First Key: Eat Like A King

There's a teenager at my gym who's been coming there for at least the last two years. I usually hit the gym about 3x/week and he's usually there. His routine looks decent enough, meaning he does more than just triceps kickbacks and biceps curls, yet he has not grown one iota muscle-wise. When I'm in the gym I usually stick to myself, keeping conversation to a minimum, but I recently asked him the other day about his progress, trying not to sound judgemental or condescending, and he conveyed his frustration at his supposed inability to grow. The first follow up question that I asked was about his diet: 5 meals a day, consisting of cereal, a lean chicken breast, a turkey sandwich on white bread and an apple, a protein shake, and another chicken breast. "That's all you eat," I asked, trying to mask my astonishment. "Yup," he replied, and with obvious pride added, "and I eat hardly any fat!" slapping his narrow belly.

This is a very common diet for teenage bodybuilders who have absolutely no idea of how to eat. To give you an idea of how he should have been eating, if everything he had rattled off had been one of his meals instead of all of them, he would be about 20 lbs more muscular and immeasurably stronger than the emaciated boy standing before me.

5 Common Diet Mistakes

1. You don't consume enough food
When it comes to gaining weight, quantity and quality are equally important. You can be eating the healthiest, most nutritionally dense food in the world, but if you aren't eating enough of it, you will not grow. The untrained body requires a set amount of calories to maintain equilibrium (to stay the same), the body in training requires that same amount plus the number of calories that were burned to maintain equilibrium. That means if Johnny Noob's body burns 2000 cals per day just sitting on its' ass, and it burns 2500 cals when you add in an hour long workout, then eating 2500 will only succeed in keeping John the same size, regardless of how he eats. The rule of thumb goes, if you want to gain 1 lb of bodyweight in a week you must increase your caloric intake by 500 cals. per day. So if Johnny wants to gain 1 lb by Sunday, he'll need to eat 3000 cals. per day starting Monday. If Sunday comes and Johnny still weighs the same, he needs to eat another 500 cals. per day.

2. You don't consume enough (any) fats
Newsflash: Fat does not make you fat. (Eating too much while doing too little does that). Fat is absolutely crucial if you want to add muscular bodyweight. Fat is responsible for delivering essential vitamins (A, D, E and K) throughout the body and in rebuilding cell walls, and there are essential fatty acids that our body cannot produce on it's own and must be ingested to maintain vitality. Plus it is an easy way to dramatically increase your calories intake (remember: quantity=quality) and getting enough cals to promote growth without them would be difficult. That said, you should be ingesting predominantly healthy fats and avoid Trans fats at all costs. Fatty foods that you should be consuming everyday, or rotating throughout the week include: nuts, seeds, avocados, peanut butter, eggs, whole milk, fish oil and olive oil.

3. You don't consume enough protein
Protein is what your body needs to synthesize muscle, if you get too little of it, you're curtailing your muscle gains. A pretty safe way to estimate how much protein you need is to calculate 1 gram per lb of bodyweight. Say Johnny Noob weighs 150 lbs, that's 150 grams. To give you some idea of how much that is in terms of food, it would take a 19 oz sirloin strip steak, or 25 large eggs, or just over half a gallon of whole milk for Johnny to get enough protein. When you consider everything you eat throughout the course of a day, and the limitless combination of food, 150 grams is really quite doable. But even so, it could be difficult. It's for this reason I recommend everyone have at least 1 protein shake a day. Most protein powders contain about 20-25 grams of protein per scoop, so 2 scoops in milk will knock out a considerable chunk of your protein requirements for the day. Add in plenty of dead animal, eggs, and a few handfuls of nuts, and you'll be well on your way.

4. You consume too much protein
Wait, didn't I just say that the problem was too little protein? Yes, but here's the thing. For every novice trainee that gets too little protein there is another who consumes nothing but protein, usually in the form of the aforementioned protein shake. Many trainees are of the mindset that when it comes to protein, more=better. They go for 2x or even 3x the "1 gram per 1 pound of protein" suggestion with the impression that they will gain 2x or 3x the muscle. Truth is that the human body cannot assimilate unlimited amounts of protein, and anything above that is converted to simple carbs and fatty acids and either burned or stored as fat. In the process of converting the protein, the kidneys kick into overdrive to filter out any waste products that are left behind, which are subsequently pissed or crapped out. There is some evidence that this process can deplete the bodies stores of calcium or could over strain the kidneys of an individual with kidney problems! It is certainly better to get a little too much protein than way too little, but anything beyond 1.5xbodyweight of protein will be a crap shot.

