Green Veggies In
my initial transformation I included the carbs from green veggies in my
dietary allowance. For that reason I actually stayed away from them. I
preferred to have more leeway with my carbs than to have 20g of carbs
from greens. Well, after talking to some experts and reading
more on the subject, I've stopped counting the carbs from green
veggies. Most of them are fiber and aren't absorbed by the body. So now
I try to eat as many green veggies as possible. I emphasize broccoli,
cucumbers, celery, and lettuce.
First,
it helps keep me full, which is very good for appetite control. It also
helps slow down the absorption of nutrients which keeps the body
anti-catabolic due to the steady flow of nutrients entering the
bloodstream. Fiber will also clean the digestive tract. This
will have a positive effect on nutrient absorption (more of the protein
you eat will actually be absorbed). So the bottom line is that you
shouldn't hold back on the greens for fear of overshooting your
carbohydrate allowance.

The Berardi Compliance Form During
my original transformation, I often made the mistake of compensating
one slight cheat with excessive restriction. For example, on the
occasions that I fell off the dieting wagon and indulged in a ''bad''
food, I'd make the double mistake of skipping a meal to make up for the
cheat. The thing is, a missed meal is just as bad as a cheat meal when
talking about body composition. Missed meals can negatively
impact your insulin sensitivity and lead to fat storage, muscle loss,
lack of energy, and hunger pangs (which can lead to binging). Simply
put, never make up for a mistake with a second one. Cheating is bound
to happen (hopefully very infrequently) and if it happens, you must
resume your scheduled diet as soon as possible. I'm now using
Dr. Berardi's diet compliance form: I have seven meals a day so that's
49 meals a week. I shoot for a 90% compliance to the diet so I can
basically ''afford" five dietary mistakes per week. A missed meal is a
mistake; so is eating a non-diet meal. Normally, I try to put
all five ''mistakes'' on the same day (my cheat day, which is normally
on Saturday) but sometimes — either when I'm below 8% or in a mass
gaining phase — I'll have one or two cheat meals on Thursday and two to
three on Saturday. But the point is that you should shoot for 90%
compliance to the planned diet, and don't forget that missing a meal is
a mistake too. Another aspect of compliance is that when an
unplanned binge/cheat happens you should go back to your planned diet
ASAP. A lot of people use such unplanned binges to go off of their
diets for a few days. What often happens is that someone might cheat on
a Wednesday, reason that his whole week is messed up, and will decide
to ''get back into it on Monday.'' So they set themselves
mentally to eat like crap for four or five days before getting back on
the wagon. This makes no sense. It's like blowing a tire by accident
and then decide you ''might as well blow the other three since I'll be
going to the garage on Monday.'' Bottom line: unplanned cheating shouldn't be an excuse for getting off of your plan.

Supplements Rather
than critique the supplement plan I used in the past, I'll tell you
what strategies I use right now and what I recommend to my clients.

Peri-Workout Nutrition When
dieting down the first time I kinda dismissed peri-workout nutrition,
instead believing that any nutrients ingested pre and during workout
would have a detrimental effect on my fat loss. I also stayed away from
peri-workout carbs to stay as low as possible. This was a big mistake
on my part. I know now that proper pre, during, and
post-workout nutrition can drastically enhance your muscle growth. And
during a fat loss phase, anything that can help increase your anabolic
drive will help you maintain (or even increase) muscle mass. We
understand the need to quickly replenish the depleted glycogen stores
post-workout, to spike insulin in order to create an anabolic milieu,
to shuttle protein to the muscle as fast as possible after a session to
maximize growth, and to reduce the negative impact of cortisol during
the workout. I now believe that not including a good peri-workout nutritional strategy is counterproductive to body transformation. The
thing is that we still don't want to go above the prescribed carb
intake for the day. So there are two possible solutions: 1. Rely on Surge post-workout without exceeding the daily carb allowance.
This
works best for relatively lean individuals (15% or less) since their
daily carb allowance is higher. For example, someone who's 210 pounds
at 15% body fat could ingest as much as 75g of carbs per day. One full
serving of the new Surge has 49g of carbs, so technically one can
ingest as much as half a serving split pre and during workout and one
full serving post-workout if he doesn't consume any carbs during the
day. However, it might be "safer" to use half a serving split
pre and during and another half serving post-workout. In that case I'd
add 10-15g of glutamine to both drinks to compensate for the decreased
carbs. 2. Replace the carbs
with other ingredients that might have a similar effect. Carbs
themselves are not anabolic; they can help muscle growth through
glycogen replenishment and via an insulin spike, which prevents muscle
breakdown and facilitates the uptake of amino acids in the muscle. If
we can get these same benefits without using carbs, the anabolic
response will be adequate too. A good strategy to use is this:

