30lbs in 15 Months…

Summary

The speaker details his 15-month journey of gaining 30 pounds of lean muscle mass, debunking myths about muscle growth and revealing the real factors that contributed to his success. He emphasizes the importance of training intensity and failure over specific rep ranges, the role of blood chemistry in optimizing diet and exercise, and the impact of proper exercise selection to target specific muscles. He also shares his experience with peptides and how they can enhance muscle growth, offering a new perspective on achieving significant muscle gains without extreme diets.

Takeaways

• 💪 The speaker gained 30 lbs of lean mass over 15 months, with only a 1% increase in body fat.
• 🏋️‍♂️ The importance of training to failure, regardless of weight or rep range, for muscle hypertrophy was emphasized.
• 🔬 Scientific uncertainty exists about whether different rep ranges induce different types of hypertrophy.
• 🧬 Hypertrophy involves the synthesis of proteins like myosin and actin, which are integrated into myofibrils.
• 🏋️‍♀️ The speaker alternated between high and low rep ranges, finding similar results with both.
• 🚫 The speaker found certain training factors like rest time and rep speed to be overrated.
• 🤔 The frequency of training per muscle group was found to be less critical than previously believed.
• 🩺 Blood chemistry analysis revealed the speaker had insulin resistance, impacting muscle growth and fat metabolism.
• 🍚 The speaker adjusted his diet from low carb to higher carbs with fiber to combat insulin resistance.
• 🔍 Surface EMG testing helped identify and refine exercises for better muscle targeting.
• 💊 The use of peptides, including IGF-1, was highlighted as a significant contributor to the speaker's progress.

Q & A

How much lean mass did the speaker gain over the past 15 months?

The speaker gained 30 pounds of lean mass over the past 15 months.

What was the speaker's body fat percentage increase during this period?

The speaker's body fat percentage only increased by 1%.

What is the speaker's view on the effectiveness of different rep ranges for muscle hypertrophy?

The speaker believes that using 85% of one's one rep max for six reps or 40% for 30 reps, as long as the lighter sets are taken to complete failure, will yield virtually identical results.

What does the speaker suggest is the crudest definition of hypertrophy?

The speaker suggests that the crudest definition of hypertrophy is when you pick something up, put it down, and as long as the stimulus was great enough and there are enough amino acids available, muscle cells will synthesize more protein.

What is the speaker's understanding of myofibrils and their role in muscle growth?

The speaker describes myofibrils as structures within muscle cells or fibers that contain the contractile proteins myosin and actin. They stack on top of each other and are involved in muscle growth when more of them are synthesized and integrated into the muscle cells.

What does the speaker propose about high volume training and its potential effects on muscle growth?

The speaker proposes that high volume training with low percentages of one rep max might induce sarcoplasmic hypertrophy, which involves an increase in the non-contractile elements like sarcoplasmic fluid, glycogen storage, and mitochondria.

What is the speaker's approach to training with lighter weights and higher rep ranges?

The speaker trains with lighter weights and higher rep ranges (15 to 30 reps) and takes the sets to true failure, which is easier said than done on certain exercises like the hack squat.

What does the speaker consider to be overstated in terms of muscle training?

The speaker considers the importance of rest time between sets, the duration of each individual rep, and the frequency of training a muscle to be overstated or not as impactful as commonly believed.

How did the speaker address insulin resistance in relation to his diet and muscle building?

The speaker addressed insulin resistance by incrementally increasing his carbohydrate intake, focusing on high-fiber carbs to help lower triglycerides, and moving away from a low-carb diet.

What role did surface EMGs play in the speaker's exercise routine adjustments?

The speaker used surface EMGs to systematically test every exercise to ensure the targeted muscle was being activated without being dominated by secondary muscles, leading to changes in the exercises and form used during training.

What impact did the use of peptides have on the speaker's muscle building progress?

The use of peptides, including IGF-1, had a significant positive impact on the speaker's muscle building progress, contributing to the results achieved over the past 15 months.

Outlines

00:00

💪 Muscle Growth and Training Philosophy

The speaker discusses their experience of gaining 30 lbs of lean mass over 15 months with only a 1% increase in body fat. They emphasize that muscle growth can be achieved through both high-weight, low-rep sets and lower-weight, high-rep sets to failure, with the key being the intensity of the stimulus. They also delve into the science of hypertrophy, explaining how muscle fibers and myofibrils are affected by training. The speaker shares their skepticism about certain training factors such as rest time between sets and rep speed, but highlights the importance of training frequency and addressing muscle resistance. They conclude the paragraph with a revelation about the impact of functional blood chemistry on training and nutrition.

