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Copyright Notice

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever,

electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any informational
storage or retrieval system without expressed written, dates and signed permission
from the author. All copyrights are reserved.

Disclaimer and/or legal notice

The information provided in this book is for educational purposes only. I am not a
doctor and this is not meant to be taken as medical advice. The information provided
in this book is based upon my own experiences as well as my interpretations of the
current research available.

The advice given in this book is for healthy teenagers/adults only. Before trying any
exercise or diet regimen, consult your physician or doctor.

This book is for educational purposes only and the author does not take any
responsibility for any liabilities or damage, real or perceived, resulting from this
information.

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 Contents
 Introduction………………………………………… 4
 Terminology………………………………………... 5
 The Three Pillars of Building a Great Physique.. 9
 Training
 Outline of each muscle group……………………………12
 Mechanisms of Muscle Growth………………………….. 34
 Weight Training benefits…………………………………. 36
 Volume……………………………………………………... 37
 Intensity…………………………………………………….. 40
 Frequency………………………………………………….. 46
 Progression………………………………………………… 49
 Exercise selection…………………………………………. 53
 Rest periods………………………………………………... 62
 How to warm-up……………………………………………. 65
 Cardio……………………………………………………….. 67
 Beginner sample routine…………………........................ 71
 Plateaus and late beginner sample routine……………. 73
 Substitutable training techniques that are effective…… 78
 Nutrition
 Calories in vs Calories out the science of weight gain and
weight loss…………………………………………………. 85
 Rates of muscle gain and Fat loss………………………. 89
 Macronutrients and Micronutrients………………………. 97
 Tracking Macros and Intuitive eating…………………... 106
 Workout nutrition (pre and Post workout)……………… 115
 Supplements……………………………………………… 117
 Bulking tips to get more calories in…………………….. 124
 Cutting tips to feel fuller..………………………………….126
 Sleep
 The importance of sleep for the mind………………… 129
 Importance for Fat loss………………………………… 130

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 Importance for Muscle gain……………………………. 131
 How to improve your sleep…………………………….. 132
 Morning exercise
 Morning blue light exposure
 Caffeine and sleep interference
 Meditation
 F.lux and reducing blue light before bed
 Regular sleep schedule
 Cold showers at night before bed
 Final Points to Make the Most from your
Training
 Consistency………………………………………………139
 Tracking Progress (workout logbook or app)………… 140
 Program Hopping and searching for the “Best
Routine”……………………………………………………142
 Conclusion

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 First of all I’d like to congratulate you for taking your first step towards building a stronger,
healthier and more aesthetic physique. By purchasing this book you are making a
commitment to read all the way through so you can gain the knowledge on how to optimise
the main components of building a great body in the shortest time possible. But knowledge is
only half of the formula to success, proper application of the knowledge you gain from this
book is what will result in reaching the goals you are striving to achieve.

The main benefit you will get from this book is the ability to design your own nutrition
and training plan which will give you the best results possible and not a general plan
that you might find on bodybuilding.com. General plans aren’t worth your time as every
person has different requirements regarding training and nutrition which isn’t accounted for
by most general nutrition and workout programs as they are for the masses rather than the
individual.

In this book I lay down the fundamentals of designing nutrition goals and training
routines that are specific to your own needs, however I do provide sample workout
routines to demonstrate how the principles can be applied when creating a routine. The
routines provided don’t have to be followed and you can make one instead using the
principles laid out, however you can use the sample routines as a template from which you
can modify via sets, exercises, rep ranges or progression methods to create a routine best
suited to your own needs.

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I have spent years and years trying to get this bodybuilding thing down pat and have made a
lot of mistakes that have stalled my progress significantly and prevented myself from having
an additional 5-10kg of muscle mass on my frame to this day. The reason I wrote this book
was because I could’ve only wished that there was a book specific to building muscle and
losing fat as a teenager rather than trying programs made for adults with different dietary
and training requirements than someone my age (14 years at the time) required to build
muscle in the most optimal way. The truth is that as teenagers we can handle higher training
volumes and eat more food than adults as we are still developing physically and mentally.
Also, we do need to try find a balance between school, social life and our health which isn’t
taken into account with most bodybuilding programs as they might have you training 5-6
days per week while also performing two workouts in a day and to top it off, you may be
asked to eat 6-8 meals throughout the day which just takes a lot of time from your day and
makes building a great physique seem quite impossible.

At your age the truth is that you don’t need to be in the gym for any longer than 3-4 days per
week, especially when first starting out. As you become more experienced you may need to
increase the total number of days per week you train, but this is 2-3 years down the track.

With that out of the way let’s get going…

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 Terminology

Before we get into the details of Training, nutrition and sleep I want to get you
familiar with the terms that I am going to be using in this book. You may skip this
section if you wish and simply return here whenever an unfamiliar term pops up.

Training
 Reps or repetitions: A repetition is completing a movement with a concentric and
eccentric portion once.
 Training to failure: refers to an incomplete rep due to a build-up of fatigue after
completing as many repetitions you possibly could with good form.

 Intensity: refers to the weight you are using for an exercise (the rep range you are
working in) or how close to failure you push yourself to.

 Training Volume: Refers to the total amount of work a given muscle has completed
in a session or week (Measured in sets)

 Training Frequency: refers to how often a person trains or how often they train a
muscle group in a week.

 Concentric movement: This is a movement that forces your muscles to shorten

whilst fighting against the force of gravity (If you were to perform a barbell bench
press, this is the portion where you are pushing the bar away from your chest).

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 Eccentric movement: This is a movement that forces your muscles to lengthen
whilst moving with the force of gravity (This is the part of the bench press where you
lower the bar to your chest).

 Sets: Are a group of completed repetitions (say you do 5 pull ups then stop. That is 1
set).

 Rest: This is when you allow your body to recover for a certain period of time from a
set of an exercise.

 HIIT: High Intensity Interval Training, a period of 90-100% effort followed by a period
of recovery (sprinting then walking).

 Cardio: Refers to exercise done to improve cardiovascular health and increase

caloric expenditure (Walking, jogging, jumping rope e.t.c).

 Anabolism: The building of tissue.

 Catabolism: The breaking down of tissue.

 Rep range: Is a goal/target range of repetitions for a particular exercise (For bench
press, a program might say that you need to complete all sets in the 4-6 rep range,
this means you must use a weight that you are able to get at least 4 reps with but no
more than 6 reps).

 Progressive overload: Overtime making an exercise more challenging (Say you hit
the top of your rep rage for an exercise, you would add more weight to make it more
difficult to get the top of the given rep range)

 Compound movement/lift: a movement that involves multiple moving joints and

muscles (Bench press, pull ups, squats, shoulder press)

 Isolation movement: a movement that involves a single moving joint and

muscle(Dumbbell fly, Lateral raise, Curls, Extensions)

Nutrition
 Protein: proteins are naturally occurring compounds that are used for growth and
repair in the body and to build cells and tissues.
 Carbohydrate: A carbohydrate is a molecule composed of carbon, oxygen,
hydrogen and serves as a source of energy for animals (us).
 Fat: Fat is a natural oily or greasy substance found in animal bodies, especially
when deposited as a layer under the skin or around internal organs.
 Calorie: A calorie is a measurement unit of energy potential. It is how we
measure how much energy humans and animals use or consumes.

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 Saturated fat: is a form of fat found in animal fat products such as cream,
cheese, butter, lard and fatty meats as well as in vegetable products such as
coconut oil, cottonseed oil, palm oil and chocolate.
 Unsaturated fat: is a form of fat found in foods like avocado, nuts and vegetable
oils, such as canola oil and olive oils. Meat products contain both saturated and
unsaturated fats.
 Nutrient: A nutrient is a substance that gives a living body something that it
needs to live and grow.
 Amino Acids: Are the components which bind together to form proteins.
 Maintenance: eating the same number of calories your body is burning each day
= maintaining your body fat level.
 Caloric Deficit: Eating less calories than your body is burning each day = Losing
body fat and/or muscle.
 Caloric Surplus: Eating more calories than your body is burning each day =
gaining body fat and/or muscle.

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 The 3 Pillars of building
a great physique

In this section I’m going to briefly explain the 3 most contributing factors that
every teenager must know and optimise if they want to achieve the fastest
results possible. It is important that you read each section of the book that
explain these factors in detail as neglecting one of the 3 will negatively influence
the rest and in return reduce your ability to build muscle and strength.

Training

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 The training section of this book will cover all the important information that you need to
know about creating your own workout routine that will be effective and most enjoyable
for you.

Resistance training is the main stimulus for muscle growth. Without it, your body will
not change in any favourable way (no gain in muscle, potentially lose muscle overtime).
Here is the basic theory behind growing new muscle tissue:

1. You place stress on your muscles by moving them through their full range of
motion against a significant amount of resistance for multiple sets. (E.g.
performing a bicep curl with a weight that is too heavy to get more than 10 reps with,
then performing 3 sets with that weight).
2. If enough stress was placed on the muscle you worked out (if you performed enough
volume/sets), then your muscle cells will be damaged enough to signal for
repair.
3. After a period of rest/recovery via proper nutrition, sleep and stress
management, the muscle fibre cells that were damaged from the workout session
will reform stronger and bigger than they were before the session to better handle
the stress that you placed on it. This adaptation results in you having bigger
muscles and being able to move heavier weights overtime.

1. Muscle fibres before training 2. Muscle fibres after training You 3. Muscle fibres after recovery

repeat this
process over and over for an extended period of time and the changes in muscle fibre
size become more and more visible.

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 As you can see, resistance training is crucial if you want to get bigger and stronger.
However, it is also crucial in maintaining your muscle mass when you are dieting to
lose weight as it signals to your body that your current amount of muscle mass is
important and needs to be kept rather than being broken down for energy (more detail
on this later). A final point on resistance training is that you can improve certain qualities
of your muscles depending on the rep range you use, such as strength, muscle
growth (hypertrophy) or muscle endurance. In this book we will be focusing training to
build muscle strength and muscle size.

Nutrition

The next section will dive into the fundamentals of manipulating your food intake to
control your bodyweight and support your training performance. This section will be
equal of importance as training because if you don’t provide your body with enough
calories or protein to support muscle growth and repair you are highly unlikely to see
any improvements in muscle size or strength in the gym. Muscles will only grow if they
have the right amount of materials and nutrients that are required to form new tissue.

Furthermore, in this section I’ll be going through the pros and cons of tracking what you
eat (via weighing your food and recording it in an app) and comparing it to eating based
on feel. I will also be explaining how to optimally eat in the time period before and after
your workout to maximise muscle growth along with how to use supplements in a
strategic way to improve your body at a slightly faster rate.

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 Finally, I’ll provide you tips I have learned along the way on being able to eat more
calories while bulking without feeling as full, on the other hand I also provide you tips on
controlling hunger and cravings while cutting.

Sleep

The last of the 3 pillars will be sleep which is far more important than many teenagers
realise. It’s not just important for improving your physique but your overall health and
body development as you are still growing. In this part of the book I will give you all the
information you need to begin appreciating sleep and also provide you with multiple
tips on improving your sleep quality and quantity that have worked for me and many
others.

With that out of the way, let’s get started…

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 Training
As mentioned before, moving your muscles against a form of resistance (e.g.
curling your arm up while holding a dumbbell) repeatedly overtime is what signals
your muscles to grow as they are currently unable to produce enough force to lift
the load being used. Before we go into all the fundamentals of creating an effective
workout routine to stimulate muscle growth and strength development, you’re going
to have to know what muscles are, what they do, and which moves what
bodypart.

Muscles and their functions

When I first got into resistance training, I didn't know what muscles did what. I would simply
look at the diagrams on machines and see what muscle it worked, not paying attention to
why it worked that muscle. This caused me to do the exercises incorrectly and stay
away from barbell exercises because I wasn't sure what movement will work a certain
muscle. Then I further educated myself and learnt what every muscle was responsible for,
which allowed me to go in the gym and know what exercise will give me the biggest
bang for my buck. So after reading this chapter, you will know a lot more about the
anatomy of muscles and what you are trying to grow.

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15
(Please refer to the diagrams above, as I will be using the scientific names of the bones and
muscles)

Why do we have muscles?

Your muscles help with the movement of the joints in your body. It does this by
contracting and relaxing. If you look at the diagram above, you will see on the left what a
bicep looks like. The red is the muscle and the white are the tendons that connect the
muscle to the bones. As you can see, the bicep is connected to the Humerus and at
the bones within the forearm. When the bicep contracts (shortens) it is pulling the
forearm bones to the Humerus. As shown below in the left diagram:

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 The diagram above also shows us what happens to the triceps when we initiate this
movement. In order for the bicep to move the joint, the triceps must relax as they are
connected to the same joint. The primary muscle that contracts to move a joint is known
as the "Agonist" this is the bicep in the position on the left, the muscle that must relax in
order for the joint to move is known as the "Antagonist" this would be the triceps in the
diagram on the left. When you do the opposite movement of extending your arm against
resistance the agonist and antagonist muscles would switch, this is shown in the
diagram above. This time the triceps are contracting as the bicep is relaxing. This is how
every single muscle in your body works, they work together in order to move a joint
through shortening and lengthening.

There are two other types of muscles in the body known as the cardiac muscles and smooth
muscles but for now we are just focused on the skeletal muscles.

Chest (Pectorialis Major)

When I look at a muscle diagram I like to look at the way the fibers are lined up. As you
can see above, the chest fibers move across the chest. See the little white part at the
end of the left side of the chest? That is the tendon that connects the chest to the
Humerus bone. By looking at the fibers on the chest, where do you think the arm will move
if the chest contracts? Towards the midline of the body because the chest pulls on the

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humerus in a horizontal motion. So if you look at the image below you will what movement
the chest is responsible for:

Therefore, whatever movement that brings your humerus closer to the middle of your
body whilst going against resistance will use your chest. The most common exercise that
just works your chest is the dumbbell or cable fly. Then there are other exercises such as the
bench press that work your chest, triceps and shoulders, this is known as a compound
exercise because it involves multiple joint movement throughout the motion (your
triceps contract to push the weight up, your chest contracts to get your elbows closer to your
body and your shoulders contract to raise your arm in front of you) This is what a bench
press looks like:

Compound movements are what you want majority of your workout regimen to be
focused on as they give you more stimulus throughout your body (13).

There are multiple little antagonist muscle groups when it comes to the chest. The major
ones are the back of the shoulders (posterior Deltoid) and the muscles in the upper back
such as the Trapezius and the rhomboids (these aren't labelled in the muscle anatomy
diagram above but they are the muscles between the Trapezius and Latissimus dorsi)

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 A bodyweight example of a compound chest exercise would be a basic Push-up

A bodyweight isolation chest exercise is hard to do without the use of gymnastic rings. But
an example would be a bodyweight ring chest fly:

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 Shoulders (Deltoids)

(The parts we are looking at are in green, orange and blue)

The Deltoid is broken up into three different parts. Each of these parts are responsible for
the different directions that the shoulder joint can move in. For example, the anterior
part of the Delt is responsible when you raise your arm in front of your body, like so:

Remember that a muscle is connected to your bones, when a muscle contracts, it will pull
on the bone and cause it to move. This is exactly what is happening when you raise your
arm, the front Deltoid is shortening and pulling on the humerus, causing it to lift up. When
the anterior Deltoid contracts the posterior Deltoid must relax. Thus, making it the
antagonist of this movement. The lateral Deltoid works in a similar way except, it pulls the
humerus in a different direction. The contraction (shortening) of the lateral Deltoid

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 causes your humerus to raise to the side of your body, like the image below:

Lastly, the posterior or the rear Deltoid is the exact opposite to the anterior Deltoid.
When it contracts it pulls the humerus behind the body, making the anterior Deltoid relax in
order to initiate the movement. The movement of the posterior Deltoid looks like this:

Now, you can hit each Deltoid individually, but you will see better results if you use
movements that incorporate all heads of the Deltoids at once and add in a little isolation
work for the lateral and posterior heads. The reason you don't really need to worry about
isolating your anterior (front) Deltoid is because they are trained hard if you are bench
pressing and overhead pressing.

The best compound exercises for your shoulders are any form of overhead pressing
involving dumbbells, barbells or even handstand push ups. These compound movements
will mainly hit the anterior and lateral heads of the Deltoid and give a slight stimulus to
the rear Deltoid, which is why you want to do some isolation work on the rear Deltoid as
doing so will help prevent muscular imbalances. Furthermore, your front delt will be
stimulated during bench press variations which often leads to overdevelopment in the
front delt compared to the lateral and posterior deltoids. Isolation exercises that I
recommend for the lateral and rear Deltoids are simply Dumbbell Lateral Raises and Cable
Rope Face Pulls.

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 Back (Latissimus Dorsi, Rhomboids, and Trapezius
and Spinal erectors)

The Latissimus Dorsi or "Lats" is the largest muscle that makes up your back. As you can
see it is yet another muscle that is connected to the upper arm bone/humerus. The Lats
are responsible for the movement of bringing your humerus down and behind you. If
you look at the muscle fibers, you can see why the Lats are responsible for this movement
because as it contracts or shortens, it will be pulling on the humerus trying to bring it behind
the body. In most movements when the Lats contract, it's assisted by the rear or
posterior Deltoid because as you know, the rear Deltoid initiates the same movement of
bringing the humerus behind the body.

As you can see, the back is also made up of the trapezius (or “Traps” for short), a rather
large muscle which connects to the scapula (shoulder blades and clavicles (collar bone).
It is responsible for shrugging your shoulders to your ears as well as stabilising the
upper back when you’re pulling heavy weights off the floor (such as during a deadlift).
It’s best trained with performing exercises such as barbell or dumbbell shrugs but is also
trained when doing overhead pressing movements and heavy horizontal rows.

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 The Rhomboids are attached to your scapula and your spine. When this muscle is
developed it creates a cool diamond shape on your back.

Rhomboids

Teres major
and minor

It is used heavily during any rowing movement. However, it can be emphasised more
by using a full range of motion dumbbell or cable row where you purposely attempt to
pull your elbows behind your back and squeeze your shoulder blades together.

The Teres Major and Minor are the two muscles that are found right behind the rear
delts and on the scapula. These muscles are stimulated also by heavy rowing
movements such as dumbbell and barbell rows. If you are performing rows and Face-Pulls
then I believe these muscles will develop nicely without any direct training.

Finally, the Spinal Erectors are the muscles that run along your spinal column and give
your back a thicker appearance when developed. They are best trained through deadlifts
and squats as they work extremely hard to keep your back straight and prevent you
from falling forward while squatting. However, if you are unable to perform these
movements for any specific reason then you substitute them with bodyweight Hyper-
extensions or Glute-ham raises.

When training your back, compound movements are your biggest friend as there is simply
not that many ways to isolate this muscle. One of the very few exercises that isolate the Lats

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 is called a Straight Arm Pull-down and it looks like this:

The absolute best exercises for your back will always be compound movements that
incorporate your Biceps and rear Deltoids. These exercises include Pull-ups, Barbell
Rows, Dumbbell Rows, Chin-ups, Lat-Pulldowns and really any other movement that
involves rowing or pulling against resistance.

Front thigh (Quadriceps)

The Quads run along the femur bone, under the knee cap and connects to the top of
the tibia bone. Quadriceps is the group of three different muscles that work together to
extend the knee joint. These three muscles are known as the Vastus Medialis (green),
the Vastus Intermedialis (red) and the Vastus Lateralis (blue).

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 I like to think that the Quads are the same as the Triceps in the arms, for example; the
Triceps extend the elbow joint by contracting and pulling at the back of the humerus, while
the Quads do the exact same thing at the knee instead of the elbow. It pulls on the shin
bone when it contracts cause your leg to extend and be straight. This motion is
demonstrated below:

When the Quads contract the Hamstrings must relax for the knee to extend, that's why
the Hamstrings are the antagonist. Movements that isolate the Quadriceps are simply the
ones that involve you extending your legs from a bent position to a straight lock out
position. The most common exercise used to isolate the quads is called a Leg Extension
which is shown in the diagram above. When you are focusing on growing your entire leg
muscles (Quads and Hamstrings) your main focus should be again on compound
movements, which will involve both muscle groups. The exercises that will target your
quads heavily include: Barbell squats (Front and Back) Barbell or Dumbbell Lunges, Leg
press, hack squat and single leg presses.

Back of thigh (Hamstrings)

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The Hamstrings are often neglected by most new teenage male bodybuilders because they
are behind you and aren't as aesthetic compared to the quads. But, if you neglect working
the Hamstrings long enough, you will get an imbalance in your legs from having over
developed Quads and under developed Hamstrings which can result in knee pain.

The Hamstrings work the same as the Biceps. They are attached behind the shin bone by
the tendons and when contracted, they pull the shin backwards. The Hamstring group is
made of three parts: The Biceps Femoris, Semitendinosis and the semimembranosis.
They're all shown below:

They all work together in order to flex the knee joint and extend the hips, where the
Quads simply do the opposite. The Hamstrings are more of a secondary muscle group
when performing a squat because they help control the downwards movement,
stopping you from falling straight down. This means that they are still getting hit by some
degree, but it is optimal to isolate this muscle with simple exercises such as Leg curls:

Compound exercises that uses your Hamstrings as a primary mover would be Romanian
Deadlifts or Conventional Deadlifts as they involve stretching the Hamstrings while
maintaining tension in the hips on the way down and contracting which pulls the hips forward
(extends the hips) on the way up.

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 But/Ass/Booty (Gluteus Maximus)

The Glutes play a very big role in controlling our lower body as they allow us to raise
our legs to the side, back and front. The fibre arrangement in the Glutes is a little
complicated. As you can see in the image below, they connect to the Iliotibial Tract (IT
ban) which is a tendon that runs down the side of your leg to the knee joint, so as the Glutes

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 contract, they are pulling on this tendon causing the leg to rise in a lateral motion.

As you probably already know the best exercise for getting a pair of nice Glutes is the
Squat, as it takes the Glutes through their full range of motion. Direct Glute work isn't
necessary, but it can give you that little extra boost if your Glutes are lagging in
development. The best isolation exercises that target the Glutes would have to be Leg curls
and the Hip Abduction Machine:

As for compound movements, all the movements that I mentioned above for training your
Quads and Hamstrings will also work the Glutes pretty hard. However, I’d highly
recommend performing the barbell hip thrust which is an awesome compound exercise
to strengthen your glutes, hamstrings and lower back all at once if you are unable to perform
Deadlift variations.

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 Calves (Gastrocnemius and Soleus)

The Calf is a unique muscle because it is largely dependent on genetics. They can still be
grown but it takes a longer time to grow than other muscles. From looking at the
diagram above, you can see how the Calf is connected to the heel of your foot via the
Achilles tendon. As your Calf shortens or contracts, it pulls on your heel and makes
you go onto your toes. This is known as Plantar Flexion. The Calf's antagonistic muscle
group is the Tibialis Anterior which is to the left side of the shin bone in the diagram
above, you can see the tendons that come off the Tibialis and pass over the foot. This is so
the Tibialis can pull the foot back and up with our toes pointing to the sky. This is
known as Dorsi Flexion.

The Calves don't get a lot of activation through compound movements such as the
Squat, which means they will most likely be lagging behind your Quads and
Hamstrings. This is why isolation exercises are your best friend for training your

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Gastrocnemius, because they help provide the Calves stimulus without adding extra stress
anywhere else. The best exercises for the Gastrocnemius would be any form of standing
straight leg Calf raises.

The soleus is the larger muscle that sits underneath the Gastrocnemius. It is activated
during standing calf raises, although they are more stimulated during calf raises with
bent knees such as Seated Calf raises.

Abs (Rectus Abdominals)

Believe it or not Abs weren't made so we can look good. They help keep us upright by
supporting the spine, stopping it from flexing or twisting when we don't want to. The
Abs fibers run vertically across the mid-section, which means that when they contract,
they are pulling your upper body and hips close together (think of it as doing a crunch or sit-
up). The Abs are just one section of the entire core as you can see above, you also have
the External obliques and many others. But the Abs are the most visible muscle and what
most people strive to build or get to show. The antagonist muscle for the Abs is the
Erector spinae, which is the muscle that runs along the middle of the back. The Abs and
Spinae work together all day long to try and keep the spine stable. If you over develop
the Abs and don't train the erector spinae, it will lead to bad posture, which doesn't look good
and is bad for overall health via contributing to possible neck and back pains. When training
specifically the Rectus abdominis you want to focus on trunk flexing movements such as
crunches and sit ups, but you need to get stronger and add weight over time in order for
them to grow (just like any other muscle). The best exercises for the Rectus abdominus
in my opinion is the weighted cable crunch, hanging leg raise, dip bar leg raise and the ab
wheel rollout, as they all do contract the Rectus abdominus specifically.

