Answers To Your Lean Muscle Questions – 4-21-09

About a week ago, I offered to our email subscribers an open Q&A session:  “ask your questions and I’ll try to get them answered”.  The asking is something we only offer the email list, but RSS subscribers can still see the answers.  As usual we had tons of questions.  I’m posting most of them here – the rest will await a future post.  Note:  Please read our disclaimers at the bottom of this page – what I write is for information purposes only and you should always seek professional, licensed advice before starting any exercise program.  If you have more questions, send them through http://worldfitnessnetwork.com/contact/ .  On to the Q&A!

1) Question – Tyson asks: “How about doing speed runs or short speed bursts 5 times a week?  Do you think that would greatly encourage fat loss?  Or should i stick to doing speed bursts 1-2 times a week for fat loss?“

Answer: My answer for the typical person is no more than two HIIT (high intensity interval training) sessions a week.  Note that I’m saying HIIT, not your typical interval training.  I’m not sure which you mean when you say “speed runs”.  HIIT is so intense that unless you are a pro athlete,  you can’t last for more than about 10 minutes if you are doing it right.  Tabata intervals are an example of HIIT (you go for 20 seconds AS INTENSELY AS YOU CAN – REALLY HARD, then take a 10 second break, then repeat, for a total of about 4 minutes).  Most people can only do Tabata for about 4 or 5 minutes before feeling like vomiting.  Myself included.  I only do that once a week at most and only at certain points in the year.

But for interval training, where you have periods of “more intense” speed bursts but not going at 100%, I still think 5 days is too much.   Because if you are doing it that often, and I’m assuming you are weight training, I can’t see how you are giving your muscles time to rest.  Muscles grow on your days off, not on your workout days.

2) Question – Brent asks: “What is the best way train to do 100 pushups?“

Answer: This is a goal for building muscular endurance.  I can’t do 100 pushups non-stop myself, so I did a little research.  There are a ton of websites saying they teach you how, and there are some videos.  But you know, when I watch the videos, these guys aren’t doing full-range pushups! They’re cheating by not going all the way down and/or not coming all the way back up.

I would start out doing as many as I possibly could.  For me, that would be 48 (I just did it to test).  Then I’d rest 60 seconds (no longer) and bang out as many as I could again.  That would be 23 for me.  Another 60-second rest.  Etc until I got to 100.  I’d do that on Day 1.  I’d not to any chest routine on day 2.  On day 3, I’d load a 45-lb plate on my back (this is tricky but you can do it).  If 45 is too high, try a 25 lb plate.  I’d do 4 sets to failure, with only 60 seconds in between.  I’d take day 3 off from chest work.  Then repeat this.

This approach combines endurance with strength building and should get you there faster than purely an endurance path.  I’d guess that within 3 to 4 weeks you’d be able to do 100 pushups straight but I can’t guarantee!

If anyone on the list has actually done it, please post a comment!

3) Question – John asks: “After you achieve your desired body weight and look, what special steps do you take to look ripped? Do you still continue your old calorie intake or reduce it to the recommended 2200 for men? Do you increase your cardio and maintain or decrease weight training so your body fat drops to around 6%? Also any good exercises or advice so that the lower abs are visible as much as the upper abs?”

Answer: Hi John,  great question.  This is a pretty advanced question and since WFN is primarily for beginners and intermediates, I’ll keep this brief. First off, when I hear “ripped” I think of visible indicators like being able to see your abs, clear separation between your delts and your biceps, some striations in your chest, separation in your quads, etc.  You can have all that at 10% body fat.  6% is really pretty extreme (if you are measuring it right).  I’ve never gotten that low in body fat myself.

There is no universal “2200″ for men category.  If you are serious about getting under 10%, you should find an experienced personal trainer / nutritionist to help you determine your caloric maintenance level.  I haven’t tested mine recently, but I used to be up around 3100 calories.  And I’m not a big guy.  I just burn a lot.  For you, 2200 might be way too much of a deficit.  I don’t know.

But really your question is whether getting ripped requires an increase in cardio or a decrease in calories.  But it’s not “either-or”.  It’s both.  It’s vogue right now in fitness circles to not recommend cardio.  But I disagree.  And so does Tom Venuto.  I highly recommend Tom’s book, Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle.  You sound like you are at a level where his advice and experience would be helpful.  He’s a really smart, competition level bodybuilder but not a steroid-pumped Hulk.  And I like him because he knows cardio plays an important role in fat loss for most people.

