The Russian Approach to Size and Strength

Many a great workout program has been published at T NATION over the last 12 or so years.

How many workouts? Well, let's just say that if you were to choose your favorite five workouts per year starting from the day we started publishing and planned to follow each one for six weeks: you wouldn't have to worry about what your next program is going to be for about seven years!

How's that for having your life planned?

The problem with a haphazard system like that is, well, it's just not ideal. You're just stringing together a bunch of workouts; workouts that might kick ass on their own but aren't part of a larger plan. In a few months or years you might find yourself burned out, injured, or even worse, subscribing to Muscle & Fitness. And we don't want that, do we?

The answer lies in an entirely different form of periodization that takes into account strength phases, size phases, and of course, peaking. Enter a little bit of old school Russian wisdom, served up JP Catanzaro style.

As you read, or skim, this article (you lazy bastard), you may at first think it's confusing. Stick with it and by the end of the article (where the author provides some examples), it'll make as much sense as wearing a cup during a dodgeball tournament.

— Bryan Krahn

Way back in the dark ages of athletic training, strength coaches often went to great lengths to ensure that their athletes added as little muscle mass as possible.

The importance of strength was undeniable, as it was often correlated with an athlete's medal haul. But extra muscle mass? Forget it, you'll just get "muscle bound." Save that for those unemployed nut-jobs strutting down the Venice beach boardwalk.

What a difference a generation or two can make. Today, it's widely accepted that "optimum" hypertrophy is required for "maximum" performance. The reason is simple: muscle protects athletes from injury, provided it's obtained in the proper manner.

Performing a high volume of slow, limited range isolation movements on machines will not help. In reality, the opposite is true: it will hinder performance and set you up for injury.

The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!

The following workout template is inspired from the work of Professor Yuri Verkhoshansky, a senior track and field coach for the Soviet national team, a pioneer of the shock method of training (known as plyometrics), and an innovator in the area of planning and training periodization.

If you're a seasoned athlete looking to add some size and strength to take your on-field performance to the next level or just trying to find that perfect marriage of strength and hypertrophy, this is the system for you.

Before We Begin

The methods are divided into three categories: Maximum Size, Size and Strength, and Maximum Strength. Picking just one method and following it to a T will produce results, and picking two or three and following them in any haphazard fashion will likely work as well, to a certain degree.

But following the programs in an intelligent, systematic fashion that gradually increases intensity up towards a final peak will produce the greatest gains by far. That's having the wisdom and foresight to see each workout as a small step towards a much larger goal. That's smart programming. That's periodization.

Let's get started!

Maximum Size Methods

Size and Strength Methods

Maximum Strength Methods

Periodization, aka Putting It All Together

Use an undulatory, or wave-like, sequence of intensity among programs in the following manner:

Program #1 – Maximum Size Method #1
Program #2 – Size & Strength Method #1
Program #3 – Maximum Strength Method #1
Program #4 – Maximum Size Method #2
Program #5 – Size & Strength Method #2
Program #6 – Maximum Strength Method #2
Program #7 – Maximum Size Method #3
Program #8 – Size & Strength Method #3
Program #9 – Maximum Strength Method #3
Program #10 – Maximum Size Method #4
Program #11 – Size & Strength Method #4
Program #12 – Maximum Strength Method #4
Program #13 – Maximum Size Method #5
Program #14 – Size & Strength Method #5

This plan presents five gradually increasing waves of intensity. By the end of the final program, the athlete will peak. Personal records will be set at this point. Book your victory sex now: you'll have earned it.

The duration of each program is determined by frequency and rate of adaptation.

Frequency

To determine the ideal frequency, pick which scenario describes you best:

The 3 In 5 Approach:

Monday: Day 1
Tuesday: Day 2
Wednesday: Off
Thursday: Day 3
Friday: Off
Saturday: Cycle Repeats.

Use this approach if you're in your late teens or early twenties, still going to school, get plenty of sleep, get plenty of sex, eat right for the most part, and live in your parents' home.

The 3 In 6 Approach:

Monday: Day 1
Tuesday: Off
Wednesday: Day 2
Thursday: Off
Friday: Day 3
Saturday: Off
Sunday: Cycle Repeats

Use this approach if you're in your thirties, have a family, work full-time, try to get eight hours of sleep but it's more like six on most nights, skip breakfast every once and awhile but try for four meals a day, and get sex once a week if you're really lucky, but you've got to pull tooth and nail for it.

The 3 In 7 Approach:

Monday: Day 1
Tuesday: Off
Wednesday: Day 2
Thursday: Off
Friday: Day 3
Saturday: Off
Sunday: Off

Use this approach if you're in your mid-forties and beyond, you run your own business, you're lucky to make it home for dinner most nights, you live off two or three meals a day with plenty of coffee to keep you going, you can barely afford three hours a week to train, your son wants a car even though his grades suck, your daughter is planning to wed a guy she met online last week, your wife couldn't be any bitchier if she tried, and sex is only something you see on cable.

Rate of Adaptation

To determine the duration of a program, one must make progress each workout: either a 1-2% increase in load or a 1-2 rep increase with the same load as the previous workout.

When you fail to progress in this manner, it's time to change the program.

Training Splits

Day 1 – Upper Body (Vertical Push & Pull, Elbow Flexion & Extension)

Day 2 – Lower Body (Quad & Hip Dominant, Trunk/Hip Flexion & Extension)

Day 3 – Upper Body (Horizontal Push & Pull, Elbow Flexion & Extension)

Exercises

Perform no more than four exercises per workout, and many times just two (multi-joint) exercises are all you need particularly during a maximum strength phase.

