Start
I’ve been a member for about a year focussing on execution and cleaning up my diet and quitting the drink. Now I’m at a place where I’m ready to make some serious physical changes through your advice. I’m 40 in 3 months and told my wife and girls that I’d be in the best shape I’ve been in a while by that time.. Im 86kg at around 20%ish bf and my question is, can I run your current split (which really suits the body parts I’m trying to bring up) at a calorie deficit and get some good results? Or would you recommend a different split?

6 min 31 sec
I am in process of cutting body fat for abs to show and when I feel my body fat dropping low enough I want to start addin size by going in a surplus , what is the best way to approach this? Reverse diet? And do you still carb cycle during a bulk?

8 min 50 sec
Wanna to know about post workout meal shall I go for a protein shake or a complete meal and after how many hours later can I have protein shake iam little bit confused regarding dis plz help me out thank you

11 min 45 sec
Question regarding the diet plan. I wake up at 4 and go to the gym at 430-445 and then head to work for 630. What should I be eating before the gym in the morning?

14 min 58 sec
For a natural bodybuilder what’s your thought process on doing a “powerlifting” programming for size before my next bodybuilding show in October? Would it be worth the time or should I stick to hypertrophy?

16 min 13 sec
A few questions regarding dips / dip machines. For tricep emphasis, Should you limit your Rom to stop at the point on the eccentric where you start to feel your pecs / delts get more of a stretch than your tris (even if you could comfortably go lower)?
For a dip machine would you ideally want the profile to be the same as a free weight dip, so lighter at the bottom, heavier up top?
Does the HS plate loaded dip already do so? It looks to me like the weight is moving further away from the axis of rotation as I complete a rep, but doesn’t feel that way.
So do you think doubling a band on it so it is completely slack at the bottom, creating a large discrepancy in load between bottom and top would be a good option?

Also, to emphasise the triceps, would you place your hands further back or forward (I can comfortably slide them all the way back and stay fairly upright because I’ve got long monkey arms).

18 min 30 sec
In your opinion, would it be better for every chest day to have a fly motion? I’m able to train and recover from 3 chest workouts per week. Thinking of lowering the volume and dropping flyes on one of them though.. Or would I be missing out on something if I chest day only had presses?

19 min 50 sec
Just going through some of your older chest workouts, there was a time in mid 2017 where you were doing a ton more volume than you seem to advocate now? 4-6 sets per exercise, for multiple exercises and all to failure.
What was the reason for that and is the reason you don’t do it anymore because your opinion on volume needed has shifted?

22 min 36 sec
#1 – What is your opinion of cyclical bulking – is this a more beneficial approach then a regular 10% surplus for long periods.

#2- Would you advise a rotation method through your push/pull/legs listed workouts OVER driving one into the ground.

Eg Wk 1 – Push 1, pull 1, legs 1, day off, push 2, pull 2, legs 2, (with 1 and 2 having slightly different goals eg pull 1 a more lat emphasis and pull 2 a more thickness emphasis etc etc)

25 min 20 sec
I have a doubt, I have 6 months taking supplements, whey protein, bcaa, glutamine, and I’m finished the boats, the question is, should I stop taking supplements to detoxify my body?

26 min 23 sec
I’m interested in competing and I want to really understand your concepts. Why do you recommend taking volume higher when cutting? Yes, it makes fat loss easier, but also makes muscle retention harder, because volume is a big contributor to fatigue, especially when training hard. Further in prep we should be glycogen depleted and unable to perform as well as in a bulk. Can you please explain how your approach things? Cheers!

27 min 35 sec
What are your thoughts and experience with the Braverman Test to estimate neurotransmitter dominance for program design and lifestyle recommendations for clients (if you have used it for that.) You having studied under Poliquin, I was wondering if that’s something you dabbled with.

29 min 45 sec
Is it normal when training like this for some exercises to go up and down in reps? For example, it only seems to happen with my pressing movements (long arms, never been great at pressing) say one session I use 40kg DB’s for 8 the next session I may get 7 and then next get 8 etc. Legs and pulling don’t seem to be an issue so may be down to mechanics and/or volume but appreciate your take on this ??

33 min 54 sec
If your in a diet phase (cutting), do you do the same workout split (same reps, sets etc) as your off season? is it only the macros that change? is there a section that shows the difference on your app?

