Fast Tracking Muscle Building by Training Smarter

Fast Tracking Muscle Building by Training Smarter

Everything you NEED to know about muscle building

I can pretty much summarise the main factors of muscle building in 3 simple rules...

Rule 1 - Track calories & macros

 

First thing is always nutrition, you need to be in a calorie surplus in order to develop some serious muscle tissue. If you don’t eat enough it will be extremely difficult to gain muscle, you might get some good results initially, AKA newbie gains, but eventually you’ll need to address your calories.

Food is the most anabolic substance you can utilise. Think about its, the bigger you get the more calories you need, your body will not justify expending all that valuable energy building and maintaining muscles tissue unless there is already a sufficient amount to work with.

Let’s take that one step further and break food down into the three macronutrients, or macros, these are carbs, fats and proteins. You’ll need a respectable amount of all three for the following reasons…

• Carbohydrates for energy and to replenish glycogen

• Healthy amount of fat to support cell growth and produce important hormones, most important one in this topic is testosterone.

• Obviously plenty of protein to help build and recover muscle tissue.

Rule 2 - Incorporate all three mechanisms of hypertrophy 

The three mechanisms are - mechanical tension, metabolic stress and muscle damage.

1. Mechanical tension - Focus on lifting heavy weights! Mechanical tension is providing a maximum amount of tension through a full range of motion, basically providing a lot of resistance in relation to your one rep max, you don’t develop big muscles by lifting small weights. This mechanism is the quickest way to optimise strength gains and is the most important mechanism.

2. Metabolic stress ("the pump") - You know when you’re training and your muscles start pumping up and your feel insanely pumped, well that pump will actually help you build more muscle.  To optimise metabolic stress you need to maintain constant tension on the muscles. Focus on the pain building up in that muscle, stay with it and embrace it. This way, as blood gets pumped into the muscles by the arteries, the steady muscular contractions will prevent the veins from letting blood escape, resulting in high levels of metabolic stress and cell swelling AKA pump.

3. Muscle damage - When you lift weights you create a certain amount of damage to the muscle, when the muscle is damaged it will repair, to help prevent this damage from happening over and over again it will compensate by increase muscle tissue and strength. The best way to influence this damage is by focusing on slow negatives, extended range of motion and high tension in the stretched position of the muscle. This obviously reinforces the importance of strict form.

The best lifts are those that can be manipulated to target each of the three mechanisms. The basic big lifts do the trick - squat, deadlift, hip thrust, bench press, military press, pull-up/pull down and rows. These exercises should feature highly in everyone's programming and tweaked accordingly to hit the three mechanisms.

You can use these three mechanisms in a single disgusting workout, or cycle through them over the course of a week

Rule 3 - Track Progressive overload

The main thing you need to look at when it comes to building muscle and strength is progressive overload, basically progressively lifting more. 

The simplest way to think of progressive overload is the story of the guy on the film “Holes” carrying a pig up the mountain, each day he carries this pig up a mountain, each day the pig got bigger, which meant each day he got stronger. 

Progressive overload requires a gradual increase in volume, intensity, frequency or time in order to achieve the targeted goal of the user. 

- Volume -  how many reps and sets you do

- Intensity - in the context is how much weight you’re lifting 

- Frequency - How often you train 

- Time - How long you train 

Obviously you don’t want to constantly increase how often you train and how long you train for, so a more realistic thing to focus on is the amount of weight you’re lifting. This doesn’t necessarily mean doing your one reps max or three reps and focusing on increasing that. You can work in a more optimal body building range between 6 to 15 reps and  increase the weight you’re doing on those exercises. For example, if you do 3 sets of 10 reps back squat using 100kg, try and do the same amount of reps with 105kg next time you do it, alternatively you can increase the volume and do the same amount of weight but increase the reps to 12, instead if 10, or potentially do an extra set, this is progressive overload, there is more than one way to skin a cat and there is more than one way to progressively overload muscles. You should change up the rep ranges as you go, but try and work in a rep range between 6 to 15 reps. This can change for specific sports such as powerlifting and strong man competitors, but for muscle building this will be a glorious rep range to work with.

When exercising, your body will adapt to a point, but if you want to make further development then you need to exert greater demand on the body by TRAINING HARD and TRAINING SMART.  If you don't progressively overload the muscles by forcing them to do more than they're accustomed to, they have no reason to make further adaptations. Simply put, your body will not develop unless it needs to!

