spe sp ec ial ia l r epor t
C oach J ohn C hristy hristy Aut Author hor of RE REAL AL STRE NGTH RE AL MUSCL MUSCL E
WARNI AR NI NG: The T he information in i n this thi s e-bo e-book ok is i s intended intended only for healthy men and women. People should not follow the advice without a physician's approval. Before beginni beginning ng any exerci exercise se or nutri tion prog pr ogram, ram, always consult consult your doctor. doctor. By By purchasing this e-book you have accepted the risk associated with any exercise program. T his book may not be be reproduced or or recorded in any form for m without wi thout permi permiss ssion ion of the author.
About the Author J ohn is all about ‘real world’ training, and is known for ‘telling it like it is’, with no ‘fluff’ and no B.S. College education aside, he credits his 20+ years in the trenches as a private-practice professional strength coach with giving him the special knowledge and skills that have helped thousands of trainees achieve their physique, strength, and sport specific goals. A former college and professional athlete, drug-free bodybuilding competitor, and current competitive ‘raw’ and drug-free powerlifter, J ohn has been under the iron for over 34 years—and still pushing it hard. J ohn was a feature writer for Hardgainer Magazine for over 10 years, is a current writer for the prestigious Milo strength journal, and has also been featured in Flex Magazine. J ohn has owned and operated Total Fitness Inc. since 1986, with he and his staff administering as many as 300 exclusive one-onone training sessions per week. He has logged over 60,000 hours of one-on-one training sessions that he has personally administered. This does not include the thousands of hours spent training the dozens of strength coaches that have worked for his company. He also owns Real Strength Training Technologies, LL C and the web site REALSTRENGTHREALMUSCLE.COM, providing consultation services, and one-on-one training sessions, to trainees from around the world since 1995. He has also published the 400+ page book REAL STRENGTH REAL MU SCLE .
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Getting bigger and stronger is a very simple process. Yes, even for Hardgainers. The worst thing a Hardgainer can do is use a complicated program, which is what many of the phony trainers out there (how many trainees have they worked with personally?) try to sell you. Actually, if a H ardgainer doesn’t keep it simple, he or she will never develop the impressive physique and strength their genetics allow. Here’s the simple formula – and I’ll elaborate more throughout this document. 1. Use a system that allows your body to use more weight ever y workout on ever y exercise you perform. Believe it or not, this can be done - i f - you add weight at the perfect rate the body can adapt to. This forces a trainee to apply the most important stimulus required for great mass and great strength: PROGRE SSI ON.
2. Use a program that stimulates – not annihilates the body. A great program stimulates the body to change – and this requires hard work – but ‘doable’ work. A program should not be based on how much torture you can withstand.
3. Eat a little more everyday. Too simple too work? Wrong! How do you expect to grow muscle if you don’t have the nutrients available that make this happen? No
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supplement on earth will take the place of simply eating more good quality food.
4. Do some simple things to maximize recovery. Let this sink in: Your muscles don’t get bigger and stronger in the weight room – they are put in a physiological state that gives them th e potent i al to get bigger and stronger. New muscle mass (and strength gains) ‘grows’ when you are ou t of th e gym. How much growth you get from a great workout depend s on wh at you d o when you ar e not i n t he gym!