Another problem is getting too much protein from one source. If you're getting the majority of your protein from powder for example, you're severely limiting the variety of proteins that you should be consuming. Every source of protein, whether it's soy, milk, yogurt, beef, fish, nuts or eggs is not equal and each offers a variation in both what it offers, how it is digested, and how well it is synthesised by the body. Your best bet is not to have all your eggs in one basket, and instead get an assortment of proteins from a variety of food sources. This will ensure you get a more balanced diet and a well rounded muscle building effect.

5. You're not drinking Whole Milk
Whole milk is truly amazing stuff. It is affordable, readily available, requires no special preparation, contains everything that a body needs for growth, and despite everything bad that you may associate with it, it is unparalleled for muscle building and overall development. Mammals are the most evolved class of animal on the planet, and it is no mistake that the one trait we all seem to share is the consumption of whole milk. I won't say much about it now because I intend to write a longer entry about it in the future, but take my word for it; Drink at least 2 cups a day of honest to goodness whole milk and rest assured your muscles will thank you.

Bottom line: Your diet is solely responsible for weight gain/loss.
Only then is your training responsible for whether your gain/loss is muscle or fat.

The Ten Keys to Old School Success for New School Beginners

1. Eat Like a King
Muscle isn't made out of thin air, it's made out of the fuel you provide it and that's food. You can forget everything you've learned and will learn in this article, if you don't eat enough to fuel growth you won't grow. You kids have this idea that you can grow bigger and somehow stay smaller, that you can pack on 20-30 lbs of muscle and keep an Ethiopian six-pack. It ain't gonna happen, or it'll happen so slowly that your grand kids will grow faster than you do. And if you're saying to yourself that you can't seem to gain weight, I got another name for you so-called "hard gainers," it's under eaters! If you're having trouble adding weight to the scale you need to be eating everything that isn't nailed down, then you need to eat everything that is nailed down, and then you need to eat the nails. For guys, everytime you sit down for a meal it's a banquet, a competitive eating contest, it's an Olympic sport! Screw your light yogurt and your skim milk, you need to be downing whole milk, whole eggs, nuts, peanut butter, fresh fruits and veggies, plenty of meat and top it all off with olive oil! And one more thing; if it's not something that your grandparents would recognize as food, it ain't food! This immediately nullifies many things you'd get out of a bag, box or can. This means you need to be sticking to the outside of the grocery store where they keep all the fresh food and skimp on visiting the aisles.

2. Rest Like a Baby
You don't grow while you work, you grow while you rest. Your hard earned sweat and blood will be wasted if you don't give yourself a chance to recover. This means getting at least 8, and more like 10, hours of uninteruppted sleep every night. If you don't have time to rest, then you don't have time to train, it's as simple as that. Resting isn't just sleep either, it's taking a day off when you need it and liesure time with friends and family. It's also taking a full week off every 8-12 weeks. So give your mind, body and spirit all the recovery it needs to replenish itself and grow. It's not being lazy, it's being realistic.

3. Be Skilled, Not Sloppy 
Weight lifting is a skill just like in any other sport, and where the skilled will be successful, the sloppy will be in the emergency room. Make it your top priority to always be improving your form, perfecting your movements and mastering your technique. This means educating yourself in the lifts that you will be performing before you perform them. Don't walk into the gym and decide to "wing it" on a new exercises; learn it first, then practice, then perform. One basic rule of thumb will help guide you in all exercises: keep your body in line with itself. This means keeping a nuetral spine (not bent or overextended), keeping your knees in line with your toes, your elbows under your wrist and your neck in line with your spine. I recommend that every one of you read Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe. This is the best guide out there on performing the big heavy compound lifts. Also, don't rely on mirrors to tell you what you're doing; mirrors lie! A 2 dimentional representation of a 3 dimentional occurence will never give you an accurate portrayal. I realize most gyms today look like the hall of mirrors in a fun house, but ignore them, and instead pay attention to what your body is telling you. Also if you have access to a digital camera you should record yourself and play it back later to assess proper technique. This is better than a mirror because a) you'll be watching yourself after-the-fact, not during it, b) you can replay as many times as you like, and, c) you can post it on-line for immediate feedback.

4. Progress or Die 
Progress in weightlifting, strength training or bodybuilding are all measured the same for you beginners; it's adding weight on the barbell and adding weight on the scale every week. These are the only two measures that you need concern yourself with at this point in your training. It's not how much you bench, it's how much more you benched than last week, it's not how much you weigh, it's how much more you weighed than last week. You are your own toughest competition and every week is a new chance to come out ahead. Little by little, just keep upping both strength and size every blessed week. If one ceases to increase that means both will cease to increase. If that's the case you're doing something wrong and you need to fix it. 9 times out of 10 you'll need to get more food and get more rest. It's a lot harder to restart your stalled progress than to maintain your consistent progress, so make sure you're never in that position and stay on course. If however your strength or bodyweight actually regress, then more drastic measures might need to be taken. If this happens and it's been more than 8 weeks since you last took a full week off, now is the time to do so. Otherwise another way of breaking the spell is to cut the intensity (the weight) of your workout by 50% for a week; this means benching 75lbs if you normally bench 150. This will give you the advantage of recovering without regressing. After either a week off or a week "deloading" you should be good as new and ready to go.

