I subscribe to the idea, that the best diet is the one you can maintain in the long run.

For me personally, this entails intermittent fasting and a cyclic approach of higher/lower carbs, plenty of protein and low/moderate fat. My main focus lies on high quality foods, with nutritious and satiating properties, and not discrimination towards a particular macronutrient.

I don't believe there is any magic to be had when one is excluding fat or carbs from their diet. Both have their place. However, there are people that subscribe to a completely different set of opinions.

After watching the documentary Religulous
(melding of "religion" and "ridiculous) yesterday, it dawned upon me how much some religious fundamentalists have in common with certain nutritional fundamentalists. In recent years, I have seen the rise of one group in particular. I prefer to call them the low carb talibans.

When I am using the term 'fundamentalist' here, I am using it to characterize religious advocates that cling to a stubborn, entrenched position that defies reasoned argument or contradictory evidence - I am not talking about religious people in general, and I don't have anything against them.

1. Religious fundamentalists believe in supernatural beings. Low carb talibans believe you can get fat without a positive energy balance, if you eat carbs.

Similar to the anti-fat proponents 15-20 years ago, we now have one group of people blaming one particular macronutrient as the sole reason for why people are getting fatter.

2. Religious fundamentalists base their beliefs on faith, not empirical evidence. Low carb talibans believe that dietary fat is unimportant for the development of obesity; the most jaded lot believe that you can eat an unlimited amount of fat, without weight gain, as long as carbs are excluded from the diet.

The 'rationale' behind this claim, is that the body can’t store fat without insulin (it can). Carbs equals insulin, and that means ditching carbs must mean no fat storage (wrong). They conveniently ignore that

a) eating protein produce insulin
b) fat stores itself with tremendous efficiency without insulin, due to a nifty little thing called acylation-stimulating protein (ASP).

3. Religious fundamentalists believe that forces of evil hide amongst us, trying to lead us into temptation and wrongdoing. Low carb talibans belive that carbs and insulin are to blame for obesity.

We live in an obesogenic environment; we lead sedentary lives and we are surrounded by easily obtainable foods with high energy density. High carb, high fat foods which taste great, and are extremely easy to overconsume. That people gain weight in such a setting is no great mystery, yet the low carbs talibans likes to make it out to be. It is the carbs specifically that made you fat, not that peanut butter jar you went through watching tv last night. Yes, that seems to make sense.

4. Religious fundamentalists believe there is only one way, and all other faiths are heretic. Low carb talibans tries to push their beliefs on others and will seldom accept alternative views.

More than one time, I have seen the talibans make the most ludicrous claims about their approach, often not accepting the fact that some people actually function better on a higher carb approach, and that people involved in anaerobic sports actually need them to perform better.

5. Religious fundamentalists do not accept current ideas of the creation of earth or human evolution, rather they make up their own stories of how we came to be here. Low carb talibans make up their theories regarding human metabolism.

Here's a quick primer on how it works.

Dietary fat is stored easily as body fat without the presence of carbs or insulin.

Fat metabolism increase when fat intake is increased, but it is primarly dietary fats that are burned off, not fat stored in adipose tissue. For the latter to occur, energy balance needs to be negative. Energy can't just disappear and an excess is stored*

When carbs are consumed, metabolism switches to glucose dependence; that is, while carbs do not get converted to fat**, they do inhibit fat metabolism to a point where dietary fats are more readily stored.

One can say that overconsuming dietary fat leads to fat storage through a direct mechanism, while overconsuming carbs leads to fat storage through an indirect mechanism, through blunting of fat metabolism/lipolysis. Either way you cut it, the key point is that energy balance is the main determinant for fat storage, or fat loss.

* carbs can only be converted to fat by a process called de novo lipogenesis (DNL). This metabolic pathway is very ineffective in humans and in studies it only comes into play during massive carbohydrate overfeeding. How come people still got fat from eating all those low fat foods back when low fat was the craze? Well, the body has the ability to upregulate key enzymes involved in the DNL pathway, making carb to fat conversion more efficient. And this occurs on high carb/low fat diets. So, there is no tricking the body from gaining weight during caloric excess by excluding fat or carbs from the diet.

** metabolism does increase a bit when energy consumption is increased; just a few percentages, nothing drastic (called 'luxusconsumption' or adaptve thermogenesis by some scientists). Ironically, this effect is greatest when the extra energy is provided from carbs, not fat.

