November 11, 2024 • 28 mins
📲 For the exact steps to set up your next bulking phase for substantial muscle gains, download my free Muscle-Building Nutrition Blueprint (updated for 2025) or go to witsandweights.com/free.
Can you build muscle faster than we thought... WITHOUT gaining more fat as you bulk? What if the current advice to on rate of gain is actually holding you back?
Philip (@witsandweights) shares groundbreaking research that shows you can gain muscle faster than you thought - without getting bogged down by excess fat. He breaks down the latest science into simple, actionable tips for beginners, intermediates, and advanced lifters. Whether you're just starting or a seasoned lifter aiming to push past your current limits, Philip shares practical tips on tailoring your muscle-building pace based on your experience level. Tune in for a fresh perspective on building the body you want!
Today, you’ll learn all about:
1:11 Traditional bulking advice and why it’s outdated
2:06 Philip’s muscle-building program update
3:49 Why are recommendations changing?
5:41 Gain faster now
10:41 For optimal muscle gain
14:29 Tone up smart and assess your training experience
18:30 Determining your training level and rate of gain
20:23 Consistent progression and monitoring results
21:39 Importance of quality nutrition
23:37 Nutrient partitioning abilities
Episode resources:
- FREE Muscle-Building Nutrition Blueprint (over 25 pages!)
- Greg Nuckols Article – How Fast Should You Gain Weight When Bulking?
- Try MacroFactor free with code WITSANDWEIGHTS – Apple/iPhone or Google/Android
Related episode:
🎓 Build muscle, lose fat, and train smarter in Physique University (tap here for exclusive early access + a FREE custom nutrition plan for just $27/month)
👥 Join our Facebook community for live Q&As & support
👋 Let's connect! Ask a question, get my FREE newsletter, or find me on Instagram
📱 Try MacroFactor for free with code WITSANDWEIGHTS
🏋️♀️ Download Boostcamp for free for evidence-based workout programs
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Philip Pape (00:01):
If you've been following the standard advice of
gaining weight slowly andmethodically to build muscle,
including advice that I've givenon this show, you might be too
conservative.
New research has changed ourunderstanding of how quickly you
can gain muscle while keepingfat gain minimized, and I mean
quite completely changed,because what we thought was
optimal might actually becutting your gains in half.
(00:23):
Today, I'm breaking down thelatest science that's forcing us
to rethink what we knew aboutthe rate of building muscle and
why.
This is actually great news foranyone trying to pack on size.
Whether you're a beginner whocan gain faster than ever, or an
experienced lifter who needs tofind your sweet spot to avoid
constant bulking and cuttingcycles, this episode is going to
(00:44):
help you hone in on the mostefficient physique building
approach.
Welcome to Wits and Weights,the show that blends evidence
and engineering to help youbuild smart, efficient systems
to achieve your dream physique.
I'm your host, Philip Pape, andtoday we're exploring something
(01:05):
that challenges what many of us,including myself, have been
teaching for years aboutbuilding muscle.
You're probably tracking yourcalories, your macros.
You're aiming to get just theright rate of gain, probably
around a quarter pound per week,maybe a little more, something
like two to three pounds permonth, because that's what
everyone says is optimal.
I've even said before 0.2 to0.3% of your body weight a week
(01:29):
is optimal and, yes, you'regoing to make progress.
However, you do it when you'rein a surplus, but it might be
slower than you want.
And now you notice othersmaking gains faster.
Maybe you feel like you'reshortchanging yourself because
it doesn't seem like you'reputting it all out there.
And the new research that we'veseen over the last few years
suggests exactly that that wecan gain muscle faster than
(01:54):
previously thought, with lessconcern about fat gain than we
once believed, and this changespretty much everything we knew
about building muscle and howfast and how large our surplus
should be.
Now, speaking of changingeverything, I've revised my free
muscle building nutritionblueprint to reflect the new
(02:14):
findings, the new rates of gain,and I separate it by
aggressiveness depending on howcomfortable you are gaining
weight and gaining some fatalong for the ride as you build
that muscle.
And if you want your free copyof my muscle building nutrition
blueprint, just use the link inmy show notes or go to
witsandweightscom slash free andit's updated and it's a very
detailed guide with not only therate of gain, but it walks you
(02:37):
step by step through the processof building muscle.
It gives you an example of howI applied this to a past bulk,
which, of course, if I did itagain, I might actually go
aggressively.
And just so you know, I'mrecording this as I've recently
started a new bulk, which I willbe reporting out on, probably
in a few months, only because Iwant to see how well my new
(02:57):
program goes as well.
I'm running a 19 week programthat has a base phase and then a
peaking phase to push up mymain lifts, which I haven't done
in a while, and I'm combiningthat with the bulk and I'm going
at what I would call amoderately aggressive rate based
on what I'm going to sharetoday.
So let me break this down intothree parts.
First, we're going to look atwhy the recommendations are
(03:19):
changing based on new research.
I've said in the past youshould never be locked into a
specific finding, whether it'sfrom one study or 10 studies,
because there could always benew information that enlightens
us as to more precise, accurateapproach, and that is exactly
the case here.
Then, in the second segment,I'm going to explain exactly
what this means for you and yourmuscle building goals.
(03:41):
And then, finally, I'm going toshow you how to put this into
practice based on yourexperience level, your level of
training advancement.
So let's talk about how ourunderstanding has evolved,
because this is super important.
Why are my recommendationschanging?
Why are the recommendations inthe industry changing?
And some very well-respectedindividuals out there, like the
(04:02):
guys at Stronger by Science, forexample and if you've listened
to me for any length of time,you've heard me tell you, as a
listener and clients, to gainaround 0.2 to 0.3% of your body
weight per week when trying tobuild muscle.
And this wasn't just myrecommendation, it was the
standard advice based on thebest available evidence at the
time, including somemeta-analysis, one by Dr Herrick
(04:25):
Helms et al.
I've had people on the showtalk about that and it was in
all of my guidance, even toclients as well, because it's
the best thing we knew andeveryone's worried about gaining
too much fat, so we don't wantto push it too aggressively and
do the old dreamer bulk right.
Just the seafood diet, see itand eat it.
But you know, science evolvesand sometimes it evolves
(04:45):
dramatically and sometimes itcatches up to some of the
kernels of truth that we knowabout from the bro science, from
the guys who've truly packed onsome muscle and I'll be honest,
you know I have a long way togo.
I've been doing this seriouslynow for four or five years but I
want to say, like, from thenutrition side, probably about
three years, and I've learned alot personally.
I've helped hundreds of clientsand listeners go through this
(05:07):
process and doing itsuccessfully, and yet still we
can learn and do it better.
So we've gone from having justtwo key studies on this topic.
This is the pitfall of relyingon science too much is when we
don't have quite enoughinformation out there compared
to the decades and hundreds andthousands of anecdotes which in
(05:27):
some way count as their ownevidence.
So we've gone from having twostudies to now having five
well-designed studies.
Look at how different rates ofweight gain affect muscle growth
and fat gain, and the resultsare changing what we thought we
knew.
