At 192 lbs and 11-12% body fat, I am nearly in superhero condition! I have moulded my physique to the exact specifications I desire. Even at a higher body fat, my physique exudes a masculine like dominance with sex appeal still intact. This of course, comes down to muscular proportion, balance and symmetry, something that is lost in the modern day bodybuilding culture. I didn’t achieve this look by accident, I have tailored my lifting regime exactly to my body and how it responds to training, creating an aesthetically pleasing physique with harmony. This requires you to maintain an objective outlook with your canvas. You might have the genetic capacity to develop huge arms, but if your shoulders aren’t going to keep up, you need to address that. If you don’t, you’ll end up looking sloppy.

Bringing Myself to Superhero Status 

To bring my body from it’s current condition to superhero status, a few things need to be done. First and foremost, I need to drop 5-6 lbs of fat so I’m sitting at a chiseled 8-9% body fat. This will do a few cool things that will change my physique completely. Firstly, this will bring my waist down an inch, which will create a more impressive v taper and make my upper body appear bigger in comparison. Secondly, this will bring in more definition and separation throughout my body. My abs will become more visible and defined, my shoulders will have more separation, my muscles will appear harder and more toned and my face will become angular.

The one other obstacle I’m facing is that my arms are getting overpowered by my chest, shoulders and back. I will need to start hammering my biceps and triceps with more volume to get a bit of sarcoplasmic growth so my arms can hold their own. After accomplishing this my physique should go from impressive to down right fucking breathtaking. I now wish to share with you a few key tips and tactics to take your physique into superhero status!

How to get to Superhero Condition 

1. Get Strong as Hell 

Building strength in the 5-8 rep range will have the most profound effect on overall muscle size. You can get quick gains from high volume pump work, but there is a tight limit to how much muscle you can squeeze out without becoming stronger. For example, how many people do you know incline dumbbell pressing 100+ lbs dumbbells who are lacking muscle? My guess, is practically none! For this reason, 80% of your training should be dedicated to getting stronger. It’s important to focus on only a few movements to build strength on otherwise you’ll just be spinning your wheels. My emphasis has been on the incline bench press, standing shoulder press, weighted chin ups, barbell curls and close grip bench. My lifts are as follows:

Incline Bench – 255 x 6

Standing Press – 185 x 6

Neutral Chins – 110 lbs x 6

Barbell Curls – 135 lbs x 6

Close Grip Bench – 260 lbs x 8

Training for muscle size this way forces you to maximize the effectiveness and effeciency of your training. More is not better, you’ll get the best gains with only three sessions per week and you’ll be able to maintain your gains easily off two workouts per week. When you start doing too much volume and too much nonsense your lifts will stop improving. Not to mention, training predominately with low volume and heavy lifting gives you the ability to make rapid increases in muscle size for 4-6 weeks if you add in pump work. This is a great strategy to use to get the shrink wrap effect.

2. Add volume work to stubborn muscle groups 

Everyone has different genetics and thus will respond differently to the same workout program. Some people will add muscle very easily to their arms but struggle to build up their chest. Others will easily develop big pecs but will have a hard time getting their shoulders to grow. Using myself as an example, I add size without much trouble to my chest, back and legs. My shoulders and arms tend to lag behind. As a result, I do very limited direct leg work. For my chest and back I train for strength and do very low volume. For chest I do 2 sets of incline bench and 2 sets of close grip bench or dips. For back I do 2 sets of weighted chins and 2 sets of renegade rows. Even with minimal volume, my chest and back grow as long as the weights are increasing.

As for shoulders, I like to supplement heavy RPT style lifting with fatigue oriented pump work. This allows me to hit hypertrophy from two different angles, building the muscle tissue and increasing the fluid in the muscle. As a result, my shoulders have started to become very prominent and rounded. The next step is to start doing this with my arms to bring them up to speed. There are a few different ways to incorporate this type of volume work to stubborn muscle groups. I will cover them below

1. Standard Pyramid Training 

Select a weight you can do for 12 reps. Perform 4 total sets of 12, 10, 8 and 6 reps. Rest only 30-60 seconds between sets. You can even perform an additional 2 sets of 6 reps if you have a little left in the tank. The focus of this type of training is maximum fatigue. With only 30-60 seconds of rest you create cumulative fatigue, which is why you are performing fewer reps each set.

On my shoulders right now, I’m doing one arm cable lateral raises. I’ll do 12 reps on my left then 12 on my right, then 10 on my left and 10 on my right, I’ll go back and forth down to 8 and finally 6 reps. When I’m doing my left arm my right arm is resting and vice versa. This is a very time efficient method and my shoulders burn like crazy. The tricky thing is that as the reps get lower the rest periods naturally shorten making for a killer workout.

The progression for this type of training will be to shorten the rest periods. Once you work your way down to only 30 seconds of rest between sets you can increase the weight to the next increment and start back up at 45-60 seconds rest between sets.

2. Rest Pause Training 

The other volume training I like is rest pause. I recommend using a weight you can do for 12-20 reps. Once you can’t do another rep you want to rack the weight. You will perform another 4-5 sets of 4-5 reps with only 10-15 seconds rest between sets. Why this works: With exercises that you can perform for 9+ reps, you are only getting maximal muscle fiber recruitment for the last few reps. By resting only 10-15 seconds between sets, you force your body to use full muscle fiber recruitment for all the remaining sets of 4-5 reps. This is a killer strategy for building muscle size.

For arms I like to use the cables for ease of use, cable curls or triceps push downs with the rope attachement. I’ll use a weight I can do for 12-15 reps. After, I’ll bang out multiple sets of 4-5 reps with only 10-15 seconds of rest in-between. My gym has these magnetic 2.5 lbs plates so each workout I’ll add one of those to the weight stack.

Notes

You will need to determine what your stubborn or lagging muscle groups are so you can incorporate this into your training. By exclusively using this fatigue/pump work with your lagging muscle groups, you can keep your physique balanced and proportionate. For most men, the shoulders can never get too big. Natural lifters tend to have a hard time adding lots of size to their shoulders. So I definitely recommend most guys supplement heavy shoulder pressing with high volume laterals. You will need to determine what other one or two muscle groups are getting overshadowed. Maybe it’s your back, maybe it’s your chest or maybe it’s your arms.

3. Maintain a Taut Waist 

This is huge and will make all the difference in the world! A slim, tapered waist will make your physique look incredibly more developed and muscular. This is one of the hollywood tricks many actors use to appear bigger than they actually are. Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans and Kellan Lutz have all kept their wast lines very slim and taut. In doing so, this creates the illusion of a bigger more imposing upper body. Ideally you want your waist to be around 45% of your height. Measure your waist in the morning, relaxed, at navel level. If your waist is above 45% of your height then you will create the most profound physical change by focusing on dropping body fat and slimming up your waist. If you need to lean up try my shredding program or beach ripped article series. I also recommend incorporating planks, kneeling abs wheel rollouts and renegade rows to strengthen your transverse abdominals. Strengthening your TVA will tighten up your waist keeping your stomach pulled in more, instead of hanging out.

Final Comments and Take Aways 

It’s very common for people to follow generalized routines without addressing their own individual strength and weaknesses. Many of the workouts found here on the site tend to address common issues including; over developed legs, poor upper chest and lateral deltoid development…. However, this may or may not apply to you! In my Kinobody Muscle Building Course I teach you how to adjust the workout routine to keep your physique balanced and aesthetically pleasing. This is something that should be reserved for people who have been strength training for 2 or more years. It takes time for your body to express it’s natural genetic code. 

A common theme you will see when an individual is striving for 6 pack abs is steady fat loss up until about 12-15% body fat. This is where most of the fit crowd ends up through a regular workout routine and healthy diet. Unfortunately, continued fat loss at this point becomes a futile endeavour leading to frustration and in many cases insanity (doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result). Now don’t get me wrong, you can definitely look good at 12-15% body fat, but by no means will you blow anyone away. To acquire that chiseled and angular look, you need to drop into the single digit body fat levels, somewhere between 6-10%.

