By Scott Abel
Get Scott’s first Amazon-published book for just 99 cents on 1/26/15 HERE.
In terms of the glory-days of my time with a World-Class physique combined with my expertise, things were going well. At the height of my ?physique? career which was also close to the end of my physique career ? I had a lot of balls in the air. I had my own column in one of the industry’s top magazines ? I wrote feature articles for several magazines and I was a ghost-writer as well when the subject matter was considered ‘sensitive. And I was also in high-demand for speaking engagements, lectures etc. Physique-wise, I was in real high demand for guest-posing since promoters knew they could count on me to always show up in shape and they knew that I would always put on a good show. Things were busy and going well. Part of the reason for that as well back then was my training partner.
I was in my early 40’s at the time. My best training partner of all time was in his 50’s. Now, I’ve always been the kind of person that if you or I have an appointment together at an agreed upon time ? well to my mind if you’re not 5 minutes early for that appointment, then you’re late. My training partner then was always at the gym when I got there and always had the equipment set up to go for us for that day. He knew once we started barely a word was spoken between us. It was all business. And he could keep pace with me when guys half his age couldn’t. He could hang with me in training when other ?pros? would fly into town to train with me and learn from me ? and they?d be off in a corner puking their guts out inside of 20 minutes into a training session. In so many exercises my best training partner of all time could even use the same loads as me even though I out-weighed him by at least 30-40 lbs.
So why am I telling you this about my best training partner of all time, during the height of my physique days (which are well behind me)? Well here’s the thing, and it’s an important thing. This training partner of mine didn’t have a very good physique ? not even an average one. He loved competing but he had the kind of physique where if there were 3 guys in his weight-class ? he would get third. He would always be the most ripped guy in his class ? another testament to his dedication and hard work ? and because I trained and Coached him of course. But the truth is his physique was just not very good ? not very well-developed at all.
My mistake
My mistake with him is one that continues in the industry to this day. You see my logic back then was a common ? to wit: well if I design a program to suit my world-class physique and if he follows it ? and he doesn’t get the same world-class progress out of it as I did ? then his ?genetics? suck. And that would be the end of the logic applied; no thinking deeper than that on the matter. But yet – here was a guy who worked as hard and as seriously as I did ? on the same programs as I did ? and his physique had little to show for it. And how many times ?ad nauseum? does this lazy logic continue to this day? So many of you out there are following (or trying to) some program ?construct? of some top pro or some top physique guy whose program works for him. And if it doesn’t work for you then you are either a) not doing the program correctly, or b) your genetics suck ? because the program is sound.
Indeed, one of the top selling online programs from a year or so ago, was a top pro advocating traditional ?bodypart day? training ? just as I did with my reliable training partner back then ? a guy who deserved better than just being ‘slotted into what worked well for me. And yet so many of you trainees continue this line of logic to this day. And I’ve come to learn it’s faulty logic and it’s logic that represents ?paradigm blindness? of this industry. This whole mindset that ?what works for the top guys? ‘should? work for everyone else seems logical on the surface but it really represents a profound bias in logic as well as lazy thinking in general.
So much is at play here: Like the fact that top physique stars have the genetics to be top physique stars ? we can’t just assume everyone else lines up at the same ?genetics lottery? starting line. Then there are pharmaceutical enhancements to consider, which speed up recovery time and produce tissue effects that cannot be achieved naturally (the still prevalent ?it just takes longer, and you have to work harder?, classic industry-myth)
The Dyslexia Comparison
You see, my loyal training partner from back then ? he deserved better than what he got from these programs. It didn’t dawn on me at the time that these were the wrong programs for him; and that his genetics were just starkly ?different? than my own. Studying guys like him all these years since then I’ve now come up with the term ?hardgainer. It was a term initially meant to describe trainees who were seemingly doing everything right (like my former training partner) but not having much to show for it, in terms of real-world progress and results for the time put in. But now my research over all these years has me seeing the ?hardgainer? in a deeper and more complete light as well. I now consider the ?hardgainer? to be a completely separate trainee demographic ? a group to whom ‘traditional logic of training application? simply doesn’t apply or is at best incomplete.