The worst thing a Hardgainer can do is to follow a program that is ‘confusing’ the body – asking the body to adapt to too many things. Also, your body has a limited amount of energy available for training, recovery and growth. I t should only be used to get exactly what you want – muscular size! I ’ve seen too many poorly designed programs that use, for example, very high reps, very short rest intervals, that switch exercises all the time, and that have no system of progression – to name a few. These programs supposedly will get you big and ‘ripped’ (and sexy, and rich) all at the same time. I n reality all they’ll do is ‘confuse’ the body. Again, the body will be confused by trying to adapt to too many different stimuli all at the same time – and end up getting minimal, if any results and wasting valuable energy! I n the example of the poorly designed program given above (I could give you many others) the body is trying to: 1. Get in anaerobic cardiovascular ‘shape’ through the use of short rest intervals; 4
2. Trying to make the muscles bigger by adding more ‘stuffing’ (not actual muscle tissue) through the use of high reps; 3. Trying to survive the trauma; both muscular and to the ligaments and tendons, (this is different then stimulating muscle growth) because of constantly switching exercises; 4. And has no idea that it is supposed to be overcoming more weight (the most important factor for growth) because there is no system of progression! You should use a program that provides the body with ‘laser beam’ stimulation on getting stronger which will make it grow bigger. Don’t be a “J ack of all Trades”, become a “Master of One” – which is; gai ni ng str ength , w h i ch w i l l r esul t i n gr eat gai ns in m uscl e m ass.
To accomplish this, the program must: 1. Have a reliable, proven system of progression. There are only a handful of progression schemes that I know (from 22+ years of working one-on-one with all kinds of trainees) that will work. The best I ’ve ever used on my trainees was originally used over 2500 years ago by the massive Olympic Champion Milo of Crotona. I ’ve ‘modernized’ Milo’s method – and call it “Optimal Micro-L oading”. More, detailed information on this method is contained in my book REAL STRENGTH REAL MUSCLE . Here’s how Optimal M icro-loading Loading works: Using a fixed set and rep scheme; this could be simply 3 sets of 6 reps (3x6), or could get more elaborate for intermediate to advanced trainees; pyramids, wave loading, cluster sets, etc., the trainees simply adds the 5
optimal amount of resistance for each exercise ever y
workout. Yes, you can add weight every workout if done properly! For instance you would perform 3 sets of 6 reps (3x6) for the bench press and add 1 to 2 pounds (which one depends on if you are a beginner to intermediate trainee or if you are advanced) every single workout. To simple to work you think? I ’ve had many trainees (detailed accounts are profiled in my 400+ page book REAL STRENGTH REAL MUSCLE) maintain this rate of progression for up to one year, before I had to make any ‘big’ changes to the set and rep scheme! Do the math; if you simply add 2 pounds one time per week for an entire year (52 weeks) you would add over 100 pounds to your 6-rep bench press! What do you think your pecs, delts, and triceps would look like? How much bigger do you think your arms will be if, by simply adding 1 pound to your curl, you go from curling 60 pounds for 3 x 6 to 110 pounds for 3 x 6 reps? And with a few adjustments, like using different, creative rep schemes mentioned above, you can continue to progress for many years without injury or burnout. Here is a chart – straight from out of my book – that shows the Optimal Micro-L oad (which was developed over a 20 year period) for the best exercises a Hardgainer should be using.
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E xer cise Ra te of Pr ogressi on
Note: I f you choose to use dumbbell varieties of the exercises listed, the increment of progression would be cut in half and applied to both dumbbells.
2. The program must use the optimal amount of rest time between sets so that you can maximize muscular stimulation and yet still keep the total actual workout time (not counting a general warm-up) between 45 and 75 minutes so that your body can achieve a hormonal state that creates the desired ‘anabolic super rebound’.
