-up sets and then 2 working sets Leg Press—2 working sets Romanian Deadlift—2 working sets Seated or Standing Barbell Military Press—Warm-up sets and then 2 working sets Side Lateral Raise—2 working sets Optional: Bent-Over Rear Delt Raise—2 working sets

Some people like to do a set of legs, rest 60 to 90 seconds, then do a set of shoulders, rest 60 to 90 seconds, and alternate like this. This is tough, but it also is a workable way to save time.

Option 2:

• DAY 1 PULL & ABS Barbell Deadlift—Warm-up sets and then 3 working sets Barbell Row—3 working sets Wide-Grip Pull-Up or Chin-Up—3 working sets (weighted if possible) Barbell Curl—3 working sets 3 ab circuits
• DAY 2 PUSH & CALVES Incline Barbell Bench Press—Warm-up sets and then 3 working sets Seated or Standing Barbell Military Press—Warm-up sets and then 3 working sets Flat Barbell Bench Press—3 working sets Side Lateral Raise—3 working sets Optional: Close-Grip Bench Press—3 working sets Calf Workout A
• DAY 3 LEGS & ABS Barbell Squat—Warm-up sets and then 3 working sets Leg Press—3 working sets Romanian Deadlift—3 working sets 3 ab circuits

WARM-UP routine

A proper warm-up routine has two simple goals: to introduce blood into the muscles to be trained and to progressively acclimate them to heavy weight without causing fatigue. You want your muscles fresh and ready for the heavy sets—the muscle-building sets—and not burned out from too much warm-up work.

First Set

In your first warm-up set, you want to do 12 reps with about 50 percent of your heavy, 4- to 6-rep set weight and then rest for one minute.

Second Set

In your second warm-up set, you use the same weight as the first and do 10 reps, this time at a little faster pace. Then rest for one minute.

Third Set

Your third warm-up set is four reps with about 70 percent of your heavy weight, and it should be done at a moderate pace.

Once again, you follow this set with a one-minute rest.

Fourth Set

The fourth warm-up set is the final one, and it’s simple: one rep with about 90 percent of your heavy weight. Rest two to three minutes after this final warm-up set.

Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Sets

These are your working sets performed in the four- to six-rep range with about 85 percent of your 1RM.

Moving on to the Next Exercise

Generally speaking, you don’t need to perform more warm-up sets in a workout beyond the four laid out above.

Aches and soreness are to be expected, but sharp pains while lifting mean that something is wrong. Don’t try to muscle through a sharp pain. Instead, drop the weight and check your form. If your form is fine, stop the exercise and do another. Stay away from the exercise that was giving you pain for a couple of weeks and strengthen the area with an exercise that doesn’t hurt. Then try the original exercise again and see whether it still bothers you. If it still does, don’t do it. If you’re having any serious pains during or after training, see a doctor, as it might be an indicator of something else.

My first recommendation is that you do your bench and military pressing and squatting in a power cage, as it allows you to set safety bars and thus do your sets without having to worry about getting stuck with the weight on top of you. If that’s not possible, then you need to get used to ending your bench press, military press, and squat sets at the point where you have, at best, one rep left in the tank. That is, you end them at the point where you struggle to finish a rep and aren’t quite sure whether you can get another. You’ll become more aware of this point as you continue lifting.

THE DELOAD WEEK

The “nonnegotiables,” which are exercises you should do every week, without fail. These are the big compound lifts vital for building a strong, muscular physique: the squat, deadlift, bench press, and military press. The “negotiables,” which can be seen as “accessory” work done in addition to the above. These are mostly compound exercises like the dumbbell press, barbell row, and dip, but they also include isolation exercises like the side lateral raise, face pull, and dumbbell curl. An easy, effective way to program a workout is to do three to six sets of your “nonnegotiable” exercises followed by three to six sets of your “negotiable” exercises and to change the “negotiables” every eight to ten weeks, after your rest or deload weeks.

The core of the Bigger Leaner Stronger program, as laid out earlier, is a hybrid between traditional strength training and traditional “bodybuilding” workouts. The program combines the compound lifting found in strength programs that builds a foundation of strength and size and the isolation work found in bodybuilding workouts that helps develop smaller muscles that contribute to overall proportions and aesthetics. Out of these two elements, however, the former (heavy compound lifting) is far more important than the latter (doing isolation work) for reaching your goals. The bottom line is the majority of your progress with your physique is going to come from your progress in your squatting, deadlifting, and bench and overhead pressing. That’s why I recommend that you make every fourth training week on the program a “strength week.” That is, for every three weeks of “normal” workouts, you do one strength week.