As an analogy ? I think back to the days of education before ?dyslexia? was identified as a real and actual ?obstruction? for reading and writing. Until that discovery ? thousands and thousands of students who shared this learning ?dilemma? and all its common denominators were assumed to be not as smart as the other students. At the time they were simply not considered as ?a separate learning demographic group? until dyslexia was identified. And then at that time it became clear that many of these students with dyslexia were not only ?as? intelligent of students doing well on the common grading curve, but many were even more intelligent and creative. For example it has been speculated that Einstein was dyslexic which is why he didn’t do well in formal education in his early years.
But to me the comparison is a relevant one to the modern trainee. As experts, we spend so much time looking for and identifying what ?stimulates muscle growth and development? and yet we spend little if any time looking for the things that ?limit or obstruct? muscle growth and development on an individual trainee level. And it may be a fact that the ?hardgainer? is not simply just genetically limited and doesn’t try as hard as the other trainees. The hardgainer may be a whole demographic group of trainees to whom ?normal? training application and prescription is part of what ?obstructs? and ?limits? their potential progress in physique development.
As I said, my former training partner ? he worked as hard as I did. (If he didn’t my hardcore attitude back then would have ditched him.) He worked at the same pace as me. He could even often handle the same training loads as me. Yet ? at the same time – I was getting paid to perform in front of audiences everywhere ? while he was still being asked ?Do you workout??
Differences
Over the years I’ve had the opportunity now to work with hundreds and hundreds of trainees who I would consider fall into the category of ?the hardgainer.? And certain illuminations have become obvious. For the hardgainer ? yes, bodypart training still makes the most sense for an overall methodological approach ? but bodypart ?days? of training, does not! Doing more than one exercise per bodypart for the hardgainer puts them into a ?no-recovery? zone in quick time. For the hardgainer ? inter-workout recovery and intra-workout recovery become paramount concerns ? more so than the mere training stimulus provided. For the hardgainer demographic remember ? the emphasis must be ? NOT ? on what stimulates muscle growth and development, but on what factors limit and obstruct muscle growth and development for this particular demographic group ? just like how the approach to learning/reading/and writing needed to be different for those students with eventually diagnosed with ?dyslexia? in the comparison above.
I’ve discovered the hardgainer demographic benefits most from training the whole body per workout ? but still with an isolated bodypart training emphasis. They do well to create systemic effects through this type of training and Peripheral Heart Action by doing these whole body approaches as combinations of supersets and trisets. I’ve also discovered that the hardgainer trainee demographic is caught in-between a precarious stimulus and recovery complication that doesn’t apply to other trainees who adapt more readily.
In other words ? if the hardgainer trainee trains too much they can’t recover adequately ? but if they don’t workout often enough, the stimulus for muscles to respond and adapt isn’t enough either.
This dilemma is solved in two ways for the hardgainer ? 1) is UNDERTRAINING -> the hardgainer can monitor things like oxygen debt within supersets and trisets and make sure they never get too far into oxygen debt within a workout, and that they NEVER train to muscular failure either ? because this particular trainee demographic cannot adequately recover from training to failure. And by undertraining in this way (by keeping a moderate but non-exhausting pace) they can now train more often ? and get the stimulus they need in doing so, while still being able to adequately recover ? within workouts, and between workouts ? two very important considerations for the hardgainer. And also, part of this ?undertraining? approach is shorter workouts as well. By training the whole body (6 exercises in total) in supersets and trisets, the hardgainer workout should be completed in 45-55 minutes, warm ups included.
