Muscle Gain Handbook Final PDF 46 4 Meg

BUILD YOUR PHYSIQUE WIth MYPHYSIQUE
Explosive Muscle Gain handbook

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This is the Explosive (Evidence-Based) Muscle Growth

Everything you need to know to (safely and
Handbook.

sustainably) build explosive amounts of muscle in the fast
It will provide you with everything you need to know in
amount of time
order to build as much muscle mass as quickly as possible,
without gaining an enormous amount of body fat, within
possible (without gaining an enormous amount of body fat)
the constraints of science.

It will help you better understand the process of building
muscle mass, minimizing body fat accumulation &
improving your body composition in both the short & long
term.

Better yet, it will offer an understanding of the
consequences of trying to build muscle too, how to
minimise body fat gain & provide you with strategies for
maintaining your conditioning whilst building muscle.
Whether you -
Have been training for years, but still feel ‘skinny’ and
don’t know what to do next ...
Are relatively new to lifting, and want to hit the ground
running in the most efficient way possible.
Want to just pack on a few extra pounds, to get the
cover model look, and leave people in no doubt that
you lift.
Aspire to bodybuilder or physique athlete status …
Or you’re just looking for safe, science-backed ways to
finally pack on mass while staying lean …
we've got it covered.
exlposive muscle gain handbook 2

This handbook is designed to give you more or less everything you could ever need to
build muscle efficiently, and minimizing the amount of body fat you gain in the
process.
There's 5 key areas of the book

1. Basics of Fat Loss
2. Advanced Fat Loss
3. Training Considerations
4. Supplement Considerations
5. Cardio
Everything you’re about to read is evidence-based, and follows the

current scientific literature as closely as possible. We don’t do
broscience.

We haven’t Included a myth-busting section, so it’s safe to say that if
you don’t read about something being helpful inside this book, then
chances are it isn’t going to accelerate your fat loss efforts further.

This text is the be all and end all when it comes to fast fat loss.

Anything you feel should have been covered, but perhaps hasn’t, will be
on our blog. You can see that here – there’s a tonne of free articles that
will dispel any further questions or topics not relating to building
muscle mass.
You’ll find a full list of references to appropriate studies at the end of the book.

Let’s do this.

the basics of muscle building
Part 1: Gaining weight vs gaining muscle
The best environment to build muscle, is one that involves a surplus of calories.

In order to gain weight (build muscle), you need to be in a calorie surplus.

This means you’re consuming more calories than you’re burning.

One thing to be clear on here, is that you burn calories through things other than training –
day to day activities,
eating food, walking the dog, performing mundane tasks at work, even sleeping – all burn
calories.

By doing this, your body has access to enough calories to cover your daily energy needs
(think day to day activities, living, breathing, working) in addition to building new lean muscle
tissue.

And yes, that does mean the best environment with which to build muscle, is one where
weight gain is involved.

Building muscle will likely involve some fat gain.

But it doesn’t mean in order to build muscle you need to get fat.

This is how all ‘muscle building diets’ work.

Whilst it isn’t impossible to build muscle without being in a surplus, it’s a very low-percentage
play, and there’s no scientifically backed method to achieve such a feat.

So, best to cover your bases, and ensure you’re eating enough calories to cover your energy
demands and then some, to support the process of building muscle.

Regardless of what foods you avoid, or what ones you eat, a calorie surplus has to be in place
for you to gain weight. If you aren’t gaining weight, then it’s highly unlikely you’re in a
position to build any muscle.

If you aren’t eating enough, then you likely aren’t growing. If you aren’t growing – you
guessed it, you likely aren’t eating enough calories.

with this in mind (from a muscle building perspective) it becomes far more important to
focus on the quantity of food (specifically the quantity of calories) you’re eating as opposed to
the quality of food you’re eating.
There’s obviously plenty of strong arguments for the quality of the foods you’re eating too –
but from a simple body composition standpoint, without considering health, performance,
mood, satiety (dietary & hunger ‘satisfaction’) etc -quantity is the most important thing when
it comes to weight gain & building muscle. These all burn calories.

Part 1: gaining weight vs gaining muscle
Here’s the kicker though – gaining weight doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll build muscle.

At times, unfortunately, weight gain can mean fat gain too, which is why we want to pay attention
to where the calories we consume are actually coming from (in addition to the type of training
we’re doing).

The total calories you’re eating will ultimately dictate whether or not you lose, gain or maintain
your body weight – but where those calories come from (in terms of the specific fuel source they
originate from) will largely dictate whether you have the opportunity to gain weight and build
muscle, or simply gain weight in the form of body fat.

Enter macronutrients.

Macronutrients, or macros, are the nutrients our bodies need in large amounts.

There are three of them - protein, fats (dietary fats) & carbohydrates.

You’ve probably heard of them.

Protein is responsible for tissue growth & repair – as you can probably imagine, this is pretty
important when it comes to building & maintaining muscle. It also plays a pretty key role in satiety
– feeling full when dieting.

Dietary fats play a number of roles within the body – we need it for brain health, proper hormone
function, absorption of vitamins & minerals, joint & ligament health in addition to the provision of
energy. There are a bunch of different kinds, but we’ll get into that later.

Carbs are essentially energy – both in immediate & stored form. For the most part, we need them
to perform in the gym, carry out day to day activities, support digestive health & think clearly.
They’re also responsible for those sessions that give you an outrageous pump.

Protein contains 4 calories per gram. So too do carbs.

1 gram of protein contains 4 calories. 1 gram of carbs contains 4 calories.

Fat is more calorie dense – it contains 9 calories per gram.

1 gram of fat contains 9 calories.
Understanding these key concepts will set you free from rigid dietary guidelines, boring meal
plans & the notion that following a diet of sorts needs to be difficult, or that you need to suffer or
eat bland meals in order to build quality muscle mass.

Remember, gaining weight doesn’t necessarily mean building muscle.

However, understanding that we can consume calories in the form of protein, that we can
consume calories in the form of fats & that we can consume calories in the form of carbs means
we can now look to focus more on what we really want to do – build muscle and minimize body
fat gain.

Part 2: Calories
If you consume more calories than you
burn, you’re going to gain weight.

Regardless of where those calories come
from (remember – they can come from
protein, fats or carbs), if you’re consuming
more calories than you’re burning, you will
gain weight.

That’s right – it doesn’t matter where those
calories come from.

If you’re not consuming enough calories
(for what you’re burning) then you won’t
be able to gain weight.

Whether you eat 3000 calories from
chicken breast, pizza, pop tarts or brocolli, if
you’re burning 3500 calories a day, you’re
not going to gain weight – in fact, you’ll
lose it.

You will not gain weight if you’re eating
3000 calories per day, and burning 3500
calories per day.

In fact, you’ll lose weight – at a reasonable
rate.

Understanding the calorie content of food
opens you up to the idea that realistically
there is no such thing as good foods or bad
foods when it comes to gaining weight and
building muscle – there are simply calorie
dense ones and ones that aren’t so calorie
dense.

Sure, some of these foods contain a lot of
vitamins & minerals, some foods contain
more fibre (more on that later) than others,
and overall are much ‘healthier’ than
others which is important when you
consider your health & body composition
on a broader scale.

Part 2: Calories
But – and this is a big BUT – when it comes to body composition, your body processes
what comes in & what goes out.

It doesn’t discriminate.

Your body doesn’t store burgers as body fat & turn chicken breast into muscle. It sees
the first as a glorious combination of some protein, a reasonable amount of fats &
perhaps some carbs, whilst the latter is more or less just some protein.

The burger would more than likely contain more total calories than a chicken breast –
unless it was a very small burger – but if you’re aware of how many calories you need to
be eating in order to gain weight and build muscle, and the amount of calories in said
burger didn’t exceed that number, then you could eat the burger and still gain weight
in an optimal manner.

Remember though, whilst gaining weight doesn’t necessarily mean building muscle,
this is the basic premise from which we can build on in order to effectively understand
how to build muscle & minimize body fat gain.

Now – choosing to eat a burger that might contain a decent percentage of your daily
calorie intake might mean you have to make some less enjoyable decisions in regards
to your food consumption later in the day, however understanding the caloric value of
food will give you the opportunity to truly understand the consequences of the food
choices you make.

On the other side of the coin, if you need a reasonable amount of calories each day to
ensure you’re eating at a calorie surplus, perhaps eating foods that are more calorie
dense such as that burger might make more sense and actually make your life easier in
regards to consistently eating enough calories each day.

Mind-blowing.

So – how do you figure out how many calories you need to gain weight?

There’s no black and white answer to that.

In fact, even most macro calculators can only give you a relatively rough estimate.

However, some of the more extensive macro calculators which ask more detailed
questions surrounding diet history, lifestyle, activity levels & personal preferences can be
very accurate.

If you have time to run through one of these, it comes highly recommended. It will give
you a far more accurate calorie figure than the graph on the next page With that said,
the graph one the next page will give you a very quick way of understanding how you
might go about calculating your maintenance calorie intake – the amount of calories
you’d need to eat in order to maintain your weight. From there, it’s as simple as
increasing that number somewhat in order to begin the weight gain process.

Part 2: Calories
Males Females
Low Weekly Multiply bodyweight Low Weekly Multiply bodyweight
Activity Levels (lbs) x 14 Activity Levels (lbs) x 12
Moderate Weekly Multiply bodyweight Moderate Weekly Multiply bodyweight

Demanding Weekly Multiply bodyweight Demanding Weekly Multiply bodyweight

*if you typically measure your weight in kilograms, multiply that number by 2.2 to
establish your body weight in pounds.
This will give you a very rough starting point for what your maintenance level
calorie intake might be. Simply increase your calories from there & you can begin
gaining weight.

As an example, Steve, a 200lb male with moderate weekly activity levels might
maintain his weight on 3000 calories (200 x 15). If he wanted to gain weight and
build muscle, he might add 500 calories to that number.

Alternatively, if you’re the sort of person that doesn’t like to do things by halves,
and would prefer to get the most accurate calculation possible, you can run
through the Physique Quiz on the MyPhysique website. This will calculate not
only your daily calorie requirements for building muscle specifically, but also
calculate your individual macronutrient requirements, which we’re about to
discuss a little further.

Part 3: protein
We know that you need to be consuming
more calories than you’re burning in order to
gain weight & build muscle.

We also know that protein contains calories.

Better yet, how much protein is important for
tissue growth and repair, which comes in
pretty handy when it comes to building and
retaining muscle mass.

With this in mind, it makes sense that we want
to ensure we’re allocating a certain number of
those calories that we need to be eating each
day to the process of building muscle mass.

