Posts Tagged ‘muscle gain’

How to Gain Muscle and Lose Fat Most Effectively

Wednesday, January 13th, 2010
Your Questions
Your Questions

I get plenty of questions in various comments throughout the website, but I also get comments and questions via the Project Swole Contact Form.

Generally I address those questions through e-mail, but often I do not have the time to reply to each and every question personally.

The category, Your Health Questions is a more proactive approach to answering your questions so that everyone can benefit from the Q & A.

Greg wrote:

“Hi,

First, let me say thank you for this website and all the useful information you post here. I am 45 years old, at 6 foot 1 inches and 210 pounds, and my goal is to simply change my weight distribution (don’t mind weighing 210 if it’s muscle and not fat).

Since I am a ‘hard gainer’, I have read your recommendations on the best exercises/workouts to build mass, and I have two additional questions.

First, I’ve continually heard the following: higher reps + lighter weight = definition, and lower reps + heavier weight = mass. My question is, what is the sweet spot for mass AND definition? For example, if I do three sets of curls, how many reps for each set – 12, 10, 8 or maybe 10, 8, 6 (with progressively higher weight)?

Second, what about diet? I’ve also heard that you should eat like a horse – lots of protein and carbs. Of course, if you overdo it, you’ll gain fat as well. So again, where is the sweet spot?

Thank you!
Greg”

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Werewolf Training 2: A Weightlifting Routine to Gain Strength

Thursday, December 31st, 2009


Werewolf Training
Werewolf Training

Gain Strength

Originally posted: 12/31/09
Updated: 1/20/10 (update rest time on HIRT circuits, added Excel spreadsheet workout logs)

This training routine is designed for you to gain strength. That’s it.

So you have already been through two or three Werewolf Training for Muscle Gain cycles. You gained 5-10 pounds of muscle in that time and you got a little stronger. You are psyched about your progress but you’re a little bored with the program.

It is time to change up your training a little bit, but you know you can’t jump right into a strict fat loss phase, or you risk losing most of your new muscle. What to do? What to do?

Use this menu to skip to:

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Werewolf Training: A Weightlifting Routine to Gain Muscle

Tuesday, December 15th, 2009


Werewolf Training
Werewolf Training

Gain Muscle

Originally posted: 11/27/09
Updated: 12/15/09 (routine updates), 12/21/09 (supplements), 12/28/09 (recovery and other minor updates), 12/31/09 (minor updates), 1/12/10 (added shrugs to day 13, added Excel spreadsheet workout logs)

This training routine is designed for you to gain muscle. That’s it.

If you’ve come here to lose fat or to learn how to bench 700 lbs, you are better off reading Werewolf Training for Strength Gains. Although, truth to tell, you will probably get significantly stronger following this program.

Use this menu to skip to:

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The Twilight Workout Routine – Taylor Lautner Gains 30 Pounds of Muscle in One Year

Friday, November 27th, 2009

The Twilight Workout Routine

This one’s for the young folk.

If you are a Twilight fan, you have already seen The Twilight Saga: New Moon and you already know who Taylor Lautner is, aka Jacob Black the werewolf.

I have seen the movie and I was not altogether impressed, although it was not a bad movie. I would give it a 7 out of 10, while IMDB has it at 4.5 out of 10. It is a thrilling romance/monster story for teenage girls. Everything about the flick is targeted at tween girls and that’s all there is to it.

What I was more impressed by, is the evolution of Taylor Lautner. In nine months, this 17 year old boy gained 30 pounds of muscle to better pull off his changing into a werewolf for New Moon. Granted, if he didn’t gain the weight the part of Jacob Black would have been recast.

Taylor Lautner Before
Taylor Lautner Before
Taylor Lautner After
Taylor Lautner After

Taylor Lautner used to be a 5′10″, 140-pound fairly ripped martial artist, but now he’s a weightlifting beast. So, just how did Taylor Lautner gain 30 pounds of muscle so quickly?

He maximized his genetic potential, and you can too.

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FDA Forces Recall of 65 Supplements that Allegedly Contain Steroids

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

Here we go again.

Bodybuilding.com has initiated an international recall of 65 dietary supplements that the FDA insists probably contain steroids.

Since they would probably get in some kind of legal trouble down the road, the popular bodybuilding website pretty much has to cooperate, so they have recalled all lots and expiration dates related to the 65 supplements flagged on the FDA’s list. Click here to see the list.

The FDA claims that the products on its list could contain some of the following substances:

Bodybuilding
Bodybuilding
  • superdrol
  • madol
  • tren
  • androstenedione
  • turinabol

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How to Build Muscle Mass Fast with Kaatsu Training

Thursday, July 9th, 2009

Douglas Robb at HealthHabits posted the other day about the Occlusion/Kaatsu training method, which is popular in Japan. While not necessarily useful to me, I found it a very interesting read.

Kaatsu Training
Kaatsu Training / Occlusion Training

What Kaatsu Training Does

Kaatsu training looks like it can increase muscle hypertrophy significantly more than regular resistance training over an extremely short period of time. In fact the results of the studies show that 2 weeks of Kaatsu training increases muscle mass to a higher degree than 5 weeks of regular resistance training.

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How to Manipulate Insulin for Fat Loss & Muscle Gain

Thursday, June 18th, 2009

Insulin can be a touchy subject when it comes to fat loss, muscle growth, and weight training. It is extremely important that we understand the role of insulin in the body and how the foods we eat affect our health and physiques.

What is Insulin?

First, we must define what insulin is:

Insulin in a peptide hormone composed of 51 amino acid residues, which is produced by the beta cells of the pancreas and released when any of the several stimuli is detected. These stimuli include ingested protein and glucose in the blood, produced from digested food. Insulin has expansive effects on metabolism and other bodily systems.

Fat Loss

What Insulin Does in the Body

Let us look at what insulin does when it is present in the body.

When present, insulin causes the uptake of blood sugar (glucose) by the vast majority of bodily cells. These cells include muscle, fatty tissue, and liver cells.

Insulin is primarily responsible for storing glucose as glycogen in the liver and muscles. When insulin is at high concentrations in the body, it prevents the use of fat as an energy source.

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