For those of you who find yourself frequenting some of the most popular and informative fitness forums on the net you may have bumped into a man with the PowerManDL. You may have argued with him. You have at very least been witness to one. You might think he is a jerk or completely hilarious. Whatever your perception it’s men like Matt Perryman (PowerManDL) who keep “gurus” on their toes and in the end are really looking out for the common man. So while he may be the leader of hater nation to some, underneath all that is a protector of truth for many.

I hate to disappoint some of you, but what you are going to find here is no real drama or arguments. What you are going to find here is some really good information on seeking knowledge and some tips on furthering your progress. Pay special attention to his covering of the case client as it provides a lot of useful knowledge to some of my male readers and their training questions I have received.

Leigh Peele: First off Matt, who the hell are you? What is your background, what goes into your day to day?

Matt Perryman: Before we really start, I need to remind everyone that I’m a native of Alabama, so everyone has to read this in the thickest Gomer Pyle drawl you can imagine.

Ready?

I’m really not anyone of importance, and I say this with all seriousness. In many ways I’m not terribly different from any number of other guys like me, guys that for one reason or another found an interest in this “lifting weights” thing. I can list off experiences and education much like anyone else, and in fact compared to most in the fitness industry I have much less than you might think. I don’t really stand out at all in that respect. I can list off lifts I’ve performed, or how much muscle I’ve put on, or successes I’ve had with clients, but in the scheme of things those are pretty mediocre as well. Anybody worth a damn has all of these things.

So why should anyone care who I am? I’m probably more of interest to your readers because of my thought processes and how I relate to information in this field as compared to your average coach or trainer more than anything else.

My area of formal education is actually in criminology; that’s what I went to school for back in the days when I wanted to be a cop.

My interest in exercise and fitness stems back much further, to my teenage years. Unlike the stereotypical “jock”, I didn’t have any interest in exercise at all while I was a teenager. Exactly the opposite, in fact. I was one of those nerdy wannabe intellectual types, and had the body to show for it. For those that have never seen me (which is most of you), I’ve got a tiny frame. I’m 5′9 with wrists close to 6″ around. At this point in my life, I weighed around 125, maybe 130 pounds, and working out was the last thing on my mind.

That changed for me in my last year of high school. I took a strength-training class to avoid taking a real class my last semester. Something strange happened there — I actually enjoyed it. That transformed into what every 18-year-old guy wants out of weights, which is huge muscles to score all the babes. It started there, and I haven’t looked back since. Of course the nerd-powers that I’ve had since I was a kid kicked in full-bore at this point. I was actually spending more time researching into exercise science using my school’s journal database than I was my own major, along with what few books I could afford.

For most of the time I was in school, even though weight training was my hobby and near-obsession, I’d never really given it any serious thought as a career choice. In retrospect, I think that was a bad move on my part, but in some ways, not so much. Because I’m not so engrossed in the mainstream industry, I can look at things with something of an outsiders perspective. I’ve taken on clients over the years, both in person and online, even though I’ve never made it an exclusive career. One thing I’ve found is that for whatever reason I do have a knack for being able to get results out of people.

The criminology degree did actually teach me a lot about critical evaluation of information and real-world problem-solving type skills. Anyone that’s ever debated or argued with me online, this is where you can place the blame.

Which conveniently brings me to the real reason most of your readers might have heard of me. I’ve created a reputation as being a skeptic and strong critic of mass-marketed training/diet information. The people that can see my genuine intent and take my points into consideration love it; but there’s the other side of that coin where I come off as a huge dick for the sake of being a dick, and a lot of these people don’t like me too much. You take the bad with the good I suppose, but it’s my belief that raising hell about things and the resulting discussion, even if it is heated and full of mudslinging, actually does more for the spread of information than the alternative.

