Any Tips On How To Avoid Gaining Weight Doing Gb Training?

[Jeremy]

I'm into MMA and endurance sports so really like to keep my bulk down. In the past, I went from 165 to 200 doing 3-6 reps in the gym. This time, I'll eat less, do more endurance stuff. But still there's this "muscle memory" thing and usually I just blow up.

Any recomendations on how to keep the weight down?

[Daniel Burnham]

Keep total volume low and don't eat over maintenance. Thats petty much it. Your strength gains wont be as good of course.

[Joshua Naterman]

Make sure you don't eat much post workout. You need SOMETHING, but you'll need to figure out how much that is. Single sets of strength work for you to maintain strength is probably your best bet, as it will be the weakest growth stimulus.

MMA, like all combat, is much more about skill than strength. Strength is great, but skill is the primary factor within a weight class.

Heavyweight is obviously slightly different but still subject to the same basic concept.

[Jeremy]

Thanks guys!

I get that:

1. Keep diet lean with an emphasis on proten

2. Keep down total volume

I wounder if doing even lower reps, 2-3, would also work? I could just do 1-2 sets, 2-3 reps, twice a week, with the core/leg/push/pull split.

Any thoughts?

[Joshua Naterman]

It can work, but there's no guarantee it will work for YOU. Try it and see if you are curious. Just make sure that you're doing 2 reps with a 3-4 rep max weight. Measuring these things gets tricky.

When trying not to gain weight, the best thing to do is to specifically try to NOT get stronger. Just maintain what you have, and find the bare minimum that allows this.

That way you will have maximum energy to devote to mobility, skill work, etc that will actually make a much bigger difference in your sport than an extra 15 lbs on whatever lift.

[Jeremy]

My challenge is that I'm doing the strength training more to protect my joints and body from injury because I have some issues to minimize.

I certainly found that weight-lifting hurt my speed for martial arts in the past. The skinnier I got, the faster and more effective I became.

So it seems that you don't feel it's realistic to build strength without mass. Given my personal history, I'm inclined to agree.

The GB videos do show some guys, even in their late teens or early twenties, very strong but without the bulk. I wounder: how did they achieve that?

But yeah, it depends on one's body individual responses to the training and training history as well, I guess.

[Joshua Naterman]

Very slow progression.

Also, the nature of each person's body is different. I grow but stay fast. Some people grow and slow down.

A lot of what you see when skinny people are very strong is golgi tendon organ reflex inhibition combined with a strong support structure gained from learning proper form before progressing forward.

Our muscles are much, much stronger than our body lets us take advantage of. Over time you can come closer to your true potential, as it goes, but you also have less cushion to protection from injury because you are working closer to your threshold. As long as you are methodical and progress slowly this is not a big problem for most people.

Once you're already really strong, you will tend to grow as you get stronger. It's all about whether your prime movers grow to make up for weak support structures or whether your support structures become stronger, allowing your prime movers to express a higher percentage of their theoretical strength (strength based on the number of contractile units).

You will almost always see very well developed serratus anterior and trapezius areas on these individuals you refer to.

[Jeremy]

Very interesting.

What is the difference between "prime movers" and "support "structures"? Support structures would vary depending on the movement and fucntion? Are support structures more than just muscles, while primary movers are muscles alone?

Again, this is interesting stuff. Deveoping support structures so as to allow prime movers and presumably other muscles to contract more fully. Slow progress for safety (also to keep the weight down; to preserve best possible form).

[Jeremy]

OK, what I'm going to do is approach GB training this way.

1. Emphasize static positions, doing all 6 progressions in the GB book.

2. Emphasize core training exercises by doing the max recommended sets 3 times a week. Good for safety, performance, and harder to over train.

3. De-emphasize the other upper body exercises. Do only 2 sets of 3 reps twice a week of the push/pull strength exercises.

4. Have small high protein meals. There is a theory that cycling carbs helps to keep from putting on mass but am not convinced yet.

[Rik de Kort]

You at the very least need calories to gain mass. Keep your calories at maintenance or below and you won't gain weight.

You are overcomplicating this.

[Jeremy]

Rik,

I have to disagree. It's not as simple as reducing calories. As I said, throughout lifting weights for a long time I always gained muscle weight easily, and with that aptitude plus "muscle memory" this is even more the case now than when I started. I don't believe there is any one prescription that works for everybody.

I'm sure if I ate one small meal a day and did not adjust the program I wouldn't gain weight, but I would probably also loose the energy needed to workout and, most importantly, get injuried. If there is a science to eating the precise amount of calories without significant risk, who knows it? Prove me wrong, but seems to me that relying on diet alone would be even more complicated than cutting the obvious excess and emphasizing static over major movers. Know what I mean?

[Joseph Fradelakis]

i wish i had your problem of putting on muscle too easily lol

[Joshua Naterman]

OK, what I'm going to do is approach GB training this way.

1. Emphasize static positions, doing all 6 progressions in the GB book.

2. Emphasize core training exercises by doing the max recommended sets 3 times a week. Good for safety, performance, and harder to over train.

3. De-emphasize the other upper body exercises. Do only 2 sets of 3 reps twice a week of the push/pull strength exercises.

4. Have small high protein meals. There is a theory that cycling carbs helps to keep from putting on mass but am not convinced yet.

I have to disagree with #4...

Follow me carefully here, because if you read this wrong it will seem backwards to what I recommend in general.

You need low protein if you don't want to grow. If you don't get much of the essential amino acids, even you are going to have a hard time growing muscle.

