Full body H/L/M routines and more from Casey Butt's www.weightrainer.net

[Sergio]

The H/L/M Program
(Compiled from the various writings of Casey Butt by Nick Zezza)

Full-Body (Pre-H/L/M)

Start off by training the same exercises fairly lightly three times per week to get your body in condition for that type of training.
Pick one exercise for each body part (Chest, Back, Shoulders, Legs).
Do 3 sets in the 8-12 rep range. Leave at least several reps short of failure for each set.
Example
-Bench Press
-Bent-Over Rows
-Overhead Presses
-Back Squats
EACH SESSION, add a rep to one set until you reach 12 reps on all sets. Add 5-10lbs of weight to that exercise and start over at 8 reps, building up as before. Once you no longer feel you can add a rep to one set three times per week (i.e. you are worried that you might not be able to complete all the reps, which shouldn't take long unless you are a rank beginner or started extremely light), add only one rep per week. You might try to add one rep to one set on Monday, but then you'd repeat the same workout on Wednesday and Friday with the same sets, reps and weight until going for another one-rep increase on the following Monday IF YOU FEEL LIKE YOU CAN - do not force your reps. This gives your body the time and practice it needs to adapt to the workload increase.
If your performance improves on a set that's a "vote" to continue the cycle, if your performance stalls or regresses on a set then that's a vote to change things around (rep ranges, break times, exercise selection, etc). If the "votes" say you've stalled for two weeks in a row then it's time to move on.

"Beginner's" H/L/M

On your first training day of the week, go near maximum on your sets.
On your second training day of the week, use 60%-80% of the weights (for the same amount of reps).
On your third training day of the week, use 85%-90% of Monday's weights.(Note: if Incline DB Presses are your main heavy day chest exercise and you recovery fairly quickly from them, then you might be able to use 80% of the weight on light day, and 90% on the medium day. For something like Squats however, particularly "power style", your lower back, hips and knees might need more rest and you'd only use 60% of the weight on light day.) When your Heavy day stalls for two weeks in a row then it's time to move on.

Intermediate H/L/M

Perform different rep ranges on the training days:
Day 1 - 5-7 reps
Day 2 - 12-15 reps (with 1-min breaks between sets instead of 2)
Day 3 - 8-12 reps
When you begin stalling on a day, back down. For example, if you're stalled at 100x7, 100x7, 100x6 on Mondays, go back down to 3*100x5 and build from there. If you do that, and build back up to 100x7,7,6 again (your performance didn't increase even after the deload), consider it a "vote" to move on.
You can move on at this point if you're bored, or, if you're intent on peaking with this exercise at a certain rep scheme (you really want to increase your Bench Press in the 8-12 range, and this scheme is allowing you to do so, even if your 5-7 rep day is stalled), then continue with it. If your Medium or Light day begins to stall just as the Heavy day has, though, then two of the three days (the majority) have stalled and it's time to move on.

(At this point, you can repeat all the above steps with slightly DIFFERENT exercises. For example, if you were doing Bench Press, Bent-Over Rows, Overhead Presses, and Back Squats, switch to Chest Dips, Chin-Ups, Behind-the-Neck Presses, and Front Squats. If you have enough experience on the "new" exercises, feel free to progress in an accelerated fashion. For example, you might try to add a rep to one set once per session. Once that stalls, perhaps try the increase every other session. Once that stalls, go back to progressing once per week as it was outlined in the first step of this guide. After that, you should be months or perhaps even years into the program depending on how much weight you started with each time through and how gradually you attempted rep/weight increases. Once you've completed Intermediate H/L/M with the new exercises, you can either repeat the process again with even different exercises (such as Incline Presses instead of Chest Dips), or the exercises from the first cycle again: Bench Presses, etc., or move on to the Advanced implementation.)

Advanced H/L/M

Perform different exercises and rep counts at each session over the course of the week:
Day 1 - Bench Presses - 5-7 reps
Day 2 - Dumbbell Pullovers - 12-15 reps (with 1-min rests)
Day 3 - Chest Dips - 8-12 reps
Try to add one rep to one set on each day.

Sample Routines

STRENGTH/BULK - For anyone looking to gain overall muscle mass
Heavy Day
Bench Press 5x5-7
Bent-Over Row 5x5-7
Squat 5x5-7
Barbell Curl 5x5-7
Abs 3x12-15

Light Day
Press Behind-Neck 4x10-15
Wide-grip Pull-Up 4x10-15
Sissy Squat 4x10-15
Forearm work 4-6x12-20
Neck work 4-6x12-20

Medium Day
Incline Press 4x8-12
Power Clean/High Pull 5x5-7
Front Squat 4x8-12
Decline Triceps Extension 4x8-12
Calves 3x12-20

INTERMEDIATE
Day 1
Bench Press 3x8-12
Front Squat or Squat 3x8-10
DB Lateral Raise or Wide-Grip Upright Row 3x8-12
Stiff-Legged Deadlift & Shrug 2x6-8
Barbell Curls 2x8-12
Overhead BB Triceps Extensions 2x8-12
Calf Raises 2x10-20
Abs 1-2x10-20

Day 2
Incline DB Press 3x8-12
Wide-Grip Pull Up 3x8-12
Bent Over Lateral Raise 3x8-12
Incline DB Curls 2x8-12
Skull Crushers 2x8-12
Seated Wrist Curls 3x10-15
Reverse Wrist Curls 3x10-15
Seated Calf Raises 2x10-20
Abs 1-2x10-20

Day 3
V-Bar Dips 3x8-12
Squat 3x6-12
Behind-Neck Press 3x8-12
Bent-Over Row 3x8-12
Preacher Curls 2x8-12
Overhead DB Triceps Extensions 2x8-12
Donkey Calf Raises 2x10-20
Abs 1-2x10-20

ADVANCED
Heavy Day
Incline Press 5x5-7
Bent-Over Row 5x5-7
Clean and Press 5x5-7
Squat 5x5-7
Barbell Curl 5x5-7
Abs 3x12-15

Light Day
Cross-Bench DB Pullover 4x10-15
Wide-grip Pull-Up 4x10-15
Overhead Squat 4x10-15
OR DB Lateral Raise 4x10-15
Sissy Squat 4x10-15
Forearm work 4-6x12-20

Medium Day
Chest Dip 4x8-12
Power Clean/High Pull 5x5
OR Stiff-Legged Deadlift 5x5
Behind-the-Neck Press 4x8-12
Front Squat 4x8-12
Decline Triceps Extension 4x8-12
Calves 3-4x12-20

VERY ADVANCED/PRE-CONTEST - Very intensive routine. The vast majority of genetically typical trainees would gain muscle and strength much quicker on the routines listed before this one

Heavy Day
Incline Press 5x5-7
Chest Dips 5x5-7
Moderate-grip Pull-Up 4x8-10
Bent-Over Row 5x5-7
Clean and Press 5x5-7
DB Lateral Raise 4x10-15
Squat 3-5x5-7
Front Squat 5x5-7
Abs 3x12-20

Light Day
Cross-Bench DB Pullover 4x10-15
Close-Grip Pull-Up 4x10-15
Seated Bent-Forward DB Lateral Raise 3-4x10-15
Sissy Squat 4x10-15
Preacher Curl 4x8-12
Triceps Pressdown 4x8-12
Wrist Curl 3-4x12-20
Calf Raise 3-4x12-20

Medium Day
Bench Press 4x8-10
Parallel Grip OR 2-DB Bent-Over Rows 4x8-10
Behind-the-Neck Press 4x8-10
Roman Chair Squat 4x8-12
Stiff-Legged Deadlift 4x8-10
DB Curl 4x8-12
Lying Triceps Extension 4x8-12
Reverse-Grip Wrist Curl 3-4x12-20
Seated Calf Raise 3-4x12-20
Frequently Asked Questions

What should my starting weights be?

You can pick 75% of your 1RM and just do three sets of as many reps as you can do with it. In other words, you might get 10, 8 and 6 with 75% of your 1RM. Then you'd try to build up the reps over time... say 10, 8 and 7 next workout.

How much should I rest between my sets?

Take longer breaks of 2-3 minutes between sets on your heavy days, shorter rests of a minute or less on your light days, and 2 minutes rest between sets on your medium days. You could try getting a higher growth hormone release by resting only 1 minute between sets, but the decreased weight you'd then have to use would make it pointless.

How should I warm up?

Warm up based on the exercise - 2 warm-up sets for heavy exercises, 1 warm-up set for lighter exercises. You don't have to strictly time the warm-up set breaks. In the 8-12 rep range that usually means something on the order of 1-2 sets with roughly 50% to 75% of your top working weight for the day. That's for the compound lifts. For isolation stuff, one set with about 65% of your working weight is usually fine. In the 5-7 rep range, lifters typically use 60% and 80% for two warm-up sets.

Keep the reps low for warm-up sets (5 or fewer). There's not much use in warming up with higher reps - no matter how many reps you plan to do. It'll only result in some lactic acid build-up. You're better off adding in an extra set of 5 (or two) than doing higher-rep warm-up sets.

Should my increased rep be on the first set or the last set? In other words, if I'm doing 3*100x8, should next week be 100x9, 100x8, 100x8, or 100x8, 100x8, 100x9?

