Thib's Q&A

Training
1481

[quote]JJP wrote:
Coach,

I have heard you state muscle gain/fat loss is an energy-dependent process, meaning it is impossible to do both at the same time. However, I also read that Coach Poliquin believes it is very possible to achieve both and states his clients regularly do. Does he have any specific strategies that you are aware of, have you experienced this yourself or with your clients? Thanks.

Best of luck and best wishes for the wedding next week,

James[/quote]

I’ll take this one if you dont mind… It i possible to gain muscle and lose fat at the same time but not forever… If you switch from training badly and a diet full of shit to hard ass training and clean high protein diet you will gain muscle and lose fat, for some time, its pretty common but dont think it will go on forever…

1482

hey Thib,
I had 2 questions for you
1.what would you say to a client that couldnt feel his triceps when doing close grip benching and felt he was using to much chest. Also I dont really think im chest dominant either.

2.In your pump down the volume article when you refer to the table for the advanced techniques, does every excerise have to follow the same protocal during the workout or do you have to use that as a refrence and be a little creative?

1483

CT, im always hearing that alot of lifters and athletes in general have poor hamstring development, I’ve read in a few places that the ratio of quad to hamstring strength should be about 3:2

but what exercises should you use to gauge yourself against this ratio, because I’d rather know about a weakness and do something about it than having unbalanced legs

1484

Coach,

Headed on vacation for a week with the family. Just wanted to pass on some final well wishes to you in your upcoming nuptials and honeymoon. Speak to you when you return! Live it up and enjoy!

1485

[quote]JJP wrote:
Coach,

I have heard you state muscle gain/fat loss is an energy-dependent process, meaning it is impossible to do both at the same time. However, I also read that Coach Poliquin believes it is very possible to achieve both and states his clients regularly do. Does he have any specific strategies that you are aware of, have you experienced this yourself or with your clients? Thanks.

Best of luck and best wishes for the wedding next week,

James[/quote]

You misinterpreted what I said.

It is not ‘‘impossible’’ to gain muscle and lose fat at the same time. Rather, except for some exceptions, it is almost impossible to do both to a significant degree. You CAN gain a small amount of muscle while losing fat, and you can lose a little fat while adding a significant amount of muscle. What you can’t do (save for some exceptions) is gain A LOT of muscle while losing A LOT of fat.

What are the exceptions?

  1. A total beginner. A beginner with no training experience is likely to be able to gain a significant amount of muscle while lowering fat because the body is forced to adapt to a completely new and unexepected stimulus. Even if the individual doesn’t increase his food intake, the body will still be able to add muscle since the high stress caused by what is perceived as a ‘‘dangerous’’ perturbation will take on a priority level. Of course, this only lasts for a relatively short period of time.

  2. Someone who is regaining muscle after a detraining period. Example an athlete who lost 10-15lbs of muscle during his season due to high stress levels, poor nutrition and infrequent (if any) training. Coming back after an injury is also one such example.

  3. Someone who has basically been eating a diet revolving are crappy food who suddenly switch to a perfect diet. Even if the caloric intake stays the same, the simple fact of switching from junk food to nutritious food will lead to fat loss. It will also generally lead to muscle gain because it often means going from a high sugar, high fat, low protein diet to a high protein, low sugar, moderate fat diet. So the body basically has more of the nutrients that are essential for growth.

  4. A genetic phenom. Some people are simply genetically gifted when it comes to improving body composition. But these guys are few an far between (and they include most of the ‘‘elite’’ clients we often use as examples to prove the quality of our training system).

  5. Someone who is using illegal anabolic drugs like steroids and growth hormone.

1486

[quote]miniarnold wrote:

Common man… I answered that EXACT question at length something like 7-8 posts back in this thread.

but is it possible i could regain muscle quicker than 1-2 lbs a month as i have been alot heavier with alot more muscle? or is it 2lbs max only possible or does it just depend on the individual?
thanks.[/quote]

Read the d**n post!!! It answers that question. But here is the ‘‘for dummies’’ version:

The 1-2lbs is an average… you CAN gain more than that in some months, but it is unlikely that you will maintain that rate long enough to go above 10-20lbs of SOLID muscle during a year.

YES regaining muscle is faster than gaining it in the first place. BUT this is mostly true of muscle that was loss due to inactivity (stopping training). This is because while you stopped training for a while, your body is basically becoming more responsive to training (because it once again becomes an unknown stimulus)… in a sence you become a beginner again.

