The Best Diet for Maximum Muscle Growth (ft. Dr. Eric Helms)
Summary
TLDRIn this interview, Dr. Eric Helms, a WMBF Pro bodybuilder and author, discusses the optimal bodybuilding diet. He emphasizes the importance of energy balance, sustainable lifestyle choices, and the muscle and strength pyramid for nutrition. Beginners should focus on macronutrients and energy balance before micronutrients. Dr. Helms advises setting a caloric intake based on weight loss or gain goals, and adjusting as needed. He also touches on the significance of protein, fat, and carbohydrate intake, micronutrients, and the role of supplements like creatine and caffeine.
Takeaways
- 🏋️♂️ The optimal bodybuilding diet should be sustainable and fit into your lifestyle, whether it's paleo, keto, or any other diet.
- 🧠 Behavioral and lifestyle factors are crucial for long-term adherence to a diet and achieving desired results.
- 🔄 Energy balance is the primary determinant of weight gain or loss; consuming more calories than expended leads to weight gain, and vice versa.
- 📉 For fat loss, aim for a moderate deficit that results in a 0.5 to 1% reduction in body mass per week.
- 📈 Beginners can gain weight faster than advanced lifters, with a recommended rate of 1 to 2% of body weight per month for novices.
- 🔍 Tracking your calories and macronutrients for a few weeks can help establish a baseline and adjust your diet for specific goals.
- 🥩 A minimum of 1.6g of protein per kilogram of body weight per day is suggested for muscle growth.
- 🥑 The minimum fat intake for most people should be around 40 to 60 grams per day to support hormonal balance.
- 🍠 Carbohydrate intake should be at least 3g per kilogram of body weight per day when in a caloric surplus.
- 🌈 Prioritize a diet rich in micronutrients by eating a variety of fruits and vegetables and aiming for at least 10g of fiber per 1000 calories consumed.
- ⏰ Nutrient timing is important, particularly the consumption of carbohydrates before a workout to enhance performance.
Q & A
What is the most important factor in a bodybuilding diet according to Dr. Eric Helms?
-The most important factor in a bodybuilding diet is energy balance. To achieve weight gain, one needs to consume more calories than expended, and for weight loss, consume fewer.
What is the significance of behavior and lifestyle in the context of the nutrition pyramid as described by Dr. Eric Helms?
-Behavior and lifestyle form the base of the nutrition pyramid and are crucial for sustainable dietary habits. They influence the ability to follow a diet long enough to see results.
What is the recommended rate of weight loss to avoid losing muscle mass?
-For most people, losing approximately 0.5 to 1% of body weight per week is recommended to minimize muscle loss.
How fast can one gain weight without just gaining fat, according to the 2002 study by rosnick and colleagues?
-Untrained men in the study gained roughly a pound a week of body weight and lean body mass over 8 weeks with an additional 2,000 calories and resistance training.
What is the recommended rate of weight gain for different levels of training experience?
-For novices, gaining up to 1-2% of their body weight per month is recommended, while intermediates should aim for about half of that, and advanced lifters may need to adjust further based on their progress.
What is the '3500 calorie rule' mentioned by Dr. Eric Helms and how is it used?
-The '3500 calorie rule' states that losing or gaining a pound of body weight requires a surplus or deficit of roughly 3500 calories. This rule helps estimate daily caloric adjustments for weight loss or gain.
What is the suggested minimum protein intake for muscle growth as per the meta regression by Morton and colleagues?
-The suggested minimum protein intake for muscle growth is 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day.
What is the minimum fat intake recommended to support absorption of fat-soluble vitamins and provide essential fatty acids?
-The minimum fat intake recommended is between 20 to 30 grams per day.
What is the significance of carbohydrates in a bodybuilding diet, especially in relation to training performance?
-Carbohydrates are important for providing energy during training. Consuming carbs pre-workout can lead to better performance, especially after a long fasting period or during higher volume training sessions.
What are the two main recommendations for micronutrient intake in a bodybuilding diet?
-The two main recommendations are to 'eat the rainbow' by consuming a variety of fruits and vegetables and to aim for at least 10 grams of fiber per 1000 calories consumed.
How does Dr. Eric Helms view the role of supplements in a bodybuilding diet?
