Carving in Muscle Separations

(NOTE: Please excuse the bro-sciency-ness of this. PubMed is a little light on research into carving in muscle separations... probably because the whole concept is extremely bro-ish!)

One of the most idiotic and misunderstood myths in body transformation training is that of exercises or techniques for 'carving in muscle separations'.

This is not to say that there aren't ways to improve the visible separations between muscles. There are. But you need to understand what is happening if you hope to achieve the desired outcome and not just waste massive amounts of time and effort... like so many do!


START WITH THE BASICS
Before I get to the guts of this blog, I must make mention of the two most important factors in visually pronounced muscle separations:
1) fat - the number one reason people fail to display the definition and separation they would like between their muscles is that they are simply too fat!
2) genetics - some people have muscles that appear deeply and distinctly separated; others just don't. That said, the vast majority of people who blame their genetics are simply fat... and usually lazy and lacking the 'personal responsibility' gene!

YOU ARE PROBABLY JUST FAT
In all but the absolute most extreme cases, if you cannot clearly see your muscular separations it is probably because you have too much bodyfat! Even competitive bodybuilders who say they are "holding water", 9 times out of 10 are just too fat!

Do not underestimate how lean you need to be for clear definition! It does not matter how lean you FEEL or THINK you are, nor how lean your Trainer has measured you (assuming your Trainer even does measurements), its probably simply not enough. And just because you don't know how to get any leaner doesn't mean you aren't still too fat!

Everybody possesses the same distinct muscles. Those muscles ARE separate from one another! They are each wrapped in their own fascial sheath. What MOSTLY hides them from external view is the water, fat and skin on top! Typically the fat is the most significant factor. It literally 'blankets' the muscles and fills in the 'gaps'. Mostly...

ADVANCED MUSCLE SEPARATIONS - THE PROBLEM
Despite the above, at the more advanced levels of bodybuilding muscle size becomes a factor. More specifically, the current state of an enlarged muscle can be a factor that REDUCES the visible separations between the muscles.

Let me give a crude illustration of the issue. Imagine two, 1/2-inflated balloons inside a glass box. The box is fractionally too small in all directions for the two balloons so they are lightly squashed together and against the glass on all sides.

Now imagine inflating the balloons. With nowhere else to go, the balloons will expand into the empty space between each other and the walls of the glass box, reducing the gaps between them. As you keep inflating the balloons they press tighter and tighter together until, eventually, they form 2 almost-perfect cubes with almost no separation between them.

This balloon analogy is not dissimilar to what happens with muscles within their own fascias. When bodybuilders use food, training and supplements (and drugs) to force-fill their muscles with glycogen, fluid and other substrates, the muscles expand - like the balloons in the box - to completely fill their fascial sheaths. The muscles can press together so tightly that the visible separations between them reduce significantly.

This is why pro-bodybuilders can often be seen with extraordinarily low bodyfat, paper-thin skin, their bodies covered in veins, and yet completely lacking deep muscular separations. It is also why separations in leg muscles often completely disappear with a big leg 'pump' and why legs are famous for having reduced separation and definition for days after heavy squats and leg presses. Blame inflammation or fluid, much of it is WITHIN the muscular compartment.

ADVANCED MUSCLE SEPARATIONS - THE SOLUTION
The simple remedy to this state is for the muscles to SHRINK... a bit! For most of us, shrinking muscles is quite simple:
1) Don't train. Easy. Most lean bodybuilders know that their legs (in particular) are more separated and defined after 10+ days of not training them. They are also measurably smaller.
2) Do ineffective training. This is where the concept that leg extensions with light weights and lots of 'squeezing' and 'flexing' the muscles comes from. There is little inflammatory response, absolutely no stimulation to maintain strength/muscle plus a wasting of glycogen and, when dieting, the muscles shrink measurably. The very fact that this sort of training is INEFFECTIVE for muscular development is the reason it is effective for separations!
3) Do HIIT or more intense 'cardio'. If you feel a burn, glycogen is likely being burned and the muscles shrink. Even better, taking peak-strength-performance trained muscles and suddenly training them for endurance is the best way to cause maximum muscle loss! At some point there will be a benefit to muscular separation. Too much endurance exercise (combined with the typical starvation diets of many bodybuilders these days) can result in so much muscle shrinkage and depletion that the muscles wind up appearing soft and flabby.

