An Introduction to the Leangains Diet and Workout Plan. Last updated on: 3- 3. Leangains is the coined diet and training methodology brainchild of Martin Berkhan, a professional fitness writer and consultant who blogs at Leangains. In the last five or so years, the branded moniker has grown from relative obscurity into something that’s become quite popular. This post is an introductory primer to Leangains written for beginners – for those who know little to nothing about it, but are interested in learning about it and deciding if it’s something worth trying.
2800 Calorie Bulking Diet Example MealsCheat Day or Cheat Meal? So you’re all excited about this cheat day. You’re dreaming of eating pizza, ice cream, chips, and fast food all day. Confused about how to lose fat? Learn the TRUTH about fat loss once and for all and start losing body fat today. The following is a 3000 calorie weight gain diet plan which is suitable for a 150 pound person who wants to go on a bulking up diet to gain 5-10lb of lean. How to Gain Weight As a Vegetarian. Vegetarians eat mostly vegetables, fruits, and grains, though some also eat dairy products and eggs. Since it has no meat, you. I’ll also share my personal opinion on things where it’s pertinent, insofar as the discussion relates to the straightforward bare effective minimum modus operandi of this blog. I’ve used Leangains myself and achieved great success with it, and Martin Berkhan is one of the few people in the industry whom I publicly endorse. Clickable Table of Contents by Section. Preliminary Section: My 1 Year Leangains Results – A Fat Loss Cut With Before and After Pictures. The initial burning question is, obviously, does Leangains actually work? And of course that’s fair to ask – there are too many branded health and fitness programs out there that are bogus. The answer is yes, it does. You can see some of Martin’s client results here. Leangains was also my set up of choice for losing fat. I don’t use the program anymore, but it certainly did work. I’ll let my progress pictures speak for themselves: The extended answer to the question, with a caveat, though, is that yes, Leangains does work, but that no, it’s not magic. 2800 Calorie Bulking Diet Example For Gestational DiabetesAt its core, like every other effective body composition improvement program out there (lose fat, gain muscle), Leangains works because it utilizes the fundamentals. If you’re hoping to have found an underground black book program that exceptionally enhances fat loss and/or muscle gain. Eating every 2- 3 hours and always being in a “fed” state was purportedly necessary to maximize metabolic rate, fat loss, and/or muscle gain. But, the major practical downside of the traditional bodybuilding style of dieting is that, one, it’s totally incongruent with convention, and two, it’s a rigid pain in the ass to adhere to, for many reasons. Martin’s negative experience with these issues was significant enough to compel him to question the dogma and eventually go on to create Leangains. The constant meal preparing, the obsessiveness about eating the perfect meals at the right time, and the way I sometimes made excuses not to participate in social gatherings in order to meet my calorie and macronutrient goals for the day. I’m sure some of the people reading this can relate. I wanted to stop this pattern cold turkey, so I started to question the need for regular feedings and the way it was constantly being pushed as the most optimal way to eat for physique conscious people. What’s more, and not mentioned therein, is that eating small/frequent meals like a bird and being halfway hungry all day long sucks for the big eaters out there like myself. Martin is one of the few people who can rightfully call himself a fitness industry disruptor because he, along with a few other notable individuals, scrutinized the actual pertinent science and showed that the restrictive small/frequent meal schedule, one of the most ironclad tenets in health and fitness culture, is totally unnecessary. You don’t need to eat breakfast first thing when you wake up. You don’t need to eat every three hours to stoke the metabolic fire and prevent “starvation mode.”You don’t need to dose protein every 2 hours or else face muscle wasting catabolic mayhem. You can eat big meals at night with a lot of carbs and still lose fat. Point Being – All in all, as long as your overall calories, nutrition, and training are on point over the long run, fat loss, muscle gain, and body composition improvement can and will work.