Things I Wish I Knew Before I Started Lifting

Eating

If you want to grow, you need to eat more. As a beginner, gaining 20-30lbs in your first year is completely normal. You should be aiming for about 2lbs per month. Eat 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight. Remaining calories would be a mixture of carbs and fats. Same goes to weight loss.

Staying Lean

While you go on a lean mass phase for 6 months or more, incorporate a mini-cut periodically (once every 6 months) or 3-6 weeks to help reduce excess body fat. It is ideal to stay relatively lean even when you do a lean mass phase because your nutrient partitioning becomes less favourable as you start to accumulate more body fat. When you plan to gain weight, your body has 2 options: either store and accumulate fat or build muscle. Hence, if you have more adipose tissue indicating a higher body fat percentage, there is a higher likelihood you will continue to store more fat. It is like a snowball effect which is why you want to remain lean.

If you are a beginner and really want to try and increase your total amount of lean body mass, you should focus on bulking for an extended period of time, 6-8 months at the very least before you consider your first mini–cut.

Effort

While programming is definitely important, the most important factor in the gym is the effort you bring. This does not mean failing reps, it means consistently applying yourself when in the gym. Effort is everything, you can be on a mediocre program, giving a 100% and get a lot more results than someone who is giving 70% on the best program out there. There is a lot mentioned about technique, programming, what is optimal, good exercise selection, etc. but the fact remains that if you are not giving a 100% in the gym with those movements, you will not get the results that are optimal for your body. I think that is a big reason why a lot of individuals get a lot of success with certain programs because they believe in the program so they apply themselves a 100%, going really hard in the gym. Effort trumps all, focus on training really really hard.

Training Frequency & Volume

Beginners can handle more volume than most newbie-programs give them. When you are just starting out and you are trying to build muscle and get a better composition, having a higher training frequency (4-5 times per week) and practicing the big movements is a better option. It is not that there is no such thing as overtraining at all but your body is capable of handling a lot more than you think. A lot of programs out there that are aimed at beginners have too little volume. We talk about something called neuromuscular efficiency which basically means how efficient your body is with those movements. When you squat and you do it often enough, it becomes second nature. Your body becomes efficient at the movement, you know how to use the muscles necessary to lift the weight and thus can lift more weight which results in you building more muscle.

Supplements & Recovery

Most supplements are completely useless. Focus on eating food. I am a supplement minimalist and I believe that there is a lot of bullshit out there that is just trying to prey on people and their insecurities, trying to sell bunk that doesn’t work at all. It is ideal to take nothing whatsoever when you first start training. At most you might want to consider supplementing with some sort of protein powder if you are deficient in that or if you are not able to meet the requirements but it is not necessary at all. Just focus on the basics, hit your numbers, hit your calories and macros, train really hard in the gym, train consistently, get on a smart program, push the volume and also focus on recovery. A lot of people train hard in the gym then go out on Friday night, Saturday night, and not get enough sleep. I have been guilty of this, getting 4-5 hours at times. Sleep is pretty much better than any other supplements out there that you can take. Sleep is THE priority.

If you do all these consistently, you can achieve your goals in a timeframe which is actually not that long at all.

#Training #Body #Fat #Supplement #Diet