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I f a program has you moving so fast due to short rest intervals (1 to 2 minutes) between sets that your breathing rate, and heart rate prohibit you from using the maximum amount of weight that you can use on each ‘work’ set you perform, you will receive at best, very minimal and short-lived gains in strength and hence muscle mass. Rest intervals between work sets should be no shorter than 3 minutes, and as a trainee gets more advanced, up to 5 minutes. This not only makes sure that your cardio respiratory system does not limit your gains, but it also guarantees that the biochemical’s responsible for maximizing strength (and the accompanying muscle gains) are replenished between sets and throughout the entire workout. Now you may wonder how you can get an entire workout in with such relatively long rest intervals in 45 to 75 minutes? You need to utilize ‘PowerSupersetting’. This is NOT the type of supersetting that you may be familiar with where you rush from one exercise to another. Power-Supersetting is where you perform one exercise, rest 2 to 3 minutes and then perform another exercise that is not closely related in using the same muscles as the first exercise. Once the second exercise is performed, another rest interval of 2 to 3 minutes is allowed before going back to the first exercise. Matching the right exercises is critical to make this work. Here is an example: Standing Barbell Curl
Warm-up 60lb. x 5 reps
Close Grip Bench Press
Warm-up 135lb. x 5 reps
Standing Barbell Curl
1st Work Set: 80 x 5
Close Grip Bench Press
1st Work Set: 165 x 5
Rest 2 minutes then go to Close Grip Bench Rest 2 minutes then go back to Curl Rest 3 minutes then go back to Close Grip Bench Press Rest 3 minutes – continue as above
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K eep alternating between work sets of the Barbell Curl and the Close Grip Bench Press until 3 work sets are completed. K eep this up for a year and save your money, you’ll need it to buy bigger shirts.
Do not train purposely to muscular failure. Training to failure works for only a few trainees as a long term strategy, and may even work for many trainees as a short ter m strategy – but it is just too stressful on the bodies ‘systems’ that are most responsible for recovery, to work over th e l ong h au l f or . And you must train ‘over the a m ajor i ty of tr ain ees long haul’ – put in at least several years of consistently hard training - to build the amount of muscle that will literally amaze people. What I mean by ‘too stressful’ is that you may be able to train to failure and have your muscles recover in 72 hours to workout again – BUT – your bodies endocrine and nervous systems; the ‘wiring and plumbing’ of the body, simply can’t recover. And these systems are ultimately responsible for recovery and growing new muscle. This is especially true if you try to use a ‘train to failure’ approach over the long haul. So, it doesn’t matter if your muscles recover if you can’t recover ‘systemically’. With that said, I ’m not implying that you don’t need to work hard – you do, you will need to train very hard. I f a trainee utilizes Optimal-L oading properly they will 9
reach a point where the last rep they complete in a set will be the last rep th at th ey can com pl ete. I n other words the trainee will be right on the verge of muscular failure – but will not fail most of the time. Sure, a trainee may fail to make their goal rep occasionally, but it is not the purpose of the set to fail. T he sol e pu r pose i s to m ak e your goal r ep w i th m or e w ei ght ever y w or kout ! I call this “beating failure”
versus “going to failure”.
Going back to what I wrote earlier: Your body does not grow in the gym – your weight training sessions only set the stage for potential growth. Maximum gains from a workout will only be achieved if you allow them to happen by stayi ng out of t he gym t i l l th ey occur ! Your body needs at least 48 hours to recover both locally (the muscles you trained) and systemically (the endocrine and nervous systems mentioned above) – this is assuming that your workout was structured properly; that it stimulated the musculature optimally without putting you into an unfavorable hormonal state as well as not frying your nervous system. Training 2 to 3 times per week follows the ’48 hour’ rule, and that is why it is the optimal training frequency. This has proven itself since people first started weight training more than a century ago – it has stood the test of time. And, again, in the 22+ years that I have been instructing trainees, it has always delivered the best – and in most cases – stunning results.
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Here are a couple of ways to set up a 2-day and 3-day per week program. See my book, REAL STRENGTH REAL MU SCLE, for more detail on program design.
Template for Training 2 Times per Week
Choose a ‘fixed’ rep goal within the range specified in the chart, for instance, 3 sets of 6 reps (3x6) or 3 x 12, etc.
