Update

Last week was a really good week in terms of training. I feel like I am able to give every session 110%. Some of my training sessions have been really intense - so much so that I am completely oblivious to if anybody else is in the gym at times.

I feel like I'm getting a nice trade off of size vs conditioning. I am definitely getting leaner, but I am either getting bigger at the same time, or at the very least achieving the illusion of getting bigger as muscle definition/conditioning becomes more defined.

Staying on point with diet was alot easier last week - even the very low carb days on Tuesday and Friday seem to be getting easier!

I was chatting with Andy (Sunday training partner) about intensity today and the point we discussed is actually relevant to all types of athletes or average joes. When you are in the zone and have complete focus you have to give it everything you have and push beyond what you set out to achieve. I say this because there will be days when you just can't get in that zone for whatever reason (diet, tiredness, stress, aches, injury etc). We need to accept these days happen to us all and on these days we will more than likely just go through the motions and not push ourselves to our absolute limits. This is why you have to maximise those days that you are just are buzzing and in the zone. If you planned to run 4 miles do you have the capability to run 6? If you planned to do 12 reps can you push to 15 or 20? Its small moments like these that add up in the long run, and small moments like these that you can miss out on. Ultimately its small moments like these that seperate great from good.

I think I am really benefiting from a mental shift in my philosophy towards training. I am no longer training like a weight-lifter. I am training like a bodybuilder, and as a result I am hopefully starting to look like a bodybuilder. Its no longer about weights but feel for me. Everything is about squeezing and stretching. Its about getting in the right place mentally to achieve small goals on a day by day basis. Completing achievements on a day by day basis all lead me to my end goal but allow me to stay focused in the here and now. I believe that I can control my own destiny and that success is purely down to me and me alone and that by choosing to succeed I can and will succeed. By recognising this I also recognise that if I fail its because I have chosen to fail. Choosing to fail is not an option.

Today is food prep day. I have already cooked up all my chicken for the week (7 large breasts in a little Nando's lemon and herb peri peri sauce). This afternoon I'll be cooking up a load of beef in a healthy low carb cottage pie style. I also have some minced turkey breast to cook up and like the chicken that will get a helping of Nando's sauce. I'm having to do a bit of additional prep work in terms of food at the moment because Lynn is now 39 weeks pregnant with our second child and we could end up having to dash to hospital at any time. This means that I have to have food prepared and the ability to quickly throw into my cooler and take with us (yes I will still be eating every 3 hours!). I've got some protein cookies and flapjacks in the hospital bag as an extra bit of food should the stay be as long as last time (about 18 hours!). As long as I am awake I will be eating!!

Skipload yesterday. It was pretty intense. I should of had a reefeed of 8 hours but after 6 hours of slamming carbs back I just couldn't take any more carbs. Load is outlined below as best as I can remember:

• Meal 1: 4 large pancakes with maple syrup, lemon juice and sugar, large bowl of frosties, large bowl of coco pops, cinammon and raisen bagel with honey and jam, jam out of the jar, toffee pecan swirl pastry, 2 alpen light cereal bars, protein shake

• Meal 2: 5 extra large marshmallows, 1/2 Jamaican ginger cake, 5 weight watchers cake slices

• Meal 3: Chips in baguette, 1/2 pizza, mozerella sticks in bbq sauce, hashbrowns, 1/2 tub of ben and jerries frozen yoghurt. Protein shake with BCAA's

• Meal 4: 8 weetabix covered in sugar. 3 weight watchers cake bar slices

Last 2 meals of the day were protein in form of mince turkey breast, egg whites and peanut butter.

Load was good for 8lb weight increase. Will ber very interesting to see how long it takes for that to drop off!! I only lost 0.5lb last week, although another half an inch off my waist so everything keeps moving in the right direction.

Lift, Eat, Sleep, Repeat

A brief update on all things me… Training continues to go well. Intensity and volume is up and generally sweating like a pig. There will no doubt come a time when I have to dial it back but at the moment I’m loving the additional volume. I’m really focusing on what it is I am striving to achieve now when I’m in the gym and how the movement relates to each particular muscle to enforce that mind/muscle connection. It’s easy to talk about stretching and squeezing and how form is king and the weight moved is simply a by-product of the contraction of the muscles but it is definitely an entirely different thing to go and do it. I am definitely starting to sense a shift in my mentality and training from that of a recreational weightlifter to that of a bodybuilder. I would also say that the changes are already noticeable in my physique, even this early on. 

I ended up losing 3lb last week, and another inch off my waist. I think my waist has already shrunk further this week and body fat now at the 13% level. Skipload on Saturday was pretty intense. 6 hours between 9-3. I managed to ram down A LOT of food. Day started with a 2.5 hour fast and then meals were as follows: 

Fasted State – Intra workout swell drink at half dosing

Meal 1 – 2 giant bowls of frosties (probably 150g frosties in each), bowl of coco pops, toasted cinnamon and raisen bagel with honey and jam, 3 large pancakes with real maple syrup, 4 alpen light bars, 2 large spoons of neat strawberry jam from the jar, 2 scoops of whey.

