Bigger Leaner Stronger
by Michael Matthews

“If you don’t eat enough calories and get enough protein, carbs, and fats throughout the day, you simply don’t grow.”“By lifting weights, you are actually causing tiny tears (known as ‘micro-tears’) in the muscle fibers. which the body then repairs, adapting the muscles to better handle the stimulus that caused the damage. This is the process by which muscles grow (scientifically termed hypertrophy).”“For optimal muscle growth, you must lift in such a way that causes optimal micro-tearing and then you must feed your body what it needs to grow and give it the proper amount of rest.”“Building muscle and getting stronger requires lifting heavy weights, and doing short, intense sets of relatively low reps. This type of training causes optimal micro-tearing for strength and growth gains, and forces the body to adapt.”“Studies have shown that, depending on the intensity of your training and your level of fitness, it takes the body 2–5 days to fully repair muscles subjected to weight training.”“The amount of sleep that you get plays a crucial role in gaining muscle.”“You could do the perfect workouts and give your muscles the perfect amount of rest, but if you don’t eat correctly, you won’t grow—period.”Matthew’s rule of thumb is to lift hard, lift heavy, get sufficient rest, and feed your body correctly.

There are seven aspects of nutrition that are of primary concern when trying to build muscle and lose fat. Protein, carbohydrates, and fats are known as “macronutrients” and how you structure these in your diet is vitally important to your overall results.Vitamins and minerals, which are known as “micronutrients,” are essential for the body’s performance of many different physiological processes connected with building muscle and losing fat.A gram of protein is 4 calories, as is a gram of carbohydrate. A gram of fat is 9 calories.A GI rating of 55 and under is considered “low GI” and 56 to 69 is medium, and 70 and above is high on the index.

Whole food protein is protein that comes from natural food sources, such as beef, chicken, fish, etc. The best forms of whole food protein are chicken, turkey, lean red meat, fish, eggs, and milk. Protein from meat is particularly helpful when you’re weightlifting.“Meat” doesn’t only mean red meat. Fish, chicken, turkey, pork, buffalo, and so on all qualify as “meat.” Matthew’s recommends that you stick to the lean varieties of meats as eating a lot of saturated fat just isn’t necessary. That means fish, extra-lean cuts of beef (95% lean ground beef, or extra-lean cuts like top sirloin steak, and top and bottom round roast and steak), chicken, turkey, pork tenderloin, and so forth.

Eat carbs in the medium-high range of the glycemic index (70–90 is a good rule of thumb) about 30 minutes before you train and within 30 minutes of finishing your workout.Matthew’s favorite pre- and post-workout carbs are bananas and rice milk, but other good choices are unprocessed foods on the high-GI list above, such as baked potato, white rice, instant oatmeal, and fruits that are above 60 on the glycemic index, such as cantaloupe, pineapple, watermelon, dates, apricots, and figs.All other carbs you eat should be in the middle or low end of the glycemic index (60 and below is a good rule of thumb).

“Keep your intake of saturated fats relatively low (below 10% of your total calories). Saturated fat is found in foods like meat, dairy, eggs, coconut oil, bacon fat, and lard. If a fat is solid at room temperature, it’s a saturated fat.”“Completely avoid trans fats, which are the worst type of dietary fat. Trans fats are found in processed foods, such as cookies, cakes, fries, and donuts. Any food that contains ‘hydrogenated oil’ or ‘partially hydrogenated oil’ likely contains trans fats, so just don’t eat it.”Get much of your fats from unsaturated sources such as olive oil, nuts, peanut oil, avocados, flaxseed oil, safflower oil, sesame oil, or cottonseed oil. If a fat is liquid at room temperature, it’s an unsaturated fat.

The Bigger Leaner Stronger Workout Plan calls for five days of weightlifting, as much cardio as you’d like to do based on your goals and what you now know, and two days of rest from the weights, and one day of complete rest (no exercise whatsoever).

Matthews likes to change out an exercise or two from each workout every 8–10 weeks (after his De–load Week). He’ll then do that new routine for the next 8–10 weeks, take a week off, change up the exercises, and keep the pattern going.

The only exception to the above is the rare case of moving on to an exercise that involves muscles that would not have been warmed up, such as going from Lat Pulldowns to Deadlifts.

For the first 6–9 months of being on this program, Matthew’s recommends that you try weeks of complete rest. If you definitely don’t like how your body feels after trying a few full rest weeks, or if you come back weaker, then try the “De–load Week.”The rep timing Matthew’s recommends is known as a “2-1-2” timing. This means the first part of the rep should take about two seconds, then there should be a pause, followed by the final portion of the rep, which should take about two seconds.If you’re bulking, Matthew’s recommend 2-3 days of cardio per week.There are three primary ways that cardio can help you build (and retain) more muscle. They are as follows: It improves muscle recovery by increasing blood flow to muscles. It improves your body’s metabolic responses to food, helping you minimize fat storage. It keeps up your conditioning, making the transition from “bulking” to “cutting” easier on your body.

To gain significant amounts of muscle (ten pounds or more), bulk until you’ve gained the size you want, and then cut to lose the fat.Matthew’s recommendation is to bulk to a size that’s a little bigger than what you want and then cut.Here’s how to determine your starting point for bulking: Eat 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight per day. Eat 2 grams of carbs per pound of body weight per day. Eat 1 gram of healthy fat per 3 pounds of body weight per day.“Some guys find that their bodies do better with fewer carbs and more fats. If you know or suspect this about your body, you can drop your carbs by 50 grams per day and increase your fats by about 20 grams per day to replace those calories.”“Depending on whether you’re new to weightlifting or experienced, you’re expecting to gain anywhere from 0.5 to 2 pounds per week when bulking, with a minor, gradual increase in body fat.”“If you aren’t gaining weight or strength or your energy levels are low after a couple of weeks of bulking, you should up your calories by about 300 per day for another week or two and see if that fixes it. The easiest way to add calories is to eat about 70 more grams of carbs per day.”Adjust your calories up by about 200 for every fifteen pounds that you gain.“Eat at least about 30% of your daily carbs in your post-workout meal. This is about 80–100 grams for most guys, but feel free to go higher you’d like.”“As a general rule, try to get at least 50% of your daily protein from solid food. It makes a difference.”