---
title: 'Basic Principles for Nutrition for Muscle Gain | Nutrition for Muscle Gain- Lecture 1'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=4rTTRl-tuAs'
video_id: '4rTTRl-tuAs'
date: 2026-06-30
duration_sec: 4173
---

# Basic Principles for Nutrition for Muscle Gain | Nutrition for Muscle Gain- Lecture 1

> Source: [Basic Principles for Nutrition for Muscle Gain | Nutrition for Muscle Gain- Lecture 1](https://youtube.com/watch?v=4rTTRl-tuAs)

## Summary

Dr. Mike Israetel introduces a specialized course on nutrition for muscle gain, emphasizing that it is an advanced topic requiring foundational knowledge of basic nutrition. The lecture covers the goals, mechanisms, benefits, trade-offs, and general nutritional approaches for muscle gain, along with the importance of consistency and proper duration.

### Key Points

- **Course Introduction** [0:05] — Dr. Mike Israetel introduces the course on nutrition for muscle gain, part of an eight-lecture series. It is advanced and assumes knowledge of basic nutrition concepts like calories, macros, and meal timing.
- **Lecture Overview** [2:18] — The lecture will cover: what muscle gain aims to do, basic mechanisms of gaining, reasons and benefits, trade-offs and downsides, general nutritional approaches, expectations and time courses, and what's ahead in the course.
- **What Muscle Gain Aims to Do** [4:27] — The goal is to increase skeletal muscle tissue. This is achieved through hypertrophy (making individual muscle cells bigger) and adding nuclei via satellite cells to support larger cells.
- **Common Misconception: Fat to Muscle** [8:43] — It is impossible to turn fat into muscle as they are completely different tissues. What actually happens is muscle mass grows while fat mass shrinks, often due to changes in diet and training.
- **Reasons for Gaining Muscle** [11:17] — People gain muscle to increase performance in sports, improve physique, or both. Muscle gain can be targeted to specific body parts through training, but nutrition supplies raw materials systemically.
- **Basic Mechanisms: FSR and FBR** [16:40] — Fractional Synthetic Rate (FSR) is the rate of muscle growth, while Fractional Breakdown Rate (FBR) is the rate of muscle breakdown. Net muscle gain occurs when FSR exceeds FBR over time.
- **Key Contributors to High FSR** [24:00] — Resistance training (with sufficient volume and intensity), adequate protein intake, and sufficient calories are primary drivers. Lower fatigue and adequate sleep also significantly boost FSR.
- **Lowering FBR: Role of Carbs** [30:56] — Higher carbohydrate intake has an anti-catabolic effect, sparing muscle protein from being used for energy. This makes higher carb diets common in muscle gain protocols.
- **Benefits of Muscle Gain** [32:36] — Benefits include increased strength, power, speed (to a point), reduced injury risk, improved health (especially glucose control), longevity, and enhanced aesthetics.
- **Trade-offs and Downsides** [39:56] — Potential downsides include reduced flexibility, decreased speed/explosiveness if not trained, potential health burdens at extreme sizes, and temporary fat gain during the gaining phase.
- **General Nutritional Approaches** [47:48] — Key approaches include a hypercaloric diet, adequate protein, sufficient carbs and fats, reasonable meal timing (at least 4 meals/day), food composition considerations, and proper hydration.
- **Importance of Consistency** [51:23] — Consistency is critical. A good diet followed consistently (e.g., 90% of the time) is far more effective than a great diet followed inconsistently. Inconsistent eating can negate muscle gains.
- **Proper Duration of Gaining** [56:13] — Muscle growth is a slow process, like building a skyscraper. Gaining phases should last between 1 and 6 months. Shorter phases yield little permanent muscle, while longer phases may lead to diminishing returns.
- **What's Ahead in the Course** [66:40] — Future lectures will cover calories and macros, timing and supplements, ranges and duration, measuring progress, periodization, adjusting for stalled gains, and myths/misconceptions.

### Conclusion

This lecture establishes the foundational principles for a dedicated muscle gain nutrition course, emphasizing that net muscle growth requires a sustained positive protein balance achieved through consistent training, adequate nutrition, and proper recovery over months, not weeks.

## Transcript

[Music]
hey folks
dr mike isrtel here for renaissance
periodization
rp plus and rp university
going to talk to you about muscle gain
nutrition this is the
first lecture in multiple lectures
i think eight in a course dedicated
designed exclusively to talk about
nutrition
for muscle gain not training for muscle
gain
not nutrition for fat loss not general
nutrition
nutrition just for muscle gain so it's
super specific
it's really up there in that course
hierarchy to one of the more advanced
courses
it's not necessarily advanced because
it's super difficult concepts
but the thing about this course is that
we're going to be relying on your
knowledge of plenty of the basics now
if you watch this lecture you know
several
months to years from when it was
recorded and we already have the rpu
architecture built in you probably won't
get to this lecture or
probably should sort of be wary about
getting to it
before you take the nutrition basics
course at the very
least just sort of know that this course
is going to rely on those fundamental
concepts and there's nothing super crazy
we're teaching in that basic nutrition
course
you might have already enough knowledge
without taking the course to get a lot
out of this so
this is not like a scare tactic or you
have to do the basic nutrition course or
else and you have to wait until
we upload that course until you get to
these it's not like that it's just
ideally take the basic ignition course
first
or second in the second position next to
ideal
is coming in here with some pretty good
nutritional knowledge the reason is
we're going to talk about just nutrition
for muscle gain we're already going to
assume a bunch of stuff that you know
pretty much every basic traditional
concept we're not going to define
calories here we're not going to define
carbs proteins fats
we're not going to talk about what the
standard intakes of those are we're not
going to describe meal timing
in its sort of original form of like
nutrient timing why
when where how all that theory and
basics of stuff you should already know
if you know it this course is going to
be super awesome if you don't
some of the stuff could just be a little
bit confusing so just a word to the wise
uh make sure you you got
most of your basic nutrition stuff
together and then you'll get the most
out of this course so nutrition for
muscle gain
what are we going to talk about today
well we're going to talk about first
about what muscle gain
actually aims to do like what are we
saying when we mean muscle gain and what
is the actual result
we're going to talk about the basic
mechanisms of gaining like how
actually muscle gain is put onto the
body there's some interesting
implications there we're going to talk
about reasons why you would gain muscle
or want to gain muscle
and we're going to talk about benefits
so if you're getting to this
course not because you super want to
gain muscle yourself but
maybe you want to familiarize yourself
with muscle gains maybe you coach
clients that want to gain muscle and you
want to do
a good job with them and you yourself
maybe are more into staying leaner and
staying
smaller and more athletic and maybe
you've never really done dedicated
muscle gain nutrition
this could teach you some of the reasons
and benefits that maybe you could say oh
gee my other clients could really
benefit from this and maybe i could even
benefit
from some muscle gain myself on the
other side the next point we're going to
talk about
is trade-offs and downsides of muscle
gains muscle gain is a good thing
but there's no such thing as an
infinitely good thing all good things
eventually become neutral things and
all neutral things eventually if you get
more of that good thing become bad
things so there's a way to get
muscle gain that has some costs and
downsides to it
we're going to talk about the general
nutritional approaches that we'll see
unfolding
in the next multiple lectures kind of
paint a very broad
brush around okay what is muscle gain
nutrition really so kind of what we're
expecting in the future for these
um sorts of interventions and then we're
going to talk about something really
important and this again goes back to
communicating things with your clients
and with yourself
on expectations and the typical time
courses
of muscle gain and how long you have to
apply these nutritional strategies for
we're going to talk about how muscle
gain it doesn't take a day it doesn't
take a week
it doesn't even take a month it takes
longer so we'll definitely have a lot to
say they're very very important because
like
you know you could have all the things
you're doing properly and muscle gain
not do them long enough and it just
won't be very productive for you
and then we're going to talk about
lastly what's ahead what kind of stuff
we can look for
in the upcoming lectures on this topic
all right
so without further ado
next slide up is what muscle gain aims
to do
well pretty simple we're aiming to add
the amount of skeletal muscle tissue you
have
now interestingly enough you have two
other kinds of muscle tissue cardiac
muscle which is your heart you don't
necessarily want to make that bigger
and smooth muscle which aligns all of
your organs and your blood vessels and
stuff like that a very different kind of
muscle
skeletal muscle tissues we're looking at
and even clearly unless you want to look
like me and have
weird jaw things going on you probably
want to add skeletal muscle
you know below your face right and
there's various other skeletal muscles
you know you don't necessarily want like
hypertrophied hands or something like
that or
really big tibialis anteriors so a lot
of times it's
skeletal muscles that are involved in
either physique or in moving
sort of a really big weights really big
joints around right
the way we're going to do this is by a
couple of combinations of factors
one is by making individual muscle cells
bigger right so the muscle cell
is literally just a cell in the body and
it has contractile properties so it can
contract its anchor two
one part of a muscle or tendon is
anchored to another one so when it
contracts it brings
uh those tissues closer together and