The bottom line is, to genuinely "carve in separations", muscle shrinkage is what is happening! Hopefully in understanding this you can choose more wisely WHEN to utilise such techniques. If you are getting ready for a bodybuilding competition, using the stepper and light leg extensions 16 weeks out from your contest is probably not ideal. 2-4 weeks out - assuming your low bodyfat didn't solve the problem anyway - is more appropriate.

FINAL WORDS ON FAT LOSS & SEPARATIONS
Justifying almost every training or diet concept these days are massively overcomplicated (and incomplete) explanations of biochemical processes within the body. As interesting as they are, basing your actions on your hopeful guesses about something you cannot measure and cannot affect is a certain way to be wrong and probably fail!

1) If you have too much fat obscuring your muscles, you need to lose that fat with effective diet and weight training for body recomposition. Measure your body composition, measure your goal and train and diet to achieve those numbers. You cannot BS the basic math of body composition just because you learn some interesting new facts about biochemistry!

2) If you have uneven fat distribution then thats just how it is. There are some long-term drug options that can help. But shy of this extreme, you are not going to change your bodyfat distribution with any form or amount of exercise, diet or supplement. Despite all the convincing biochemical theories of what is going on, the fact is it just doesnt happen!

3) If you are talking about muscle separation then the above is what you are talking about. So next time you read that stupid chest training article in Flex magazine that says to do bench press for mass and then cable crossovers for separations, now you know why you shouldn't! You cannot achieve these 2 contradictory results simultaneously!!!


Visit www.BiologicLabs.com.au for Body Recompositioning diets, training programs, strength coaching, supplements and hormone balancing. Extreme fat loss and muscle development that Personal Trainers and Fitness gyms cannot achieve.

Our Programs & Diets for Interstate Clients

Q: I do not live in Brisbane but I've heard that you can write a program and diet for me to follow? Can you please tell me more about your programs and diets for your Interstate clients?

A: We write diets and training programs for you to achieve a specific goal bodysize and bodyfat percentage. All we are concerned with is your body composition.

We make adjustments every week according to bodyfat tests you provide us with. So you'll need somebody competent and reliable to test you regularly and forward the results to us.

Your program is custom written to your personal body, goal and requirements. We first get you to complete a questionnaire including your current bodyweight, skinfold measurements and maximum strength. We do our best to help find somebody suitable for you to do this with because very few PT's are suitably competent. We then do an assessment over the phone to articulate your body composition goal and decide what diet and training is going to be best for you.

The diet we write for you specifies every gram of food to eat at every meal. The workout specifies every weight to lift on every set of every exercise at every workout. There is no ambiguity and no random 'stuff' like you get from Personal Trainers.

Our diets involve a lot of food! The biggest complaint is there is too much food - even to lose weight and fat fast. But there are no cheat meals, no random food choices and no drinking alcohol. There is really no point wasting money on our programs if you need to drink alcohol and not follow the diet.

There is no cardio on our programs - even for the most rapid and significant fat loss possible! Our training programs solely involve lifting weights to the limit of your physical capacity. There is not much training - usually 3 days per week? But it is VERY hard strength training with very hard exercises. So we require that you REALLY know how to train or have somebody exceptional to train with. There are VERY few PT's suitable to train you on our programs because the training is so different. We can try recommending somebody in your area depending upon where you are?

For an idea of how we deliver your program and diet to you, please watch this video:


Contact us if you'd like to know more or get started?...


Visit www.BiologicLabs.com.au for Body Recompositioning diets, training programs, strength coaching, supplements and hormone balancing. Extreme fat loss and muscle development that Personal Trainers and Fitness gyms cannot achieve.

ARE YOU EXERCISING TOO HARD? HELL NO!!!

Here is yet another article alarming all the wrong people from the risks of training “too hard”. http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/16/personal-best-workouts-have-their-limits-recognized-or-not/?mid=57

Now, I am in no disagreement that there are a lot of people out there overdoing it with really, REALLY stupid and ineffective training. But there are three main issues with this.