I don’t think too highly of being spoon-fed some program that’s just a mediocre re-working of the same concepts that make every other program effective. The novelty of that wore off in me years ago, and I don’t get the Program Fever anymore. I told the story of how I started out to convey the point that I was a beginner once, too. I was that clueless guy relying on the muscle mags and the other clueless guys at the gym for my information.

Most of my rants and raves are rooted in that. I don’t like the nonsense and the ridiculous tactics that are used in the industry for people to make a quick buck at the expense of providing information quality. I don’t like being told that a cookie-cutter program that took 15 minutes to draw up by juggling around a few factors is revolutionary and the secret to my success….this week only. Above all else, I don’t like dogmatic thinking, the idea that you MUST do this, or must NEVER do that. Exercise and fitness are always about context, about what the person and what the sport requires, not about arbitrary labels.

I don’t have a formal education in the field, no, but my autodidact (see www.dictionary.com) studies of the topic have given me more than enough knowledge to be competent in the field. My true strength, though, is the ability to see through garbage, see through fallacies of argument, and get right to the core of matters. It may not sound relevant, but in a field that is all but unregulated and where capitalism is the name of the game, it is probably THE most important skill you can have. Nobody’s going to hold your hand and tell you that X is crap and Y is gold. You have to decide for yourself. That’s where I see myself, as doing my damndest to help the Average Joe or Jane get past all the crap and find the gold.

Leigh Peele: I wonder is it an ironic statement to say that you are pretty cut and dry as far as sighting the bull?

Here is the thing, I like guys like you because I am paranoid. Really, I have a severe fear of being found out for being full of it. Not because I am trying to con but just because I know that I can be wrong. In fact, I just got done getting my ass handed to me. What bothers me most is that some just shrug it off, and it’s usually those who keep getting called out. To me there’s a difference between “their just hating on me” and “no, you just keep being wrong.”

Now when it comes to knowledge on training and nutrition where are some trusted places you turn to for sources of information? Where are the best bull-free zones ?

Matt Perryman: I’m always trying to be my own biggest critic. I’m a firm believer in the idea that information grows and thrives through conflict and challenge, by being forced to constantly scrutinize and evaluate any views I hold. I’m human, so I fail at this just as easily as anyone, but that’s what I set out to do.

What I keep trying to remind everyone of is that there’s no fear or shame in being “wrong”. Assuming you’re coming from a solid background, being “wrong” is not a bad reflection on you — being wrong is an opportunity to learn.

I’ve never felt any reason to really beat around the bush. People as a rule tend to avoid confrontation, but I’ve done what I can to push out of that comfort zone and be as realistic as I can be, whether it’s pure information or someone’s motivations for acting a certain way. In my mind, if someone is willing to put him or herself out there as an expert, then s/he has given the green light for peer review. I try my damndest to have raw knowledge and a little realism in place any time I make statements of my own. I like when people disagree with me, both for their sake and my own.

What’s the worst that can happen, really? If what I think passes the test, then cool, I know what I’m talking about. If not, what’s actually happened? That depends on your viewpoint I suppose. Someone with a lot invested in his/her ego is going to take a hit to the chin. Me, I’ve just learned something new and now have something else to go read up on.

This is a big part of why I tend to be such a contrarian and so confrontational. In my mind, if you really believe in your ideology and can support your reasoning for doing things, then catching a little flak for it shouldn’t be any problem. Support doesn’t have to come from scientific research. Support can be in the form of empirical evidence (like, getting results in a lot of athletes), or it can be something so simple as admitting you made a claim up which a lot of people do but few will admit to. After all, intelligent speculation is still a valid form of reasoning in the absence of real evidence.

But, it comes back to ego. A lot of people can’t separate their ego and their personal identity from the things they say. Me, I have no stake in any particular fitness viewpoint. I read research, I watch what people do, and I try to put those pieces together into a model that makes sense. If something comes along to challenge that, the model gets updated with the new information. This isn’t how most people in the fitness industry operate. A challenge to the material is a challenge to them personally.

