Can you train strength + hypertrophy at the same time?

[Guest Ragnarok]

I'm sorry if this has been asked here already, but i did a google search of this and this site didn't come up. And what i found wasn't really helpful, which was surprising.

I want both things (strength and size) but the way to train them is very different. So can i do both at the same time or are they mutually exclusive?

[Paradox]

Strength and hypertrophy are correlated. Bodybuilders, for instance, cannot get bigger by sticking to the same weight for years on end. Likewise, an Olympic gymnast cannot do a maltese without having some decent mass.

Now, I believe people like to discuss the differences between sarcoplasmic hypertrophy and myofibrillar hypertrophy and how to best go about getting whichever one. I think a basic principle to understand here is that all conditioning will contain varying degrees of both types of hypertrophy. A bodybuilder cannot strive for pure sarcoplasmic hypertrophy. Myofibrillar will occur and it will lead to more strength.

To straightforwardly answer your questions, strength and hypertrophy are not mutually exclusive. You can get both simultaneously.For gymnastics, I have always recommended myself to worry about the exercise itself. For instance, concentrate on getting your full lay front lever or v-sit or whatever else. The strength and hypertrophy will certainly follow as byproducts and it will come without you even having to think about it. Focus on the skills - this is my core advice to you because this comes from experience.

[Guest Ragnarok]

Strength and hypertrophy are correlated. Bodybuilders, for instance, cannot get bigger by sticking to the same weight for years on end. Likewise, an Olympic gymnast cannot do a maltese without having some decent mass.

Now, I believe people like to discuss the differences between sarcoplasmic hypertrophy and myofibrillar hypertrophy and how to best go about getting whichever one. I think a basic principle to understand here is that all conditioning will contain varying degrees of both types of hypertrophy. A bodybuilder cannot strive for pure sarcoplasmic hypertrophy. Myofibrillar will occur and it will lead to more strength.

To straightforwardly answer your questions, strength and hypertrophy are not mutually exclusive. You can get both simultaneously.For gymnastics, I have always recommended myself to worry about the exercise itself. For instance, concentrate on getting your full lay front lever or v-sit or whatever else. The strength and hypertrophy will certainly follow as byproducts and it will come without you even having to think about it. Focus on the skills - this is my core advice to you because this comes from experience.

Thanks.

Yes, I am training the PL, FL, BL, L-sit and handstand, and hope to eventually master them.

And I am also doing FBE's. For the past month and a half or so I have been doing 8 FBE's 5x5 but today I started thinking about this again because I noticed I wasn't really gaining any muscle. I realize I'm just a beginner but I decided I want to train both now.

I've been reading alot of things and now im a bit confused. Slizzardman said in a recent post that you only need to do 3 sets when training strength, but im doing 5 on each exercise. So do i do only 3 now?

And, how would i structure the workouts for both strength and hypertrophy? Like, do both the same day, or each one on separate days and how many times a week each one and so forth? Right now I tested what would-be my hypertrophy "workout" and it only took like 35 minutes. I will only be doing 4 exercises for the hypertrophy one, 2 pull and 2 push.

I already have both workouts "set" or "ready", I just need to know how many times a week I should do each.

Currently i am doing 8 fbe's and i do 4 one day and 4 another day, so it's exercises A and B. I do them on a rotating (i think) every other day schedule, so one week i do workout A twice and B once and next week it's B twice and A once and so forth. But then i read a bit of Power to the People which is for strength and he says you could or should exercise 5 times a week, so now im not sure what to do.

Reading Pavel's book and looking at how the FSP's are made me like the idea of training frequently since you train submaximally and not to failure, which is why you can train frequently in the first place and i guess you need to anyways, but i don't know how it would be with the other workouts.

[Joshua Naterman]

Strength and hypertrophy are correlated. Bodybuilders, for instance, cannot get bigger by sticking to the same weight for years on end. Likewise, an Olympic gymnast cannot do a maltese without having some decent mass.

Now, I believe people like to discuss the differences between sarcoplasmic hypertrophy and myofibrillar hypertrophy and how to best go about getting whichever one. I think a basic principle to understand here is that all conditioning will contain varying degrees of both types of hypertrophy. A bodybuilder cannot strive for pure sarcoplasmic hypertrophy. Myofibrillar will occur and it will lead to more strength.