35 min 10 sec
In your supplement video you talked about taking zinc but you take mega dosage. The upper tolerable limit is about 45mg but you take 50 to 150mg. Is this a tactic for a short while or are you taking this much year round and if so won’t there be zinc toxicity. I have also heard of mega dosing zinc up to 250mg to increase free testosterone.

36 min 00 sec
Do your training protocols changes for men’s physique vs bodybuilding?

42 min 20 sec
While deload phase, can we train at 60-70% max and not upto failure?

43 min 13 sec
Been a member for a little over a year and have really been able to dial training and diet in, but my recovery is absolute dog shit. So much so that I’m taking a lot of consecutive rest days (about 3) to keep up with things.

I’m lucky to get 6 hours of sleep a night and typically wake every 2 hours or so, so I never really achieve deep restful sleep. Any recommendations on supplements, or little things that work for you, that you can recommend?

46 min 50 sec
When I did your diet calculator, I was somewhat surprised that it recommended as high as 250g of protein when I’m only 165 pounds. This along with the high fat and somewhat low carb prescription seemed to make it reminiscent of a paleo diet. Can you speak a little bit more to why you use this diet approach and what kind of responses you’ve seen in people?

Start
do you drink any tea? What kind of tea would be good for bodybuilders? Trough a day when i am in work i dont need coffein and trying to avoid green tea and i am looking to some tea to calm down my nervous system. Can you recommend something?

1 min 32 sec
I’m a 52-year-old post menopausal woman. Currently dieting for a competition in mid June (and have been since January – started then to give myself plenty of time). Previously I would maintain my weight at 2,000 calories a day and about an hour of resistance training a day. When it came time for competition prep in the past, I would go down to about 1,500 and just add in a few cardio sessions a week and maybe go down to about 1,350 near the very end. This time I find that I am actually maintaining at 1,500 calories a day and have cut down to 1,350 calories a day and cardio for 20 minutes almost every day and the weight is coming off very S-L-O-W-L-Y – like half a pound a week if that. I still have 12 weeks to go and need to lose 15 pounds. Should I drop to 1,200 calories a day, which is lower than what my BMR SHOULD be, or add more cardio, or both? Planning on reverse dieting after this to try to ramp my metabolism back up.

3 min 57 sec
I’m a big fan of your “best exercises for this muscle group” video series on YouTube. Could you provide us with a similar series? Maybe a top 2 for each muscle group, one for loading in a shortened position, and one for loading in a lengthened position?

5 min 51 sec
I suffer with the typical “bodybuilder” problems in terms of wanting to be a big as humanly possible, while also wanting to be as lean as humanly possible. What do you think of a 6-week bulk at +10%, followed by a 4 week strength program at maintenance kCals, then followed by a 6-week cut at -10%? Would it be contradictory? Would I just be countering myself over time?

11 min 30 sec
I have a question about full body works vs split can you explain the difference in the 2.

30 min 42 sec
This is a follow up to your answer about whether training to failure is appropriate for everyone. I should have used my words more carefully, I know you don’t say that everyone has to train to failure always. And I understand that training to failure would be appropriate when life circumstances, diet, recovery, stress, and hormonal balance are where they should be. Maybe with what I have going on training to failure isn’t appropriate for me at this time. A question that you didn’t get to answer last time was:
If someone has elected to avoid training to complete failure, would this somewhat defeat the purpose of using accommodating resistance curves??

33 min 07 sec
6 workout planer just give push, pull, legs, what about some powerbulding routines? that will be AWESOME!!!

48 min 33 sec
i had a question about volume, when i go for higher volume, I’m able to sleep better and when I’m going for lower volume, my sleep is not deep is. There any connection?

50 min 12 sec
new to the site and searching around at a good pace, but definitely haven’t covered the whole thing so i apologize profusely if this has been covered previously! when you are really close to contest and presumably in a heavy calorie deficit and at a super low bodyfat, do you recommend any changes in volume or still heavy weight for 2 sets of 5/6-10/12? i know you log and track the main output movements and try to progress them, in those final workouts are you still pushing for rep/tempo/form/weight pr’s or picking a set # and just going for stimulus?

Start
When I increase volume on legs I’m generally sore for the next 4-5 days. When I reduce volume (with intensity the same) I’m good to go 3 days later. In your opinion is it better to reduce volume so I can train legs twice a week or keep blasting the legs once a week. It’s my best body part if that helps. Current split is chest (lagging), pull, push, legs, push, pull, off. Repeat

5 min 31 sec
Also my gym has a leg extension where you can adjust it to have more resistance at different points in the motion. Would you recommend more resistance at a certain spot in the motion?