The reality of the situation is that very smart and very effective people can still say stupid things. I say stupid things all the time. I know it, and I have no problem admitting that. This doesn’t mean throwing out the baby with the bathwater; I can separate stupid statements from stupid people. Everybody that I talk shop with or have otherwise gotten information from has, at one time or another, said something I didn’t agree with. Information is evaluated by quality, not by its source.

I think it’s just human nature really. We’re ego-driven by nature. I think some of it is people buying into the celebrity aspect as well, but whatever the cause, the Guru-syndrome is not a new thing. People have always liked having names, faces, and groups to rally around. Once someone takes on a position of authority, that damn ego will kick in again; it becomes more about the Faith and the Word than about the results or the idea. You can see this repeated over and over not just in the fitness industry, but everywhere there are people.

Getting “hated on” is all a matter of how you take it. If you can check the ego and realize that there are valid points in some of the criticisms, then you can use it as a learning process. These repeat offenders that you’ve mentioned can’t (or won’t) do that. It’s easier just to slink away claiming some moral high-road, pretending your critics are just “being negative” and aren’t relevant. When you get tied up in the One True Way of doing things, that’s when you’ve fallen into the trap and that’s when you’ve become a prime target. It’s one thing to have a viewpoint, but it’s another thing entirely to ignore evidence that contradicts you. The holier-than-thou approach might make some people feel better, but if you can’t back up your claims then you are losing major points in the eyes of a lot of people.

Now this doesn’t mean that any and all criticism is valid. There’s plenty of idiots out there, make no mistake about that, and I can guarantee you that they’ll all be slamming away at the keyboard to hound you with their poorly-constructed sentences. There is a difference in this kind of keyboard-heroism and people that are actually competent in the field busting your chops over some viewpoint, though, which is what I think you were touching on.

As far as where to get information, the best spot for no-BS straight-shooting right now is over at bodyrecomposition.com. Lyle and the rest of the guys over there keep a tight ship when it comes to keeping people honest. Yeah, it draws a lot of criticism, mostly from the ego-driven people I just talked about, but you won’t find a better group at the moment. The Power & Bulk (www.powerandbulk.com) is another good site along those lines, more devoted to strength athletes than anything else. Both of these can get a bit rowdy so be aware, but if you’re more concerned about quality and content than presentation, I can’t speak highly enough. I’m trying to whip strengthmill.com into a similar condition, but we’ll just have to see how that turns out.

I also have a blog/article repository on my own site, www.ampedtraining.com (which I’m in the process of upgrading) that I try somewhat successfully to keep updated on the same topics. I discuss training and diet topics, but with more of a slant on critical analysis and logical thinking. I’m a sporadic writer and a huge procrastinator so I don’t always promise regular updates, but I do try to keep on track whenever possible.

Beyond that, just read. Not just books on the topic from your favorite authors, but other things. Just remember that there is no gospel. Be a skeptic with an open mind.

Leigh Peele: I personally think that ego is killing the industry and simple fitness is dead in the ground. “Simple” just doesn’t sell as well it would seem. A lot of separation has come about because of marketing strategies. I know you are a big opponent to the long page and testimonial advertising. “Research” continues to show time and again that changing that format meets with less sales and less reach to the public. However, I am finding there are some different routes you can take. I am curious, Matt, what you think of where a tolerable advertising direction should lead?

What do you find to be in good taste and what will make you turn your head in disgust?

Matt Perryman: Ha, yeah, that one is something of a hot button for me at the moment. I’m really of two minds on that.

On the one hand, most of the guys and gals I’ve criticized for that kind of thing are good people that really do know what they’re talking about; it’s not them, or the products necessarily, that are drawing the flak. It’s, as you mentioned, the ridiculous tactics: the three-mile long ad-copy, nearly identical testimonials from the same group of 6-10 people, and really just a homogenized approach that’s really obvious if you pay attention to that kind of thing.

