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How Do Muscles Grow? Uniform versus Non-Uniform Muscle Growth

November 30, 2011 by

Working out with weights causes muscles to adapt and grow, this is nothing new. The pattern of muscle growth however, is not as obvious as we might have thought.

Most people think you train a muscle and the entire muscle simply gets bigger in a uniform and evenly spread out way…but this is a false assumption.

New research is showing that muscles do not grow in a uniform pattern, in fact research is showing certain areas or ‘chunks’ of the muscle grow to a greater degree than other ‘chunks’.

This non-uniform growth is due to many factors that come into play when we start working out with weights. These factors include:

The Anatomy of a Muscle

1. Volume of training

2. Intensity of training

3. Frequency of training

4. Velocity of reps performed

5. Muscle pennation angle

6. Muscle fiber length

7. Distribution of muscle fiber types within a given muscle group

8. Type of exercise performed

9. Previous training experience

And this is just the short list.

Modern imaging techniques such as functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging and 3D MRI are starting to reveal what is really going on in the muscle when we lift weights in an effort to make them bigger and stronger.

In the UNCENSORED audio program named “Non Uniform Muscle Adaptation – How Do Muscles REALLY Grow?”, released today, we review the latest research on muscle adaptations to strength training and determine how much or how little of a muscle we can really activate while working out and what is necessary for maximum muscle growth.

We also look into the research that the same muscle does not grow at the same rate from top to bottom and we may indeed be able to change the ‘shape’ of a given muscle group if we know how to active the entire muscle.

John

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Filed Under: Muscle Building, Podcasts, Uncensored Podcasts S01 Tagged With:

Long Term Adaptations To Weight Loss – Oct 2011 New Research

November 23, 2011 by

Well all know someone who has lost weight and put it back on…and then some. We hear phrases that 99% of people fail on a diet and put the weight back on. This however isn’t a scientific claim as much as it is an assumption.

Weight loss isn’t a straight line but rather a series of peaks and valleys. People can ‘go on a diet’ to get rid of a chunk of weight and then try to maintain that new lower weight.

When you look at it from this standpoint there are 3 ways to eat.

Are we all doomed to always put weight back on after dieting?

1) The way you can eat that causes you to gain weight

2) The way you can eat that causes you to lose weight

3) The way you can eat that keeps your weight stable

These must be viewed as 3 distinctly separate phases and treated differently. Most weight loss programs and studies focus on getting people out of the first phase and into the second phase, which is pretty easy. The only real action needed to cause weight loss is a reduction in calories eaten until body weight starts to fall.

The real trick is figuring out how phase 3 works and keeping the weight off. And this is where many diet interventions fail. Most people can fight their way through a 10-12 week hard diet, but it’s the months and years following the hard diet that are trickier to navigate.

Once the hard diet part is over, you’re not relying on a strict deadline or an ‘iron will’ to get through the next month, but instead you’re looking at a whole new way of eating from here on out. What happens after the hard diet is rarely studied, but a recent research paper did just that.

In a study published Oct 2011, researchers put people on a hard low calorie diet for 10 weeks then followed up with their subjects a full year later to see how much weight they kept off and test multiple hormones and other markers of health.

This same paper has been reviewed by various fitness commentators who seem to have selectively chosen to spin the information from this study in a negative light vs a positive light. This one sided approach to reporting the science seems to be rooted in an academic and political will to try and prove that obesity is a disease and out of our control to deal with.

In today’s podcast, we review this research paper and show you what the results really say and how the fitness media and even the researchers themselves distort their reporting in order to put a doomsday spin on the findings.

This is an important lesson in diet and fitness science reporting and how information can be twisted and used to tell a very different story from what the facts say.

John

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Filed Under: Podcasts, Uncensored Podcasts S01, weight loss Tagged With: ,

Diet Records: Research Shows 80% Of People Lie About Food During Studies

November 16, 2011 by

The diet and fitness industry makes claims on the effects of workouts, diets, supplements and the combination of the three. The better commentators even quote published research, and the best of them actually read the full research papers and make an honest effort to give an accurate account of what they’ve read.