Workouts should last no longer than an hour. By alternating between antagonistic movements, rest intervals can be cut in half, thereby allowing double the work to be conducted in that time frame.

Choose from the following pool of exercises:

The exercise list provided below is not exhaustive by any means - I'm sure you can think of many exercises that are missing – but it should be more than enough to get you through this plan without repeating an exercise.

Download List of Exercises

Note: The terms "vertical push", "vertical pull", "horizontal push", "horizontal pull", "quad dominant", and "hip dominant" are part of a classification system introduced by Australian strength and conditioning coach, Ian King, in his book Get Buffed! These are multi-joint movements; whereas, trunk/hip flexion & extension and elbow flexion & extension are all single-joint movements.

I have intentionally omitted the Olympic lifts – feel free to include them as a hip dominant movement for your athletes that are competent in performing them correctly!

To give you an example of how to structure your routines, let's take a look at the first wave of this Russian attack.

Sample Russian Attack- Wave One

Program #1 – Maximum Size Method #1

Sets: 4

Reps: 10

Tempo: 4-0-2-0*

Rest: 1 minute between exercises

Day 1 – Upper Body (Vertical Push & Pull, Elbow Flexion & Extension)

A) Close-Neutral-Grip Chin-Up
B) Seated Neutral-Grip Dumbbell Press
C) Preacher Reverse-Grip Cable Curl
D) Flat EZ-Bar Triceps Extension

Day 2 – Lower Body (Quad & Hip Dominant, Trunk Flexion & Extension)

A) Back Step-Up
B) Low-Pulley Split Squat
C) Romanian Barbell Deadlift
D) Low-Pulley Knee-In

Day 3 – Upper Body (Horizontal Push & Pull, Elbow Flexion & Extension)

A) Parallel-Bar Dip
B) Bent-Over Reverse-Grip EZ-Bar Row
C) Kneeling Rope French Press
D) Incline Dumbbell Curl

*Perform a 4 second eccentric, no pause at the bottom, then perform a controlled, 2-second concentric. No pause at the top before beginning the eccentric portion of the next rep.

Note: Decrease the load by 5% each set

Program #2 – Size & Strength Method #1

Sets: 4

Reps: 4-6

Tempo: 3-2-X-0

Rest: 2 minutes between exercises

Day 1 – Upper Body (Vertical Push & Pull, Elbow Flexion & Extension)

A1) Mid-Grip Chin-Up
A2) Mid-Incline Dumbbell Press
B1) Seated Midline Hammer Curl
B2) Standing Reverse-Grip Cable Pressdown

Day 2 – Lower Body (Quad & Hip Dominant, Trunk Flexion & Extension)

A1) Back Squat
A2) Hanging Leg Raise
B1) Bent-Knee Deadlift
B2) Decline Sit-Up

Day 3 – Upper Body (Horizontal Push & Pull, Elbow Flexion & Extension)

*Perform a 3 second eccentric, pause at the bottom for 2 seconds, and then perform an explosive concentric. No pause at the top before beginning the eccentric portion of the next rep.

Note: The 2-second pause is taken at the top position for the seated midline hammer curl and at 30 degrees of elbow flexion for the standing reverse-grip EZ-bar curl. For the rest of the exercises, the 2-second pause is taken at the bottom position.

Program #3 – Maximum Strength Method #1

Sets: 4

Reps: 2-3

Tempo: 5-0-X-0 *

Rest: 2.5 minutes between exercises

Day 1 – Upper Body (Vertical Push & Pull, Elbow Flexion & Extension)

A1) Wide-Grip Pull-Up
A2) Standing Mid-Grip Barbell Press
B1) Incline Hammer Curl
B2) Seated One-Arm Dumbbell French Press

Day 2 – Lower Body (Quad & Hip Dominant, Trunk Flexion & Extension)

A1) Front Squat
A2) Glute-Ham Raise
B1) Snatch-Grip Deadlift
B2) Sicilian Crunch

Day 3 – Upper Body (Horizontal Push & Pull, Elbow Flexion & Extension)

A1) Flat Mid-Grip Barbell Press
A2) Seated Close-Neutral-Grip Cable Row
B1) Preacher One-Arm Dumbbell Curl
B2) Decline EZ-Bar Triceps Extension

*Perform a 5 second eccentric, no pause at the bottom, then perform an explosive concentric. No pause at the top before beginning the eccentric portion of the next rep.

A Word Of Caution

Some workouts will seem short and you'll be tempted to do more. Don't do it! There's more than enough stimulus to promote muscle size, strength and power gains necessary for improved athletic performance.

And yes, despite the reassurances your girlfriend gave you, size does matter- at least in sport, to a certain extent.

Russian Wrap Up

This plan can be used successfully by athletes of all levels of competency, from recreational hackers to paid professionals: simply include energy system work (i.e. interval training) to address work capacity and body composition, as well as regular games and practices in your given sport.

Getting bigger and stronger isn't just for the guys in the string tank tops and clown pants. Even those who have on-field performance as their number one priority will benefit from a few extra pounds of muscle mass.

As the Russian lifters say before a big lift,Udachi!

John Paul Catanzaro, B.Sc., C.K., C.E.P., is a Certified Kinesiologist and Certified Exercise Physiologist with a Specialized Honours Bachelor of Science degree in Kinesiology and Health Science. He owns and operates a private gym in Richmond Hill, Ontario providing training and nutritional consulting services. For additional information, visit his website at www.BodyEssence.ca or call 905-780-9908.