Pre-Workout (30 minutes prior) 5g glutamine 5g creatine 5g BCAA Half scoop of whey isolate (12-16g)

During-Workout 20-40g of BCAA (the more you can afford the better) 10g of glutamine
Post-Workout
20-40g of glutamine (work up progressively as some might have stomach
problems with mega dosing) 10-15g glycine 10-15g leucine 1.5 scoops of
whey isolate (40-45g) Leucine
can spike insulin almost as well as carbs but it doesn't take you out
of ketosis or prevent you from being in a fat-adapted state. Glutamine
and glycine are two amino acids that have been shown to restore muscle
glycogen almost as well as carbs. The 35-55g of combined G&G will
almost have the same effect on glycogen replenishment as a similar dose
of carbs. The whey isolate has the same purpose as
''regular'' post-workout nutrition: to provide building blocks for
muscle growth. So basically you're using individual amino acids to
stimulate the effect of carbs on insulin production (leucine) and
glycogen replenishment (glutamine, glycine).

HOT-ROX Extreme I did use the original HOT-ROX in my first transformation and it worked very well. But honestly, the new HOT-ROX Extreme
is light years ahead of everything else. I personally have to use only
one capsule per day most of the time because of its strong effect!

Feel Good Supplements – Body and Mind In

most people, the psychological aspect of dieting down is the hardest to

master. It's no different for serious lifters who are dead-set on

transforming their bodies. While a hardcore trainee deciding to get cut

generally has a stronger will and more discipline than the average

couch potato, some things can chip away at that determination and

eventually undermine his effort. Here are a few of these things and

what you can do about it: 1. Feeling like you're shriveling down: While the average dieter likes

to feel smaller, the bodybuilding dieter doesn't. Feeling smaller makes

you believe (sometimes rightfully so) that you're losing muscle mass.

This problem is compounded by the fact that until you get down to

something like 10% body fat, you won't actually be lean enough to see a

significant difference. So until you're lean enough to see decent

muscle definition you'll only feel and look smaller. Obviously this isn't very conducive to diet compliance! All

those efforts and you don't feel or look better... yet. Those who are

able to reach their physique goals are those who can get through that

psychological barrier and eventually reach a body fat level that will

make them look bigger even though they're getting smaller.

However,

I'd venture to say that a vast majority of ''body transformers'' stop

their programs way before they can get the body they want. I can't

blame them though. In the past I tried numerous times to get ripped but

could never make it past the four to six week mark, not because of a

lack of will or discipline, but rather because I honestly felt that my

body wasn't headed the right way. It wasn't until I toughed it out for

the long run that I reached the physique I wanted.

Before

I decided to go all the way, regardless of the outcome, I'd always go

back on a mini-bulk because I felt flat and weak. Feeling ''flat''

(like your muscles are empty shells) can be the dieting bodybuilder's

number one nemesis. We all like the feeling of being pumped, full and

tight. So when that feeling goes away we often panic and stop the diet.

Sometimes this situation can lead to another problem: the lack

of pump during your workout can make you increase your training volume

way too much. A lot of people are ''stimulus addicts." They simply love

the pump they get in the gym. When dieting down, the pump might not be

as intense, so in an effort to get the same level of pump as when

they're not dieting down, some guys will jack up the volume, chasing

the elusive pump. The problem is that when you're dieting

down your body doesn't have the capacity to handle as much physical

work because you're not giving it as much fuel. So doing too much

volume can lead to stagnation and even muscle loss. Okay, so

what can we do to avoid feeling flat and small? A very simple trick is

to combine glutamine, creatine, and glycerol/glycerin several times a

day. Glutamine and creatine
are both muscle cell volumizers, meaning that they can ''fill up'' the
muscle, making it less likely to feel flat. Glycerin

has been shown to increase water storage in the muscle. That's why

endurance athletes use glycerol/glycerin during their race: it keeps

the muscles hydrated. Bodybuilders have also been using it before

stepping onstage because it pulls water out from under the skin and

into the muscle, making them look both dryer and fuller.