This however is not enough when it comes to interpreting diet information, and specifically when reading research about human dietary habits.

Would you really admit to having this for lunch?

The problem is that people are notoriously bad at admitting what they eat when they’re being studied. In most cases, people will under report the total amount of food they’ve eaten. This phenomenon is so systemic in diet research, it’s hard to make any conclusions from diet study results because you can never be sure that people really did eat what they say they ate.

This has been a problem since the entire field of studying diet and nutrition started, and we still do not have a solution for it. In the past, before modern metabolic measurement techniques were developed, researchers had no choice but to simply assume people were telling the truth about what they were eating.

In recent years, new and cost effective techniques have been developed that can accurately measure how many calories the human system burns on a daily basis, and therefore we can measure how many calories you can eat without gaining excess fat mass, or losing body mass.

Once these measurements were adopted by nutrition researchers, the truth came out, and it’s not pretty. We now have proof that diet records are a highly flawed measurement technique and that in some cases up to 80% of the people in a diet study will lie about the amount of food they eat and under report it.

We also know that people will over report eating foods that a perceived as ‘good foods’ and under report eating foods that are perceived as being ‘bad foods’.

This stems from the growing marketing and dogma about good and bad foods, and the idea that there is the ‘right’ way to eat.

When people are in a nutrition or diet study, they do not want to appear as eating ‘bad’ foods or eating too much, so they do not report everything they eat and systemically make their diets seem ‘better’ or ‘healthier’ than they really are.

This deception is rooted in shame, guilt and embarrassment that people are trained to feel when not eating what the fitness industry has labeled the ‘right way to eat’. And this is the failing of diet and fitness marketing on a whole.

It has created a society of people who are ashamed and guilty about their food choices and unsatisfied with their bodies. It truly has done more harm than good. And now even in a scientific experiment most people cannot bring themselves to admit what they really eat or how much they really eat.

The direction things are going is ominous and it’s likely only going to get worse. The more diet and nutrition marketing and fear mongering we are exposed to about good and bad foods, and good and bad ways to eat will only further this embarrassment and guilt in people trying to lose weight or be healthy. This leads to even more dishonest diet recording and even less understanding of what is really going on with the modern diet.

It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that modern nutrition science actually has no idea how people eat, what they eat, and most importantly how much they eat.

The next time you read a book, website, or article that is quoting nutrition research about a particular diet you should view it with a very skeptical eye. It’s most likely reporting on highly inaccurate diet records that tell us almost nothing about what those people truly ate.

The bottom line is people will not tell the truth about what they eat.

In today’s podcast, we dig into the diet record research and show you how flawed this research is. Considering diet records are the foundation of most diet research it’s not a stretch to assume that most conclusions in diet and nutrition research are highly flawed and likely incorrect. We can’t know what effect a particular way of eating has if people will never tell us what they’re eating.

John

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Filed Under: Podcasts, Uncensored Podcasts S01 Tagged With: ,

AT6 Final Pictures Coaching Call

November 14, 2011 by

The 6th Adonis Index transformation and open contests are in the final stretch and it’s time to get prepped for your final pictures.

All of the poses from the posing tutorial are mandatory if you think you have a chance at being placed in the open category.

You can review the posing tutorial video here:

POSING TUTORIAL VIDEO

We’ve outlined some ideas to consider for your final pictures in a previous podcast that you can review and listen to here:

TAKING ‘AFTER’ PICTURES

I strongly encourage you to listen to some interviews of past winners to get an idea of how to take an effective after picture.

What needs to be submitted:

1. All mandatory poses including front, back and side shots with the front page of the current days newspaper visible in at least one shot. You will also need to do all the poses from posing tutorial video if you think you have a chance of placing in the open category of the contest.

