hypertrophyphd

⚠️ LETS TALK NUTRITION ⚠️

Unfortunately, there is a whole lot of confusion and misconceptions over what actually matters when it comes to nutrition - specifically when talking about fat loss, muscle growth and overall physique goals. For a lot of people, lack of results (or ideal results) is nothing to do with a lack of effort, but instead comes down to prioritizing the wrong things and/or completely missing aspects that are absolutely critical towards success. -
Without taking care of the things that matter most first, everything else is completely irrelevant. So, lets get into the Pyramid of Importance, starting from the most important (bottom) and moving up to the less important (but still influential).
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1⃣Calories & Energy Balance
This is the most important aspect when it comes to any body composition goal and the base of the pyramid. Calories trump everything else.
✅If you want to lose weight, get lean and lose the belly, you must be in a calorie deficit (burning more calories than you’re consuming or consuming less calories than your body requires to maintain its weight).
✅If you want to gain weight, add more muscle and get stronger, then you must be in a calorie surplus (consuming more calories than you’re burning or consuming more calories than your body requires to maintain its weight).
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2⃣Macronutrients
🍗Protein builds/retains muscle.
🥑Fats are essential for survival.
🍚Carbohydrates have positive impacts on hormones, are your main energy source (think gym performance)
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3⃣Micronutrients & Water
Unlike macronutrients, micronutrients are only needed in very small amounts. Nevertheless, micronutrients are essential for good health; deficiencies can cause serious health problems.
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4⃣Meal Timing/Frequency
Getting the timing of things right has favorable effects on body composition, however, if you skip over the most impactful, foundation levels of your nutrition plan you are wasting your time, money and effort.
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5⃣Supplements
Contrary to popular belief from the general public or casual gym-goer, supplements are not required and do not make or break progress or performance.
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Been getting a lot of comments from the anti-CICO crew. While yes certain foods have different effects on hunger, and certain macronutrients have different thermic effects. Your long term fat loss can only come from achieving a caloric deficit. And no that doesn’t mean you need to count calories daily. Leave your emotions at the door my friends. If your diet works for you Amen to that but call it what it is!

The optimum daily protein intake to support muscle growth with resistance training (RT) has been a topic of debate for quite some time now. However, it is safe to say that the scientific literature has converged on a consensus that the U.S. RDA of 0.8g/kg bodyweight/day is not inadequate per se, but rather suboptimal for muscle growth during RT. A recent meta analysis on this very research inquiry examined 42 study groups from multiple published investigations who underwent a resistance training program with some prescribed experimental dosage of dietary protein relative to bodyweight. Results indicated that a variable degree of growth in lean mass was observed with protein dosages between 1.0 to 2.2g/kg/day with a breaking point around 1.6g/kg/day. When consuming less than 1.6g/kg/day at baseline, protein supplementation appeared to augment RT-induced lean mass growth up to a daily intake of 1.6g/kg. Among the studies examined, the average intake at baseline was about 1.4g/kg/day which is 75% higher than the RDA, and an average supplementation of about 35g of protein per day still boosted gains in lean mass with RT. This analysis demonstrates that protein supplementstion, at least when daily intake is less than 1.6g/kg, is advantageous to optimize lean mass growth during RT. Sufficient protein intake is especially critical during energy deficit and in older adults. Indeed the arguably most critical factor in lean mass growth is training program efficacy which makes the determination of optimal protein intake difficult to ascertain. However, from a practical standpoint, consuming near 1.6g/kg/day would likely compliment and support your training program for muscle growth.

‼️⌚️TIME UNDER TENSION⌚️‼️ -
You've probably heard before 4-6reps = Strength, 8-12reps= hypertrophy, and 15+ = endurance. But why is that true? Understanding Time Under Tension (TUT) will help you understand why.
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TUT is the amount of time a muscle is held under tension during a rep or a set. For simplicity I like to measure in the time per. set. -
The average 10 rep set might look like this,
TEMPO: 2 seconds of eccentric motion (lengthening or negative motion), 1 second pause at the bottom, and 2 seconds of contracting motion (tightening or positive motion). In a program you would write 2:1:2 equaling a total of 5 seconds per rep. In TUT terms that's a total of 50 seconds of time under tension (5sec. X 10 reps) -
But different tempos will stress the muscles for different periods of time leading to different results. For example a tempo of 3:1:3 will give you 70 seconds of TUT where before at a tempo of 2:1:2 we only had 50 seconds of TUT. -
So what TUT protocol should I use? Well that's based on your goals. *
Power: 5-10sec/set (Tempo 2:0:X (explosive) = 3sec * 3 reps = 9sec.) This tempo will utilize ATP storages and fast twitch muscle fibers needed to quickly and explosively move loads
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Strength : 10-30sec/set (Tempo 2:0:2 = 4sec * 5reps = 20sec./set) This tempo will also utilize ATP storage while bringing in the early anaerobic functions of our energy system. *
Hypertrophy: 30-60sec/set (Tempo 3:1:2 = 6 sec * 8 reps = 48 sec./set) In this tempo range you will stress and cause the damage needed to produce muscle growth. This stress will cause a hormonal reaction releasing Testosterone and Growth Hormone, increasing the muscle size.
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Endurance: 60+ seconds (Tempo 2:1:2 = 5 sec. * 15 reps = 75sec. /set) Because time under tension is higher weight in this tempo is usually lighter resulting in aerobic energy usage and less anaerobic function.
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Additionally some programming will go further using a tempo that also measures the pause at the top of the rep and adding additional TUT essential during endurance and hypertrophy training.