To straightforwardly answer your questions, strength and hypertrophy are not mutually exclusive. You can get both simultaneously.For gymnastics, I have always recommended myself to worry about the exercise itself. For instance, concentrate on getting your full lay front lever or v-sit or whatever else. The strength and hypertrophy will certainly follow as byproducts and it will come without you even having to think about it. Focus on the skills - this is my core advice to you because this comes from experience.

Very true. 80% of muscle mass is water and 20% or so is protein, no matter how you make the muscle. The real difference will be how much of that is structural versus contractile protein. Both definitely accumulate as you get bigger and stronger, there isn't much you can do about that. It's how we are made.

To get stronger without getting bigger, you have to be very good at finding the weak links and building those and you also have to repeat the same movements over and over so that you become mind-numbingly efficient at them. And there is always a limit beyond which you have to get bigger.

I will say that your approach as you described it for the FSP work is more about strength than hypertrophy, but as long as you have enough volume and the right nutrition flowing through your veins you are going to grow. Muscle growth is really much more about nutrition than exercise.

I gave my opinion in the other thread Rag, but to put it succinctly, you would simply have one workout where you focused on basic strength movements and used more TUT per set with 3-5 sets per exercise. We're looking at 30-45s of TUT for your hypertrophy specific goals. That could be ten reps at 202 tempo (up/pause/down in seconds) or five 404 reps. Typically muscles produce more overall force when moving slowly because there is no momentum to detract from the total force needed at any given moment in the ROM, and this leads to greater motor unit recruitment for greater periods of time, which leads to more growth.

Your other workout would be more of the suggested BtGB 3-5 sets of 3-5 reps with the hardest exercise you can perform correctly for all reps. Because your reps will be faster, your TUT will be lower and your peak forces will be higher, leading to greater strength gains. These two goals complement each other when programmed correctly.

[Vagabond]

If you look into powerbuilding, you might also find some useful information that you can use in your training, regardless the tool you use.

[Guest Ragnarok]

To get stronger without getting bigger, you have to be very good at finding the weak links and building those and you also have to repeat the same movements over and over so that you become mind-numbingly efficient at them. And there is always a limit beyond which you have to get bigger.

Im not sure if you're just mentioning this but as you could guess from what ive written, i have no interest in getting super strong without any muscle.

But anyways, Pavel says in his book power to the people that you can get super strong without adding a pound of muscle, and he gives several examples of many people who were really strong and basically didn't have any muscle. How can that be?

I will say that your approach as you described it for the FSP work is more about strength than hypertrophy, but as long as you have enough volume and the right nutrition flowing through your veins you are going to grow. Muscle growth is really much more about nutrition than exercise.

Are you referring to me here? I'm not sure because i don't remember if i wrote how i do the fsp's.

I gave my opinion in the other thread Rag, but to put it succinctly, you would simply have one workout where you focused on basic strength movements and used more TUT per set with 3-5 sets per exercise. We're looking at 30-45s of TUT for your hypertrophy specific goals. That could be ten reps at 202 tempo (up/pause/down in seconds) or five 404 reps. Typically muscles produce more overall force when moving slowly because there is no momentum to detract from the total force needed at any given moment in the ROM, and this leads to greater motor unit recruitment for greater periods of time, which leads to more growth.

Got it. I picked 4 upper-body exercises for this, but in the future i hope to add more challenging ones like HSPU's because at the moment it's impossible to do high reps with low rest with them.

Your other workout would be more of the suggested BtGB 3-5 sets of 3-5 reps with the hardest exercise you can perform correctly for all reps. Because your reps will be faster, your TUT will be lower and your peak forces will be higher, leading to greater strength gains. These two goals complement each other when programmed correctly.

This is what I started to do like a month and a half ago.

I think i almost have it all down, there are just a few things id like to be clear on, like: For the size routine i have 4 exercises. For the strength training i have 8. Is this ok? How many times a week should i do both routines, and can i do them on the same day or separately?

I re-read Pavel's book yesterday and he says that for strength training, you should do it as often as you can, up to 5 times a week. Is this right?

[Rik de Kort]

To get stronger without getting bigger, you have to be very good at finding the weak links and building those and you also have to repeat the same movements over and over so that you become mind-numbingly efficient at them. And there is always a limit beyond which you have to get bigger.