Now getting to very low levels of body fat isn’t exactly as simple as people make it out to be. You see, the game changes when you’re cutting to 15% vs 8% body fat. In the first scenario your are bringing your body to it’s natural set point. In the other case you are brining your body to an extremely lean state. One which wouldn’t survive all to well in a time of famine and hardship. Now if you’re reading this article, that is probably of very little concern to you. Just by having access to a computer and internet I can almost guarantee you never have to worry about where your next meal will come from. That being said, we still have the same genetic code as our hunter-gatherer ancestors, many of whom faced harsh conditions like starvation. So consequently, when our brain recognizes our body fat levels getting too low, it will down regulate metabolism while up regulating appetite.

This is a survival mechanism in place to ensure maximum chance of survival during periods of food shortages. By slowing down your metabolism you increase your chance of survival for when food stocks reemerge. As well, the significant drop in leptin, coupled with heightened insulin sensitivity, allows you to gain back the lost weight very quickly when food is available. This is one of the reasons why many people who lose a bunch of weight on crash diets are able to gain all of it back in record time. The same phenomenon is seen with actors who starve themselves to become emaciated for roles.

Michael Fassbender – Hunger

Michael Fassbender dropped a large amount of weight for the film Hunger, where he played an Irish Republican who leads the prisoners of a Northern Irish prison on a hunger strike. Fassbender went on an extreme diet to lose 40 lbs in 10 weeks. After filming, Fassbender was able to gain nearly all of it back within 2 weeks. It was 34 lbs in 2 weeks to be exact. This type of weight gain seems next to impossible, especially considering how much of what he gained in two weeks was lost muscle. What we must understand is that during extreme calorie restriction, various anabolic receptors and hormones become unregulated. This allows you to regain weight and muscle at an extremely fast rate once you start eating normally again.

Christian Bale – Machinist to Batman Begins

An even more extreme example can be seen with Christian Bale! After getting into incredible shape for American Psycho, Bale wanted to erase his image of being that fit guy. What better way than to starve himself to a deathly state, sacrificing his health and sanity in the process. It took 4 months to take his bodyweight from 184 to under 125 lbs. Then, within 6 months he was filming Bat Man Begins at a very muscular 190 lbs. The human body, believe it or not, has incredible potential and is geared for maximum survival. Weight and muscle can be regained obscenely fast.

What does this have to do with getting 6 pack abs? 

I apologize if you felt that I side tracked a bit there but it’s all for good reason. You see, the same processes that allow us to regain weight and muscle extremely fast, also keep us from getting super ripped. Michael Fassbender and Christian Bale had no easy time getting to there emaciated state. Their bodies were literally starving, hunger overburdening and their ability to enjoy life deeply suppressed. They relied on sheer will power alone to get the job done. As they were losing weight and dipping below their natural set point it was as if they were pulling a rubber band. The more weight they lost the harder it was to keep pulling that rubber band back and the greater rebound effect they were setting themselves up for. Finally, when filming was complete, they created so much tension that the rubber band sprung right back up. This, of course, represents their obscenely fast weight gain. When we’re dieting below set point the same effect occurs, but to a lesser extent.

Wrong Assumptions

People start dieting and lose 1-2 lbs per week. They then think that if they continue this for long enough they’ll reach 6-8% body fat. This is rarely ever the case! Sure, some people are predisposed to being very lean. It’s likely that these individuals have dominant genes from ancestors that never had to worry much about food shortages. Therefore these individuals can get practically ripped without much trouble. However, most of us aren’t so lucky. When we try and dip below 12% body fat, it’s almost like our body is trying to fight back. We get extremely hungry, our gym motivation declines and next thing we know we’re raiding the kitchen undoing all of our positive progress. This is the rubber band effect I mentioned earlier. Getting into the single digits becomes an art. You need to learn to embrace patience and coax your body there with regular refeeds and a strategic approach.

Breaking Through a Fat Loss Plateau 

1. The Two Week Diet Break 

When you’ve been dieting for an extensive period of time, some sort of metabolic decline is inevitable. Leptin and various hormones including testosterone take a nosedive. Adhering to a strict diet becomes increasingly difficult and fat loss always seems to be slower than predicted. Not to mention, the psychological component of continued dieting becomes a major burden. The solution is to take 2 weeks to eat at roughly maintenance. Leptin and testosterone will skyrocket. In addition, you will get that psychological relief. Finally, when you go back to your diet it will feel easier than before and fat loss will resume as expected.

2. Lose Fat Slowly

This is probably the most obvious of all points. Losing fat at a fast pace when you’re already lean is never a good idea. Cut calories too much and you will experience a greater drop in leptin further exacerbating the issue. Big calorie deficits are also very counter productive when you’re 15% body fat or less. This is because your body has a limit to how much fat it can burn on daily basis, which is proportional to the amount of fat on your body.  If you use big calorie deficits it’s likely that some of your muscle tissue will become metabolized. 35 calories per pound of body fat should be the limit. So if you’re 15% body fat at 180 lbs then you have 27 lbs of fat on your body. Therefore you should never exceed a 945 calorie deficit (35 x 27). This is still a very large deficit and you’d probably be much better off keeping the calorie deficit between 500 and 700.

3. Strategic Refeeds 

Carb Refeeds are extremely powerful at busting through a sticking point. Eating at maintenance or 5-10% above with an emphasis on starchy carbs can up regulate metabolism and lessen the difficulty of the subsequent low calorie days. You can think of this as a zig zag approach to losing fat. Aim for 3 lower calorie days (20-25% deficit) and 1 high calorie day (5-10% surplus). Cycle through this four day schedule and you should be able to coax your body to a lower body fat percentage. On the high carb refeed days you want to get the majority of your calories from starchy carbs. Carbohydrates have the most profound effect on circulating leptin levels. Therefore I recommend limiting protein to 0.82g per pound of bodyweight, fat at 20-25% of total calories and carbohydrates making up the remainder. My favorite carb sources for this day include potatoes, sweet potatoes, rice, rice pasta and occasionally some low fat icecream or caramel chocolate quaker rice cakes. I like to stay away from fruit for the most part. Fructose isn’t effective at elevating leptin. In addition, fruit isn’t very efficient at replenishing depleted muscle glycogen. Fruit is used mostly to replenish liver glycogen.

4. Emphasize Carbs at Night

For longtime readers of kinobody you are probably already used to my feast at night approach. However, for many of you, this may seem brashly counterintuitive. Now it has been my intuition for a couple years now that carbs should be emphasized at night. This strategy makes it so much easier to control calorie intake. As well, eating low carb or fasting during the day keeps you focused, energetic and alert. Limiting carbs during the day also helps maximize fat mobilization. Finally, loading up on carbs at night helps with relaxation and sleep and also boosts anabolism and recovery.

There is some significant research that supports this! In a study comparing a low calorie diet with the placement of carbohydrates eaten at dinner vs. breakfast, the late night carb group outperformed the morning carb group. In the late night carb group fat loss was greater, health markers improved to a greater degree and leptin had a smaller drop off. Here’s the study - Greater weight loss and hormonal changes after 6 months diet with carbohydrates eaten mostly at dinner. Based on that research, it seems as though we can limit the drop off of leptin by eating the majority of our carbs at night.

More than one way to skin a cat 

The four strategies above are very effective at implementing once you’ve hit a road block. In terms of an actual diet plan to follow, well let’s just say there is more than one way to skin a cat. For sustainable fat loss, maximum muscle retention and strength building, my shredding program proves exceptionally effective. The premise is that on your lifting days you will consume maintenance calories and high carbs to boost muscle growth and up regulate leptin. On the other 4 days you will be eating low calories and low carbs to maximize fat loss. One to two optional, 24 hour strategic fast days can be implemented for accelerated fat loss in place of the low calorie days.

Another very effective fat loss plan is Nate Miyaki’s Intermittent Feast. This plan is based around maximizing fat loss with an intermittent fasting and high carb dinner approach. Food choices are based around paleo with the addition of gluten free starches to support anaerobic training and maximize hormonal functioning. With this plan you’ll be keeping calories pretty low, 10-12 cals per pound, with 1-2 refeeds per week.