How to get in great shape when you’re a parent

How to get in great shape when you’re a parent

This post is inspired by my new son Arthur Rhys Griffiths,👶🏻 he is 3 months old and my second child (first is my beautiful daughter Ruby you can see hanging off my arm). If you’re a parent you’ll know the challenges that come from trying to get in or stay in great shape when YOU are not the priority, you can even feel guilty when you do something for yourself. This is a big problem long term, what kind of role model are we to our children when we can’t look after ourselves.

I use the oxygen mask analogy with this scenario, if you’re on a plane and it starts having some major problems (touch wood this never happens to you), the oxygen masks will deploy. When this happens you’re advised to sort out your own oxygen mask before your children’s, this is because you can’t help others unless you help yourself!

Personally, I’ve been struggling with this the last 3 months, the reason I struggle is that the majority of my time is spent working from home as the majority of my business is online. I regularly get tagged in to look after Arthur which prevents me from working, I’m cool with this, of course, however, when you’re self-employed you’re always working and can feel guilty when you’re not. This result is my own time being sacrificed (gym time), I’ve been making it work to an extent, but sometimes only hitting the gym twice a week, this for me has just not been enough. Then when I have squeezed in the time I’ve not eaten correctly (or enough), due to time. I’m sure a lot of you can relate to this.

So what can we do? Do we sacrifice our time with the children? Do we train less?

My best piece of advice is putting a plan together, a simple plan that you stick with. 📝

Here are the problems I have and the new solutions.

Problem one - Taking time away from family to train.
The solution, to train when they are sleeping, that’s right! Starting tomorrow I’m going to get up at 5 am to go to the gym, everyone is likely still sleeping, my family and my clients. This prevents me from being stuck working or being busy with family.

Problem two - Having time to eat clean.
The solution, prepping food! I’m now going to get back on the prep wagon, I’ve stopped prepping food as I had time in the day to cook etc, this is no longer the case with my business growing fast and my family commitments.

Problem three - Missing out on family time due to work and gym commitments, I’ve structured and planned out my days and done this with my other half (better half), we have put a plan in place so that we both have regular gym time, eating clean time and taking care of the newborn time. Today, for example, I’m taking both children out and my other half is going to have some time to chill out, breath and hit the gym.

Inevitably this comes down to having help, support and a structured plan in place!

Now it’s your turn, have a think about the problems you have and possible solutions you might have to these problems.

Think who can help you (look after children for an hour).

Then put a realistic plan together and that you can stick with, the times can change, but the core of the plan wants to stay consistent.💥

What is the perfect rep range for fat loss?

How do I calculate my rep range for fat loss?

This is a very common question, and it’s not the first time I’ve touched on this subject.

Let’s get straight into it.

High Reps (12-15):

Burn more calories 

Medium Reps (8-12):

Optimise muscle building 

Low Reps (4-8):

Strength

Okay, so if my goal is fat loss, then it makes sense for me to perform a higher amount of reps to burn more calories, correct? Well, not really!

If you want to lose fat, you should be trying to develop a decent amount of muscle tissue (in the gym), the more muscle you have, the faster your metabolic rate. 8-12 reps are gold when it comes to hypertrophy (muscle development). You can very effectively hit all three mechanisms of hypertrophy (three mechanisms of developing muscle):

- Mechanical tension (high resistance)

- Metabolic stress (pump/cell swelling) 

- Muscle damage (stretch)

Okay, so if my goal is fat loss, then it makes sense for me to perform between 8-12 reps, correct? Well, not really!

Possibly the biggest factor when it comes to muscle building is mechanical tension, putting enough resistance through your muscles to force them to develop. You will need to use heavyweight; therefore, you’ll need to perform fewer reps (4-8 reps) to optimise this mechanism.

Okay, so if my goal is fat loss, then it makes sense for me to between 4-8 reps and lifts heavier, correct? Well, not really!

You’ll need to have plenty of rest between sets when lifting very heavy, so you won’t be burning a high amount of calories.

I can hear the shouts....”Andy……I’m confused…..How many reps will help me to lose fat??’

 

Well, you need an element of all three. You can include each element in each of your gym sessions e.g heavier at the start, or a more effective plan would be to incorporate this through phases /cycles. 

Example: 

- Month one mainly higher reps with the odd strength session

- Month two mostly medium reps with the odd bit of strength work

- Month three should be strength-focused, I don’t mean spending the full session training between 4-8 reps, instead start the session with heavy compound exercises like squats or deadlifts (after your warm-up of course), then increase the reps through the session. Once you come to the end of this phase you should have increased strength, that would be the goal of this phase.