Im not sure if you're just mentioning this but as you could guess from what ive written, i have no interest in getting super strong without any muscle.

EDIT: Josh provided at better set of axioms here.

The four axioms:

1. Diet regulates weight.

2. Exercise regulates body composition.

3. Nutrition quality will improve how fast you lose or gain weight.

4. Exercise intensity will improve how fast your body composition changes.

They didn't grow because they weren't eating enough to put on muscle. Strength gains were therefore neurological.

5 times a week is doable if the intensity is low. It's basically grease the groove in a different package.

Train hard, eat a lot, sleep long and you'll get bigger. Shoot for 3x5-10 reps and stop worrying so much. Don't use Pavel's methods, they're not suited to gaining size (though they're pretty awesome). Just train for both strength and size by using the aforementioned rep range and make sure you eat a lot. EAT.

Follow this, stick with it and you WILL see results. You're overcomplicating stuff. Don't.

[Guest Ragnarok]

The four axioms:

1. Diet regulates weight.

2. Exercise regulates body composition.

3. Nutrition quality will improve how fast you lose or gain weight.

4. Exercise intensity will improve how fast your body composition changes.

They didn't grow because they weren't eating enough to put on muscle. Strength gains were therefore neurological.

5 times a week is doable if the intensity is low. It's basically grease the groove in a different package.

Train hard, eat a lot, sleep long and you'll get bigger. Shoot for 3x5-10 reps and stop worrying so much. Don't use Pavel's methods, they're not suited to gaining size (though they're pretty awesome). Just train for both strength and size by using the aforementioned rep range and make sure you eat a lot. EAT.

Follow this, stick with it and you WILL see results. You're overcomplicating stuff. Don't.

I don't see how simply asking how many times a week to do each is "overcomplicating stuff". Seriously. That's all i want to know. I like exact answers and details, especially when it comes to exercising because every detail matters. 1-3 min more or less of rest makes a huge difference in whatever you do. Training 1 or 3 or 5 times a week makes a huge difference. So i really don't like it when i get generalizing answers that don't answer my simple questions and on top of that am told to stop "overcomplicating stuff".

And I don't want to use Pavel's methods to gain size; they were only for the strength part.

[Rik de Kort]

I'm sorry if I came across as insulting; that was not my intention.

Some people do really well on high frequency, some people not so much. You have to find what works for you, so there's little point in asking. You obviously know anything less than 3 times a week is detrimental to your progress, so just pick three, four or five and do that for a while (6-8 weeks). Then evaluate, see what works and throw out the rest and try something new. That's how you learn what works the best for you, as long as you keep changes small (so you don't switch up your whole workout from cycle to cycle) and keep a training log so you can directly see what's working and what's not.

You can theorize all you want, devise some elaborate 5-day rotating workout system, only to find out that it doesn't work for you at all once you try it and you have to start over.

Also, in the 5-10 rep range, there is plenty of overlap between strength and hypertrophy, as long as you're eating enough. Reg Park's (famous bodybuilder from the old days) beginner program uses a 5x5 scheme on all the main exercises and that's a bodybuilding program. So just train like 3x5-10 reps at high intensity 3x a week, eat well and you'll gain strength and grow.

The point was to get you to actually try something, so you can find out what you need. You pretty much always have to make adjustments if you're starting out, so it's just no use to try to fine-tune your approach with theory. The basics have to be good: exercise selection, rep range, intensity and lifestyle factors (stress, food and sleep), the rest is just experimentation.

Just do it.

Again, I really don't mean to insult you. You seem to be a nice guy (you certainly know how to stand up for yourself, which is good), but somehow if you sugar coat the message, it won't come across. That's why I tend to come across as blunt and insensitive. In my eyes it's the best way to get the message across.

[Philip Chubb]

but somehow if you sugar coat the message, it won't come across.

This is what there needs to be more of. Personally, I loved the way you said it. People make mountains out of molehills when it comes to training. Paralysis by analysis. Even I sometimes have to be told to shut up and go give it a try.

[FREDERIC DUPONT]

(...) somehow if you sugar coat the message, it won't come across. That's why I tend to come across as blunt and insensitive. In my eyes it's the best way to get the message across.