-Dr. Eric Helms considers supplements as supplementary and not essential. He recommends focusing on whole foods first and only considers creatine and caffeine as supplements that may provide benefits, with creatine being the most supported by evidence.
Outlines
💪 Optimal Bodybuilding Diet and Nutritional Perspective
Dr. Eric Helms, a natural bodybuilding Pro and author, discusses the optimal bodybuilding diet from a nutritional perspective. He emphasizes the importance of behavior and lifestyle in the nutritional pyramid and advises that the chosen diet should be sustainable and fit into one's lifestyle. The most crucial factor in bodybuilding nutrition is energy balance, which dictates weight gain or loss. Dr. Helms suggests that diets that work do so by manipulating energy balance, and he recommends a gradual approach to weight loss or gain to ensure muscle growth or fat loss without sacrificing muscle mass.
📊 Energy Balance and Weight Manipulation
This paragraph delves into the concept of energy balance, explaining that most diets work by either creating a calorie deficit for weight loss or a surplus for weight gain. Dr. Helms points out that behavior and lifestyle are central to managing energy balance. He also discusses the Dual Intervention model and its asymmetry in humans, making weight gain easier than weight loss. The paragraph provides guidelines on the ideal rate of weight loss and gain, suggesting a 0.5 to 1% body mass change per week for fat loss and adjusting this rate based on training experience for muscle gain.
🍽️ Setting Caloric Intake and Macronutrient Distribution
Dr. Helms advises on setting caloric intake by tracking food and understanding portion sizes and macronutrient contents. He suggests a four-week period for assessing maintenance calories and then adjusting for a desired surplus or deficit. The '3500 calorie rule' is introduced for estimating weight change targets. The paragraph further discusses the distribution of macronutrients, emphasizing the minimum daily protein intake and the importance of fats and carbohydrates in a diet, with specific recommendations for their quantities.
🥗 Prioritizing Micronutrients and Dietary Patterns
This section highlights the importance of micronutrients like vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients, which are often associated with whole foods and dietary patterns. Dr. Helms stresses the significance of eating a variety of fruits and vegetables and maintaining a high-fiber intake. He introduces the '80/20 rule' for balancing unprocessed and processed foods in one's diet, advocating for flexibility to prevent dietary adherence from being threatened by restrictive practices.
🏋️♂️ Nutrient Timing and the Role of Supplements
The final paragraph addresses nutrient timing, particularly the impact of carbohydrates on workout performance. It suggests the benefits of a pre-workout meal containing carbohydrates, especially after a long fasting period. The discussion also touches on the optimal number of meals and protein intake, including the myth of casein as a slow-digesting protein. Dr. Helms downplays the necessity of protein intake before sleep unless there's a specific need. The paragraph concludes with a brief on hydration and the limited but effective role of supplements like creatine and caffeine in muscle building and performance enhancement.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Nutritional Perspective
💡Muscle and Strength Pyramids
💡Behavior and Lifestyle
💡Energy Balance
💡Macronutrients
💡Micronutrients
💡Calorie Surplus/Deficit
💡Protein Intake
💡Hydration
💡Supplements
Highlights
Optimal bodybuilding diet should fit into your lifestyle and be sustainable.
Behavior and lifestyle are crucial for sustainable nutrition practices.
Energy balance is the primary factor for weight gain or loss.
Most diets that work manipulate energy balance.
For weight loss, aim for a 0.5 to 1% change in body mass per week.
Beginners can gain weight faster than advanced lifters in bodybuilding.
A study showed untrained men gained about a pound a week with a 2,000 calorie surplus.
Advanced lifters should not gain more than 1% of body weight per month.
Weigh yourself at least three times per week for an accurate average weight.
Use the 3500 calorie rule to estimate weight loss or gain targets.
Protein intake should be at least 1.6 g per kilogram of body weight per day.
Minimum fat intake should be between 40 to 60 grams per day for most people.
Carbohydrate intake should be at least 3 g per kilogram of body weight per day if in a surplus.
Eating a variety of fruits and vegetables covers many vitamin and mineral needs.
Aim for at least 10 g of fiber per thousand calories consumed daily.
Nutrient timing is important, especially the presence of carbohydrates before a workout.
Having at least three servings of protein per day is recommended.
Creatine is the most convincing supplement to help build muscle.
Caffeine can improve workout performance but its long-term effects on muscle growth are unclear.