The

late Dan Duchaine was the first one to recommend using

glycerol/glycerine for bodybuilding purposes. More recently,

authorities such as Dr. Mauro Di Pasquale and yours truly have been

recommending glycerol/glycerine when on a low-carb diet. It helps keep

you feeling pumped and full and allows you to train harder (muscle

dehydration equals loss of strength). I recommend 5g of

glutamine, 5g of creatine, and 15g of glycerin/glycerol taken four to

five times a day (morning, two to three hours pre-workout, 30 minutes

pre-workout, during the workout) for maximum results. 2.

Feeling run down: Dieting and hard training can take its toll on the

brain and nervous system. Technically, if your caloric intake is set

properly and if your fat intake is high enough, you shouldn't lack physical

energy. Give your body enough fuel and it'll function properly

(although it might take it 7-10 days to adapt to the nutrient dominance

of the diet). But a lot of people still feel tired and lack

energy when dieting down. When this becomes a burden to their everyday

tasks, the diet is often stopped. In some cases this psychological

stress is due to dietary boredom (when you're using a low-carb diet you

don't have a very wide meal choice) or to carbohydrate ''addiction'' —

a high sugar diet can become almost as addictive physiologically and

psychologically
as other forms of addictions. However, in a lot of cases it can be due
to a draining of the CNS or a neurotransmitter imbalance. Power Drive

can do a lot of good things to enhance CNS restoration and

neurotransmitters production. I've found this supplement to really

improve my mood and diet compliance in the later stages of a fat loss

diet. I normally use two to three servings spread throughout the day.





Creatine Most gym rats are aware of the benefits of a good creatine
supplement during a mass gain/hypercaloric phase: a) Creatine increases
strength and power output which allows you to lift more weight, thus
stimulate more growth. b) Creatine

allows you to perform a few more reps at a high level of lifting

intensity, again allowing you to stimulate more muscle growth. c) Creatine

allows you to recover faster between intense sets of an exercise. This

can increase lifting density (more total work per unit of time) which

is another powerful stimulus for muscle growth. d)

Creatine causes muscle cell volumization (each gram of creatine stored

in the muscle brings 2.7g of water with it) which increases

intra-muscular
pressure, shown to put the body in an anabolic state. e) The ''muscle
swelling'' effect also positively affects strength by way of better
mechanical levers.

But

what about when dieting down? Well, creatine can help for many of the

same reasons. I always say in regard to training that the methods that

are best to make your muscles grow while bulking are also the best ones

to help you retain that muscle when cutting. The same holds true for

supplements, and particularly creatine. Besides the ''feeling

fuller'' effect, creatine will help you maintain or gain strength while

dieting down. It will also allow you to be able to perform the work you

have to do in the gym, which will allow you to keep your muscle mass

while losing fat. It has also been shown that creatine

supplementation can actually increase metabolic rate by around 5%,

which amounts to you burning an additional 120-160 calories per day.

Nothing enormous, but when trying to get super lean every single bit

counts.

Strength Training One

mistake I made was performing too much strength work when trying to get

super lean. While I did get lean, I made the process much harder

physically and mentally than it should've been. My mutation looks good

on paper, but to be honest it wasn't all rainbows and roses! There were

some times where I barely made it to the gym and really put in a token

effort once there. This wasn't because of a lack of will or because I

was being a wuss, but simply because I'd worked myself into the ground.

While on some days I did feel pretty good and had decent

workouts, on some other days I was either a mindless zombie or a

psychopath! This also had some negative repercussions on my life: I

didn't have much energy to perform my daily tasks, I sucked as a

boyfriend, etc. I'm a big believer in Dr. Berardi's G-Flux

approach; however, when calories and carbs are very low and you do have

a busy schedule, doing a ton of training might work against you rather

than for you. To get a good idea of my current approach to strength training and fat loss, take a look at my Destroying Fat article. The gist of it is to include: 1) Two or three heavy lifting sessions per week "Heavy"