Keep up the good work Rik, your messages are direct, to the point, and always helpful.

Please rest assured, you do not come across as blunt and/or insensitive; you are coming across as a guy always ready to spend the time to help out, and that is great!

Thank you for being who you are!

[Guest Ragnarok]

I'm sorry if I came across as insulting; that was not my intention.

Some people do really well on high frequency, some people not so much. You have to find what works for you, so there's little point in asking. You obviously know anything less than 3 times a week is detrimental to your progress, so just pick three, four or five and do that for a while (6-8 weeks). Then evaluate, see what works and throw out the rest and try something new. That's how you learn what works the best for you, as long as you keep changes small (so you don't switch up your whole workout from cycle to cycle) and keep a training log so you can directly see what's working and what's not.

You can theorize all you want, devise some elaborate 5-day rotating workout system, only to find out that it doesn't work for you at all once you try it and you have to start over.

Also, in the 5-10 rep range, there is plenty of overlap between strength and hypertrophy, as long as you're eating enough. Reg Park's (famous bodybuilder from the old days) beginner program uses a 5x5 scheme on all the main exercises and that's a bodybuilding program. So just train like 3x5-10 reps at high intensity 3x a week, eat well and you'll gain strength and grow.

The point was to get you to actually try something, so you can find out what you need. You pretty much always have to make adjustments if you're starting out, so it's just no use to try to fine-tune your approach with theory. The basics have to be good: exercise selection, rep range, intensity and lifestyle factors (stress, food and sleep), the rest is just experimentation.

Just do it.

Again, I really don't mean to insult you. You seem to be a nice guy (you certainly know how to stand up for yourself, which is good), but somehow if you sugar coat the message, it won't come across. That's why I tend to come across as blunt and insensitive. In my eyes it's the best way to get the message across.

It's ok, I prefer direct answers. I like that. That's what i wanted to hear.

I have been doing something, for a month and a half now, i haven't been paralyzed by analysis. I just started reading stuff again and it looks like i had some things wrong and i wanted to ask about some other things.

It's almost all clear now. Now im just not sure about one thing: how many exercises i should do. For strength im doing 8 FBE's and i don't know if that's too many.

[Joshua Naterman]

To get stronger without getting bigger, you have to be very good at finding the weak links and building those and you also have to repeat the same movements over and over so that you become mind-numbingly efficient at them. And there is always a limit beyond which you have to get bigger.

Im not sure if you're just mentioning this but as you could guess from what ive written, i have no interest in getting super strong without any muscle.

The four axioms:

1. Diet regulates weight.

2. Exercise regulates body composition.

3. Nutrition quality will improve how fast you lose or gain weight.

4. Exercise intensity will improve how fast your body composition changes.

They didn't grow because they weren't eating enough to put on muscle. Strength gains were therefore neurological.

5 times a week is doable if the intensity is low. It's basically grease the groove in a different package.

Train hard, eat a lot, sleep long and you'll get bigger. Shoot for 3x5-10 reps and stop worrying so much. Don't use Pavel's methods, they're not suited to gaining size (though they're pretty awesome). Just train for both strength and size by using the aforementioned rep range and make sure you eat a lot. EAT.

Follow this, stick with it and you WILL see results. You're overcomplicating stuff. Don't.

I don't want to spend the time explaining this, but this is definitely not accurate. 2 is pretty much completely backwards and I'm surprised to see you say that. You can walk into any gym in America and watch people work their butts off consistently and still look like crap. Quality of food and nutrient timing affects how your body recomposes much, much more than exercise. They both matter, but the majority of the composition change is a direct result of truly correct nutrition. 4 is poorly stated. It's more like exercise, period, will improve how fast your body recomposes if nutrition is good. The intensity can actually be a problem because people often burn more calories than they should and end up losing some lean mass in the process. You have to be careful with your energy balance and make sure you eat enough around your intense sessions. It's definitely true that resistance or cardiovascular training of any kind, performed on a full body basis, will have a significant positive health effect.

As an anecdotal case in point, I've been doing less exercise than years ago and my body looks much, much better than almost any time in my life. The big factor was fixing my nutrition. I have watched the exact same thing happen to every athlete or regular person I've worked with, and have watched GSU athletes on nutritiming and proper nutrient timing change the same way.

