You're Working Too Hard: Build More Muscle With Less Work

 

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"No pain, no gain;" "It takes a lot of hard work;" "Live in the gym;" "You have to work off the calories that you ate." You've probably heard all of these expressions and dozens more. If you look up fitness advice, you'll find a wide range of opinions that include beliefs that completely disagree with much of the other fitness ideologies. Compound that with the fact that every day we are bombarded with advertisements promising us that we won't make any progress unless we take their fat burner pills or testosterone boosters. 

    Now, you're convinced that the only way to build a lot of muscle or to get lean is to commit yourself to hours of self-torture and to spend a fortune on supplements that tell you, on the bottle, that none of their claims have any scientific proof to support them.

This is where it gets surreal. It may seem like a conspiracy theory. Except that this "theory" is redundantly and relentlessly validated, again and again, by double-blind, peer-reviewed, scientific research.

    You have a choice: You can either take the blue pill or the red pill. 

    If you take the blue pill, you can continue living content with the belief that it's very hard to get in shape and that your genetics just won't let you get anywhere, especially without spending hundreds on supplements or hormone therapy. 

    If you take the red pill, you'll have to accept the fact that everything you've been emersed in since birth has been a lie. You'll have to make the brave choice of taking a leap of faith, changing your diet and exercise regimen to something that many people believe would cause you to worsen in physical condition and regress in performance. 

    But, if you take the red pill, your workouts can become much briefer, you'll find that your diet will actually prevent you from having uncontrollable food cravings, and your health will improve -- even if you're already a high-performance athlete.

    Well, I don't have to construe to you what the blue pill provides; you're already surrounded by it. So, the rest of this post will expound on the ingredients of the red pill.

What Prevents Your Muscles From Growing?

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Have you ever met someone who practically lives at the gym, yet they are nowhere near their fitness goals? Maybe it's a really skinny guy who's trying to build muscles, but he hasn't gotten any bigger in 2 years. Similarly, you might know someone who wants to lose weight, but when they lose weight, they don't seem to be getting any leaner -- their body fat stays the same. Neither one of the people in these two classic examples seems to be improving much, if at all, in regard to their performance in the gym.

    Why is it that some people seem to just barely get to the gym when their workout is already over? Yet, these seemingly casual gym members get lean, gain muscle, and lift heavier weights every week. Meanwhile, why does it seem like most people work so hard and spend so much time in the gym just to get nowhere? Is it genetics?

    It's true that genes play some role in how efficiently people progress in their physical training. However, for almost everyone that ever lived, blaming their genes is just a blue-pill excuse that helps them feel better about failure. The very few people that build muscle accidentally tend to be those that have a myostatin deficiency. Those who are doing everything exactly right for their fitness goals and who have trouble building muscles may have an overabundance of myostatin.

    Myostatin is a protein that our bodies produce to inhibit the growth of muscles. Scientists believe we produce myostatin to prevent us from growing muscles too easily, which would lead us to become unable to find sufficient amounts of food to support our ever-growing body mass. Also, from an evolutionary standpoint, becoming excessively muscle-bound could be a disability that would prevent a hunter-gatherer from performing some fundamental tasks of survival.

Build More Muscle By Doing Less Work

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As suggested previously, there is a lot of misinformation in the fitness industry. Some misleading information is spurred on by people who want to promote a specific agenda. Other health and wellness beliefs are simply old, outdated, and disproven as newer scientific studies have been able to verify more accurately the causes and effects of previously studied concepts.

    For example, I was always a big fan of Arnold Schwarzenegger. I read the book, Pumping Iron, and watched the movie of the same title. In Pumping Iron, Arnold advocates the practice of doing 5 sets in your workouts. And, some exercises are done in 6 sets. I had no mentor to help me with building muscles as a scrawny, young teenager, and I didn't even know that diet had anything to do with building muscles -- I thought it was all about hard work in the gym. Well, all that hard work didn't get me very far: I graduated high school at about 130lbs, and at the height of 5' 11".