Note: John Paul will be conducting his popular Cutting Edge Techniques Workshop in Richmond Hill, Ontario on June 5-6, 2010. All attendees receive a detailed manual with dozens of programs as well as handouts and a certificate to apply toward continuing education credits. For more details and to register online, visit www.StrengthWorkshop.com.

References

Yuri V. Verkhoshansky, Maximal Strength Training In Speed-Strength Sports

Excerpt from "Special Strength Training – A Practical Manual for Coaches" published in 2006 by Ultimate Athlete Concepts (www.ultimateathleteconcepts.com) and available from the publisher. 

Translation by Dr. Michael Yessis. Retrieved from: www.athleticscoaching.ca.

Puncturing Popular Broscience Myths

Broscience [broh-sigh-en(t)s]: A branch of knowledge or study dealing with the human body's response to strength training, supplementation, or nutrition systematically arranged to explain why one doesn't appear in the mirror as they'd prefer to appear.

Origin: 1970s California, gym locker rooms, and backstage at fitness events.

Do you remember your first time? I surely do. It was in a locker room at the gym. Two guys, one slightly muscular and the other pleasantly round. The slightly muscular guy was telling our round friend to "lift weights for size and do cardio for cuts." I'm sure you've heard that line of reasoning before; it's the most popular type of broscience.

Gymlore, regardless of how much time has passed or how much contrary information has come out, is still widely accepted, practiced, and acknowledged as truth. So, let's deflate some of these hot air balloons, shall we?

"Yo Bro, Try This!"

Broscience Myth #1: Never Eat Carbohydrates and Fat in the Same Meal

The food combining theory states that you shouldn't mix carbohydrates and fat intentionally in the same meal. The reasoning behind this is that the insulin spike from the carbohydrates will increase the chances of dietary fat being stored as body fat.

In reality, this is a very myopic view of insulin that doesn't consider the entire meal. I'd never advise a client to consume a high-carbohydrate and high-fat meal together, but there's nothing wrong with having a moderate amount of both at the same time. There's little, if any, scientific evidence to support the theory, and humans have been combining carbohydrates, fat, and protein together for ages and we turned out all right. (Well, some of us at least.)

Most of us who mean business are eating every two to three hours, which means that our nutrients from meal one are still being absorbed when we start to eat meal two. So, the nutrients from our first two meals are acting together anyway, even if we don't intend on it.

Golay, et al. conducted a study looking at a mixed diet versus the food combining theory.(1) Here's what they stated in their results:

"There was no significant difference in the amount of weight loss in response to dissociated (6.2 ± 0.6 kg) or balanced (7.5 ± 0.4 kg) diets. Furthermore, significant decreases in total body fat and waist-to-hip circumference ratio was seen in both groups, and the magnitude of the changes did not vary as a function of the diet composition. Fasting plasma glucose, insulin, total cholesterol and triacylglycerol concentrations decreased significantly and similarly in patients receiving both diets."

There was actually a slight increase in fat loss in the subjects who used a mixed diet. Go figure, right? We tend to focus solely on the insulin response of carbohydrates, when really the insulin response of a carbohydrate and fat meal depends on how saturated the fat is. An unsaturated fat tends to actually lower the insulin response of the carbohydrate, or not affect it at all.

You also have to factor in your caloric intake. If you're in a lower caloric state, the insulin response from a carbohydrate and fat meal can be a glorious thing. If you're eating a ton of calories, then you might want to watch out.

Let me put the nail in the coffin by saying this: If you follow the food combining theory and its rules, you'll have a harder time maintaining stable insulin levels, which is the point of the whole theory to begin with.

Broscience Myth #2: You Have to Eat Different Foods for Different Goals

Bodybuilding is a fanatical sport because everything is done in extremes. So, it only makes sense that we'd eat different foods when we have different objectives, right? Wrong as the day is long. The line of "clean" and "dirty" foods is so blurred that many a physique has been ruined as a casualty of water.

From a physiological standpoint, there's no difference between "clean" or "dirty" eating, provided that your macronutrients are kept in line with your goals. It's why the cookie-cutter bodybuilding coach that advocates one diet to rule them all often fails. You can take five different dieting bodybuilders and give them five radically different diets and they can all get shredded. It's all about hitting your macronutrient numbers.

I'm not advocating that one should eat a pizza everyday to get ready for the beach — far from it. Let's say that the protein, carbohydrate, and fat amounts in the pizza fit in with your daily allotment. You eat the pizza, and then you're done. What about the rest of the day? You won't have much room left for more fat or carbs; thus, you'll end up wrecking your physique.

Now, I brought up pizza to serve as an example. You can freely eat white rice, white bread, bagels, and pasta daily, as long as they fit into your daily macronutrient numbers.

Broscience Myth #3: Depleting Water Will Make Your Midsection Tighter and Leaner

The most common type of broscience can be found in the days leading up to a bodybuilding event, or even a big day at the beach. Individuals looking to tighten up their midsection will often progressively drop water, while raising carbohydrates throughout the week, until they get to the day of their event when they'd have zero water and ultra-high amounts of carbohydrates.

The fact of the matter is that water is stored in two different areas in the body — intracellularly and extracellularly (inside the muscle and underneath the skin, respectively). The problem with following the cool kids is that the body strictly regulates the intracellular to extracellular balance at a seventy to thirty ratio. If you pull water out of one area (like people try to do with extracellular water), it'll also be pulled out of the other area to keep that seventy to thirty balance.

The ratios don't change; you just get flatter. That is until you have your post-event binge meal and take in copious amounts of carbohydrates and water. You end up looking better the day after the event that you've trained and dieted for during the previous sixteen weeks. Not cool.