when uh thousands of muscle cells all do
that
it brings the joints closer together or
the bones of the joint and
that's how movement happens right so we
want to make individual cells bigger
that's called technically hypertrophy
that's how it occurs
but in a sense we're also going to be
adding cells not cells themselves with
all of the
components not independent cells that
have their own membrane
but we're taking cell nuclei that sit
dormally outside of muscle fibers
called satellite cells and they're
literally just the nuclei the control
center of the cells
and they just sit there and they have
the little membrane and they don't
really do a whole lot right
um so they're kind of senescent right
they're kind of just like
sort of a half asleep and they don't
produce any force for contraction or
anything like that
but when muscles get big enough right
they enter what's called their
myonuclear domain ceiling so when your
cells
you got the nucleus and you got your
cell and all the muscle contractile
proteins around that that actually make
and contract
when the muscle cell gets big enough the
nucleus
gets far enough away from the very ends
of it to where it can't
um basically control the cell and
support the cell's function
in a timely manner it's almost like
having
you know like a like a galactic empire
but you don't have light speed travel
so you're like okay my empire is you
know it's like a million light years
across and someone's like okay so what
if there's a revolution at the
star system all the way at the end
you're like oh you know well it's going
to take us a hundred million years to
get over there even at light speed we
can't even go that fast
so the question is like how in control
are you of that you know that could
there could be a
an empire that takes control of half
your star systems you wouldn't even find
out about it
until hundreds of millions of years ago
does that make sense so it's kind of
like
if your nucleus is stays a certain size
i don't know nucleus nuclei don't really
grow
if the muscle cell gets big enough it
stops being able to be properly
controlled which really would
potentially lead
to poor repair poor function and all
this other bad stuff so what happens is
when your muscle cells get big enough
the satellite cell nuclei are pushed
into the muscle cell
so you're technically not adding cells
but you're adding nuclei
it gets pushed in and all of a sudden
this nucleus now controls this region of
the cell
so now that part can get bigger bigger
bigger and so on so that's called
um you know satellite cell integration
and that's when those satellite cells or
kind of dormant cells around the muscle
cell come in only every now and again
when they're needed
as a part of the long-term training
process so not only are muscle cells
getting bigger
but they're importing nuclei in order to
make that process efficient
and effective and sort of continually uh
uh
you know on track i will say this
probably one of the genetic limiting
factors and how big you can ever get
uh is determined by how many satellite
cells you have that are dormant okay
once you run out of satellite cells to
integrate once you get to a very low
number
gee you know you hit your myonuclear
domain ceiling the amount of cell volume
you can control
and there's just not really anything to
do after that your muscles probably just
won't get any bigger
so that's a really interesting factor so
why is that guy training for 10 years
he's like 280 pounds and why is that
training for 10 years he's 180 pounds
well it might come down to a variety of
factors
including um the fact that that person
just had more satellite cells a bigger
satellite cell pool so it's called so
when you read the research articles
that's what they're talking about
right all right really to be super clear
because this is a really common
misconception most of you folks come in
here
have probably seen this somewhere else
um
[Music]
you don't turn um
this actually uh unfortunately there's a
typo
here on your slide so hopefully i'll fix
it by the time we get it up but
um you don't
turn uh fat into muscle that's not what
happens
how do people come up with a notion well
they see someone who's like you know
like have a very decent level of body
fat and sort of untrained
and that person starts lifting weights
and you know does it for a year or two
and then
they see that the the third party like
at a high school graduation or something
or like
like a reunion or something and all of a
sudden you know they they weighed 180
before but except with you know 25
body fat and now that we went 80 with 10
body fat
years later and that person goes oh my
god like they turned all their muscle
uh or their fat into muscle well like
that doesn't make any sense because
they're completely different tissues
right um different tissues are
structured
entirely differently and that's not
actually what happens in the body
you can no more turn fat into muscle
then you can turn your liver into your
kidneys it's too literally different
types of cells
you know you don't turn your brain in a
bone or the other way around
right that that's really really
nonsensical but what is happening there
what's happening is
the person's muscle mass grows while
their fat mass shrinks
right they used to be mostly fat now
they're mostly muscle so that's what
really happens
but you know you'll still hear this
verbiage expounded in in gyms
and and conversations all across the
world like oh man you really you know
like
the supplements will advertise this like
the really shady ones online like turn
your fat into muscle it's like
yeah that's not how that works and you
know people will retire from
bodybuilding or being professional
athletes
and uh people say like uh for example
they'll see a big guy and be like
but look when you stop lifting doesn't
it all turn to fat like yep you're right
my muscle magically turns to fat like my
liver is
turning into my kidneys my blood's
turning into my spleen
that's insane right so why do people
when they quit bodybuilding sometimes
get fat well because they still eat like
their bodybuilders or that same level of
calories
but they no longer train with weights
they grow fat shrink muscle and that's
the result
so very very clear to make sure to get
that so that it doesn't even
rise to the level of a proper myth right
it's just one of those things that's so
so stupid we just got to get rid of it
right away
right now there's different kinds
of reasons there's different benefits of
muscle we'll talk about later but
there's very distinct reasons why people
aim
to gain muscle in the first place
one of the sort of more classic ones is
to try to
increase performance right so
you are want to be stronger for
volleyball because you want to hit the
ball harder
and hitting it harder makes it go faster
and if you're strong your accuracy
actually improves to a certain extent
so you want to put on muscle so the
muscle can be stronger and you know
added muscle gains
always reflect themselves in higher
strength levels especially once the
nervous system
has figured out how to use that new
muscle uh efficiently and
so a lot of times people are focusing on
putting on muscle in order to actually
improve in sport this happens in
crossfit this happens in weightlifting
powerlifting wrestling every sport you
can think of there's a time and a place
to put on muscle to get better for the
sport
super super obvious right the next one
which a lot of people
use as their reason is to gain muscle uh
because they're focused on physique
right they're just looking for a certain
look now there's different kinds of
physique pursuit
you could look like a professional
bodybuilder or just jacked and has got
muscles coming out of their eyes
you could look like a physique model
where you know sort of more tasteful
muscle in various areas
uh or you can you know look for a
variety of things
especially maybe get super lean but you
don't want to look skinny so you want to
have some muscle so on and so forth
so it's totally fine to train for
physique and a lot of people probably
most of the people in the modern world
that try to put on muscle is almost
exclusively physique
based and not really performance based
now
uh in physique and performance we can
actually focus our muscle gains
to particular body parts right so you
know if you're a thrower
a shot putter and your upper body is
really weak and kind of small but your
legs are super strong
when you gain muscle you don't have to
gain it everywhere right because at some
point your body is just really limiting
you
what you can do is by training the upper
body more and maybe training the legs a
little less you can gain more upper body
mass
more mass on the triceps and the
shoulder so on and so forth versus mass
and the quads
which it can be body parts specific so
so people don't have to say to you hey i
want to get bigger period
they say i want bigger arms i want a
bigger chest i want bigger back
uh or they say i look i want much bigger
legs but i don't want a big upper body
and that's totally fine now
interestingly enough
that is all training based in a zero
nutrition base
so nutrition all it does is it sort of
primes the pump for muscle growth
and it supplies the raw materials where
you choose to put those raw materials
that's up to you so for like building a
skyscraper and we want to build
you know uh work on like one side to
make it taller or another side to make
it taller or put a spire on top
you know they still bring the same
building materials more or less to the
site
right it's not like you can ask the
truck driver that brings the bricks or
you know the metal or the steel and be
like hey is this
you know what's this for like is this
for the spire or is this for the base
and he's gonna be like i don't i don't
know i just like they just pay me to
bring the stuff right that's how
nutrition is
it brings the calories the protein carbs
fat so on and so forth supplies it and
then what you train
really determines what you build so i've
actually received questions like this
like you know is there any kind of
nutritional tips for like
putting muscle on my legs but not in my
upper body that's like
impossible there's no way that can
happen with human physiology
because primary reason as soon as your
intestines
have digested various materials and
release them in the bloodstream that
bloodstream goes to systemic
right it's systemic circulation so it
goes everywhere right so if you apply
supply a high level of protein and
carbohydrate to your
body from your diet it really just goes
