Huge thanks for all the questions coming in, its great to have so much interaction in what I am doing. Helping you achieve your goals is what it is all about for me, and by doing the Q&A if I can help just one person it’s worth it for me.
I tried to answer as many questions as possible, if I missed your question or if you have questions you want answering please leave them in the comments!
I feel like the fitness industry has been overcomplicated in a lot of ways and most people are confused at what they need to do. It’s time to strip it back to the basics and start working effectively. The basics are a lot more important that the details, get the simple stuff right (training intensity and goal focussed nutrition) and you will see exercise and diet don’t have to be extreme or complex to get results.
David: Hi, how is it going? Thank you for sending in so many questions lately and I have been a little bit slow in answering them but going to try to get through as many of them as possible today just to help you anyway with your fitness plans and your food plans. Okay, so first question please?
Question: Does your eighteen six diet work for building lean muscles?
David: So yes, one of the things I am known for is recommending intimate fasting. It is not something I recommend exclusively, it’s just something that I sometimes use to people as a useful tool. Whoever is commenting on this, they got the numbers wrong, it’s not 18/6, it’s actually 16/8 as a sort of a general kind of recommended or even 59 or 17/7. So it does vary a little bit, 6 out of 18 windows is quite short one which it can be used but it is not necessary you know it’s not essential for getting good result. You can get equally good result eating 12hour window and where fasting does come in as a useful tool is, controlling your calories. They can be useful for reducing your total calories but it can also actually work against as well. So a lot of people if they fasted too long, they get too hungry and then they over eat in their eating window, so that actually consumes more calories, so you know, it can be useful tool but like I say, it isn’t essential and for this specifically is for gaining lean muscles, is that right?
David: So for gaining lean muscle, it can be a useful tool absolutely yea but it is not essential.
Question:Â Do you favour high rep exercises like GVT or low reps exercises like 5 by 5 what are the benefits of each?
David: Rep ranges are something that get a lot of press and people categorize, different rep ranges for different goals. I like all rep ranges and I like different rep ranges for different goals as well. So you know for example 5 by 5, fantastic for building strength but I also I like to use that when I am cutting as an example because I think it is pretty good for muscle maintenance, likewise you know GVT, fantastic for hypertrophy if you are eating a big calorie surplus but it can also be really good for fat loss because of the volume of the of the sessions so high that it requires a large amount of recovery in order to recover from the session, so there isn’t one type of rep plan that I like and a type that I dislike, I like reps from 2 up to 30, up to 40, up to 50. I like to use as many tools as possible when I want to try to get results and doing different phases and throughout the different phases you know through the different rep ranges, can be really effective so for example if you do a 5 by 5 block of strength work followed by GVT, chances are that you would be able to lift more few GVT which means you would be able to get better hypertrophy. So, it’s all about progression, progressive overload and working through different phases to increase your strength and the weight that you are lifting for the high reps as well. So I hope that helps. Thanks very much. Next up.
Question:Â I am 19years old and I want to start eating healthy and going to the gym, what would you recommend?
David: Okay, so if you want to start eating healthy and going to the gym, that’s what I would recommend, start eating healthy and going to the gym. That’s the number one thing is to get started. Okay so if it is something you are thinking about doing it, just go ahead and do it. Get started and then secondly, I would say educate yourself as much as possible so that you know that you are doing the right things. A lot of people they would start training at that kind of age and spend years doing things that are not effective, you know, they would see some result but they are not going to see great result because perhaps their training intensity is not right, they are not using progressive overloads, their calories are wrong for their goals, you know so understand what you need to do to reach your goals, so learn as much as you can about that, so where does that be to reap for months educating yourself or just to seek the advice of an exercise professional so you can then structure a plan either way, get started, learn your stuff and work hard at it.
Question:Â Is this workout good for endomorphs ?
David: Okay yea people categorize people into three sections of endomorphs, mesomorphs and ectomorphs and you know different people will sort of be put into different categories depending on their body type. What I would say is, endomorphs typically require less carbohydrate, so they tolerate carbohydrates that are less but being an endomorphs can be completely self reflected in the sense that when someone is carrying too much muscle, too much body fat, so in that situation, getting in control of your carbohydrate, getting in control of you Intel’s level is really important for achieving your fat loss goals. So Vitrago is a carbohydrate and is used generally for recovery of energy during training. So I wouldn’t say it is something that an endomorphs shouldn’t have, absolutely they can have it. What they have to be aware of is you know, its carbohydrate, there is calories in it. A lot of people think that they kind of forget about the calories and their supplements but if you are having 50grams of vitargo post workout, you are going to need like 200calories from now, so you do have to be aware of the calories that are adding but you know, you can use it certainly as long as it stills fits in with your daily calories. I hope that helps.
Question:Â Would you recommend getting as lean as possible before trying to build muscle……what’s your best way of doing it in phases?