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Template for Training 3 Times per Week
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Don’t waste your valuable training time and effort on exercises that don’t give you the greatest gains in mass for all the effort you’re putting in. I n other words use exercises that give you the most “bang for your buck”. The best exercises are the ones that create the most muscle for the desired strength function and hence ‘body areas’ that you want to develop. These exercises allow the body to create maximum leverage and are the most ‘natural’ to human movement; and therefore, are the safest to use. M ost of these exercises are ‘compound exercises’ that require you to move more than one joint – such as a squat, or leg press versus a leg extension. These exercises should comprise nearly 95% of all the routines that you use. Here is a chart showing most of the bodies’ basic mechanical functions and the exercises that are the best for building strength and muscle mass to enhance these functions.
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I t is beyond the scope of this document to go into exercise technique – but it is critically important that you learn how to perform your exercises correctly – and this is not the complicated process that many so-called trainers make it out to be! You can learn great technique is a relatively short period of time if you have a good coach teaching you! The best resource I can offer right now is my book. I t has over 200 carefully selected pictures of me, and my
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trainees, performing many of the exercises in the chart above. Also, keep an eye on my web site: REALSTRENGTHREALMUSCLE.COM for my soon to be released technique DVD’s: Opti m um E xer ci se . These are far T echn i ques L ear ned f r om th e T r enches from your ordinary technique tapes. These DVD’s are produced by me and again, feature me, and ‘my trainees’ (not some actors I met on the day of filming) going through the exercises. They are designed to cut right to the chase – to teach you the quickest way to perfect each exercise. When I work with a trainee I must teach them great technique and get them producing results fast – or I won’t get paid for very long. The techniques I use to do this form the basis for these instructional DVD’s. Here is a short sample.
Packing on the muscle is not about supplements. All supplements, except for a basic protein drink, are simply a waste of money. Packing on muscle is about eating, and eating, and eating more FOOD. I can’t tell you how many trainees assure me that they ‘eat like a horse’ (and can’t gain weight), - when, after I analyze how many calories they actually consume they eat more like a skinny high school cheerleader. Which, by the way, is more so what they resemble – more so than a horse anyway. You are never going to get big eating 1800 calories per day no matter how much ‘metabolic optimizer’ you waste your money on. U sing 1800 calories as an example, you would immediately need to get to 2200 and you’ll start gaining (as long as you workout 15
program is correct). But the gains will stop pretty quickly unless you then increase it again to 2500 or so. Once the gains stop – the process continues – you’ll need to go up again. I know that this stuff is simple to what you’ve been lied to about, but it is an undeniable fact that to get bigger you’ll need to eat more high quality food. When I work with a trainee who really wants to get as big as possible as fast as possible, I ’ll get them up to 5000 calories within several months (many of these are detailed in my book). Specifically, I’m talking about putting on 30 to 50 pounds of muscle in a year. H ow would you look, and most importantly feel, with that much more muscle next year? Has any other program done this for you? I doubt it. What you simply need to do is to follow 4 very simple rules: 1. Eat every 3 hours – this amounts to 5 or 6 ‘feeds’ per day – 3 meals and 3 snacks. 2. Every few days eat more at each meal 3. Eat good food focusing on protein 4. Eat very little junk food Well, it just can’t get any simpler than that. I’ve included a sample 5000-calorie diet below (from out of the chapter in my book: H ow to Eat to Get Big). Trainees who have followed this – along with a good training program – have always produced fantastic results.
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How does your diet compare? Understand that if you eat like a bird, you’ll always look like a bird.