Firstly, in every human activity some people are going to hurt themselves overdoing something that was never going to achieve the results they wanted anyway. Some people are just dumb! Others get manipulated by someone dumb and evil! These people could not give a damn about some professor in his ivory towers spouting off about ‘risks’ and ‘danger’. They are going keep doing what they are doing until they get hurt. Just Google “cults” to see the historical proof of what I mean! Point being, the people for whom these “don’t train hard” articles are written, aren’t listening!

Secondly, a HUGE proportion of people getting sick and injured from overtraining could solve many of their issues with proper nutrition! The number of elite and serious recreational athletes who are thoroughly malnourished is STAGGERING! At Biologic Labs we have taken a number of elite athletes from “has potential” to “unbeatable” within a WEEK of getting them to eat properly! Elite trainers are ASTOUNDED at the changes in performance and the improvements thereafter. We are just astounded at the astounded-ness! If you are going to train hard you need to EAT properly!

But the main issue that really annoys me about all these alarmists screaming “careful, you might be training too hard” is that the ONLY people listening are already NOT training hard enough! 

TWO THIRDS of our society are going to DIE because of diseases related to their diet and lackluster activity! Do 2/3rds of runners run so much that they die? Do 2/3rds of gym goers exercise so hard they die? Do 2/3rds of HEROIN users die from heroin? Do 2/3rds of any group partaking of any other activity DIE from it? NO!

The diet and INACTIVITY of most people is THE MOST dangerous thing you could possibly do on this planet! Why are people warning against the risks of the solution???

These articles warning about exercising too hard or too much fail to help the people they are aimed at while vindicating the inactivity of people who don’t exercise ENOUGH!


Visit www.BiologicLabs.com.au for Body Recompositioning diets, training programs, strength coaching, supplements and hormone balancing. Extreme fat loss and muscle development that Personal Trainers and Fitness gyms cannot achieve.

More Body Dysmorphia Aggravation

The mediocrity machine pumped out another inane piece of anti-achievement propaganda in The Age today. Presenting the same tired and sad “concerns” about men with body image “problems” - and despite obviously restrained and intelligent counter arguments from Andre Davids - the reader is again warned to be very wary of the ‘dangers’ of wanting to look good. Click here to read...

Here is my beef:

The biggest health problems facing Western society are the OPPOSITE of body dysmorphia! Most people in Western society will DIE from a disease related to nutritional ABUSE and physical NEGLECT! And yet some academics find it necessary to warn people AGAINST the exact lifestyle attributes and values that would solve MOST health problems in Western society? Why? Because a party-hard, recreational-drug-abusing idiot - who also happened to bodybuild - died in Thailand? Hmmm... really?

You do not need to look very far or hard to find idiots in their 20’s who do monumentally stupid, self-destructive things. In fact, pretty much everybody of any age could reveal a story about something that they did or do that is shockingly disturbing or bafflingly stupid. So to find a young, dumb, 20-something, who follows the disgracefully misdirected advice of nutritionally-untrained personal trainers (or his idiot mates) is no proof that training and dieting for a good body is an inherently problematic activity! Its just proof that some people are dicks!

This article, like so many others, brings up the “Zyzz” story. Again! Zyzz was a well known, drug abusing, party nut. The only difference between Zyzz and the thousands of drug-abusing party nuts who die each year is that Zyzz was popular and trained. Like most young guys he liked to take off his shirt to show off a good looking body at nightclubs, parties and festivals. In case you werent aware, good looking guys going to parties with drugs and booze to pick up girls by showing off is not a new thing! Neither is going to hospital or dying from related activities! It happens EVERY WEEK; mostly to non-bodybuilders and people who do not "suffer" body dysmorphia!

Admittedly, a LOT of bodybuilders are risking their lives with some horribly misdirected water and sodium advice. There IS a big problem with heart-failures, kidney damage and seizures in bodybuilding all stemming from unqualified, uneducated ‘fitness’ professionals operating well above their pay-grade to provide dangerously ignorant advice! But these problems have NOTHING to do with body dysmorphia, drugs, training or bodybuilding generally. The problem is entirely a product of morons giving bad advice based on just enough information to be really dangerous! 

Obviously the real issue is that body dysmorphia is extremely reader friendly. The average fat, unfit slob reading mainstream news feels vindicated by the idea that trying to make yourself look good by exercising and eating well is a dangerous mental condition. And the “family values” tripe runs thick throughout these articles with the yardstick of deranged, unacceptably obsessive behaviour being anything that causes relationship breakups. Because, of course, relationships between young people are sacred and normally ever-lasting; so long as a socially unpopular activity like bodybuilding doesn’t “infect” anybody.