There’s some problems though, and the biggest one is that the average joe that’s not an “insider” stumbling on these things doesn’t know how to tell a good product from a pure money-making scheme. When you’ve got guys that I’d consider to be true authorities using identical sales pages to guys that are obviously just in it for money, how can you expect to stand out?

That’s problem number one, there’s no discrimination in sales tactics and nothing to really set anyone apart. Secondly, it leads to greed. Once you figure out you can sell a product easily using a pre-packaged marketing plan, what’s to stop you from just creating product after product for pure revenue? And yes, this is being done, and it’s being done by the aforementioned people. When you’re putting out quality information, I can be a lot more forgiving about aggressive marketing, but if you’re just selling high-priced low-content drivel for the sake of another income stream, well….

That said, I really do understand that it’s a necessary evil in some ways, because for all the wanking over ethics and how ridiculous it is, it’s as you said: it sells products. I think that if we really want to re-vamp what’s being done in this industry, we have to try and take elements from both approaches and turn it into a working model.

A great example of this in action is Mike Robertson’s site at www.robertsontrainingsystems.com. In my thinking, Mike’s done a great job of that…he still has the elements there that advertise and show off the product, like the attention-grabbing headline, the testimonials, all of that, but he’s presented it in a way that’s much more professional looking and doesn’t make me feel like I’m reading a site I made with a text editor in 1997. Simple changes like that can go a long way.

Regarding the testimonials, well….those need some upgrading as well. Go to this site http://www.resourceseo.com/testm.php and put in any product name. Now tell me that doesn’t remind you of every testimonial you’ve ever read. Testimonials have become absolutely meaningless, because every single product gets a spectacular endorsement.

When I go to Amazon or any other site to shop around for products, I always read the reviews. Even if a product has 99% good reviews and 1% bad, I always head to that one negative. I don’t care what is good about the product (well, I do, but it’s a secondary concern). I want to know where it failed, for whom, and how. It’s not the positive elements that are always the selling point — it’s a lack of negatives. Nine times out of 10 that one negative will be a special case and I’ll get the product anyway, but there have been times where this is not true.

I’d like to see more of that going on. Honest, critical evaluations of both the good and the bad. A guy that’s doing a great job of that right now is Tony (aka asayers99), who has a blog at http://tonyreviews.wordpress.com. I always like reading what he has to say because he does exactly that: he reads it from the perspective of a guy that’s got a desire to learn. If a product is good, he says it. If it’s got negative aspects, he says that too.

That, in my mind, is much more likely to sell me on any product than the mindless ass-kissing that passes for reviewing. Since testimonials are a dime a dozen and can literally be created from an online generator, why do I have any reason to believe you when you tell me a product is the best thing ever and “just what I’ve been waiting for”?

None of these are huge changes, mind you, but they would go a long way towards cleaning up a lot of the mess.

Leigh Peele: It’s interesting what you say about the reviews. I read all reviews as well and find that negative. Sometimes if the product is good you will find yourself defending a product form a negative review and that is usually when you have a winner. Other times it’s good to go “why didn’t this work?” “what about this style of programming isn’t working for some people”? It can be very telling.

Now obviously my blog covers mostly issues relating to fat loss. I recently read that you were trying to shed a few pounds and I know you have work with others in the past to do so. can we get a little example of what you got going on right now?

Matt Perryman: I’ve always treated myself as something of a test-case when it comes to different training and nutritional approaches. One thing I always struggled with as a beginner was the dietary aspects. I’m not naturally a huge guy, and for a long time the diet held me back.

The other problem was once I did learn to it, I did it too much. Way too much. Back in 2003, I got sick of being stuck at 165 lbs and force-fed myself up to 195 lbs. This wouldn’t have been so bad necessarily but I did it between New Years and March 1 (around 8 weeks for the math challenged). Needless to say, I was fat. At that point in my life though I was so happy to be that close to 200 that I didn’t care.