Meal 2 – 2 alpen light bars, nutrigrain elevenses bar, bag of jelly babies, 2 large white choc chip pancakes, 2 tootsie rolls

Meal 3 – Small pizza express pizza, 10 mozerella sticks dipped in bbq sauce, chip baguette with bbq sauce, tub of raspberry sorbet, 5 weight watchers cake slices, a cookie 

Meal 4 – 1/3 tub of ben and jerries frozen yoghurt, 1 large pancake, 3 weight watchers cakes

Meal 5 – 200g chicken breast with 3 slices ham

Meal 6 – 200g egg whites mixed with 1 scoop of whey and 4g BCAA. Spoon of peanut butter. 

That equated to a 4.5lb water weight gain. Despite hammering back as much food as I could handle, I have base-lined today, which is a day early. This means the load extends up to 8 hours on Saturday 9 -5 and that meal 5 becomes another carb orientated meal. 

I’ve been using my intra-workout drink and so far with great success. It definitely seems to be doing the job so I am pleased. So far I’ve only been taking at 1/2 -2/3 dosing to build up a tolerance to high amounts of glutamine but will start to run at the full 30g dosing as of tomorrow and for the remainder of my training this week.

I went over to Milton Keynes on Saturday to pick up my vitamins from Nutri Centre, among other things and they happened to have Optimum Nutrition Casein 1.8kg tubs at half price!! I love this stuff and Optimum Nutritions flavouring is second to none but its definitely a luxury item at full cost with bulk powder casein generally tasting like dust and ruining anything you add it to. Of course I couldn't help but pick some of this stuff up and have been mixing with my normal whey wherever I consume whey to create a tapered release protein that delivers amino acids to my body over a much longer period. Its helped to keep me feeling fuller between meals, and I can't help but feel my muscles appear fuller and harder courtesy of the drip feeding of aminos. I'll definitely be investing in a few more tubs!!

Intra Workout - lets get scientific

In brief I have been training well this week, beating the log book in either weights or reps and weight is down. Bodyfat is noticeably reducing – the changes are noticeable day by day at the moment which is incredibly motivating. To summarise; abdominal fat significantly reducing, legs starting to go grainy with extra veins becoming visible, waist visibly looks to have shrunk as V taper is becoming much more noticeable. Will measure up in the morning to confirm but the mirror doesn’t usually lie. That’s all the about me your getting because this is actually a blog post whereby I want to talk about something a bit more technical – intra workout nutrition!

I have long been playing with and toying with pre workout, intra workout and post work out drinks to try and find an optimum solution for a number of years and finally I think I have found the answer! Protein Works are busy making my very own blend of which I will only need to add one or two further ingredients to. Hopefully this will save having about 6 pouches of varying powders to weigh and mix every time I want to make this cocktail! Thanks have to go to DBT for the idea and knowledge behind it. I have just manipulated some of the values/ingredients to suit.

The idea behind the drink is to swell the muscles during a workout. This swell has many positive benefits and the ideas are as follows:

Cell volume and hydration status are always in flux. It is not possible to constantly maintain a cellular swell. Yet research has demonstrated that the signaling cascade that takes place in the cell as a result of swelling resembles the response initiated by growth factors. Cellular swelling is an anabolic signal triggering protein anabolism and hindering catabolism. When muscle cell water content is elevated protein synthesis is stimulated and when water content is decreased, protein synthesis is inhibited and protein degradation increases.

Cellular volume decreases after exercise and after everyday life stresses (many simple normal body functions). When cells shrink due to oxidative and exercise-induced stress, glucagon activation and high urea concentration we end up with:

• A decrease in glycogen synthesis
• A decrease in glutamine uptake by inactivating transporters
• A decrease in taurine efflux (outflow)
• An Increase in the rate of release of glutamine and alanine from muscle
• An increase in protein breakdown

Cellular volume increases in response to hormones, insulin and high concentrations of L-glutamine, creatine, glycine, alanine, and glucose. When cells swell we end up with a:

• Increase in glycogen synthesis
• Increase in glutamine transporters, and therefore uptake

In turn when we have a decrease in the rate of release of glutamine and alanine from muscle we end up with:

• An Increase in taurine efflux by activating taurine transport pathways
• A Decrease in protein breakdown and an increase in synthesis
• Stimulation of urea synthesis and ammonia formation from amino acids
• A Decrease in glycogenolysis, glycolysis and glucose-6-phosphatase activity
• An Increase in alanine uptake
• An Increase in glycine oxidation
• An Increase in lipogenesis by decreasing carnitine palmitoyl transferase

Cell Volume Regulation

The increased concentration of amino acids and potassium during cell shrinkage eventually leads to swelling, which triggers volume regulatory decrease (potassium efflux). At maximum swelling, inositol, betaine, and taurine efflux begin as the cell begins a regulatory decrease in cell volume.