    After learning all I have about fitness, I realized time and time again that the most common fitness advice by which we are all surrounded is simply false. A lot of it is just outdated. Some of it is simply propaganda. And, much of the fitness misinformation we are fed is based on the idea that people think you have to work much, much harder to achieve results efficiently.

    This is where that red pill stuff really starts to show up. People really believe they're doing the best they can to get the results they desire. Disappointingly, they find out that they're either not making progress, making progress very slowly, or making progress very temporarily. Often, that's because they're going about their diet and exercise all wrong and being swindled out of hundreds of dollars in the process.

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The wonderful thing about that is that it's not true, what we're all being led to believe: that we have to waste a lot of time in the gym to build muscle. And, thank God for science because the workouts required for building muscle are so brief and easy that the blue pill poppers can't easily bring themselves to believe it. Here's how it works:

    According to The Science of Steroids documentary, when we train "intensely," our bodies release glucocorticoids -- which are anti-inflammatory agents. These glucocorticoids play a role in inhibiting muscle growth. One study examined the relationship between glucocorticoids and myostatin and found that when glucocorticoids were present, myostatin was produced. Effectively, training in a way that The Science of Steroids defined as "intense" causes our bodies to prevent the growth of new muscles. 

    Steroids boost muscle production and also block the production of myostatin and glucocorticoids. Therefore, someone using steroids to build muscle can do 5 or 6 sets and see nothing but muscle growth as a result. But, a person trying to do the same workout naturally will only be getting in their own way as a result of causing the production of myostatin. 

    Consequently, people trying to build muscle without myostatin inhibitors, such as steroids or *Yolked, would do best to work out intensely enough to stimulate muscle growth, yet brief enough to prevent myostatin from robbing their gains. In this study, we can see some correlation between low-rep workouts and superior improvements in strength: The group lifting weights for 8 - 12 repetitions saw more improvement than those doing 20 or more reps.

    Another study compared low-rep (3 - 5 reps), mid-rep (9 - 11 reps), and high-rep (20 - 28 reps) groups to see which groups would build the most muscle. The groups that did low and middle amounts of reps saw similar growth. The high-rep group realized inferior gains.

    So, apparently, doing too many reps can hinder your gains. Logically, doesn't that imply that we shouldn't even be doing 3 sets or more? In fact, that seems to be true; studies confirm that one-set workouts provide similar -- if not superior -- gains compared to three-set workouts. Even several champion bodybuilders, like Dorian Yates, have been known to do only one or two sets at the most in their workouts. I've even seen it reported that Jay Cutler prefers one-set workouts, and he's 4x Mr.Olympia.

Getting Leaner Doesn't Have to Be Difficult

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By now, you may be thinking, "Ok, that's all great for people who are trying to build big muscles, but what about people trying to lean down?" Actually, having more muscle mass burns more calories. And, whether we are fat or lean depends on our diets. Excess calories get stored as fat. Therefore, if a person eats enough protein to support a higher muscle mass while, at the same time, that person is eating the same amount of calories as before, then they won't gain weight.

    If a person does effective muscle-building training, such as one-set workouts, while maintaining the same calories as before, then that person can gain muscle without gaining weight. This means the body would have to sacrifice some other type of tissue to "make space" for the muscle. Since fat is stored as excess calories and the muscles need to grow, but a surplus of calories were not consumed, the body will burn the fat and the muscles will still grow.

    This process of reducing body fat percentage without losing weight is known as reconstitution. Sometimes this process of getting leaner without getting lighter is referred to as "maingaining" because you're gaining muscle while maintaining your same weight. Of course, losing fat can definitely be done by losing weight. You can use the same logic: do one-set workouts, eat enough protein for your body weight, and consume fewer calories than your body needs to remain at your current weight. This will allow muscles to be maintained, fat to be burned, and weight to be lost.

The Right Diet is Easy

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All the work in the gym hardly matters if the diet isn't right. A common expression among gym-goers who know how to get the results they're working toward is, "20% of your gains are in the gym; 80% of your gains are in the kitchen." For the uninitiated, "gains" isn't strictly talking about gaining weight, but it's a reference to the improvements people are seeking in the gym. To be clear, if your goal was to maintain strength while losing weight, and you made progress toward that goal, then that's a gain.

    Long before I ever heard of some of my favorite dieting concepts, such as The Paleo Diet or ketogenic dieting, I was given a mathematical formula to calculate my diet to achieve my goals. At the time, I was still in some rigorous US Navy training and I only weighed 120lbs. My goal was to gain weight, gain muscle, and minimize the gaining of fat. This was the formula I was given:

• Calculate maintenance calories (how many calories it takes to maintain your weight before any physical activities are factored in):
• 10 to 12 X (your body weight in lbs)
• ex: For a person weighing 130lbs, 10 X 130 = 1300. This person needs to eat at least 1300 calories per day to even keep the weight they have even if they do nothing but sleep all day.
• Add calories for physical activities:
• Many charts exist, such as this, that will allow you to get some estimate of how many calories you should factor in for the physical activities you do on average in a day. For our example, we're going to pretend that our 130lb person is extremely active and burns 700 calories per day. So, 700 + 1300 = 2000. So, now, if this person wants to keep his weight while doing all of these physical activities, this person has to consume at least 2000 calories per day or he/she will lose weight.
• 3,500 extra calories = 1lb gained. As we know, fat is the storage of excess calories. Therefore, if this person wants to gain one pound (1lb) per week, then he/she has to consume 500 excess calories per day for 7 consecutive days, since 500 X 7 = 3500. This excess of calories is needed to gain a pound, regardless of whether it is a pound of fat or a pound of muscle.
• A pound of fat is 3500 calories. A pound of muscle is approximately 700 calories (The Strong Kitchen).
• Even great bodybuilders of the past such as Mike Mentzer, who was very knowledgeable in his era, recognize that a pound of muscle is different than a pound of fat in regard to calorie requirements.
• In regard to losing weight, It would be wise to go slow. Considering that a pound of muscle is only about 700 calories (Mike Mentzer says 600 calories), eating a deficit of 250 calories per day might be a good way to lose fat while maintaining muscle.
• Note for women: I often hear women voicing concerns that if they lift weights they'll become masculine-looking and get bulky. Keep in mind 2 things: Men try very hard to become masculine-looking and bulk up, and the vast majority of them aren't satisfied with their results. Secondly, your muscles are what give your figure the subtle shapes and curves that make the body look attractive. Realistically, you'll gain muscle tone, and your muscles will get a little bigger, but the end result is likely to be that you'll look amazing.
• Likewise, for gaining weight, it still takes somewhere between 2000 to 3500 excess calories to gain a pound of muscle. With that considered, eating an excess of calories should still be calculated for a slow gain so that too much fat doesn't come on with the muscle. 
• It is estimated, depending on the source, that a person can gain between 8 and 25 pounds of muscle in a year. Therefore, If you were in a constant state of gain all year long, you would only gain about 0.5lbs of muscle per week. Logically, if you wanted to gain muscle without getting fat, you would calculate your calories for a gain of approximately half a pound per week.

The Diet Paradox

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If you went through school between 1990 and 2010, or any time before that range, then you're likely to have been indoctrinated into subscribing to the idea that we should follow the "Food Pyramid." The "Food Pyramid" consisted of roughly 60% carbs, 24% vegetables, and only 16% meat! The "Food Pyramid" looked something like the image below:

When I received my mathematical formula for changing body composition, it not only included the numbers given for adjusting body weight, but it also included "macros" for the types of nutrients needed to meet the goal. Macros are typically given in grams. Of the macros, there are 2 that people usually focus on for the purposes of changing their body composition: protein and carbs.

    In my opinion, the most important macro is protein. This is because a certain amount of protein is needed to maintain or increase muscle mass. Any other calories you need can be added by consuming healthy foods such as fruits and vegetables. Whatever caloric needs are necessary after protein, fruits, and veggies are summed up can be compensated for in carbs. Typically, this way of handling your carbs will result in meeting your goal while maintaining a healthy diet. 

    The macro for protein with the goal of maintaining or gaining muscle is between 1 and 2g of protein per pound of body weight. So, a 180lb person would need at least approximately 180g of protein per day to maintain or build muscle. The macro for carbs, depending on the person, would come out to be about 1.33g per pound of body weight.

    Knowing that dietary formula when I was a young enlisted sailor, I made the necessary adjustments to my food intake and realized my goal of building muscles and gaining weight. In less than 8 months, I went from 120lbs to 180lbs with a body fat percentage no greater than 11% at any given time. Often, my body fat percentage stayed around 5%.

    This was a huge victory for me. All my life before that, I thoroughly believed that I was already eating more than I needed in order to gain weight and that I simply couldn't put on weight. I believed that my metabolism was too fast for me to gain weight. I thought that, genetically, my body simply rejected excess calories and wouldn't use any of them to increase muscle mass.

    On a more sobering note, one day I sat down with a notepad and calculator to see how close my diet came to fitting the food pyramid's recommendations. After running the numbers, I realized I was seriously violating the pyramid's dietary guidelines. Very concerned about the implications this might have for my health, I did a lot of research into dietetics and learned a lot of very surprising things about the human diet.

The Paleo Diet

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With a newfound interest in not just eating for body composition, but also for eating for wellness, my first question was, "isn't all of this meat bad for my health?" I was in a dilemma: either eat a diet that, by math, would guarantee that I would struggle to improve my body composition, or, eat in a way that is conducive to improving physical performance, yet was believed to be dangerous for my health. 

    Thankfully, I knew that the first rule of doing accurate research was to never assume. Another adage of research literacy is, "always verify." In addition, one should refresh on old concepts to see how new information has changed what we currently know about old beliefs.

    Fortunately for us all, a broadcast journalist by the name of C.J. Hunt had already done a great deal of very solid research and published what he'd learned in an amazing book and documentary by the title The Perfect Human Diet. According to the documentary, he had very grave concerns for his health at the beginning of his quest to find the ideal diet for human well-being. His journey for the knowledge of the best diet took place over the course of more than 10 years. In that time, he'd experimented with every type of well-known diet that was being touted for its health benefits, including spiritual diets, veganism, and vegetarianism.

    Eventually, Hunt learned solid, empirically backed information that truly got down to the scientific facts about what we as human beings were meant to eat. As a result, the scientists doing the first-hand research were able to get their information out to anyone that cared to learn their findings. At last, we knew what we as modern humans were designed to be eating. In essence, we now have a scientific description of what "human food" is. Much to my relief, it turns out that the same diet that would be good to encourage muscle growth, boost athletic performance, maintain a sharp intellect, and keep energy levels strong and consistent all day long is the very same diet we are genetically intended to maintain.

What Food Can You Eat on The Paleo Diet?

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The way I like to think of our intended diet is to use the analogy of choosing what foods to feed your dog. It's common knowledge that if you're very strict with your dog's diet and only feed him dog food, he'll maintain good health and you'll keep your furry family member alive and well for as long as possible. If you are often treating your dog to the common foods that most Americans eat, foods that are not considered dog food, then it's expected that your dog will develop some very serious health conditions very early and die an early death.

    Similarly, if we humans stick strictly to human food, then we are expected to remain in the most optimum health possible. We would also be expected to live much longer than those that violate our intended diet. Since The Paleo Diet is the diet derived from the foods that we as modern humans, Homo Sapiens, would have been required to eat to survive for more than 100,000 years of our past, another phrase for "human food" is "The Paleo Diet." Thanks to The Perfect Human Diet, anyone seeking knowledge about this diet can learn about this concept by observing some of the interviews with leading experts on the matter.

    Dr. Lane Sebring is the Board Examiner for The American Academy of Anti-aging Medicine. When Dr. Lane Sebring was interviewed, he stated that The Paleo Diet basically consists of lean meats, fruits, nuts, and vegetables. Dr. Sebring said that the common foods that we humans are not genetically meant to eat include grains, dairy (for individuals older than 2-years), legumes, and potatoes. 

For the purpose of clarity, some of the foods you can eat on The Paleo Diet include the following:

• Lean meats: Chicken, fish, steak
• Fruits
• Nuts: Including walnuts, almonds, and pecans
• Vegetables

Foods that are not allowed on the paleo diet:

• Grains
• Dairy
• Legumes
• Potatoes

Note: remember that peanuts are not a nut; they're a legume. Almonds and cashews are considered drupes, but Dr. Sebring included almonds in his list of paleo-friendly foods. I speculate that this is because some drupes are nutritionally very similar to actual tree nuts.

An Easy Way to Adhere to the Paleo Diet

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When I first decided to make a true effort to adopt and stick to The Paleo Diet, the first obstacle was breaking some very well-developed habits. For example, if you've never done The Paleo Diet or tried keto, which is similar, then it might seem inconvenient or just awkward to try to figure out how to have a healthy meal that doesn't involve grain. Even the "healthy" food that we are all told to eat, is usually wrapped in a tortilla or placed between slices of bread. If putting your Paleo-friendly food between 2 slices of bread doesn't sound like much of a violation of our ideal diet, then consider this: 

    Dr. Sebring, in the documentary The Perfect Human Diet, explained that 2 slices of bread have the same effect on our bodies as 1/4 cup of sugar. He also mentioned that a baked potato of medium size is just as bad. Those who are health-conscious already avoid adding too much dressing to their salads. This restriction on dressings is mostly because of how many calories some dressings provide. Therefore, you definitely wouldn't pour a quarter cup of sugar onto your salad, if you cared at all about maintaining a healthy diet.

    Here within lies the solution. How do we adapt to The Paleo Diet when presumably healthy things such as sandwiches and wraps come with grains? If you think about it, a sandwich or wrap is essentially a salad shrouded in packaging that consists of grain. Just get a salad! Eating fast food doesn't have to be unhealthy or violate The Paleo diet.

    In other regards, Paleo is also an easy diet for which to shop. You won't have to jostle with other shoppers, for the most part, because most of what grocery stores typically offer are non-Paleo foods. Therefore, there are only a few places in the grocery store you'll ever need to go to find all the food you'll need to consider buying. Still, some people tend to think that there is no simple or convenient way to accurately adhere to The Paleo Diet.

    The good news is that there are a variety of ways to make The Paleo Diet easy and convenient. Anyone serious about physical fitness is probably already familiar with the concept of meal prepping. To meal prep, you can cook up a week's worth of food and package it in plastic containers in the refrigerator. The process of meal prepping may take an hour or two of time out of your week. 

    If you're lazy like me, there's a much simpler way to meal prep: buy frozen food. During times in which I am very strict about following the Paleolithic form of nutrition, I definitely rely on frozen food a lot. Generally, I'll bring a small container of frozen lean meat to work along with another container of frozen vegetables. When it's lunchtime, I just microwave each container, and then I have my Paleo-friendly meal ready to go. 

    Another option is ready-made meals from the grocery store. Many grocery stores offer large salads that usually contain a lot of protein and veggies. These salads are a meal by themselves. Fortunately, we now live in an era where there is a growing demand for carb-free options. Due to this demand to reduce carbs, many makers of sandwiches, wraps, and burritos offer bowls, instead. So, if you already have a habit of getting a foot-long sandwich from your local grocery store, you might find that they can accommodate giving you the same thing in a bowl without the carbs.

    Portioning is not difficult with The Paleo Diet. Just know that the star of the show is the protein. Put enough protein in your meals so that you will hit your goals for your protein macros. From there, add your veggies. As Dr. Sebring puts it, start with your meat, add your veggies, and have nuts and fruits for snacks.

Snacking on the Paleo Diet

    Though some sources may say that "overly processed foods" are not allowed in the Paleo plan, others disagree. Besides, even if some things are just barely out of the bounds of Paleo, it's better to do your best than to give up entirely. One item that may end up in this gray area could be well-preserved foods, such as those that are dried. If you're really that concerned as to whether or not a food is "overly processed" or not, read the label and judge for yourself.

