Get Big Stay Lean

Copyright

© 2015 Guide to Gaining Muscle by Steve Hall

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Disclaimer

Before starting any new nutrition or training programme please
check with your doctor to clear any exercise and/or nutritional
changes with them before beginning. This material is for
educational and entertainment purposes only.

Steve Hall is not a dietician or medical practitioner, all information
is intended only to help with the cooperation of your doctor, in
your efforts toward desirable weight levels and health. The
information provided should not be used above that suggested by
your doctor, it is not presented with any guarantees of any kind.

The information in this document is supported by research by
various government and regulated organisations and peer
reviewed studies.

Copyright Written by Stephen Hall

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

Introduction

Part 1 Nutrition

Chapter 1: What We’re Consuming.
Chapter 2: How Much We Need.
Chapter 3: Where To Get It From.
Chapter 4: How to Ensure Progress.
Chapter 5: The Icing on the Cake by Citadel Nutrition.

Part 2 Training
Chapter 6: How We Build Muscle?
Chapter 7: The Building Blocks of Muscle?
Chapter 8: Revive’s Ultimate Lean Muscle Programme.

Part 3 Everything Else
Chapter 9: Mindset.
Chapter 10: Sleep.
Chapter 11: Tracking Progress.


PREFACE

I have written this book because too many people are either
spinning their wheels in an attempt to stay lean while getting
bigger, or they’re adding needless fat to their physique. Neither of
these situations are any good and to be honest I find it frustrating
to see, as I have been there myself. I did the traditional ‘Eat Big to
Get Big’ protocol and I have stagnated for far too long in an
attempt to stay lean. I wrote this book to help prevent either
situation arising, and allowing people to Get Big and Stay Lean.

I am very jealous. Jealous of you because you have access to
information I wish I had seen before I touched a weight or protein
shake. The book is as it says comprehensive; I am going to go
over nutrition, training, mindset, sleep, supplementation and much
more. Leaving no stone unturned, providing a complete plan,
allowing those who want to put on size without adding layers of fat
to do so. All my prescriptions are evidence based, using the
insights from some of the greatest minds in the fitness industry,
including but not limited to; Alan Aragon, Brad Schoenfeld and
Eric Helms.

Alan is a nutrition researcher, with his research review he delves
deep into the science and spits out the information to the lay
public. Brad Schoenfeld ‘the hypertrophy expert’ is arguably the
top researcher when it comes to gaining muscle mass, and he
has used this to his advantage winning multiple titles as a natural
bodybuilder. Finally, Eric Helms is also a natural bodybuilder who
has coached hundreds to win titles on the natural stage,
furthermore he is a researcher in the nutrition and training field.
So we have nutrition, training and the aspect of coaching very
well covered.

The purpose of this book is to not only allow people to Get Big
and Stay Lean, but also to educate and empower. Giving the
reader the programme but also the knowledge to why what they


are doing works. Personally, I think this is extremely important. By
the end of the book you will know; how much protein, fat,
carbohydrates and calories to consume and why, how to get big
and strong plus the core principles behind building muscle and
finally touching on mindset, sleep and how to track progress. By
combining all this you cannot fail to Get Big & Stay Lean.

When writing the book I wanted to get all geeky, but remembered
that the purpose is to guide the reader to build size, not to learn
about the human metabolism. I have done my best to balance the
science and the nerd inside me with the important information,
providing both education but also the necessary application to
provide results. Using what I have learnt from the seminars I have
been to, the research papers and books I have read and the
results I have gotten not only for myself but also my clients, to
give you the complete guide to building lean muscle.

I would like to thank personally everyone who has contributed to
the book and encouraged me along my personal journey as a
coach, natural bodybuilder and powerlifter.


INTRODUCTION

Who Am I?
I am Steve Hall, first and foremost I am a brother, son and a
friend, secondly I am an Online Coach and Personal Trainer,
finally I am a Natural Bodybuilder and Powerlifter. My love for
weight training developed at the age of 15, first out of curiosity
and then I got addicted to seeing my body change and progress.
Unfortunately the progress stalled, I came to the limit of my
‘newbie’ gains, for years I lifted weights, took protein shakes and
yet nothing.

The moment it all changed was when I unfortunately had a run in
with a van. The injuries I suffered had me bed ridden and unwell
for enough time for my weight to drop by more than 30lbs. Any
‘newbie’ gains I had made were gone. That along with my ill
health left me unhappy and depressed. It was here I really


developed my knowledge of how to train productively and how to
feed my body correctly for my goals. What I did in the past didn’t
really work, so I knew that there must be a better way.
I educated myself thoroughly, using a combination of books,
seminars, and coaching qualifications. I used my newly acquired
knowledge to quickly develop past my old physique. So much so
that in 2011 I decided I wanted to compete as a natural
bodybuilder one day, and in 2014 I began my contest prep. I
placed in the top 5 in both the NPA and UKDFBA novice classes.
With this knowledge and experience I help people across the
globe reach their health, fitness and physique goals. Fitness and
Health is my passion and to help others to achieve their goals is
my mission, Revive Stronger together.

Find out more about me:
● Website: www.revivestronger.com
● Facebook: www.facebook.com/revivestephenhall
● YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/steveFitnessHub
● Instagram: www.instagram.com/revivestronger


Who is this book for?

“I have been training for a few years, seen good results, making
great initial gains. However, I am now stuck, I am not seeing the
steady progress I saw in the past”. Does that sound familiar? If so
this book is for you. It is inevitable, the longer you train, the nearer
you edge towards your genetic potential. Once you have got to
this point you’ll have built a decent amount of muscle and
strength.

You’ve become more efficient and that means to progress you
need to do more to tax your body enough to cause it to adapt.
That in turn means you need to get a little cleverer with your
training, one single session isn’t enough to spur gains. You're no
longer a newbie.

Plus you’re stronger, so you can deal with heavier loads, and
these are very taxing. So, you cannot go heavy all the time. You
need to train in a fashion that will produce enough stress to
overload your body but also with enough time to recover to allow
the adaption to take place. Inside this book you will get a
periodised training programme that is designed specifically for
you, organised in a fashion that’ll allow you to continue gaining
muscle. It will balance stress and recovery to spur gains.

However, even with the right training programme you will not get
the results you desire without correct nutrition. Yeah, yeah we all
know to get big, you need to eat big, but this only gets us so far.
This book is for those who want to gain all the muscle and none of
the fat. Eating big will get you big, big and chubby. Inside this
book you will get a personalised nutrition plan that is designed to
get you big while keeping you lean.

Nutrition and training are key when it comes to gaining muscle
mass. However, often missed are areas such as mindset, sleep
and tracking your progress. Do you know how long you should
sleep for? Do you get frustrated with your results and wish you


had a way round this? Do you wonder whether you should stop
gaining and cut back some fat? All of these questions and more
are covered inside this book.

My mission is to provide results and educate, this is a
comprehensive guide to gaining muscle, so you will get big, stay
lean and know why.


PART 1: NUTRITION

Chapter 1: What we’re consuming.

What I look to achieve with this chapter is to give you the bare
basics of nutrition. With this knowledge you will then have a better
idea about what foods are giving you, because our body doesn’t
know if we’re eating an apple or if we’re eating sweets. Our body
just sees nutrients, those being macronutrients and
micronutrients.

Calories
Calories are our bodies energy source and they are derived from
our macronutrients.

Macronutrients
Protein
Protein is simply godly,
widely known as the
building block of muscle,
protein is used principally
for growth and repair.
That means if we wanna
build big muscles we
have to eat protein. It is
an essential
macronutrient, that
means we must consume
protein in our diet, we
cannot produce it in other
ways. Per gram it contains 4 calories and along with growth and
repair it plays a part in our immune and hormonal functions.


Carbohydrates
Carbs unlike protein and fat are nonessential, which means we
can function without consuming them. However, don’t think that
means they’re useless, our body uses them as a short term
energy source and as our activities intensity increases the more
our bodies use carbohydrates. That means when we’re pushing,
pulling and generally lifting heavy we’re using carbs. They are our
bodies preferred energy source, meaning if you want to perform
at your best in the gym, you want to eat plenty of carbs. Per gram
they contain 4 calories, further to providing energy carbohydrates
also come in the form of fibre, which plays an important role in a
healthy digestive tract. Don’t underrate a healthy digestive tract,
just trust me on that one.

Fat
Like protein it’s essential, needed for healthy hormone function,
and it’s used as a long term energy source. As activities intensity
decreases the more our bodies use it as a fuel (the opposite to
carbs). So as you’re sitting reading this book, you’re burning fat
as a fuel source. Per gram they contain 9 calories, and they are
therefore the most energy dense macronutrient. So for those of us
looking to gain size but struggle to eat, fat being so calorie dense
can really help. Plus fat tastes damn good, what doesn’t butter
make better? Oh and try melting a chocolate bar over hot oatmeal
or a sweet potato, om nom nom.


Micronutrients, Minerals & Water
Micronutrients and minerals are also found within our diet, just in
much smaller amounts, hence micro. They are however very
important, as a deficiency can cause harm to our health and
performance in the gym. If we cannot perform our best in the gym,
we limit our muscle building potential, a definite no, no.
Officially they are organic and inorganic compounds, and we only
need small amounts of them. Different foods hold various
amounts, just like the macronutrients. The best way to ensure you
are getting a sufficient amount? Eat a well rounded and balanced
diet. That means no food banning or discrimination, variety is not
only the spice of life, but the key to a healthy life. I will touch more
on food selection later.
Water is needed for us to live, without it we would die. It becomes
more concerning the more endurance based your sport is and the
higher the temperature of the atmosphere the activity is
conducted in. So for us guys lifting weights in a air conditioned
gym, we don’t have to drown ourselves in the stuff. However, just
a 2% decrease in bodyweight from water can impact our
performance, so we want to keep well hydrated especially around
workouts.
Hopefully that scares you enough into ensuring you are well
hydrated, however, remember food contains water, and any
beverage you consume is almost entirely water. How do you
know if you are drinking enough? The approach I find best is to
drink to your own personal thirst, if that isn’t specific enough then
go for 1 liter per 1000 calories consumed or ensure 5 of your daily
urinations are clear.