6 min 56 sec
Last one – you posted a pronation, hammer with straps and supination curls. You only curled to 90 degrees. Was this because you were focusing on a specific area of the bicep?

8 min 22 sec
How do you get through a bad relationship with food? I overeat, stress eat, crave sugar constantly. I try to chew gum, up my water, pop in sunflower seeds. It’s something I hide. I wait til my husband is gone and snack. I wait til the baby is asleep and snack. Then sets in guilt. I don’t know what to do. I use to do figure and followed diet no problem. Now I struggle to stay away from constant eating. Just don’t know what to do.

19 min 32 sec
Should you aim to progress weights and form while in a caloric deficit?

21 min 34 sec
You talk not taking any anti-inflammatories 4 hour close to training.

but it does matters when is a ‘cutting’ or ‘bulking’ phase?

What about taking any anti-inflammatories 4 hour close to training for strength programs??

Should i or should i not and why??

23 min 28 sec
The gym I go to have awfully built seated and lying hamstring curl machines. Mainly the lying leg curl, I feel I can still get some work done on the seated curl but the machine doesn’t allow me to fully lengthen my hamstrings, it basically stops with my legs still having a bend in them. So my question is, what would be some good substitutes to train my hamstrings in the short and lengthened range via knee flexion? I’ve been doing Swiss ball hamstring curls for short but I feel like stability is a factor, then I’ve been doing Nordic hamstring curls for the lengthened range playing with the tempo

26 min 29 sec
I have a question about training while sick (i.e.cold). During a cold, I feel like my strength is there during my workouts but I’m lagging a bit through the metabolic portion of the workout. In your opinion, is this ok? Or should I have taken an extra day or two off to recover from the cold? Thanks

36 min 56 sec
My current position was a ‘perma bulk’ attitude that I’ve had for the last 2 years and I’ve risen to probably 16-17%. My current plan is to cut until about 10% body fat to make my body sensitive again to training and insulin. What would your advice be on where to go from there? Think a lot of people get caught up bulking like me and maybe aren’t aware (just like I wasn’t) the need to bring things back down to keep progress going. Just wondered how you would approach volume once getting to the point of 10% in order to put on as much muscle as possible. Understand you can’t give specifics in terms of how many sets. But wondered if there’s any concepts you would apply in terms of volume?

40 min 52 sec
realised biceps quite wide but peak low. all genetic? or can I try to stimulate growth with certain exercises to target long or short head to keep improve peak?

43 min 22 sec
I have a tendency to cramp in my hamstrings following isolations such as leg curl. no other muscle group I have does that. reasons? mitigating actions?

Start
I’m probably 16% body fat at 184 lbs( 84kg)
I’ve been training more consistently but my diet a little inconsistent. Last year I cut to 10% and found myself too small at 77 kg. What would your advice be to someone like me who has no intention to compete. Cut down and try to build staying relatively lean or control calories with adequate protein intake expecting yourself to lean out as you build muscle?

7 min 30 sec
Thoughts on the Maximum Advantage Grips (MAG) for back training? Recently got the opportunity to try one of their grips and the contractions were simply on point. My current gym has the usual handles and attachments, however, they don’t come close at all in “feel” during contractions.

Would getting better contact and feel with the muscles involved using a certain grip in an e.g. lat-targetted row make a substantial difference in output as opposed to using conventional cable attachments with 25% less muscle “feel”?

Not sure if I can justify the price…

9 min 02 sec
What’s your opinion on squatting with weightlifting shoes instead of going barefoot, or wearing flat shoes, and using a wedge?

Btw, what angle would you recommend for the wedge?

11 min 23 sec
Few weeks ago I had My first contest. I was really shredded but missed the mass. Sow I would like to bulk clean for the next 3 months and build some mass on my upper body. What do you advise me with my diet? More than 10% mass that the app said or just doing what there is written? I put my contest pictures in the app as well. Let me know what you think. Dec will be the next contest.

13 min 45 sec
I’ve been working pretty hard to gain weight for the last 6 months. doing well and gaining a lot of muscle (up about 30lbs). My lower chest has always been an easy muscle for me to grow, but for some reason my upper chest is still lagging. I’m also not getting the tight gap between the right and left. Any suggestions?

16 min 30 sec
Is there a glitch in the 6 week program builder? No matter what variables I choose it gives me push/pull/legs/weak body part split. This would be fine except there seems to be a pretty limited number of options categorized for the push & pull days so I end up constantly repeating the same workouts and never doing a lot of the ones you’ve posted, both older and new.