Nobody wants to get bigger and fatter – eating
enough protein whilst consuming more
calories than you burn is a key component of
ensuring this doesn’t happen and that you’re
able to minimize the amount of body fat you
gain whilst building muscle.

Now we’re starting to talk about more than
just weight gain – we’re talking about building
explosive amounts of muscle.

So – how do you figure out how many calories
you need to consume from protein?

We reverse engineer this from your total
calorie intake.

Or rather, how much protein should you be
eating each day in order to have every
opportunity to build muscle mass & minimise
body fat gain?

Again, there’s no black & white answer to that,
and again, most macro calculators can only
give you a rough estimate.

Government recommendations surrounding
protein intake are abominably low - if you’re
interested in building a lean & muscular
physique then the recommendations in this
section fall more in line with the latest
research.

PART 3: PROTEIN
Some of the more extensive macro calculators which ask more detailed questions
surrounding diet history, lifestyle, activity levels & personal preferences can be very
accurate in determining exactly how much protein you should be looking to consume,
so if you can find one of those, it will likely give you a far more accurate suggestion.

The graph below will give you a very quick way of understanding how you might
go about calculating your daily protein requirement – the amount of protein
you’d want to eat in order to build muscle mass whilst minimizing the amount
of body fat you gain.
Males & Females
Less Muscle Mass Multiply bodyweight

Than Average (lbs) x .09
Multiply bodyweight
Average Muscle Mass
(lbs) x 1
More Muscle Mass Multiply bodyweight

Than Average (lbs) x 1.1
This will give you a very rough idea of what your daily protein requirement might be.
Steve would look to consume around 200g of protein per day.

Remember, protein contains 4 calories per gram, so that 200g of protein would then
account for 800 calories worth of Steve’s 3500 calorie intake.

Alternatively, if you’re the sort of person that doesn’t like to do things by halves, and
would prefer to get the most accurate protein, fat & carb calculations possible, you
can run through the Physique Quiz on theMyPhysique website. This will calculate
not only your daily calorie requirements for fat loss specifically, but also calculate
your individual protein, fat & carb requirements in the most accurate fashion
possible.

Part 4: Fats and carbs
We know that you need to be consuming more calories than you’re burning to gain
weight and build muscle.

We’ve also discussed that the body doesn’t discriminate, and so long as you’re genuinely
consuming more calories than you’re burning, there’s no need to buy into the notion
that you can’t eat carbs, or fats, or certain foods, or all of the above.

We’ve figured out how many calories you need to gain weight and build muscle.

We’ve figured out how much protein you should be looking to consume in order to build
muscle mass whilst minimizing body fat gain, and how many calories that protein will
account for.

That now means that the remaining calories you have leftover can be used for fats &
carbs.

So, how much of each should you be consuming?

You guessed it – again there’s no black & white answer to that question.

However, this time around, the main determinant of how much of each of these you
should be eating in order to consume your daily calorie intake, is personal preference.

There is one small condition – as fats are vital for bodily processes & functions, you’ll be
hard pressed to find any literature that recommends you consume below 0.3g of fat per
pound of body weight.

That basically means Steve should be consuming at least 60g of dietary fa t per day (200
x 0.3).

If he were to do so, that 60g of fat would account for 540 calories. Remember, 1g of fat
contains 9 calories. Consequently, this would leave him with 2160 calories for carbs [3500
– (800 + 540)].

As we’re aware, carbs also contain 4 calories per gram. 1 gram of carbs contains 4 calories,
which means 2160 calories would allow 540g of carbs (2160 / 4).

Again – there’s room for personal preference here, so if Steve decided that 60g of fat was
simply too low considering how many calories were leftover for carbs, he could eat more
of his calories from fat, which would ultimately leave him with less calories leftover for
carbs, but this will come down to the sorts of
foods you like to eat.

Instead, he could consider eating 90g of fat per day, which would account for 810 calories
and leave 1890 calories for carbs. That means he would have macros of 200P/ 90F/ 472C.

Again, this falls largely in line with personal preference.
Remember – gaining weight and building muscle is all about consuming more calories
than you’re burning, regardless of where those calories come from.

If there are certain types of foods you really like to eat, then you have the power to tailor
your macros to your personal preferences. Simply reverse engineer your protein, fat &
carb requirements from your calorie
requirements & eat the foods you love in the appropriate quantities to satisfy your daily
macro & hence calorie targets.

With a little math, the world really can be your oyster, or your burger, or your pizza. If
you’re looking to minimise the guesswork & the calculations, then run through the
Physique Quiz on the MyPhysique website – the extensive
questionnaire will provide you with the most accurate calorie & macronutrient
calculations for your body and your goals, and then give you the opportunity to play
around with them easily inside the Dashboard. There’s no
need for any sums or equations, you can simply play with the designated nutrition
sliders, and change your fat & carb intakes easily until you end up with something that
best suits your dietary preferences.

building muscle
(the more advanced stuff)
We’ve run through how to gain weight.

We’ve even covered how to build muscle
mass whilst minimising body fat gain so
that you end up with a lean and
muscular physique.

Adhere to the principles covered over
the last several pages & you’ll chase
down a lean & muscular physique in no
time. This section is going to take things
a step further.

This is the section that will help you build
as much muscle as possible, as quickly
as possible, whilst minimising the
amount of body fat you gain during the
process, according to the current
scientific literature.

This is how to go from ‘good’, to ‘great’.
From ‘results’, to ‘mind-blowing results’.

The underlying principles of weight gain
and building muscle don’t change – but
there are a number of other variables we
want to consider whilst satisfying the
caloric equation we’ve already discussed
in detail in order to step it up a gear.

Part 1: food choices
We’ve discussed how quantity (the amount of calories you’re consuming) is more important than quality
(which specific foods those calories are coming from), but food choices do matter, especially when you
consider dietary compliance, hunger, performance in the gym, energy, mood, & doing everything you can
be doing to chase down the fastest results possible.

There are no ‘good’ or ‘bad’ foods, but it’s fairly easy to understand that some foods are going to be far
more beneficial from muscle building and health perspective than others, whilst some will do a better job
at energising you for your workouts, giving you enough fibre to go to the bathroom regularly or filling you
up in a more satisfactory manner. Some will contain more nutrients, others more calories, complex carbs
or a leaner source of protein.

When it comes to choosing foods to fill your daily calorie & macro allowance, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to
find foods that do all of the following:
Taste delicious
Contain very few calories
Contain a lot of food volume
Contain adequate fibre
Provide both immediate and longer term energy
It’s unlikely anybody is under the illusion that candy is a ‘healthier’ option than an apple. In reality, it is the
context of these foods within an overall diet, rather than the individual nutritional make-up of each of
these food items that is of the most importance when it comes to choosing which might make the most
sense, more of the time.

From a nutritional perspective, both foods contain carbs with very little fats or protein. But the apple is
going to have vitamins, minerals and some fibre, while the candy will have sugar and little else.

If you ate 200 calories of apple, and 200 calories of candy, what would the result be in your body
composition?

Answer - exactly the same
Yep, despite the wider perception of an apple being ‘healthy’, and the candy ‘unhealthy’, as we’ve
discussed already, calories are the primary driver in what happens to your body. Especially when you
consider both these foods are carb-based, with virtually zero fat or protein, there’d be no difference in how
they affected you. The same perhaps couldn’t be said if the nutritional make-up of each food was different
– if one contained protein and the other didn’t, for example.

Here’s where things do get different though -

Because the apple has more fibre, it will likely keep you feeling fuller. Fibre slows digestion, essentially
keeping anything you eat in your digestive system for longer, whilst also being known for preventing
against certain diseases, some cancers, and keeping you regular – as in regularly being able to take a
number two.

Candy? Not so much. It would no doubt offer some shorter term energy, but it likely wouldn’t fill you up in
the same way as an apple would, because, after all, you’ll likely get a much larger volume of food with the
apple.

200 calories might be one massive apple, or a couple of smaller ones. Whereas 200 calories of candy may
only be 60 grams (a small handful) of food.

Finally, the apple would win in terms of health benefits. The vitamins and minerals it has far outweigh
those in the candy, which would have virtually zero vitamin and minerals.
So in these respects, the apple might be ‘better’. It’s just in terms of weight loss and weight gain, they’re
more or less the same, which means if you’re really struggling with a craving for some junk food, provided
you’re accounting for the nutritional breakdown of said junk food and consuming it within the broader
context of your diet (whilst still hitting your daily macronutrient requirements), there’s actually no need to
worry about breaking your diet, or having to avoid some of your favourite foods.
Arguably the greatest benefit involved with tracking your macros & understanding what is in the foods
you’re eating, is that you can begin to truly understand the consequences of your food choices within the
broader sense of your diet.

Part 1: food choices

The general understanding of ‘moderation’ is one that’s vastly misunderstood by the majority of the
population – but with flexible dieting and macro-tracking you have a genuine opportunity to practice true
moderation.

Burgers are great – but when you’re eating in a calorie deficit & struggling to consistently avoid hunger
pains, dedicating 2/3rds of your entire daily macro/ calorie allowance to one food item might not make
much sense. On other days – perhaps days you set a world record for the longest ever sleep in – it might
make some sense. If you’re eating in a calorie surplus in order to build muscle, then it’s likely you’re eating
more calories than the average person eating for fat loss, so perhaps you’ll have more calories at your
disposal on any given day and some more calorie-expensive foods can become a more regular ‘thing’.

Tracking your intake and understanding what is in the foods you’re eating gives you the opportunity to
make an educated decision as to whether or not any given food item is ‘worth’ fitting into your day – and
that is the true beauty of flexible dieting.

