iHow to get strong nowa strength training guide

First Edition

A copy of this guide is sent out to those seeking strength. The following advice has been taken from Barbell Shruggeds

Muscle Gain Challenge.

Published byBarbell Shrugged

Website: BarbellShrugged.com Email: Help@BarbellShrugged.com

Legal notice

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Have you ever heard of Sisyphus? If not, Im sure you can relate to his story.

As the Greek myth goes, this ancient King was extraordinarily clever, but he was also greedy and misleading of oth-ers. As punishment for his wicked deeds, the gods compelled Sisyphus to the end-less task of rolling a boulder up a steep hill.

While his ambition, will, and effort were unlimited, the stone was always doomed to slip and roll back away by the final push.

This is a valuable lesson because it illus-trates a fundamental problem many young athletes face in the gym - Despite their best efforts they can never to gain the size and strength theyre after. Like Sisyphus, its all repetitions and little gains.

If youve struggled to make progress in the gym, dont worry. Youre not guilty of anything. Youve just been misled. The truth is that we do lose grip on our goals from time to time, but its hard to call it a punishment. Its a choice.

INTRODUCTION

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Unless commitment is made there are only promises and hopes, but no plans.

- Peter Drucker

The most common mistake in the gym is impatience. In a rush to the goal, we fail to plan effectively. Other times, we get impatient that the strength isnt coming fast enough, so we hop from plan to plan in search of quicker results. But this is really more like starting over. Just when you get your boulder moving, you let it go so you can try something different.

Thats just no way to get strong. The work just never gets done.

The truth is that strength isnt something you stumble across. You actually dis-cover it through daily habit, the support of like-minded people and great coaches, and of course, a great plan. Make that commitment and you will get very strong, much stronger than you ever thought possible.

Theres no better example than our very own Kurt Mullican. In just a couple of years, Kurt has gone from skinny-fat ex-wrestler to competitive weightlifterand coach at Barbell Shrugged. Thats ex-traordinary, but theres no reason you cant be next.

Your journey starts right now.

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I was in bad shape before I decided to get strong.

Now, Ive never been a fat dude. But I was always soft and undersized, which is a very bad combination. My diet was also beyond terrible, with a lot of time spent

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KURTS STORY

eating cheese fries and drinking beer, but never water because it was gross.

Eventually I decided that I was tired of looking like I spent more time eating va-nilla snack packs than lifting weights. So, I picked up a copy of Mens Health. As a former wrestler I was used to suffer-ing, so I had no problem hitting my bull-shit magazine workouts super hard. I committed myself to living a healthier lifestyle, as imperfect as it was.

That was a start.

Shortly after making some gym friends I took to the typical bro routine - Loads of bench press and curls, super-setted with plenty of texting and staring at cute girls via the dumbbell area mirrors. I adapted quickly to the Ultra Mass Gain nutri-tional program of my own design, which was admittedly 75-80% pizza and Chi-nese food. And for the record, I did stop short of spraying myself down with Axe body spray on arm days. I wanted to, but I didnt.

The typical path seemed just fine at the time, until I saw a friend of mine doing

muscle-ups on a pull-up bar at the gym. I knew I wasnt an amazing athlete, but I thought I was alright. Right up until I saw exactly where my fitness ended. The truth is that all the bench pressing and curls in the world wouldnt help me learn the muscle-up. For that, I needed another change.

I started CrossFit in that very same globo-gym in late 2009. By mid-2010 I had my Level-1 certificate and was ob-sessing over all things metcon. I was very happy with my results and felt like I was strong. And to be honest, I grew dis-missive of other styles of training.

One memory is very clear. In February of 2009 I was reading a Crossfit Journal arti-cle entitled, CrossFit Strength Bias. It was all about incorporating strength work outside of the metcon. At the time I didnt really care what I lifted, so I just blew it off. I was more than happy scal-ing down WODs when needed. Moving well was everything, and still, you didnt really need to be that strong. This is 2009, after all. A heavy metcon often meant 135

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pound hang cleans, which almost seems like a joke by today's standards.

Crossfit had been great for developing my work capacity. By the end of 2010, I could do most workouts as prescribed, but the truth is that I still felt weak and skinny when I trained with my friends. Then I made the mistake of watching a video of Jason Khalipa crushing a work-out called King Kong. At that moment, Irealized that I was as weak as piss and dead tired of it. I was ready for another change.

I went out and purchased Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe, read it, the tried the program.

By did the program, I really mean that I stuck to it for about two weeks, then I jumped right back into the metcon be-cause I felt like I was getting out of shape.

Does that sound familiar?

I read book after book on training, but this obvious message still wasnt sinking in very well. In hindsight, its an obvious thing, but I know thats part of the jour-ney. In time I realized with 100% cer-tainty that devoting myself fully to get-ting strong really was the absolute best thing I could do.

I opened a small affiliate gym of my own in 2011. Of course, that meant that I was

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teaching a lot of classes myself. I didnt have a lot of time to train, so I just began squatting during my coaching breaks in the morning.

I had read somewhere that squatting twice your bodyweight was ideal for an athlete, so that was the new goal I set for myself. I weighted about 130 pounds, so getting strong meant adding about 30 pounds to my back squat. I could only lift about 230 at the time.

