You’re going to see some weird and wonderful things in this article!

Some animals (including people) have the ability to develop a freakishly large musculature in a much shorter period of time than the rest of us.

In my last article about bodybuilding genetics I said that one limiting factor was myostatin.

This protein, produced by the gene GDF-8, actively limits the amount of muscle you can grow per unit time. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could somehow block myostatin and enlarge our muscles ridiculously fast?

Before we answer that, let’s have a look at what a mutation causing a myostatin deficiency can do!

Below is ‘Wendy the Whippet’. Looks more like a pitbull with a skinny head!

The mouse on the left has a myostatin deficiency…

The first documented human case was of a German kid. He has twice the muscle mass of other kids his age, and half their bodyfat.

Now, you can guess what happens when this knowledge gets out. Unscrupulous supplement companies start releasing new lines of wonder supplements: Myostatin Inhibitors or Myostatin Blockers. Some people are desperate for effortless muscle gain so this was a no-brainer for these companies. Read on if you want to know if they actually work.

Serious research HAS being carried out on animals where the GDF-8 gene (which encodes for myostatin) was deleted, producing overly-muscled bodies.

However, knocking out a whole gene is not desirable because a gene encodes for many proteins, not just one. Efforts were then made to find a way to bind up myostatin so as to interfere with it at the receptor site. This worked but the compound ‘follistatin‘ also binded other hormones too. Again, this is not desirable.

To successfully inhibit myostatin alone, actual human research was needed. In order for this to go ahead, researchers needed to show that myostatin deletion actually occurred naturally in humans before the Human Research Advisory Committee would give this research the green light. The search was on to find such a case…

Blood samples were to be taken from likely candidates. Bodybuilders were the first and most obvious selection. However, something interesting happened, not a single bodybuilder agreed to have his blood analyzed! A gold star to anyone who can guess why not……not got it yet?

Imagine what would happen to those supplement companies who pay these guys if the average Joe knew that their success had NOTHING to do with ‘Wonder Supplement X‘. Pro bodybuilders would lose a lot of income if people got wind of this. Also, supplement companies would go out of business as too would a lot of bodybuilding magazines.

Over-sized musculatures are the result of one, or both, of the following:

• Genetics
• Steroids

So next time you see a champion pro-bodybuilder guzzling ‘Super-Grow 5000′ in the latest issue of your favorite muscle magazine, realize that this supplement had nothing to do with his freakishly-large muscle mass. He probably doesn’t even use it in real life.

This is not to say that you can’t get big, or ripped, or have an awesome body. You CAN!

But when you’re talking about really MASSIVE guys like Ronnie Coleman, you’re talking about a size that is just not attainable for the average guy. Personally I don’t care, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near that size anyway.

Now, back to the story…

So the athletes with this natural gift refused to take part. But in June 2004 it was announced that a human myostatin mutation had been found! The German kid above is that very human case. Now the research was approved and a drug called Myo-029 was produced.

Phase 1 & 2 trials were conducted which “contained some measures of efficacy”. However, for some reason, in “March 2008 it was announced that Wyeth would not develop the drug further for MD, but would continue to explore myostatin inhibition along with other strategies” (from Wikipedia).

This means that any supplements out there purporting to be ‘myostatin blockers‘ are not real and will not work.

I must reiterate that this is not cause for concern. Everyone CAN grow. Yes, the rest of us have to settle for slower growth but so what! If you’re facing in the right direction, all you have to do is keep on walking.

Don’t get upset because a rare few can reach their goals quicker. Trust me, most people that get into this game end up quitting. To succeed all you have to do is make gains and more importantly, STICK WITH IT!

If you’re interested, the supplements I DO recommend are:

1. Whey Protein Isolate
2. Micronized Creatine Monohydrate
3. L-Glutamine

Also, I only take these once a day (for the most part) as a post workout shake.

Now, I also have a little morning supplementation consisting of:

1. Fish Oil capsules
2. Magnesium or ZMA
   (whichever I have at the time)
3. Multivitamin

Stick with it. Many of us with less-than-desirable genetics have attained the bodies we always dreamed of! You can too!

Stay smart, don’t get scammed, and stay motivated!

Mark

Related posts:

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I’m going to use a word I hate in this article.

That word is ‘limitation‘.