Supplements should be third-party tested to avoid contamination.
Transcripts
Dr Eric HS Dr Milo wolf we all know
you're knowledgeable we can see your
shredded in a good guest I look for
feathers veins check okay and you
recently won your natural bodybuilding
Pro cord but I want to hear today from a
nutritional perspective what is the
optimal bodybuilding diet what are the
most important factors good question
yeah I
think that's Dr Eric Helms wmbf Pro
bodybuilder author of the muscle and
strength pyramid
I had the chance to interview him to ask
him how to diet for maximum muscle
growth um I have a hierarchy of
importance called the muscle and
strength pyramids we got one for
training we got one for Nutrition a
really important and underrated quality
of the nutrition pyramid specifically is
that everything sits under what I
describe as behavior and lifestyle um
the most common mistake that people make
in my opinion is that they will get some
of the quantitative big rocks in place
but they won't necessarily have the um
life skills and nutritional literacy and
behavior modification to make those
things occur with less restraint so that
they're sustainable and they can follow
the diet long enough to actually get the
results they want or keep those results
the diet you pick should be the one you
can make fit into your lifestyle and
stick to whether that's paleo keto or
any other diet it fundamentally needs to
be something you can do for long enough
to even matter import importantly if
you're new to dieting for building
muscle and losing fat keep things simple
at first you probably don't need to
worry about minute details like
micronutrients and minerals of different
foods instead focus on the bigger rocks
first up the most important factor in
your pyramid is energy balance could you
expand a little bit around that yeah and
this is a contentious one because you'll
hear people saying listen it's more than
SEO calories in calories out and it
absolutely is and that's why behavior
and lifestyle is everything sit with it
most diets that quote unquote work they
either implicitly or explicitly
manipulate energy balance that's right
when it comes to weight loss and weight
gain whether you're doing a vegan diet
carnivore diet a paleo diet or any other
diet in the long term to achieve weight
gain you need to consume more energy or
calories than you expend to achieve
weight loss you need to consume fewer
calories than you expend and we have
multiple metabolic W studies where when
we control everything we see the
strongest predictor of losing fat mass
is the size of the energy deficit and it
almost scales perfectly with the changes
in body composition on the flip side of
that we also see if your goal is muscle
gain that not sufficiently fueling the
process of building muscle providing the
actual energy content of the muscle
you're going to be building and
offsetting the energy increase sorry the
energy expenditure increases that come
from training and potential uh
compensatory increases in energy
expenditure that some people experience
while they are in a surplus if you don't
do that it can shortcircuit your gains a
little bit indeed in support of what
Eric is saying here a meta regression by
murphyan colleagues found that being in
a calorie Surplus tends to help with
muscle gains from lifting whereas being
a deficit tends to reduce muscle growth
weight gain helps you gain muscle
whereas weight loss facilitates fat loss
however weight gain is typically easier
for most despite your body having
homeostatic mechanisms in place to keep
you at a similar body weight because we
are not prey animals uh historically
we're much better at defending lower
body weights set points than than upper
body weight set points the Dual
intervention model is not perfectly and
symmetrically well regulated in humans
like it might be in say a rat you
overfeed a rat and you make them
actually fat then you get them back to
an ad lium diet they'll come back to a
lower body weight us humans you overfeed
us we probably will maintain a higher
body weight unless our environment is
drastically changed meaning not being in
modern Western Society or post
industrial society yes while an energy
balance is the primary denominator that
is going to dictate whether or not
you're going to lose body fat you
actually need to think about how do I
manipulate my behaviors my perspective
uh my habits and my environment at least
in my home and what I do on a regular
basis that is conducive towards getting
into either the small Surplus or small
deficit whatever my goals are to achieve
that but how fast should you actually
lose weight for fat loss so you don't
lose muscle for most people depending
upon their body mass that's going to
correlate to somewhere between a05 to 1%
change in body mass per week so what
your deficit should produce and this is
a way of kind of backchecking that it's
not too large or too small is on average
and maybe not looking at an average
every week but every two weeks just to
eliminate some of the noise in that
signal from water weight changes is
losing roughly between 05 to 1% of your
body weight per week so if you weigh 200
lb pound that's 1 to2 lb a week very
simple when it comes to weight gain Eric
