To increase strength and size, you need calories. Too many calories–and too many carbs at the wrong time–will boost mass, but a lot of it will be the kind of mass you don’t want.
The secret to this diet program is carb and calorie manipulation–cycling carbs and calories, as well as protein and fat, to give you the energy you need when you need it. For instance, when reps are higher (10 and above), you need more carbs and calories to fuel those workouts. When reps are lower and weights are heavier, you don’t need carbs to fuel your muscles. During those phases, carbs and calories come down a notch, but protein and healthy fats are bumped up to keep you growing.
The sample diets provided are perfect for a 180-pound bodybuilder and will even work well for a 160- to 200-pound trainer. If you’re lighter or heavier than this range, adjust the diet accordingly based on macronutrient recommendations laid out in each phase.
On rest days, regardless of the phase, drop the postworkout meal and eat the preworkout meal as a snack.
PHASE ONE
WEEKS 1-4
PREP AND GROW
In this phase, your muscle fibers are going to be looking for stored muscle glycogen to fuel them as the rest periods between sets drop. To make sure your muscles are stocked, you need to get in plenty of carbs–up to 2 1/2 grams (g) per pound of bodyweight per day, or about 50% of your total calories per day. In most meals, reach for slow-digesting slow-burning carbs, such as whole-wheat bread, sweet potatoes, fruit, pasta and oatmeal. These provide long-lasting fuel and don’t lead to fat gain. After workouts, reach for faster-digesting carbs, such as white bread or rice cakes. These will spike insulin right after training, helping to drive those carbs (by then, in the digested form of glucose), amino acids and creatine (see the program supplement section) into your muscles, and also acting as an anabolic hormone that helps to turn on muscle protein synthesis to help your muscles grow.
Carb intake is high in this phase, so you must minimize dietary fat. Shoot for about 15% or less of total calories per day from dietary fat by choosing low-fat meats, such as turkey and chicken breast, as well as low-fat dairy products. Still, take in enough protein by aiming for more than 1 g per pound of bodyweight per day, or about 35% of daily calories from protein.
PHASE TWO
WEEKS 5-8
FIVES AND TENS
In this phase, during the first half of each week and on your rest days, you won’t need as many carbs. Five reps per set means you are relying on stored ATP and creatine phosphate in muscle cells for energy, and you won’t need stored muscle glycogen for these workouts, as you will during the 10×10 workouts. To limit your gains to lean mass, rely on lower carbs during these days–about 25% of your total calories or about 1 g per pound of bodyweight per day–to help you stay lean and get large. Of course, when carbs drop, protein must increase, so during this phase, protein makes up about 45% of total calories, or about 2 g of protein per pound of bodyweight per day.
Fat intake will also have to increase to make sure you are getting enough total calories to maintain muscle recovery. Here, it’s up to 30% of total calories, with the majority coming from healthy fat sources, such as nuts and avocados–which supply monounsaturated fats–and from fatty fish, such as salmon, which provide essential polyunsaturated fats. These fats get burned for fuel, unlike saturated fats that get stored in your midsection.
During the 10×10 training days, stock your muscles with glycogen. That burn you’ll feel from the workouts is a result of byproducts from lactic-acid production in your muscles. The muscles become acidic and feel as if they’re burning. Lactic acid is produced when glucose is burned as fuel for muscles; the glucose comes mainly from its stored form–known as glycogen–in muscles.
Since you kept the calories and carbs a bit lower on the other days of the week, you can afford to bump up your calories to more than 3,600 per day, or more than 20 calories per pound of bodyweight. You’ll also increase your carbs to about 55% of total calories or more than 2 1/2 g per pound of bodyweight. Protein drops to about 30% of total calories in this phase, but you’re still shooting for more than a gram per pound.
PHASE THREE
WEEKS 9-12
THE 6X6 SEGMENT
This diet is very similar to the one in the 5×5 training days in phase two. Since you are training with low-rep sets, you won’t need much in the form of carbohydrates during this phase. Here, carbs are again down to about 25% of your total calories, protein is back up to 45%, and fat is around 30% of total daily calories.
SUPPLEMENTS
The supplements for this program are designed to boost both muscle growth and strength, as well as help with recovery.
WHEY PROTEIN is rich in branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs)–leucine, isoleucine and valine–which are essential for muscle growth because they turn on the process of protein synthesis and supply the amino acid building blocks for making muscle protein.