(Fat) Man vs Gravity

Credit- Chris Parkes www.christophotographic.com/

Have you ever tried the GOMAD protocol for gaining weight? If you're blissfully unaware of it's existence let me fill you in. GOMAD stands for 'galon of milk a day', which is probably one of the most self explanatory 'diet' names of all time. I'm not going to go into huge amounts of detail, this isn't the crux of this post, but I'll sum up my experience from 2014 quickly;

I got stronger*
I got fat
I possibly gave myself adult onset lactose intolerance
Don't do it.

So that's it. The asterix hovering ominously above the strength gains is what I want to discuss. I was consistently putting kilos on to my deadlift, overhead press and squat. I mean breaking pb's EVERY session. Magical stuff. You know what's not magical? Taking your top off and looking like the only weight you've ever lifted is a 2kg tub of Ben Jerry's. It was at this junction that I had to seriously rethink my approach, I'd been so distracted by ego boosting strength gains that I'd forgotten that the majority of my training goals were actually aesthetically based. It was like choosing to drive on a motorway solely because it has no traffic, in principal its great, but if it's not headed in the direction of your intended destination, you're going nowhere; fast.

It took me a solid few months to get back to where I wanted to be in terms of body composition, a pretty large time investment. Worth it? Not really. I probably would have made better progress if I had hovered around the same level of body fat and concentrated on consistent, steady, linear strength and performance gains, tightening up towards the summer. Even if utilising exactly the same time frame I ended up looking identical, at least I wouldn't have spent 8 or 9 weeks looking distinctly average and feeling like the love child of King Leonidas and the Michelin Man.

So how do you keep yourself in check, when the allure of Gaston-esque guns and consistent off the chain beast mode strength gains is so strong? (Puns ALWAYS intended).

After a lengthy conversation with my friend Sam (director of Apothecary 87 and professional unit), regarding bulking goals and keeping good body composition, I feel we may have come up with somewhat of solution.

Gravity always kicks you the real deal.

If you've read my previous posts, you'll know I'm a huge proponent of compound Bodyweight movements, not just out of equipment (or lack thereof) necessities, but because I believe dips and pull ups (with additional weight or otherwise) will always trump machine presses and lat pull downs. One thing they'll also force you to do, is keep it real in terms of your comprehension of 'lean mass', remember the startling strength improvements that accompanied my bovine-based weight gain? Well here's the asterix... My pull-up performance suffered. Big time. Turns out a lot of the weight I was gaining, wasn't particularly functional. If the mirror wasn't enough of a clear indicator that my progress was coming at a cost to my aesthetics, then this should been a big, fat, flashing red light, with a heavy emphasis on the 'fat' part.

Looking back I should have twigged something was wrong. If my strength was increasing in all of my other lifts (dramatically for a natural athlete, both pressing and pulling), then there should have been enough carry over to at least *maintain* the same level of performance in my calisthenics movements, but there wasn't.

I was gaining weight disproportionally to my strength improvements and it was costing me, at least in terms of performance in Bodyweight movements. Then I did the worst thing you can possibly do when an issue arises; I dug my head firmly in the sand and gave up. Big mistake, but like a million internet memes have told me, it's only truly a failure if you fail to learn..

Stay lean or die(t) trying

It doesn't take the worlds greatest detective (that's Batman by the way, Sherlock Holmes is a very distant second) to see where I'm going with this, in a nutshell; whilst bulking, if you find your performance in dips, pull-ups or push-ups declining (and be honest with yourself, don't sacrifice form to maintain your current maxes), then it's probably time to curtail your calorie intake moderately and rethink your approach. As black and white as that seems, sometimes it's extremely hard to be objective, especially when you're seeing favourable results in other aspects of your fitness journey, so maybe we need a hard and fast system to determine exactly when to reel in the carb inhalation...

The numbers don't lie

So, to package this up nicely here's a lean bulk protocol that you can bolt on to your normal mass gain program, that will both add effectiveness to your training and kick you the real deal in terms of your body composition, giving you a clear warning sign when it's time to adjust your calorie intake.

On either your push day/ chest day/ or whatever day you would perform your primary pressing exercises, start with 4 sets of ten dips at body weight (resting 60 seconds between sets), this will provide you with a good, solid warm-up for the rest of the session and dependant on your strength levels will deal up a fair amount of stimulation and growth for your chest and triceps. After the fourth set rest 3 full minutes (be consistent and accurate with this, it's a test after all and we want to keep all of the variables in sync), after the rest go straight into another set of dips, this time keep grinding until you reach failure (full reps, all the way down, full stretch of the chest, all the way back up to lock out, technical failure occurs  when you can no longer get back up to lock out), hop down and take 15 deep breaths into your stomach, as deep as you can muster, get back on the bars and go for failure again. The total of these two sets is your score. Write it down. Keep it safe.

On your pull/ back day, you're going to follow the exact same protocol but using pull-ups as the exercise. Make sure your form is consistent and impeccable, you shouldn't be straining your neck to get your chin above the bar, the bar should be touching your upper to mid chest, your arms should be fully stretched at the bottom of the rep, this is a full pull-up. Write down your score as per dips.

This is what everybody does on their pull day, right? Credit- Chris Parkes

If you're successfully gaining muscle and keeping fat gain to a minimum, you should be able to beat your score at least every fortnight (if you don't regularly perform these movements, the improvements may come faster due to central nervous system adaptations). IF however, you note a decrease in reps, ask yourself 'is this a bad session, or am I really starting to struggle?' If your score goes down two weeks on the spin (in either exercise) decrease your calories for a few weeks to see if it balances out. When your total reps start to take a turn for the sky again, add another 250-400kcals a day and reassess.

I guarantee, however convoluted or unnecessary this may seem, it beats hands down the extra month or so you'll have to spend in a calorie deficit to shift the spare tyre around your midriff that's holding back your ability to make gravity your bitch.

As always, all feedback welcome. Hit me up on Instagram for more interaction!

Be lucky

AT