The biggest problem I’ve had with diet was finding a way to mix it in with my life, and to be blunt, getting that fat off just wasn’t a priority for several years in there. I was really happy being the strong, bulked-up fat guy. These days, I’ve come to realize my limitations and the fact that I’m probably not going to get that much bigger, so my tune has changed. I’m trying to focus more on either slow gaining, fat loss, or pure recompositioning (ie, gaining muscle and losing fat over a short time frame).

Diet-wise, I take a very simple approach to things. At the end of the day, it will always come down to calorie balance. The calories you take in from food will have to be less than the energy you use up, both from basal metabolism and from activity. Now, there are nutrient concerns in there as well, you can’t *just* eat less with no consideration of what you’re eating — but unless the calorie deficit exists to begin with, anything you do will be pointless. We can say that the deficit is a necessary but not sufficient condition for dieting.

That’s where the difference in nutrient intake comes into play. Protein is the one macronutrient that I consider the essential, for any goal. While needs will vary, in someone that’s active and not using any chemistry, a range of 1-1.5 grams/lb is usually about right each day. I get most of my protein from tuna, 93% lean beef, low-fat cheese, and protein powder.

Fats, despite popular belief, you need as well (I realize I’m preaching to the choir with some of this, but I’m just trying to be complete). I tend to lean towards monounsaturated and polyunsaturated sources as major fat sources, which for me is a bit of olive oil and almonds. There’s also some interesting research that implicates medium chain triglycerides with extra weight losses, so lately I’ve been throwing in small servings of coconut oil as well.

Carbs, that’s really what I’m playing around with. My overall strategy right now is alternative brief phases of PSMF (Protein Sparing Modified Fast) dieting, which involves protein-only and limited exercise, with phases of higher calories and more activity. This lets me do two things: firstly, I can focus on the fat loss, and secondly, I can break the mind-crushing boredom of the strict diet, and actually focus on lifting weights a bit.

The higher-calorie phase, which I’m doing right now, is….well, I don’t know what it is really. I’m taking some cues from Martin Berkhan’s Intermittent Fasting approach, eating more food and more carbs on workout days (Mon/Weds/Fri), and keeping it to more of a ketogenic style of eating on the off days, so it’s protein with a little extra fats thrown in (for appetite control as much as anything else). Still very low calories on the off days though.

I try to keep the planning as loose as possible. Friday being the highest calorie day of the week, if I want to eat something bad for a cheat meal, I’ll do it. If one of my buddies calls me up and wants to go get something to eat and have a beer or two, I’ll do it. Same goes for my weekday planning. A lot of people don’t realize that you can eat even “crap” foods in moderation so long as it fits your daily needs. Same for alcohol, small amounts of alcohol in a calorie deficit can actually aid in calorie wastage.

Training wise, I’m doing things a little differently than one might expect for a fat loss phase. I do very little in the way of cardio or the in-vogue “metabolic conditioning” work (being a somewhat larger male with a higher BMR, I can get away with this; it doesn’t necessarily apply to everyone globally). My standby for lifting is a three-day M/W/F schedule. I’m doing a plan taken from Steve Justa’s Rock, Iron, Steel (a great read, btw, just in general), which has me benching all three days and alternating between squats and deadlifts. Benching is done for 12 singles, while the SQ/DL are done for 25 singles. Once a month, you test maxes on all three and re-adjust your weights to 70%. It’s a neat autoregulating setup, which I like. Because of on-going shoulder/upper back issues, I’m benching with a 2-board which seems to be much less of a problem, and throwing in limited upper back work after the two big lifts.

