Bigger Leaner Stronger

by Michael Matthews

  You can find plenty of evidence of this in the scientific literature.

  For example, in a study conducted at the University of Central Florida, scientists separated 33 physically active, resistance-trained men into two groups:5

  Group one did four workouts per week consisting of four sets per exercise in the 10-to-12-rep range (70 percent of one-rep max).

  Group two did four workouts per week consisting of four sets per exercise in the 3-to-5-rep range (90 percent of one-rep max).

  Both groups did the same exercises, which included the bench press, barbell squat, deadlift, and seated shoulder press, and both were instructed to maintain their normal eating habits.

  After eight weeks of training, researchers found that the second group gained significantly more muscle and strength than the first group.

  The scientists suggested two main reasons for why the heavier training beat out the lighter in not only strength gain (not surprising) but muscle gain as well:

  Higher amounts of mechanical tension in the musclesThe lighter training, on the other hand, caused higher amounts of cellular fatigue.

  Greater activation of muscle fibersAs you learned in chapter 8, this results in greater muscle growth across a larger percentage of the muscle tissue.

  Similar findings have been demonstrated in other studies as well.6

  This brings us back to your primary goal as a weightlifter: to get stronger, and especially on key whole-body exercises like the squat, deadlift, and bench press.

  The more weight you can push, pull, and squat, the more muscle definition you’re going to have.

  That isn’t to say that lighter weights and other training methods have no place in your workout routine, but if your goal is to gain muscle as quickly as possible, the best way to do this is to gain strength as quickly as possible.

  Law #2

  Muscles Don’t Grow in the Gym

  You might have heard this old bodybuilding adage before.

  There’s truth in it. Weightlifting alone doesn’t make your muscles bigger and stronger. That’s what happens after the workouts, when your body repairs the stress and damage they cause.

  Every day, your body is constantly breaking down and rebuilding muscle proteins. This process is known as protein turnover, and when viewed on the whole, protein breakdown and synthesis (creation) rates generally balance each other out.7

  This is why the average, non-exercising person doesn’t gain or lose muscle at an accelerated rate.

  Mechanically speaking, muscle growth is the result of protein synthesis rates exceeding breakdown rates over extended periods of time.

  In other words, if your body is creating new muscle proteins faster than it’s breaking them down, you’re gaining muscle (and if it’s breaking them down faster than it’s creating them, you’re losing muscle).

  Therefore, if you want to gain muscle as effectively as possible, then you want to do everything you can to keep protein synthesis rates at or above breakdown rates. The more time your body spends in this anabolic state, the faster you gain muscle.

  When you do resistance training or cardiovascular exercise, protein synthesis rates decline during the workouts.8 Then, both protein synthesis and breakdown rates rise soon after you finish, with breakdown rates eventually overtaking synthesis rates.

  In this way, exercise is a catabolic activity, especially with longer workouts, and repair, recovery, and growth can only occur after.

  Unsurprisingly, sleep plays a vital role in this process, because much of what your body does to recuperate and rebuild happens in bed.9 This is why studies show that sleep deprivation directly inhibits muscle growth (and fat loss) and can even cause muscle loss.10

  Interestingly, these negative effects become even more pronounced when you’re in a calorie deficit.11

  Furthermore, research shows that even a single night of poor sleep can interfere with your performance in the gym, and two nights is enough to ruin it.12 Multiple studies have also clearly demonstrated that athletes who get enough sleep perform the best.13

  Law #3

  Muscles Don’t Grow Unless Properly Fed

  Most people think that calories only count when you’re talking weight loss.

  What they don’t realize, though, is that if you don’t eat enough, your body can’t do many things as effectively, including everything it needs to do to recover from your workouts.

  This is why research shows that when you’re in a calorie deficit, your body’s ability to repair and grow muscle tissue is impaired.14 This is also why workouts take a bigger toll on you when you’re dieting, and why intermediate and advanced weightlifters have to accept slow or no muscle gain when dieting to lose fat.

  Remember that calories are what fuel every process in your body, and the system for muscle building is metabolically expensive. Therefore, if you want to maximize muscle growth, then you need to make sure you aren’t in a calorie deficit.

  The best way to do this is to deliberately eat a bit more calories than you’re burning every day. This ensures that your body has all the energy it needs to push hard in the gym and recover from your workouts.

