Guidelines For Strength Training - Part 3

In Part 2, we discussed how training volume and intensity may be manipulated to provide optimal strength gains. In order to realize those gains, sufficient recovery is also required and Part 3 will provide some general guidelines for nutrition and rest. Just because I’m presenting these topics last in the series doesn’t mean they are any less important. You can be doing everything right with your workouts, and then sabotage your progress with poor nutrition and/or insufficient rest.

5) Nutrition

Nutrition is a highly complex field, for sure, but the overall principle for losing, gaining, and maintaining weight is very simple. If you want to maintain your current weight, simply eat at caloric maintenance. Want to lose weight? Eat less and/or exercise more. Trying to put on some weight? Eat more and/or exercise less. This holds true irrespective of the macronutrient composition of your diet. For example, if you obtained all of your calories from carbohydrate sources and ate at a caloric deficit, you would lose weight. Conversely, if you are eating at a caloric surplus and all of your calories are from carbs, you will gain weight. It’s not carbs, protein, or even fat that makes people fat. It’s too many calories, and too little activity that makes people fat.

The human body is subject to the same laws of physics as other material bodies, including the first law of thermodynamics. Basically, this means that the total amount of energy in a system cannot be changed, created or destroyed. In other words, energy in must equal energy out. Some popular diet plans claim otherwise, stating that you can eat as much of any particular foods as you want, like meat and fat, and still lose weight. Sorry, but this is false. If you’re eating above caloric maintenance and all your calories come from protein and fat, you will still gain weight. It’s just harder to overeat on a diet of meat and fat, because those food sources are so filling! Any diet that works, even if only temporarily, does so because the dieter has created a caloric deficit.

If you would like to calculate your daily caloric intake, I can recommend visiting this site (scroll to the bottom of the page). However, I would like to stress that caloric recommendations are just that, recommendations. They are estimates, which may be used to give you a good place to start when determining how many calories you need to meet your goals, and will most likely need to be adjusted. There is further room for variability when it comes to macronutrient intake and if you’re looking for that one perfect diet for every person and every goal, save yourself some time and effort because it doesn’t exist! For example, some individuals will fare better on a low-carb diet, while others will not. One thing is certain regarding carb intake: if you are engaging in a strength training program, you will absolutely need some carbs, the actual amount depending upon individual factors. Higher intensity strength workouts involve anaerobic energy systems which rely solely on carb availability. Remember, carbs or fat or protein are not the enemies themselves. Regardless of the composition of any particular diet, the overriding factor which determines whether weight is lost, gained or maintained, is caloric intake vs. caloric expenditure.

Naturally, anyone putting on weight will want as much of it as possible to be muscle. On the other hand, if you want to lose weight, then your goal should be to maintain as much lean body mass as possible, including muscle, so that the majority of the weight lost comes from stored body fat. You can do this by ensuring that there is sufficient protein in your diet. Along with resistance training, adequate dietary protein provides the stimulus to build and/or maintain lean body mass. Before you start stocking up on tubs of whey protein isolate, though, “sufficient” doesn’t mean “excessive.” By far, the majority of individuals should be able to obtain their protein requirements from whole food sources, and without having to gorge on flesh every two hours.

How much protein should you consume, then? In a 2007 review of multiple studies, The Journal of The International Society of Sports Nutrition recommended that active individuals ingest 1.4 to 2.0 grams of protein per kilogram of bodyweight per day. In a 2006 review, the ISSN had reported that the protein requirement for strength training athletes was closer to 1.8 g/kg/day. Obviously, there is no magic number but for the sake of simplicity, let’s use that figure of 1.8 g/kg. To calculate your daily protein requirement, you would divide your weight in pounds by 2.2, since there are about 2.2 kilograms per pound, and then multiply that number by 1.8. If you weigh 160 lbs., then your protein intake is determined as follows: (160 / 2.2) x 1.8 = 131g, or 524 calories.

That’s great that we have a number, but how much food is that? Well, let’s use salmon as an example. The official USDA serving size is 3 ounces, which is roughly equivalent to the size of a deck of cards. A more typical serving size in an actual meal might be 6 oz. and would provide about 38g of protein. This means you would have to consume approximately 20 oz. of salmon to meet your daily protein requirement, if your only source of protein was salmon. Meat, fish, poultry, eggs and dairy would all serve as good primary sources of protein and provide plenty of variation in your diet. Plant-derived sources, like whole grains, beans, nuts, etc. also contain some protein which will contribute to your daily intake. It should be obvious that vegetarians will be at a clear disadvantage, however, when it comes to building and maintaining muscle mass.

Who says a healthy diet has to consist of egg whites and rice cakes?

So, should everyone just consume 1.8g/kg of protein per day? Not necessarily. Consider the example of a man who weighs 400 pounds. In his case, applying the value of 1.8g/kg/day would result in a recommendation of 327 grams of protein per day, or the equivalent of 15-1/2 quarter-pound hamburgers. Every day. Does that make sense? Hopefully not. When dealing with extremes of body composition, whether obese or very lean, it may be more appropriate to determine caloric intake with a method based on lean body mass instead of total bodyweight. The goal is to provide sufficient protein in the diet, but there isn’t one perfect value or formula that should be applied to every person on the planet. Be highly suspicious of any source that recommends a rigid value for nutrient intake for all individuals, especially when it conveniently requires the purchase of more protein powder.