There are two layouts for this week that you will alternate between:

STRENGTH WEEK A

• DAY 1 Barbell Squat—Warm-up sets and then 3 working sets Seated or Standing Barbell Military Press—Warm-up sets and then 3 working sets Barbell Deadlift—Warm-up sets and then 1 working set
• DAY 2 Barbell Squat—Warm-up sets and then 3 working sets Flat Barbell Bench Press—Warm-up sets and then 3 working sets Barbell Deadlift—Warm-up sets and then 1 working set
• DAY 3 Barbell Squat—Warm-up sets and then 3 working sets Seated or Standing Barbell Military Press—Warm-up sets and then 3 working sets Barbell Deadlift—Warm-up sets and then 1 working set

STRENGTH WEEK B

• DAY 1 Barbell Squat—Warm-up sets and then 3 working sets Flat Barbell Bench Press—Warm-up sets and then 3 working sets Barbell Deadlift—Warm-up sets and then 1 working set
• DAY 2 Barbell Squat—Warm-up sets and then 3 working sets Seated or Standing Barbell Military Press—Warm-up sets and then 3 working sets Barbell Deadlift—Warm-up sets and then 1 working set
• DAY 3 Barbell Squat—Warm-up sets and then 3 working sets Flat Barbell Bench Press—Warm-up sets and then 3 working sets Barbell Deadlift—Warm-up sets and then 1 working set

As mentioned earlier, make every fourth training week a strength week. I say fourth training week because this doesn’t include rest or deload weeks. Here’s how most people like to do it: 3 weeks of normal workouts, 1 Strength Week (A), 3 weeks of normal workouts, 1 Strength Week (B), 1 Rest/Deload week, Repeat.

If you find that you generally need to rest/deload more frequently than every eight weeks, just follow the pattern of three normal weeks followed by one strength week. For example, if you need to rest/deload every six weeks, here’s how it would look: 3 weeks of normal workouts 1 Strength Week (A) 2 weeks of normal workouts 1 Rest/Deload week 1 week of normal workouts 1 Strength Week (B) 3 weeks of normal workouts 1 Strength Week (A) 1 Rest/Deload week 3 weeks of normal workouts 1 Strength Week (B) 2 weeks of normal workouts 1 Rest/Deload week And so on.

Your strength week working sets should be done with the same weight as your working sets in your normal workouts.

You progress in your strength workouts in the same way as your normal workouts–once you get six reps, add 5 to 10 pounds to the bar and continue working with that weight. Rest the normal three to four minutes in between sets.

You see, one of the most effective ways to prevent getting stuck in a rut of no gains is simply to track your numbers. That is, you should keep a training journal that includes what you do in each workout, and you should either track or plan your daily food intake (and stick to the plan!).

A successful workout is one where you made progress—where you got one more rep than last week or moved up in weight. If this doesn’t happen, don’t despair, but you need to push harder the next week. If you’re stuck for several weeks or even moving backward, you need to check your nutrition and rest, because something is off.

You can use an app such as the . . . ahem . . . completely awesome one I’m developing called Stacked (www.getstackedapp.com)

Weigh yourself every day under the same conditions as above, and calculate the average weight once every seven days.

getting stuck is usually caused by not pushing yourself hard enough in your workouts, not eating right, or not resting enough, or a combination of the three.

Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength. —ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER

Here’s the bottom line: if you can’t get full reps, you’re using too much weight, and you’re increasing your risk of injury. Simply lighten the load, do full reps, improve your strength, and only move up in weight when you can keep it fully under control.

USING BAD FORM

For instance, even if you’re working with weights you can handle properly . . .

• If you round your back during a deadlift or hyperextend it too far at the top, you’re asking for a lower-back injury.
• If you flatten your back and round your shoulders at the top of a bench press or flare your elbows out too much, you will probably have shoulder problems at some point.
• If you let your knees bow in when you squat or extend too far past your toes, you can hurt them when going heavy.
• If you do your overhead/military presses behind your neck and your body is built like most people’s, you’re increasing your risk of injury. (Strangely enough, some people’s bodies just mechanically can handle this type of movement, but most don’t do well with it.) Pushing yourself in the gym is good, so long as you always maintain proper form as well.