4) Question – “Chuck” (Jonathan) asks: “I’m serving in the U.S. Navy and while we’re out here on our 7 month deployment, alot of the younger guys have been ordering lots of so-called supplements like Hydroxycut, Xenadrine, NaNoVapor and NoXplode just to name a few.  I’ve talked to a few of them about their constant use of the stuff and they tell me that not only do they rely in it when they work out, but they take it for things like 5 hour watches in the middle of the night (kind of understandable since I’ll be up til 2 a.m. myself tonight), first thing in the morning and whenever they just feel the need for a “pick me up” during the work day.  To me this sounds kind of like an addiction.  So my question is, what is the possibility this stuff could be habit forming and what are the negative impacts that these “supplements” have on the body?  Ok that’s two questions.  Thanks in advance and we, the crew of the USS Lake Champlain, appreciate all your hard work on this site.”

Answer: Hi Chuck – you guys are amazing.  You have my, and my family’s, gratitude for what you do.  Words can’t describe.

As to your question, I agree that it sounds like an addiction.  There are different forms of addiction of course, and I’m no medical guy, but the behavior you are seeing is not ok.  Using any manufactured substance haphazardly is going to be dangerous.

Now, in terms of people using these drugs according to the manufacturer’s recommendations:  The research on those “supplements” is limited, usually to studies funded by the manufacturers.   So I can’t tell you if they work or not.  Lots of people say they work.

But then again, lots of people are making huge progress without them.  Do you need them?  Absolutely not. Would they help?  Maybe.

But you’ve got to ask yourself why would you take them?  To shorten the curve for progress?  I’m guessing you (and all the readers) have many, many options left to you if you feel like your progress is stalled.  The ways to configure your diet and workouts are almost unlimited.  There’s an old saying that “the best workout is the one you aren’t already doing”.  This is a shorthand for saying that we all plateau and usually all it takes to get past that plateau is a slightly different routine. I see no reason to go to these drugs.

5) Question – Kimberly asks: “Thanks a bunch for your fitness help!   It is super.   I don’t have a specific question…   but it would be great to include more on women’s fitness.    Any idea how to really get rid of cellulite around the buttocks?    Perhaps it is just genetic or plastic surgery is the only way.   I just turned 32, and have worked out my whole life.  I am now working harder than ever, but throughout it all, the cellulite remains.   Frustrating.   But otherwise, very happy about my fitness and strength.  Again, thanks again for all of your fitness help!”

Answer: Kimberly – I’m so glad you like the site!  While we focus on the issues of the male physique, 90% of the same rules apply to women.  On one hand, if you are making progress, are getting fit, and getting strong, I’d like to tell you to not worry too much.  I know, easy for me to say.

But if you are saying you are already quite buff and essentially in top shape, but the cellulite remains, then that’s a different issue.  Did it appear at some turning point in your life, like right after having children? (Holly Rigsby has a great program for that case, called “Fit Yummy Mummy“.)  I have no experience with cellulite, or helping people with the issue, but if you provide more details I might be able to dig something up.

6) Question – Eric asks: “I normally do an hour of push-ups, core exercises and stretching before going to the gym to do my regular hour and a half full body work-out. It takes about 15 min. to drive to the gym and I warm back up with 10-15 min.s on Elip/Nordic Trainer before going to free weights and machines. My question is what are the pros and cons of starting,stopping and starting up work-outs?”

Answer: Wow Eric – that’s a lot of time!  I wouldn’t worry about the start/stop effects.  Since they are different routines before/after the break (well, except for the pushups, and I’ll get to that…) it’s not a problem.  I often take a 30 minute break after my weight training before doing my cardio, for example.  And Arnold used to do split days where he’d do one muscle group in the morning and a different group at night.  But he was extreme.

For most mortals (me included!), you start to lose benefits after 60 minutes of exercise.  The glycogen in your muscles gets depleted say, around 1 hr.  But also your focus and form tend to get sloppy after about 45 minutes.  Yes, even pros. You definitely need to intake carbs and proteins at the 45 to 60 minute mark if you are going longer than that. I’d encourage you to shorten the workout to 60 minutes, and make it more intense (less rest between sets, go heavy, something to make it intense for you).

Now, another thing I would do is take the pushups out of your warm up (unless you are talking about only 1 or 2 sets at bodyweight).  Multiple sets of pushups, even without weighted pushups, are still muscularly intense (see above question).

An hour of “warm ups” isn’t really warm ups.  It’s either a program in its own right, or else you are simply sleepwalking and barely exerting yourself.  It’s one or the other.  Also, doing good warm ups doesn’t mean your body is “warm” and sweaty.  It means the muscles you are about to use are pre-activated and ready for stress. I usually prefer bodyweight routines for my warm ups rather than a cardio machine.