The “body dysmorphia” charge so irritates me because it is an issue of personal priorities masquerading as psychological science. Dr Psychologist recognises that a competitive bodybuilder requires a level of size and leanness to be competitive but claims a non-competitive bodybuilder must be mentally ill for wanting the same standard for themselves! I was treated with the same contemptible attitude when I tore my bicep off the bone. The surgeon said to me that unless I planned to compete in something - anything - that I shouldnt worry about it being reattached! It wasnt good enough that I didnt want to be disfigured for myself. But doing it for some meaningless game was valid justification.

Body dysmorphia is also a question of standards. I may not be as disgustingly fat and muscleless as Dr Psychologist but that doesnt mean I’m mentally ill because I want to be even bigger and leaner than I am! It simply means I have much higher standards than Dr Psychologist. I think Dr Psychologist is mentally ill for wanting to waste his life working in a university doing research on body dysmorphia! Surely he could've contributed something to society more useful than that? What is wrong with HIM? Even more worrying, Dr Psychologist should be ashamed of how disgusting his own body is because, at the very least, its statistically far more likely to kill him than anybody elses apparent “body dysmorphia”!

Really, if society is going to have concerns about men getting depressed that they cannot achieve the physique standards that they desire, the concern should be the gross misinformation being spewed out by the Fitness industry that is making people waste so much time on such ineffective training! Perhaps if a few more Personal Trainers defected from the Fitness Industry and joined the ASCA and ISSN to learn about ATHLETE development - not helping unfit people achieve mediocrity - then more men would have physiques they didnt need to be depressed about!

PS: If you have body dysmorphia, good on you! Come on over to Biologic Labs and soak up the friendly pro-dysmorphic environment. If you need, you'll find effective training and nutritional advice and coaching from properly qualified Recomp Specialists. We can even put you onstage in a bodybuilding contest looking the best you could possibly look without ever restricting sodium or water or eliminating carbohydrate or anything else that would make you lose muscle, lose your mind, lose the title and possibly lose your life! Or you can always see one of the other guys and do it the other way.


Visit www.BiologicLabs.com.au for Body Recompositioning diets, training programs, strength coaching, supplements and hormone balancing. Extreme fat loss and muscle development that Personal Trainers and Fitness gyms cannot achieve.

Advice for Posting Training Movies on the Web

I’ve been uploading videos of Biologic Labs staff and clients training for a few years now. Click here to see our YouTube Channel. 


Often we find out long after the fact that a good number of people have enjoyed and even been inspired by some of those movies. But you wouldnt necessarily get that impression from the comments on the web.

So if you are planning to post a video of yourself or a friend doing something in the gym and you want to minimise the abuse from the web critics in the comments, here are a few things I’ve noticed: 

DEADLIFTS

• Don’t post heavy deadlifts because they are bad for your back.
• Don’t post light deadlifts because then you are a weak pussy.
• Don’t NOT post deadlifts because then you are pussy for not doing deadlifts.
• Don’t wear straps on your deadlifts because straps lift the whole weight for you and mean you are a weak pussy who cant really lift 60kg
• Don’t post training lifts because they don’t count in competition
• Don’t post equipped competition lifts because the suit lifted the weight for you and you are a pussy who can’t really lift 60kg
• Don’t post raw competition lifts without a belt because its dangerous not to wear a belt
• Don’t post raw competition lifts with a belt because thats not raw
• Don’t use an over/under grip because ‘real’ lifters use a hook grip
• Don’t use a hook grip because deadlifts should be done with an over/under grip
• Don’t do a deadlift by bending over because you are an idiot and going to hurt your back
• Don’t do conventional deadlift because you are an idiot and sumo is way stronger
• Don’t do sumo deadlifts because you are an idiot and real deadlifts should be done conventional
• Don’t lock your shoulders back because you are an idiot and you’ll hurt your back
• Don’t not lock your shoulders back because you are a pussy who didnt finish the lift
• Don’t deadlift in boots or shoes because real deadlifts are done in slippers
• Don’t deadlift in slippers because you are a pussy fag

