Length; Most beginners will be able to stay on this program for 12-16 weeks depending on how fast they increase the weights. (The faster you increase weights, the faster you will stall)

Goal; To get proficient with the basic compound movements, to gain strength and muscle mass.

Style; Full body 3 times a week. Linear progression principle. (increasing weights each workout)

Who would benefit from it; Novice trainees or trainees that have not developed a solid amount of strength.

Squating 3 times a week

The main exercise this program focuses on is the squat. You will squat 3 times a week with this program. This is very unusual for more advanced trainees to do because of the risk of overtraining, but novice trainees can get away with it and will see tremendous gains from it. The workouts are divided between an A and a B workout. You will alternate between them each day you train. (Example; Monday: A, Wed: B, Fri: A, Mon: B and so on. ) You can perform the workouts at any day you want as long as they are non-consecutive. At least one day of rest between workouts is required.

Workout A

3×5 Squat
3×5 Bench Press
1×5 Deadlift
2×5 Pull-ups *

Workout B

3×5 Squat
3×5 Overhead Press
3×5 Power-cleans**
2×5 Dips *

* This is optional, not in the original program!

**(For beginners I recommend to substitute these with Bent over rows. Power-cleans are a very complex movement and require much instruction. If your gym offers the kind of instruction/coaching needed to learn Power-cleans, Go for it! )

Techniques

Now this article contains a list of links where you can learn about how to perform all the exercises that are included in this program. But this is not enough to get you performing these exercises like they should be performed. You should always talk to the fitness instructor at your gym and tell him that you are doing the Rippetoe program, and want his help with the techniques for the exercises. If you get him to help you perform all the exercises like they should be performed, you will get very proficient with the barbell movements while on the program. Now don’t get cocky and don’t ask for his help. You should have a fitness instructor help you with your technique at least for the first 4 weeks. If you think you can handle it by yourself after that you should do so. But having an instructor inspect on your technique will only help you reach your goals faster.

Weights

You should start with a weight that you can easily handle on all exercises. You use the same weight for all 3 sets. You should try to increase your weight on all lifts with about 2.5% per week. So if you can maximally bench 100 pounds 3×5, start at 95 pounds the first week. Then increase the weight with 2.5lb’s per week. For dips and pull-ups try to increase the repetitions you perform per set each week until you can do 2×10. After that you could start adding weight by hanging them on your body. By doing this you will develop tremendous power on the bars. If you do the increasing correctly with every exercise and don’t increase too fast, you will be able to increase weights each week for 3-4 months. After those 3-4 months you will be much stronger, and if you ate enough you will really have gained a lot of muscle. After that period you should really give yourself some deserved rest. You are then able to move on to the next program. You will thank me for putting you on Rippetoe later, because your next program will be so much easier because you are proficient with all the important exercises and because you got a solid foundation of strength.

F.A.Q.

Should I perform any cardio on this program? ->No, you should just stay with the weightlifting workouts. By performing cardio you are decreasing your restoration capabilities and you will get stuck much earlier into the program. You can work on cardio later on in your trainee –career. You first need to build a solid foundation of raw strength.

I want to add *put in any exercise* for extra abs/biceps/triceps development. Is this okay? -> No this is not okay, you should really perform the program as I wrote it down. The only things you may add are 2 sets of Pull ups and Dips, but you really can’t do any more assistance work. Assistance work will diminish your restoration abilities and get you stuck in the program much earlier. All those assistance exercises are something of later importance, you first need a solid foundation of… yes, strength.

My fitness instructor says I should not begin with this program because it is for advanced trainees. He wants me to exercise on the machines instead. -> Your fitness instructor is trying to tell you; I don’t feel like teaching you the techniques of all these difficult exercises, I much rather sit on my ass here all day. You should never perform machine-exercises, free weights are far more superior, and this is by far one of the best programs for a beginner to start on.

I am not gaining muscle, what am I doing wrong? -> If you increase the weights on the exercises each week and are not gaining muscle it means you are not eating enough. Up your caloric intake, and take a look in the nutrition fundamentals section. You should also weight yourself. Are you gaining weight each week? If not; eat more. And don’t eat more garbage ofcourse, but pick stuff from the powerfoods article.

Should I perform a warmup before doing the actual working-sets? -> Yes I would advise on warming up first. The best way to warm up for an exercise is to perform that exercise with an empty bar or with low weights. You should focus on getting the maximum range of motion with each exercise, (go as deep as possible with the squat). To do this you will need to warm up your muscle by doing warm-up sets.