Beach Ripped Article Series

Part 1 - DIY Guide 

Part 2 - Counting Macros 

Part 3 - Cardio for Fat loss

Part 4 - Single Digit Body Fat 

For the strength training routine I recommend performing the strength and density program from my Kinobody Muscle Building Course. It is ideal for cutting. If you don’t have the program, the next best thing would be the warrior physique workout.

Cardio is the most misunderstood exercise in the world. This is increasingly true when we are talking about fat loss. Very rarely do people give cardio the credit it deserves. On one hand you have people that completely overvalue cardio training. On the other hand you have people that consider cardio to be a complete waste of time. In this article I wish to clear up any confusion regarding cardio and it’s role in fat loss and body composition.

Say No to Cardio? 

The recent trend in the fitness industry is to lift weights to promote muscle growth and use diet exclusively to lose fat or stay lean. I feel that this can be an effective approach and a great starting point for most people. You definitely don’t want to get in the habit of relying on excessive amounts of exercise to lose weight and stay lean. That being said, the lift and diet strategy only works well for two types of people. One – people that are just looking to maintain there weight and don’t need to tap into a calorie deficit. Two – people who are moderately active during the day and have larger energy expenditures. However, for those of us who are mostly sedentary, this no cardio approach can mean one of two things when it comes to losing weight.

1) We lose weight at a slow rate

2) We have to consume very low calories

The reality of the situation is that most of us are sedentary. We drive to work, sit on our butts all day and spend a negligible amount of time on our feet. Many of us are lucky to get a combined 30 minutes of walking per day. This results in very low energy expenditures. To even tap into a calorie deficit, we have to eat a very modest amount of food.

The Fat Loss Advantage of Cardio 

By increasing our movement and giving our bodies 30-45 minutes of moderate intensity exercise, we can burn 300-600 calories. This gives us much more room to work with in our diet. As well, getting exercise on a daily basis helps with dietary adherence. People are more likely to follow through with their diet if they are exercising that day.

I have found that for sedentary individuals, getting 30-45 minutes of exercise on non lifting days can help tremendously. You’ll be much more satisfied as you’ll be able to consume considerably more food and lose weight. In addition, 30-45 minutes of cardio is relatively short. That’s like one episode of television. How many of us watch a few hours of tv each day? Not to mention, getting exercise on a daily basis helps with mood, energy levels, motivation…. Lastly, this amount of cardio shouldn’t have too much of an impact on your appetite and hunger.

Too much of a good thing 

There’s always the risk that someone will think a moderate amount of cardio is beneficial, therefore an extreme amount of cardio will be even more effective. This train of thinking is flawed and leads to doing more harm than good.

With too much cardio you can cause what is known as cardio compensation. This is where you reach a point where any additional calories burned will result in a proportional increase in hunger. This is much more apparent during longer 1-2 hour cardio workouts. These marathon long cardio sessions tend to create an insatiable appetite. What’s more, very long cardio sessions can cut into recovery and negatively impact strength gains and muscle mass.

Putting Cardio into Perspective

One of the reasons why cardio gets such a bad rep is because it’s so easy to undo an entire cardio session if you’re not careful. Let’s say that you did cardio for one hour and burned 500 calories. A serving of desert after dinner could completely off set that one hour of cardio. In this scenario your 60 minutes in the gym was traded for the few minutes of pleasure from a desert.

This scenario is common with people who solely use cardio to stay lean and let the chips fall where they may on their diet. Obviously this is not an ideal strategy for body composition. However, this is not the approach I am suggesting. My preference is to pay close attention to your diet and to use cardio synergistically. This is the ultimate fat loss plan. It’s a two vs one fight. Cardio + Diet vs Body fat.

Why Cardio Should Be Used? 

Let me give you a perspective on cardio that will help you understand why I value cardio training and how I like to use it. Let’s say that you’re an average male who isn’t very active aside from 3 strength workouts per week. On your lift days your maintenance calorie requirements are around 2500. However, on your rest days your maintenance requirements are considerably less at only 2100-2200. On your lifting days you can consume 2000 calories and be at an optimal 500 calorie deficit. Unfortunately on your rest days you need to cut calories down to 1600-1700 to be at that same 500 calorie deficit.

Wouldn’t it be far more enjoyable to exercise at a comfortable intensity for 30-40 minutes and consume 2000 calories than have to eat very low calories? If you feel this way then cardio is probably for you! So ultimately, with cardio, you should already be eating under your calorie requirements. Cardio will help increase that calorie deficit so that you can lose fat at an appreciable rate.

Beach Ripped Cardio Recommendations 

Forget about intervals, crossfit, p90x, insanity, complexes, circuits, medley’s, and the tough mudder. If you’re doing cardio to get lean then it’s a matter of burning calories while side stepping overtraining and increased hunger. Don’t let the allure of a turbo charged metabolic rate fool you. That’s a myth, a marketing ploy. The after burn effect of intense exercise is at best, a mere 15% of calories burned. Now that we have that out in the open let’s proceed with the workout.

Ultimately, the type of cardio you should do is what you enjoy the most provided that you stick to a few key principles.

1) Aim to burn a certain number of calories per session – 2-3 calories per pound of bodyweight.

2) Avoid activity that impairs recovery for strength and muscle building workouts.

Abide by those two principles and you’re in the clear. The options are endless, really! You can go for a long walk, alternate walking and jogging, mountain bike, jump rope, hit up the cardio machines, play a multitude of sports, swim, hike, shadow box, dance……… The aim of course is for movement and an increased energy expenditure while realizing all of the amazing health benefits of daily exercise.

Now for sake of simplicity and convenience I will outline a fun cardio protocol that you can do at your gym. The goal of the session is to burn calories, increase fat loss and avoid boredom.

Beach Ripped Cardio Workout 

1. Treadmill Interval Pyramid: 

2 min walk / 1 min jog x 6-8 or 1:15 walk / 45 second run x 10-12

For gym cardio, I always like to start with some form of interval. This is not because I feel that intervals magically boost my metabolism to the stratosphere but rather, it goes by much faster as my mind always has something to focus on. This is also not to be mistaken with high intensity interval training, in which you’re exerting a maximal effort. With that type of training, you are at a risk of cutting into recovery capabilities while on a diet.

For these I like to use a 2 degree incline and walk at 3.8mph (4.0 mph seems unnaturally fast for a walk). For my first interval I will run at a comfortable 6mph. With each interval that passes I will build up the speed. Depending on how I’m feeling I might go up by 0.5 or 1 mph each interval. So I might do 6-7-8-9-9.5-10. If the diet is getting to me or I don’t have the energy I might just jog at 6 or 6.5 during the running portion of the interval. Nothing is 100% set in stone with cardio workouts so you can take the ball and run with it or walk with it. This is completely different than how I approach my strength training workouts, which are very structured, goal oriented and maximal effort.

Note: We’ll be tracking calories during cardio. Make sure to manually enter your weight into the machine for a more accurate calorie burn reading.

2. Steady State Cardio: 10-20 minutes

During the first portion of the workout, the intervals, you should have been able to burn around 200-300+ calories. This is largely dependent on your weight, cardiovascular shape and level of exertion. During the second portion of the workout you will aim to burn the remainder of your calorie target off. I like to go at a low to moderate intensity for active recovery and fat burning. Somewhere around 60-70% of your maximal heart rate. Again the options are endless for this: I like to hit up an elliptical style machine, the one with the handles that you can push. I opt to avoid the bike and the rower for a couple reasons: Much of my day is spent in the seated, spine compressing position, why add to that while exercising? As well, I can burn significantly more calories on the elliptical machine.

My favorite modalities for this part of the cardio workout include: jumping rope, elliptical (pushing handles) and incline walking. For incline walking I will pyramid the incline for fun. So I will walk at 3.8mph and increase the incline by 1 each minute until the half way point. Then I’ll decrease the incline by 1 each minute until I’m finished.