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 Don't forget to at least incorporate an exercise that trains your Erector spinae, this
could be done through Deadlifts, squats or an isolation exercise such as Back
extensions:

Arms (Biceps and Triceps)

I’ve explained the function of the Biceps and Triceps at the start of this section but, now I
want to go into more about training them. The word "Bi" in Biceps, means 2 as for "Tri" in
Triceps means 3. The Bicep is split into two parts: the short head and the long head.
There is also a muscle underneath the Bicep called the Brachialis, which is often

31
 neglected when training arms, as it is mostly invisible when under developed. The long and
short heads of the biceps are activated when doing any curling movement. For
instance, when you perform a regular barbell curl, your hands are in a supinated position
(Palms facing up). This movement will activate the Biceps very strongly. When you simply
turn your palms in a pronated position (Palms facing down), you are putting more work
into your Brachialis, rather than you’re Biceps. Building up your Brachialis actually gives
your Biceps a larger visual appearance, by pushing it up, also it shows great separation
between your Biceps and Triceps when you are lean.

The best exercises at building up the Biceps include: Barbell curls, Dumbbell curls, Preacher
curls, Chin-ups (They hit the Biceps pretty hard), Cable curls e.t.c

The best exercises for building the Brachialis are simply the same exercises mentioned
above, except you use a reverse grip:

(Now the Triceps)

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 The Triceps brachii is made up of three heads as shown above, these are: the lateral
head, long head and medial head. Each head is activated more than the others
depending on what angle your elbow is at when you extend your arm. For example, the
Long head is activated more than the others when you extend your arm with you elbow
above your body, an exercise that does this would be a Dumbbell overhead Tricep
extension:

If you were wanting to target your Lateral head, you would choose an exercise that has you
extend your arms with your elbows at your sides such as Tricep pushdowns and Tricep
kickbacks:

33
 The Short head is hit hard in your compound movements such as the Bench press,
overhead press and dips. In your workout program or routine, you will want to make sure to
hit all three heads of your triceps in order to ensure maximal growth and arm size.

Forearms (Wrist flexors and Extensors)

34
As you can see the forearms are made up of a lot of muscles. All you really need to know is
that the forearm muscles are responsible for the opening and closing of your hands (grip
strength). They are also used in the different movements of the wrist such wrist flexion
and extension, shown here:

The image above is of the exercise known as Wrist curls or forearm curls. I don't really think
that this exercise is necessary for developing good looking forearms, as they develop well
enough when you are pulling and holding statically, such as doing Pull-up's or especially
when you are doing heavy Deadlifts. So, unless you have really weak grip strength, I don't
think it is necessary to train your forearms directly. If you are one of those people with weak
grip strength you should practice doing Dead hangs or plate pinches, these two
exercises will help you develop your grip strength pretty quickly. What you do for Dead
hangs is simply hang from a pull-up bar or any other type of bar for as long as you can, you
want to time this. Then next time you do the exercise, you want to aim to beat that time or
add weight via a dumbbell between your feet or a dip belt. Over time you will have a grip
stronger than King-Kong. :)

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 The Mechanisms of
Muscle Growth

I provided a quick summary of how a muscle gets bigger after being damaged from training
however that was only explaining one out of three ways that a muscle is stimulated to
grow (Muscle Damage). Years of research and studies (1) have come to the conclusion that
there are three factors that encourage a muscle to adapt and grow as a result. These
factors are called: Mechanical tension/stress, Metabolic fatigue and Muscle damage.

Mechanical Tension/stress
This refers to moving a muscle against a heavy enough load to create a hypertrophic
response. When our muscles are subjected to moving a heavy load many signalling cells
are activated and in a sense are told “This load is heavier than what the body is used to so
we must tell the fibres to grow to better handle the load next time it is presented”. This is an
extremely simplified example of course. It is very important that we train with loads that are
heavy enough for an adequate amount of sets/reps (adequate amount of volume) to
trigger a hypertrophic response.

Metabolic stress/fatigue
This involves pushing your muscles to their limits when performing a moderate to high
number of reps with moderate to light weights (greater than 6 to +20 reps). For
example, if you were to do a set of push ups to failure (Assuming you can do over 6 reps) or
perform drop sets on barbell curls (doing as many reps as you can then lowering the weight
and doing as many as you can with no rest in between e.t.c) then you’ll be stimulating your
muscles to grow by emphasising this muscle building pathway. When we perform a
moderate-high number of reps, our muscles accumulate fatiguing by-products as a
result, such as Lactic acid and Hydrogen ions. These by-products have been shown to act
as an activation signal to certain cells that promote the muscle to be grown in order to

36
 accommodate for the increase in by-product accumulation. This is often noticed when you
have a muscle pump from doing many reps with short rest periods. You’ll feel a burning
sensation in the muscle being trained which is from the build-up of these by-products
and the feeling of the muscle being fuller (the pump) is due to more blood flow to the
muscle to provide more oxygen and remove the lactate build-up.

Muscle Damage
As mentioned previously, when we move our muscles against a form of resistance small
micro tears occur in the muscles which signal for muscle cells to be fixed and made
stronger. You often feel this muscle damage when you start a new workout routine or a
new exercise in the form of Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS) because your body
isn’t accustomed to moving in that way with a significant load and as a result it will
have more muscle damage than when you perform the same routine 3 weeks later.
Don’t think that because you are no longer feeling sore after a while that your workout isn’t
effective anymore; muscle damage is still occurring and you will still be stimulating your
muscles to grow via the other pathways. It is just that now your body is better able to
recover from the new routine or exercise which is a good thing because too much
muscle damage can actually hinder your muscle growth. This is because our bodies can
only repair a certain amount of damaged muscle tissue per day and when excess
damage occurs our bodies can’t repair all the muscles that are damaged which results
in the damaged unrepaired fibres turning weaker as a result. This is one of the reasons
why it is important that you perform enough volume in your training sessions to stimulate
your muscles to grow, but not so much volume that you become unable to recover
before your next workout for that muscle group.

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 The Benefits of
Weight/Resistance
training

I’ve always found that if I was to read on the benefits of doing anything that I’m interested in I
become far more motivated to do it. So, I’m quickly just going to summarise the abundant
amount of health benefits engaging in a regular intelligent resistance training program has
brought to me over the last 5 years of working out and the benefits that many others have
noticed:

1. Develops bigger muscles

2. Develops stronger muscles
3. Increases muscular power
4. Increases flexibility
5. Allows you to eat more without gaining body fat
6. Provides mental clarity
7. Increases self esteem
8. Increases bone mass and strength
9. Increases Anaerobic conditioning
10. Slightly increases aerobic conditioning
11. Allows you to maintain your muscle mass while losing weight
12. Reduces symptoms of depression
13. Improves sporting performance
14. Improves posture
15. Improves sleep quality
16. Increases sleep quantity

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 17. Increases energy levels throughout the day
18. Improves balance
19. Improves whole body coordination
20. Increases life expectancy
21. Helps relieve stress
22. Reduces your risk of some cancers
23. Reduces your risk of Cardiovascular disease
24. Increases your mental strength
25. Pushes you outside your comfort zone (an important skill in life)
26. Proves that you are in control of your results and your life

Training Volume

The term “Training Volume” in terms of resistance training refers to the total amount of
work a muscle does within a training session or the training week. In this book we will
be measuring training volume as the number of sets you do for a muscle group.

As mentioned in the previous pages, we need to subject a muscle to a certain threshold

of tension (heavy enough weights) multiple times (sets x reps = volume) in a session
to stimulate it to grow, while also not doing too much volume that it becomes
impossible to recover from. Think of volume as the amount/magnitude of mechanical
tension you are placing on a muscle. This graph below is from ‘The muscle and Strength
Training Pyramid’ book by Eric Helms (I highly recommend you buy this book if you are more
interested in learning the science of resistance training in far greater detail).

39
 Volume (number of sets per week for a muscle) is on the horizontal axis while Rate of
progress (rate of muscle and strength gain overtime) is on the vertical axis. This graph
perfectly shows as volume goes up from 0 (the first green dot) the speed of progress
that you will make increases linearly. For example: If I was to do 1 set per week for my
back, I’d make progress, however I could make even faster muscle and strength progress in
my back if I did 2 sets and even faster if I did 3 sets per week. This is because the more
sets you do, the larger the stress your placing on your muscles which results in a greater
adaptation. This continues until a certain point (the second green dot). This point is
what I’ll call your optimal volume because it is the most amount of volume you need to
do to get the fastest progress possible. If you continue to add volume to that muscle
group (more sets) past the second green dot, then you are doing more work than you
need to and won’t see faster progress despite putting more work in (this is the range
between the two yellow points). Finally, after continuing to increase volume past the
point from which we can recover from (the second yellow dot) we begin to see our rate
of progress slowly declining as volume continues to increase (the line between the
red dots) which is due to performing more volume than we can recover from.

Now I’ll put these into practical terms: Let’s say you’ve never worked your chest muscle ever
in your life (obviously this is completely hypothetical) and you’ll be able to grow your chest
and get stronger from doing a single set of bench press with 10kg per week (the first green
dot).

But after trial and error you find that when you do 10 sets of bench press for your chest,
you are able to increase the amount of weight you’re lifting every training session
(optimal Volume, which is above normal progress), but when you do 11 or 12 sets of bench
press your progress comes at the same rate (this would be the line between the yellow
dots). Then when you try 13 or more sets of bench your progress starts to slow down in
the form of you not being able to get stronger as fast as you were before or maybe
you won’t be getting stronger at all. (the red dots).

So, as you can see, we want to be doing the most volume we can get progress from and
no more or less. This is tricky to identify as every person and every muscle group has a
different point of optimal volume and many factors can change a person’s optimal volume

40
 besides factors such as age, gender and genetics. Recovery is crucial in determining how
much volume we can do and continue to progress at a faster rate. Sleep is one of the
largest contributors to increasing the amount of volume you can handle and the
amount of progress you can achieve (more on this in the Sleep chapter). Nutrition is
another factor that can determine whether you are able to handle higher training volumes as
when you are bulking you create a better environment in your body for muscle repair and
building, while when you are cutting your body isn’t able to recover from your workouts as
efficiently as it could be.

I’m going to give you the volumes for each muscle group that I recommend starting with and
then increasing overtime based on the feedback you are getting.

Beginner Volume recommendation

These Volume recommendations are for absolute beginners who have had less than 9
months of consistent intelligent training and are training in a 6-12 rep range. Sets per week
refers to how many sets of one or more exercises that target a specific muscle group that will
be completed over the course of a week. E.g. 3 sets of bench press on Monday and 3 sets
of Incline dumbbell press on Thursday would be equal to 6 sets of chest per week.

Chest: 6-9 sets per week


 Back: 6-9 sets per week
 Quadriceps: 6-9 sets per week
 Hamstrings: 6-9 sets per week
 Shoulders (anterior deltoid): 3-6 sets per week
 Shoulders (Lateral deltoid): 3-6 sets per week
 Calves (Gastrocnemius): 3-6 sets per week
 Calves (Soleus): 3-6 sets per week
I know that may seem like not much, but I’ve found this amount of volume to be most
optimal when training beginners. With this amount of volume, you should be able to
make progress on a workout to workout basis for your first 6-9 months. This stage
is magical as you will never make progress this fast again, once you develop a
decent level of strength and coordination on various exercises your progress
slows dramatically. This is not your fault and can’t be avoided as it would be
unrealistic to continue to add 2.5kg to the bar every time you bench press, otherwise
we’d all be able to lift cars over our heads. Finally, I’d like to mention that I
recommend you stick with training in the higher rep range of 6-12 for your first
6-9 months as this is the most optimal rep range for developing your neural
efficiency in the shortest time possible and is optimal for muscle growth. This is due
to the fact that the more repetitions you do, the faster you’ll learn and develop your
motor skills for specific exercises (when lifting heavier weights in the 1-5 rep range
you are limiting the amount of practice you are getting with that lift to only 1-5 reps at
a time). Also, working in these higher rep ranges reduces your chance of getting
injured as you aren’t using weights where one slip up can result in severe injury.

Intermediate/Advanced volume recommendations

41
 After training for about 6-9 months or until your training stalls, then it will become necessary
to increase your training volume for ONLY the muscle group that has stalled. DO NOT
increase training volume on all your muscle groups that haven’t stalled yet as you don’t want
to interfere with the progress you are making. In the training plateau section, I’ll explain
exactly how and when to add training volume to keep progressing at intermediate and
advanced levels.

Training Intensity

When I refer to intensity, I am talking about either how close you push yourself to
muscular failure (the point where you can no longer move the weight and require
assistance to finish the rep) or how heavy you are lifting in comparison to your 1 Rep-
max (1RM).

How Heavy to Train

We can target certain adaptations by manipulating the load we are using on a given
exercise. Specifically, with resistance training we can develop our muscular strength,
muscle size, muscular power and muscular endurance. However, I am going to be going
into detail on primarily building size.

42
 I’ve mentioned before that to optimise mechanical tension (primary driver of muscle growth)
we must use weights that are heavy enough to cause growth. According to science (12),
we can grow in all rep ranges as long as we come close to failure, however for optimal
growth, a minimum recommendation is around 60% of your 1RM or a weight that is your 12
Rep-Max (12RM). Although all loads greater or less than 60% of 1RM are heavy enough to
cause growth, going too heavy can negatively impact the hypertrophic response you get
from training by limiting the total volume you perform (remember more volume = more gains,
to a certain extent) while also dramatically increasing the amount of fatigue that is generated
from each set which will require longer recovery times between sessions before you can
progress/train again. To avoid the negatives of going too heavy I recommend limiting the
weights you use to the 6-12 RM range. This means you use weights where you can get a
minimum of 6 reps with but no more than 12 reps (60-85% of 1RM).

In the previous chapter we identified the three causes of muscle growth which were
mechanical tension, muscle damage and metabolic/muscular fatigue. An effective workout
routine for achieving muscle growth will stimulate all three pathways to a certain extent,
however mechanical tension is still the largest contributor to muscle growth and therefore
should be the focus of your routine.

When training for muscle size the 6-12 rep range is the sweet spot for developing muscle
size. The special thing about this rep range is that it allows your muscles to do enough work
per set (enough reps in a set) and per workout to signal a growth response without requiring
an excessive number of sets or causing excessive fatigue.

Heavy vs Moderate Loads for Hypertrophy

A study (2) conducted by hypertrophy expert Dr Brad Schoenfeld involved two groups of
young men who trained with weights regularly:

The first group were the hypertrophy group which used weights that they were able to get
8-12 repetitions for 3 sets per muscle group (This group performed an average of 30 reps
per muscle group 3 times per week)

The second group were the strength group who trained with weights that kept them in the
2-4 rep range for 10 sets per muscle group (This group also performed the same average
number of reps as the first group, 30 reps per muscle group 3 times per week)

The results showed after 8 weeks that both groups had the exact same amount of
muscle growth (Which was predicted to occur as both groups’ muscles had performed
roughly the same amount of volume per week). However, the heavier load/lower rep range
group had far greater increases in strength than the hypertrophy/higher rep range
group.

You might be thinking “Then isn’t the best way to build muscle and strength is to do a low
number of reps with heavy weight with a high number of sets?” There is three things you’ve
got to keep in mind though with this study:

1. There was a higher injury rate in the strength group: lifting heavy (1-5 rep range)
all the time increases your injury risk greatly as your connective tissues, joints and
muscles are all under very high stress. In the study above, the strength group had a

43
 higher dropout rate due to either injury, discomfort in joints (aches and pains) or
feelings of physical fatigue even on days they had not trained, whereas the lighter
load group were completely fine.
2. The strength group’s workout took almost 3-4 times longer: when lifting weights
for 1-5 reps you are forced to rest longer in between sets to recuperate and maintain
your high intensity effort across all your sets. This can be anywhere from 3-5 minutes
or more in between each set which adds up to a lot of time sitting down waiting in an
entire workout. On the other hand, when using lighter loads our bodies are faster to
recover as less stress has been placed on the body as a whole (Nervous system,
muscles and joints) which means less rest is needed for a full recovery. This could be
anywhere from 1-3 minutes in between sets. So, when you do the math the strength
training group was resting a minimum of 30 minutes per exercise (10 sets x 3
minutes rest) whereas the hypertrophy group would have rested a maximum of 9
minutes per exercise (3 sets x 3 minutes rest) or even a minimum of 3 minutes spent
resting per exercise (3 sets x 1-minute rest). More on rest periods later in the book.
3. The hypertrophy group wanted to do more: because the workouts were so short
and didn’t place an unbearable amount of stress or discomfort on the subjects
bodies, they felt motivated to do more sets after the workout was completed
(although the researchers stopped this from happening as it would make training
volume no longer equal between the groups), whereas the strength group were
barely making it through their workouts just as it was. By having the ability complete
more sets the hypertrophy group very easily could have achieved far more muscle
growth than the strength group as they would have been providing a far greater
stimulus for growth with each additional set (given that they didn’t push themselves to
far passed what they could recover from).
When training for muscle growth you will inevitably get stronger as a bigger
muscle is a stronger muscle, however it isn’t the fastest way to increase your
strength. Strength training involves lifting loads that are closer to your 1-5 rep max for
less sets per week compared to hypertrophy training. Lifting this heavy results in
adaptations such as increased motor unit recruitment and neural efficiency on a
given lift which ultimately leads to faster gains in strength when compared to training
with lighter loads. As this book is primarily focused on maximising muscle growth for
beginners, it’s recommended that you stay away from the 1-5 rep range for your
first 6-9 months of training, this is so you can become familiar with the different
movement patterns and avoid unnecessary injuries.

Moderate vs Light Loads for Hypertrophy

A study (3) published by the “European Journal of Applied Physiology” involved a group of
untrained females participating in a quad focused resistance training program for 6-weeks
which consisted of leg press, squat and leg extensions performed 3 times per week.

Half of the group performed 3 sets with a 6-10RM weight on each exercise (moderate
load group) whereas the other half did 3 sets with a 20-30RM weight for each exercise
(low load group). All sets were taken to failure to ensure an accurate comparison between
the groups.

After the 6 weeks a biopsy of the quads were used to measure how much growth had
occurred between the two groups.

44
 The moderate load group had an increase of 35.3% in the cross-sectional area of the
quads where as the low load group had only a 7.5% increase in their quads despite
performing the same number of sets.

Lighter weights can cause growth, albeit less growth than heavier weights, (remember
that metabolic stress is a factor of muscle growth) but your set must be taken to complete
muscular failure and only the last 8 or so reps of your set are stimulating muscle growth
while the reps before your last 8 are kind of like warm-ups. Using the study above as an
example, the low load group could’ve made the same gains as the moderate load group
if they were instructed to perform more sets whilst remaining in the 20-30 rep range. But this
would just be time consuming and an inefficient way to get the same amount of growth
(rather than performing 9 sets to get the same growth, the low load group may have had to
perform +15 sets). However, there are techniques to work around this and build muscle with
light weights more efficiently and I will explain this in the substitutable training techniques
section.

Summary on how heavy to train for hypertrophy

When training for hypertrophy: majority of your work should be in the 6-12 rep range
(60-85% of 1RM) to maximise the amount of time you spend in the gym and provide a high
enough stimulus to cause muscle growth. There may be some additional benefits to going
lower or higher in reps in the later intermediate and advanced stages, although in the
beginner stages I’d advise sticking strictly to this rep range for your first 6-9 months, so you
can focus on form and make the fastest gains in muscle size possible.

How Close We Should Push Ourselves to Failure

Reps in Reserved (RIR)

45
 Measuring how hard we push ourselves in each set is important because if we were to
perform every set to failure as they did in the studies cited previously, we would
eventually run into recovery issues such as general feelings of fatigue, muscle and joint
aches and pains and other negative side effects that can halt progress in the long term. That
is why most of these studies are relatively short (4-12 weeks) as any longer would cause
issues. Furthermore, not going balls to the wall on every set seems to allow for smoother
progress from workout to workout and prevents you from having days where you feel
unbearably weak/fatigued. As a way of measuring how hard we push ourselves on a
set we can use what is known as a Reps in Reserved (RIR) scale. Try to ignore the RPE
scale to the left of the diagram above and focus to the right where the RIR column is. It is
used by estimating how many reps we could have done on an exercise at the end of
our set. For example, if you did a set of bench press and you ended it feeling that you could
have done another 2 reps, then your set was a RIR of 2.

Research (4) has shown that we can cause an adaptive stimulus from a set even if we have
4 RIR, which means you must push yourself hard in a set although taking that set to
complete failure (the point where you can no longer complete any more repetitions, 0 RIR)
isn’t necessary and can in some ways be harmful to your progress.

In terms of building muscle, the more volume you do for a muscle group (up to a certain
point) the more gains you will get in return. When we perform as many repetitions as we
possibly can on a given exercise (0 RIR), our muscles become extremely fatigued and our
ability to perform reps on that exercise for the next set completely diminishes.

First scenario: Let’s say you plan on doing 3 sets of 10 reps on bench press. Your 6RM
weight is 100kg. For your first set you complete the 10 reps with 100kg (0 RIR), the last rep
was extremely hard and fatigued your chest greatly. For your next set you try to get 10 reps

46
 again but because you were so fatigued from the first set, you manage to only get 8 reps
(this set is also taken to failure, 0 RIR). Finally, after resting you attempt your third set. Again,
you attempted to do as many reps possible but by now the fatigue has built up significantly
and you were only able to get 6 reps with 0 RIR. This results in you performing 24 reps in
total that can stimulate muscle growth and left you feeling very fatigued for any future chest
exercises you have left in your workout.

Second scenario: You’re planning to do the same 3 sets 10 reps on bench press. Your
10RM weight is 100kg. This time instead of maxing out on your first set, you decrease the
weight to 95kg which is your 12RM and perform your sets with this weight instead. For your
first set you get 10 reps with 2 RIR. You then rest. Second set, you get 10 reps again with
1.5 RIR (due to fatigue accumulating but to a lesser degree). For your final set (after resting),
you get 10 reps again with 1 RIR. This resulted in you performing 30 reps in total that can
stimulate muscle growth and left you feeling less fatigued than the first scenario which
means you’ll be able to perform more reps on future exercises for chest and therefore
accumulate more volume for your chest.

A common question that comes to mind is “But aren’t the reps done with 100kg more
effective than those with 95kg?” and you’re right in a sense but its more effective by only a
small amount because the sets with 95kg are only 1-2 reps shy of failure, also you are
performing more overall volume when you compare the amount of work your chest has done
by measuring absolute volume:

Absolute volume (or tonnage) = Weight x Reps

Scenario 1: Absolute volume = 100kg x 24 reps = 2400kg of work

Scenario 2: Absolute volume = 95kg x 30 reps = 2850kg of work

In terms of how hard you should push yourself on each exercise will depend on whether it is
a compound or isolation exercise (isolation exercises get a lot harder after each set
compared to compound lifts) and also on how many sets you plan on completing for that
exercise:

Compound exercise
 3 sets = 2 RIR on first set
 4 sets = 3 RIR on first set
 5 sets = 4 RIR on first set

Isolation exercises

 3 sets = 3 RIR
 4 sets = 3 RIR
 5 sets = 4 RIR

For your compound movements, you should always have at least 1 or more reps left in
the tank on your last set. For isolation exercises it is ok to hit failure on your last set
from time to time, but I’d try only to do it when you have at least 4 days to recover before
you train that muscle group again that week or the next.

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 Training Frequency

This refers to two distinct categories: How often you lift weights in a week and how often you
train a certain muscle group over the course of 1-2 weeks.

How often should you lift weights?

This comes down to 3 factors

Training experience
As mentioned before, overtime as you get bigger and stronger your training volume is
going to go up. This means that consequently your workouts are going to get longer and
longer and eventually you’ll be having 90-minute workouts that feel like a drag. Therefore,
overtime as you need more volume to progress you will eventually need to workout for
an extra day to space out your volume throughout the week rather than cramming it all into
a single session.

For example, a beginner may only need 9 sets per week for his muscles to grow. This can
easily be spread across three full body workouts in a week and his workouts could never
exceed 45-60 minutes. However, after 6-9 months of training he may need 12 sets per week
to grow optimally and make progress. Adding an extra set to each exercise for each muscle
group can increase the amount of time he’d spend in the gym on those three days to 75-90
minutes per session. If he is okay with spending that much time in the gym and finds he isn’t
smashed after completing his workouts, then he could keep training 3 days per week. On the
other hand, he could increase the amount of days he trains to 4 days per week and spread
his upper body volume on two days and his lower body volume on two other days to reduce
the amount of time and effort he spends in one full body session.

Eventually 4 days may become too little and a 5th day may be required to keep your sessions
shorter, but this happens only after years and years of training.

Availability

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 I believe this is pretty self-explanatory. You should program your workout routine around
your lifestyle, rather than plan your life around your workout routine. This is important for
your overall training adherence which is often a highly underrated factor when it comes to
health and fitness. Training consistently and having a regular routine is absolutely critical
for getting results. Someone that has a poor workout program but sticks to it day in
and day out, will have far greater results than someone who has the best possible
routine but only does it every once in a while. So, I strongly advise that when you make
your routine or use one of my sample routines to consider whether it will be realistic for you
to follow. If the routine has you training 4 days per week, but you’ve got footy training 3
times per week and a game on Sunday plus you got to study for tests and exams, then going
to the gym 4 times a week might not be sustainable. You’d probably be better off training 3
times per week or even twice per week with weights (yes you can make gains training twice
per week). So please keep this in mind when you create a routine later on in this book.