I’m sure you’ve all heard something about genetic potential in the bodybuilding game. You’ve probably heard one or both of the following:

“He’s only got that great body because of his genetics” or,

“I quit because my genetics suck and I’ll never get anywhere anyway”

If you are confused by this topic, this post will clear things up for you.

In this article I’m going to explain these genetic limitations specifically because oftentimes when the topic of genetics is brought up, the conversation ends without any further explanation.

Now, before we get into this, DON’T GET DEPRESSED! I myself have less-than-average genetics.

In school, I was amongst the skinniest guys there. In fact, that was the whole reason I started lifting in the first place!

What’s crazy is that now some people say that I’m lucky. That I must have awesome genetics. You gotta be kidding me! At best, 2 of my body parts responded better than others i.e. my pecs and biceps, but it was STILL hard work, training to failure, and eating right that produced the growth I got.

So let’s have a look…

Somatotype

Although there are an infinite variety of body types out there, 3 main classifications have emerged:

• Ectomorph – skinny, thin torso, little bodyfat or muscle
• Mesomorph – muscular, broad shoulders, less bodyfat
• Endomorph – round torso, thick neck, shorter legs

Most likely you will fall somewhere between the extremes of these classifications. Obviously, the mesomorph body type is advantageous for bodybuilding.

Skeletal Formation

Carrying on from the above, the length, thickness, and structure of the bones also gives clues about genetic potential. Typically, very big guys will have broad shoulders, a small waist, and medium length limbs.

Neuromuscular Efficiency

This refers to to the efficiency of the relationship between the nervous system and the muscles themselves. Someone with high levels of neuromuscular efficiency will actually recruit more muscle fibers during muscular contractions. Those with lower levels will recruit less. For bodybuilding purposes, high levels of neuromuscular efficiency are obviously advantageous.

Muscle Fiber Density

Fairly self-explanatory. To grow muscle, we want to stimulate the fibers to hypertrophy. Obviously the more muscle fibers exist per square centimeter, the bigger you can get, and the bigger you’ll look without ever having lifted a weight.

Myostatin

I’ve talked before about how building massive muscle is a disadvantage from an evolutionary perspective. Sustaining a normal musculature is expensive enough calorie-wise; building MORE muscle is therefore not desirable from the body’s point of view. This is why you HAVE to give the body a damn good reason for it to build more muscle.

One of the ways the body limits muscle growth is through myostatin. The gene ‘GDF-8′ produces the myostatin protein for the purpose of limiting growth. The less myostatin you have circulating in your body, the easier it will be to build larger muscles.

Muscle Length

The longer a muscle is, the more potential there is for it to increase in size. This is because a muscle’s width will never exceed its length. The longer the actual muscle belly, and the shorter the tendons which connect the ends to the bone, the more potential you have to increase the size of that muscle.

This varies from muscle to muscle, which means that one person can have more potential in one muscle than in others. So if your calf muscles are short, that doesn’t mean that your biceps don’t have awesome potential.

Conclusion

PLEASE don’t be too concerned. People with average, or less-than-average, genetic potential are in the vast majority. People with superior genetic bodybuilding potential really are rare. Chances are that 95% of your fellow gym members are in the same boat as you.

I personally learned to embrace my skinny ass wrists and ankles and just got on with the job of building the muscle around them.

It is important to remember that while the above factors will dictate your starting point, and the rate at which you will grow, the fact is that…

EVERYONE CAN AND WILL GROW IF THEY TRAIN INTELLIGENTLY

Never forget that. People have been building muscles beyond normal levels for many, many years. Give your body a good enough reason and it will respond with new growth.

Stay Motivated!

Mark

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A lot of people are avoiding the most productive rep in a set because of an undue fear of injury.

In my last post I put forward the case for continuing a set until muscular failure when the goal is to maximize muscular growth.

However, you may have heard it said that training to failure is unsafe.

There is a fear of going to failure in some circles because they feel the last rep or 2 of a set is the most dangerous. They believe that they are in danger of tearing their tendons by working at this level of intensity.

But is this fear justified? I’ve created a video to answer the question, check it out. I’ve summarized the points below.

• Because of the intensity, fatiguing of fibers, and lactic acid build up, there’s the perception that this last rep is dangerous and can lead to injury.

• This feeling/perception is totally unrelated to the safety of the exercise.

• The key to understanding this is the difference between the strength levels of the muscles and the connective tissues.

