Beyond Bigger Leaner Stronger_ The Advanced Guide to Building Muscle, Staying Lean, and Getting Strong

MY STORY: HOW I TRANSFORMED MY BODY, AND HOW YOU CAN TOO My mission is to empower people to take control of their health and fitness by following a healthy, enjoyable lifestyle that not only gives them the body they’ve always wanted but also enables them to live a long, vital, diseasefree life. I’M MIKE, AND I BELIEVE THAT every person can achieve the body of his or her dreams. I work hard to give everyone that chance by providing workable, proven advice grounded in science, not a desire to sell phony magazines, workout products, or supplements. Through my books, I’ve been able to help tens of thousands of people lose weight, build muscle, and get healthy. My goal is to turn that number into hundreds of thousands and ultimately millions. I’ve been training for more than a decade now and have tried just about every type of workout program, diet regimen, and supplement you can imagine. Like most guys, I had no clue what I was doing when I started out. I turned to magazines for help, which had me spending a couple of hours in the gym every day and wasting hundreds of dollars on worthless supplements each month, only to make mediocre (at best) gains. This went on for years, and I jumped from workout program to workout program. I tried all kinds of splits and routines, exercises, rep ranges, and rep timing schemes, and while I made some gains (it’s impossible not to if you just keep at it), I eventually hit the dreaded plateau. My weight remained stuck for over a year, I wasn’t getting stronger, and I had no idea what to do with my nutrition beyond eating clean and making sure I was getting a lot of protein. I turned to various trainers for guidance, but they had me do more of the same. I liked working out too much to quit, but I wasn’t • happy with my body, and I didn’t know what I was doing wrong. Here are a couple of pictures of me after almost 6 years of lifting regularly: Not very impressive. Something had to change. TIME TO GET SMART I finally decided that it was time to get educated—to throw the magazines away and learn the physiology of muscle growth and fat loss and what it takes to build a big, lean, and strong body. So I got serious about doing real research. I searched out the work of top strength and competition coaches, talked to scores of natural bodybuilders, and read hundreds of scientific papers, and a very clear picture emerged. The real science of getting into incredible shape is very, very simple—much simpler than the health and fitness advice and supplement industries want us to believe. It flies in the face of almost all the crap that we hear on TV, read in magazines, and see in the gym. Here’s a small sampling of what most people will never know about getting into the best shape of their lives: Lifting light weights for high reps is basically a waste of time. If your routine doesn’t revolve around heavy lifting, you’re doing it wrong. • • • • • Getting lean, and even super lean, does NOT require hours upon hours of grueling cardio or crash dieting that leaves you starving and miserable every day. If you know what you’re doing, you can gain 20 to 30 pounds of lean mass (yes, muscle) in your first year of training, regardless of your genetics. Pretty much every machine in the gym should be avoided, and most exercises are horribly ineffective. This brings me to the next point… The idea that you have to constantly change your workout routine or your body will adapt and plateau is a lie. I change my routine once every 2 to 4 months and consistently get stronger month after month. You don’t have to exercise for more than 1 hour per day, 5 days per week to be in peak physical condition. I personally lift weights Monday through Friday for about 45 minutes and do 3 or 4 cardio sessions per week, with each session running about 30 minutes. And I do the cardio mainly because I enjoy it. There are many, many more lessons I’ve learned, but what it all boils down to is building a muscular, lean, and healthy body doesn’t require your life to revolve around it. You can fit it into almost any schedule or lifestyle. As a result of what I learned, I completely changed the way I trained and ate. And my body responded in ways I couldn’t believe. My strength skyrocketed. My muscles grew faster than I could ever remember. My energy levels went through the roof. That was just over 4 years ago, and here’s how my body has changed since: