The Top 10 Ways to Pack on Muscle Mass (Part One)

In this post I will be introducing a three part series from another guest author, Anthony Ricciuto. Anthony is a sports nutritionist working with a variety of professional athletes including bodybuilders, powerlifters, weightlifters, strongmen, arm-wrestlers, football and hockey players, among others.

I asked him to share his expertise on how to gain lean muscle tissue while maintaining one's current body fat percentage. Well, we are in luck, because he has provided us with his article, The Top 10 Ways to Pack on Muscle Mass. For any strength athletes out there looking to go up a class, or anyone who wants to gain some serous muscle without putting on fat, this series is for you!

In fact, most of the information in his article relates to healthy nutrition guidelines for just about any active person.

Here is part one of his three part article:

Tip #1: Eat 5-6 Times per Day

Did you just say eat 6 times per day? Yes, that’s right! Don’t think that you are going to gain quality size eating 3 square meals per day. The only type of mass you will put on eating only 3 times daily will be the fat type, and this is not our objective. There is no way that you can reach your caloric or your macronutrient needs eating 3 meals per day.

If by some magical method you manage to eat enough calories in only 3 meals, than you will be so full and bloated, you won’t be able tie up your own shoes let alone pound out some heavy deadlifts. It’s scientifically impossible to optimize your performance on three meals per day.

When trying to put on size, you just can’t eat when you get hungry, otherwise it will take you a lot longer to get up to your next weight class. You have to eat by the clock, otherwise you will not meet your caloric and macronutrient needs by the time the day is over. With this in mind set a schedule that you will follow and have a meal or protein shake every 2.5- 3 hours. Not 4 or 5 hours but every 3! This is very important in your quest for size. This will make sure that you get at least 5 quality meals in per day.

I know that this sounds a little compulsive but in no time this will just become part of your lifestyle. This will mean that you will need to have all your food prepared the night before so that you will have it ready when you need it. Don’t just think that you will just cook something when the time comes as most likely you will get lazy and you will just skip the meal. You must prepare your meals ahead of time.

Eating every three hours has many benefits. First, it will keep your metabolism elevated. Second it will keep your blood sugar levels stable throughout the day and will prevent you from getting those after lunch energy lows that so many people complain of. Next it will keep you in a positive nitrogen balance and will supply a constant stream of amino acids to your muscles, thereby keeping you in an anabolic state. As you can see eating by the clock is definitely worth it!

Also remember to increase your calories gradually; don’t just jack them up like a maniac after reading this article. Each week try to increase your daily caloric intake by 250-750 calories depending on your weight, energy expenditure, metabolic rate, and level of insulin sensitivity. You have to slowly increase your calories or your digestive system will just get overloaded and will not be able to process and absorb the nutrients from the massive increase in food volume.

Tip #2: Drink Plenty of Water

Water is very important for many reasons. It has many health and performance benefits. It keeps your organs functioning properly, clears toxins, reduces excess sodium from your body, and it hydrates your muscle cells. It even liberates fat stores on your body so they are burned off as an energy source. Dehydration will cause a major decrement in performance. Even a 2% state of dehydration will cause your performance to go out the window.

Water plays a major role in cell volumization. This is where nutrients are pulled inside of the muscle cell causing a multitude of reactions that leads to muscle growth. Water is very important in many processes including digestion, transportation and the absorption of nutrients. So how much water should you drink on a daily basis? You should drink on average at least 1oz of water per kilogram of bodyweight. This is a figure that can be increased depending on many factors that affect your hydration level. This amount will start as your baseline from which you can build upon.

A 220 pound (100kg) powerlifter would need to drink 100 ounces or slightly over 3 quarts of water per day as his minimum daily water intake. There are also many benefits to drinking water. They include lowering your chances for high blood pressure and kidney stones. Both of these nice little health problems can really cause havoc on your training. Try banging out some box squats when you’re passing kidney stones the size of jawbreakers. It’s not going to happen.

Tip #3: Get Enough Sleep

Sleep is not considered a food group so why am I talking about it in my nutritional column you ask? The reason why sleep is going to be discussed here is that it is essential in gaining lean mass. Your body repairs and recovers from your workout as you sleep. During this time, your muscles grow! Remember this, if you aren’t sleeping you aren’t growing and getting stronger. Think back to a time when you couldn’t get optimal sleep either during university exam time, or another time when sleep was of the essence. Think back how your strength level was, or how you were actually losing size. So how much sleep do you need per day? You should be getting at least 8 full hours of sleep per day. If you can get a 1-2 hour nap per day on top of this it would be even better. Getting proper sleep is a must for muscle growth. Without it, you can kiss gains in strength and size goodbye!