Chapter 2: How much do we need?
So now we know the basics of what a diet provides we can look
into applying it specifically to each individual. Here I would like to
be clear, there is no catch all ‘muscle gaining diet’, by that I mean
we must adhere to the Principle of Individuality. Everyone is
unique. Yes we all have the same basic biology but our nutritional
requirements vary with age, goal and lean body mass.
So diets based on macronutrient ratios, where we consume a
given % of our diet from protein, carbs and fat are useless. As are
diet plans, because not only is eating chicken, rice and broccoli
hella dull, it also doesn’t adhere to the principle of individuality
and won’t provide sufficient variety to one hit your micronutrient
requirements or two keep you being consistent, because it is
inflexible and restrictive.

What Determines Our Calorie Intake?
Our caloric burn is the total amount of energy we burn in a day
and is made up of a multiple of factors. We first have our Basal
Metabolic Rate (BMR) the amount we would burn lying in bed, at
room temperature on an empty stomach. The larger you are and
the more lean mass you have the higher this will be. Hence why
you see massive bodybuilders chowing down all the time.
Then we have our Thermic Effect of Activity (TEA) the energy we
use for formal activity. The more you move and the higher the
intensity of that activity the higher this will be. Again this is why
Michael Phelps needs 12,000 calories daily and can get away
with eating a reported three fried egg and cheese sandwiches, an
omelet, bowl of grits, three slices of French toast and three
chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast. That man can eat!


Next is the Thermic Effect of Food (TEF) to get energy from our
food we must expend some energy to fuel digestion. So everytime
you eat something energy is needed to break it down, so you
must use energy to get energy. Different macronutrients take
differing amounts of energy to be digested, but we don’t need to
get into that just now.
Finally we have our NonExercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT)
and NonExercise Physical Activity (NEPA). NEAT is all
subconscious movement like tapping your foot and NEPA is any
activity that isn’t classed as exercise, like washing the dishes.
NEAT and NEPA vary massively person to person, it’s the wild
card when it comes to estimating calorie burn.
You see some people spontaneously move a lot more, and others
are more sloth like, this isn’t something we can control. Also while
two people may be the same size, weight and go to the gym 4
times a week, if one has an active job such as a builder, while the
other is desk bound, their energy demands will vary considerably.
When we combine all the above they come together to form our
Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) and by all purposes this is
what we are concerned about. Our TDEE is dynamic,
unfortunately we do not always need the same amount of energy
to maintain our weight all the time, if we did it would make things
way too simple. If any of the above components of our
metabolism change, so does our TDEE. For example, you switch
jobs, from being a bar man to being office based. Your NEAT
dramatically drops, because you are no longer on your feet and
getting people drunk, you’re now sat down and the most
movement you get is playing with your mouse.


As you can see our BMR makes up the most of our metabolic
pyramid with TEF making up the least.


The Best Way to Determine Calorie Intake
First I am going to tell you the best way to determine the amount
of total calories you require, it isn’t the easiest, which is why I will
also give you another way. What you need to do: using a food
diary track your total caloric intake each day for a period of 2
weeks, during this time also weigh yourself in a consistent
manner. By consistent I mean don’t go weighing yourself at 10pm
after a night on the town and then two days later first thing after a
shower. Try and weigh yourself every morning, after visiting the
loo, but before consuming any food or liquid. And when I say keep
a food diary, I want you to track everything, from the milk in your
coffee to the after dinner mint.
If your weight stayed roughly the same across the 2 weeks, say
within a couple of lbs, you can average out your calorie intake and
know that figure is approximately maintenance for you. If you gain
or lose more than a couple of lbs, then you know whether you are
above or below maintenance. This is the best way because it is
completely specific to you, remember you are an individual, even
if you are the same weight and train the same amount as your
friend, there could still be stark differences in how many calories
you burn.

A Way to Determine Calorie Intake
As you can tell the above method requires considerable time and
effort, and I know not everyone wants to have to go through it. So
a less accurate method is to use a generic calculation based on a
few factors to give you an estimated maintenance intake.
However, just like the method stated previously this one will
require some manipulation to ensure you’re getting what you
need. It also is very generic, remember that pesky principle of
individuality, we are all unique and have different biochemistry, so
we cannot expect simple calculations to work perfectly.


Estimated Maintenance Calorie Calculation:
Body Weight in pounds x 13 to 16
Factors putting you at the higher range: male, high training
volume, active job and low bodyfat % (sub 15% for males,
sub 25% for females).
Factors putting you at the lower range: female, low training
volume, sedentary and high bodyfat % (over 15% for
males, over 25% for females).

Example:
Subject: Female who works an office job who is lean and trains 4
times per week for an hour a time at 130lbs.

So we have a sedentary female but she is lean and fairly active
outside of her job, so we may choose 14 as her multiplier.
130 (lbs) x 14 (multiplier) = 1820kcal
Here we can see her estimated maintenance calorie intake is
1820

There are a number of different calculations out there including;
The KatchMcArdle Equation, Owen Equation, MifflinSt Jeor
Equation, HarrisBenedict Equation, Aragon Equation, WHO
Equation and The Cunningham Formula. They normally land
within around 200400 calories of one another, and for simplicities
sake because every calculation is an estimate I like to keep things
simple by using the above.


Calories
So now you have a figure for the number of calories required to
maintain your current weight, but we wanna gain muscle, so
something needs adjusting.
To build mass we require a surplus energy intake, that means
eating more than we burn. Think of trying to build an extension to
a house, you need some extra building material, without some
additional bricks and cement there is no way you’re going to get
that extension. In the same way we need extra calories to build
more muscle. Don’t be that guy who in an attempt to stay lean
doesn’t eat enough to grow. I’ve been there and all it leads to is a
whole lot of staying the same.
How much of a surplus depends on a few factors, and here we
are trying to stay lean so the guiding influence is our training
experience as that dictates the amount of muscle we can
realistically gain overtime. Many experts in the field have tried to
come up with rates of muscle gain for natural athletes according
to years of ‘dedicated’ training, there are currently no studies
conducted however.
With the above being said there is no real way to know your
genetic muscular potential, that is highly individual. Also note that
I haven’t just said training, I have said ‘dedicated training’.
Dedicated training means you have been following a training
routine that focuses on the main compound movements and
ensures progressive overload.
That means you are making sure to get in movements that are
multijoint, such as squats, deadlifts, presses and pulls, and you
are either increasing the weight of these movements or the
number of reps. This ensures that total volume is increasing and
assuming good form, making sure to use full range of movement,
you sir are training in a ‘dedicated’ manner. I will come back to
training in a separate chapter, you’ll then fully understand how to
train very effectively.


Using a combination of the experts recommendations and my
personal observations I have come up with the following:

Category Rate of Gain* Calorie Surplus*
Novice 2 years or less of 24lbs per month 10 15%

dedicated training
Intermediate 24 years of 12lbs per month 5 10%
dedicated training
Advanced 4+ years of Negligible N/A

dedicated training

* Females can half this figure.

If we go back to our female office worker, we know she needs
around 1820kcal to maintain her weight. She has only been
training properly for a year, and therefore she can look to gain
12lbs a month and would want to be in a 510% calorie surplus:
1820 x 1.05 (105%) = 1911
1820 x 1.1 (110%) = 2002
She would therefore want to consume between 1911 to 2002
calories to gain lean muscle. So now we know how many total
calories to eat. However it doesn’t end there, to best ensure we
are growing lean muscle we need to be a little specific about
where these calories come from. As I said at the start of the
chapter, it isn’t as simple as using a given ratio, we need to be a
little more specific.


Macronutrients
Calories must come from somewhere right? Right. They come
from the macronutrients; protein, carbs and fat. As stated before,
protein and carbs contain 4 calories per gram, whereas fat
contains 9.
The amount we want of each is dependent on our goals, age,
preferences, lean body mass, total mass, gender and lifestyle. I
will go over some guidelines of how much of each you might want
to shoot for. Starting with protein and fats, as these are essential
finishing with carbohydrates.

Protein
Favourites first, let me introduce protein, as we know this is the
building block of muscle, very important for someone looking to
gain lean muscle mass. I recommend you consume between 0.8
1.2 grams of protein per pound of body mass. The older and
leaner you are the closer to the higher end I would go for, and
therefore the younger and fatter you are the lower you’ll shoot.

Fats
Next up fats, again there is a certain amount you want to get for
health reasons, to keep your body functioning at its best. The
amounts I advise are between 0.3 to 0.6 grams per pound of
body mass or 2030% of total calories , I would go further
towards the higher end the older you are and the more total
calories you are consuming.


Carbohydrates
The rest of your calories can then be made up of
carbohydrates , the only nonessential macronutrient.
Nonessential for living, but for getting the most from your
workouts and to operate at your best day to day, they should be
considered essential.

The image above shows you two different nutritional intakes for
the same person (me) but they’re a year apart. There is over a
2000 total calorie difference between the two, and as you can see
protein is pretty much the same in each but fat and carbs are
starkly different. In 2014 I had been dieting for many months and
was under 165lbs whereas in 2013 I had been eating in a surplus
for over a year and was over 190lbs. Yet in both I was maintaining
weight. This shows a few things: our total calorie needs change
as our situation changes and protein is the most consistent
macronutrient as it is determined by lean mass.


Chapter 3: Where to get it from?
You’re pretty close to getting started on eating for muscle. You
know how much you need to eat and how much needs to come
from each macronutrient. That’s calories, fats, carbs and protein
sorted. That begs the question, what foods do we eat to get these
macronutrients, and how do we ensure we get sufficient
micronutrients? That is what this chapter is all about, where to
get your nutrition.
And don’t worry it isn’t going to be a list of ‘superfoods’ or a diet
based around sweet potato, broccoli, chicken and peanut butter.
It’s a diet that is based on preferences and is varied but with a
foundation of wholesome, unrefined foods.
You will learn to love everything you eat, and know it is taking you
towards your goal of lean muscle mass.