It's usually "easiest" to progress on the later set(s) than it is the earlier ones.

You also have to keep in mind that a one-rep increase in performance is approximately equal to a 3% increase in absolute strength. So going from an 8-rep failure effort to taking that to 9 reps is actually a very significant strength increase - too much to rationally expect on a regular basis.

Increasing a rep on your later sets, when you're already fatigued, isn't indicative of such a dramatic strength increase because recovery ability (ATP, CP replenishment, etc), is a large part of the adaptation.

This is actually part of the reason why advanced lifters do multiple sets and regularly increase by a rep only on the last set. In that case, that added rep might only be indicative of a 0.5-1% increase in performance, not an unsustainable 3% as would be the case if you added a rep to a fresh set every week (in the bodybuilding rep ranges anyway).

Is it better to perform the same exercises for different reps, or different exercises for the same reps?

It comes down to goals, experience, and abilities.

Training for peak strength and peak growth are generally two different beasts, often requiring different approaches (there's a big overlap there as well depending on rep range, the nature of the exercise (explosive vs. non-explosive, etc)).

For beginners and people interested primarily in strength development on a particular group of lifts, using the same exercises but cycling intensity/weights often works well. Oly Lifters train the lifts multiple times per week because they're after maximum progress on specific lifts. But they also aren't after any significant degree of hypertrophy. For instance, a lifter trying to improve a lift might do that lift several times a week at different intensities simply for a high volume of specific practice/training on that lift. In this case, H/L/M would involve more volume on the targeted lifts.

Short periods training the same exercises each day can sometimes give quick strength boosts because it's a type of specialization routine on these exercises - you're focusing all of your energy into only a handful of movements. However, most people will need to carefully cycle their training intensity each day (as outlined the the beginners routine article) or they'll hit a wall fast. Only the genetically very gifted can train the same exercises all-out three times a week. With proper intensity cycling even advanced trainees can grow using the same exercises three times per week (at the advanced level many prosper from using different rep counts on each of the training days, say 5-7, 8-12, 12-15).

For bodybuilding/hypertrophy purposes, H/L/M would involve a similar volume but greater variety, using different exercises at consistently moderately high intensity in order to stimulate hypertrophy each time. In this case, it's better to chose different exercises for the three days (except for short periods to provide variety). Keep in mind that this is assuming a lifter is past the beginner stage where they're going to grow quickly anyway and are better off concentrating on fewer lifts.

There's also a combination of the two. For example, heavy presses on Monday, lateral raises on Wednesday and medium presses on Friday. I find that sort of thing can often work well if you're primarily a bodybuilder, but also trying to specialize on a certain lift.

Of course, the lines aren't that clearly drawn, but that's the gist of it.

Whether you do different exercises each day or not also depends on your experience level and where you are in your training right now. Advanced trainees usually benefit from doing different exercises on different days, so that they don't overstress their joints. However, sometimes even advanced trainees can benefit from doing the same routine each day -- remember Reeves, Park, Schwarzenegger and many others reached the top of the bodybuilding world and built up largely or exclusively on these types of routines.

If you're going to use different exercises on each of the three days, then intensity cycling is done by the exercise selection more so than the effort you put into the exercises themselves. You do this by choosing exercises that stress the joints differently and with different loads. For instance, you could do Incline Presses on your heavy day, DB Pullovers on your light day, and V-Bar Dips on your medium day. You might go up to sets of 5-7 on your Incline Presses, sets of 10-15 on DB Pullovers and 8-12 on Dips. In that way, you'll save your joints, avoid overtraining and be able to hit the muscles hard three times per week. Benches, Inclines and Declines in the same week however, are very similar movements and unless you have big, robust joints you'll overtrain and plateau very quickly.

A similar example would be including Military (Front) Presses and Behind-the-Neck Presses in the same week. The two exercises should not be done with the same grip width or elbow positioning in order to avoid the two exercises overlapping too much. With BNPs, a wide grip (Snatch width grip) should be used while keeping the elbows back in order to place as much loading as possible on the side delts. With MPs, a just-beyond-shoulder-width grip should be used while obviously allowing the elbows to the front at the bottom. This is an Olympic Lift inspired technique (at least a pre-1972 technique when the press was still part of Oly Lifting) to get as much power on the lift as possible... without cheating or using the "Russian" style of course. Obviously, this doesn't erase the overlap between the two exercises because they're still both fundamentally overhead barbell pressing, but a wide-grip-elbows-back BNP is a significantly different creature than a shoulder-width MP to the front... to further that difference BNPs should be done with a slightly higher rep count (and slightly lighter weights are safer with that style of BNP since it really isn't suited to be a true "power" movement). Still, the overlap is there, but the style differences make one more of a strength/power lift and the other more of a "bodybuilding" exercise.

Which approach you take is your call, as each of them can work if you approach them right.

If I'm after maximum hypertrophy, could I simply make every session of the H/L/M routine a 'Medium' day, sticking in the 8-12 rep range, but allowing the exercises dictate the H/L/M pattern? Is it possible to recover from training this way in this rep range solely, without handling the heavier weights on a Heavy day, or the lighter weights on Light day?

Possibly. But depending on the implementation, your conditioning and your genetics it may or may not produce more hypertrophy than a more "conventional" H/L/M routine.

Hypertrophy can't be so easily broken into "5 reps is for strength, 12 reps is for endurance and 8 reps is for hypertrophy". Sure, theoretically that may be the intended focus of each rep range, with at least a reasonable scientific justification, and that may be traditional "wisdom", but in the long-term you'll often find that 5 reps, or even 12 reps, may build just as much muscle as sets of 8 reps. Some of the biggest drug-free quads have been on Olympic Lifters who practically never did more than 5 reps ...and look at Reg Park in the 1950s.

In addition, the whole purpose of the heavy day is two-fold...

1) To recruit the fastest twitch muscle fibers, and

2) To strengthen the joints, connective tissues and nervous system for lifting heavier weights.

So even if you want to go lighter because that's considered more "ideal" for hypertrophy, the purpose of the heavy day is to work with the medium and light days to promote growth and strengthening.

But having said that, you don't even have to do 3x5, 5x5, 3x3 or anything else thought of as traditionally heavy. Heavy day gets associated with lower reps because that's the appropriate day for it if you were going to do that sort of thing. I usually put the lower reps on heavy days as an example of that's when to do it, but you certainly don't have to. You can do singles, partials, lock-outs, one set to failure in the 6-8 rep range or whatever. In that case, make sure the weights are heavier than your medium day, but because you're only doing one set you should be able to handle more than the medium day when you do several sets.

What I'm saying is, heavy day must stay heavy, but you can't keep doing the same thing week after week or make the volume too high or you will burn out. Use variety to make it interesting and target what you need. Don't get caught in only one rep scheme forever. Rotate 2-4 week cycles of different heavy day schemes as you get more advanced to keep from going stale and keep progressing.

Keep in mind, many pre-steroid era bodybuilders and lifters (Reg Park, Steve Reeves, Eiferman, Ross, Kono, etc.) did stick to one rep range all the time and usually the same exercises every session as well - they'd simply adjust their effort level by how they felt. That ability to instinctively know what their bodies needed and could handle was not only critical in allowing them to train full-body three times per week, it's also what made them champions. Marvin Eder and Doug Hepburn also cycled their training loads to different degrees, with Hepburn being very structured about it and eventually winning the World Weightlifting Championship as a result. Most of what went on to become the Soviet system of periodization was taken from Hepburn's concepts. Kono cycled his loads, but more instinctively. Park went for broke all he could, ate like ten men and slept like a newborn to support that. So it's definitely do-able and definitely worked for those people. But those guys were conditioned for it, had natural healthy diets, and the most successful ones had great genetics to go with it.

The cycling ideas presented in the H/L/M program (heavy, light, medium - different exercises on different days) were pioneered by people like Bob Hoffman (who began prescribing something similar in the 1930s) and Bill Starr (who wrote about it extensively from the 1960s to present). Its design is a way for people to get the variety needed to continue progressing, but also to allow recovery for people who would normally hit a wall on a fixed 3-day/week full-body routine.

Of course, if you change exercises each session, but stick to the same rep range you're still building in a fair bit of variety into the program and that might be enough to allow you to keep progressing without grinding to a plateau.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: From my experience studying H/L/M, rep ranges are generally over-analyzed to death. The whole purpose of H/L/M is to provide nearly all the necessary rep ranges in one program. On top of that, different exercises are placed on the different days as well, providing even more variety. So even if you think you should be doing 8-12 reps on everything:

(1) Chances are, that won't last long anyway, because most productive exercises have some overlap as it is. Take Overhead Presses and Behind-the-Neck presses for example. Both are highly regarded as the best delt exercises. Someone may put their Overhead Pressing on Heavy day and Behind-the-Neck pressing on Medium day. If they are done in the same rep range, however, there is very little variety there and the muscles are essentially doing a very similar movement, for a similar amount of weight, for nearly the same amount of reps. This is just an example, and not true for all productive exercises (i.e. the ones we SHOULD be doing...), however there seems to be a trend (another example would be Squats and Front Squats).