What’s YOUR split? 👇🏼👇🏼

Generally, when someone says that something is “the best” it means that it’s the best for them. It doesn’t mean that it’s the best for you. If your buddy has been training for 10 years and you’re just starting out, his workout plan probably isn’t going to be ideal for you. Your goals, experience, free time, injuries, diet, stress level, sleep quality etc will determine the best workout split/routine for you

This graphic gives you a starting point. If you can commit to 4 days a week then and upper and lower day twice a week each is a great place to start 👍🏼

If you are just starting out then start SLOWLY. Try 2x a week at first and then (if you’ve been consistent) add another day each month. Do not start at 7 days/per week and miss half of them - you’ll lose motivation and the amount of discipline required for that level of effort will be too demanding and you’ll give up. You are not only training your muscles but also your ability to self discipline yourself 🧠 - Once you can master that then you will be in great shape for the rest of your life 😉


A key takeaway from these splits is that you are hitting each muscle group at least 2x per week - that is very important

If you have any questions just comment below (if I don’t respond then DM me)




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🧮CALCULATING CALORIC NEED TAKEN FROM MY NEXT EBOOK - 4 WEEKS OF FATLOSS🧮

Since maintenance calories are the number of calories your body needs to maintain its current weight and TDEE is the number of calories you burn during a day, including your activity, these two numbers will be the same.
We’ll use the following formula to calculate your TDEE

TDEE = (Bodyweight in pounds) x 10 x “Activity Multiplier”

The Activity Multiplier is the number used to estimate your daily activity level. The values used for the Activity Multiplier typically range from 1.2 to 2.4.

Now that you’ve found your maintenance calories, you must adjust them based on your goal.

Fat Loss:

* Subtract 300 to 1000 cals from your maintenance calories.
Research has shown that a deficit of 300 to 1000 cals is considered safe and should amount to a loss of ~0.5 to ~2 lb per week.

However, as you start losing weight your TDEE will start decreasing as well; you’ll eventually reach a point where you won’t be losing weight at the same rate (or not losing at all) and will then have to create a new deficit.
This reduction in energy expenditure is one of the many metabolic adaptations that come during a fat loss phase.
The rate of weight loss should be kept between 0.5 to 1% of your bodyweight per week in order to maximize muscle retention.

Note: Reducing your caloric intake isn’t the only way to create a deficit. You could also add some cardiovascular activity to help you reach your desired deficit.

Lean Mass Gain for Males:

* Beginners: Add between 200 to 300 cals to your maintenance.
* Intermediates: Add 100 to 200 cals to your maintenance.
* Advanced: minimal surplus over maintenance up to 100 cals.

Lean Mass Gain for Females:

* Beginners: Add between 150 to 225 cals to your maintenance.
* Intermediates: Add 75 to 150 cals to your maintenance.
* Advanced: Minimal surplus over maintenance up to 75 cals.

This conservative increment over maintenance calories will minimize the amount of body fat stored during a gaining phase.