Read my article “The 10 best exercises for muscle, strength and power” for an in-depth description of the exercises used in this routine.

These are the 10 all time best exercises. You could actually get the physique of your dreams by doing nothing more then these 10 exercises. You need nothing else for all round muscular development. It was very hard for me to put these exercises in a good order, and some I consider of equal value. Incorporate these exercises in your training to see real results. Notice that all of these exercises are compound exercises. An isolation movement does not deserve to be in any “best” rank list.

Avoid Isolation movements until you consider yourself an advanced athlete. Until that time doing isolation movements will do almost nothing for you. Because most guys go to the gym and want to get huge arms they will quickly start doing all kinds of isolation movements for the biceps and triceps. A whole variety of curls and extensions is soon introduced and most of these guys really think they need to hit their biceps from 3 different angles to get good results. HAHA! Most guys at the gym train arms each and every workout!, and most of the time perform like 9 sets of arm exercises! Talk about overtraining! Haha. When you ask them what they do for legs they usually do 3 sets of leg press, and 3 sets of leg curls and extensions. That means that they do 9 sets for legs, the biggest muscle group of your body, and they do an equal amount of sets for the biceps, one of the smallest muscles we have, haha! That is bizarre isn’t it?. The first thing I want you to learn from this article is this; you do not need curls to get good looking arms. Hell, you don’t even need curls at all! Don’t even think about doing curls or triceps extensions before you can do 6 chin-ups with 50lb’s strapped to your body!. Now that I’m done flaming the curl guys, let’s get started with the holy list of exercises!

Number one; the deadlift

How the deadlift is performed

This is the ultimate exercise. It is the exercise which you can move the most weight with, and in my eyes it’s the exercise that you can build the most muscle with. The deadlift should be part of any training program. Its technique is a bit hard to learn for a novice trainee, just like the squat’s, but it is well worth it. If I had to choose one exercise to perform it would be this one. I’ve made gains from doing nothing more than deadlifting 3 heavy sets one day a week. It’s the ultimate bang for your buck. It is also one of the three powerlifting movements (squat and benchpress being the other two). The deadlift develops the lower and middle back, the glutes, the hamstring, the quadriceps, the calves, the upper back, the trapezius the rhomboids, the abs and the obliques. And it does a VERY good job developing all these muscle. Adding 30kg to your deadlift while on a caloric surplus diet will let you grow like nothing else. Luckily for us the deadlift has a little sister which ranks second in our top 10;

What are you waiting for? Continue to then next page…

We at coachbentley.com use a lot of free weight weightlifting exercises and routines. We do that because they are the most effective thing to do when trying to improve your physique. Bodyweight exercises also have their place in my system, but we mainly focus on freeweights simply because they are most effective at achieving what we want to achieve.

Workouts contain of a series of exercises, which are performed for a number of sets. Each set contains a number of repetitions. We usually first write down the number of sets, and then the number of repetitions, followed by the name of the exercise. Like this; 3×5 Squat. This way you will know what you need to do when I describe a workout program for you.

Each exercise has a concentric and eccentric part of the movement. The concentric part should be performed as fast as possible, and the eccentric part of the movement should be performed in a controlled matter. The eccentric part should usually take between 1-2 seconds, and the concentric part should take under one second.

Compound vs. Isolation

We make a difference between exercises which activate only one muscle group and exercises which activate multiple muscle groups. The first exercises are called isolation movements, and the second are called compound movements. A dumbbell curl is an isolation movement, while a chin-up is a compound movement. I generally tend to avoid isolation movements, especially in beginners. Compound movements give you much more bang for your buck. You should not even consider using isolation movements before you can squat 1.5 times your bodyweight. Isolation movements became popular because all the professional bodybuilders use them. You are not a professional bodybuilder however, and you will gain more results from plain old compound exercises.

Running and Conditioning

This website serves different people with very different goals, so we need information on more than just plain old weightlifting. And guess what… We offer information about much more . A whole section of this website is dedicated to functional training, and another section is dedicated to fat-loss related training and cardio. (Cardio will be mostly running, since I am a firm believer it is a superior form of cardio). By combining strength training, functional training and cardio, everyone should be able to train for their ultimate goals. If you combine this training with the information about nutrition and achieving success/dedication this website has to offer, there is almost no way you will not reach your goals. Okay, we cannot do the training for you. But we can supply you with all the knowledge you need to reach your goals. Hell, we even have a section dedicated to motivating you to go out and train! Good luck acquiring the knowledge you need to reach your goals. And remember to have fun while obtaining this knowledge! Learning should be fun.