And (2), Some exercises aren't even suited to certain rep ranges (for example, you wouldn't be doing DB Pullovers for 5 heavy reps; they are much suited to higher reps in order to provide a break from chest pressing while still bringing about a growth stimulus through fatigue-based training).

Remember the whole point of H/L/M: to provide variety in order to train hard and promote growth three times per week. The more variety provided by the exercises, the less there is a need to cycle rep ranges as well. For example, if you do deadlifts on your heavy day, and chin ups on your light day, the two exercises themselves are very different, in which the weight being moved are on quite different planes of motion (at least compared to the back squat/front squat example). In that case, one could essentially do the same amount of reps on both days. Before you go searching for "very different" exercises just so you can train in the same rep range, keep in mind that generally the best exercises are at least somewhat similar in terms of motions. In other words, bench presses are quite different than chest flyes. But chest flyes are definitely inferior compared to v-bar dips (which would have an overlap with bench presses). Trainees would be much better off including the most productive (generally compound) movements to include in their training, and cycle intensity accordingly depending on the need for variety.

Not to say that it's impossible to do the same rep range three times per week (after all, in the beginning of H/L/M
you are doing the same exercises in the same rep range), but the more advanced you get, generally, the more variety you need. Otherwise, plateaus will come much sooner and you're more likely to become frustrated and switch to something else (which might work for a while, but not in the long run).]

Why start with 8-12 reps?

The reason I recommend higher reps to beginning lifters is because I know most people are interested in bodybuilding and general fitness, not Olympic Lifting (in which case the recommendations would be different) and it's a safe place to start. During the first few months, strength and hypertrophy gains are made just as quickly if a person trains lightly as if they train heavily (shown many times in the research) - so it's more prudent (i.e. safe) in my opinion to start light, perfect form and do the traditional bodybuilding rep ranges.

Also, with higher rep, lighter work in the 8-12 rep range you're not riding as close to the edge of nervous system and connective tissue overtraining, so you don't have to back down as regularly... which in itself is another plus for hypertrophy.

I am increasing one set by one rep each training day. Would that progression slow down size gains if my body was re-cooperating faster than that schedule and I was physically able to increase more than that, or does that not matter for hypertrophy?

In the longer term of the overall cycle it doesn't matter - you're better off consistently increasing performance just slightly. If not, you'll plateau sooner and your gains will stop altogether.

So, if you hit 3*160x5 on week 1 and you get in the gym on week 2 feeling great, do you simply do 160x6,5,5 ... even if you feel like 3x6 is attainable?

Generally, yes. Holding back is actually the tough part for most people because they have a "I must work as hard as possible at all times" mentality.

The question really comes down to how fast you think you can advance. For how long do you think you can keep adding a rep to all 3 sets a week? If you started with 3x150x5, then 3x150*6, 3x150*7, etc, then in five weeks you'd be doing 3x150x10. The only way gains like that are going to keep going is if you started off very light - otherwise you'll quickly hit a wall and have to switch things up (and/or deload). In six months time you'll probably be no further ahead than if you just did a longer cycle of 5,5,5 - 6,5,5 - 6,6,5 - 6,6,6 - 7,6,6 - etc. Of course, if you did that, you'd probably start slightly heavier as well, because you don't need to leave as much room for aggressive performance increases each week.

Keep in mind, protein turnover happens at a snail's pace (at least as in a few weeks) so pushing all-out every day really isn't going to accomplish anything that ramping more gradually won't, as long as you end up in the same place in a few week's time. In the end, it's the average workload performed over several months time that dictates growth, not what you did on any given day. In that case, it's very hard to beat a one-rep per week type scheme because even though the individual workouts are moderately hard (but not all-out) the average weekly load over time is high because there's really no "down time". When added up over a period of time, you've lifted a lot of weight, probably the same or greater as if you started lighter, progressed faster and then deloaded. In the long term, in terms of how the body responds to its environment, that's what matters.

Sometimes you can ramp up more aggressively, but that's usually reserved for when calories, nutrition and rest are really good. In that case you might go for shorter 4-6 week cycles. But for "normal" life the one rep per week rule is easier to maintain and almost like clockwork in terms of getting you there in the long run... distractions and boredom can become factors eventually though.
Further Reading

forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=116864811
www.muscleandstrength.com/articles/interview-casey-butt-part-2.html

[Sergio]

Here are parts of the high interesting interview of Casey Butt for www.muscleandstrength.con

Part 1:

Muscle and Strength: You mentioned that you carry several other beliefs that are somewhat controversial. I want to ask you about them. Let's talk about full body routines. Why do you believe they are best for naturals? And why have they gone the way of the dinosaur over the last 30-40 years? For the most part on lifting forums, I only see HIT practitioners and 5x5 programs that slant towards being "full body"...

Casey Butt: Year-round, elaborate split routines, in the typical bodybuilding sense, were essentially "born" as a consequence of several occurrences in the early 1960s and have become popular because bodybuilders copied the routines of their drug-using heroes.  In the 1950s and early '60s Weider was promoting higher volume, more isolation laden, training routines as more modern and sophisticated than the "old fashioned" lower volume routines that were the staple of the York training courses - and in certain regards it was true.  And the magazines naturally focused on bodybuilding champions' pre-contest training, which was higher in volume than the rest of the training year.  Several top bodybuilders did, in fact, train on split routines in the 1950s and earlier, but this was typically reserved for sharpening up in the weeks leading up to contests, with full-body routines used for building up during the rest of the year.

By the early 1960s steroids entered the picture as primarily a pre-contest training aid (following the Weightlifters' practice of ramping up steroid use as contests drew near) and this allowed for yet further increases in training volume.  Around this point split routines became the norm rather than the exception.  Again, pre-contest training was the focus of the magazines as readers wanted to know what Mr. So-and-so did to win the title.  What got lost however, was the fact that most of these lifters followed full-body routines to build up during the off-season and when they were not dosing Nilevar or Dianabol.

As bodybuilders realized that steroids could be used to very effectively bulk up in the "off-season" their use spilled over to the entire training year and split routines were adopted as the off-season template followed by top bodybuilders.  It's natural that aspiring trainees copied their heroes' routines and practices, but they were generally kept in the dark about steroid use as the major magazines purposefully hid it and promoted aspects of bodybuilding more profitable to them (training courses such as isometrics in the power rack and the supplements of the day - wheat germ oil, desiccated liver, protein powders and pills, etc.).  That practice has been part and parcel of the training media since the introduction of steroids, and if anything is even more rampant today.

SteroidsSteroids change a trainee's tolerance and response to exercise in a number of ways.  Most importantly, steroids are an artificial source of testosterone and mimic it's anabolic/androgenic properties.  For that reason, steroid users do not have to be concerned with maintaining and manipulating their own natural testosterone levels through training and diet.  A natural trainee's progress, however, is inexorably linked to his hormonal response to training.  Training of too low a systemic magnitude and there is no response, too much and the body can't keep up and overtraining results.

On the scientific front, several studies over the decades have shown that protein synthesis and hormonal responses to training return to baseline within 36-48 hours of even intense, high-volume weight training.  At the same time, routines consisting of compound exercises have been shown to be vastly superior to those consisting predominantly of isolation exercises and machines, with regards to lean body mass and strength gains.  Volume wise, 2-4 sets in the 8-12 rep range have been shown to be the most efficient count for hypertrophy and growth hormone release, whereas 4-6 sets of 4-6 reps have been shown to be near optimal for strength building and testosterone release.  On top of that are the findings that intense exercise involving larger total muscle masses, such as performing heavy Squats and Deadlifts, results in the most dramatic responses of the body with regards to testosterone and growth hormone levels.  The blood cortisol:testosterone ratio begins to climb into unfavorable territory after 45-60 mins of intense training as well.

Put together, the body of credible scientific literature over the past 60+ years points directly to relatively brief (an hour or so) full-body routines as being the superior form of exercise for hypertrophy and strength building purposes, particularly in the absence of exogeneous anabolic steroids.  For a bodybuilder trying to build up, there's no advantage to performing many isolation exercises and no need to do more than 2-6 sets of any exercise.  Each session should include movements that tax the largest amount of muscle mass as possible so as to elevate testosterone and growth hormone levels.  The most logical routine design that fits this prescription best is the full-body routine, centered around basic free-weight exercises.

I find it ironic that the majority of modern science supports not what is considered modern by most, but what is considered old-fashioned and was exactly what Reg Park, Clancy Ross, John Grimek, Steve Reeves, George Eiferman, Jack Delinger, etc, all recommended before the introduction of steroids into bodybuilding.  Park and Ross were even particularly careful to caution trainees that split routines are okay before contests to lean out, but not best for building up in the off-season ...and building up is what most natural bodybuilders spend the majority of their time aspiring to do.

I've been deliberately careful to specify here that this is all within the context of building muscle mass.  There are times when split routines are an equally or more viable training option, particularly pre-contest when lagging muscle heads begin to become apparent at low body fat levels and must be addressed (though for trainees who never intend to dip much below 10% body fat or so they may never even be aware of such deficiencies).  There are also certain groups of trainees who naturally respond well to split routines, even in the off-season.  Those are typically people who have naturally high testosterone levels, robust joint structures, and can deliver significant enough training loads to the muscles in a single bout to justify longer breaks between training sessions.  Highly experienced trainees who are close to their genetic potentials can also benefit from a split routine that allows them to focus more work on lagging body parts - though this can also usually be done on an advanced full-body routine.