And the 2) second consideration for the hardgainer trainee demographic is a ?reps variance? based program and getting away from industry mythology of ?get strong to get big. As with my former training partner ? he often used the same ?loads? as I did, but it didn’t do much of anything for his development ? in fact it did nothing. The hardgainer trainee demographic more than other trainees needs to embrace as an operating mantra that it’s not ?the weights that works the muscles, it’s the muscles that works the weights.? To this end ? what we call in the business ? ?surfing the curve? and especially surfing the high-reps end of the curve makes way more sense for the hardgainer trainee, than does the traditional but mythological industry notion to ‘train for strength and development will come? ? another colossal industry myth that is especially not true for this particular trainee demographic.
It’s often been argued that how well a muscle ?pumps? is equated to how well it grows and develops. I’ve come to agree with this assertion. How well a muscle pumps up has a lot to do with muscle ?innervation? (nerve supply to working muscles). This is something discussed in my book The Abel Approach in great detail as well. ?Well for the hardgainer trainee it takes high reps to get a muscle to experience an efficient ?pump. And the hardgainer workout’s philosophy is built around this premise as well. In the HardGainer Solution ? high reps are emphasized more than lower reps, with 15-20 reps ? the most common reps approach within the workouts.
The solution for the HardGainer demographic has always been in evaluating neuro-muscular elements of muscle adaptations to training ? rather than the more common expert focus of musculo-skeletal concerns of muscle adaptations to training. The former allows us to consider these limitations and obstructions to muscle’s adaptive response to resistance work. The latter considers mostly just the more common elements of what ‘stimulates? muscle growth ? not what limits it. These are very important distinctions and considerations when discussing ?The hardgainer trainee? as a specific demographic group for whom ?normal? training stimulus and response needs to be ?reconsidered.
Bonus: Workout Sample
As a bonus segment follow-up the explications above ? here is an example of what one particular workout would look like for the Hard Gainer. This is Workout #34 of the 80 workouts provided in The Hard Gainer Solution Project. And its just an example of the simple but effective ?reps-based? training approach for this unique demographic group of trainees.
Workout 34
1a) BB or DB Squats???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? 5????????????????????????????????????????????? 5
1b) One Arm DB Triceps Extensions???????????????????????????????????????? 5????????????????????????????????????????????? 5
2a) Pulldowns Behind the Head???????????????????????????????????????????????? 4????????????????????????????????????????????? 12-15
2b) 2 Arm DB front Raises???????????????????????????????????????????? ??????????????? 4????????????????????????????????????????????? 20
3a) High Incline DB Press?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? 4????????????????????????????????????????????? 15-20
3b) Alternate Hammer Curls?????????????????????????????????????????????????????? 4????????????????????????????????????????????? 8-12 EA
3c) any sit up, leg raise, or crunch variation?????????????????????????? 4????????????????????????????????????????????? 15-20
Now ? the above article only begins to address the training dilemma for the HardGainer. There is also a unique diet-strategy to consider for this particular demographic group as well. And I will address that in a future article ? although it is addressed in detail in The Hard Gainer Solution Project as well, of course.
About the Author
Scott Abel is a former professional bodybuilder and coach to over 400 fitness and bodybuilding champions at the National level and beyond.Learn more from?his broad spectrum of work at www.scottabelfitness.com. You can also hear Scott on the 180D podcast. Enjoy his first Amazon-published book on how to build muscle?HERE.
Monday morning posts are the best. Helps my mind wake up at work.
I think Scott is onto something here — different workouts for different folks. On that note, I also think there is something inherently flawed with using only bodybuilding workouts (with the goal to build muscle) for improving physical health — but I’m older now, so my objectives have changed (I’m a little less vain, and a little more: “let’s be fit and not in pain”).
I read this blog with the interest of eat intuitively. With the intuitive eating idea, I also moved towards a more intuitive way of exercise based on the Gym Movement Protocol. I could still use Scotts’ workout, but only if my body indicated those movements where right for that day. Of everything I’ve tried, it seems to provide the most long lasting least painful results.