HOWEVER this doesn’t apply to the same extent to someone who lost muscle while still training hard. For example, if someone kept on his training regiment but lost a significant amount of muscle due to a poor/excessive dieting strategy then the ‘‘regain effect’’ will be much less (if not totally nil) than with individuals who stopped training. This is because the guy who lost muscle whole still continuing training never ‘‘became a beginner again’’.

1487

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
JJP wrote:
Coach,

I have heard you state muscle gain/fat loss is an energy-dependent process, meaning it is impossible to do both at the same time. However, I also read that Coach Poliquin believes it is very possible to achieve both and states his clients regularly do. Does he have any specific strategies that you are aware of, have you experienced this yourself or with your clients? Thanks.

Best of luck and best wishes for the wedding next week,

James

You misinterpreted what I said.

It is not ‘‘impossible’’ to gain muscle and lose fat at the same time. Rather, except for some exceptions, it is almost impossible to do both to a significant degree. You CAN gain a small amount of muscle while losing fat, and you can lose a little fat while adding a significant amount of muscle. What you can’t do (save for some exceptions) is gain A LOT of muscle while losing A LOT of fat.

What are the exceptions?

  1. A total beginner. A beginner with no training experience is likely to be able to gain a significant amount of muscle while lowering fat because the body is forced to adapt to a completely new and unexepected stimulus. Even if the individual doesn’t increase his food intake, the body will still be able to add muscle since the high stress caused by what is perceived as a ‘‘dangerous’’ perturbation will take on a priority level. Of course, this only lasts for a relatively short period of time.

  2. Someone who is regaining muscle after a detraining period. Example an athlete who lost 10-15lbs of muscle during his season due to high stress levels, poor nutrition and infrequent (if any) training. Coming back after an injury is also one such example.

  3. Someone who has basically been eating a diet revolving are crappy food who suddenly switch to a perfect diet. Even if the caloric intake stays the same, the simple fact of switching from junk food to nutritious food will lead to fat loss. It will also generally lead to muscle gain because it often means going from a high sugar, high fat, low protein diet to a high protein, low sugar, moderate fat diet. So the body basically has more of the nutrients that are essential for growth.

  4. A genetic phenom. Some people are simply genetically gifted when it comes to improving body composition. But these guys are few an far between (and they include most of the ‘‘elite’’ clients we often use as examples to prove the quality of our training system).

  5. Someone who is using illegal anabolic drugs like steroids and growth hormone.[/quote]

wait, are these the exceptions to the not losing a lot of fat while gaining a lot of muscle?

cause im kinda a beginner but im shooting for lots of muscle gains yet a slow progressive fat loss. Im planning a bulking cycle of two years and I atleast wonna maintain a 8 to 10% body fat during that time.

1488

[quote]RitesOfSpring wrote:
Coach,

I know you believe in not neglecting anything in the beginning. But if a beginner (tall 6’2", relatively long limbs and torso) is starting off with whole body 3x a week to “experience their body”, how do they go about adding in iso and/or unilateral work, if one exercise per muscle group (mainly compound exercises squats, romanian deadlifts, pullups, rowing, bench press, etc.) is the general recommendation for such an approach?

Should one wait to get their strength and conditioning up in whole body, before adding in iso and/or unilateral work?

From your Training Strategy Handbook article and newer articles it seems one should wait to move to an upper/lower split before adding in these exercises and more work.[/quote]

The individual could use either a whole body approach or upper/lower split. It is still possible to include unilateral work, and even SOME isolation work (although it is not as important as getting strong in the basics at first). It could look like this:

WHOLE BODY

DAY 1 - BASICS DAY
A1. Quads dominant compound
A2. Hams/Hips dominant compound
B1. Horizontal pressing compound
B2. Horizontal pulling compound
C1. Vertical pressing compound
C2. Vertical pulling compound

DAY 2 - UNILATERAL MOVEMENTS DAY
A1. Unilateral quads dominant
A2. Unilateral hams/Hips dominant
B1. Unilateral horizontal push
B2. Unilateral horizontal pull
C1. Unilateral vertical push
C2. Unilateral vertical pull

DAY 3 - TRAINING ECONOMY BASICS + ISO
A. Lower body movement involving every muscle (snatch-grip deadlifts would be my choice)
B1. Semi-vertical pressing (e.g. incline pressing)
B2. Semi-vertical pulling (e.g. pulldown leaning back 45 degrees)
C1. Arm flexors (biceps, brachialis, etc.) exercise
C2. Triceps exercise

1489

[quote]Spencerulz wrote:
cause im kinda a beginner but im shooting for lots of muscle gains yet a slow progressive fat loss. Im planning a bulking cycle of two years and I atleast wonna maintain a 8 to 10% body fat during that time.
[/quote]

Unless you have a freaky metabolism, or are at around 4-6% right now, it wont happen. After beginner status has passed it will be next to impossible (save for the exceptions above) to gain A LOT of muscle while losing fat.