Broscience Myth #4: Sodium Makes Your Body Hold Water

This goes hand-in-hand with our previous myth. For some reason, physique athletes are so afraid of what they think sodium might do to their bodies that they put themselves on a path of destruction.

It's true that sodium does make your body hold water. I'm not denying that fact. But that's a rather simplistic view. Your sodium balance affects both fluid and blood volume. Why does that matter? Well, aren't we after a harder and tighter look that depends on both fluid and blood volume? Like the water ratio we mentioned above, the body holds on to its normal range of sodium very strictly.

Your kidneys will either increase or decrease their sodium output depending on your intake. A Harvard study done by Rogacz showed what happens when sodium is restricted over the course of six days.(2) For those who always scream that research studies don't apply to bodybuilders, six days is the typical amount of time that athletes manipulate their intake for a contest or event.

In the Rogacz study, sodium intake was eliminated, but the sodium in the subject's blood stayed the same. By the sixth day, the body had nearly stopped getting rid of sodium. What does this mean? All the sodium manipulations that you did the previous week did nothing! All it did was raise the hormone aldosterone, which causes increased water retention and re-absorption of sodium.

Don't try to trick the body; it's always smarter than we are.

"Hey Bro, It Really Works..."

As you can see from the above four myths, the fitness and bodybuilding insider is filled with crazy claims and ridiculous rationale. Your best bet is to stay on top of the information, which you can do by reading T NATION and by practicing and using each new method. That's the only way you'll truly find out what works.

Don't listen to some folklore because the biggest or leanest guy in the gym said so.

Jimmy Smith,M.S., CSCS is a training and nutrition consultant based in Stamford,CT. For more information, visit his website or friend him on Facebook.

References

Golay A et al. Similar weight loss with low-energy food combining or balanced diets. International Journal of Obesity, 2000:24 (4)492-496

Rogacz S et al. Time course of enhanced responsiveness to angiotensin on low salt diet. Hypertension, 1990:15 (4): 376-380

Sucker Punch: Dr. John Berardi

It's no secret that T NATION has helped launch a number of high profile figures in the fitness and sport nutrition industry.

Many have gone on to build powerful personal training empires, write popular fitness and nutrition books, and speak to legions of adoring, panty-slinging fans at sold-out industry trade shows.

(Unfortunately, one or two have also gone on to doing three to five years at the crowbar hotel, making license plates. Ever see a car or truck with a plate that read PROTEIN4U or GOT DBOL? Next time you do, wave; we know whose handiwork that is.)

One of the most popular players to come out of the T NATION bullpen has been Dr. John Berardi. Berardi started submitting articles to T NATION over 10 years ago when he was just a lowly grad student, beginning with a review of the 2000 ACSM conference in Indianapolis.

While it's unlikely that even the most devout Berardi-ite printed out that first article, TC was quick to spot his unique ability to communicate complex ideas, simply. With that, a long, fact-filled relationship with T NATION readers was born.

The hits were fast and furious from there. Solving the Post Workout Puzzle, Massive Eating, Appetite for Construction, and G-Flux are just some of the game-changing nutrition article series that Berardi has authored, as well as helping to formulate the earliest version of what eventually became the most cutting edge post-workout recovery formula the industry had ever seen, Surge Recovery.

Since those glory days, Berardi moved on to co-found Precision Nutrition, a very successful nutrition education and solutions company packed with all kinds of tools designed to help ordinary folks look and feel their absolute best. That venture keeps Berardi awfully busy, but as time-starved as he is, JB isn't the type of guy to forget where he got his start. So when we offered him a chance to be a part of the Sucker Punch series, JB jumped at the chance to reconnect with T NATION readers.

Plus, the opportunity to tell us all something we don't know? That's something that the Large Professor just couldn't resist.

Testosterone Muscle: Love it or hate it John, you'll likely be forever known around T NATION as the Massive Eating guy. What has been the biggest thing you've learned since the day that article series first ran?

Dr. John Berardi: Oh man, I hope that's not true. If I'm forever known as the Massive Eating guy that means T NATION readers haven't listened to a thing I've said in about 9 years! 

I've published about 300 articles since that two-part Massive Eating series ran, five books, and I just released a nutrition certification program; so if I'm John "Massive Eating" Berardi, that's kind of depressing.

But assuming you're right, and that's my T NATION masterpiece, I guess the biggest thing I've added to my recommendations for "clean bulking," as some guys call it, is nutrient timing.

As you may recall, Massive Eating was based upon structuring meals to contain protein plus carbs and low fat, or protein plus fat and low carbs. Today, I'm using a new convention, which is post-workout meals (PW meals) and anytime meals (AT meals).

PW meals are higher protein, higher carb, and lower fat meals and as the name suggests, they're consumed post workout. AT meals are high protein, lower carb, and higher fat meals, and they're eaten any time other than the post workout window.

I still believe that eating the right amount of calories is critical, and I still believe that controlling your macronutrients (as I advocated in Massive Eating) is beneficial, but this nutrient timing concept puts all that info into proper context; delivering the right nutrients when your body most needs them. 

Of course, there's one caveat. This entire scheme is very general. It's where someone could start when constructing a diet to gain muscle. But let's face it, individualization is the key, so other issues have to be factored in, like body type, activity levels, etc. However, as a baseline, and without knowing anything more about a person, it's a great place to start.