It took twelve very long weeks to add those 30 pounds, but I did it, and I was excited as hell! This was the very first time I had ever achieved real progress with the barbell, and it felt amazing!

It was during that strength cycle that I started noticing the exploding popularity of the Olympic lifts in Crossfit. They were being prescribed more often in WODs and the Games. But more than that, people were getting strong as and I wasnt.

I remember watching hundreds of hours of weightlifting videos, just trying to fig-

ure it out. I poured 100% of my free timeinto trying to understand this weightlifting thing. I worked endless hours with a PVC and empty barbell, re-fining my movement hour after hour. I did everything I could do to understand the sport and improve my own perform-ance, but I didnt have much progress to show for it. Because I was all on my own I was still making some novice mistakes.

A great example was my squat. I always thought I was pretty strong in this lift. I had squatted double bodyweight, youll remember. But my balls were totally crushed when I realized that no one in the sport of weightlifting does low-bar back squats. It just doesnt carry-over very well to the snatch, clean and jerk, which is exactly why my numbers were still so poor.

I had to put in another 12 long weeks of hard squatting just to get my high bar squat up to par, but it was well worth it. Once I could high-bar double body-weight, thats actually when my strength started taking off.

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Almost a year had passed. I was working on my snatch and clean all the time, but I was still totally obsessed with having my name at the top of the whiteboard. And I still felt like I was missing something in my training, something really important. I just didnt know what that could be.

Things began to click into place when a friend of mine came to town during a break from school. He was a real strong dude, and we trained together when we could. He pushed me like no one ever had. He made fun of me for being weak and yelled at me for missing lifts, which brought a whole new level of intensity to my training to say the least.

If you know me, then you know that I need to be yelled at. It drives me to train much harder, much closer to my real lim-its. I needed that more than anything. It was cool to watch my friend moving big weights, but what I wanted most of all was to be the strong one. To get there, I was going to have to conquer myself and my perceived limitations.

My training partner eventually had to go back to school, which sucked, but he left me with a gift. He introduced me to Bar-bell Shrugged. I didnt know exactly what I wanted at the time, so I drove up to the gym to find some peace.

I did some squats, mopped the mats, all while watching Barbell Shrugged on the screens in the gym. I watched all I could, and honestly was blown away with the amount of shared experience and infor-mation in every single show.

I was hooked.

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The best habit that was taking root in my life was consistency. I kept listening to the show and learning. I kept training, even thought my weightlifting felt permanently stuck.

Again, I hadnt yet addressed some obvi-ous limitations and mistakes.

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BRAND NEW HABITS

The biggest thing I needed to address was bodyweight. I felt sexy and ripped eating turbo-paleo and zone, but I was also lucky to weigh 128 pounds after training on any given day. Thats about 70 pounds lighter than most of the men competition at the highest levels of Cross-fit, much less Weightlifting. That just wasn't good enough.

I was starting to see that I needed to get much bigger and stronger, I just didnt know where to start.

The second thing is that I always did my own programming. Thats a huge mis-take. As the great Dan John says, If you are coaching yourself, your coach is an idiot. Thats true, mostly because one of the keys to extraordinary strength is not fooling yourself in the gym, which is tough because you are always the easiest person to fool.

My next big opportunity came one Sun-day afternoon while I was listening to Barbell Shrugged in my gym. Its still where I find peace and make time for mopping. During that show I heard Mike and Chris mention that they were going

to start an online training program de-signed specifically for muscle gain. I perked up.

I knew that I need to get much bigger and stronger, and that it most likely wasnt going to happen on my own. Af-ter all, I had been trying for years with only modest success at best. What I needed was help, and to be pushed harder than ever before. As an athlete, it was time to make the commitment and get some coaching.

The show had already given me so much valuable information and training wis-dom, I knew their muscle gain challenge was going to be awesome. So, I signed up right away, even though I had my res-ervations. They said I could possibly gain 26 pounds in 26 weeks, which sounded like a lot. But I was confident ei-ther way that I would end up getting big-ger and stronger.

From the very beginning you realize the challenge isnt just about programming and diets. Its about changing your be-havior and removing old barriers. One of the very first things you do is create the

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habit of waking up and weighing your-self at the same time every day. Of course weighing myself wasnt new, but for the very first time in training I had a chart and a projected goal laid out before me. I didnt have to guess and wonder any-more. I now had a very clear plan in place.

That alone is priceless. All I had to do was average about a pound of weight gain per week, which really isnt that much. I thought to myself, I can do that! If nothing else, it sure made gain-

ing 26 pounds of muscle sound more pos-sible. It was just like my old squat train-ing. I had my plan, now all I needed to do was stick with it.

Next to planning, the community is the most important thing. From the start of the muscle gain challenge, you are en-couraged to interact daily with coaches and other athletes. You share in the expe-rience fully, which instantly makes it eas-ier to create and keep new habits. Meal prep is a great example. Eating well con-sistently is much hard than most people

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think, but accountability and support go a long way.