When it comes to building muscle, here are the MyPhysique recommendations in terms of how to go about
prioritising the foods you choose in hitting your daily calories and macros to ensure you succeed in building
as much muscle as possible whilst minimizing the amount of body fat you gain in the process.
1. Hunger – arguably the biggest challenge faced by those dieting for fat loss. On the other end of the
spectrum, when eating for muscle gain, it’s likely that in time, your hunger will begin to diminish. It makes
sense – you’re essentially over-eating consistently in a controlled fashion. When it comes to planning your
day or creating a meal plan around your daily calorie and macronutrient targets, if you don’t think about the
fact that hunger is unlikely to feature, then you might end up making your life more difficult than it needs to
be. What does that mean? Eating at a consistent calorie surplus can prove to be difficult – and for some it
might involve a lot of calories – which means at some point or another, it might make sense to consider
more calorie dense food items in order to avoid eating foods with a great deal of volume. Take a green
salad for instance – you could create one the size of your body using several bags of spinach leaves,
lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, carrot – all of which contain very few calories. This would likely fill you up
without making much of a dent in your daily calorie allowance at all. If you’re already not very hungry, this
won’t make much sense, so whilst it’s important to get enough ‘healthy stuff’ into your day, you probably
want to avoid volume foods that will make overcoming a lack of hunger even more difficult.
2. Satiety – this ties in with the above, but it’s also going to help to consume foods that don’t leave you
feeling overly satisfied, particularly if you’re finding you no longer have much left in the way of hunger. If
you’ve just begun eating at calorie surplus and still have reasonable levels of hunger, then it will be more
important to consider eating foods that do leave you feeling more satisfied than not, so that you can better
adhere to your calorie and macro targets without over-shooting and risk excessive weight/ fat gain. Lean
proteins, starchy carbs & leafy greens will likely leave you feeling quite satisfied – and ultimately perhaps this
is why ‘clean foods’ seemed to become so popular – in addition to being relatively low in calories for the food
volume they offer (more important for when you’ve just begin eating at a calorie surplus or when dieting for
fat loss). Considering you’re likely eating more calories than when you’re looking to lose fat and preserve
muscle mass, it’s probably worth noting that there’s not necessarily any need to stick to leaner meats, more
complex carbs & green vegetables rather than fatty cuts of meat, simple sugars & starchy vegetables for
both their satiating properties and higher food volume, because you’ve got more calories to play with.
3. Fibre – very important in the overall context of your diet. Not getting enough of this will likely mean you
never feel full enough to be able to stick to your diet for a long period of time, whilst getting too much of
this could leave you backed up for days & overly bloated for a significant period of time. Aim for around 8-12g
of fibre for every 1000 calories you consume, and understand that by eating more you’re likely to ‘feel’ fuller
but may also experience more bloating. When eating at a calorie surplus, this is more likely to happen, as
naturally you’ll be eating more. Slow down the digestion of ‘more’ food, and naturally, things will stay in your
system for even longer as they wait to be digested. Keep this in mind – bloating is often a temporary state
and not weight gain. Keep this consistent and you’ll minimise any fibre-induced weight fluctuations which
could lead to premature changes or reductions to your calories.
4. Carbs – there are three different types of carbs. Fibrous (as discussed above), simple & complex. Simple
are great for short term bursts of energy – before you train for instance. Typically these are in the form of
higher calorie, lower volume foods, which means they may induce more hunger than the more complex
variety which are likely to provide you with a more sustained energy release. Pros and cons for both, but
ultimately the deeper into a muscle building diet you get, the more you’ll be able to prioritise higher GI
carbs should you wish to minimize any challenges associated with a lack of hunger, whilst ensuring you still
consume some lower GI carbs to ensure your mood and energy levels don’t drop as a consequence of an
earlier sugar high and continue to hit your macros by being more satiated.

Part 2: carb cycling, cheat meals
and re-feeds
You’ve probably heard all three of these terms, and probably know more or less
what they mean, too. But let’s run through each, as they’re not always what they
seem.

Carb Cycling:
Carb cycling involves changing the amount of carbohydrate (and often the
number of calories) you eat on a daily basis, usually around your training days and
rest days, or to better fall in line with your personal preferences in a bid to improve
your lifestyle.

It’s been hailed as some kind of fat loss god, or this incredible dieting tactic that
has super-powers when it comes to burning fat. In all honesty though, the
benefits are likely non-existent in terms of extra fat loss, and can play a part in
regards to building muscle, however the main advantage is more associated
with lifestyle related factors and personal preference.

Carb cycling is only viable for muscle building purposes should you be able to
maintain a calorie surplus over the course of the week or month – so whilst having
more calories on some days sounds great, it’s important to understand that this
will only be able to occur as a consequence of removing some calories from other
days, whilst maintaining a calorie surplus.
Again, this doesn’t offer anything in the way of extra muscle built, but you might
find personally that having the opportunity to eat less for a few days before being
able to eat more allows you to adhere to a calorie surplus for a longer period of
time, or do so in a fashion that better suits the way your lifestyle or schedule is
structured. Not to mention, the opportunity to eat more on some days also opens
you to the possibility of being able to eat some foods on these days that simply
might not be possible were you eating the same amount of calories every day.

There’s an argument for increasing your calories on some of your heavier or more
demanding training days, but ultimately dietary compliance is the most
important aspect of building muscle in the long term, so your best bet will be to
incorporate carb cycling only if you feel it will benefit you and in a manner that is
most convenient to you, your lifestyle and your routine.

If you want to try carb cycling, you could try reducing your daily carbs by 20-40%
and adding these on to one or two days in the week that you wish to eat more.

If you typically eat 200g of carbs per day for instance, and wish to have two higher
carb days per week, you could reduce your carbs by 50g (25%) which leaves you
with 350g extra to spread over those one or two higher carb days.

Remember, carb cycling is only viable for building muscle should you be able to
maintain a calorie surplus whilst implementing it, and in all honesty, it’s likely to
play a much more prominent role when your goal is to lose fat rather than to
build muscle.

If you’re looking to give this a try and want a fail-proof way of figuring it out, the
MyPhysique Coaching Platform gives you full control over your intake. Once it has
calculated your calories and macros, you’ll have the opportunity to select
whichever days in the week you like that you want to eat more on, and use the
sliding scale to increase the calories on only those days. The slider tool will
automatically readjust the calories and macros on each day as you move it,
making difficult sums and equations a thing of the past. Plus if you like, you’ll be
able to play around with this as frequently as you like, meaning if you end up over-
eating or dining out in an unplanned fashion, you can quickly revise the rest of
your week to account for it. Building muscle made super simple.

Part 2: carb cycling, cheat meals and re-feeds
Re-Feeds

Re-feeds are another term for the higher carb days within a carb-cycle. It’s as
easy as that. Same principles apply as far as removing the calories/ carbs from
some days & pushing these onto others.

Again – incorporating refeeds is only viable for building muscle provided you
maintain a calorie surplus whilst implementing them.

Cheat Meals

Probably the fastest way to undo a week’s worth of progress in around 30
minutes.

When it comes to gaining weight, building muscle and minimizing the amount
of body fat you gain as a consequence, as we’ve discussed several times, it is
imperative to maintain a controlled calorie surplus. What needs to be understood
when having a cheat meal, is that by doing so, you’re relinquishing control of
what you’ve been working so hard to maintain. By having a cheat meal, or a meal
that you aren’t tracking or accounting for, you no longer know how many calories
you’re consuming, or how many calories you’re over or under-eating by.

If you’ve worked hard to maintain a calorie surplus of, say, 2000 calories by the
end of the week, and destroy a two pizza cheat meal in the one sitting on top of a
day of food, there’s every chance you’ve just created a much larger calorie surplus
than you originally intended, and consequently will likely see a much faster rate
of weight gain – that’s likely to mean you gain more body fat than you want to.

The reality is, there’s no black and white around this – one off day could derail a
week’s worth of progress, or it could derail a whole month’s worth – because
whilst you may not be counting the calories you’re consuming, your body is.

By all means, have a cheat meal if you are:

Happy to forego the ability to KNOW what you’re eating
Happy to risk gaining excessive amounts of weight during a muscle building
phase
Happy to risk not gaining any weight at all and hence building no muscle
during a muscle building phase
OK with the idea that you’re leaving your muscle building efforts to chance

But if you’re looking to gain weight and build muscle consistently, give these a
miss.

Instead, look to either fit whatever it is you want to have in your cheat meal into
your daily/ weekly calorie & macro requirements, OR go without in order to better
adhere to your diet. When it comes to your priority list, if building muscle and
maintaining a consistent yet controlled calorie surplus is up the top, then cheat
meals should probably be down the bottom.

part 3: meal timing
The frequency with which you eat is far less important than the total calories you consume – we’ve
already discussed this – but it can impact your overall dietary enjoyment, adherence and ability to
build muscle mass in a pretty dramatic manner.

By meal timing (or meal frequency) we’re referring to when you eat your meals, which will also likely
impact the size of each of them. In reality, it doesn’t matter whether you eat 3 meals per day, 6 meals
per day, or prefer to intermittent fast & eat one gigantic meal per day in hitting your daily calorie and
macro targets – the most important thing is that you hit those daily calorie and macro targets in
order to continue gaining weight & building muscle (provided those calories/ macros have you
eating at a calorie surplus).

It was long thought that the more frequently you ate (i.e. eating smaller, more frequent meals
throughout the day) contributed to more fat loss & a leaner physique due to the increased calorie
burn from digestion (or rather, the 'thermic effect of food'). Science tells us this is actually not correct
– instead, the calorie burn associated with digesting a meal is directly proportionate to the amount
of calories you’re consuming.

Basically, that means whether you eat 1 x 2000 calorie meal or 10 x 200 calorie meals, you’re going to
burn the same amount of calories through the digestion process.

So, let’s get rid of that idea – not that it really relates to building muscle, anyway.

Plus, every time we eat, the hunger hormone (ghrelin) is produced. It’s produced every time we eat,
which basically means the more frequently we eat, the more frequently our hormones are telling us
we’re hungry.

