Simple Dieting Guide (Gain muscle or losing weight)

[ECM]

Good post, but I disagree w/ some of the things stated after a good 20-years of doing this both personally and professionally (tho my conclusions are certainly not drawn in a vacuum which you'll discover if you do some basic research):

1. Always eat *more* than you think you need for bulking. When I was nineteen (long, long ago), I tried to play the lean bulk game (which is what the OP seems to be advising) and I ended up basically 'starving' myself of gains. The minute I added about 50% over BMR my gains exploded (they'll be more pronounced for those of you that are a. young and b. not used to eating a lot due to the hormonal shifts involved in sudden over-eating--in fact, if you're under about 23 and do about 50% (yes, 50%) more cals/day, you'll probably get steroid-like results*).

Remember: BMR is what your body uses if you're lying on your back all day, not moving--*no one* burns this few calories a day, even the bed-ridden, so you need substantially more to pack on muscle.

2. You do *not* need to work out, with weights, for more than 20-30 mins a day. You need to familiarize yourself with three movements: bench press (or dips), squats, and deadlifts (there are different variations of all of these, mind you). *Everything* beyond these exercises is supplemental and, if push comes to shove, unnecessary, i.e. if you can only do one, you do these. (You also don't need to do more than one of these a week, BUT if you're younger, you can probably try for twice since you're in a perfect metabolic zone for putting on muscle.)

An important bonus in training in this fashion is that it's a. quick and b. you are A LOT less likely to quit if you're only spending 20 mins in the gym every other day.

3. *Always* train in a reverse pyramid--that is, always do the *heaviest* set first, then succeeding sets are slightly lighter than the first. (Frankly, I do 2 sets of each of the major movements, per week, and that's it.) The first set is an all-out effort set, and should be a weight you can handle--without murdering yourself--for a *max* of five reps. If you can do more than that, you are *doing too little weight*. The second set should be the same as the first *minus* 10-15% of the weight on the first set which should net you roughly the same amount of reps as the first set. If you can do more, you're *doing too little weight*.

4. If you *want* to do some extra 'detail' work, you can do a secondary exercise but along the same parameters as above, e.g. on back day you do deadlifts then do chin-ups (palms facing you). *Never* do this exercise first--always do squats/deads/dips first on their respective days.

Why?: because those exercises recruit the most muscle fibers and, therefore, are the most efficient way to train.

Supplements: creatine is a must, and there are a few others worth taking, but most of it is either junk or not sufficiently supported by empirical evidence to make taking it worth the cash. (If money is no object, however...)

Summation: Yes, I know: this is not the conventional wisdom but, as is always the case w/ CW, it's almost always wrong or off by an order of magnitude.

(Plus, a personal trainer that charges by the hour is NOT going to tell you you only need to be in the gym for 20-30 mins/day, so get the 45-60 mins--or more--arbitrary value out of your head now.)

Note: one caveat; if you are training as an elite athlete *obviously* you will need to do more 'detail' work. My advice is *only* for those looking to gain functional and cosmetic muscle, not to become a champion decathlete. But dont kid yourself: following this training regimen *will* make you *much* stronger and bigger.

*Mind you, there will be plenty of fat hypertrophy as well, but this way you're guaranteeing you get ever pound of muscle you can--you can worry about the fat later when you're cutting (unless you are a true mesomorph, in which case you are almost certainly not reading this thread at all).

(I'm not going into cutting at all because that's a whole 'nother can of creatine...)

(IF you have questions, please PM me--I'm not here enough to follow-up on this w/o prompting.)