to all the muscles now the muscles that
are more sensitive for to the ones
you've trained
so if you're not training your upper
body at all like it's going to see the
carbs and protein and be like
all right so you can just take some
leave some but if your legs are
super well trained and super hungry for
that stuff they're going to use it more
for muscle growth
so it's almost entirely training on that
and
technically speaking you can focus on
regions of muscle
that you want to grow so it's a more
limited scope we're not really sure how
much regional hypertrophy is possible
for example
can you focus to make like to get your
peak of your biceps bigger
versus like you know elongating the
muscle all across its length and making
it bigger like that
maybe maybe but we definitely know some
muscles distinctly have parts to them
the upper pecs for example you can do
ink various incline movements and upper
other upper chest movements that grow
your upper pecs a bunch but maybe your
lower pecs not so much
right so there's definitely a regional
differences they're still trying to
figure out the quads
right with how you grow regional
differences a lot of debate about that's
not really certain
but you know the triceps for example
have very distinct heads
you know if you train overhead a lot the
long head gets stimulated more because
it's stretch under tension
and if you bring your triceps down
closer to your body you do presses this
way your push-downs that way
the other heads of the triceps seem to
receive more work and probably grow more
so it's definitely a regional thing
it's just um i wouldn't put too much
stock in that because it's probably not
a huge difference
and you know more particularly let's
put this out there right now this is a
little more training related but i think
it bears repeating
you know if you have really small arms
and you're trying to focus on
regional differences like i just want a
bicep peak like you don't really have a
bicep to talk about right
so the basic approach is to getting much
bigger muscles
first right all around and then maybe
you can sort of whittle away
trying to shape the thing right it's
kind of like building something from
clay you make a big slab first
and then you start whittling away and
you don't like whittle away and add
slabs and whittle away that doesn't make
much sense
all right so those are our goals
potentially and you may fall into any
number of them or different goals at
different times
what are the basic mechanisms by which
this happens real basic stuff
right this is not a course on mechanisms
of muscle gain it's nutrition for muscle
gain
so we just have to get familiar enough
with the mechanisms to basically find an
alignment
where we can say okay this is the basics
if a muscle grows
thus nutrition should probably look like
this versus if this is the basic some
muscle growth nutrition i
might not look like this so here's a
real stupid analogy i just made up
and if if we know that we're launching
a rocket into or taking a let's say like
a new shuttle
type of system like a high altitude
shuttle we're going into 100 000 feet
above the air
and we're gonna go to hong kong like
that from los angeles
like if the uh you know we don't have to
know exactly
uh like if we're engineering the uh you
know the exterior of the shuttle or
something or the pressure systems
we don't have to know exactly you know
uh you know uh
maybe the trajectory they don't have to
exert exactly what the power plant is
how the shuttle actually flies how many
people are in there and after another
stuff we just have to know that it goes
at altitude
so we can pressurize it and make it
structurally stable so that it can
withstand the nasty weather conditions
in various environmental factors at a
hundred thousand feet
that's just always happening we have to
know where it goes right whereas if
we're saying designing a similar shuttle
that goes uh you know deep deep under
the sea into various trenches
well boy that's really like again do you
really care what the power system is we
don't care what the computer system is
doesn't really matter
but we want to design the exterior of
the shuttle to make sure that it can go
super super deep that's what's relevant
to us
so it's relevant to designing nutrition
for muscle gain isn't exactly the
specifics of cell mechanisms all that
stuff
it's the general swaths the the
approaches that make sure
that we're on the right track for
nutrition that we care about so without
further ado
two super important concepts that are
going to guide a
whole lot of this discussion fsr
stands for fractional synthetic rate
okay fractional synthetic rate
is the measured rate of muscle growth
right that's it right it's literally
measuring how much muscle you put on
per minute per hour per day per week
whatever fsr is the literal measured
rate of muscle growth
usually in a specific muscle all right
counter that with the fbr which is the
fractional breakdown rate
that's how much of the muscle gets
broken down
right and deleted right chopped up into
amino acids and
and shuttled to other uses how often
does that happen because remember
muscles don't just grow
muscles get broken down all the time and
don't just get broken down through
training
they get broken down to be used as fuel
for other things
right for calories for amino acids to go
to other organs that are more important
you know if you like get lost in alaska
somewhere for a couple of weeks
you might be pretty jacked to start
you're not going to be nearly as jacked
when they
when they find you you know huddled up
with a bear or something two weeks later
because you're going to have used a lot
of that muscle to fuel
not only your caloric needs for your
energy systems but also to get the amino
acids to where they need to go
like you know keeping your intestines
healthy and keeping your brain and heart
healthy
way more important than being jacked
right so muscles definitely break down
and they kind of break down all the time
they're no different than skin and hair
you just lose that stuff and regrow it
all the time
muscles are the same way so there's
always a fractional synthetic rate
and a fractional breakdown rate and
that's called muscle
protein turnover right it's a cycle all
the time you're adding new you're taking
away adding you're taking away
it's kind of like actually here's a
really good analogy
you take a look at a city the whole city
at the same time not any particular
building
just look at a whole city you can ask
you know someone who's an expert on that
city let's say new york city
you can point down to it from a
dirigible of course you're flying in a
you know your 1920s baron and you're
like man that's my new york city down
there
yeah right you talk like that all the
time people think it's weird you point
down and you say hey
are there any new buildings being
constructed they'll be like of course
like great that's great so it's getting
bigger all the time you know yeah yeah
it's getting bigger or like
are there any buildings being demolished
and people will be like
yeah absolutely like weekly and you'll
be like oh my god
well that's ridiculous why would we
demolish buildings don't we want the
city to grow
well yeah but some of those buildings
are getting to be where they're not safe
anymore too many cracks and that's a lot
of the reason
why muscle gets broken down and rebuilt
is to keep that muscle integrity
integrally very strong right you want to
keep it healthy
and functioning properly which means all
of its components need to not be
degraded and every system degrades so it
has to be reconstructed over time
right so it would be really ridiculous
to be like why are they demolishing that
building can
can people make use of it well yeah but
not very safely right and not much used
to be just abandoned building with holes
in the floor
it's not really very conducive to much
use so there's always a cycle
of create of creation of fractional
synthesis
on a city where new buildings are
getting made buildings are getting
refurbished
and other buildings that are getting
broken down what happens when they get
broken down
well you take all the bricks and stuff
like that you send it to various
recycling centers or smelting centers
you get whatever you can out of it and
then you potentially use at least some
of that to build new buildings
but you can't do all of that it's not a
perfect system so the city needs to
import
raw building materials all the time to
actually get net growth
right and how does a city get net growth
it's building construction
has to outpace its building demolition
in just the same way
when your fractional synthetic rate of
muscle tissue is higher
on average than your fractional
breakdown rate over
days mon or days weeks and months
that is how you make muscle gains
am i gonna say it's that simple it's not
it's a little bit more complicated than
that but at minimum
this has to happen i'll put it to you
this way
if we say a bunch of other complicated
stuff is happening
and fractional synthetic rate is greater
than fractional breakdown rate
we're good to go we're building muscle
potentially but if all this complex
weird muscle growth stuff is happening
we'll talk about a little bit of what
that means
but fractional synthetic rate is not
exceeding fractional breakdown rate you
get no muscle growth whatsoever it's
physically impossible by definition so
number one concern
for growing muscle is that the
fractional synthetic rate is greater
than the fractional breakdown rate
another way to put that is right
mind-blowing
implication nutritionally and through
training and otherwise
we're going to have to do things that
boost the fractional synthetic rate the
construction of muscle
and things that maybe mitigate at least
needless fractional breakdown
right for example if you have no
laws about property destruction in a
city people will just go break stuff
because it's not illegal like it's fun
let's just demolish that building
because cops are looking at you and
they're like totally cool right if we
have that law in effect or rather no law
we're going to see a lot of breakdown in
cities that just like doesn't make any
sense right those are fine buildings
so we're going to want to reduce the
sort of needless flexion breakdown of
course we can't prevent muscle turnover
but if we boost our fractional synthetic
rate high enough and get rid of enough
needless fractional breakdown
then we can have a net positive and a
product called a positive protein
balance
and then we're actually getting muscle
growth so really really good stuff