highlights the ideal rate of weight gain
may depend on your training experience
beginners can gain weight faster than
Advanced lifters how fast can you gain
weight without just getting F there's a
study in 2002 by rosnick and colleagues
where they took untrained men in a
university setting and just gave them an
additional 2,000 calories and had them
start resistance training it didn't
matter if it was pure maltodextrin or a
mix of maltodextrin and protein and they
gained rough l a pound a week of body
weight and lean body mass over 8 weeks
they put on 3 kilos of both in more
trained lifters however things are less
positive both a study out of Eric's own
lab and a previous study by GTH and
colleagues both suggested that the
gaining weight at faster than around 1%
of body weight per month mostly
increased fat gains without much of an
improvement in muscle gained so what I
recommend is scaling the rate of weight
gain to your training experience are you
progressing quickly you're probably a
noice are you progressing at a moderate
pace you're probably an intermediate are
you taking a lot of time to see gym
progress you probably been training for
a while and I would generally recommend
for the novices to be gaining as much as
1 to 2% of their body weight per month
not per week and then roughly half of
that as you move to the intermediate and
advanced stage but hold up what do these
figures actually mean how do you figure
out a starting place of how many
calories to eat great question and this
is challenging the best way to do this
in my opinion is to actually invest some
time and this will if you were not
experienced with tracking your calories
weighing your foods and getting an idea
of Weights associated with portion sizes
that you might habitually use and what
the energy and macronutrient contents of
nutrition are this is actually a really
important learning skill to develop and
what I'd recommend is taking somewhere
between two to four weeks minimum two
but preferably closer to four and
actually weighing yourself at least
three times per week to get an average
and then looking at your average body
weight week to week just like you would
if you're trying to see that weight loss
rate that we recommended and seeing am I
in a slight Surplus deficit or am I
roughly at maintenance over this
four-week period and then you can
estimate what your rough intake is so if
you're in a slight Surplus or you're in
a slight deficit you can determine that
and then you can set a reasonable
Surplus or deficit based upon that once
you've determined what your maintenance
calories are a great way to set a calor
Target to aim for is the 3500 calorie
rule while it isn't perfectly accurate
gaining or losing losing a pound of body
weight will require a surplus or deficit
of roughly 3500 calories if you want to
lose a pound per week for example that
would simply be 3500 calories divided 7
for a daily 500 calorie deficit subtract
500 calories for maintenance calories
congratulations those are your fat loss
calories and on the other side of it if
we wanted to go into a slight Surplus a
general rule of thumb is if you're
trying to gain in that intermediate
phase you maybe increase over your
maintenance cap is 5 to 10% or if you're
in the beginner phase maybe twice that
10 to 20% those are decent rules of
thumb but the most important thing is
then adjusting so if you're finding that
you're gaining at faster than the rates
we recommended or if you're losing
slower or faster than the rates we
recommended you just increase things
down or up 50 to 100 calories on a week-
toe basis once you're looking at these
14-day averages and it'll autocorrect
pretty quick so you've set your calories
and you're successfully gaining or
losing weight what should you be out
next well calories come from somewhere
and those are the macronutrients we're
going to talk about protein carbs and
fat and a decent approach here is to
figure out okay what are the functional
minimums I need for protein carbs and
fats in different contexts and then from
there I'm just trying to hit roughly
something close to my calorie Target say
plus or minus 100 calories and then I
can have the individual flexibility to
have either a higher fat higher carb or
higher protein or whatever approach I
want but so long as I meet those
minimums they're probably going to be
equivalent outcomes for protein for
example a meta regression by Morton and
colleagues suggests that muscle growth
from lifting can be maximized with 1.6 g
of protein per kilogram of body weight
per day for someone who weighs 100 kilog
for example that would be 160 g of
protein per day what about the other
true macronutrients fats and carbs for
fat this is something I got to give a
big shout out to the other Eric Dr Eric
Trexler he did a pretty deep dive on the
literature to try to determine what's a
minimal fat intake that we should have
what's the lowest you can put your fat
if you're willing to really cross your
te's and Dot your eyes and have a really
good balance without having too much of
a negative effect and that's somewhere
between 20 to 30 gram is what's
necessary to probably support the uh
absorption of fat soluble vitamins and
also provide sufficient essential fatty