The majority of drug-free trainees, however, who are looking to build more overall body muscle mass, strength, a visually impressive physique, and don't have particularly robust joints, would be far better off focusing on just getting stronger on the basic free-weight movements to the practical exclusion of every other thought - and full-body routines are the near ideal vehicle for that, most of the time.  That's how Park did it, he didn't have any glaring weaknesses, and as I mentioned in response to the previous question, no drug-tested bodybuilder yet has surpassed that level of development.

[Sergio]

Part 2:


Muscle and Strength: So, if a full body routine is the way to go, and a natural has about a one hour training window, that would imply that there are limited exercises a natural will use each week. What exercises should be at the core of every natural full body routine, and should the same exercises be performed during every workout?

Casey Butt: It very much depends on the experience level of the trainee.  Most people tend to look at weight training as something that impacts only the muscles when, in fact, the picture is a bit more complex than that.  Anytime a weight is lifted the major systems stressed can be broken into five main categories:

The muscle fibers themselves
The connective tissues (i.e. tendons and ligaments)
The nervous system (central and peripheral
The biochemical systems (anabolic and catabolic hormones both locally in the muscles and systemically throughout the body)
The bones
Bones are not stressed by training to the point where they require significant recovery so they can be essentially disregarded from consideration.

The fundamental flaw in HIT logic is that the founders considered training only from the perspective of Seyle's General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS).  That is, it was based on a single factor model of the training response - you stress the muscles then you must wait for them to recover and get stronger (i.e. grow) and only then can you train again.  It is quite logical, but incomplete because many systems are stressed by training and they all don't recover in the same time frame.  For instance, after even intense training of 16 sets to failure per body part muscle protein synthesis has been shown to return to baseline within 48 hours.  Beginners, because they are far from their potentials and the loads they lift do not significant disrupt and stress the connective tissues and nervous system, can train again, practically full bore, 48 hours after their last session.

As trainees become more advanced, however, they gain the ability to better recruit the muscle fibers (motor units) as the nervous system improves it's neuromuscular coordination.  At the same time, increased hypertrophy further makes the muscles stronger.  The result is that now the trainee starts to become strong enough to significantly stress the joints and connective tissues and also can recruit motor units 'efficiently' enough to tax the nervous system as well.  Now, he cannot train again, full bore, on the same exercises again in 48 hours - the nervous system and connective tissues will typically require longer than that to fully recover and allow full strength to be demonstrated again.  Don't forget that the nervous system is the master controller of all muscular contraction and if it 'says' you're not recruiting the muscle fibers at full force (i.e. maximum rate coding) then it's not going to happen no matter how 'good' you might feel.  Similarly, the connective tissues contain sensory organs that relay information about joint integrity back to the central nervous system - if the surrounding muscles and connective tissues cannot hold the joint sufficiently stable the nervous system will not allow the major muscle groups to be fired at full force.

Reg Park, natural bodybuilder

Typically, the 'solution' to this, based on a single factor training model (the GAS) has been for the trainee to simply wait until he's fully recovered, without considering which aspects of his physiology are really requiring the extra recovery time - the muscles or nervous system and connective tissues?  The shortcoming of this approach is that growth in the muscle is actually complete within 48 hours of training and the rest of the time is simply waiting for other systems to catch up - time that could be used to stimulate the muscles again.

For beginners, none of this is a problem because, as I said earlier, they don't have the ability or even need to impose heavy training stresses on their bodies systemically to illicit a training response.  The more advanced the trainee gets, however, the larger the training stress must be and the more recovery of the different systems involved becomes an issue.  Most advanced trainees know they simply cannot pound the same exercises heavily three times per week. This is somewhat intuitive because advanced trainees' bodies are very accustomed to the stresses of lifting and no longer respond as easily to training as beginners.  They need more loading to cause the cellular disruption that stimulates growth, and this high loading also imposes longer recover times on the other systems (nervous system, connective tissues, etc.).

The currently standard approach to this is for intermediates and advanced trainees to simply perform more volume, both more sets and more exercises, per body part.  This also has the advantage of allowing the advanced trainee to use a variety of exercises and train different aspects of each muscle group.  And it does work because many fine advanced physiques have been the product of it.  However, this does not address the reality that if you take seven days between training muscles, growth only occurs for two of those days.  Wouldn't it be much more ideal to take advantage of the other five days as well?

In order to do that the intermediate and advanced trainee has three options:

He or she can train the same exercises three times a week but use different loading patterns (sets, reps and total volume) on the different days so as not to repeat the stress that the nervous system and connective tissues 'see' more than once a week.
He/she can use completely different exercises on each of the training days, achieving essentially the same effect.
A combination of the first two.
In each case the goal is to stimulate muscle growth three times per week instead of just once, but vary the training stress each time so the same loading pattern is not repeated on the nervous system and connective tissues, and thus not disrupting their timely recovery.

The first step into the intermediate stages would be to perform the same exercises three times per week, one exercise per major muscle group, with the same rep count, but simply vary the load.  Monday could be heavy day, with the trainee going to near maximum on his/her sets, Wednesday may be a light day with only 60-80% of Monday's weights used, and Friday would be a medium day consisting of 85-90% of Monday's weights.  This is Bill Starr's classic approach to weekly periodization for lifters.  It is common for trainees to underestimate the importance of the light and medium days in this scheme.  In this case the light day serves as what was referred to as a "feeder" workout in the 1970s - the lighter weights bring fresh blood through the muscles, "massage" the joints and foster faster recovery from the heavy day.  Without the light day, overtraining is actually more likely to occur.  The medium day, while not maximal, still employs weights heavy enough to provoke a growth response (training to only 90% of the failure point can be theoretically argued to be as effective as actually hitting failure in terms of muscle stimulation).  In addition, medium day is a perfect day for trainees to perfect their form and use very strict lifting cadences - this in itself makes 85-90% of maximum seem much heavier.

Marvin EderThe next evolution would be to perform different reps on the different training days, but still just one exercise per major muscle group.  For instance, Monday might be heavy sets of five, Wednesday lighter sets of 15 with shorter breaks between sets and Friday moderately heavy sets of 10 reps.  In this way the trainee performs a variety of rep counts throughout the week, stressing the muscles, nervous system and connective tissues in different fashions.  A further evolution would be for the trainee to perform different exercises on each of the three weekly full-body sessions.  Using the chest as an example, dips could be performed on Monday, flat dumbbell presses on Tuesday and incline presses on Friday.  The nature of these exercises and rep counts are chosen so that the heavy, light and medium scheme is preserved.

For instance, heavy sets of 6-8 reps of dips may be performed on Monday, whereas Tuesday would see lighter sets of 12-15 reps on flat DB presses.  Friday may consist of moderate sets of 10 reps on incline presses.  Although the stress on the body would fall in the heavy, light and medium ranges, the trainee would actually be training hard on all three days and therefore effectively stimulating growth three times per week.  If a trainee wishes to stick to a single rep range the exercises themselves must be used to impose heavy/light/medium days.  For instance, bench presses on heavy day, DB flyes on light day, and incline presses on medium day - all for the same number of sets and reps.  In this case the very nature of the exercise enforce different magnitudes of loads - a trainee will use the heaviest weights for bench presses, the lightest weights for DB flyes and 75-85% of his bench press weights for incline presses, thus maintaining a heavy/light/medium pattern across the week.

At some point during the advanced stages the trainee will begin performing two exercises per major muscle group, particularly on the heavy day.  This might start with the introduction of lighter dumbbell work after the major exercise for each body part.  Now the 60-minute training session rule no longer rigidly applies.  Advanced trainees may need more disruption to the system than can be produced in one hour - particularly on heavy days.  The hormonal response to training is a function of the severity of the disruption caused by the training stress, so advanced athletes may not fit the 45-60 minute rule at all.  For them it may logically take a longer period of more severe loading for the cortisol:testosterone ratio to go sour.

Advancing further, very experienced trainees need more training load to elicit further gains, and now the training effect may not even be effectively stimulated in one session.  The standard approach would be for the trainee to split his routine so more work can be performed for each body part per session and the training stimulus achieved that way.  However, it is not the only viable option and does not have the support of the body of scientific research or the training of elite strength and power athletes.

Now the trainee may need several heavy sessions in a row to produce improvement.  At this advanced stage the first evolution would be for the heavy/light/medium pattern to morph into a heavy/medium/light pattern.  The total weekly loading remains the same, but following the heavy day with a medium day instead of a light day, just 48 hours later, does not allow for full recovery and further cellular disruption is caused.  It is crucial that the next day, however, be a genuine light day.  As the trainee advances even further the weekly load might become heavy/medium/medium.  Then heavy/heavy/light, heavy/heavy/medium and finally, if the trainee poses truly superior recovery abilities all three days heavy.  It is around this time that the trainee may even begin training more than three times per week.