TM: Okay, so you're known now as this purty, nutrition guru who helps clients and coaches yet still finds the time to rescue old ladies' cats from trees. But there was a time when the M in John M. Berardi stood for Meathead, meaning you lived and breathed bodybuilding. (John won the NABBA Jr. Mr. Universe in 1995). What lessons did you learn from those hungrier days?

JB: Ha, there was a time when I was considered prime choice grade A meathead for sure.

I remember when I started my fourth year of university, I met with a grad counselor. I can recall walking into her office and we had a nice chat about my goals and my academic program. The next day, she told the whole class she was teaching about some dumbass guy that was in her office with "legs so big he couldn't even walk right."

Needless to say, I think she was a little surprised to see me graduate with a near perfect GPA. I think I was third in my graduating class, big legs and all!

Situations like these aside, my meathead days were awesome in that they taught me so many valuable lessons. But if I were to narrow it down, I'd like to share three:

The first is discipline and mental fortitude. Preparing for a bodybuilding show is really misunderstood; it's a mental battle more than anything. You basically over-train and over-diet for 16 weeks, and as each week passes you get leaner, but more worn down mentally and physically.

By show time you can't think right, can't move properly, and you're literally counting down the hours for it to be over.

Every single ounce of your being wants to quit, and that's why so many people that intend to compete never do. It's that mentally draining. But for those who endure, you come out the other side with a renewed sense of confidence in your ability to tackle any challenge – no matter how long it takes and how much you have to put into it – and I think that's a valuable life lesson.

I published an article on T NATION called the Get Shredded Diet, and in it I talk about how every two years or so I go on a really intense fat loss program. Part of the reason I do this is to exercise those mental muscles of discipline and perseverance.  I do think it's possible for these muscles to get "flabby."

So for me, the value of working those muscles has translated into everything that I do, whether it's growing a business or working with clients; I tend to be a lot more patient, more willing to put in the time doing behaviors that I know will lead to success, even when that success hasn't arrived yet and I might just be feeling crappy. I think that's really critical.

Next is the correlation between behavior and results. This is something many people miss when they're goal setting. You can set goals and write them down, but the most important thing to realize is that most goals are outcome oriented, and you need to engage in specific behaviors to achieve those outcomes.

My bodybuilding days taught me that when my behaviors matched my goals, I got the results I was looking for. I know this seems like a no brainer, but you'd be amazed at how many people miss this. It doesn't matter how strong your intentions are, if the behaviors aren't there, the results won't be there either.

The cool part is that once you really get this concept, you can work backwards. So, if your results are shit, it's not that there's something wrong with you, it's that your behaviors aren't correct. Fix 'em and the results will follow.

The third is mentorship. When I first started bodybuilding, a guy named Craig Bach took me under his wing. He taught me how to eat, how to train, and how to set goals. This all happened at a very influential time, when I was 18 years old, and it really set me on course. The bottom line is this: there are people more experienced than you, people with more knowledge than you, and if you aren't seeking them out and learning from them, you're an idiot, plain and simple.

TM: As a coach, the biggest mistake I've ever made has been  ______.

JB: That's easy. I used to think that training age could be correlated with nutrition aptitude.

I remember when I started working with elite teams, I was so gung ho to share the advanced nutrition protocols that I had: custom recovery formulas, nutrient timing, and macro breakdowns. Boy, was I in for a rude awakening.

I remember walking in to speak to one Olympic level team and half the guys in the room had bags of fast food with them. It took me longer than it should've to drop this advanced mindset, although I'm happy to say that I finally did. Yet some coaches never do; they stay advanced, pushing protocols clients never follow and then call their clients weak willed or not serious enough.

So my biggest mistake was, because I was talking to elite athletes, I believed that they must be ready for elite nutrition. It's just not true, and forced me to come up  with a client level system that categorizes clients into well-defined slots. Once I remedied this I made a huge leap forward in progress.

TM: But those athletes that did buy in, did they make superior progress?

JB: Absolutely. But the truth is, there are VERY few Level 3 athletes out there. Most are Level 2, at best. You see, when you train with that much volume and intensity, you will usually look "healthy" and if you're already performing at an elite level you don't see much value in looking harder at your nutrition. So the "market" for the Level 3 advice is very small. 

TM: Speaking of superior athletes, I hear you're working with a lot of MMA athletes lately, including Georges St. Pierre. To many T NATION readers, someone like GSP would represent the ideal physique: muscular, lean, and athletic. What exactly do you do with GSP, and what have you done with him that may be of interest to guys looking to attain his level of development?

JB: GSP contacted me a few years ago to help him with his nutrition, so essentially I plan his nutrition and supplementation program. GSP actually has a personal chef in Montreal to prepare all his meals for him, so I work directly with his chef to make sure those are the right kind of meals.

With GSP, it's no secret that he's always had a phenomenal physique. It's partly due to his training, part his work ethic, and a big part is his genetics. He's a naturally mesomorphic guy, and it's widely held that mesomorphs tend to have naturally higher levels of Testosterone and Growth Hormone.

So that's GSP in a nutshell: naturally gifted, trains like crazy year round, and committed to getting better. That leads to a good body every time.

With Georges, our goal was to pack on some lean mass. So, as we discussed earlier, we use the PW/AT strategy. His menu is basically three whole food meals a day, and two "super shakes" a day (protein, berries, almond milk, and fish oil). Before a workout he has an energy bar, a workout drink during, and after he has a recovery drink.

We use all Biotest stuff. He uses Finibar, Surge Workout Fuel and Surge Recovery around workouts, and Metabolic Drive, Flameout and Superfood in the super shakes. I send him a big box of Biotest every month and he's good to go.