Look, a caloric excess is associated with muscle gain even on fairly low protein diets (and if done properly can dramatically accelerate the gains you make), because you still need the energy to fuel the extra metabolic reactions that result in muscle growth regardless of protein intake. However, protein is the primary dry building block of muscle and there are amino acids your muscles need to build more tissue that we simply can't make and MUST consume through diet!

If there is not enough raw material to make new muscle, you can't make new muscle. Regardless of energy status. That's why if all you eat are fats and carbs, you will die. We can't make all the protein-based raw materials we need out of those two macronutrients alone.

So, by lowering your protein intake down to 0.5-0.8 g/kg of body weight (and perhaps lower in your case, it's hard to say when dealing with a natural monster) you should limit your body's ability to grow while still enabling proper maintenance of tissues. From there even a small caloric deficit will most likely make a noticeable difference in your ability to gain size. I would NOT cut carbs, because you need them for your sport. I would cut the fats and proteins first. Don't get more than 15% of your calories from dietary fats, and don't get more than 0.8g of protein per kg body weight.. This should allow you to get the carbs you need for performance while limiting muscle gains.

There's a hidden benefit here too, if you use quality foods: You'll be consuming a lot more plant matter and this will help keep your bones strong and body healthy due to the massive increase in micronutrient exposure.

[Jeremy]

Joey, yeah, I started lifting weights in April 1991 as a String Noodle. Over summer I got so puffed up some people thought I was on steroids when I went back to class in grade 12.

But I never had a physique anything like yours in that picture. The lines, those just can't be changed.

[Jeremy]

LOL, hope I didn 't give the impression I'm a "monster" bohemoth...actually quite "ectomorphic" without the weights....just get big easy, definately lots of muscle.

Josh, okay, low protein the way to go. 0.8g/kg sounds like a good goal. Would this increase risk of injury to your knowledge? I have this ongoing soreness in my quad, rectus femoris, from a couple tears two years ago and have some worry that doing all the core work without adequate protein could cause some problem.....

Or is it possible to increase recruitiment to the point that performing progressions is possible without size or injury? So is success all about closing the strength deficit?

[Joshua Naterman]

What I would do is start dialing down your protein. First, try 1.2 g/kg with no surplus calories. If that doesn't work, drop to 1.0 g.kg. You may need to go all the way down to 0.8, but I doubt it.

As for your injury, you need to stretch it, SMR it, and heat it. I am a huge proponent of using infrared light, as you can buy heat lamps for cheap and they absolutely work. They are being used with a water filter for connective tissue surgery recovery with a 60%+ reduction in healing time.

I just made a post in Fredinchina's thread that details what you need, and perhaps I'll start a thread in Equipment soon that lists everything as well as gives the research that gave me the dimensions I am using.

Where in rectus femoris is the injury? Up near the hip? The more specific you can be, the better.

Also, by beast I don't necessarily mean that you are always bulky, but some people just... grow.

[Jeremy]

I did a quick google on infrared heating lamps and found the Breur model show up a bit. Any other brands to recommend? I'll definately try this.

What happened was that I had this groin (adducts magnus) strain in 2010 that was not going away so sports doc referred me to a chiropractor who applied Graston Technique. Unfortunately the Chiro, Dr. DiPaolo, thought the new pain I was getting in the middle of my quad was the result of the adductor somehow, and with the general pain caused by the technique in the first place, I believed him and continued treatment. Ultrasound ultimately showed 3 tears to the rectus femoris, 2 of which never really bothered me again, but that middle one.....well, this was in October-November 2010 and it was not until March 2011 that the pain went away but even still seems very sensitive to re-injury even today, most recently August. Plan is to do yoga for a month or two before ART/massage to try to "break up" the adhesions and scar tissue before carefully hitting the weights to build sprinter quads, hoping this works long term. MRI/ultrasound aren't showing much, no calcium, no avulsion, just scar tissue and old tendon tear "possibly chronic" but "now healed". These days just get general soreness mainly in the belly of the muscle but generally along the length. This, when walking, but only if I miss a strengthening day. Legs still not that developed.

So definately will buy that heat lamp. I detail this because would value your thoughts.

Also think that the GB V-Sits, L-Sits will probably be very good for increasing rectus femoris recruitment plus of course building all the supportiive tissues.

Hope, if/when you have time, you can start that thread on equipment. Have to check Fredinchina's thread.

[Joshua Naterman]

That's a great description!

From what you've said, I would go with my previous recommendations.

Despite what a lot of practitioners think, it is probably NOT a good idea to get aggressive with ART. I recommend either specifically directing them, which they may not appreciate but share your concerns, or act like a wuss and claim the pain is all you can handle when it's really only a 6/10.

You can do self ART pretty easy on that area with a lacrosse ball anyways, so there's not necessarily even a need for a practitioner. I'll show you how to do this after my finals are over via a youtube video.

[Jeremy]

Y'know, I had suspected that.

Practicioners will always think their thing is the shi#$t, and at the same time, avoid any promises that could get them into trouble because the truth is, they never know if it will work or not. But sometimes that desire to help can cause problems.

I will take your word for it on ART. I'm pretty sensitive about letting anyone touch my quad.

But realistically, can I learn to do ART on myself as good as an expert? Had actually considered taking a massage course, or maybe even buying a book on self massage. Light bulb went on.

By the way, Josh, how do you know so much about this stuff?

[Jeremy]

By the way, any infrared heat lamp recommended? Anything with research behind it?