• As you progress in a set towards failure, your muscle strength levels diminish. So each successive rep gets increasingly more difficult to execute.

• However, the level of force the tendons can withstand remains constant throughout the set.

• Once your strength levels dip below 50 units (in the above diagram), you’ve reached failure. It’s completely impossible to complete another rep. That last rep forced you to use 100% of your momentary muscular ability.

• Here’s the difference with tendons: tendons are not elastic like muscle. They are strong, fibrous tissue. If you have a tendon that can withstand 150 units of force, it will still withstand this force as much on the last rep as the first rep.

• You CAN damage connective tissue with sudden, jerking movements. Also, attempting to lift a load which forces the tendons to deal with a force beyond that which they can handle will probably lead to a tear.

So don’t fear failure!

Your Buddy,

Mark

P.S. If you found the video useful, please go to the YouTube page and rate up. Thank you

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“The necessary muscle stimulation to force adaptation occurs in the last few reps of a set.”

That’s a quote from my free book Total Anabolism. There’s more to this and if you want to MAXIMIZE increases in muscular size, it’s important for you to understand. We’ll look at muscle fibers, evolution, and the ‘anaerobic window’. Let’s get stuck in…

There is a point in a set where the ‘growth mechanism’ is activated, below which no muscular growth is stimulated.

You can liken this to a switch that’s flipped when you cross this threshold. I contend that this point is ‘failure’. When you reach the point in a set where you cannot possibly complete another positive repetition unassisted, you can say you’ve reached failure.

Muscle growth is actually a defense mechanism by the body. Much in the same way that a blood clot or a suntan is. Of course, a sufficient stimulus is required to produce this type of adaptation. Unfortunately for us humans, our bodies would much rather we built NO muscle whatsoever.

For evolutionary reasons the body doesn’t want to add more muscle!

Why not?

Muscle is metabolically active tissue i.e. the more of it you have, the more calories are required to keep you alive. Our bodies have adapted to expect long periods of hunger. They are also very efficient at storing/synthesizing body fat in anticipation of these periods.

Modern man is faced with the dilemma of wanting to be lean and muscular, while his body wants to have no ‘excess’ muscle (beyond normal levels) and a ready supply of fat for when famine strikes!

It should therefore be abundantly clear that without a really good reason, the body will not readily enlarge upon its existing muscle mass. Except for the neophyte or genetic freak, that reason is ‘failure’.

2B or Not 2B

Our most powerful muscle fibers, and the ones that respond most to weight training, are our type 2B fibers. These are our fast-twitch, anaerobic, power fibers. There are also our Type 1 fibers (slow twitch) and our type 2a and 2ab fibers (fast twitch). (No. 4 in the illustration is a muscle fiber).

Here’s the interesting thing about muscle fibers: They are recruited SEQUENTIALLY. This means that as a set increases in intensity and muscle fibers fatigue, more fibers are recruited from the NEXT fiber type in the following order:

• Type 1
• Type 2a
• Type 2ab
• Type 2b

Logically then, if we want to recruit and fatigue our type 2b fibers, we have to bring our set to a point where sufficient intensity is occurring to call into play the relevant motor units for the type 2b fibers.

In everyday life, the brain will not send out this signal unless there is some sort of emergency situation at hand. However, muscle hackers can voluntarily recruit these fibers by working to a point of muscular failure.

If, for example, a guy does a set of 10 reps, the tenth rep being the last rep possible, he won’t be involving his type 2b fibers until the 9th or 10th rep. All other reps build up to this point as fibers were recruited sequentially, and deeper inroads were made into starting strength levels through ever-increasing intensity.

It is that last, most uncomfortable, rep where the ‘growth switch’ is flipped. Bring a set to this point and you can rest easy knowing that you’ve done enough stimulate growth.

The ‘Anaerobic Window’

An incorrect interpretation of this may be to say that very high rep ranges can stimulate as much growth because if you fail at rep 30, you’ve still progressed through the sequential recruitment, right?

Not really. It is well agreed upon in the fitness world that sets lasting between 60-90 seconds or less will produce more in the way of anaerobic adaptations than aerobic ones. As I’ve stated before, because our ability to recover from mechanical work is not unlimited, sets lasting more than 1.5 minutes will SPLIT adaptations between both the aerobic and anaerobic systems.