Mistake number one; always training near their maximum and not leaving any room for progression.

Okay okay, I understand, you need to impress your friends and the ladies. But you should not be working out to impress anyone, you should be working out for gains. By always training near your maximum you will not have any room for progression and will always be near “overtraining”. This way you will not make the gains you could make. You should better apply the principle of progressive overload. Start at a sub-maximal weight (say 80% of your max) and add 5% every week/workout. This way the first few workouts will be very easy, but your body will have the possibility to adapt and prepare for a higher weight. After 4 weeks you will reach your old maximum, and magically the 5^th week you are able to go to 105% of your previous maximum. Something you were not able to do for weeks!.

Mistake number two; Making the workouts too complex

Lots of trainees add more and more exercises and different versions of exercises to their workouts. You do not need to hit your biceps from 3 different angles, and you do not need to do 4 different ab exercises that all focus on a section of your abs. You have to remember to keep it easy and simple. Less = more. By all these crazy 3 angle exercises you will just steal away your valuable restoration ability and your body will not be able to grow. Instead of hitting your biceps from 3 different directions, and doing an extra biceps-peak exercise you should just focus on increasing your weighted chin-ups. THAT will get your biceps growing, all this tri-anle-super-peak-exercise stuff is not needed at all. Just make sure you gain strength on the big compound exercises and eat above your caloric maintenance. That way you are guaranteed to grow muscle.

Mistake number three; Not taking enough rest between workouts and between workout-cycles.

You do not need to train 5 times a week for results. Hell, I once trained only one time a week for 2 months, and had great results! You do not grow while training, you grow while resting! And after you’ve completed a 8-12 week cycle of gaining muscle and strength your body not only deserves but NEEDS 7-14 days off. And during those off-days you should not perform any weightlifting at all, best to perform not any exercise at all!. Don’t be afraid to loose muscle, after you come back from your well-earned rest you will be ready to make big gains again. If you do not take your rest your progression will stall and you will plateau your next workout-program.

Mistake number four; Undereating and oversupplementing.

Yes, even these so proclaimed non-beginners are under-eating most of the time when they complain about bad results. You should also remember that while you make strength and size gains you should adjust your diet to your new weight! You should also remember that variety is key. If your low-fat diet is not working this time, and it used to work for you in the past, why not try a low-carb diet this time? Maybe you will have more success with it! Not only should your training contain variety so does your diet. And you should not buy any supplements before you get your diet in check 100%. It is scary how many people I know that spend over 200 bucks a month on supplements that think it is a normal thing to skip breakfast a few days a week. The supplement-industry just wants your money. You will be far better off just spending those extra bucks on high quality foods like eggs and fish.

Mistake number five; Not having enough variety on the long term in their workout-program.

Yeah, you know what I’m talking about. Guys that only train strength training for year after year, guys that only train in one specific reprange, or guys that just can and will not switch up their program to something which they have not tried before and which has not proved itself to them before. Always doing the same while working out will lead to boredom, and eventually will make your progress stall. I once had a client that had a hard time gaining more muscle mass. He had been strength training for five years, but never did anything with higher reps than 12, and most of his exercises were always sub 8 reps. I changed up his entire program, included allot of muscle-endurance training with sets of 20 and even some sets that would go way beyond 40 reps (pushups). Instead of his usual heavy (1-6 reps) squats I had him squat 20 rep breathing squats. Instead of doing heavy dips and pullups we worked on increasing the maximum repetitions he could do with those exercises. Guess what, the guy responded very well to this new form of training and had some good size gains. This was only for one cycle of 12 weeks though, after that he was so excited about the results that he wanted to do another cycle this way but he failed to make any significant gains that second cycle. This teaches us the body is a complex machine that requires variety to stimulate it to grow/get progression.

Beginner mistake number one; a lack of clear goals.

For optimal results you should have clear goals and focus on cutting up or bulking up. Most beginners try to do both at the same time, which will keep them from reaching their full potential. If you are a smart player you first decide what your goal will be. The smartest thing to do for most beginners is to first try gaining some strength and size and get proficient with the exercises. A good way of doing this is by reading the beginners article that explains Rippetoe training, and by reading the articles on proper nutrition and weight monitoring. If you combine the knowledge from these articles, you are ready to jumpstart your physical metamorphosis. Even if you are a bit fat and want to lose fat first, I would still advise on going with the Rippetoe program first. (and thus gaining weight instead of losing weight) You will lose fat anyway because your body is new to working out, and after you’ve gained some extra muscle and strength losing weight will be much easier because you will burn more energy on a daily basis.