And I want to give credit whereit's due because this was
recently detailed in anexcellent article by Greg
Knuckles at Macrofactor.
(05:49):
You know how much I love thoseguys.
He was on the show in the pastand he's just a phenomenal
writer, but he's really good atdistilling a lot of this complex
information into an articlethat's still detailed enough to
give you all the key points andgraphs and comparisons.
And their team.
They analyzed these fivestudies and it kind of opened my
eyes about how we need toupdate our approach as well, and
(06:10):
that's why I'm doing thisepisode and so I've linked to
that article in the show notesand you can check that out
firsthand and see where it allcomes from.
But to get into specifics, arecent study published in the
Journal of Functional Morphologyand Kinesiology found something
pretty remarkable because inrelatively untrained lifters
which is a good place to startbecause they can change fairly
(06:32):
quickly gaining up to about apound or a half percent of body
weight per week led to largeincreases in fat-free mass, with
minimal to no increase in fatmass.
And if we think about how ourbody is composed, when we talk
about body composition, there ismuscle mass and there is
everything else which includesfat, but not just fat.
(06:54):
And the way they typicallymeasure these is just creating a
binary buckets, you know,fat-free mass and fat mass,
which is pretty helpful in ourcontext because a lot of us
really care about are we gainingtoo much fat when we gain
muscle?
But we also want to see thatwe're gaining the muscle and
what the ratio is.
So one pound a week issignificantly faster than what
(07:15):
we previously thought, even fornewer lifters.
I mean, I'll say it's on thecusp and you're going to find
out.
You're going to see here thatthe recommendations for
intermediate and advancedlifters are actually a lot more
aggressive than we thought aswell.
So where it gets interestingfor those people, for
experienced lifters and byexperienced I mean you've been
training hard for at least sixto nine months Now you've moved
(07:36):
into late novice, earlyintermediate and your propensity
to gain muscle is just a littlebit less than where it was at
the beginning or anything moreadvanced than that.
The research shows that fasterrates of weight gain might help
increase muscle growth even abit more, but too much, and
you're still going to primarilyjust increase fat gain.
So that's where there'sconsistency with the previous
(07:59):
literature to an extent, but thenumbers have just shifted to be
more aggressive.
So, for example, in a veryadvanced lifter, when gaining
about 0.4% of their body mass aweek, about 60 to 65% of the
weight gained was fat-free mass,so that's almost two-thirds not
as fat, which is more than Ithought would happen.
(08:20):
I used to say it was around50-50, right, and any more than
that.
It just gets worse.
But now we're saying it'stwo-thirds muscle or two-thirds
fat-free mass to one-third fat.
Okay, in an advanced trainee at0.4% a week, which, just so you
know, is right about the rateI'm going at right now.
I used to hit it at around 0.25, 0.3, and now I'm going at 0.4.
(08:44):
I consider myself anintermediate lifter and I'm
going more aggressive Prettycool, right, and I know that
that could.
Then it gives me a lot ofexcitement because, first of all
, I get to eat a lot more food,which is awesome, In fact,
almost to the point where itcould be uncomfortable, because
I do still eat a lot of wholefoods and fiber and sometimes I
feel too full whole foods andfiber and sometimes I feel too
(09:05):
full.
So there's that hard gainingpiece.
I did a whole episode aboutthat in the past and I'm going
to link to that in the shownotes as well.
Anyhow, if we take that rate ofgain 0.4%, let's say we slow
that down to more like 0.16, Ithink was the exact number.
The amount of fat-free massthat these advanced lifters
gained as a percentage of thetotal weight gained was 85%, so
(09:26):
a vast majority of it beingmuscle.
When they're going at 0.15% Now, 0.15% is roughly on the low
end of whatI used to recommendanyway, like the lowest of the
low end Kind of makes sense.
So what this means is simpleWe've been too conservative with
our recommendations, especiallyfor beginners and intermediates
(09:47):
and that's probably the vastmajority of people listening to
be honest Because once you'readvanced, you kind of have
things dialed in and understandhow your body responds anyway,
and it's going to take longerbetween.
It's going to take longer to doeverything you know to gain
muscle mass, to gain strength,and so it makes sense that your
rate of gain would slow down.
So all of this is excellentnews because it means that you
(10:08):
might be able to build musclefaster than you thought, without
packing on unnecessary fat.
So now you understand whyrecommendations have changed.
And again, go check out thearticle.
You can check out the researchstudy that I just mentioned
specifically, but it's mentionedin the article, so I would rely
on that and their citations tosee all of the studies that are
being drawn upon.
And now I want to use thisresearch to tell us what it
(10:31):
means about building muscle, andthis is where it gets really
interesting.
So this research has revealedthree insights that I want to
talk about, Three major insightsabout building muscle.
First, your training experiencematters potentially even more
than we realized.
Beginners have an incrediblecapacity for muscle growth.
They can gain up to 0.8% bodyweight per week with minimal fat
(10:57):
gain.
Like those are fat loss numbers.
In other words, like that's therate of body weight loss I
would be recommending for fatgain.
Usually, when we talk aboutmuscle gain, we talk about a
fraction of that, like a half ora quarter of that, and what
we're saying is no, you canactually crank it up to like
0.8% and even potentially 1% ofyour body weight per week if
(11:18):
you're total new and you'rewilling to gain a little extra
fat for the chance of building alot more muscle.
And then we have intermediatelifters and they're not far
behind now.
They have the ability to gain,say, 0.3 to 0.5% per week
effectively and still gain a tonof that as muscle mass.
We're talking a half a percenta week.
So if you gain let's say you'rean average, slightly bigger guy
(11:39):
and you're 200 pounds, just foreasy numbers that's a pound a
week.
Right, that's a pound a week.
So that's like a little overfour pounds a month, which means
in six months you'd be gaininglike 25 pounds.
Okay, and 25 pounds amounts towhat does that come out to be?
Over what 12.5% increase?
And I used to recommendanywhere from seven to 10%, and
(12:01):
this is suggesting we can go upto like well, 12.5% over a six
month period.
You can bulk for less, you canbulk for longer, and that's
going to change the total weightgained, but the percentage of
that gained as muscle massshould still be pretty high, All
right.
And then we have advancedlifters who still need even more
precision and they should stayin the range of anywhere from
0.15 to 0.35% body weight perweek.
(12:23):
And I realize I'm throwing a lotof numbers at you.
If you go to the Macrofactorarticle, you'll see tables that
give you ranges and I wouldn'tworry too much about it.
If you use Macrofactor the appitself, it's actually designed
around percentage gain per week.
Use my code, WITSANDWEIGHTS,try it for free for a couple of
(12:43):
weeks and I'm sure you'll behooked and you'll want to use it
forever.
Again, link in the show notes.
It sounds like I'm promoting abunch of stuff here, but it's
all connected, so beginners cango up to a percent or maybe 0.8%
, intermediates up to half apercent and advanced maybe 0.35%
.
That's the first major insightfrom this research.