The key to dealing with pain is treating it like an injury until it’s better. Avoid exercises that aggravate it, and let it heal. If that means no deadlifting or squatting for a few weeks, so be it. Find alternative exercises that you can do. Annoying, yes, but an injury that sets you back several months is much more frustrating.

Rest

The most important part of recovery is rest, and it’s simple: don’t put any stress on the affected body parts until they’re fully healed. People who violate this simple principle can wind up with chronic dysfunction that can become quite a problem. Once the injured area feels healed (no more pain through a full range of motion), start to slowly train it again. Work with lighter weights and see how you feel the next day, and gradually work back into your normal routine.

Ice

Ice helps you recover by reducing inflammation, swelling, and internal bleeding from injured capillaries and blood vessels. As long as there is pain and inflammation, ice will help. You should begin treatment with ice, not heat, and I recommend keeping a damp cloth between the ice pack and your skin to avoid discomfort. Don’t apply ice for more than 15 to 20 minutes at a time, but you can rotate on and off all day. Compression Like ice, compression helps you heal by reducing swelling and inflammation. Use an elastic bandage or a compression sleeve, and wrap the injured part tightly, but not so tight as to impair blood flow.

Elevation

By raising the affected part above your heart, you speed the blood’s journey back to your heart, which reduces swelling and aids in removing waste products from the area.

SUPPLEMENTS

WHEY

Whey hydrolysate is a predigested form of whey protein that’s easily absorbed by the body and free of allergenic substances found in milk products. Research indicates that the hydrolysis process improves solubility and digestibility, but you pay dearly for these benefits: whey hydrolysate is the most expensive of the three options.

BCAA

What such research tells us is that acutely raising BCAA levels (and leucine in particular) before and after exercise helps us build more muscle. There is no evidence, however, that doing it through the ingestion of a BCAA supplement is more effective than food. In fact, there’s research to the contrary: food, and whey protein specifically, might be even more effective than amino acid drinks.

When you’re eating enough protein, especially if you’re using protein supplements with BCAAs added, you’re getting more than enough BCAAs to meet your body’s demands. This is why I recommend that you eat 30 to 40 grams of protein before and after working out and why I use whey protein for these meals. It’s cheaper than BCAA powders, tastes better, and is likely more effective.

It turns out, however, that this supplement does have one scientifically supported use, and it relates to fasted training.

There is a downside to fasted training, however, and this is where we get to BCAAs: when you exercise in a fasted state, muscle breakdown is dramatically increased. This is bad simply because too much muscle breakdown impairs total muscle growth over time. Preventing this is simple, though, and it involves taking BCAAs. All you have to do is take 10 grams of BCAAs or 3 to 5 grams of leucine (warning: it tastes bad) 10 to 15 minutes before fasted training. This suppresses muscle breakdown during your workout with a minimal impact on insulin levels, thus keeping you in a fasted state. [Is this really true? Check it out.]

CREATINE

The most common method of creatine supplementation found in the literature is a “loading” period of 20 grams per day for five to seven days, followed by a maintenance dosage of 5 grams per day.

You should take creatine with a good-sized meal to maximize its effects. Furthermore, there’s research that indicates that creatine taken after a workout is more effective than creatine taken before, which is why I take my creatine with my post-workout meal

DO YOU HAVE TO CYCLE CREATINE? No, there’s no scientific evidence that long-term creatine usage is harmful, so no, there’s no reason to cycle on and off it. It’s not a steroid.

SHOULD YOU TAKE CREATINE WHILE DIETING FOR FAT LOSS? Yes. Creatine works equally well when you’re in a calorie deficit, which means you’ll retain more strength and thus lean mass while cutting.

GLUTAMINE

So, while supplementation with glutamine might not provide an anabolic boost, its antistress and antifatigue benefits make it a worthwhile buy, if you’re exercising regularly, intensely, and for prolonged periods. Studies have shown that 100 to 200 milligrams per kilogram of body weight of glutamine each day is sufficient for athletes and that chronic usage is important.

VITAMINS AND MINERALS

The bottom line is that if you eat a substantial amount of a wide variety of nutritious foods every day, you probably get everything you need in the way of vitamins and minerals. But many people don’t eat nutritious foods, and supplementation can help provide what’s missing.