The Pillars of Flexiblity
Ranges
Now you have the ability to work out how many calories you want
to consume and how much of each macronutrient you want to
make up that calorie allowance. Here I want to add a note about
preference, and how it is incredibly important to enjoy your diet.
For example, some people love to eat protein, they live for a big
steak, they therefore would want to opt for the higher end of the
protein scale, and that is absolutely fine. The key here is being
consistent with your nutritional intake, and if you can manipulate
your macronutrients in such a way that makes the diet more
enjoyable, you will be more likely to stick to it.
Furthermore, if you were to follow the above process you would
come out with some very specific numbers, and if you were to go
by these you would really have to closely monitor everything you
ate, or find yourself never ever getting the ‘right’ numbers. This is
not a livable diet, that will destroy consistency, and therefore
destroy progress.
So, I suggest you round your calories to the nearest 100 and
round your macros to the nearest 5 . Then just as you have a
range for calories you can set a range for your macronutrients, for
the typical person looking to gain lean weight I would go for a 10g
range on protein and carbs, and a 5g range on fat. You can
then work within these to hit within your calories. This will be
much more enjoyable and makes things incredibly flexible,
making the diet much easier to stick to. Making you more
consistent.
You will work out how many calories to consume then divide this
into macronutrients using the above recommendations, these will
then be guided by preference, rounded and given a range. By
doing this you are consuming enough of the right amount of
nutrients to produce the lean muscle gains you are after. Not only
that but it will be productive, it will be easy and enjoyable, making
the diet into a consistent lifestyle.


This might all sound like a bit much right now, so lets walk
through an example, step by step, explaining each so that you
can easily do it for yourself.
Example:
Subject: 25 year old male, weighing in at 183lbs at 14% bodyfat.
He cycles 2 miles to work as a sales assistant each day, works
out 4 times a week, plays football on the weekend and has been
productively training for 3 years.
He is therefore very active, due to being on his feet most of the
day and with a large amount of formal activity as well. We can use
this to dictate his activity multiplier:

183 (lbs) x 16 (multiplier) = 2928kcal

Here we can see his estimated maintenance calorie intake is
2928 calories. With three years of training under his belt he is
looking to gain 12lbs a month, and therefore wants to be in a
510% calorie surplus.

2928 x 1.05 (105% = 3074kcal
2928 x 1.1 (110%) = 3221kcal
So to gain at this rate he wants to consume between 3074 to
3221 calories. Now we can divide these into the macronutrients:
Protein: 183 x 1 = 183g (183 x 4 = 732kcal)
Fat: 183 x 0.5 = 92g (92 x 9 = 828kcal)
Carbs: 3074 (732+828) = 1514 divide this by 4 = 379g
Calories: 3221kcal


If our subject were to consume the above bolded numbers it
would give the lower end of his calorie aim. However, as I said
before, I don’t like aiming for specific numbers. So to make things
a bit simpler I would round these out and give some ranges. To
make things real simple let’s give a 10g range for fats and 20g
range for carbohydrates and protein. So our male would aim for:
Protein: 185 to 195g
Fat: 90 to 95g
Carbs: 380 to 390g
Calories: 3200 to 3300kc
al

The Priority Scale
The ranges really make the
diet flexible, but there are
some days we need to stretch
this even further. This is where
the priority scale comes in
handy. This is a three layered
scale, with the outside being
the most important and inside
the least. It allows you to know
you are still making good
progress, yet gives that extra
bit of flexibility if so desired.
Using this scale we can
therefore get our priorities in
order. Imagine you are out all
day, making sticking to the
ranges harder, or maybe you have a birthday meal, a night out or
are going away for a few days. During these times you may
require more flexibility than the ranges provide. In these cases
you can look to this scale.


First things first, aim to get within the calorie range, this is
because calories regardless of macronutrient intake control
whether we gain, lose or maintain weight. Next up is to try and
land within your protein range and then carbs and fat. That means
you could trade up some of your carbs one day for a bit more fat,
but you’d try and remain in your calorie and protein ranges. Heck
you could go hitting layers 1 and 2 and see terrific results,
especially if this allowed you to be consistent.

Food Selection
Now having read the above you are probably thinking ‘so I know
how much I need to eat, but what foods should I eat to get to
these calories, protein, fat and carbohydrates?’. And in comes the
final pillar of flexibility, food selection, and you may have guessed,
it is incredibly flexible. A brilliant way to present this is using Alan
Aragon’s Healthy Diet Plate.
I advise you follow a flexible diet; this means you can eat
whatever foods you want, provided you hit your macronutrient
numbers each day, pick mainly nutrient dense foods, and still get
adequate fibre, vegetables and fruits.
Yup you heard right, you can eat whatever you like, the one
caveat being you must meet you micro and macronutritional
needs. By default this means your diet will consist of mainly
unprocessed foods. No food can be described as ‘good’ or ‘bad’,
as the healthfulness of a food comes down to your diet as a
whole.


The bullet points below should give you a better idea of how to
ensure you’re getting enough of the ‘good’ stuff:
Consume a minimum of 10% of your carbohydrate in fibre,
with a minimum of 25g (if you eat 200g of carbs, get at
least 25g of fibre daily, if 300g then 30g of fibre).
Consume a minimum of 2 portions of fruit and vegetables
per 1000kcal.
Consume a range of fats, including nuts, vegetables oils,
animal fat and Omega3’s.


Variation is Key
You have probably heard of foods being described as ‘dirty’ or
‘clean’, I have a big problem with this because there is no clear
definition. For one person dairy might be dirty but for another it
might be clean, same might go for wheat or even fruit. Through
the years our opinion on food has changed, we have been carb
phobic, run from fat and now gluten free fads are everywhere.
The idea of what is good/bad or clean/dirty has and continues to
change decade to decade.
No matter what you say, variation is very important, by limiting
yourself to certain foods or food groups you are missing out on
key micronutrients. This can and does lead to nutrient deficiencies
and the diet you thought was ‘clean’, ‘good, or ‘healthy’ actually
isn’t.
Even when eating sufficient calories, if you do not have ample
variation of food choices you can suffer nutrient deficiencies. For
example Kleiner et al found that female bodybuilders were
‘remarkably deficient’ in calcium intake, likely due to their dairy
avoidance, this was despite consuming adequate total calories.
So your food selection should be guided by preference, hit the
macronutrient ranges, should be varied and abide by the Flexible
Plate. However, I must add if someone wants to consume all of
their calories from unrefined, whole foods, that is OK too, so long
as that is their genuine personal preference.


Meal Timing
When it comes to when we should get our nutrition I would like to
refer to Alan Aragon’s Continuum of nutrient timing importance. In
which he depicts that intermediate trainees who are seeking to
improve body composition really do not to stress when it comes to
when to eat.
However, to maximise your chances of gaining muscle I would try
and have 35 meals a day, splitting protein relatively evenly. Of
course your prime focus should be on hitting total daily
macronutrient guidelines.
That is as prescriptive as I am going to get, because it simply isn’t
necessary to stress about ‘anabolic windows’ or going catabolic. If
you don’t provide your body with the macronutrients it needs by
the end of the day, no ‘clever’ eating strategies are going to do
jack for your results.


Chapter 4: The Icing on the Cake?

Supplements By Citadel Nutrition

Many of us have made the mistake of placing an overemphasis
on supplements, and the truth is your training and nutrition will be
the most important factors in obtaining your fitness and nutrition
goals.
The usefulness of supplements is also a function of your overall
training level, for instance for elite athletes, the difference
between first and last place can be less than 1%.
Supplements do and will help if you make informed and
evidencebased decisions on which ones to use. This approach
will also help you save much of your hard earned money.

Making Good Supplement Choices
Some key principles to consider when deciding on which
supplements to take are:
Overall body of evidence.
Nonproprietary blends.
Effective Doses.
Expert Review.


Overall Body of Scientific Evidence
When it comes to the overall body of evidence, you need to find
out if there is scientific backing/evidence showing that the
supplement you are considering will actually provide a positive
benefit. This is independent of marketing hype or what your
training partner tells you, you need to verify for yourself if the
supplement ingredient or product you are taking is going to
actually provide benefit.
One of the best resources to do this is Examine.com.
Examine.com synthesizes the studies done on supplement
ingredients and takes into consideration factors like the number of
studies and the significance of conclusions, as well as study
design. This is a great first stop in making smart supplement
decisions.

Nonproprietary Blends
Proprietary blends are bundled
ingredients in which the amounts
of all the ingredients in the blend
are stated on the supplement
label as one combined number.
Simply put, the blend lists
ingredients without the amounts.
This practice is prevalent in the
supplement industry and one of
the biggest hurdles for you as the
consumer to know what you’re
putting into your body and to be
able to determine if the
ingredient in the product is at an
effective dose.
To the right is an example of a proprietary blend.


The FDA requires that the dietary ingredients in a proprietary
blend be listed in order of predominance by weight. So in the
example above, maltodextrin is the most abundant ingredient in
the blend.

Effective Doses
Does the ingredient dose used in the product replicate the dose
used in scientific studies of clinical trials when the ingredients’
effectiveness was established? There isn’t any point in taking a
dietary ingredient if you aren’t getting an effective dose.
Here’s an example of a nonproprietary blend with some proven
ingredients – but at ineffective doses.

In the example above, the mix contains 30 mg of creatine
monohydrate. The daily effective dose of creatine proven through
research is 3–5 g. You can see that the mix is under dosed (by
100 times), so you won't get any benefit from that ingredient.
Although creatine is a proven ingredient, it also has to be
combined with an effective dose to ensure that you’ll see a
benefit.


Expert Review
Sometimes you may find it difficult to sift through all the research,
or not understand the terminology used in the scientific literature.
Sometimes you just don’t have the time nor interest to spend
hours researching, and just want to know a trusted source to turn
to for supplement and nutrition advice.
Trusting and listening to expert advice is important, and most
likely they will have a deeper understanding of mechanism of
actions and synthesizing the overall body of evidence. In addition
to Examine.com which we have discussed above, three experts
we recommend you start with in your question towards
supplement knowhow is Alan Aragon, Eric Helms, and Lyle
McDonald.

Our Recommendations

Taking all of the above into account, and the context of this book;
getting big while staying nice and lean, we will make some
supplement recommendations. We will go over the benefits of
each and the amounts you need to take to see those advantages.


Creatine Monohydrate

Supplementing with creatine increases your intramuscular stores
of phosphocreatine, which allows your body to resynthesize an
energy source in your body called ATP.

In simple terms creatine increases performance during high
intensity activities that require short bursts of energy like
weightlifting and sprinting as well as activities that require a
mix of short bouts and steady state energy.

Creatine is probably the single most studied dietary supplement
with hundreds of studies showing a positive performance benefit.
We believe creatine is a must have performance supplement for
strength/power athletes and beneficial to other types of athletes
as well.