Personal Preference
Lastly, it is important to consider what you personally enjoy the most. If you love working
out and being in the gym then you can make a routine that has you training 5-6 days per
week, you’d just have to adjust your training volume per session to prevent yourself from
training more than you can handle. On the other hand, if you’d rather have more free time
and days away from the gym, you can create an effective routine that fits all your training
volume in 3 days per week although your workouts may get longer as you become more
advance. Another way to work around this is to have two sessions in a day rather than fitting
everything in a single session.

This is more important than you may think. If you don’t enjoy your program, then you won’t
stick to it. If you don’t stick to it, then you won’t make any progress at all.

How often should you train a muscle group per

week?
After we lift weights and place our muscles under significant stress which they must recover
from, it is important that we give our muscles enough time to recover before we stress
them again. Many studies (5) have shown that the time it takes for a muscle to recover
from a workout is dependent on how much volume you perform in a single session and
your training experience. If you were to perform 10 sets for your chest in a workout (which
may take 4-5 days to recover) it would take longer to recover from that workout than if you
were to perform 5 sets in a workout (maybe only 2-3 days to recover). Therefore, it’s
important that you don’t put too much volume on any one day when you are going to be
training that muscle group 2-5 days later.

Recently far more bodybuilders are moving away from training a muscle group once per
week because from their own experiences and research, it has been shown that putting all
your training volume for a muscle group into 1 session per week is less optimal than
spreading the same amount of training volume over 2 or more workouts instead. For
example, rather than performing 10 sets in a workout for your back, you’d see much faster
and greater progress performing 5 sets on Monday and then 5 sets on Thursday. Another
way would be to split the 10 sets into 3 sets on Monday, 3 sets on Wednesday and 4 sets on

49
Friday. This is because the rate of protein synthesis (the rate of building new muscles and
proteins in the body) increases after you finish working out. It continues to increase up
to 24 hours after your training session and then decreases from there back to baseline
levels after 48 hours has passed since your workout. So technically the elevated rate of
building up new proteins stops 2 days after training a muscle, although it may take
additional days (depending how many sets you performed in that session and how intense
those sets were) for your nervous system to recover and for your body to be able to
recruit those newly developed muscle fibres. Therefore, some training sessions take
longer to recover from than others due to the recovery of other additional factors besides the
rebuilding of muscle tissue.

Brad Schoenfeld and colleagues conducted a meta-analysis (6) (analysed the results from
multiple studies to find any trends) on all relevant studies which compared 1 session per
muscle group/week to 2 or more sessions per muscle group per week and arrived at the
conclusion that “The primary take-away from the meta-analysis is that there appears to be
a pretty clear benefit to training muscle groups with higher weekly frequencies. At the
very least, the study shows that training a minimum of 2 days a week is needed to
maximize muscle growth. Unfortunately, there simply aren’t enough studies to make more
concrete determinations as to the precise number of times that a muscle should be trained
each week for optimal growth.”

In conclusion to this meta-analysis it was made clear that 2 times per week is better than 1,
but more than 2 times hasn’t been shown to provide any additional benefits at this point in
time.

My thoughts on why 2 or more sessions may be better than 1 are:

Firstly, because you are training multiple times per week you are stimulating muscle growth
multiple times as a result, hence it could lead to larger gains.

Secondly, dividing your weekly training volume by 2 or more sessions per week makes it
easier to give each exercise your maximal effort and intensity. For instance, if you had a
chest workout one day per week where you would do 12 sets in that session, the total load
you can lift would be less than if you were to do 6 sets on Monday and another 6 on
Tuesday.

12 sets of 10 for pressing exercises in a single session may look something like: 10, 10, 10,
10, 8, 7, 6, 6, 6, 5, 4, 4 = 86 reps total with a given weight.

On the other hand, if you were to divide this volume by 2 sessions it may look like: 10, 10,
10, 10, 8, 7 = 55 reps on Monday

10, 10, 10, 10, 8, 7 = 55 reps on Thursday

55 + 55 = 110 total reps that will trigger adaptations.

As you can see, lowering the volume you do for a muscle group per session but increasing
the frequency that you train that muscle group will allow you to get more reps in with the
same weight and thereby increase the magnitude of stress you are placing on your muscles.
This leads to a higher total training volume (in terms of sets x reps x load) as you won’t need
to reduce the weight on an exercise in order to stay within a target rep range in a workout.

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 Lastly, lifting more frequently means you get more practice performing specific movements
which aids in increasing neural efficiency at a faster rate and can prevent injury. Thus, less
injuries means more time can be spent in the gym training and as a result more gains can be
made in the long term.

Progression

Making exercises and workouts more difficult overtime is required to see muscle growth
and strength development in the long term. Once the body has adapted to a certain
weight or number of sets on a given exercise no further adaptations will take place
unless it is made more difficult and triggers further adaptations.

Depending on both our genetics and how many years we have been training, the rate
that we are able to increase the reps and weight on an exercise will be different from
person to person. Someone with no training experience will see faster gains in muscle and
strength than someone who has been training for 5 years. This is known as the “Law of
Diminishing Returns”

Genetic potential

As you can see above, in the beginning you will receive the fastest rate of gains you will
ever experience throughout your entire lifting career. However, as you get more advanced
this rate of gain gets less as you are approaching your full genetic potential.

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The progression scheme we use should match our rate of progress so we aren’t missing
out on potential progress and also to make sure we aren’t jumping the gun and progressing
faster than we are capable which can result in missing reps and trying to complete each set
with poor form to make up the rapid increase in weight.

Why we want to get stronger when the goal is to get

bigger
After the first 3-8 weeks of training you won’t build contractile muscle tissue efficiently (14)
and most of your gains in strength will come from your nervous system (15) which would
have made all the adaptations needed to perform that movement most efficiently and your
form would have been improving which can make the lift easier to complete with heavier
weights. Simply put, after the initial learning period you are now able to lift weights properly
in good form and your nervous system can activate the correct muscles required for the
exercises you’ve practiced.

After a 3-8 week period strength gains will slow significantly as there isn’t much room for
improvement in terms of form and neural efficiency. As a result, the only way you will get
stronger in the 6-12 rep range is if your muscles get bigger (Larger fibers => stronger =>
able to lift more weight/reps). Therefore, in order to measure whether we are getting bigger
(aside from photos, scale weight and tape measurements) we must be getting stronger
progressively over time in the 6-12 rep range. Strength gains in the 1-5 rep range are more
related to an increase in muscle fibre recruitment rather than an increase in size and
strength gains in the +20 rep range is attributed to more mitochondria and slow twitch
muscle fibre adaptations rather than growth. But keep this phrase in mind “we get stronger
as a result of getting bigger from our training, NOT because we get stronger, we get bigger”
this means to use strength gains as a way to measure if you are getting stronger from your
training rather than seeking strength gains on their own by training in lower rep ranges.

There are many different progression methods but I’ve listed 2 of the simplest, but very
effective methods of progression for beginner to intermediate stages.

Set and Rep Goal

This scheme is the most common progression model you will find in most well-designed
strength training programs such as Starting Strength and Stronglifts 5x5.

Simply put, for an exercise you will have a certain amount of sets with the goal of achieving
the same number of reps on all sets before progressing the weight by 2.5% (or the next
smallest increment).

Example

Bench press: 5x5 (this means you should pick a weight where you should be able to
complete 5 reps on all 5 sets before you increase the weight)

Week 1: 50kg x 5, 5, 5, 5, 4 (you didn’t get all 5 reps on your final set so you keep the weight
the same)

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 Week 2: 50kg x 5, 5, 5, 5, 5 (you got all 5 sets of 5 reps, you should now increase the
weight)

Week 3: 52.5kg x 5, 5, 5, 4, 3 (keep the weight and now aim to get more reps)

This goes on and on until you can reach 5 x 5 with 52.5kg, then you’d increase and start
over.

This progression method is used best with main compound movements such as the
bench press, squat deadlift and rows as with isolation type movements such as calf raises
and lateral raises it is far more difficult to maintain your reps across all sets with these type
of exercises. When choosing a weight for this method, use a weight that is light enough so
you are capable of getting at least your target rep – 2 in your last set (e.g. if your goal is
5 sets of 8 reps, you’d use a weight where you are capable of getting 6 or more reps in your
last/fifth set). Also, you would only increase the weights if your last set had 1-2 RIR. If
not, then you would maintain the weight and reps until the last set has 1-2 RIR.

Rep Range with Double Progression

Again, this is another extremely common but effective progression model.

With this model each exercise has a specified number of sets with a range of reps as a goal
rather than a single rep target. When using this model, your aim is to reach the top end of
the specified rep range, while also aiming to keep the reps in the remaining sets from
falling below the bottom end of the rep range.

Example

Lateral raises (rep range of 8-12 reps x 3 sets)

Week 1: 10kg x 11, 10, 9 (you’ve failed to hit 12 reps in your first set so the weight remains
the same)

Week 2: 10kg x 12, 10, 7 (you reached the top end of the rep range, however your reps on
the last set were outside of the rep range so you must keep this weight)

Week 3: 10kg x 12, 10, 8 (you hit the top end in your first set and stayed within the 8-12 rep
range in your other 2 sets. This means you can progress to the next available weight)

Week 4: 12.5kg x 9, 9, 6 (from here on your aim is to keep increasing those reps until you hit
the top end again and keep the last set above the bottom end)

This method is great for isolation exercises as you can aim for a range which accounts for
the drop-in reps that occurs across sets when doing isolation type movements. When
choosing a weight for this progression aim for the last set to not be any less than 2 reps shy
of the lower end of the target rep range (e.g. If your goal is 8-12 reps then you wouldn’t use
a weight that you are unable to get 6 reps in your last set).

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 You could use the set and rep goal for isolation exercises or the double progression rep
range model for compounds if you prefer.

How Fast Should I Be Progressing?

Answering this question is extremely difficult as it is very different from person to person, but
when you first start a weight training program gains in strength are substantial in the first 6-9
months compared to later years. With the sample routine laid out in this book I’d estimate
that each session you train a specific exercise you should be able to gain 1-2 reps in your
sets or be able to increase the load without a decrease in reps across sets. This might last
for your first month or two of training. After those first couple of months strength gains may
slow or continue to increase at the same rate.

Exercise Selection

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 The previous section lays down the 3 key components to designing an effective training
program, but here is where we begin to choose which exercises you should apply those
components to. You can’t have a workout routine with no exercises to accumulate enough
training volume to grow and get stronger, true? In this section we are going to be identifying
which exercises will give you the biggest payoff in terms of progress overtime and what
order you should perform them in.

Compound vs Isolation Exercises

Compound exercises are movements that involve multiple joints and muscle groups
moving or contracting together at the same time to complete the movement. These
movements are a lot easier to get stronger with overtime when compared with isolation
exercises which involve moving a single joint/muscle group to complete a movement.
Progress is much faster on compound movements because of the fact that they activate
a large percentage of the muscles in your body to aid in moving a heavy load and
therefore stimulating more muscles to grow and aid in moving the load next time rather
than isolation movements which will only stimulate one muscle group to grow to
increase the load it can move. Furthermore, because compound exercises target multiple
muscle groups at once they make our workouts far more efficient than if we were to train
each muscle group by itself.

For instance, a barbell bench press requires the chest (primary muscle targeted), Shoulders
and triceps to contract in order to press the weight off your chest. In a single exercise you
are training three muscle groups at once. If you were to train each muscle individually to get
the exact same stimulus that you would’ve gotten from benching, you’d have to perform 3
exercises for an equal amount of sets that you had benched.

On the other hand, isolation exercises should not be neglected either. They are
extremely useful when you have a specific muscle group you want to target which may
be lagging or isn’t stimulated all that much by compound movements such as the calves
and lateral head of the shoulder. Furthermore, isolation exercises are necessary for
adding more volume to a muscle group without overtraining others. For example, if you
find that your chest is lagging but your triceps and shoulders are growing or getting stronger
at the current training volume, they are receiving then you wouldn’t want to screw their
progress by increasing their volume even more by adding another set or two of bench press.
Instead you would add 3 sets of chest fly’s to prevent the other muscles from being over
stimulated.

For your workout routines it is important that majority of your program is structured
around compound movements and have some isolation exercises thrown in to simply
achieve higher volumes. Majority of your progress will come from getting stronger on your
compound exercises which is why they should be your main focus throughout your lifting
career.

The Best Exercises

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 Keep in mind that there really is no such thing as “the best exercise” for your chest or
back or legs. You can get bigger from any exercise as long as there is enough volume in
your overall training regimen and you are adding weight to the exercise overtime.

Chest
Any movement that involves moving your upper arm across the front of your body will
activate your chest.

Compound exercises

Any horizontal pressing exercises (pushing your hands and arms in front of your body) will
involve your chest, shoulders and triceps.

 Flat Barbell Bench Press

 Flat Dumbbell Bench Press
 Barbell Incline Bench Press
 Dumbbell Incline bench press
 Reverse Grip Barbell Incline Bench Press
 Weighted Chest Dips (forward lean)
 Hammer strength Machine Incline Press

Isolation Exercises

 Low-to-High Cable Chest Fly

 Dumbbell Fly (Flat Bench)
 Dumbbell Incline Bench Fly

Back
Any movement that involves moving your upper arm from above your head or in front
of your body to your sides will activate the muscles in your back.
Compound Exercises
Any movement that involves horizontal pulling (opposite movement of bench press)
or vertical pulling (a Pull up motion) will involve most if not all the muscles in your
back as well as your biceps. Try to have at least one horizontal and one vertical
pulling exercise in your routine for maximal back development.

 Barbell Row
 Weighted Pull Up
 Seal Dumbbell Row
 Weighted Chin Ups
 T-bar Row
 Lat-pulldown (Medium grip width)
 Close/Medium/Wide Grip Seated Cable Row
 Assisted Pull Up Machine (If unable to do bodyweight pull ups)

Isolation Exercises

The back is an extremely difficult muscle to isolate without any involvement from the biceps,
although there are two exercises which can target the Lats.

 Dumbbell/Barbell pull overs

 Straight arm Lat-Pulldown

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 Shoulders
The shoulder is split into three heads: the anterior head raises your arms forward in front of
the body and above your head. The lateral head raises your arm to the side like a lateral
raise. The posterior head is responsible for moving your arms behind your body like in a rear
delt fly.

Compound Exercises

Most of the compound exercises for shoulders are restricted to overhead pressing
movements which primarily target the anterior and lateral heads as well as the triceps,
however Face Pulls are an excellent compound movement for strengthening your posterior
head and the muscles of your rotator cuff.

 Barbell Standing Overhead Press (Military Press)

 Barbell Seated Overhead Press (Military Press)
 Dumbbell Standing Overhead Press (Military Press)
 Dumbbell Seated Overhead Press (Military Press)
 Dumbbell Cuban Press
 Dumbbell Arnold Press
 Cable Rope Face-Pull

Isolation Exercises

Isolating the lateral head is very important in terms of developing aesthetic looking
shoulders. Of course, if your pure goal is getting stronger then you can disregard training this
muscle. However, it is important whether you are training for hypertrophy or strength
(especially strength) to have strong posterior delts as they are crucial for shoulder health.

 Dumbbell Side Lateral Raise

 Cable Side Lateral Raise
 Dumbbell Seated Side Lateral Raise
 Dumbbell Rear Delt Fly
 Reverse Peck-deck/Machine Reverse Fly
 Barbell Rear Delt Row

Biceps
The Bicep is split into two parts: the short head and the long head. There is also a muscle
underneath the Bicep called the Brachialis, which is often neglected when training arms, as it
is mostly invisible when under developed. The long and short heads of the biceps are
activated when doing any curling movement. When you simply turn your palms in a pronated
position (Palms facing down), you are putting more work into your Brachialis.

Compound Exercises

From my own research it is very difficult to find a compound exercise that specifically hits the
biceps harder than other involved muscles. The exercises listed below don’t use the biceps
as the prime mover however they do emphasise the biceps greater than other compound
back exercises.

 Chin-ups

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  Reverse Grip (Supinated) Lat-pulldown
 Reverse Grip (Supinated) Bent Over Barbell Row

Isolation Exercises

When it comes to isolating the biceps there is a wide variety of exercises to choose from.

 Barbell/E-Z Bar Curl

 Dumbbell Curls (Alternating or Simultaneously)
 Cable Curls
 Reverse Grip Barbell/E-Z Bar/Dumbbell/Cable Curl
 Dumbbell Hammer Curl
 Basian Curl

Triceps
The triceps are made up of three heads. The Long head is activated more than the others
when you extend your arm with you elbow above your body. The Lateral head is activated
when you extend your arms with your elbows at your sides. Finally, the Short head is hit hard
in your compound movements such as the Bench press, overhead press and dips. In your
workout program or routine, you will want to make sure to hit all three heads of your triceps
in order to ensure maximal growth and arm size.

Compound Exercises

Pressing exercises will predominately target the Short head of the triceps along with the
Chest and Shoulders.

 Dips (Chest or Triceps variation)

 Close-Grip Bench Press
 Diamond Push-ups

Isolation Exercises

Extending the arm above the head will target the Long Head, while extending the arm
downwards at the side of your body will target the Lateral Head.

 Overhead Dumbbell Tricep Extension

 Overhead Standing/Seated Cable Rope Tricep Extensions
 Barbell/E-Z Bar Skull Crushers
 Dumbbell Tricep Kickback
 Rope Cable Push Down

Quadriceps
The quads extend the knee such as when kicking a ball in front of you.
Compound Exercises
When training the quadriceps, many other muscles are involved in compound quad
movements. For example, the squat trains almost every muscle in the body (besides
the chest) by either being an agonist muscle or contracting isometrically to hold the
weight in place on your upper back. Majority of the compound exercises for the

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 quads will also stimulate the spinal erectors, glutes, hamstrings and the calf muscles
to a slight degree.
 Barbell Back Squat
 Barbell Front Squat
 Barbell Lunge (reverse/forward/walking)
 Dumbbell Lunge (reverse/forward/walking)
 Leg press
 Single Legged Leg Press
 Sled Hack Squat Machine
Isolation Exercises

Quite simply, when isolating the quads you are limited to leg extension variations.

 Leg Extension Machine

 Single Legged Leg Extensions

Hamstrings
The hamstrings have two major functions: Flexing the knee joint (brining your heel to
your ass) and hip extension (hip hinge/humping). In order to develop your hamstrings
optimally it is important that you train both functions otherwise you won’t develop all
the muscles of the hamstrings properly.
Compound Exercises
Compound exercises for the hamstrings are often restricted to deadlift variations
which train all muscles involved in hip extension which include the lower back,
hamstrings, glutes quads (slightly) and calves.
 Conventional Deadlift
 Sumo Deadlift
 Romanian Deadlift (RDL)
 Stiff Legged Deadlift
 Good Mornings
 Barbell Hip Thrusts (hits Glutes primarily)
 Glute-Ham Raise
Isolation Exercises
These are mostly restricted to machine leg curl variations although you can include
bodyweight eccentric leg curls as something different to try.
 Lying Leg Curl
 Seated Leg Curl
 Kneeling Alternate Leg Curl
 Eccentric Bodyweight Leg Curls

Calves
Any movement that has you lift on your toes while your knee is straight/extended will
primarily target your Gastrocnemius, whereas any movement that has you raising on your
toes while your knees are bent/flexed will primarily develop the Soleus.

Compound Exercises

There really isn’t any exercise that primarily targets the calves but trains other muscle
groups. However, you can get creative and mix leg exercises with your calf training. But I
don’t believe this is optimal as it means you will have slightly less energy to train your larger

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 muscle groups due to expending that extra effort into performing an additional calf raise at
the end of a rep.

 Barbell Squat with Calf Raise at the top of each rep

 Leg press with Calf Raise at the top of each rep
 Deadlift with Calf Raise at the top of each rep

Isolation Exercises

Most of your calf development will be attributed to direct calf training. Remember to involve
both straight and bent leg calf raises in order to optimally develop the Soleus as it is far
larger than the gastrocnemius and will contribute the largest amount of size to your lower
leg.

 Standing Calf Raise Machine

 Donkey Calf Raise Machine
 Dumbbell Single Legged Calf raise (requires great balance)
 Dumbbell/Barbell Calf Raises
 Smith Machine Calf Raises
 Calf Raise on Leg Press
 Seated Calf Raise Machine

Core/Abs
The abdominals are developed through weighted spinal flexion movements and not by doing
1000 crunches. Just like any muscle group the abs need enough resistance placed upon
them to cause growth which is why you should either use ab exercise variations that are
difficult for you to get more than 12 reps with or you can add weight to easier exercises that
you find you can do a high number of reps with. The other core muscles are often neglected
or forgotten about as everyone’s focus is usually to just get larger abs. However, developed
obliques and serratus can make a huge difference in terms of how your midsection visually
appears. It can turn your core from looking like the image on the left to the one on the right.

Compound Exercises

The core muscles rarely need any isolation work (unless you feel as if they are a weak point
for you) because through many of the compound movement you use to train your upper and

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 lower body require the core muscles to stabilise the spine and keep your body from
collapsing.

 Barbell Squat
 Deadlift Variations
 Barbell Lunge
 Barbell Front Squat (this is crazy for your core)
 Standing Overhead press variations
 Pull-ups
 Barbell rows

Isolation Exercises

The abs on the other hand are very responsive to direct training as they aren’t overly
stimulated during compound movements. This list is going to involve ab specific exercises
and then core focused ones.

 Hanging Leg Raise progressions

 Dragon Flag Progressions
 Weighted Cable Crunch
 Lying Leg Raise Variations
 Plank Variations
 L-sit Variations
 Weighted Oblique Crunches/Side Bends
 Ab Wheel Rollout
 Hanging Windshield Wipers

Choosing Exercises for Hypertrophy

When training to maximise muscle growth you have a wide variety of exercises at your
disposal. Including the five major compound lifts (Bench press, Overhead press, Deadlift,
Squat and Pull-up) in a hypertrophy-based routine may be optimal for whole body
muscle growth as these movements train nearly all planes of movement (besides horizontal
pulling) which means these exercises will develop nearly every muscle group. A routine that
only uses these movements won’t be optimal as certain muscle groups are neglected
such as the calves and lateral deltoid. Furthermore, training a muscle from various
angles is required to fully develop the muscle group. For example, if you restrict your
chest training to strictly Flat Barbell Benching you will only develop your middle and lower
chest fibers giving your chest a boob like appearance. This could be avoided by including
chest exercises that have you contracting your chest on an Incline such as Incline Bench
Press variations.

How to Organise Exercises into Your Routine

With that being said, the order you perform your exercises is important as well. This will
depend on your level of development and how long you’ve been training for. A beginner
should always start their workouts with the major compound lifts such as Bench,
Squat, Deadlift, Pull-up or Overhead Press variations and then save the isolation
exercises for smaller muscle groups at the end of their workout. More advanced
athletes (+5 years of training) can begin their sessions by training their lagging muscle

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groups with isolation work and still be strong enough to lift heavy weights with good form on
their main compound lifts afterwards.

In general, always start with larger muscle groups and more physically demanding
exercises (such as a Squat) before performing an easier exercise that doesn’t require a lot
of coordination and create a lot of fatigue (such as a leg extension). There is exceptions to
this of course when training different muscle groups on the same day. In the Full-Body
routine example I provide later, you are Benching and performing some Pull-up variation
before you Squat even though a Squat is much more physically demanding. It’s set out like
that because Bench pressing and performing Pull-ups will minimally impact your ability to
Squat heavy weights, whereas if you were to do 5 sets of heavy squats and then Bench you
would have a very noticeable drop in strength and if you aren’t particularly good at pull-ups
already then you’d probably struggle to even do a single rep with your bodyweight because
you’d be so fatigued.

A lower body workout might be done in this order:

Squat (most difficult) -> Romanian Deadlift (Compound movement for hamstrings) -> Leg
extensions (isolation) -> Leg curls (isolation) -> Calf Raises (Isolation)

A “Full-Body” Workout may be in this order:

Flat Bench Press -> Chin-ups -> Overhead Press -> Squats

(Note: The chest and back are larger than the shoulders and therefore should be trained
before direct shoulder work)

An example of an Upper body Routine I use to do looked like this:

Incline Barbell Bench -> Bent over Barbell Row -> Flat Dumbbell Bench -> Weighted Pull-
ups -> Overhead Press -> Barbell Curl -> Rope Tricep extensions -> Rope Face Pulls

Also you can see from the above workouts that with Upper/Lower training routines two
exercises that train the same muscle groups are never placed immediately after the
other (E.g. it isn’t Incline Bench Press -> Flat dumbbell bench) which is purposely done to
allow that muscle group to rest while another muscle group is being trained which in
return allows you to lift the most amount of weight on the next exercise targeting that
recovered muscle group.

On routines such as “Push, Pull, Legs” you will obviously be unable to train an entirely
different muscle group on each exercise so the above rule is not applied.