so higher high uh fractional synthetic
rate is the goal
lower fractional breakdown rate what are
some contributors
to a high fractional synthetic rate well
there's a couple
number one uh prerequisite in most cases
if you want to get real big is
resistance training now look your rp
plus erp university folks
i have to tell you have to lift weights
to gain muscle if i do we're real
we're real deep shit right you got to go
back and rewatch some lectures
so gaining muscle is sort of predicated
on supplying
the mechanical stimulus for muscle gain
and that means resistance training but a
very specific kind of resistance
training is best
that's resistance training above minimum
effective volume
you have to have enough volume with
enough sets and reps
to actually trigger hypertrophy now of
course that means that you can't train
super light either because your running
distance is a ton of volume but it's not
heavy enough
so it's got to be like a challenging 1
to 30 reps percent
so you can gain some muscle if you just
do singles it's true like at 95 percent
one around
you can it's not very efficient but you
can do it and you can gain plenty of
muscle
training with sets you know close to a
30 rep max right like sets of 25
23 but like a couple reps from failure
you can gain maybe not also super
efficient but somewhere in that range
anywhere outside of that range we're not
really gaining a whole lot of muscle and
another really quick thing about
training just to put this sort of
stone in the framework is it has to
probably be uh
four repetitions in reserve or less to
be the most efficient most effective
what that means is this
if you do a set and you end like this in
your racket and you're like hey i'm
growing muscle like you're probably not
you're just not challenging your
physiology enough
if you get closer to failure so maybe
four reps away you're like
rack like you had four more in the tank
that's some good muscle growth
three reps in the tank rate two reps on
the tank great one rep in the tank
awesome
you know going straight to failure
definitely grows muscle there's fatigue
concerns there
outside the scope of this course but
basically training has to be enough
training
it's got to be heavy enough it's a
pretty broad range and it has to be
challenging enough relative to your own
abilities right
so train train hard next
we have to have enough protein that's
the probably the second most important
factor
because even in the absence of a high
calorie diet in many cases
you can gain uh contractile tissue you
can gain muscle
just by having a high level of protein
and hard enough training you basically
use your fat for energy
and your body fat reduces while your
muscle grows can you get away with that
for long no is it impressive growth no
but it's technically possible
on the other hand even if you supply a
crap load of calories but you're on like
20 grams of protein per day it really
just doesn't matter how many calories
you eat
because you are never going to grow
muscle on fat few grams of protein a day
so it's not going to happen
it's just not enough raw materials right
an analogy there to bring in a lot of
calories in
with not a lot of protein is if you
bring in like hundreds of thousands
unbelievably qualified workers and
engineers to build a skyscraper right
the gallery so to speak
and uh none of the materials trucks ever
show up or it's a skyscraper there's a
hundred trucks of materials
to deliver all of it and 20 the truck
show up and you're like you guys are
good right like
what do you mean we're good this is
crazy there's 20 trucks here
right and they're like well it's good
enough like no that's good enough to
build a quarters before we're gonna
sleep if it's not even enough
to build anything of the skyscraper like
all right that's all you get right so
protein is definitely important calories
are second in a consideration for muscle
growth
now nutrient timing
and other smaller factors definitely
have their place
i want to say they're important but they
have their place especially
this is a really really big point as you
get more advanced
the way to boost your fractional
synthetic rate is
to do so through the more nitty-gritty
strategies because you're already doing
the basics correctly and
because muscle growth is not really
difficult for you it's not just
something that just so you sort of open
your eyes close your eyes and boom
there's muscle it's gonna have to
require a little bit more focus right to
get someone who's never driven a race
car to post a lap time
right you just gotta teach them how to
sear the steering wheel and you don't
need to teach them the gears about here
in first gear just go around in first
gear
right but if you're a good race car
driver you're gonna have to know how to
work the gear shift pretty well and how
to work the steering wheel and
everything
if you're a world champion a race car
driver or real close you're super
competitive
um you gotta really learn how to align
the car and cut the tiniest little
corners and really work the clutch in
the acceleration
to get the little bits now you have to
teach someone to do clutch and
acceleration stuff when they're just
post any lap time at all is if you just
go around the track one fucking time
you're good to go
of course not right so if you talk about
muscle growth nutrition for beginners
do they have to worry about nutrient
timing and other small factors much not
really
right uh but if you're more intermediate
advanced then the muscle gains just
aren't coming like they used to you're
going to have to concern yourself with
this stuff
now lastly here is two big really big
factors that i think play a huge role
lower fatigue states are more conducive
to muscle growth what does that mean
if you've got a lot of fatigue coming in
through stress at work through emotional
stress
and for example through other training
like you just also happen to be
a hockey player and you're trying to get
jacked at the same time but you play
like 18 hours of hockey a week
that's a lot of fatigue fatigue at the
very
chemical level biochemical level through
a variety of mechanisms including amp
kinase for example literally
turns down muscle growth like like a
like a knob switch
all right so a high level of fatigue is
not great because a lot of people come
to us at rp and i'm sure you
folks here train other people that are
listening to this i've had clients like
this they do 50 other trillion things a
bunch of athletic things like i do golf
i do tennis i do skiing
i have a soccer league and this and that
i'm always on the go i
you know go to yoga classes i cycle all
the time and also i want to put on 10
pounds of muscle you're like
all right good luck getting the muscle
to compete with that kind of attention
right so high fatigue state really
really bad
and this is a killer of many many muscle
gains
inadequate sleep a high level of sleep
is super critical to muscle gains
to the point where they've shown and
this is really kind of crazy
they've shown that under slept
individuals
lose muscle at rates that actually just
legitimately look really astonishing
scary is some of that probably due to
body water loss
yeah but is there still something there
totally
right the amount of recovery you get
from sleep is just second another sleep
is irreplaceable
why am i mentioning this so early a lot
of folks
want the details and trust me you'll get
them we've got another seven lectures or
something like that
details of nutrition for muscle gain and
they'll sort of fiddle around as
should i be eating 0.9 grams of protein
per pound body weight 1.1 maybe
somewhere in between
hold on how many hours of sleep do you
get a night like well
six maybe and then you ask them the next
most pertinent question
are you tired a lot they're like oh my
god like if you just let me sleep
i'll sleep for like a day and a half
that's not good
that is not sustainable and that is
going to hit your muscle growth so much
harder than any tiny details
try to get as low a fatigue state as you
can try to get as much sleep as you can
you're promoting fractional synthetic
rate
a ton add those small factors calories
protein proper resistance training you
have a formula for success
next up is how do we make sure the
fractional breakdown rate is the lowest
it can be
well all the same above things lower
fractional breakdown rate training
enough
enough protein enough calories nutrient
timing and smaller factors like what
kind of food you're eating
low fatigue and high sleep lower
fractional breakdown rate lie
crazy so it's really same side
or different side of the same coin one
factor that potentiates
uh really helps lower fractional
breakdown rate
that it deserves mentioned is actually
higher carbohydrate
carbohydrate after you get in enough
protein has a very special
anti-catabolic uh activity uh or effect
on muscle tissue
so in other words carbs have been
described as protein sparing let's see
if you have a higher carb diet
and you're eating plenty of protein your
body's hungry it's gonna go uh uh should
i eat my muscle should eat the protein
that i ate oh wait there's carbs coming
in it just eats the carbs preferentially
it doesn't touch your muscle protein and
it doesn't touch the protein that you
ate
that protein goes much more to uh where
it needs to be like growing muscle
so another real powerful tool there is
higher carbohydrate diet which is
almost a universal and muscle gain
protocols right um
i know there's like a channel on youtube
where the guys call it's called keto
gains or something
i don't know uh you can try to gain
muscle on a low carb diet it's really
really tough for a variety of reasons
one of those is the
higher carbs are so anti-catabolic
all right so to sum this up basic
mechanism gaining we can make a real
quick summary tldr
you basically fuel up for training by
eating properly you train hard
you eat eat eat rest sleep repeat
grow muscle right that's how it works
so what are some of
the reasons potentially and especially
the benefits you could get from gaining
muscle well there's
quite a few one incontrovertibly more
muscle makes you stronger
right when we increase the
cross-sectional area like if you slice a
bicep like
like that you examine how big the area
is right it's just a measurement of
muscle size
cross-sectional area has a really really
tight relationship
to force production in every way we
measure it in real life humans
in animals in the laboratory even one
muscle fiber one cell at a time they
take a muscle cell
they put it on one little pin one end
they put the other end on one little pin