Singles have some interesting effects, especially if you do a lot of them. They allow you to rack up a ton of volume with fairly heavy weights, and while they kick your ass, they don’t leave you with that beat-up train-wreck feeling after you leave the gym, something which I feel is key on a diet. Singles still expose you to heavy weight and a decent volume of work, which is the key to maintenance, without putting too much of a stress on you. Too many people are all gung-ho about adding in lots of extra activity, and hard activity at that, while on lowered calories. Doing things like setting personal bests or training with a large volume of work that you’re not accustomed to probably isn’t the best of ideas; adaptation takes resources, and an under-fed body is stingy.

Psychologically it makes sense: you get the endorphin rush and the DOMS and all the other feedback that makes you think you did something. From a physiological standpoint it may not be for your benefit. Dieting is more a time for maintaining and keeping things stable, not for record-setting. The reality is that you can only influence calorie burn so much with a “reasonable” volume of work (meaning, most of us don’t have the time to devote 20 hours a week to exercise), but most of your result will be dietary. In my mind, doing too much work, or doing it too hard, is making you waste calories yes, but it’s also imposing a stress that has to be recovered from.

I still do suggest and incorporate cardio-type training, but there too I take a little different approach from most. I don’t consider low-intensity work to be the enemy, if used right it can actually be superior to HIIT and interval methods for the reasons above. I’ve used extensive tempo runs with clients, which can be thought of as a more aerobic type of interval work, not nearly so stressful as pure HIIT methods. Also, if fat loss is the goal above all else, I’m a fan of Lyle’s Stubborn Fat Cardio, which combines high-intensity work with low-intensity work to specifically target stubborn fat areas. This, like any HIIT method, has to be planned for accordingly, though. I’m doing this on a limited basis, but having to keep an eye on things

That, in a nutshell, is my dietary philosophy, and really it’s not out of line with what you usually hear suggested; just a few tweaks and changes to account for issues you rarely hear brought into consideration.

Leigh Peele: I have to say Matt that I couldn’t agree more with this statement… “Dieting is more a time for maintaining and keeping things stable, not for record-setting”.

It really follows along with my philosophy of do only what you have to do.

The whole point of this interview with you and what it boils down to is common sense. You have it and I want more people to use it. Hopefully we will see that underneath some signatures in training logs rather than 1RM RDL lifts on a shake diet.

So I always end my interview sessions with a question for each persion I interview. I call it the The Pro and the Case Client. I give you the case and you give me what you would do in a training aspect to help them with their problem.

Case Client #005-The Progress Killer

Case Client #005 is a self proclaimed ectopmorph that cannot pack on the strength and mass. Nutritional habit increases just leads to layering on the fat and injury flair up constantly. He is a big believer in machine usage for bodybuilding style programs and also just doesn’t really no what to do with the big weights. He will soon be out of the game due to frustration or self injury. He has muscle imbalance issues that cause him that makes compound chest and shoulder work really difficult. Lastly, he gets muscle sourceless with real ease and recovery rate is slow. In short he is a frustrated mess.

What direction would you lead him in training?

Matt Perryman: Well this one definitely hits close to home, haha

If you pay attention, this guy will be nearly everyone you see in most gyms.

When you get hold of anyone for the first time, it really helps to break down what you’ve got to start fleshing things out.

The obvious points about this guy:

1) He’s allegedly a “hardgainer” skinny type that only seems to get fat, if anything at all. This suggests a poor diet first of all, but also poor training.

2) Reliance on machines and the “bodybuilding” mentality, along with movement problems that are giving him grief on shoulder exercises. Again, poor training.

3) Excessive soreness and recovery issues. And yet again, poor diet and training.

None of these are necessarily hard fixes, but they do take a change in thinking from most guys in that situation.

The first thing to look at is the diet, as it will impact #1 and #3 directly. Chances are, he’s not eating enough, and if he’s like every other guy in this boat he’ll have a list of excuses as to why.

He has to “eat clean”. He’s in classes all day long. He can’t afford food. Ad nauseam. The simple fact is this: hardgainers are only hardgainers because they don’t know how to eat or train. A skinny kid is going to have to pay extra attention to his diet, but this is a problem because he’s in that boat to begin with because he has no clue about diet.