It is possible to gain quite a bit of muscle without gaining too much fat though. A good example of this is a football player I train who will eventually work for me as a trainer and who posts here from time to time… he gained around 30lbs in 8 months. During that time his body fat first went up from something like 8% to 10-11% and over the past 3 weeks it dropped down to 8% (8.4% to be exact).

Out of those 30lbs, 20 of those are likely to be muscle, 10 would be water and glycogen (a small amount of fat too).

This is an exceptional case and he would obviously not be able to maintain that rate of gain. But even then, he still gained some fat while putting on the bulk of his muscle mass then dropped it down during the final 3 weeks of his prep, due to an increase in workload/intensity.

1490

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
Spencerulz wrote:
cause im kinda a beginner but im shooting for lots of muscle gains yet a slow progressive fat loss. Im planning a bulking cycle of two years and I atleast wonna maintain a 8 to 10% body fat during that time.

Unless you have a freaky metabolism, or are at around 4-6% right now, it wont happen. After beginner status has passed it will be next to impossible (save for the exceptions above) to gain A LOT of muscle while losing fat.

It is possible to gain quite a bit of muscle without gaining too much fat though. A good example of this is a football player I train who will eventually work for me as a trainer and who posts here from time to time… he gained around 30lbs in 8 months. During that time his body fat first went up from something like 8% to 10-11% and over the past 3 weeks it dropped down to 8% (8.4% to be exact).

Out of those 30lbs, 20 of those are likely to be muscle, 10 would be water and glycogen (a small amount of fat too).

This is an exceptional case and he would obviously not be able to maintain that rate of gain. But even then, he still gained some fat while putting on the bulk of his muscle mass then dropped it down during the final 3 weeks of his prep, due to an increase in workload/intensity.[/quote]

im at 16% now, so I guess it’s pretty much impossible to maintain anything in the single digits… oh well Id rather have a little fat on the gut than be a toothpick lol

1491

Thib,

I’ve seen slight discrepancies in the rep ranges for relative strength, limit strength, functional hypertrophy, and so on. What specific rep breakdowns per bracket do you agree with most and approximately what lifting tempo per rep do these brackets typically assume?

Also, are limit strength and absolute strength the same thing?

1492

Hi,

When clean bulking, is it beneficial to keep insulin levels elevated during a workout from sources such as gatorade? (I can’t afford to take BCAA caps during every workout)

Also, how does insulin effect performance in the gym? I’m guessing it has got something to do with cortisol…

1493

hi big guy
I sent you mail with some qustions on friday
i realy need answers for this up coming week
plaese get back to me
amit

1494

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
RitesOfSpring wrote:
Coach,

I know you believe in not neglecting anything in the beginning. But if a beginner (tall 6’2", relatively long limbs and torso) is starting off with whole body 3x a week to “experience their body”, how do they go about adding in iso and/or unilateral work, if one exercise per muscle group (mainly compound exercises squats, romanian deadlifts, pullups, rowing, bench press, etc.) is the general recommendation for such an approach?

Should one wait to get their strength and conditioning up in whole body, before adding in iso and/or unilateral work?

From your Training Strategy Handbook article and newer articles it seems one should wait to move to an upper/lower split before adding in these exercises and more work.

The individual could use either a whole body approach or upper/lower split. It is still possible to include unilateral work, and even SOME isolation work (although it is not as important as getting strong in the basics at first). It could look like this:

WHOLE BODY

DAY 1 - BASICS DAY
A1. Quads dominant compound
A2. Hams/Hips dominant compound
B1. Horizontal pressing compound
B2. Horizontal pulling compound
C1. Vertical pressing compound
C2. Vertical pulling compound

DAY 2 - UNILATERAL MOVEMENTS DAY
A1. Unilateral quads dominant
A2. Unilateral hams/Hips dominant
B1. Unilateral horizontal push
B2. Unilateral horizontal pull
C1. Unilateral vertical push
C2. Unilateral vertical pull

DAY 3 - TRAINING ECONOMY BASICS + ISO
A. Lower body movement involving every muscle (snatch-grip deadlifts would be my choice)
B1. Semi-vertical pressing (e.g. incline pressing)
B2. Semi-vertical pulling (e.g. pulldown leaning back 45 degrees)
C1. Arm flexors (biceps, brachialis, etc.) exercise
C2. Triceps exercise[/quote]

Hi, CT,

I’m just curious, for Day 1, does A1 and A2 signify that you might have beginners do alternating sets of squats with sets of deadlifts, for example?