and they put electrode here they make it
contract
and the bigger the muscle cell they get
the more force it produces it's not
rocket science right because the stuff
in the muscle cell is the literal
machinery for force production
and that's how you should look at muscle
as machinery for force production so you
see
someone that's really jacked and you're
like oh i wonder if they're strong well
how much machinery for force production
they have
looks like a shit load looks like
they're probably going to be really
strong so definitely
strength enhancement is a really good
benefit of muscle gain
because strength is enhanced and
power is basically an expression of
strength and high velocities
i mean how fast are you expressing your
strength then
as long as you don't get slower and
we'll talk about later in downsides
and most muscle gains don't make you
slower especially if you train properly
then just getting stronger actually
makes you more powerful it means that
with gains and muscle
to a point you can jump higher run
faster
hit harder throw harder so on and so
forth real good stuff
right because power
or the ability to contract a muscle very
quickly
produces speed getting stronger to a
point getting bigger to a point
makes you faster now there says to a
point um
what's that point well power to weight
ratios are a thing right for example
if you're a high level sprinter and
you're maybe five ten five
eleven sort of average sprinter height
if you're like 140 pounds
you don't have enough muscle to move all
of your bones and other structures
enough
so you're not going to be as fast as you
could be as you gain muscle 250 pounds
under 60 pounds
your power goes up more than your body
weight does in a relationship scale so
your power multiplies by more than
a factor of one but your weight goes up
by a factor of one so
your power to weight ratio improves now
uh if you gain you know 170 180 190 200
210 you're now gaining so much muscle
that your power to weight ratio your
weight's starting to really be a burden
your power weight ratio starts to sort
of flatline and then fall off again and
you can no longer be faster right which
is why in the national football league
for example you see folks weighing you
know 180 pounds under 90 pounds 200
pounds they're the fastest people on the
team
folks that are you know 210 22 30 they
can be really really super fast
especially short distances
but then you get into 260 to 70 all the
way up to you know 350 pounds
those folks just are not as fast because
they have a ton of power
but their weight is starting to be a
burden so as long as your power weight
ratio works out and you're really
training your technique for speed
more muscle can make you faster
absolutely right
and of course it can also for all those
reasons make you more explosive
here's another cool benefit of muscle
gain muscle gain makes you more injury
prone
a lot of the reason why people get
injuries is because their joints aren't
stable enough and large muscles help
stabilize joints
and also because they're not strong
enough to reduce body movements that
they don't actually want to for them to
happen right
so for example if you're really muscular
really strong and you slip on ice you
can post another leg or post an arm and
not fall
if you're very weak you post a leg and
your leg is so weak that it collapses
and then you end up you know hitting
your head so on and so forth so
if you want to reduce injury risk
getting stronger and getting more
muscular
uh is is definitely a good idea i'll
tell you what you know i do brazilian
jiu jitsu it's a combat sport
so when people grapple with me in
brazilian jiu jitsu you know they look
at me
and not the first thought in their head
is oh boy i'm going to get this guy hurt
right their thought is i better not get
hurt by this guy right so when you're
really muscular
and you have more strength it's a really
kind of a pretty big insurance
policy against injury and i've done tons
of studies especially on folks who tend
to be a little weaker
for example uh girls going through
puberty still that get into jumping
sports and they're not a full body
weight in muscularity yet
a lot of the ways they get hurt is
what's called non-contact injuries
like they're so weak that when they land
their knees will collapse inwards and
their knees will twist and they get all
sorts of injuries so
less injury prone is a huge factor huge
athletic reason to try to gain some
muscle
right and to a point in muscle gain
especially based on how you get there
being more muscular makes you healthier
one of the ways in which more muscle
makes you healthier is this muscle is a
giant glucose disposal machine
so you have a certain amount of blood
glucose circulating and you eat a
certain amount of food all the time you
do a certain level of physical activity
and if you sort of chronically overeat
food
and you end up secreting a lot of
glucose into your blood
you know usually all the systems take
the glucose out and
you don't have chronic high blood
glucose but in pre-diabetic conditions
that can be to where your blood glucose
is sort of a little too high for a
little too long
and if you don't have a lot of muscle
and you weigh let's say 100 uh
180 pounds then you have quite a bit of
fat that it doesn't really have a really
good
effect on blood glucose and a connect
actually negative effect
and all of a sudden you know you're
eating your normal meals so on and so
forth and your blood glucose level
starts to climb up over the years and
then you become
your pre-diabetic diabetic and then
that's really bad type 2 diabetes is
very very unhealthy and pre-diabetes
itself very healthy
if you have a lot of muscle every time
you feed it the muscle just gobbles up a
bunch of food it's just super hungry
and it's usually super sensitive to
insulin much more than fat uh
is uh you know in many cases and what it
does
is you know it eats up a ton of food and
it just makes you sort of chronically
lower in blood sugars you get blood
sugar and especially if you're active
with that muscle mass
you know when you're active it's
glycogen levels drop off and then it's
got to refill its glycogen store so
anytime
glucose comes in it's like oh hey anyone
any dibs on that i'm going to take that
and the muscle eats it
and all of a sudden your blood glucose
levels are way under control if you get
an individual
that is muscular and lean they almost
certainly have excellent blood glucose
control
if they're not muscular not lean then
you might have some problems so it's
definitely healthier
absolutely to a point
it's also been shown and this is a
little bit of a more nuanced point that
folks who are stronger and more muscular
on average tend to live longer and
especially if you start measuring this
in the 60s and 70s they live a lot
longer
so you get someone who in their 60s and
70s has a pretty decent level of muscle
and strength
uh their predicted lifespan for the next
20 years or like predict a chance of
death in the next 20 years is way lower
than someone who's
who's already quite frail and so on and
so forth and it supports independent
living and all that other really really
good stuff
and of course duh uh muscle enhances
aesthetics
right when people look good even in
clothes a lot of times it's because of a
higher level of muscularity
so for example you have someone that
looks good in a suit what does make
someone
other than really good suit tailoring
what makes someone look good in a suit
well
they have broad shoulders and they're
narrow waist and they will just look
real dapper
right and you look good in a dress how
does that work well you're really
sort of narrow waist and broader
shoulders and and wider hips and well
how's that where
you got muscle where you want it and
sort of not a lot of fat so it really
enhances aesthetics
whatever aesthetics you're going for
muscle because we can sort of address
muscle
in various areas you can have the
aesthetics you want you know i think i'm
pr
plenty aesthetic not sure if anyone
agrees with that unfortunately so i cry
a lot when i'm at home
all right now we've got to be completely
honest here right this is rp this is
high level thought this is talk about
trade-offs and consequences and
downsides
this are some downsides of muscle gain
especially if you gain a lot of it
not pointing fingers myself but i
literally just pointed a finger at
myself
so clearly i'm an example number one you
can become less flexible now here's the
thing it takes a lot of muscle to become
less flexible but
if you guys saw me earlier awkwardly
trying to itch the back of my head
it's really difficult for me because the
old bicep here to even
reach the back of my neck a lot of times
like i have trouble shaving
because i have to do this and it's
difficult to get under this area it's
really a trip
right how jacked you have to be well i
have like roughly 20 inch
arms when i'm pumped and i'm like five
six that's not kind of a nonsensical
version of a human body
but you know if you rely on a sport in
which really extreme flexibility is
required a lot of muscle isn't a good
thing here's a really good example if
you're an olympic weightlifter
the rack position and the clean which
i'm horribly illustrating you're not
nor close to doing it is dependent upon
your bicep just not being that big
and if you have a really big bicep it
screws up a rack position and really
really
can really put you off so if you're an
olympic weightlifter and you like doing
a lot of bicep curls you got to be
careful with that
especially if you start getting over 80
90 100 kilos of body weight at some
point you're going to have arms that are
too big to be optimal for that
more muscle can make you slower
especially if you do a couple of things
you put on a ton of muscle
and you no longer train speed qualities
so if you train like a bodybuilder all
the time train for raps training for
upstream for ups you get really big
but you never work on the speed
qualities and athleticism or speed
quality of the muscle locally or the
athleticism of your body generally and
then you absolutely will get slower and
that's not going to be a really really
good thing
so for athletes if you're looking for
muscle hypertrophy to boost you in
athletic ability
um it absolutely can do that just make
sure you're not getting so big that it
doesn't make sense for your sport
anymore
like you know if you're a soccer player
and you weigh 210 pounds it doesn't make
any sense
and also uh make sure that you're still
training your sport quality explosive
and so on and so forth in a periodized
manner