is a relative term. A newbie with less than a year of lifting

experience should avoid going too low in reps. Similarly, I don't think

it's smart for someone 16 or under to go below 5 reps per set, unless

he already has several years of serious training experience. Lifting

heavy, and especially trying to increase your strength in a selected

rep range, is the absolute best way to force your body to maintain or

even increase its muscle mass while dieting. Face it, when calories are

on the low side your body really doesn't want to add any more of that

energy-hogging tissue called muscle. It must have a darn good reason to

keep or increase its muscle mass. That "good reason" is

having to produce a lot of force on a regular basis. If you don't keep

at least some heavy lifting while dieting, muscle preservation will be

very hard to accomplish and you can forget about adding muscle size! 2) One or two lactate-inducing sessions per week Ever

since Coach Poliquin started to use lactate-inducing workouts for

cutting phases, these types of workouts have been the gold standard

when it comes to lifting for fat loss. An increase in lactate

production is linked to a surge in growth hormone output (that lasts up

to an hour or two after the completion of the workout) which

facilitates the mobilization of stored fat. This means that more fat is

burned for energy.

The keys to inducing a maximum lactate production are:

a) Performing
a high density of work. This means taking very short rest intervals
between sets and performing a relatively high number of reps per set.
Basically, the goal is to perform as much work as possible in a
selected period of time.
b) Avoiding
muscle unloading during a set. This simply means that the muscles being
worked during a set should always be under tension, never relaxed. So
you shouldn't take any rest between reps (e.g. holding the bar at arms
length for two to three seconds between reps on the bench press).
If
the exercise includes a ''locked joint'' position at the end of the
movement (any form of pressing, squats, leg presses, deadlifts) you
should either squeeze the muscles hard at the end of each rep, or stop
one or two inches short of lockout to avoid having the load being
supported mostly by the skeletal structure instead of the muscles.
c)
Train the whole body or at least a large portion of the body. The
bigger the muscle mass involved, the more lactate will be produced. For
the same reason, compound movements will be better for lactate-inducing
purposes than isolation work (e.g. a squat is superior to a wrist curl).

As

long as all these elements are respected, any lactate-inducing workout

will work — circuits, Tabatas, complexes, German Body Comp, etc. As

lactate production is maximized, fat loss will happen. There are no

secret workouts: focus on lactate production and you can't go wrong! I'd

like to say a few things about complexes though. I know they're very

popular right now, but personally I'm not fond of them. They will work,

no doubt about that. As I mentioned, anything that increases lactate

production to sky-high levels that are sustained for a certain period

of time will lead to fat loss. However, I feel that any form of Olympic

lifts (which are part of complexes) should never be performed for high

reps or in a fatigued state. This is mostly for safety

reasons. If the lifts can't be performed using excellent technique,

they shouldn't be used at all. The Olympic lifts are very effective

movements, but if they're not done properly they do carry a relatively

high risk of injury. When you're fatigued, maintaining a

proper lifting technique will be hard. Individuals who are super

efficient technically (those who've been training on the lifts for

years) will be able to pull it off, but most people will suffer from

technique degradation as fatigue sets it. This increases the risk of

injury and it also makes you learn bad motor habits. During a

lactate-inducing workout, most of your reps will be performed in a

fatigued state. Technique will suffer when you're fatigued, so you end

up performing a lot of incorrect reps which will ingrain bad technique.

If someone can perform complexes with perfect technique during

a whole lactate-inducing workout, then more power to them. But there's

nothing magical about complexes; they work because they increase

whole-body lactate production. There are safer ways to do this. I

do believe that when using a lactate-inducing protocol one should use

mechanically simple movements to reduce the risk of injury. Remember

that it's the lactate production and caloric expenditure that make this

method
work. For that matter, 4-8 x 400m sprints with 90 seconds rest would
also work very well as a lactate-inducing workout. A good weekly
training split could look like this:

Monday: Chest and back, heavy

Tuesday: Legs, heavy

Wednesday: OFF

Thursday: Lactate-inducing workout

Friday: Arms (heavy) and shoulders

Saturday: Lactate-inducing workout

Sunday: OFF Here are the loading parameters for the ''heavy'' sessions:

Beginners

Exercises: 3 for big muscle groups, 2 for small ones

Reps per set: 6 to 10 reps

Sets per exercise: 3-4

Possible special techniques: none

Intermediates

Exercises: 3 for big muscle groups, 2 for small ones

Reps per set: 4 to 8 reps

Sets per exercise: 4-5

Possible special techniques: antagonist supersets, rest-pause

Advanced

Exercises: 2-3 for big muscle groups, 2 for small ones

Reps per set: 3 to 5 reps

Sets per exercise: 5-6

Possible

special techniques: antagonist supersets, rest-pause, partials at end

of set, double contraction (one and a half reps)



Energy Systems Work Most

people will need to perform some energy systems work to get super lean.