Just how cellular swelling creates an increase in protein metabolism is not specifically known. The most likely reason is centered on the mechanisms involved in cytoskeleton (cell stretching), regulatory proteins, and stretch-activated cation and anion channels.

For many toggles cellular swelling will play a role. The intake of Alanine, Glutamine as well as Glycine should be beneficial.

Based on DBT’s findings and my own understanding of how amino acids interact with each other (because this is also important) and how the body utilises I will be trialling the following intra workout drink over the next few months. My hope is that it will both aid in intra cellular swelling, intra workout energy levels and overall muscular hydration. As I am on a cut this will be almost completely calorie free. Maybe 2kcal as I will add a bit of sugar free squash to get rid of the taste of Leucine which I know tastes like battery acid.

Without further ado:

8g  L-Leucine
4g L-Alanine3g Beta Alanine
3g L-Glycine
1.5g Taurine
15gL-Glutamine

I plan to mix in about 1-1.5l of water with some sugar free product such as high5 zero which will provide additional electrolytes lost, and as somebody that sweats profusely due to the current intensity of my workouts that’s definitely a bonus.

What each of the ingredients do:

L Leucine: L Leucine is around eight percent of the total amino acid count in your body's protein structures. It is also the fourth most concentrated amino acid in your tissue and is one of the three essential BCAA’s. It preserves muscle glycogen (glucose which is stored in the muscle tissue used to power your movements), maintains nitrogen balance and enhances mental clarity when performing intense physical exercise. If you don't have enough L Leucine in your diet your body will not be able to make use of the protein that you give it, regardless of how much protein you consume.

L Alanine: As an amino acid, alanine is used by the body as a building block of protein. Alanine plays a major role in transferring nitrogen from tissue sites in the body, to the liver. Alanine is also used by the body to draw upon blood sugar as an energy source

Beta Alanine: Beta Alanine elevates Carnosine concentration in muscles and is useful for anyone participating in sports which require explosive actions. Increasing the concentration of Carnosine in muscles is vital to athletes as Carnosine can increase the ability of your muscles to work harder and perform for longer. It may also prevent lactic acid build up during intense exercise, thus reducing fatigue.

L Glutamine: Glutamine is a semi essential amino acid that the body is able to produce in small amounts; however the majority of it must come from the diet. It is required for hypertrophy and also plays an important role in repairing damaged tissue.

L Glycine - Glycine is recognised as a neurotransmitter in the central nervous system and has also been shown to exhibit anti-inflammatory, antispastic, and antipsychotic activity. Glycine can improve the uptake and use of creatine by the body.

Taurine: Taurine can draw water into your cells and act as a cell volumiser. This can help draw additional nutrients into the muscle. Taurine has also been shown to increase glucose into cells and isrecognized as a great supplement to help reduce cramps.

You will note the lack of creatine, arginine and BCAAs… possibly a few other well known “pump” ingredients. Reason for this is that a lot of pump ingredients such as arginine work to store water between the skin and muscle allowing for additional blood flow/volume. Whilst this creates the look of a pump the additional volume of water pushing against muscle cells causes muscle cell shrinkage! Naturally this is not what we want! Creatine I have overlooked because I take it pre workout and post workout. I don’t need to consume during. BCAAs I take through the day. The effectiveness of Leucine is significantly reduced by the other 2 branch chain amino acids, so I’ll toy with dropping it from pre/during workout to throughout the day and we will see what happens!

Oh Happy Monday

Well I now know that my 4 hour reefed was not enough on Saturday. I base-lined this morning – 2 days early! To summarise; my reefed as outlined in my last blog post (see below) equated to a water weight gain of 2lb. In 24 hours I have shed that water weight and as of this morning I weighed the same as Saturday. In a nut shell this means that my 4 hour reefed was not enough to completely replenish glycogen stores or to fill me back out.

I could have guessed without standing on the scales to be honest as I had what I refer to as “that Wednesday look”, and what I mean by this is that typically refeeding/skiploading on a Saturday makes you look large but watery on a Sunday and through Monday and Tuesday definition and size start to find a nice balanced look as they start to off-set each other to the point that on Wendesday the balance reaches its optimal point and you essentially look big, hard, full, lean and vascular. Another post for another day – but its through these weekly refeeds and my ability to track water weight reduction that I will know how many days before my show to “carb up” and how long for. This approach also removes the need for diuretics, sodium manipulation or dehydration techniques (another reason why its slightly controversial!)