2. Label each picture with your first and last name as well as the pose ex: “John_Doe_Front_Pose”

3. Write a 250 word essay describing your experience with our system and through the contest

4. Complete the contest data chart that you downloaded at the start of the contest, this includes your waist, height and shoulder measurements from before the contest and your final measurements, along with your ideal AI measurements for your height and how close you got to them.

5. Re-size your after pictures so they are approximately 500 pixels in height for the ones you submit (make sure you keep the original picture in it’s original larger size for your records, also if you end up winning our cover model competition we will need the bigger picture file as well)

6. Compress all of these materials in a zipped file and send it to my email johnbarban (at) gmail (dot) com no later than midnight EST Nov 23rd.

John

 

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Filed Under: Contest, Podcasts Tagged With: ,

Breakfast: The Most Important Meal of the Day?

November 9, 2011 by

When it comes to both fat loss and muscle building, the common fitness lore is that breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

In order to make a statement about ‘breakfast’, we first have to define what ‘breakfast’ means. This sounds simpler than it really is.

For example, is breakfast simply the first meal of your day no matter how long you’ve been awake? Or is it only breakfast if you eat it within a certain number of minutes and hours after waking up?

Is this what breakfast is supposed to look like?

Is breakfast defined by the specific foods you eat? Does breakfast have to be bacon and eggs, or cereal?  Or can it be beef stew, or a bowl of pasta, or a vegetable stir fry, or an ice cream cone?

Before we start talking about the virtues and benefits of breakfast, we have to know what the word ‘breakfast’ means. And this is precisely what we are going to do in today’s podcast.

We look at the research on the phenomenon known as breakfast and break it down for you so that you can see the difference between the results and the opinion of the researchers. We’ll get to the bottom of the information on breakfast and determine what breakfast even is, and if there is a way to use this meal to your advantage with your fat loss and muscle building goals.

John

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Filed Under: Food, Podcasts, Uncensored Podcasts S01 Tagged With:

He Got Ripped without Counting Calories or Doing Cardio

November 7, 2011 by

Brad Greyeyes Brant has a very interesting name, but what is even more interesting than his name is the fact that he placed 4th in the Adonis Index Contest specifically in the transformation category.

He went from being lean to being ripped, just take a look:

Brad B Adonis Index Transformation Back

He has achieved a great muscle definition, just look at his shoulders.

Brad Adonis Index Transformation Front

From average to ripped.

When Brant first got interested in getting his physique handled he was 260 pounds. Even though he is 6’5”, 26o pounds is a lot. At this point even taking stairs was starting to be an issue. Just take a look at how Brant looked at this weight several years ago.

Brad_before_working_out_and_Adonis_Index

This is a picture of Brant at a body weight of approximately 260 lbs.

After looking at himself in a mirror Brant decided to get in shape. And he started as most guys would, he found some muscle building and fat loss programs designed by a bodybuilder, he signed up for them and followed it for about six months.

He was doing about an hour of cardio each morning seven times a week. He was training at specific times of the day, if the program said go to the gym at 5 p.m., he would go at 5 p.m.

He was timing his meals to the minute, always made sure he ate every three hours no matter where he was or what he was doing.

Even though his wife was very supportive, this approach was incredibly inflexible. Could you imagine not being able to eat your birthday cake? Or have a Christmas dinner with your family? This is exactly what he did.

Brant is the type of guy who is all out or nothing at all. He though that his approach was a sign of dedication, but in reality what it really was, was an obsession.

He Found Out He Can Enjoy His Life & Look Good at the Same Time

After a while Brant came across Brad Pilon’s blog and once he read what Brad eats during his day he was completely confused. Because Brad is in exceptional shape and he eats like an average person (some would even say like a kid), brownies, pizza and pasta are regular foods in his meal plan. In his schedule there was nothing about eating every three hours, having protein with each meal or preparing his meals upfront. Brad was just saying that he is enjoying his food and that the only thing he aims for is to limit the amount of calories to keep lean.