Now, this actually might make sense if you’re looking to gain weight and build muscle and are
having to eat quite a lot of calories in order to do so – eating at a consistent calorie surplus is likely to
cause a reduction in hunger over time, so this is something to consider when that happens, as
eating more frequently might help stimulate your appetite further.
So, a few things to keep in mind:

1. Eating more frequently, will likely mean you produce more of the hunger hormone, and
consequently you’ll also be able to eat smaller, perhaps more calorie dense meals, which will better
satisfy your calorie and macro targets without making you feel so full you can’t bear the thought of
food, however the reverse is also true. 2400 calories could be 4 x 600 calorie meals which would
likely satisfy far more than 6 x 400 calorie meals – it really comes down to whether or not you want
or need to feel full from your meals, or need every trick in the book in order to better adhere to your
diet.
2. As far as building muscle mass is concerned, more frequent protein feedings makes more sense.
Muscle is difficult to build & maintain, so consuming your daily protein evenly over the course of
each of your meals will give you an opportunity to maintain more muscle mass than an intermittent
fasting style protocol might allow you to. Not to mention, that eating only one meal whilst
maintaining a calorie surplus might prove to be very difficult.
3. As a sub-heading to the above, we need roughly 30-35g of protein in a meal to elicit muscle
protein synthesis, which is essentially the process of building/ maintaining muscle mass. This might
help you establish how many meals over the course of the day you might be able to evenly split your
protein up into. For instance, if you’re a small human and only consuming around 120g of protein per
day, it likely won’t make a lot of sense to eat more than 4 meals per day from the perspective of
building muscle mass. We need a surplus of calories to build muscle, but if we aren’t consuming
enough protein to support lean tissue growth and repair, we’ll have a hard time doing it.
4. Eating every few hours will likely give you far more even energy levels over the course of the day
than eating sporadically will. Naturally, a steady stream of ‘nutrients’ will mean you constantly have
energy coming in throughout the day. Might not always be possible, but it will be the best way to
maintain your mood & energy levels throughout the day, and you’ll likely find that your training
intensity and performance in the gym skyrockets if you can do so whilst maintaining a calorie
surplus (constant energy on tap).
5. Personal preference and convenience is very important here. Whilst building muscle mass is
important, it doesn’t make sense to try and commit to a routine that you won’t be able to sustain. It
might make more sense to eat 4-5 meals per day to ensure you consume adequate protein every
few hours, but if your work schedule doesn’t allow this, then creating something that is more in tune
with your day to day so you can stick to it will make much more sense.
6. Intermittent Fasting – whilst not the most brilliant way to build muscle (eating only once per
day severely limits your opportunity for regular protein consumption, not to mention how difficult it
would make it to consume an entire day’s worth of protein in one meal), it might be superior to
other eating protocols if it better allows you to adhere to your calorie intake. Adherence is king, so if
this allows you to assume your position on the throne, it’s a seriously acceptable consideration.
The amount of meals you consume each day is less important than hitting your daily calorie and
macro targets whilst maintaining a calorie surplus. This section of advanced muscle building is only
something you should consider provided hitting your daily calorie and macro targets is no longer a
challenge in itself, as eating more 4-5 meals instead of 1 big meal won’t build any muscle at all if
you’re eating too few calories to maintain a calorie surplus.
Remember, hitting your daily calories and macros whilst maintaining a calorie surplus is what will
dictate whether or not you gain weight and build muscle – everything else is academic (you won’t
build any muscle) if you aren’t doing that in the first place.

part 4: tracking
Nobody hits their daily calories and macros without tracking their food.

Anybody that wants to argue with that is more than welcome to physically fight our entire team.

It doesn’t matter how accurately you ‘think’ you can keep track of the food you’re eating – even if
you have been tracking your intake for an extended period of time, there’s no way in hell you’ll
be able to keep a constant eye on every single calorie in every bit of food you’re consuming
without tracking it, particularly when you consider most foods contain at least trace elements of
all three macros.

Don’t even bother trying if you want to make consistent progress – the less control you have over
your intake, the less control you’ll have over your body composition, and when it comes to
advanced muscle building, that isn’t going to
cut it.

MyFitnessPal seems to be the go-to app for the majority of the fitness industry, and certainly the
one MyPhysique recommends. Essentially a running food diary, it automatically keeps track of
every calorie you consume, and gives you a running tally for the total nutrition in the foods
you’ve eaten as you log them inside the app.

There are other apps available should you not vibe with MFP – but MFP is the OG.

There are two ways to go about tracking your intake. One of those tends to breed success, whilst
the other leaves you open to regret, sadness and possibly even an afternoon of egg whites &
broccoli, even if you are eating a lot of calories.

·
Tracking In Advance

Easily the most logical option. If you’re going to be tracking your intake, there’s no better way to
take full advantage of your calorie intake and ensure you’re able to get as close as possible to
your calorie and macro targets than by planning your entire day of eating (or week if that’s your
thing) in advance.

Think about what it is you want to eat for that day, log it all in MFP or similar, and then adjust the
quantities of each of those food items if need be in order to get to within 2-5g of each of your
macro targets. Simple.

This method will give you the opportunity to truly understand the caloric consequences of the
food choices you’re making. No food is inherently bad, but if it accounts for the majority of your
calories/ macros on any given day and leads you to over-eating or failing to actually hit your
calories/ macros for the day – there’s probably a better food choice to be made at that time.

If you want to maintain a consistent calorie surplus, this is a must. There’ll be no opportunities for
over or under-eating provided you stick to the plan you create for yourself by logging in advance
& should you enter your entire day of food and be drastically off the mark as far as actually
hitting your daily calories and macros are concerned, you’ve not yet started eating and can revise
any or all of your meals for that day.

Furthermore if you log your day and in hindsight you feel you’ll have to eat far too much actual
food in order to hit your daily calories and macros, you can always change any of the foods for
more calorie dense options in order to reduce the amount of food volume involved with hitting
your targets. This is obviously more difficult to do if you’ve already begun eating (and haven’t
tried to log your day in advance).

Tracking As You Go

More viable when you’re eating more calories as you’re likely doing when eating in a calorie
surplus, but this is still a rookie move. Particularly if you’re eating foods before you actually log
them. Remember the idea of truly understanding the caloric consequences of the food choices
you’re making? Well, this method is accepting the consequences without even understanding
what they are.

Get a super craving for a donut & down it in the blink of an eye? You’ll potentially torch up to 300
calories & then realise once you log it afterwards that you now can’t eat a reasonable meal for
dinner, because you haven’t got enough fat & carbs left over. Perhaps less likely when eating in a
calorie surplus, but still very possible.

Even if you do track something before you eat it, yet only track it at the time of said meal,
chances are you’re not going to be able to take true advantage of your daily calorie intake, and if
keeping hunger at bay is important despite maintaining a calorie surplus, it’s probably not the
best option.

Chicken breast, baked pumpkin, sugar free barbecue sauce & broccoli might seem like a good
idea and fit easily into your macros, but if this fills you up considerably and leaves you with plenty
of calories still to eat, then it perhaps might have been wiser to switch that chicken breast for
chicken thigh, the pumpkin for sweet potato, the sugar free barbecue sauce for gravy & the
broccoli for peas. That way, you’d end up eating anywhere from 30-50% more calories simply by
changing a few of the food sources within that meal, leaving you with less calories to consume
later in the day.

part 4: tracking
So - how best to track your food?
Essentially, as if it were an ingredients list. Weigh the items you’re planning to eat, or
use the standard serving size on the packet and log it into your MFP app. Pretty easy
to do, particularly if you’re a creature of habit as most of us are and end up eating
similar things each day.

If you’re eating out, try to do something similar – break down the food you’re eating
by the ingredients that are in it & take your best guess as to the size/ weight of each
of them. You’ll get better at doing this over time.
Alternatively, search the extensive food database in your food tracking app for a
similar meal, and choose that. Chances are it will put you in the ballpark, and that will
be far more beneficial than throwing caution to the wind and not tracking at all.

Just keep in mind – the more you eat out, the more control you’re relinquishing over
your intake. The chef cooking your food at whatever restaurant you’re eating at
doesn’t care for your calorie or macro targets – he simply wants to cook you tasty food
that will keep you coming back, and the reality is he won’t hold back when it comes
to the possibility of extra calories for extra flavor – think cooking oils, sauces, butters,
etc.

Ultimately, your ability to consistently track & hit your daily calorie/ macro
requirements is what will feed you the appropriate information required to make an
educated decision regarding the progress you’re making.

Adhering to your diet is essential if you’re wanting to build muscle – because it will let
you build muscle or it will educate you on what needs to change in order for that to
happen.

The MyPhysique Platform asks each of their users to check-in each week for this very
reason. The more feedback and data it can collect from a user, the more educated
the decision it can make regarding any necessary changes that might need to be
made.

Then, using the data collected on any given week, necessary changes will be applied
to a users daily calorie and macro targets to ensure they continue building muscle at
the desired rate – there are three muscle building settings to choose from – all the
user then has to do is continue hitting their macros.

Choose your goal, hit your daily calories and macros and the MyPhysique Dashboard
will make any necessary changes as the weeks go by to ensure you continue building
muscle at the rate you want. It’s that simple. Have you fired your coach yet?

Part 5: Plateaus
This section goes hand in hand with progress tracking – because if you aren’t actively
tracking your progress, you aren’t even going to be aware that you’re no longer making
progress and building muscle.

Plateaus are going to happen. Period.

Even if you’re super diligent with hitting your daily calories and macros, track every single
ounce of food that enters your mouth, and have monk-like discipline, you’re not going to
build muscle in a linear fashion forever.

It would be nice if it weren’t the case, but that’s the reality.

As you get bigger and heavier (more muscle mass), the number of calories you burn per day
increases. If you burn more calories, you’ll need to eat even more calories in order to maintain
the calorie surplus you’re in, or else it will
gradually become smaller and smaller, leading to more gradual weight gain and at times no
more weight gain at all.

Now, everybody is different.

Some people might plateau more regularly than others, whereas some won’t require as
many changes to their intake over the lifetime of their diet as others. There’s not much you
can do about that, but what you can do, is ensure that you keep accurate records of your
progress so that you can continue to make educated decisions about necessary changes
that might need to be made to your routine.

There are three main ways that we’d recommend you judge your progress -
1. Scale weight.
2. Measurements (Waist, hips, thighs, arms, calves, chest/back etc)
3. Progress pictures.
While the majority of the recommendations are based on bodyweight, you can also bear the
other two in mind. Ultimately, the more data you collect throughout your muscle building
journey, the more information you’ll have to make an educated decision surrounding any
necessary changes that might need to be made.

It is for this reason the MyPhysique Dashboard contains an extensive Progress Tracker
section, which stores every bit of data and photograph you ever submit to the platform in
one easy to manage, read & digest place. You’ll be able to store each of your check-ins and
track them against your calorie intake, track compliance, weekly progress photos, and view
each of these in table & graph form to better understand your progress trends. There’s no
better progress tracking system available.

If your weight’s stagnated or even gone down, but your pictures have you looking bigger/
better, you think you’re bigger, and your measurements (particularly legs, arms, chest) have
gone up, there’s no need to make any adjustments just because your scale weight isn’t
necessarily playing ball.

The main issue with this sort of response though, is that it can often be dictated by emotion.
You’re trying hard, you think you’re getting bigger, but have no objective data to back
yourself up. It’s easier to not eat more as a consequence of not making progress, because you
‘think’ you’re looking bigger and are terrified of gaining too much body fat.

Because the reality is when you have genuinely stopped making progress – your scale weight
isn’t increasing, your photos don’t look any different and your measurements aren’t
changing - you’re going to need to do one of two things:

Decrease your activity, or increase your calories.

Or incorporate a combination of both.

This is arguably the most difficult aspect of building (copious) amounts of muscle mass and
not making so many changes that it becomes difficult to maintain a consistent yet controlled
calorie surplus.

This is where most get it wrong, make changes prematurely, make changes far too late, or
allow their emotions to get in the way of the decisions they’re making.