According to the
International Society of Sports Nutrition , creatine
is the most effective ergogenic (performance enhancing)
nutritional supplement currently available to athletes in terms of
increasing highintensity exercise capacity and lean body mass
during training.

The most important thing is to make sure you’re getting a daily
maintenance dose once loaded. You do not need to worry about
when during the day you take it. Although maintenance doses as
low as 2g/day have been shown to be effective, most of the
research showing creatine’s positive effect used a maintenance
dose of 5g/day, so we recommend 5g.

Beta Alanine

Supplementing with betaalanine increases intramuscular
carnosine levels which helps reduce fatigue. It’s been shown to
improve muscular endurance and strength/power when paired
with creatine.
In simple terms beta alanine reduces fatigue, improves
muscular endurance, and helps with strength/power when
paired with creatine.
Betaalanine is another widely researched performance increasing
supplement with 20 plus studies showing a positive performance
benefit.
If you examine the numerous studies of betaalanine you’ll find
that the majority administered it in divided doses. Betaalanine
has been shown to cause a histamine response – an irritating and


stinging/burning sensation in the skin (commonly referred to in bro
circles as tingles but more scientifically referred to as
paresthesia). We believe this is the reason why it was
administered in divided doses.
Based off the studies, it appears an effective total daily dose is
anywhere from 2.4 to 6.4grams. 4 grams taken daily is a nice
middle ground.
Like creatine, betaalanine has no acute effects in terms of
increasing performance. Some users report a slight stimulatory
effect from the “tingles”, but the tingles do nothing outside the
placebo effect in terms of performance.
There is a loading period, similar to creatine, with betaalanine

and it can take up to a month of supplementation to increase
skeletal muscle levels of carnosine to the point of seeing a
performance increase.


Caffeine

Ah good ol’ caffeine. From an energy, alertness, focus, and just
combating sleepiness perspective I think most of us have a pretty
good understanding of what caffeine does.

We love it; we find that it gives us the extra boost to train with
the intensity we like.

From a dosage perspective it appears the sweet spot is 35 mg
per kg. Therefore 200mg seems to be a nice catchall
recommendation.

Caffeine’s link to
strength/power performance
has not been established
and more studies are
needed. Some studies show
a benefit and other studies
show no significant
advantage.

Summary
Creatine Monohydrate: 5g daily taken anytime.
Beta Alanine: 4g daily taken anytime
Caffeine: 200mg pre workout.


Chapter 5: How to Ensure Progress?

Making Adjustments
So you have been eating within your calorie range for a few
weeks and your weight hasn’t budged. What do you do? As noted
earlier our TDEE is dynamic, as you grow, so does your need for
energy. Therefore, we must make adjustments as we progress.
You might be in the opposite position, you’re gaining weight too
fast. Again this can happen for a multitude of reasons, you might
have over estimated your activity levels or maybe you no longer
walk to work etc.

‘ RULE OF 100 ’
... +/ 100kcal...

In both cases there is a simple rule I like to follow, that is The
Rule of 100. Brad Schoenfeld was the creator of this rule, and he
suggests we make small 100 calorie adjustments. So if you’re
gaining too slow, add 100. If you’re gaining too fast, subtract 100.
Keep making these adjustments until you have hit your desired
weight gaining goal. Caution, let things settle, don’t go
adding/subtracting 100 willy nilly, wait a week or two before
changing things again.


The Key to Results
Everyone knows the saying that the key is consistency , this is
never more true than with our nutrition. I mean I have used the
word enough times in this book so far you’re probably beginning
to get the picture.
If you don’t consistently eat in a calorie surplus you will not gain
very much muscle. However, if you eat far more than you need,
you will gain muscle, but also a lot of fat. So the key to lean
muscle is getting sufficient total calories from the right
macronutrients day in, day out. So to be consistent we need a diet
to follow the following key characteristics to a achieve healthy
results driven diet:

1) Respects personal preferences.
2) Covers macro and micronutrient requirements.
3) Contain no unnecessary restrictions.
4) Be socially acceptable.

If you were to follow and use the pillars of flexibility and use the
calculations above you will nail the 4 points above on the head.
Remember, building muscle takes time. This means we need to
take a long term view, that means if we slip up one day, it is fine,
get back to your diet the next. To gain lean muscle, you need to
get the right nutrition in, most of the time.


PART 2: TRAINING

Chapter 6: How We Build Muscle.

Next up is training, this goes hand in hand with nutrition. It isn’t
80% diet and 20% training, it is 100% both. Without a
progressive, periodised and personalised weightlifting programme
no matter what you eat, you will not build very much muscle. The
same goes for training, even if you have the ‘perfect’ workout
programme, without sufficient and personalised food intake, you
will not build very much muscle. It is 100% training and 100%
nutrition.


Hypertrophy The Growth of Muscle
Hypertrophy is the growth of existing muscle cells. We want it, we
want it bad. There are two types; myofibrillar which is the growth
of contractile fibers and sarcoplasmic which is an increase in the
storage of glycogen and water amongst other things. There is
also something called hyperplasia, which is the increase in the
number of muscle cells, the degree to which this is possible is
currently under debate.
Current research suggests hypertrophy is produced via three

main mechanisms; mechanical tension, metabolic stress and
muscle damage. Each is produced through different ways of
lifting, and to build the most muscle possible it is important to
achieve all three.
Remember that all are intertwined, we are never solely training
one aspect, and all three come together to give max muscle
growth. We must develop our training to produce the best mix of
these factors to gain the most muscle possible.


Mechanical Tension
When we lift weights we produce mechanical force on the muscle,
this force disturbs the integrity of our muscles, these are then
converted into chemical signals that ultimately enhance anabolic
signalling. The more weight you lift, the greater the amount of
tension that is produced. This tension is considered to be the
most important factor in muscular development, but it has an
upper limit and once reached other mechanisms are needed to
spur growth. So to produce mechanical tension we need to lift
heavy, bring on the 15 rep max attempts.
Metabolic Stress
This refers to the buildup of metabolites and the reduced pH of
blood, both of which can influence muscle remodelling. These
build up as the muscle fills with blood and is starved of oxygen,
there are various ways this can be produced. One being
restricting blood flow, this can be done with an extrinsic source,
such as the use of a cuff. Research on bedridden patients has
shown that wearing a cuff can reduce catabolism, even without
any exercise. Furthermore, when such a cuff is worn while using
submaximal weights research has shown it can spur significant
muscle growth. This can be very helpful when holding certain
injuries and is called blood flow restriction (BFR).


Metabolic stress produces various compounds that indirectly
mediate cell signalling. Cell swelling is the phenomenon of
increasing water within the muscle, this creates intracellular
pressure in the cell. It is thought that this pressure is perceived as
a threat to cell integrity and causes the cell to respond by
reinforcing its structure. So to produce metabolic stress we need
to achieve a pump, bring on the high rep bicep curls or BFR!

Muscle Damage
Lifting weights causes disruption to muscle cell’s structure, this
leads to a compensatory response in which the cell grows to
reinforce its structure. Think about someone throwing a punch at
you, you’re sure as hell going to be ready for it if they try it again,
just like the muscle cell, you are reinforcing your defences.
It is produced when there is localised damage to the muscle
tissue and is generally experienced as delayedonset muscle
soreness (DOMS), and can last up to three days. We’ve all been
there, aching after a tough leg session. The stress is perceived as
a threat to the fiber’s structure, and it releases immune cells to the
area. This in turn produces cytokines that activate the release of
factors involved in muscle growth. Our muscle cells try and adapt
to the perceived threat by reinforcing their structure, much like we
saw with metabolic stress.
As we adapt we no longer experience DOMS, this doesn’t mean
we’re not growing, it just shows our bodies have got more efficient
at dealing with training stress. Thus, when we try an exercise for
the first time we are likely to experience DOMS, but after a few
weeks, this will diminish. As our cells adapt we must use greater
levels of intensity and variety to create any type of soreness. So
the most well developed and advanced trainees will rarely
experience DOMS. This is good, because it means we can attack
weights fresh each time.


So to produce muscle damage we need to vary our training, but
not too frequently, this means using different exercises.

In Summary
We want to stress our muscles, so that they have to respond by
growing stronger and larger. Essentially ‘No Pain, No Gain’.
The way we do this needs to vary if we want to grow the most
muscle possible, so we want to:
1) Lift Heavy Ass Weight (thanks Ronnie Coleman for that
one).
2) Feel the Pump (Like Arnold always says)
3) Change up your exercises now and then.


Chapter 7: Programming for Muscle
Growth
Programme Variables
Now we know what the mechanisms are that produce muscle
hypertrophy we can develop a training programme that combines
them all. So you know we’re going to be lifting heavy, getting
pumped and using a wide variety of exercises to do so. When
creating a programme there are several aspects we can
manipulate to bring about muscle growth, including; intensity,
volume, frequency and modality. Next I will touch on each, before
rounding off with a training programme set up to produce maximal
hypertrophy.

Volume
Volume is the total amount of work performed in a period of time,
this is therefore reps X sets. It is usually expressed as total load,
this is reps X sets X load. For example, an athlete performs 5 sets
of 5 reps at a weight of 125kg, to give a total volume load of
3125kg.
With more volume we have increased time under tension,
metabolic stress and therefore a greater total growth response to
training. However, like all things, more is not always better, with
more volume comes an increased risk of overtraining. This is
because there is an inverted U response to training, thereby
initially more volume leads to greater hypertrophy, but there is
then a point at which we receive depreciating returns. Therefore,
we must be careful when programming total volume. We can
clearly see this below in figure 1.


Figure 1 The Inverted U Graph
Diminishing returns

Intensity
Generally intensity is classified as the % of 1 rep max (1RM)
used. With the higher the % the greater the intensity. We can split
intensity into three main areas; low (less than 60% 1RM), medium
(6585% 1RM) and high (90%+ 1RM). The higher the intensity the
fewer total reps that can be performed, and each contributes to
different mechanisms of hypertrophy.
When using higher reps with lower intensity we produce a lot of
metabolic stress, but see insufficient use of high threshold muscle
fibres. Medium intensity allows us to work with around 615 reps,
and this enables a spectrum of muscle fibres to be stimulated and
allows for greatest total volume to be used. High intensity loads
stimulate those higher threshold muscle fibres and create a lot of
muscular tension. However, they do not produce very much
metabolic stress nor can they be used at high volume. So you can
see each rep range has its place, and therefore we will be using
them all in our training.