I’d also recommend doing the core stuff AFTER your weight training.  You don’t want to fatigue your core before doing things like squats, chins, deads, etc. because you need those core muscles at maximum strength (unfatigued) to handle the heavy weight.  Do them later.

7) Question – Mohammed asks:“I workout 3 days a week, every alternate day, and have been working out regularly for more than two months now. Chest & triceps – Mon, Back & Biceps – Wed, Legs & Shoulders – Fri. I have not seen considerable muscle growth in this time. The most lagging part of my body is biceps. My biceps are definitely not growing, and whenever i workout my biceps, i find it very hard to do barbell curls even with 10kg ones, maybe because im a pear & i don’t have strength in arms. And whenever i workout biceps, i can find the stress is acting upon my forearms rather than my biceps. By this, hardly with 2 – 3 different sets of biscep exercises, i finish my frustrated weekly session of bisceps with no pumping in the biscep zone. Also i have a good amount of fat deposition in my lower ab area of which i’m not seeing any results in from last couple of months even after doing crunches, reverse crunches, etc. I have researched a lot by surfing & found out that a combination of resistance and cardio will burn fat faster whereas it will build muscle also. Kindly suggest at least briefly for all the above. What routine should i follow in order to lose the fat from my stomach & lower body and build muscle in the upper body ?”

Answer: Hi Mohammed,  You probably aren’t going to like my answer here.  But here it is:  stop worrying about your biceps! Men tend to focus way too much on their chest and on the biceps.  Your workouts will always suck without these basic exercises:  squats, deadlifts, bench (the big 3 in my book) plus I’d add in chinups, rows, dips, and military press (so let’s call those the big 7).  Notice, there’s no “curls”.

My advice to anyone wanting to do curls is to wait until you first can do 15 chinups, 15 deadlifts with weight equal to your bodyweight,  and 15 front-squats with  half your bodyweight on the bar.  All using full range form.  Then you can do curls if you want to.  By the way, if you can’t do more than 2 or 3 chinups now, then start with the pull-down machines.  But move to bodyweight chinups/pullups as soon as you can.

In terms of your stomach fat, here’s the secret:  it’s not about ab exercises.  It’s about diet first and foremost.  Secondly it’s about muscle mass so your metabolism is higher.  And then you need interval-based cardio training.  The answers are all in The Truth About Six Pack Abs.  It’s worth the $35 or whatever he charges.

Now Mohammed, I know you’ve been working hard.  And you are frustrated.  Turn that frustration into positive energy by focusing on the Big 7 and on eating right.  And you will see progress if you focus on these exercises.  Check out the rest of WFN (use the search) for more advice on this.

8. Question – Kieran asks: “I run 4 times a week at between 70% to 85% of my heart rate. Would one interval session shift more fat?  Say, 30 second sprints sprinkled throughout a normal run?”

Answer: The science on this seems to indicate that to burn the most fat during the exercise itself you want to reduce your intensity to around 40 to 60 percent.  So in other words, science would say that you Kieran are actually not doing a great cardio for fat burning during your exercise itself (assuming you really are at 70 to 85%).  Working harder burns more calories for sure, but it often comes at the expense of muscle.  Your body chooses to burn muscle rather than fat in that range. But all is not lost.

Note I’m saying “during the exercise itself” – what was missed in the early research in the 1980s and 1990s was the impact of different intensities of cardio on your overall metabolism.  Working harder  increases your metabolism so throughout the day, you burn more fat and overall calories. And you can mitigate the muscle loss by lifting weights and by adding carbs and protein before/during/shortly after your workouts.

Now, HIIT (see above question for more on HIIT) is supposedly designed to turbo charge your metabolism and has been shown to burn more fat overall because of the increase in metabolism (not during the exercise itself).  But HIIT is really hard to do. And most trainers I know don’t use HIIT for fat loss – they use it for conditioning and endurance capacity.  They use diet for fat loss.  And intense weight training.  You can’t forget to do your squats, deads, etc.! So we are left with regular interval training.

Sorry I’ve taken the long way here, but we are now at my answer:

If what you are doing now isn’t working for you (hence your question), I would definitely move two of your runs to intervals.  The Fartlek approach would be to just alternate between jogging and sprinting whenever you felt like it.  That flexibility makes it easy to do, but also easy to slack off!  I’d make it at least 20 minutes of alternating between periods at 80 to 90% intensity and periods at 30 to 40% (a shuffle).  I usually do what I call “inverted Tabata” so I sprint for 10 seconds, then shuffle for 20 seconds, then repeat for about 2 to 3 miles.  This is still intense but is easier to do than regular Tabata.  I do this after running steady state for about 4 miles.  But you’ll have to play around with what’s right for you.