5. Be Consistent 
If you haven't been on a program for at least 4 or 5 weeks you have no business changing to a new routine. It takes at least that long to judge if a program is working or not, and if you've been reading, you'll know exactly how to measure that progress. However if you've been on a program that long and you're not adding weight, even then the program should be the last thing you change. Make sure it's not something else in your lifestyle that is short changing your gains. If you can remove all other possibilities and are left with only your routine to change, then you'd be a fool to stay on it. But whatever you do don't get in one of these vicious cycles of second guessing yourself everytime you start a new routine. Changing your routine every week does not a program make. Avoid paralysis by analysis, make a choice and stick with it. The same can be said of exercise selection; changing your sets, reps, and exercises every week is the same thing as changing the whole routine. Don't do it unless you have to. Also be consistent in your diet and your rest. Consistent choices will give you consistent gains!

6. Supplement, Don't Substitute
There is no legal supplement in existence that will make up for bad programming, bad nutrition or bad recovery, there is no legal supplement that is good enough to merit basing a workout routine on, and there is no legal supplement that is worth spending more money on than the food you eat. 99% of supplements are canned crap. That means that whatever expensive supplement you're taking this week is in all likelyhood a shiny brand new shrink-wrapped turd with a bow on it for all the good that it'll do. There are only 3 supplements that you guys need concern yourselves with: 
1) A Mega Multi Vitamin. Your requirements for vitamins and minerals will be higher than the average person, so this is pretty important. 
2) Fish Oil. This stuff is as close as we've gotten to an elixer of life. It does so many good things that you'll just have to take my word for it and look it up yourself. Take at least 5 grams per day. I take 12.
3) Whey Protein. This will ensure you're getting the requisite amount of protein that your body needs to grow, but it is not a substitute for food. Drink 1 shake post workout and that's probably as much as you'll need. If you're drinking more than 2 per day, you're literally pissing money away.
If you want to spend your money on extra sups, well that's up to you. I think it's a waste, but as long as you're getting plenty to eat and you're already taking these 3, then feel free to be a lab rat.

7. Overtraining = Underrecovering 
Overtraining is The Black Plague of the bodybuilding world and by my estimates your chances of getting either one are about equal. Don't concern yourself with working too hard or too long, concern yourself with recovering too little. There is no amount of training that will put you into an overtrained state, there is only a deficit of recovery that will. Train hard and rest harder and you'll never have to worry about getting overtrained. But be sure to wash your hands just in case.

8. Be Self Aware, Not Self Absorbed
Always warm-up before performing. If a warm-up with 60% or 80% of your max weight feels heavier than it should, take a step back and assess the situation. Maybe you need to back off. Don't lift with your ego. That's a good way to get injured and not be able to lift at all. If you're performing a new exercise always learn it first with little or no weight. When starting a new program or routine never start with your max weight, always work your way back up over the course of a few weeks. Don't ever test your 1 rep max unless you are highly skilled in the exercise and have a very good idea of what your 1 rep max is already. Showing off will get you nowhere that you wouldn't have gotten by taking the sure path, except maybe a trip to the emergency room. Also, unless you're talking about lactic acid burn, adages like, "No Pain, No Gain," are bull**** and should be ignored. If you get injured don't be a nimrod and work through the pain; You Will Lose. Instead do everything you can to heal it via rest, medication and rehab, and otherwise find a way to work around the injury. Make wellness your top priority.

9. Finish What You Start
Go all the way or go home. Set goals for yourself and don't quit until you meet them. Goals should be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-based. A goal could be adding 5 lbs of muscular bodyweight to the scale in a month or adding 50 lbs to your squat in 7 weeks. These are good goals to have and will keep you striving toward the finish-line. If however you find you do need to stop prematurely, make sure it's for the right reasons (only you can define what those are).

10. Drop a Log
The most successful bodybuilders keep very close tabs on their progress by recording every minute detail of their development. This means recording your exercise routines, the weight you used for warm-ups and work sets, and any feedback that the routine gave you such as on your technique. Also your bodyweight, your dietary menu and anything else that might impact your training. Having a detailed training journal ensures that every time you walk into the gym you'll know exactly what it is that you came to do. You can't assess your progress if you don't record it!