What will now happen throughout the course of this week is that I will start to go flat and will end the week more delepeted than usual. Although I will bump the reefed window to six hours for next Saturday the knock on effect of under-eating this weekend just gone is that I may have to go straight up to 8 hours in 2 weeks time as I’ll essentially be working from a negative starting position when I start this weeks load. To try and manage this situation I may need to manipulate my cardio schedule this week. IF I am already 2lb down in weight or more before Friday I will drop Friday’s cardio session and take an extra 2 hours in bed. The added benefit of this approach is that moving the cardio session out and then back in the following week will elicit a better response next week.

Was supposed to be back and abs with 20 mins steady state cardio this morning, but dropped abs as I am doing tomorrow after cardio and was pretty tired after back. I had that nice dull achey feel in my lats all morning long. A sure fire sign that I hit the intended muscle group nice and hard this morning.

Workout consisted of:

• Bent Over BB Rows (reverse grip) – 3 working sets of 10 @ 100kg 
• Rack Pulls - 4 working sets of 8-12 reps working up to 230kg 
• Wide Grip Lat Pull Downs – 4 working sets of 10-16 reps working up to 195lb 
• V-Bar Twisted Pull Downs – 3 working sets of 9 reps at 130lb 
• Squat V-Bar Cable Rows – 3 working sets of 15 reps at 172lb 
• Single Arm Cross Body Cable Lat Levers – 3 working sets of 8-12 reps at 60lb 
• One Arm DB Rows – 3 working sets of 8 reps using 48kg dumbells

30-40 mins cardio in the morning followed by abs. 2.5 hours fasting too. Carb free day - note the complete sarcasm is my voice when I say I can't fucking wait! 

Chest and Prep Day

Brief update - chest and biceps day this morning, but without the aid of my training partner who was up at Silverstone watching the bikes. No excuse for me to slack off though and I had a really good session hitting a new PB on decline smith presses getting 4 reps at 160kg (thats 4 plates each side - and I am pointing that out because yes I am pretty chuffed with myself!)

Workout was:

Decline Smith Press
Incline DB Press
Dips
Hammer Strength Seated Press
Cable Flyes
Cable X-Overs
Alternating DB curls
Cable Hammer Curls
BB Curls (8 drop sets)

Weigh in this morning shows only a 2lb weight gain for my refeed yesterday. With this in mind I suspect that I will baseline before Wednesday and that I will need to have a 6 hour refeed next weekend. If thats the case it also means that this week is going to be hard!!! Just to clarify yesterdays refeed as people seem to find the concept of skiploading/refeeding extremely interesting, if not mind-boggling.

1. Bowl of Kellogs Frosties, 1 cinnamon and raisin bagel - half smothered with jam, half with honey. 1 banana. Protein shake.
2. 2 boxes of Jaffa Cakes, a bag of Jelly Babies, 5 weight watchers cake slices
3. Large pizza express pizza, 10 mozzarella sticks, 2/3 tub of Ben and Jerries Chocolate Brownie Frozen Yoghurt 

This afternoon was spent prepping and cooking all my food for the week. Always an important part of the week because I truely stand by the saying "if you fail to prepare then prepare to fail". Also cooked up a big batch of what is essentially a cottage pie mixture but with loads of additional veg thrown in. 

Diet today was/is:

1. 75g oats mixed with 150g fat free greek yoghurt and 1 scoop whey. Squeeze of honey and blueberries. 1 whey protein shake.
2. Pre Workout - 4 scoops MP Pulse & 10g BCAA
3. PWO - 25g whey, 30g vitargo, 8g creapure, 4g BCAA
4. 200g chicken breast, 100g wholegrain rice and veg
5. 6 egg omlette and spoon of cashew butter
6. 50g whey mixed with 20g almond butter
7. cottage pie mix
8. 200ml egg whites with 1 scoop of whey, 4g BCAA. 20g peanut butter

Back and abs in the morning.

Progress and supplements

Another week completed, and a new week starting. Probably as good a time as any to give a bit of an update about how this is going!

• Weight-wise I have not lost any weight over the last 3 weeks. Infact, standing on the scales this morning versus 3 weeks ago when I started this journey I can actually tell you my weight is up 2lb.
• Fat percentage-wise (and this is the bit I care about!) I have lost 2% bodyfat in 3 weeks.
• Measurements wise this week alone I have lost an inch from my waist and half an inch from my neck.

To summarise what the above means - its almost akin to the holy grail of bodybuilding. I am getting leaner whilst maintaining my current muscle mass.

I took some pictures on Wednesday night. Now they are not fantastic but hopefully you can see just about see my top 2-4 abs coming out and the separation and definition in my chest and shoulders developing. This is 14% bodyfat measured by callipers. Interestingly our Tanita body comp scales also show the same bodyfat percentage (suggesting the £80 price tag is maybe worth it to get fairly accurate readings!) 