An example of a “Pull” workout would look like this:

Bent-Over Barbell Row -> Weighted Pull-up -> Dumbbell Seal Row -> Barbell Bicep Curl ->
Cable Rope Curl -> Dumbbell rear Delt fly

Again, we start with the largest compound movements and then finish up with the smaller
muscle groups that may impact our performance if they were performed in the beginning.

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 CAUTION
If you attempt an exercise on the given lists above and experience any pain in joints, STOP
IMMEDIATELY and replace that exercise with another variation that targets the same
muscle groups. In nearly all cases it is not worth pushing through the pain just because it is
an effective exercise. Not all people can perform every exercise listed as we all have
different bone structures, joint strength and flexibility which for some may limit their ability to
execute movements such as the Squat or Deadlift. If you are completely unable to perform
an exercise with near perfect form and free of pain then you should reconsider including that
exercise in your program or perform another variation that you are capable of completing, for
example when I perform wide grip upright rows I get a shooting pain in both my shoulders,
however if I narrow my grip I am pain free.

Rest Periods
How long you rest between sets is important as it will impact the total amount of volume you
can perform with the planned weight you’re using. Too little rest between sets can result in
too much fatigue carrying over to your next set which would cause you to be unable to
perform your goal number of reps.

Example

You plan on performing 3 sets of 10 reps on a given exercise. If you rest appropriately, you
may get all 10 reps on all your sets. However, if you didn’t rest long enough for muscular
fatigue to be minimised then you may get 10, 8 then 5 reps even though you’re using the
same load.

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 How long you rest between sets is dependent on two factors, whether it is: Compound or
isolation exercise and how heavy the load you’re using is.

Compound Movements
These exercises generate a far greater amount of fatigue than isolation exercises which
is why they require longer rest periods. Generally, for Barbell compound movements it
is ideal to rest between 2-3 minutes. I know that sounds like a lot of sitting around but this
is the best way to be completely recovered so you can perform your best on each set. The
most important variable to consider is whether you feel that you are able to give your best
performance. If not, then feel free to rest a little bit longer. If you are lifting heavy loads (5
or less reps) then you will be closer to the 3-minute mark or even more. If you’re lifting
moderate loads (6 or more reps) then you can rest closer to 2-minutes as you will be
less drained from set to set. I tend to rest for 2-minutes and a half for most of my compound
movements as I find I can completely recover in this amount of time.

However, for Dumbbell movements you can shorten this rest period to 90-120 seconds
to save time as they aren’t as taxing on the body. But keep in mind that you should feel
completely recovered before you perform the next set (heart rate and breathing rate should
be significantly lower than when you ended your set).

Isolation Movements
These generate very little whole body fatigue which is why rest periods can be relatively
short such as 60-90 seconds. Again this range can be stretched if you don’t feel completely
recovered in 90 seconds but keep it at a minimum of 60 seconds.

Antagonistic Paired Sets/Smart Alternate Sets (Time

Saver)
If you’re pressed on time or want your workouts to be as short as possible then it is smart
to use Antagonistic Paired Sets (APS) or use “Smart Alternate Sets” (SAS). As
mentioned in the anatomy section of this book, each muscle group has an antagonistic
muscle group which relaxes in order to allow the agonist muscles to perform the movement
such as the Quads and Hamstrings. Well an antagonistic paired set is when you have
two exercises which target opposing muscle groups and you perform them in a back
to back fashion rather than performing 3 sets of one exercise and then moving on to 3 sets
of another exercise.

Example
You’d perform a set of Bench Press

Rest 90 seconds

Then a set of Barbell Row

Rest 90 seconds

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 Then Bench press

Rest 90 seconds

Then Barbell Row

e.t.c

With the example above, we are training our pushing musculature with the bench press, then
resting, then we train our pushing musculature and then repeat. Now a couple cool things
happen when we train this way:

1. We can have shorter rest periods between sets (90 seconds vs 3 minutes) as we
won’t be training the same muscle group during our next set, which saves a lot of
time.
2. As we perform barbell rows our chest, triceps and front delts are getting sort of an
active recovery (16) which helps reduce fatigue even further than if we were to just
sit there and rest completely. I’ve actually noticed that if I were to perform 5 straight
sets of pull-ups with my bodyweight I would get something like 8, 8, 7, 6, 5. However,
when I alternate between a Barbell Overhead Press and Pull-ups I can get 8 on all 5
sets!

Trust me it’s a great time saver and a great way to improve results. The reason why you
want to avoid going straight from one exercise to another without rest is because even
though you’re opposing muscles may be rested, you will still be carrying over some
fatigue from the exercise you just did. It’s important that you take time to let your
breathing and heart rate go down so it doesn’t impact your performance. I recommend 90
seconds rest between compound movements and 30-60 seconds rest between isolation
movements.

Now a SAS is slightly different as it involves alternating between exercises that aren’t
connected to each other at all and won’t impact each other’s ability to perform such as
training calves and shoulders. The same rules still apply, in such that you still have to rest
30-90 seconds in between sets and alternate between exercises.

Here is a list of some of the APS or SAS you may want to try out:

Upper Body
 Bench press Variation with a Row Variation (APS)
 Overhead press variation with a Pull up or Lat Pull-Down variation (APS)
 Bicep Curl variation with a Tricep extension variation (APS)
 Lat Pull-down with Dumbbell Lateral Raises (SAS)
 Chest Fly Variation with a Rear delt fly variation (APS)

Lower Body
 Leg extension paired with a Leg Curl (APS)

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 Mixed
(Any exercise for these muscle groups can be used)
 Calves paired with Chest, Back, Abs or Shoulders
 Leg extensions or leg curls paired with Chest, Back or Shoulders

Keep in mind that there are a few exercises that you should never pair with another
exercise as it could result in injury and poor performance. Mainly these are Squat,
Deadlift and Lunge Variations as these exercises all overlap in the muscles that are being
used and cause an excessive amount of neural fatigue which will certainly impair your
performance on any exercise that follows e.g. performing a SAS with a squat and bench
press will prevent you from lifting the most weight possible on your bench press.

How to Warm-Up

This is essential to preventing injuries from occurring (obviously) but also a proper warm-
up can help increase the amount of weight you can lift and therefore improve your
gains.

A proper warm-up should accomplish 3 main goals

1. Increase blood flow and the temperature of the muscles being trained
2. Prepare/wake up your Central Nervous System (CNS)
3. Prepare yourself mentally for the weights you’re going to be lifting

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 (17)

Increase Blood Flow/Temperature

This is essential for injury prevention purposes as well as for improving performance.
Increased blood flow and temperature to the joints being used increases the amount of
flexibility a joint can have by acting as a lubricant and preventing “wear and tear”. For the
muscles, more blood flow means more nutrients and oxygen are traveling to the muscles
and also a greater amount of waste products such as lactic acid and carbon dioxide are
being removed from the muscles delaying fatigue and thereby improving your performance
in the gym.

Prepare your CNS

Your CNS is what fires your muscles to contract forcefully which is of course necessary
when lifting weights. However, when you go from performing no strenuous resistance
exercise to lifting 100kg on your back and performing a squat you will definitely be in for a
shock. In order to prepare your CNS so it will fire the muscles being used most effectively it
is best to progressively add weight to the bar (or lift heavier Dumbbells e.t.c) in increments of
about 10-15% until you reach the weight you will be using for your actual sets. However, a
cool way of “supercharging” your CNS is on your last warm-up set you perform 105-110% of
the weight you plan to lift. What this will do is force your CNS to activate more muscle fibres
than you will actually need in the beginning of the 1st working set you are about to perform,
making it feel easier and potentially increasing the number of reps you can get with that
weight.

Prepare you Mentally

Going straight from no resistance to squatting weights you can only get 5-12 reps with can
be tough mentally as you haven’t practiced the exercise since last time you trained which
might be anywhere from 2-7days ago. That’s why progressively heavier sets are ideal as
they let you adjust and psychologically prepare for what’s coming.

The Warm-up Method

This is split into two phases, although if you don’t feel like doing the general phase then you
can skip it.

General Warm-up Phase

This is simply any form of aerobic exercise (jogging, rowing, jumping rope e.t.c) performed
for 5-minutes and used to increase your heart rate to promote blood flow around the body
and increase your body temperature.

Sport Specific Warm-up Phase

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 This is where we actually warm-up for the lift we are about to perform. The percentages
given are just rough estimates and don’t need to be exact but try to keep close to them.

Perform each rep with a controlled lowering of the weight and an explosive contraction on
the way up. E.g. lower bar controlled on bench then press up as fast as possible with good
technique. With pull up variations, pull up to the bar explosively then lower controlled.

 Perform 10 reps with an empty bar or very light weight

 Use 60% of the weight you plan on using and perform 5 reps
 Use 85% of the weight you plan on using and perform 3 reps (rest)
 Use 100% of the weight you plan on using and perform 1 rep (rest)
 (optional) Use 105-110% of the weight you plan to use and perform 1 rep

You’re done warming up!!!

Between the first 2 sets the time it takes for you to add more weight can act as a rest period,
however between the 85%,100% and 110% sets rest a minute as you don’t want to build up
any fatigue during your warm-up sets. After your last warm-up set rest 90 seconds or so to
ensure you are ready to give your best effort. During this time it may help to visualise
yourself performing the exercise from a first person perspective (18)

You DON’T have to warm-up like this for every exercise that trains the same muscle group,
for example if you warm up for Bench press, then you won’t need to warm up any other
exercises that use your chest shoulders or triceps. However, if you are training your back on
the same day then you’ll want to warm-up like this for your first back exercise and then
you’re good to go.

For exercises where you feel uncomfortable diving straight into without a warm-up, you can
perform a quick warm up by performing only the 1st and 3rd points above.

Cardio

We all know that regular cardiovascular exercise is good for our health, so I’ll save you the
time in explaining why it’s good for you and just tell you how cardio fits into building muscle
and losing fat as they are our primary goals with this program.

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 Cardio and Muscle Growth
What you may have heard is “if you want to build muscle, then you shouldn’t do any cardio
as that will interfere with the rate of growth you will see”. This has some truth but it is only
true when you REALY overdo cardiovascular exercise (such as running non-stop for an hour
7 days a week). There are two ways that cardio can interfere with muscle growth:

Directed Adaptation
When we perform any physical activity or task our body adapts in a way to make ourselves
more proficient at performing that task. For example, if you were to run for 30 minutes a day
you’d feel that 30 minutes get easier and easier every time you do it.

When we lift weights (in a low to moderate rep range) we are in a sense trying to develop
anaerobic adaptations such as being more explosive, stronger and better able to handle
higher intensity loads or efforts. In order to make these adaptations, the body requires
resources such as nutrients and appropriate rest in between sessions to recover.
Cardiovascular exercise such as jogging or biking for long periods of time (greater than 20
minutes non-stop) causes different adaptations in the body such as developing our lungs
and blood vessels to better move oxygen around the body to the muscles which also
requires nutrients and rest. So, when we do way too much aerobic exercise we are signalling
to our body that there is a much greater demand for improving our cardiovascular health
than there is to grow bigger and stronger muscles which can cause muscle growth to occur
at a slower than optimal pace (but not entirely halted). Furthermore, this heavy resistance
training results in our muscle fibres becoming “fast twitch” like (fibres that are explosive and
have the greatest potential for growth), whereas endurance like training like running, trains
our muscles to act more “slow twitch” like so that they have more mitochondria organelles
(cells that create energy), are more resistant to fatigue but are weaker and have less
potential to grow. To minimise any possible interference effect, it is recommended to perform
cardio on separate days from your resistance training days or 6 hours before/after weight
training. If you must do your cardio close to your workout do it afterwards so you aren’t
fatigued when you lift. (19)

Minimising Your Calorie Surplus

I haven’t touched on nutrition yet, so you might want to come back to this chapter later on,
but in order to build muscle at the fastest rate possible you must be eating more
calories than you burn each day. Any type of movement you do each day burns calories
and when you exercise or perform cardio you are burning more calories than you
usually would during that period of time. (e.g. If I usually burn 2000 calories in a day
without doing any cardio, I might burn 2300 calories on that day if I decided to do some
cardio).

How cardio interferes with muscle growth is by lowering the number of calories you have
available for muscle growth which will cause you to gain weight at a slower rate (e.g. you
burn 2000 calories per day on average but are bulking so you eat an additional 500 calories
to put on weight and muscle. This means you’re eating 2500 calories per day with 500
calories that will contribute to weight gain. Now let’s say you go for a run and burn 500
calories. You would have just removed those extra 500 calories that were going to be used

69
for growth and used them to simply help you during your run and now you won’t grow nearly
as much, if not at all).

The solution to this problem is simple “just eat more food” and you could do that if you’d
like, but for some people who struggle to gain weight they may have to eat 5000 calories a
day which is a tonne of food to eat already and anything more will make them throw up. But
if that’s not you then you can simply just eat more food on days you perform extra
activity.

On the other hand, performing some cardiovascular exercise is beneficial during a bulk
as it increases insulin sensitivity which benefits us as physique athletes by increasing
the amount of carbohydrates and protein which is brought into our muscle cells and
minimises the amount of energy that goes to fat storage. Therefore, cardio can aid in
preventing some fat gain while bulking and may help us build more muscle in the long run.

Furthermore, performing cardiovascular exercise on a regular basis increases our

conditioning. This is beneficial as it allows us to recover faster between sets while also
making higher rep sets feel less taxing (e.g. performing 10 reps of barbell squats will have
you huffing and puffing if you aren’t decently conditioned)

Cardio and Fat Loss

As mentioned above, cardio burns calories and increases the number of calories you burn
that day. This is beneficial for fat loss as it allows you to eat more food and still lose
weight at the same rate you would have lost if you were to eat less food and not do any
cardio (e.g. you may burn 2500 calories on average, so you eat 2000 to lose weight. This
would cause you to lose about 0.45kg a week. Or you could do cardio 3 times a week and
burn 300 calories per session and eat 2300 calories on those cardio days or eat 2130
calories per day (300 X 3 = 900 extra calories per week, 900/7 = 130 extra calories per day)
instead and you’d still lose the same amount of weight per week).

Cardio in of itself does not burn fat, it’s the calorie deficit it creates that makes fat
loss occur.

Types of Cardio
There are 3 types of cardiovascular exercise that will be mentioned in this book, although
there are probably more.

Low Intensity Steady-State Cardio (LISS)

This is easy, slow paced exercise such as walking or cycling at a slow easy pace for a
long period of time (more than 30 minutes). This type of cardio places no stress on your
joints or muscles and causes no adaptations which is why you can perform as much as
you’d like of it. Although, this type of exercise doesn’t burn that many calories in the
same time frame as MISS or HIIT.

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 Moderate Intensity Steady-State Cardio (MISS)
Pretty much this is performing any exercise at a steady-pace for 10-60 minutes at a time
and having your heart rate beating between 70-85% of its maximum. The best example of
this is going for a run outside for 20 minutes at a medium pace. This burns more calories
than LISS but less than HIIT, although I find this type of exercise to be the most enjoyable for
me which is why I mostly jump rope for 10-30 minutes at a constant pace but add in bursts of
faster skipping here and there.

High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)

This is extremely taxing on the body but burns the largest number of calories per unit of time.
It involves going all-out 90-100% effort on an exercise for a given period and then performing
the same exercise at a low intensity/effort for the same time or more as a recovery period
and then repeating multiple times.

Example


Sprint for 20 seconds

Walk for 1-minute
 Sprint for 20 seconds
 Walk for 1-minute
 Repeat for 10-30 minutes

I highly advise that you pick the exercises you HIIT with carefully as it will increase your risk
of injury compared to MISS or LISS.

Maximum Amount of Cardio

Again, it takes a lot of cardiovascular exercise to slow down muscle growth. I am going to
recommend a cap of:

 5-hours of cardio per week total

 No more than an hour of HIIT per week
 No more than 5 hours of MISS per week
 Unlimited LISS per week

These are just my recommendations as I believe more than this might interfere with your
rate of growth.

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 Beginner Routine

To summarise the previous chapters, an optimal workout routine for building muscle should
include:

 Trains each muscle group 2 or more times per week

 Reps should be primarily in the 6-12 rep range
 For beginners, muscle groups should be trained with 6-12 sets per week
(depending on the muscle group and rate of progress)
 Rest between 2-3 minutes for compound movements and 1-2 minutes for isolation
movements (can be more but no less)
 Should be comprised of mainly compound movements

Following them guidelines here is a pretty simple routine that I would advise you follow for
your first 6 months of training or until progress stalls (more on Plateaus in the next chapter).

This is going to be a full-body routine performed 3 days per week. You’ll perform each
workout in an alternate fashion with 1 or 2 rest days in between workouts, for example:

Monday = workout A, Tuesday = Rest, Wednesday = workout B, Thursday = Rest, Friday =

Workout A and weekends are rest days. The next week you will do workout B twice (Monday
and Friday) and workout A once (Wednesday).

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 Although keep in mind you can workout on a different schedule than the one mentioned
above but keep the same rotation of workouts in and the timing of rest days.

Beginner Workout
Workout A
Bench Press: 3 sets of 8 reps (2-3min rest)

Bent Over Barbell Row: 3 sets of 8 reps (2-3min rest)

Barbell Upright Row: 3 sets of 10-12 reps (1-2min rest)

Barbell Squat: 4 sets of 8 reps (2-3min rest)

Standing Calf Raise Machine: 3 sets of 10-12 reps (1-2 min rest)

Cable Rope Face Pull: 3 sets of 10-12 reps (1 min rest)

Workout B
Barbell Incline Bench Press: 3 sets of 10 reps (2-3min rest)

Weighted Pull-ups: 3 sets of 6-8 reps (2-3min rest)

Barbell Overhead Press: 3 sets of 8 reps (2-3min rest)

Barbell Deadlift: 3 sets of 6 reps (2-3min rest)

Donkey Calf Raise Machine: 3 sets 8-10 reps (1-1.5min rest)

Cable Rope Face Pull: 3 sets of 10-12 reps (1 min rest)

How to Progress on this routine

Once you can perform the upper end of the rep range (e.g. for 8-10, the upper end is 10
reps) provided for 1 set and have 1 rep left on that last set within the range, then you
should add 1.25kg to each side of the bar (2.5kg total) or move up to the next weight
increment available the next time you perform that exercise. To find the right weight for
an exercise, you must be able to get the upper rep target for that exercise on the first set
and still have 2-3 reps left in the tank. If you try to increase the weight and find you can’t
reach the upper rep target on your first set but your first set still falls somewhere in the range
provided, then keep that new weight and keep adding reps each workout until you reach the
upper rep limit for all sets with 1 RIR on your last set.

If the exercise has a single rep target (3 sets of 8), then you should be able to get all the
reps on each set with at least 1 RIR on the last set before progressing. If your first set
doesn’t fall within the rep range, then you should go back to the weight you previously
had and be sure you can complete all sets comfortably with 1 or 2 reps left in that last set
before you increase the weight. If you can’t get the rep target on your first set then lighten
the load the next workout (to your previous load) and aim to have 2 RIR in your last set
before progressing.

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 These workouts may look very short or seem like not enough to stimulate growth but trust
me, if you put in maximal effort in all your reps and all your sets this routine will give you
rapid progress in both strength and muscle mass.

Also, if you are unable to perform any of the exercises above due to injury or any
pain/discomfort then feel free to swap it out for another variation or exercise that targets
the same muscle groups (E.g. swapping pull-ups for Lat-Pulldown).

In this routine there is no direct arm or ab work although you can feel free to add 2-3 sets
of curls, extensions or of an ab exercise at the end of each workout although I feel at
the beginning there isn’t really a need to train these directly as they’ll develop greatly
from the heavy compound lifts. If you are short on time then leave them out, there will be
direct arm work in the next routine.

Once you can no longer add weight to an exercise or increase your reps for 2-3 weeks
in a row, then it may be time for a deload or to move on to an intermediate routine with
more volume which we’ll discuss on the next page.

Plateaus and Late

Beginner Routine

Training for the first 6-9 months or so is going to be smooth sailing. You go in the gym,
get all your rep targets or increase the weight on some exercises and try to hit your new
targets, then leave the gym and come back stronger than you were last time. Also, you’ll see
your body changing rapidly in response to training correctly and eating enough to grow
muscle. Unfortunately, this will come to an end eventually and your lifts will stall and no
progress will be made unless something changes.

Generally, there are 3 tweaks to training and a few changes to your nutrition that may
help you overcome a plateau but for this part we’ll talk about the training aspect and
assume your nutrition is on point.

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 Exercise Rotation
This strategy is useful only when there is a certain lift which has stalled even though other
lifts for that same muscle group are increasing (e.g. your flat barbell bench press has
stalled but your incline barbell bench press is still increasing).

What seems to occur when we perform the same movement repeatedly is our body can
develop a tolerance to that exercise and get less gains from it in return. We also tend to
get very burnt out every time we do the exact same exercises repeatedly over the course
of 8 or more weeks which makes training less enjoyable and may cause us to not give
the lift our full effort that is needed to make progress.

By swapping the exercise being used with a similar variation such as performing the same
lift with dumbbells instead of barbells or a wider stance vs narrower stance e.t.c you
are giving your CNS a fresh stimulus to adapt to and increase muscle mass and strength in
response to.

Some substitutions I’d recommend are:

 Barbell Bench Press: Dumbbell Bench, Close Grip Bench, Reverse grip Bench,
Wide grip Bench
 Barbell Row: Dumbbell row, Seal Row, T-bar Row, Close/neutral/wide grip cable row
 Overhead Press: Cuban press, Seated OHP, Dumbbell OHP, Arnold Press
 Barbell Back Squat: Barbell Front Squat, Hack Squat, Leg Press, Barbell/Dumbbell
lunges
 Deadlift: Romanian Deadlift, Sumo Deadlift, Snatch Grip Deadlift, Deficit Deadlifts
 Pull-Ups: Wide/close grip Pull-ups, Chin-ups, Lat-pulldown variations

You may have noticed that I left out the isolation exercises (such as lateral raises and bicep
curls e.t.c.) because these exercises aren’t easy to progress on and require a great deal of
patience to get stronger on. So, progress on these movements is still a goal to keep in mind,
however it is a long-term goal and you should primarily focus on feeling the right muscles
working for these types of lifts rather than switching them whenever you can’t progress as
this would be nearly every 2 weeks.

After every 8-12 weeks I advise to change some exercises which you have become
bored with to increase enjoyment and adherence to your program. I’d do this preferably
after a deload week.

Deload
When we workout we increase our fitness (ability to perform better at that exercise)
however we also develop fatigue which in a sense hides our increased fitness

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 Time

The image
above depicts
this in an easy
to understand
model. As you
can see, up
until the first
dotted line
fatigue doesn’t increase during the beginning period of training while fitness and
performance increase simultaneously (e.g. you are consistently getting stronger workout
to workout or week to week). However, once this first line is reached fatigue begins to
increase every time you workout which builds up overtime and causes your performance
to decrease even though you are still technically getting bigger and stronger. The
second dotted line is where deloads come into place. A deload is a planned period of
training where you reduce your training volume or intensity (or both) for a week to
reduce the fatigue that has built up over the last few weeks of training and increase
your performance as a result. You pretty much reveal the fitness you’ve gained during
that period where you were overly fatigued.

It is best to have a planned deload for about every 8-12 weeks of training when you are in
the beginner to early intermediate stage as you won’t build up that much fatigue as a newbie
because you are unable to lift weights that will cause any excessive fatigue. A deload also
provides a psychological break from training and helps overcome any tiredness you
experience during your last couple hard weeks of training which further motivates you
afterwards to hit the weights harder than before.

For a deload week I’d recommend using 80-90% of the weights you normally would use,
reducing your rep target by 2 and reducing your sets by half or a third for each
exercise. (e.g. instead of 3 sets of 8 reps with 70kg, you’d perform 2 sets of 6 reps with
57.5kg-62.5kg. 4 sets on an exercise would be cut down to 2 sets) Remember that this
should be a light week and shouldn’t be hard to complete by any means. DON’T aim to
go anywhere near failure. By the end of the week you should be refreshed and ready to hit
some new heavy weights.

Adding More Volume

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 Once you have made sure your diet is in check (eating a caloric surplus and adequate
protein) and you have deloaded and made no progress for 4 workouts after the deload
then it may be time for increases in training volume to be made.

Once our muscles have completely adapted to the current volume in our routine (adapted
to the number of sets you perform for the muscle group that has stalled) they no longer get
bigger or stronger as there is no need for them to. The stress simply isn’t enough to cause
further adaptation. So, the answer becomes clear… we have to add more sets to that
muscle group to produce further adaptation.

If all your lifts that target your chest (e.g. Bench press, incline bench press, Hammer strength
machine press e.t.c) stall then it may mean you have to add more sets to your chest
exercises to trigger growth. The best way to do this is by adding 2 sets to that muscle
group per week (e.g. If you currently are doing 9 sets of chest per week, you’d increase it to
11 sets per week). It may not seem like much but in most cases that is all that is required
to see more growth and progress in your lifts.

Train with this higher volume for another 4-weeks and see if any progress has occurred.
If not, then add another set if you feel that you are not becoming overly fatigued.

