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The last third of the year begins as our sort-of British Summer officially finishes and Autumn begins to show it’s brown leafed face. Everyone asks themselves the clichéd “...where did the year go?” and Tesco start the timely promotion of mince pies and Cadbury’s selection packs.
The question for many of the fitness and physique boys and girls out there is “what direction should our training take now”? In my opinion it’s an excellent time to spend the next few months allowing your body the luxury of taking in more nutrients than you may have been over summer during intense leaning up training. Additionally, training with less frequency allows your body to get a nice breathing space for a few weeks. If you get the timing right you should find by next March, when it starts to get warmer, you will be lean again and with more quality muscle having spent Autumn and Winter focusing on quality gains.
But what exactly is this muscle up malarkey?
In short, it’s adding muscle to your body that will show up when you are lean. I am a keen advocator of staying lean and striving for quality gains in physique development, however much to the shock of the three readers that read my articles I am going to make a complete reversal of previous teachings. Prepare to be shocked, amazed and inspired!
Ok, well I’ll settle for you just being slightly interested…
Stuck At A Dead End
Ever feel like that? Over the years you’ve tried just about every kind of training programme you can think of, scoured the internet for ideas, pestered your gym instructor to come up with something, and even thought about taking Vanessa Phelps’ training advice, yet you just can’t move forward and put on some quality size. Sometimes you need to take drastic measures to move on, although I should add that drastic measures don’t have to include steroids or growth hormone.
The Preparation
The first thing I would recommend you do before following this line of thought is to follow a focused leaning up training cycle for eight to twelve weeks. I’m assuming you did this over the summer and that you are now at a nice lean base. The idea of you being lean before going into a muscle gain period is that you have:
That third point is probably the most important. Your body works on a basis of “homeostatic adjustment”, meaning it always likes to resume a certain weight that it has been used to. For example, for a long time my body would not get much higher or lower than around the 180lbs/80K mark. I had to go through a lot of muscle gaining and leaning phases in order to carry 195lbs as a normal weight. Now, of course, 215lbs is what I am aiming at as a “normal” weight. It’s the ol’ bodybuilding disease of “why be big when you can be bigger?” mentality. That’s another article though...
Think BIG
With a consistently low body fat percentage this more than likely will have made you feel generally weak when it comes to lifting weights, or at least weak in comparison to how you know you normally feel. This is good. It’s like the calm before the storm as we want your body to be ready to take in everything you give it.
We now need to look at the next four weeks, as these will be vital to kick starting extra growth in your body. Your approach will be a complete 180 degree turn on your most recent leaning up diet. You’ll still stick to six meals a day, but these meals will increase quite dramatically, especially in the amount of carbs you have been eating.
Ever read anything that says to eat only low G.I or complex carbs? Well, for this period of time I am saying to throw that way of thinking out the window, and eat pretty much any carbs you like. Really - white bread, pasta, bagels, ice cream – anything that will put weight on your body quickly. Keep some complex carbs in amongst your diet, but don’t focus on them too much.
Now of course I realise that there are relatively high amounts of fat in cakes and so forth, but I don’t care. I honestly don’t. I just want you eating as much as you can. Of course, high amounts of protein through meats and other sources are essential as well, but I want this carb thing to be really taken on board. You need to consume as if your life depended on it. Your aim should be to cause your local supermarket to run out of supplies.
On the training side of things, three to four times a week maximum are what I would like you to be aiming for. In the gym you should be using very basic and very heavy exercises – squats, bench press, dead-lifts, curls, pushdowns. Nothing fancy at all. We are also looking to perform half rep squats and benching with a weight far heavier than you will be used to. For example, if typically you squat 140K with full reps, we need to start pushing toward the 180-200K mark at half reps. You’ll need your belt and knee wraps here, but essentially you are looking to make your body really feel what these weights are like. Apply this mentality to all your exercises.
*Warning – lifting heavy weights comes with a greater risk of injury. Only perform heavy lifts with an experienced spotter.
In short, if you don’t pick it up you’ll never lift it, so you need to look beyond your current limits even if that means temporarily slightly compromising on form. A spotter would be handy in these situations by the way! Again, the overall mentality here is to get your body used to feeling far heavier weights. It will be forced to adapt to what you throw at it.
Umm...Does My Bum Look Big In This?
Now I realise you will have put some fat on, but really it’s no big deal. Your partner may even like you better for it as when you are eating masses and training more you feel so much more animalistic. Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t wash, but your shag powers will probably increase by at least 40% (not guaranteed in any way). The main thing is you can always shift the fat after this period is over, and the best thing is you probably will be so sick of eating so much all the time that leaning up will be that much easier for you. I suppose it takes faith to know whether this will work or not, but do you not think that after trying to lift more than you ever have before and eating more than ever you wouldn’t have put on some more muscle along with the fat?
Knowing When To Stop
I have found this period is most effective for eight to twelve weeks. Anything longer and you can really just be accumulating body fat and putting stress on joints. I see blokes train for months and months on end trying to get bigger without even thinking about trying to lean up, shed some fat, and give your body a reason to start growing again. More is not necessarily better, yet some people just don’t understand this. And surely you would want to be able to see what muscle you accumulate rather than have it disguised by a profile that looks like Mr Michelin?
Of course, everyone is different, but for the majority of people twelve weeks as an absolute maximum for high growth is a norm. After that it’s a question of very slowly shedding the accumulated fat while still maintaining as much strength as possible. This is why it’s almost a race to get the most results possible within this month size gaining period. I would strongly suggest you prioritise which body parts are most important to you improving – perhaps choosing just one or two body parts - and aim to get the most results in those areas. You can always do a few growing/leaning cycles in a year anyway, each time improving different areas. Don’t try to do it all at once; bodybuilding, strength gains, and physique improvement is a patience game!
In summary:
Armed with this approach you should be able to get over your sticking point and progress to new levels of strength, size, and cake eating. Train hard over winter and get ready for a new body in the spring!
Good luck and stay consistent!
Sheraz
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