You'll also see I am holding fat on my lower abs - standard male gut and love handles and lower pecs. These are shrinking away slowly but surely. I am most interested to see just how much fat I can remove from these areas as I have alot of leftover skin and fat cells from when I was stupid enough to get to a fat 25stone lard ass in my youth. Typically for me I expect that my legs and shoulders/traps will (and are) leaning out very quickly as these are the 2 areas I do not hold bodyfat. My gut and love handles, lower pecs and lower back will be the last areas to lean out - which is typical for most guys that struggle to get below 10% fat.

In terms of diet I am still fully committed and not having any issues sticking to my specific meals, macros or calories. The hardest days by a country mile are still the carb-free ones. Particularly Fridays, due to a number of factors inclusive of; end of the working week, end of the dieting week and therefore glycogen at its most depleted state, end of the training week so all the early mornings taking their toll.

I am currently toying with some fasting on cardio only days and non-weight training days. This equates to basically not eating anything for 2.5 hours after waking up. The idea is that having being fasted through the night (and due to my macro timing) not having had any carbs for over 16 hours that glycogen is depleted and therefore fat used for energy. This should work particularly well on cardio mornings and also utlise the EPOC effect post training to further burn fat. Alot of guys are turning to intermittent fasting to get freaky lean (just google it for details) but the idea of not eating anything until around 2pm and then trying to get all your food ingested in a 6 hour period doesn't excite me all that much!

Still skiploading, but I am messing around with this too at the moment and have dropped my 6 hour refeed to a 4 hour refeed today. The leaner I get the more I'll need to up the refeed, but at the moment I am interested to see what the minimum refeed period is to get optimised fat loss (ie why refeed for 6 hours if I only need to refeed for 4 hours - especially as 2 hours can equate to another 200-350g carbs!!). It still amazes me what a refeed does for the metabolism. Even just sat here typing this I am literally sweating and boiling hot because my metabolism is in overdrive.

Somebody was asking me about supplements on this diet so a quick piece around that too for you. I am a big believer in supplementation. 95% of people can't get lean, or grow muscle, or recover from exercise without the aid of supplements. Training is hardwork on your CNS (central nervous system). Dieting is hard work on your CNS. Train hard, diet hard and your CNS is taking a fucking pounding. Fail to supply the right things to a) recover b) support your immune system and I give you 2 weeks before you are sick. There will be no serious trainer or bodybuilder out there that hasn't started a diet and ended up ill after a few weeks because they have just over-stepped the limits of their recovery abilities through lack of nutrient intake in their diet, or the supplementation to account for the deficiencies in vitamins and minerals their diet has created. Now if your one of those super-natural people that can cut fat on high carbs or high calories (yes unfortunately some lucky bastards can do this!) then its not such a problem. For me its not possible. Carbs have to be low and therefore things like milk, normal yoghurt, fruit, and even some vegetables get cut from my diet.

Below are the supplements I am using throughout this cut (note that I would not necessarily use some of these on a bulking or maintenance phase):

• Whey Protein - As a 220lb man aiming for 1.5lb Protein per 1lb of bodyweight I need to supplement with whey to increase my overall protein intake. Whey is the king of proteins and is proven to provide a host of health benefits. Its convenient and the speed at which the amino profile of whey is released into your body can be manipulated by mixing with other products (typicall whey protein is a quick release form of protein but by mixing with egg whites or milk you can slow down the protein/amio release to suit)
• MyProtein Pulse V4 - this is a simple pre-work out supplement. It contains caffeine, creatine and a bit of arginine. When its early in the morning, cold, dark and pissing it down this is what gets my ass into the gym.
• BCAAs - I take in powdered form and add to Pulse V4 before workouts and to some of my other whey based shakes or mixes throughout the day.
• MyProtein Total Greens - This is a mix of 22 green superfoods in powder form. Its a potent shot of anti-oxidents and vitamins and minerals to replace things I am lacking in my diet. I try and use this at work as eating cold broccoli is nasty shit. Chugging this back is much easier and convenient!
• Creatine - I like creapure which is the purest form of creatine.
• Vitargo - this is a carb powder I use in my post work out shake. It absorbs stupidly quick - quicker than sugars like dextrose.
• Multi Vitamins - I opt for a multi-vit that is split into a 3 a day dosing for a cut (on a non cut I go for a twice a day multi vit). This provides the body with 3 doses of vits and minerals during the day and allows for better absorbtion (single dosing multi vits are crap because the body just pisses half of it out due to the inability to absorb)
• Vit B6 P5P - P5P is the usable part of vit b6. I dose at 400IU per day.
• Liquid Egg Whites - I buy 1litre bottles. Great source of pure protein and slows the release of whey protein down when mixed together. Convenient for work if on the road, in meetings etc etc.
• Caffeine tablets - I take one in the middle of the day. It just perks me up mentally ensuring my performance at work is not negatively impacted by goals outside of work.
• Fish and Nut Oils - A great source of omega 3 and all that good stuff. I have capsules for work and pop a few with every other meal. I also use Udo's oil (omega oil derived from nut sources) on no carb days where fat content is being elevated to off-set the calories lost by carbs.
• Nut Butters - Peanut butter, almond butter and cashew butter.A good source of healthy fats and vitamins. PLEASE AVOID ANY OF THE SUPERMARKET SOLD SHIT. Read the label - if it has palm oil avoid it like the plague. Palm oil is a bad fat added at the expense of removing the natural nut oil (ie peanut oil in peanut butter). Palm oil is a bit lard like and turns your peanut butter into that thick stuff most of you are used to. Peanut butter or any nut butter should not look like that shit in the supermarket!! It should be runny and full of peanut oil (because the peanut oil is the whole reason for eating it!!!). A propper nut butter should naturally seperate and therefore when you open it you'll have a layer of oil sitting on the top. You can buy propper nut butters online, or alternatively head to your nearest health food shop (such as H&B).