At such an advanced and extreme stage of loading however, it is very unlikely that the trainee could maintain such intense training for periods of longer than a few weeks - even though a very large weekly load is required to disrupt this trainee's homeostasis and produce a training response.  At that point it becomes imperative that the trainee start implementing the heavy/light/medium scheme over the weekly load rather than just daily.  In other words, the trainee may train medium for one week, heavy for two weeks and then a light week.  This is advanced periodization and has been the cornerstone of practically every great Olympic athlete's training of the past 40+ years.

So, as you can see, it isn't just as simple as, "Everybody should do this routine."  The sad part is that with the introduction of steroids into bodybuilding the science and art of drug-free training entered a stagnate age with very little advancement being made into the proper evolution of drug-free training.  Split routines, while they do have their place even for drug-free trainees - particularly for refinement and pre-contest - work most effectively in conjunction with steroid use.  In order to make the fastest possible progress, most typical drug-free trainees trying to get bigger and stronger simply need the hormonal cascade caused by working the whole body at one time and then allowing sufficient rest for improvement to manifest itself.

Heavy Compound ExercisesGoing back to the question of exercise selection, there is one over-riding truth that applies to all levels of drug-free trainees:  For maximum productivity, training must revolve around the free-weight compound movements.  This has been verified time and time again both in the scientific research and in-the-trenches gym experience.  For beginners and intermediates, very few isolation exercises should be included in the routine and only to address muscles that absolutely do not get sufficiently targeted by the major exercises (Squats, Presses, Rows, Pull-ups and Deadlifts).  Examples might be direct calf, ab, forearm and neck work.  This holds true even at the advanced stages, although then free-weight isolation exercises may be added to heavy days and/or chosen on lights day to better allow the joints to recover from the preceding heavy and/or medium days.  Having said that, if an advanced drug-free trainee wishes to address a perceived weakness, he/she is still much better off doing that by proper selection of an appropriate compound exercise than an isolation.  Going back to the chest example, V-bar dips would be a much more productive way to bring up lagging outer pecs than DB flyes.

The basic rules are:

Beginners
A routine of 6-8 basic free-weight exercises - including squats, bench presses, overhead presses, rows or pull-ups/downs, calf raises, barbell curls, crunches - all performed for 2-3 sets of 8-12 reps and repeated three time per week.
Intermediates
Cycling of poundages via various implementations of the heavy/light medium scheme.  Different intensities, rep ranges and/or exercises may be used on each of the training days.
Advanced
Additional exercises are added to the routine (particularly on heavy days).  The trainee begins arranging training in periods of medium, heavy and light weeks rather than just days.  The 60-minute training session rule no longer rigidly applies.
Again, a long response but it was hard to briefly address the question without being vague and incomplete.

Muscle and Strength: On to the next controversial issue... diet. I'm sure that you're aware of the study regarding sumo wrestlers, revealing that they have an incredible amount of muscle mass despite not lifting weights. There are also numerous studies which reveal that the human body appears to be very anabolic when over-eating in short-term durations.

http://www.biomedexperts.com/Abstract.bme/8780332/Changes_in_macronutrient_balance_during_over-_and_underfeeding_assessed_by_12-d_continuous_whole-body_calorimetry

http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/49/4/608

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/4061637

What is your take on these studies, how much of a factor is diet in the gaining of muscle mass, and how would you recommend a typical hardgainer eat if they have a difficult time adding any weight? And to throw in another question: is dirty bulking "evil", as some make it seem?

Casey Butt: I think all experienced bodybuilders have observed the phenomenon of rapid gains during short periods of overfeeding, particularly when people go on vacation or end a long low-calorie diet.  However, the key thing to keep in mind here is the time frame over which the body reacts 'favorably' to the increase in calories.

Very simply, the body exists in essentially two states:  energy surplus or energy deficit.  In an energy deficit the body will decrease its expression of enzymes responsible for fat storage (lipoprotein lipase, etc), while increasing fat release from adipose cells.  This is to provide the body with the energy it needs to maintain metabolism under a calorie deficit (after all, the major purpose of body fat is to provide a source of stored energy).  At the same time, in the absence of high insulin levels in response to blood glucose, insulin receptors will uncover on the surface of muscle cells, increasing insulin sensitivity - with little glucose and protein available, the muscle cell will increase it's efficiency of uptake and utilization of these now very much in demand substances.  Likewise, growth hormone, IGF-1 and testosterone levels, all of which increase metabolism and lean body mass, decrease when dietary calories are low.

Under these conditions the body has become a very efficient machine at releasing and burning fat from the fat cells and shuttling glucose and nutrients preferentially into the muscle cells (I'm simplifying the situation by neglecting the over-riding needs of the major organs, nervous system, etc).

In a calorie surplus, however, the body will go into a storage mode.  In the presence of constantly high insulin, insulin receptors on the surface of muscle cells will "retract" into the cell membrane and become less "sensitive" to the presence of insulin ("insulin resistance").  High levels of fatty acids and glucose in the bloodstream will cause fat cells to up regulate enzymes responsible for fat production and storage.  You are now a fat storing machine.

Classic muscle buildingThe key to the preferential deposition of lean body mass, as shown in the above studies during over-eating, lies in the short term nature of the response.  Insulin sensitivity and fat storage enzyme activities don't suddenly change dramatically in a few hours or overnight.  If the body reacted that quickly to changing environments it would bang back and forth constantly in a never-ending oscillation of metabolically costly adaptations.  Evolution isn't that stupid (or perhaps it was but those species never lived that long) and so the adaption to sudden over- or under-eating takes time.

In one of the studies you mentioned (G. Forbes, M. Brown, S. Welle, and L. Underwood, "Hormonal response to overfeeding", Am J Clin Nutr, 1989; 49: 608-11) it was found that elevated testosterone, IGF-1 and insulin levels in response to over-eating all peaked at around 14 days and began to decline thereafter.  Perhaps even more importantly, in the presence of high blood sugar and insulin levels fat cells start to increase insulin transporter expression at about two weeks, and that also corresponds with the time it takes for muscle cells to start exhibiting insulin resistance - after a few weeks of over-eating things are starting to go sour.

So, as you can see, the happy situation of preferentially putting on muscle just because you're eating like a pig simply can't last - if it did, formerly obese people would be cleaning up in bodybuilding competitions, but it just doesn't work that way.  I over-ate for 18 years and it didn't do anything for me.  As I mentioned earlier, bodybuilders often experience quick "rebound" muscle gains when they start eating "normally" again after a long cutting period.  In such a circumstance they're coming out of a situation where their muscles are very insulin sensitive and their fat cells are metabolically "geared" to release fat, not store it, and so gains come fast and relatively easily for as long as that situation lasts.  A person can experience something similar, though to a lesser degree, by simply over-eating for a few weeks after a period of eating maintenance level calories.  However, like I said, you've only got a few weeks to play and then you must pay.  If a bodybuilder wants to exploit the anabolic effects of over-eating then I suggest they do it for two weeks or so and then either go on a cut or eat maintenance calorie levels for at least an equal period of time.

As for "dirty bulking" I'd have to say that it's basic macro-nutrients that are most important - calories, carbs, proteins and fats - so "quality" is secondary to "quantity" in this instance.  Having said that, it is a known fact that certain dietary components influence testosterone levels and, therefore, could be expected to affect the results of a "bulk".  To maximize testosterone levels I'd recommend 30-35% of daily calories from fats with 2/3rds of those being saturated.  I'd avoid partially hydrogenated vegetable oils (trans fats) under any circumstances.  I'd also recommend at least daily meals of red meat and eggs for the cholesterol, which is crucial to testosterone production in natural athletes.  I wouldn't go overboard with protein as excessively high protein intakes decrease testosterone levels.  As for carbs, I can't think that it would matter much as to whether "fast" or "slow", "clean" or "dirty"  carbs were consumed because with such a high calorie intake, insulin levels would be elevated practically all of the time anyway.

The only significant adjustments I'd make as a long-term eating plan for a natural trainee, other than lowering the calories back down to a sustainable level, would be to limit quick-digesting carbs to breakfast and immediately after training.  I'd also try to take in a quick-digesting protein at those times as well.  At practically all other times, slow carbs and proteins are the way to go.

Muscle and Strength: Speaking of protein intake...do you feel it's important for a natural lifter to over-eat protein as we have a tendency to do? I see a very wide daily protein recommendation, depending on which guru is speaking. I've seen recommendations as low as 70-100 grams per day, and recommendations of over 400 grams per day. What are your thoughts on this?

Casey Butt: Most credible scientific research that's been done has concluded that hard training bodybuilders and strength athletes need up to 1.76 to 1.8 grams per kilogram of bodyweight per day (g/kg-bw/day) as an optimal protein intake, on a long-term basis.  At the same time, it's been found that 1.41 g/kg-bw/day is required to achieve neutral nitrogen balance in strength training individuals.  So the research-supported optimal amount of protein comes out somewhere between 0.64 to 0.82 grams per pound of bodyweight per day (g/lb-bw/day).  Considering that the average person is about 15% body fat, it's roughly between 0.75 to 0.96 grams per pound of lean body mass (g/lb-lbm/day).  To cover the bases, I'd tend to err on the high side of that and aim for 0.96 g/lb-lbm/day - so 1 gram per pound of lean body mass per day is a nice round number to work with.