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Watch for Part Two in my next post, and please leave your comments and feedback below!

Josh Hewett

Man Loses 50 Pounds of Fat!

My goal is to help my clients set and reach their fitness and performance goals with effective exercise and nutrition programs. I want to share a success story with you as an illustration of how simple (I didn't say EASY... I just mean it's not complicated!) it is to achieve great results at any age.

One of my clients, John Garbel, has recently lost over 50 pounds and 11% bodyfat and it took him around 6 months. Check out my site to see more info about his transformation. (John's Testimonial).

John is in his 40's and last year had decided to reclaim his health and fitness after finding himself weighing almost 300lbs, with bad knees and back problems. Now weighing under 250lbs he is half way to his goal of 200 lbs at under 20% bodyfat!


Here's EXACTLY what John does:
He works out with weights 3-4 days per week following my Top Form Fitness system, which is planned and structured well in advance, progressing incrementally with varied training stimulus to prevent plateauing.

He follows these workouts with 15-30 minutes ofcardiovascular exercise, performing intervals by alternating brief periods of high intensity with lower intensity periods of recovery.

He eats 5-6 meals or snacks per day, always trying to include visually equal portions of lean protein (e.g. fish, chicken, eggs), starchy carbs (e.g. oatmeal, brown rice, yams), and fibrous carbs (e.g. fruits and vegetables) in each meal. He uses protein shakes post workout for recovery or when he is not able to get acomplete meal. He allows himself one cheat day each week. He keeps a daily nutrition log, to maintain awareness of what he eats and how much he eats, to help stick to his nutrition plan.

He may not follow this program perfectly all of the time, but he is always striving to get better, which is how he lost 50 lbs in 6 months.

I don't think I could make it much clearer than that.

But if you ask John what the real "secret" to his success is (if there is one), it's the coaching. The experience, support, and accountability a good coach provides is irreplaceable. Nothing can help you get results faster, and maintain them.

Congratulations John!

Keep Fit,
Josh Hewett

Power Wheel Core Training

As a trainer I’m always looking for ways to improve the quality of the exercise routines for both my clients and myself. I’m also a strong believer in using highly productive, functional exercises, incorporating alot of compound movements and unique training accessories.

In addition to "getting leaner" or "getting stronger", one of the common goals I hear from many clients is that they want to develop their "abs". They want a six pack; a toned midsection; a solid core.

However, when it comes to developing a powerful core, most traditional "ab" exercises such as crunches and sit-ups are relatively ineffective. For a beginner, crunch variations are OK... but once you have been training for a short while you need to look for more productive options. So when I first heard about the Power Wheel I was interested.

This product is awesome for core strength, stability and balance. There are so many exercises you can do with it, using both your hands or your feet. I had used the basic ab wheel before (you've all seen it... sold in every Walmart and Canadian Tire), but the Power Wheel takes it to the next level by adding foot pedals which allows for several more training options.

After using it myself I introduced it to several of my clients… it was a hit! But because there aren't many Canadian distributors, and it's pricey to get one from the US, I decided to stock it myself. Check it out at http://www.strongestcore.com/ ... there's a few pics of exercises you can do with it there as well.

This is one training accessory I highly recommend. Let me know what you think of it.

Stay Fit!

Josh

Abbreviated Workouts

I've been experimenting with short, full body workouts these last few weeks, due to my schedule becoming MUCH tighter (with clients, projects, and preparing for our bouncing baby to arrive)! I've set up a circuit training routine involving compound strength and power movements performed back to back with minimal rest, typically moving from a lower body movement to an upper body exercise (ie- deep squats, push press, stiff deads, bent rows, power cleans, strap pushups, etc). I'd do each exercise for 1 set of 6-8 reps, then move to the next... repeating the circuit if time allowed.

Even though I was only using moderate weight, I tell you this program kicked my butt! Admittedly I do feel I have lost a little strength this last couple of months, but training this way (along with a cleaner diet) has kept me much leaner and my joints feel great.

Next week I'm switching back to my standard 3 day split (the tried and true Power Program my team designed, that works like gang-busters for every strength athlete I've put on it!), but I'll be modifying it until my schedule allows me to get in full workouts again. I'll let you know how it goes.

I'll also be making the Power Program available soon in ebook form... watch for it.

Comment or email me if you want a full description of the abbreviated workout I've been following, and I'd like to hear from any of you re- what programs you've tried and found effective for strength or gettin' lean. Let me know!
Stay Fit,
Josh