I should also point out that I have absolutely no preference to brand or product when it comes to choosing my supplements. Often my choice is driven by taste, cost and availability. I don't think any one brand is better than the other in terms of product quality. I personally buy most of my products from My Protein or Bulk Powders because I bulk buy as its substantially cheaper than buying branded stuff, and often the taste is on par or better!

GHRP2 & GHRP 6 - The next big thing?

Many things have been hailed as "the next big thing" in bodybuilding, but only a rare few live up to the hype and become go to products for bodybuilders everywhere. The best examples of which are whey protein and creatine.

GHRP2 and GHRP6 are possibly the next big thing in bodybuilding, and with growing evidence to suggest they are a cheaper, effective and safer alternative to synthetic human growth hormone (HGH). In order to educate you I'll keep this as basic as I can.

EVERYBODY secretes human growth hormone.  It is produced by the pituitary gland and is anabolic which allows it to stimulate the growth of muscle, cartilage, and bone.

Generally speaking the amount of natural growth hormone released by the pituitary gland decreases as we get older, noticeably so for most people as they hit their mid 30s. Interestingly growth hormone and its anabolic effects on muscle mean that higher circulating amounts in the body allow for quickened recovery between training and less muscle soreness. This is one of the factors that leads to exercise taking longer to recover from as people get older and why young people recover from exercise much quicker than older people.

The pituitary gland secretes growth hormone just once a day and this is during a deep sleep cycle (puts into perspective just why getting a solid nights sleep is so important for any athlete). The pituitary pulses growth hormone into the body for approximately 30 minutes.

Now you may have heard of people injecting human growth hormone. This is stuff produced in a lab, either by a leading pharmaceutical company, or by an underground lab (UGL). Now lets get it straight now, its not just bodybuilders and sports men and women that use this stuff - ALOT of people are turning to HGH, including alot of celebrities and bog standard normal people  (most famously Robbie Williams is reported to have wanted to use it but ended up on TRT due to low testosterone levels). Among its many benefits supplementing with additional human growth hormone just once a day allows users to reduce body fat and to stop the effects of aging (now you see why celebrities like this stuff!). At higher doses HGH is responsible for muscle growth, and in particular for bodybuilders it allows for the growth of new muscle cells. Why is this important you ask.... if we look at steroids briefly (another post for another day!) - they don't grow new muscle cells. The only capability of steroids for a bodybuilder is to either increase existing muscle size or to maintain exsisting muscle tissue in extreme calorie deficits (due to their anabolism). HGH on the other hand actually has the ability to grow brand new muscle cells. Run HGH with steroids in high doses and you get new muscle cells created by HGH that can then be grown by steroids. Add in some insulin and you then get freaky sizing of Jay Cutler, Phil Heath, Kai Green etc.

I've digressed a little but back to GHRP2 and GHRP6. Why important? Synthetic HGH is very expensive, very counterfitted, illegal to purchase without prescription and can cause some issues in regards to shut down of the pituitary gland due to desensitization. GHRP2 and GHRP6 are interesting because they are peptides created to activate the release of your own natural HGH. Although the pituitary gland only secretes HGH once a day it is able to replenish HGH levels within 3 hours. GHRP2&6 take advantage of this because you can effectively every 3 hours up to 6 times a day pulse your own natural HGH. Yes that means up to 6 times the amount of HGH. The same HGH you have had from child to adult. 100% natural HGH produced by your own body. Now 6 pulses a day is excessive. Most research is currently around 1 additional pulse in the evening before bed (for anti-aging effects) , 2-3 pulses for fat loss and muscle growth and injury repair and 3+ doses for muscle growth. Users have reported increased muscle hardness, spot reduction of fat at injection sites, overall fat reduction (often even when eating more food!), quickened recovery from injury, reduction of post exercise soreness and a general sense of well being.

GHRP6 - this is best for muscle gain - users report an aggressive spike in hunger and the ability to consume much larger meals post administration of injection
GHRP2 - this is best for fat loss - users report the same benefits of GHRP6 but without such aggressive hunger pangs.