If you are serious about gaining muscle and strength, then youve got to eat a lot of great food. That was always the big-gest struggle for me in the past. I con-stantly had to make up for low energy levels in the gym by over-caffeinating, which only kills your appetite further and recovery further. It undermines your training and recovery efforts.

The habit of proper meal preparation that changed my weightlifting game for-ever. I started to shop and cook all of my food on Sundays, which only takes a few hours. I found the process pretty peaceful, actually.

Theres something about seeing all your food ready to go in the fridge that sets your mind at ease. I bought tons of root vegetables and large cuts of meat - whole chickens and roasts, mostly - to save time and money. And I might add, the crock-pot and rice cooker became my best friends. Theres nothing better after a hard training session than coming home to a bowl of Irish style lamb stew.

To this day its my favorite post-workout dinner.

I can say for certain that I now eat more protein than ever before, which is great for boosting muscle and strength quickly. Plus, its not nearly as expensive as you might think. Try buying your meat in bulk if budget is a concern. Ive split a cow with a friend in the past, which made the meat very cheap by the pound. Stash it in your freezer and youll always have plenty of high-quality protein on hand, and dont skip the organ meats!

A little variety in your diet will help keep you from missing out on essential nutri-ents.

Theres just one more point to be made about meal prep - you can have all the food in the packed away in little tupper-ware containers in your fridge. But it will do you no good if you forget to eat it. Re-member, consistency is key. If nothing else set an alarm on your phone to re-mind you to eat throughout the day. It might not sound very important, but trust me, the last thing you want to do is break your rhythm.

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In the challenge, I was eating more than ever before, and it didnt take long to tell that I had been missing out. I quickly felt better, and much stronger. The quality of my sleep improved, everything got bet-ter. I really only had one problem left - My job.

I traveled all the time to make a living. Most trips were 2-3 days, longer if I got stuck or missed a flight. I did my best to train on the road when I could. I found that as long as I could get in at least 3 good training sessions a week, I was fine. But eating was harder, especially when I was flying.

Again, a little preparation goes a long way. I started to bring little baggies of protein and carb powders with me in shaker bottles on the plane. All I needed was a little milk or water and I could whip up a quick shake no matter where I was. I also made sure to pack a lot of beef jerky, nuts and seeds ahead of time, just in case the flight attendants decided to be stingy with the peanuts.

See, I think the beauty of all of the Bar-bell Shrugged programs is that they

arent just about the programming. The plan itself is great, but that alone isnt worth much when life gets in the way. However, when you build great habits in-side and outside of the gym - when you understand exactly what its goingto take for you to reach your goals - at that point success becomes inevitable.

Once you learn to eat, sleep, live and train like an athlete, everything gets much easier.

The Muscle Gain Challenge is set-up a lot like a college course. You have daily, weekly and monthly assignments that all build and accumulate through the year. Each lesson builds upon the next. In this case, all you have to do to graduate with more muscle and strength is complete the course as its laid out. Its a big pro-ject of sorts, only instead of putting to-gether a thesis or something youre build-ing a new body, one rep at a time.

And just like in school, it helps if you in-teract with the professor as much as pos-sible. In the gym, athletes who use their

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coach to the fullest and integrate their ad-vice fully can expect the best results, thats it. You have to be coachable and you have to be willing to change your lifestyle. Otherwise, your results are go-ing to be limited.

The Facebook group is the lifeblood of the program. It was a daily link to people with the same exact problems I had, the same goals. This is where I interacted with our coaches. Ill admit, I was a little nervous going into the group at first be-cause I expected it to be full of six-pack studs, but that was silly. I loved my

group, and getting constant feedback from a coach who was much smarter than me was stellar.

That community is what drove me to ac-complish goals.

As far as training goes, Barbell Shrugged programming was like nothing I had ever done before. It was very challeng-ing. I was constantly doing things that I never would have done or thought of on my own.

You will squat more than ever before. The drop sets and variety in movements

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will always make things challenging. The work will make you incredibly hungry, which is a great sign of growth. Just keep eating and your numbers will climb steadily.

Its worth repeating - Even if youre com-mitted fully to getting strong, you still might struggle when it comes to condi-tioning. Even though I was getting stronger, I couldnt help but notice my friends that were getting better at Fran and Helen. It got to me a little at first and made me doubt my path, Ill admit. But I got over it, and in the end I was better off.

As it turns out, getting stronger and put-ting on lean muscle makes you better at everything. By the end of the challenge I shaved nearly 2 minutes from my Fran time, just because the barbell felt so light. I still got crushed by the WOD of course, but still, I couldnt believe the outcome.

Strength always matters.

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After the challenge I was a bigger, stronger and much smarter person.

I learned so much about life and training. Having access to the seminars was a huge plus, I still rewatch them to this day to stay frosty. I also learned the ins and outs of what a solid program looks like, and

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AFTER THE CHALLENGE

what it really takes to succeed in weight-lifting.

Heres the thing. You cant just slap 52 weeks-worth of numbers and percent-ages into a spreadsheet and grow. It takes much more than that. You have to make healthy habits part of your daily routine. Commit fully, never stop learn-ing, and set yourself up to succeed.