We can argue back and forth all day long about slow bulking and eating clean, but for somebody that *needs* to gain weight, he has to eat a lot. Some (most) people in this boat are just cursed with bad genes for bulking, and as a consequence fat gains will just come with it. You have to get away from this mindset of staying lean with abs showing year round. If that’s what you really want, sure, but if you’re *really* trying to get bigger, you take the bad with the good. Be honest with yourself.

While I think the GFH approach was good for me, I’ll also suggest limits. You have to accept some fat, yes, but not to the point of becoming a land-whale. This was a mistake I made, letting it get out of hand because I was so happy to see the weight come on.

Once you’re past this point and have a solid grasp on how to eat you can move away from this, but I think it’s a mistake for someone in this position to worry excessively about minor details before he’s got the foundation poured. The basic advice I give in this case is to get protein first and foremost. Shoot for at least 1g/lb of body weight. Once you have that, you can use it as a framework to add in more food, as carbs and fat.

I don’t think there’s any real basis for “nutrient timing” voodoo, other than as a means of limiting calorie intake. Balanced meals with some protein, carbs, and fats are always a better idea in my mind. While protein powder is better than nothing, I’d just assume see beef (ground and steaks), fish (even canned tuna), chicken/turkey, and whole-food dairy sources as the mainstays. Even on a budget, you should be able to afford this.

Carbs can be easily filled in with cheap pasta. I’ve been making it a point to eat Chef Boyardee’s ravioli on my carb-up days. A big can of that is like $2, and contains around 155g of carbs, 40g of protein, and 35g of fat. Fruits aren’t terribly expensive and are another good source. That’s a perfect example of how easy it is, if you put in the effort to shop around and be creative.

Fats are something the hardgainer should have a good look at too. Natural peanut butter, almonds, and olive oil can be life-savers, providing a quick and very dense source of calories. These are mostly healthy fats on top of that, so if you’re one of those that’s worried about the “bad fats” you’ll be ok.

That will handle the concerns for most people, really. Figure that you need in the ballpark of 14 to 16 calories per lb of body weight to maintain your weight, so count on at least 300 to 500 more than that in order to grow. I rarely count any more, beyond a ballpark, but I’ve found a way that works for me. Until you get a “system” of your own in place, it’d be a good idea to keep a food log to make sure you’re getting where you should be.

You either want it or you don’t; if you really want it, you’ll do what it takes to get it. If that means sacrificing money for food, or bringing food into inconvenient situations, then that’s what you do.

Now, on to the training problems. In 9 cases out of 10 this will match up exactly with the diet.

Gaining muscle mass is a function of both the diet and how you train. Too many people these days start off with really awful training plans they get from the muscle rags. I know I did. Everybody wants to take the workouts that the pros are using and go to town.

There’s big flaws with this, most of which have been discussed over and over. Doesn’t account for movement patterns. Doesn’t adequately stimulate protein synthesis. Increases soreness. Makes it very hard to control systemic stresses.

The biggest flaw is that you, as a beginner, are not a drug-pumped pro with a decade of training under your belt. Experience and drugs will play a big role in what you can get away with in a training program.

Skinny guys would be well served to get away from the “bodybuilding” mindset. I don’t care what all the 150 pounders over on bodybuilding.com told you: you have to get stronger in order to get bigger.

There’s a lot of confusion around that statement, which always descends into a bodybuilders vs. powerlifters debate. Mostly it’s a matter of semantics bickering; the pro-bodybuilding group always assumes that “getting stronger” means increasing the 1RM on the squat, bench, and deadlift in an epic strawman. The simple point is this: individual muscle groups get stronger, and they adapt by getting bigger. So if it makes you feel better, you can re-state this as “you have to get your muscles stronger to get them bigger”.