However, that doesn't mean doing endless hours on the Stairmaster.

We're not gerbils! In the past I recommended a lot of interval energy

systems work. However, I do feel that when using a low carb approach,

this isn't ideal.

High

intensity energy systems work relies mostly on glycogen for energy. But

when you're on a low-carb diet your glycogen stores won't be as high as

during a normal diet. And the limited amount of glycogen you have will

be needed for the heavy lifting sessions and lactate-inducing workouts.

Adding-in high intensity energy systems work will only lead to

further depletion of the glycogen stores and to muscle catabolism. The

body will break down muscle tissue into amino acids which will then be

transformed into glucose by the liver. So when adding ESW to

a low-carb diet you should focus on the methods where glucose use is

minimal. This means either low-intensity cardio or very short sprints.

Low-intensity cardio at 65-70% of your max heart rate won't use too

much glucose/glycogen. Yes, this form of training burns less

calories than intervals. However, when carbs are restricted, intervals

can lead to muscle loss. Low-intensity work won't. Sprints lasting

around 10-12 seconds can also be used since they rely mostly on

phosphagens for fuel, but anything longer than 15 seconds won't be as

effective. Low-intensity work is best performed right after the

lactate-inducing sessions because fat mobilization is at its highest.

This way, the low-intensity work will be much more effective than if it

were used by itself. Thirty minutes at around 70% of your max heart

rate is sufficient for optimal fat loss. So the updated schedule becomes:

Monday: Chest and back heavy

Tuesday: Legs, heavy

Wednesday: OFF

Thursday: Lactate-inducing workout, then 30 minutes low-intensity ESW

Friday: Arms (heavy) and shoulders

Saturday: Lactate-inducing workout, then 30 minutes low-intensity ESW

Sunday: OFF A

third session could possibly be added after the leg workout, but I'd

start at only two weekly sessions and bump it to three only when fat

loss stalls. This is one problem I see with a lot of people

attempting a body transformation: they do too much too soon. They set

their caloric intake at a super low level from the start, perform tons

of cardio, and use all the fat loss supplements known to man. They lose

fat fast, but eventually the body will adapt and they'll stop

progressing. Where can they go now? They can't cut calories

even more without risking muscle loss, they can't add more training

without interfering with that little thing called life, and they don't

have any more fat burners to add to their arsenal. Bottom line: they're

stuck! We all want fast results. Fat loss if a very emotional

issue; we want to be lean ASAP. But you must realize that the ones who

will reach their goal are the ones who can progress for the longest

period of time. And that requires doing the minimum necessary to get

the job done and only adding things in as progress stops. In other

words, gradually cut calories, increase cardio, and add supplements,

but only as needed.



Conclusion

Over

the past few years I've been able to get a ton of people into great

shape using this approach. Of course, it's an ever-evolving process,

but right now it represents the way I do things and it has led to some

tremendous results with much less suffering than I had to endure in the

past.

This is obviously only a blueprint, not a

precise plan. But if you respect these basic principles and are in this

for the long run, you'll get the body you desire. As coach Poliquin

said, ''Getting lean is simple, but it's not easy.'' If you're willing

to put the effort in and follow the plan, success is right around the

corner!

