Yesterday I received an email about this workout program ==> http://bhlikes.it/mymb
Now, normally I don’t ‘report’ on this kind of thing, but I really, really liked this email.
Why?
Because it made me realize that I’m NOT taking crazy pills!
See when I wrote Anabolic Again and was doing my research behind Anabolic Slow Down I felt like I was the only one who cared about this phenomena…but now seeing that big time fitness people like Vince Delmonte are also recognizing that their is something putting the breaks on muscle growth in experienced lifters…well it makes me happy in a weird sorta way.
Now, Vince’s theories and solutions are muc different then mine, but at least it proves a point.
If you take a look at this page http://bhlikes.it/mymb the message is obvious: Muscle growth eventually slows down.
But it’s not just the slow down I’m intrigued with.
It’s the different RATES (or speeds) that people seem to inately have for muscle growth…
Have you ever wondered why there is such a DIFFERENCE in the way people respond to their workouts?
Why some people ‘grow like weeds’ while others train as hard as they can for months on end and don’t see any progress.
This is one of my main areas of interest when it comes to muscle growth..
And I know the answer ISN’T protein!
That’s not to say that protein doesn’t have ANYTHING to do with your muscle building (because it does), but the point is that adding MORE protein doesn’t necessarily mean MORE muscle.
In a recently published trial using a very interesting method, this exact point was driven home in my mind.
60 subjects were put through a 16 week long, 3 day per week workout.
After the workout the subjects were divided into three groups based on the increase in their muscle cross sectional area.
Non responders saw no change or even negative change (-16 um2)
Moderate responders saw some decent gains (+1,111 um2)
Extreme responders…well they would make most of us really jealous (+2,475 um2)
(That’s 123% larger then the moderate people!)
After the groups were divided up the researchers looked for some explanation for the differences in size gains.
So what did they find?
Well…
- There was no difference in protein intake (fell right in the range I recommend in How Much Protein)
- There was no difference in Essential Amino Acid intake
- No difference in BCAA intake
- No Difference in Leucine intake
- No difference in Calories.
Furthermore,
- There was no difference inr reported training volume
- There was no difference in reported training intensity.
So what can we conclude for this research.
- It’s not the calories you eat or the protein (within reason).
- It’s not even how MUCH you workout (again within reason).
This leaves me with only two real conclusions when it comes to what decides the rate at which you can build muscle:
The first is genetics, which unfortunately, you really can’t control.
Genetics may be the amount of receptors your muscles have, the amount of certain hormones you have, or even the amount of satelitte cells you have available for muscle growth.
Sadly, most, if not all of these things are decided at or near birth.
The second is the quality of your workout.
This is the only part you can control. If it’s not nutrition (again within reason) then it must have to do with the quality, design or implementation of your workout program…
Unfortunately this is also the part I don’t have an answer for.
Because everyone is different.
If you want something super advanced I have Anabolic Again, and if you are looking for something really targeted I have the Adonis
Index.
But if you are just looking for what will work BEST for you then I have to give you the following advice:
TRIAL AND ERROR.
Honestly, it would be SUPER EASY for me to tell you that my workouts are the best and all the rest are garbage, but really this wouldn’t be true.
So here’s the trick…
The thing that sets people apart in the gym…people who see success and people who don’t…is Metrics.
Try something and measure it. If you are improving then stick with it for as long as you keep improving.
If you are not improving then BE HONEST with yourself and LET IT GO.
Don’t worry about the marketing or pseudoscience or the arguments in forums about what is right and what is wrong, just get a workout and give it a try.
Find something that works then stick with it until it stops working.
I really can’t give any better advice then that (when it comes to muscle buiding)
If muscle building is your goal (and steroids are not an option for you) then why not try every workout you can get your hands on until you find what works for you…because as we learned above, what works for some people DOESN’T WORK AT ALL for others…and vice versa.
And since you can’t control the genetics part, you may as well do everything you can to control the work out part…
Just be sure to keep measurements so you can actually track progress.
Without metrics, all the work and trial and error is pointless.
As my friend ‘Pip’ said:
‘try and test’ the info and then ‘keep or reject’
BP
Tags: Anabolic Slow Down muscle Building, Muscle Building Plateaus
Yes, I was surprised to hear you endorse Vince since he has very different beliefs than you do about a lot of training (i.e. 6 meals, high high protein intake, etc).
I actually have Vince’s program and followed it for some time. It seems with lifting, like with eating, there are a million different variations to picking up a weight and putting it down (high volume, low volume, high weights, low weights, pyramids, drop sets, functional, multi-plan, etc., etc). It all gets so confusing and complicated – just like dietary advice.
Have you seen the before-after pics? They tell all about this “program”. A little sad you promote things like this…..dissapointing
What about a 57-year old male in excellent health? Is there any hope for muscle growth?
The point I was trying to make here is that the value of any program (not specific to Vince) is in the program itself and not the marketing, because quite frankly, we don’t know what is optimal for muscle growth, so trial and error is all we have.
Some people hate the marketing behind the Adonis Index, where I think the thought process behind the product may be one of the best available…
Again, promote and suggest a benefit to trial and error are different things.
While I don’t like over the top marketing either, suggesting hype marketing negates any benefit of a product is hard to swallow..after all, I’m typing this on a Mac
B
It’s not just age but training experience that comes into play.. But I will say that I will guess that you will find it harder to gain muscle then a 21 year old in s similar situation.
As a person who has experimented with different exercise “programs” over the years, I 100% agree with this post.
With most of the programs, I had measurable results, but ultimately they weren’t the right fit for me (good choice of words, yes?