Current studies show that as GHRP2 and 6 force release your own HGH that there is no desensitization of the pituitary gland. Interestingly this stuff is currently 100% legal for "research purposes only" and can be purchased from a number of internet sites.

This author currently believes this is likely to be the next big thing and one to keep an eye on. The last piece of the puzzle will be to see if the long terms effects of moderate dosing have any negative effects on users. Naturally I would expect abuse of this to cause similar issues to excessive HGH consumption

Todays workout - Shoulders this morning. Got through a lot of work. Routine consisted of:

Rev Pec Dec – Warm up sets and then 140x12 160x10 150x10

Military BB Press – 40kgx10 60kgx10 70kgx6 60kgx10 60kgx8

Quad Set: Seated Lat Raise into Standing Lat Raise into BB Shrugs into Plate Shrugs 18kgs, 14kgs, 140kgs, 50kgs. 10 reps each for 4 sets

Upright Cable Row – 150lbx10 x4 sets

Rope Face Pull – 150lbx12 x3 sets

Standing BB Front Raise – 25kgx10 x4 sets

Seated Reverse Machine Press – 150x12 160x10 180x8 Stack (think its 220)x6

15 mins steady state cardio to finish

Commentary:

Reverse pec dec – I used to do this last, but having seen a number of pro’s doing this as a warm up exercise I recently took the same approach and I have to say it does work really well to get blood into the delts. For me this is about the squeeze at the back of the movement and a slow negative to increase the time under tension.

Military Press – I have not done these in over a year. I had reverted to seated pressing for the additional back support but I do miss the military press and I will testify its effectiveness to the size of my shoulders. Nothing grows my shoulders quite like this and a correctly performed lateral raise! I got up to 90kg for 1-2 reps on this. Along way off this, but anticipate I can up the strength quite quickly on this one.

Quad Set – this is hard and it hurts. I haven’t seen anybody else doing this – I just kind of made this up one day and now use it every 3-4 weeks. It pumps up my shoulders and traps, makes me gasp for air and sweat like a pig. A total of 40 reps (minimum) performed over 4 back to back exercises. I start with the seated lateral raise as sitting makes it difficult to cheat or swing the weight around. I concentrate on a squeeze at the top and ensuring that I am in control of the decent of the weight and that gravity isn’t simply pulling it down. From this I go straight into standing lateral raises with a reduced weight. I reduce the weight by 4kg each dumbbell to ensure I can still perform the reps properly without cheating. I use rest pause where necessary to crank out the last few reps. From this I go straight to the bar to perform shrugs.I have the bar on the safety bars at knee height (this is a shrug not a deadlift!). The only rest is to walk to the bar and to put on my belt. With the bar I go heavy and keep my head pointing up. I try to explode my shoulders and traps up to my ears. From the bar shrugs I pick up a 25kg plate in each hand, hanging them to my sides and with my chin touching my chest (so opposite head position of the bar) concentrate on slowing squeezing my traps up to my ears, holding for a further squeeze at the top and slowly lowering the weights.

Upright Cable Row – Squeeze at the top and slow negatives. Constant tension throughout.

Face Pulls – These are great for the rear delts. I actually saw some guy doing the worst looking version of these ever yesterday. He was so concerned with trying to lift as much weight as possible that he was swinging from the hip, grunting and screaming and I couldn’t tell if he was working his back or hip flexors or what! I wanted to interrupt him but had already had a debate with him about something else which he didn’t take too kindly too so thought I’d let him waste his time some more! Best way to do these without a shadow of a doubt is to site yourself down on a bench. Grasp the rope attachment with palms facing each other and pull it towards your face. Keep your butt in the back of the bench and try to keep your back firmly back against the back rest of the bench. This will ensure that you pull from the rear delts and not your middle back. Sitting, as per any seated exercise) takes out the rocking motion that allows you to cheat through the move. Also ensure you keep middle of the rope attachment coming directly in-between your eyes. The tendancy will be to pull it lower towards neck height – if your elbows drop (which they will if you pull to your neck) then the emphasis moves from your rear delts to your lats as it becomes something akin to a half rep lat pull down.

Seated Reverse Press – Used this as a finisher today. I really like this move as its akin to a behind the neck press in terms of muscle fibre activation but without putting the undue stress on the shoulders should you perform the same move with a bar or smith machine. Simply put this for me as a “finisher” is about blasting the shoulders into oblivion so that they can come back bigger and stronger. I also believe that Phil Heath (reigning 3 times Mr Olympia is a big fan of this as a finishing move – good enough for him then its good enough for everybody!) I keep my chest pressed on the pad  to ensure my lower back doesn’t arch to try and make it a front orientate press and hit out as many reps as I can.

Day In, Day Out

Another week, but more of the same! I'm just taking it day by day, meal by meal, workout by workout. Hopefully in the end it will all add up the desired outcome!