The biggest surprise after I completed that Muscle Gain Challenge was that, not only was I bigger and stronger, but I was felt more confident and effective as a coach. I was able to more fully under-stand and empathize with the struggles of my athletes, simply because I had just been there myself. That perspective is a priceless thing when people are coming to you for help.

The boosted confidence and physical strength carries over to everything. Ive never been a shy person, but Ive never felt better in my own skin. Im even will-ing now to put myself to the test on the platform. Soon after the program was over I decided to enter a local Weightlift-ing meet. It just made sense. I had spent

the last two years of my life studying the sport, but I had never participated.

I showed up with a singlet and shoes, but no clue about how much to lift, when and where. I also had no coach. I just stood there by the front door with a piece of paper in my hand, ready to guess my attempts. Just then I recognized a famil-iar face - It was my Muscle Gain coach, Alex Maclin.

I had never met him in person, so I waltzed on up and introduced myself. He asked me what I planned to lift, and where my coach was. In the end I got lucky because Alex coached me through the day. I might have been nervous, but I made 5 out of 6 attempts and took first place in my weight class. I was stoked!

Sure, it was just a start. But I was now of-ficially a Weightlifter. After all the years of struggle, trial and error, I had man-aged to find a path to my goal. And let me tell you, its an addictive feeling.

Theres nothing quite like the rush you get from lifting on the platform in compe-tition. I cant recommend it enough.

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A lot has changed since that day. For one, I d o n t have that awful travel jobany-more. As luck would have it, I actually got a chance to join the awesome Barbell Shrugged team as a Muscle Gain coach, which has been amazing.

My former soft, vanilla pudding self wouldnt believe it. I now have the oppor-tunity to share these lessons and my ex-periences with hundreds of athletes. Thats incredibly rewarding.

You never know. Amazing things happen when you make yourself stronger.

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What if I dont want to get bigger? Can I still get stronger without gaining weight?

Putting on muscle is a sure-fire way to get stronger, but its not the only way.

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STRENGTH FAQ

For example, many Olympic Weightlift-ers train for strength exclusively without gaining large amounts of body mass, which helps them stay in the weight class and be more competitive. This isnt easy and it can take a long time, but you can also get stronger without getting big-ger.

The secret is to focus on building abso-lute strength. This will involve lifting very heavy weights quite often (typically above 90% of your 1-rep max), usually for around 4-7 sets of 1-4 reps. Stick to fundamental barbell movements like squats, deadlifts, presses, and barbell rows. Loaded, strict gymnastic move-ments like pull-ups, push-ups, dips and handstands are also fantastic for boosting strength and adding variety to your train-ing.

And remember, dont neglect the Olym-pic lifts! The snatch, clean and jerk are all excellent for building explosive strength and coordination in the entire body, which greatly improves overall strength and athleticism. Theres nothing better than snatching a heavy PR, sure, but

these movements are also very important if your goal is to build a strong, muscular and functional physique.

No matter what your goal is, balance is going to be critical. You odds of success only improve if youre strong.

Will I get fat if Im trying to gain muscle?

That depends on how much you eat, the kind of foods you put into your body, and when. Also, the specifics of your ge-netics and training history are incredibly important.

Heres the truth - Anyone can eat a ton of crap food, lift heavy weights for a few months, then get bigger and stronger. But thats not much of a plan. Theres no way around it - When the timing and quality of your diet are off, a lot of the mass you gain will be body fat. Thats never a great look. Its cool to lift heavy barbells, but what you really want is to also look damn strong. You just need a different mindset when it comes to food.

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First, you have to eat the right amount of food. If you dont eat enough, you wont gain any muscle. But if you eat too much youll gain weight too quickly, and most of it will be fat. Its far better to set a weekly goal of gaining about 0.5 lb to 1 lb of bodyweight per week.

That rate will ensure that most of the mass you put on will be high-quality muscle.

You should also aim to eat high-quality, whole foods. You don't see a lot of strong people eating fast, junk, and processed foods. Thats also basically what youre getting with many muscle building sup-plements. The calories are high, but these foods lack the nutrients that you need to perform at your best.

Choose high-quality sources of meat, eggs, vegetables, fats, starches, dairy (if you can tolerate it) and make those items a staple of your diet. Ditch the crap that comes out of the freezer section with a million ingredients that you cant even pronounce.

If you just love that stuff, eat it sparingly, or as a treat after you set your next squat PR.

If you are worried about getting fat, your next area of focus should macronutrient timing - Keep most of your carb intake very close to your training time. Eating the right types of food before and after you train will help to minimize fat stor-age. More importantly, it will also help you recover faster and get a head start building new muscle.

Your training is another factor that should be considered. Remember, if you are lifting heavy barbells, eating high-quality food, and timing the intake of carbs, youre going to have fantastic re-sults. But if body fat is still a concern, just include a few bouts of conditioning in

your training week. Keep these sessions short, no longer than 20 minutes. Keep the intensity high and rest as little possi-ble.

We also still cant ignore genetics, but theres very little we can do about that. Some people can eat anything they want

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and never put on body fat, others just look at a plate of pasta and they gain 5 pounds. Thats just the reality.