to that end enough muscle can make you
less explosive this one's a little
harder to pull off
but especially dynamic explosiveness and
rebounding off of stuff if you're heavy
enough it just don't you just don't
rebound the same like you used to
definitely you get muscular enough you
can be too big at your best health
really tough to do without taking
anabolic drugs and all sorts of stuff
which have independent effects on your
health but i'll put you this way
if you reach 250 pounds body weight
fairly lean a lot of muscle
man you know unless you're really really
really tall weighing 250 is just a
burden on you one way or the other now
if it's more
more fat than muscle that's definitely
worse to just
having a lot of of organ on you of
muscle
it requires more uh you know slightly
higher blood pressure to get all the
blood around
your heart has to work harder your
kidneys have to work a little bit harder
so on and so forth
it's not for the best your joints can
suffer because you're walking around
heavy all the time
so a lot more muscle can can do some
damage in that respect right
and of course a lot more muscle can uh
detract from the aesthetics that you
might want you might not want to look
super duper checked you might
not want to have traps that go through
the you know all the way up to your ear
so on and so forth
this is kind of like um a pretty edgy
case here because you got to really work
sort of go out of your way a lot to work
hard at getting to be more muscular and
it'd be strange if you went out of your
way and got super jacked
and then all of a sudden you were like
oh shit i hate this
you know you probably would have caught
it along the way but some athletes
you know there's female throwers and
stuff that maybe that want to be super
huge they want to be really good at
throwing
so you got super jacked to be good at
throwing but as soon as they're done
throwing they kind of give it all up and
and go and do uh you know other pursuits
and still train with weights maybe
maybe but it's not as much and they get
to a lower level of muscularity
that they like better not my cup of tea
but absolutely to each their own
and um here's the thing
in the short term especially
for non-beginners you're going to be
expecting some fat gain with muscle gain
this is a huge point that we will be
labor much more later on
but just to throw this out there in the
beginning
almost one of the number one deterrents
for people who
would benefit a lot from muscle mass
gains who wouldn't pay any of these
costs listed until this one
almost the number one deterrent for
those folks is they
know slash have heard slash under the
understanding of and necessarily
correct that if you're not a beginner
you at least in the short term months
have to get a little bit fatter
to gain muscle now we're not there's no
we're not trying to get fatter but the
hyper-caloric diet the excess calories
that make us
the most muscular also have the side
effect of making us a little bit fatter
in the short term now
we talking 20 fatter no way we're
talking about three
five percent more fat than we're
normally carrying at and that's really
at the extremes
is that a thing yeah it's a thing right
so if you want to stay 10
or if you're female and you want to stay
16 all the time and have abs and
everything
and you don't want to make the trade off
of temporarily looking just a little bit
fluffier but
that's the pathway to huge lean muscle
gains after
you know yeah it's going to be a
struggle for you but if you sort of
swallow that pill and know that
it's not all the time to look super lean
you're going to do super well with it
and we'll talk about that in our myths
and fads but it's definitely
a downside so you know why are we saying
this downside well here's the deal
you can't tell your clients for example
let's say you coach clients a lot of
folks watching this are going to be
personal trainers
uh nutrition and diet coaches and you
know weight training coaches
you can't tell your client hey listen
but you know go back a slide and be like
here's all these benefits of muscle gain
and they're called
what what about the downsides right
there are no downsides right
if none of it they never become more
less flexible slower blah blah all this
health stuff because they're mostly
regular people
you have to gain just you know like 50
pounds of muscle for any of this to be
relevant
even for them unless they're just rake
beginners
gaining muscle is going to come in the
first couple of months with some fat
gain until you deal with it later and of
course you can deal with it later and of
course you can lose all the fat
and of course it doesn't affect you long
term and of course you're going to be
lean and jacked at the end of the
process
but that that's a hell of a buy-in right
that's like telling someone that college
is a place where you get educated
and and and you tell them nothing else
and they're like well does it take a
long time
you just you're just boom you get an
education you're like okay so where do i
sign up and like well
here's the sign up sheet and here's how
you pick your classes and they're like
wait i have to be here for four years
you're like well yeah like well i don't
wanna i have a job i have like a family
i can't go to school for four years like
oh i guess i should have told you that
that's what's one of the you know the
trade-offs is you've got to sort of
delay your income for a while until you
get educated right
same thing right people a lot of times
want to put on muscle
because they want to look better but the
path to looking better is temporarily
looking
not as good maybe right uh and for some
people they don't give a shit like some
people are like
fatter and more muscular like they don't
care it's all
it's all gravy right depending on what
community you're in so on and so forth
you could just be just want to be big
and that's great
but i mean a lot of people don't want
that a lot of people want the leanness
and the muscularity and they don't ever
want any of the transitional states of
higher body fat
if you're going to be coaching
non-beginners you have to let them know
about this
uh trade-off and you have to familiarize
the extent of the trade-off
how to mitigate the trade-off because if
you gain a little slower if you don't
just stuff your face you get less fat
gains it's
a definitely good thing um and let them
sort of come to their own conclusion
with your guidance of course
okay all right i think i'm good to gain
like 10 pounds of body weight and if
like three or four of that is
fat up front i'm okay with that if
they're okay great it's still going to
require you reminding them that they say
okay
you know six weeks in they're gonna like
sort of their abs are gonna be a little
blurry they're like oh my god oh my god
oh my god i can't see my apps i can't
see the apps
red alert right and then you're gonna
have to be like hey remember we signed
up for this we know it's at the end at
the end is crispy abs
with five more pounds of muscle but we
gotta go through the this with the dark
forest at first the dark force of body
fat sounds kind of disgusting when you
think about it like
fat globs on the trees right so you just
have to know what you're getting
yourself into and folks you're helping
they have to know what they're getting
into
all right with that out of the way what
are the general
nutritional approaches that we're going
to be taking and we're going to be
talking about
well big big cornerstone is a
hypercaloric diet because the whole high
protein thing
doesn't work super well unless you're
pretty much a beginner or sort of pretty
high body fat
and outside of that it doesn't work
super well so a hyper caloric diet
actually taking in more calories than
you need to maintain
pretty big cornerstone there enough
protein because if you're taking all the
calories of the world but your protein
is really low you're not going to gain a
whole lot of muscle you will gain a
whole lot of fat
enough carbs and fats to meet their own
specific functions
so for example if you have enough
calories and enough protein
but you don't basically are all almost
completely no carb diet
it's a bad deal right it's a bad deal
because what you end up having is
um you're not gaining nearly as much
muscle as you wanted
because you're missing out on all the
good benefits of a high carb diet
that are very muscle growth orienting
like the reduced muscle catabolism the
various increased anabolism signals
we'll talk about that all later
in super super good detail and of course
fats are essential for a variety of
things including a sort of proper
hormone function
so if you drop your fat super low and
you're like i'm just getting protein and
carbs and bulk up and just gain no fat
then you're going to gain probably not
much fat but you're probably going to
gain not much of anything because your
testosterone levels are going to drop so
low
you're going to essentially neuter
yourself right so you want to
you know get enough carbs and fats to at
least check the boxes it's a lot with
carbs it's not that much with fats but
we're going to talk about those values
down the line
you're going to want to do reasonable
timing right
if you eat all of your food in one meal
some of it will go to muscle and some
will go to fat uh prevention of muscle
loss but
a lot of it will go to fat gain because
there's only so much muscle you can grow
like sort of per hour
and if you eat all of your food in one
meal you're you're going to fill up that
muscle growth per hour quota
and all the rest of the protein carbs
fats is going to go straight to fat
stores
later on you know does some of the fat
store
buildup you made earlier in the day does
it come out and supply energy reserves
yes but does it supply muscle growth
no right there's actually no way to
store protein in your body
it's either integrated into tissue like
muscle or it's just metabolized for
energy right there on the spot
you can store carbs through glycogen yes
can you store uh
fats through fat cells absolutely uh but
can you store protein not really
so the whole eat like a snake to get
huge thing doesn't really work nutrient
timing has to be reasonable which we're
going to see later as
you know hopefully at least four meals a
day and after four it gets a little
quirky as to whether or not anymore
helps but
definitely anything shy of four meals a
day is like a you're kind of
not giving yourself a good run up the
money right and
food composition considerations are up
next right these are all smaller details
now
like exactly what are you eating for
your proteins exactly what eating for a
