kal525

I have recently started the body for life program after lifting on and off for about 2 years and realizing that randomly wandering in the gym wasn't going to get me any results.

The first thing that strikes me about the body for life routine is that it really drains me and the workouts I have are very intense. The only thing is, I always feel like I could do more after the workout is done. Like if I waited another 5 minutes after the string of 5 sets with 1 min rest in between sets, I could probably do another exersice without any trouble. In the past, i used to do about 8 - 12 sets per muscle group with more rest and at the end of the workout I did not feel like I could lift another weight. I have to admit that it wasn't as intense, but still I felt like maybe I had made more progress.

I'm wondering, is this program actually helping me build new muslce, or just tone the existing ones that I have (is there even such a distinction?). Would it be better if I did more exercises, perhaps not working the entire upper body in one day?

It just doesn't seem like enough per muscle group for me, although the intensity of my focus when I do each exercise now is twofold what it used to be.

I'm open to any suggestions or comments you guys have.

tjwes

Do 10-12 sets for larger bodypartsand 6-8 for smaller ones.Train each bodypart once a week.Get out of the gym in 45-60 min. tops.This is bodybuilding not making some guy rich by buying his book.You should be making gains not Bill Phillips,he`s got enough money.Train Hard!!

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OceanDude

Kal,
I am a BFL veteran myself but a very armature bodybuilder – I’m in it really for the health, fitness, quality of life and aesthetic factors. BFL is structured predominantly for fat loss and preservation and light-to-moderate gain of lean tissue/muscle. However, some on BFL have had very impressive lean body mass gains simultaneous with fat loss (perhaps a genetic advantage). The old adage that you can’t optimize fat loss and muscle gain at the same time are probably true for most of us (but having good results on both ain’t bad either). But many of us on BFL have had remarkable fat loss results simultaneous with fair to moderate lean mass gains. In my case I managed to lose 40 lbs of fat while gaining 7 lbs of lean body mass/muscle in only 14-16 weeks on the program – 100% natural (primarily through insulin management and manipulation with foods/nutrition intrinsic to the program). But I think your question is really getting more into the two competing schools of thought on Intensity training verses Volume training. Frankly because of age and who my role models were/are when I was growing up I am a bit biased toward the old school of volume lifting thinkers. But am still intrigued with and study the mavericks such as Mike Mentzer (perhaps one of the first to advocate intensity). But I believe that Intensity training can get you optimum muscle growth too (albeit perhaps different muscle density tone than the volume lifters) if you really do it right and use nutrition correctly. Being a bit of a maverick myself I in fact modified BFL to use more of the volume approaches with lots of sets and declining pyramid type routines and feel that I got some remarkable strength improvements (predominantly through neurological efficiency gains) but also got some fair mass gains. Also, BFL does not even mention the importance of rest in the program but I think it’s kind of built in (to make it idiot proof) with the alternating days of intensity lifting and cardio/HIIT and minimum time called out in the gym. You might want to consider using BFL to get your BF% down (if you have this problem) while preserving lean mass or even making some gains then switching over to a mass program when you can optimize mass gains with the envious position of having low body fat. Good Luck.

P.S. I ended uyp having to split out my upper body workout into 2 - 3 seperate days on BFL to get me out of the gym in under an hour - but again this was because I went to more of a volume approach where I always tried to hit my "10's" on each and every set - declining the weights down as I exhausted...

"Doc, If I had known I was going to live this long I would have taken better care of myself..."

Est unusquisque faber ipsae suae fortunae.

We Americans scoff at the likes of African witch doctors yet spend 100's of millions of dollars on fake reducing systems.

The only regular exercise he gets is stretching the truth.

His intellect is not replenished, he is only an animal, only sensible in the duller parts...

kal525

Thanks for the replies, but I guess i'm kind of confused when you said that you can't optimize fat loss and muscle gain at the same time. Why would this be true if lifting weights helps burn fat, as does cardio exercise. I'm not that concerned with fat loss since my BF is about 12%, although having it lower would be even better, i definitely need some cardio work though. In terms of the intensity vs volume training, am i right in thinking that intensity training will give your muscles better form, while volume training will actually make you gain strength? I've read so much on this topic of tone vs strength that I'm pretty confused now. Sometimes i hear that toning the muslce is strengthening it and vice versa.

Here's another one, who says you can't do intensity and high volume training at the same time. Why not to the BFL routine and wait 5 minutes, then do it all over again, it would be intense, yet you'd be doing more than 5 sets. I'm not looking to only tone my muscles, I want to be stronger in actuality and appearance, I don't want it to be "for show." So am I following the right program if this is my goal, or should I rethink my strategy?