3. Stretching and Abs Training 

This is an ideal time to train your abs and stretch out any tight muscle groups. I like to do a lot of hanging abdominal movements. These exercises build very strong abs and don’t cause any low back pain like most crunching movements. I finish off with bridging, the king of all exercises. Bridging is the reason why I have been lower back pain free for 2 years. These movements also serve to decompress and elongate your spine, you may notice you stand slightly taller, a nice side benefit.

1. Leg Raises (hanging bent leg, hanging straight leg or from dip bar): 3 sets x 10-20 reps

2. Side to Side Knee ups or Abs Whee Roll outs: 2 sets x max reps

3. Hip/Back Bridge Hold: 2-3 sets x 20 seconds

4. Bonus stretches (optional)

Notes: rest 1-2 minutes between sets.

Calorie Targets? 

I’d recommend aiming to burn about 2-3 calories per pound of bodyweight. So if you’re 150 lbs, you’d aim to burn 300-450 calories per session. This is a reasonable amount, shouldn’t take too long to complete and will result in a proportionally smaller increase in appetite than calories burned. So you might find that it’s just as easy to consume 2000 calories per day on complete rest days as cardio days.

Beach Ripped Cardio Q&A?

1. I play (insert sport here) 2-3 times per week, should I still do cardio?

If you are involved in sports then you can count that as your cardio workout. So on a day that you are playing a particular sport, you won’t need to do a cardio workout. Only do cardio workouts on days that you are not active or lifting weights.

2. I work manual labor, should I still do cardio?

If you work manual labor then your energy expenditure will be very high. If you are spending several hours per day walking, lifting, moving and doing physical tasks there is no need for additional calorie burning exercise. Lift weights 3x per week to build strength and maintain muscle and that’s about it.

3. I find that on days I do cardio I become very hungry? 

There are some individuals that find even 30-45 minutes of cardio exercise can make them much hungrier. If that’s the case for you and you find it more enjoyable to eat low calories without cardio then go for it. Alternatively you can try just doing a limited amount of exercise. Maybe a 10-30 minute walk to see how that affects your appetite/cravings.

4. Won’t cardio cause me to lose strength and muscle? 

If you stick to the cardio protocol that I laid out, there will be no negative impact on strength, power or muscle mass. Take a look at athletes from a wide array of sports including basketball, hockey, rugby, boxing, mixed martial arts….. These athletes have incredible cardiovascular fitness and in most cases great strength and muscle development. Not to mention, many of these athletes are required to do cardio intensive activities for several hours per day.

The belief that cardio training will cause you to sacrifice strength, power and muscle mass has been completely over exaggerated in the fitness/bodybuilding world. For this to even remotely come about, you’d already have to be very big, strong and muscular so that your body would need to take a turn to efficiency. As well, you would have to push the cardio to the limit. Perform cardio frequently and push your body very hard so that you are signalling improvements in endurance are demanded.

Remember this, high level aerobic fitness and elite strength and power are opposite adaptations. You’ll rarely come about a 500 lbs squatter who can run 3 miles in under 20 minutes. Trying to get stronger while trying to train for a road race is never the best idea. If you’ve read this article you will understand that I am not trying to get you in top physical condition for a endurance competition. We are simply using cardio as a tool to increase fat loss. Therefore those extreme endurance based physiological changes will not take place. Instead you will just maintain a reasonable level of cardio fitness, think of it as your base. You can build strength and muscle at the maximal rate with this base. However, if you want to take your cardio to the extreme, you will need to put your strength and muscle into maintenance mode. Like the Chinnese proverb, the man who chases two chickens catches none.

Beach Ripped Article Series

Part 1 - DIY Guide 

Part 2 - Counting Macros 

Part 3 - Cardio for Fat loss

Part 4 - Single Digit Body Fat 

For the strength training routine I recommend performing the strength and density program from my Kinobody Muscle Building Course. It is ideal for cutting. If you don’t have the program, the next best thing would be the warrior physique workout.

In the first article of the Beach Ripped Series I showed you how to determine the number of calories you should be consuming to be in an optimal calorie deficit. I also showed you how to set up you macronutrients; proteins, fats and carbs. Lastly, I went into detail about meal frequency, and food distribution. Well, in todays article I will show you exactly how to hit your calories and macros with awesome meals!

Rule #1 – Keep it Simple 

You want to keep your diet as simple and effortless as possible. Therefore I recommend using simplified rules. These include:

1. Don’t bother counting calories from fibrous veggies/greens

Trust me, there is nothing to gain from being obsessive compulsive and weighing/measuring your veggies. These foods are very high in vitamins/minerals/fiber and very low in calories. The amount of calories your body can actually utilize from fibrous veggies is so small it’s practically a zero calorie food. Therefore I recommend consuming a moderate intake of fibrous veggies/greens with each meal without regard for calorie/macro intake.

2. Don’t bother counting calories from low calorie sauces/flavorings (mustard, hot sauce, tomato sauce, soya sauce, rice vinegar) 

Low calorie sauces add very few calories. Just be conscious of how much you use and there is no need to have to count that towards your calorie/macro intake.

3. Don’t bother counting trace proteins

Starchy carbs usually come with a trace amount of protein but I recommend ignoring this. It’s simpler just to count your protein from meat. So a big serving of potatoes might have 10g of protein. Consider that extra protein a bonus. When you start having to count protein from your starches it makes things very complicated when you are increasing or decreasing your carb intake. In addition, you don’t want to reduce your meat intake because you are consuming more starches. Meat intake should stay relatively constant.

4. Don’t worry about hitting your calories and macronutrients exactly

Aim to be within shooting distance of them. So within 5g of your fat intake, within 10g of your protein and carb intake and within 50 calories of your calorie intake. Trying to be 100% exact is ridiculous. Even if you are 100% exact, you won’t be. This is because food labels and measuring your food isn’t even 100% accurate. You can’t be 100% accurate, you just need to be within shooting distance.

Rule #2 – Use an App 

To really keep yourself accountable I recommend recording everything you eat with a handy smart phone app. I really like MyNetDiary, it’s a simple and easy to use app that has many neat functions. You can customize your daily calories and macros, you can search practically any food, you can scan barcodes, you can create custom foods, you can even track your weight and measurements. The customized food function is really helpful. You can find out how many carbs are in a serving of potatoes, rice, rice pasta and you can customize that food subtracting the trace protein and trace protein calories. This way it won’t count the trace nutrients towards your calorie and macro count.

Rule #3 – Get a Electronic Food Scale 

I strongly recommend you purchase an electronic food scale. This will allow you to quickly and easily weigh your food so you can accurately enter it into your app to determine the number of calories and macros your are consuming.

Rule #4 – Weight Your Meat Raw 

There is a lot of confusion whether you should weigh your meat before or after cooking. For greatest accuracy you should weigh it in the raw state. However, you need to make sure that you are using the uncooked nutrition information when you enter it into your app. This is because cooking your meat can reduce the weight of the food by 25-35%. So if you are weighing your chicken raw and entering it into your app as grilled chicken your calorie and protein numbers will be much higher than they should. On most grocery store bough meats the nutritional information is listed on the back. This refers to it in it’s raw state. Go by those measurements. 100g of raw meat most likely has around 20g of protein. Depending on the type of meat, there could be anywhere from 0-20g of fat. These fat numbers need to be counted towards your macro and calorie intake.

Hitting Your Macros

Count your protein numbers from meat, your carb numbers from starches (potatoes, rice, rice pasta, yams, fruits), your fat numbers from meat and added fats (coconut oil, butter, macadamia nut oil, nuts). If you want to add any additional food on top of that, you will need to count both the carb and fat numbers.

Example Meal – 60g protein, 20g fat and 100g carbs

300g chicken breast (60g protein)

4tsp of oil/butter (20g fat)

135g rice/pasta (100g carbs)

Broccoli (zero)

In this example, chicken breast is practically fat free so you need to get all of your fat from added fats. In this case you can use oil/butter for cooking and taste. I like to use 1-2 tsp of oil for cooking and I also like to add the rest of the fat to the rice cooker to give the rice more flavor.

