I put on four lbs in four days once, but it was christmas and i did consume an extra 3500 cals a day in beer and cake. don’t think that counts though.
[quote]HotCarl28 wrote:
Lonnie123 wrote:
And the plural of anecdote is “anecdotes”, not “evidence”.
hah this is really good, did u make this up or did u hear it somewhere
[/quote]
Its sort of a battle cry in the scientific skepticism movement(didnt know that existed, did ya?). Many things like UFOs, alternative medicine, and conspiracy theories have anecdotes as their main “evidence” for being true. Unfortunately humans have a tendency to remember certain things, forget certain things, add in a little something here and there(the fish was THIS big), factor in the placebo effect and before you know it…anecdotes are useless. There is no such thing as a perfectly credible witness.
If you have any interest in that kind of thing, visit www.theskepticsguide.org, thats where I heard the quote initially.
The easiest thing in the world to find is a critic…I think innocent till proven guilty, I always give someone the benefit of the doubt…
Its real easy to change a person mind when they were in fact wrong…on the other hand its near impossible to convince a critic that you were in fact right when they doubted in the first place…kinda ironic…
I am gonna side with Charles Poliquin and Christian Thib when it comes to megadosing fish oil for dramatic body comp changes…
[quote]Pugsley wrote:
The easiest thing in the world to find is a critic…I think innocent till proven guilty, I always give someone the benefit of the doubt…
Its real easy to change a person mind when they were in fact wrong…on the other hand its near impossible to convince a critic that you were in fact right when they doubted in the first place…kinda ironic…
I am gonna side with Charles Poliquin and Christian Thib when it comes to megadosing fish oil for dramatic body comp changes…[/quote]
Hey… if it was even 10-15 pounds in a month I might have believed it… but a pound of lean mass every day for a month is very, VERY unlikely. Even Thib himself says the natural trainee can expect to gain .25-.5 pounds of lean tissue a WEEK if everything is going well.
Given that I didnt see any before/afters, I’ll be keeping my critical eye casts toward these topics. I dont think even the real “supplements” get you these kinds of results.
Response from Christian Thibs:
Hey Christian,
I have a question for ya…My interest was piqued tremendously when I read an article by Poliquin, in which he talks about a First round NFL draft pick who has stalled in his growth and Charles upped his fish oil intake to 45 grams per day and the guy gained 29 lbs of LBM in a month! I was like holy cow!
After scouring over T-Nation I see that you are also a big advocate of it…and you said that Mega dosing fish oil can cause dramatic changes in body composition…I have a question about it…what are some hard numbers you have seen in you or your clients when they added 30-45g per day of fish oil to their diet? What types of body comp changes in fat loss or muscle gain have you or your client experienced when making this change to mega dosing fish oil?
Also what other factors like training and diet and other supps were present that affected these results?
I am thoroughly intrigued by what I have read about this topic…
Thanks for your help!
Chris
Christian:
Understand one thing, we (coaches) often use our most amazing client stories to make a point. The goal is NOT to sell you something, but to get the message across.
For example if I say that a pro athlete gained 29lbs in a month while mega-dosing on fish oil you WILL pay more attention to the important message (mega-dosing fish oil is good for muscle growth, fat loss and health) then if I say that a client gained 5lbs on that strategy.
The truth is that:
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Elite athletes (especially football players who are at the top of the genetic food chain) are more likely to gain muscle mass quickly than the average Joe, with or without supplements.
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Do not forget about the ‘‘regained muscle’’ factor. An athlete WILL lose some muscle mass during the season. For one thing he can’t train (with weights) as much (less energy, less time, higher risk of injury), then the energy expenditure from their sports practice is super high. Two conditions not conducive to maintaining muscle mass.
For example I often have pro hockey players 15lbs of muscle or more during a season. Obviously hockey has 82 games per season and they basically live on planes and in hotels, but football players are also likely to lose a lot of size.
Now, you will regain the muscle you already had much faster than it will take you to gain new muscle. I once had a hockey player lose 10lbs in the first 3/4 of his season, then he got injured and lost another 10lbs because he could not use his upper body. When he got back to all-out training he gained 25lbs in 4 weeks. If I only said that he gained 25lbs in 4 weeks it would sound amazing… but the fact is that 20 of those pounds were regained muscle.
The take home message is that ‘‘real life’’ examples are used to get a point across… to get your attention.
Mega dosing fish oil IS a great short term strategy. And it WILL lead to muscle growth and fat loss (mainly through an increase in insulin sensitivity) but I can guarantee you that your gains will not be anywhere near 29lbs in 4 weeks.
^ Speaks the truth
Nice response from CT there, and about what we all should have expected. Who wouldn’t take 5 lbs of new LBM in 4 weeks, though?
.
hahahahahaha. on a similar note
i swear if i hear Poliquin toot about megadosing BCAAs or fishoil again im gonna…
well im not gonna do much at all, the man could break me in half
Thanks Pugsley, I’d read that post too and was about to start looking for it.
