Muscle Ventures Podcasts

In this 14 minute podcast (Quicktime, 26.3 MB; Google Video, no download), Nancy Arnold and I (Bud) discuss at length the role of nutrition during the hypertrophy mesocycle of our new periodization training program. The motivations for this discussion were many. As Nancy was going through the preparations for her last show, all she did was cut calories to gain definition. Her diet guru, Kevin, discussed at length the difficulties of getting women to lose weight, and women in fitness competitions consider diet to be 80% of the preparation. The goals for controlling weight are well-defined, but there is much less emphasis on how to effectively gain weight as is required in the hypertrophy phase.

The emphasis on body fat control is heightened by the recommendation in our periodization book, Serious Strength Training, that men target a body fat percentage of 10% as they attempt to gain muscle. On my blog, Michigan Muscle Boy, male lifters expressed that this goal would be hard for them to attain. Well, what's the recommendation for women? Particularly in light of the fact that women's essential body fat is typically considered to be around 12% or above. Below that level, menstruation stops and general health is at risk. For competitions, top-end women bodybuilders target in the 6–10% range, in other words below essential body fat. In the long run, as Nancy and I remark, that level is not sustainable.

However, Nancy is willing to dip down there for competitions largely because she does not view it as putting her too at risk.

In the second half of the conversation, we return to the question of how much weight to gain. As Chris Dorr points out in a discussion on Michigan Muscle Boy, if you weigh more, you can lift more, and that's what hypertrophy is all about. Nancy mentions that she would like to gain 5 lbs. of muscle in a given year. I suggest that is a bit light. But again, how high can a woman go in a year? Most men, with the right training regimen, could easily do 10 lbs or more in a year. But, men have testosterone. As of this conversation, it was unclear what was a good target for women.

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• As we discuss in the podcast, medically approved products exist that tout as their main benefit lengthening the time between women's periods.