Four Week Challenge #01: Experiment in Rapid Muscle Growth, Part 1
This month’s Four Week Challenge, the first Four Week Challenge, stemmed from a blog post by Timothy Ferriss, master of efficiency and author of The 4-Hour Workweek.
His post, “From Geek to Freak, How I gained 34 lbs of Muscle in 4 Weeks”, gives a vague outline, with impressive results, of his 4 week fitness experiment after intensive research into muscular hypertrophy. Here’s a quote from his blog post:
I weighed 152 lbs. for four years of high school, and after training in tango in Buenos Aires in 2005, that had withered to 146 lbs. Upon returning to the US, I performed an exhaustive analysis of muscular hypertrophy (growth) research and exercise protocols, ignoring what was popular to examine the hard science. The end result? I gained 34 lbs. of muscle, while losing 3 lbs. of fat, in 28 days.
Now, I’m not a big guy by any means. In fact, in high school, at 5′ 9″ and 145 lbs., I had pretty much accepted that I was genetically predisposed to not being able to build muscle mass, despite playing hockey year-round for 8 years, often on 2-3 teams at a time. I’ve made feeble attempts at rigorous nutrition/fitness regimens and never stuck to them. I’ve been rock climbing for two and a half years now (with about 8 months off last year), but even still, rock climbing doesn’t build very much muscle mass, though it does tone your shoulders and back.
So, naturally, when I came across Tim’s post, methods, and evidence, I was intrigued.
Understanding the Method Tim Used
If you’ve read his post by now, you’ll notice that he gives some, but not very much, information on how he gained this muscle mass. He outlines these key factors:
- Follow the recommendations from The Colorado Experiment with slight changes. Ultimately: two workouts a week, perform each exercise in one set and go to muscle failure, 3 minutes of rest between exercises.
- Perform each rep with a five second up and five second down cadence.
- Focus on no more than 4-7 multi-joint exercises
- Eat large amounts of protein. One day a week, drop calories by 50%. Another day a week is your free day to eat whatever you’d like. If it’s lots of sugar, etc, even better.
- Record your workouts and nutrition in detail.
The Structure of This Four Week Challenge
Given those guidelines and some additional research into building muscle mass that I completed, there are still a couple of pieces that I feel are important to add here.
First, Tim’s method has a focus on eating carbohydrates with a low glycemic index. To be honest, I’m not well versed in nutrition, though I do know that the glycemic index has gained significant reputability in the past few years. If I continue this even further (which I plan to take a month off from it after this first month, then come back to it in an adjusted manner for another month), I will be researching this more and incorporating it into my regimen. For now, I’m removing the consideration, even though I may already be following it.
Second, he doesn’t elaborate on a specific detail of The Colorado Experiment that I have made certain to incorporate into this regimen. That is…
The order of exercises is extremely important here. In order to bring a muscle group to “failure” in only one set, it’s important to use a complimentary, compound exercise directly following the first exercise. For example, if you are working your chest, you may perform a set of flyes. Directly following that set, you would want to consider another exercise that utilizes your chest muscles, but also makes use of additional muscle groups to help continue exercising your chest. In my workout, for example, I follow flyes with a wide-grip inclined bench press. This not only works the chest, but also makes use of the shoulders to help push the chest muscles even further. Following this exercise, you might consider performing a set of an exercise that makes use of the shoulders and the back, for example.
Finally, The Colorado Experiment recommends making use of resistance machines in a certain manner to increase the intensity of the workout. If you have access to resistance machines, then I would definitely fully interpret and undertand this principle of the system. I don’t have access to resistance machines, so I used my home gym which consists of a barbell, ez-bar, and dumbbells. For the sake of the publicity of this experiment, I think that using equipment that’s generally more accessible to people will make the challenge more within people’s reach.
Nutrition and Fitness Metrics
Fitness:
Again, I’m documenting this as much as is reasonable for the average person at home. I picked up a MyoTape Body Tape Measure
Also, since I am doing this to ultimately help my rock climbing (I boulder, for those who are interested), I am climbing on Mondays, Tuesdays before workouts, and Fridays before workouts. This schedule allows me to still climb a fair amount while not compromising my recovery periods which are essential for this fitness regimen.
Nutrition:
Every day, I record my intake of calories, protein, carbohydrates, sugars, fat, and saturated fat. The reason I chose these is because they *seem* like the best metrics to record. Very scientific. I know. The main measurements I really keep an eye on, however, are calories, protein, and carbohydrates. Again, this is for simplicity, accessibility, and to see how aggressive I want to take it if I decide to move forward with it. The only day that I do not measure this intake is on Saturdays, my day off. On Thursdays, I cut my calories by 50%.