    There are many healthy, convenient snacks in the hunter-gatherer meal plan. Berries and nuts are definitely pretty portable and often available for purchase in resealable containers. Another convenient option that allows for good protein is beef jerky and even ready-to-eat bacon. When I first discovered microwavable bacon, I was obsessed. It generally comes in slim, cardboard boxes in which a resealable plastic pouch holds the strips of bacon. On many of the packages, it plainly states that the bacon is already fully cooked and ready to be eaten.

    When you really try to brainstorm and come up with Paleo snacks, you might be surprised at how vast the variety of foods can actually be. Here are some examples of paleo-friendly snacks:

• Jerky
• ready-to-eat bacon
• nuts
• berries
• veggies
• dried fruits

Helpful hint: try combining these into really nice entrees, such as wrapping meat and veggies in lettuce leaves.

Why the Food Pyramid is Wrong

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Much to my relief, after discovering all of the current research on human dietetics, I understood that I was on the right path. The reason why the dietary formula I learned didn't agree with the US government's dietary recommendations is simply that the food pyramid, as we were taught in school, is wrong. As it is so eloquently put in an episode of SouthPark, the food pyramid is upside down. As Adele Hite from the Healthy Nation Coalition says, the first instance of the food pyramid was written by political staffers rather than anyone qualified to prescribe a dietary recommendation.

    To anyone who has never tried a diet like keto or Paleo, your initial inclination may be like mine: it seems like it would take a lot of willpower. You'll be pleasantly surprised to know that the opposite is true. As Dr. Nick Hall informed an audience during a seminar titled The Mind-Body Connection: Who Gets Sick And Who Stays Well, our food is like a drug. Many of the common foods we eat form a chemical dependence in our bodies. We literally become addicted to certain foods, such as sugars and items high in carbohydrates.

    More natural diets such as Paleo do not really include addictive items. Dieting is very easy when you're eating something high in protein, that contains an ample amount of fat, and that is very low in carbs. And, you don't have to worry about all the nonsense about how dietary fat is believed to be bad for your heart. It turns out that up until approximately 1960, carbs were already well-known by the medical community to cause cardiovascular disease, not dietary fat.

    Essentially, switching to this type of prehistoric human diet regimen not only provides the best possible nutrition but also prevents people from getting food cravings and overindulging in things that will cause health problems. Not only do people tend to improve their body composition by going Paleo, but they also usually improve their health. C.J. Hunt, who had a massive heart attack in his early 20s, was told by doctors that he could possibly die within half a year from the date of his cardiovascular emergency's occurrence. Hunt states that, at the time of filming his documentary, he's been doing The Paleo Diet for 5 years and his doctors are impressed with how his health has improved.

    The fact that eating human food for your daily nutrition provides long, steady energy all day and staves off food cravings really makes meeting your fitness goals almost automatic. You just need to stick to it. 

The Secret to Getting in Shape

If there were a very concise way to articulate how most people can meet their fitness goals while also improving their health, I think it would follow these general guidelines:

• Remember that diet is far more impactful than exercise.
• Going paleo makes most of the work easy.
• Eat the right amount of protein for your goals.
• Make sure you are consuming the right amount of Calories.
• Building muscle also helps you to become leaner.
• You probably don't have to work out as hard or long as you might think.
• One warmup set and one "real" set might be all you need to grow your muscles.
• If you're eating the diet that people are genetically meant to be consuming, you may already be doing the best you can for your dietary health goals.
• Remember to have fun on your journey.
• Most importantly: Don't take any of the information in this blog post as if it were medical advice. Each person is different, and everyone has their own, unique health situation. Only a person's health professional can legally prescribe to them what they should or should not be doing for their medical needs.

*Yolked Fortetropin supplement has been found in a study to yield significantly better muscle growth in the study's participating athletes. The link to Yolked shared in this blog post is a brand ambassador link, and any purchases made from that link will benefit me, the author of this blog. Using the link or discount code "podrasky20" will provide the purchaser with a discount.

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Thanks for reading. If you've utilized any of this information for your own fitness goals, please let me know with a comment.

-Donny Podcast