While there is nothing magical about a certain repetition number, a good rep range and cadence should have you terminating a set around the 1 minute mark. Therefore training systems that advocate very high rep ranges, or even the SuperSlow ™ movement, are not optimal for those prioritizing muscular growth.

A question I often get is, “How do I know when I’ve reached failure?” I thought about it and came up with the following…

When you think you may have reached failure, try another rep. If you get that rep, try another one and so on. Basically, a set doesn’t end when you decide, it ends when your muscle(s) fails. If you find that you can hammer out 3 or 4 more reps every time you use this method, you are using weights that are too light. Often when people complain that they can’t reach failure, it’s simply a case of submaximal loads. So increase the weight, there’s nothing mysterious about failure, you’ll know it when you hit it.

Training ‘not-to-failure’ can lead to ‘fake progression’. If I use a weight that represents only 75% of my 10-reps-to-failure weight and lift a 10-rep set, I could ‘progress’ for many months by increasing by a rep here, an incremental weight increase there, and so on. My numbers would be going consistently up but I wouldn’t be progressing in actuality because:

• In a few months time I’ll finally reach the point where I lift 10 reps-to-failure with the weight I actually could have used way back at the start. This ‘fake progression’ ensured that I never pushed through the upper limits of my strength potential.

And I wouldn’t actually be growing because:

• I never forced any adaptation because I trained WITHIN my existing strength levels and never made any demand from my body to increase the size of the muscle fibers.

Of course, training with the requisite intensity to trigger growth does involve a longer recovery period and this can confuse some people. Those bodybuilders who train the same body part 3 times a week will fall into this category.

By the time they perform their second workout of the week (hitting the same muscle groups), they haven’t even recovered let alone overcompensated. Oftentimes, they’ll not be able to even repeat their previous performance let alone beat it. This disappointed guy goes back to his old system swearing never to train to failure again.

This longer recovery is for a very good reason though. Those powerful, type 2B fibers we want to hit, also take the longest to recover and overcompensate. The fact that you’ve flipped the growth switch and NEED that longer recovery time should put the over-anxious gym-goer’s mind at ease when he feels he’s not training enough.

So get to the gym and flip that switch!

Train Intelligently My Friends!

Mark

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I’ve created a low-glycemic load protein bar without compromising on taste. Here’s the nutritional breakdown before we get into the instructions:

• Glycemic Load = 5
• 308 Calories
• 37g carbs
• 32g protein
• 3.5 fat

I’ve already created 2 types of homemade protein bars for you guys to enjoy:

• low-carb protein bar
• low-fat protein bar

However, now that I’m a GLADiator (thanks Andrew), I wanted to create one that would fulfill the GLAD criteria:

• It should be rich in high-quality protein
• All carbs should be low-glycemic and total GL for the bar should be low
• There should be some essential fatty acids in there

This bar fits the bill and tastes better than any other I’ve tried.

Check out the video I made showing how to make it…

Here’s the ingredients:

• Whey Protein Isolate (chocolate flavor works best I think)
• Rolled oats
• Ground Flax Seed
• Blue Agave Nectar
• Water

The total Glycemic Load for this bar is just 5.

Blue Agave Nectar is your choice of syrup here owing to it’s low glycemic load i.e. GL 2 for a 20g/1 tablespoon serving.

Making it is simple:

• Mix all your dry ingredients thoroughly in a bowl i.e. protein, oats, and flax seed
• Now add your nectar, but don’t mix in yet
• Add a tablespoon of water
• Now mix it all together. Get your hands in there and really mix it well
• Spoon it out of the bowl and shape it into a bar. Let it set for a while in the fridge or chew it down straight away (it will be very gooey if you don’t let it set).

If you want to go completely natural make sure you use a protein powder without any artificial sweeteners.

Take Care,

Mark.

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The bodybuilding world is bursting at the seams with fiction.

Science, logic, and reason are NOT the cornerstones of this particular industry; tradition and hype unfortunately are.

I mean, who wants to develop a sound theory of this particular branch of exercise science when the new issue of ‘muscle blaster magazine’ promises overnight success?

New workouts and supplements are peddled by steroid-ridden “champions” who’ve never used the product, let alone depend upon it for their results.

People like me have to settle to be in minority because we aren’t prepared to flat-out lie to people in exchange for cash. Being honest with people gets less attention than “Add 2 inches to your arms in 2 weeks!” – it’s all glitz and glamor, less science and substance.