Example Meal 2 – 80 protein, 25 fats, 120 carbs

400g Flank Steak (80g protein, 20g fat)

1tsp of oil (5g fat)

600g Potatoes/Yams (120g carbs)

Cauliflower (zero)

In this example, flank steak has fat so we need to take that into account and reduce our added fats. We have 1tsp of fat to work with so we will just use it for cooking or to add for taste.

Example Meal 3 – 75g protein, 25g fat, 100g carbs 

What if you want to work some desert into the meal? How about a haagen daz icecream bar with 25g fat and 30g carbs. Well in this example you would need to keep your fat intake very low in the meal and reduce your carb intake to make room.

375g Chicken Breast (75g protein)

350g Sweet Potato (70g carbs)

1 Haagen Daz Icecream Bar (25g fat and 30g carbs)

Veggies

It’s really this easy! 

You will be surprised how easy it is to hit your macros when you stick to lean meats, starches and added fats. Just count your protein and fat from the meat, get any extra fat you need from butter, coconut oil or macadamia oil. Alternatively, you could add almonds or peanut butter or even a yummy desert to reach your fat numbers so long that you take into account any extra carbs. And of course, get the bulk of your carbs from sweet potatoes, russet potatoes, rice or gluten free pasta (rice pasta).

Fat loss will never be so effortless and rewarding! 

Once you get in the habit of being accountable for your overall macronutrient and calorie intake then getting lean will become as easy as a stroll through the park. You will no longer be fighting your food cravings being victim to a restricted lifestyle. Instead, you will be able to eat whatever you like. This results in a very cool shift in thinking. Knowing that you can have whatever you like creates a very healthy relationship with food. Just by being accountable, you tend to gravitate towards healthy, natural foods and deserts only in moderation. This is because you want to make the diet as enjoyable as possible and natural, wholesome foods are the best for satiety. If refined foods, sweets or deserts make up a big portion of your overall food intake, hunger may become exacerbated. So by default your diet becomes perfectly balanced without having to set stringent rules. But when you tell yourself, you can never have chocolate cake or icecream again, you will be fighting a monkey off your back for the rest of your life.

Epic Kinobody Meals

Want to see the type of daily hedonism I subject myself to? On my kinobody facebook page I post up some of my favorite meals.

Beach Ripped Article Series

Part 1 – DIY Guide 

Part 2 - Counting Macros 

Part 3 - Cardio for Fat loss

Part 4 - Single Digit Body Fat 

For the strength training routine I recommend performing the strength and density program from my Kinobody Muscle Building Course. It is ideal for cutting. If you don’t have the program, the next best thing would be the warrior physique workout.

For many of us, getting lean for summer is on the forefront of our minds. We want to look our physical best with impeccable muscle definition, chiseled facial features and six pack abs (without flexing). We want to sport this killer physique all summer long; at the beach, pool and boardwalk. We also want to achieve this physique before summertime hits. That way we can enjoy the summer in maintenance mode. Having to diet during the summer months with barbecue’s, pool parties and nights out on the town is not fun. So get ready to get your cut on and be beach ripped for summertime! In this guide I will teach you how to cut effortlessly while retaining muscle and building strength. Let’s get started!

Step One – Determining Maintenance Level Calories 

The first step to designing an effective fat loss diet is to determine the amount of calories you require per day to maintain your weight. This is known as your energy expenditure and it varies wildly depending on your lean body mass and activity level (exercise and non exercise). To get an estimate of your energy expenditure you first need to calculate your basal metabolic rate. This is the amount of calories you require to sustain yourself if you were bedridden all day. I like to use the Katch Mc-Ardle formula. However, this will require you to know your lean body mass (total weight subtracted by body fat). A good calculator to get a rough estimate for body fat percentage can be found here.

Calculate BMR

Once you know your body fat percentage you will need to multiply that number by your total bodyweight. That will tell you how much fat you have. So if you’re 15% body fat and 150 lbs then you would multiply 150 lbs by 0.15. This would give you 22.5 lbs of fat. You will then need to subtract this number from total bodyweight to determine lean body mass. Lastly you will need to convert this figure to kg by dividing it by 2.2. For example: 150 – 22.5 = 127.5 lbs. Divided by 2.2 = 58kg of Lean Body Mass. Enter your lean body mass into the formula below to calculate your BMR.

BMR (men and women) = 370 + (21.6 X lean mass in kg)

Use an Activity Multiplier 

The next step will be to multiply your BMR by an activity multiplier to calculate your total energy expenditure.

Carb Backloading is starting to get tons of attention in the online fitness world! After having several people ask me my thoughts on this unique diet strategy, I thought it was time to address it in a full blown article. Whether you’re interested in this program or not, I think there will be a lot of value in this article that you can take away!

What is CBL (Carb Backloading)?

Carb backloading is a nutritional program created by DH Kiefer. The program is based around eating very low carbs during the day, training in the afternoon and loading up on carbs in the evening. DH Kiefer doesn’t discriminate against so called junk foods; pizza, icecream, donuts, pancakes! It doesn’t matter you can have it. Believe it or not, there is actually some method to the madness.

By eating very low carbs during the day, your force your body to use fat for fuel. This means an enhanced rate of fat burning. Further, keeping carbs low during the day helps many people stay alert and focused, enhancing work productivity. The afternoon or early evening is the ideal time to train on this program. After the training session your glycogen stores will be depleted and insulin sensitivity will be at an all time high. This will allow you to handle very high amounts of carbs extraordinarily well, via enhanced partitioning effects. Meaning you will get more nutrients stored in your muscle stores and less to your fat stores.

My Objective Thoughts? 

My inclination is that this diet strategy will allow someone to maintain more muscle on a cut and build a higher ratio of muscle:fat on a bulk. I surely have experienced this phenomenon for myself from overloading on carbs in the evening, post training. Granted, I train fasted and use a 6-8 hour eating window. This makes the probability of overblowing my calorie intake much lower than CBL. Bringing me to one glaring flow of CBL:

With CBL you’re eating all day long. During the day you’re eating primarily protein, fats and veggies and at night you’re eating very high carbs in addition to protein and fats. Meaning; the calories are coming in all day long without any emphasis on tracking calories or macronutrient intake. To me, CBL is a superior way to limit fat gain on a dirty bulk. But as a fat loss strategy, there is no way in hell you are going to be in a caloric deficit.

For CBL to work as a fat loss strategy you will need to track your calorie and macronutrient intake. What does this mean? It means that it’s not going to be nearly as fun as DH Kiefer makes it out to be. As well, most of those junk foods won’t be very workable into your macros. This is because pizza, icecream, pie, cookies….. are not only high in carbs but also very high in fat. Since you’re eating protein and fat earlier in the day, you will need to restrict fat intake in the evening.

The CBL Solution 

To make CBL more effective, I would incorporate intermittent fasting and I would track macronutrient intake. Something more or less along the lines of Nate Miyaki’s Intermittent Feast Program. If anyone knows how to get seriously ripped and make it enjoyable and lifestyle friendly it’s that guy!

Trust me, if I could get sliced to shreds using CBL I would do it in a heartbeat. I mean who wouldn’t want to be able to eat all day long with plenty of junk at night and be ripped? Unfortunately there is just no way I am gonna be in a deficit eating that way. And that is precisely why I have gravitated towards Nate Miyaki’s teachings. Nate’s Intermittent Feast is a highly functional program that actually gets you ripped. Plus the dude is living proof of his system, walking around with 1/3 of the body fat of DH Kiefer.

Nate Miyaki vs. DH Kiefer (Like I said, 1/3 the fat) 

Final Comments

For getting ripped, go with intermittent feast! If you’re already very lean and want to add some quality muscle while staying relatively lean then CBL can work quite well. Just remember, you have to be in a caloric deficit to lose fat. The best fat loss strategy is going to be the one that allows you to eat at a deficit as effortlessly as possible. For me this happens to be 2 big meals per day in a 6-8 hour window. For other people, albeit with much lower appetites, they may be able to successfully cut with CBL. However, these people are few and far between.

