Here's a video of Andreaz Engström, current nordic bodybuilding champ and client of mine, preparing for the national championship in Athletic Fitness 2010.


Andreaz does about half of his training fasted. Heavy compound movements predominantely, no pikachu-stuff. He's about 6 weeks out here and strong as ever.





This is a new challenge for Andreaz and the demands are a bit different than bodybuilding. Athletic Fitness is an event where participants are judged for their physique, and their performance in body weight chins and dips, in rowing (the distance covered in 60 seconds), and on an obstacle course (time to finish). Performance is of a greater priority than perfecting the carb load and sodium/water manipulation in the final week. However, I'm confident that he will do very well.





And here's a recent pic about 4 weeks out. As you can see his conditioning is on point.

My name is Martin Berkhan, nutritional counselor, fitness magazine writer and creator of Leangains.

Leangains is a unique approach to strength training and nutrition. The diet involves intermittent fasting and strength training in order to reduce fat mass and increase muscle mass. This is performed by switching between phases of overfeeding and underfeeding, as well as carefully manipulating the macronutrient ratio of the diet. My take on intermittent fasting and strength training will be the topic of an upcoming book project with nutrion guru Lyle McDonald, author of The Ketogenic Diet and The Ultimate Diet 2.0.

Personal Consultations: nutrition and training

For personal consultations at reasonable prices, please contact me at martinberkhan@gmail.com. I take a no-bullshit-approach to diet and training: my clients get results.


Updates (July 27th to Aug 31th)


31/8 Update: Michael Novak (from the testimonials section) takes the 16/8 concept of intermittent fasting to the masses - check out the link. Michael is shown in picture number 6.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/08/29/mens.workout/index.html


27/8 Update: Still alive and kicking it, just been very busy lately, therefore the lack of any new updates. I've had a large influx of new clients and it's good to see trainees on various internet forums opening up to the IF approach. Seems like every board got it's own thread on the topic and it oftens spurs some wild arguing between the yay-sayers and the nay-sayers. Somewhere in between you might find some worthwhile discussion. The thread usually goes out of hand when you have the 6-meal-a-day-eat-clean-or-die-nutters on one side and the IF fundamentalists on the other side. Arguing that we should be fasting every day just because our ancestors did it (and even that is up for debate) is almost as moronic as arguing for eating every 2-3rd hour to "stoke the metabolic fire" (hint: it's a myth) or "staying anti-catabolic" (hint: a big meal may take more than 12 hrs to fully digest and will release a constant stream of amino acids during the process).

Keep checking in for the newsletter interview with me and Leigh Peele, should be up this week.

9/8 Update: Did some deadlifting today, 600 lbs x 3 (270 kg)

Note that the innermost plates are 25 kg (55 lbs), which are regular sized plates; that is, they are the same dimensions as standard size 20 kgs (45's) would be.

The other plates are rubber studded plates from Techno Gym, which are not standard size and have a much lower diameter than standard issue 20 kg plates.

Therefore: 20 kg (bar) + 2 x 25 + 6 x 20 + 8 x 10 = 270 kg / ~ 600 lbs


Note the size discrepancy between the 25 kg standard issue weights and the 20 kg Techno Gym weights.





8/8 Update: Added three testimonials that I hope shows the diversity among the people that employ my methods.

Fitness and bodybuilding pro's, to college students and pro gamers; there is an approach for everyone, regardless of training status.

You'll find these in the testimonials section further down the page.

Seth Ronland

The most prominent fitness champion in Sweden has embraced the Leangains approach.

Michael Novak

A college student and strength training enthusiast who has found intermittent fasting to be much more in tune with his natural eating pattern.

Markus Nilsson

A professional gamer, who always struggled to maintain a balance between his sedentary lifestyle and a healthy physique, finally found my approach to be the magic bullet needed to improve his body composition.

6/8 Update: Sorry folks, been very busy and haven't been able to invest as much time in this blog lately. Anyway, im just dropping by to tell you about some upcoming features. This blog will be a part of the website leangains.com, which will have a closed forum where issues pertaining to the Leangains approach and intermittent fasting will be discussed in detail. It will only be open to

1) people that I deem trustworthy not to reveal any specifics of the approach and

2) people that may provide for an interesting discussion on the issues brought up.

The forum will be open to the public after the book release.

* I will appear in a newsletter interview with nutrition professional Leigh Peele on the topic of my approach to intermittent fasting, nutrition and weight training. I'll post it here as soon as we're done.

* Fasted state workouts: feedbacks and conclusions coming soon.

* More testimonials coming soon.


30/7 Update: Added Questions and Answers section (see below).

28/7 Update: New look on the blog; better? Worse? You be the judge. Please leave me a comment.


What you will find on this blog:

* Testimonials from people I've worked with

* Information about the Leangains approach (June, archive)

* Interviews with me and book excerpts concerning the Leangains approach and Intermittent Fasting (June, archive)

* Post of the day

* My workout videos

* And more.