Poliquin’s claims are questionable, at best.
He’s a good coach.
He gets people thinking.
He’s a business man.
Take all that as you will.
I started megadosing on fish oil after reading this. I will update this thread after a month.
I didn’t find any improvement from taking fish oil. But I was only taking 15 to 20 grams a day.
May be I should try 35 to 40 grams. I guess I wasn’t megadosing enough. I’ll try that another time.
I’ve got some oceanfront property in arizona you can put that one guys bridge on. lol
Gerdy
I have a whole new respect for CT after reading his comments back there.
While CP was the catalyst that got me into the “science” of bodybuilding and away from the “art” of bodybuilding years and years ago, I now believe it was the wrong way to go.
I’ve come just about full-circle now and I’ve never been happier in my gains. I was guilty of over-thinking EVERYTHING to the point that I read and researched the hell out of everything I did.
Let me tell you right now, that is a BAD road to travel as it took all the mystery and fun out of my training. Now that I don’t analyze everything to death and just rain sensibly and hard it’s much more fun.
I owe a lot to Charles but I wish I could have a few years back without so much of the magic missing. (and his claims about the LBM gains from digestive aids was a bit much as well)
Well, Ive gone from 155 to 180-185 give or take a couple of pounds when I weigh in, from February to now, 30 pounds in 3 months. As for the supplements it was mainly 12 capsules of Fishoil a day, Mass gainer with 40g protein/40gcarbs/10gram fat, 4-5 meals a day, lots of bananas and lots of water. I did take creatine for a bit but I kept forgetting to take it regularly ( conflicting theories on how and when to take it) so I decided to cut it out. The article doesnt seem to credible, like Christian Thibs said, I can guarantee that your gains wont be 29pounds in a month.
The thing is that The Poliquin Principles was the catalyst book that got me into the whole science of training as well. I would have never discovered T-Mag if I did not know of Charles Poliquin.
However, I too sometimes wish I was not overly exposed to many writings of many gurus as I have stated on here ad nauseum. I know so many jacked guys who never even HEARD of Charles Poliquin, let alone read any of his stuff and they are quite jacked!
I lost about 8 years of training secondary to overanalyzing things to the point of neurosis and doing completely unenjoyable and ineffective workouts for bodybuilding. I think CP and others should stay in the realm of strength and conditioning and thats it!
Ever see a competent bodybuilder’s, natural or aided, program. Does it even look remotely like a Poliquin program? No! No bodybuilder I know trains anything like the way Ian King, Charles Staley, Chad Waterbury, or Charles Poliquin espouses. And I mean NONE!
Here is a typical Poliquin style workout:
Chest and Back
A1) Flat bench press
A2) Chinups
B1) Incline dumbbell press
B2) Dumbbell rows
Then you would take any set and rep scheme you like for this day. Or you could just do one exercise for the chest and one for back and do 10 sets of 3 for both exercises. Now let us look at a REAL bodybuilding chest and back workout:
Chest DAY:
Incline press
Hammer Strength bench press
Incline dumbbell flies
Cable crossovers
Back and rear delts DAY
Chinups
Bent over rows
Hammer strength machine rows
Machine pullovers
Rear delt raises
Reverse pec dec
Deadlifts
Do these routines look anything remotely alike. Keep in mind, bodybuilders do not superset antagonist/agonist pairings, they do not keep track of rest times, and do not FUSS about every minutia of training!
Poliquin has stated some of the weirdest shit I have ever heard!
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Stating that this guy gained 29 lbs of LBM when in fact much of it is “regained” muscle!
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Stated he had a FEMALE athlete with thighs bigger than those of Tom Platz!
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Stated that he once had a strength athlete that had thighs that would make Ronnie Coleman’s look small in comparison.
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Talks a lot of weird shit about carb tolerance and that most people should not be eating a lot of carbs. Well, again, judging from the diets of 1000s of bodybuilders, it is clear that they eat ample amounts of carbs and do not live on solely bison, beef, ostrich, various oils, and green vegetables. E
VERY bodybuilder I know personally or know OF eats the same shit over and over, day after year, year after year: potatoes (yeah, white ones), brown rice, oatmeal, yams, pasta, whole grain bread, vegetables of all kinds, fruits, egg whites with some yolks, chicken, beef, fish. Then they add some flax or olive oil to the mix. That is it! That is a lot of carbs there too.
I happen to be a dietitian and actually gave a speech to a small audience of staff members on nutrigenomics at a hospital in Long Island. While I do see merit in this sort of study, I do not think Asians can tolerate carbs better than whites do, simply because they have been eating grains longer than we have.
We are not getting fatter because of higher carb intake in my book and what the research shows as well. There are other factors. When we were not fat slobs (prior to maybe the 70s), we still ate a lot of carbs. Europeans did too and still do. Go to an Italian, German, Polish, or Irish restaurant. You will see LOTS of fuckin’ carbs to eat!