However,
I'd venture to say that a vast majority of ''body transformers'' stop
their programs way before they can get the body they want. I can't
blame them though. In the past I tried numerous times to get ripped but
could never make it past the four to six week mark, not because of a
lack of will or discipline, but rather because I honestly felt that my
body wasn't headed the right way. It wasn't until I toughed it out for
the long run that I reached the physique I wanted. Before
I decided to go all the way, regardless of the outcome, I'd always go
back on a mini-bulk because I felt flat and weak. Feeling ''flat''
(like your muscles are empty shells) can be the dieting bodybuilder's
number one nemesis. We all like the feeling of being pumped, full and
tight. So when that feeling goes away we often panic and stop the diet.
Sometimes this situation can lead to another problem: the lack
of pump during your workout can make you increase your training volume
way too much. A lot of people are ''stimulus addicts." They simply love
the pump they get in the gym. When dieting down, the pump might not be
as intense, so in an effort to get the same level of pump as when
they're not dieting down, some guys will jack up the volume, chasing
the elusive pump. The problem is that when you're dieting
down your body doesn't have the capacity to handle as much physical
work because you're not giving it as much fuel. So doing too much
volume can lead to stagnation and even muscle loss. Okay, so
what can we do to avoid feeling flat and small? A very simple trick is
to combine glutamine, creatine, and glycerol/glycerin several times a
day. Glutamine and creatine are both muscle cell volumizers, meaning that they can ''fill up'' the muscle, making it less likely to feel flat. Glycerin
has been shown to increase water storage in the muscle. That's why
endurance athletes use glycerol/glycerin during their race: it keeps
the muscles hydrated. Bodybuilders have also been using it before
stepping onstage because it pulls water out from under the skin and
into the muscle, making them look both dryer and fuller. The
late Dan Duchaine was the first one to recommend using
glycerol/glycerine for bodybuilding purposes. More recently,
authorities such as Dr. Mauro Di Pasquale and yours truly have been
recommending glycerol/glycerine when on a low-carb diet. It helps keep
you feeling pumped and full and allows you to train harder (muscle
dehydration equals loss of strength). I recommend 5g of
glutamine, 5g of creatine, and 15g of glycerin/glycerol taken four to
five times a day (morning, two to three hours pre-workout, 30 minutes
pre-workout, during the workout) for maximum results. 2.
Feeling run down: Dieting and hard training can take its toll on the
brain and nervous system. Technically, if your caloric intake is set
properly and if your fat intake is high enough, you shouldn't lack physical
energy. Give your body enough fuel and it'll function properly
(although it might take it 7-10 days to adapt to the nutrient dominance
of the diet). But a lot of people still feel tired and lack
energy when dieting down. When this becomes a burden to their everyday
tasks, the diet is often stopped. In some cases this psychological
stress is due to dietary boredom (when you're using a low-carb diet you
don't have a very wide meal choice) or to carbohydrate ''addiction'' —
a high sugar diet can become almost as addictive physiologically and
psychologically as other forms of addictions. However, in a lot of cases it can be due to a draining of the CNS or a neurotransmitter imbalance. Power Drive
can do a lot of good things to enhance CNS restoration and
neurotransmitters production. I've found this supplement to really
improve my mood and diet compliance in the later stages of a fat loss
diet. I normally use two to three servings spread throughout the day.



Creatine Most gym rats are aware of the benefits of a good creatine supplement during a mass gain/hypercaloric phase: a) Creatine increases strength and power output which allows you to lift more weight, thus stimulate more growth. b) Creatine
allows you to perform a few more reps at a high level of lifting
intensity, again allowing you to stimulate more muscle growth. c) Creatine
allows you to recover faster between intense sets of an exercise. This
can increase lifting density (more total work per unit of time) which
is another powerful stimulus for muscle growth. d)
Creatine causes muscle cell volumization (each gram of creatine stored
in the muscle brings 2.7g of water with it) which increases
intra-muscular pressure, shown to put the body in an anabolic state. e) The ''muscle swelling'' effect also positively affects strength by way of better mechanical levers.

But
what about when dieting down? Well, creatine can help for many of the
same reasons. I always say in regard to training that the methods that
are best to make your muscles grow while bulking are also the best ones
to help you retain that muscle when cutting. The same holds true for
supplements, and particularly creatine. Besides the ''feeling
fuller'' effect, creatine will help you maintain or gain strength while
dieting down. It will also allow you to be able to perform the work you
have to do in the gym, which will allow you to keep your muscle mass
while losing fat. It has also been shown that creatine
supplementation can actually increase metabolic rate by around 5%,
which amounts to you burning an additional 120-160 calories per day.
Nothing enormous, but when trying to get super lean every single bit
counts.