The truth is, there is so much conflicting information out there regarding nutrition, and it’s easy to be confused. For example, you may hear about endurance athletes who rely on diets high in protein and fat and claim that carbs are unnecessary for an active lifestyle. Why does that work for them? Well, they simply aren’t training at a high enough intensity to stimulate an adaptation beyond basic cardiovascular fitness. If you care about building or preserving muscle mass, or improving your performance, then a high protein diet must be accompanied by higher intensity training sessions, which in turn will require at least some carbs. Even endurance athletes would see benefits in their performance and body composition from applying those principles to their training. Again, notice the emphasis on principles, rather than strict rules that must be applied to everyone. If you would like additional information regarding nutrient intake and utilization, I suggest you browse through Lyle McDonald’s article base.

6) Rest

While the stimulus for building strength is provided at the gym and in your diet, the actual adaptation takes place in your sleep. Inadequate rest inhibits tissue rebuilding processes and the resetting of stress hormones that otherwise keep the body in a net catabolic state. Taking a full day or two off between strength training workouts, giving you two or three nights of rest, will allow your body to recover enough to make progress at your next workout. You should see how this relates back to the consideration of total training volume when designing a program. To allow for sufficient rest, an effective strength training program would involve full-body training on 2 or 3 days, 4 days max if you’re doing an upper/lower body split routine, and perhaps only 1 day if you are just maintaining strength while focusing on another fitness goal. It’s true that some elite athletes and bodybuilders work out 5-6 days per week, but before you imitate their routines remember that they have trained hard for years to develop that level of work capacity. They also have superior genetics, and often times, the aid of drugs. If you don’t have a resume like that, then do yourself a favor and forget what the bodybuilding and supplement magazines are telling you to do. Without reservation, there is one thing you can imitate: the most successful athletes know how to get a good night’s rest. If you are only getting 4 or 5 hours of sleep on a regular basis, don’t expect to get very far with a fitness program.

If you’re performing endurance training, conditioning work, or practice/skill work for a sport, in addition to a strength training routine, it will all have to be taken into account to ensure that proper rest and recovery needs are being met. Appreciating the value of rest should put training schedules and goals into proper perspective. For some people, strength training finally becomes a practical reality when they realize they don’t have to be in the gym every day to get results. Dieters, too, will benefit when they understand that working out every day for 2 hours is most likely interfering with their weight-loss goals. If you try to exercise too much while dieting at a caloric deficit, your body will compensate by lowering your metabolism because it can’t support the excessive workload in an underfed state. While intensity can and should be maintained while dieting, overall volume must be kept relatively low by reducing the duration and frequency of those workouts.

Don't overdo it with your workouts. Go home and get some rest!

What if you already engage in an endurance-based activity and want to begin a strength training program? In that case, you might want to consider dropping a day of endurance training before you get started lifting weights, and then work that day back in as you adjust to the new workload. The overriding principle for any program is to make sure that adequate rest and recovery needs are being met. And be reasonable with your expectations. Strength training will assist your endurance-based ambitions, as long as you understand that you can’t pursue both goals equally at the same time. If endurance is your priority, then use strength training as a vital part of your program, but as an assistance to reaching your main goal.

Never underestimate the value of a day off, or even the occasional week off. Periodically, your body just needs a full break from an active routine in order to recover fully. Connective tissue, like tendons and ligaments, take longer to repair than muscle tissue and may benefit from the extra rest. Your knees and shoulders will thank you for it! If you absolutely must do some activity during your time off, then limit it to light cardio and calisthenics. The emphasis is on light, so that you don’t interfere with your ability to recover. In fact, performing some light aerobic activity should assist with the recovery process by helping to clear out metabolic wastes and replace them with nutrients. Just don’t get carried away with your recovery sessions. Sometimes, less really is more.

So, finally, after all this volume, intensity, progression with compound exercises, caloric intake and caloric expenditure, you get an easy assignment. There’s nothing complicated about getting rest. And for those of you who tend to have a hard time relaxing and letting unseen processes do their job, you should be able to sleep better knowing you’re doing the right thing.

Review

Regardless of which strength training program you’re following, you can determine the effectiveness of that program by applying the six general guidelines that were covered in this series of articles. Let’s review those guidelines:

1) Progression. Adopt a sustainable plan for making steady progress.  Don’t just get comfortable using the same resistance workout after workout.  At the same time, resist the urge to try and force progress by increasing the resistance in unreasonably large increments.

2) Exercise selection. Compound exercises that allow you to use heavier weight will be more effective and efficient at building strength than isolation exercises.  Focus on the “big” lifts in your routine, like squats, deadlifts, lunges, presses, and rows.

3) Volume. Building and maintaining strength doesn’t require massive amounts of training volume, and performing full-body workouts with 3-5 exercises on 2-3 days per week is sufficient for most people.

4) Intensity. Reducing your weight training volume will allow you to increase the intensity of your sessions. Use heavier weights that allow you to perform 3-8 reps of 3-5 sets to provide the stimulus for building and maintaining muscle.

5) Nutrition. Success in losing, gaining or maintaining weight is ultimately dependent upon the ratio of caloric intake to caloric expenditure. Whether you’re eating at a caloric surplus or deficit, sufficient dietary protein is required to build and maintain muscle mass. Carb and fat intake amounts are more flexible based on goals, preferences, etc.

6) Rest. You can only accomplish so much during your workouts. To reap the benefits, you must rest and recover. Schedule a full day or two off between strength training sessions.

So, how does your current strength training program measure up? No one wants to find out they’re merely spinning their wheels, pouring time and energy into an unproductive routine. Progress is not the result of randomly directed efforts, in life or in the gym. Hopefully, you now have a much clearer idea of how to assemble an effective program and achieve your fitness goals.