Also curious: when you’re using whole-body workouts for an off-season athlete (who also has to do sports training sessions later in the week), do you ever use an alternating set of quad-dominant and ham-dominant work?

Thanks,
Brian

1495

[quote]Brian Smith wrote:

I’m just curious, for Day 1, does A1 and A2 signify that you might have beginners do alternating sets of squats with sets of deadlifts, for example?[/quote]

Ideally no. I don’t like to alternate back squats and deads since they are both lower-back intensive. Alternating between both will often lead to lower back overuse or excessive fatigue which might increase the risk of injuries.

You could pair front squats with Romanian deadlifts for example.

[quote]Brian Smith wrote:
Also curious: when you’re using whole-body workouts for an off-season athlete (who also has to do sports training sessions later in the week), do you ever use an alternating set of quad-dominant and ham-dominant work?

Thanks,
Brian [/quote]

Yes… but understand that alternating doesn’t mean supersetting. You can alternate exercises with 90-150 seconds of rest in-between (ot even more).

1496

Hi coach Thibaudeau,

In your book High Treshold mucle building, you write about using isometrics to increase strength. However, it left me doubtful concerning the angles that need to be used. For example, the sticking point (“angle faible” in french, at least that’s what I’m trying to say) for the deadlift is located in the middle of the move, near the knees. The problem is that I don’t have any problems passing that point, but rather moving the weight at first, on the ground.

Should I then apply the overcoming isometrics principle at this point, or is it counterproductive since it would produce overtraining since this point is already submitted to plenty of stress when doing my “regular” lifting? Also, is it necessary in the same matter to do partial repetitions in the low part of the move?

Thanks for the wonderful job,
Nicolas

1497

[quote]gyakujujijime wrote:
Hi coach Thibaudeau,

In your book High Treshold mucle building, you write about using isometrics to increase strength. However, it left me doubtful concerning the angles that need to be used. For example, the sticking point (“angle faible” in french, at least that’s what I’m trying to say) for the deadlift is located in the middle of the move, near the knees. The problem is that I don’t have any problems passing that point, but rather moving the weight at first, on the ground. Should I then apply the overcoming isometrics principle at this point, or is it counterproductive since it would produce overtraining since this point is already submitted to plenty of stress when doing my “regular” lifting? Also, is it necessary in the same matter to do partial repetitions in the low part of the move?

Thanks for the wonderful job,
Nicolas[/quote]

There is no ONE weak point in a lift. The weak point is individual and it depends on your own biomechanics and muscle strengths/weaknesses.

I recommend using isometrics two ways:

  1. Either to strengthen the weak point, so you need to perform the iso close (you have a 15 degrees range) to the weakest link.

  2. To strengthen the whole movement. In that case you need to perform isos in 3 positions: start, mid-range, close to finish.

If your weakness is at the start I also recommend doing a lot of deadlift standing on a podium (or two 45lbs plates piled up on top of the other) since it will increase the range of motion from the beginning.

1498

[quote]Spencerulz wrote:

im at 16% now, so I guess it’s pretty much impossible to maintain anything in the single digits… oh well Id rather have a little fat on the gut than be a toothpick lol [/quote]

Especially considering that dropping down from 16% to 8% should take, in theory, around 8 weeks of strict dieting. However in ‘‘real life’’ it may take more than that since fat loss slows down when you get down way below your starting point.

However IMHO, 16% is too fat for someone interested in body composition because if you go all out on your muscle gain objective you are likely to add around 2-4% body fat in the process, putting you at around 20% (IF your 16% is a real 16% and not just a number you are pulling out of your arse).

1499

Hi coach,

thanks a lot for the answer. I got your point, however since most of the people are weaker in the first half of the move, why do you generally recommend in your programs to perform partials in the second half? Is it for athletic reasons, since you said in one of your articles that the finish of the moves is always undertrained while it is the most important in sports?

And when using the three part isometrics you’re talking about (start, mid-point and finish) should the alternance be performed during the same workout (for example, 6 sets, two of each), or should I rotate every week?

Thanks again

1500

Coach,

Thanks very much for your continued support.

Best wishes,

James