  Another vital aspect of “feeding your muscles” is eating enough protein. In fact, this is just as important as eating enough calories, if not more so.15

  Carbohydrate also contributes to your muscle-building efforts. One of the substances that carbs are converted to in the body is glycogen, which is stored in the muscles and liver and is the primary source of fuel during intense exercise.

  When you restrict your carb intake, your body’s glycogen stores drop, and studies show that this inhibits genetic signaling related to postworkout muscle repair and growth.16

  When you’re exercising regularly, restricting your carbs also raises your cortisol and lowers your testosterone levels, which further hampers your body’s ability to recover from your workouts.17

  All this is why research shows that athletes who eat low-carb diets recover slower from their workouts and gain less muscle and strength than those who eat more carbs.18

  It’s also worth mentioning that eating a low-carb diet will reduce your strength and muscle endurance, which makes it harder to progressively overload your muscles in the gym and thereby maximally stimulate muscle growth.

  And what about the final macronutrient, dietary fat?

  Some people say a high-fat diet is conducive to muscle gain because of its effects on anabolic hormone production, testosterone production in particular.

  When you dig into the research, however, you quickly realize that these effects are far too small to make a noticeable difference in the gym.19

  Furthermore, the more dietary fat you eat, the less carbs you’ll be able to eat, which will more than wipe out any potential muscle-building benefits from slight hormonal upticks.

  •••

  You can spend hundreds of hours studying muscle growth and barely scratch the surface. It’s extremely complex and involves scores of physiological functions and adaptations.

  Fortunately, you don’t need to be a scientist to have a working understanding of the research and to be able to use it to gain whole-body strength and muscle.

  You now have the foundation of this understanding. You overload, damage, and fatigue your muscles in your workouts, and then feed and repair them after.

  This also brings us to the end of part two of this book, and I want to congratulate you on making it this far. You’ve digested a lot of information and gained a whole new perspective on fat burning and muscle building.

  If you’ve been enjoying yourself, then you’re going to absolutely love what I have in store for you next.

  In the third part of this book, we’re going to take a break from the physiology of fitness and dive into the psychology, because if you don’t “get your mind right,” you’re probably ne
ver going to “get your body right.”

  Key Takeaways

  There are three primary “triggers” or “pathways” for muscle growth: mechanical tension, muscle damage, and cellular fatigue.

  Mechanical tension refers to the force you apply to your muscles against a resistance.

  Muscle damage refers to microscopic damage caused to the muscle fibers by high levels of tension.

  Cellular fatigue refers to a host of chemical changes that occur inside and outside muscle fibers when they contract repeatedly.

  Mechanical tension is the most important of these three pathways for muscle growth.

  Heavy, lower-rep weightlifting primarily increases muscle strength and results in higher amounts of mechanical tension and muscle damage, but less cellular fatigue.

  Heavy, lower-rep work results in more muscle gain because it produces more mechanical tension than lighter, higher-rep work.

  Muscle growth is the result of protein synthesis rates exceeding breakdown rates over extended periods of time.

  Exercise is a catabolic activity, especially longer workouts, and repair, recovery, and growth can only occur after.

  Sleep deprivation directly inhibits muscle growth (and fat loss) and can even cause muscle loss.

  If you want to maximize muscle growth, you need to make sure you aren’t in a calorie deficit.

  A vital aspect of “feeding your muscles” is eating enough protein, and this is just as important as eating enough calories, if not more so.

  One of the substances that carbs are converted to in the body is glycogen, which is stored in the muscles and liver and is the primary source of fuel during intense exercise.

  When you’re exercising regularly, restricting your carbs raises your cortisol and lowers your testosterone levels, which hampers your body’s ability to recover from your workouts.

  A low-carb diet will reduce your strength and muscle endurance, which makes it harder to progressively overload your muscles in the gym and thereby maximally stimulate muscle growth.

  The more dietary fat you eat, the less carbs you’ll be able to eat, which will more than wipe out any potential muscle-building benefits from slight hormonal upticks.

  Schoenfeld BJ. The Mechanisms of Muscle Hypertrophy and Their Application to Resistance Training. J Strength Cond Res. 2010;24(10):2857-2872. doi:10.1519/JSC.0b013e3181e840f3.