However, keep in mind that your lack of progress could also be from doing too much
volume. The best way to judge this is if you feel wrecked in the muscle you’re plateaued,
have constant muscle soreness throughout the week and feel weaker from workout to
workout. If this is so, then you should reduce your total weekly sets by 2 and track
progress from there on for another 4-weeks.

You can continue to add sets on the beginner routine to continue to make progress however
after 6-9 months you may want to move to an upper lower routine to shorten your workouts
and begin to train other muscle groups such as arms and side delts.

Late Beginner Routine

This is going to be an Upper/Lower split routine, which means you train your Chest, Back,
Shoulders and Arms on your Upper day and your Quads, Hamstrings, Calves and Abs
(optional) on your Lower day. You can use this routine either in a 4-day split or a 3-day split.

There will be two different workouts for Upper body and two different workouts for Lower
body to include more variety in your training and make it a little less boring.

Keep in mind that the exercises provided aren’t set in stone and can be substituted with one
of the approved exercises I provided on pages 46-51.

Upper Workout A
 Barbell Flat Bench Press: 3 sets of 8 reps (2-3 min rest)
 Barbell Bent-over Row: 3 sets of 8 reps (2-3 min rest)
 Dumbbell Incline Bench Press: 3 sets of 8-10 reps (2 min rest)
 Lat Pull-down: 3 sets of 8-10 reps (2 min rest)
 Dumbbell Side Lateral Raise: 3 sets of 8-12 reps (1 min rest)
 Barbell Curls: 3 sets of 10-12 reps (1-2 min rest)
 Rope Tricep Pushdowns: 3 sets of 10-12 reps (1-2 min rest)

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 Lower Workout A
 Barbell Back Squat (High or Low Bar): 3 sets of 8 reps (2-3 min rest)
 Romanian Deadlift: 3 sets of 8 reps (2-3 min rest)
 Barbell Lunge: 3 sets of 8-10 reps (2-3 min rest)
 Smith Machine standing Calf Raise: 3 sets of 8-10 reps (1 min rest)
 Hanging Leg Raises (optional): 3 sets of as many reps possible (1 min rest)

Upper Workout B
 Barbell Incline Bench Press: 3 sets of 8 reps (2-3 min rest)
 Weighted Pull-Ups or Assisted Pull-Up machine: 3 sets of 6 reps (2-3 min rest)
 Dumbbell Flat Bench Press: 3 sets of 8-10 reps (1-2 min rest)
 Dumbbell Seal Row: 3 sets of 8-10 reps (1-2 min rest)
 Barbell Overhead Press: 3 sets of 8 reps (2 min rest)
 Dumbbell Curls: 3 sets of 10-12 reps (1-2 min rest)
 Weighted Dips/Assisted Dip Machine: 3 sets of 8-10 reps (1-2 min rest)

Lower Workout B
 Barbell Back Squat (High or Low Bar): 3 sets of 10 reps (2-3 min rest)
 Leg Press (any 45-degree machine): 3 sets of 10 reps (2-3 min rest)
 Seated Hamstring Curl: 4 sets of 8-12 reps (1-2 min rest)
 Seated Calf Raise Machine: 3 sets of 10-12 reps (1 min rest)
 Weighted Cable Crunch (Optional): 3 sets of 8-10 reps (1 min rest)

If you plan on training 4-days per week then a simple set up is:

Week 1

 Upper A on Monday
 Lower A on Tuesday
 Rest Wednesday
 Upper B on Thursday
 Lower B on Friday
 Rest Saturday and Sunday then repeat

If you plan to remain training 3-days per week, then you can go through all the workouts over
a 2-week period or only perform 1 Upper workout and 1 Lower workout (e.g. only doing
Upper A and Lower A each week)

The two-week schedule with all 4 workouts would look like this:

Week 1

 Upper A Monday
 Lower A Wednesday
 Upper B Friday

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 Week 2


Lower B Monday
 Upper A Wednesday
 Lower A Friday

and so on…

The schedule with only 2 of the workouts provided would look like this:

Week 1

 Upper A Monday
 Lower A Wednesday
 Upper A Friday

Week 2


Lower A Monday
 Upper A Wednesday
 Lower A Friday

Now, is one schedule better than the other? Probably not but the benefit of performing all 4
workouts is just that you may develop a more overall balanced physique due to including
some degree of exercise variation on a weekly basis. Personally, I don’t mind training 4-
times per week and prefer having two workouts that include different exercises as it keeps
me from getting bored with training.

Feel free to change around rest days to suit your own commitments and schedule.

To progress with these workouts you can use the progression models laid out in the
progression chapter.

Substitutable
Training Techniques
that are Effective

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I’m not a huge fan of doing tonnes of dropsets, supersets or giant sets, especially if you’re a
beginner (less than 2 years of proper lifting and nutrition). If that’s the case, then I’d much
rather see you focus on getting stronger on the major compound lifts overtime and
avoiding this type of training for the time being. However, there are 2 training techniques
that I’ve found to be quite effective and entertaining when you get bored of your usual
training and wish to switch it up a little during your next training block (after completing 8-12
weeks of the intermediate routine).

Reverse Pyramid Training (RPT)

This technique is extremely taxing on the body as it requires you to lift heavy weights for
your first set and also requires you to push to your limit on nearly every set (after each
set you should have no more than 1 rep left, preferably you should have half a rep left).

This is how it goes:

Method
1. Warm-up thoroughly as explained previously
2. The first set of the exercise is going to be your heaviest set, usually with a weight that
keeps you in the 4-6 rep range. You will take this set near (but not at) failure.
3. Rest completely (2.5 - 3 minutes)

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 4. Decrease the weight by 10% and perform another set near to failure, usually will be
the same reps as the first set or 1-2 additional reps
5. Rest completely
6. Decrease weight by 10% and perform this last set near failure, usually will be the
same as number of reps as the second set or 1-2 additional reps.
7. Done

The biggest benefit this type of training can provide us is that the first heavy set can
improve our strength temporarily for the rest of the sets on that exercise making the
subsequent sets feel less stressful (20). It accomplishes this by activating a greater
amount of motor units which signal muscles to contract forcefully. This greater motor unit
recruitment remains activated for a short period of time, which is why we capitalise on it by
decreasing the weight slightly and performing more reps to accumulate more volume.
In a way, our muscles think they have to work a lot harder than they need to on the second
set because the first set was heavy and as a result they contract more forcefully than normal
which makes the weights feel lighter than they actually are and allows you to lift them for
more reps than if you were to perform straight sets.

However, there is a big drawback to utilising this technique which is that it generates a
large amount of fatigue and requires you to reduce your training volume to
accommodate for the higher loads and fatigue. As a result of reducing total workout volume
you may be missing out on growing at the fastest rate possible as volume has the
biggest impact on muscle growth. Although, the increase in intensity RPT provides may be a
superior way to train to increase your strength without severely dropping total volume
(e.g. when training for strength you might perform 5 sets of 3 reps which totals to 15 reps,
whereas if you were to perform RPT sets it would look like 3 sets such as 4, 6, 8 which
would total 18 reps while still including a heavy set and performing each set with maximal
intensity which is required for building strength). So, it is best to use this technique when you
are wanting to develop both strength and muscle mass at the same time, although this
means that you’re not going to be developing both qualities at an optimal rate than if you
were to focus on developing one only for a period of time.

Application to Routines
As mentioned above, due to RPT’s taxing nature it is required that if you implement it to the
Upper/Lower routine supplied adjustments should be made. I prefer using RPT on my main
compound lifts (mainly barbell movements) however it does work well with dumbbell
exercises as well.

When using RPT I like using the double progression model explained in the progression
chapter, which involved hitting the top end of a given rep range, then adding weight and
trying to get back to the top end again. For this technique however, each set will have its
own rep range. Also, the 4-10 rep range is preferable as it provides the right combination of
heavy loads and moderately light loads.

Here’s a few guidelines to follow when applying RPT to the Upper/Lower routine:

 Upper body workouts: substitute straight sets for RPT on your first two exercises
(e.g. Bench Press and Barbell Row) and reduce the next two higher rep exercises for
those same muscle groups by a set each (e.g. Dumbbell incline bench press and Lat-

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 pulldown for Upper A workout). You only reduce sets in one upper body workout in a
week and add RPT to the next upper body workout without reducing any sets (only 1
set is removed from a muscle group for the week)
 Lower body workouts: substitute straight sets for RPT on your first exercise (Squat)
and reduce your next quad exercise by one set (e.g. Lunges or Leg Press).
 Use these rep ranges for each set: 4-6, 6-8, 8-10
 Once you can perform the top of the rep range in a given set for two sessions in a
row, then you increase the weight in that set by the smallest increment (usually 2.5kg
total)
 If you fail to meet the lower end of the range after increasing the weights, then you
should reduce it and come back again the next session with your previous weight
and repeat the previous point
 Don’t use RPT on isolation movements such as lateral raises and calf raises,
however for curls and tricep extensions it’s acceptable.

Example Progression
Session 1

Set 1: 50kg x 6 (RIR 1.5)

Set 2: 45kg x 7 (RIR 0.5)

Set 3: 40kg x 10 (RIR 1.5)

Note: because we reached the top end of the rep ranges for sets 1 and 3 (4-6 and 8-10) we
will increase the weight on them two sets by 2.5 kg only if you had another full rep left (RIR 1
or more) on those sets or after you perform the same reps in the next session. For the
second set we failed to reach the top end so we will keep the same weight.

Session 2

Set 1: 50kg x 6 (RIR 1)

Set 2: 45kg x 8 (RIR of 0.5)

Set 3: 40kg x 10 (RIR 1)

Note: we successfully reached the upper rep limit in sets 1 and 3 again so the next session
we will increase the weight in those sets. We also increased the reps on our second set
which means if we had another full rep in the tank (RIR 1 or RPE 9) we should increase the
weight for the next session or if we had less than a full rep left we should keep that weight
for the next session.

Session 3

Set 1: 52.5kg x 4 (RIR 0.5)

Set 2: 45kg x 8 (RIR 1)

Set 3: 42.5kg x 8 (RIR 0.5)

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 Note: After increasing the first and third set our reps have reduced back down to the lower
ends of the rep range and from there we must build them back up overtime. For our second
set we were able to repeat our previous weeks performance although this time we have 1
RIR which means we can increase the weight for that set in the next session.

This would be repeated every single workout. Get top end of rep range, get it again the next
workout, add weight, start at bottom end, work your way up to top and repeat.

Rest Pause Training (RSTPT)

RPT is great to add to the heavy compound barbell movements however for muscle groups
such as your lateral deltoid and Calves it can be difficult to feel the muscle work when
using really heavy weights. A method of training that I’ve come to like for isolation
exercises and training shoulders with is called Rest Pause training.

This involves using weights that allow you to perform 15-20 reps with (with an RIR of 1-2),
resting a short period of time (10-20 seconds), performing another 4-6 reps with an RIR
of 1-2 , resting 10-20 seconds and repeating multiple mini sets of 4-6 reps RIR of 1-2.

The science behind this relates to the Size Principle which states that “Under load, motor
units are recruited from smallest (type 1 fibers) to largest (type 2 fibers) as the muscles
fatigue” so when we start lifting a weight that can be done for 20 reps, the first 6-12 reps will
recruit your weaker fibers and as those fatigue our larger stronger fibers will begin to aid in
lifting the weight for the remaining 5-14 reps which are the fibers that have the largest
potential to grow. So, once we hit failure (or come close to it) on the 15th rep all those larger
strong muscle fibers have been fatigued and are highly activated. Then once we rest
completely (2-3 min) they recover, and we must perform those first 5-8 reps again before we
start recruiting those stronger fibers again. However, if we were to shorten our rest periods
we are able to maintain then greater stimulation of those stronger muscles whilst using

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 lighter weights because those strong fibers would have recovered significantly while the
weaker fibers may need another minute or two. So, with this technique we are aiming to
target only those stronger fibers in every set. By doing so, you are simulating heavy training
with lighter weights and thereby triggering a larger growth response.

Method
1. Pre-exhaust muscles by performing a set of 15-20 reps to failure
2. Rest 10-20 seconds
3. Perform a mini set of 4-6 reps (0-1 RIR)
4. Rest 10-20 seconds
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 for 4-5 times

This method is also a great time saver as you can complete 6 sets in under 3 minutes
whereas if you were to perform 6 straight sets and resting 1 minute in between sets it could
take 8-10 minutes (including time during sets).

To progress this technique there are quite a few different ways, although I prefer either
adding reps to your first “activation set” and the mini sets until you can get 20 reps
and 6 reps on all the other sets then adding weight or shortening the rest periods until
you can get all reps in all your sets with 10 seconds rest in between sets and then add
weight.

Adding reps to sets (Progression)

Session 1

10kg x 15, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5

Session 2

10kg x 17, 6, 5, 5, 5, 5

Session 3

10kg x 19, 6, 6, 6, 5, 5

Session 4

10kg x 20, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6

Session 5

12.5kg x 15, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4

Shortening rest periods (Progression)

Every session looks like 10kg x 15, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6

Session 1

20 seconds rest in between sets

Session 2

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 15 seconds rest in between sets

Session 3

10 seconds rest in between sets

Session 4

Increase weight to 12.5kg and start again with 20 second rest periods

Application to routines
When substituting RSTPT for regular straight sets you just need to make sure that you
are performing 1 activation set and 4-5 mini sets. No other alterations need to be made.

In the routine provided, I suggest you use this technique on calf raises, Lateral raises
and face pulls although you can also use it for higher rep bicep and tricep exercises.

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 Nutrition

Knowing how to train properly is important. However, knowing how to eat to get
results from your training is vital to gaining muscle or losing fat as fast as
possible.

Calories in vs
Calories out: The
Science of Weight
loss and Gain
Weight loss and gain is a simple mathematic equation that involves us consuming a
certain amount of energy and burning a certain amount. It is that simple.

On a day to day basis we burn a certain number of calories as a result of multiple

factors:

Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR)

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Our BMR is the total amount of energy our body uses up just by keeping ourselves alive.
This includes processes like maintaining body temperature, maintaining blood flow
around the body by repeated beats of the heart, providing the brain enough oxygen to
survive (approximately 20% of BMR) and other essential body functions.

The Thermic Effect of Food (TEF)

This relates to the total energy required to digest all the food we consume throughout the
day. Every time we sit down and eat a meal our body must break down the food further
so the nutrients can be absorbed, which in of itself is an energy costly process.
Approximately 10% of the energy we burn every day comes from the TEF alone.

Physical Activity Expenditure (PAE)

When we perform any form of planned physical activity such as lifting weights or
performing cardiovascular exercise, we are expending more energy than we normally
would if we had just sat on the couch watching television. Additionally, our body uses
energy to recover from these activities which further increases the amount of energy we
burn from PAE.

Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT)

This relates to ALL forms of movement we make throughout the day that doesn’t include
PAE. Any movement we make burns calories/requires energy from fidgeting to
showering. Throughout the day these little movements add up to quite a significant
amount of energy which makes NEAT one of the largest contributors to our total energy
expenditure. People who find it hard to put on weight often have very high NEAT
because when they eat more food, they unconsciously burn it off through moving around
a lot more throughout the day.

Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE)

BMR + TEF + PAE + NEAT = TDEE

This is the total amount of energy we burn in a single day and is a very important number
in terms of controlling how much we need to eat to lose, gain or maintain weight.

Energy in terms of the human body and the food we consume is measured in units called
calories. So over the course of an entire day we burn a certain number of calories. But
we don’t just fast every day, we also eat food which contains energy.

When we consume any food, our bodies store the calories it contains by turning the
calories into a form that can be stored for later use when energy is needed, and this is
in the form of bodyfat, glycogen in the liver and muscles and as muscle tissue when
the right resistance training regimen is applied. However, calories are mainly stored as

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 bodyfat and when we go about our day, we are burning that stored bodyfat. At the end
of the day when we go to sleep, we have either:

1. Consumed more calories than we burnt off (calorie surplus) = resulting in weight gain
2. Consumed the same number of calories we have burnt off (maintenance calories) =
No change in bodyweight
3. Consumed less calories than we have burnt off (calorie deficit) = resulting in weight
loss

That is the simple science of weight loss/gain. However, if we want to gain muscle and
minimise fat gain when bulking or lose bodyfat while maintaining muscle mass (other than
using an appropriate resistance training regimen) it is important that those calories we
consume are made up of the right proportions of protein, carbohydrates and fats
(Macronutrients will be discussed later).

So, in order to gain weight or lose weight we need to eat more/less calories than our TDEE.
But to do this it implies that you know exactly what your TDEE is. The best way to find your
TDEE I’ve found involves using online equations and tracking bodyweight and calorie intake
for 2 weeks using your estimated TDEE.

Before you try to find your TDEE, I have to tell you about the “3500 calorie rule”. This rule
relates to the assumption that in 1 pound of body tissue (fat or muscle) there is
approximately 3500 calories. Using this knowledge we can use our changes in bodyweight
on a weekly basis and our average calorie intake to figure out how many calories we are
exactly under or over our TDEE with a bit of math. First, we’ll convert the rule from pounds
to kilograms: 3500 cal = 1 pound therefore there is 7700 calories in 1 kg. Now if we find
that after 2-weeks of eating at our estimated TDEE our weight increases by 0.2kg, we can
expect that we have eaten 1540 calories over our TDEE (7700 x 0.2 = 1540 calories stored)
and if we divide this number by 7 (number of days in the week) then we will know that we
were eating 220 calories more than our TDEE.

Finding your TDEE

1. Goto: TDEE Calculator: Learn Your Total Daily Energy Expenditure and fill in your
details (bodyfat % isn’t required)
2. Use the estimated TDEE as your trial calorie intake
3. Download a calorie tracking app such as Myfitnesspal and enter your estimated
TDEE as your calorie goal.
4. Track everything you eat for 2 weeks using Myfitnesspal and get as close to your
calorie goal as you can
5. Every morning weigh yourself after using the bathroom, but before drinking or eating
anything. Write down your bodyweight every day using either pen and paper or using
an app such as MyFitnessPal’s built in weight tracker or the Healthkit app on iPhone.
6. After each week (every Sunday e.g.) write down your average weight recorded for
that week (All 7 weights added together then divided by 7 = average bodyweight that
week)
7. Compare your average bodyweight from week 1 to week 2 and write down the
difference
8. Multiply the change in bodyweight by 7700 then divide the answer by 7. This will be
how many calories you are over or under your TDEE each day.

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9. Subtract or add those extra/lack of calories found in step 8 to your estimated TDEE
to find your real TDEE.

Example
Week 1 (eating 2500 calories every day)

65.55kg

66.00kg

65.70kg

65.40kg

65.60kg

65.65kg

65.60kg

Average weight: 65.64 kg

Week 2 (eating 2500 calories every day)

65.80kg

66.10kg

65.80kg

65.85kg

65.90kg

65.70kg

65.95kg

Average weight: 65.87kg

Difference in weight (week 2 – week 1 = difference): 65.87 – 65.64 = +0.23kg

Calories above/below maintenance (difference in weight x 7700 divided by 7):
(0.23 x 7700) / 7 = 253 calories above maintenance every day
Actual maintenance (Calorie intake over the past 2 weeks +/- the difference in
calories): 2500 – 253 = 2,247 is your actual maintenance.

This might seem like a tonne of work to just find your TDEE but it is worth it as this
value will be necessary for when you want to bulk or cut and isn’t as complicated as it
seems once you follow the steps laid out above.

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 The Science of
Bulking and Cutting

There is no doubt that in your life you have heard the two terms “Bulking” and
“Cutting” but due to the media and drugged up bodybuilders your idea of what they
are may be skewed and inaccurate. When discussing bulking and cutting I’m going to
be using these definitions as I believe these are the appropriate descriptions:

Bulking: is a period where an individual is eating in a consistent caloric surplus to

gain weight with the main goal of adding more muscle mass to their frame.

Cutting: a period where an individual is eating in a consistent caloric deficit to lose

weight with the main goal of losing as much body fat as possible while maintaining
lean mass.

Bulking 101
Bulking is a period where an individual is eating in a consistent caloric surplus to gain
weight (lasting a minimum of 3 months) with the main goal of adding more muscle
mass to their frame. The reason why people bulk is because when we consume
more calories than we burn off our body is adding tissue to our frame and if we are
training correctly and eating enough protein, a proportion of the tissue that is being
added will be muscle. So, in order to maximise the rate of muscle growth we are able
to achieve we must provide our body the additional calories it requires to synthesise
the new muscle tissue (21).
By eating more food than we need we are positively impacting our ability to grow new
muscle tissue in multiple ways:

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  Provide energy for protein synthesis: the process of creating new muscle
tissue requires energy to accomplish which is why additional calories from our
diet is required to form new tissue effectively.
 Improves training performance: eating more food is a sure-fire way to lift
more weight in your workouts and thereby provide a better muscle building
stimulus.
 Improve recovery from training: this is a huge component to why a surplus
of calories is required. When we are eating more calories than we need to
meet our TDEE we are giving our body more resources to repair and recover
from training. This increases the total amount of volume we can do and
recover from which is important if your goal is to gain muscle because the
more training you can do and recover from the greater the adaptations your
body is going to make.
 Less frequent deloads: as I mentioned previously when progress stalls it is
mainly due to fatigue accumulating so much that it hides our improved
performance. But when we are eating a surplus of calories each day fatigue
from training accumulates at a much slower rate as we now have a greater
quantity of resources that can be used to recover from training. Thus, deloads
will be needed less frequently and more time can be spent lifting heavy
weights which will stimulate an adaptive response rather than spending that
time deloading and not causing any further adaptations.

Rates of Weight Gain

As you can see, eating in a caloric surplus is great for building muscle and is necessary if
you want to maximise muscle growth. However, there is a side effect that will occur when
eating more calories than your body requires and that is unwanted fat gain. In a perfect
world all the extra calories we consume while bulking would go towards muscle tissue
however this is not the case as a large proportion of the calories will goto forming fatty
tissue. This is unavoidable and shouldn’t be feared as it is simply the price you’re going to
have to pay to get jacked.

There is a way to minimise fat gain during a bulk though, it is called “Lean Bulking”.

This involves eating only a small surplus of 200-500 calories above your TDEE depending
on how much muscle you can potentially gain.

The chart above indicates how much muscle tissue you could gain in your first 1-4
years of lifting intelligently. Although, the weights are for pure muscle with no fat gain
which is impossible if you plan to maximise the amount of muscle you can put on.

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 This chart on the other hand provides the total amount of weight you may gain each year
by bulking effectively and accumulating a little bit of fat along the way, shown on the right
side column. I like to use the lower ends of the ranges. But anyway, as you can see in
your first year of lifting you are estimated to gain around 13.64kg (divide by 2.2 to get kg
from pounds) of total bodyweight. If we were to divide this by 52, we will get 0.26 kg of
total weight gained per week as a target to maximise growth. Therefore, by using the
7700 calorie rule for adding tissue to our bodies we would then multiply our target weight
by 7700 and divide it by 7 to get our daily calorie surplus.

(7700 x 0.26) / 7 = 286 calories required to maximise muscle growth.

If you were to eat this exact surplus of calories over your TDEE you would be predicted
to gain 0.26kg per week, however this will not be the case as your body will try to fight off
the weight gain by increasing NEAT subconsciously. Increases in NEAT will vary
between each person which will mean some people may have to eat far more than 286
calories above their TDEE to gain at the recommended weight. Therefore, I recommend
you add an additional 100-200 calories to your estimated surplus.

Recommended Starting Calorie Surplus and Target Rate of

Weight Gain
 1st year: 400-500 calories above TDEE & 0.26kg/per week
 2nd year: 300-400 calories above TDEE & 0.17kg/per week
 3rd year: 200-300 calories above TDEE & 0.10kg/per week
 +4 years: 200 calories above TDEE & more than 0.08kg/per week

Once you reach the advanced stages of +4 years the amount of muscle you can potentially
gain is miniscule which is why I recommend that you gain at a rate of 0.08kg or more per
week to be 100% certain you aren’t leaving any gains on the table.

Cutting 101
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 Cutting is a period where an individual is eating in a consistent caloric deficit to lose
weight with the main goal of losing as much body fat as possible while maintaining lean
mass.

When we eat in a caloric deficit we are essentially starving our bodies in a controlled
fashion. In order for our body to survive it must use the energy that we have stored in our
tissue to make up the energy deficit and this can be in the form of fat or muscle. As
physique athletes we want to make sure that our body uses our fat stores for energy
rather than chewing away at our muscles which is why we must ensure that these three
factors are in place:

1. Adequate protein intake (will be discussed later)

2. Adequate training
3. Not being in too large of a deficit for an extended time-frame

As there is an optimal rate of gaining weight to minimise fat gain while maximising
muscle growth, there is also an optimal rate of losing weight to maximise fat loss while
minimising potential muscle loss. This is because the human body can only burn so
much fat in a day and more energy is required it will tap into its own muscle tissue to
make up that deficit.

So how large of a deficit is too much? This is dependent on how much bodyfat you have
left to lose because the more fat you have available to burn off, the larger the deficit can
be without sacrificing muscle tissue. On the other hand, when you have limited fat stores,
your body is much more likely to obtain its energy from muscle tissue if there is a high
enough demand for energy.