Hoping to be able to provide a bit more of an update later this week around training/diet rather than "I did this, I ate this" - but as thats all that time allows for atm thats what I'll provide for tonight - sorry!

Had a really good back workout yesterday. Utilised a new move and a couple of moves I haven't used in my routine for over a year. Change is good for both muscle and mind and should force some adapative work and hopefully growth!

I've started playing around with fasting on cardio days. Usually I'll chug back 10g BCAAs and a bit of MP Pulse V4 for the caffiene kick and mental focus it gives prior to the gym and then the moment I finish training I'll swig down 25g whey. With the fasted approach I've got some 200mg caffeine pills and I'm simply taking one of those and heading off the gym upon waking and am having no post work out shake. All in all it means I don't have meal 1 on cardio/carbless days until I've been awake and active for 2.5 hours. The idea is that the workout is fuelled purely by fat as the body has no carbs to use for energy, and that the body then continues to use fat for fuel during the EPOC (excess post exercise oxygen) phase directly after training.

A rarity today, and not something I do often or want to do often but 2 gym sessions. AM was fasted cardio and abs (inclusive of walking to the gym although I need to find a jumper with sleeves on as my baggy workout top wont cut it in the cold of winter!). Walk to and from the gym is approx 10 mins in total. I hit up 20 mins on the stepper hitting a steady heart rate of 130 and then hit 10 mins HIIT (high intensity interval training) on the bike. First 5 mins were 30 sec sprints with 1 minute inbetween, second 5 mins were 30 sec sprints with 30 sec inbetween. Abs started with lower ab work, moving on to obliques and then upper abs. As my upper abs are pretty thick, if ever so slightly hidden I just want to concentrate on hitting my lower abs hard over the next few weeks to ensure they are as developed as my upper abs as and when the fat covering them up is stripped off.

This evening I hit a 30 minute chest isolation session. I don't want to fatigue chest too much as I hit it hard and heavy on Sundays but I feel there is alot of room for improvement around seperation and definition. With this in mind I hit 8 sets of cable crossovers with mixed height and weights but strict slow reps with long hard squeezes. After these were done I hit 3 sets of bodyweight dips to failure making sure I leaned as far forward as possible to hit chest rather than triceps. To finish I did 7 sets of incline dumbell flyes. I used 2 angles of attack on the incline and reps were strict with slow negatives and deep stretches at the bottom - ensuring the weights were light enough to allow minimal bend at the elbows. Finished the session with some static squeezes of the chest. A really good session, chest fully pumped with blood - great seperation by the end of the session and barely able to pinch any skin.

Today was another zero carb day (by zero its more like under 20g as almost everything has a carb or two in it).... by the time I have my next meal I will have had 4 meals of eggs! Today looks like:

Meal 1 - 200ml egg whites, 1 scoop whey, 5g BCAA, teaspoon of instant coffee, spoon of udo's oil. (all blended with ice into a frappachino)

Meal 2 - 200g cooked chicken breast. 1/2 avocado

Meal 3 - 50g whey mixed with 20g Almond Butter

Meal 4 - 250ml egg whites, 1 scoop whey, 5g BCAA (blended like meal 1), 20g cashew butter

Meal 5 - 6 egg omlette with leftover chicken (dark meat) and 15g mature cheddar cheese

Meal 6 - 200ml egg whites, 1 scoop whey, 5g BCAA (blended like meal 1), 20g peanut butter

Shoulders tomorrow - hoping for a good one as its my volume workout for shoulders which normally gives me a fantastic pump and includes ALOT of working sets. Planning to do:

Reverse Pec Dec - 2x warm up and 3 working sets

Standing Military BB Press - 1 warm up and 4 working sets

Quad Set:
Seated Lat Raises into Standing Lat Raises into BB Shrugs into DB Shrugs (12 reps for each movement) - 4 working sets
Upright Cable Row - FST7s (7 working sets)
Front BB Raise - 3 working sets
Face Pulls - 4 working sets

Food prepped for tomorrow:

Pre Workout Shake (PreWO) - 4 scoops MP Pulse V4, 10g BCAA

Post Workout Shake (PWO)  - 25g Whey, 40g Vitargo, 7g Creapure, 5g BCAA

Meal 1 - 75g jumbo raw oats mixed with 150g fat free greek yoghurt, 1 scoop of whey, squeeze of honey and blueberries (all mixed together)

Meal 2 - 200g chicken breast with 100g wholegrain rice and mixed veg

Meal 3 - 50g whey mixed with 20g almond butter

Meal 4 - 200ml egg whites mixed with 1 scoop whey, 5g BCAA. 1/2 avocado

Meal 5 - 300g Sirloin Steak with broccoli

Meal 6 - 200ml egg whites mixed with 1 scoop whey, 5g BCAA. 20g peanut butter