This is in line with Tim Ferriss’s “Occam’s Protocol”. Tim asserts that he has been able to make significant gains in the past by compensating for mediocre recuperative ability with longer rest periods. He also emphasizes full body workouts for maximum hormonal response.
Tim makes the important point that the more you train a muscle, the larger it gets, and the recovery period times get longer as the muscle gets bigger. So, the rest periods you take 3 months into your training regimen should be shorter than the rest periods you take a year into your training regimen. The length of the rest periods would also vary according to caloric intake, hrs of sleep, metabolic rate, individual genetics, etc. Optimizing any one of these factors can accelerate recovery speed.
The difference is that Tim and many others limit exercise to only one set repeated once every 1-3 weeks, and push each set to absolute failure. It’s time efficient, and it’s far better than doing no strength training at all, but it’s still unlikely to completely overhaul one’s physique unless you’re really genetically blessed, in which case pretty much any type of workout would do.
Here are some related videos of his:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZSf1ycSdS0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC-m6_Z97Bg
What Scott’s talking about here sounds more in line with the fundamentals of what Bryan Haycock’s HST is all about. Frequent training. Steady increase of load. Never going to failure on any sets ever and often working WAY below failure.
I’ve read Scott’s book yesterday and let me add this: while both Drew Baye (=Tim Ferriss) and Scott Abel are both all talking about minimizing stress, the specifics are quite different.
Drew Baye:
– going to failure is OK, in fact you should do it in each exercise for best results
– move fast between exercises
– drop dead after the training because only then you know you’ve done all that you could
– ideally train once or twice per week, take the time in between trainings for recovery
– slow movement cadence, 4/4 seconds
Scott Abel’s advice for hardgainers
– train frequently, 3 to 7 times a week
– multiple, but light sets with many reps, never go to failure
– no advice as for cadence, but when you watch the videos you can see it’s much faster than 4/4, maybe 1/1
– try to avoid oxygen debt
– rest in between sets if you need to catch your breath
– you should feel invigorated rather than exhausted at the end
What’s interesting they both say something along the lines “use weights to train your muscles, not muscles to move the weights”. But all in all I think they’re approaches are very different.
The approaches are polar opposite, basically stating that hardgainers should be doing high volume (compared to normal training protocols), low intensity.
Yea, the idea that the more a muscle pumps, the more it grows, works counter to a lot of what’s in the 4HB. I tried Occam’s protocol for a while, and then realized that its probably not a great way to make gains unless you can create an extraordinary amount of muscular stress in one set. The original experiment Occam’s was based on used extremely high volume, forced negative reps, whereas Tim advises using around 7 reps per exercise, 1 set per exercise.
I doubt the Occam’s protocol in the 4HB would create amazing gains even if you were genetically blessed, because its just too difficult to create enough stress in 1 set of 7 reps. The major similarity I see between Scott Abel and Tim Ferriss’s recommendations is the idea of undertraining, they just go about it in different ways.
I’d be interested to know the hormonal mechanisms at play in the “pump”, if there are any, as I’ve heard that a lesser state of anabolism leads to a weaker pump.
I’m surprised you are supportive of Abel’s approach, Matt.
Yes he talks about taking it easy, but his exercise program seems nothing like easy – it’s 250-300 reps per workout, full body, and he’s encouraging doing this up to 5 times per week. You’re looking at 4-5 hours of workouts with very little rest intra-workout. It doesn’t seem moderate at all, even if not going to failure on any given set.
It seems like waaaaaay too much training for somebody who is not metabolically healthy, which would apply to a lot of your readers.
At this volume of training, it just seems like a “survivorship bias” program. Those who are metabolically strong enough would survive and thrive based on the extreme volume (and likely would thrive on ANY program of that volume), those who aren’t could do some severe damage to themselves and fall off the bandwagon. I think there’s a massive chunk missing from Abel’s work.