Their exercise didn't change, and in many cases actually decreased.

There are three variables that determine how often you can train with a given resistance level:

1) Intensity (% of resistance compared to your 1RM)

2) Volume of training per session

3) Frequency.

for 3 to be higher, either 1 or 2 needs to drop. Pavel's program works because total volume per session is exceedingly low, which is why a fairly high intensity for the single working set can be maintained 5-6 days per week. You are never burning out the CNS and you're never causing much damage, so recovery requirements are minimal.

There will be tissue growth, if correct nutrition is in place, but this tissue growth will probably be less than maximal in nature since you are very rarely training most of your higher threshold motor groups. On the other hand, you are stimulating growth on a much more regular basis so perhaps with proper nutrition growth can be decent. You're only pushing to your true limit once every 2 weeks or so, but you're always working with a reasonably substantial load so it is hard to say what the results would be under ideal nutritional conditions. This also doesn't work quite as well with gymnastic work because it's hard to modulate the loading so precisely.

Rik is right that no one can tell you or anyone else how their body works... we each have to figure that out and understand that it changes over time for all of us as well.

I don't think that you can use Pavel's programming alongside a more mass-oriented program unless you're using his methods for just one or two exercises. Even then, you'd have to use a different exercise for your mass work for the same muscles. It gets way too complicated for my tastes, but if you find a pattern you like or want to try then you should try it.

It's just way too much for the body to do a hard set every day for all major muscle groups. You could do that 3 days per week no problem, but that's why we are typically going to suggest an ABA, BAB pattern for a two week full cycle or a ABAB pattern for a single week. A would be strength workout and B would be size workout. It works, it's simple, and you have a 3 or 4 day per week option that won't require anything complicated to put together. Pick 4-6 exercises on strength days and 8-10 on size days to cover the whole body and do 3-5 sets. Pay more attention to your TUT than your reps. Make sure they both match up with your goals. TUT of 30-45s for mass, 10-20s for strength. Make your tempo match the rep numbers you choose to use.

Eat before and immediately after your workouts. Preferably a liquid meal immediately afterwards. 1% chocolate milk with a little extra protein is a really easy and excellent one, but whatever you want will work. Just get down whatever is the fastest absorbing food that gives you ~20g of protein and 20-40g of carbs at the least. Chances are good that you will feel very good with another 40g of slower carbs soon after.

[Guest Ragnarok]

It's just way too much for the body to do a hard set every day for all major muscle groups. You could do that 3 days per week no problem, but that's why we are typically going to suggest an ABA, BAB pattern for a two week full cycle or a ABAB pattern for a single week. A would be strength workout and B would be size workout. It works, it's simple, and you have a 3 or 4 day per week option that won't require anything complicated to put together. Pick 4-6 exercises on strength days and 8-10 on size days to cover the whole body and do 3-5 sets. Pay more attention to your TUT than your reps. Make sure they both match up with your goals. TUT of 30-45s for mass, 10-20s for strength. Make your tempo match the rep numbers you choose to use.

Excellent, it's just like what i was doing; i was doing an ABA, BAB pattern but only with strength. I might go for ABAB now.

Thanks for all the answers, im good now. I'll report back in 2 or 3 months to see how it all goes.

[Philip Chubb]

It seems a bit harsh to call it retarded. You mean to say that exercise doesn't affect body composition? Maybe Rik's statement was overgeneralized but going the complete opposite direction seems a bit far as well. Put the same two people on this nutrimeg system and have one train. Who's body composition will be better? If they are working hard and not getting anywhere, that just means they're workouts are poorly planned. You can't outtrain a bad diet but both nutrition and exercise are important.

[Joshua Naterman]

Saying that part of the answer is retarded is not the nice way to put it, certainly. I'll change it to a less emotionally charged statement. However, in plain English that really is what it is. That is literally backwards. You don't get slower forward progress than moving backwards.

Exercise alone does not significantly affect body composition.

Nutrition alone does significantly affect body composition, and of course together there is a LARGE synergistic effect that goes far beyond what nutrition alone already accomplishes (largely due to the positive health effects that come from resistance and cardiovascular training adaptations but also due to the extra increase in muscle mass).