acids for human function right now it
will require a meticulous intake of
essential fatty acids and being very
thoughtful about what foods you consume
and anyone who's consumed
a diet that only has 20 to 30 gram of
fat it doesn't really feel like you're
intentionally eating fat you're just
kind of eating and you be like I'm
already at 17 G maybe I should have like
you know some fish oil and I'm done but
for 90% of cases of when you're dieting
you probably want to be even one step
above that uh which is the the gram
intakes associated with our best guess
at where we are preventing hormonal
drops in testosterone and estrogen so we
have a few different meta anal policies
looking at low testosterone uh and low
estrogen in women associated with fat
intakes and when you convert those
percentages absolute grams based upon
average intakes that's somewhere between
40 to 60 gram and you could probably
scale that to body mass so that I think
for most people should be like the
functional lowend range depending on
your body weight you should probably
fall between 40 to 60 gram of fat or
more per day most of the time unless
you're performing a short-lived extreme
diet for some reason good good fat
sources include things like avocados
extra virgin olive oil and peanut butter
what about carbohydrates the way you
want to view carbohydrate is a little
bit different when you have fewer
calories or more just because you're
kind of budgetarily restricted right if
you're dieting you're going to have
fewer calories to play with if you're in
a surplus you're going to have more and
I'm very comfortable saying you probably
want to get around at least 3 G per
kilogram of carbohydrates if you're in a
surplus but for some people who are just
not gifted as far as their energy
expenditure even that is a low-end range
when you're hitting the two other
minimums might be challenging in still
constructing a well well balanced diet
to summarize here's how to build your
diet once you've got your calories in
place first set your ideal protein
intake of at least 1.6 g of protein per
kilogram of body weight per day subtract
the calories that come from the protein
from your daily Target there are four
calories in a gram of protein next set
your minimum fat intake remove the
calories from your daily budget for
carbohydrates aim for up up to 3 G of
carbs per kilogram of body weight per
day if you have the calories for it if
you still have calories left over great
as far as muscle growth goes you can use
up your remaining calories however you
wish do you enjoy higher fat foods have
more fat do you enjoy carbs instead have
more corbs viewing things in terms of
minimums allows for greater diet
flexibility interestingly though there
might be a benefit to having some corbs
right before walking out one thing we'll
talk about when we get to nutrient
timing is there does seem to be some
relationship
between the volume of strength training
you can perform when you're given
open-ended sets say four sets to failure
at 70% of squats or whatever that if you
have a pre-workout meal that contains
carbohydrates you're more likely to
perform more volume than if you don't
but the actual dose of carbohydrate
doesn't seem to matter quite as much
it's just the presence of that meal at
all the next most important thing to pay
attention to diet-wise is micronutrients
so this is things like vitamins minerals
phytonutrients uh and things that are
related to the food Matrix I think it's
really important to acknowledge that
just because we take a reductionist
approach to nutrition especially in
Sports Nutrition and we talk about grams
per Gil kilogram of carbohydrate fat
protein
Etc we don't eat macros we eat foods and
probably more importantly we follow
dietary patterns and certain dietary
patterns are going to produce different
effects even if they're similar in
macronutrients to illustrate Eric's
Point let me tell you about a study by
Hall and colleagues Hall and his
colleague took people to the lab and had
them consume an ad libitum diet with
either more processed or less processed
foods when consuming less processed
foods participants ended up in a 500
calorie deficit in contrast when
consuming more processed foods
participants ended up in a 500 calorie
Surplus so clearly the kind of food you
eat can play a big role in the real
world so some of the reasons for that
are differences in fiber differences in
energy density which is going to be
largely influenced by the water content
of foods and their fiber content and
their fat content also the uh
micronutrient content may have some
influence on that as well there's some
data to indicate that if you're not
getting sufficient nutrients from your
food you might seek out higher calories
to compensate from that but that's
probably a minor player compared to
energy density as well as fiber content
so what should we do two solid
recommendations first eat the rainbow
eating a variety of different fruits and
vegetables will cover many of your
vitamin and mineral bases
and provides you with plenty of fiber a
good starting point is your five a day
five surveying of fruits and vegetables
across the day at a minimum second the
10 G rule aim for at least 10 G of fiber