Rates of Weight loss

It’s commonly accepted that you should lose weight at a rate of 1-2lbs (0.45-0.9kg) per
week which is a pretty good guideline however I’d rather use your bodyfat percentage to
determine how fast you should lose weight as this accounts for individual variation(e.g.
fatter and therefore heavier people are able to lose more weight than lighter leaner
people). The leaner you are though the slower the rate of fat loss must be which is why
I’ve recommended the rate you should lose weight based on your estimated current
bodyfat percentage (use the images below to estimate your current bodyfat, although
keep in mind that these men and women are most likely a lot older and therefore have
more mature looking bodies so use it as a guide rather than a definite answer to what
bodyfat % you are)

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 Bodyfat % Maximum rate of bodyweight loss each
week
+20% (+34% females) 0.9kg
15-19% (25-33% females 0.6kg
10-14% (19-24% females) 0.5kg
6-10% (14-18% females) 0.2kg

Example
A male that weighs 80kg at 22% bodyfat would lose a maximum of 0.9kg per week until
he makes it down to 77.6kg and is 19% bodyfat (80 – 3% = 77.6kg).

Then he would recalculate and aim to lose no more than 0.6kg per week until he gets
down to 73.72kg at 14% bodyfat which from there he would recalculate and lose at a
slower rate e.t.c

To work out how large of a deficit you would need to create to lose at your goal rate, you
would use this formula: (7700 x Goal rate of weight loss in kg) / 7 = Goal daily calorie
deficit

e.g. using the 0.9kg per week goal it would look like this:

(7700 x 0.97kg) / 7 = 990 calorie deficit each day

He’d then subtract this from his maintenance calories and see how his body responds.

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 Caution when cutting
Keep in mind that if you begin feeling overly fatigued and your strength in the gym is
reducing dramatically you should lose weight at a slower rate than you are currently even
if you aren’t past the recommended maximum weight loss for your bodyfat percentage.

Conversely, don’t lose weight faster than these values even if you are maintaining all
your strength in the gym and feel great because your bones and body is still growing as
a teenager and severely restricting your calories is obviously not going to be helpful in
growing to your full potential. Also, NEVER try diet down below 10% bodyfat especially if
you aren’t someone who is naturally lean or younger than 20 years old. This could lead
to hormonal problems such as lowered testosterone production in the short and
potentially long term due to not having enough bodyfat during your teenage years to
adequately synthesise necessary hormones for everyday living. Also, when you diet
below 10% bodyfat you may find that your energy levels and mood sharply decrease,
which will impact the quality of your teenage years.

Bulk or Cut First

This is a question I get asked very frequently and doesn’t have a clear-cut answer. It
mostly depends on what your current bodyfat percentage is. Generally speaking, you
want to cycle your bulks and cuts in the 10-17% bodyfat range for men and 19-29%
bodyfat for women. If you have a decent level of muscularity then at 10%m/19%f you
have a clearly visible 4, 6 or 8 pack for men or a smooth but toned looking midsection for
women, such as these photos below:

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If you are looking closer to these pictures (purple) then you’d be better off cutting to around
10%m/19%f first before trying to gain weight.

Body Recomposition

As mention before, to build muscle most effectively we must be in an energy surplus which
means we will accumulate some fat as a result. To lose fat we must be in an energy deficit
and by doing so we are limiting our ability to build muscle as we aren’t providing sufficient
calories to do so.

This is where it is awesome to be a teenager. Due to your age paired with the fact
that you may have no history with resistance training, you are able to build muscle
and lose fat at the same time (this is called a “Recomp” in the bodybuilding world).
When it comes to body recomposition there are 4 factors to consider:
1. Age: when in our teens we have the greatest amount of testosterone and
growth hormone circulating in our bodies which provides an environment that
supports growth. In return, teens are able to build muscle at a significant rate
even though they may be eating in a deficit for fat loss.
2. Training Age: when you start any form of resistance exercise regimen your
muscles are hyper responsive due to the stimulus being completely novel to
the body which is why you experience rapid growth in your first year of
training. During this period of rapid growth, you are able to “get away with”, in
a sense, eating in a deficit as you will still be growing at a rapid rate.
Although, after 1-2 years of consistent training it becomes increasingly more
difficult to add muscle in a deficit.
3. Muscle memory: if you come back to training after a lay-off/injury you will
build the muscle you had lost back rapidly due to complicated mechanisms
that involve the muscle cells myonuclei which allow lost muscle to be
resynthesised at a much faster rate than it was made in the first place (usually

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 muscle size and strength return after 2-6 weeks of training). This occurs
regardless if you are in a deficit which is why if someone returns to training
after 6 years of not lifting and begins a cutting phase, they will gain muscle
and strength rapidly while losing fat.
4. Bodyfat %: people who are overweight or obese are able to lose fat and build
muscle simultaneously with ease as they have so much stored energy in their
body which can make up for the deficit created by the diet and be used to aid
in muscle growth. There isn’t any research that provides an exact bodyfat%
where this may occur, but I’d guess if you are more than 18% bodyfat you
may be able to recomp until you fall below the 18% mark.

As a teenager you may tick multiple points listed above which means you are able to
recomp. However, if you are already lean (<12%males/22%females bodyfat) you are better
off starting a bulk as during a recomp you will build some muscle but it isn’t going to be as
fast as you possibly could. You’d gain more muscle and strength if you were to bulk for 12-
weeks compared to recomping for 12-weeks.

If you look like any of these two, then you should recomp.

How to Recomp
Quite simply to recomp you want to eat in no more than a 15% calorie deficit, eat enough
protein every day (more on this shortly) and be participating in a well-designed resistance
training regimen. To calculate your goal calories with a 15% deficit, you use this formula:

(maintenance calories x 0.85 = goal calorie intake for recomp)

This will likely result in slower weight loss than what may be recommended in the table
above, but you must consider the fact that you are building muscle whilst you are losing fat
which will obscure the numbers on the scale. If your weight is maintaining but you are seeing
significant improvements in the way you look and your waist measurement is going down,
then you are doing awesome. You would continue to recomp like this until progress stalls or
you feel you are lean enough to start a bulk.

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 Macronutrients &
Micronutrients

We know that when we consume food, we are receiving the potential energy stored in
it (we are taking in calories), but there is something else I haven’t mentioned yet which is
where that energy (where the calories) come from.

Macronutrients
Macronutrients are large nutrients (measured in grams) that are in the food we eat and
make up the total caloric content in the food we eat. These 3 macronutrients are:

Protein (4 calories per gram)

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Proteins are naturally occurring compounds that are used for growth and repair in
the body and to build cells and tissues. It’s found in high amounts in food sources
such as meats and dairy products.

In terms of bodybuilding, protein is every bodybuilders favourite nutrient because

without adequate amounts of protein being taken in each day no muscle will be
built. Our body uses the protein we consume from external sources for the growth and
repair its own muscle tissues (and many more things) and without sufficient protein
these processes won’t be able to take place optimally. However, we can’t just eat as
much protein as possible and expect to get huge because there is a limit to how much
protein our body can use in a day and consuming more than that will just be wasted
calories that could have been made up by eating more carbs or fats.

Protein needs vary between all individuals due to their different lifestyles; someone who
is active and plays sports multiple times per week will require more protein than
someone who is sedentary during there free time. Although, a general guideline all
people who partake in resistance training is to consume 1g of protein per pound of
bodyweight. This is the typical bodybuilder recommendation and is often said to be
more than enough for muscle growth, however protein requirements also change
whether you are bulking or cutting. As the body is more susceptible to muscle loss
when in a deficit it is smart to eat slightly more protein to spare muscle mass. It’s as if
the calorie deficit is a lion that is chasing you and you are trying to run away from it (you
are your muscle tissue in this example) without getting eaten. By eating extra protein you
are saving yourself by throwing a steak at the lion so it has something else to eat while
sparing you at the same time. Additionally, protein is the most satisfying
macronutrient which makes it beneficial to consume more while cutting as it
reduces hunger.

Minimum Protein Requirements

Bulking: 0.82g per pound of bodyweight

Maintaining: 0.82-1g per pound of bodyweight

Cutting: 1.1-1.2g per pound of bodyweight

Fats (9 calories per gram)

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 Fat is the most energy dense macronutrient which is why some believe eating fat
makes you fat. Although, there is some truth to this, but you could also say eating protein
or carbohydrates make you fat as well in the sense that all the macronutrients contribute
to the total amount of calories you consume and if you are unable to burn the same
number of calories you consumed, you will gain bodyfat.

There are four types of fat that we get from our diet:

Monounsaturated fats

This is known as a “healthy fat” that is liquid at room temperature. It’s found in plant
food sources such as nuts, avocados and vegetable oils. This fat is beneficial to
health as it lowers LDL cholesterol which is known as “bad” cholesterol because it
increases your risk of heart disease because it’s the type of cholesterol that promotes
clogging of the arteries and blood vessels, thereby through eating foods high in
monounsaturated fats you are reducing the amount of LDL cholesterol in your blood
that can potentially clog up your arteries.

Polyunsaturated fats

This is the other “healthy fat” that is comprised of omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids.
These two fatty acids can only be obtained through diet as our body can’t synthesise
them on its own. Polyunsaturated fat can be obtained by eating foods such as fatty fish
like salmon or eggs, some nuts and plant oils. Like monounsaturated fats, this type of fat
also works to lower the amount of LDL cholesterol in the blood.

Saturated fats

Unlike monounsaturated fats, this type is solid at room temperature and is found
primarily in animal products such as fatty cuts of beef, pork and chicken as well
as in coconut oil. In school we all learned in health class that saturated fats are
dangerous to our health as they increase our risk of heart disease, however this is not
the case. A meta-analysis in 2010 (8) was conducted to determine whether high intakes
of saturated fat over the course of 23 years was corelated with an increase in
cardiovascular disease (CVD). The study concluded that “there is no significant
evidence that dietary saturated fat intake is associated with an increased risk of CVD”.
In fact, there has been multiple studies that have shown there to be a positive
correlation between saturated fat intake and testosterone levels (9, 10, 11),
meaning that the more saturated fat you consume the higher your testosterone will be.

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 But keep I mind that increases in testosterone occurs by eating more of any type of fat
and that any increases in testosterone from eating more fat is very marginal and
will not improve your ability to build muscle or lose fat to any meaningful degree.

Trans-unsaturated fat (Trans fat)

This is legitimately the fat that will kill you. More specifically I’m referring to artificial
trans fats that are man-made and are used to preserve the shelf life of foods and
add flavour to cakes and pastries. Natural trans fats are found in animal products such
as dairy and meat however this type of trans fat is safe to consume (7), whereas
consuming significant amounts of artificial trans-fat has been shown to increase
your risk of heart disease substantially due to increasing LDL cholesterol in the
blood as well as removing the good HDL cholesterol which is responsible for
preventing bad LDL cholesterol from clogging the arteries and aids in its removal
by picking it up and transporting it to the liver where it can be recycled for better
use. (22) Eating artificial trans fats has also been linked to an increase in type 2 diabetes
by negatively impacting glucose control, however there isn’t strong enough evidence to
claim a definite association between the two. Foods high in artificial trans fat include:

 Cakes
 Biscuits
 Pastries
 Frozen Pizza’s
 Fried fast food

I’m not going to tell you to completely avoid these foods as consuming small amounts of
trans fat dense food occasionally is not going to kill you, it’s only when eaten in excess on a
regular basis that health problems can arise. Furthermore, these are just the most common
foods that have high trans-fat content and keep in mind that not all biscuits, cakes, pastries
e.t.c contain trans fats, so be sure to check the nutrition labels of your favourite foods from
the list above to see if there is any trans-fat listed.

Recommended Fat intake

It is best to have about 20-35% of your daily calories coming from fat. This is enough fat
to support optimal hormonal function while also being not so much that your carb intake
becomes too low and performance is compromised.

Carbohydrates (4 calories per gram)

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 Carbohydrates are the body’s preferred source of energy during exercise because
they are easily broken down and converted to energy unlike fat which requires more
time and effort to convert to energy which isn’t ideal during exercising conditions as there
is a high and rapid demand for energy. When we eat foods, which contain carbs the
body will break the nutrient down and turn it into glucose which is transported in
the blood and will eventually be converted into either fat, glycogen or immediately
used for fuelling physical activity. Glycogen is the form of carbohydrate that the body
stores in its liver and muscles. This stored glycogen in the muscles is beneficial for us
as resistance training athletes because it fuels our gym performance by being turned
back into glucose which can then be used to aid in muscle contractions reducing
perceived exertion and increasing the load we are capable of lifting. If liver and
muscle glycogen stores are maxed out the excess glucose in the blood will be
converted to bodyfat.

The rate that carbohydrates are broken down and converted to glucose carried in the

bloodstream is measured by what’s called the Glycaemic Index (GI).

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 When glucose levels in the blood are elevated, we have more energy and this
energy is proportional to the concentration of glucose in the blood (the higher the
concentration of glucose in the blood, the more energetic we feel). You may remember a
time when you’ve had a sugary drink like a Slurpee from Maccas and then felt as if you
wanted to run around. This is because the carbohydrates that drink contained were
simple sugars which are easy to break down and be converted into glucose (it’s a high
GI food/drink). The rapid conversion of glucose being released into the bloodstream
results in that “sugar rush” experience. However, as you can see on the graph above the
spike in blood sugar is short lived and returns to normal levels in a little over an
hour causing that “sugar crash” low energy feeling. On the other hand, carbohydrates
from low GI foods such as apples don’t spike blood glucose levels as much as high
GI foods do due to their more difficult structures that make digestion slower.
However, the major benefit of eating primarily low GI foods is that they provide a long-
lasting steady release of glucose into the blood stream, keeping us from feeling too
low on energy and fuller for a longer duration. This information will become more
useful when we talk about peri-workout nutrition.

Recommended Carbohydrate Intake

Simply because carbohydrates play such an important role in supporting training

performance and energy levels it is often recommended that carbohydrates should
comprise of what remains of your calorie intake which is mostly in the range of 50-
65% of your total calorie intake.

Determining Your Macronutrients

In this example we are going to be looking at a person who weighs 70kg, has found their
maintenance to be 2500 calories and aren’t trying to gain or lose weight.

Protein

First you convert your bodyweight to pounds by multiplying it by 2.2

(70 x 2.2 = 154)

Because this person is maintaining, we will make his daily protein intake 1g per pound.
So his daily target is to hit around 154g of protein per day. Because protein is 4 calories
per gram this means that 616 calories (154 x 4 = 616) come from protein.

Fat

Now we choose how much fat he will eat by choosing between 20-35% of his
maintenance calorie intake. For this guy we’ll say that he feels comfortable eating a
moderate amount of fat, which would be about 30% of his calorie intake.

(2500 x 0.3 = 750 calories from fat)

Then we must divide this number by 9 to get how many grams of fat he’ll eat as there is
9 calories per gram of fat.

(750 / 9 = 83g of fat per day)

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 Carbohydrate

Lastly to determine carbohydrate intake we subtract the calories from protein and fat
from his 2500 calorie target then divide by 4.

(616 + 750 = 1366 calories from protein + fat)

(2500 – 1366 = 1134 calories from carbohydrates)

(1134 / 4 = 284g of carbohydrates per day)

Example summary

So, for this guy we worked out that his daily target macronutrients to maintain his weight
and at the same time have enough carbs and fats for energy to support gym
performance and everyday functioning are:

Protein: 154g

Carbohydrates: 284g

Fats: 83g

You might be thinking is it necessary for me to hit an exact macronutrient goal every
day? or do I have to be so anal about what macronutrients are in every little thing I put in
my mouth? Well luckily the answer is no. If you want to maximise your results then
you’d try to never go above the 35% cap on fat intake and not eat anymore than the
minimum required protein intake that is most suited to your goals, as this would allow
for the most room for carbohydrates in your diet. However, if you were to compare
this rigid diet structure to simply just tracking your calories and protein per day it
would be a small difference in your results. Also, if you were to track the proportion of
carbs and fats you eat on a regular basis without purposely trying to eat less fat and
make room for more carbs, you’ll find that your fat intake is probably already under
the 35% cap and you wouldn’t need to change anything to maximise your results.
Personally, I just track my calories and protein and let carbs and fats fall where they
may be.

Micronutrients
Other than the 3 big macronutrients, there are many other smaller nutrients that our
food is made up of but don’t contribute to our calorie intake due to being so small in
size and having no calorie content. These nutrients are important for overall health as
they are required for essential body functions such as maintaining hydration levels in
cells, aiding in digestion, removal of waste products, brain functioning and many more.

Micronutrients are divided into two main categories and then divided into another two
sub-categories. The main categories are vitamins and minerals.

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 Vitamins

These are organic nutrients that are either fat soluble or water soluble, meaning that
when we consume a certain food or drink that contains a type of vitamin the body will
either store that vitamin in our fat cells or in water that is held within the body.
Water soluble vitamins are held by the body for a shorter period than fat soluble
vitamins because they are excreted through our urine and therefore require
replenishment on a day to day basis. Water soluble vitamins include the 8 B
vitamins and vitamin C.

The B vitamins have a variety of different functions such as working together to

improve oxygen delivery to the muscles and improving nervous system function.
B vitamins are difficult to become deficient in as they are found in a variety of common
foods such as meats, dairy products, bread and a variety of fruits and vegetables.

Vitamin C acts as an antioxidant in the body by protecting cells from damage that may
be caused by compounds formed when we convert food into energy. Again, this vitamin
is hard to become deficient in as long as you are eating a variety of fruits and vegetables
each day. Good sources are strawberries and citrus fruits.

Fat soluble vitamins Include vitamins A, D, E and K.

Vitamin A plays an important role of ensuring healthy vision and skin, strong bones
and immune function. Common food sources include carrots, sweet potato, broccoli,
egg yolks (the yolk contains a tonne of micronutrients) and spinach.

Vitamin D is important for bone development and optimal hormonal functioning.

Majority if the vitamin D we receive is from sun exposure and is absorbed through the
skin which is why if you live in areas where it’s always overcast you may need to
supplement with vitamin D. There are food sources like eggs, salmon, and some dairy
products which have vitamin D although they only contain small amounts.

Vitamin E performs the same function in the body as vitamin C which is to protect
cells from damage. Common food sources include spinach, almonds, avocados,
broccoli and olive oil.

Lastly, vitamin K is responsible for controlled blood clotting and bone health. It’s
beneficial for lowering blood pressure as it prevents minerals from clogging up the

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 arteries which reduces your risk of stroke and heart disease. Common sources
include leafy greens, broccoli and asparagus.

Minerals

These are inorganic compounds that you’d find on the periodic table. Minerals are
divided into macrominerals and trace minerals.

Macrominerals are required in large amounts (macro=large) and include compounds

such as calcium, magnesium, sulphur, chloride, sodium, potassium and
phosphorus.

Calcium is responsible for developing and maintaining strong bones and teeth. Best
source of calcium is any dairy product such as milk, yogurt and cheese.

Magnesium regulates a variety of processes including protein synthesis and

muscle/nerve control. Common sources include almonds, beans and spinach.

Sulphur is stored in bones skin and hair and also plays an important part in protein
synthesis. Some sources include eggs, garlic, coconut and dried fruits.

Chloride regulates blood pressure by ensuring the balance of fluid in the body.
Sources include tomatoes, olives, table salt and celery.

Sodium is important for bringing water into cells whereas potassium pumps water
outside of cells. However, it is highly likely that you don’t consume a lot of potassium
and over eat on the sodium which causes an imbalance and may lead to the storage
of more water in the body. Therefore, it is important that you consume an adequate
amount of potassium to prevent any unnecessary water retention. Sodium is found in
nearly all foods as salt contains sodium and salt is added to nearly all packaged foods
or deli meats to add flavour. Potassium on the other hand is difficult to obtain as it isn’t
found in regular store-bought foods and is mainly obtained by eating enough fruits and
vegetables like bananas and sweet potatoes on a regular basis.

Phosphorus works with calcium and vitamin D to strengthen bones and teeth and is
found in sources such as meats, fish and dairy products.

How to get an adequate amount of nutrients in

your diet

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 It isn’t necessary to pick out all the foods I’ve listed above for each nutrient and eat
them every single day (even though you could). To get majority of these nutrients without
eating a diet comprised of just wholefoods, it is sufficient that you get at least 2
servings of fruit and vegetables for most days. Also, it is a great idea to include the
vegetables which are the most nutrient dense which tends to be leafy greens such
as kale, spinach and lettuce. A simple way to get most of the nutrients you need is to
have a small salad with kale, spinach leaves, lettuce and pieces of chicken or
some protein source mixed with a low calorie (dressing for flavour) as well as a
serving of mixed vegetables (the ones that are frozen at the shops) and finally 2
pieces of fruit or a bowl of mixed berries.

If you were to eat like this 4-5 days out of the week then you shouldn’t be deficient in
most (if not any) essential nutrients.

Tracking Calories &

Intuitive Eating
By now you have probably guessed that to know how many calories, protein, carbs
and fats you are eating each day you will have to track what you eat by weighing
your food and logging it into a calorie tracking up. This may seem a little obsessive
but if you want to maximise your rate of progress it will be necessary for you to get an
idea of how many calories and preportions of macronutrients are in the foods you
eat. After a month or two of tracking everything you eat it will feel like second nature and
no longer feel like a choir. But, to track your nutrition you are going to need two things: a
digital food scale and a calorie tracking app. Food scales are pretty cheap, and any
will do as long as it’s digital, so you can be accurate. For the tracking app I recommend
using Myfitnesspal as it is simple and easy to use.

How to Use Myfitnesspal

I recommend downloading the app on a smartphone or iPod device for convenience as it
may be annoying logging everything you eat on a laptop or desktop.

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 Getting started is simple:

1. Create an account (ignore the goal calories and macros the app provides to begin
with).
2. At the bottom right corner of the screen click more and then goals

3.

Now tap “calorie, carbs, protein and fat goals” and

adjust the values to your goals.
4. Now tap “Diary” and “add food”. Here is where you can search any food that you plan
on eating. If you have the packaging available, you can click the barcode symbol on
the top right corner and scan the barcode on the packaging rather than typing in the
details.

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5. If you search the food, you will be given a list of brands. Select the most correct one
and then you will be taken to the page on the right.

6. If the serving size is measured in something other than grams (e.g. 1 cup), then you
must change it by tapping the serving size button and then find “1g” and select that
unit. Next right in the “number of servings” section how much of the food you have
weighed (e.g. 308g)

7. Once you add it to your list it will appear in your diary. Add everything that goes into
the meal you are about to eat. This includes any cooking oil, butters or sauces you
use. Drinks that contain calories should also be added.

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 8. To see how much protein, carbs and fats you have logged in, tap the top of the
screen where it says “calories remaining” and then select nutrients. This provides you

a total of each macronutrient as well as fibre and some micronutrients.

9. You can track your bodyweight through the app as well which may be easier than
writing it in your notes every day.

10. That’s all. Do this with every meal or snack you have every day.

Flexible Dieting

You may have noticed that other than giving suggestions for getting in an appropriate
amount of nutrients each day I haven’t said what you shouldn’t eat (other than limit
trans fats). That’s because I suggest that teenagers follow a flexible approach when it
comes to cutting or bulking in terms of food choices. Quite simply, you can eat
anything you want whether you are wanting to gain size or lose fat. In the end it
comes down to how many calories you consume and the macronutrients you are
taking in. As long as you are getting majority of your nutrition from wholefoods and

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 hitting your protein and calorie target you can eat anything and achieve your goals.
To demonstrate how true this is a nutrition professor named Mark Haub (23) went on a
diet for 10-weeks which consisted of Twinkies, Oreos, cereals and protein shakes.
His TDEE was 2600 and he was eating 1800 calories per day (800 calorie deficit) with
majority of the 1800 calories coming from what he called a “convenient store diet”. At the
end of the 10-weeks, despite eating what people what classify as “dirty/bad/junk”
foods, he had lost 27lbs/12.27kg’s. Surprisingly he was healthier after the 10-weeks
of eating “junk” food (lower LDL cholesterol and higher HDL) than before when he
had a normal diet. This may be evidence to display just how bad being overweight is for
our health, but less importantly it shows that you can lose weight eating your
favourite foods as long as your total calorie intake is under control.

As a general rule, majority of the time aim to get 60-80% of your calories from
unprocessed whole foods such as fruits, vegetables, grains, bread, meats and dairy
products and the remaining 20-40% can come from anything you want.

Intuitive Eating and Tracking Body Composition

You are probably thinking “Do I have to track everything I eat for the rest of my life if I
want to get and stay fit?” you’ll be glad to know that this isn’t the case and you definitely
can build and maintain a great physique without tracking, however it is less
optimal and slightly more difficult.

Intuitive eating means to eat according to your hunger levels and your goals
(cutting, bulking or maintaining) without tracking calories through an app. Whether
eating with or without tracking you utilise 5 tools to make sure you are eating in the most
effective way to support your goals and track your progress.