OceanDude

Kal525 I have a few additional comments that may or may not clarify portions of my post. I’ll give it a shot:

Like you I naturally don’t want to believe this either and like most of us I hate to be told anything is “not possible” and buck like hell against such notions. But, we have to live in the real world too. From the best I have been able to gather in my current readings and what makes some scientific sense to me: the body is simply not designed to be able to simultaneously optimize both the process of burning fat and maximizing muscle growth. I think we are simply in a semantic disconnect on this point. Please understand that I personally am NOT saying that both growth and fat loss can’t happen concurrently in the same time period (time periods measured in terms of days/weeks/months –but not by moment to moment heart beats – {I believe it actually happens in overlapping waves of time}) but instead asserts that you probably are not to get the BEST possible results if you had focused on one or the other. This makes sense to me since it is consistent with a number of recurring scientific principals abundantly found in nature - e.g. specialization, selective adaptation, energy balance/capacity and energy conversion inefficiencies between primary and alternate systems. Only God know for sure why we are set up this way – I suspect because he didn’t want us to be machine like and wanted us to make choices about what was important to us. But, if fat could be burned efficiently and directly as a preferred fuel (independent of any lag in the conversion process), or as a metabolically equivalent fuel to glycogen AND it could be just as readily converted to amino acids (to have the raw building material available for new muscle tissue) then perhaps it would be possible for the body to simultaneously optimize both processes. Alas, none of these conditions are true and we humans have our common genetic bio-system inefficiencies (on the positive side: theoretically a higher probability of the specifies surviving) derived from thousands of years of evolution to learn to live with. Who knows, we may yet evolve to a hunk of lean muscle with no brain in the next iteration of evolution – then we won’t have to even bother thinking about it. But, since our fat storage/utilization pathway is geared toward long term survival rather than getting aesthetically big muscles in time for next week’s photo shoot we should not be surprised that this is the case.

I think most people would have cut it much shorter and simply stated something like: You can’t lose fat without inducing a calorie deficit through nutritional energy reduction or increased activity/energy expenditure and you can’t gain muscle with out increasing physiological stress and adaptation in the presence of an energy surplus and an abundant supply of amino acids. Since amino acids are not stored and can only be obtained through a net increase in nutritional input and fat can not be efficiently converted to fuel sufficient to sustain growth (in fact it wants to shed energy load asserted by muscle tissue) both processes are largely mutually exclusive.”

I am going to punt on this one – there are many competing theories on this. My personal belief, formed mostly from anecdotal accounts is that the volume type lifters have a much more dense appearance and hard muscle texture than do the intensity only kind of lifters. Both forms induce physiological stress and natural adaptation so they both produce growth and strength. I personally don’t know which is superior. Perhaps someone other will weigh in on this.

I’m not suggesting that you can’t do this. But what you are describing is not the “BFL program”. You will get very strong on the BFL routines as stated – I can’t assert it will be optimal since I just don’t know. But I do know you will cut up and you will even grow more lean mass. Frankly I kind of subscribe to some of Joe Weider’s principals – in particular the “Instinctive Training Principal”. In the end only YOU know what is really working for YOU. If you feel like you can handle such an intense workout and are getting more than a marginally better improvement in growth/strength without putting yourself in bed for days recuperating then by all means go for it. But you may want to get the advise of a more seasoned bodybuilder since I find basic BFL ass kicking enough and it can knock me off my donkey for hours …

Good Luck

"Doc, If I had known I was going to live this long I would have taken better care of myself..."

Est unusquisque faber ipsae suae fortunae.

We Americans scoff at the likes of African witch doctors yet spend 100's of millions of dollars on fake reducing systems.

The only regular exercise he gets is stretching the truth.

His intellect is not replenished, he is only an animal, only sensible in the duller parts...

kal525

thanks again for the reply oceandude. However, I'm still very skeptical about not being able to lose muscle and burn fat at the same time. The BFL program is built on the foundation of burning fat and building muscle isn't it? That's all the guy talks about.

Here's how I see it, although I may be over simplifying it:
Eat healthy, 6 meals a day, protein, carbs, fatty acids, vitamins, etc. Do aerobic exercise every day and burn more than you take in. Without a doubt here, you are going to lose fat.

Now add to this, heavy weight lifting every other day, or perhaps every day alternating muscle groups, and you are going to build muscle, even more so because of the healthy protein rich diet mentioned above.

Am I going to gain weight, maybe, am I going to stay the same weight, probably, but am I going to gain fat, I just don't see how. Any weight that I gain will be a result of additional muscle mass, any weight that I lose will be because of fat loss.