Drive is one of my favorite films! The beautiful cinematography, well placed retro music, and Ryan Gosling’s amazing yet understated performance. The whole movie came together perfectly. I felt like I was being taken on a ride through Los Angeles, moonlighting with Gosling. The realism and minimalistic nature of the film are all reasons for why it resonated so deeply with me. Ironically, the first time I watched Drive I left the theatre in complete and utter disappointment. It wasn’t until I watched it a second time that all of the reasons for disliking it, became reasons for loving it.

Now you might be wondering why the heck I am talking about the film Drive. Well the connection I am trying to underline is the emphasis on minimalism. From sheer simplicity; each line, each picture, each scene and each moment became infinitely more powerful. The same way the movie Drive was constructed and carried out is how I approach developing my physique.

If you take a look at many of the articles and workout routines contained here, on kinobody, you may have noticed a minimal number of workouts, exercises, sets and reps. More often than not, my routines fit the premise of 3 strength workouts per week with 4-6 exercises per session of 2-3 work sets. Granted, for some isolation based movements I perform 4-6 sets, but I digress. The point being, the overall theme as expressed through my training mentality and workout routines is minimalism. In this article I wish to uncover the truth behind minimalistic training and why the hell you should embrace the old adage, less is more.

What is minimalism?

Before I can even ask you to comprehend my way of lifting, it essential that you understand the meaning behind minimalism.

Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts

How does this apply to lifting? Well basically what I am doing is stripping down strength training to the absolute essential. It is only by eliminating the unnecessary that the effective truly becomes effective. For example; two of my favourite lifts are weighted chin ups and the incline bench press. I consider these to be my core upper body movements. Now the power of these two movements is tied tightly to your progress with them. It doesn’t matter if your chest and back feel torn to shreds, if you’re not adding weight then the exercises are useless.

This is exactly where minimalism comes in! A back and biceps workout consisting of weighted chin ups, t bar rows, cable rows and dumbbell pull overs + barbell curls, preacher curls, incline curls, cable curls…. might look good on paper, but it’s not! All of that volume just diluted the effectiveness of your core movement, weighted chin ups. I’ll bet dollars to dimes you’re not getting stronger on that routine. Admittedly, you might get some good sarcoplasmic, volume based growth for a few weeks. However, all good things come to an end unless you add some weight and make that bar bend!

From a long term strength and growth standpoint you’d be much better off with weighted chin ups, maybe one extra back exercise, plus a direct biceps movement. With this workout you’ll be able to add 2-3 lbs to the chin up belt each session. In a matter of months you’ll be chinning 100+ lbs for reps and I would stake my reputation that your back and arms would be nothing short of jacked at that point. Unfortunately, some people let their impatience get the best of them. So they add more sets and more exercises and expect better results. Nothing changes except for sorer muscles and slower strength and muscle gains.

Can you really make gains with such low volume? 

Superhero Physique – Here I come!

Hell yah you can! I don’t train this way because I’m lazy, far from it. I’ve adopted minimalistic lifting 18 months ago because it’s the more effective way to train. In a similar light Bruce Lee discovered that the key to becoming a better martial artist was to embrace simplicity and steer the hell away from the complex! Mastering a few basic moves served more useful than trying to learn every technique under the sun. This is what led Bruce to adapt his rigid gung fu to a more adaptable, more practical concept.

Not to over glorify what I’m doing, but I have discovered that the more effective way to gain strength and build muscle, is to hack away at the unessential and strive for improving the strength of my core lifts, above all else. Second to that, I see if I can add a bit more volume to increase muscle growth without impeding strength gains. This very process has led me to the following guidelines

1. 3 lifting sessions per week
2. 2 day split (Chest, Delts, Tri’s / Back, Bi’s, Legs)
3. 4-6 exercises per workout
4. 2-3 work sets for heavy, strength based movements (reverse pyramid training)
5. 4-6 sets for superhero pyramid training (constant weight, descending reps)

Workout Discoveries – 3 Recent Training Gems 

I would now like to share a few new realizations I have made in the past few months that have significantly improved my physique.

1. Shoulders can handle a lot of volume without any detrimental effects 

I have been able to successfully perform a high amount of volume on shoulders without impeding recovery or strength gains. The result has actually been a solid increase in shoulder size and roundness. If you’re performing heavy incline presses, shoulder presses and dips the anterior deltoid is getting plenty of work. Doing direct anterior exercises is pointless. The key is to hammer out volume on the medial and posterior head! I am currently doing 6 sets of lateral raises or upright rows on my chest, delt and triceps workout and 6 sets of face pulls (rear delts) on my back and biceps workout. I must say, I am getting a lot of compliments on my shoulders.

2. Take it easy on the triceps

It is very rare in life that we are required to perform a pure triceps extension. Think about it, It just doesn’t happen. The triceps are designed to assist the chest and shoulders in pressing against resistance. Therefore the triceps are going to get the best benefit from compound presses; incline bench, shoulder presses , dips and close grip bench. This is what the triceps are truly designed for.

As a personal anecdote I was struggling to make progress on my weighted dips. Once I stopped doing rope extensions at the end of my workout I was able to add 5 lbs to dips each workout. Eventually I decided to add rope extensions back in and sure enough my dip strength plateau’d and started to retract. I quickly came to the realization that direct triceps work was causing more harm than good. I haven’t done any direct triceps work in a couple of months and my strength and muscle development is the best it’s ever been!

Just remember, if you’re doing plenty of benching and shoulder pressing then you don’t need any direct triceps work. If you’re paranoid about your triceps then just make sure you’re either doing weighted dips or close grip bench. Trust me, the superior strength gains will more than make up for any reduction in training volume on the triceps.

3. Permission to curl 

Unlike triceps extensions, the biceps curl is actually a very functional movement. Very often are humans required to curl their arm up. Whether it’s lifting an object up to the shoulders, holding someone in a clinch, resisting against an arm bar…. the list is endless! We are designed to curl and this anti curl movement has got to come to a complete end. It’s actually ridiculous. I have yet to see someone with great biceps development that doesn’t curl. Currently on my back and biceps workout I am doing heavy incline dumbbell curls and high volume, superhero pyramid style cable curls. My biceps have never been better! The tape measure is stretched to 16.5″ cold and this direct biceps training has had no negative effects on my chinning progress.

Be Like Drive! 

I challenge you to take on minimalism. Let go of any irrational fears of losing muscle or wasting away. It will not happen. Instead you will gain strength at a superhero rate and muscle growth will follow predictably.

If you’re looking for a course based on this type of training then I would definitely encourage you to consider my Kinobody Muscle Building Course. I am pleased to report that the response from this program has been amazing!

This evidence-based exploration of mental supplements was set forth by Sol Orwell and Kurtis Frank. You can usually find them collating scientific research on supplements and nutrition over at Examine.com

Nootropic – An umbrella term of importance 

The term Nootropic is used to refer to drugs/supplements/foods that have cognitive enhancing properties. It is derived from Noo- (the mind) and -tropic (towards), and is an umbrella phrase for any substance that could benefit your mind.

The researcher who originally coined the term nootropic (Corneliu Giurgea, inventor of Piracetam), proposed that anything considered a nootropic must be very safe and have no possibility of harming the body.

This idea is a problematic ideal – it’s hard to provide proof that a substance has absolutely no harmful effects on your body. Even his own piracetam would not fit that fill; a study showed it to be thin blood as effectively as Aspirin, and would cause problems if taken with prescription blood thinner. So we will talk about safety, but don’t dive in head first.

The word nootropic is so broad and vast that we need to categorize them further. Nootropics can work in different ways, and the following categorizes how they work (they all work to benefit your memory and/or cognition).