05:01

🍽️ Diet Adjustments and Insulin Resistance

The speaker shares insights from their blood work, revealing elevated fasting insulin levels indicative of insulin resistance. They explain how this condition hampers the efficient use of glucose by muscle cells, affecting performance and glycogen storage. The speaker used to advocate low-carb diets but found them detrimental to their muscle-building goals due to increased insulin resistance. They corrected this by incrementally increasing their carbohydrate intake to 800g a day, focusing on high-fiber carbs to reduce triglycerides. Additionally, they discuss the use of surface EMGs to test and refine exercise techniques for better muscle targeting, leading to changes in their training routine. The paragraph ends with the speaker's endorsement of peptides, specifically IGF-1, as a significant factor in their muscle growth journey.

Keywords

💡Lean Mass

Lean mass refers to the amount of muscle and other non-fat tissues in the body. In the video, the speaker mentions gaining 30 pounds of lean mass, indicating an increase in muscle without a significant increase in body fat. This is a key point as it shows the effectiveness of their training and diet regimen in building muscle.

💡Hypertrophy

Hypertrophy is the increase in size of an organ or tissue due to the enlargement of its cells. In the context of the video, the speaker discusses muscle hypertrophy, which is the growth of muscle cells. The script mentions that whether using heavy or light weights, as long as the sets are taken to failure, the hypertrophic response can be similar.

💡Myofibrils

Myofibrils are the contractile units within muscle cells that contain the proteins myosin and actin. They are crucial for muscle contraction and are a primary site of muscle growth. The video explains that hypertrophy often involves adding more myofibrils in parallel, which increases the size of the muscle cell.

💡Sarcoplasmic Hypertrophy

Sarcoplasmic hypertrophy is a type of muscle growth where the non-contractile elements of muscle cells increase in size. This includes the sarcoplasmic fluid, glycogen storage, and mitochondria. The speaker suggests that high-volume training with lighter weights might induce this type of hypertrophy.

💡Insulin Resistance

Insulin resistance is a condition where the body's cells do not respond properly to the hormone insulin, leading to inefficient glucose utilization. The speaker discusses how they discovered they had elevated fasting insulin levels, indicating insulin resistance, which can hinder muscle growth and performance.

💡Glycogen

Glycogen is a form of glucose storage in the body, primarily in the liver and muscles. It is used as a source of energy during exercise. The video mentions that insulin resistance can affect the storage of glycogen post-training, impacting performance and muscle recovery.

💡Triglycerides

Triglycerides are a type of fat found in the blood and are an indicator of metabolic health. High levels can be a sign of insulin resistance. The speaker mentions having elevated triglycerides, which was a sign of their insulin resistance and prompted a change in their diet.

💡Peptides

Peptides are short chains of amino acids that can have various physiological effects. In the video, the speaker mentions using peptides, specifically IGF-1, to aid in muscle growth. Peptides can help bypass the negative feedback loop of muscle growth, potentially enhancing results.

💡Surface EMG

Surface electromyography (EMG) is a non-invasive method of measuring the electrical activity produced by skeletal muscles. The speaker used surface EMG to test and optimize their exercise routines, ensuring that the targeted muscles were being effectively engaged.

💡Functional Blood Chemistry

Functional blood chemistry involves analyzing various blood markers to understand how they affect health and performance. The speaker discusses how examining their blood work helped them identify and address insulin resistance, leading to a more effective training and diet plan.

💡Training Frequency

Training frequency refers to how often a muscle group is trained in a week. The speaker challenges the common belief that training a muscle twice a week is always better, stating that their personal experience showed no significant difference in muscle growth regardless of training frequency.

Highlights

Gained 30 lb of lean mass in 15 months with only a 1% increase in body fat.

Discusses the effectiveness of different rep ranges for muscle hypertrophy.

Explains the scientific uncertainty around the actual hypertrophy process.

Describes the role of ribosomes and myofibrils in muscle growth.

Presents the concept of sarcoplasmic hypertrophy and its implications.

Shares personal training experience with both high and low rep ranges.

Mentions the importance of true failure in training for muscle growth.

Discusses the limitations of certain exercises for low rep training.

Talks about the overrated aspects of rest time and rep speed in training.

Challenges the conventional wisdom on muscle training frequency.

Explains how blood chemistry can affect training, sleep, and diet.

Shares personal experience with insulin resistance and its impact on muscle building.

Details the process of fixing insulin resistance through diet changes.

Introduces the use of surface EMGs to test and optimize exercise effectiveness.

Provides examples of exercise adjustments made based on EMG testing.

Talks about the impact of peptides on muscle growth and recovery.

Summarizes key changes made for improved muscle growth, including diet and exercise adjustments.

Mentions the development of new training programs based on these insights.