Keep checking in for daily updates.



Questions and Answers section


The Leangains FAQ didn't come up this week as I had planned. Too much stuff to do. On the other hand, I get a lot of questions sent to me regarding the Leangains approach and Intermittent Fasting, so im going to start posting some of the e-mails, along with my questions, in this section.



Why hasn't anyone discovered this approach before?

Q: Excuse me for being blunt, but if this diet is all that, then why haven't many people discovered it? Why do so many bodybuilding dietitians (almost unanimously) have their clients do your average 6-meals-a-day-3-hours-apart type of diet?


A: The reason for the fitness/bodybuilding community not having "discovered" the approach, I think depends on several factors.

1) being stuck in old ways of thinking with regards to nutrition and, especially, meal frequency.

Many people believe that eating several small meals a day will some how "stoke the metabolic fire" and prevent "starvation mode" etc. You know how it goes. There's also the rather absurd notion that about the body only being able to absorb 30-40 g of protein in a sitting and going longer than 3-4 hrs without eating will get you "catabolic".

These myths and absurd notions gets repeated in eternum by the bodybuilding mags and other bodybuilding gurus/clowns. Noone would dare to go against the grain when the so called "truths" about proper nutrition is so heavily ingrained into the community.

2) The empirical and scientific support for intermittent fasting, it's health benefits and effects on human physiology, has only started to emerge (relatively) recently and is still an unknown concept for the uninitiated fitness enthusiast or layperson.

3) the old approach "works" for sure (6 meals a day etc), so no reason to mess with it. However, it may not be ideal and it may certainly not be ideal for many people with regards to meal frequency.

With regards,

Martin.


Leangains and athletes

Q: I'm curious about the authors' thoughts on this diet approach for performance athletes. Is this targeted more toward those looking for body recomp?

A: Slight modifications and/or compromises needs to be done with regards to macros and meal timing, but outside of that I see no issues with it - exceptions being, perhaps athletes with very high energy requirements and/or doing more than one training session a day.

With regards,

Martin.

Been very busy lately doing personal consultations, thus the lack of any updates since 12/7. There really is a limit to how much you can spend talking, writing and thinking about nutrition. Lately, I've felt a bit burnt out on that part.

However, The Leangains FAQ should be up this week if I get my ass in gear, so keep checking in for that one. In this FAQ I'll answer the most common questions I get about Intermittent Fasting. For example "will I burn muscle during the fast", "will I go into starvation mode if I don't eat every 3rd hour" and so forth. Sometimes I just wan't to smack people so bad. You guys have no idea.

Anyway, here goes a little something from the gym.

I guess all I needed was chalk. Even had one or two more reps in me.

590 lbs (265 kg) x 3 deadlift

3x bw would be a breeze right now, so new goal is 300 kg (665 lbs) or at least 3xbw for 3 reps. We'll see.

Now for something else.


Fasted State Workouts

Lately I have been doing my workouts in the fasted state, compared to before where I was usually having a pre-workout meal. I have noticed no adverse effects whatsoever. For example, one might assume energy would be affected for the worse, but this has proven not to be the case with me. Granted, my workouts are low volume and high intensity: 2 or 3 sets for compound movements, with a rep range of 3-5 reps, being less demanding in terms of enery expenditure and glycogen depletion than a typical bodybuilding routine (multiple sets of 8-10 reps for example). I find this interesting and I may have to change (or provide alternatives/guidelines for the fasted workout and post workout feeding window) my stance on the default rec pre-workout meal in the Leangains protocol.

I wan't people to send me their experience with fasted state workouts to martinberkhan@gmail.com (only if you currently are doing some form of Intermittent Fasting). I only wan't feedback on this topic if your fasting period is at least 14 hours.

Please give information within the right context, i.e

1) how long is your fast (I take it you would have your first meal post-workout)?

2) how does your workout look in terms of volume (total workload in terms of sets and reps)?

3) overall, do you perform better or worse on an empty stomach vs having a pre-workout meal?

* IFRP is now Leangains. Why? I thought Intermittent Fasting Recomp Protocol sounded overpretentious and gimmicky. Leangains is like honey on the tongue, can you taste it? I bet you can. Don't act like you can't.

* I bought www.leangains.com where my upcoming website will be located. I have a great guy working on it, hopefully it will be complete with forums, articles section and everything. Stay tuned for more info on that one.

* Leangains Q&A coming up later this week.

* 10/7: Added more testimonials.

* 10/7: Added some lifting vids from november. Squatting in chinos, 390 lbs for 4 reps, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDCj7M3d0bM and an attempt at a 555 lbs deadlift: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYAQLPSgRnc. Im stronger now, and I´ll have some new vids up soon to prove it. For some reason I can't get the links to work so just copy and paste the link in your browser, while I try to fix it.