The bottom line is that I should have stuck with bodybuilding literature for my training information if I wanted to compete and look like a bodybuilder.
Now, I rely on people who actually bodybuild, not people who train athletes or train like an athlete: Clay Hyght, Christian Thibeaudeau (spelling?), Lonnie Lowery, Ron Harris, Tom Venuto (this guy has the best bodybuilding info, bar none!), Justin Harris, Dorian Yates, Skip La Cour, Will Brink, Dan Duchaine (rest in power!), Trevor Smith, Dante Trudel, Jerry Brainum, and so on. If I had just stuck to these guys, I would have been a lot better off.
Derek, thanks for the message. We should talk some time.
Yes, his claims about digestive aids were a bit much as well.
I want to make it clear that I probably would not be as knowledgeable on training as I am now if I were not exposed to CW, Ian K, CP, and others. I do not blame them for lack of progress in my training aims over the years. Its just that I was young and impressionable and they were writing for BODYBUILDING websites and magazines so I had come to the conclusion that perhaps a genetically tad-above-average guy like myself would benefit more from their smart programming rather than sticking with the ole’ split routine ("I got chest and bis today, dude).
Then I came to the genius revelation that everyone who looked like a bodybuilder was training like a…BODYBUILDER! None of them have a horizontal push and press day. None of them have a hip dominant day! None of them sit there with mental calculator in mind when designing a routine to make sure there are equal number of sets in regards to hip dominance and quad dominance. They place deadlifts on “back day”, not on some hip dominant day.
I remember when Rob Fortney wrote a back article on here and he simply outlined what successful bodybuilders did for their back (surprise: chins, rows, lat pulldowns, deadlifts) and that was it! I thought the article was great! I also liked Jimmy Smith’s back article too. Why? Because they were discussing what successful bodybuilders have done and are still doing! There was actually a complaint about Rob’s article, someone stating it was too basic or that he knew this stuff already. Well, if you read a lot of articles, you will see a lot of repetition. In my book, this is good as people should have it hammered into their heads, what success entails over and over again. Do what successful people do and you MIGHT have success too. But do what the successful people are NOT doing and you will not be successful, in this case being JACKED!
I will never ever forget a line by Clay Hyght on here: “if you want to look like a physique star, then train like a physique star!” What is too bad is that line might be more useful than some bodybuilding articles and books in itself. All you would have to fucking do is observe successful bodybuilders in person, in magazines, and in some videos and socialize with them in the gym and you wouldn’t have to read much from then on in!
This is not to say I do not also love the strength and conditioning world as I have incorporated some of its tenets as well. I have stretching DVDs and books by Pavel and EC and Mike Robertson (Magnificent Mobility is awesome) and I have benefited from literature by CW, Ian King, and CP. I just wish I was not OVEREXPOSED since I want to compete as a bodybuilder within the next yr or so. I also plan on training people as well and one must understand bodybuilding is not general fitness for the layman and it is not strength and conditioning for the athlete.
I have attended seminars by Joe DeFranco, Jim Wendler, Sebastian Burns (Metal Militia), Paul Chek, and Ian King. This has provided me with great education.
However, I do think that since this is the bodybuilding forum that people should be aware of what they are doing at times when it is their best interest to simply get jacked. Leave the S&C stuff to the S&C people and do what the best guys in bodybuilding are doing. This is why I read a Lonnie Lowery or Christian T. article in full and basically skim a CW or AC article or not read them at all.
One more thing, although I am belaboring the point here. CP is a bright guy. I just think he is a bit irritating in his writings at times. I can remember countless times where he stated he was going to come out with some type of information product and then failed to deliver. He doesn’t do that much anymore though, judging from his writings that I am exposed to on here and in Ironman magazine. Why he has a column in a BODYBUILDING mag is beyond me. The guy used to actually rip on bodybuilders quite a bit, stating that their IQs were quite low. He also claimed to be outlifting IFBB pros that had 40 lbs more muscle on them! Such claims are hard to believe at times.
Healthy, lean, strong. TM - from Poliquin’s website. He doesn’t promise huge, freaky and shredded as body building is not his business.
This debate is interesting but what CP offers doesn’t carry over very well to elite and veteran body builders. His approaches are fantastic for strength and power athletes, working professionals who do not have a lot of time or aspirations of being massive, and to those who do not work very hard at the gym, are new to the sport or are looking for ways to change their training approach.
[quote]Bricknyce wrote:
We are not getting fatter because of higher carb intake in my book and what the research shows as well. There are other factors. When we were not fat slobs (prior to maybe the 70s), we still ate a lot of carbs. Europeans did too and still do. Go to an Italian, German, Polish, or Irish restaurant. You will see LOTS of fuckin’ carbs to eat!
[/quote]
What is responsible for the increasing rates of obesity in the general population?