Now, before I started working with Georges, he was eating maybe two to three times a day, and quite often it was fast food. Because he's training two or three times a day, running back and forth between gyms in Montreal, and spending very little time at home, he just didn't have a good strategy for eating properly.

I see this all the time in MMA; they have jobs and train multiple times a day and just don't have the time to do what needs to be done in the kitchen. So GSP was chronically underfed, and that's why he was so lean. Since starting with him we've doubled or tripled his caloric intake.

TM: So GSP had contacted you about gaining weight?                 

JB: I guess some people would be surprised to hear that GSP wanted to gain weight. So before I continue, you have to understand how the MMA classes work. Basically, there's pressure from the top down to fight in lower weight classes. You have these guys in Heavyweight weighing in at 270lbs, so the 230lbs heavyweights will drop down to 205 to gain an advantage. But now the natural 205 pounders will be at a disadvantage, so they'll cut to 185 and so on.

GSP, who was walking around 185-ish and cutting to 170, contacted me to get to 195-200 to then cut down to 170. Once we changed his diet, he gained 10 pounds of lean mass in 8 weeks. Again, he was chronically underfed, so when we finally started doing things right the weight just flew on.

TM: Any problems with such a big cut (200 to 170)?

JB: No, GSP uses a very scientific approach to cut. He'll show up for a fight weighing 195 on Monday, cut to 170 by Friday for weigh-ins, and then, in the next 24 hours, put most, if not all of those 25 pounds back on.

TM: Any hints how you guys do this?     

JB: It's nothing that fancy, really. Just science. It's a lot like what competitive bodybuilders do; fluid and sodium loading, then cut the fluid and cut sodium, except we do other things as well like hot water immersion baths. Unfortunately very few guys in MMA know this stuff, so they do stupid things like wearing trash bags on an exercise bike while locked up in a sauna.

Another interesting part is the recovery from the cut, or putting the weight back on. We base everything on known fluid absorption rates. You just give that amount of fluid per hour, which works out to about 1.5 liters of fluid per hour, with an estimated 20-25% urinary excretion. But not just any fluid; I like Surge Recovery as part of the rehydration because of the carbs and buffers in the product. 

TM: Interesting. A lot of folks train hard, eat right, say their prayers and eat their vitamins. Yet so many guys and gals fail to make the transformation they're looking for. What are we all doing or not doing?

JB: Well, in some cases there are underlying physical problems that prevent people from making progress, but they're rare. In reality, I see two common problems with most people:

One is they're not doing what they know they should be doing. They know they should be eating better, and getting to the gym almost daily. They know they should be resting, and that they should use progressive resistance. It's not like they're making a big choice to screw up their progress like, "I'm not going to eat properly today."

What they're doing is making small daily compromises in each of these areas: a little extra junk food, miss a workout here, a late night there. They know what they should be doing, but making these little compromises gradually erodes excellence. They may not seem like a big deal in isolation, but add them all up and it's a big deal.

Two is they're just not consistent enough. I've always said, consistency not novelty is the secret to uncommon results. Not one day here, one day there: if you want a dramatically different body, you have to tell yourself that it's going to be a yearlong process, and for the next year be very consistent.

This is something we build into our coaching program and it's the only way I work with clients now.

TM: And this involves making one small change at a time, right?

JB: Humans simply don't change by undergoing these major life overhauls. Doing one new habit at a time until it's mastered produces change, and then add a new habit. Studies show that if we try to change one thing at a time, we have an 85% success rate. Up it to two and it drops to 35%. More than two, and it drops to near zero. Consistent, small changes is the key. It's the way people successfully change: one thing at a time.

TM: What are five supplements I'll always find in JB's cupboard, right next to the home bikini waxing kit, and why?

JB: OK, I admit I've an overdeveloped supplement cabinet, but as for a top five:

1) I always have a protein blend on hand. I prefer to rotate them so I'm not eating exactly the same thing every day. Many naturopaths and nutritionists share this theory that eating the same thing day after day can lead to an intolerance. I think that there may be something to that, so I rotate between Metabolic Drive and MuscleMilk.

2) Powdered fruits and veggies. I rotate between Superfood and GreensPlus.

3) Essential Fatty Acids. I always have Flameout and a liquid fish oil on hand. I also recently added Udo's Oil back into my diet and noticed an almost immediate improvement in my skin, and I just seem to feel better. Again, I'm not replacing fish oil, just balancing out my omega 3/6/9 intake. I'm a big believer in fatty acid balance.

4) A multivitamin.

5) Workout drinks. On high carb days, I use Surge Recovery with Creatine Monohydrate and Beta Alanine. On lower carb days, I use Power Drive with BCAAs, creatine, and Beta Alanine.

I use other stuff intermittently like Curcumin and Receptor Max. Receptormax is interesting. I get my Testosterone levels tested regularly, and I admit that I'm always on the low side of normal. After using Receptormax, I got tested and I was up over 900.

I'm not sure why, but I was certainly impressed. I was taking it for the glucose tolerance benefits (as glucose tolerance tends to dive in your mid 30s) and wasn't expecting a big benefit in my androgen scores. So that was an added bonus.

TM: What's currently smoking hot in the training or performance nutrition world that drives you nuts?

JB: I tend to be a pretty positive guy and try to just focus on what I'm doing, but I do see one thing that, well, pisses me off. It's the hypocritical coach that makes prescriptions that they don't follow themselves.

A few months back, I was a presenter at a nutrition conference and there was this guy presenting on his militant Paleolithic approach. He railed against all grains, dairy, legumes, even corn on the cob. I didn't agree but I'm like "live and let live."

But an hour later, there was a reception for all the presenters and this guy was front and center, eating hors d'oeuvres and swilling Guinness. Later on at the restaurant, he put away about a loaf and a half of white bread and more Guinness.

And I thought, what an asshole. He spent two hours convincing people that even green beans were bad for you and here he was, getting wasted and over eating junk food. That pisses me off. I see this kind of hypocrisy all the time unfortunately and it gives our whole industry a bad name. That's my biggest peeve.

TM: And finally, the franchise question. Tell us something we don't know.

JB: I thought about this one a long time. Knowing sucks.

Now that may sound ironic coming from a guy who went to school for a long time and has a PhD and stuff, but what I mean is we all like to know stuff. In the training and nutrition world, we're fascinated with knowing NEW stuff. But its not knowing that's the limiting factor, it's the doing that's the problem.

Specifically, it's the doing of the key, basic things repeatedly with relentless consistency that gets people into wicked shape.

So that's why I say knowing sucks. No one ever got into shape just by knowing, so my best advice is to stop spending time and energy trying to learn new shit. Instead, spend time and energy doing what you already know works. If you can do that day in and day out, in 6 months time you'll have a remarkably different physique.

That's how I'd like to end this, as it speaks to every thing we talked about so far, and I really believe it. Let's all start learning less and doing more. I guarantee that your physique will improve exponentially.

TM: Sounds like solid advice from the Large Professor. Thanks for doing this today, JB!

JB: No problem. It's a pleasure being back on T NATION.

ATOMIC DOG

The Atomic Dog is a weekly feature that isn't necessarily about weight training or bodybuilding. Sometimes it's about sports in general, sex, women, or male issues of some kind. At times it's inspirational, but it can also be informative, funny, and even a little weird, but hopefully, always interesting and a little controversial. We hope it reflects the nature of Testosterone magazine in that, just as no man is completely one-dimensional and only interested in one subject, neither are we. If it makes you think or laugh — or even get angry — it's served its purpose.

So I'm sitting in my favorite Irish pub, The Fermented Hymen, enjoying a glass of imported Peruvian beer made from barley, hops, and llama dung.

In walks this snatch-tastic girl wearing some red, cock-throbbing Manolo knock-offs and a little, black, shimmery, elastic tube sock of a dress that's so thin, so form-fitting that there's no way it's mere fabric.

No, this hot steamy mammal must have walked naked straight out of the oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico, somehow miraculously leaving the entire length of her long, luxurious legs, the unnippled northern hemispheres of her magnificent breasts, and her statuesque shoulders free of petrochemical dressing.

God, I'd have given a month's pay to have a cup of oil dispersant on me. I don't care what kind of environmental damage it would have caused—how many sea turtles washed out of the effluent--I would have showered her in it and watched her oil dress dissolve and reveal her oh-so-pink nakedness with the same gleeful anticipation I had when I sat down to watch Iron Man 2.

She wasn't really wearing an oil dress, of course, but regardless its blackness stood in stark contrast against her long, straight, golden blonde hair and her alabaster white skin. Don't think for a second, though, that her pale skin was pasty or had an unhealthy glow. Noooo. No freakin' way. Instead, her skin looks as pretty as premium bond paper made from 100 percent bleached rag pulp, the kind you find at Kinko's.

My world starts spinning. All the great beauties of civilization flash by me arm-in-arm in a g-stringed conga line; there's Helen of Troy, Cleopatra, Marilyn Monroe, Raquel Welch, Angelina Jolie, and "I Dreamed a Dream" singer Susan Boyle.

They're all there, an All-Star line-up of lascivious wanton sluts, high-kicking it to the heavens and presenting a visual banquet to every beaver hunter in the room.

All I know is I have to talk to this glorious creature, but my heart is thumping like Jack White's sister hopped up on Walter White's carefully concocted blue meth facing off against the Energizer Bunny in a drumbeat death match.

Luckily, inexplicably, the oil-mermaid is by herself. I walk up to her—lurch is more like it, given my tumescent state—and ask her if I can buy her a Peruvian beer and whether she comes to the Fermented Hymen often and all the usual boring, unimaginative repartee that would embarrass even a 3^rd rate pick-up artist.

I am so fucking nervous! I am so fucking intimidated by her beauty! My meerkat of a hard-on has by now pulled back into meerkat manor as if it'd spotted a swooping raptor.

I manage to extract a bit of information from her, things like her name (capital K, small a, small n, capital D, small double-e: KanDee), but then she tells me she works at the pet salon, where she's in charge of "small animal cosmetology," which means she mostly grooms poodles, clipping their nails and stuff, but once in awhile they let her do "medical type stuff" like expressing canine anal glands.

Internally, I groan, "Oh no, she's a management type, a career girl! This intimidates me even more.

I can't, for the life of me, figure out why this girl would make me feel insecure about myself. I'm certainly no slouch when it comes to skills or accomplishments, which should, I'm not too modest to say, garner a lot of points with most women.

For one thing, I'm the editor of a website where guys come to learn about getting their biceps jacked up. That's not something you can get a chimp to do, for crissake. I wrote a book that sold tens of copies, tens. I won a soup contest when my pea soup recipe ("Give Peas a Chance Primordial Soup") won second place.

When my local thespian group decided to do a musical version of Battlestar Galactica, I was offered the role of Admiral Adama, not smarmy Dr. Boltair or that lame Colonel Tigh, Admiral Fracking Adama!

I wear really cool underwear, too. Not just on weekends or major holidays, but all the goddam time.