Anyway, rant over.

One of the MANY myths that still pervades this sport is the idea that a higher rep range should be employed to promote fat loss and definition on a cutting cycle.

We’re talking 15-20 reps per set here, sometimes more. The thinking is one, or both of the following:

• High reps will burn more calories than lower reps
• High reps promote a more defined/cut look

Firstly, just because a set lasts longer doesn’t necessarily mean it burns more calories. A low or medium rep range terminates sooner but the intensity of the contractions is higher. This means MORE stimulation of the anaerobic pathway which in turn must mean more stimulation of the aerobic pathway while you REST. (This is because the lactic acid build up converts to pyruvate which MUST in turn be metabolized aerobically. If you want a fuller explanation read the cell metabolism part of this article.)

However, it may be true that, on the whole, a full workout to high-rep failure burns more calories. But if so, we’re talking about tens of calories here folks, not hundreds. Just leave a few peas off your plate and you’re all set.

But there’s a more important issue.

Even if you burned 15 more calories, you’ve effectively SPLIT any adaptations that the body is going to make BETWEEN the anaerobic and aerobic systems. While you can’t truly isolate the anaerobic system by lifting weights, a bodybuilder MUST seek to steer the body’s adaptations towards muscle growth as much as possible.

And you can’t get the best of both worlds because the body’s recovery ability is NOT unlimited. If it were, things would be a lot easier for us guys, but it’s not. Therefore this limited resource must be ’spent’ on recovery and GROWTH of muscle tissue as far as possible.

Remember that when cutting you’ll be incorporating some cardio sessions into your regime to help accelerate the fat loss process. This, along with diet, is what takes care of lowering your body fat percentage. It only makes sense to keep your weight training sessions as anaerobic as possible.

You want to keep muscle-building (or at the very least, muscle-maintaining) a high priority as muscle tissue is metabolically active tissue i.e. it burns calories by simply existing. There are many opinions on just how many calories a pound of muscle burns ranging from 6 – 100. I think a good estimate is 35-50 per day. If you LOSE 5 pounds of muscle when cutting you’ve lost at least 63,875 worth of yearly calorie-burn, which equates to 18.25 pounds of fat. So muscle tissue is key to getting lean, and even MORE important for STAYING lean.

In short, the purpose of your weight training sessions is to stimulate growth irrespective of whether you’re on a bulking or cutting cycle. Attention to diet and incorporating some cardio is what’ll get you ripped. High reps have nothing to do with getting that defined look.

Train Intelligently,

Mark

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If you want to grow you have to know!

This means that there must be some sort of objective means by which to measure your results. Without this you could be making no progress at all and not even knowing it.

Now, some people measure their muscle gain by scales. While this is better than nothing, total body weight fluctuates too much to be a reliable marker of muscle gain. Also, what if you lose fat and build muscle at the same time? This is a GREAT result, yet you may actually think you’re getting nowhere. I wrote an article here on why not to use scales to measure increases in muscle mass.

Another measure is the tape. This is a great tool (I recommend the ‘Myotape Body Tape Measure‘ for accurate results without the need for a second person) but suffers from the following:

• What if you’re losing fat on the same area that you’re building muscle e.g. the arms
• Small increases week on week are hard to detect with the tape and you may be fooled into thinking you’re not progressing at all
• If you hold the tape at a slightly different angle you can come up with very different results

So what do we do?

The key to measuring muscular gains is by measuring strength gains.

Any bodybuilding program worth its salt is essentially a strength building program and will centrally focus on the principle of progressive overload.

Here’s why you can count on strength gains as a good indicator…

The cross section of a muscle is directly proportional to its strength.

• In a man it’s about 140 pounds per square inch
• In a woman it’s about 105 pounds per square inch

Basically this means that strength gains correlate positively with muscle size. It does NOT mean, however, that everyone that can curl a certain weight will have the same size biceps – never make that mistake. We all start out with different strength levels, differing muscle fiber density, differing neuro-muscular efficiencies etc.

Always remember that it is YOUR job to make YOUR body as good as it can be. Stop looking over your shoulder at what the other guy can bench or squat or whatever; it doesn’t matter in the slightest. Get your ego out of the road to succeed.

Your only concern is yourself. Ensure that YOU are progressing over time, regardless of what the absolute poundages are. If you could only bench 45kg to failure on the 8th rep, that’s fine so long as you see a progression (even a small one) each and every workout.