Chances are this has a lot to do with fat gains as well. Training frequently has two effects: it keeps protein synthesis high, and it has a work-capacity element to it, literally getting you “in shape”. Both of these are necessary to keep the calories moving where they need to be moving, into your muscles. I can throw 50-odd years of strength research and any number of biochemical signaling acronyms at you to back up this assertion, not to mention empirical evidence from the pre-steroid bodybuilders. If you don’t want that, I’d suggest listening to what I’m saying.

As an aside, I just completed the first draft of a manual/guide to muscle growth and adaptation. I’m in the process of editing, but it will hopefully be ready to go in about a month, the muse willing. It goes into some detail about these processes, with the goal of making it understandable for the average reader and providing some clear-cut training guidelines. All the misinformation and Guru-whoring has frustrated me, so I want to lay it out as I see it. Keep an eye out.

The recovery issues and chest/shoulder pains from pressing movements are just another symptom of this thinking. While I’m far from a qualified expert to diagnose movement problems, what I have found is that in many cases just figuring out the training will resolve most of them.

People focus on the muscles that they can see. This means lots of bench pressing and curls. LOTS. Very little attention to the upper back. This will inevitably lead to problems with scapular and shoulder movement, as strength imbalances build up. Of course the pain crops up in the shoulders, and they assume that’s where the problem is. In some cases, just adopting a balanced training plan will iron this right out. If it’s more extreme, some direct corrective work may be necessary, but that’ll depend on what the changes do.

Now, he may have a very real injury or issue here; if that’s the case, he gets referred to a professional. I’m going on the assumption that this isn’t an injury or other pathology, but just a case of an imbalance that will be pretty obvious. The hunched/rounded shoulders and emphasis on bench pressing with little back work are dead giveaways.

Same goes for soreness and recovery, really. Soreness is actually not a product of muscle fiber damage as most people seem to think. Recent research on the subject has shown us that it’s actually inflammation of the connective tissues that surround and bind muscle fibers. Now, this can correlate strongly with work load, meaning the more you do, the more sore you’ll feel. It’s also related to frequency, in that the more often you do a type of training the less sore you’ll get. What’s actually going on here is that the guy is hammering his body parts with 100 sets, which beats up the tissue alright, but not necessarily the way he wants it. He gets sore, really sore, but can’t train it again for a week because of it. The tissue is healing, but protein synthesis is still back to normal 2-3 days after the fact. All that recovery time is going to repair the mechanical and neurological damage to the muscle that has nothing (or very little) to do with the actual growth response.

The gist of this is moderation. Moderation in the weight used, in the amount of work you do, and in the frequency. All of these factors should be “high but not really high” range, if that makes sense. The old adage of “stimulate, don’t annihilate” fits well here.

I’m not one to demonize machines. I think they have a place, especially for someone after size, but only after the compound exercises are in the program, and only when the routine is designed to accommodate them. My most productive training is done with a barbell, dumbbells, and a chinup rack, but at the same time I can appreciate some of the better designed machines. They just have to be placed properly.

That said, this case would be doing good to get away from them for awhile and learn how to actually lift weights, instead of just “resistance training”. To learn the core lifts, I can’t suggest Starting Strength (Second Edition), by Mark Rippetoe and Lon Kilgore, highly enough. It goes into exhaustive detail about learning/teaching the basic compound lifts, and even gives a starting routine specifically geared for beginners.

I couldn’t detail a better approach than this, and I think for the skinny kid needing to get bigger and stronger, he need look no further. The setup is simple and elegant, which is how most training programs should be. Complexity only hides the fact that somebody doesn’t want to work hard.

Really, same philosophy applies here as in dieting. You account for the needs of the body as a whole first, then sketch in the fine details based on the specific needs. Simple fixes here, but they do go against a lot of what many beginners “know” to be true. Time and again, it’s been shown that this can and will correct the “hardgainer” syndrome, if he really wants it enough.

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