But there's more to understandabout how this changes our
approach, because second is thatwe've discovered the sweet spot
(13:07):
, for muscle growth is alsohigher than we previously
thought kind of that optimalnumber and the research shows
that your body's more capable ofusing the extra nutrients for
muscle growth, especiallyearlier in your training career
and we used to think a littlebit slower.
More of a lean gain was alwaysbetter and we know that's not
true now, which is great.
It's liberating.
It means you have a lot moreflex pun intended to eat more
(13:31):
and gain more muscle withoutbeing as worried about gaining a
ton of fat.
Jenny (13:35):
Hi, my name is Jenny and I just wanted to say a big thank
you to Philip Pape of Wits andWeights for offering his free
50-minute nutritional assessment.
During that time he gave mereally good tools on how I can
further my health and fitnessgoals.
He asked really great questionsand stayed true to his offer of
(13:56):
no sales pitch.
I have since applied thesethings and gotten really close
to my health goals and my weightgoals, and now I'm able to flip
over and work on my strengthand my muscle conditioning using
a lot of the things he offersin his podcasts, and I just am
very grateful for his positiveinspiration and encouragement,
(14:18):
for all of our help.
Thank you, philip.
Philip Pape (14:21):
And then third, and this might be the most exciting
finding that the ratio ofmuscle to fat gain is much
better than we feared.
I alluded to that earlier.
If you gain at one of thesemoderate rates which is now, is
more aggressive than we thoughtup to three quarters of the
weight gained can be lean mass.
Now, a little bit of that mightbe some fluid mass, glycogen
going on, but still that's ahuge ratio of muscle.
(14:44):
I've seen this.
You know there's a sanity check.
A sniff test on this is with myclients.
We track a bunch of metrics.
We track body measurements.
I do some Navy formula basedbody fat percentage measurements
and I also calculate how muchlean mass versus fat you've
gained or lost during a musclebuilding phase.
And for my clients who havegone at a more conservative rate
(15:07):
, like we used to recommend, itwas often well over two thirds
lean mass and I always thought,wow, this must just be because
they're so new at it.
Because many of my clientsthey've been training, but they
haven't maybe been trainingeffectively.
So we get them training forstrength using the right type of
periodization, using the rightstimulus, with volume and
intensity, and they just getcranky.
(15:28):
Their lifts go up, they startbuilding a ton of muscle.
So it makes sense.
But now I'm thinking, oh, is itactually because we just can go
more aggressively and stillgain a bunch of muscle and it
not be very much fat and let'snot worry as much about the
scale going up?
We actually want that to happen.
(15:48):
We want to be well over thatthreshold and now this liberates
us to really push it and notworry.
That's what I think is prettycool.
So even when we push the rateof gain higher, fat accumulation
isn't nearly as dramatic as weonce thought, and this
completely changes the oldbelief that you know, if you
gain too fast, it's all fat.
Having said that, there is arate of gain that some people
(16:08):
would be going way tooaggressively.
You know, like one and a half,two percent a week is probably
then at the point where you'rejust going to gain a bunch of
fat, and that's like the dreamerbook, right.
But the evidence doesn'tsupport the fear of too much fat
gain in a fairly wide range now.
So we've covered why the oldrecommendations were too
conservative, what the newscience shows Now, how do you
(16:30):
actually apply this to your owntraining and nutrition?
And it's pretty simple how do wetake this and turn it into your
results?
I think it starts withassessing.
How do we take this and turn itinto your results?
I think it starts withassessing honestly, like very
honestly, your trainingexperience.
All right, you're probably abeginner and I have air quotes
here if you're still addingweight to your lifts almost
(16:52):
every session so that's sessionto session.
But honestly, if you're able togo up every week, you're
probably still in a latebeginner, early intermediate
stage.
So if you're able to go upevery week, you're probably
still in a late beginner, earlyintermediate stage.
So if you're making progress,but it's less consistent and,
again, progress is very fluidhere because it's not just
weight on the bar, it's alsoyour volume, your periodization.
(17:12):
If you use some sort of wavetype programming, you kind of
know who you are if you're notjust cranking up weight on the
bar super quickly.
So I'm in that situation whereI'm not just going to increase
weight every session and notnecessarily every week.
Sometimes I increase sets orreps as a form of adding more
(17:32):
work, and there's differentreasons for that, outside the
scope of today's podcast,different reasons for that
outside the scope of today'spodcast.
But I consider myselfintermediate, but still with a
huge propensity to grow muscle,and so I'm going to go that
moderately aggressive like that.
(17:52):
0.4%.
Maybe I could even go moreaggressive than that.
But the amount of caloriesrequired then become actually a
little bit of a sustainabilityissue for me, just like when you
cut too quickly and it's notsustainable.
I know we're going into theholiday season here.
I can only put down so muchfood at each meal, just how I am
, and to go significantly pastsay 3,200 or 3,500 calories a
day would be not thatsustainable for me.
(18:14):
I could do it, and it's anexcuse if I said I couldn't, but
that's part of the equation.
So 0.4%, anyway, beginner andimmediate.
You got to assess where you areand if you're advanced, you
know who you are.
I mean, I'm not going to try todefine that for you.
You know who you are, so let'stalk about selecting your
approach then based on that.
If you're a beginner, I wouldstart with something like a half
(18:35):
a percent body weight gain perweek.
If you're a little bit worriedabout too much fat gain, okay,
that's a pound a week for a 200pound person, but you can push
it up to 0.7, 0.8% and beprobably fine and you're going
to get even more gains.
If you're intermediate, youmight aim for about 0.3 to 0.4%.
So this is like on top of theoptimal range that I used to
(18:55):
talk about.
By a percent or so, I mean 0.1%or so, so that you can push it
there.
And that's where I'm going 0.4%, and then, if you're advanced,
you're going to stay moreconservative 0.2, 0.3, which is
ironically the old optimal.
So everything's been shifted upand it's not just about the
rate of gain.
So this is important.
You have to monitor more thanjust the scale.
(19:15):
We're going to monitor how isyour progression in the gym
strength, numbers, volume, sets,recovery.
Here's my premise for liftingand programming.
Your program and your approachand your recovery should be set
up where you are not missingreps period.
Whether you're doing a verybeginner program like starting
strength, or a more advancedprogram, intermediate, you know,
(19:36):
four or five day split, itshould be set up and you should
be doing things in advance sothat you're not missing reps.
I don't like the idea that somepeople have that I'm just going
to push for some goal weightand I might fall short, but I
stretched myself and that'll bean indicator of progress.
That is not objective and ifyou are constantly failing reps,
(19:59):
it tells me that you areoverreaching or you are
under-recovering with yourprogram.
It is not structuredappropriately for you and if
you're wondering about all this,reach out to me.
I'll help you out.
I'll help you identify either astandard template or program
out there that's probablyappropriate given your training
age and capacity, or we can talkabout how you might tweak a
(20:20):
program in a custom way to workfor you.
So you shouldn't be missingreps right.
Are your lifts consistentlyprogressing the way you want
them?