Keep this mindset and you’ll reach your goal. Make use of the scales, body fat readings, and tape along the way, but remember that you most dependable friend is your strength gains.

Keep Progressing,

Mark

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• Are you ‘doing cardio’ alongside weight training?
• Is your primary goal at this time to build muscle?

If you answered ‘yes’ to the 2 questions above, it is my position that you are actually working against yourself. In this article I will put forward the case that adding extra cardio sessions on top of your weight training is analogous to driving your car with one foot on the accelerator and the other on the brake.

While you may be moving forward, you’re heading to your destination at a slower rate than you would if you would just take your foot off the brake.

First, let’s look at the reasons people are adding cardio on top of their weight training:

(1) To burn calories i.e. try to stay lean all year-round while they build muscle simultaneously
(2) Maintain or improve cardiovascular fitness while they bulk up.

I’ll be clear on my position from the outset here; there is no merit to either of these points.

So let’s now examine these in greater detail.

First of all, cardio is recommended when fat loss is the priority. However, as it is the intelligent thing to split your bodybuilding lifestyle into periods of bulking and cutting, the question is, ‘Should you maintain cardio throughout your bulking cycle?’

Many bodybuilders and personal trainers will tell you that it is a good idea, others will tell you it isn’t. I agree with the latter group.

If you want to maintain a lean physique while stimulating growth all year round, here’s how to do it:

(a) Eat a diet that provides no more than what you need for growth most of the time. Remember the 80/20 rule; if you do things right 80% of the time, you can afford to do them wrong 20% of the time.
Ideally, control your blood sugar (and therefore the release of fat-storing insulin) by living a low-medium glycemic load lifestyle. This is the diet you need.
(b) Doing things wrong 20% of the time will lead to gradual fat-gain. Counter this with infrequent MuscleHack-style mini-cuts.

This is a MUCH better way of staying lean year-round.

Bear in mind that cardio isn’t as effective as you might think. When you hop on a treadmill, it will at least ask you to input your weight, this is for a specific reason: it’s calculating your resting metabolic rate (RMR).

This is important to understand because when you’ve finished your session and see ‘400 calories burned’ on the reader, this is 400 total calories INCLUDING the calories you would have burned just lying on the couch.

If your RMR was 1900 and you spent an hour burning that 400 calories, you really burned about an extra 320 calories, not 400. Eat an average chocolate bar and you’ve undone an hour’s work in 5 minutes.

We didn’t evolve to burn calories very easily. If we did, we probably wouldn’t be here right now. Our ancestors would have died of starvation during long periods without food because hunting would have expended mega-calories.

The fact that the body doesn’t burn calories very easily was a big plus for our ancestors but a big pain in the ass for modern man; we live in a society of food surplus where high-calorie snacks are never far away. For evolutionary reasons, our body will want to store this excess energy as fat for times of food scarcity that never actually come.

Check out this calculator by ‘Runner’s World’ magazine – http://www.runnersworld.com/cda/caloriecalculator. According to it, a 160lb man would need to run 29 miles to burn a single pound of fat! Wouldn’t it just be easier to not eat it in the first place?

We are always somewhere between the polar ends of anabolism and catabolism. From the perspective of the guy who wants to build muscle, (and be in anabolism as much as possible) all that running tips the scales more in favor of catabolism and must be seen as a NEGATIVE.

Let’s have a closer look at this anabolism/catabolism thing…

To understand this, you first need to understand the way in which the body builds muscle.

A bodybuilding workout does NOT build muscle, it just STIMULATES the body’s own growth machinery into action. So once you’ve stimulated growth with a workout that represented a progression and was of sufficient intensity, a 2 step process begins:

• Recovery
• Overcompensation (growth)

Your body will not build a gram of new muscle until it fully recovers that which was lost in the workout. This is important: Only once the recovery process is completed can your body then OVERcompensate.

Simple logic would dictate that ANYTHING that makes the recovery process longer is not good if your goal is to increase the total mass of muscle on your body.

The shorter the recovery, the quicker you get into ‘growth mode.’

Some may think that only further weightlifting (and especially working the SAME muscle group) will eat into recovery but that’s where another popular misconception lies.