Why low carb really works

I have extensive experience with all forms of low carb/ketogenic diets. I’ve done them all, the traditional standard ketogenic diet, the cyclical and the targeted ketogenic diet. I've come to the following conclusions:

1. There is a mild hunger blunting effect on ketogenic diets, which may help intially. This has to be weighed against the deprived feeling you get from not consuming carbs and the decrease in performance during weight training. This can be partially amended by doing a cyclical ketogenic diet (CKD) or a targeted ketogenic diet (TKD), where you either carb load through the weekend or consume carbs in conjunction with workouts.

2. Making the diet highly restrictive, in terms of completely cutting out one macronutrient, may help with adherance. It certainly takes away the hedonic aspect of eating.

Studies actually show that diets which allow ad libitum intake of protein and fat, usually leads to a spontaenous reduction of calorie intake. Cutting out carbs from the equation may be a sound approach for the average joe, who's idea of carbs are in the form of cereal and white bread. IME, you're less likely to binge on egg omelettes and ham, as opposed to chicken and pasta.

3. When people start eating low carb and lose weight, it is partially because they start eating more protein than on their past (failed) diet approaches. Protein leads to better satiety than any other macronutrient. There's also the issue of being forced to make sound food choices overall, such as increasing veggie intake to make up most of your carb intake in order to stay below the threshold (max 50 g carbs/day usually).

4. And of course, there is also the insulin sensitivity/resistance factor to consider. Some people do in fact feel better on ketogenic/low carb diets, for physiological, not behavioral, reasons. No energy dips, hunger pangs and so forth. ***

*** However, as I see it, people have a tendency to draw the conclusion that they need to follow a low carb approach without having visited the middle road. I've had some clients that were convinced they could only do well on low carbs - and it turned out they did just as well, if not better, when I incorporated veggies, fruit and berries as their main carb source. The middle road, with a minimum of refined carbs, is very workable for most people that label themselves as 'insulin resistant'.

Anyway, rant over.

For an unbiased guide to ketogenic diets, free from voodoo science and 'make believe' physiology, I urge you to check out The Ketogenic Diet, by Lyle McDonald. My review is here.

When it comes to training, I'm a minimalist.

I don't "attack the bi's from different angles". I do chins with an extra 100 lbs around my waist.

I don't spend any time "working the core". I never do ab work. I squat and do triple body weight deadlifts.

I don't "feel the burn". I give every set a 100% and only concern myself with adding an extra rep, or another 5 lbs, on the bar.

And most importantly, I don't go to the gym to have a nice and cozy time.

Sometimes people ask me things in between sets.

"Nice arms, man. How do you get that veiny look - do you go for the pump to really bring those cuts out? And what's the lowdown on preacher curls with a straight bar vs the EZ-bar?"

"I don't curl"

"Yeah right, c'mon..."

I then give them The Look. The Look let's them know I am dead serious and that the conversation is over.*

-------------------------------------------------------------

I think it was Iron Addict that once said

"The people that should not be touching a high volume/high frequency routine are usually the first people to do them"

That was true for me back in the days, wasting my time in the gym 5-6 times a week. While I did gain a bit the first few months, I certainly didn't get the same results as most of my buddies I trained with at the time.

Now, I am competitive by nature. I couldn't stand watching my friends outlift me. I figured if I can't beat them in the genetics department, I have to beat them on smarts. I needed to find a superior training routine or suffer humiliation every time I went training with them.

I started looking around online, and was lucky enough to come across a site called Cyberpump. Here, I found a very different perspective on weight training. Articles by Ken Leistner, Arthur Jones and others, talking about high intensity training and how people screw up by trying to emulate the genetic elite.

A minimalist approach, very different from what I had been doing up until then. I had my doubts of course, but I figured I didn't have have much to lose. And boy, did my gains take off.

Now, if I remember correctly, this is how my training routine looked back then.

A (day 1)

Bench press
1 set to failure
Immediately followed by pushups to failure
Followed by another set of bench (with a lot less weight)
Immediately followed by pushups to failure
and repeated one more round.
10 mins rest
Chins for 2-3 sets to failure

B (day 4)

Breathing Squats (20 reps)
Leg extensions, 1 set to failure

C (day 7)

Deadlifts (started at 20 reps here, added weight and decreased reps until I was working in the 3-5 rep range after several months).
10 min rest
Pullups for 2-3 sets to failure

And then days 8-10 were spent resting. And eating.