You should be takingmeasurements and progress photos
right and tracking your variouscircumference levels in your
body, fat and body compositionto make sure they're on track
where you want.
I have a physique tracker inthe Wits and Weights Physique
University that everyone uses.
(20:41):
So from day one when you gothrough onboarding, you get that
and it shows you how to trackall of these measurements.
And then it does all thecalculations for you and it
tells you you are gaining leanmass versus fat at this rate and
then you can tell okay, am Idoing something that I shouldn't
be?
Am I not training hard enoughor appropriately, or am I eating
too much?
Or maybe I'm low on protein.
(21:02):
There could be something goingon that you can tell.
Track your biofeedback, likeyour energy, your recovery
between sessions, your DOMSright, your delayed onset,
muscle soreness.
Sometimes it's fine, sometimesit's a good thing, sometimes
it's not.
It's an indicator of underrecovery, right?
Your sleep, your digestion,your hunger, all of those things
as well.
All these factors tell youwhether you're gaining in the
(21:25):
right way, at the right rate foryou.
So we've talked about rates ofgain, we've talked about
monitoring progress.
There's one more piece that'scrucial to making this work
besides lifting consistently.
There's one more piece that'scrucial to making this work
besides lifting consistently,and that is your nutrition
quality right.
Just because you can gainfaster doesn't mean you should
throw nutrition out the window,and it's very common, when you
(21:46):
have all these calories you wantto hit, that you start throwing
in a ton more processed foods.
You kind of start eating alittle more randomly.
Your meal timing gets thrownoff right.
Training days versus off daysstart to look quite different.
You struggle on off days toeven eat enough.
There's a lot of these issuesand we've got to have the
principles in place.
There's, of course, protein.
(22:06):
It shouldn't be that hard toget enough protein when you're
eating a lot more calories.
You should have already setthat up before you went into a
muscle building phase.
Anyway, of 0.7, one gram perpound body weight of protein
shouldn't be hard when thecalories are up.
And then you still need qualitycarbs to fuel your training.
Now there's always lots ofdebates about carbohydrates.
My position is that there's noharm in adding carbs.
(22:28):
There could be harm in beingtoo low in carbs, especially
when you're building muscle.
That's the way I like to say it.
I'm not going to say low carbis going to harm you or hold you
back.
I'm just saying that you shouldtry it out and see how carbs
help, not just with performance,energy and recovery, but one
thing that doesn't get talkedabout enough the anti-catabolic
(22:49):
nature of carbs, the ability ofcarbs to prevent the breakdown
of muscle tissue and makeeverything else you're doing
serve you better, like theprotein and the lifting right.
It's just.
It removes a potentialhindrance by increasing your
carbs.
And then, of course, thebalance of your macro is just to
make it work, the healthy fatsand all that fun stuff to
(23:11):
support everything you're doing,which, again, shouldn't be a
problem with all those calories.
But the key thing with qualityis still have the nutrients
coming in, still have the fiber,but then you have to manage
your timing and you have tomanage your frequency so that
you don't feel stuffed oruncomfortable and it's
sustainable.
All of that still applies.
All right, now we're about towrap this up.
I do want to share somethingthat I discovered while
(23:32):
reviewing the research.
That actually changed how Ithink about muscle gain.
So you remember those studiesthat showed really high rates of
lean mass gains in beginners.
What they actually revealedwasn't just about the rate of
gain, it was your body'snutrient partitioning abilities
when the right conditions arepresent.
(23:54):
And one way to think about thatis simply this Remember when
you didn't lift weights.
Remember when you were lessactive.
You were afraid of gainingweight.
Probably you were afraid and ithappens to people on the
holidays every year you justgradually overconsume.
You're probably consuming a lotmore than you think you are and
it's a lot more than your bodyeven needs when you're not that
(24:14):
active and you're not utilizingthose nutrients in any
productive way other than energystorage, meaning fat.
Now you're completely flippingthat on its head to say I'm
doing stuff lifting weights,training hard and being active
that actually use the nutrientsand energy in a productive way
(24:36):
for the first time in my life,and your body is super adaptive
to that.
It's adapting how it uses thefood coming in, such that you're
a completely different personthan the version of you that
wasn't active or lifting.
So when you do this and I seethis with clients all the time
it's so incredible and it's soamazing and even my own personal
(24:58):
journey has borne this out Idon't fear gaining weight
anymore.
I can't possibly fear it,because every time I gain weight
it's combined with the thingsthat use those nutrients and I
build muscle, even if some fatcomes along for the ride.
I know it's super easy to cutfat after that, and it will be
for you too, if you take thisapproach right.
Your after that and it will befor you too, if you take this
(25:18):
approach right your strengthwill skyrocket.
Your body composition willchange.
Your body composition willimprove from when you were
gaining weight in the past andnot lifting, but even
potentially when you weregaining weight too slowly.
And so ladies not just men, alot of men I talk to have no
problem with the concept of like, okay, I'm going to gain weight
, maybe some fat, that's fine.
I sense the fear more in womenand this is just a
(25:40):
generalization but for some ofyou women who just need to spend
time building muscle, you mighthave to do it even more
aggressively than you thought,and it's going to result in
weight gain, but for a purpose.
A purpose that's going to makeyou leaner, stronger, more fit,
more capable, and then you couldjust cut the fat, and you won't
have to cut it as much as youthink, because you're going to
have all this extra muscle andyou can walk around at a higher
scale weight, you know, like abadass, looking great, carrying
(26:01):
extra weight, eating more foodIsn't that what we want, right?
So the increased food, combinedwith progressive loading,
creates such a strong musclebuilding stimulus that your body
is going to preferentially useall those extra calories, the
vast majority of them for musclegrowth.
So keep this in mind.
This is a very importantepisode, a very important
concept that sometimes, beingtoo conservative, would actually
(26:22):
hold you back from creatingthat optimal anabolic
environment for muscle growth.
Right, it's like trying tobuild a house with just barely
enough materials coming in,right?
Yeah, you're not going to haveextra materials that represent
fat storage, but you're makingthe whole process much harder
and slower than it needs to be.
It's just going to take forever.
Now if you're the type ofperson who doesn't like to gain
or lose weight and just wants tosit at the same weight and get
(26:45):
some body recomp, that's a wholeseparate discussion you can do
that.
It's just going to take a lotlonger time we're talking on the
order of multiple years and youmight get frustrated with the
lack of progress in the gymbecause you're just not cranking
up that anabolic environment.
All right, I think I've gone onlong enough on this and I think
it's all very exciting.
I'm passionate about it.
It's an evolution in ourunderstanding of some really
(27:06):
basic things in the science ofmuscle growth and strength.
Don't forget, strength is ahuge part of this.
It means that many of you canmake faster progress while
maintaining a smart,methodological or methodical
approach.
It's not about going crazy andjust dumping calories in your
body.
It's giving you the resourcesthat you need and cranking it
(27:27):
right to that limit to fulfillthe potential on a reasonable
timeframe.