However, poor genetics is never an ex-cuse. If you train hard, eat smart and stick to your goal of adding just about a pound per week, you will find incredible success. The pounds add up faster than you think.

What about gaining muscle and losing fat at the same time? Is that possible?

It is possible, but not easy. Its also very unlikely if you have already been train-ing for more than a year or so.

Gaining muscle mass and losing fat are usually mutually exclusive. This really only occurs in new athletes, where the ini-tial responses to training stimuli are very high. If you go from couch potato to gym rat you would put on muscle and lose a bunch of at the same time, but not for long.

After some time, your response will pla-teau and youll start to see diminishing

returns from your training. At that point, you must focus your training specifically on the task of gaining muscle if you want to make progress.

Now, when gaining muscle, you will probably add some small amounts of body fat, even if your diet is on point. There is usually no way around this. You have to increase the amount of calories you eat to coax your body into a state of growth. By definition, you are overeat-ing. But this is perfectly fine.

In fact, it actually works to improve your performance and results in the long-term.

The very best athletes train in cycles. Spe-cifically, there should be planned periods of muscle gain and fat loss. The secret to maximizing your overall results is to make the absolute most of each phase.

Try this. Take the next 6 months to a year to put on as much mass as possible, then gradually change your food intake and adjust your training focus so that you can preferentially cut the fat. If your fat loss period of training is well executed,

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youll be able to showcase a lot more of that hard earned new muscle. Let other people obsess about fat. With a great long-term strategy, youll always be get-ting a little bigger and a little leaner.

I dont eat meat. Can I still put on muscle?

The good news is that if you are a vege-tarian or vegan, all of the same training and nutrition rules apply. You can gain plenty of muscle mass, you just need to eat enough calories, including a balanced and well-timed intake of carbs, protein and fats. If you follow a vegetarian or ve-gan diet, youll probably have no trouble getting enough carbs and fat.

Between sweet potatoes and coconut alone you can find plenty. But your pro-tein intake has to be managed more care-fully.

With meat off the menu, you will have to work hard to get enough protein in your diet. For vegetarians, good sources of pro-tein include clean whey protein powders, high-quality dairy products (like Greek

yogurt, cottage cheese, or milk), and whole eggs.

Its much harder for vegans, as most plant-based sourced of protein are incom-plete (they lack all 9 essential amino ac-ids) and are little use to the body of a growing athlete. For proper health and performance, you must seek out com-plete sources of protein.

Here are a few examples:

QuinoaSoy (tofu, tempeh)BuckwheatChia SeedsHempseedsRice and Beans

There are endless complimentary sources of amino acids. Listing them all is not the scope of this resource.

So, if you are a vegetarian/vegan athlete, our best advice is to do your homework. Do your research, and never leave any doubt over your protein intake. With that, youll be big and strong in no time.

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Will my conditioning or gymnastic skills suffer if I put on muscle?

No, this is a common misconception. You never stop conditioning, you simple switch focus. While improving strength, you can still metcon to maintain your fit-ness. The same is true for gymnastics work. Theres no reason to stop practic-ing your gymnastic skills during this phase in training.

Keep in mind that the single greatest fac-tor influencing your performance is strength. As you grow stronger, your met-con weights will feel lighter and lighter. Youll be able to move the weight more efficiently with less effort, which will al-low you to do more reps faster and un-broken. If youre stuck at the bottom of your gyms whiteboard, getting stronger is probably the single best thing you can do to be more competitive.

Continuing to work on your gymnastic movements can be just as beneficial. Movements like pull-ups, muscle-ups, and handstand push-ups are amazing for building muscle and body improving body awareness. Just take one look at

any competitive gymnast. If you want to be muscular and strong as hell, the very last thing you want to do is cut your gym-nastics work.

As you get stronger and stronger, you may find that many of the classical gym-nastic movements will get easier. Youll be able to perform more work fast, even though youve gotten much bigger over-all.

Again, muscle matters. Dont worry at all about your gas tank. In the long run, strength is the best predictor of success.

Can I still do traditional cardio while trying to gain muscle? I love running, swimming, and bicycling.

Yes can still run, swim, cycle, just be care-ful not to go overboard. If your main goal is to gain muscle, you should be lift-ing heavy stuff most of the time.

You also need to be able to recover quickly so you can hit the next session hard. Thats whats going to entice your body into full growth. You cant have

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that and run twelve miles a day. Try to think about what is most important to you. If you are training to run a mara-thon in a few weeks, maybe you should hold off on trying to get swole until youre ready to make the commitment. You wont be great at either thing other-wise.

Perform a longer, low-intensity cardio session once or twice a week. Thats all. Treat it as an opportunity to get out the gym and have fun, or use it as a way to get in some active recovery in on your non-training days. As long as you keep your focus on the barbell you will be fine.

What are the best rep ranges for build-ing muscle and getting stronger?

Anything less than 5 repetitions is best for developing raw strength while 8-12 reps are common in hypertrophy (body-building) training. So, to get the best re-sults you want a mix of both.

The very best range for building muscle and strength is between 5-10 reps. If you

work both ends of that spectrum as hard as you can, youll be very pleased with your results.