Also it’s so strange that the book doesn’t talk about cadence or time under tension.
If you’re doing like a 4 up, 4 down timing, you’re looking at 40 minutes of time under tension. At 1-1 it’s 10 minutes of time under tension.
I’m supportive of Scott in general because I do feel like he is a true expert in his field, which doesn’t intersect very well with my specialty I’ll admit.
As far as training volume, if the intensity is low (no failure, avoiding oxygen debt), training volume can be quite high and sustainable–as long as someone is scaled into that volume slowly and steadily. Abel, when training real people, takes biofeedback strongly into consideration, so his or anyone’s approach shouldn’t be applied willy nilly without making assessments on how you are responding to the training stimulus and making necessary adjustments.
Having just read the hardgainer ebook, I see a few issues:
1: Scott says don’t train to failure…ok…but with 80 workouts there;s a fault in logic here: no 2 workouts are alike, and you’re not going to repeat a workout for another 80 workouts. so how on earth do you know how much weight to use to be able to work a couple of reps shy of failure over a superset? The only way to know is to perform that workout, maybe more than once.
Next is progression: if you always stop shy of failure, how do you know when to increase the weight such that you’re a couple of reps shy of failure as you progress? You could be 5 reps shy of failure for all you know.
My third issue is this:
Light to moderate weights with high volume performed with high frequency leads to tendonitis. Having trained in a similar way in the past I can attest to this: it took 2 years to almost recover from the extreme tricep tendonitis I ‘built up’ and it still gives me problems now if you don’t train slowly, none explosively, with moderate reps, moderate weight and low volume.
The failure conundrum, I’d be very interested to hear about anyway :)
what about the “boise experiment ” ? naturals,training once per week,make great gains ?
Great info as i’m in the hardgainer group also. Thanks
Do the same strategies work for women or only for men? Is hypothyroidism a limiting factor for muscle growth and would you have different or the same recommendations for a person with low thyroid function?
I have Hasimoto’s, but am off medication. I was in physical therapy for a knee injury, and was told to stop wasting my time and money coming for sessions, since I wasn’t making progress building muscle fast enough having a low thyroid. I made sure not to move my knee wrong, and took a 4 month vacation from exercise, and I healed. I hope this helped answer your question.
I find all this fascinating, as I’m really not very familiar with the workout culture. So please forgive my possibly naive questions coming from a biochemistry/endocrinology basic scientist’s point of view.
1) You describe a “hardgainer” as one like
“my former training partner ? he often used the same ?loads? as I did, but it didn’t do much of anything for his development ? in fact it did nothing. The hardgainer trainee demographic more than other trainees needs to embrace as an operating mantra that it’s not ‘the weights that works the muscles, it’s the muscles that works the weights.
This suggests to me that–if they can move the same loads–the muscles of hardgainers are actually more efficient than the muscles of those who can more easily build muscle mass. Does this make sense?
2) Recovery is obviously a key component of any workout program. What I have found–as a result of the 8g/day glycine supplementation I have been on for over 5 years now–that the muscle soreness the day after a strenuous workout (and for me, a workout is typically a bout of heavy physical activity involved with construction: shoveling, hammering, etc, or sprinting) does not happen anymore. Sure, if I tear a muscle it won’t work right until it heals, but a)it heals in 5-6 days instead of 3 weeks, and b)even shortly after it happens, it doesn’t even hurt unless one actually tries to use it. But the ordinary soreness the day after heavy exertion simply does not happen. That tells me that most of the pain and soreness is actually due to inappropriate inflammation, which only happens when one is glycine deficient. Is this commonly recognized by body-builders?
I don’t think this is recognized by bodybuilders at all Joel. I for one had to stop eating a more bodybuilder-type diet (which basically anoints high methionine foods as optimal protein sources and encourages very high consumption), as I get injured easily when I eat that way, and I’m much less injury prone when eating a considerably higher ratio of carbs to protein (like 5:1).