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Aerobic work, without a doubt, enhances recovery. Enhanced recovery means greater gains from each and every workout you perform. Think about this for a minute: Blood is what carries the nutrients and oxygen to your muscles that make them recover from your workout and make them get bigger. I f you have a resting heart rate of 60 Beats Per Minute (BPM) – which is common for someone who is in decent cardiorespiratory condition – then imagine how much more oxygen and the muscle-building nutrients your blood carries, would get to your muscles if it was twice that much; 120 BPM. At 120 BPM, you would get twice the amount of blood flow and the mass building nutrients it carries to the muscles! Sounds pretty good doesn’t it? Well, what if you did this 3 times per week for 52 weeks of the year? I’ll answer that for you. I t promotes ‘Super-recovery’, and the results from doing this over an entire year are nothing less than incredible. What I have just described is exactly what performing 30 minutes of aerobic work, 2 to 3 times per week will do. And forget about the lie that aerobic work will make you smaller. That will only happen if you don’t eat enough! Now, when I am recommending aerobic work, I ’m not asking you to go out and jump into a ‘dancercise’ class. You can do whatever you want to – walk, jog, bike, swim, use an elliptical trainer, or even hit the dancercise class (just don’t tell anyone) etc, as long as 19
it gets your heart rate to 65% - 70% (no higher!) of your predicted maximum heart rate for up to 30 minutes. Perform your aerobic work on non-workout days. A training heart rate in the range prescribed will not work you hard – actually it’s pretty easy - you should be able to easily carry a conversation. Remember the aerobic training is not intended to wear you out – it is intended to enhance recovery. Here’s how to figure your training heart rate: Predicted Max Heart Rate is 220 – Your Age x .65 = Your 65% Training Heart Rate. I f you haven’t done any aerobic training, break into it slowly so that it won’t negatively affect your weight training. Start at 10 minutes and simply add 2 minutes every workout till you hit the minimum of 20 minutes. Once you hit 20 minutes you won’t believe how much more recovered you’ll feel going into every workout. Much more detail on aerobic work, anaerobic work, and complete conditioning techniques are covered in the chapters Complete Conditioning Parts I and I I from my book.
I f you want to get bigger, then you should check on a planned basis if you are indeed getting bigger! To many trainees simply rely on the mirror, or even just ‘how they feel’ to determine if they are getting bigger. This is just not a good way to go about holding yourself, and your program accountable. 20
Don’t guess with something that is so important to you! Get out a tape measure and measure your muscles – period. M easure them when they are not pumped up at the same time of day every time you measure. Which by the way should only be one time per month. I f you do it more often than this, the results may be thrown off due to water weight gain, etc. Measure your neck, arms (flexed), chest (relaxed), shoulder girth, waist, thighs, and calves. Be accurate and measure the same spot every month. I f your measurements aren’t increasing, then guess what? Your program – OR YOU – is not working, and something needs changed. I also suggest that you step on a scale one time per week at the same time of day for instance, in the morning after you hit the bathroom, and before you eat. Again, if your program – AND YOU - is working you should gain at least 1 pound per week. Now, some weeks the 1 pound may not ‘show up’ – but at the end of a month you should average that minimum gain of 1 pound per week. And remember, I wrote ‘minimum gain’. A trainee who is really serious about gaining will average 2 pounds per week for a long, long time. With something that is so important to you – don’t rely on guessing. Truly find out if you are gaining the muscle mass you desire.
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I f you’re just starting into weight training or if you’ve never gained much muscle size from your training, then variety in the form of using different exercises is not very important. And will probably do you more harm – in the way of distraction from what is most important: Progression! Switching to different exercises during your training becomes important after you’ve trained ‘successfully’ for several years. Again, successfully meaning that you have gained 20 to 50 pounds of muscular bodyweight. At this point your body may need a different type of stimulus to keep the gains coming. When I speak of variety, I mean ‘sensible’ variety; where you change to a new exercise and stay with it for at least 6 weeks – and sometimes up to 6 months. I ’m not talking about ‘stupid’ variety; changing exercises virtually all the time, which is one of the gimmicks that are promoted now a days by many so-called authorities to ‘keep the body guessing’, to prevent plateaus. Well, it will prevent a plateau all right. Because to plateau you first have to be gaining and since the body won’t have a clue (due to switching to different exercises all the time) as to what it’s supposed to adapt too – there will be very little in the way of ‘gaining’. The only ‘gaining’ a trainee will do when switching exercises all the time, is the gaining of incredible muscular soreness – which does not equate to gains in muscular mass!