I may not have been clear enough on that statement, the intent was to point out that there is no significant recomposition effect just from exercise, and exercise is not the auto-regulator (or regulator, or whatever)of body composition. Exercise does help maintain where you are at, but that's about it unless your nutrition is good. Even then, when your nutrition is garbage you look worse even when you exercise the same. Most of us are personally familiar with this. The better your nutrition, the more of an effect there is with nutrition + exercise.

Because the nutrition is the element that enables the vast majority of change and controls the degree to which exercise is effective as a recomposition tool, nutrition IS the auto-regulator or regulator, however you want to say it. Exercise is more of a throttle that can and does significantly enhance the recomposition effort when not overdone and also has many separate health benefits. Yes, that's harsh but it is very accurate.

Rik's a good guy, and often gives good advice, but that part is plain wrong and will be taken as correct information by people who are reading. I can't allow that.

The axioms, if you want to write them like that, are

1) Nutrition regulates body composition

2) GOOD nutrition means eating the right stuff at the right time in the right amounts. The right amount depends on your activity level during that part of the day.

3) Exercise combined with good nutrition causes much more rapid body recomposition

4) Even on its own, exercise helps protect your health.

[Rik de Kort]

1) Nutrition regulates body composition

2) GOOD nutrition means eating the right stuff at the right time in the right amounts. The right amount depends on your activity level during that part of the day.

3) Exercise combined with good nutrition causes much more rapid body recomposition

4) Even on its own, exercise helps protect your health.

We'll go with that then. So much for my foray into nutrition territory; not my strong suit. I'll update my post.

[Guest Ragnarok]

Eat before and immediately after your workouts. Preferably a liquid meal immediately afterwards. 1% chocolate milk with a little extra protein is a really easy and excellent one, but whatever you want will work. Just get down whatever is the fastest absorbing food that gives you ~20g of protein and 20-40g of carbs at the least. Chances are good that you will feel very good with another 40g of slower carbs soon after.

Is it really that essential to consume something straight after your session or can you wait a few hours until your next meal? And what about eating something before or during your session?

Many of the studies examining pre and post-workout nutrition fail to take the rest of the day’s diet into account. This is a problem when you consider that a moderate sized meal can be releasing nutrients 4-5 hours after it was eaten.

From a common sense point of view, it’s unlikely that your body will begin to break down existing muscle if it isn’t fed within half an hour of your training session. It takes several hours to process even a small meal, so unless you train first thing on an empty stomach, you’re likely to still have food and nutrients in your digestive system from your previous meal.

Unlike what many supplement companies would have you believe, the benefits of post-workout nutrition are still unclear. In theory, consuming something before, during or after your weights session may help to accelerate gains in muscle mass, but if you eat several regular meals throughout the day, it becomes less important.

Pre and post workout drinks or snacks certainly won’t do your cause any harm and may be worth taking just to boost your overall calorie consumption, but it’s also not worth stressing over precisely what and when to eat either side of your training sessions.

[itisme]

so am i understanding this right......recomposition = how you look like?

and same goes with strength gains, its more a nutrition thing than an exercise thing?

i think jim wendler is teaching in his 5/3/1 book a similar thing.

only 1 heavy lift per day + assistance work (4 day/week), make slow progress with small weights, lift with % of your 1rm, deload every 4th week and eat a lot.

well i have to say the best thing i ever did when we talk about training is the post-wo shake.

after a few months with a modified killroy workout, so-so nutrition and post-wo shake, my body look really changed.

i did muay thai and bjj, did a lot of "normal" bodyweight stuff, worked as a roofer, my nutrition was never that good and i never ever drank a post-wo shake, so i was a really fit guy but maybe because of bad nutrition i looked like crap.

[Coach Sommer]

Quality of food and nutrient timing affects how your body recomposes much, much more than exercise.

Exercise alone does not significantly affect body composition.

Nonsense. How do you explain all of the gymnasts in the world?

The fact of the matter is that the world is full of people who look and perform like crap, despite focusing heavily on their diet. The reason? Insufficient exercise to stimulate the body to take advantage of all that wonderful nutrition. Exercise is of supreme importance to the body with 'sweat' being the number one bodybuilding supplement followed closely by 'time' in second place.

