Yesterday I asked what you thought what the most important ingredient was to build lean muscle. You had 2 choices:
- Diet? OR
- Training?
Here's the right answer: TRAINING. And you don't need to be rocket scientist to understand why. Do you really think that you'll build a lot of muscle by eating one of those high protein muscle building diets if you never, ever do some kind of training but sit on your coach all day? Obviously, you won't.
Now if you start lifting weights, without changing a single thing about your diet, will you then gain muscle? Let's say you have the worst diet ever designed to gain muscle - junk food, no protein - do you think you'll gain muscle if you use a training program like StrongLifts 5x5? Obviously, you will.
The amount of guys who believe that diet is more important than training for muscle gains is astonishing. Frankly, it's not you fault if you thought diet was more important, it just shows that the marketing of those snake oil supplement companies and their muscle magazines is effective. If you ACTUALLY believe that diet is more important than training, then you will obviously start buying their expensive, but worthless supplements like whey protein and BCAAs.
But you don't need to look further than your own gym to find a skinny guy who drinks protein shakes 3x/day but who never, EVER gains muscle or strength. And that's because training is more important than diet to build muscle. As long as you give your body the calories it needs for optimal recovery, it doesn't matter what you eat - your training will make you build muscle.
Tomorrow I'm going to give you a trainingvideo of a group of guys who have the WORST diet ever, but who are muscular, big and strong nonetheless. These guys are proof that training matters more than diet. Stay tuned.
Sweet to know I was right then. I eat normal food and train 3-4 times per week and I get results. Not fast, but I am getting there.
Mehdi,
I agree with you. I think guys like Dave Tate (before he fixed his diet) serve as an example of what hard training with not-so-good dieting habits can lead to.
And, definitely, training for strength with progressive loading is where it’s at.
I’m surprised as well. Obviously, diet is important. But not as important as proper stimulus for muscle growth, i.e. training.
I agree Medhi; I was eating normally and still gained 20 pounds of muscle over the course of a few months. This summer I stopped training cause my gym was closed but started eating more in anticipation of when it would open again, and I gained almost 20 pounds, none of it muscle (Bad idea…). Skinny kids need to eat a lot to see the same gains as people who are already big, but anyone will see gains with a good program; my 135 pound roomate refuses to change his diet, which is probably less than half of what I eat, and he gained almost 10 pound in a month by getting his squat up to bodyweight. I’d consider that to be a success.
Now if the question what is more important, Having a training program developed to build muscle or a diet that is considered by the so called experts as being a ‘muscle building’ diet, then I would say; Training. But really you could get away with 5 good full body exercises (must include squats and deads)and progressive load. Its not rocket science.
I read somewhere about how even protein is not overly important. The example used was guys in prison. They have a lousy diet, yet they lift weights every day and get ripped.
I agree completely mehdi.
However, to get lean – Diet is king. That really dosen’t mean that it has to be a healthy diet, you can diet down with ‘bad’ food as well. But it’s not something I recommend.