Beginner mistake number two; Not taking full advantage of the “beginner gain” period.

When people who are new to the gym start working out, they experience a beginner gain period. During this period they can do things normally not possible for trainees. Things like supernatural gains in strength and size in short time, losing fat and gaining muscle at the same time, and gaining muscle and strength while their diet and training is total garbage. They can even gain muscle while on a caloric deficit! These beginners go to the gym and just start doing some exercises, and they see gains anyway so they think all is going well. After the period of beginner gains, their gains will quickly diminish and they will stall. But they were convinced they were actually doing something good because they made gains! But in reality they would have made gains anyhow because they are beginners. The trick is to first learn about proper nutrition and training (By visiting coachbentley.com ) and then start your training. This way you will get the maximum potential from your beginner gains. Gaining more than 25 pounds in 3 months this way is not uncommon at all.

Beginner mistake number three; Not performing the exercise right.

This is something I see happening all the time. Beginner joins a gym, he is smart enough to start with free weight training but thinks he does not have to learn the proper techniques first. Very bad idea, very bad outcome will be the result. Injury = no gains. Beginners should learn the proper techniques from the fitness instructor in your gym. The instructor will probably advice you to train with the machines first, but this is not necessary at all. You should go straight to free weight training because this will have the most benefits for your body. The first month(s) you should make appointments with the instructor so he can explain and check your technique each time you train. You should also take initiative yourself by learning about the techniques for different exercises on the internet. Having a great technique and performing a exercise the full ROM (range of motion) will drastically increase your overall results. Remember to start with low weights, technique is always first. Don’t go too heavy and try to impress your friends. You should lift for gains, not for glory.

Beginner mistake number four; Not eating enough and not educating oneself about nutrition.

I know I promised this article would be about mistakes in the GYM, but this is of such great importance I’ll whine about it anyway. You NEED to learn about nutrition. You NEED to dramatically increase the amounts you eat to see results. And you NEED to stop eating garbage that makes you a fat weakling. Most beginners think that nutrition is something that you should only educate yourself in if you’re a really dedicated fitness freak. Second to that they think it will be a task that consumes a lot of time and takes a lot of time to learn. No No No. By just investing a few hours into educating yourself about nutrition you can quadruple your gains. What, without it you won’t even be making any gains in a matter of months!

Beginner mistake number five; Staying in the gym too long, training with isolation movements.

This is also a big mistake most beginners make. A good training should be performed under 45 minutes. Especially beginners should not be training any longer than 45 minutes. Training is very stressful to the body and training longer than 45 minutes will just be contra-productive. Some beginners think it is necessary to train for more than 2 hours to see any great gains. You can better invest that hour and fifteen minutes in reading the articles in the nutrition section on this site, it will get you much further. If you can train for 2 hours straight as a beginner it means that your training is not intense enough at all. This is mostly caused by isolation exercises. All beginners tend to perform isolation exercises, while they will not do jack shit for them. They should be focusing on intense compound movements. If your training consists of big compound movements, you will not be able to train for 2 hours straight I can assure you that. If you fall under the “2 hour category”, look into my Rippetoe article.

Goal; Gaining more muscle mass

Who is it for?; The advanced trainee.

Style; Push/Pull with 1 light day and 1 heavy day per week per session.

Optimally you should train on Mo/Tu and Thu/Fry. Wednesday should be a rest day, and the weekend should be rest too. You can divide the workouts any way you like, but On,On,Of,On,On,Off,Off would be optimal. This is because at least 2 full days of rest should be between workout 4 and workout 1 (both heavy workouts, very taxing on the body)

This is a Push/Pull split for the advanced trainee. You will work out 4 times a week, 2 heavy workouts and 2 lighter workouts. The heavy workouts focus on low rep-range sets, and the light workouts focus on a higher reprange. The fact that the light workout is called light does not mean it should be easy, it is simply called light because the weights are lighter than in the heavy workout.

This is a very intense program and you will be vulnerable for overtraining. I suggest eating even more calories than on normal bulking programs, and really conduct no exercise whatsoever on the resting days. Not even cardio. This is not the type of program you should be following when you have a heavy daytime job. Ex; construction worker.