This is where MyPhysique changes the game – it’s unique & extensive coaching algorithm
will ensure you continue to build muscle at the desired rate (there are three muscle building
settings inside the Dashboard) week in, week out, so long as you continue to hit your macros
and check-in each week.

It will look at the data you enter in each of your check-ins and make an emotion-free,
educated decision in regards to any necessary changes & apply nothing but the logic it was
created by to keep you building muscle and help you keep it forever.

Part 5: Plateaus
Now - there’s definitely merit in decreasing activity, by way of simply being less
active day-to-day, or removing some or all of the cardio that might currently be
included in your routine. This isn’t a recommendation to become a couch potato,
but by burning a few less calories during day to day life, you might find that you’re
able to better maintain a calorie surplus.

We certainly wouldn’t recommend you lift fewer weights, or remove any of your
resistance-based training in order to ‘move less’ and burn fewer calories.

Instead, increasing your calories is your best option, as this is going to be the primary
driver of bodyweight and composition. Plus, it’s a hell of a lot easier to eat 200 more
calories, than it is to burn 200 calories less.

How do I know what changes should be made to my intake if my muscle building
progress stalls?

Here’s the thing – you need to be in a calorie surplus to build muscle. If you aren’t
gaining weight, therefore, we can deduce you are no longer in a calorie surplus. If
the scales are no longer suggesting that you’re gaining weight to build muscle, then
you’ll need to eat more to restore the calorie surplus you were once following.

How quickly you do that, is up to you.

Typically speaking, it is suggested most people can aim to gain 0.5-1% of their total
body weight per week without gaining an uncomfortable amount of body fat, whilst
still being able to build reasonable amounts of muscle mass. Any faster and you’ll
likely just gain additional body fat, as you can only build new muscle tissue so
quickly.

It really is a personal preference thing.

Each muscle building setting inside the MyPhysique Dashboard has a logical
response for each & every circumstance which means you don’t have to do any
guessing. There’s no more need to be worried about how much you should increase
your intake by or whether you’re eating too little - the MyPhysique Dashboard will
tell you precisely and make any necessary changes for you to keep building muscle
at the desired rate.

If you want to build muscle more quickly, and are ok with perhaps gaining a little
more body fat as a consequence, then consider larger changes as a percentage of
your overall calorie intake. If you want to focus more on building muscle mass and
minimizing the amount of body fat you gain in the process, then think about
making smaller changes as a percentage of your overall calorie intake.

If you’ve already been building muscle prior to said plateau, relatively small changes
of between 20 & 100 calories should do the trick to keep you in a calorie surplus, but
if you need further clarity around the topic or want to guarantee you don’t put a foot
wrong, run through the MyPhysique Physique Quiz & begin day 1 of the
No-Guesswork-Lifestyle today.


training considerations
When it comes to training for building

muscle, the way you train is very important,
but none of that matters if you’re not in a
calorie surplus.

It’s not a case of ‘muscles are built in the
kitchen,’ or ‘it’s 80% diet, 20% nutrition,’ or
any BS phrases that get
spouted out, but the importance of diet
cannot be stressed enough. Once that’s in
place though, it’s time to consider training.

A well-structured training program will work
to not only increase lean muscle mass, but
also aid in building strength, which in turn
can contribute to even greater lean muscle
tissue growth.

This is the other side of the equation.
Training Basics
We’re going to look at several important
factors here -
1. Frequency
2. Volume
3. Intensity
4. Exercise Selection
5. Progressive Overload

part 1: frequency
Frequency refers to how often you train. We can look at it both from the point of view of how
many times you train a particular body part or movement, or from a total training session (per
week) standpoint.

Many different schools of thought exist over training frequency. At one end of the spectrum,
you have advocates of HIT-style training, as popularised by the likes of Mike Mentzer and
Dorian Yates, where you only train each body part once every 7-14 days, but at an extremely
high-intensity, and go beyond the point of concentric failure. (i.e. you incorporate techniques
such as negative reps, forced reps and static holds once you can no longer complete full
repetitions on your own.)

Then right at the other end, we have DUP-style training, which initially emerged from Soviet
Bloc countries, and uses a much higher frequency. Many Olympic lifters still train in this style,
and will often do the same lifts 5-7 times per week, or even twice a day if they’re doing
multiple sessions.

As with so much in training and nutrition, there is no best frequency, but we can discuss the
pros and cons of each.

Some studies seem to show that a low to medium frequency is beneficial (or at least not
detrimental) to strength and size gains.

A 2018 study from The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research for example, split subjects
into two groups -
subjects training with a body part split (training a different muscle group each session and
consequently hitting each muscle group just once every 7 days), and subjects hitting their
whole body each time.

Both groups trained 5 times per week, and by the end, no significant differences were found
in their 1 rep max improvements.

A second study, this one from the Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism journal put a
high-volume, low-frequency program (twice a week,) against a low-volume, higher-frequency
program (4 times per week,) and found while both strategies improved performance and
lower-body muscle mass, only the high-volume, low-frequency program increased upper-
body hypertrophy and body composition.

It seems this is where most of the more recent research supporting lower-frequency
programs ends, though.

Most suggest that when total weekly volume is matched (i.e. you do the same number of sets,
reps and weight across the week), you’re better off spreading your training over more days.

Simplified, doing 6 sets of bicep curls over two or three sessions (say 3 or 2 sets of biceps in
each of those sessions respectively) is likely to offer better size & strength gains than if you
were to perform all 6 of those exercises in the same session.

A 2016 study from Schoenfeld, Krieger and Ogborn found splitting volume over 2 sessions
rather than 1 was beneficial, and hypothesized that splitting the same volume over 3 sessions
would be even better, though they didn’t test this.

A 2018 study did test this however, and found it to be true. It appears that, when volume is
matched, a higher frequency is like to produce greater results, simply because you go into
each session less fatigued.

Basically, by splitting that volume up over multiple days, you accumulate less fatigue from
each individual session meaning you can go into the next one with more intent, whilst also
being able to work harder on each of those days as localized fatigue (the fatigue you
accumulate during an individual session) wouldn’t be anywhere near as bad.

No doubt at some stage you’ve trained one muscle group in a day, and felt completely spent
by the end of it – higher frequency protocols allow you to essentially perform those last few
sets of any given body part split as if you were fresh once more.

part 1: frequency
So should we all train every muscle group, every day for unbelievable gains?
No.

It’s safe to say that only hitting a muscle group once per week is likely going to mean
you don’t build anywhere near as much muscle mass as you could be if you were
training muscle groups more frequently, even if you are eating in a calorie surplus.
This is because when you train, your levels of Muscle Protein Synthesis (MPS) are
raised. MPS is essential for recovery, adaptation, and getting bigger and stronger.
Consider this the actual process of building/ maintaining muscle mass within the
body, provided there is adequate fuel to do so.

Following a training session, MPS increases rapidly, and reaches roughly double its
baseline level at around 24 hours. It then declines rapidly, returning to baseline at
around 36 hours. This doesn’t mean we all need to train every body part every 36 hours
to maintain progress, but it does mean if you’re only training your back once a week, or
your legs once a week, or whatever body part once a week, you’re not taking
advantage of the extra MPS spikes you’d get from training these muscle groups more
frequently.

It is possible to have too much of a good thing.

Recovery is a crucial, often overlooked aspect of building and maintaining muscle and
strength.

It’s very likely tougher sessions will give you DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness,)
which can last for 72 hours-plus, in some cases. While training with DOMS isn’t
necessarily detrimental, it does put you at higher risk of injury, and means
performance may be compromised.

Similarly, your central nervous system needs recovery time, especially after more
draining lifts, like squats or deadlifts, and so training these too regularly could certainly
have a counterproductive effect too.

Ultimately, the frequency with which you’re able to train each muscle group will be
dictated first and foremost, by the amount of days you’re training per week.

Ultimately, training only 3-4 days per week might mean you’re only able to prioritise
major muscle groups multiple times in the training week, whereas training 5-6 days
per week might give you the opportunity to hit major muscle groups 2-3 times per
week whilst also hitting smaller ones 2 times per week.

To make life easier, the MyPhysique Dashboard includes a number of plug & play
evidence-based training templates that you can follow using the bespoke smartphone
app to track your workouts and overall training volume. These workouts all fall in line
with the evidence-based principles covered in this book – run through the Physique
Quiz on the MyPhysique website, nominate how active you are & how many days per
week you’d like to train, and our system will make an educated recommendation as to
which training template will be the best fit for you, whilst you’ll also have the ability to
choose between that and any of the other templates in the Dashboard.

part 2: volume
The term ‘volume’ is used to describe how much ‘work’ you do.

Essentially though, it’s how much actual weight you lift, when referring to resistance training.

We can measure volume in terms of volume per session, volume per week, and even in
greater chunks, such as volume per training cycle. Typically though, it’s discussed more on a
session-by-session basis, or in terms of volume per week.

Volume is the amount of weight lifted, multiplied by the number of reps you do.

So if you did 5 sets of 5 squats at 100kg (220 lbs) that would be a total volume of 2,500kg
(5500 lbs).

Sometimes you’ll see volume talked about in terms of number of sets, or number of
exercises, but the most accurate data we can refer to is volume in terms of total weight lifted.

Volume is a key driver in both getting stronger and building muscle mass.

To build muscle, you need four things - muscle damage, metabolic stress, mechanical
tension, and volume. That’s a lot of fancy terms for some things you likely won’t need to
understand to make gains – but in reality so long as you are lifting weights that are relatively
challenging, aren’t lifting them in a manner that might mean you end up on a Gym Memes
video and you’re able to increase total training volume over time, you’ll have every
opportunity to build muscle.

If you’re not gradually increasing your volume throughout your training career, it’s highly
likely you won’t be progressing anywhere near the speed you could be, and may not even be
improving at all.

As we’ve already established, you do need some muscle breakdown to elicit hypertrophy, so
lifting the same weights over and over again for the same amount of reps isn’t going to make
a great deal of sense, as your body will adapt to those loads quickly and any opportunity for
progress will quickly vanish.

That means you can’t just do tonnes of easy sets, chalk up a very high volume workout with,
say 20 sets of 10 reps at 50% of your 1-rep max, and expect to grow considerably or maintain a
lot of size.

This type of training, while high-volume, would be very unlikely to cause the kind of muscle
breakdown, metabolic stress, or be at a high enough intensity to actually build new muscle
tissue.

However, provided we have those other factors - mechanical tension, metabolic stress, and
muscle damage - volume becomes the key driver in growth.