David: Yes, phasing this out is always a best way of doing it, so you will do different phases. I would say it is a very personal thing. It is dependent on how you feel, the shape you are in and also kind of what you body fat levels are like as well. So, if your body fat levels are really high still, then you have got to focus on fat loss and keep focusing on fat loss until you get that body fat down. What I generally like to do is keep people in a window of body fat throughout a muscle building phase, so what I would say is get yourself down into it, into a window that you are happy, your body fat levels first and then what you can do is add muscle from there but keeping it in check so that if your body fat levels creep up higher than you are comfortable with, then you just drop the calories down and just bring yourself back into that window. That window varies from person to person. For me I like to keep it kind of like 12, 15percent you know, around those numbers for myself, so when I start adding muscle and creep into high above 15 percent, I would drop back a little bit and cut down a little bit again and likewise if I am dropping below 12percent you know, then I am happy to go into a mass building face if that is what I want to do. So, I would say, focus on what it is you are looking to achieve and then you can figure out the best way of gaining that. I hope that helps.
Question:Â I would be refining your meal plan by also incorporating it into the fasting if it is my last if I tend to eat full meals within my 4 hour window and fast through the rest plus I would be 124 hour fast a week of delivering if you don’t compensate that which means I am consuming this calories…. I was on a fat loss diet which really leads to muscle loss or can I continue as I am?
David: Yes so, I mean that’s one quite extreme thing that you doing and if you are not topping up on those calories from the meals that you are missing then you are not following my plan and you are going to be missing out on a lot of calories and a lot of protein which is going to be potentially, it is going to be a problem. I would say let’s stick to the plan, stick to your correct calories and if you do want to intimate fast, then stretch those hours out because thing is with the fat loss training, chances are, if you are doing your calorie, if you are doing your weight and you are in a fasting state, your cortisol level can be elevated and this is going to have a negative impact on fat loss. So what you need to do is, you need to be using your food to help blunt your cortisol after training at least you kind of near the times of training if possible okay. For example for myself now, intimate fasting does play a part in my eating schedule but it doesn’t have to be strict, so I don’t have to stick to like a 4hour or a 6hour eating window. What I intend to do is, on days that it works like if I can fit it in on Sundays if I don’t use it, if for example I have got meetings or days I don’t need to have breakfast then I would do that. So, it’s about fitting it in around your lifestyle but it does also not have to go extremes to get results, ultimately, things don’t have to be extreme at all to get results. You can just be hitting your calorie deficit and you would just be fine. I hope that helps.
Question:Â What do you think is the optimum amount of weight to gain per month on a lean mass phase?
David: I mean the optimum amount is as much as your body can manage within that time essentially and that would vary massively depending on individuality, okay. So, a lot of things are going to play a part here, so you know, genetics are going to play a part, age is going to play a part, hormone function is going to play a part, so there is no answer to this as such. What you have to focus on is maximising what you have got in order to build muscle okay. So you need to focus on your hormones, you got to focus on your calories, your training, these kind of things so that you are able to build muscle mass, you know, I won’t worry about comparing it to other people or anything of those lines, if you are doing the best you can do, then it’s job done, right. There is nothing more that you can do there, so, make sure your food is spot on, your training is spot on and you are going to see great results.
Question:Â Okay, is de-loading training essential, must to have or don’t worry about it?
David: Okay, yes so de-loading is something that can be planned into training or it can just be added when you feel that you need it, so I like to use de-loads as part of my training so, you know, reducing, training volume reducing the weight I am lifting those kind of things and I also try to program that kind of thing in every six weeks, with a lot of my plans I would do the same, so there would be de-loads from the heavier weights, so yea, I think de-loads are important for recovery, they are important for long term progression and also important for long term like injury prevention as well so having those periods of less heavy lifting can be very useful. For people and folks and more in higher reps, then I would say that de-loads becomes slightly less important but it still is something that is worth considering, yea, absolutely.
Question:Â Okay, which is better, whey protein or impact whey protein?
David: Okay so protein powders. A lot to talk about the different types when you need them and which ones are best for which circumstances. What I would say is, the details for that kind of stuff are exaggerated, you know, so the difference between those types kinds of protein is going to be very marginal, you know, and when you say white protein, you know, I will maybe a white protein high seller or something along these lines so there are proteins that we are going to be slightly quicker absorbed or others that slightly lowly absorbed ultimately, if you getting your protein, you getting your protein in this. So that’s good enough for me, so I won’t worry too much about whether you are using impact whey, casein, whey protein isolate, pea protein and you know, it’s all good. Just focus on hitting your macros essentially. I hope that helps.
Question:Â Is it fine training around illness, or are you common cold, take a time off or try another?
David: Yea so I mean, I had a pretty nasty cold last, I still got a little bit of it here so, last week I had it and I took some 4 or 5days off training complete and then I have eased back into it and afterwards there is a big picture to look at right, so having a few days off training due to illness is not been the wildest, it’s not going to, in 5years time it’s not even going to be, you know what, it doesn’t matter right so ultimately I would say rest is important if you are under the weather, if you are not feeling right, get yourself fit and do it again and then you can start focusing on training. If you want to do some exercise while you are feeling unwell, then lower intensity stuff is going to be less harmful than higher intensity stuff during your illness. So I would say, rest only if you feel you need to and then ease yourself back in with some kind of lower intensity stuff and then you can try to shift back into normal training once you are feeling better. You know, generally colds, they will clear up after a week or two. So you see, it’s not going to have kind of crazy impact on your training. Just during that time, try to keep your food tight, because obviously if you are not exercising so much then you need to be making sure your calories are right but make sure you are eating enough to help with your recovery as well. I hope that helps.
Yea, thank you very much for all the questions. I hope you find the answers helpful and please feel free to drop some more question on to either my blog, on to social media and I would do my best to get them answered for you.