Intensity can also be looked at as the amount of effort put into a
set. As we all know, you can work with a relatively light load and
still push it to failure, making for a pretty intense set. Failure is
when we cannot produce the force necessary to overcome the
load. You know when you get pinned on a squat, or you can’t lift
the bar off your chest, that’s failure. This can be potent as the
closer we get to failure the more muscle fibres utilised and the
more metabolic stress produced.
However, just like volume of load it has an inverted U relationship
and if we go to failure too often, we can become overtrained or
injured. If we’re injured, we cannot train, if we aren’t training we
cannot promote muscle growth. So in general we will stay away
from failure.


Modality
This refers to the choice of exercise, as we all know we can work
our muscles using a variety of lifts. For example the quads, they
can be worked via a squat, leg press, leg extension, lunge etc.
Furthermore, we can vary the angle muscles are worked at, for
example an incline, decline or flat bench press. Plus the
equipment we use can also be changed, it might be a cable, a
kettlebell, a machine, a barbell etc. Every lift can have its place
within the right programme, the key is making sure you have a
reason for every exercise you choose. None are better than any
other for producing muscle hypertrophy, the best is to use a
varied set of lifts. Working your muscles at multiple angles with
many different exercises.

Frequency
When I refer to frequency I am talking about the number of times
you workout a muscle group each week. After a workout protein
synthesis upregulates, which is great, this is needed to build
muscle. This lasts approximately 48 hours, which means it makes
good sense to train muscle groups at least twice a week. Yes
that’s right, no more training single body parts per session, it
simply doesn’t promote optimal conditions for growth. Bye bye
chest day, say hello to upper body day. There are multiple ways
to split up your programme to achieve this sort of frequency, and
the best for you will be the one that allows you to progress and fits
with your lifestyle.
Not only does increased frequency allow for our protein synthesis
to be upregulated for longer periods of time, but it also allows us
to get in more practice and with practice comes perfection. Our
neuromuscular systems get more efficient, and lifts become
smoother as our form improves, this in turn allows us to use more
weight, and produce more overload. However, we must be aware
that we need to recover, we cannot train the same muscle groups


every day, just like training with too much volume we increase our
chances of overuse injuries and becoming overtrained.

In Summary
Therefore, you can see that we are manipulating volume,
frequency, modality and intensity to bring about a training
response.
Each must be carefully programmed, because too little will limit
growth but too much could lead to us being unable to train all
together.

Progressive Overload
The above programming variables are all great and their proper
placement in a training routine is important if we want to gain lean
muscle mass. However, no matter how good your programming
is, if you do not progressively overload your muscles, they will not
grow. Why? Because our bodies strive to remain the same, this is
called homeostasis, and it is a state our bodies love to be in. The
human body doesn’t want to grow big muscles, so we have to
force the issue.
To grow we must force our bodies to adapt, and the way to cause
this adaption is to provide progressively greater loads.
Progressive overload can come about in a variety of ways, but
the most common are increased weight or increased number of
reps, these in turn mean more total volume. Without progressive
overload our bodies don’t have any reason to grow. No matter
how good a pump or mind muscle connection you get, if you’re
not increasing weight or performing more reps, you won’t get any
bigger.


Programme Development
The key to programme development is the Principle of
Individuality, just like nutrition, there is no ‘best’ programme, only
a best programme for the given individual. Therefore, if you
wanna pack on muscle it is no good looking at the biggest
bodybuilders programme and copying it. It might be the best
programme for him, but it certainly isn’t going to be right for you.

Periodisation
Periodisation is the manipulation of the programme variables;
volume, intensity, modality and frequency in an attempt to
optimise a given fitness component, in this case muscle
hypertrophy. It is based of the General Adaptation Syndrome
(GAS) theory, developed by Selye. Essentially our body goes
through the following stages; alarm, resistance and exhaustion.
The alarm and resistance stage are needed for muscle growth,
but we want to avoid exhaustion, thus we periodise our
programme variables in a way to get the right balance.


There are almost infinite ways to periodise a programme, and
arguably a case can be made for any. The most well known and
common examples are linear and nonlinear periodisation.
Linear periodisation describes a programme that focuses on
individual components for long periods of time, generally moving
through hypertrophy, strength and power phases.
A nonlinear approach however, attempts to develop multiple
components over a shorter period of time. For the Revive’s
Ultimate Lean Muscle Programme we are going to use a Daily
Undulating Approach (DUP) a nonlinear method in which
variables will be manipulated weekly.


Chapter 8: Revive’s Lean Muscle
Programme
This programme is 4 weeks long and can be repeated over and
over again, until progression stalls. We will be developing aspects
of strength, hypertrophy, endurance and power all at once. The
base programme is going to be set up with the intermediate
trainee in mind, and we will be ensuring to hit each muscle group
a minimum of twice per week. Most importantly, we will be
growing muscle!

Primary Movements
The Primary lifts are going to form the foundation of our
programme, they are the ones we will focus on progressing, all
your accessory work will be in place to help these lifts. They’re
multijoint and you’ll get the most gains from these. You’ll be
benching and squatting twice a week and deadlifting once.


Every week you will be working with loads 80% or greater than
your 1RM, this is because when we use this amount of load we
maximise the number of muscle fibres recruited, every rep, so the
more used the more chance we have for them to grow.
You could lift a lower % of 1RM and go to failure, but you’ll only
maximise muscle fibre recruitment for a brief period. Conversely
you could lift loads greater than 80% for fewer reps, but your
volume will be lower and you won’t recruit any more muscle
fibres. Not that those rep ranges don’t have their place.
As the weeks go by you will gradually decrease your volume and
increase intensity, each week squats and bench press will have
two sessions, one ‘strength’ session and one ‘hypertrophy’.
Deadlifts are a bit wild and really take their toll on our body, thus I
only programme deadlifts once a week, and you will always be
going heavy.
This programme uses elements of what is called autoregulation.
This simply means you have the ability to really go at it the days
you feel good, and dial it back the days you don’t. Our bodies are
not preprogrammed machines, so following a very rigid
programming structure makes little sense.
Thus, although you have a given predetermined number of sets
to hit, you have rep ranges. So if you’re feeling good you may go
in and hit the given sets and weight for the upper end of the rep
range. Or maybe you had a late night and hadn’t eaten well
beforehand, thus you fall at the lower end of the rep range.
Once you can hit the upper end of the rep range for every set you
want to increase your 1RMs, to again start over. In this sense we
are following linear progression.


Week 1 Reps Week

Primary Move Workout 1 Workout 2
Strength Hypertrophy
Squat 5x24 @ 80% 3x911 @ 60%
Bench 5x24 @ 80% 3x911 @ 60%
Deadlift 5x24 @ 80% N/A

Week 2 Mixed Week

Primary Workout 1 Strength Workout 2
Move Hypertrophy
Squat 4x24 @ 85% 3x79 @ 70%
Bench 4x24 @ 85% 3x79 @ 70%

Week 3 Intensity Week

Primary Workout 1 Strength Workout 2
Move Hypertrophy
Squat 3x24 @ 90% 3x46 @ 80%
Bench 3x24 @ 90% 3x46 @ 80%


Week 4 Test Week
AMRAP ‘as many reps as possible’ (stop before form
breakdown).
EMOM every minute on the minute.
*Note drop one set on all accessory movements

Primary Workout 1 Workout 2
Move Strength Dynamic Effort
Squat AMRAP@95% 10x2 @ 65% EMOM
Bench AMRAP@95% 10x3 @ 60% EMOM
Deadlift AMRAP@95% 15x1 @ 70% every

30s

A note on Dynamic Effort
Dynamic Effort training has been called many things including;
power and speed work. In essence they are all talking about the
same thing: ‘Maximally accelerating submaximal loads as fast as
possible’.
That sentence gives us some clues, we now know we want to be
moving the bar with speed and completing the rep as fast as we
can. Furthermore, we also know we are using submaximal loads,
which means weights lower than our 1 rep max.
When we complete reps that require maximal force we improve
the efficiency of our motor unit recruitment. That means when
you’re going in the gym and picking up hefty loads, doing triples,
doubles or singles, you’re generating maximal force to move the
weight, thus training your motor recruitment efficiency. But we
cannot sustain heavy lifting for long, you have a limited capacity
to recover from this sort of onslaught, if you continued to hammer
at these sort of loads you’d wind up injured. Respect the weight,
or get injured.


In comes dynamic effort work. We can work on our motor
recruitment efficiency by generating force quickly and explosively,
requiring a coordinated and simultaneous recruitment of high
numbers of motor units. Think of riding a bike along a cycle path,
it is narrow and you have to really concentrate to keep in the area,
you just can’t go all that fast.
Then compare this to riding in an open field, you can go hell for
leather, because you have all the room in the world. This is like
our motor pathways, at first it is as if they are narrow and we
cannot go all out, as we get more efficient at using them they
widen and we can put more force through.
So not only can you perform more reps overall, and thus perform
more total volume. You’re doing a lot of reps with submaximal
reps so can really practice on perfecting technique. Plus because
it is a lower % of your 1 rep max you can recover from this sort of
work much faster.
I need to stress something here, you might think working with
such low loads for low reps is easy. You might be thinking it
sounds boring, dull or weak. That would be a mistake, and if you
attempt such training with that mindset, you will have failed.
Dynamic effort work must be intense.
The ‘Test’ week is essentially a taper week and it’s used to allow
you to recover from the previous work accumulated, looking to be
stronger on the other side (supercompensation). The use of
dynamic effort work at this time allows you to focus on improving
form and you can recover better than normal, due to the
submaximal loads used at lower total volume. Plus you get all the
benefits from training dynamically.


Secondary Movements
This is where we can have some fun, in terms of choice, and
programming method. After you have hit the prime movements
you will be tired, mentally and physically. The purpose of your
secondary exercises is to support and promote the development
of the primary movements, taking you closer to you goal of
gaining maximal muscle.
Here you will see the
greatest variety of exercise,
including singlejoint and
unilateral movements. That
means things like leg
extensions, bicep curls and
lunges.
You will be looking to
progress the weight and/or
reps when you can. The way
this will be planned is you
will have a number of sets,
say 3, and then a rep range,
say 810. Once you can lift a
chosen weight at the top end
of the rep range for all the
sets you will increase the
load chosen.This is called
double progression and may look like:
Week 1) Incline Bench Press
3x810 30kg x 10, 9, 9
3x810 30kg x 10, 10, 10
3x810 32kg x 9, 8, 8
As you can see you started using 30kg and by the second week
you were able to lift at the upper end of the rep range for all the
sets, so you knew next week you needed to increase the load.