  Goldberg AL, Etlinger JD, Goldspink DF, Jablecki C. Mechanism of work-induced hypertrophy of skeletal muscle. Med Sci Sports. 1975;7(3):185-198.

  Vandenburgh HH. Motion into mass: how does tension stimulate muscle growth? Med Sci Sports Exerc. 1987;19(5 Suppl):S142-9; Hornberger TA, Chien S. Mechanical stimuli and nutrients regulate rapamycin-sensitive signaling through distinct mechanisms in skeletal muscle. J Cell Biochem. 2006;97(6):1207-1216. doi:10.1002/jcb.20671; Schoenfeld BJ. The Mechanisms of Muscle Hypertrophy and Their Application to Resistance Training. J Strength Cond Res. 2010;24(10):2857-2872. doi:10.1519/JSC.0b013e3181e840f3; Hoppeler H, Klossner S, Flück M. Gene expression in working skeletal muscle. Adv Exp Med Biol. 2007;618:245-254.

  Campos G, Luecke T, Wendeln H, et al. Muscular adaptations in response to three different resistance-training regimens: specificity of repetition maximum training zones. Eur J Appl Physiol. 2002;88(1-2):50-60. doi:10.1007/s00421-002-0681-6.

  Mangine GT, Hoffman JR, Gonzalez AM, et al. The effect of training volume and intensity on improvements in muscular strength and size in resistance-trained men. Physiol Rep. 2015;3(8). doi:10.14814/phy2.12472.

  Anderson T, Kearney JT. Effects of Three Resistance Training Programs on Muscular Strength And Absolute and Relative Endurance. Res Q Exerc Sport. 1982;53(1):1-7. doi:10.1080/02701367.1982.10605218; Fink J, Kikuchi N, Yoshida S, Terada K, Nakazato K. Impact of high versus low fixed loads and non-linear training loads on muscle hypertrophy, strength and force development. Springerplus. 2016;5(1):698. doi:10.1186/s40064-016-2333-z; Fink J, Kikuchi N, Nakazato K. Effects of rest intervals and training loads on metabolic stress and muscle hypertrophy. Clin Physiol Funct Imaging. 2018;38(2):261-268. doi:10.1111/cpf.12409; Mangine GT, Hoffman JR, Gonzalez AM, et al. The effect of training volume and intensity on improvements in muscular strength and size in resistance-trained men. Physiol Rep. 2015;3(8). doi:10.14814/phy2.12472.

  Chargé SBP, Rudnicki MA. Cellular and Molecular Regulation of Muscle Regeneration. Physiol Rev. 2004;84(1):209-238. doi:10.1152/physrev.00019.2003.

  Kumar V, Atherton P, Smith K, Rennie MJ. Human muscle protein synthesis and breakdown during and after exercise. J Appl Physiol. 2009;106(6):2026-2039. doi:10.1152/japplphysiol.91481.2008.

  Patel SR, Zhu X, Storfer-Isser A, et al. Sleep duration and biomarkers of inflammation. Sleep. 2009;32(2):200-204.

  Dattilo M, Antunes HKM, Medeiros A, et al. Paradoxical sleep deprivation induces muscle atrophy. Muscle Nerve. 2012;45(3):431-433. doi:10.1002/mus.22322.

  Nedeltcheva A V., Kilkus JM, Imperial J, Schoeller DA, Penev PD. Insufficient Sleep Undermines Dietary Efforts to Reduce Adiposity. Ann Intern Med. 2010;153(7):435. doi:10.7326/0003-4819-153-7-201010050-00006.

  Reilly T, Piercy M. The effect of partial sleep deprivation on weight-lifting performance. Ergonomics. 1994;37(1):107-115. doi:10.1080/00140139408963628.

  Fullagar HHK, Skorski S, Duffield R, Hammes D, Coutts AJ, Meyer T. Sleep and Athletic Performance: The Effects of Sleep Loss on Exercise Performance, and Physiological and Cognitive Responses to Exercise. Sport Med. 2015;45(2):161-186. doi:10.1007/s40279-014-0260-0; Fullagar HHK, Duffield R, Skorski S, Coutts AJ, Julian R, Meyer T. Sleep and Recovery in Team Sport: Current Sleep-Related Issues Facing Professional Team-Sport Athletes. Int J Sports Physiol Perform. 2015;10(8):950-957. doi:10.1123/ijspp.2014-0565.

