Question for the personal trainers

[Slyder190]

When lifting natrally (off cycle I should say), do you believe that you should ever cycle intensity, as in not not going to failure, for any period of time? Just curious. Is it uncommon for any of you clients under 200 lbs to have to eat upwards of 4000 calories a day to put on size?

 

[Dooley]

If you're a hardgainer (skinny as hell), then yes.. you need to eat a shitload of calories.. lots of protein primarily. And I've never really thought about cycling intensity, but if you ARE a hardgainer.. seems to me that you want to be throwin around as much weight as you safely can. Stick with intensity to help put on that size.

 

[BigAndy69]

Yes, I think you should definetely back off the intensity. Decrease total volume, frequency of workouts.

I like to do my first lift to failure, and then just back off on the other exercises.

I think people who are tall and skinny need CARBS. They focus so much on protein, but they need a much higher carb intake.

From my experience, a natural will not see any benefits from eating over 1.25g of protein per lb of bw.

A client and good friend of mine use to weigh about 155 lbs at 6'1.(up from 135 after 6 months of training) He was ripped with a good six pack. After another 6 months he was still stuck at 155lbs despite eating well over 350g of protein a day. When I analysed what he ate, I realised that he was lucky to get 250g of carbs a day. We backed off the protein to roughly 200g a day, from food only, and increased carbs to 600g.

4 months later, he was 185 still with a six pack. Today he's roughly 195lbs, still natural and he still consumes only 200g of protein a day.

 

[Dooley]

well yeah dude.. a 155 pound guy doesn't really need 300 grams of protein a day. And you would pretty much assume that since he's skinny as hell that he'd be getting enough carbs.. he'd have no reason to cut them out. Tons of calories, about 1.5 grams of protein per lb of BW, and some hard lifting will pretty much jack any hardgainer up over time. Not to knock you or anything bro.. I think my suggestion earlier just came out wrong or somethin. But I don't see why decreasing intensity is necessarily a good idea. In order to grow, one must recruit as many muscle fibers as possible, break those fibers down through lifting, and then use nourishment to build them back up bigger and stronger. Decreasing intensity (reps and sets) would simply recruit fewer fibers, and give more of a calorie burning effect than a growth stimulus. And please.. if I'm incorrect in this at all.. I hope someone would correct me.

 

[Mike P.T.]

When lifting natrally (off cycle I should say), do you believe that you should ever cycle intensity, as in not not going to failure, for any period of time? Just curious. Is it uncommon for any of you clients under 200 lbs to have to eat upwards of 4000 calories a day to put on size?

well i believe that immediately when coming "off" a cycle even if clomid is used post cycle that you should back off a bit from training intenstity until your hormone levels are completely back to normal. without the assistance of the external hormones recovery is slowed down so u have to take this into consideration. instead of lowering intensity though u could still train with high intenstiy but just not do as many sets and exercises. also more rest days should help your overall system to rcuperate faster. as for your second question, no it is not uncommon for them to eat that many calories to put on weight. extreme hardgainers/ectomorphs i recommend to eat a minimum of 1g to 1.5 grams of protein per pound of bw as a genaral rule while at the same time jacking up there carbs as well as there fat intake. yes, thats right, upping there fat intake as well. any other questions bro feel free to pm me as im sure i left out some things. there just so much to cover on this whole aspect and you have to take into consideration that every individual is different and reacts differently.

 

[plow-horse]

If you are not gaining weight then add calories on or off AS.
As for cycling intensity you should cycle your training meaning sets, reps and types and or order of exercise. See if you can finds some articles by DR. Hatfield (ISSA) or Charles Poliquin on this. Hope this helps.

 

[GenetiKing]

I think people who are tall and skinny need CARBS. They focus so much on protein, but they need a much higher carb intake.

Agreed.

Read some of Chris Aceto's stuff on bulking. Carbs are the key.