As Dr. Doug McGuff puts it, “Mechanical work is mechanical work”. What is it that is actually providing the stimulus to the aerobic pathway that so many want to improve with extra cardio sessions? Answer: Mechanical work by the MUSCLES.

Since ANY mechanical work (of at least moderate intensity or higher) beyond that which is required to stimulate growth in muscle mass eats further and further into recovery and therefore prevents overcompensation, cardio is a bad idea from the perspective of the bodybuilder.

Basically – any extra work, cardio or otherwise (since it is ALL mechanical work), actually prevents you from building mass at the rate that would be possible for you if you would just rest and let the body do what it does all by itself. By all means, be Mr/Mrs.Intense in the gym and stimulate growth, but once you’ve done it, leave the body ALONE to RECOVER and then GROW. After all, you don’t keep picking at an open wound and hope it’ll heal faster, do you?

Now, are you ‘doing cardio’ for maximum improvements to your cardiovascular system? That is, do you want to be fit as well as muscular?

If so, cardio is STILL a bad idea.

A study at McMaster University, Canada, (published in the June 2005 edition of the Journal of Applied Physiology) showed that just 6 minutes of high intensity exercise, 2 to 3 times a week, was very effective in improving aerobic fitness. [1]

The study subjects’ endurance increased by almost 100%. This was in contrast to the control group who participated in jogging, cycling, and aerobics (though not in any structured manner), whose endurance did not improve at all.

The high-intensity group “showed a significant increase in a chemical known as citrate synthase, an enzyme that is indicative of the tissue’s power to use oxygen.”

The group that achieved such improvements were using a 30-second sprint protocol. Remembering that this is simply mechanical work by the muscles, high-intensity weight training will yield the same, if not better, result. In fact, after some sets, like deadlifts to failure, I’m more wiped than anything I could achieve with HIIT training on a bike or treadmill. Also remember that it is not desirable to do BOTH from the bodybuilder’s point of view for reasons stated above i.e. full recovery THEN growth.

Now, could weight-lifting, an anaerobic activity, benefit the aerobic pathways MORE than cardio/aerobics?

Sounds counter-intuitive but let’s have a closer look. When we talk about improvements to the cardiovascular system, we are really taking about are metabolic adaptations within the cells that the cardiovascular system supports.

It may seem surprising to you that it is actually during recovery from weight training/anaerobic activity that the aerobic system reaps benefits at least equal to, and often greater than, steady-state cardio/aerobics.

This will require a quick look at cell metabolism…

Step 1 – Anaerobic metabolism in the cytosol portion of the cell turns glucose into pyruvate

Step 2 – Pyruvate is then moved into the mitochondria where it is aerobically metabolized to become 36 molecules of ATP (adenosine triphosphate)

Step 3 – Glycolysis (step 1 above) only produces 2 molecules of ATP but, importantly, cycles MUCH faster than the Krebs cycle/respiratory chain (step 2) which produces 36 molecules of ATP.

Step 4 – When involved in high-intensity training, like lifting to failure, you turn the glycolytic cycle (1) and produce pyruvate faster than it can be used by the aerobic cycle (2).

Step 5 – As the ‘excess’ pyruvate builds up it is converted to lactic acid, explaining why you ‘feel the burn’ during your workouts.

Step 6 – It is only through this type of intense, anaerobic activity that you force the Krebs cycle (aerobic) to turn as quickly as possible to deal with the large intake of pyruvate into the mitochondria. Jogging, running, rowing etc. are just not as effective for this.

Step 7 – Additionally, when recovering from intense muscular contractions, the lactate that builds up is then converted back into pyruvate which then has to be aerobically metabolized. Yes, this means that your aerobic system is stimulated while you rest and recover from lifting weights. This is no small thing; the aerobic system works at its highest level when recovering from lactic acidosis. You are indeed getting much ‘fitter’ by working with weights and recovering from the same.

So, so much for the people who repeatedly accuse muscular guys of being unfit because they don’t ‘do cardio.’ Also remember that through progressive overload we are growing stronger all the time. Since the musculature is being served by the aerobic system, improvements in muscle strength and size will also result in upregulation of the aerobic system.

“But Mark, I want to burn fat and stay lean while I get big”

Aside from the above points about simply controlling caloric intake, intense weight training (or emergency situations) will mobilize stored fat by activating hormone-sensitive lipase. HSL releases these fatty acids which are then transported to the muscles; beta oxidation forms 35 molecules of ATP from them. This is unique to emergency situations and high-intensity muscular work that calls into play our powerful type 2b muscle fibers – an event well catered for in THT training.