). They didn’t get me the body I wanted in a way that I enjoyed enough to continue with so I had to modify the routines and eventually ended up trying something else.
The good thing is that I figured out what works better for me. I actually knew it long ago, so now I’m returning to it. Turns out that it isn’t some of the current popular programs. I am fine with that, and hope I am never tempted to try things like Tabata again. lol
Hey brad, my name is Omar. I have been following your work for about half a year now (maybe a little under it). I am a huge fan of Rusty from fitnessblackbook, although i do disagree on some of his stuff about working out legs.
I have a few questions for you. Right now ide say im about 10-15lbs of fat before i hit the 10% body fat level. In some of your videos you talk about metabolism and its effect on what you eat and how it wont change. One extreme was going on a 500 calorie diet, which is unrealistic. But when i am doing intermittent fasting, say every other day or every 2 days, whats wrong with having a 500 call meal at the end of your fast (7:00 pm)? If theres anything wrong with it.
My next question has been shot down by so many people and those who shoot it down, or at least try to, never have good answers. It is losing fat while gaining muscle. I know many have said its possible but you wont lose a lot of fat and you wont gain a lot of muscle. Losing fat is about having a caloric deficit over a long period of time with some resistance training. Building muscle is about how much work you put on your muscles to allow them to grow (i am very happy to have read your book on protein as i was a skeptic about the protein shakes and all the protein you “should” eat for building muscle).
I have always asked why you need a calorie surplus to put on muscle? The answer i always get is because you need to supply the muscle with proper nutrients. Well why not supply it with nutrients but still have a calorie deficit to lose fat? Okay fine, im not a nutritionist, so lets do this.
Over the course of the week, say for example you workout in the mornings. I usually work out 4x/week. I do all my muscle groups in 4 consecutive days in the mornings. Why cant i fast the other 3 days and go on a 500 cal/day for the 3 days im not working out?
This way my body is getting enough nutrients from all the calories im eating, and by the end of the week im in a caloric deficit to lose fat?
Long comment, but i hope you have the time to answer my questions. Thanks alot and keep up the good work.
If more people focused on
(1) Improving overall movement quality
(2) Checking their egos at the gym door
(3) Showing up consistently over tim
and
(4) Busting their backside with a reasonably well-designed program that occasionally dials it back a notch,
then we would have a lot more people reaching their desired goals, even if all the specifics of why it happened have yet to be fully elucidated. Of course simple never means easy, but I think that we’ve become so afraid of finding out that what we do might be “wrong” that we end up avoiding things that can still work well if done consistently. In the quest for “optimal,” we often overlook the simple fact that almost anything can work provided we show up, put in an honest effort, and at least make an attempt to “turn off / minimize the stupid” when training. And at the end of the day, how much of a chasm would there truly be between a good program performed with effort vs. a so-called “optimal” (at least by claims) program for any given individual? I’ve noticed this a lot with talk of “auto-regulation” in training. Suddenly people are fearful of just picking some preset parameters and busting butt, because they heard through the grapevine that if they don’t auto-regulate their training, their best gains will always elude them.
I also have tried lots and lots of work outs over the past 10 years with very limited success. I always blamed the program, but I really don’t know if it was the actual work outs that were not working, or if I was just not doing the work outs properly. I know now that I was working out with bad form, but I did not find that out until I developed a pain in my shoulder that required professional help. Now that I have corrected this, I am seeing great results with the program I am now on. With this new-found understanding I think I could go back to many of the programs I tried in the past and still see decent results.
Troy
Hi Brad,
very good post. Do you have a link to the abstract of the mentioned study? Would be nice
It takes calories to make muscle grow, this is true, I have no idea why everyone thinks this has to be food calories. It takes calories to run 5 kilometers, but you can do this while fasting…the calories come from your body fat.
It takes calories for your nails to grow and your hair to grow, this still happens while in a caloric deficit.
It takes calories to keep your heart beating…
So yeah, I don’t get it either.. you need some protein, but to think you need 1,000′s of extra calories to build a pound of muscle is silly..as is the idea that you can build a pound of muscle a week for eternity.
B
Hi Brad,
I’ve read your stuff for years but don’t think I’ve ever joined the discussions. As a kid I was a decent weight lifter. At 16 my powerlifting totals added to 1100# while I weighed 160#. After high school I entered the blue collar work force. No time or opportunity to lift weights. After a bad experience involving a cargo boat, the Gulf of Mexico and a hurricane I decided college might be a better idea, at least til hurricane season was over. 8 years later I graduated from vet medical school.
Now that I’m in my 50′s I worry about health issues more than weight. I’m a believer in low calorie for life extension. But does low
calorie mean limiting protein to the point of muscle loss? And does low calorie allow regular exercise like lifting and running? For me intermittant fasting keeps me in the low calorie world. But both running and lifting suffer because of it.
kevin
I purchased Vince’s program last time it was available just to check it out (it was only like a $1 trial for the first month) and it was pretty lame. Not the worst thing in the world, but definitely inferior to most programs I’ve seen. I’d much rather do 5/3/1, which I can find for free on the internet and will definitely give great results, then spend close to $1000 for a year’s worth of Maximize Your Muscle and get sub-par results. It definitely seems like Vince is one of those guys who is more of an internet marketer than a fitness expert.
@Kevin, if you have not read Brad’s Eat Stop Eat buy a copy and study it. Your questions are answered there. A lack of protein or calories do not cause muscle loss it is a lack of muscle use. You can do anything in a fasted state (or low calorie) that you can do in a fed state, that has been my experience and many others.
Brad continue to enjoy your excellent blog posts.