From what you wrote, it sounds like you're saying that you have to starve yourself to lose fat, and if you do this, you obviously won't have the enrgy and correct nutrition in your body to build any muscle:

"You can’t lose fat without inducing a calorie deficit through nutritional energy reduction... "

So are you saying that you have to get fat to build muscle? One of the main things Bill Philips talks about is how building muscle helps burn fat.

I do agree with you on the whole do what you think is right for you approach, because everyone is different and responds differently to the type of intensity invoked by heavy weight training.

In my case, I can exert myself on the BFL program 100% and I know that 5 minutes later I will be able to repeat an exercise for the same muscle group and have it benefit me more without damaging any muscle, because my muscles just don't feel tired 20 minutes after the workout, it feels like I didn't work out. I think I needed the direction and record keeping aspect of BFL to start me out, but I think I am going to add a few more sets and work until I feel like my muscles have had enough. The only problem here is figuring out the frequency of training since it's probalby not realistic to train the entire upper body in this way since i'd be in the gym for over an hour (I'm not sure what makes this bad, but everyone says it is).

I think that's it for now, let me know what you think of all that, and feel free to let me know where i'm wrong.

OceanDude

Kal525 , I think you have a typo there. I am NOT saying anything about not being able to lose muscle – but I think I know what you intended to say. The BFL program is based on the foundation of effective nutrition (with supplementation), effective aerobic (and anaerobic) conditioning, effective resistance training, effective planning, effective discipline/commitment (and some positive vibes/reciprocity principals). It so happens that this foundation will burn fat and “build” muscle in kind of a self stoking metabolic furnace; and do so VERY effectively. But the overwhelming focus on BFL is to get body fat levels to healthy limits and to sustain this condition over one’s entire life. Lets be frank – the people on BFL are not professional body builders they are the tens of thousands of average everyday fat and obese individuals who are struggling to get their health back, get positive self esteem and look good and feel good about themselves. BFL is not designed to produce legions of champion level bodybuilders with freaky large disproportionate muscles that require constant maintenance and tuning to sustain. Successful BFL people are those individuals that have developed well above average strength to weight ratios, proportionate and aesthetic muscle development, healthy body fat levels (15% or better for men, 20% or better for women), look good, feel good and can sprint like a cheatta for short distances and run like a deer over long distances. Some, if not many, take it to higher levels and become champions on par with many fitness magazine models and bodybuilders whom have spend many years to get to the same levels that they have done in less than a year. It’s an “effective” program for these kinds of goals.

Bill Phillips is somewhat silent about using BFL concepts to get larger and more massive muscles since that is not his focus on this program. I am certain that he would say up the intensity (common philosophy in BFL) and give specific guidance on additional caloric intake for such an objective.

No Kal525 I am NOT saying this. I am saying that you can build muscle fastest by starting out from a relatively lean condition (at least 15% BF or lower), upping the lifting intensity (or volume) and taking in additional calories (about 500 cals above TDEE [Total Daily Energy Expenditure] in my case) at the proper macro nutrient ratios (I personally think maybe on the order of 5% higher on protein and 5% higher on essential fats from the BFL standard 40/40/20 carb/protein/fat with the caveat not less than 1 gm per lb LBM of protein and not more than 1.4gm per lb). But ask a mass gain expert what they think about for the caloric surplus since this is the place where if you go to high you will put on unwanted fat. You will likely get some fat but it won’t be too much if you go slow. But you are right, any residual fat gained, if not too great will easily be consumed by the increased metabolic activity of the new lean tissue in short order – all else being constant.

Kal525 – this was precisely my challenge – getting out of the gym in under an hour. Since I was focused on fat loss as my “PRIMARY, mission #1, nothing on the planet gonna stop me” objective, I added in high intensity interval training (HIIT) after each and every lifting day to get additional fat burn activity and elevated metabolic levels. This put me in the gym longer than I wanted but it was in my opinion well worth it. I ended up doing as you mentioned – breaking part of my upper body workout into multiple days so I could do more volume training on each specific muscle group while maintaining my additional HIIT/anarobic routine. I even considered going to multiple sessions in a single day (morning/afternoon) but elected instead to have a life.

Good Luck you – the number 1 success factor is having the motivation and commitment to do it and the necessary knowledge to “not spin your wheels” ineffectively.

"Doc, If I had known I was going to live this long I would have taken better care of myself..."

Est unusquisque faber ipsae suae fortunae.

We Americans scoff at the likes of African witch doctors yet spend 100's of millions of dollars on fake reducing systems.

The only regular exercise he gets is stretching the truth.

His intellect is not replenished, he is only an animal, only sensible in the duller parts...

bludevil

I think BFL is a great way to get back into or start the bodybuilding/healthy lifestyle. This will get you into a better mind-set. Once you finish your 12 week cycle then start looking into other avenues for training and nutrition. Overall, I think BFL is a great start (but only a start).