Here is an example of how you could structure these sessions:

Month one full body example session:

A1 - Leg press - 12 reps x 3

B1 - Cable row - 12 reps x 3

C1 - 45 degree hip extension - 12 reps x 3

D1 - Seated shoulder press - 15 reps x 3

E1 - Lateral raises - 15 reps x 3

Month two full body example session:

A1 - Front squat - 10 reps x 3

B1 - Bent over row - 10 reps x 3

C1 - Lying leg curls - 10 reps x 3

D1 - Military press - 10 reps x 3

E1- Horizontal cable pull - 12 reps x 3

F1 - Dead bugs - 15 (each side) x 3

Month three full body example session:

A1 - Barbell back squat - 6 reps x 5

B1 - Cable pull down - 8 reps x 4

C1 - RDL’s - 8 reps x 4

D1 - Barbell bench press - 10 reps x 4

E1 - Cable tricep push down 12 reps x 3

F1 - Rowing machine 200m x 5

Now, a big thing you need to consider when putting your training plan together is how likely you are to stick with that plan, if you do the same session every single day then this will be completely soul destroying. You need to consistently mix it up (month by month) allow every workout to take you one step closer to where you want to be.

Why is the fitness industry so contradicting?

Why is the fitness industry so contradicting?

This is what happens to a lot of people…… Something happens that makes you want to get your shit together, maybe you try and fit into some clothes that used to fit and are now screaming.

You decide to take things seriously, a quick google search makes things seem relatively simple, but the next article you read completely contradicts the first one, now you’re confused and it doesn’t stop there, the more you read the more confusing its gets.

So why is this?

Well, as you know a large part of the worlds main objective in life is to make a shed load of money, and the way they do that in the fitness industry is by adjusting the facts slightly in an attempt to sell their products……or they just have no clue about human physiology.

You see, fat loss and muscle building is very simple, the confusing stuff is not that important and half the time it’s just marketing. It’s cool to know, but it’s not needed for 95% of gym-goers.

Let’s look at the facts:

Fat loss goals - Train hard, eat clean, make sure you’re in a slight caloric deficit (tracking is key). STAY CONSISTENT AND GIVE IT TIME.

Muscle building: Lift weights, make sure you’re progressively lifting more than you could in the prevues month (tracking is key). Make sure you’re eating a sufficient amount of food in order to put you in enough of an anabolic state to build muscle tissue, you need to fuel muscle building. STAY CONSISTENT AND GIVE IT TIME.

Often a muscle-building plan can look very similar to a fat loss plan, the main difference is the calorie intake and macros nutrient ratios. Regarding actual exercise choice, someone with a fat loss goal would likely need to do more cardio, but it’s not essential.

If you want to learn more that’s great, personally I’m always trying to progress my knowledge further, but you need to make sure you’re nailing the basics, STAYING CONSISTENT AND GIVING IT TIME.

Why walking is the best exercise you can do

Why walking is the best exercise you can do

My training from a young age......

Training

Okay, so I don't like to talk about myself much on here, I think there are far too many self-obsessed people within my industry, but let me breakdown my training experiences for you all.

👶🏻I started when I was about 12 doing press-ups and sit-ups...why??? Because I wanted to look like Bruce Lee of course!

👱🏻Once I hit about 14 I started lifting weights and running

💂🏻Aged 16 I joined the army and focused my training around that

At 17 I joined the battalion boxing team and became all about boxing

🏔18 I climbed Mount Kenya

🔫 I was in Afghanistan when 19 and geared my training around strength and conditioning when not on patrol

🏋 When I came back from Afghan I became an All Arms Physical Training Instructor, with my job being to keep everyone fit and healthy I wanted to look strong, but also wanted to make my workouts look cool as hell, so I did mainly bodybuilding with the odd CrossFit workout for some added conditioning. I left the army and continued to train people, but I did this as a civilian

In recent years, I have focused my attention on becoming strong as hell and competed in a strong man competition, where I came second in my weight class

💪 Evidently, I have had a varied training history and enjoy a bit of everything.

You see, fitness isn't just about looking good naked, it's not just about having big muscles, being the fastest or the strongest, although we can all always pursue these kick-ass goals. In my humble opinion, it's about the experience and constantly striving to better yourself. Stronger than you were yesterday, faster than you were last week and, yes, if those abs make a guest appearance we can't complain. 

I have no doubt that you can reach your desired body composition goal if you set your mind to it, but if you want to maintain it then it needs to be fun and part of your lifestyle

Happy training!