What supplements should I be taking?

The first thing to know is that supple-ments are exactly that, supplemental. They offer little benefit on their own if you fail to eat enough high-quality, nutri-ent dense food.

Once proper diet, training, and recovery are in place, you should consider taking the following supplements. As with any-thing you might consume, do you home-work first. The more you can educate yourself first, the better.

Caffeine: Dont go overboard. A fewcups of coffee or a scoop of pre-workout before training are more thanenough boost. If youre energy leveljust isnt there for the day and yourefeeling unmotivated, some caffeine canquickly get you in the training mood.

Omega-3 Fatty Acids: We take the goodhigh-potency stuff, its worth the

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dough for sure. Aim for about 0.5 gram of Omega 3s (DHA/EPA) per 10 pounds of body weight.

Vitamin D: As a healthy and athleticadult, you should for about 4,000 IUper day.

Creatine: 5 grams per day. Theres noneed to load or cycle off.

ZMA: Guys, take 3 capsules right be-fore bedtime. Ladies, 2 is enough.

Beta Alanine: Split 4 grams into 4 equaldoses and spread it out through theday. Dont take it all at once! If you do,prepare to get the Itis.

Exactly what kinds of food should I be eating?

That depends on your goals.

As you train to gain muscle mass, your body will need more and more energy to maintain progress. It takes more energy to build muscle, sure, but you have to re-member that your new muscle will also start to burn more calories. If you dont

eat enough every day to keep up, you will quickly reach a plateau that you can-not bust.

In addition to increasing your calories, you have to maintain the quality of your food intake. That means doing what it takes to get enough protein, carbs, and healthy fats without making bad choices. You cant make the mistake of thinking that you can start eating candy bars and drinking sodas in order to get the calo-ries that you need to keep adding mus-cle.

We know that doesnt work. The best thing you can do is prepare ahead of time. Stock up on protein. Wild fish is an excellent source, as is lean pork, chicken, bacon, tuna, turkey, and beef.

Carbs are super important when training hard. Not eating enough will quickly de-plete your body of glycogen, which your body burns to provide energy to your muscles and central nervous system dur-ing intense training. Without the fuel, you cannot be intense, and you cannot grow strong. Rice and potatoes are your

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friends, especially after a heavy squat ses-sion.

Fat is a dense calories source, but its also very important for hormone regulation. To make the muscle building hormone

testosterone, for example, you need a diet rich in high-quality fats. Some good sources include avocado, olive oil, nut butters, coconut oil and animal fat, like bacon drippings.

What foods should I avoid?

If youre going to fail, it will probably be because of what you drink.

Check your drinking habits. You just dont be successful if you are swigging back a 2-liter bottle of soda every day, it doesnt matter if its got sugar in it or not. The more often you are exposed to sweet and processed ingredients, the fat-ter you get. So, make great choices.

You also want to avoid processed meats and microwavable meals. Heres a sim-ple rule - If dinner comes in a box with a long list of ingredients, skip it.

Your strength and health are far more im-portant.

How much food do I really need to eat to gain muscle?

A LOT! No, but seriously, if you struggle with gaining weight youre going to have to eat more food than you ever have be-fore.

If eating starts feeling like work, thats be-cause it is! If you want to get bigger, youre going to have to put in the time. It will be very uncomfortable at times, but dont whine and complain. Just shovel another spoonful of mashed potatoes in your mouth and ask for seconds, maybe even thirds. Once you get used to eating more, you will start to see growth.

The exact amount of food required de-pends on the individual, but you will want to adjust your food intake so that you can keep pace with your weekly goal of gaining 0.5-1 pound. Weigh your-self every day. If your weight is going up week after week, youre on the right path. If not, you need to eat more. If you

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exceed 1 pound, likewise, just back your intake down slightly.

You dont need to be perfect. The week to week outcome doesnt matter nearly as much as the cumulative effects of the re-peated effort.

How often should I eat?

You should be eating every 2.5-3 hours from the minute that you wake up.

Heres a quick guide. Dont skip break-fast. Try to eat a meal or snack rich in car-bohydrates and lean protein, but low in fiber and fat, a couple of hours before training.

About 30 to 45 minutes before exercise, eat a snack high in carbohydrates andprotein, and low in fat and fiber. Aftertrain-ing, eat a meal high in starchy carbs and protein to give your body the raw materials it needs to build muscle.

The rest of your meals throughout the day should consist mostly of high-quality proteins and vegetables. If you need some extra calories for the day, eat

another meal rich in protein and fat right before bed.

What are the best exercises to build muscle mass?

That would definitely be the fundamen-tal movements.

One of the best exercises you can per-form is a simple deep squat. Dont use asmith machine. Get in a squat rack with a barbell and some plates and start squatting! Add some variation by front, box, or overhead squatting.

Some other amazing exercises include all varieties of deadlifts, bench presses, over-head presses, barbell rows, pull-ups, push-ups, handstand push-ups, dips, these are all great for building lots of mass. Remember to mix-up the move-ments, just make are that

youre going heavy and lifting often.

How can I incorporate snatches, cleans and jerks into my muscle building training?