Basically, provided you’re lifting loads that are challenging (think about loads that might
mean some form of struggle towards the end of a set without taking you to failure), aren’t
lifting them in an unusual manner that might not actually allow you to target the muscle
properly and lift more and more volume over time – you’re going to make gains (provided
you’re eating at a calorie surplus).

A 2019 study from Schoenfeld, Krieger, Contreras et. al concluded that -
“[...] muscle hypertrophy follows a dose-response relationship, with increasingly greater gains
achieved with higher training volumes.”

Basically meaning the more volume you do, the greater your gains are likely to be. Which is
why some of the evidence-based training templates inside the MyPhysique Dashboard
contain more volume than others. If you’re looking to take your training & your physique to
the next level, set your eyes on the MyPhysique BEAST Training Template & make sure to
prepare yourself for some explosive progress.

Various studies have also shown that multiple sets are superior to single working sets of an
exercise), while some have even shown that pushing volume as high as 32 sets of an exercise
per week can yield more effective results.
When it specifically comes to building muscle, there’s no real ‘best’ volume. Extra weight
training volume is likely going to contribute to more muscle built, however this will largely
depend on your ability to train in a consistent fashion and what your schedule and lifestyle
allows in that regard.

One final point on volume that we can say with a fair amount of certainty, is that everybody
should be striving to be training somewhere at or near their Maximum Recoverable Volume
(MRV).

part 2: volume
MRV is a term coined by exercise scientist Dr. Mike Israetel, and is defined as
the highest amount of training you can do, but still recover from, in order to
perform that same workout the following time, but no more than that.

I.e. If you perform a leg workout that contains 5 sets of back squats, 3 sets of
leg presses, 2 sets each of leg curls and stiff-legged deadlifts, and 4 sets of
calves, if you get moderately sore afterward, and feel able to progress your
weights or reps most (if not all) training weeks, that’s likely your MRV.

If, however, you find you have virtually no after-effects, and struggle to
increase your strength due to lack of stimulus, it may be under your MRV.

Similarly, if you feel incredibly sore for 3 to 4 days, can’t get your energy up
for your next leg workout, resort to using poor form, or constantly feel
demotivated, you’re perhaps pushing past your MRV.

Some self-experimentation is needed to discover what your MRV is, but in
reality, this is something that you’ll likely be able to identify by gauging
fatigue levels, motivation to train and overall enjoyment and you’ll likely find
that simply by eating at a calorie surplus your MRV is higher than it would
be than if you were eating in a calorie deficit.

The key thing to remember is, no matter how much volume you’re making
your way through, you want to be looking to increase it over time.

This may not happen every single session, especially if you’re in a fat loss
phase. In fact, it probably won’t increase every session, unless you’re new to
training. But by and large, month-to-month, or rather training block by
training block, you should be looking to increase volume in some fashion,
either by increasing weight, reps, sets, or adding more exercises into the
mix.
Again – the plug & play evidence-based training templates inside the
MyPhysique Dashboard will ensure this happens without you having to lift a
finger – simply follow the template perfectly, enjoy the variation that is
offered from each training block to the next, and make continuous, long-
term gains.

Part 3: Intensity
Most people think of intensity as how hard you’re working on a particular exercise, but as
far as the strict definition is concerned, that’s not true.

Intensity actually refers to the percentage of your maximum you’re lifting at. So if your 1-
rep max on a squat is 150kg (330 lbs) and you’re doing sets with 135kg (297 lbs), that’s
90%, which is a fairly high-intensity.

For the purposes of this book though, we’ll use this strict definition, but also the one
most people mean when they use the phrase intensity, as in their level of perceived
exertion.

In terms of basic intensity recommendations, The American College of Sports Medicine
recommendations state that for those wishing to gain strength, most training should be
conducted with between 80-100% of 1RM. Those looking to build muscle should lift in the
70-85% range, and those training for muscular endurance shouldn’t exceed around 70%
of their 1RM.

These guidelines aren’t a bad starting point even if they are somewhat generic, as, while
they may be slightly more simplistic than we’d like, they appear to make sense, and most
lifters do train in these ranges when they’re training for the corresponding goals.

When it comes to building muscle mass, there’s no black and white, but there are
considerations either way when it comes to determining the intensity of your lifts.

You’re likely going to want to incorporate some of that heavy, high-intensity stuff to build
your strength and take advantage of eating at a calorie surplus. Typically the more
energy you have available, the more capacity you have to build strength & lift heavy
things. This is particularly important if strength is a priority of yours – whereas if you’re
more focused simply on improving your body composition then it likely isn’t as
necessary.

A powerlifter in a muscle building phase for example, might still want to incorporate
some lower reps and a higher intensity work, but could definitely benefit from using
higher reps at a lower intensity if they wanted to increase their work capacity & build
some more muscle whilst eating more calories.

Likewise, a bodybuilder or endurance athlete could benefit from a strength phase as a
change in stimulus from their usual moderate intensity, higher rep programming.
However, when it comes to building lean muscle mass, the most important thing to
consider is whether or not you’re actively incorporating progressive overload in line with
maintaining a calorie surplus.

One other important factor to be aware of is RPE, or Rate of Perceived Exertion. As
discussed briefly above, this is closer to what most people think intensity is, as it refers to
how hard you feel you’re working.

RPE is based off the original Borg Scale, which asked participants to subjectively
measure their level of exertion on a scale of 6 to 20.
An RPE scale looks along the lines of -
RPE 10 = An all-out maximum effort lift, with perhaps questionable form.
RPE 9.5 = A very difficult lift. Form was good, but there’s no way another rep could be
done.
RPE 9 = Tough, but one more rep was doable.
RPE 8 = Still tough, but there were 2 more reps in the tank.
RPE 7 = 3 reps left.
RPE 6 = Not so tough. Still slightly challenging, but 4 reps left.

An alternative to RPE is RIR, or Reps In Reserve, which is the scale that the majority of
the MyPhysique Training Templates use.
RIR 1 = 1 rep left (similar to RPE 9)
RIR 2 = 2 reps left (same as RPE 8)
RIR 3 = 3 reps left (same as RPE 7) and so on.

Both these methods, while not technically monitoring intensity from a percentage point
of view, can be very useful for gauging training effort and progress.

For any goal, your RPE should usually fall somewhere between a 7 and 9. What you need
to understand by using this style of intensity reporting is that the specifc load you’re
using for any given set, will largely depend on the designated rep range, levels of fatigue
and quite likely vary from set to set.

part 3: intensity
Any lower than RPE 7 (with the exception of very high-rep

endurance work and warmups) and you’re probably not working
hard enough to cause muscular or neural adaptations, and any
higher than a consistent RPE 9 will likely contribute to taking
you closer to failure than you need to go on a regular basis.

It’s crucial during any stage of training to not always shoot for
RPE 9s and 10s, whether you’re employing more of a
percentage-based system, or an RPE-based system, as doing so
will undoubtedly leave you over-fatigued, under-recovered, and
likely put you at higher risk of injury. It’s also likely you’ll
experience far more volatile fluctuations in mood, energy levels
and motivation to train as a consequence. Certainly eating at a
calorie surplus will mean doing so isn’t quite as destructive in
comparison to when eating at a calorie deficit, but from a long
term volume perspective, we still want to avoid reaching failure
too frequently.

The plug & play evidence-based routines inside the MyPhysique
Dashboard eliminate the guesswork and meticulous planning
required to build out a routine that will allow you to make great
long-term progress. Simply run through the Physique Quiz on
the MyPhysique website and select the appropriate training
template and follow it to the best of your ability, taking into
account the recommendations in this book and you can’t go
wrong. You’ll have every opportunity to build explosive amounts
of lean muscle without gaining stacks of body fat in the process.

Part 4: Exercise Selection
Everybody always wants to know what the ‘best
exercise’ is.

This is great, but it’s much like asking what the
best food is, what the best macro split is, what
the best volume is, the best intensity is, or any of
the other training variables we’ve talked about
so far.

There’s no black and white answer.

What’s best will always depend on a number of
factors, from who you ask, to what the goal is, to
genetics, body type, schedule, recovery capacity,
and a whole host of other factors.

In a broad sense though, exercises can be
classed as isolation (single joint) exercises, and
compound (multi-joint) exercises.

As the names suggest, isolation moves involve
the use of just one joint, and usually one muscle
group. Bicep curls, calf raises and tricep
pushdowns are all good examples.

Compound moves involve using multiple joints
and muscle groups, such as the squat, deadlift
or bench press.

Most of the research suggests that when it
comes to strength and size, compound exercises
have the edge. By focusing on more muscle
groups, you’re creating a bigger training
response, and also hitting several areas at once,
meaning training is far more efficient; multiple
muscle groups are being targeted
simultaneously.

Using mainly compound exercises means you’re
going to be training far more efficiently. For
example, if you were doing a full-body workout,
with compounds you could hit pretty much
every muscle group by doing squats, deadlifts,
incline bench presses and pull-ups.

It may not be the most effective workout ever,
but every major muscle would receive a
reasonable amount of stimulus.

Using isolations however, you’d need calf raises,
leg extensions, leg curls, straight-arm
pulldowns, lateral raises, flyes, bicep curls and
tricep pushdowns to hit everything.

Not only is this potentially far less efficient from
a time perspective, you’ll need to use lighter
loads, and may not get as large a training
response, as you’re not recruiting as many
muscle fibers or motor units on each rep and
perhaps not making it through quite as much
volume either.

Regardless of your goals - strength, size, or fat
loss - it can make sense to have a routine that
incorporates a bit of both, unless there’s a
specific reason you’d prefer not to do those
specific lifts. Ultimately, adherence is again a
major determining factor in making longer term
progress when it comes to building and
maintaining muscle mass, so if you genuinely
detest compound movements for instance, it
probably makes more sense to stick to exercises
you enjoy and will want to continue performing
and getting better at.

part 4: exercise selection
Generally speaking, a balanced program will

include 6 types of movement -
A knee-dominant movement (squats, lunges, leg press,
etc).
A hip-dominant movement (deadlifts pull-throughs,
glute ham raises, etc).
A vertical push (shoulder press variations).
A horizontal push (bench presses, press ups, dips, etc).
A vertical pull (chin-ups, lat pulldowns, etc).
A horizontal pull (rowing variations).
Most people will do well focusing on variations of the squat, bench press and deadlift, along
with rows and pull-ups or pulldowns. If there’s time left over for more isolation work, then
brilliant – go for it. If you’re training for powerlifting, your training might need to be more
specific, i.e. you need to be doing the barbell back squat, barbell deadlift, barbell bench
press, and their variations.

For everyone else, these are still fine exercises, and should most probably be included, but
there’s also scope to have a little more variety, provided that variety doesn’t get in the way
of your ability to track progress.

In the modern age of Instagram carousel workouts, it can be easy to fall into thinking that
your favourite role models are performing a wide variety of workouts and changing what
they’re doing on a day to day basis, when the reality is that there are better ways to do
things. If you’re constantly chopping and changing your workouts, there’s very little
opportunity to track progress, track volume or to ensure you’re actually progressively
overloading over time. Are you willing to risk an entire training block of 4-6 weeks and not
make noteable progress?

What’s best? We’d typically recommend to spend a period of 4-6 weeks looking to get
better at the exercises you’re performing, before considering any changes you might want
to make. Even then, you’d want to consider changing things in a fashion that still allowed
you to continue tracking your progress and get through more training volume over time.

If you’re progressing well, there’s no real need to change an exercise, or worry about made
up terms like ‘muscle confusion.’ But you also don’t want to be doing the same exercises all
the time, unless you’re a serious creature of habit and continue to see good progress from a
volume perspective.

The plug & play evidence-based training templates inside the MyPhysique Dashboard
contain training blocks of 4-6 weeks before incorporating variety, allowing for adequate
time to make strength and volume based progress. Within those splits, there’s further
opportunity for personal preference in selecting key exercises. Everything has been done for
you, to leave you with the least amount of guesswork possible.

part 5: progressive overload
This relates closely to the section on volume,
because essentially, progressive overload is
simply the concept of increasing training
stimulus over time – which typically
equals an increase in training volume over
time, which we’ve already discussed.

Most people tend to incorporate progressive
overload in their training anyway, regardless
of goals, level of knowledge, or experience.
The most common forms of progressive
overload are -
Increasing exercise intensity (i.e.the
amount of weight lifted).
Doing more reps.
Using more challenging tempos (which
usually means using a more controlled
tempo, but can be applied to lifting
explosively, too).
Resting less.
Increasing total volume (i.e. a combination
of increased reps, sets, and weight).

Some of these are rubbish though,
particularly when it comes to building
muscle mass – performing your workout in
reverse for instance – so we’ll talk about what
actually makes sense.

Performing slight variations of exercises can
also be considered progressive overload.
Doing rack pulls from one pin lower, for
example, or adding a 1-second pause at the
bottom of your squat, and deadlifting while
standing on a small deficit.

Technically, these modifications can change
what an exercise is, i.e. the last two examples
could actually be classed as paused squats
and deficit deadlifts, but still,
doing more challenging variations of your
main exercises is a form of progressive
overload.

By and large, the main ways you’ll overload
are by lifting more, or doing more reps, either
by increasing reps per set, or increasing your
total number of sets per workout or
per week.

Essentially, all this is doing is contributing to
the target muscles in questions spending
more time under tension, which increases
the amount of muscular damage involved
and encourages further growth of new
muscle tissue (provided you’re in a surplus –
remember what works to build muscle in a
surplus).

People usually think of progressive overload
in terms of building muscle and gaining
strength, for the simple reason it’s easier to
progressively overload in these phases due
to the surplus of calories, but overload is still
important when cutting body fat to help
with maintaining muscle mass.

part 5: progression overload
once you have a basic understanding of the importance of

training volume, manipulating the way you progress becomes
far easier. Naturally, eating more will make improving your
strength easier than when eating at a calorie deficit, but
understanding that there are other ways of increasing total
training volume outside the weight you’re lifting makes it far
easier to ensure you can continue to accumulate more training
volume over time regardless of the phase of training you’re in.
If you find your strength is climbing as a consequence of

maintaining a calorie surplus, you might be able to consistently
overload by increasing the amount of weight you’re lifting,
whereas when in a deficit, lightening the loads somewhat
(whilst still ensuring your intensity remains adequately high as
we’ve previously discussed) and increasing the total number of
sets and reps you’re doing to ensure your volume is matched/
increased will keep you on track more easily – there’s really no
wrong answer as far as how you can incorporate progressive
overload is concerned..

Same goes for any day you don’t feel overly great – focusing on
volume targets rather than specific sets, reps and loads will
allow you to make far greater long term progress without
necessarily getting caught up in your day to day progress (or
lack thereof), even if you are eating at a calorie surplus.

Every plug & play evidence-based training routine inside the
MyPhysique Dashboard has progressive overload built in –
simply follow the template and you’ll accumulate an increasing
amount of training volume over time. All of the thinking has
been done for you, so you can get into the gym, tick off your
training sessions and enjoy yourself.

Supplements
In the grand scheme of things, supplements
play a very small role in the process of building
muscle.

People like to think supplements are
exceptionally important, but the truth is, while
there are some which may help, (and we’ll
discuss those in a moment) you‘ll be able to get
as large as you like (within the realms of what is
possible) without any. There’s no supplement
available that will massively improve your
results, or drastically speed up the process.

That said, there are a few supplements we
would suggest you consider, purely for their
convenience, health, or potential performance
benefits. Note – no supplement will straight out
build muscle tissue, regardless of the claims it
makes. For that, you’ll need a strong dose of a…
calorie surplus.
Protein – Powders/ Ready to Drink Shakes/ Bars

Protein powders and protein based foods like
protein bars are quite simply nothing more than
convenience foods. The supplement industry
will have you believe you can’t build or maintain
muscle mass without it, but in reality, you won’t
build or maintain muscle mass without protein
in general – if consuming some protein powder
or similar helps you with hitting your daily
protein target, then you
should use it.

If, however, you’d prefer to get your protein
through food sources like chicken breast or
other lean meats, that’s perfectly acceptable too.
Drinking your protein might be absorbed
slightly quicker than a food source, but when it
comes to muscle protein synthesis, the
differences between the two isn’t even worth
mentioning. Some people struggle to get
enough protein, especially if they’re used to
following a lower-protein diet. This is where a
protein powder can come in handy.

The protein in protein powder is no superior to
the protein in food, but it is much more
convenient, and often it can be cheaper to drink
a couple of shakes every day rather than having
to go through pounds and pounds of steak and
chicken in order to hit your daily protein target.

Make sure to go with one that easily fits into
your macros – some protein powders contain
additional calories for ‘bulking’ purposes, and if
you’re in a deficit, it’s unlikely these will be overly
convenient for you at all. However if you find it
difficult to consume enough calories to maintain
a calorie surplus, a protein powder that contains
extra calories might be the perfect thing for you.
Creatine

Creatine is known as the muscle-building
supplement.

It’s an amino acid (not the same as in BCAAs)
that aids with what is essentially muscle energy
and recovery. You might find some slight water
retention when you take it, so be aware of this,
but other than that, the only side effect is a
small, but mildly noticeable increase in strength
and endurance, which will likely come in very
handy when it comes to accumulating more
training volume over time.

No need to load or cycle this – 3-5g per day on a
consistent basis is all you need

Supplements
Branched Chain Amino Acids (BCAAs)

BCAAs are the building blocks of protein. While they don’t tend to offer huge benefits,
earlier on we spoke about meal timings, and how (from a muscle protein synthesis
perspective) you don’t want to go much longer than 4-5 hours between meals during
waking hours, and this is where BCAAs may be useful.

More recent research has debunked the necessity for BCAAs in the presence of adequate
protein, so if you’re hitting your daily protein target you won’t need these, so there’s no
need to waste your money, however there is an argument that it might be beneficial if you
aren’t able to eat a protein-based meal for an extended amount of time.

Pre-Workouts
Pre-workouts are the ultimate personal preference supplement. There’s no need for one of
these, but you may find it helps with energizing you before a workout & improving
performance as a consequence.

Most are a mix of caffeine, different amino acids, and a few other goodies that get you
amped up to lift. Just be aware that if you drink a lot of caffeine already, pre-workouts either
won’t have much of an effect, or could leave you feeling a bit average.

Aim to have a zero-calorie one, or alternatively factor the calories into your daily allowance.
When eating in a calorie surplus, you’ll likely find you don’t need one of these – it’s pretty
amazing what eating at a consistent yet controlled calorie surplus can do for you.

Fish Oils
Worth a mention, but also nowhere near as important as you might think.

Fish oils contain omega-3 fats, which have been shown to be beneficial for your heart
health, and reducing the risk of certain diseases. Most of us don’t eat enough oily fish, so a
few grams of fish oil every day can do you wonders.

They don’t directly aid the process of building muscle, but from a general health and
longevity standpoint, it’s well worth allowing those few extra calories (1g of fish oil contains 9
calories) in your daily intake to get your fish oils if you aren’t eating some form of fish every
so often.
Multivitamins
You eat your fruits and veggies, right?

Good. But a multivitamin can still help to cover your bases, and make sure you’re getting all
of what you need. Again, won’t have any impact whatsoever on the muscle building
process, but should help with maintaining the 'aesthetics' of your insides.
The ‘Not-Worth-Mention-ings’
Literally everything else is likely a farce, or a marketing gimmick.

Fat burners? BS.

Carb blockers? Please.

Exogenous Ketones & Test Boosters? For these things to have any actual affect you’ll need a
serious prescription from a medical professional, so you’d best not waste your money.
Nothing builds muscle as well as a calorie surplus (in the presence of adequate protein) &
hard work.

In fact, the only thing that builds muscle, is a calorie surplus (in the presence of adequate
protein) and hard work.

cardio considerations
It’s probably unsurprising cardio has been left

until last.

Even considering cardio when building
muscle might seem odd to some, but there
are a few specific benefits that mean it may be
worth including in your routine, despite the
fact it burns calories that could theoretically
be put toward building muscle.

For starters, cardio has some great general
health benefits. Regular cardio activity not
only helps improve life expectancy, and
potentially ward off certain conditions, it aids
with your day-to-day fitness, and makes
everyday tasks feel slightly easier.

Secondly, there may come a time during a fat
loss phase when you need to add cardio, and
so it may help to have a general base of CV
fitness to work from.

Finally, having a decent level of cardio
improves your work capacity, meaning you’ll
be able to get more done in less time in the
gym and consequently even contribute
to you accumulating even more total training
volume. Whatever goal you’re training for, this
can be beneficial, as it aids with increasing
volume.

Something to understand though – whilst
some fat gain is likely going to be involved
with the process of building muscle, adding
cardio into your routine won’t minimize
this, outside of it’s immediate effect on the
size of the calorie surplus you’re in. If you’re
eating at a calorie surplus and add in cardio,
the size of your surplus will either reduce or be
eliminated – so don’t think you can build
muscle and remove fat gain from the
equation by simply incorporating a little
cardio.

types of cardio
There are the three forms of cardio you’ll likely want to consider.