When protein intake goes above that, the body will increase it's protein oxidation rate and will convert the additional protein into glucose and possibly then body fat (if calories are above maintenance).  So if a bodybuilder habitually consumes too much protein it won't be forced into the muscles causing "extra" growth, it will simply be converted and eliminated by the liver and kidneys.  In the end, the muscles won't see any more amino acids if a person eats 10 g/lb-lbm/day than if he eats 1 g/lb-lbm/day because the body will simply "deal" with the extra amount.  In fact, it appears that under such high protein intakes a person is actually more likely to have a negative nitrogen balance than if he just ate less protein.

However, there are a few other downsides to such a high protein intake.  For one, if the body up regulates enzymes that are responsible for protein oxidation, then you will always need that high protein intake to break even.  In a sense, your body has become a protein burner, and if you don't take in a huge amount of protein day-in-day-out, then you'll slip into a negative nitrogen balance every time you let your protein intake drop for a few hours.  You're not getting anything out of it, but you're now forcing yourself to habitually need a high protein intake or you'll go catabolic.  Another significant downside is that high protein intakes have been shown to lower testosterone levels - obviously something of critical importance to avoid for a natural bodybuilder.

Protein IntakeBut just as the body needs time to adapt to a sudden dramatic increase in calories, protein intake is the same.  Your body won't become a raging protein-burning furnace just because you had a high protein meal.  If so, a steak would set you off.  Similarly, if you go a day or so with low protein intake, your body won't lose all its muscle - luckily the liver acts as a buffer, has a higher protein turnover rate, and absorbs a portion of daily protein intake fluctuations.

At the same time, studies into the phenomenon of "catch-up growth" in underfed animals suggest that the enzymes responsible for increased protein oxidation seem to take two-to-three days of high protein intake in order to be up regulated to the point where they catch up with the increased protein.  Until that time the increased amino acid levels in the blood will promote muscle protein anabolism.  During such periods it has been shown that protein intakes as high as 3.3 g/kg-bw/day (also stated as 1.5 g/lb-bw/day  or 1.76 g/lb-lbm/day) can promote maximum growth.  This has been suggested as one of the factors responsible for the rapid increase of lean body mass in the early stages of protein and calorie over-feeding during "catch-up growth".  After three days, however, the body simply gets better at eliminating the extra protein to the point where you're no farther ahead.

Similarly, if you suddenly start consuming less protein, it will take several days for the urea-cycle enzymes to be down-regulated and the body to lower its rate of protein degradation.  The body will also get more efficient at "recycling" amino acids by salvaging them from the urea cycle.  Before that happens, protein synthesis will be lowered in the muscle, while degradation continues at its normal pace - you'll won't grow and you'll probably atrophy somewhat.  When the urea-cycle and urea-salvage pathways get up to speed, however, the situation will normalize as the body becomes more efficient at how it handles its amino acid reserves.

As was discussed earlier, the muscles are only in an anabolic state for 36-48 hours following training (incidentally, muscle protein synthesis appears to peak at about 24 hours after the training session).  So, accounting for digestion transit times, I recommend that bodybuilders consume most of their dietary protein in the several hours before training to roughly 22 hours afterwards.  Between 36-48 hours after training a trainee doesn't need any higher protein intake than a sedentary individual - which is about 0.80 g/kg-bw/day or roughly 0.43 g/lb-lbm/day.

My advice for natural bodybuilders is to either keep protein intake fixed at roughly 1 g/lb-lbm/day or, if they wish to take advantage of any potential growth benefits of short-term protein over-feeding, take in up to 1.76 g/lb-lbm/day in the 2 hours before and 22 hours after heavy training sessions. The day after that, protein intake should be lowered back down to 1 g/lb-lbm/day.  To avoid adaptation to habitually high protein intakes, I then recommend at least one day of lowered protein intake of roughly 0.43 g/lb-lbm/day at least 48 hours after a heavy training session.

This type of protein cycling is most practical on full body routines.  For instance, if you train Monday/Wednesday/Friday, with Monday heavy, Wednesday light and Friday medium you could eat high protein on Monday (1.76 g/lb-lbm/day starting about 2 hours before the heavy workout and continuing for the next 24 hours), then on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday you'd go back to taking in 0.96~1.0 g/lb-lbm/day.  On Friday (medium day) you'd up it to 1.76 g/lb-lbm/day again (similar to Monday).  On Saturday and Sunday, in order to stave off adaptation to high protein intakes during the week, you'd lower protein intake to 0.43 g/lb-lbm/day - this could also serve as carb-up days for Monday's heavy workout and the rest of the week.

At the more advanced stages, when training is arranged as several heavy days in a row, followed by several lighter days to allow for nervous system recuperation, then protein cycles could become deeper, with up to three days of high protein intake followed by three days of lowered intake.

This is all assuming that calorie intake is sufficient.  When calories go down, protein requirements go up.  But there is very little scientific research available concerning protein requirements of bodybuilders in calorie deficits.  In any case, experience and common sense would have to be the discriminating factor - as it should be in all training and nutrition related considerations.

I've probably made it sound overly complicated above, but it really doesn't have to be - the simplified version is that your body isn't stupid, it likes to preserve homeostasis, and it needs more protein in the day or so following heavy training.  Eat more protein after you train hard and then eat less around the days that you're not training heavy so your body doesn't adapt to constantly excessively high protein levels.

[Sergio]

Part 3:

 
Muscle and Strength: Switching gears...you've written for Hardgainer magazine. Do you feel hardgainers exist? And what are the key mistakes that naturals make that lead them down the path to zero gains? I see so many young lifters on the Internet who can't seem to make any gains. Is this merely a patience issue, or is there more to it then that?

Casey Butt: There is clearly a continuum of trainees' abilities to make gains.  It doesn't take much observation in the gym to realize that some people gain quickly and relatively easily while others' gains are painfully slow or even non-existent.  And I've been around the "scene" long enough to realize it can't simply be explained by some people following more effective training routines, diets, taking the right supplements, etc.  The fact is, were all these things optimized for each individual there would still be a huge difference between the extremes of how people's bodies respond to training.

There are a myriad of factors influencing how much and how quickly a person can build muscle, strength and power.  Top of the list are things such as natural anabolic hormone levels such as testosterone, GH, IGF-1, cortisol, insulin, glucagon, etc.  Also, how these are affected in each individual by training and nutrition plays a huge factor.  The average male testosterone level varies from 3 to 10 ng/ml.  It is completely out of touch with reality for a person, no matter how well-intentioned, to believe that someone whose average daily testosterone level is 3 ng/ml will make gains as quickly, or have the potential to achieve an equal level of muscle mass, as someone whose average daily testosterone level is 10 ng/ml.  A given amount of testosterone will only allow the development and maintenance of a certain amount of muscle mass and that's that.  If this were not true, then steroid use wouldn't result in a sudden jump in muscle mass for natural trainees who've already maxed out their natural potentials - yet we see this all the time when advanced naturals finally give in and take the plunge into anabolic drug use.  Similarly, drug-using bodybuilders, once they reach the limit of muscle mass allowed by their existing drug schedule, won't get any bigger unless they increase the amount of steroids they take or switch to steroids that are more anabolic in nature.

Some people's body chemistries respond to food intake by building more muscle than others.  Some people quickly get fat when they overeat, others just get more energetic and their body temperature increases to burn off the excess calories.  I've known natural bodybuilders who can eat like horses and not gain fat, they just keep getting stronger and more muscular.  Me, on the other hand, can get fat just watching them eat.  How the body responds to meals with regards to insulin, glucagon, growth hormone, thyroid hormones (notably T3 and T4), testosterone, etc, all factor heavily into whether a person is going to build comparatively more muscle or more fat.  Of course, general biochemistry and physiology applies to everyone, and general guidelines apply, but there is huge variation between people's responses to food intake even on identical programs.

So far these are all hormonal factors - structural considerations bear heavily as well.  Large, robust-jointed people have a huge advantage over small, more fragile-jointed types.  How much training stress can be imposed on a muscle is directly related to how robust it's connective tissues (tendons) are and how secure the joint is across which it acts.  Sensory organs in the tendons and joint capsules relay information back to the central nervous system regarding connective tissue tension and joint stability.  The moment either of these is compromised the nervous system will limit the contracting force of the muscles involved.

Larger, more robust-jointed trainees have a distinct advantage over smaller-jointed trainees in that their sturdy structures give them the capacity to lift more weight and deliver greater training stimuli to the muscles each session.  Loads that these people can easily tolerate will be unliftable by smaller-jointed people, not necessarily because of the strength of the muscles themselves, but because their nervous systems and joint structures simply will not allow the weight to be lifted.  For this reason, smaller-jointed people typically cannot keep up to their larger-boned counterparts on free-weight compound movements, but will often display impressive strength on isolation movements that impose less joint capsule deformation.  For instance, experienced small-boned trainees are usually comparatively weak on pressing movements but may equal the larger-structured guys' strength on flyes and lateral raises - that's usually a sign of joint/connective tissue/nervous system inhibition rather than muscle weakness.

