Part 3: Gaining Muscle without the Added Fat

Putting it all together

An overview of training & nutrition for lean muscle

Hey guys, so now we have an understanding about the speed at which we can gain lean muscle tissue, we know what we need to do with our training and to implement our nutrition. Things might seem complicated at first, but the simpler you keep things, the easier it will be to track and make progress. So always think ‘KISS’ Keep It Simple Stupid, get in a calorie surplus & train with progression in mind.

So lets re-cap what we looked at:
– The longer you have been training, the harder it is to gain muscle, and therefore the slower you should aim to add weight on the scale.
– Your workout programmes need to cover each rep range, to enable you to achieve every aspect of hypertrophy. The 6 – 10 rep range wants to be prioritised, and rep ranges can be periodised in multiple ways. Be sure to either progress the number of reps, sets or weight being used.
– To add weight you need to eat in a calorie surplus, make getting 1g per lean pound of bodyweight a priority, the amount of carbs and fat consumed is variable.

If you cover the three points above you’ll be doing everything right.

Some hurdles and how to overcome them:

‘However much I eat, I don’t seem to gain weight’ – My first question to this person would be is ‘are you tracking your calorie intake?’, likelihood is they’re not, and are not actually eating as much as they think. Yet, if you are tracking and are finding it hard to eat enough to grow there are some ways round this. Seek calorie dense foods; dried fruit, nuts, fatty meats & full fat dairy, use sauces, spreads & jams, blend your food, make calorie dense smoothies, have a protein shake with your meals, eat highly palatable foods. Essentially, you want to eat things that are easy to digest, nice to eat and calorie dense.

‘I was gaining weight, but now it’s stabilised’ – our metabolisms are not stable, they adapt to what we give them. So if you are now weighing more, you’ll take more calories to run, also our bodies are great at increasing our NEAT (non exercise activity thermogenesis), making the amount of calories burnt go up. Therefore, when your weight stable for an extended period you can be pretty sure you have hit a new maintenance, and you will have to eat more to gain weight once again.

‘I am not sure whether to continue gaining weight, or go for fat loss’ – This one is completely up to the individual, not comfortable with your current shape? Then do what makes you happy. Not bothered? Then continue as you are. However, I will add that if you are much over 15% body fat, but you want to gain more size still, you may want to introduce a ‘mini cut’. This in short is a fast, month long, fairly intense calorie deficit. Short enough not to impact our metabolisms, but long and harsh enough to drop a decent amount of fat.

So I hope you can now confidently go ahead and gain lean muscle tissue. Go on get jacked & strong in a healthy and sustainable manner! If you want more information or have any questions about what we have covered in this mini series, please feel free to contact me via email.