Although I don’t think that a lot of bodybuilders recognize the importance of glycine:methionine, I think a lot of them do recognize the importance of carbs:protein. 5:1 to 7:1 is what the studies show to be the optimal ratio for free testosterone levels. (Carbs increase testosterone AND SHBG, but the 5:1 to 7:1 ratio produces optimal testosterone:SHBG levels.) Are there a lot of bodybuilders who don’t eat that many carbohydrates? I don’t actually keep up with bodybuilding diets, but I was under the impression that they strive for optimal free testosterone, and if they aren’t eating a fair amount of carbohydrates then they are screwing themselves over.
There was a wave of low carb bodybuilding, and even your average bodybuilder will occasionally cut carbs if they are cutting really hard. Most of the time they preferentially cut fat out of the diet to drop bodyfat. There is a HUGE preference for protein over pretty much any other macronutrients if you are talking about the lay bodybuilder, but I think the smarter ones/saner ones usually err on the side of higher carb, moderate protein, moderate-low fat.
Most bodybuilders strive for a minimum of 1 gram per pound of bodyweight in protein per day. That makes it almost impossible to hit the ratios Joey referenced.
For muscle growth specifically, it’s pretty well-understood that calories are the most important, followed by protein. But a strong case can be made for carbohydrates, especially when you’re looking at cumulative effects of training and how carbohydrates factor into threshold for training volume, frequency, and intensity. The more carbs you eat, the longer your training sessions can be, the more intense they can be, and the more frequently you can perform them. And those are big factors in how close a person can get to their muscle-building genetic potential.
Many aspiring bodybuilders have been seduced by low-carbism, carb-cycling, and other testosterone opponents. Interesting that 5:1 to 7:1 seems to have been found as optimal. That is ratio of carbs to protein in human milk, which has the highest known ratio of carbs to protein that I’m aware of. I don’t think any of this is coincidental. I do think humans thrive on this kind of ratio, it’s just that few people achieve it because food in Western cultures is so high in protein. Lots of meat, eggs, fish, chicken, cheese, and milk–whereas in other countries most protein is obtained from grains, legumes, and root vegetables.
Yea, eating from restaurants you either get too much protein or too much fat. Thai food and sushi seem to come close to the ideal ratio, but still usually too much fat if from a restaurant. I think the more metabolically sound you are, the less trouble your body has with high fat and high protein, which is perhaps why high protein diets aren’t as much of an issue for bodybuilders, or at least the genetically gifted ones. In a metabolically compromised state, large amounts of protein and fat seem to demand an equal amount or greater of calories from sugar in order to suppress the stress response they catalyze, at least in my experience.
Matt, what meals do you prefer to hit the ideal carbohydrate:protein ratio of 5:1?
I find consuming fruit juice with a starch-based meal, such as potatoes and rice with a little meat or cheese, helps a lot. I sweeten things like oats of course. I add lots of jam and honey to bread. And so forth.
Truth be told, I don’t always hit that ratio even though I feel best doing so. But eating quite a bit of fruit, drinking fruit juice, and sweetening things is the easiest way to tilt the balance towards carbs. Starches aren’t very enjoyable without added fat, except for maybe rice.
I think the argument is fat is also necessary for T production, and going too low fat is more feasible if you’re on supplemental T than if you’re not.
So while it’s important to get plenty of carbs, you have to weigh that against your minimum fat needs and overall calorie needs.
I’ve seen it framed as: you hit fat and protein gram minimums, and then the rest of your daily calories can come from wherever, preferably carbs.
For example, at least 70g fat (630 cal), 150g protein (600 cal), and then the rest of one’s 3300 cal needs (2070 cal) could come from as much as 518g carbs, or any combination of fat, carbs and protein that you want.
@ Joey on your comment re: bodybuilding ratios.
What are you reading??!