SQUATS

• Don’t squat above parallel because thats a half squat for weak pussies
• Don’t squat to or below parallel because you are an idiot who is going to have ruined knees
• Don’t break at your hips because that is just using your back
• Don’t break at your knees because that is just using your knees 
• Don’t squat low-bar because that just a powerlifters ass exercise
• Don’t squat high-bar because thats a pussy bodybuilder curtsy
• Don’t squat in knee wraps because knee wraps are for pussies and add 800% to your squat
• Don’t squat without knee wraps because you are an idiot who is going to have ruined knees
• Don’t squat with a belt because belts are for pussies and the belt adds 800% to your squat
• Dont’ squat without a belt because you are an idiot who is going to have a ruined back
• Don’t squat with a squat suit because you are a pussy and a suit adds 80000% to your squat
• Don't squat without a suit because you are an idiot and going to get injured
• Don’t squat in a monolift because real squatters walk out
• Don’t squat in a squat rack because real squatters use a monolift

BENCH PRESS & CURLS

• Whatever you do is cheating, dangerous, ineffective and you are an idiot pussy fag!

Visit www.BiologicLabs.com.au for Body Recompositioning diets, training programs, strength coaching, supplements and hormone balancing. Extreme fat loss and muscle development that Personal Trainers and Fitness gyms cannot achieve.

The Functional and Core Strength Deception

INTRODUCTION
Since moving to Melbourne and returning to public gyms to train, I have been appalled by how the Fitness Industry has managed to regress even further than the lowly lows I escaped over 8 years ago. 'Functional strength' and 'core stability' is the current fad being misrepresented to mean 'body recomposition'. The fact is: these are just more rehabilitation techniques being sold to people who do not want or need rehabilitation!

The critical issue still being ignored is: NOBODY ASKED FOR THIS! People just want body recomposition! And that wouldnt be an issue IF the Fitness Industry was honest about the fact that what they are selling has nothing to do with body recomposition! But they are NOT honest. The Fitness Industry continues to blatantly deceive its customers with promises to "get in the best shape of your life", "lose fat and tone up" etc etc while providing solutions that have absolutely no relationship to such outcomes!

DYS-FUNCTIONAL TRAINING
Worse still, the 'functional training' I see practiced in public gyms is the definition of an oxymoron. The 'exercises' I see PT's routinely give their clients resemble NO useful movement pattern that ANY person might ever use, in ANY activity, EVER! For example, the other day I saw a PT give his client a 6-exercise combination of lunge/bicep-curl to squat/shoulder-press to stiff-leg-deadlift/tricep-kickback - with 3kg dumbells! It was an exercise in memory and coordination - certainly not any useful function.

Watching this I just couldnt fathom WHY??? Why lunge down while curling up? It means the dumbells don't actually get lifted! Why reduce a weight for squats to weight you can do a tricep kickback with? For equal thigh and arm development? Just separating those six exercises and using appropriate loads on each to build strength would make a great workout. So had they been left alone, the client would have trained more productively WITHOUT the trainers DYSFUNCTIONAL training!

This is just one example and I could go on and on about the bafflingly worthless, non-functional, functional training I see taught everyday. Fortunately, you can click here for this YouTube video which speaks volumes about how atrocious the situation has become. EVERYBODY I have shown this movie gets a puzzled look on their face and asks the poignant question: WHY??? I hope you do too!

The critical point is that NONE of this so-called 'functional' training relates to delivering the body recomposition outcome that PT's promise and their clients pay for! It is an absolute, blatant rip-off!

THE REASON AND SOLUTION
As I have stated before, the Fitness Industry is part of the HEALTH industry; not sports performance industry! 'Fitness' is the state of MINIMAL physical function necessary to COPE with day to day life. It is not an aspirational achievement unless you are disabled! And this is why fitness solutions are typically derived from rehabilitation techniques.

This is also why the Fitness Industry is so completely irrelevant to non-disabled, non-unfit people who want body recomposition and/or above-minimum levels of physical ability. Anybody wanting body recomposition - even unfit people - need to look for experts in ATHLETE development! Athlete development comes from Strength and Conditioning Coaches; NOT Personal Trainers! And if you want abs, you need a SPORTS nutritionist; not a dietician; and definitely not a Personal Trainer who has no practical or legal ability to prescribe such advice.