car a really good example
is it's been shown that um high quality
complete proteins particularly those in
animal products
tend to build muscle a little better
than the other kinds of proteins
particularly like you know
plant proteins that are incomplete so
food composition what you're actually
eating matters
are there ways to adjust that maybe
eating more protein if the protein
sources aren't as
high quality absolutely and they come
with their own trade-offs but it's
definitely something we should be paying
attention to at least to some extent
right
and of course supplements and proper
hydration proper hydration is essential
uh to life we'll talk about what that
means
later down the line and of course there
are some supplements that can help you
gain weight
and gain muscle they're not like super
powerful there's a very very small
fraction of the total effect
but there's one muscle gain supplement
in particular that can come in real
handy
if you really struggle with weight gain
we'll talk about that one down the line
right now here's a huge factor huge
factor
consistency okay if we take a week
of your muscle gain diet and on
three days of that week you're getting a
hyper caloric
diet you're nailing your protein you got
enough carbs and fats your timing is
great
food composition supplements boom boom
boom you're a machine
sweet but if the four other days of the
week or even two other days of the week
you were just
failing miserably i mean like under
eating like crazy let's say one meal a
day of like
750 calories or a thousand calories and
you're just super busy with work or with
partying or whatever
and the other days three days of the
week you're eating 3 500 calories like
you're supposed to blah blah blah
everything's tight
man you know you're building decent
muscle or sort of
we'll get to this in a bit you're
supplying the stimulus for good muscle
growth for three days
but for four days just applying the
stimulus for really good muscle
breakdown and really poor muscle growth
the net balance could be that you lose
muscle and so why did you even bother
with those other three days you could
have lost plenty of muscle just fine
without ever you know wasting three days
of your week
of trying to live like a machine that
gains muscle so the consistency thing
and you can look at consistencies kind
of on the measure of weeks right per
week
right so for example as coaches and
we help other people when we try to
figure out consistency
we're really trying to ask like your
typical week
what percent of the days slash meals are
you getting correct
if it's like 90 you're doing real well
for yourself
if it's like 60 percent gee you know you
could probably get a lot more
muscle gain if you tried well if it's
like less than 50
it's just not really clear you're
getting any muscle gains at all
especially if you're not a ranked
beginner
if you're not a beginner man if you're
an intermediate and you've already kind
of not struggled to put on muscle it's a
little bit of a challenge if you're not
on the money like most of the time you
just won't gain muscle
your body needs a real clear message to
do anything really good uh unless it's
uh you know uh
just just gonna stay the same right so
consistency is it good to have a
hypercaloric diet yes
only if you're consistent with it it's a
good deal of protein yes but only for
consistent with
it doesn't mean all the time it means
most of the time 90
is a real good place to go so for
example if you're an intermediate
and you have six days of great eating
and one day of okay eating
you're going to gain a lot of muscle you
have six days of eating and one day of
terrible eating
one day of terrible eating you're going
to gain plenty of muscle but you could
have gained
notice will be more right if you have
you know four days of good eating and
three days of awful eating
gee you know we really can't help you in
that regard so consistency is real big
it's a real big thing because a lot of
people will say
you know you'll have clients potentially
and other folks come to you and say hey
look
i want to gain muscle i think i'm doing
everything right
i don't know what i'm doing wrong
because i'm not gaining a whole lot of
muscle and you know maybe they just hit
the genetic ceiling or something
you sort of get some input from them
they're like you know they've only been
training weights for three or four years
they weigh 150 pounds
reasonably athletic in their youth and
you're like seems like you should be
gaining muscle like at least pretty
measurably during this time of your life
so
you start going through a checklist are
you eating a hypercaloric diet are you
getting enough protein carbs fats
reasonable time you blow a lot you're
gonna check let's say yes yes yes yes
yes and you're like
straight up you feel like you know
albert einstein towards the end of his
career like
you're struggling with a theory of
everything you're like what the hell's
going on
shit just doesn't add up you know
they're doing i mean you know it's one
of those things where you're looking for
a client to just give you that one thing
to be like well i haven't considered
much protein
you're like boom got them dead to rights
like you up their protein and they just
grow a ton of muscle in a coach you're
the best
but you can't get them on anything
you're like gee like they're doing a
good job of the stuff some of the stuff
they're doing better than i am
right what the hell am i doing about it
here's what you're missing potentially
you say no okay that's great your diet
sounds great you've got to come slack
there right arguing to convince it's
another series we have here
um you know how many days of the week on
average do you think you're really on
the money with a diet
and they'll be like well and that's all
you need to know right there with that
answer
right because they're gonna be like ah
you know four days a week i'm definitely
good and you're like
okay and one of the other three days and
they're like
one of those like if it's a weekday it's
okay i gotta get caught up in meetings i
don't eat enough
don't eat enough hypercaloric diet we're
not getting much muscle anymore
and they're like weekends are real bad
you know which i see
my kids and family more we sort of get
some
food i'm not training i'm definitely not
you know eating enough
it's kind of like pretty stressful
sometimes going you know dropping them
off at soccer games blah blah and you're
just at this point you don't even need
to hear what they're saying anymore
you're like
got it so you're not actually having a
good diet consistently right it's
not what matters not what matters uh
a good diet consistently is 50 times
better than a great diet and
consistently oh
that's how much we value consistency now
if we expand because this is a larger
concept we're actually starting to talk
about duration
so remember consistency is within the
week that's how we're going to define it
proper duration of gain is another
general nutritional approach that's
really important
right proper duration means
you're giving enough time to grow actual
muscle how much muscle do you put on
during a week
well that's actually a very difficult
question to answer
you could say through fractional
synthetic rate and fractional breakdown
rate curves you can actually just do the
math and be like well it's like you know
500 grams of muscle that you put on per
week but hold on a second
it turns out there's some good research
to support this that
um your fsr being great in the fbr is
important
but muscle growth is probably a lot
more like building the another floor on
a skyscraper
than it is just adding sand to a sand
pile
because people start to look at this fsr
fbr stuff and they start to over
simplify things and say look
as long as your you know uh fractional
synthetic rate is higher than fractional
breakdown rate you're gaining muscle
well
maybe right we don't build skyscrapers
by putting sand on a building and being
like that's it
it's two floors higher than it used to
be and it's like no there's a giant
sand pile there i want actual floors
that work i want
you know windows i want tiling i want
roofs i want you know plumbing
all that stuff well how long does that
stuff take to build well it's not an
overnight job
there's multiple systems that have to be
installed
even in building design there's what is
going to be called we're going to
introduce the concept later called
preparatory hypertrophy if you look at a
new building that's being built
in a lot of places they use uh sort of
uh especially if it's a let's
get away ooh a skyscraper uh stay with
that
steel struts come up first right and you
get the outline of the building on steel
struts steel beams
basically have the they designed sort of
the
skeleton of the building now are those
steel struts
actual floors yet no can you put your
office desk in that shit and have 80
mile an hour winds
that'd be ridiculous it's not done you
haven't
undergone building hypertrophy that's
what we would call preparatory
hypertrophy none of the stuff that makes
a building a building like you can work
in it for example
uh not die of freezing cold weather
actually go to the bathroom turn on the
lights you know the whole stuff
buildings are for
none of that stuff is really there the
only additions have been
to prepare to put that stuff under there
because you can't put a wall in
you can't put a ceiling in if you uh
have no frame
for sure right so the frame has to be
established
but that's only preparing for the actual
floor to be installed all the wires to
run through so on and so forth
it's a very very good chance lots of
good
evidence to support that this is the way
muscle grows in human bodies
that it's not just a matter of pouring
like you don't slit open your
you know forearm and pour whey protein
on the shit and
stuff it in there it should go right to
my muscles it's made of protein that's
not how it works right you have to do a
very very fine
construction process so for
weeks of muscle growth and we see this
directly in the lab
you train train training and it doesn't
show hypertrophy quite in the same way
yet
eventually muscle growth starts to be
noticeable on a grander scale
so we have to think that if we have to
have a proper duration
to allow this process to actually occur
that's point number one so these
processes take way longer than we think
they do their time course is longer
point number two is look if you are
saying to a client hey let's put on some
muscle and they're like great
let's do it for two weeks how much
muscle can you possibly put on on two