Transcripts

over the past 15 months I put on 30 lb

of lean mass and unless my tank got

yolked then it's predominantly from new

muscle that I've built and that's not

even the craziest part it's that I only

went up. 1% body fat and your first

response should be what kind of trend

Bogan sandwiches is this guy eating and

that's the best part none I'll go over

exactly what I've been taking over the

last 15 months but that's not it

inevitably there's going to be a guy who

drinks Muscle Milk and masturbates to

anime porn we'll say yeah but dexes are

not as accurate as something like

hydrostatic so what I only gained 25 lb

of muscle you're missing the point

[ __ ] so let's go over what I've

learned and implemented in the last 15

months to make this miracle possible one

thing I'm fairly certain on is it

doesn't matter if you're using 85% of

your one rep max for six reps or 40% for

30 as long as those lighter sets are

taken to complete failure the results

are going to be virtually identical and

what's interesting is while the results

might be similar the sign scientific

Community has no idea if the actual

hypertrophy itself is and I know that

sounds confusing let me explain the

crudest definition of hypertrophy is

when you pick [ __ ] up put it down and as

long as the stimulus was great enough

and there's enough amino acids available

those ribosomes in your muscle cells

will synthesize more protein some of

which being myosin and active you know

those guys they're then transported and

integrated into myofibrils or made into

completely new ones now if you don't

know what myof fibral are this is the

this the best I can do every muscle cell

or muscle fiber you can use those

interchangeably has hundreds to

thousands of these all they really are

is a bunch of sarom mirors that contain

the contractile proteins myosin and

actin stacked on top of each

other I have no

self-control God it's

good it's pretty well agreed upon the

most common form of hypertrophy happens

by adding sarir in parallel think of

that diagram as your bicep if you cut it

in half Jesus Christ and look directly

down on it what in the hell I don't know

if that's supposed to be in there what

they're saying is you're adding more

myofibrils within the muscle cell the

muscle cell then has to increase in size

to maintain proper distribution and

functioning of the organel and the

sarcoplasm but it's been proposed that

high volume training like what you do

with the low percentage of your one rep

max might induce sarcoplasmic

hypertrophy when the non-contractile

elements the sarcoplasmic fluid the

glycogen storage the density the

mitochondria etc etc increase and that

makes sense the more you think about it

because as a muscle increases in size it

doesn't proportionately increase in

strength that's more depending on the

load you lift with over the past 15

months I've spent half the time with

lighter weights 15 to 30 reps the other

half 6 to

8 I've also found the results to be

identical but there are some caveats to

that one of those being that with the

lighter weight sets they have to be

taken to True failure and that's easier

said than done on something like the

hack squat for example say I was doing a

set of 30 here in reality I should be

putting on a weight that causes me to

start to fail around 20 reps and then I

have to pray to little baby Jesus to get

those last 10 reps but truthfully I

rather not get there I rather fail at 25

28 that's true

failure I mean think about it this way

when's the last time you saw somebody at

the gym using the hack squat they got

stuck underneath it and they crawled out

it doesn't happen people just tap out

mentally on the flip side of that

there's certain exercises and body parts

you're just not going to be able to

train in that low rep range of six to

eight reps try to do six rep on the

tricep extension and see how bad your

abs hurt the next day that means you

[ __ ] up best case scenario you do a

hybrid of them B it also allows you to

be a little bit more fluid with your

training because there are times you

walk in and your knees feel like [ __ ]