1. Average Weight Changes on the Scale

As a person who is trying to optimise their body composition you must take your total
calorie intake into consideration and make sure you consume enough protein to support
muscle growth and maintenance. Regardless of your goal, if you consume too few
calories you will be risking impeding your recovery from training and too many calories
will result in unnecessary fat gain.

To identify whether you are eating too many or not enough calories you will use
your average bodyweight throughout the weeks as a guide.

Example

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 Average weight week 1: 50.55kg

Average weight week 2: 51.20kg

If your goal was to gain weight and you’ve calculated that an optimal rate of weight gain
is 0.4kg per week, then you’d subtract your weight in week 1 from week 2

(51.20 – 50.55 = +0.65kg gained)

We can see that you overshot your goal by 0.25kg and from this knowledge you can give
yourself a goal to eat a little bit less the next week by implementing some of the cutting
strategies I’ll provide shortly.

Conversely, if your goal is to lose weight at a rate of 0.4kg per week and you lost 1kg
instead then you’d use the tips I’ll provide shortly for eating more calories during a bulk to
slow down the rate of weight loss.

2. Hunger levels

Internally our bodies are designed to maintain a state of homeostasis (stay the same)
so when we are gaining or losing weight the body regulates hunger hormones such as leptin
and ghrelin to combat this change in weight. If it senses we are losing weight then it
increases the hunger hormone ghrelin which stimulates appetite and makes it difficult
to eat less consistently overtime. On the other hand, if we are bulking and increasing our
bodyweight the body increase its leptin hormone which increases satiety and makes
you fuller preventing you from eating more food than you need to maintain your weight.

As you can see the way our body regulates its hormones to maintain its weight makes
intuitive eating a great strategy to maintain a body composition you are happy with
rather than for bulking or cutting.

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When you are cutting it is normal to feel hungrier than usual however you should never feel
as if you are starving. If you are starving, then it would surely be reflected on the scale as
you’d be losing weight way too fast or you have poor eating habits such as eating highly
caloric dense low volume foods and not enough filling fibrous foods (more on this shortly).
However, if your weight is dropping too quickly then the solution is to simply eat more.

When you are bulking it is a different story. At the beginning you may find it extremely easy
to add on the weight without tracking calories however you’re likely to go overboard and
be gain too much unnecessary body fat. Also, you will reach a certain point where hunger
is non-existent and eating enough food to gain weight becomes extremely uncomfortable. If
this becomes an issue and you feel that you could keep bulking a little more before cutting,
then you should implement the bulking strategies laid out shortly. If you aren’t feeling full and
your weight is increasing faster than you’d like, then you should implement some of the
cutting strategies to increase fullness and reduce the total surplus you are creating.

3. Strength in the Gym

This will indicate whether you are eating enough protein or calories in general.

When bulking strength should be trending upwards overtime if you are consuming enough
calories and protein to support muscle growth and strength adaptations. Yes, you are going
to have sessions where you may be weaker than you were on your previous workout but this
doesn’t mean you are doing anything wrong necessarily, it could simply just be a bad
workout due to poor sleep, stress from studying, problems with your social group or many
other possible issues. However, it is an issue when you can no longer make progress for 3-4
weeks in a row or your strength continues to decrease each workout. This could be a
programming issue although if that is all sorted then it will come back to your diet and sleep.
The first thing to look out for is if you are gaining weight at your optimal rate. If no, then you
must simply eat more food. If yes, then you wouldn’t eat any more than you currently are and
should look at your protein intake. I’d consider tracking the amount of protein you are eating
for a while to make sure you are hitting the target of at least 0.8g of protein per pound of
bodyweight and then ditch the tracking and maintain that habit of eating more protein. With

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 these two variables sorted out, gains in strength and in the mirror should be on its way or
you may have to work on improving your sleep or sorting out your programming.

When cutting it is more difficult to make strength gains and build muscle which is why your
main goal is to at least maintain your strength on your main lifts such as your presses, pulls,
squats and deadlifts. When you start cutting there may be an initial drop in strength by a rep
or two but this is simply due to a lower carbohydrate intake and less energy due to eating
less calories. This drop in strength should plateau in the first week of training. Your strength
on the main lifts is a good indicator of whether you are maintaining, building or losing muscle
which is why it is essential that you avoid losses in strength throughout your cut. If your
strength isn’t increasing but you are maintaining it while at the same time are dropping
weight at your desired pace, then you are doing everything just fine. If your strength is
continuing to decrease over a period of 3-4 weeks, then you should address your diet. First
determine if you are losing weight too fast. If yes, eat more. If not, then you can move on to
looking at your protein intake. Again, I’d recommend tracking your protein intake for a few
days just to make sure you are regularly eating more than 1-1.2g of protein per pound of
bodyweight. With them two sorted your strength should stabilise and muscle loss will not
occur.

4. Waist circumference

Your waist circumference is a reliable indicator to tell whether you are losing or gaining
bodyfat. I suggest measuring your waste 1 day every week. Make sure that you measure
your waist first thing in the morning after going to the bathroom and before drinking any
water to ensure you are measuring under consistent conditions. Measure the narrowest part
of your waist which is generally one finger above your navel.

If this measurement is consistently decreasing every 1-2 weeks you can be sure that you are
losing fat. If it is increasing every 2-weeks then you may be gaining fat.

Note: if you have just started a bulk your waist measurement will increase due to more food
content in the stomach, more glycogen in the muscles and more water under the skin. So,
don’t heavily rely on your waist measurements during the first couple of week after starting a
bulk.

5. Pictures

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Taking pictures every month or two is a great way to compare whether what you are doing
is working. If you are losing fat, then you might see more definition in your abs or arms each
month. If you are bulking, you might notice your arms getting slightly bigger and your upper
body becoming wider as you back and shoulders grow. Don’t take pictures more often than
every 4 weeks as any shorter period won’t be long enough to notice any significant changes
in body composition.

These 5 tools above should be used whether you are tracking or not tracking your calories.

Peri-Workout Nutrition

This chapter is relating to pre, during and post workout nutrition.

Pre-workout Nutrition (30-90 minutes pre-workout)

The goal of a pre-workout meal or snack is to provide enough carbohydrates to fuel
your training session while also providing your body protein to prevent excessive
breakdown of muscle tissue during your workout.

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 For carbohydrates, a good pre-workout meal usually would use carb sources that are
high on the GI scale such as watermelon, banana’s, cereal, Coca-Cola (or other drinks
like this) pasta e.t.c. because these carbs are broken down quickly by the body and will
supply a rapid source of glucose to the muscles for the workout. Aim for around 25-40g
of carbohydrates from these fast digesting sources before your workout.

For protein, this is where whey protein supplementation is useful (and for post workout
nutrition) as it is digested rapidly by the body and can be used immediately during your
workout shortly after consumption. If you don’t have any protein powder lying around
don’t worry it isn’t needed and I wouldn’t waste my money on it unless you are bulking
and find it difficult to reach your daily protein intake. You can really get your protein
from any source you like just aim for a minimum of 20-30g of protein as this has
been shown to maximise protein synthesis.

A pre-workout meal isn’t a necessity. If you switch from training with a pre-meal to
training fasted you may experience a small drop in strength and work capacity (less
reps across sets). But if you continue to train in a fasted state eventually this reduction
in strength will be non-existent due to your body becoming more efficient training in
a fasted state. But if you are trying to maximise muscle growth, that pre-meal is
required as training fasted results in a very small increase in protein breakdown
which may equate to you building less muscle than you would have.

WARNING: I’ve had many times where I’ve had a big meal 30-60 minutes prior to a big
workout that involves squats and deadlifts and have felt like I was going to vomit
throughout all my sets. Be cautious to not eat too much or train too soon after eating as
this can become extremely uncomfortable and affect your workout performance as a
result.

During workout Nutrition

I’ve personally never eaten any food during a workout as I’d be confronted with the same
issue mentioned above. Also, I really don’t think its necessary to maximise growth. The
only thing I consume during my workout is water and this is vital. Being hydrated is
vital to having optimal performance in just about any task you partake in that
involves mental concentration and especially physical effort. Be sure to drink water
throughout your lifting session with an aim to drink at least 500ml for every 30
minutes you are in the gym as a rough guide to ensure adequate hydration.

Gatorade and other sport drinks may slightly improve performance via supplying an
immediate source of glucose and replenishing any lost electrolytes through
sweating. I’ve never used a sport drink whilst training so I am unsure if it would cause
any gastral intestinal issues while working out.

Post-Workout Nutrition
(immediately-2 hours after)
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 In regard to whether it is necessary to eat immediately after a workout to maximise
muscle growth, the so called 1 hour “feeding window” after your workout has been
dramatically exaggerated in the fitness community. It really isn’t crucial to have
protein and carbohydrates ASAP after you finish a workout if you want to maximise
your growth, especially if you had a pre-workout meal. Although, it is beneficial to
consume some protein and carbs after a workout but the time it takes after your
workout to do so isn’t as important if you had a pre-workout meal as the protein from that
meal will still be digesting and amino acids will still be circulating in your bloodstream.

The aim of a post-workout meal is to replenish depleted glycogen stores and supply
your muscles the amino acids it needs to repair damaged muscle tissues and
make adaptations.

For carbs, like your pre-workout meal you’d want to consume high GI foods as it will
replenish depleted glycogen stores the fastest. Aim to have at least 50-60g of carbs in
this meal.

Additionally, you would want to consume protein in this meal containing anywhere from
20-30g minimum to aid in muscle recovery by stimulating protein synthesis. The
timing of the post workout meal is more important if you haven’t had a pre-workout
meal as your body would still be breaking down muscle tissue due to the lack of amino
acids available in the bloodstream.

The reason why it’s beneficial to eat both carbs and protein together in the same meal is
due to carbohydrates effects on the hormone insulin. When we consume carbohydrates,
insulin is secreted by the pancreas in large amounts. As mentioned in a previous
chapter, carbohydrates are broken down in the small intestines into glucose which then
circulates in the blood. The pancreas then detects this sudden increase in blood
glucose and secretes insulin which is a storage hormone. Insulins role in the body is
to drive nutrients (such as glucose) into cells for storage and to be used when
needed. The benefit of consuming protein with carbohydrates is that when insulin is
spiked amino acids are taken up by muscle cells at a far greater rate than if you
were to consume just protein alone. This increases muscular recovery in-between
lifting sessions and may reduce muscle soreness (24).

Supplements

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 What most teenagers focus on even though it’s the least important aspect of
bodybuilding. Supplements are exactly that, they are “supplementary” for aspects of
your diet you may find difficult to obtain from real food. They don’t provide you
super powers and double your rate of muscle growth. In fact, they won’t even increase
your rate of muscle growth by 10%. Supplements are used to just give bodybuilders
that 1% improvement in workout performance or recovery from training. Therefore,
if you don’t have a source of income (your parents don’t count) and money to spend then
supplements aren’t a necessity to get the best results.

I know it sounds like I don’t use any supplements myself but that’s not true. I always
have a tub of whey or casein protein powder in my cupboard so it’s easier to hit my
protein intake on a day to day basis.

In this chapter I’m going to provide you with a short list of the supplements that have
scientific evidence to back their use (obviously there are more than this, but these are
the ones relevant to teenagers/beginners) and tell you what they are, how its beneficial
to use, when to use it and possible food alternatives.

Whey Protein Powder

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 What it is: Whey is a clear liquid that is a by-product from cheese production. Due to
people realising its possible benefits it was then manufactured into a powder form to be
sold as a supplement for athletes and bodybuilders.

How it is beneficial: It has a great amino acid profile meaning it contains majority of the
body’s essential and non-essential amino acids, more importantly it is high in the amino
acid called Leucine which has been shown to directly stimulate protein synthesis.
Furthermore, whey protein is digested and absorbed rapidly by the body (within 20
minutes) which makes it especially beneficial to use pre-workout and post-workout (25)
as it ensures there is a constant supply of amino acids (particularly leucine) in the blood
during and after training, rather than you needing to wait for the meal you ate to
breakdown before the amino acids can be absorbed.

When to use: Whey protein is best used pre and post workout due to its rapid
absorption. However, you can use it on non-training days or any other time of the day to
meet your protein needs.

Alternatives: Really it is difficult to find alternatives to whey as there aren’t any food
sources that are digested within an hour of being eaten. Although most protein sources
like meats are digested and absorbed after 3 hours, they are still good enough to
consume pre and post workout as total protein intake is more important for gains than
protein timing.

Casein Protein Powder

What it is: Casein is a protein found in milk which is absorbed much slower than whey
(over a period of 3-4 hours).

How it is beneficial: Because casein is broken down much slower than whey (26) it
makes it a better all round protein to have outside of your pre or post workout meal as it
provides a smaller but longer release of amino acids in the bloodstream so your muscles
always have them available for use rather than having a rapid spike in amino acids and
then being empty again an hour after you consumed a whey protein shake.

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When to use: Its slow release makes it best to use anytime throughout the day, however
there is an increase in muscle recovery effect from having a casein shake before bed as
you’ll have a constant amino acid supply during that period where you are not eating
anything, and protein synthesis can continue to be stimulated.

Alternatives: all dairy products are great sources of casein protein such as Greek
yoghurt, cottage cheese, milk and eggs. Something I like to do is mix a vanilla or
chocolate casein protein powder with yoghurt or cottage cheese to make a really high
protein moose.

Creatine Monohydrate

What it is: Creatine is a substance in animals that helps create energy for cells.

How it is beneficial: to explain this we are going to have to get a little scientific. All cells
in the body use an energy dense molecule called Adenosine tri-phosphate (ATP) to
create the energy needed for many cellular activities including the contraction of muscle
fibers.

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As you can see from this diagram above ATP is made up of one Adenosine molecule and
three phosphate molecules all connected by phosphoanhydride bonds. When the bond
between the second and third phosphate is broken energy is released and is then used
for cellular activities or muscular contractions. This then forms Adenosine Di-phosphate
(ADP) and a free inorganic phosphate molecule (Pi).

Here is where creatine comes into play, more specifically creatine phosphate (CP). CP
is like ATP in that it has a high energy bond which when broken releases energy.
However, instead of this energy being used for cellular processes, it is used to add the Pi
back to the ADP molecule to form ATP which would then be used again for cell
processes or muscle contractions.

The body produces a limited amount of CP which means if there is too high of a demand
for ATP (like during exercise) CP stores in the muscles deplete rapidly meaning that ATP
must be resynthesised via anaerobic glycolysis or aerobic glycolysis (using energy from
glucose to re-create ATP) which is a slower process and leads to less forceful muscular
contractions and a drop in workout intensity. However, if we ingest creatine from an
outside source, we increase the amount of creatine stored in our muscles allowing us to

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 train harder and recover faster from each set. People often see a small increase in
strength (27) (maybe 2-3 more reps or able to increase weight by 2.5kg on an exercise)
once they have been using creatine for a week or two.

When to use: this is a supplement that needs to be taken daily in order to see any
benefit as it takes a week or two for creatine to be saturated in the muscles via
supplementation. Often on the container you might see that it suggests a “loading phase”
where for the first 7-10 days you take 20g each day instead of the recommended 5g per
day to increase the rate at which creatine is saturated in the muscles, after this 7-10
days you would have a daily dose of 5g everyday (training and non-training days)

. Also, there may be some merit in taking creatine with your post-workout meal as
nutrient uptake by the muscles is increased following a workout and the increased insulin
from the meal may speed up the uptake of creatine in the muscles.

Alternatives: creatine is found in the muscles of animals which is why you can get some
creatine from beef and fish, however to get 5g of creatine from these sources you’d have
to consume close to half a kilogram (454g of beef or fish) everyday to get the benefit that
creatine supplementation could provide.

Note: some people don’t receive any benefit from creatine supplementation (they’re
referred to as “non-responders”), such as myself, which makes paying for creatine a
waste of money. When you start taking creatine regularly you may gain 1kg of water
weight as creatine also increases the storage of water in the muscles. If you’re a non-
responder, you probably won’t experience this increase in weight or gain in reps that
usually comes with creatine supplementation. Finally, there are many forms of creatine
that you can buy as some have been made in a different way so people who experience
gastrointestinal upset from supplementation can still use creatine without the negative
effects, but this form may not provide as good of a result than your standard creatine
monohydrate. Monohydrate is the cheapest form and most effective, however if you do
get feelings of discomfort then I’d recommend buying micronized creatine as this has
been shown to remove any discomfort as it’s easier to be digested.

Pre-Workouts

What it is: pre-workout supplements are powders which you mix in water and drink prior
to your workout to give you a boost of energy and improve workout performance. Most
pre-workouts contain a large dose of caffeine, a whole list of other added nutrients that
are “suppose to” improve workout performance. I say suppose to because most pre-

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 workout supplements have a bunch of added nutrients that don’t have any scientific
evidence to back them up. They are simply there to look like you are getting a bunch of
benefits when the main benefits come from caffeine and amino acids which boost nitric
oxide.

How it is beneficial: caffeine has been shown repeatedly to reduce feelings of fatigue
and increase strength, power and endurance (28). Amino acids like citrulline and arginine
increase nitric oxide in the blood stream which is responsible for causing vasodilation
(expansion) in blood vessels increasing blood flow to muscles which in return gives you
a better pump, faster removal of waste products allowing you to train harder for longer
and improved aerobic capacity making high rep full-body movements like squats and
deadlifts feel far easier to complete without feeling winded after each set.

When to use: this is extremely dependent on one’s caffeine sensitivity. If taken too late
(after 3pm) people with high sensitivity will find it very difficult to sleep which isn’t
something you want to sacrifice for a few more reps in the gym. Caffeine usually takes
30-45minutes to take full effect after consumption which is why I recommend you have a
serving of pre-workout about 30-60 minutes prior to training to reap the full benefit.

Alternatives: the simplest alternative to a pre-workout supplement would be a cup or

two of coffee (not decaffeinated). A cheaper alternative than buying a pre-workout is to
buy citrulline malate on its own and take 5g of that with a cup of coffee to get the
vasodilation benefits. DON’T mix the citrulline in your coffee, it tastes awful.

Notes: Pimples are common in your teens, so I thought this may be worth mentioning.
Caffeine is a stimulant which makes your body increase its production of stress
hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline, for some people this leads to an increase in
oils being produced by the skin and can result in the formation of pimples. This
happened to me. Whenever I have coffee or dark chocolate (anything with caffeine) I
break out. I’ve tested it time and time again. So, if you are suffering from acne it may be
worth trying to cut out all sources of caffeine from your diet for a while and see if your
skin clears up.

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 Bulking Tips to Eat
more

As a teenager your body is constantly growing and making changes until you reach your
early-mid 20’s which is why you are blessed or cursed (depending how you see it)
with a high energy expenditure, thereby you need to eat more calories than an
average adult would to gain weight. These tips are going to be for the people who
struggle to eat enough food to gain weight as you may have an abnormally fast
metabolism and need to eat over 4000 calories per day to gain 0.5kg a week. Also,
towards the end of a bulking phase you won’t have an appetite as you are always full
and may feel uncomfortable eating anymore food although it is necessary if you want
to maximise muscle growth.

Conversely, you can use these tips if you are maintaining or even cutting but you feel
you can’t eat enough food to achieve your goal.

Tips
1. Track your calories: if you are a hard gainer and feel as if you eat sooo much food
then I strongly advise you to track everything you eat for at least a month. This will
help determine whether you really are eating a lot of food or if you just simply don’t

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 have a big appetite and eat big servings of food once or twice per day then don’t eat
anything else. On average I’d say if you must eat more than 4000 calories per day to
see any weight gain (given that you aren’t extremely active outside of the gym) then
I’d classify you as a hard gainer.
2. Don’t drink water during/straight after a meal: I’ve found that when I drink water
while eating or after eating a decent sized meal I begin to feel abnormally full,
however if I was to have a large pizza and not drink any fluids I’d keep looking for
food around the house to eat.
3. Watch YouTube or TV while eating: watching something while eating serves as a
form of distraction which can help you eat more food before you start realising you’re
full.
4. Drink your calories: fruit juices, protein shakes, Gatorade, milk and other liquid
calories can be a great way to add in an additional 500 calories without feeling any
sort of fullness as these drinks are easier to digest and lower in volume than actual
food.
5. Eat some high fat foods: avocadoes, nuts, butters, cheeses and fatty alternatives
such as full cream milk and full fat yogurts are dense in calories and low in total
volume which makes it easier to eat more calories without feeling full. Remember
that eating fat won’t make you fat only being in too big of a calorie surplus overtime
will cause you to gain fat.
6. Eat your favourite foods: this is self-explanatory. You will always be able to eat
more of your favourite food.
7. Don’t restrict yourself to eating just “clean foods”: as mentioned in the section
on flexible dieting, you can eat anything you want and build muscle or lose fat. If you
love ice cream, eat it. If you want a pizza, buy one or make one. As long as you are
making sure you aren’t going too overboard with your calorie intake you won’t gain
anymore fat from eating a snickers bar than you would from eating 2 bananas as
both have about 200 calories. But try keep around 70% of your diet healthy non-
processed foods majority of the time as you will feel like shit if you aren’t getting in
the proper micronutrients your body needs to grow and develop.
8. Make a weight gainer shake: if you are really struggling to hit your calories you can
make your own weight gainer shake. I recommend making your own rather than
buying one because it’s way cheaper and weight gainers usually just have a shit
tonne of sugar added to them as well as other shit that you don’t need. Here is a
quick recipe for a weight gainer shake, you can use flour instead of protein powder if
you don’t have any, this will just change the protein content and add more
carbohydrates.
 200ml full cream milk
 2 eggs
 50g oats
 60g peanut butter (any nut butter)
 1 banana
 30 g of whey protein powder (any flavour but if it’s a casein powder then you will need
more milk) or flour
 1 tsp cinnamon and vanilla extract

Throw all the ingredients into a blender until completely liquified. That might not taste the
best but you could search “homemade weight gainer shakes” and you’ll find a tonne of
different recipes which look delicious.

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 The macros for this shake are: 62g protein, 80g carbs, 53g of fat and it totals to 1047
calories. If you are really struggling to eat enough, I’d say make two of these shakes per
day in addition to all the food you normally eat and if that doesn’t work bump it up to
three shakes per day.

9. Eat 6 or more meals per day: I mean actual meals not 200 calorie snacks here and
there, I mean at least 500 calories in each meal with snacks in between each meal. It
is much easier to eat more food if you are eating 6 main meals per day with snacks
than if you were to eat 2-3 main meals with snacks. Also try spread these meals out
throughout the day so you don’t feel completely stuffed after 1 abnormally large meal.
10. Eat dried fruits and calorie dense vegetables: dried fruits are tasty, still have
healthy micronutrients and are extremely dense in calories compared to their weight
due to being dehydrated. Furthermore, vegetables like potatoes, corn, beans and
yams have a decent number of calories per 100g which make these foods excellent
for bulking as they also provide important nutrients for healthy body functioning.

Cutting tips to Eat Less

On the other hand, when trying to lose weight the problem becomes trying to not feel hungry
even though you are eating less food. Again as a teen you can be blessed or cursed in this
area as some have fast metabolisms and are extremely active which allows them to cut on
relatively high calories (>2500 calories) whereas others may have a slow metabolism and
aren’t as active, meaning they may need to cut on significantly lower calories (<2200
calories). Either way both types will experience some hunger regardless of their calorie
intake as they will both be losing weight. You could also use these tips if you are on a bulk
and feel as if you are eating too many calories and don’t feel full. You may notice that some
of these tips are the opposite of the bulking tips.

Tips
1. Eat more low calorie fruits and vegetables: fruits like apples, pears and
watermelon and vegetables like broccoli, carrots, kale and spinach are extremely
low in calories, high in fibre and have significant weight/volume which increases
feelings of fullness when being digested in the stomach.

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 2. Drink water with every meal: when eating drink at least 0.5-1L of water with
your meal. This will help increase feelings of fullness as the food you eat absorbs
the water giving it more weight in the stomach which increases satiety.
3. After a planned meal brush your teeth: this is a weird one but can be useful to
stop you from eating more food than you planned to eat as food tastes like shit
when you eat straight after brushing your teeth. Your dentist will thank me for this
tip �.
4. Drink only calorie free beverages: fruit drinks, coke, lemonade, milk e.t.c don’t
increase satiety as much as actual food does. I would go with either the diet
calorie free option or none as its wasted calories that could have came from filling
food. E.g. what would be more filling? Can of coke, 530g of watermelon or 650g
of broccoli? They’re all 160 calories, I’d choose the latter 2 if I was hungry on a
cut.
5. Don’t eat in front of the TV: this prevents you from being distracted and not
realising how much you actually have eaten.
6. Still eat your favourite foods: although in smaller amounts. If you deprive
yourself of the foods you love you are more likely to binge whenever you are out
at a party or on a holiday with your family or friends. When I cut I eat a
homemade pizza nearly every day (600-800 calories total) because I love pizza.
Just make sure you are tracking how much you are eating and don’t go over your
caloric goal.
7. Use cardio strategically: cardio can either make you hungrier or blunt your
appetite. You will need to test this out for yourself and see how you respond. If
your appetite is blunted then it may be beneficial to go for a run or do some form
of cardio at times during the day where you normally start feeling hungry to
prevent hunger pangs from occurring.
8. Eat from a smaller bowl or plate: you may have heard this before, but it is a
cool psychological trick that makes you think you’ve eaten more food than you
actually have. For example, which plate looks like it has more food?