Make no mistake: while changing your body with diet, exercise, and supplementation can dramatically change your life for the better, it’s not easy. No amount of powders or pills is going to get you there. It takes hard work, and it takes time. And this is another major reason why diets fail: people don’t want to go through the discomfort of it all.

CAFFEINE

Caffeine helps you lose fat by simply increasing your body’s daily energy expenditure and has other benefits for us fitness folk: it improves strength, muscle endurance, and anaerobic performance, and it also reverses the “morning weakness” experienced by many weightlifters.

To maximize caffeine’s effectiveness, you want to prevent your body from building up too much of a tolerance to it. The best way to do this is to limit intake.

What I recommend:

1. Before training, supplement with 3 to 6 milligrams of caffeine per kilogram of body weight. If you’re not sure of your caffeine sensitivity, start with 3 milligrams per kilogram and work up from there.
2. Keep your daily intake at or below 6 milligrams per kilogram of body weight. Don’t take 6 milligrams per kilogram before training and then drink a couple of coffees throughout the day as well.
3. Do one or two low-caffeine days per week and one no-caffeine day per week. A low day should be half your normal intake, and a no day means less than 50 milligrams of caffeine (you can have a cup or two of tea or a small cup of coffee, but no pre-workout, caffeine pills, etc.)

How to Use Green Tea Extract for Weight Loss

If you look at the dosages proven effective in clinical studies, you’ll see that 400 to 600 milligrams of catechins per day is the normal range. When you take green tea extract doesn’t matter. Research has shown that absorption is faster when pills are taken in a fasted state,

HOW TO USE FISH OIL TO IMPROVE PERFORMANCE AND OVERALL HEALTH

Research indicates that 1.3 to 2.7 grams of omega-3 fatty acids per day is ideal for a person eating a normal, 2,000-calorie diet and that just over 6.5 grams per day is the upper recommended limit.106 Note that I said grams of omega-3 fatty acids, not grams of fish oil. This is an important distinction because 1 gram of fish oil isn’t 1 gram of omega-3 fatty acids.

HOW TO USE SPIRULINA TO IMPROVE PERFORMANCE AND OVERALL HEALTH

The common dosage seen in studies is 1 to 3 grams per day, although you can find additional benefits up to 10 grams per day, which is the recommended high dosage for humans.

CONSISTENCY IS THE KEY

Just like training and diet, the most important aspect of supplementing is consistency. You must take your supplements consistently to realize their full benefits.

In this age, which believes that there is a short cut to everything, the greatest lesson to be learned is that the most difficult way is, in the long run, the easiest. —HENRY MILLER

In other words, damaged muscles won’t necessarily hurt, and muscles that hurt aren’t necessarily damaged much.

VARIOUS Q&A

A: As you know, the science isn’t definitive on the “perfect” rep range for hypertrophy (muscle growth). What scientists can agree on is that somewhere between four and eight reps is the sweet spot.

Q: CAN I DO THIS PROGRAM AT HOME? A: Yes. All you need to follow the program is a power cage or multipress rack for squatting and benching, a barbell with plates, a set of dumbbells (I prefer adjustables), and an adjustable bench. You can also get a utility bench for your military press, so you can do the exercise seated instead of standing.

Q: SHOULD I TAKE SUPPLEMENTS ON MY OFF DAYS? A: Yes. Take everything you would normally take except pre-workout products and/or nitric oxide boosters on your off days.

Q: SHOULD I USE A WEIGHT BELT? A: I’m not a fan of weight belts. They don’t prevent injury, unless you’ve injured yourself previously. They just help you lift more weight, and this can be a real problem if you slip on your form.

Q: DO I NEED TO GO TO FAILURE EVERY SET? A: You don’t have to go to absolute failure every set. I rarely do. What I shoot for is reaching the point where I struggle to finish a rep and know I wouldn’t be able to get another without assistance (the rep before failure). If you feel you can maybe get it and want to go for it anyway, that’s fine, but you don’t have to train like this every set.

A: As you know, alcohol blocks fat oxidation, which in turn accelerates the rate at which your body stores dietary fat as body fat. If you want to be able to drink while dieting and still lose weight, don’t drink more than one day per week, and use the following tips to protect yourself from excess fat storage:

• Restrict your dietary fat intake that day, and don’t eat any fatty foods while you’re drinking.
• Get the vast majority of your calories from lean protein and carbs that day (with most coming from protein).
• Stay away from carb-laden drinks, like beer and fruity stuff. Dry wines are a good choice, as are spirits.

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