and it's always in that moment you're

reminded that you wanted to buy some of

those knee sleeves from Rogue to see if

that made any difference but you didn't

so instead of just suffering through it

and trying to lift heavy weight while

your knees sound like Rice Krispies you

just lift lighter weights that day and

do higher rep sets there are some other

things with this past year that I found

to be highly overrated or the very least

the importance of these things have been

overstated for example rest time between

sets or how long each individual rep

takes does a 4Count negative actually

work that much better than a two count

probably not but sometimes I like

hurting myself so I'll do a 4 count but

the biggest one I'm going to get the

most push back on is the frequency at

which you train a muscle the scientific

community and myself included I made a

video on it says that training two times

a week is better than one time but in

practice that's not really the case I

have programs like the ppls where I

train each body part two times a week

and other ones that have a bro and the

results are identical the only caveat to

that is if you have a muscle that's

incredibly resistant to grow for me it's

my calves if I don't train them three

times a week they get smaller so if

those things didn't really make that big

of a difference then what exactly did

one of the most impactful changes and

biggest aha moments I've ever had

happened after I started to dive into

functional blood chemistry when people

normally look at their blood work they

scroll past everything just to get to

the total and free test to make sure

they got enough juice to pillage the The

Village but the more you learn the more

you realize that some of these

biomarkers can change the way you train

sleep and in my case the way you eat I

used to be a huge advocate for low carb

ketogenic or even the carnivore style of

diet and while there's nothing

inherently wrong with those when it

comes to building muscle there's no way

around it you're putting yourself at a

dis at a

disadvantage if we look at my blood work

from early last year you're going to see

I have elevated levels of fasting

insulin which is exactly what it sounds

like and it's a good indication I might

be dealing with some sort of insulin

resistance and if that's the case that

also means that I'm not efficiently

utilizing glucose which sucks fat muscle

and liver cells all rely on insulin

binding to them to bring glucose in so

when this process is less efficient in

muscle cells it creates an obvious

problem the whole last video I made was

all on glycogen but specifically what

happens is those glute for Transporters

are less effectively transported to the

surface of the cell to bring in glucose

while you train and effectively store

glycogen post training so your

performance is going to suffer down the

road does that make sense Chuck

insulin resistance also makes it harder

for insulin to stop the breakdown of

fats in the body which at first sounds

like a good thing so I'm going to

constantly be burning fat but we have to

remember that too much of a good thing

ends up being bad for example I'm sure

you've seen the commercials if you've

had an erection lasting longer than 4

hours you're about to die now knowing

that fact we can look back at my blood

work and verify whether or not I have

insulin resistance by seeing if I have

elevated levels of triglycerides and

wouldn't you know it I do although low

carb is the most common d prescribed for

obese chumbos to combat insulin

resistance for healthy wi individuals

it's been shown to do the opposite this

recent case study looked at the effects

of low carb diets on non- fatties and

what it found is it actually increased

insulin resistance and again I'm not

saying they're bad but in my case my

blood work was actually telling me that

it was detrimental to my goals of not

looking like a little piece of [ __ ] so

how did I fix it when it comes to fixing

insulin resistance caused by low carb

dieting it's actually a pretty easy fix

you just incrementally increase the

carbs on your diet make sure they're

high in fiber to help bring down those

triglycerides as well I started off with

around 100 G of carbs a day now just

threw up my mouth a little bit now I'm

at 800 g a day it's delicious so

obviously it's always a good idea to get

your blood work checked but a clear sign

that I was actually dealing with this

before and I didn't realize it is every

time I would eat carbs I looked worse

that's not normal also this is what it's

like to have 13 dogs but that wasn't the

only change I made these right here were

a huge eye opener and I know surface

emgs only rely on the electrical

potential of muscle fibers even when I

see a case study with these things I

roll my eyes because I know how finicky

and unreliable they can be but what I

did was different I systematically

tested every single exercise that I did

to make sure that the muscle I was

trying to Target was actually getting

hit and not being dominated by all the

secondary muscle I also manipulated my

form and tested different ways to do

each exercise to see if I can get even

better results the results of all that

testing led me to completely change the

exercises I do when I train for example

I haven't used the Machine rear delt fly

since because I realized how much my mid

traps were jumping in and screwing it up

I now only do rear Del exercises that

allow me to keep my arm close to my body

like this variation I do on the machine

side lateral another thing I never do

anymore has to do with anterior delts

when I'm pressing I never press in the

frontal plane most people pull that

elbow out to the side and press that way

I found it to be a lot of lateral head I

only press in the Sagal plane sagittal

sagital now anytime you have a weight in

front of you like this your traps have

to get involved to counteract that

weight so what I do is I lean back so I

set the bench up further back and fixes

that problem the last example Oh My My

Boo smells like bad weed the last

example I'll give you has to do with lap

pull Downs anytime I do these now I go

as wide as possible to limit bicep

activation the closer you go the more

your biceps can screw it

up God damn honestly you don't need a

device like a surface EMG the moment you

start taking time and going through

every single exercise to see what you

connect to most and what actually

targets the muscle you're trying to hit

you're going to start to really grow the

last thing I can pin point is a real

game changer that I started taking early

last year was peptides and I've already

made a whole video on this I'll link it

at the top so I won't dive into it too

much but one that I did not talk about

that I hadn't yet tried that weighs well

it is since prescribed me and I did it

for 10 weeks and loved it was igf1 it

was glorious if you want me to make a

whole video on it I absolutely will so

to summarize what led to these results I

fixed my insulin resistance started

eating a shitload more carbs and put

myself into a slight Surplus I got rid

of all the exercises that were getting

dominated by all the secondary muscles

that I didn't want involved at all and

only did exercises that really isolated

down to the muscle I was trying to hit

and finally got prescribed peptides so

no you never need to force yourself to

eat another Tren balone sandwich again

use peptides for the most part they

avoid that negative feedback loop and if

you haven't had a chance to check out

the new app yet I just built a whole

garage program that's updated with all

the exercises that I now know are better

as well as updated the back by science

program and there's a PPL in there and

this week I'm working on a completely

new program that'll make you piss blood

stop being a big fat disappointment it's

linked below