HIIT

HIIT is High Intensity Interval Training.

Typically involves going all out, working at an absolute maximum intensity for 10-30 seconds,
followed by a longer period of low-intensity recovery work. This recovery period is typically 5 to
10 times longer than the work period.

HIIT has been shown to potentially increase testosterone levels slightly over lower-intensity
cardio, as well as lower insulin resistance, and improve glucose tolerance and fat oxidation.

The one area where HIIT does seem to stand out is from a fitness perspective. A 2018 study
from the Open Access Journal of Sports Medicine found that interval-based training appeared
superior to steady state-style training when it came to improving cardiorespiratory fitness.

When it comes to time efficiency, there’s also no doubt that HIIT has the advantage here as
well. It’s much easier to burn the same number of calories in less time, (or more calories in the
same time) when you’re incorporating stints of all-out
effort in your cardio.

LISS

LISS is Low Intensity Steady State training.

I.e. Cardio you can sustain for an indefinite period. The biggest benefit LISS has going for it is
that it takes very little energy to perform and recover from.

If you’ve not done any cardio for a while, and suddenly decide to go on a 40-minute run, or sit
on a stationary bike for an hour, you’ll probably have some soreness, but not nearly as much
as had you done intervals for the same amount of time.

Secondly, there’s hardly any thought power involved with LISS. It’s very easy to do while
listening to a podcast, watching TV, or even checking your emails. Provided your heart rate
stays at around 60-70% of your maximum, (your maximum being roughly 220 minus your
age) you’re going to be just fine, without putting too much thought into it.

Studies seem to show that when calorie burn is matched, LISS performs just as well as HIIT
from a weight loss perspective. Something to consider though, is that naturally your body
burns calories at a stand still, so whilst low intensity cardio has it’s place, the lower the
intensity, the fewer calories you’ll actually burn on top of what you would have burned had
you been standing on the spot for the same amount of time.

NEAT

NEAT is Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis.

This is calories burned from things that don’t really feel like exercise - walking, household
chores, active hobbies, living, breathing and so on.

It’s crazy how often NEAT is disregarded as a form of cardio. The reason for this tends to be
because we don’t even think about NEAT as being exercise.

NEAT actually has the power to contribute a very high percentage of your total daily calorie
burn though. It’s basically all the calories you burn from the daily activities you don’t even
think about - walking to the office, typing on a keyboard, fidgeting, doing basic chores, and so
on.

While these activities may seem insignificant, the research shows that calories burned from
NEAT can vary in individuals by up to 2,000 calories per day. That means someone who has a
sedentary job, commutes to work by car, and doesn’t do much around the house could be
burning 2,000 fewer calories per day than a more active individual who has a job where
they move or stand, commutes to work on foot (or by bike) and typically leads a more active
lifestyle.

When you break it down, 2,000 calories extra per day is 14,000 extra per week, or enough to
lose an extra 4 pounds. A lot of calories burned from NEAT will be subconscious, but that
doesn’t mean we can’t make an active effort to increase it, simply by being more active.

The biggest advantage NEAT has over HIIT and LISS is that there’s zero recovery involved.
Even someone who’s incredibly unfit or undertrained can cope with an increase in NEAT
without feeling sore or compromising gym performance, and this can be used further to your
advantage if you’re a relatively small human that can’t eat a lot of calories in maintaining a
calorie surplus. Instead of eating very little to maintain said surplus, you could look to elevate
your NEAT in an
effort to be able to eat more whilst maintaining a calorie surplus.

Types of Cardio
So … What’s Best?
It would be great to give a comprehensive answer and name one single

type of cardio as the absolute best.

We can’t do that, because there isn’t one. What’s ‘best’ will come down
to a number of factors.

If you’re incredibly pushed for time, it’s likely HIIT will be your best
choice, simply due to the fact you’ll get a higher calorie burn in less time.

If you’re got a little more time, and prefer to do cardio at a more leisurely
pace, while browsing your phone or catching up on some TV, your
results aren’t going to suffer from making your primary cardio LISS.

And, if you don’t want to spend any more time in the gym, or feel there
are simple ways you can increase your NEAT, either by getting a
standing desk, walking part of your journey to work, doing some
gardening/ yard work at the weekends instead of sitting down and
watching TV, then go for that.

The bottom line is it’s all about calories.

The harder you work, the more calories you burn. But the harder you
work, the more chance there is of your lifting performance suffering as a
consequence, even if you are eating at a calorie surplus.

So do what works for you, and just remember - no matter how much
cardio you do, your diet should still be the main driver for maintaining a
calorie surplus, and, if you want to build muscle, lifting weights should
still be your primary form of training.

Cardio is very useful for increasing calorie burn and improving fitness,
but it won’t change your physique on its own. If you’re going to add it
into your routine, do so in a conservative yet calculated manner, so that
you can track progress and make educated decisions in regards to
whether or not you need to make any further changes to what you’re
doing in order to continue building muscle and minimizing the amount
of fat you gain in the process.

muscle gain forever
You’ve got everything you need to build explosive amounts of muscle mass,
minimize the amount of body fat in doing so and chase down a lean &
muscular physique in line with the latest scientific literature.

No stone has been unturned.

It might seem like a lot – but that’s ok.

We all start somewhere.

The MyPhysique Dashboard is filled with plug & play evidence-based training
templates & a personalized digital coaching experience that guarantees you
make progress simply by following it.

Run through the MP Physique Quiz & have your macros calculated for you
individually with a host of factors taken into consideration. We’ll get to know
you and your dieting history, your goals, your activity levels and more in
determining exactly how many calories you need and then calculate your
macros for you to help build muscle mass at the rate you want whilst
minimizing the amount of body fat you gain during the process.

From there, you’ll have the opportunity to check-in on the Dashboard every
week. We’ll track your progress, recording everything you submit in the
designated MP Progress Tracker, and make any necessary revisions to your
calories and macros in line with the Muscle Gain setting you’ve selected, to
ensure you continue to build muscle at the rate you want.

You’ll be able to access a training template of your choice via our bespoke
smartphone app, track each of your workouts, monitor your training volume
and see videos for all of the exercises in your training template, so you’ll never
be unsure as to how they should be performed.

You’ll also gain access to thousands of evidence-based articles, macro-friendly
recipes & exercise tutorial videos in addition to a dedicated support team of
coaches and fitness professionals that are waiting by their computers to help
you with any questions you have.

MyPhysique is the solution to your training & nutrition needs that eliminates
the guesswork involved with creating a bullet-proof routine.

muscle gain
handbook 2019
Plug into MyPhysique, play around with your nutrition settings

and build more muscle more effectively than ever before.

The lean & muscular physique you’ve always wanted is only a
handful of well-executed steps away.

The best part?
All of the above is accessible for less than $1 per day.

MyPhysique membership is just $19 per month, and completely
eliminates the need for an expensive in-person or online coach.

If you’d like to remove the opportunity for error, eliminate the
need for tricky calculations and simplify the process of making
unbelievable gains, whilst guaranteeing you reach those
astronomically high sights you’ve set for yourself – look no
further.
Happy muscle building.

MyPhysique PTY LTD 2019
muscle gain
handbook
Resources
Section 1 References:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18025815
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1038/oby.2001.133
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3225890/
https://www.bmj.com/content/361/bmj.k2139
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/fats-and-cholesterol/
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/eat-moderate-amount-of-carbs-for-health/
https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/45/2/e2.17

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1467-3010.2007.00603.x
https://www.bmj.com/content/343/bmj.d6617
https://academic.oup.com/nutritionreviews/article/73/2/69/1820875
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/85/4/981.full
http://www.jissn.com/content/8/1/4
exlposive muscle gain handbook MyPhysique PTY40

LTD 2019
muscle gain
handbook
Resources

https://journals.lww.com/nscajscr/Abstract/publishahead/High_Resistance_Training_Frequency_En
hances_Muscle.95259.aspx
https://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/apnm-2017-0575?url_ver=Z39.88-
2003&rfr_id=ori%3Arid%3Acrossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub%3Dpubmed&#.XNWrRJNKhsO
https://journals.lww.com/nsca-
jscr/Abstract/2000/08000/Comparison_of_1_Day_and_3_Days_Per_Week_of.6.aspx
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kevin_Yarasheski/publication/14636206_The_Time_Course_for
_Elevated_Muscle_Protein_Synthesis_Following_Heavy_Resistance_Exercise/links/56d8920708aeba
bdb40d1b92/The-Time-Course-for-Elevated-Muscle-Protein-Synthesis-Following-Heavy-Resistance-
Exercise.pdf
https://www.lookgreatnaked.com/articles/mechanisms_of_muscle_hypertrophy.pdf
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnut.2018.00084/full?
fbclid=IwAR1Jq_ZtGF8pHmWfnXfqqrrVUyoVxLHImUTDd8VeTHYtnA70bYYisHMvh6I
https://www.prescriptiontogetactive.com/app/uploads/resistance-training-ACSM.pdf
https://academic.oup.com/occmed/article/67/5/404/3975235
https://uk.humankinetics.com/blogs/excerpts/utilize-proper-workout-structure-and-exercise-order
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23537028/
http://forms.acsm.org/15TPC/PDFs/37%20Weaver.pdf

https://jissn.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12970-017-0173-z
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK279077/

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BUILD YOUR PHYSIQUE WIth MYPHYSIQUE

Explosive Muscle Gain handbook

This is the Explosive (Evidence-Based) Muscle Growth

we've got it covered.

exlposive muscle gain handbook 2

There's 5 key areas of the book

Everything you’re about to read is evidence-based, and follows the

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exlposive muscle gain handbook 7

Moderate Weekly Multiply bodyweight Moderate Weekly Multiply bodyweight

Demanding Weekly Multiply bodyweight Demanding Weekly Multiply bodyweight

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exlposive muscle gain handbook 9

Males & Females

Less Muscle Mass Multiply bodyweight

More Muscle Mass Multiply bodyweight

Steve would look to consume around 200g of protein per day.

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We’ve run through how to gain weight.

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So - how best to track your food?

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When it comes to training for building

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Any lower than RPE 7 (with the exception of very high-rep

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Generally speaking, a balanced program will

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once you have a basic understanding of the importance of

If you find your strength is climbing as a consequence of

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Branched Chain Amino Acids (BCAAs)

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It’s probably unsurprising cardio has been left

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It would be great to give a comprehensive answer and name one single

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Plug into MyPhysique, play around with your nutrition settings

All of the above is accessible for less than $1 per day.

Happy muscle building.

exlposive muscle gain handbook 39