It’s still early days in 2016, so if you are serious about the making the gains you’ve always wanted this year, here are 6 tips you’re gonna need to see.

I’m doing all of these. Are you?

 

(1) WHEY IS THE BEST PROTEIN

 

Whey protein is the single best protein source on the planet. There are 2 factors in deciding the best protein for building muscle:

1. Bio-availability
2. Completeness

Bio-availability refers to the amount of the protein your body can actually use. Completeness refers to how many of the amino acids the protein contains. The higher the Bio-availability and the more complete it is, the better for you. With this in mind, whey scores better than everything else – and by a large margin. See my post The Top 5 Sources of Protein here.

The best time for whey supplementation is during or after your workout. I changed my post-workout shake for an intra-workout shake – see this post for my reasons.

NOTE: My recommended European protein | Recommended US protein

 

(2) AVOID SOY

 

A little bit of soy is going to be ok in your diet. However, the problem comes when guys replace other sources of protein with soy thinking that all protein is created equal.

There are studies showing that soy isolate was no more effective than drinking water for building muscle. Sound interesting? See my post on that here.

 

(3) EAT LESS OFTEN, NOT MORE

 

If you’re still one of those guys or girls who eats more than 6 times a day, thinking it is helping you build more muscle, you should go ahead and stop that.

This thinking was based on the myth that the body can only absorb ~25g at a time. It just isn’t true. Read my article on protein absorption here. Alan Aragon’s post at WannaBeBig.com is also a great scientific resource on this matter.

Additionally, read my more recent article showing that eating less often with higher doses of protein (70g) actually produces HIGHER levels of protein synthesis. So make your life easier, and eat 3-4 times a day with larger doses of protein. If you need 200g protein a day, that’s 4 meals containing 50g protein each. Find out how much daily protein you need here.

 

(4) EAT HIGH PROTEIN WHEN CUTTING

 

A higher protein intake will not only help you keep your muscle mass when cutting, it can also be a contributing factor to making you leaner. In this study [1], despite eating 400 more calories than a low-protein group, the high-protein subjects had 5% less body fat at the end of 10-weeks.

Preserve muscle & burn more fat with higher protein intake when cutting. Click here Share on X

 

By the way, the high protein group ate around 1g per pound of body weight, the lower protein group taking in 0.66g protein per pound. There’s a nice little article on whey and fat loss here.

 

(5) WHEN CUTTING AVOID PRE AND POST-WORKOUT CARBS

 

Contrary to popular opinion, post-workout carbs do not enhance protein synthesis rates [2], nor do they have any impact on preventing muscle breakdown/catabolism [3].

It’s protein intake that is the major factor here. I recommend 40g protein post (or intra) workout. See my post here for how much protein to take after a workout.

This is even more important when cutting as carbs taken around this period will prevent your body from tapping into stored body fat for fuel.

 

(6) WEIGHT TRAINING > CARDIO (GAINING OR CUTTING)

 

It doesn’t matter if you’re bulking or cutting, the most effective way to increase your metabolic rate is by lifting weights. Yes, doing cardio does increase energy burn, but only for the time you are doing it.

The cool thing about resistance training is that you increase your metabolism for a long period after the workout is over (~36-48hrs).

In Point 1(b) in my epic post ‘Why cardio Sucks‘, I say this regarding weight training…

Because you’ve been tearing up muscle fibers, a lot of repair work needs done in the body. This costs energy/calories. 2 sets or so to failure on each body part will take around 36-48hrs to repair. So you have an elevated metabolic rate for about 2 days from weight training. You don’t get that from cardio.

 

You have an elevated metabolic rate for ~2days from lifting. You don’t get that from cardio Share on X

 

If you really need to get cut and lose that belly, you’ll want to check out my full cutting strategy here.

The bottom line here is that resistance training is far superior to cardio when it comes to increasing metabolic rate. If you find this interesting, you’ll also like my recent article, ‘7 Legit Ways To Speed Up Your Metabolism‘.

 

Can you check off all 6 of these? I hope so 😉 If you have any questions about your training, get in touch with me below. Or consider booking me for a 1-on-1 consultation via Skype.

And also add me on social media here…

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Pack on muscle mass fast with FREE THT training. Whether you need to know how many sets to do, how often to train a body, the best exercises to use, it’s all covered here! You can download the full and free THT training program right now and start packing on mass like these guys did. You don’t have to go to your email to confirm anything. Once you click the button, you’ll be taken straight to the download page 😀 I operate a ‘Strictly Zero Spam‘ policy.

 

Train With Intensity!

Mark

 

References:

[1] Effect of dietary protein content on weight gain, energy expenditure, and body composition during overeating: a randomized controlled trial. JAMA. 2012 Jan 4;307(1):47-55. doi: 10.1001/jama.2011.1918.

[2] Co-ingestion of carbohydrate with protein does not further augment post-exercise muscle protein synthesis. Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab. 2007 Sep;293(3):E833-42. Epub 2007 Jul 3.

[3] Carbohydrate does not augment exercise-induced protein accretion versus protein alone. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2011 Jul;43(7):1154-61. doi: 10.1249/MSS.0b013e31820751cb.