You would continue to use that higher weight until you again
reached the top end of the rep range for every set. This is vital as
to develop and grow we need to progressively overload our
muscles. We want to avoid being comfortable, continuing to push
for progress.
As said previously we are utilising DUP and therefore we will be
working on a variety of rep ranges across the week. An easy way
to split this is on your heavy days you will perform your accessory
movements in a 48 rep range and on your light days you will go
for a 815 rep range, on your deadlift days I advise making all
singlejoint exercises in the higher rep range and those multijoint
exercises in the lower.
Each will initially be performed for just three sets. The particular
rep range you choose within those will depend on the exercise
you select.
As we begin we will only choose 46 secondary exercises to
include on each workout, then as we get adapted to the work we
can think about progressing this. It is always better to start with
less rather than more. Remember enough is better, not more is
better.


Picking your Secondary movements:
Pick one exercise for each of the following movements.

Upper Lower Full Body
Horizontal Pull Hip Hinge Pull Variety

Vertical Pull Lunge Press Variety
Vertical Press Hamstring Rear Delt
Tricep Calve Weak Points
Bicep Core

Three sets of each, except calves in which you perform 46
sets.
48 rep range on ‘Strength’ days and 815 rep range on
‘Hypertrophy’ days.
Combine antagonistic pairs e.g. perform a bicep curl, then
tricep extension in a superset type fashion. This has shown
to have hypertrophy benefits and saves time.
Change your accessory moves every month.

Upper Body Main Secondary Work (examples)

Horizontal Pull Vertical Pull Vertical Press
Seal Row, Chins, Pull Ups, BB/DB

Pendlay Row, 1 Lat Pull Down, Overhead
Arm Row, Moto Row, 1 Arm Press (OHP),
Machine Row, Lat Pull Down, 1 Arm OHP,
Chest Supported See Saw
Row Press, Seated
OHP.


Lower Body Main Secondary Work (examples)

Hip Hinge Lunge Core
Romanian Forward Lunge, Plank, Ab

Deadlift, Straight Walking Lunge, Rollouts,
Legged Deadlift, Reverse Lunge. AntiRotation
Glute Ham Raise, Press, Leg
Hip Thrusts, Raises,
Good Mornings. Carries.

The Weekly Outlook

You will be training 5 times a week, 2 upper, 2 lower and 1 full
body session. I would always place all your strength work and
hypertrophy work together, so if you lift strength upper on Monday
you will want to hit lower strength in that half of the week.
Anecdotally this tends to promote the best recovery.

You can split the sessions across the week to suit you, it might
seem like a lot to train 5 times without a break, but the body will
soon adapt. So if you like to have your weekends free, feel free to
do this. However, it might make sense to have Wednesday and
Sunday as your rest days, to help break up your week. So for
example:

Monday Bench Hypertrophy
Tuesday Squat Hypertrophy
Wednesday Deadlift
Thursday Bench Strength
Friday Squat Strength
Saturday Rest
Sunday Rest


Can only train 3 days a week?
Combine your Squat and Bench days & put some of
your pulling assistance work with deadlifts.

Monday Bench & Squat Hypertrophy
Tuesday Rest
Wednesday Deadlift (additional pulling assistance)
Thursday Rest
Friday Bench & Squat Strength
Saturday Rest
Sunday Rest

Can only train 4 days a week?
Combine your Deadlift day with your ‘strength’ Squat
day.

Monday Bench Hypertrophy
Tuesday Squat Hypertrophy
Wednesday Rest
Thursday Bench Strength
Friday Squat & Deadlift Strength
Saturday Rest
Sunday Rest

Rest Times, Tempo & Failure

I like to keep things as simple as possible, especially for
intermediate lifters, you can overcomplicate and confuse things
no end. So when it comes to rest and tempo I like to keep it really
simple.

Rest periods will be largely dependent on how you feel, by that I
mean I want you to rest as long as it takes for your heart rate and
breathing to come back to base line, once here you’re ready to lift.


As you can imagine for multijoint compound moves you’ll get
more out of breath vs. those isolation exercises.

Now for tempo, all I wish you to do is control the negative and
move the concentric powerfully. You can look into time under
tension and try and manipulate this with slow negatives etc. but in
reality a lot of the time as long as you are looking to progressively
overload the movement it isn’t an issue.

The RPE Scale

Essentially a scale of 110 of how hard the exercise feels. It
stands for Rate of Perceived Exertion and takes some getting
used to, but is a great autoregulatory tool.

10 Absolute true max (avoided on almost all occasions)
9.5 Close to a max but you could grind out 1 rep.
9 You have 1 rep left in the tank.
8.5 You have 2 reps left in the tank.
8 You have 3 reps left in the tank

Avoid failure when possible, only reaching it on higher rep
isolation movements. Please work to form failure; the period at
which you cannot complete a full rep with good form. So rest as
long as you feel you need and lift with purpose and control. I’d
also avoid failure whenever possible, aiming to always leave 1 rep
in the tank.

Programme Overview

Training 5 times per week, 2 upper & lower body days with
1 full body workout.
Reps and weight will be Undulated throughout the week,
with 1 ‘Hypertrophy’ & 1 ‘Strength’ workout.
Progression is to be sought every 3 weeks, as intensity is
ramped up to finish in a ‘Test’ week.


Avoid failure, looking to achieve an RPE 89 in most cases.
Secondary exercises changed monthly.

Progressions

You may find that after a few cycles of the above that your
progress stalls out, so what do you do? An option would be to
extend your cycle, so instead of having a 4 week cycle you would
increase it to 6 weeks. You could then spend an extra week in the
volume and mixed weeks, this would help promote muscle growth
and help you in your intensity week.

Alternatively, you could try adding in additional volume on your
secondary exercises, by either adding in new exercises or
increasing the number of sets. I recommend changing the
modality of your secondary exercises at the end of each cycle,
this will promote muscle growth.

Furthermore, you could use your secondary work to improve your
weak areas, for example if you struggle on the initial pull from the
floor on deadlifts you could include some deficit pulls. Remember
our main aim is to ensure we are progressing on our primary
movements, as this shows we are progressively overloading our
body, the key to growth.

Another option would be to increase the intensity of your
hypertrophy days, making the % used 5% higher, making the day
more of medium to high intensity. Or maybe you add an additional
light day, increasing the frequency of one of your primary lifts and
adding in some additional accessory work. Essentially you’re
manipulating: Volume, Intensity and or Modality.

As you can see there are many numbers of ways the programme
can be manipulated, key is that you do small subtle changes,
using the Maximin principle, doing as little as possible to
progress. This is important as it’ll keep your gains going for
longer, meaning more lean mass building potential.


Cardio ?

When it comes to cardio most see it as a tool to burn fat.
Obviously when we’re looking to gain muscle, we are in a calorie
surplus, therefore we ain't going to be losing any fat at the end of
the day. So why on earth would you do cardio if you are actively
trying to be in a surplus of energy and not a debt of energy?
Surely it just steals calories that could be going into being used to
add slabs of muscle to our physique. Also, we want to get big and
strong, not good at running, cycling or rowing. Wouldn’t it take
away from our main focus? This is what I am going to assess.

First off, lets look at what cardio is; according to the American
College of Sports Medicine, cardio, is any activity that raises our
heart rate and respiration while using large muscle groups
repetitively and rhythmically. Let me repeat that last bit, ‘using
large muscle groups repetitively and rhythmically’, that sounds a
lot like lifting weights. Yup, if you’re lifting weights you are doing
cardio. However, depending on the intensity of cardio we utilise
different energy systems.

General Physical Preparedness (GPP)

When we lift weights, it is normally pretty intense, at this intensity
we are using carbs as our main fuel source. Therefore, what we
tend to miss out on is the low to moderate intensity work. Plus
doing intense cardio is hard, it takes its toll on our bodies, and
although some may argue it can help build lean muscle mass, I’d
recommend not to do it.

So should we do any cardio at all? In my opinion yes, because
there are numerous benefits to be found from doing small
amounts of low to moderate intensity work that will improve our
chances of gaining lean muscle mass.

This is where General Physical Preparedness (GPP) comes in,
Verkhoshansky & Siff in their book Supertraining define this as


‘the progressive development of motor skills through a wide
variety of nonspecific exercises’. It’s role is to expose us to a
wide variety of physical fitness tasks to enhance well rounded and
healthy development. Exercises chosen are general in nature, but
specific in function, allowing such improvements even though they
are different than those of the desired sport type. In essence you
get fit to train, we are building and or maintaining a functional
base for our sport.

GPP provides an exclusive role in our training programme:
helping the formation, strengthening or restoration of the habits
which enhance our sport, providing a means of educating different
abilities that our sport doesn’t provide and to counteract the
monotony of our training. Plus when we do this type of activity we
pump blood through our muscles. Blood is how our body carries
nutrients, if we can promote these to our muscles then they can
make use of them more readily. Going towards building more
muscle.

Second, if you are not doing any sort of sport or have an active
job alongside your weight training and you drop all your
cardiovascular work, you’ll lose any conditioning you once had.
This will lower your work capacity and your recovery between sets
and workouts will be longer. However, if you can do some
lowmoderate intensity cardio you’ll improve your work capacity,
you’ll be able to use more load, and with more load comes greater
gains. Third, when we overeat, those calories must go
somewhere, this is called nutrient partitioning. If we train regularly
our nutrient uptake into our muscles increases, and less is stored
in places we’d rather it not such as fat cells. So some lower
intensity cardio can help drive nutrients where we want, our
muscles.

The fourth and final reason I like to see some sort of cardio kept
intact is because it helps us keep fat burning pathways active. We
are already making sure to limit fat gain by being in a well
calculated surplus, so this isn’t to burn calories. It is because


eventually you’ll want to try and drop fat at some point in the
future, which I will be discussing in detail later. When looking to
drop this extra fat we want to have the ability to use fat as a fuel,
and by keeping in some cardio when gaining mass we maintain
this ability. Thus when you go to diet down, your body will be
better able to use fat as fuel.