20 min 05 sec
My question is about exercise order. I always “feel” my second exercise a lot more than my first. By feel I mean harder/deeper contractions, more mind muscle connection, etc.. This is especially true of my push and pull days, even when incorporating activations and plenty of warmup sets. With that, should I put an exercise I’m trying to emphasize second in my workout? For example, I want to improve my upper chest, should I do an incline movement after I an exercise of flat or decline?
On paper it makes more sense to put your priority movement first but anecdotally I’m curious if the opposite is true for me.

23 min 05 sec
I wanna know your thoughts about using a belt when performing squats and deadlift. Can it help with bracing? Thank you

26 min 30 sec
I developed muscle imbalances due to injuries and poor lifting technique while doing CrossFit (heavily based on compound exercises when I started with practically no unilateral accessory work) which has resulted in the muscles on my left side being slightly larger and stronger than the muscles on my right side. For example my left arm is 15″ and my right arm is 14 3/4″ but I have noticed the size difference in my chest and legs as well.

What would you recommend to fix the size difference

28 min 50 sec
if quicker results weren’t your priority, could you just only bulking and then recomping back to a lower body fat % (repeat) – no cutting.
And if so how would you best apply this?

30 min 41 sec
What would you suggest for Powerlifters to get the most out of this site? Would you still advise to go to the gym as frequent as possible (of course with much lower volume), would you suggest any metabolic work at the end at all? Less than 10 sets a day? Would you suggest to keep doing a push pull legs or maybe a upper lower split? Anything specific for squat bench or deadlift? Anything would be a great help, thanks.

32 min 24 sec
is there a video of how to set up the foam roller fly exercise and what kind of foam roller do you use?

33 min 05 sec
my Weakest muscle group is chest. I’ve got monkey arms so I feel like it’s hard to actually target that muscle. I feel my triceps doing most of the work on chest day. Any way I can better target my pecs?

34 min 02 sec
Have implemented many new techniques. Curious as to your views on timing and type of cardio you feel is best…after lifting, own day, steady state, HIIT, etc. Thanks and Metal On! Rich

35 min 30 sec
Could you please touch on differences between AMPK lactic, oxidative stress and systemic metabolic stimuli and how you would apply them individually within your training

39 min 40 sec
I saw your video about what sups do you take and my question is: for post-training sups (glycine, taurine, L-theanine, magnesium) can I take them with a meal ex: protein shake and cereals or would it impact the absorption? I also want to thank you for all the content you put on there, it is helping me a lot with my clients.

Start
There is also plenty of Ben Pakulski (mostly mi40) videos which are mostly from 2-3-4 years ago .

Wanted to know how much of this stuff is relevant , perhaps there are something that you disagree with Ben nowadays ?

also wanted to ask if you guys are still in touch , since your approaches seem very alike

2 min 00 sec
Why do you keep your thumb to the same side as your fingers on dumbbells when performing pushing movements? Opposed to wrapping the thumb around the dumbbell

3 min 20 sec
I know this is probably not something you can answer, but still gonna give it a shot.

When I do the quad ‘activations’ (the bent knee flexing and extending) before squats, I sometimes get pain in my lower back, no load, just contractions.

Any ideas what might be causing it?

6 min 03 sec
I do a couple of early morning workouts. I get out of bed and go straight to my garage to workout. I will take a pre workout fist, but start training right away so its not like I wait for it to kick in or anything. I drink BCAA during the workout. Do you recommend fasted workouts like this? Or what would you recommend. Post workout I have a whey protein and a good breakfast.

9 min 50 sec
What do you think about the MAG grip handle for lat pulldown? I just started using it in a new gym that has it and it seems to allow for better lat contraction.

10 min 56 sec
When rotating movements such as hacks for front squats to give my knees a break from that fixed plain of motion , I lose a lot of stability and thus have to use much lighter weights, should I worry About this? And if so how would you go about keeping adequate stimulus on the quads?

12 min 41 sec
I have a back injury that prevents me from doing any kind of squat or deadlift. I can do leg press and machines. what would be an optimal way to set up a leg day for quad growth and another for glute growth?

15 min 20 sec
Can you please explain your attitude to sodium. How you manipulate sodium, when you increasing, decreasing. I mean not only for competing purposes, just for normal training all year around. What it does when it is too low or if it has to be increased in summer when we sweat more etc.