per thousand calories you consume at
minimum try to have at least 20 gram of
fiber per day so this goes back to
behavior and lifestyle even though we
want to be eating primarily unprocessed
foods that have a low energy density are
satiating and have fiber you don't want
to actually start to view foods that
don't fit that profile is quote unquote
bad for you cuz like I said Foods aren't
good or bad we follow dietary patterns
and you can have a quote unquote bad
dietary pattern but having a Snickers
bar on Thursday is not going to matter
in the grand scheme and in fact it might
matter if you're so restricted that you
feel you can't have a Snickers bar so if
you think adherence to your diet is
going to be threatened by you being too
restrictive and you want a cookie go
ahead and have that cookie a great rule
to follow is the 8020 rule 80% of your
diet should consist of relatively
unprocessed single item food ingredients
and the remaining 20% of your diet can
come from more processed foods what's
next what else is there now we got
nutrient timing and this is kind of a
catch-all term for anything where we're
thinking about when are we eating
fortunately for us Andrew King one of
Eric's PhD students specifically did his
PhD on the effect of carbohydrate before
working out on performance what did he
find and the overall findings there were
that you're more likely to get more
volume when consuming a carbohydrate
meal either pre or during a training
session if you've had a long fasting
period longer than 8 hours and if you're
doing higher volumes but again the
dosage really didn't seem to matter so
this probably has more to do with either
uh carbohydrate mouth sensors in the in
the mouth uh that respond to maybe the
perception of energy availability uh or
potentially uh hunger which can inhibit
performance in some ways there's some
basically oral cavity brain gut
connections that we don't fully
understand hand that do seem to
influence performance around training if
you have a late day especially or if you
haven't eaten in a while if you're
training first thing in the morning
probably a good idea to have a
pre-workout meal that contains
carbohydrate so you at least don't feel
hungry but it's not something that
actually interferes with your digestion
and makes you feel heavy or sluggish in
in the workout what about protein how
many meals should we have per day we
kind of land upon a minimum frequency of
saying having at least three servings
per day of a rough spread of a decent
protein bolus and that's pretty easy to
do I wish this wasn't true because it
would make me feel better about the
years I spent ensuring I got at least
four equal protein boluses per day but
here we are folks besides protein post-
walkout which Eric doesn't think is
necessary if you're having at least
three protein feedings per day another
common time to recommend protein intake
is right before bed is there any
validity to having more protein before
sleep or even consuming casine a slow
digesting protein to get more muscle
growth in your sleep yeah casine is
often talked about because it's
positioned by supplement companies as
much slower than whey and it is it's the
fraction of milk that is digested much
more slowly it kind of clots into a ball
in your stomach and the amino acids are
peeled off much slower however it's not
substantially slower in fact it's a
little bit faster than other common
protein sources like most meats and in
fact if you were to consume a omelette
for example it would probably take if
it's you know four eggs or more 8 hours
plus to digest D and if you were to
consume say like a typical like Porter
House steak at a steak house where
you're getting 60 g of protein that
might take half the day to digest the
first answer to your question is that
casine is not necessarily a quote
unquote slow digesting protein and the
grand scheme of things I'd say it's an
intermediate digesting protein
definitely slower than whey so you don't
have to go out of your way to get a
quote unquote slow digesting protein
this the second answer is do we need to
have a protein serving before bed and
the answer is probably not it turns out
that if you're consuming mixed meals
which tend to digest slowly anyways
alongside a sufficient amount of protein
across the day you'll probably still be
digesting plenty of protein while you
sleep leading amino acids to your
muscles and growing your muscles
additionally there's some concern around
eating before sleep disrupting sleep the
only concern I would have is that some
data indicates eating food late at night
can interfere with sleep but most of the
time the potential negative effect is
more related to the carbohydrate fat and
calorie content so if you're having
let's say you know lowfat skier it's
only going to be like 200 calories and
it's unlikely to have a negative effect
on sleep based upon the data we have I
don't have a lot of robust data but I
would be surprised if that was the case
it's not like having a cheeseburger at
midnight right I believe there's only a
couple more variables in nutrition
pyramid specifically hydration and
supplements I've heard if you're super
dehydrated you
die whoa I've got no study to prove that
I actually need to see a meta analysis