Strength Training One
mistake I made was performing too much strength work when trying to get
super lean. While I did get lean, I made the process much harder
physically and mentally than it should've been. My mutation looks good
on paper, but to be honest it wasn't all rainbows and roses! There were
some times where I barely made it to the gym and really put in a token
effort once there. This wasn't because of a lack of will or because I
was being a wuss, but simply because I'd worked myself into the ground.
While on some days I did feel pretty good and had decent
workouts, on some other days I was either a mindless zombie or a
psychopath! This also had some negative repercussions on my life: I
didn't have much energy to perform my daily tasks, I sucked as a
boyfriend, etc. I'm a big believer in Dr. Berardi's G-Flux
approach; however, when calories and carbs are very low and you do have
a busy schedule, doing a ton of training might work against you rather
than for you. To get a good idea of my current approach to strength training and fat loss, take a look at my Destroying Fat article. The gist of it is to include: 1) Two or three heavy lifting sessions per week "Heavy"
is a relative term. A newbie with less than a year of lifting
experience should avoid going too low in reps. Similarly, I don't think
it's smart for someone 16 or under to go below 5 reps per set, unless
he already has several years of serious training experience. Lifting
heavy, and especially trying to increase your strength in a selected
rep range, is the absolute best way to force your body to maintain or
even increase its muscle mass while dieting. Face it, when calories are
on the low side your body really doesn't want to add any more of that
energy-hogging tissue called muscle. It must have a darn good reason to
keep or increase its muscle mass. That "good reason" is
having to produce a lot of force on a regular basis. If you don't keep
at least some heavy lifting while dieting, muscle preservation will be
very hard to accomplish and you can forget about adding muscle size! 2) One or two lactate-inducing sessions per week Ever
since Coach Poliquin started to use lactate-inducing workouts for
cutting phases, these types of workouts have been the gold standard
when it comes to lifting for fat loss. An increase in lactate
production is linked to a surge in growth hormone output (that lasts up
to an hour or two after the completion of the workout) which
facilitates the mobilization of stored fat. This means that more fat is
burned for energy.

The keys to inducing a maximum lactate production are:

a) Performing
a high density of work. This means taking very short rest intervals
between sets and performing a relatively high number of reps per set.
Basically, the goal is to perform as much work as possible in a
selected period of time.
b) Avoiding
muscle unloading during a set. This simply means that the muscles being
worked during a set should always be under tension, never relaxed. So
you shouldn't take any rest between reps (e.g. holding the bar at arms
length for two to three seconds between reps on the bench press).
If
the exercise includes a ''locked joint'' position at the end of the
movement (any form of pressing, squats, leg presses, deadlifts) you
should either squeeze the muscles hard at the end of each rep, or stop
one or two inches short of lockout to avoid having the load being
supported mostly by the skeletal structure instead of the muscles.
c)
Train the whole body or at least a large portion of the body. The
bigger the muscle mass involved, the more lactate will be produced. For
the same reason, compound movements will be better for lactate-inducing
purposes than isolation work (e.g. a squat is superior to a wrist curl).

As
long as all these elements are respected, any lactate-inducing workout
will work — circuits, Tabatas, complexes, German Body Comp, etc. As
lactate production is maximized, fat loss will happen. There are no
secret workouts: focus on lactate production and you can't go wrong! I'd
like to say a few things about complexes though. I know they're very
popular right now, but personally I'm not fond of them. They will work,
no doubt about that. As I mentioned, anything that increases lactate
production to sky-high levels that are sustained for a certain period
of time will lead to fat loss. However, I feel that any form of Olympic
lifts (which are part of complexes) should never be performed for high
reps or in a fatigued state. This is mostly for safety
reasons. If the lifts can't be performed using excellent technique,
they shouldn't be used at all. The Olympic lifts are very effective
movements, but if they're not done properly they do carry a relatively
high risk of injury. When you're fatigued, maintaining a
proper lifting technique will be hard. Individuals who are super
efficient technically (those who've been training on the lifts for
years) will be able to pull it off, but most people will suffer from
technique degradation as fatigue sets it. This increases the risk of
injury and it also makes you learn bad motor habits. During a
lactate-inducing workout, most of your reps will be performed in a
fatigued state. Technique will suffer when you're fatigued, so you end
up performing a lot of incorrect reps which will ingrain bad technique.
If someone can perform complexes with perfect technique during
a whole lactate-inducing workout, then more power to them. But there's
nothing magical about complexes; they work because they increase
whole-body lactate production. There are safer ways to do this. I
do believe that when using a lactate-inducing protocol one should use
mechanically simple movements to reduce the risk of injury. Remember
that it's the lactate production and caloric expenditure that make this
method work. For that matter, 4-8 x 400m sprints with 90 seconds rest would also work very well as a lactate-inducing workout. A good weekly training split could look like this:
Monday: Chest and back, heavy
Tuesday: Legs, heavy
Wednesday: OFF
Thursday: Lactate-inducing workout
Friday: Arms (heavy) and shoulders
Saturday: Lactate-inducing workout
Sunday: OFF Here are the loading parameters for the ''heavy'' sessions:
Beginners
Exercises: 3 for big muscle groups, 2 for small ones
Reps per set: 6 to 10 reps
Sets per exercise: 3-4
Possible special techniques: none
Intermediates
Exercises: 3 for big muscle groups, 2 for small ones
Reps per set: 4 to 8 reps
Sets per exercise: 4-5
Possible special techniques: antagonist supersets, rest-pause
Advanced
Exercises: 2-3 for big muscle groups, 2 for small ones
Reps per set: 3 to 5 reps
Sets per exercise: 5-6
Possible
special techniques: antagonist supersets, rest-pause, partials at end
of set, double contraction (one and a half reps)

