What everyone really wants is to eat what they want, and look and feel awesome all the time.
Right?
Unfortunately no magic pill exists.
And if you think about it there’s really only one way to move toward making this happen…
You’ve got to improve the way your cells use nutrients.
“Person A’ can eat 3000 calories a day and look awesome, ‘Person B’ can eat the exact same calories and look like Human Foie Gras. WHY?
Because there is a lot more happening inside the body with respect to how your body uses and processes nutrients.
Calories in and calories out is a mindset of 1983.
Individual Factors to Consider:
- Gut microbiome
- Inflammation
- Body fat levels
- Estrogen
- Testosterone
- Thyroid
- Cortisol
…just to name a few of the many factors that influence exactly how your body will use the nutrients you eat.
Changing your diet alone can likely change all of the above factors…but to warrant visible results is going to be a long winding road.
For noticeable body changes; changing diet alone will be as fast as cooking a steak with a hair dryer.
Hard training, directed and controlled by muscles will improve:
- Cortisol Rhythms
- Insulin Sensitivity
- Testosterone, GH, IGF levels and utilization.
There are few very important things to consider before jumping out of your seat to head to the gym to contract muscles.
1) HOW you train (execution) is much more important than WHAT (exercise) you do.
Simply “lifting weight” is not going to get lasting results. I’m sure you know that by now.
There is more to it. Most guys use cop-out excuses like genetics and nutrition to compensate for lack of effective execution and sheer laziness. Proper execution takes focus.
2) The amount of stimulus (sets, reps, rest, load) matters, BUT only once your form is 100% accurately directing tension to the correct muscle…
Think about this…
When you pick up a weight, what muscles lift it? Have you ever stopped to think about it?
Do it now. Bend over and pick up a pencil and stop at every inch on the way up and take inventory of where the tension is. Then, using your brain, shift it.
You can specifically direct which muscles take more of the weight, and which ones take less.
Does that thought start to open your eyes to the idea of developing weak vs strong bodyparts and that you have the ability to control that? Rather than blaming your parents.
3) Progressive Overload, at least the way most people think of it (adding more weight) is bullshit.
Your body is designed to cheat. To get things done. Adding more weight to the bar, dumbbell or machine will often lead to changes in exercise execution… “cheating”.
Cheating may come in the form or unnecessary movement, it may come in the form of shortened distance from the joint youre trying to influence, or in the form of acceleration to propel more momentum.
In order to make progressive overload a very relevant and powerful concept, there are a few simple ways to utilize it:
- Improve Execution
- Increase Distance From Axis
- Increased Time Under Tension
- Increased Load
Most people only ever consider load.
Load is secondary to execution.
Adding more load without concern for where it’s being placed is futile.
ACTION STEPS: HOW TO MOVE FORWARD:
Step 1) Master an “internal focus”
Thinking about the muscle, and what the muscle is doing on the inside, rather than what is going on outside the body, on the bar, or machine etc.
*All muscles do to effect movement is move the insertion closer to the origin. One end (Origin) is completely stable (or should be) the other end (Insertion) moves as the muscle shortens (concentric contraction).
Step 2) Maximize continuous tension
Once you find tension, your exclusive focus must be keeping it.
If your execution is on point, this will be much easier. As you develop your ability to maintain internal focus on the working muscle, and learn to apply intent, maintaining tension throughout each and every rep will become second nature. That’s when you’re progress will really start to accelerate.
Step 3) Increase TIME Under Tension
To master execution and make progress, you’re going to have to move slowly.
Likely very slowly.
Become the master of every inch of every rep.
A simple test to ensure that you are in complete control is that you should be able to STOP at any point during the rep.
If you can’t, the weight is either too heavy, or you’re allowing momentum and inertia to take over (which means you’re reducing or losing tension).
*Most exercises are only challenging in small percentages of the range. Find ways to make it harder at the points that are not challenging. The simplest way is to spend more time there. You’ll get fatigued. Trust me. And growth fill follow.
Step 4) Increase Distance
By moving the load even as little as one inch further away from the joint you’re influencing, you can drastically increase the amount of tension or torque a muscle is forced to exert.
Step 5) Increase Load
After you’ve mastered each of these steps, only NOW can and should you increase load.
*If you increase load before this, there is no chance you’re being effective at keeping the tension where you want it to be, and you’re leaving growth on the table.
There is no refuting that heavy weight has its place, but why not capitalize on all the things that allow for progress even before adding weight first?
That way you won’t have to go backward and you’ll prevent injury from instability and weakness in certain places.
I know a lot of you are asking:
How many sets and reps, how much frequency, volume and density?
ONLY after you’ve mastered the ability to apply precision execution do any of these variables become relevant and measureable to objectively get you results.
If your form is wavering, it’s impossible to quantify how much actual work is being done at the muscle.
Execution is a HUGE MISSING LINK:
I’ve put together over 70 in-depth videos on exercises for every body part along with a scientifically designed 6-week plan to progress volume, density, intensity, and frequency.
Eliminate guesswork and spinning your wheels in the gym, check out the MI40 Foundation training system that has helped well over 1 million people grow muscle and get super lean intelligently and without injury since 2011