1PULL (Heavy) (2-6)

• Deadlifts 2 worksets
• Cleans 2 worksets
• Pullups 2 worksets
• Barbell Row 2 worksets
• Bicep Preacher Curl 2 worksets
• Grip (15-60 seconds) 2 sets.
• (for grip training hold a very heavy weight for as long as possible. (pick a weight that is so heavy you can never hold it longer than 60 seconds) You could use 2 dumbells or perform a deadlift and hold the bar as long as you can.

2PUSH (Light) (8-12)

• Backsquats (10-20) 1 set The squats should be performed breathing style. Take all the time u want to perform the full 20 reps.
• Seated DB Press 2 worksets
• Decline DB press 2 worksets
• Front Raise 1 workset
• Side Raise 1 workset
• Skullcrushers 2 worksets
• Pushups (1 set until failure)

3PULL (Light) (8-12)

• Chinups 2 worksets
• Bent over DB Row 2 worksets
• EZ Bar Raise 2 worksets
• Shrugs 2 worksets
• Incline Seated DB Curl 2 workset
• Grip (60+ sec) 1 set (this grip session focuses more on long time holding of heavy objects. Minimally over one minute.

4PUSH (Heavy) (2-6)

• Frontsquats 2 worksets
• Dumbell Snatch 2 worksets
• Dips 2 worksets
• Benchpress 2 worksets
• Seated MP 2 worksets
• CGBP 2 worksets

You should start this program by starting at about 80% of the maximum weight you can perform for 3 repetitions (on the heavy days). Increase the weight or the total amount of repetitions performed each week (never more than 6 reps) until you are around your maximuml after 4-5 weeks. (you will probably already see some nice gains by now because of the wide variety of repranges this program puts you on). After you hit the 4-5 week mark and perform at your old maximum weight, try to increase the weights or repetitions on the heavy days with small steps each time. Don’t go to fast. If you are conducting yourself to this program, you are advanced enough to know how fast you should make increasements in weight without stalling your progression.

During the light days you should really focus on the performance of all the exercises. You have to increase repetitions or weight each workout. Increasing is not as important as it is on the heavy days though. The light days are there for supporting your muscle growth. If you take it slowly and eat a clean diet with a big caloric surplus you can make really nice gains from this program. The good side is that you can gain some strength AND some size, in a very wide variety of repranges. Because the program focuses on the reps from 2 between 12 (and even 20, for backsquats) most people will respond good to this program. You probably will stall after 8-12 weeks on this program. Depending on how fast you raise your weights.

I did have a client that gained muscle for 4 months on this program, but he incorporated weeks with no increases in weight and in the last phase of the program he skipped the heavy workouts and intensified the lighter workouts by making them really heavy while staying in the same reprange. (So in the last 3 weeks, he did only worked out 2 times a week, doing the light workouts in a very very intense way). I would not advise you on doing what he did because I think he stayed on the program too long, but I thought I should mention it any way.
Good luck!

Simple carbs

Since you will only be eating simple carbs a few times a week, a lot of diversity is not required here. Your best bets are; Maltodextrin and Dextrose. With Maltodextrin being the fastest acting. These simple carbs should always be combined with a food high on the Insuline Index. Your best bets here would be; Potatoes, Yoghurt and Baked Beans which are high in protein too!

Complex carbs

Fruit and starchy vegetables contain complex carbs. Because they consist primarily of water they are not good primary complex carbs however. They should be eaten as extra with meals where complex carbs are needed. But they can also be eaten as snack later on the day because most of them are really low on calories.

Non processed grains/whole grains. dark bread, oatmeal, oat bran, buckwheat, oats, brinta, barley, cornmeal,

Rice, Jams, Pasta, Legumes, Cereal, Wheat, and…. Potatoes!!! But watch out, some of these foods, like potatoes are complex, but do raise insulin like crazy. If you want to be really sure you’re not raising insulin check out the insulin chart.

Insulin Index

You can of course use google to find more complex or simple carbs by simple searching for the terms.

Power vegetables

Bok Choy, Broccoli, Carrots, Onions, Garlic, Tomato, Acorn, Asparagus, Peppers, Paprika, Kale, Spinach, Brussels Sprouts, Kidney Beans,  Alfalfa sprouts, Beets, Soy Beans, Lentils, Corn, Eggplant, Green and red Cabbage, Cauliflower, Peas

You get the idea! You should try to eat vegetables at each meal. Eating them raw is the best.