So we now know it is important to maintain some level of cardio in
our regime. It can increase our recovery, inside and outside the
gym, it’ll help direct our calories into our muscles and it’ll allow us
to maintain the efficiency of our fat burning metabolic pathways.

Cardio Protocol:

It needs to be fun, different to your usual training and
nonexhausting.
Use a wide range of different movements and
modalities.
Kept to lower intensities, around 6070% of maximum
heart rate.
Performed for 15 30 minutes, 1 to 3 times a week.

Exercise Selection

We want to choose exercises that improve certain traits that are
needed for our weight training, but generally neglected. As we are
trying to build muscle mass we are using big compound
movements such as squats, plus we’re getting pumped with bicep
curls, so doing more of these isn’t what we are looking for. To get
fitter at many different tasks we need to provide all round physical
development therefore, for GPP should cover the full body, thus
we need to include: a squat, press, hip hinge, pull and then a form
of bracing, crawling and jumping. We will develop general
endurance, strength, coordination and flexibility.


Examples:

Three Rounds of:
Kettlebell swing x8, Kettlebell clean x8, Goblet squat
x8, Chin ups x8, Burpees x8 = 1 Round.
Single leg RDL x10, Box Jumps x6 per leg, Clapping
press ups x10, Renegade row x4 per arm = 1
Round.
Press Ups x1m, Chins x30s, Squat jump x1m,
Mountain climbers x 1m, Farmers walk 100m = 1
Round.
Steady state cycling, rowing, swimming, walking, cross
trainer at 6070% maximum heart rate.

Notes
If you’re struggling to eat enough to gain weight, drop
cardio.
If done on workout days do your steady state cardio on
your hypertrophy days and more intense circuits on your
strength days. Always post workout.
If you find the circuit training impacts your resistance
training then drop it and replace it with the steady state
cardio.
Personally I recommend 1x15 minute circuit and 2x15
minute steady state sessions.


PART 3: EVERYTHING ELSE

Chapter 9: Mindset
In addition to training and nutrition, a key element to achieving
your goal of lean muscle mass is having the right mindset. By
reading this book you have now got the knowledge of what is
required to build lean muscle mass, you know the most optimal
approaches to reach your goal. However, you have to keep your
eye on the prize but also on the process.

Your Goal

Well we know your goal, it’s to get big and stay lean in the
process. However, I want you to be really specific about your
goals. By specific, I mean give yourself a target body weight and
strength to be at in the months to come. I want you to aim high,
don’t be scared, because you can only get what you aim at.

However, be realistic, if you’re 170lbs now you’re not going to be
a muscle bound 200lb monster with six pack abs in a matter of
years, let alone months. Go back to the nutrition chapter and
select your realistic muscle gains.

Set short, medium and long term goals. Your short term goals
should be the processes required of you each day to meet your
long term goal. I will come onto that more later. Your medium
goals should be target weight and strength levels each month.
Finally your long term goal should be your ideal physique.
Because your goal is about gaining muscle you can put 100% into
it, you don’t have conflicting goals such as dropping fat, so you’ll
be much more efficient and get to your goal faster.

Once you have your goal, ask yourself ‘why do I want to gain
muscle?’ This is important, because by asking yourself why you


are adding emotion to your goal, and if you have a strong enough
why, you can bare almost any how. Maybe it’s because you want
to be more confident, look good naked, eat more, maybe your job
requires it, whatever your why, make sure you know it.

The Power of Habit

Determination and willpower are great, but they only get us so far.
Both of them are finite resources and we shouldn’t look to depend
on them. When you have a hard day at work, your willpower and
determination have been used up, they’re at an all time low, if you
were to then rely on them to stick to your diet and get to the gym,
you’d likely fail. Sure they’re good igniters of action, but after that
they don’t serve us so well.

This is a picture of my streak on myfitnesspal (food diary), it is an

example of what habits can do. I’ll be honest, I’ve not tracked
every single piece of food over that time, but I have logged into
the app, because it’s become a habit, cemented in my life.
Mindset is hugely informed by our unconscious mind, only a small
number of our daily actions are governed by conscious thought,
the rest is unconscious patterns and perceptions. This is where
habits come in, they’re the things we do without thinking, like
brushing our teeth, putting shoes on before leaving the house or
logging into myfitnesspal. American motivational writer Orison
Swett Marden put it this way: “The beginning of a habit is like an
invisible thread, but every time we repeat the act we strengthen


the strand, add to it another filament, until it becomes a great
cable and binds us irrevocably”.

We therefore want to make working out and eating according to
your nutritional needs a habit. Why? As discussed earlier, the key
to success is consistency, if we can make habits out of training
and eating right, well we’re set. You will achieve permanent
results by picking up new habits that are maintainable for the rest
of your life. But remember, be patient, as everything is difficult in
the beginning.

The importance of the process

So you want to build lean muscle mass? You’re tired of being
skinny, but don’t want to add a load of fat. Our outcome however
is going to be a reflection of our daily actions, what we eat, how
we train amongst others. A goal without action is useless. If you
lose focus on the process, you don’t reach your goal, you fail.
Plan your actions, as without doing this you are much more likely
to fail. Break your goal into smaller more manageable chunks, this
will help stop you becoming overwhelmed. Then when you
succeed in one of these goals you’ll be motivated to move
forward, continually moving in the right direction.

You must look to each day, eating right, training well. So your
progress is determined by how consistent you are at getting those
required daily actions. So don’t keep looking at the mirror and
stepping on the scale, thinking ‘Am I there yet?’, focus on the
process. It might be: I will log all my food today, Wednesday is
grocery shop day, tonight I am going to get 8 hours sleep, I will
train weekdays and take weekends off. If you smash these, you
will demolish your outcome goal, you will Get Big and Stay Lean.
You must do something everyday that moves you closer to your
goal.


So next time you get frustrated, unmotivated or discouraged, think
back to what needs to be done today, not on the months ahead.
Focus on the task in hand, in the present moment.

You vs. You

Everyone can improve their physique above and beyond where it
is today. Seek to achieve your own personal best. Stop looking at
others to define your own worth and value. Remember throughout
this book how every nutritional and training protocol is based on
the principle of individuality. That is what you must remember, you
are you, no one else has your genetics or lifestyle, so don’t look to
others to provide your value. Having idols is fine, you can aspire
to the physiques of others, but do not feel like you’re a failure if
you don’t look like someone else. Take progress pictures, look
back at where you have come from, and use these as powerful
motivators to push forward. This will keep you on track and
prevent you getting frustrated or disappointed, for no reason.

Have drive to beat yourself, it’s you vs. you. Take responsibility
for your actions, you decide how you act, the actions you take and
therefore you are in control of the way your body looks. Success
is being better than your past self, it is having the knowledge that
you gave your all to become the best of which you are capable.

Below is my body transformation to date, from 2011 to 2014.


‘Revive Stronger’ Affirmation

The above is an example of my affirmation, it is a statement of
belief. I use this quote daily, I tag every post I make
#REVIVESTRONGER. For me it means always progressing,
improving and bettering myself, never satisfied, putting in the
work to then revive stronger on the other side. This helps me to
be as positive as possible about myself and my actions, so that I
push out all the doubt or negative selfperceptions.


‘REVIVE STRONGER’

An affirmation is an excellent tool for the acquisition of your goals.
Why? Because our mind is so powerful. Ever attempt a rep max
attempt, or a new weight and doubt yourself? You missed that rep
right. You talked yourself out of attaining the goal. Just like our
mind can stop us progressing, it can positively enhance
development. Whenever a doubt comes into your mind, or you
find yourself thinking negatively, think back to your affirmation,
soon enough those negative thoughts will subside. So I advise
you to select an affirmation that means something to you, or go
ahead and use Revive Stronger.


Chapter 10: Sleep

Sleep & Recovery

So we want to build as much muscle as possible, that means we
want to train at our best, and to do that we need to make sure we
are not taking away from our ability to recover. Think about it this
way, you could be the strongest, fittest, most hulk like person in
the gym, but if you’re tired, hungry and freaking out about life,
you’re not going to be able to lift like you should. Do not let this
happen to you, sure life is life and sometimes we lack any sort of
control over it, but we must focus on the areas we do have control
over.

The most important factor that’s going to impact your recovery is
sleep. Sleep is literally magical, it can make or break our gains.
We all know that sleep is a basic human need, it will make up
about a third of your time on earth. Shut eye has been shown to
impact our physical and mental health. If you ever feel drained,
the best remedy is sleep hands down. Therefore, it is extremely
important for us to understand how sleep impacts our
performance and recovery and know what factors could affect
sleep quality. So we can get the most out of our time of slumber.


Without getting too into the science of sleep I just want to note the
two types of sleep, Non Rapid Eye Movement (NREM) and Rapid
Eye Movement (REM). We first enter NREM and then there is a
sequential four stages we pass through, ending in what many
researchers call deep sleep before finally entering REM.

Why Getting Enough Sleep Increases Our Gains

1) We learn better, meaning we move more efficiently,
meaning more potential loads.
2) Our growth and repair is jacked up.
3) Our immune system is improved, we’re less likely to get
sick, we’re more consistent.
4) It makes us happier, more confident and induces better
choices.

REM is otherwise known as ‘dream sleep’ and we spend 2025%
of our time in it. REM has a major role in learning, so if we can
stay in REM longer, we will learn tasks faster. Sure practice
makes perfect, but research has shown that the brain continue to
learn in absence of practice. This is important for those looking to
develop muscle, because if you can learn how to perform
movements faster you can increase the loads used sooner and
create greater overload, leading to more gains. So practice plus
sleep, makes perfect.

Furthermore, when we sleep our bodies ability to recover
increases and this peaks in the final stages of NREM. A few cool
things happen during this time, that jack up growth and repair.
Our metabolic activity drops to its lowest, so our bodies can focus
on restoring itself, plus growth hormone is secreted. This
hormone is very powerful and the best way to increase its
production naturally is through exercise and sleep. Along with
growth hormone, melatonin is also produced, and these two
hormones have shown to promote immune function. This in turn
helps reduce our chances of getting sick, and this is important,


because when we’re sick we cannot perform at our best, may
miss training sessions and screw up our nutrition.

Not only is sleep important to promote for the above reasons, but
inadequate sleep is associated with poor decision making and
lower levels of happiness and optimism. These two things could
impact our training and nutrition. Imagine you’re tired, you cannot
be bothered to cook, so you decide instead to order a takeout,
and not bother trying to track your nutrition for the day. Also when
the going gets tough in the gym and you need to have the right
mindset, being positive and confident about hitting a weight, much
harder when you haven’t got enough sleep. So good quality sleep
is important if we want to stay on track.