9. Use caffeine to blunt appetite: caffeine can have hunger blunting effects. A cup
of coffee in the morning may help you feel less hungry throughout the day.
10. Drink flavoured mineral/soda water when hungry: I’ve found that drinking a
carbonated beverage like mineral water can help fix any immediate hunger I feel
and has allowed me to eat less calories without feeling as hungry throughout the
day.

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11. Drink more water: I’ve found that about 9/10 times whenever I feel hungry it is
because I am dehydrated and needed water. People often confuse feelings of
thirst with feelings of hunger which causes them to eat instead of drink water and
as a result of being dehydrated while eating (tip 2) they don’t feel full and
continue to eat more food.

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 Sleep

Last but definitely not least, we are going to be covering why sleep is so important
for optimal health and performance in the gym.

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 Sleep and the brain

Before we get into how sleep impacts your ability to lose fat and build muscle, I think it’s
important to look at how sleep impacts something even more important than looking better (I
know, hard to believe right?), your brain.

In your teens your brain is in the process of making and removing neural connections at
a rapid rate which is why you can learn a new instrument or language faster than an adult
would be able to. Given that you are most likely still at school, remembering information for
SAC’s and exams is maybe important to you or even just learning things in general. After a
long day of studying, watching informative YouTube videos, nearly falling over the curb on
your way to school e.t.c when you finally go to sleep and more specifically enter deep
sleep, your brain begins to process everything that had happened that day. It throws
out useless information such as what hand we used to open your front door and encodes
information that may be helpful or important to us such as remembering where the curb
I fell over was so next time I’m more aware when I walk that way again. When we don’t get
enough sleep this consolidation process is interrupted and as a result, we find it
difficult to remember important events or information.

Additionally, as we go through our day dangerous amyloid plaque builds up in the

prefrontal cortex (the part of the brain that is responsible for complex decision making,
personality expression, behaviour control and thought processing). The more this plaque
builds up, the greater the risk of suffering from dementia in the future. However, during
sleep the brain is given time to remove the amyloid plaque reducing our risk of getting
dementia in the near/distant future.

Lastly, when we lack sleep the prefrontal cortex shows less activation and there is
increased activation the part of the brain called the amygdala which is responsible for
processing emotions. This causes us to be more easily agitated, annoyed and
emotionally reactive to even small issues. Furthermore, because of the inhibiting affect
sleep deprivation has on our prefrontal cortex we are more likely to interpret what others

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 say and events that occur as negative which has been shown to increase our risk of
developing depression and anxiety (29) which is already highly prevalent in teens.

Sleep and Fat Loss

A study (12) was done in 2011 where 10 participants were asked to sleep and stay in a
laboratory for 14 days and weren’t allowed to leave. They were all put on a 1450 calorie
diet for those 14 day, although half (5 people) were restricted to sleeping 5.5 hours each
night whereas the other group were restricted to sleeping 8.5 hours per night. Before
the experiment took place their bodyfat and fat free mass (muscle tissue, water, glycogen
and bones) were measured as well as their leptin and ghrelin hormonal levels
(remember leptin increases satiety and ghrelin increases hunger) and their resting
metabolic rate.

After the 14 days, both groups lost 3kg of bodyweight, however, here is where it gets
interesting: the 5.5 hour sleep deprived group only lost 0.6kg of fat and the remaining
2.4kg of weight came from fat free mass which was mainly from loss of muscle tissue as
their metabolic rates decreased by 750 cal/day. On the other hand, the 8.5 hour group
lost 1.6kg of fat which is more than double the amount the sleep deprived group had lost.
The normal sleep group had lost only 1.4kg of fat free mass which would have been
different if the group were allowed to resistance train during the experiment and had a higher
protein intake (only 65g per day!).

Additionally, the sleep deprived group had a larger increase in ghrelin and reduction in
leptin hormones than the full sleep group. In the real world this means that you are more
likely to feel hungrier when you are sleep deprived and thus more likely to cheat on your
diet and stall your weight loss progress.

So, the main takeaways we can get from this study are:

 Sleeping less than your body needs (everyone is different but usually 8-10 hours is
enough) results in less fat loss and more muscle loss when cutting.

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 Being in too large of a caloric deficit, not eating sufficient protein and not doing any
form of exercise is a perfect recipe for losing muscle mass.
 Less sleep results in more hunger and therefore can encourage overeating stalling
weight loss.
Long story short, if you want to lose more fat, retain more muscle mass and feel less
hungry when on a cut then you want to be certain that you are getting 8-10 hours of
sleep per night.

But I understand as a teenager it is difficult to get your full 8-10 hours every
single night as you are likely to have nights where you’re out drinking with friends.
Alcohol negatively impacts your quality and quantity of sleep as it seems to speed up
sleep onset but after an hour your body struggles to remain in those deep stages
of sleep where the body and brain reap those health and composition benefits.
So, as a general rule of thumb try to aim for 5/7 nights of the week where you
have 8-10 hours of sleep. Yes, that means you are forced to sleep earlier on school
nights as you probably start class around 9am. I don’t see this as a sacrifice as a full
night’s sleep will give you far more benefits than staying up an extra 1-3 hours
watching tv, studying or being on your phone.

Sleep and Building

Muscle

To understand how sleep affects muscle growth we have to talk about how
testosterone and human growth hormone (HGH) play an important role in how our
muscles grow.
Hormones and muscle growth
Testosterone is a hormone that is classified as an androgen which are
responsible for starting and directing growth and development in both males
and females, although males have far higher levels of testosterone than females
which is why we develop far more masculine traits such as facial hair and more
muscle mass through puberty.
As mentioned in an earlier chapter, our muscles grow from being damaged by
exercise and then signals for repair to become bigger and stronger. This growth

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 response occurs due to a number of growth hormones with testosterone being
the main regulator for growth. Testosterone binds to receptors on damaged
muscle cells and stimulates protein synthesis in that cell. Furthermore,
testosterone also triggers an increase in HGH which further increases protein
synthesis enhancing muscle growth. The more testosterone there is to bind to
damaged muscle cells, the more HGH is created, the greater the rate and magnitude
the muscle cell will recover and grow.
HGH is a crucial hormone during childhood and adolescence as it is responsible
for just that, growth of the body. Without HGH we would die for one but besides that
we’d never grow taller as its presence is crucial for bone and muscle development.

During deep sleep is when most of the HGH in your body is produced (75% of
HGH in the body is made when asleep), additionally testosterone is highest
during the later stages of sleep. With these two facts, I hope you can see where
this is leading to. When we miss out on sleep, we are significantly reducing both
the amount of testosterone we are producing and HGH. When there is a small
amount of Testosterone and HGH in the body they are less likely to bind to the
damaged muscle cells and trigger a growth response at an appreciable rate,
resulting in little or no net muscle growth occurring throughout the night. This
reduction in testosterone and HGH remains for the rest of the day following
inadequate sleep which negatively impacts your recovery from the previous days
workout as well as any workout you complete the following day, thus resulting in less
muscle growth overtime.

Additionally, when sleep is interrupted, or shortened glycogen replenishment is

also interfered with as a significant amount of muscle glycogen is replenished while
we are sleeping. Add this on top of the fact that after a shitty night sleep we feel low
on energy and weak, that days workout is going to be difficult to complete, not
to even mention being able to make progress from what you did the last workout
when you were fresh. As a result of having a workout where performance is
compromised, the potential strength gains and muscle growth from it will be far less
than if you simply had an extra 1-3 hours of sleep that night.

How to improve
your sleep

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Here I am going to provide you with 8 tips on how to improve your sleep quality and
quantity, so you are able to reap the muscle building, fat loss and mental health
benefits of having a good night’s rest. I’ve used all these tips myself and have found
that I can now fall asleep effortlessly nearly every night.
Morning exercise

Believe it or not, what we do when we wake up has a significant impact on how fast
we fall asleep that night and what quality of sleep you will have. This is due to the
stress hormone cortisol. In the morning cortisol is at its peak which is what signals
the body to wake up and be alert. The more cortisol we have circulating in our
bodies, the more awake we will usually feel and the poorer quality of sleep we will
have which explains why on nights where it’s important for us to sleep such as when
we have a sac or exam the next morning that you’re stressing about, we may find it
nearly impossible to sleep. Cortisol slowly decreases throughout the day (given that
no stressful events occur) until we fall asleep and wake up again the next day,
however cortisol is still present in the body when we sleep but just in a smaller
amount compared to when you woke up.
Exercise is a stressor to the body which means it causes a spike in cortisol, but this
spike is immediately stopped once exercise seizes and cortisol reduces to below
normal levels making us feel more relaxed and less tense a couple of hours after
exercise. So the benefit of exercising in the morning is that we are causing that initial
spike in cortisol at the start of the day, which then greatly reduces the amount of
circulating cortisol in our bodies for the remainder of the day. Once we are in bed

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cortisol is so low that it becomes easier to fall asleep and stay asleep throughout the
night.
If you lift weights in the morning then you are already getting this benefit, however if
you don’t lift weights until after 12-1pm you could benefit from performing some form
of moderate intensity exercise for 5 minutes as soon as you wake up. Personally, I
like to jump rope for 5 minutes in the morning, but you could do a circuit of burpees,
high knees, jumping jacks and squat jumps or go for a run. Really you can do
anything as long as it gets your heart rate up for 5 minutes.

Morning Sunlight Exposure

Again, this is another tip for sleep that depends on how you start your day. Our
bodies primary sleep hormone is melatonin which is mainly released when our eyes
start to see less light. Furthermore, the release of melatonin is inhibited when there is
an abundance of light being exposed to our retinas. Sunlight has the greatest impact
on melatonin regulation as we were designed to be awake during the day when it is
easiest to see predators or potential food and at night we are programmed to feel
tired and sleep as we are less able to see clearly and to avoid detection from
possible threats. When we expose our eyes to sunlight earlier in the day we are
inhibiting the production of melatonin so later on in the evening when it begins to get
darker, melatonin can be released in larger quantities, thus encouraging better quality
sleep.
I’d suggest doing your morning exercise outside so you can kill two birds with one
stone, although if this is not possible then you should aim to expose your eyes to
sunlight within 1-2 hours of waking up so you can set your biological clock to release
melatonin at the right time of the day.

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 Have a Cut Off Time for Caffeine

As mentioned earlier caffeine had a huge influence on my ability to fall asleep when I
was in year 8 when I would have at least 3-5 cups of coffee in the morning before
school. But even one cup before 8am would stop me from sleeping that night. This is
because I am extremely sensitive to caffeine and I might be an outlier from most
teens who can easily have a V at 5pm and sleep like a baby that night.
As we go on throughout a typical day, a molecule called adenosine binds to receptors
in the brain which causes us to feel tired. The more adenosine that bind to the
receptors the more tired we begin to feel. Caffeine is a molecule with a similar shape
to adenosine, which allows it to bind to the adenosine receptors in the brain and
block adenosine from binding to their receptors. As a result, this inhibits adenosines
ability to make us feel tired. Additionally, caffeine stimulates the sympathetic nervous
system in our bodies which is responsible for the “fight or flight” response. This
causes a release of adrenaline, noradrenaline and cortisol, all of which increase our
alertness and reduce feelings of fatigue. This is why I recommend you limit your
caffeine use to no later than 3pm as these affects last for a long period of time as
caffeine has a half life of 6 hours, meaning that after 6 hours half of the caffeine that
we consume will still remain in our bodies, thus making it difficult to sleep up until
9pm-12am.

Meditation Before Bed

One of the main causes of insomnia or a difficult time falling asleep is excessive
thinking throughout the night. This constant noise in our head prevents us from
relaxing and allowing us to slip into sleep when we desire.

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 Meditation before bed is a tried and true method of alleviating that excessive mind
chatter at a time of the day where we want to be completely relaxed and free of all
thoughts. Meditation is simply focusing on an object, action or feeling for an extended
period of time and returning your focus to that object/action/feeling when it has been
shifted elsewhere.
For example, when I meditate
I sit on the floor with my legs crossed (you can sit on a chair or lying in bed) and I
choose to focus on breathing through my nose. I focus on how it feels when the air
enters and exits my nostrils for every breath. Whenever I catch myself drifting off into
thought, I simply return my attention back to focusing on my breath. I do this for 10-
minutes before I sleep each night.
The simple act of focusing on your breath and ignoring all thoughts that come to your
mind lessens the mind chatter you will experience after the meditation is done and
will help you fall asleep faster and stay asleep for longer. Trust me this tip is worth a
try.
Electronics in Bedroom and Blue light Exposure

As mentioned before melatonin production is regulated by the light our eyes detect
from our external environment. The type of light which has the biggest impact on
inhibition of melatonin release is blue light. Blue light has the highest light energy
which is why our eyes are so sensitive to its presence and another reason why we
feel as if we are more awake and alert on days where the sky is clear and the blue is
visible to our eyes. Phones, tv’s, laptops e.t.c release blue light which in return
interferes with our melatonin production when these devices are viewed close to bed
time. Remember that less melatonin means you will feel less tired and find it more
difficult to fall asleep. In order to avoid this negative affect on our sleep we have 3
options:

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 1. Purchase blue light blocking glasses: these glasses are designed to minimise
the blue light which comes from your phones and Tv’s by preventing blue light
from hitting your eyes by using an orange tint. You could probably use a pair of
orange tinted sunglasses rather than buying blue light blocking glasses.

2. Download F.lux on your computer or Night mode on your phone: If you

spend a fair share of your night on your phone or computer then installing f.lux on
your computer will minimise the blue light your screen releases by turning it into a
more orange tint. iPhone have a built-in night mode which accomplishes the
same thing, for android I’m pretty sure you have to install f.lux.
3. Avoid screens 30-60 minutes before bed: the final option is one I don’t see
many people doing even though it is the most effective. Avoiding all screens
before bed ensures that there is no blue light at all which can interfere with the
release of melatonin.

Additionally, if you are really having trouble sleeping and the other tips haven’t helped then
I’d suggest removing all electronic devices from your bedroom such as your Tv,
Xbox/PlayStation, laptops e.t.c. The main reason for this is to prevent your brain from
associating your bed with activities other than sleep and sex. By doing this you are
eliminating any potential distractions from sleep and will feel more tired when you do lay in
bed as your brain will make the link between bed and sleep.

Maintain a Regular Sleep Schedule

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 This is crucial for developing a habit of feeling tired when you plan on sleeping. Our brains
are habit forming machines and enjoys making associations between any two things as
doing so makes it easier for us to do or feel the same way the next time that time of day or
event occurs. By sleeping at the same time every single night, let’s say 10:30pm you are
making the neural connections between 10:30pm and sleep stronger and stronger. After 3-5
days of repeating this behaviour it will become a habit as your brain starts to increase its
melatonin production at that time in order to make you more efficient at sleeping at that
specific time. Sleeping later or earlier than your habitual sleep time for a night won’t interfere
with this habit if you have consistently slept at that time for 5 or more days in a row, however
2 nights in a row will start to delay the release of melatonin as your brain is now trying to
tune into that new later sleep time. Therefore, if you want to fall asleep easier then you
should have a regular sleep schedule.

Have a Cold Shower Before Bed

I know. This one is cooked. But listen. When we go to lay in bed trying to sleep our bodies
core temperature begins to drop which helps promote the onset of sleep. When the body is
overheated it is extremely difficult to have a good night’s rest. You’ve probably experienced
them nights where its 35 degrees outside and you are struggling to sleep because its too hot
in your room. Well, a good way of speeding up this reduction in body temperature is to turn
the shower to the coldest it can go and stand there for the last 30 seconds of your shower.

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While you are in there you may be awake and alert, however once you get out and meditate
before bed you will feel cold but also tired. Once you hop into bed, you’ll be out in less than
10 minutes guaranteed.

I always use this as a last resort and it hasn’t failed me once.

I hope these tips are helpful as getting a good night’s sleep is crucial for building a great
looking and functional physique.

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 Final Tips to get the
most from training

You now know more about training and nutrition than 99% of your classmates and the
people around you if you have read through every chapter in this book. I would like to
conclude this guide by giving you a few tips to get the best results possible out of your
training and nutrition.

Consistency is King
No matter what program someone gives you or that you create, if you aren’t sticking to it
diligently then you will get subpar results. It is not enough to put in a week of training and
then skip workouts the following week. For muscles to get bigger, they MUST be placed
under resistance at least once per week and with enough volume. Training once every 14
days won’t give you any measurable progress. If you can’t train when you planned to, then
train that muscle group the day before/after you had planned.

Same goes with your nutrition. If you consistently eat in a caloric deficit and enough protein
each day, then you will lose bodyfat overtime. However, if you hit your caloric and
macronutrient goals 5/7 days of the week progress will be dramatically slowed or stalled
completely. Same goes for when bulking. Not eating enough calories and protein everyday
will halt progress and make training in the gym seem like a waste of time.

If you want to build a great physique you will need to be consistent with your training,
nutrition and sleep. If you cannot keep all three of these aspects under control and always
be striving to optimise each of them, you will inevitably fail to make any noticeable progress
in terms of strength and hypertrophy.

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However, I also don’t want you to think bodybuilding is a full-time job. Really, it only takes 3-5
hours from your week and means you may miss out on a slice of pizza or cake here and
there.

Keep a Workout Log

As progressing the amount of reps you can do with a given weight on an exercise is
paramount to getting bigger and stronger, it is essential that you write down exactly how
many reps you have done on each set of an exercise. You can do this in two ways:

1. Use a workout tracking app: there are hundreds of apps that are designed
specifically to track your progress on exercises in the gym, however there is 1 that I
believe is the most reliable and simple to use.

JEFIT

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 with this app you are able to create your own workout routine comprised of nearly any
exercise you want (exercises that you can’t find can be added manually), assign a specific
goal number of reps and sets for each exercise as well as rest periods, track your progress
from workout to workout so you know if you are in a plateau and need to adjust something
and the app allows you to write down notes for each exercise so you can keep track of how
hard a set was (what RPE/RIR) and any tips for future sessions in terms of improving your
form.

This app also has a tutorial feature which will run you through how it works if you feel lost.
Also, this app is free, however you can purchase a membership to get access to certain
graphs and other information, although this is not necessary and may be a waste of your
money.

2. Write in a book/journal: this method is a little more difficult to explain as each

person would write their workout in a different lay out to others. The crucial details
that your workout log must include though are:
 The name of the session and the date it was done (this can be used as a reference
for future workouts)
 For each exercise you will write down:
 The name of the exercise
 The weight being used
 How many reps on each set you got
 The RPE/RIR of each set

If these points are included in your workout journal, then the layout doesn’t matter. When you
repeat that session again later that week or the next week, you would look back at the reps,
weight and what RPE you completed them sets and then you would aim to either increase
the weight, reps or perform the same reps at a lower RPE. This is how you can be sure that
you are making progress, hence getting bigger and stronger.

Tracking your workouts is essential to making progress and if neglected, I am certain you
won’t make any progress after the first 6-9 months of training where anything you do will
cause adaptations. After the first 6-9 months it becomes far more difficult to make any
progress in strength and muscle gain. This is where it becomes crucial to track each workout
and push for progress each session when possible.

Furthermore, tracking your bodyweight and waist measurements also should be consistent
throughout both your bulking and cutting cycles so you have a way of estimating how much
you are eating and if you should adjust your calories/eating habits to better suit your goals.
For keeping track of my bodyweight, I use the fitness app which comes with all iPhone. If
you have android, you can easily download any free app that allows you to note down your
weigh-ins and then calculate your average for each week. I like to measure my waist once
per week on a morning after a normal day of eating (didn’t eat out or have anything I don’t
normally eat) to try make the measurement as reliable as possible.

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 Avoid Program Hopping and Changing Goals
Frequently
I have wasted years of progress by not following these two simple tips. Program hopping in
this context refers to:

Changing your workout routine either entirely or certain aspects (e.g. changing the rep range
on an exercise, switching to RPT or RSTPT, adding/removing sets, increasing/decreasing
rest periods, changing an exercise, e.t.c) less than 8 weeks into your current program, to
build the “perfect workout routine”.

If you have followed the training guidelines in this book or are completing the sample
routines, you aren’t missing out on additional gains. I can’t tell you the number of times I
have stopped my past routines 3 weeks in thinking “if I change this exercise.. if I do 10 reps
instead of 6… if I add a set here or an extra day… then I’ll have the best possible routine”
but in reality I was simply mucking around and making no progress as I would always
change something and prevent myself from gaining momentum in terms of strength and
building size. A large contributor to making these frequent changes had been my constant
searching online for how to make the “best routine”.

But I was unaware that in everyone’s eyes the perfect routine is different. Some people will
say you need to rest 30-60 seconds each set if you want to build muscle, other will say you
should rest closer to 3 minutes or more to maximise growth. Some will say that all you need
to do is train 3-days per week with 3-6 sets per muscle group using RPT and to focus on
making strength gains while others will say that volume is the most important factor for
muscle growth and that you should complete a minimum of 10 sets per muscle group and
train 4-6 days per week to fit in more sets. Some people will say to train a muscle group
once a week or even every 8-10 days, while others will say to train each muscle at least 2-3
times per week or even 6-7 days per week.

Continuing to search for the “best” routine will lead only to confusion and reduces confidence
in your current routine even though (without knowing) your routine is giving you amazing
progress. So please do your best to not fall into the trap of searching for the “best routine” as
I did and wasted hours upon hours of time in the gym stressing out whether I should tweak
certain aspects because I watched one YouTube video of someone “saying you shouldn’t
lock out your elbows while benching” or “to grow muscle you should do 8-12 reps on all
exercises”. If I had been given this book when I was 13 years old and were told to never look
elsewhere for how I can improve upon the principles already laid out in this book, I would
have probably had an additional 5-10kg of muscle on my frame and consequently way
heavier lifts.

Furthermore, I was always changing my diet goals. For 4 weeks I’d aim to bulk and build
muscle but once I started to see my weight on the scale increase and my abs started to
become a little less visible (this occurs whenever you start eating more food as your body
starts holding more water and glycogen) I’d freak out and start coming up with excuses to
cut down for a few weeks because I’m gaining too much fat when my scale weight only went
up by 0.5-1kg. This prevented me from maximising those 1-2 years of training where muscle

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 growth is the fastest it will ever be (could’ve possibly gained 15kg of muscle in my first 2
years). To make things worse, 2-4 weeks after I decided to cut I’d see my weight drop
significantly (from all the water weight) and start thinking that I look too skinny and felt weak
in the gym. Also during that 2-4 week period I was either limiting the muscle I could gain or
wasn’t gaining any at all. This would encourage me to start bulking again and then the cycle
would repeat. After 3 years of not being consistent with either my diet goals (bulking or
cutting) or my training routine (changing it every 3-4 weeks, although I was going to the gym
at least 3-5 times every week) I’d made little increases in my strength and muscle mass in
comparison to what I could’ve made.

Main lessons from my mistakes:

 Don’t become obsessed with creating the “Perfect workout routine”, IT DOESN’T
EXIST!!!
 If you haven’t stalled and are making progress on most of your lifts, DON’T change
anything.
 If you didn’t make progress in a lift, don’t change anything until progress has stalled
for 3 weeks, it may have been just a bad workout.
 Besides when stalled, don’t change your program in any way before 12 weeks from
when you began.
 If you are cutting, keep your routine how it is even if you aren’t making any strength
gains. If your strength is maintaining, then that routine is perfectly fine. If strength is
falling consistently for 3 weeks, make sure your diet is in check before making
changes to your training.
 Make the decision if you are going to bulk or cut. If you are going to bulk, be
committed to stick with it for 12 weeks or more. Once you make the decision there is
no turning back. If you choose to cut, drop down until you appear to be around 10%
bodyfat and don’t switch to a bulk until you have done so.
 Don’t make changes to calorie intake for 3 weeks after making a previous change.
Your bodyweight may change drastically in response to a change in caloric intake
within the first 1-2 weeks. This is why it’s important to only compare your 3rd weeks
average to your 2nd weeks average to know what is actually happening with your
body composition.
 An exception to changing your program before 12 weeks is if an exercise is causing
abnormal joint and muscular pains. If this is so, stop doing that exercise immediately
and substitute it for an exercise which targets the same muscles without pain.

Conclusion
If you design a nutrition and training program while also utilising the sleep tips that have
been discussed on the previous pages, you will make the best progress you are capable,
guaranteed. Please re-read certain sections where you think your knowledge may be
lacking after reading this book the first time, this will ensure that when you structure and
follow your nutrition or training plan you will get the best results possible. Please feel free to
contact me at Jake.Farrugia2000@hotmail.com if you have any questions remaining. I’ll try

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to reply as soon as I can. Also, you will be sent any updates to this book free of charge since
you purchased this copy. Good luck and go get some GAINZ!!!

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