Power fruits

Banana, apples, apricots, berries, citrus, kiwi, papaya, avocado, peaches, strawberries, grapes, acai, blueberry,  These are my personal favorites, but all fresh fruits are good for you! I try to eat atleast 6 big pieces of fruit each day. Remember to never drink fruitjuices like coolbest. They are not comparable to real fruit. You can better invest your money in real fruit, that is the only powerfruit!!.

Protein rich foods

Proteins is what muscles are made from, so we better make sure we get enough of that . There are a lot of sources that contain protein. If you are trying to lose fat really hardcore, or are VERY endomorphic and tend to get fat really fast you should watch out with combining protein foods that contain a lot of fat with high carbohydrate/II foods. But in most cases you can just eat all the protein you want all day long, without dramatic fat gains. You have to experiment with what works for you, and I would advise you not to go to extreme into avoiding certain food-combinations. If you get the results you want while combining fats and carbs, why the hell would you change that? I just want you to be knowledgeable enough to be able to analyze your diet for yourself so that when you are NOT seeing the results you want, you understand that it could be because combining the wrong foods creates an environment that is optimal for fat gain.

So, here are the protein rich foods, with some of my personal favorites:

Fish, Tuna, Salmon, Lobster, Crab, Eggs!

Meat, Beef, Pork, Liver, But all types of meat are high in protein. Because I am quite endomorphic I mostly eat lean meat during the day when I am trying to cut down. While bulking I eat all kinds of meat and even eggs combined with carbohydrates. But remember you are not me, if you can get away with eating high fat cheese, and huge plates of pasta with it, why not?

Poultry, I really like chicken, dairy, cottage cheese, milk, Yogurt, low fat cheese, soya, Nuts, walnuts, peanuts, cashew nuts, cereals and seaweed.

Good sources for essential fats

Since I am an endomorph I really only eat these sources of fat in the evening. If you can get away with it you could eat them all day though;

Oils from nuts, especially walnut oil is very very good!

Raw Nuts

Fatty Fish

Fatty vegetables

Olive-oil

Well, these were all my favourite powerfoods. There are a lot more, but by now you should have a good understanding of what foods you should eat and what you should avoid. This is also the last fundamental nutrition article for now. If you paid attention while reading all the fundamental nutrition articles, you should probably be feeling like a million bucks right now. Congratulation on changing your nutrition, you’ve made a giant leap toward lifelong happiness, weight control, energy, youth, strength and success! I would appreciate it if you could share your story and success since you’ve changed your nutrition in the forums.

You now know that you should eat natural unprocessed and whole foods. Later on this article series will contain a few lists of powerfoods listed by the nutrients they contain, and maybe some basic info. But before we get into that I need to teach you the 3 different types of nutrients. We got protein, carbohydrates and fats. Protein is made of amino-acids. In human nutrition there are only 8 essential amino-acids. The rest can be produced by the body itself. By eating a diverse diet with lots of foods from the powerfoods list you will easily get these 8 amino-acids, protein is not that difficult. Carbs and fats on the other hand require some more explanation

Simple and Complex Carbohydrates

We make difference between 2 types of carbohydrates. Simple carbohydrates are digested very quickly and raise blood sugar very quickly. They should only be eaten post workout in combination with a food that is high on the Insulin Index. This index determines how fast a food can raise the bodies insulin. The higher the number of the food, the bigger the fluctuation in insulin it can produce. The other type of carb is the complex carb(ohydrate). They take a long time to digest and tend to give long and steady supplies of energy to the body. They do not create big bloodsugar fluctuations, which is very good. If you learn to start your day with complex carbs, and eat 2-5 meals containing them (depending on your energy needs and bodytype) you will quickly adapt to burning complex carbohydrates and you will have a steady energetic feeling all day long. The only time you consume simple carbohydrates is right after workout. When you consume simple carbs you should always try to combine them with a food high on the insulin index chart to make the effect even more dramatic.  Your first 2 meals of the day should contain the biggest amounts of complex carbs, and you should decrease the amount of carbs each meal depending on your own needs. Endomorph’s should not eat too much carbs at all. I would advise them to eat 2-3 meals a day containing them. If you are not worried about gaining fat you could eat 3-5 meals containing complex carbs each day.

Insulin Index - Source: MMC Diet

Switching from simple to complex

Before you found my website you were probably living on simple carbohydrates all day long. As soon as you make the switch and dump all the sugar/simple carbs, and only eat them after workout it might take a few days for your body to adjust. You are a sugar-rush junky, and there is a possibility you need to go through “withdrawals” to kick your habit. This is no big deal really; it means that you will feel tired for 1-3 days. Most people take about 1 day to adapt to complex carbohydrates, but for some it can take longer. After you’ve adapted your live will be much better. You won’t feel the daily ups and downs in energy anymore, just one steady supply of energy. If you also apply all the other techniques and tricks from the articles the effect will be even more dramatic, but you will see that for yourself soon enough.