How much did I gain on such a routine? I remember that quite well. I started benching 135 for a few reps, ended up with 225 lbs after a few months. Squats went from about 200 lbs for 8-10 reps to 300 x 15-17 and deads from 175 x 6 to 380 x 3. Weights jumping op 5-10 lbs each session and often with a few extra reps to boot. It was amazing; like newbie gains multiplied by ten.

Was it a walk in the park and do I think everyone should be doing HIT from now on? No. The intensity used for each set was ridiculous. The sessions were painful and I dreaded them every single time. Was it productive? Yes, it was time extremely well spent. Since the training frequency was low, I made sure every session counted. It wasn't long before I outlifted my friends who were still in the gym 5-6x per week.

Since then, I've always taken a minimalist approach to training. Though I've added some lifts to my arsenal, my training routine is still quite spartan by any conventional standard; however, the few lifts I train, I give a 100%.

My point in writing this isn't to say that high intensity training is superior to any other form of sensible training ideology. There are other training approaches out there that I agree with; Starting Strength, 5x5, DC, RPT, and so forth. All of these put focus on principles that really makes the difference (hint: it's not about swiss balls or working different angles). HIT just happened to be the turning point for me, and has influended my view on training ever since.

The take away message here is twofold.

Part of it is a homage to abbreviated training routines, which I feel deserve more attention. You can go a long way just focusing on pressing, squatting, deadlifting and chinning. Throw in some calf and ab work if it makes you feel better.

Another part of it is encouraging change. If your training routine isn't working for you, ditch it and maybe start at the other end of the spectrum of whatever the hell you were doing before. You have nothing to lose.


*Ok, I made that up. I don't really give people The Look. The rest of it is true though.

According to this article, getting fit and leaner ranks 2nd and 3rd on a list of the most popular new year's resolutions people make.

So, as January comes around, the cardio machines, swiss balls and dumbbells gets the most attention they've had in a long time. It doesn't last of course, since people are lousy at maintaining new habits if they don't have strong incentives for it. Being healthy and fit is, sadly, not a strong enough incentive for people when they have to weigh it against the 'sacrifices' they have to make (such as spending an extra hour in the gym three times a week and *gasp* maybe even cut down on fast food a bit).

I've found that the average joe, meaning the ones that makes resolutions and fail to live up to them (and they are many), usually gives up on diet and training for two reasons.

One is motivation. People simply decide that they "don't have time", which in reality means that they rather prioritize other, easy, leisurely things instead of breaking a sweat.

"one should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything"

Occam's razor. Training requires some effort and time investment and people shy away from it. It's not even a matter of knowing how to eat and train properly. By February or March, only a few % of the 'resolutionists' will still remain in the gym.

On the other hand of the spectrum are the people that go at it with guns a blazin' on Jan 1st, doing two hours of cardio a day along with weight training and a sub-1000 kcal diet to boot. They wan't results FAST and expect to go from slightly overweight to ripped in 4 weeks. They usually last 2 weeks, before they get burnt out and throw their resolutions out of the window. Unrealistic goal setting plays in here as well.

The experienced trainee fails in other ways

The reasons why experienced trainees fail to reach their strength and fitness goals are slightly different from the average joe.

Here's a few common mistakes in random order that I often see experienced trainees making.

1. Fearing change

Einstein defined insanity as doing the same things all over again and expecting a different result. A lot of the people I deal with have spun their wheels for years.

Experienced trainees tend to be resistant to change and afraid of trying new things.
Part of this is not rarely due to housing irrational beliefs, such as the high volume training junkie fearing his muscles will fall off if he reduces his training volume; a sound change if he has stalled with his default approach, yet he resists it due to an unsound belief system.

Another example being the carbophobic/chronic low carb dieter that sees his fat loss stall or strength plummet; introducing carb refeeds would be a good idea at this point, but he's afraid the carbs will do him more harm than good.

And so it goes.

Man is a creature of habit and many people short-change themselves due to their inherent belief systems, created by years of ingrained behaviors. Behaviors which may have helped them inititally, but now poses an obstacle for progress beyond that point.

So, ask yourself, are you repeating yesteryear's behaviors while expecting a different result?

2. Being impatient/doing stupid shit

This falls under why people screw up their diet and training in general. Even experienced trainees overestimate their capabilities and are simply too eager to get results, fast, once they get the itch for something. They overdiet and overtrain, even though they should know better.

There is often a disconnect about what you know about diet and training in theory, and how well you apply it on yourself in practise.