Right, because your body iseven more remarkable than we
thought at building muscle andwhen you provide the right
stimulus through training andadequate nutrients through food,
it knows exactly what to dowith those resources.
And remember, if you want toimplement these new
recommendations and all theother things, what do you track?
(27:49):
How do you track them?
How do you know that it'sworking to maximize your muscle
growth?
I've completely revised mymuscle building nutrition
blueprint to reflect the latestresearch and it breaks down
exactly how to determine yourideal rate of gain, set up your
nutrition and monitor yourprogress.
To get those results, justdownload using the link in my
show notes, or, as always, go towitsandweightscom slash free.
(28:12):
And if you want to track yourprogress with the app that I
mentioned earlier, which I use,my clients use.
Try Macrofactor for free withcode WITSANDWEIGHTS.
I link to that as well in theshow notes.
Until next time, keep usingyour wits lifting those weights
and remember that sometimesbeing too conservative can hold
you back from your truepotential.
This is Philip Pape.
You've been listening to Witsand Weights.
(28:33):
I'll talk to you next time.
If you've been following the standard advice of
gaining weight slowly andmethodically to build muscle,
including advice that I've givenon this show, you might be too
conservative.
New research has changed ourunderstanding of how quickly you
can gain muscle while keepingfat gain minimized, and I mean
quite completely changed,because what we thought was
optimal might actually becutting your gains in half.
(00:23):
Today, I'm breaking down thelatest science that's forcing us
to rethink what we knew aboutthe rate of building muscle and
why.
This is actually great news foranyone trying to pack on size.
Whether you're a beginner whocan gain faster than ever, or an
experienced lifter who needs tofind your sweet spot to avoid
constant bulking and cuttingcycles, this episode is going to
(00:44):
help you hone in on the mostefficient physique building
approach.
Welcome to Wits and Weights,the show that blends evidence
and engineering to help youbuild smart, efficient systems
to achieve your dream physique.
I'm your host, Philip Pape, andtoday we're exploring something
(01:05):
that challenges what many of us,including myself, have been
teaching for years aboutbuilding muscle.
You're probably tracking yourcalories, your macros.
You're aiming to get just theright rate of gain, probably
around a quarter pound per week,maybe a little more, something
like two to three pounds permonth, because that's what
everyone says is optimal.
I've even said before 0.2 to0.3% of your body weight a week
(01:29):
is optimal and, yes, you'regoing to make progress.
However, you do it when you'rein a surplus, but it might be
slower than you want.
And now you notice othersmaking gains faster.
Maybe you feel like you'reshortchanging yourself because
it doesn't seem like you'reputting it all out there.
And the new research that we'veseen over the last few years
suggests exactly that that wecan gain muscle faster than
(01:54):
previously thought, with lessconcern about fat gain than we
once believed, and this changespretty much everything we knew
about building muscle and howfast and how large our surplus
should be.
Now, speaking of changingeverything, I've revised my free
muscle building nutritionblueprint to reflect the new
(02:14):
findings, the new rates of gain,and I separate it by
aggressiveness depending on howcomfortable you are gaining
weight and gaining some fatalong for the ride as you build
that muscle.
And if you want your free copyof my muscle building nutrition
blueprint, just use the link inmy show notes or go to
witsandweightscom slash free andit's updated and it's a very
detailed guide with not only therate of gain, but it walks you
(02:37):
step by step through the processof building muscle.
It gives you an example of howI applied this to a past bulk,
which, of course, if I did itagain, I might actually go
aggressively.
And just so you know, I'mrecording this as I've recently
started a new bulk, which I willbe reporting out on, probably
in a few months, only because Iwant to see how well my new
(02:57):
program goes as well.
I'm running a 19 week programthat has a base phase and then a
peaking phase to push up mymain lifts, which I haven't done
in a while, and I'm combiningthat with the bulk and I'm going
at what I would call amoderately aggressive rate based
on what I'm going to sharetoday.
So let me break this down intothree parts.
First, we're going to look atwhy the recommendations are
(03:19):
changing based on new research.
I've said in the past youshould never be locked into a
specific finding, whether it'sfrom one study or 10 studies,
because there could always benew information that enlightens
us as to more precise, accurateapproach, and that is exactly
the case here.
Then, in the second segment,I'm going to explain exactly
what this means for you and yourmuscle building goals.
(03:41):
And then, finally, I'm going toshow you how to put this into
practice based on yourexperience level, your level of
training advancement.
So let's talk about how ourunderstanding has evolved,
because this is super important.
Why are my recommendationschanging?
Why are the recommendations inthe industry changing?
And some very well-respectedindividuals out there, like the
(04:02):
guys at Stronger by Science, forexample and if you've listened
to me for any length of time,you've heard me tell you, as a
listener and clients, to gainaround 0.2 to 0.3% of your body
weight per week when trying tobuild muscle.
And this wasn't just myrecommendation, it was the
standard advice based on thebest available evidence at the
time, including somemeta-analysis, one by Dr Herrick
(04:25):
Helms et al.
I've had people on the showtalk about that and it was in
all of my guidance, even toclients as well, because it's
the best thing we knew andeveryone's worried about gaining
too much fat, so we don't wantto push it too aggressively and
do the old dreamer bulk right.
Just the seafood diet, see itand eat it.
But you know, science evolvesand sometimes it evolves
(04:45):
dramatically and sometimes itcatches up to some of the
kernels of truth that we knowabout from the bro science, from
the guys who've truly packed onsome muscle and I'll be honest,
you know I have a long way togo.
I've been doing this seriouslynow for four or five years but I
want to say, like, from thenutrition side, probably about
three years, and I've learned alot personally.
I've helped hundreds of clientsand listeners go through this
(05:07):
process and doing itsuccessfully, and yet still we
can learn and do it better.
So we've gone from having justtwo key studies on this topic.
This is the pitfall of relyingon science too much is when we
don't have quite enoughinformation out there compared
to the decades and hundreds andthousands of anecdotes which in
(05:27):
some way count as their ownevidence.
So we've gone from having twostudies to now having five
well-designed studies.
Look at how different rates ofweight gain affect muscle growth
and fat gain, and the resultsare changing what we thought we
knew.
And I want to give credit whereit's due because this was
recently detailed in anexcellent article by Greg
Knuckles at Macrofactor.
(05:49):
You know how much I love thoseguys.
He was on the show in the pastand he's just a phenomenal
writer, but he's really good atdistilling a lot of this complex
information into an articlethat's still detailed enough to
give you all the key points andgraphs and comparisons.
And their team.
They analyzed these fivestudies and it kind of opened my
eyes about how we need toupdate our approach as well, and
(06:10):
that's why I'm doing thisepisode and so I've linked to
that article in the show notesand you can check that out
firsthand and see where it allcomes from.
But to get into specifics, arecent study published in the
Journal of Functional Morphologyand Kinesiology found something
pretty remarkable because inrelatively untrained lifters
which is a good place to startbecause they can change fairly
(06:32):
quickly gaining up to about apound or a half percent of body
weight per week led to largeincreases in fat-free mass, with
minimal to no increase in fatmass.