The different fatty acids

There are 3 different types of fats. First we got the saturated fats. Your body can not process them easily, and they should be avoided. They are not essential and are risky for your health when over consumed. You should avoid them at all cost. Check out food labels to see how much saturated fats a product contains. You can’t get away from consuming at least a little bit of it, but you really have to do your best to minimize it.

The second type is monounsaturated fat. They reduce cholesterol and are actually quite healthy for you. These fats are also high in vitamin E and should be consumed on a daily basis.

Third one is polyunsaturated fat. Omega 3 & 6 fish oil fall under this category. These are essential fatty acids since the body is not capable of producing these fats.

Now when you are trying to lose weight you are probably pretty scared for fat. But the unsaturated fats can actually help you a lot to lose weight, get an overall better looking appearance, and gain muscle. You should consume them with care though, since your bloodsugar and insulin should be low while consuming fats. That’s why I let most of my clients ingest their fats in their last 2 meals. And most of them take a tablespoon of oil before they go to bed. (With great results!).

Now, in the next article you can find the actual list of powerfoods!

Sources:
Insulin Index – MMC Diet

Fried Chicken - Tasty, but you can better avoid it, unless you want to look like Fats Domino, in that case, eat it!

This article-series is written to give you an idea of the top valuable foods, and what foods are worthless. It is in the fundamentals section which means it will not go really deep into the theory behind these foods, but just teach you the basics. This article just contains a small fraction of the healthy and unhealthy foods available, and you should definitely eat with much more variety than just the powerfoods I list here . This is just to give you a basic idea of what foods should definitely be eaten and what foods you can better avoid.

Whole Foods

Now the most important thing to keep in mind when you’re searching for powerfoods is that they should be as unprocessed as possible. Processed foods are always worse than unprocessed. The food industry just want to make as much money as possible and they do this by using all kinds of evil sugars and adding it to almost all products. Then they market the product like it is healthy, people believe them because of good marketing, and the people start eating bad food and the food industry starts making money. A good example is muesli. Go check out the label of unprocessed muesli and compare it to your supermarkets new hot super-sugar muesli. The difference is very big. They both contain mostly carbohydrates, but the unprocessed muesli exists almost entirely of non-sugar carbohydrates. The mass-production supermarket brand muesli is much higher in sugar. I understand that it is not practical to exclusively eat whole foods, but you should at least avoid all the garbage. Yeah, you know what garbage I’m talking about.

Garbage foods; everything that is fried, all fastfood like McDonalds and Burger King etc., almost all cookies and sweets, pot-pies, hot dogs, white bread, potato chips, doughnuts, corn chips, cake, chocolate, bager & cream cheese, muffins, meals that are prepared by the microwave, sultana bars, granola bars, mayonnaise, table sugar, salt, most dairy products, most peanut butters, and most things from the grill.

The list goes on and on, but I think you get the point by now. These foods are not only bad for your health, success, mental and physical energy, but most of them will actually make you feel bad too. Most of them contain ingredients designed to make you an addict, and give you a “sugar-rush”. After that sugar-rush is over you generally feel bad, (compared to what you COULD feel like when you eat a healthy and clean diet) and want more sugar. Now the worst sugar of them all that really destroys your physical appearance, mood, energy, and success is called;

High Fructose Corn Syrup

It is also known as glucose fructose syrup, glucose/fructose and high-fructose maize syrup. It is one of the most common replacements for sugar and it is used in a lot of products. It makes you fat, can cause you to be tired and it makes the food industry pretty rich, hehe. You will be amazed at how much better you will feel yourself if you avoid all garbage foods that I have listed above, and try to avoid products with added sugars like HFCS. You will also be amazed at how many foods actually contain this garbage! I dare you to go check the labels from the products that you eat on a daily basis right now, probably halve of them contain this or other added sugars. All these sugars make you insulin resistant and that is a very bad thing. You should make a good effort trying to avoid these ingredients. Especially if you have children, the stuff can cause ADHD like symptoms and destroy concentration at school.

Well, now that you’ve got a basic idea of what foods to avoid, you’re ready for the next article;

Storage

When the body gets supplied with nutrients it does not need at that time, it stores them for the future. We know this phenomenon as “gaining fat”. Fat gain especially occurs when carbohydrates are eaten when they are not necessary. Carbohydrates are great for fueling and refueling after training, but when you consume them when you are not in the need of fuel they are the number one reason for people getting fat.

Insulin

By controlling when you eat carbohydrates you also control your insulin levels. Controlling your insulin levels is something of great importance. Insulin is a storage hormone and acts on many cells in the body. It is secreted when carbohydrates are consumed. How much insulin will be secreted depends on the II (Insuline Index) of the carbohydrate. Some carbohydrates will digest slower than others and will give energy for a longer time. These are called “complex carbohydrates” and are very important to consume in the morning to sustain good energy levels through the day. You can learn more about complex carbohydrates, and insulin in the “powerfoods” articles. When insulin levels rise, the body becomes very anabolic. When this happens the body restores and refuels at a much faster pace. When you work out you burn big amounts of energy that is stored inside the muscle. When you make your insulin rise after a workout you will give your body the opportunity to replenish the burned fuel from your muscle. This is why it is important to eat fast digesting (simple) carbohydrates after your workout. They will increase your insulin levels and will be stored right into the muscle cells and be available for the next workout.

Insulin is great for building muscle and for making your body recover from exercise but it has a dark side too. When insulin is active you tend to gain fat at a very rapid pace. That’s why insulin needs to be controlled through the day and only peak at the moments that you need it the most. While your insulin is peaking you should avoid eating fats, as they will get stored very fast. That is why you should avoid combining fats and sugars in the same meal. This really is the most fat making combination there is. Things like pancakes with sugar for example, raise insulin like gasoline raises fire, and all the fats from the pancakes will go right to your gut.

Evening

After your post-workout meal you should cut back on the carbohydrates, and only eat foods that are low on the insulin index. How much you lessen your carb intake depends on your body-type. Endomorph’s should really avoid carbohydrates in the evening altogether, as they will make them very fat fast. Ectomorphs can get away with eating more carbs, but should cut down on them too because eating too much carbohydrates will decrease your insulin sensitivity.

In the evening your insulin and blood sugar should be as low as possible and this would be the best time to consume good fats. I myself train in the afternoon and eat my fats the last 3 meals of the day. (I eat 8 meals in total). If you train in the evening and use lots of fast carbohydrates/insulin raisers after your workout you should be more careful with fats since your bloods insulin levels will still be raised.

Some nutrient timing tips summed up:

1. Breakfast should be the biggest meal of the day and contain lots of slow digesting/complex carbohydrates. (oatmeal, bread, rice, potatoes) This is also a good time to eat fruit, and if you want to cheat your diet it would be best to do this during breakfast. Because you have fasted for all the hours you were sleeping your body is really screaming for food. You can get away with some cheating at breakfast much more easily than cheating in the evening.
2. Eat protein at every meal. It is best to get your protein from lean sources during the noon and afternoon, and combine lean protein with foods with lots of (slow digesting) carbohydrates in them. This is to avoid too many fats with high insulin levels. (Insulin will be high after breakfast, and be stable during the afternoon because of all the slow digesting carbohydrates.
3. Before working out eat something with a lot of protein in it!
4. After working out you should have a liquid post workout shake containing fast acting carbohydrates to raise blood sugar, high insulin index food to raise insulin, and protein to rebuild muscle tissue. (Most simple carbs are high on the insulin index anyway, but to get the most bang for your buck you should look at the list and find something that really skyrockets insulin) The reason this post workout shake has to be a liquid is because it will digest/absorb much faster. This does not have to be a fancy or expansive supplement. Something that works wonders is drinking halve a liter of water with 25-100grams (depending on how big you are and how endomorphic you are, endomorph’s should keep it on the low side) of maltodextrin in it. Combine this with something that contains a lot of protein, like 300gram of cottage cheese, and something that raises insulin really fast, like 300grams of yoghurt. This is much cheaper than expansive supplements, and contains much more valuable protein.
5. Your last or last 2 meals should contain almost no carbohydrates. Instead they should contain good fats and slow digesting protein. Fish, Eggs and meat for example. If you train relatively late keep the fats for your last meal only. Fats are needed in the night because your body makes all kinds of steroid and growth hormones from them!!
6. Keep hydrated through the whole day, but stop drinking 2-3 hours before you go to bed. This is to avoid your midnight pee, continuous sleep is preferred.

To better understand this article I really suggest reading the “powerfoods” article.