Hell, even I did some stuff last year that I wouldn't recommend any of my clients doing, such as training at a very high intensities during weeks I would have benefitted from backing off a bit. Part of me thought I was exempt from normal rules, but lo and behold I overtrained and even regressed in the very lift I sought out to improve on.

I am in no way unique in this regard.

A friend of mine, which is an excellent coach and competes himself, usually has someone else handling his pre-competition diet for him since he knows he'll overdiet and overtrain if he attempts it himself.

Another aquaintance of mine is a top CrossFit coach, yet has some of worst carbophobia I've encountered and often trains to a point where she burns out and gets sick.

Another one coaches figure athletes, and does so well, yet is extremely neurotic and insecure about her own diet.

I got lots of similar examples, but the key point here is that people tend to be more ruled by emotion rather than objective thinking when it comes to their own diet and training, regardless of actual experience level, and regardless of what they would advise others.

Being aware of this at an early stage could possibly help you to stay away from doing stupid shit. If you're planning a diet or training routine which you wouldn't have recommended to someone else, it's usually a damn bad idea in the first place.

3. Lack of knowledge...about the right things

This is among the most common mistakes made by people in general, in the beginner stage, but often well past that. It boils down to a lack of focus and perspective, as the trainee is putting a great amount of attention to minutae, while missing the big picture.

If you want a big bench press, it makes little sense to worry about the fructose content of your favourite cereal brand. Rather, you find a bench specialisation program and put your effort into understanding and applying it properly.

If you want to get lean, it makes little sense in dwelling about what heart rate you should do your cardio at. Rather, you go and find out what your daily energy expenditure is, and put your efforts into understanding how to track calorie intake.

If you want to gain muscle mass, it makes little sense in asking around whether oatmeal is superior to potatoes as a carb source. Rather, you make sure you are progressively lifting heavier weights in the gym, while eating enough to support muscle growth.

To summarize, don't short-change your progress in 2009 by clinging to old beliefs and old habits if they aren't getting you anywhere, don't do stupid stuff due to impatience, and make sure you master, and put focus on, the right things.

Mission Statement: all reviews will be my honest assesment on the material in queston. My opinion will never be influenced by personal bias or my opinion of the author.

The Fat Loss Troubleshoot Book Bundle

"The Fat Loss Troubleshoot answers all the common and not so common questions about fat loss, so if you have never tried to lose fat before then you hit the jackpot and just got the best first timers guide you can get.."

- Leigh Peele

This product package consist of two main books, and several other booklets. I have read them all and will do an extensive review on one of the main books (The Fat Loss Troubleshoot), and mini-reviews of the other books. The Metabolic Repair Manual, which is part of the book bundle, is reviewed here.

Who is this book for?

Everyone that wants to lose fat. It's a very user friendly guide to fat loss, from the very basics to the more advanced stuff.

What will I learn from it?

The book covers just about every topic pertaining to fat loss; you'll learn how to eat for fat loss, how to train for fat loss, how to measure your progress, how to keep yourself motivated, behavioral strategies and much more.

Strong points

* Very user friendly.

* Covers just about every aspect of dieting and provides solutions to common obstacles people are bound to encounter sooner or later. Leigh further illustrates her points with some case studies that really hammers down the message.

* Written with a good sense of humour and is enjoyable to read.

* The advice given here is solid and delivered in a manner that will appeal a lot to the average joe. Down to earth, 'real talk' kind of advice.

Weak points

* Grammar, sentencing and such. One thing, perhaps trivial, that irritates me is how Leigh likes to put big letters on some words; cortisol becomes Cortisol, triglycerides is Triglycerides and so forth. Stop doing that, goddamnit.

* No reference list is a minus in my book. Not that there's many crazy claims that I really need to double check, but it's neat to have; for example, Leigh mentions that anorexics have a lower production of ghrelin, which is one thing that I would have liked to see the reference for.

* A few unsubstantiated claims are made, such as streching being key to preventing your muscles getting bulky. This is, as far as I know, not true.

Overall

Leigh is less about glamour and fancy words, and more about real talk that connects to the reader. Although lacking some technical finesse, the information and advice given here is solid gold - especially for someone that hasn't had a lot of experience or success with dieting in the past. This is by far one of the best all-around diet books on the market right now.


Mini-reviews of the other books

Metabolic Repair Manual -A comprehensive book that covers thyroids, eating disorders, metabolic problems and how to recover from them.
I have reviewed this separately here.

