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The other day a fellow swordsman remarked that “I eat science,” as I’ve been eating a diet that is full of powders and pills while I’ve been rabidly working for the last 9 months. Although it is a very “unnatural” way to eat I feel like the results have been pretty good so far. I weigh about 160-165 and have increased the weight I do on weight machines by 40-80% or so, to the point where I’ve maxed out most of the machines at the gym and am benching around 260 and leg pressing 650 (300 and 700 are my 12 month goals). That being said, depending on the machine the supposed weight you are calculated as lifting can vary by hundreds of pounds, which is frustrating in terms of tracking progress.

If you are going to bother to spend your time at the gym, you are more or less investing effort in your body. Getting good results is just being efficient with your time. Here is what I do.

LIFTING
Lift Heavy. Lift weight that challenges you to do it between 4-8 times. If you do less than 6, consider lowering the weight next set. If you do more than 10, increase the weight.
I see plenty of people (particularly girls) who lift paltry weights for 30 reps or so. That does nothing. The whole point is to challenge and over-burden your muscles so they decide to man up and reroute your body’s resources so they’ll be able to handle the strain better next time. If the weight you are lifting isn’t hard to lift, you aren’t lifting enough.

I have a 3 day routine.
1 – Upper Body – Chest/Back/Shoulders/Arms
2 – Lower Body – Legs/Abs/Core
3 – Cardio/Off
While at the gym I bounce between 2 or 3 exercises at a time, meaning that I do a set on one machine/muscle and then a set on another machine/muscle, then maybe another set on another machine/muscle, and then repeat until I’ve done 3 sets. Then I do other exercises. The consequences of this method I think are three-fold. First, because I’m essentially always working and not just sitting for a couple minutes between sets, I keep my heartrate high and am essentially doing low-level cardio. Second, because I give my muscles a bit more of a break between sets I tend to be able to lift more. Third, I get a lot more sets into an hour at a gym than others.

Doing big exercises that integrate a lot of muscles is better than isolating small muscles. For example, I do very little work on my arms because all the chest/back exercises already work the triceps and biceps. I only work those muscles at the very end of the session.

Your last set on a muscle can be a burn-out set, meaning that you keep doing reps until failure, and as your muscles fail, you lower the weight so that you can do more. Eventually you’ll be able to lift nothing.

Also, stretch! Stretch frequently during the day, before working out and after. It’ll make you less tense in general and prevents injury. If you don’t know good stretches take a couple of yoga classes until you learn some. I generally think yoga is too low intensity to do very often. The harder kinds, like Bikram, are pretty effective however. I think yoga is best as a stretching method, not as a muscle toning method as it is often taught (that works for girls, but boys need to move heavy things to get strong).

CARDIO
I do not do cardio as much as I might in the gym, but get a lot of its benefit from going out dancing.
I feel like there are two key points people should consider re cardio.
1 – Before your body starts burning your fat it burns the glycogen in your muscles. So if you want to burn fat you need to deplete your glycogen first, at least the glycogen in your liver (which is about 100g/400cal – your muscles hold 250-400g/1000-1600cals)
I think the best way to achieve this is to do cardio first thing in the morning before you have eaten. Definitely do it on an empty stomach or you’ll just be burning your food which is a waste of time. Different supplements can help burn fat and keep muscle while you do this.
2 – You want to make sure you are doing cardio in the right range of intensity. If you go to hard and high, your body stops its aerobic processes (which burn carbs/fat) to anaerobic ones which will burn muscle. Ergo, work out at the right range of intensity – online calculators can tell you the right heart range like this one – http://exercise.about.com/cs/fitnesstools/l/bl_THR.htm. I tend to do cardio for about an hour, setting the level real high, which generally keeps me near the bottom of my target heart range for the beginning which slowly rises to the target max by the end.

EATING
The big dilemma with eating is how to eat enough to build muscles while not eating enough that you put on any fat. Essentially these goals are in divergent directions and I have spent plenty of time trying to figure out how to do both at once.

I think the ideal number of calories to have in a day vaguely equals your BMR (basal metabolic rate) + any and all calorie burning activities + extra protein leftover from that equation to build your muscles.

A simple way to think of the food you eat is that protein is the building blocks, carbs are active energy and fat is stored fuel.

If you are trying to build muscle the most important thing you need is protein, as its component part. Many people think the optimum protein intake is something like 2 grams of protein for every kilogram of your weight and 25-40g of protein should be taken every 3-4 hours. Effectively if you just try to get 150-200 grams of protein a day, you are getting 3-4x the standard, which should be plenty.

Just as you should be spacing out your protein you should be spacing out your meals to be more frequent and smaller. This is because if you aren’t frequently eating your body can get stingy with its protein and won’t bother to build up your muscles (since they are more energy expensive than fat to maintain). Additionally, by having more smaller meals (like 75g/300 cals of carbs limit per meal), in terms of each individual meal you will not have enough excess calories for your body to store them as fat, which it will do once your “tank” is “topped off”.

Also, post lifting you should try to get a good dose of protein as quickly as possible as your body will focus it towards muscle repair at that time. Also make sure you get enough carbs and other calories to replenish your depleted glycogen post workout so your protein doesn’t just get wasted as fuel.

As it is hard to eat sufficient protein without lots of powder (which gets old) or lots of quality meat (which gets real expensive), some other good food options are protein bread, edamane soybeans, turkey chili and other turkey meat, buckwheat noodles, and good ol’ pasta. Another nice option is blending up protein powder with almond milk, bananas and frozen berries.

SUPPLEMENTS
When you buy protein try to calculate how many grams of protein you are getting per $. Lots of companies make different size containers with different serving sizes, etc. You’ll be taking a lot of this so do the math to get a good deal. I get most of mind from the Vitamin Shoppe because their store-brand seems the best bargain. I usually take Whey protein because it is cheap but soy is good to mix with soups, and there is also rice protein, casein, and even hemp protein (which is kinda gritty).

I presently take plenty of glutamine and creatine which are proven to have big effects in terms of replenishing muscle energy and maximizing your output. They really do work.

They sell tons of other amino acids and various supplements but I do not think the expense justifies the marginal results.

I also take various “male” supplements which essentially boost your testosterone, which helps you build muscle and maintain it. These supplements are often sold for libido purposes as well. They come as individual components like Yohimbe, Tribulus terrestris, Tongkat Ali, etc., or combined together which is often more convenient. I have found one consequence of their ingestion is that little things (like dropping something) can easily spark off a burning fury. I don’t know that that is a bad thing, but my standard rage levels have definitely increased.

Energy supplements like Jacked or NO-Explode definitely do work to get you amped but aren’t necessary. For the record NO-Explode is like work-out meth (a bit twitchy) while Jacked is better and feels cleaner. I’ve even just taken them before going out for a boost.

In terms of fat burning supplements I would recommend Coleus Forskohlii. Take it on a empty stomach. http://www.thinkmuscle.com/articles/jalali/forskolin.htm / http://fat-burners.realsolutionsmag.com/fat-burner-Coleus-Forskohlii.html

& that’s how I work out. Everybody has their own way and the only thing that matters is results.