* Further Reading: The Leangains methodology rejects the small/frequent meal ideology and concurrently utilizes a burgeoning style of dieting called intermittent fasting, which introduces a massive and much needed boon of dietary flexibility to the overly restrictive traditional bodybuilder’s diet. The reason Martin is a disruptor is that he was primarily responsible for spearheading intermittent fasting into bodybuilding culture. Section 2: What is Intermittent Fasting, Exactly? Intermittent Fasting (IF) has become a somewhat loose and informal term to describe various styles of fasting. The basic idea is that, in contrast to the traditional bodybuilding style of eating every 2- 3 hours, you fast and abstain from consuming calories for extended periods of time, usually anywhere from 1. It’s possible to fast for longer, but probably not ideal – I’ve never seen a program (in fitness at least) that calls for a fast longer than 3. Leangains uses a daily fast of around 1. It’s not technically intermittent in the literal sense of the word’s definition. An alternatively popular IF regimen is the Eat Stop Eat program by Brad Pilon, which uses one or two fasts during the week that last 2. Further Reading: The important point is this: By utilizing fasting strategically, it’s orders of magnitude easier to fit a bodybuilding diet into real day to day life – for many, it can make the difference between sustainable success and unsustainable and inevitable failure. Section 3: An Overview How Leangains Works. Leangains is a bodybuilding program. The purpose is body composition improvement – lose fat, gain muscle, and improve lean mass to fat mass ratio. Besides the use of intermittent fasting, Leangains is not actually much different than a regular run of the mill bodybuilding program: Primary training focus on lifting weights, done 3 (or so) times per week. Eating a diet with overall calorie and macronutrient (fat/protein/carb) targets, depending on whether your priority is fat loss or muscle gain. Cardio is done sparingly, and is secondary to the weight lifting. A daily fast of 1. Section 4: A Summary of The Leangains Diet Plan and Basic Leangains Macros. The Leangains diet is fairly similar to your standard carbohydrate cycling bodybuilding diet. There are no hard food restrictions – you can eat whatever you like, provided you hit your daily calorie and macronutrient targets, which is in fact the only hard restriction. Here are the distinguishing traits of a Leangains diet and macro ratios for fat loss (cutting) specifically: Eat (around) 3. Eat (around) maintenance calories on training days. Significantly higher carb, and lower fat on training days. Significantly lower carb, higher(ish) fat on off days. High protein intake on all days, to the tune of 1. For example, here were my calorie and macro targets for the first 8 months of my long cut: Training Days – 2. Off Days – 1. 50. It’s essentially a rotating cut/refeed cycle that lines up with your training. If you’re bulking, not much changes except that you increase your calories across the board. For me, those macros might look something like: Training Days – 2. Off Days – 2. 40. There have been a lot of wild claims regarding intermittent fasting from those riding the faddish coattails, but understand that intermittent fasting doesn’t confer any magic – it merely makes adhering to one’s calorie and macro targets easier to do, both from a standpoint of hunger and of practicality. The reason Leangains works is the same reason any effective bodybuilding program works – you hit the appropriate calorie and macro targets, and you train. Understand: If you want to lose fat, you have to create a running calorie deficit, no matter what, and there’s little to nothing else beyond that which you can do to exceptionally expedite fat loss. That’s the unsexy truth.* Further Reading: Section 5: A Summary of The Leangains Workout Plan. Though Martin doesn’t outline an explicit protocol on his site – those are reserved for his private clients on a case by case basis presumably – he does offer rough guidelines: Minimalist focus on the compound and power lifts: squats, deadlift, bench press, shoulder press, pulls/chins, and other accessories as needed. Low rep and heavy weight ranges. Reverse pyramid for 2- 3 sets – 1st set to near failure, 2nd set is slightly lighter and also to near failure, ect. Default recommendation is three 4. Here is my program that I used for around 8 months: Day 1 (lift: sets x reps)Day 2. Day 3. Squats: 2 x 5- 7. Inc DB Press: 2 x 5- 7. Deadlifts: 2 x 3- 5. Bench Press: 2 x 5- 7. Rows: 2 x 5- 7 Shoulder Press: 2 x 5- 7. Curls: 2 x 5- 7. Weighted Dips: 2 x 5- 7 Weighted Chin Ups: 2 x 5- 7(Optional) Box Jumps/Cleans: 2 x 5- 7. Here is another 3 day/week program sourced from an actual former client of Berkhan’s who did an “ask me anything” thread on Reddit. Day 1 (lift: sets x rep range)Day 2 (lift: sets x rep range)Day 3 (lift: sets x rep range)Deadlift: 2 x 3- 5. Bench Press: 2 x 6- 8. Squats: 2 x 6- 8. Shoulder Press: 2 x 6- 8. Incline DB Press: 2 x 6- 8. Hamstring Curls: 2 x 6- 8. Weighted Chin Ups: 2 x 4- 6. Barbell Curls: 2 x 6- 8. Leg Extensions: 2 x 6- 8. Rows: 2 x 6- 8. Tricep Extentions: 2 x 6- 8. Calve Raises: 1 x 1. Close Grip Chins: 1 x 6- 1. Leangains training is, essentially, heavy power lifting oriented programming. Section 6: Putting It Together – The Leangains Schedule. The only significant decision, really, is whether or not you want to train fasted. Practically speaking, it will most likely depend on your personal preferences and schedule. I personally like to break the fast with a small meal before I train, but I’ve trained fasted plenty of times and have felt perfectly fine. Martin recommends BCAA supplementation if you do train fasted. Section 7: Is Leangains Right for You? Though Martin is inarguably an innovator and a disruptor in the world of health and fitness – the small frequent meal myth seriously needs to die already – Leangains, in all honesty, is nothing remarkable in and of itself.
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