So that's it for now. Keep checking in for some good stuff and information about the upcoming book on Leangains/Intermittent Fasting with nutrition guru Lyle McDonald.

In the mean time, here's an excerpt from BB nutrition roundtable part 2 out of Jamie Hale's upcoming book "Knowledge and nonsense: the science of nutrition and exercise" (www.maxcondition.com)

Bodybuilder Nutrition Roundtable 2

J Hale: Many competitive bbers seem to have a fear of consuming dairy pre-contest. Assuming they have no intolerances or allergies to dairy products do you feel this fear is warranted?

M Berkhan: No. There is nothing “fattening” about dairy related to insulin or whatever bullshit some gurus make up in order to rationalize their stance on dairy pre-contest. Questioning of these gurus “wisdom” is an unknown concept for many competitors, allowing old superstitions spread like wildfire among the bodybuilding community. It's a tired old myth which should have been dead a long time ago, especially considering the studies pointing to calcium, of which there is plenty in dairy, accelerating fat loss rather than a negative impact .

There might be other reasons for cutting dairy, high sodium content causing water retention and so forth, but nothing related to metabolic factors. However, since bodybuilders tends to become extremely obsessive in the pre-contest period, one may opt to cut dairy in order to minimize “inefficient” carbohydrates (lactose, which gets stored in the liver rather than muscle) just like some bodybuilders will cut fruit in order to avoid fructose. Therefore, they go to great length ensuring that they make the most out of their carbohydrate calories, cutting both dairy and fruit. The necessity of this could be questioned. It’s like pissing in the ocean and fearing the sea level may rise.

J Hale: What are your thoughts on pre-contest fat loading? Have you used this strategy with bodybuilders? Is there any Primary Scientific evidence supporting benefits of fat-loading for bbers?

M Berkhan: I don't have enough practical experience with this, in order to offer any valuable opinion, but some off my competing friends swears by, what would probably be termed, “junk-loading”; basically eating a mixture of high carbohydrates and high fat on contest day (rice crackers or bananas with peanut butter for example). I think it holds benefit to load on both carbohydrates and fat, seeing that muscle holds not only glycogen but also triglycerides. Since insulin has edematogenic properties, sky high insulin levels may lead to water retention; raising fat intake, on behalf of adding more carbohydrates, may be “playing it safe” and avoiding the culprits of loading on carbohydrates only.

J Hale: Should bbers eat clean (non processed whole foods) all the time when preparing for contest? Assuming calorie and macro levels are same from so-called dirty or clean foods if in calorie deficit does it matter?

M Berkhan: From a purely physiological standpoint it probably doesn’t matter if you’re including foods in your diet that may be labelled as unclean by the generic bodybuilder. As long as protein remains a constant, a comparison of two diets where the rest would be made up by either “clean” or “unclean foods”, would show no measurable difference in fat loss in the short term. There might be some long term effects on body composition on a diet where fat and carbohydrate food choices are the worst possible (think trans fats and high fructose corn syrup), but these extremes are not relevant to discuss in this context, since I don’t think any competing bodybuilder subsist on such foods to a significant degree pre contest. Saying that, I do think one should opt for food choices that has satiating and nutritive properties in relation to their caloric content. These foods will in most cases be made up with foods that are traditionally labelled as “clean”. However, I do think having cheat meals, or “unclean” foods, at least once a week has benefits in terms of adherence and sanity during the pre-contest diet (or any other diet for that matter).


J Hale: Many Contest Prep Specialists promote the use of mega doses of BCAAs even when in positive calorie balance and eating a ton of protein. Have you seen any evidence or is there a logical reason to assume BCAAs from supplements are superior to BCAAs found in food?

M Berkhan: No. You will get plenty off BCAA’s from food protein sources, especially whey protein, and there is nothing showing any benefit of excessive dosing. Since BCAA’s are very glucogenic, they will most likely end up in your blood stream as glucose. Bodybuilders eating piles of protein and consuming BCAA's on the side are throwing money down the drain.

J Hale: Casein vs. Whey. Which one do you like or do you like both? Explain.

M Berkhan: Casein. Long lasting anti-catabolic properties makes it the ideal protein source for almost all occasions. A mixture of whey and casein would be the best choice post workout.

J Hale: Any thoughts on the supposed magic properties of grapefruit for fat loss ? One popular supplement company swears by it.

M Berkhan: I've seen the studies and there seems to be some measurable effect on fat loss, but I have yet to hear about someone noticing anything special from taking grapefruit supplements.



Martin Berkhan has pioneered the concept of intermittent fasting, in combination with weightlifting, in order to improve body composition. The diet has sparked controversy and is the antithesis of the traditional, high meal frequency diets usually employed by bodybuilders.

Martin Berkhan is a personal trainer and magazine writer, living in Sweden. He has a bachelor's degree in Medical Sciences and Education, with a major in Public Health Sciences.