weeks
let's say you have this just great
training it's the most sensitive person
to training ever let's say they put on
two pounds of muscle in two weeks which
would be unbelievable
you know let's say they do that um what
does two pounds of muscle look like on a
human
on a human body you like
if you're like a really good eye for
stuff you'll be able to tell but nobody
else will
it's barely anything so a lot of people
will say
hey listen i'm doing all the stuff right
and i'm consistent
every week i'm putting it in you say
well how long are your muscle
gain phases how long at a time are you
trying to gain muscle and eating hyper
calorically and then say
you're like two or three weeks at a time
and then i start to feel a fluffier and
i do a cutting phase
wrong wrong wrong real bad idea it's
just not going to accrue a lot of muscle
over time for at least those two
reasons so those that's too short so
what are the typical time courses
right and it seems like growing muscle
is more complex
right than it originally might look like
so it's more like adding a skyscraper
floor than adding
santo sand pile it's a little bit of an
endeavor that takes some time
right there are some direct studies
that show that months into a training
program
the kind of growth that happens is
mostly your only preparatory growth
like you get growth of the connective
tissues that sort of form the
contractile elements of muscle
uh of of muscle tissue but maybe not
much of the contractile tissues
themselves
right that's kind of strange well it's a
big part of the process that it takes a
really long time
you have to sort of build the
architecture build a skeleton of the
skyscraper and then fill it in with
floors
same idea seems to apply with muscle
growth right now that doesn't mean
that you don't get any noticeable gains
you get uh sarcoplasm expands you get
more fluid in the muscle cell
so on and so forth so there's still
noticeable gains you still look bigger
but they might not be permanent gains or
even semi-permanent gains
like if you stop training two months
into starting training and you put on
like four pounds of muscle
after two months you might lose four
pounds and then it's like you never even
gained them to begin with it's not like
two weeks later you can
pump up again and look the same no it's
just you have to regain all that muscle
because no true contractile tissue was
ever even really put down in a large
number was a lot of was preparatory
growth
nervous system changed but not a whole
lot happened in your actual contractile
tissue construction
right what are we going to take away
from this practically well
less than a month of gaining probably
just won't stick around
not the best use of your time a month of
gaining
is kind of a good analogy to that is
taking a five minute nap
what the hell are you doing a five
minute nap
what's a preparatory phase in a nap
well the actual sleep is the muscle
contraction phase right
or contractile protein construction
phase that's real skyscraper growth
that's real floor addition
actual sleep but naps aren't all actual
sleep right
you lay down to go to sleep and
what happens you don't sleep right away
unless you're some kind of robot
it takes you anywhere from you know if
you're really tired and
super need an app it could take you
seconds but a lot of times it takes you
know
minutes minutes to really get to going
to sleep sometimes it can take you
longer
if you get someone to take a five minute
nap they might lay down
when the timer starts and they sort of
scroll through instagram a little bit
like oh i gotta reply to brandon
i'm gonna put the phone down it's
already been minute and a half
i wonder what my tax season is gonna do
and
you know do i really am i really a good
person or just bullshitting myself my
whole life
i wonder and then and then it's three
minutes and 55 seconds and you finally
fall asleep and then one in
one minute and five seconds later you
wake up and you're like it's been five
minutes you're like
fuck this is bullshit right so all
that's about all that stuff all the
thoughts about your taxes and whether or
not you're a good person right pay your
taxes and you'll be a good person
um all that stuff is preparatory to the
sleep process
nobody just like goes like this and just
falls asleep right like unless there's
one uncle you see on thanksgiving that
does that every year
right it's really rare to just hate it
right so that preparatory stuff is
important but it comes sandwiched with
the nap
so a five minute nap is almost the same
thing as a month of trying to gain it's
like you're just getting into things
stuff finally starting to happen you're
like cut
we didn't get hardly anything done right
how restful are you after a minute of
sleep it's barely anything
right another factor on the other end
uh well actually yeah so another fact so
so a month minimum
and then what about is there such a
thing as gaining too long on a certain
period
of consistent gaining right dedicated
gaining if you gain steadily for more
than six months in many cases
uh especially if you're not just a sort
of a a true noob
you might need a break from the fatigue
of high training volumes
to actually sort of get your stuff
together and you might need to
take a break from the high fat gain and
we'll talk all about the stuff later in
the actual parts of the course
but essentially if
you know we do use the nap analogy uh
six months
plus of gaining is like taking an app
that's like three hours long or more
or like even an hour 50 long or more
like
after you go through one rem cycle it's
a good nap
you're pretty good to wake up ideally
like a 20 30 minute app is even better
so you're not going to
ever run to rem sleep but one run cycle
in you could wake up and be pretty
productive
but if you wake yourself up in the
middle of a nap like hours into the nap
boy that's not really a nap anymore
that's kind of like a whole night's
sleep and it might
disrupt your night's sleep later you
might actually wake up groggy and all
this other bad stuff
so it's a good thing naps right and
muscle growth is a good thing
but there's too much of a good thing as
well and you need breaks from various
things
to let things re-sensitize resettle so
you can have productive runs at them
again
so one month or less of gaining probably
not the best idea
six months of steady gaining or more
probably not the best idea
why are we discussing this so early i
mean we're going to have a whole
lecture in part dedicated to uh
the exactitudes of why and how these
time courses are
are extend why are we talking about it
now here's why
because you folks are getting introduced
to this course we want to know what
you're getting yourself into
right if you're embarking on muscle
growth if you've got clients embark on a
muscle growth they say
i want to put on muscle one month six
months
you gotta communicate to them like look
you're signing up for
a commitment it could be three or four
months of
dedicated hypercaloric eating and high
volume training
you don't stop earlier and you don't go
for longer
it's a big switch so you know these time
courses so you can plan better
kind of know what you're getting
yourself into
final slide what's ahead what are we
going to talk about in the various
concepts various lectures of this course
well
we're going to talk about getting into
the into the in the weeds
the first section after this the next
lecture is going to be calories and
macros for muscle gain okay we want to
gain muscle
how many calories should we eat how many
macros should we eat proteins carbs fats
then we're going to have another lecture
about timing food composition and
supplements for muscle gain very
important stuff
then we're going to have a lecture about
the ranges and duration for weight gain
we say keep seeing weight gain muscle
gain weight gain muscle again
how much weight are we talking about we
talk about five pounds a week we talk
about point one pounds a week and how
long we're beginning with you know we
said it's between a month and six months
but that's a hell of a window
maybe we can get a more precise figure
and talk about why
and how that would change based on
certain conditions right
measuring progress when we talk about
muscle gain talk about strength gain
how do we know if we're doing a good job
you know um in real life
you apply all of these strategies you're
going to learn here and then
question my question my question mark
you gain muscle well those question
marks are the progress that you're
actually measuring
because you apply them and then you see
if it's working we'll teach you how to
see if it's working and if it's not and
potentially if it's not working super
well
maybe you can change something in your
game and if it's working well don't
touch a thing right or don't touch
anything major
after that we're going to talk about
muscle gain periodization
right because there's a grander scope of
muscle gain we've alluded to it already
a little bit like you can't gain muscle
forever your body needs a break
we're going to see how that opens up
into a very predictable periodized
structure
for phases of muscle gain maybe some fat
loss maybe some maintenance
we'll talk about all that after that
we're going to talk about we're going to
do a lecture of adjusting calories and
macrons
when gains are not coming right so when
your gains are coming good and you're
doing sweet
you just keep doing what you're doing
right but what if you're not getting
fast enough what if you're gaining too
fast and getting super fat
how do you adjust your calories how to
adjust your macros to get you back into
that sort of fine band
of really good gains really important
question after that we're talking about
adjusting timing food composition of
supplements when the gain is not coming
because
we can tweak those other factors to make
our gains better make them faster
make them slower and less fat prone so
on and so forth
lastly our last lecture myths
misconception misconception
misconceptions that's really tough to
say myths misconceptions
and special circumstances in muscle gain
what if i'm playing another sport how
does muscle gain work is there a right
time or is there a wrong time
and then we're going to talk about
various misconceptions that folks have
lean gains myth all that stuff we're
going to cover so one two three four
five six seven eight holy crap that's
like eight slide eight eight courses we
got
eight lectures or something that's
pretty crazy good stuff
folks that's all i have for you today
we'll see you
next time calories and macros
for muscle gain