Most bro-science bodybuilding encourages *up to* 250grams of carbs on training days, and protein at 1g per pound of bodyweight. And the 250g of carbs is high, many recommend fewer.
Carb cycling is very common recommendation, so around 100g on non-training days while keeping protein at the
So on training days I’d say the common advice is around 1:1 or 2:3 Protein to carbs, and on non-training days more like 2:1 on protein.
@Matt, that’s interesting about the methionone, I always wondered why I got more injured on the high protein, medium carb approach.
In one of Abel’s videos (Supplement you may be missing), which is my favorite of his I think, he mentions lack of carbs as increasing injury risk. It may or may not be the methionine. It may just be injury proneness from lack of carbs. Billy Craig might have some insights on this as well as he became very injury prone on a low-carb diet and almost ended his athletic career.
Or just see how the Lakers are doing on their low-carb diet.
Further to my comment above about over-training, the diet also recommends starting point of 1920 for a 180 pound person and 1200 calories for a 110 pound person.
So it’s excessive training and under-eating.
I really don’t see how this fits in with your philosophy Matt??
so about 1500 kCal for me then at 140lbs. I would starve to death eating that little even without a workout regimen. Geez! O.o
I think those are BMR calculations without any multiplier. http://www.calculator.net/bmr-calculator.html?ctype=standard&cage=25&csex=f&cheightfeet=5&cheightinch=6&cpound=140&cheightmeter=180&ckg=60&x=73&y=8
“The daily calorie needs is the BMR value multiplied by a factor with a value between 1.2 and 1.9, depending on the activity level.”
Personally, I maintain a stable weight at about 1.5 times BMR calculations when completely sedentary. And I mean completely. Like only on my feet for 10 minutes per day. Sad that I inadvertently tested that out, as it didn’t do me any justice. Fortunately I’m a lot more active now.
Wow! That is a crazy small amount of food. Those estimates sound almost like BMR estimates. Even sedentary people usually burn 1.5 times BMR just from fidgeting, standing up from time to time, etc. Throw training in there and the desire to gain mass and I would think 2.0 times BMR estimates would be about right–and for some actually still be on the low side.
I haven’t read the book. Is that supposed to happen in tandem with huge refeeds once per week a la the Cycle Diet?
No refeeds. According to the Scott’ formula (weight in kgs x 24 – which seems to give higher values than BMR Calculations) I should be eating 2000 calories. Though his advice is to add 200-300 calories to offset the increased activity with his program, 2300 is still way lower that I got from fitday or SelfNutritionData. Somewhat suspicious.
On the other hand the sample menus look very bland to me, zero food reward value. Like 1 cup of eggwhites + few pieces of fruit, or half a cup of oats with 2 tsp of peanut butter.
Interesting. Read his book. His plan reminds me of Pavel Tsatsouline’s “Bear” program.
3 times per week
1 set x 5 reps (with a weight you could do 6-7 times)
1 set x 5 reps (90% of first set)
up to 20 sets x 5 reps (80% of first set)
Similarities:
-Lots of volume
-Reduced weight for much of volume but a little bit in the 5 rep range
-Frequency
-Never to failure
-Need to focus on the skill of lifting (for Abel that’s learning to feel the muscles and contract them)
-Focus on the pump (Pavel says that learning to get a pump with a heavier weight is they way to gain mass)
Differences:
-higher repetitions vs lower repetitions
-Pavel uses only a few exercises vs multiple angles
Seems like the advice is
– For strength, heavy weight, lots of rest, keep volume low
– For muscle, lighter weights, shorter rests, higher volume, DO NOT overwork yourself (actually that goes for both of them).
Scott needs to be honest about his own steroid/anabolic/whatever use back in the day.
I don’t care about his reasons nor do I judge him, but it’s part of his fitness knowledge and he needs to disclose it. Anabolic steroids increase protein synthesis, fat burning and improve recovery time.