And if we think about how ourbody is composed, when we talk
about body composition, there ismuscle mass and there is
everything else which includesfat, but not just fat.
(06:54):
And the way they typicallymeasure these is just creating a
binary buckets, you know,fat-free mass and fat mass,
which is pretty helpful in ourcontext because a lot of us
really care about are we gainingtoo much fat when we gain
muscle?
But we also want to see thatwe're gaining the muscle and
what the ratio is.
So one pound a week issignificantly faster than what
(07:15):
we previously thought, even fornewer lifters.
I mean, I'll say it's on thecusp and you're going to find
out.
You're going to see here thatthe recommendations for
intermediate and advancedlifters are actually a lot more
aggressive than we thought aswell.
So where it gets interestingfor those people, for
experienced lifters and byexperienced I mean you've been
training hard for at least sixto nine months Now you've moved
(07:36):
into late novice, earlyintermediate and your propensity
to gain muscle is just a littlebit less than where it was at
the beginning or anything moreadvanced than that.
The research shows that fasterrates of weight gain might help
increase muscle growth even abit more, but too much, and
you're still going to primarilyjust increase fat gain.
So that's where there'sconsistency with the previous
(07:59):
literature to an extent, but thenumbers have just shifted to be
more aggressive.
So, for example, in a veryadvanced lifter, when gaining
about 0.4% of their body mass aweek, about 60 to 65% of the
weight gained was fat-free mass,so that's almost two-thirds not
as fat, which is more than Ithought would happen.
(08:20):
I used to say it was around50-50, right, and any more than
that.
It just gets worse.
But now we're saying it'stwo-thirds muscle or two-thirds
fat-free mass to one-third fat.
Okay, in an advanced trainee at0.4% a week, which, just so you
know, is right about the rateI'm going at right now.
I used to hit it at around 0.25, 0.3, and now I'm going at 0.4.
(08:44):
I consider myself anintermediate lifter and I'm
going more aggressive Prettycool, right, and I know that
that could.
Then it gives me a lot ofexcitement because, first of all
, I get to eat a lot more food,which is awesome, In fact,
almost to the point where itcould be uncomfortable, because
I do still eat a lot of wholefoods and fiber and sometimes I
feel too full whole foods andfiber and sometimes I feel too
(09:05):
full.
So there's that hard gainingpiece.
I did a whole episode aboutthat in the past and I'm going
to link to that in the shownotes as well.
Anyhow, if we take that rate ofgain 0.4%, let's say we slow
that down to more like 0.16, Ithink was the exact number.
The amount of fat-free massthat these advanced lifters
gained as a percentage of thetotal weight gained was 85%, so
(09:26):
a vast majority of it beingmuscle.
When they're going at 0.15% Now, 0.15% is roughly on the low
end of whatI used to recommendanyway, like the lowest of the
low end Kind of makes sense.
So what this means is simpleWe've been too conservative with
our recommendations, especiallyfor beginners and intermediates
(09:47):
and that's probably the vastmajority of people listening to
be honest Because once you'readvanced, you kind of have
things dialed in and understandhow your body responds anyway,
and it's going to take longerbetween.
It's going to take longer to doeverything you know to gain
muscle mass, to gain strength,and so it makes sense that your
rate of gain would slow down.
So all of this is excellentnews because it means that you
(10:08):
might be able to build musclefaster than you thought, without
packing on unnecessary fat.
So now you understand whyrecommendations have changed.
And again, go check out thearticle.
You can check out the researchstudy that I just mentioned
specifically, but it's mentionedin the article, so I would rely
on that and their citations tosee all of the studies that are
being drawn upon.
And now I want to use thisresearch to tell us what it
(10:31):
means about building muscle, andthis is where it gets really
interesting.
So this research has revealedthree insights that I want to
talk about, Three major insightsabout building muscle.
First, your training experiencematters potentially even more
than we realized.
Beginners have an incrediblecapacity for muscle growth.
They can gain up to 0.8% bodyweight per week with minimal fat
(10:57):
gain.
Like those are fat loss numbers.
In other words, like that's therate of body weight loss I
would be recommending for fatgain.
Usually, when we talk aboutmuscle gain, we talk about a
fraction of that, like a half ora quarter of that, and what
we're saying is no, you canactually crank it up to like
0.8% and even potentially 1% ofyour body weight per week if
(11:18):
you're total new and you'rewilling to gain a little extra
fat for the chance of building alot more muscle.
And then we have intermediatelifters and they're not far
behind now.
They have the ability to gain,say, 0.3 to 0.5% per week
effectively and still gain a tonof that as muscle mass.
We're talking a half a percenta week.
So if you gain let's say you'rean average, slightly bigger guy
(11:39):
and you're 200 pounds, just foreasy numbers that's a pound a
week.
Right, that's a pound a week.
So that's like a little overfour pounds a month, which means
in six months you'd be gaininglike 25 pounds.
Okay, and 25 pounds amounts towhat does that come out to be?
Over what 12.5% increase?
And I used to recommendanywhere from seven to 10%, and
(12:01):
this is suggesting we can go upto like well, 12.5% over a six
month period.
You can bulk for less, you canbulk for longer, and that's
going to change the total weightgained, but the percentage of
that gained as muscle massshould still be pretty high, All
right.
And then we have advancedlifters who still need even more
precision and they should stayin the range of anywhere from
0.15 to 0.35% body weight perweek.
(12:23):
And I realize I'm throwing a lotof numbers at you.
If you go to the Macrofactorarticle, you'll see tables that
give you ranges and I wouldn'tworry too much about it.
If you use Macrofactor the appitself, it's actually designed
around percentage gain per week.
Use my code, WITSANDWEIGHTS,try it for free for a couple of
(12:43):
weeks and I'm sure you'll behooked and you'll want to use it
forever.
Again, link in the show notes.
It sounds like I'm promoting abunch of stuff here, but it's
all connected, so beginners cango up to a percent or maybe 0.8%
, intermediates up to half apercent and advanced maybe 0.35%
.
That's the first major insightfrom this research.
But there's more to understandabout how this changes our
approach, because second is thatwe've discovered the sweet spot
(13:07):
, for muscle growth is alsohigher than we previously
thought kind of that optimalnumber and the research shows
that your body's more capable ofusing the extra nutrients for
muscle growth, especiallyearlier in your training career
and we used to think a littlebit slower.
More of a lean gain was alwaysbetter and we know that's not
true now, which is great.
It's liberating.
It means you have a lot moreflex pun intended to eat more
(13:31):
and gain more muscle withoutbeing as worried about gaining a
ton of fat.
Jenny (13:35):
Hi, my name is Jenny and I just wanted to say a big thank
you to Philip Pape of Wits andWeights for offering his free
50-minute nutritional assessment.
During that time he gave mereally good tools on how I can
further my health and fitnessgoals.
He asked really great questionsand stayed true to his offer of
(13:56):
no sales pitch.