I hope this article illustrates for you the inferiority, needlessness, and, in fact, counterproductivity of adding aerobic sessions on top of weight training when building muscle is your main priority.

Having said that, there is more to this topic that will further convince you if you aren’t already. I would consider the expert in this field to be Dr. Doug McGuff who has developed a system of total fitness (not predominantly muscle building) based solely on intense muscular contractions; no cardio/aerobics whatsoever. He refers to it as ‘Global Metabolic Conditioning.’

If I could summarize; if you’re ‘doing cardio’:

• To burn calories – Just don’t eat them in the first place
• To keep  fit – You are already ‘keeping fit’ with weight training; the added aerobics is counterproductive when we understand the processes of inroading and overcompensation.

Take Care. Your Buddy,

Mark.

references:
[1] http://edition.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/06/06/sprint.training/index.html

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Here’s another Low Glycemic Load muscle recipe:

Beef Chili.

It’ll only take about 15 minutes to cook this high-protein bad boy.

It’ll have a minimal impact on your blood sugar at a glycemic load of just 6 for the whole meal!

This also means you can feel free to add some low glycemic bread/crackers, like ryvita ,if you want to take advantage of the 15GL meal limit.

Calories – 538

Macronutrient Breadown:

• Protein – 64.5g
• Carbs - 43g
• Fat – 12g

Ingredients:

(1) 1/2 pound extra-lean ground beef (mince)

(2) 150g pinto or kidney beans

(3) 1/2 bell pepper in strips or diced

(4) 7 ounces/200 grams of chopped tomatoes

(5) 1/2 cup water (4 fl. oz.)

(6) 2 tablespoons malt vinegar

(7) 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

(8) 8 grams chili powder/1.5 teaspoons, or more if you want it hot

(9) 1/2 teaspoon salt

(10) 1/2 cup grated low-fat cheese

Instructions

1. Brown the beef in a frying pan
2. Now add the diced tomato, peppers, Worcestershire sauce, vinegar, water, salt and chili powder
3. Stir
4. Now add your beans
5. Bring this to the boil for 5 minutes
6. Now turn down the heat and simmer for 5 minutes, 10 if you think the sauce isn’t thick enough

Now stick it all on a plate and throw on your grated cheese. Voila!

Your Bud,

Mark.

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My favorite low-carb dish of all time is now available in a low-glycemic load, lower-fat form:

The Muscle Taco or Taco Salad.

This really packs a protein punch and is one of the most delicious muscle-dishes you could eat!

Here’s the all-important nutritional info:

Calories – 438
Calories with tortilla – 560

Macronutrient Breakdown

No Tortilla

Protein - 58.5
Net Carbs – 25
Fat - 11.5

With Tortilla

Protein – 62.5
Net Carbs – 47
Fat – 13.5

Glycemic Load

The GL for this meal WITHOUT the wrap is a measley 4!
With the wrap you’re looking at a GL 12 meal.

Here’s the ingredients…

(1) 1/2 pound extra-lean ground beef (mince)

(2) 2 teaspoons taco seasoning

(3) 1/2 bell pepper in strips or diced

(4) 2 tablespoons salsa

(5) 2 cups loosely packed lettuce (romaine)

(6) 1 cup diced tomato

(7) 1/2 cup shredded low-fat cheese of your cheese

(8) 2 tablespoons low-fat sour cream

(9) Large Wholewheat tortilla wrap (optional)

Cooking

• Brown beef in frying pan
• Add taco seasoning
• Add sliced pepper and 1 tablespoon salsa
• Cook until peppers are al dente (soft on outside, still a little hard on inside)

Serving

• Arrange your lettuce and tomatoes on a plate OR…
• Arrange your lettuce and tomatoes in a wholemeal tortilla
• Spoon on your taco mixture from the frying pan
• Now add your cheese, sour cream, and the other tablespoon of salsa
• Wrap it all up if using a tortilla

Whether or not you opt for the wrapped version is up to you. Perhaps you’ve used most of your GL allowance for the day and are still feeling a bit peckish, omit the tortilla in that case.

But you really can’t go wrong here. You get taste, protein, and low impact on your blood sugar.

Just another addition to the great GLAD diet.

Enjoy!

Mark

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