• Neurotransmitter Modulator: molecules which alter the concentrations of neurotransmitters in the body. These are either substrates for the neurotransmitters (L-Tyrosine and 5-HTP), enzyme inducers or inhibitors that modify neurotransmitter levels (MAOIs or Huperzine-A) and reuptake inhibitors that allow more neurotransmitters to stay in the synapse (SSRIs).

• Neurotransmitter Mimetics: molecules which act on receptors themselves, rather than needing to modify levels of neurotransmitters. This includes compounds like nicotine or ephedrine, which directly activate receptors.

• Transmission Modulators: These are things that, regardless of what happens at the synapse, alter the cellular effects and action potential of neuron. These either act at the receptor level (such as Honokiol or Aniracetam positively influencing GABA or AMPA receptors without directly acting on them) or on the axon (Levetiraetam and calcium channels)

• Structural Modification: These are compounds that modify the structure of the neuron. Regardless of what the action potential decides to do or the synapse contains, these merely make the neuron itself more structurally robust. At the least, they repair the structure of a poor neuron. Piracetam, Bacopa Monnieri, and Phosphatidylserine all fall in this category

• Therapeutic Compounds: These are characterized by having cognitive enhancing properties in persons with impaired cognition, but do not act in a unilateral manner. Instead, they only really benefit those with impaired cognition; the magnitude of benefit is lessened when used in an otherwise healthy person

These categories are not exclusive by any means. For example, yohimbine is an antagonist of alpha-adrenergic receptors (second bullet) and secondary to this it inhibits noradrenaline reuptake (first bullet). Piracetam is highly therapeutic (fifth bullet) possibly working via structural means (fourth bullet) although there is some evidence for it acting on calcium channels weakly (third bullet).

That being said, finding a nootropic compound that doesn’t fall into one of the above 5 categories is near impossible. This at least gives us a footing to begin wading through the vast world of nootropic compounds.

                                                                                                                            Cholinergerics – An important class of molecules 

Cholinergic compounds are those that interact with acetylcholine or its receptors, and thus induce acetylcholine-like effects (cholinergic-like effects). Acetylcholine is a neurotransmitter highly involved in learning and memory formation, and tends to be one of the main focuses of many nootropic supplement regimens.

Cholinergic compounds can either be those that increase acetylcholine levels by supplying the substrate (choline or Alpha-GPC supplementation) or inhibiting its degradation (acetylcholinesterase inhibitors; Galantamine is the reference drug here, and Huperzine-A is also commonly touted).

Direct agonists of acetylcholine receptors exist, with the most commonly used direct agonist in usage (by lay persons) currently being nicotine.

Overall, the goal of any cholinergic is to induce more acetylcholine signalling to target neurons in the hope that it increases learning and memory formation.

                                                                                                                                   Racetams – A heterogenous and popular category 

The term Racetam was born alongside the molecule piracetam, and refers to the common 2-pyrollidone structure in these molecules (If we look at the structures of levetiracetam, aniracetam, piracetam, nefiracetam, etc. we will always find a pentacyclic ring with a nitrogen in it and a double bonded oxygen one carbon away from it. This is the 2-pyrollidone group).

Racetams are actually categorized based on their physical structure, not what they do inside your body. It just so happens that when a molecule has this functional group, it tends to be highly  neuroactive.

For example, although piracetam has a variety of activities, the one that is pertinent here is rheological; binding to a cell membrane and improving fluidity (the fourth bullet).

Aniracetam is an AMPAkine, binding the the glutamate receptor subset known as AMPA and facilitating signalling through this receptor. Nefiracetam has been implicated in acting on another glutamate receptor, NMDA (which Aniracetam doesn’t do anything to).

Levetiracetam was synthesized off of Piracetam to enhance the inhibition of Calcium V2.2 channels (third bullet of altering signalling) and as such has a better role in epilepsy management.

So why are racetams popular? Racetams are akin to designer drugs for your mind, and it attracts a lot of people interested in neural benefits that do not care for “natural therapies.”

Although all known racetams are synthetic, there are some compounds borne from traditional medicines with similar (although not exact) structure to the pyrrolidone group on racetams; morus alba (white mulberries) and loganolactone (longan fruits) have a racetam-like structure that might be worth investigating.

So what can you eat? 

In Part 2 we will go over the various popular nootropics, including cholinergics and racetams. In the meantime, eggs are a great source of choline (a cholinergic), and small fatty fish (sardines, mackeral, herring) are good sources of both fish oil as well as phosphatidylserine (two structural modifying nootropics). Additionally, as mentioned earlier, longan fruits and white mulberries could have possible cognitive enhancing properties. It might be prudent to start to train your taste buds to enjoy tea, as tea can also be phrased as ‘water soluble extraction’ and opens up an entire world of plants to sneak into your diet.

So there you have it – a quick primer. Nootropics are supposed to enhance brain function, and they do so in roughly five primary ways. Cholinergics specifically target acetylcholine in order to help with memory function, and racetams are designed-drugs that can function in a variety of ways.

Key Points 

1. Gaining 1-2 lbs per week will inevitably lead to fat gain

It is common for people to try and gain 1 pound of muscle per week! Therefore they consume approximately 500 calories over maintenance in hopes to store all of those calories into their muscles. Short of a heavy supply of anabolic steroids this rate of muscle gain is completely futile.

If you were to gain 1 lbs per week over the course of 6 months that would equate to a massive 26 lbs increase in scale weight. Best case scenario half of that would be muscle. That would mean 13 lbs of muscle and 13 lbs of fat. Let’s say you started off at 10% body fat and 150 lbs, well that would put you at 16% body fat and 176 lbs. That’s a huge 6% increase in fat composition. Now you would have to undergo a 3 month long cutting phase to get rid of the fat and hope you don’t lose any of that precious muscle gain.

Alternatively, if you would have aimed to gain 0.5 lbs per week and set the calorie surplus to reflect that then you would have gained almost entirely muscle without any fat gain. After 6 months you would have an additional 13 lbs of muscle without the extra fat. For the next 3 months instead of having to diet off the fat you could continue building muscle.

The best part is that you wouldn’t ever have to walk around with all of that unpleasant fat ruining your physique and face. You get to look lean and great all year round. As well, since you aren’t gaining much fat at all you never have to undergo long dieting phases.

2. Aim to gain 0.5 lbs per week

As I explained above, if your goal is to gain muscle you should aim to gain about 0.5 lbs per week. This means consuming about 250 calories over your calorie maintenance. You have a couple options here. You can eat 250 over maintenance everyday or you can fluctuate calories up or down depending on the day. For example if you are lifting 3x per week you might consume 500 calories over maintenance on lift days and you might eat a small 100 calorie surplus on non lifting days. If you prefer to keep calorie intake constant then you can do that. Both options work.

3. Track your body composition

I recommend tracking your body composition by measuring your waist circumference on a weekly basis. During a muscle gaining program you never want your waist to go up by more than one inch. A one inch increase on your waist circumference usually reflects about 5 lbs of fat gain. If your waist is staying the same and your gaining strength and gaining weight slowly then you’re doing everything right. If your waist goes up by one inch then you should lower the calories by about 10-20%.

4. For advanced lifters you should only be gaining 1 lbs per month 

If you have been training for several years and have already built an appreciable amount of muscle mass then you will not be able to gain muscle at the rate of 0.5 lbs per week. Simply as you get closer to your genetic limit the rate of muscle gain slows down considerably. For that reason I recommend eating only about 100-200 calories over maintenance and aiming for about 1 lbs of weight gain per month. For truly advanced lifters you may only be able to gain 5-6 lbs of muscle over the course of an entire year.

Final Comments

For a fool proof system for packing on pure muscle in the most aesthetic and functional way possible I recommend my kinobody muscle building course. So far the response has been incredible. If you read the comment section you will see what people have to say about the program.

Welcome to part 2 of achieving the warrior physique. In the last article I covered nutrition and dieting for the ripped and wiry warrior build. In case you missed it here’s part one warrior physique part 1. In this article I am going to talk about a systematic workout approach to build the warrior physique! But first let’s take a look at some kinobody examples!