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I t is a lie that ‘soreness’ equates to muscular growth. I t doesn’t. The ability to lift more weight on a given exercise is the most important factor that equates to muscular growth! A new exercise has to be introduced correctly so that strength built from the previously used exercise – that works the same muscles – is not lost, but ‘transferred’ to the new movement. I have developed a technique which I call ‘E x er c i se B l en d i n g ’ to achieve this. The ‘old’ exercise is slowly phased out and the ‘new’ exercise’ is slowly phased in. The strength, and the muscular size gained from the first exercise are seamlessly transferred to the second. Here is a quick overview of how to do this (more detail in my book): Say you want to switch from the Barbell Bench Press (Bar bench) to the Dumbbell Bench Press (DB bench). Reduce the Bar bench to one set (from three) and continue to use Optimal Micro-Loading (until the transition is complete). Once you complete the set of Bar bench start into your first of two sets of the DB bench. Although both of these movements use the same muscles, the tendons – specifically in the shoulder – will need to get used to the new movement. So, you will not be able (if you want to avoid a serious injury) to start right off with a weight that pushes your limits on the DB bench. So you need to start off with a weight that would allow you to complete 2 or 3 reps beyond your goal number for the set if you pushed to your limit (to failure). Then over the next several workouts, through the use of Optimal M icro-L oading you will arrive at the proper weight for the exercise. At this point you can drop the Bar bench and replace that set with a third set of the DB bench.
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You need to get on the right path – today – to achieving the physique, strength, and feeling of confidence you desire. Y ou cannot afford to waste more time. The best way to do this is to avoid the number one mistake most trainees make. After accumulating over 60,000 hours working one-onone with trainees over the last 22 years, as well as consulting with trainees from all over the world for the last 12 years, there is one mistake that overrides all others. That mistake is listening to and then wasting many years (and money in most cases) acting upon bad training information. You must consider the source of the information. Who really is the person writing it? What have they accomplished, and most importantly, how many trainees have they worked with – I N PERSON? And don’t be impressed with fancy degrees, or the number of articles he or she may have written – these things don’t mean diddly in the real world where real trainees are sweating it out in the trenches - if they aren’t backed-up by real world experience.
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The most important credential any teacher, and in your case a strength/physique coach, should possess is . ti m e teachi ng The only way for a strength/physique coach to truly know what works is by getting training and nutritional programs to produce results for ‘a lot’ of trainees. This is even much more important than what the coach may have accomplished him/herself - although ‘selfexperience’ is important too. The coach must also know what it feels like to be ‘under the iron’, to experience failure, and to experience success. So, make sure you know how much personal experience the coach has and most importantly how much experience he or she has working with others. A Final Note: The Most Important Attribute I ’ve worked with many, many trainees over my time as a private practice strength and bodybuilding coach. Some trainees had great genetics, some had lousy genetics, and many fell somewhere in between. What I have learned is that the most determinate factor if a trainee will eventually build a physique – and the strength to match – that will impress almost anyone, is simply desire. Not Genetics - Desire. Whether you are a ‘pure Hardgainer’ or just a regular genetic type who has a hard time gaining, understand that your genetics is not the ultimate determining factor. The trainee who wants ‘it’ badly enough will attain a physique they can be proud of. They will put forth the dedication to train right and eat right. And they will not do this for just a month, or a year. They will continue to do this for the several years required to 25
build a physique that few trainees in any gym will achieve. I f you are one of the rare individuals that have a true desire to succeed then I know what I wrote in this document will get you started on the path to success. I f you are one of those rare individuals; one who will not waste most of their training life looking for a shortcut (there aren’t any), or looking for the ‘easy path’ (there isn’t one) – then you are the one I long to help. You are the one I wrote this for. Good luck.
I f you are interested to learn more about J ohn, his book, his phone and/or unique 'live video' consultations, or his 'one-on-one one' video-taped workout sessions please click here.
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