Just looking at Scott’s pictures he is/was an obvious user. It might have helped his knowledge and experience, and that’s fine, but please tell us so we can have a complete understanding of how he has come to his current advices.
As far as I know he has disclosed that on multiple occasions. Many try to hold that against him even though he’s successfully trained more than 400 physique competitors to championship level status at the local, state, region, national, and even international levels–most of them natural athletes that were not on steroids. He understands the differences between being on gear or not as well as anyone. His programs and information aren’t tailored to steroid users, but fitness enthusiasts among the general population with natural limitations.
@matt, his multiple of 24x KG weight is strange indeed!
Common multiple I have seen for active males in the bodybuilding forum/bro world is 15x lb bodyweight, so 33x kg bodyweight.
24xkg bodyweight is so low. Scott should address this, and update this article, as it’s such a big difference to your ideas!
Hope Scott won’t mind.
I asked him about too low calories in email and this is what he wrote back:
Tomas
No point ?predicting? beforehand. As the book instructs, try it and see. If hunger is intense you can always increase upwards. In my prime I was 260 lbs with less than 10% bodyfat and on the Cycle Diet I was eating 1800 calories on my diet days ? when other ?formula’s? dictated I should have been near 4,000 ? biofeedback rules over ?formula’s? ? so try it out and adjust accordingly if needs be ? but having said all , it’s a really good basic formula ? most people don’t need nearly the calories they think they do
It sounds like Scott thinks one should eat as few calories as they can and still perform. I’m an advocate of eating as many calories as you can and still perform because of my strong bias for a high metabolic rate for health.
I’m sure Scott has his reasoning. You have to remember too that Scott is an advocate of the cycle diet, and refeeding with 10,000+ calories one day per week. That is a totally different context than just eating a low-calorie diet all the time.
I’ve read a bit on his Cycle diet and it seemed good, but difficult to follow, at least from the practical point of view.
And it really seems that he advocates eating as little as you can – all that talk of satiety index, potatoes, etc
I like Scotts book.
Quick question though.What about cardio and especially HIIT for hardgainers?
What is the protocol?
Thanks
I don’t think Scott’s a fan of steady state cardio for anyone, and it sounds like anything at very high intensity with an extreme oxygen debt, a la HIIT, would be something he’s not advising here.
His other training protocols for people who aren’t hardgainers are basically high-intensity interval strength training workouts, combining weightlifting and HIIT in one by circuiting three exercises together without any rest in between.
Hi Scott,
Matt and I thnk very highly of you real world knowledge and experience on these matters. I enjoy Matt’s work because it is quality, as is yours. Matt’s blog is one of the very few I read. I remember the late Jesse Marunde talking about not training to failure as well. Good points about drugs, too.
Take care,
Raz
I want to get in on this.
When i was chronically sick with lyme the low fat diet seemed to help- temporarily. But you have to be really sedentary to run on lipolsysis all of the time. 45% carb, 30% protein and 20% fat has fixed some of my paleo-induced problems :)
I dont think recovery should be 3 weeks. 1 workout a month is better than nothing but what about sports? SEX?! Also, though i think carbs are the bomb, i feel better knowing my body is in “recovery mode” from post-exercise while i guzzle ice cream, and i dont think that window lasts more than 72 hours, for me at least.
At the climbing gym where i work, we have a lot of regulars; 20- and 30-something year old gym rats that climb 5 days a week for 3+ hours at a time. What do they eat? Timbits, gummy bears, leftover cake from kids birthday parties, carbs galore. My monkey boyfriend went low-carb paleo and within a week, was climbing like me (that is to say, like poo).
Matt, I know you like to pair starch with fruit and simple sugars. Ray Peat likes to separate them, claiming that when you eat starch it’s a good time to get your fat intake in and save simple sugars for later, otherwise they become stored as fat. Anybody have an educated opinion on this?
And one more thing – thank you for making food enjoyable for me again.