Fat Loss Troubleshoot-Audio Program-Audio follow along for the book.

Mini-review: Only listened to the first chapter, but this seems really good - it's not Leigh reading the book for you, it's her talking about various issues pertaining to the topic at hand. Like the writing style in the book, it's done with a sense of humour.

OPT For Fat Loss - "Rapid Fat loss program for those looking to lose a large amount of weight"

Mini-review: "Training for fat loss should not be such a complicated process" Oh really? Then why the hell does the core program here consist of every damn foo-foo movement ever devised, to be performed on a Swiss ball to boot? Leigh must have been hitting the bong pipe really hard before she wrote this. Worst piece of the book bundle.

OPT For Fat Loss Remix - Body recomposition program.

Mini-review: A lot better than the first OPT. This time around you won't feel like a fruitcake in the gym.

The Maintenance Manual-Guide that helps you keep the fat off.

Mini-review: Pretty sound advice on how to maintain low body fat once you reach your goal.

The Water Manual-A manual that goes over contest and photo shoot prep and water manipulation.

Mini-review: This is good and the advice given for drying out is pretty solid.

Meal Plans 2.0 - Meal plan guide in grams ranging from 1200 to 2400 calories a day

Mini-review: Personally, I think that protein is on the low side for the very low (<1500)

Overall, book bundle

You're getting a lot of bang for your buck here. The two main books are clearly the highlights, but overall this is a solid package well worth the price. If you're searching for a little something to help you get in great shape for 2009, look no further than this.

Hope everyone had an awesome Christmas, I sure did.

Just saw this piece on another site:

"..both calorie restriction and intermittent fasting along with vitamin and mineral intake, increase resistance to disease, extend lifespan, and stimulate production of neurons from stem cells.

In addition, fasting has been shown to enhance synaptic elasticity, possibly increasing the ability for successful re-wiring following brain injury. These benefits appear to result from a cellular stress response, similar in concept to the greater muscular regeneration that results from the stress of regular exercise.

Additional research suggests that increasing time intervals between meals might be a better choice than chronic calorie restriction, because the resultant decline in sex hormones may adversely affect both sexual and brain performance"

And then she made the following, false, statement

"It should go without saying that short-term cognitive and physical performance is not boosted by fasting, due to metabolic changes including decrease in body temperature, decreased heart rate and blood pressure and decreased glucose and insulin levels, so you’re better off not planning a marathon or a demanding work session during a fasting period"

Full article here

Short-term fasting (<72 hrs) does NOT lead to a decrease in body temperature/metabolic rate or heart rate in humans.

Let me post an excerpt from The Leangains Approach article

"A high meal frequency does not boost your metabolism, nor does fasting or a low frequency slow it down either. The latter has been shown quite clearly when researchers made people fast for 72 hours and found no difference in metabolic rate at the 12 hour mark, compared to the 72 hour mark. That’s three days without food, yet all subjects retained a fully intact metabolic rate. There are other studies looking at one meal a day and alternate day fasting that does not find an impact on metabolism either.

Some studies have actually found that fasting boosts metabolic rate slightly during the initial 36 hours - this is supposedly an evolutionary response, mediated by norepinephrine, as the body mobilizes extra energy when food is scarce. You can imagine it would be highly counterproductive to mister caveman if he found himself slow and lethargic when he needed to find food in order to not starve to death."

The studies referenced in this excerpt:

Zauner C, Schneeweiss B, Kranz A, Madl C, Ratheiser K, Kramer L, Roth E, Schneider B, Lenz K. Resting energy expenditure in short-term starvation is increased as a result of an increase in serum norepinephrine. Am J Clin Nutr. 2000 Jun;71(6):1511-5.

Webber J, Macdonald IA. The cardiovascular, metabolic and hormonal changes accompanying acute starvation in men and women. British journal of nutrition 1994; 71:437-447.

Caleb Lee asked me to write an article for his new product and I thought it was a good opportunity for me to get the message out.

Product page is here

This product is primarily aimed at the beginner and consists of two e-books, interviews (mp3 + transcript in pdf) with seven trainers and a 14 page pdf file called "The Leangains Approach".

It's basically me talking about the approach, dispelling some myths surrounding meal frequency, fasting and your metabolism, and protein absorption. Also included in the article is a sample beginner plan and a list of references pertaining to the topics discussed.

I've been using a wide variety of training strategies over the years, but the one training style I was most successful with was low volume, high intensity training employed in a reverse pyramid fashion.