I have since applied thesethings and gotten really close
to my health goals and my weightgoals, and now I'm able to flip
over and work on my strengthand my muscle conditioning using
a lot of the things he offersin his podcasts, and I just am
very grateful for his positiveinspiration and encouragement,
(14:18):
for all of our help.
Thank you, philip.
Philip Pape (14:21):
And then third, and this might be the most exciting
finding that the ratio ofmuscle to fat gain is much
better than we feared.
I alluded to that earlier.
If you gain at one of thesemoderate rates which is now, is
more aggressive than we thoughtup to three quarters of the
weight gained can be lean mass.
Now, a little bit of that mightbe some fluid mass, glycogen
going on, but still that's ahuge ratio of muscle.
(14:44):
I've seen this.
You know there's a sanity check.
A sniff test on this is with myclients.
We track a bunch of metrics.
We track body measurements.
I do some Navy formula basedbody fat percentage measurements
and I also calculate how muchlean mass versus fat you've
gained or lost during a musclebuilding phase.
And for my clients who havegone at a more conservative rate
(15:07):
, like we used to recommend, itwas often well over two thirds
lean mass and I always thought,wow, this must just be because
they're so new at it.
Because many of my clientsthey've been training, but they
haven't maybe been trainingeffectively.
So we get them training forstrength using the right type of
periodization, using the rightstimulus, with volume and
intensity, and they just getcranky.
(15:28):
Their lifts go up, they startbuilding a ton of muscle.
So it makes sense.
But now I'm thinking, oh, is itactually because we just can go
more aggressively and stillgain a bunch of muscle and it
not be very much fat and let'snot worry as much about the
scale going up?
We actually want that to happen.
(15:48):
We want to be well over thatthreshold and now this liberates
us to really push it and notworry.
That's what I think is prettycool.
So even when we push the rateof gain higher, fat accumulation
isn't nearly as dramatic as weonce thought, and this
completely changes the oldbelief that you know, if you
gain too fast, it's all fat.
Having said that, there is arate of gain that some people
(16:08):
would be going way tooaggressively.
You know, like one and a half,two percent a week is probably
then at the point where you'rejust going to gain a bunch of
fat, and that's like the dreamerbook, right.
But the evidence doesn'tsupport the fear of too much fat
gain in a fairly wide range now.
So we've covered why the oldrecommendations were too
conservative, what the newscience shows Now, how do you
(16:30):
actually apply this to your owntraining and nutrition?
And it's pretty simple how do wetake this and turn it into your
results?
I think it starts withassessing.
How do we take this and turn itinto your results?
I think it starts withassessing honestly, like very
honestly, your trainingexperience.
All right, you're probably abeginner and I have air quotes
here if you're still addingweight to your lifts almost
(16:52):
every session so that's sessionto session.
But honestly, if you're able togo up every week, you're
probably still in a latebeginner, early intermediate
stage.
So if you're able to go upevery week, you're probably
still in a late beginner, earlyintermediate stage.
So if you're making progress,but it's less consistent and,
again, progress is very fluidhere because it's not just
weight on the bar, it's alsoyour volume, your periodization.
(17:12):
If you use some sort of wavetype programming, you kind of
know who you are if you're notjust cranking up weight on the
bar super quickly.
So I'm in that situation whereI'm not just going to increase
weight every session and notnecessarily every week.
Sometimes I increase sets orreps as a form of adding more
(17:32):
work, and there's differentreasons for that, outside the
scope of today's podcast,different reasons for that
outside the scope of today'spodcast.
But I consider myselfintermediate, but still with a
huge propensity to grow muscle,and so I'm going to go that
moderately aggressive like that.
(17:52):
0.4%.
Maybe I could even go moreaggressive than that.
But the amount of caloriesrequired then become actually a
little bit of a sustainabilityissue for me, just like when you
cut too quickly and it's notsustainable.
I know we're going into theholiday season here.
I can only put down so muchfood at each meal, just how I am
, and to go significantly pastsay 3,200 or 3,500 calories a
day would be not thatsustainable for me.
(18:14):
I could do it, and it's anexcuse if I said I couldn't, but
that's part of the equation.
So 0.4%, anyway, beginner andimmediate.
You got to assess where you areand if you're advanced, you
know who you are.
I mean, I'm not going to try todefine that for you.
You know who you are, so let'stalk about selecting your
approach then based on that.
If you're a beginner, I wouldstart with something like a half
(18:35):
a percent body weight gain perweek.
If you're a little bit worriedabout too much fat gain, okay,
that's a pound a week for a 200pound person, but you can push
it up to 0.7, 0.8% and beprobably fine and you're going
to get even more gains.
If you're intermediate, youmight aim for about 0.3 to 0.4%.
So this is like on top of theoptimal range that I used to
(18:55):
talk about.
By a percent or so, I mean 0.1%or so, so that you can push it
there.
And that's where I'm going 0.4%, and then, if you're advanced,
you're going to stay moreconservative 0.2, 0.3, which is
ironically the old optimal.
So everything's been shifted upand it's not just about the
rate of gain.
So this is important.
You have to monitor more thanjust the scale.
(19:15):
We're going to monitor how isyour progression in the gym
strength, numbers, volume, sets,recovery.
Here's my premise for liftingand programming.
Your program and your approachand your recovery should be set
up where you are not missingreps period.
Whether you're doing a verybeginner program like starting
strength, or a more advancedprogram, intermediate, you know,
(19:36):
four or five day split, itshould be set up and you should
be doing things in advance sothat you're not missing reps.
I don't like the idea that somepeople have that I'm just going
to push for some goal weightand I might fall short, but I
stretched myself and that'll bean indicator of progress.
That is not objective and ifyou are constantly failing reps,
(19:59):
it tells me that you areoverreaching or you are
under-recovering with yourprogram.
It is not structuredappropriately for you and if
you're wondering about all this,reach out to me.
I'll help you out.
I'll help you identify either astandard template or program
out there that's probablyappropriate given your training
age and capacity, or we can talkabout how you might tweak a
(20:20):
program in a custom way to workfor you.
So you shouldn't be missingreps right.
Are your lifts consistentlyprogressing the way you want
them?
You should be takingmeasurements and progress photos
right and tracking your variouscircumference levels in your
body, fat and body compositionto make sure they're on track
where you want.
I have a physique tracker inthe Wits and Weights Physique
University that everyone uses.
(20:41):
So from day one when you gothrough onboarding, you get that
and it shows you how to trackall of these measurements.
And then it does all thecalculations for you and it
tells you you are gaining leanmass versus fat at this rate and
then you can tell okay, am Idoing something that I shouldn't
be?
Am I not training hard enoughor appropriately, or am I eating
too much?
Or maybe I'm low on protein.
(21:02):
There could be something goingon that you can tell.
Track your biofeedback, likeyour energy, your recovery
between sessions, your DOMSright, your delayed onset,
muscle soreness.
Sometimes it's fine, sometimesit's a good thing, sometimes
it's not.
It's an indicator of underrecovery, right?
Your sleep, your digestion,your hunger, all of those things
as well.
All these factors tell youwhether you're gaining in the
(21:25):
right way, at the right rate foryou.
So we've talked about rates ofgain, we've talked about
monitoring progress.
There's one more piece that'scrucial to making this work
besides lifting consistently.
There's one more piece that'scrucial to making this work
besides lifting consistently,and that is your nutrition
quality right.
Just because you can gainfaster doesn't mean you should
throw nutrition out the window,and it's very common, when you
(21:46):
have all these calories you wantto hit, that you start throwing
in a ton more processed foods.
You kind of start eating alittle more randomly.
Your meal timing gets thrownoff right.
Training days versus off daysstart to look quite different.
You struggle on off days toeven eat enough.
There's a lot of these issuesand we've got to have the
principles in place.
There's, of course, protein.
(22:06):
It shouldn't be that hard toget enough protein when you're
eating a lot more calories.
You should have already setthat up before you went into a
muscle building phase.
Anyway, of 0.7, one gram perpound body weight of protein
shouldn't be hard when thecalories are up.
And then you still need qualitycarbs to fuel your training.
Now there's always lots ofdebates about carbohydrates.
My position is that there's noharm in adding carbs.
(22:28):
There could be harm in beingtoo low in carbs, especially
when you're building muscle.
That's the way I like to say it.
I'm not going to say low carbis going to harm you or hold you
back.
I'm just saying that you shouldtry it out and see how carbs
help, not just with performance,energy and recovery, but one
thing that doesn't get talkedabout enough the anti-catabolic
(22:49):
nature of carbs, the ability ofcarbs to prevent the breakdown
of muscle tissue and makeeverything else you're doing
serve you better, like theprotein and the lifting right.
It's just.
It removes a potentialhindrance by increasing your
carbs.
And then, of course, thebalance of your macro is just to
make it work, the healthy fatsand all that fun stuff to
(23:11):
support everything you're doing,which, again, shouldn't be a
problem with all those calories.
But the key thing with qualityis still have the nutrients
coming in, still have the fiber,but then you have to manage
your timing and you have tomanage your frequency so that
you don't feel stuffed oruncomfortable and it's
sustainable.
All of that still applies.
All right, now we're about towrap this up.
I do want to share somethingthat I discovered while
(23:32):
reviewing the research.
That actually changed how Ithink about muscle gain.
So you remember those studiesthat showed really high rates of
lean mass gains in beginners.
What they actually revealedwasn't just about the rate of
gain, it was your body'snutrient partitioning abilities
when the right conditions arepresent.
(23:54):
And one way to think about thatis simply this Remember when
you didn't lift weights.
Remember when you were lessactive.
You were afraid of gainingweight.
Probably you were afraid and ithappens to people on the
holidays every year you justgradually overconsume.
You're probably consuming a lotmore than you think you are and
it's a lot more than your bodyeven needs when you're not that
(24:14):
active and you're not utilizingthose nutrients in any
productive way other than energystorage, meaning fat.
Now you're completely flippingthat on its head to say I'm
doing stuff lifting weights,training hard and being active
that actually use the nutrientsand energy in a productive way
(24:36):
for the first time in my life,and your body is super adaptive
to that.
It's adapting how it uses thefood coming in, such that you're
a completely different personthan the version of you that
wasn't active or lifting.
So when you do this and I seethis with clients all the time
it's so incredible and it's soamazing and even my own personal
(24:58):
journey has borne this out Idon't fear gaining weight
anymore.
I can't possibly fear it,because every time I gain weight
it's combined with the thingsthat use those nutrients and I
build muscle, even if some fatcomes along for the ride.
I know it's super easy to cutfat after that, and it will be
for you too, if you take thisapproach right.
Your after that and it will befor you too, if you take this
(25:18):
approach right your strengthwill skyrocket.
Your body composition willchange.
Your body composition willimprove from when you were
gaining weight in the past andnot lifting, but even
potentially when you weregaining weight too slowly.
And so ladies not just men, alot of men I talk to have no
problem with the concept of like, okay, I'm going to gain weight
, maybe some fat, that's fine.
I sense the fear more in womenand this is just a
(25:40):
generalization but for some ofyou women who just need to spend
time building muscle, you mighthave to do it even more
aggressively than you thought,and it's going to result in
weight gain, but for a purpose.
A purpose that's going to makeyou leaner, stronger, more fit,
more capable, and then you couldjust cut the fat, and you won't
have to cut it as much as youthink, because you're going to
have all this extra muscle andyou can walk around at a higher
scale weight, you know, like abadass, looking great, carrying
(26:01):
extra weight, eating more foodIsn't that what we want, right?
So the increased food, combinedwith progressive loading,
creates such a strong musclebuilding stimulus that your body
is going to preferentially useall those extra calories, the
vast majority of them for musclegrowth.
So keep this in mind.
This is a very importantepisode, a very important
concept that sometimes, beingtoo conservative, would actually
(26:22):
hold you back from creatingthat optimal anabolic
environment for muscle growth.
Right, it's like trying tobuild a house with just barely
enough materials coming in,right?
Yeah, you're not going to haveextra materials that represent
fat storage, but you're makingthe whole process much harder
and slower than it needs to be.
It's just going to take forever.
Now if you're the type ofperson who doesn't like to gain
or lose weight and just wants tosit at the same weight and get
(26:45):
some body recomp, that's a wholeseparate discussion you can do
that.
It's just going to take a lotlonger time we're talking on the
order of multiple years and youmight get frustrated with the
lack of progress in the gymbecause you're just not cranking
up that anabolic environment.
All right, I think I've gone onlong enough on this and I think
it's all very exciting.
I'm passionate about it.
It's an evolution in ourunderstanding of some really
(27:06):
basic things in the science ofmuscle growth and strength.
Don't forget, strength is ahuge part of this.
It means that many of you canmake faster progress while
maintaining a smart,methodological or methodical
approach.
It's not about going crazy andjust dumping calories in your
body.
It's giving you the resourcesthat you need and cranking it
(27:27):
right to that limit to fulfillthe potential on a reasonable
timeframe.
Right, because your body iseven more remarkable than we
thought at building muscle andwhen you provide the right
stimulus through training andadequate nutrients through food,
it knows exactly what to dowith those resources.
And remember, if you want toimplement these new
recommendations and all theother things, what do you track?
(27:49):
How do you track them?
How do you know that it'sworking to maximize your muscle
growth?
I've completely revised mymuscle building nutrition
blueprint to reflect the latestresearch and it breaks down
exactly how to determine yourideal rate of gain, set up your
nutrition and monitor yourprogress.
To get those results, justdownload using the link in my
show notes, or, as always, go towitsandweightscom slash free.
(28:12):
And if you want to track yourprogress with the app that I
mentioned earlier, which I use,my clients use.
Try Macrofactor for free withcode WITSANDWEIGHTS.
I link to that as well in theshow notes.
Until next time, keep usingyour wits lifting those weights
and remember that sometimesbeing too conservative can hold
you back from your truepotential.
This is Philip Pape.
You've been listening to Witsand Weights.
(28:33):
I'll talk to you next time.
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.