Nutrition and Fitness Regimen Details
Fitness:
To keep things simple, I spent a lot of time designing a single workout routine to be used throughout the four weeks. This routine takes me one hour to complete. I also highly recommend using the book I found best for designing my workout system, Men’s Health Home Workout Bible
- Here’s the list of exercises in the order that I perform them:
- Alternating Pullover
- Incline Crunch
- Flyes
- Wide-Grip, Incline Bench Press
- Prone Scarecrow
- Close Grip, Decline Bench Press
- Bent, One-Arm Row
- Drag Curl
- 45 Degree Prone Curl
You’ll notice that there are no leg exercises in my regimen. This is solely due to the desire for this to impact climbing. As a climber, extra mass in your legs only hurts. Keeping this in mind, this does not bring my entire body into “maximum hormonal response.” That said, after this 4 week challenge, I will be adding regular cardio to a modification of this regimen.
Nutrition Targets:
Calories: Because I’m also trying to lose body fat percentage, my caloric intake is usually between 1600-2000 calories. Just under the recommended daily value.
Protein: Almost every bit of research into gaining muscle mass that I’ve come across recommends at least 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight in order to build muscle. My protein intake is generally around 200+ grams, or 1.3 grams per pound of body weight. This is 400%+ the recommended daily value.
Carbohydrates: Because I’m focusing on lean meats, protein shakes, egg whites, and lentils as foundations for most of my meails, carbohydrates intake has naturally been reduced to around 150 grams, or 50% of the daily recommended value.
Baseline Measurements
Finally, here are my baseline measurements as taken on Monday, June 04, 2007, the day I began this regimen:
Weight: 159.5 lbs
Bodyfat %: 12.9%
Neck: 15 1/16″
Chest, Nipples: 36 7/16″
Shoulders: 45 3/4″
Thigh: 22 1/2″
Calf: 13″
Upper Arm: 13″
Forearm: 11″
Waist, Bellybutton: 32 1/2 ”
Hips, Buttox: 37 ” (I have a nicely protruding ass.)
All measurements, other than measurements around the nipples and the bellybutton, were taken at the widest point of that body part.
Desired Goals
The first thing that intrigues me about this Four Week Challenge is that I want to see what it’s like to actually stick to a rigid fitness and nutrition regimen for one month. I don’t intend to make this a strict habit, especially as I really enjoy new food, though I could see the workout habit continuing and evolving.
I am also interested in seeing how much muscle mass I can gain. Referencing changing beliefs as being critical in The Process of Manifestation, I am looking for specific evidence that I can gain significant muscle mass. I know I can, and now I want to see how much.
Finally, I’m looking to lose body fat percentage. Because muscle mass in your legs and waist has negative benefit in climbing, I want it off. Narcissistically, I’ve never looked great and am toying with the idea of trying to achieve that.
- Here are my specific goals:
- To stick rigidly to this regimen every single day.
- To gain 2 inches in my bicep.
- To reduce my body fat percentage to 10% or less
Aggressive goals, yes, so we’ll see how it goes.
Finally, if you’ve been considering a fitness regimen and/or a nutritional program, I hope that this helps to make the idea much more of a reality for you and hopefully incites you to find a system that works for you or follow along with this one. I did start this last week, so I’ll have a “Week 1″ update shortly, and will have a progress update every Monday through July 02.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to the RSS feed!
Posted on: June 12, 2007
Category: Muscle Growth, Health & Fitness, Four Week Challenges |
Comments
3 Responses to “Four Week Challenge #01: Experiment in Rapid Muscle Growth, Part 1”
Leave a Reply
-
Subscribe Here
Subscribe to Entries
I will be following your progress.
Just completed my month of geek2freak. I gained about 4+ lbs, but started losing fat, then gained muscle. My results were less than I expected, but I didn’t prepare half as well as you did.
Best of luck!
I’m getting close to the end of my own 4 week challenge using Tim’s workout and diet plan. I am slightly more muscular and slightly less fat. Certainly nowhere near the 34 lbs of muscle that Tim gained. I describe the exact workout I follow, details of the diet, and I keep a daily log of everything I eat here:
http://www.4weekstofit.com
It will be interesting to see how the program works for you. Thanks for posting.
Darren
I do not want to burst anyones bubble but the statement that he gained 34 lbs of muscle in 28 days is simply a lie. There is not a chemical or natural way to put on 34 lbs of lean muscle in one year much less than 1 month. Start by simply telling the truth and not misleading other people who are truly working out hard and getting noticable gains that are only achieved through hard work. I would challenge anyone on this blog to prove me wrong but It cannot be done..