When I was just a youngster in my twenties, I desperately
wanted to gain muscle mass. Like many guys at that age, I
longed to have big arms, wide shoulders, powerful and
sweeping thighs, and a V-shape that tapered down to a small
waist.
Unfortunately, that's not how I looked. When I glance at
old pictures, it appears that I was fooling myself into
believing I looked less like the Pillsbury Doughboy than I
really did. What was wrong? I pumped iron, downed high
quantities of protein, ingested carbs during the so-called
"two-hour window" after my workout. And most importantly in
my mind; I kept my calorie intake high because all the
available information said I needed to "bulk up" – to eat
many more calories than I was burning so I could gain that
desired muscle mass.
Now in my forties, I'm easily gaining natural muscle that I
longed for twenty years ago. Not only that, I'm doing it
while staying lean. Just recently, I decided to lean down
even further – getting my body fat down in the mid-single
digits. I was actually gaining strength and muscle while
doing it.
How can that be? We're told over and over that in order to
gain muscle size, we need to eat a lot. Oh... and if you
have a "fast metabolism" (i.e. blessed with really low body
fat), they'll tell you to turn yourself into a gorging pig
because that's the magic bullet for "getting big"... right?
Well, that will get you "big", but not with the kind of
size that helps you land dates on Saturday night.
The fast metabolism people are being told to eat a lot more
calories than they burn so they can gain muscle. They are
assured by their muscle building gurus that they'll go to a
different phase after they've gained the muscle; a phase in
which they'll burn the fat.
Those with unwanted body fat are being told they'll need to
focus on losing the fat before they can gain any
appreciable muscle. It's said that the restrictive diet
they'll need to adhere to will prevent them from gaining
muscle size.
So here's a quiz question: If the skinny person can't gain
muscle without eating a lot of excess calories and the fat
person got fat by eating excess calories, how is the former
fat person ever going to gain muscle without gaining back
fat and how is the skinny person going to lose fat once
he's "bulked up" without ending up skinny again? Maybe
someone's feeding us something other than food.
The answer: Fat and muscle are completely different tissues
sitting side-by-side on the body. Don't confuse the method
by which one is gained or lost with how the other one is.
If you're slender and you shovel down truckloads of extra
calories while inadvertently missing the ideal muscle
breakdown/recuperation ratio, you'll just end up fat.
Here's a question for the "fast metabolism group". Have you
ever followed the advice of bodybuilding experts and didn't
gain the muscle you expected? You know the advice I'm
talking about; eat A LOT of food, train "HEAVY" (relative
term – how about "make heavy weights into light ones"?),
use big compound exercises, try to sit on your ass as much
as possible, and uh... set your alarm to go off in the
middle of your sleep so you can chug some 2AM whey protein.
Ugh... I don't know about you, but you'll never pull me out
of a good night's sleep just to force down some chalky
powder.
Would you like to know what doing tons of compound
exercises, forced reps, three, four and five-day splits and
eating a lot of calories did for me? It turned me from a
slim guy into a fat guy. When it was time to lose the fat,
the muscle gains were disappointing. Anyone who's been to
my website can attest; whatever muscle was lying dormant
under my body fat – it didn't amount to much.
So the big question: How did I recently gain strength and
muscle size while getting super lean?
I did it by eating slightly more protein than usual. I used
45 minutes of low-intensity cardio work to burn fat as soon
as I got up in the morning. Above all, I made sure my
muscles continued to be trained and recuperated at the
ideal ratio and in my unorthodox manner. That's what's more
important than adhering to some precise caloric regimen.
I'll never again listen to anyone who claims you can only
do one or the other; you CAN gain muscle and lose fat (or
remain lean) simultaneously.
----------------------------------------------------
Scott Abbett is the author of HardBody Success: 28
Principles to Create Your Ultimate Body and Shape Your Mind
for Incredible Success. He is a certified fitness trainer
and a Master Practitioner and Trainer of NLP. To see his
personal transformation visit http://www.hardbodysuccess.com
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