On his blog he noticed the workout Pilon was doing and he decided to give it a try. He bought the Adonis Index Workout and started following it.

Brant never wanted to look like a huge bodybuilder, so the Adonis Index philosophy of building a proportioned body with lean waist and visible six pack abs was something he was interested to build for himself.

He gave the workouts a shot and after seeing the results never looked back

It’s all about what you truly want. Is it a really good looking body or do you want to be strong and focus on performance? What do you really want?

Brant has chosen the look and even though he made this choice ironically he is stronger than ever.

However, you still need to know what you are after. Most guys really want to just look good, strength and performance is secondary but many guys cannot separate the two ideas.

If you have the same problem with getting over the goal of becoming stronger, you need to understand something. Strength is relative and specific to only those exercises you do on regular basis. For example you can get really good at incline dumbbell press, but completely suck on regular barbell bench press. Another example, Brant’s dad is incredibly strong, because he is used to doing physical work, however he can’t do a pull-up. On the other hand Brant is not as strong as his dad overall, but pull-ups are not an issue for him. Strength is relative.

And if you are not a competitive power lifter then there is no point in aiming for strength for it’s own sake. Set the goal of improving your physique and the strength will come along with it.

Brant’s Tips to Get Contest Ripped

Brant placed 4h in the contest and that is an incredible accomplishment and requires a big amount of effort. Let’s take a look at what it is that Brad did that was different from other contestants.

Because in the past he was obsessed with fitness and over complicating things, he took a very simplistic and flexible approach this time. From a diet stand point he followed the Anything Goes Diet and decided to just guess the amount of calories he eats and keep it really simple.

He calculated that his BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) is about 2500 calories, so he has a budget of 2500 x7 calories per week.

The way he was guessing his calorie intake was that he calculated things in 500 calorie chunks. This way he is not obsessed with counting calories and still knows what he puts in his mouth and never overeats. This approach seems to work quite well for people with high BMR’s (however if your BMR is 1600, you might need to adjust it to a smaller chunks).

Brant usually eats whatever he wants during the weekend and just creates a deficit during the week. If he happened to eat a little bit more, he would notice it in the mirror.

Today Brant is leaner than ever, he is in the best shape of his life and with significantly less time invested in fitness than before. He can eat what he is served when he visits his father in law who is Italian and makes delicious meals. He can enjoy birthday parties and doesn’t have to sneak away on Christmas to eat his protein rich, “clean” meal.

He doesn’t do any cardio, and his workouts are focused on building muscles.

He also stopped caring about what other people think in the gym about him and the weights he lifts. This is a very important aspect of your training, in order to really train properly you need to focus on yourself and let go of your ego.

Brant went from being called skinny to getting compliments on his shape. Suddenly he is confident wearing fit clothes and can look great and feel great as well.

Body weight is also no longer an issue.

The only thing he cares about now is how he looks in a mirror.

Here is the take home message from Brad:

  • Keep it simple as long as it is working
  • Do what you want to do, as long as you are happy with your results keep doing it
  • Weigh yourself before and after, not during the contest, get to learn your body, you will see whether you are moving forward or not, the scale can mess you up and can tell a different story than the mirror or your clothes
  • In order to build muscle, you need to train really hard
  • The quickest way to lose fat is to eat below your BMR
  • Getting and staying in shape is a lifestyle and it doesn’t have to be complicated
  • Your body measurements are much more important than your body weight, especially if you are very tall or short
  • In order to get great results you need to enjoy the process of getting in shape, so find your way to do so
  • The path will be as difficult as you make it
  • You can grab a slice of pizza instead of steamed vegetables even now and then, it won’t mess you up as long as you account for the calories

Listen to the interview here:

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Filed Under: Contest, Fat Loss, Podcasts, Transformation Tagged With: , , , , ,
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