A google search on "reverse pyramid training" (RPT) brings you to an article by someone called Randy Herring. You can check out the article here.

I was unaware that this training style even had a name for it, as I started to train like this intuitiveley.

The greater amount of force you'll be able to generate with your muscles will be when you are freshest in your workout, e.x., the first set of each exercise performed. If a set counts, it is the first one, which is most important.

From the article. It always made sense to me to start working sets with the heaviest weight possible and then lower weights as strength decreased.

Besides the basic gist of the system, there isn't much I agree with Randy on; some of the guidelines given in the chart in that article are flat out ridiculous. My main beef here is with the frequency, volume and rest period guidelines given for the various categories (beginner, intermediate, advanced).

Either way, let me take you through a back workout and show you how I might use RPT in practise.

Deadlift, 2 x 3-5

600 x 3 (max effort)

The first set is what I call the "top set" and the one you should strive to increase on a regular basis. This is a max effort set, which means you stop when you're sure you don't have another rep in you.

Rest at least 3 mins, lower weight by 10% for next set; in this set, do not go max effort rather stop when and if you hit the same reps as first set +1 rep.

540 x 4

That's it, 2 sets and done with deads. Now rest 3-5 mins depending on how winded you feel (your heart should be pumping hard).

Time for some chins. Recall that palms are supposed to be facing you, not the other way around (that's pullups). I recommend a medium grip, about shoulder width spacing. Not a very wide grip, as this limits the range of movement.


Chins, 3 x 4-6 (alternatively, two heavy sets in the 4-6 rep interval and one set in the 10-12 rep interval)

Body weight + 100 x 4 = 300 x 4 (max effort)

Rest 2-3 mins, 10% off (remember to count total weight, not only the weight added in the belt) and we do

Body weight + 70 x 5 = 270 x 5 (no problem)

Third set, 7.5%-10% off and we should get 6 reps.

Body weight + 50 = 265 x 6 (easy)

Alternatively on the third set, ditch the weight belt and do body weight only.

Body weight x 12-15; treat this as a finisher to get some extra volume in, don't go to failure.

Ok, done with chins and time for some Pendlay Rows; here, do not use the RPT set structure, rather take your 7 RM and do sets of 5 using the Starting Strength principles. At this point you should be fairly fatigued, so no more RPT.

250 x 5 x 3 - up weight next workout (the SS principles dictates that you up weight when you can get 3 sets of 5)

Done with back.

Another example for chest, done in higher and wider rep ranges.

Bench Press, 3 x 8-12

250 x 8
225 x 10
200 x 12

Incline Bench, 2 x 6-10

225 x 6
190 x 10


How to progress with RPT

The top set should be your main focus and the one you should continually strive to increase with 2,5% or add another rep to. Add weight when you hit the upper range of the rep interval you wan't to work in; for example, deads in the above example would call for upping weight when you hit 5 reps. If you only got 3 reps, you'd be better off trying to stay with the current weight for next workout and try to add another rep.

In the chins example, you'd wait until you got 6 reps in the first set before upping weight.

The other 1-2 sets which are done with a lower weight, should be increased independently. For example, progressing in the chins example might look like this

Week 1, chins

Body weight + 100 x 4
Body weight + 70 x 5
Body weight + 50 x 6 (the last two sets weren't that hard so let's increase them for next week)

Week 2, chins

Body weight + 100 x 4
Body weight + 75 x 5
Body weight + 55 x 6

Week 3, chins

Body weight + 100 x 5
Body weight + 75 x 6
Body weight + 60 x 6

Week 4, chins

Body weight + 100 x 5
Body weight + 80 x 5
Body weight + 65 x 5

Something like that.


Random notes

- Remember, the first set should be max effort; but try doing all sets like this and you risk a burnout.

- You can work in a tight range (i.e 3-5 reps) or a wider range (i.e 6-12 reps) and it's all a question of how much you drop the weight in between sets. If you went all out in the first set, lowering the weight by 5% will get you about the same reps as the first set, lowering the weight with 10% and you get about +1-2 reps, by 15% you get +3-4 reps and so forth. Some individual factors play into this, which calls for some experimentation.

- Rest at least 2-3 mins in between movemenst and sets; this is especially important after the top set.

- Mix it up, there is no need to do all movements RPT style. RPT can be quite draining on your nervous system, assuming you go all out on the top set.

Probably going to include something on this in the book, since I think it's a very productive training system.