Food for Muscle GrowthAsk yourself this:  When is the last time you saw a small-boned elite-level Powerlifting, Olympic Weightlifting or natural Bodybuilding champion?  It is becoming increasing rare in natural bodybuilding, particularly now that drug-free Bodybuilding seems to be gaining popularity and the competition is getting higher, but it practically never happens in strength sports.

Occasionally a trainee comes along who seems to have all the gifts - high natural anabolic hormone levels, excellent hormonal response to training and eating, a robust structure that allows heavy loads to be lifted and great stress to be delivered to the working muscles.  Given desire and diligence, these are the trainees who go on to be legends of their sports.  In bodybuilding, examples which always come to mind are the old-timers Reg Park and John Grimek.  Both were robust-jointed, trained extremely heavily and had metabolisms that allowed them to assimilate incredible amounts of nutrition and grow from their training (in reality both heavy training and hearty eating must go together to allow each other to take place).  Reg's wife Mareon told of him eating six bowls of borshch on their first date - that was the appetizer.  John Grimek's wife said there was no way of filling him up yet his waist remained small and "trim".  Park's waist, despite his 230 pound off-season bodyweight, never went above 33".  If many other people tried eating like that they'd expand like balloons - particularly the fragile jointed types who have difficulty stimulating the muscles without frying the nervous system.  Men like Park and Grimek were supremely gifted in that their bodies well tolerated heavy, hard training and the growth stimulus delivered by that was satisfied by their heavy food intakes.

Such gifted individuals are usually not difficult to spot, even as beginners.  I've seen photos of four-time Mr. Natural Universe Mike O'Hearn when he was just 15 years old and even at that age he already had a physique superior to many experienced drug-free trainees.

So my answer has to be, "Yes, there is such thing as a hardgainer."  But more than that there is a vast continuum of how people respond to training and eating.  For hardgainers to finally stop looking and lifting like hardgainers they have to assess their own situations and adapt their training accordingly - with the knowledge that fragile joints, heavy loading and nervous system overtraining are all intertwined and can't be ignored as so many training "authorities" seem to do.

As for the second part of the question, I'd have to say that the number one mistake naturals make is one of priorities.  What the vast majority of natural bodybuilders want most is to get bigger, yet they fail to understand the over-riding necessity of getting progressively stronger, for reps, on the major free-weight compound exercises in order to achieve that goal ...and failing to give that fundamental tenet its proper magnitude is what leads to 90% of the other common mistakes most trainees make.

In light of what I said above about small-boned trainees' joint structures not accommodating the use of heavy weights on the free-weight compound movements it might be easy to conclude that these types should train mostly on isolation movements, but this is not the case either.  Even though small-boned trainees tend to overtrain more easily on the compound movements (especially when training to failure with heavy weights), for maximum training stimulus all natural trainees simply must have maximum muscle fiber loading across the mid-range of the fibers range of contraction.  This is where the potential for greatest growth stimulus lies and what the old-timers referred to as training the "belly" of the muscle.  The basic compound exercises typically apply maximum loading across this range.

What most trainees reactively do when their strength gains on the major exercises eventually come to a halt is start throwing in additional isolation work in an effort to spur further growth - but all this is usually doing is giving an appeasing distraction that fools trainees into thinking they're progressing, when in reality they are just as stagnant as they ever were.  It's simply smoke and mirrors.  Big loads are necessary to stress the fibers at the points of maximum cross-bridge overlap and to cause the local and systemic release of anabolic hormones such as prostaglandins, GH, IGF-1 and testosterone.  Although it should just be common sense, it needs to be pointed out to many people that little weights and isolation exercises do not build big muscles.

The "secret" is to learn to continue to make strength progress on the basic exercises, for reps, at the advanced stages.  Even for large-boned trainees this is a task, but for the small-boned it is especially challenging.  In any case, the more experienced a trainee gets the more variety he needs in terms of sets, reps, training intensity (both in terms of weight and how close one trains to failure) and even exercise selection to keep training performances improving - but it is CRUCIAL that the experienced trainee masters this if he/she wants to make further progress.

John Grimek

What most naturals need to do is stop concerning themselves with every new flashy training theory that comes along and just devote themselves to simply getting stronger for reps on a few basic exercises for each major body part - even to the point of ignoring practically everything else and allowing no distractions from that goal.  And if muscle proportion and balance is a priority (which it really always should be) the solution almost always lies in the selection of the proper free-weight compound exercises, not more "exotic" isolation work.

Now, I have to seemingly contradict myself and say that isolation work does have a place in an advanced trainee's schedule - particularly for competitive athletes addressing weak points or any trainee who may be rehabilitating an injury or trying to prevent one.  But my point above is that for anyone trying to boost overall muscle mass, strength gains on the basics are the route to success.

Muscle and Strength: You just referenced flashy training routines. Speaking of "flashy," Recently, I've noticed a spike in outrageous supplement claims. We're also seeing two major bodybuilding websites promote diets that rely heavily on supplements as food. What is taking place in the industry? And do you feel it's business as usual?

Casey Butt: Anytime there's a population desperate for something that isn't easy to achieve, and there's an unregulated industry allowed to profit from the situation, it isn't difficult to predict what's going to happen.

The basic premise the supplement industry thrives on is the concept that, through modern science, products can be made that are more effective than food for building muscle and strength.  This probably started in the bodybuilding community with Irvin Johnson's protein powders in the early 1950s.  At that time Johnson (who later changed his name to Rheo H. Blair) was using a mixture of essentially casein, milk powder and whole egg powder to produce what was probably one of the best protein powders ever made, including the mega-hyped powders of today.  Shortly after that the magazine publishers realized that it was much more profitable to sell supplements than barbell sets because supplements must be re-purchased on a regular basis whereas a barbell set is a one-time deal.  There's a famous story of fitness crusader Paul Bragg telling York chief Bob Hoffman, who up to that point was reluctant to sell supplements, that once he realized the money that could roll in from supplement sales he'd quickly change his mind about selling them.  Shortly after, York switched its advertising focus from barbell sets to supplements and the entire industry hasn't looked back since.

By the 1960s all the major magazines owned supplement companies and were selling supplements.  This corresponded with a journalistic shift in the magazines from focusing on training and nutrition, to focusing on training and supplements ...and increasingly often just on supplements.  The FDA was watching at the time, however, and didn't let the supplement advertisers have free reign as they do nowadays.  In fact, Peary Rader, the original publisher of Iron Man magazine, stopped selling his own supplement line because he said it wasn't worth the hassle from the FDA watchdogs.

The supplement industry was quite healthy in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but I think at that time they had little credibility because they hadn't produced anything effective in 25 or 30 years since the introduction of protein powder and desiccated liver tablets.  Carnosine, l-carnitine, boron, dibencozide, beta ecdysterone, smilax, chromium, etc, were are popular in those days, but none of them really did anything significant so they weren't capable of generating much public attention.   I think that all changed with the introduction of ephedrine and creatine monohydrate in the early 1990s.  Those were two supplements that had noticeable effects - ephedrine would have you bouncing off the walls and killed your appetite and most people got (still get) a few percent strength-endurance increase with creatine.  The magazines of the day were still trying to imply that creatine directly built muscle though, rather than acknowledging that it allowed mild strength increases by replenishing ATP stores in muscle and was not "anabolic" per se.

Steve Reeves Natural BodybuilderI think it was shortly after that when manufacturers really got an idea of the potential money involved and the supplement marketing claims started getter bolder, falser and more ridiculous.  By the late 1990s one company was outrightly claiming that their product was as anabolic as a cycle of deca-durabolin.  In fact, they claimed a typical gain from their product would be 17 pounds of muscle in 8 weeks - quite impressive considering the "active" ingredient was simply a combination of zinc, magnesium and vitamin B6.

By the late 1990s I thought it would all come to a boil and there would be a backlash against such blatant advertising lies, but I was woefully wrong on that count.  The situation has gotten unbelievably worse.  It's to the point now were advertisers can make any ridiculous claim they like with no repercussions whatsoever.  Supplements today represent a 20+ billion dollar a year industry in the U.S. alone.  One bodybuilding supplement website recently claimed that their new, yet unreleased, supplement and training "protocol" put 27 pounds of muscle on an already experienced lifter and increased his overhead press to 375 for 5 rest-paused reps.  Only the most inexperienced and naive person would believe such preposterous nonsense.

For one, the guy was claiming to be roughly the same height, weight and body fat percentage that Mike Mentzer competed at in the late 1970s - that's five pounds heavier than Serge Nubret and at least ten pounds more that Larry Scott at his peak.  And not only were these guys anabolic steroid users, they were also some of the world's best in the sport.  In fact, no competitor of this guy's height stepped on the Mr. Olympia stage until the late 1980s carrying as much muscle as was being claimed of him ...and that was before he supposedly gained 27 more pounds of muscle.  Now he's bigger than Lee Haney was at his best ...without steroids of course ...it was all due to the new protein powder.  Oddly enough though, his pre-new-gains photos showed that, while displaying a good physique for a non-competitor, he wasn't carrying anywhere near the level of muscle mass as a Mike Mentzer, or Larry Scott, or...