The notion that specific foods or food groups have the ability to single handedly orchestrate the demise of your health and fitness aspirations has littered our fat loss understanding for decades. -
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This concept appears easy to believe. That’s why it sells. Because it’s far easier to place blame on an easy target [an item of physical food] than appreciate several self defining variables which lead to us being overweight. And the sellers of pseudoscientific policy know this exists among vulnerable seekers of fat loss. -
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We have a plethora of ‘specialist’ fat loss diets/strategies on top of the aforementioned in the graphic. All encourage restriction of food type, yet none propose restriction of total energy in vs out. The latter being the defining factor regarding fat loss. -
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Whilst some of these eating systems may accidentally improve nutrient related aspects of otherwise poor dietary habits, omission results in caloric reduction. But it is caloric reduction that enables fat loss, not omission. -
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One may enjoy cutting carbs out of their diet. The may revel in zero consumption of cake for all time. They may be repulsed by the thought of bread. But what if one enjoys cake? What if one likes sandwiches? Or pizza? According to nutritional pseudoscience, such individuals are doomed to being overweight if such foods are consumed. -
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Yet there are billions of examples which defy such lunacy. All of which consume such foods and still exist within their desired body composition. This occurs due to their aware or unknowing management of calories in vs out. Not omitting or including certain foods.
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When pseudoscientists proclaim the riches of ‘science’ behind their ‘special’ fat loss diet, our challenge is to question context, motive and relevance. Because to date, such fat loss pseudoscience is an unnecessary irrelevance to the basic physiological laws of energy balance. And it is this balance of energy that defines how much fat we have - nothing else. 🙂
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▶1. Compliance is staying true to your program. Results aren’t instant, manage your expectations and only if you truly hit every session as hard as you could for at least 8 weeks should you say a program did or didn’t work for you😎
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▶2. Select exercises that work best for you, mechanically. While I don’t think any exercise is a bad exercise, it might not be the best for you, biomechanically and emotionally
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Note I say emotionally because I value output, if you don’t like a certain movement you probably won’t progress or give output consistently enough to generate stimulus week over week. Ie RDLs vs Rack Pulls
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▶3. Progression, focusing on internal progression, forcing yourself to do more week over week is crucial. If you haven’t picked up a new weight or went deeper into a set than you did the session or sessions prior you probably are stuck. Be better every session.
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▶4. Volume, intensity, frequency. I lump these together, because at the end of the day how you hit your sessions over the course of a week is going to factor into your recovery and session performance.
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▶5. Tempo and Rest, this one is more user preference I tell my clients rest until you feel like you can give the same output as you did the set prior and while fatigue will increase over the session, rest is the only way to mitigate those effects 😊
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▶6. Session duration. Honestly if you’re spending more than an hour in the gym, you’re probably doing too much but if your limited to 2-3 training days I can see session duration lasting 2 hours plus.
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☝️Find what works for you, your lifestyle, habits, and preferences. Focus on the BIG stuff and don’t let the little things distract you from the big picture 👊
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And if you’re not sure where to begin…👇👇👇

START A LOG BOOK AND JUST FOCUS ON DOING MORE THAN THE SESSION PRIOR 🔥💪


Help yourself & help others too. 😊⠀

Shoot me a DM for details!

More importantly executing your best on your very last rep.

Bring it back to the basics.

🥞Struggle with knowing when to stop eating? Most of us only know TWO extremes of eating: STARVING or STUFFED.
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💡Very rarely do we actually slow down to mindfully eat our food, be aware of our hunger levels, our body and its cues.
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📊Have you seen the hunger scale before? If not, here it is! It’s a great way to think about your physical sensation and mood as it pertains to hunger. Being more aware of hunger can help you:
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🔺manage portion sizes
🔺control emotional eating
🔺understand when to stop eating
🔺recognize your personal hunger cues
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🧠In order to lose weight, being mindful and eating slowly is needed to tune in and recognize the signs of fullness.
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🍴***You should practice trying to eliminate hunger, NOT chase fullness*** I made the mistake of chasing fullness for the first part of my dieting life and when I made the switch, I noticed a big change in my body.
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🏋🏻‍♂️In other words, on the chart, the goal should be numbers 5-6. Ideally, you should feel as though you could workout an hour later without discomfort.
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❌Zones 1-3: Try to stay out of these zones to avoid binging, overeating, or becoming ravenous or lightheaded.
✅Zones 4-7: The sweet spot of fullness. Zone 5-6 is where you want to be after a meal. Like you could eat more but feel good 🤗
❌Zones 8-10: Try to avoid this zone! This is what you may typically feel like after Thanksgiving 🍗
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Be sure to bookmark this & tag a friend below who would benefit from this chart!✌🏼 ⠀

🍕CARB CYCLING 101 🍕

There's no formal definition for carb cycling, but the basic principle is that you alter your carb intake based on your varying needs throughout the week, month, or year. The timing and amount of carbs consumed during each phase vary depending on the person and what your goals are.

Carb cycling is often used among bodybuilders/physique competitors and high-performing athletes, but with the recent rise in popularity of the ketogenic diet, particularly for active people, the concept of carb cycling is becoming more common among everyday athletes.

Generally, carb cycling revolves around a person's training schedule. On days when they are training more intensely, they would consume more carbohydrates, whereas low-carb days would occur on days when their training is less intense, The rationale behind carb cycling is that when your body receives limited carbs, it relies on fat as the primary fuel source, which can be helpful for weight management, body fat losses, and boosting carb storage when carbs are reintroduced, The idea is that by being strategic about when and how you eat carbs (your body's preferred fuel source for exercise), you can more efficiently power your workouts and achieve better results in terms of both performance and body composition.
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