1. Koy

Koy is a buddy of mine who is clearly in shredded shape! His bodyfat is ridiculously low and as a result his vascularity becomes much more pronounced. Koy is around 5’10 and 150 lbs and has the warrior physique!

2. Bryden

Bryden is my 16 year old younger brother and is also 5’10 and 150 lbs. I’ve been helping him with his training and nutrition for the past two years. In that time he has gradually decreased his body fat and improved his muscle definition and strength significantly.

3. Greg (me)

This is a picture of me from the summer of 2011. I’m around 170 lbs at 5’10 and 6-7% body fat. Since that time I’ve put on a substantial amount of muscle.

Strength Training for the Warrior Physique

Strength training is a large component of the warrior physique! Without it you may get lean but you will lack muscle definition and shape. As well, strength training is imperative as it will give your body the proper proportions and aesthetics when combined with a low body fat. However, with the warrior physique, the volume and intensiveness of the workout session will be lower. This is because we don’t want to overdo the muscle building. With the warrior physique we are after a natural amount of muscle mass in conjunction with minimal amounts of body fat.

Repetitions will be primarily lower as to avoid sarcoplasmic hypertrophy. Therefore most of the muscle gains will be accrued from increases in the contractile filaments of the muscle, aka myofibrillar hypertrophy. When limiting muscle growth it makes sense to target this type of hypertrophy because it will have a direct influence on strength and power and it will give the muscles a harder and denser look. As well, adding muscle with lower reps will ensure that you look good all of the time since this type of muscle growth doesn’t fluctuate based on blood, glycogen or fluid.

You may notice that some exercises will be higher in repetitions. This is because particular exercises and muscle groups respond best to higher reps. For the lateral and rear delt I like to go higher in reps and volume. This will help keep your shoulders bigger and fuller giving you a more masculine appearance.

Warrior Strength Training Routine 

For the strength training portion of the exercise routine you will alternate between two different workouts, 3x per week, on non consecutive days. Workout A will be focused on hitting your chest, shoulders and triceps. Workout B will be dedicated towards training your back, biceps and legs. I have been following this type of split for several months now and have made my best gains ever! By going with a 2 day split (half your body on one day and other other half on the other day) you get to hit each muscle group once every 4-5 days. From my experience this is the absolute most effective muscle frequency for strength and muscle gains.

Workout A 

1) Incline Barbell Bench Press: 3 sets x 4-6 reps

2) Standing Barbell Press: 3 sets x 4-6 reps

3) Weighted Dips: 2 sets x 6-8 reps

4) Barbell Upright Row (medium grip, pull to lower chest): 4 sets x 10-12 reps

5) Hanging Leg Raises: 4 sets x 10-12 reps

6) 15-20 minutes of low intensity cardio (optional)

Workout B 

1) Weighted Chin ups (hands facing each other): 3 sets x 4-6 reps

2) Barbell or Dumbbell Curls: 3 sets x 4-6 reps

3) Bulgarian Split Squats: 2 sets x 6-8 reps

4) Cable Rope Face Pulls: 4 sets x 10-12 reps

5) Dip Bar Leg Raises: 4 sets x 10-12 reps

6) 15-20 minutes of low intensity cardio (optional)

Notes

Exercises 1, 2 and 3 rest 2-3 minute between sets and stop 2 reps before muscular failure. Use the same weight for all work sets. Exercises 4 and 5 rest 60-90 seconds between sets and stop 2 reps before failure.

For exercises 1, 2, 3 and 4 increase the weight by 5 lbs when you can perform all sets for the maximum number of reps. So for incline barbell bench press you will increase the weight by 5 lbs for the next workout when you can do 3 sets of 6 reps. Try and add at-least 1 rep to 1 of your 3 sets each workout. So the first workout you might get 5, 4, 4. The next workout you’d try to get 5, 5, 4 and then 5, 5, 5. Once you build up to 6, 6 and 6 reps then you will add 5 lbs the next workout.

For the leg raise variations try to lift your legs as high as possible forming a V with your legs and torso. As fatigue mounts in you may need to bend your legs slightly to continue lifting your legs up. That’s fine, do the best you can.

Lastly, if you want to speed up fat loss you can add 20 minutes of low intensity cardio after the strength training workout. My preferred method is a brisk walk on the treadmill with an incline. My second favourite option is the elliptical machine. I am not a huge fan of the bike because I find I have to work twice as hard to burn the same number of calories. As well, I spend more than enough time per day sitting on my ass so I’d rather not do that while I’m exercising.

Cardio Training for the Warrior Physique 

Cardio training plays an important role in leaning down to single digit body fat. I’m a big proponent of strength training 3x per week or every other day. However, I feel that it is important to get physical activity on a daily basis, especially when dieting. Doing 45-60 minutes of low to medium intensity cardio will help you burn 400-600 calories. This gives you a lot more room to work with in your diet. For example, if you burn 2200 calories on a rest day then you will need to slice calories down to 1700 to put you into a 500 calorie deficit. Adding some exercise into the mix and you can bring your energy expenditure up to 2600 relatively easy. Now you can consume 2100 calories and be in an optimal 500 calorie deficit for fat loss. Alternatively, you could consume the same 1700 calories but this time be in a 900 calorie deficit. This would allow you to lose fat at almost double the rate!

So hopefully this shows you how cardio can make dieting much easier. Now it may be tempting to go beyond this and do 90-120 minutes of cardio on rest days. I don’t feel that this is a particularly wise idea. I consider 60 minutes of cardio per day to be the cutoff point for assisting with fat loss. After which, the cardio becomes a pain in the ass and inevitably leads to a proportional increase in appetite. So basically, if you want to eat like a bird or lose fat at a slow rate, complete inactivity is acceptable and can work. However, if you prefer to eat more calories or burn fat at a faster rate then adding some cardio on rest days may just be the best thing for you.

Cardio Recommendations

I recommend performing the type of cardio that you enjoy the most on your rest days (non strength training days). My preference, when dieting, is towards lower intensity forms of cardio such as walking on the treadmill with a slight incline. This type of training won’t cut into your recovery capabilities. Depending on how I’m feeling, I might step up the intensity at times, but I let my mood and intuition guide me. Sometimes i’ll alternate jogging with walking. This is similar to interval training but the intensity is fairly low. If you prefer to play sports, swim or run then do that! The cardio form that will most consistently get done is the type that you should do.

If you are already very active during the day then you probably won’t need to add additional cardio exercise on top of that. Your energy expenditure will already be exactly where in needs to be. Adding cardio to the picture will likely cause more problems than it solves.

What about boosting your metabolism or jacking up growth hormone? 

I don’t recommend performing cardio for the sole reason to boost your metabolism or jack up your growth hormone levels. The metabolism boosting effect of interval/sprint training has been drastically misinterpreted. Best case scenario you’ll burn an addition 15% on top of the calories burned from the interval session. So if you burn 200 calories from a 20 minute interval session then you’ll burn a whopping 30 calories on top of that from the metabolism boosting effect. And because interval/sprint training requires you to take a lot of rest between exertions your average intensity level will be substantially lower than if you were to maintain a steady pace throughout.

In terms of fat loss, it’s really all about the weekly calorie deficit that you create. Focusing on boosting your growth hormone levels from training will have hardly any effect at all. Similarly, chasing the testosterone boosting effect of squats/deadlifts or different training protocols has absolutely no impact on overall muscle growth. The only way for these hormones to make a difference is if you take immense quantities, artificially (illegal injections).

When should you perform cardio? 

For most people the best time to do cardio will be when it will most consistently get done. However, as you reach lower levels of body fat it can become more difficult to mobilize stored fat cells. So for people who are under 12% body fat it’s best to do cardio in the fasted state or 3-4 hours after a meal. However, for this cardio to have any effect, you must be in a calorie deficit. So doing empty stomach cardio in the morning and then overeating for the rest of the day will cause you to store excess fat. For those that are already following intermittent fasting and skipping breakfast you won’t have any issues mobilizing stubborn body fat. You will be oxidizing plenty of fat during the fasted phase, assuming you are in a calorie deficit.