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The Olympic lifts require a lot of skill. It takes time to improve your technique, es-pecially under load.

If you want to make significant progress, you should practice the Olympic lifts at least 2-3 times per week.

That doesnt mean max out. Your train-ing focus should be improving tech-nique, position, positional strength, and bar speed at moderate loads (between 70% to 85% of your best lifts).

Also, make sure to incorporate some heavy clean and snatch pulls to supple-ment to your strength work. This will help refine your technique and position under high load.

Will my weightlifting improve if I put on size?

Getting bigger and stronger will defi-nitely help improve your snatch, clean and jerk numbers. But you must also con-tinue to work on technique, mobility and position.

It takes more than raw strength alone to perform at your best.

How long will it take to put on muscle?

It takes 6 months to build a Rolls Royce, and about 13 hours to slap together a Toy-ota Corolla. So the real question is, what kind of body do you want to build?

You have to make an investment in your-self. If you are serious about getting big and strong, you will make sure that your training and nutrition are on point most of the time. It doesnt matter what some bodybuilding magazine says, you dont get massive guns in 16 weeks!

Real results take time and effort, several months worth at least. But its more than worth it.

How much muscle can I expect to gain?

Again, this will depend on a lot of fac-tors, including your training intensity, ex-perience, age, diet, and genetics.

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Someone fairly new to training can ex-pect to add about 1-2 pounds of a muscle per month for about a year. Muscle gets more difficult to pack on the more experi-enced you are, so intermediate and ad-vanced athletes should expect less.

Our best advice is to not worry so much about the specific numbers. Just focus on training hard and eating well consis-tently, put daily effort into recovery and rejuvenation, and take care of yourself in general. Youll make progress.

Set big goals, push yourself, but dont beat yourself up if you fall short. Just keep grinding and doing everything you can do to succeed. Youll be surprised how far that takes you.

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Here are the first two weeks of the Muscle Gain Challenge program. These workouts are a great example of how you can struc-ture your training for maximal perform-ance and strength gains.

5HOW TO PROGRAM FOR STRENGTH

The first two weeks of this program arent meant to wreck you right off the bat. The demands will build over time, so its very important to build a solid foundation first so that further growth and progress can be made, without in-creasing the risk of injury or plateaus later down the road.

The primary goal of the Muscle Gain pro-gram is to get strong as hell and build lots of muscle over the course of a year. That kind of shift in body composition will forever improve your performance in the gym.

Youll should be doing plenty of heavy barbell squats, presses, rows, lunges and deadlift variations of all kinds, with an optimal range of 3-8 repetitions per set. Also, you can further boost strength gains by adding volume in the form of prescribed additional sets, or drop sets, at a reduced load.

Heres an example of how drop sets work. On Saturday of Week 1, you will find a 5-rep max in the back squat. You want this set to be very hard, but make sure your form doesnt break down.

Next, reduce the load of your max set by 10% and perform 4 more sets of 5 reps with the reduced weight.

These heavy weight, high-volume ses-sions will allow you to accumulate a lot of time under tension, which is the pri-mary training factor to consider.

This is not your ordinary strength pro-gram, as a primary focus of training is also improving your Olympic Weightlift-ing technique. You will also be able to maintain your conditioning and gymnas-tic skills, as theres plenty of opportunity throughout the week to get that work in.

Youll perform the snatch, clean and jerk movements frequently throughout this program, usually 3-4 days per week. The rep ranges on those movements will be kept between 1-3, with the volume work typically falling between 70-85%. This is most conducive to building explosive strength and reinforcing great technique.

The conditioning workouts are also a cru-cial part of this program. In order to maintain your overall fitness you should be conditioning 3-4 times per week.

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These workouts should include some plyometrics and jumps, gymnastic move-ments (such as pull-ups, push-ups, hand-stand push-ups, muscle ups, and ring dips), core stability work (farmers car-ries are great!) and large range of motion movements like wall-balls, thrusters, and kettlebell swings or snatches.

Loads for these conditioning workouts should be moderate. Remember, your pri-mary training focus is on building strength. Use a range of 5-12 reps for these movements to stimulate hypertro-phy. Also, minimize your rest time and perform the movements unbroken to keep the intensity high. This will also pro-vide you with some favorable hormonal adaptations that will also help with body composition and performance.

If you follow these core programming principles in your training, and if you eat enough of the right foods, getting stronger will be no problem at all.

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Sample programming - Week 1 Monday

1. Warm-up

2. Weightlifting

Hang power snatch (5 total sets):- 3 reps at 50%, 60%, 65%- 2 sets of 2 reps at 70% (down set)

Barbell walking lunges:- 5 sets of 5 reps

Power jerk from behind the neck:- 3 reps at 50%, 60%, 65%- 2 sets of 2 reps at 70%

Here are the recommended rest intervals according to load:- Less than 70% = 1 minute- 70-85% = 2 minutes- 85-95% = 3 minutes- Over 95% = 5 minutes

3. Conditioning

10 total rounds (rest 2 minutes between each round):- 6 pull-ups- 6 push-ups- 6 pistols or 12 jumping lunges

Tuesday

1. Warm-up

2. Weightlifting

Snatch deadlift:- 2 sets of 3 reps at 80%- 2 sets of 3 reps at 85%

Standing press:- Work to a 5 rep max- 4 sets of 5 at 90% of 5 RM (down

sets)

3. Conditioning

6 rounds:- 10 Box jumps (24/20 inches)- 10 Glute-ham situps- 5 Muscle-ups or 10 ring dips

Rest 5 minutes, then perform dumbbell rows:- 5 sets of 8 reps per arm

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Thursday

1. Warm-up

2. Weightlifting

Clean (5 sets):- 3 reps at 50%, 60%, 70%- 2 sets of 3 reps at 75%

Front squat:- Work to a 3 rep max- 4 sets of 3 at 90% of 3 RM

3. Conditioning

None.