18 min 10 sec
I’ve some knee problems, the only painful exercise is the leg extension (top end range). What can i do to mimics this exercise ? Or just remove the leg ext and stay with the basics compound ? All the classic front squat, hack, leg press, walking lunges doesn’t hurt my knee at all.

19 min 03 sec
I seem to get nauseous every leg day. Trying to train as hard as possible, but that makes it a bit difficult. Any suggestions to combat the nausea?

22 min 26 sec
Just wounding why your not reverse banding your seated bb ohp?

24 min 02 sec
I have some questions regarding the Diet Planner on this site/app. It’s telling me to eat the following for a (balanced carb/fat) cutting phase:
Training day- 100g carbs, 12g fats, 251g protein.
Rest day- 66g carbs, 33g fats, 251g protein.

Does this sound right? That seems like an absurd amount of protein and an inadequate amount of fat. Isn’t a fat intake this low a concern for proper hormone function? How would someone even consume 251 grams of protein while limiting themselves to 12 grams of fat? Thats a ratio of roughly 21 grams of protein to a single gram of fat. Even lean poultry isn’t THAT lean. I realize that these are probably intended to be targets and not necessarily followed “to-the-T” but i guess i just wanted some validation or/or confirmation that this isn’t a glitch or something.

26 min 02 sec
I’ve been following your diet calc for 4 months and it’s worked perfectly. Before this, I would always get tired during training, I suspect due to insulin spikes and acute gluten intolerance. I’ve just updated my goals on the diet calc and it’s recommending eating carbs pre workout, is there a reason behind this? I was under the assumption that carbs pre workout will hinder neural drive during training.

29 min 40 sec
my question for you is to do with squatting and heels being elevated on the arch .

So my gym here has a unanimous suggestion box to improve the gym in my idea was to get some of those platforms for heel elevated squats, and their response was “just work on ankle mobility”. so obviously they didn’t know why I came up this suggestion. but would it be fine to use weightlifting shoes that I already have or plates for my heels to be elevated?

ideally I’d like to be without shoes on but I thought because the shoes already have elevation it’d be fine.

31 min 07 sec
Is there a glitch in the 6 week program builder? No matter what variables I choose it gives me push/pull/legs/weak body part split. This would be fine except there seems to be a pretty number of options categorized for the push & pull days so I end up constantly repeating the same workouts and never doing most of the ones you post.

33 min 27 sec
great site and thanks for all the great content. Am 43 and having trained for 25 years I’m learning a great deal from your site. Your last squat video at 35:00 you talk about a previous disc injury, which got my attention as I damaged L5/S1 pretty badly 10 years ago, training like a knucklehead under the tuteledge of a powerlifting coach who encouraged me and other lifters to keep lifting heavier and heavier even at the expense of good form. Ended up having a disc-ectomy at that level. Anyway, I went back to training and modified some of my lifts (front instead of back squats and sumo vs conventional) and for the most part am ok. Most of my pain these days tends to be thoracic/lumbar junction and my doc thinks it’s a QL related. I tend to feel this more when I’m doing trap bar deads as opposed to front squats. Sometimes I continue through a little discomfort and hope for the best, other times I make the call to pull the pin before (like you) I end up doing something bad and am unable to move without pain for a week. So question is: is taking the higher bar position on the trap bar a bad thing? I don’t seem to be able to get to the lower bars or pull conventional stance (unless it’s off a couple of 20kg plates) without rounding a little. A bit baffled how to approach this one.

one thing I would like to mention is the act that sometimes the pain (in my mid/lower back for example) doesn’t become apparent until AFTER the workout itself. Today is a perfect example, I was doing safety bar squats with chains to a box. I ended up getting 14 reps with a weight I expected to get 10 with. Followed that up with a second slightly heavier set (+10kg). My QL appeared to be the culprit but it wasn’t giving me any significant pain during the sets themselves. How would you approach this?

37 min 00 sec
loving the content just recently signed up to start more hypertrophy training this year. typically have trained crossfit for the last 5 years competitively but taking a break this year and wanting to put on some size and strength. a few questions about how you would suggest incorporating crossfit style conditioning into my hypertrophy training. i was thinking the push pull split but then also the frequency of that in y conditioning is quiet high? legs especially being my main goal.i train twice a day ultimately bodybuilding in the am after waking up then conditioning style in the afternoon or a longer bike/swim? and how i would balance my meals around those. iv done the diet calculator and it didn’t fit into my training times etc.