on them having a zero water or a water
condition or I won't believe it but I
think you could make a reasonable
argument that maybe hydration is
important for Life uh but no more
importantly hydration does have a
potential impact on all body systems and
we do know that being dehydrated has a
negative impact on performance um and
you can't train effectively if you can't
perform well a really useful rule of
thumb though is just the urine color
chart so after your first urination
first thing in the morning that'll
probably pretty yellow cuz you haven't
drank water in a while you want to see
pretty clearish urine for multiple
urinations per day probably more than
three at least per day if you're doing
that you're probably drinking a
sufficient amount of fluids why doesn't
Eric provide a specific recommendation
well previous research has shown that
water intake requirements vary
substantially depending on body mass
factory Mass altitude at which you live
the climate and more and no coffee won't
dehydrate you most beverages do about a
good as the job of hydrating you as
water does the final step of the pyramid
though is supplements so yeah
supplements they're pitched to us but
they are truly like their name suggests
supplementary and there's very few that
will clearly and consistently uh be
shown in the evidence to support your
goals of hypertrophy or strength
development which ones do help which
ones do help you build muscle so the the
one that is most convincingly helpful to
build muscle is creatine um that is
present in meat um it is something that
is produced naturally in our body the
creatine phosphate system it's an energy
system we use um and it is something
that is very challenging to optimize the
levels of muscle creatine without
actually taking it supplementary unless
you're actually following like the
carnivore diet because the cooking
process degrades the creatine in meat a
little bit so unless you're just
crushing Sushi or you got way too into
the liver King and for some reason or
also watching this channel you probably
would need to supplement with it to get
to a decent level of creatine and that
is as simple as taking like you know 3
to 5 gram per day for most body masses
besides creatine the only other
supplement Eric potentially recommends
is caffeine pre-workout while caffeine
has been shown to reliably improve
performance in the gym there's little
evidence that it improves muscle growth
or strength in the long run yet likewise
make sure you take caffeine early in the
day a recent meta regression by Gardino
and colleagues suggested that caffeine
can impact your sleep as late as 12 to
14 hours later if you consume a large
dose a good dose might be 3 to 4 Mig of
caffeine per kilogram of body weight
reserved for your morning walkouts only
unfortunately other supplements don't
have nearly the same evidence I really
don't put much stock outside of uh
creatine and I don't consider protein a
supplement and like in my conception of
the muscle and strength pyramids things
like fish oil would fall under essential
fatty acids in the micronutrient level
uh protein powder would fall under
protein than macronutrient level a
multivitamin would would fall under
micronutrients so those you can get from
supplements but I'd recommend first
checking in with your doctor making sure
you actually have a deficiency before
you start supplementing uh and remember
that the contamination rates of
supplements are surprisingly High
especially in countries that have a post
Haw regulatory system where not until
there's a problem and someone reports it
is anything done about it like the US
Australia New Zealand it's better in the
EU but your role in the dice especially
as a drug tested athlete uh when you buy
these things they may not even be
meeting the label claims and 20 to 30%
of pro of supplements especially from
the US are estimated to roughly be
contaminated meaning that you could be
taking something and actually thinking
oh man this muscle building supplement
is awesome yeah that's because it might
have steroids in it and you're thinking
oh that's a good thing right yes yes it
absolutely is on a serious note if
you're going to get any supplement look
for third party testing labels you don't
want to end up accidentally bold
anything
else I think we're going to call it
there man I think that's good beautiful
Eric it's been a pleasure where can
people find you and your books well you
can find my books at muscle and strength
pyramids. if you want the digital
they're also on Amazon if you want the
physical copies if you want to stay up
to-date with the research mass resesarch
review.com and if you want to find me
talking about all the cool projects that
I'm doing on other people's channels
like this one follow me on Instagram at
Helms 3dmj
تصفح المزيد من مقاطع الفيديو ذات الصلة
How To Build Muscle And Lose Fat At The Same Time: Step By Step Explained (Body Recomposition)
How to Train for Maximum Muscle Growth (ft. Dr. Eric Helms)
Quantas Proteínas Precisam para Hipertrofia? Descubra a Dose Certa!
GUIA PRÁTICO PARA TREINO DE FORÇA | #16 DIETA
Mike Mentzer REVEALS Best way to Eat For Muscle Growth
How To Eat For Weight Gain and Muscle Building- Natural Vs Enhanced
5.0 / 5 (0 votes)