So yeah, I've got a lot to offer.

But I don't remember any of this stuff when I'm talking to a beautiful woman. Instead, I feel like I'm a small boy again, wheezingly begging my somewhat stern father for an advance on my allowance so I can buy my asthma medicine.

Predictably, KanDee didn't go home with me. Instead, she went home with this guy who looked like the lovechild of Gollum and Shia Labeouf who, God knows why, wasn't intimidated by her beauty.

"Your loss, baby," I say to myself, with mock bravado. "See if that dude knows the advanced lovemaking techniques that I do, like applying a Breathe Right nasal strip across his nose beforehand to improve oxygen efficiency. See if, after sex, he can make half the cock-shadow puppets I can! Can he make a monkey climbing down a tree while holding two coconuts? I don't think so!

"That's right, baby, with me you would have gotten dynamite sex and a show!"

Frustrated beyond belief, I walk home to that which is my metallic mother, father, and secret lover—my garage gym. I strip naked and in-between sets of nude gladiator deadlifts, I channel the albino guy from The Da Vinci Code and flagellate the power rack with my penis while sobbing uncontrollably in an attempt to exercise and exorcise the blond demon, KanDee, from my pants and my soul.

Predictably, my workout sucks, so my bruised and chastened penis and I walk gingerly into the house to check out my Facebook page and maybe catch up on science research. While bouncing between various news sites, I serendipitously stumble on a study performed at the University of Valencia in Italy that might explain my poor performance at the bar and in my home gym.

It seems that spending as few as five minutes with a beautiful woman may cause so much stress that's it actually bad for the heart. It's even worse for men who think the woman is out of their league.

Just how stressful? The researchers compared their anxiety to jumping out of an airplane. Levels of the stress hormone, cortisol, rise so high that the possibility of heart attacks and strokes become very real. And if this exposure is long-term, cortisol levels might become chronically elevated, exponentially increasing the chance of experiencing disorders such as myopathy, adult-onset diabetes, hypertension, and impotency!

Holy Dr. Gupta!

The study involved 84 male students who were each led individually to a room and given a Sudoku puzzle to solve. Each subject assumed the other two people in the room to be a researcher and another student.

In each case, the researcher would leave the room, presumably to get another puzzle, thus leaving the two guinea pigs alone.

Researchers found that when two men were left alone, cortisol levels remained unchanged. However, when a man was left alone in the room with a woman he perceived as beautiful, his cortisol levels skyrocketed.

Also, quite predictably, researchers noted a stark deterioration in Sudoku skills among the men who were left alone with a beautiful woman. Instead of filling in the boxes with the numerals one through nine, most of the Italian males filled the boxes in with letters that spelled, "o datsa hot."

Clearly, I too had been exposed to a Deepwater Horizon spill's worth of cortisol!

While the Italian study addressed the physiological response to beauty—high cortisol—they didn't address the psychological reasons behind the response.

Whether she's the live-at-home daughter of a pig farmer, a cashier at the Kwik-E-Mart, or an underwear model, most beautiful women discovered power at an early age, power in the form of sexual attractiveness, and power in the rather sad but overwhelming desire men have for their approval.

Put these two factors together, and a beautiful woman is, to most men, the most intimidating creature in the world; sort of like Freddie Krueger--same sculpted nails but with an awesome rack and a hellacious ass.

You get the sexual flip side to this when women are in the presence of a rich, powerful man. Suddenly, they're put in the same psychosexual tight wire act that men face when they're interacting with a beautiful woman.

Sure, put an ordinary woman in a room with Donald Trump and suddenly she knows how most men feel in her presence, only instead of the Donald merely firing her, men face the considerably more bleak prospect of not getting any primo ass.

Of course, if you pit a beautiful woman against a powerful man, then the power grab is nullified and they'll hook up and their spawn will wreck the remake of The Karate Kid.

For me, the intimidation comes not from the inherent power of beautiful women, but the fear of losing out on something wonderful. The nervousness I feel when I only get a few moments to lure a wünder babe into my man lair is like the nervousness a bass fisherman might feel when he's trying to land a record-setting fish, only instead of fearing you might not get your pic on the cover of Bass Master magazine, you might not get to stick your penis inside a world class hoo-hah and slide it back and forth, which, if successful, could possibly earn you the cover of Ass Master magazine.

I supposed the only way to combat this nervousness and the associated high cortisol is to, whenever in the presence of a beautiful woman, remind yourself of your inestimable talents and your self-worth. Most women can sense confidence and they're attracted to it. You have to admit, it sure beats splattering her suede pumps with urine from your nervous bladder.

If, on the other hand you don't have any talents or self-worth, you might possibly adopt a c'est la vie attitude and realize there's no reason to be nervous because there are plenty of other fish in the oil-coated sea that are already plenty drunk enough to overlook your multiple shortcomings.

If none of this works or you think it's hopeless, you might want to take the advice of Trinidadian calypsonian Roaring Lion, whose instinctive knowledge of beautiful women and cortisol prompted him to write the following lyrics in 1934:

If you wanna be happy for the rest of your life

Never make a pretty woman your wife

So for my personal point of view

Get an ugly girl to marry you

Don't let your friends say you have no taste

Go ahead and marry anyway

Though her face is ugly, her eyes don't match

Take it from me, she's a better catch

The point is well taken, but if beautiful women are your drug of choice and striking out and feeling stress are your curse, you could go home, drop your drawers, and do what horny men in similar situations have been doing since time immemorial.

That, at least, lowers cortisol and raises Testosterone, albeit briefly.