Is Diet More Important than Training for

Muscle Gains?
A thing I see over and over again: bodybuilding success is 80% nutrition.

To be fair, that number is bullshit. While it makes a difference for being

shredded, it does not have that much influence in building size and strength.

After spending many weeks on the road with über freak Dmitry Klokov, I am
convinced even more that this number is grossly inflated. To be fair, Dmitry has
the World Record for greatest gains to shit diet ratio. If you analyzed his daily
food intake, you would be floored on the strength levels he produced on an
extremely poor diet.

Would he be much stronger with an optimal diet? Marginally. I am entering my

4th decade as a strength coach. Does a proper diet improve muscle mass
gains? Yes. But not as much as getting the right training advice and following it!

Prisons are filled with jacked guys who built muscle on corn flakes, mac and
cheese, and baloney. Would a true muscle building diet accelerate their gains?
Yes, however, doing the reps that no one else wants to do does more for
building muscle than eating Elk vs baloney.

Of course, a Paleo diet has many impacts on health. However, for building
strength and muscle, I have many people gain size and strength with post
workout feeds of chocolate milk and donuts… Are they inflamed? Yes, of
course. Having travelled the world, I have seen some pretty jacked up dudes
living on sub par diets. However, those dudes busted ass in the gym.

I believe more in multiple Mr. Olympia winner Dorian Yates axiom: Nutrition is
100%, Training is 100%, Recovery is 100%. The math is not so good, however,
you get the point.

My beef, no pun intended, is the axiom that stipulates that nutrition is 80% of
hypertrophy. If that were true training would be only 20%…? I know loads of
people with great diets, and yet have zero hypertrophy.

What about sleep? Supplementation? Lifestyle?

Yes, a better diet will help. However, do sets of 6 reps where you go to 9 reps if
you pushed it, is a progress stopper. The best gainers are excellent at differing
pain. They are the type that will do 25 reps where the other will stop at 15
because pain is setting in.

In conclusion, protein and total calories, in terms of diet matter more for
building muscle than any other dietary factor. The ability to push through pain
and drive is what matters most. A perfect diet does not do shit for you unless
you push yourself in the gym.

Best,
Coach Charles R. Poliquin
Strength Sensei