  Helms ER, Aragon AA, Fitschen PJ. Evidence-based recommendations for natural bodybuilding contest preparation: nutrition and supplementation. J Int Soc Sports Nutr. 2014;11(1):20. doi:10.1186/1550-2783-11-20.

  Bosse JD, Dixon BM. Dietary protein to maximize resistance training: a review and examination of protein spread and change theories. J Int Soc Sports Nutr. 2012;9(1):42. doi:10.1186/1550-2783-9-42.

  Burke LM, Hawley JA, Wong SHS, Jeukendrup AE. Carbohydrates for training and competition. J Sports Sci. 2011;29(sup1):S17-S27. doi:10.1080/02640414.2011.585473; Creer A, Gallagher P, Slivka D, Jemiolo B, Fink W, Trappe S. Influence of muscle glycogen availability on ERK1/2 and Akt signaling after resistance exercise in human skeletal muscle. J Appl Physiol. 2005;99(3):950-956. doi:10.1152/japplphysiol.00110.2005.

  Lane AR, Duke JW, Hackney AC. Influence of dietary carbohydrate intake on the free testosterone: cortisol ratio responses to short-term intensive exercise training. Eur J Appl Physiol. 2010;108(6):1125-1131. doi:10.1007/s00421-009-1220-5.

  Benjamin L, Blanpied P, Lamont L. Dietary carbohydrate and protein manipulation and exercise recovery in novice weight-lifters. Journal of Exercise Physiology. 2009;12(6):33-39; Howarth KR, Phillips SM, MacDonald MJ, Richards D, Moreau NA, Gibala MJ. Effect of glycogen availability on human skeletal muscle protein turnover during exercise and recovery. J Appl Physiol. 2010;109(2):431-438. doi:10.1152/japplphysiol.00108.2009.

  Dorgan JF, Judd JT, Longcope C, et al. Effects of dietary fat and fiber on plasma and urine androgens and estrogens in men: a controlled feeding study. Am J Clin Nutr. 1996;64(6):850-855. doi:10.1093/ajcn/64.6.850; Hämäläinen E, Adlercreutz H, Puska P, Pietinen P. Diet and serum sex hormones in healthy men. J Steroid Biochem. 1984;20(1):459-464; West DWD, Phillips SM. Associations of exercise-induced hormone profiles and gains in strength and hypertrophy in a large cohort after weight training. Eur J Appl Physiol. 2012;112(7):2693-2702. doi:10.1007/s00421-011-2246-z; Storer TW, Magliano L, Wood
house L, et al. Testosterone Dose-Dependently Increases Maximal Voluntary Strength and Leg Power, but Does Not Affect Fatigability or Specific Tension. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2003;88(4):1478-1485. doi:10.1210/jc.2002-021231; Hartgens F, Kuipers H. Effects of androgenic-anabolic steroids in athletes. Sports Med. 2004;34(8):513-554.

  Part 3

  How to Win the “Inner Game” of Getting Fit

  11

  The Great “Inner Game” Secret

  The discipline of desire is the background of character.

  —JOHN LOCKE

  In his timeless bestseller The Inner Game of Tennis, Tim Gallwey wrote the following:

  Every game is composed of two parts, an outer game and an inner game. The outer game is played against an external opponent to overcome external obstacles, and to reach an external goal. Mastering this game is the subject of many books offering instructions on how to swing a racket, club or bat, and how to position arms, legs or torso to achieve the best results. But for some reason most of us find these instructions easier to remember than to execute.

  How fitting those words are to fitness.

  Most books, magazines, trainers, and influencers focus exclusively on the outer game of losing fat and building muscle.

  They talk about how to eat, exercise, supplement, and so forth, but they give little attention to the inner game, which is arguably more important, because simply knowing what to do is never enough.

  You then have to be able to actually do it, and keep doing it every day, week, month, and year.

  If you ask me, mastering the outer game of fitness is simple and straightforward. Half of it is knowing how to press the right physiological buttons to achieve your intended results, and the other half is just showing up every day and rolling up your sleeves.

  Mastering the inner game can be much trickier, however. It’s what sets the “fitness elite” apart from everyone else. Building and maintaining an outstanding physique requires a disciplined, orderly approach to not just your diet and exercise, but your life in general.