The overhead pressing claim was perhaps even more ridiculous.  In 1969 Bill March shocked the Olympic Weightlifting community by performing a strict-form 390 lb overhead press at 224 pounds bodyweight.  Up to that point no lifter, so light, had lifted so much weight (and certainly without excessive lean-back).  In fact, even to this day March's lift stands as one of the all-time great feats of pure pressing strength (there have been much heavier presses but not under the 242+ lb weight class and not without form looseness such as driving with the legs and leaning back on the press, i.e. the "Russian Press").  Oh, and March was a dedicated Olympic Press specialist and on Dianabol for ten years before he reached that level.  Yet a popular supplement manufacturer would have us believe that their lifter, who once competed in Olympic Lifting and won no major or even minor titles, can press 375 x 5 with rest-pauses.  Even March couldn't have done that ...and he was one of history's best.

I think it's a sad, sad state of affairs when physical culture has degenerated into such a circus that crooks like this can influence young, impressionable trainees and take their money.  It's even worse considering that some of these kids are so deeply brainwashed and in awe of these phony heroes that even after they get ripped off they won't admit it because they want to be cool and one of the "in" crowd.  It's also a little sad because the person I spoke of above truly does seem to have an impressive knowledge of training, a good physique and a respectable level of strength.  He could be a positive role model, but instead the lure of the dollar and self-promoting BS appears to be too strong to resist.

As for manufacturers promoting diets that rely heavily on supplements as food, that's taken a little longer than I expected actually.  But I guess there had to be a certain level of tolerance amongst consumers before they pushed it that far.  Now some are saying that the routines they recommend won't work without their supplements and vice versa.  That's just setting up a safety net for themselves so when the program doesn't work they'll say you didn't train properly, or if the training doesn't work it's because you didn't take enough supplements ...you should buy more next time.

What's taking place in the industry is simply greed.  It has been there all along.  But like most things, a little is nice for awhile, but then a little doesn't do it and it needs to escalate.  Now it's to the point where, for some reason, the FDA has allowed things to spiral out of reason and the supplement manufacturers are making false claims and telling blatant lies in their ads.

For the record, there is no legal supplement that is any more "anabolic" than food.  No known legal substance can significantly alter the actions of the testosterone receptor or protein translation at the ribosome - period - only natural and chemically altered androgens can do that.  Likewise, you cannot trick your body into dramatically increasing testosterone levels by taking some herb found in some exotic corner of the world (where, by the way, the people are probably smaller and weaker than you despite having consumed said herb for centuries).  Next year there'll be a new rash of these supplements because the ones we have now won't live up to the hype and money will have to be made from something else - it's been going on that way for years.

Having said all that, let me also say that there are useful supplements - particularly the ones which provide the body with the building blocks it needs to grow and get stronger or to preserve muscle when on a diet.  The granddaddy of these are the various quality protein powders but others, such as some carbohydrate powders and creatine, deserve honorable mentions as well.  Bear in mind, though, that none of these will make your physique dreams come true ...only you can do that.

For hard training bodybuilders it is often difficult to take in enough protein, at the right times.  Good quality protein powders, such as those made from milk and egg ingredients can fill that gap.  Likewise, multi-vitamins/minerals and select vitamins and minerals act as nutritional "insurance" against deficiencies that can diminish the training response.  Some organ and glandular extracts can even have quite powerful physiological effects (such as desiccated thyroid or even liver).  But none of these will ever come even remotely close to putting 27 pounds of muscle on a person in 6 weeks - even Dianabol won't do that.  It is simply an advertising lie and, to be quite honest, is probably crossing the criminal line.

People need to stop putting their hopes in bogus supplements that are designed first and foremost to get their money.  I can't count how many times I've seen guys in the gym wimp out on a set of squats and put the bar back with good reps left in them (if they even do squats), yet those same guys will whip out a bottle of some useless, overpriced capsules of God-knows-what when their workout is finished and think they're accomplishing something.  Let me tell you, there isn't a supplement on Earth that's as anabolic as that one extra squat would have been had they been man enough to do it.  But they'll sit on the bench with their hopes in a little bottle of pills of ground up weeds from God-knows-where and not supported by a shred of peer reviewed scientific evidence.  These people need to wake up!

Drug Free Natural Bodybuilder

Drug-free physique success comes from hard work, proper nutrition and adequate rest - nothing else.  If trainees have those bases covered then, and only then, should they start considering the few extra percent that selected quality supplements might give them

Muscle and Strength: Is it possible to separate strength from mass? I know we've touched on this slightly. But so many young lifters put supplements and diet well above the importance of strength. Just how important is it for a natural to focus on getting stronger? Can you get big without getting strong as a natural?

Casey Butt: People always seem to confuse strength and mass gains and try to separate the two by comparing different people to each other.  For instance, the argument that bodybuilders are bigger than powerlifters, but not as strong, is often used to "prove" that strength and mass are not related and that you can get big without getting stronger.

However, that argument is terribly short-sighted and doesn't convey any knowledge of how the body responds to different training protocols at all.  For one, successful powerlifters tend to have certain mechanical advantages - leverages, robust joints, tendon insertion points, etc - that allow them to demonstrate a high level of strength.  Because of mechanical advantages two people can have muscles with exactly the same strength but one person would be able to lift more weight because of better leverages and more robust joint structures.  Therefore, you cannot compare two different individuals and draw conclusions about strength vs. muscle mass based on their performances.

Additionally, powerlifters train in a manner that maximizes their neuromuscular "skill" at performing the three powerlifts.  Not only is their technique optimized for strength demonstration (for instance, on the bench press - arching the back, holding the elbows in during the initial drive, flexing the lats at the bottom, lowering the bar to the lower pecs, etc), but they also train the nervous system to become better at generating high forces for short periods.  In other words, yes, you can appear to get stronger and actually get stronger by training expressly for that purpose.

The fact is that it isn't just the muscles that make you strong, it's also how the nervous system controls those muscles and your natural birth-given leverages.

Muscles adapt differently to different loading schemes.  If you perpetually do low reps, train to improve neuromuscular coordination and perfect lifting technique, then you will likely gain strength faster than muscle size.  That type of training is designed to preferentially increase maximum strength.  However, if you train with higher reps and a higher total volume (as determined by weights x reps x sets) then you will be training to increase muscle mass because that is the adaptive response the body has to such training.  Of course you will get stronger as well, because a bigger muscle is a stronger muscle, but also because of neuromuscular adaptations to a degree.

So, essentially, strength is composed of two trainable components - the muscles' capacity to generate force and the nervous system's ability to efficiently recruit the motor units of those muscles to lift weights.  You can train each aspect individually to degree, but you can never completely separate the two.  Strength athletes cannot lift maximal weights unless they have both of these qualities in sufficient quantities - strength is the product of both.

Bodybuilders focus on the first quality - muscular capacity.  It also happens that the biggest muscles are created not only by increasing absolute strength but also by increasing endurance in roughly the 5 to 15 rep range.  So bodybuilding training is, in essence, strength-endurance training.  But make no mistake, aside from the large increase in neuromuscular coordination that all beginners experience and the small continuing "improvements" that occur from there, the only way to continue to significantly increase strength-endurance - in other words the ability to lift weights for reps - is for the muscles to get bigger.  It is a simple physiological fact that cannot be disputed.  If you will notice, in my previous responses I was always careful to say that trainees must increase their "strength for reps", not simply their strength or their one-rep maximums.  This is why.

Bodybuilders who think they can go to the gym day-in-day-in and lift the same weights for the same reps (assuming they are performing sets of about 5 to 15 reps) and get bigger muscles are simply deluding themselves.  The only ways you can improve your strength in the 5-15 rep range is for the muscles to get bigger or for the nervous system to refine its recruitment patterns (which happens only to a small extent past the beginner stages while performing sets of 5-15 reps).  But perhaps more clearly and easily understood is the fact that if a person does not get stronger in the 5-15 rep range (assuming technique is unchanged) then he/she is not increasing muscle size.  Over the long term it is not possible for neuromuscular coordination to decrease while regularly performing an exercise, so if your strength-endurance is not increasing then it means only one thing - you are NOT growing.  It's as simple as that.

Trainees simply MUST increase the weights they can use for sets of approximately 5 to 15 reps in order for the muscles to get bigger.  Of course, it would be possible to focus on strength to a degree by performing lower reps and perfecting technique, but that is not applicable to the point at hand.  Muscles respond to work in the low-rep ranges by getting stronger through means other than great visible hypertrophy (although they will get bigger in response to this type of work also).  But muscles adapt to work in the 5-15 rep range primarily by getting bigger - this is the physiological response that improves their ability to do that type of work and it's why sets of 5-15 reps have traditionally been the bodybuilding mainstay.  Quite simply, if they aren't getting bigger they aren't adapting.

This is why I say it is crucial for natural bodybuilders to focus on strength increases for reps, though not specifically increases in their one-rep maximums (even though, again, the two are inter-related to a degree).  The most fundamental thing a natural can absorb into his consciousness that will put him on the road to success is, "I must get stronger for reps (5-15) on the basic exercises."  And each day in the gym he should ask himself, "Am I getting stronger?"  If the answer is "no" then he is simply wasting his time and living in a fantasy.

Of all the things in the bodybuilding world, the tendency to ignore this fundamental and all-governing fact (and the over-hyping of ineffective supplements) amazes me the most.