9) Question – Andre asks: “My name is Andre, I’m glad that I subscribed at World Fitness Network, I find it to be one of the best website on natural bodybuilding, the scientific way and the one that really works.  Right now I’m confused on what program I should do to really acquire real results and let me give you my statistics for your convenience. My height is 5′8″, 174 lbs, my waist is 37″ I’ve been working out for a while, I follow a normal diet without supplements and my schedule is M-W-F, (Chest,Bicep,Abs)-(Shoulder-Tricep,Back)-(Legs) respectively, for 1 hr and sometimes I jog on weekends if it’s not raining. And I feel that there is no result on muscle gain but at least I lose a couple of pounds and improve my endurance. What can you guys suggest for my condition if I want to still lose weight (the optimal), reduce body fat and gain more lean muscle and still workout on a M-W-F schedule? thanks a lot…”

Answer: Hi Andre – you say you’ve been working out  “a while”, but I’m not sure if that means months or years.  Either way, I would trash your existing program, based simply on the names you’ve given them – if you have “biceps” or “triceps” in the names of your workout, that means you’ll focus there.  If you read this site regularly you’ll pick up on the fact that I don’t like “arms” exercises.  See my answer to Mohammed’s question above.

If you focus on your arms, you will not obtain your goals of an overall amazing physique.

You say you haven’t seen any muscle gain – well, if you focus on the big 3, or the big 7, you certainly will.  However, given your dimensions, you might not notice it visually for a while because you have some fat to burn.  At your stage, lifting heavy with compound exercises will simultaneously build muscle and strength while burning fat.  You also may see the scale stay about the same for a few weeks as muscle replaces fat.

The good news in your workout is that unlike most guys, you have “legs” in your workout – good for you!

As far as programs, I do write some programs but they are expensive.  I’d recommend just picking up The New Rules Of Lifting at amazon (it’s like $12 or something).  It has several beginner programs in there, plus lots of great advice.

10) Question – Joe asks: “Darrin, Some of the younger guys (late 20–30 yrs) that I work with have been doing this P90X program for about 6 weeks now and it appears to be working. Have you researched it and is it something a 55 yr old guy who has been serious about weight training for only 8 months could do?  I value your no non-sense, down to earth reality of training.  Thanks, Joe “

Answer: Hi Joe, yeah I hate those young guys!  Just about anything they do seems to appear to work, huh?  Just kidding of course (about the hating part)…

I don’t know much about the P90X program but it seems to rely on a concept called “muscle confusion”.  Fancy term, but it just means mixing up your workouts so that your muscles don’t plateau.

The program seems to be designed for a 90 day cycle – in my opinion, there usually isn’t too much plateauing happening in under 90 days for most people.  Heck, for most people in the beginner or even intermediate stage, it takes 1 to 2 weeks just to learn the proper form for a program, then another 1 to 2 weeks for them to get totally focused on it so that they aren’t wasting time between exercises (like trying to remember what comes next, or how much weight to use, etc.).  Then I’d expect a plateau somewhere around 6 to 12 weeks later.  So, in 90 days, the most I’d recommend someone changing their routine is once.

There is some advantage, I believe, in intermingling strength training, hypertrophy, and fat burning exercises all in the same program.  You basically do this by wildly varying the weight, reps, and rest periods all in the same workout.  But I get paid for that kind of program details, so I’ll have to leave you wanting…

Whether we are talking about this P90X or any other program, in general most programs will work if you stick to them and do them intensely.  There are some bad programs out there (if you see “arms days” in the program, run away).  But most are pretty good.  You don’t need to spend $200 on a program.  Usually $10 to $50 is going to get you just as good a program but without the hype.

Now the sad reality: you are older.  So you will have to work harder.  Your diet plays an even more important role.  But you can still see major results so don’t get disheartened that it takes  little longer than the young bucks!  It just requires a strong diet, a good mental game to stay focused, and maximum intensity during your workouts so you are really pushing your muscles. Start by getting your goals crystal clear.  Are you going for fat loss?  Hypertrophy (muscle size building)?  Strength training?  With only 8 months experience, you might be able to work on two of these at once, but still pick your primary goal. Then find a program that is designed for that.  And stick to it.  And if the program doesn’t come with a diet plan, our own 3 Months To a New You can get you started but then get either Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle or The Truth About Six Pack Abs .

Anyone have extra advice?  Did I get anything wrong
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Related posts:

1. Answers To Your Lean Muscle Questions – 2-16-09
2. You Don’t Need Steroids To Develop Lean Muscle
3. Science News For Building Lean Muscle – April 18 2009

Tags: diet, protein, Q&A, training