Friday

1. Warm-up

2. Weightlifting

Snatch (7 sets):- 2 reps at 50%- 3 reps at 60%, 70%- 2 sets of 3 reps at 75%- 2 sets of 2 reps at 80%

Push press*- Work to a 5 rep max- 4 sets of 5 at 90% of 5 RM

Barbell row*- 5 sets of 8 reps

*Feel free to alternate between the pressand row.

3. Conditioning

4 rounds:- 15 Dumbbell or kettlebell thrusters- 20 Walking lunges- 15 burpess

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Saturday

1. Warm-up

2. Weightlifting

Back squat:- Work to a 5 rep max- 4 sets of 5 at 90% of 5 RM

Clean deadlift:- 4 sets of 4 reps at 80% of clean 1 RM

Overhead squat:- 3 reps at 50%- 2 sets of 3 reps at 60%- 2 sets of 3 reps at 70%

3. Conditioning

10 rounds (rest 2 minutes between each round):- 6 Toes to bar- 6 Wall-ball shots- 6 KB swings (70/53 pounds)

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Week 2Monday

1. Warm-up

2. Weightlifting

Hang power snatch:- 3 reps at 50%, 60%, 65%- 2 sets of 2 reps at 70%

Bench press:- Work to a 5 rep max- 4 sets of 5 at 90% of 5 RM

3. Conditioning

6 rounds:- Farmers carry for 100 feet with

right hand, heavy- 30 Double-unders- Farmers carry for 100 feet with left

hand, heavy- 30 Double-unders

Tuesday

1. Warm-up

2. Weightlifting

Mid-thigh snatch off blocks or from hang position:- 3 reps at 50%, 60%, 65%, 70%- 2 sets of 3 reps at 75%

Snatch high pull:- 3 reps at 70%,- 3 sets of 3 reps at 80%

Barbell walking lunges:- 5 sets of 5 reps (5 pounds heavier

than week 1)

3. Conditioning

4 rounds (rest 1 minute between rounds):- Max hand-stand push-ups- 15 barbell rows, heavy and unbro-

ken

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Thursday

1. Warm-up

2. Weightlifting

Power clean:- 2 reps at 50%, 60%- 2 sets of 2 reps at 70%

Standing press:- Work to a 5 rep max- 4 sets of 5 at 90% of 5 RM

Dumbbell row:- 5 sets of 10 reps per arm

3. Conditioning

None.

Friday

1. Warm-up

2. Weightlifting

Snatch deadlift (pause the bar at your knees and pockets):- 2 sets of 3 reps at 75%- 3 sets of 3 reps at 80%

Overhead squat:- 4 reps at 50%- 3 reps at 60%, 65%, 70%

Clean deadlift:- 4 reps at 70%- 4 sets of 4 reps at 80%

3. Conditioning

10 rounds:- 6 Thrusters (40% of front squat 1 rep

max)- 8 KB snatches per arm, heavy but un-

broken- 6 GHD sit-ups

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Saturday

1. Warm-up

2. Weightlifting

Snatch high pull (2 reps) + Power snatch (1 rep):- 1 set at 50%, 60%, 65%- 2 sets at 70%

Front squat:- Work to a 3 rep max- 4 sets of 3 at 90% of 3 RM

Push press from behind the neck:- Work to a 5 rep max- 4 sets of 5 at 90% of 5 RM

3. Conditioning

6 rounds:- 10 Pull-ups- 10 Ring dips- 10 Jumping lunges

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Really, you can become very strong.

All you need is a great plan, some band new habits, and most importantly, consistent effort in the gym. Commit fully, believe in what youre doing, and youll find extraordinary results.

YOU CAN DO THIS!

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You can do this. We believe in you, and what youll be able to achieve as soon as you perform better.

Sure, crushing PRs on the regular and adding muscle mass is about as cool as it gets. But that said, its never really about being stronger than the next guy or girl at your gym. What you really want is to live a healthy, confident, more fulfilled life. So, make it happen.

Trust yourself and your plan. Stay the course, even when you feel worn down or ready to program hop. Strength is nothing more than a skill, and with time and consistent effort you will learn how to handle heavy barbells. Even better, youll LOOK strong!

Thats hard to beat.

You have everything you need to get started. So, take action. Commit today to getting stronger and becoming a better lifter. Never give up on yourself. Do not quit and youll have your reward.

Well be cheering you on. With love and respect,

The Barbell Shrugged Team

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