Energy Systems Work Most
people will need to perform some energy systems work to get super lean.
However, that doesn't mean doing endless hours on the Stairmaster.
We're not gerbils! In the past I recommended a lot of interval energy
systems work. However, I do feel that when using a low carb approach,
this isn't ideal. High
intensity energy systems work relies mostly on glycogen for energy. But
when you're on a low-carb diet your glycogen stores won't be as high as
during a normal diet. And the limited amount of glycogen you have will
be needed for the heavy lifting sessions and lactate-inducing workouts.
Adding-in high intensity energy systems work will only lead to
further depletion of the glycogen stores and to muscle catabolism. The
body will break down muscle tissue into amino acids which will then be
transformed into glucose by the liver. So when adding ESW to
a low-carb diet you should focus on the methods where glucose use is
minimal. This means either low-intensity cardio or very short sprints.
Low-intensity cardio at 65-70% of your max heart rate won't use too
much glucose/glycogen. Yes, this form of training burns less
calories than intervals. However, when carbs are restricted, intervals
can lead to muscle loss. Low-intensity work won't. Sprints lasting
around 10-12 seconds can also be used since they rely mostly on
phosphagens for fuel, but anything longer than 15 seconds won't be as
effective. Low-intensity work is best performed right after the
lactate-inducing sessions because fat mobilization is at its highest.
This way, the low-intensity work will be much more effective than if it
were used by itself. Thirty minutes at around 70% of your max heart
rate is sufficient for optimal fat loss. So the updated schedule becomes:
Monday: Chest and back heavy
Tuesday: Legs, heavy
Wednesday: OFF
Thursday: Lactate-inducing workout, then 30 minutes low-intensity ESW
Friday: Arms (heavy) and shoulders
Saturday: Lactate-inducing workout, then 30 minutes low-intensity ESW
Sunday: OFF A
third session could possibly be added after the leg workout, but I'd
start at only two weekly sessions and bump it to three only when fat
loss stalls. This is one problem I see with a lot of people
attempting a body transformation: they do too much too soon. They set
their caloric intake at a super low level from the start, perform tons
of cardio, and use all the fat loss supplements known to man. They lose
fat fast, but eventually the body will adapt and they'll stop
progressing. Where can they go now? They can't cut calories
even more without risking muscle loss, they can't add more training
without interfering with that little thing called life, and they don't
have any more fat burners to add to their arsenal. Bottom line: they're
stuck! We all want fast results. Fat loss if a very emotional
issue; we want to be lean ASAP. But you must realize that the ones who
will reach their goal are the ones who can progress for the longest
period of time. And that requires doing the minimum necessary to get
the job done and only adding things in as progress stops. In other
words, gradually cut calories, increase cardio, and add supplements,
but only as needed.

Conclusion
Over
the past few years I've been able to get a ton of people into great
shape using this approach. Of course, it's an ever-evolving process,
but right now it represents the way I do things and it has led to some
tremendous results with much less suffering than I had to endure in the
past.
This is obviously only a blueprint, not a
precise plan. But if you respect these basic principles and are in this
for the long run, you'll get the body you desire. As coach Poliquin
said, ''Getting lean is simple, but it's not easy.'' If you're willing
to put the effort in and follow the plan, success is right around the
corner!