Visit www.BiologicLabs.com.au for Body Recompositioning diets, training programs, strength coaching, supplements and hormone balancing. Extreme fat loss and muscle development that Personal Trainers and Fitness gyms cannot achieve.

Building Outer Sweep to the Thighs

I just read a question to an elite Bodybuilder about building the outer sweep of the quads. His answer, as always, centered around the angle and position of the feet during squatting and leg pressing type movements. The theory is that you can train to change the shape of your thighs (and other muscles) as distinct from training to gain regular muscle 'mass'. Apparently you have to choose whether you want shape or mass and train accordingly. I want to give a more basic answer with a bit of math and common sense instead of voodoo and “bro science”.

Firstly, with any goal you should attempt to quantify what you are aiming to achieve. It is safe to assume the average thigh (ie femur) of even a short bodybuilder is at LEAST 50cm in length. As such, a 1cm increase in the width of the thigh when viewed the front - ie just 2% of the length - is probably not going to deliver the kind of body-shape-changing effect desired. Im going to assume we want at LEAST 2cm of width added to the thighs in order to actually be visually noticeable.

Now lets say a 50cm long thigh is 70cm in circumference at the largest point (a respectable, 27 1/2 inches). Using very simple math, 2cm added only to the width of this thigh (ie not the depth) requires an increase of ~6.3cm (~2.5 inches) to the circumference. Thats 6.3 cm - 2.5 inches - of overall thigh growth for a tiny 2cm increase in ‘sweep’!

For this 70cm thigh to increase 6.3cm to 76.3cm (30 inches), the cross-sectional area - and therefore mass of muscle in the thighs - needs to increase by a massive 18%! That is an awful LOT of muscle growth for a mighty small 'shape' training outcome! But it gets worse!

Physics - not my opinion - tells us that the force generating capacity of a muscle is directly proportional to its cross-sectional area. Which means that when this thigh increases just 2cm in 'sweep', its force output - ie strength - will increase, give-or-take, by around 18%!

In order to train for a 18% increase in quad strength you could rely on luck, hope, voodoo or HEAPS of drugs. Or you could train to achieve an 18% increase in your maximum training loads! Assuming a man with a 70cm (27 1/2") thigh can squat ~250kg (550lb), a 18% gain equates to a hair off a 300kg (660lb) squat! I can promise you that strength gain does not come from pointing your toes awkwardly! For most of us, it comes from bloody hard work and utter determination to squat 300kg. I've done it. Once. Its FREAKING hard! And it sure as hell didnt come from visualisation, squeezing my leg extensions or changing my foot placement on leg presses!

So next time you read that you can significantly develop the outer sweep of your thighs by turning your toes during a leg press or squat, slowing things down, and reducing the weight to 'feel the burn', ask yourself just how likely that strategy is to add 18% more muscle mass to your overall quads and quad strength?

Muscle building isnt rocket science. But it isnt voodoo either. You do have significant control over the shape of your muscles and overall physique; but that that control is largely limited to manipulating the SIZE of the tissue you have (ie growing the muscle and shrinking the fat).

Significant muscle size increases result in massive strength increases. While everybody wants to debate whether strength gains equate to muscle gains, NOT getting stronger means you are definitely NOT gaining muscle! I recommend training for strength because the alternative is to fail outright!

So if changing your foot position during squats and leg presses allows you to make more rapid strength GAINS then it will probably help you increase the 'sweep' of your thighs faster by helping you grow the massive amounts of muscle you need. But if that silly foot placement makes you incapable of gaining strength - which for most people, it does - then that tells you all you need to know about its ability to help you grow muscle anywhere: it WON'T!

(PS: Perhaps you think my over simplified math is grossly incorrect and you believe that you can actually add 2cm to the width of your thighs without a change to the circumference - ie without adding extra muscle? To do that is to suggest that the position of your toes will cause your body to disassemble millions and millions of proteins in one area of the thigh and reassemble them in another area with absolutely no physiological benefit or impact on physical performance. If you believe that, good luck! Because that is voodoo)!

Visit www.BiologicLabs.com.au for Body Recompositioning diets, training programs, strength coaching, supplements and hormone balancing. Extreme fat loss and muscle development that Personal Trainers and Fitness gyms cannot achieve.