Over the years, ALL of my gymnasts have had the poor nutritional habits of the standard American diet and were hardly shining beacons of nutritional wizardry and yet they still outshine the vast majority of bodybuilders in terms of both physique and athletic performance.

In fact some of the great Russian gymnasts built their physiques and won Olympic Gold medals on diets heavy in cabbage soup! And the Chinese diet is hardly a bodybuilders dream; and yet many Chinese gymnasts carry significant amounts of muscle. Anyone remember Mingyong and Chen Yibing?

Now this is not an assertion that diet is completely unimportant and that you are free to run out of your house and begin binging on garbage. Josh is correct that diet is very important; not only in terms of athletic performance but in terms of overall health. He just overspoke when he stated that diet was more important than exercise itself. The existance of the gymnast physique and athletic capabilities do not support this contention.

Here is however something to give you pause; what would be the results if a gymnast took the time to actually adhere to a nutritonal protocol of the type that Josh favors? Just the thought of the amazing physique that would be the result is a little overwhelming isn't it?

You can walk into any gym in America and watch people work their butts off consistently and still look like crap.

This is simply a function of their using ineffective exercise protocols; coupled with improper cycling of intensity and volume.

The late great Jack Lalanne (who was himself a former gymnast 8) ) said it best, "Exercise is King and nutrition is Queen. Together they build a kingdom."

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

[Jo-shwa]

I'm sure this was discussed before but I'm new to this forum.

What about supplements?

What about cheat meals?

Should I follow the paleo diet?

[Philip Chubb]

I'm sure this was discussed before but I'm new to this forum.

What about supplements?

What about cheat meals?

Should I follow the paleo diet?

They were. Go to the nutrition section and start reading. Self education is a beautiful thing. Enjoy and welcome!

I agree. Exercise looks like it's kind of being brushed aside as unimportant in the body composition equation as opposed to diet. I thnk it deserves way more credit than it's getting though. Keeping up high insulin sensitivity is what let's those athletes eat like that yet still look decent. Granted, most people aren't going to exercise themselves to that level after previously being prediabetic, but they will get far enough that exercise will still play a huge role in their body composition.

[Coach Sommer]

1) Quit eating and drinking garbage; e.g. processed foods, sugar laden food or beverages, corn syrup etc.

2) For those who are confused; preservatives are NOT a food group.

3) Eat more vegetables and fruit. Alot more. And no, candy corn and fruit tarts do not count.

4) Drink more water.

5) Sweat is the number one supplement, followed closely by Time.

More advanced supplementation and nutritional timing practices can be implemented later; AFTER the basics are in place and have become habitual.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

[ando87]

have a search on PHAT routine and apply it with bodyweight exercises, early in the week you focus on strength then later in the week its more hypertrophy.

food quality nutrition is important but its your daily macronutritent and calories is what determines your body composition.

[dnj23]

What Coach Sommer said is right. Nutrition is one of those things where, it is important and essential, but met rather easily. Your body took you from a tiny fetus to a full grown adult without trips to the GNC store - much more metabolically demanding than some hypertrophy. You can get caught up with the placebo effect on nutrition and with the billion dollar supplement industry. I am not saying all supplements are bad, they do offer convenience. However, they are very successful in convincing you that you are chronically deficient in nutrients and bioavailability is poor, and this being the significant reason for your exercise or body image failure. From years of experience on focusing and over critiquing my diet, I can tell you that it's 100% wrong. It takes years to build a good physique, with a solid training protocol being the most significant factor. How you ultimately look is then governed by your genes.

The body adapts to exercise by both CNS improvement and hypertrophy. The skeletal muscles and nervous system, in layman’s terms, are tightly integrated. The general rule of thumb is that heavier, low rep training will produce more CNS improvement (strength), while more moderate, higher volume training will produce hypertrophy. They are not mutually exclusive as there is obvious overlap between them. It's my opinion that how the body improves is largely genetic, given you are training correctly. Some people just blow up short of throwing tomatoes at them, with others looking sinewy but are deceptively strong. If you look at top powerlifters, bodybuilders, and other athletes, it’s natural to assume that they all take a characteristic shape all due to their training. It is partially true, but it’s also due to natural selection. Remember, you are looking at the best of the best, and you can get your opinions skewed by statistics.