How Much Sleep Do We Need?

No more thinking ‘sleep is for the weak’ or ‘sleep, pffft that’s a
waste of time’, you now know sleep is absolutely essential to
promoting muscle growth. But how much is enough? Well like our
nutrition and training it seems the Principle of Individuality arises
again, because there are many confounding factors involved
when it comes to how much sleep is optimal for you. Having said
that it seems that 8 hours according to current research seems to
be the amount most adults need to perform at their best.
However, we are not like most adults, we are looking to gain lean
muscle and are training hard, it is therefore logical that we require
more sleep. It has been stated that athletes should try and get
910 hours sleep during the day to optimise their performance,
with 8090% of that being at night.

Therefore, I suggest you try and get 810 hours sleep each day,
which can be achieved through a combination of naps and
prolonged sleep. Alternatively you can trial going to sleep when
tired, not setting an alarm and sleeping enough so that you feel
refreshed in the morning. Do this a few times, noting down how
long you have slept, find and average and there you have it, the
right amount of sleep for you to perform at your best.


How To Sleep Better

Sleep is important, but good sleep is far more superior. Ever had
one of those nights where you have been in bed hours, had loads
of sleep, but you still feel like utter crap the next day? That is
because the quality of your sleep is very important, if not more
vital to get right than the time in bed. There are numerous things
that can muck up your sleep, so instead of going through each
one and why, I am going to give you a list of things that will
improve your sleep.

Sleep plays a central role in aiding shortterm and longterm
recovery. It must be treated with respect, as it is as important as
both our nutrition and training. Without adequate sleep we simply
cannot perform at our best, even short term disturbances in our
sleep can reduce performance, emotional wellbeing and immune
function. It is so important that athletes even receive coaching on
their sleep. So to get the most out of your training programme and
nutrition we must get adequate sleep.


Chapter 11: Tracking Progress

Tracking Tools

When it comes to making gains the most important thing is to be
consistent with your nutrition, training and sleep. The phrase
consistency is key must be so overused by me that if you were to
collect pizza boxes each time I referenced it, well you’d have a
massive bloody mountain of pizza boxes. Nailing your diet,
training and sleep every single day without fail is going to see you
become a beastly lean jacked machine in no time. There are
some tools we can use to stay on track, and while they’re
important to keep us consistent, they can also identify areas we
can improve, allowing us to manipulate things when and as
needed.

Keep A Training Diary

A training diary will allow you to not on track your weights, reps
and sets but it’ll keep you focussed on the process. It is a
massively important tool that far too many discount. The training
diary keeps you accountable, you can see what weight you hit in
the past and therefore know where you need to move.
Furthermore, you can note down mood, energy levels or anything
that might have contributed to the quality of the workout. These
notes can help you continually progress and move forward.
Remember, that which is tracked, improves. Whether it be a
notepad, an excel spreadsheet or on your phone, make sure you
record your training.

Weighing Yourself

It should come as a no brainer that you’re going to have to step
on the scale at some point. As said before, you pick the amount of
weight you want to gain at (for example 12lbs a month as an
intermediate) and then adjust your nutrition to ensure you hit that.


However, a lot of people seem to screw this process up, maybe
they weigh themselves in the morning one week, then two weeks
later at night, maybe that night they had a massive meal just
before, they’re going to be heavy right? Stepping on the scale and
see they’re 6lbs up on two weeks prior. They stress out, ‘oh man,
I have put on so much fat’ they decide they must therefore stop
trying to gain and go on a cut. This is just one example of how
you could completely throw yourself under the bus and ruin your
progress.

Weight fluctuates day to day, I won’t bore you with the reasons
why just now, but know that today if you weigh in at 170lbs,
tomorrow it would not be unusual to be up or down on this
number by up to 5lbs. Furthermore, that is assuming you weigh
yourself in the morning, under the same conditions. If you were to
weigh yourself the same day, at morning and night, your weight
will differ. So you need to consistently weigh yourself under the
same conditions multiple times through the week. Plus because
our weight fluctuates day to day, it makes good sense to take a
weekly average, and compare that to the week before.

Weigh yourself, first thing in the morning, before consuming food
or liquid, after going to the bathroom, naked. Do this a minimum
of 4 times a week and take an average for that week. For
example, Monday you weigh in at 161.2lbs, Wednesday 163.4lbs,


Thursday 160.8lbs, Saturday 160.6lbs, you add these all up and
divide by the number of days; 161.2+163.4+160.8+160.6 / 4 =
161.5, therefore your reference for that week is 161.5. You can
then use that to compare to other weeks to make sure you’re
where you want to be. So never panic over short term changes in
the scale, the trend overtime is much more revealing. Keep your
eye on the big picture.

Take Progress Photos

By taking pictures you have another tool to assess progress. They
are important for many reasons; they can act as a massive
motivator ‘wow look how skinny I was 2 months ago’.
Furthermore, they can allow you or your coach to assess your
weak and strong points. Maybe you have really large arms but
small quads, you could then set up your training to prioritise your
quads and focus less on your direct arm work. Not only can they
identify weak and strong points of your physique, they can act as
a check for posture imbalances. Maybe your shoulders cave in
and therefore you need to stretch out your chest and strengthen
your back. Small changes in posture can make massives
differences to how our body looks and functions, so don’t discount
having good posture.

When To Stop?

We’re after lean muscle right? There will come a time when your
lean gaining will have to come to an end, because it is pretty
much impossible to add only muscle to your physique. Using the
above protocols you will have done everything in your power to
reduce fat gain to a minimum, but over time it might add up. You
will therefore want to end your mission to get big and look to trim
down. Don’t get me wrong, there isn’t a time you stop gaining
muscle, you can and will continue to gain muscle regardless of
body fat levels. However, there is an optimal way to do it, and


plus this book is about getting big and staying lean, so...without
further ado let’s get into why and where the cut off point is.

There is something called the partitioning ratio (Pratio) this
represents the proportion of lean body mass (LBM) you gain
relative to the total weight gained. This ratio is governed by;
hormones, genetics, diet, training and more. However, starting
body fat percentage has the largest influence. The lower body fat
you begin the mission of getting big the more LBM and less fat
you put on. Therefore, overtime as we gain weight our body fat
percentage may creep up, which in turn impacts our Pratio, and
means we may start gaining LBM less favourably. So the leaner
you are the more LBM you will gain in comparison to fat.

This is however assuming you have been lean for a period of
time, don’t expect the Pratio to act so in your favour if you’ve
dieted down for prolonged periods of time. Without going into too
much detail, when you restrict calories your body doesn’t like it,
and its metabolism adapts, hormones adjust, and quite simply it
isn’t ready to pack on a load of muscle. However, it is primed for
gaining fat rapidly, this is why reverse dieting to some extent after
a diet is a good idea, but that’s a massive separate topic for


another time. This was seen in the Minnesota semistarvation
study, where men restricted calories for 6 months until reaching
sub 5% body fat. When refed their bodies were primed to
replenish fat stores, not gain LBM, and this was exactly what
happened.

It seems that when body fat gets to 15% for men and 25% for
women the amount of fat we gain in comparison to LBM
accelerates. Therefore keeping body fat levels below this is a
good idea, the sweet spot for gaining LBM looks to be 1012% for
men and 2022% for women. The picture of me above is at the
peak of my offseason in 2013, I was up at over 190lbs, I actually
was probably nearer 16% in this picture, but this is where I ended
eating in a calorie surplus.

Right so you’re at 15% (25% for women) and you want to cut
down to get back into the sweet spot for getting big and staying
lean. However, you know that when you’ve dieted down you don’t
want to jump straight back into the mass gaining diet, because
you’re body will pack on fat. Therefore, to get round this I suggest
you maintain your weight post diet for at least 2 weeks before
starting to pack on size again. This is to allow your body to
normalise itself, and put you in a better position to gain muscle
and not fat.

So if you want to get big and stay lean ensure you only gain
weight up until you reach the body fat cut off point, then diet down
till you are at the lower end of the sweet spot, maintain for a
couple of weeks and then enter your get big protocols again. If
you continue to cycle like this you will be a lean, mean, jacked,
hulk like machine in no time.


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Chapter 1: What we’re consuming.

Category Rate of Gain* Calorie Surplus*

Novice ​­ 2 years or less of 2­4lbs per month 10 ­ 15%

Advanced ​ ­ 4+ years of Negligible N/A

There is a loading period, similar to creatine, with beta­alanine

Chapter 6: How We Build Muscle.

Current research suggests hypertrophy is produced via three

Squat 5x2­4 @ 80% 3x9­11 @ 60%

Bench 5x2­4 @ 80% 3x9­11 @ 60%

Deadlift 5x2­4 @ 80% N/A

Squat 4x2­4 @ 85% 3x7­9 @ 70%

Bench 4x2­4 @ 85% 3x7­9 @ 70%

Deadlift 4x2­4 @ 85% N/A

Squat 3x2­4 @ 90% 3x4­6 @ 80%

Bench 3x2­4 @ 90% 3x4­6 @ 80%

Deadlift 3x2­4 @ 90% N/A

Squat AMRAP@95% 10x2 @ 65% EMOM

Bench AMRAP@95% 10x3 @ 60% EMOM

Deadlift AMRAP@95% 15x1 @ 70% every

Horizontal Pull Hip Hinge Pull Variety

Seal Row, Chins, Pull Ups, BB/DB

Romanian Forward Lunge, Plank, Ab

This is a picture of my streak on myfitnesspal (food diary), it is an

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Novice 2 years or less of 24lbs per month 10 15%

Advanced 4+ years of Negligible N/A

There is a loading period, similar to creatine, with betaalanine

Squat 5x24 @ 80% 3x911 @ 60%

Bench 5x24 @ 80% 3x911 @ 60%

Deadlift 5x24 @ 80% N/A

Squat 4x24 @ 85% 3x79 @ 70%

Bench 4x24 @ 85% 3x79 @ 70%

Deadlift 4x24 @ 85% N/A

Squat 3x24 @ 90% 3x46 @ 80%

Bench 3x24 @ 90% 3x46 @ 80%

Deadlift 3x24 @ 90% N/A