I want to share a fundamental truth of training. One that’s as true of the athletes I coached at the Under Armor Performance Center ten years ago, as it is for the recreational trainees I coach now. Chasing novelty is the fastest way to sabotage your progress and spin your…
This may shock some of you, but my advice to physique competitors after a contest is to get fat again. I wish I could tell you that you could stay shredded all year, but you can’t. Your priority must be regaining body fat to healthy levels before trying to find…
Picture this: You’ve finally finished cutting. You’re now lean enough to bulk and excited to finally eat a good amount again. What’s the last thing you want to do? — Gain back a bunch of the fat you’ve just lost. What’s the first thing that most people do? — Gain…
When we bulk, we want to maximize our rate of muscle gain while minimizing fat gain. (I talked about the consequences of failing to do the latter here.) But how do we do that? To recap from my guide to bulking: Train sufficiently hard and often enough, so your body…
As already discussed, past a certain point, we need to alternate bulk and cut phases to keep progressing. This is the only way to continue gaining muscle over time while managing body fat levels. To do that, we need to make calorie and macro adjustments. This is because our energy…
If you are anything like me, once upon a time, you dreamt of getting as jacked as your favorite movie star. (Being an 80s child, naturally, mine was Arnold Schwarzenegger.) You gave up on that dream when you realized the level of steroid abuse that would require. So you set…
There are two types of assessment and adjustment needed to be successful. The first involves assessing your initial calorie calculations and correcting them if you need to do so. I will cover this for both bulking and cutting in this article. The second type are the ongoing adjustments needed to…
In my articles on how to set calorie intake and when to bulk vs cut, I presented the following sketches representing fat, muscle, and weight changes for cutting and recomp phases over several months: But in reality, the body weight line will look more like this: The short-term fluctuations rule…
We need to make adjustments to our calorie intake as we diet if we’re to be successful with our fat loss goals. This is because a calorie and macro calculator can only give estimations, and our energy needs change over time due to various compensatory mechanisms. Weight fluctuations often mask…
“Andy, everyone tells me my calories are too low, but I’m not losing weight.I’m 6’2″, 200lbs, and I cycle 40 minutes to work and back each day, and I play tennis or hit the gym 6 days a week. I’m consistently eating between 1800 to 2000 calories each day.Am I…
Meet Rick. When we began working together in November, Rick weighed 231 pounds. He said, “I really just wanted to be able to go to the public pool and play with my boys without being embarrassed to take my shirt off.” 8 months later, Rick weighed 187 pounds. That’s 44…
Turkesterone! The same muscle-building benefits of anabolic steroids, but without the side effects or legal consequences of taking them? — Sounds a bit too good to be true. But is it? Absolutely. 🤣 What Is Turkesterone? Turkesterone is a type of phytoecdysteroid. These are compounds that plants use to defend…
My write-up about Steve’s recomp results that I shared last week was a hit. You loved the level of detail. So as promised, here’s another… I’m often asked whether it’s possible to achieve a good physique after 40, 45, or 50? (Whatever age the person asking me happens to be.) 👉 Hell yes, you can! I…
If I told you that one of my clients, Steve, lost only 8 lbs in 9 months, you might consider that a poor result. But look at the difference! Clearly, there was more than just 8 lbs of fat loss. But how much? How can we tell? What are the lessons here?…
Last week, I ended our group coaching program, ‘The Ripped Body Cut Club.’ This may come as a surprise. It was during a week I announced to my email list that I was accepting applications for the second cohort of members. But it was the right thing to do for…
A recent meta-analysis looked at all the studies assessing the acute impact of citrulline malate supplementation on strength endurance. Compared to placebo, it appears that supplementing with 6-8 g of Cit.Mal., preferably in a 2:1 ratio, about an hour before exercise, delays fatigue and enhances strength performance.
Q) Hi Andy, am I lean enough to bulk? A) This is something I help coaching clients decide on all the time. If you’re past the point where you’re achieving both muscle growth and fat loss at the same time, you need to choose between cutting and bulking. And if…
I shared the meme above on my Instagram recently that had a pretty divisive reaction. Whenever someone tells me they listened to a Tim Ferriss or Joe Rogan podcast and want to ask my thoughts on what they heard, I wish I could whip out that memory wiping device from…
Experience tells me that most people don’t know how to use a calorie and macro calculator. People get in their heads that they can calculate their macros, and if they adhere for long enough, they’ll get shredded (or jacked, if you’re bulking). But unfortunately, macro calculators don’t work like that….
Will a protein shake break my fast? Q) Hey, I’ve heard you recommend having a protein shake before my morning workout. Doesn’t that break my fast? A) I’ve been skipping breakfast for the past 10 years. Many of my online coaching clients opt to do that as well. This is…
I’m occasionally asked why I only take on male clients, understandably so, and I want to give a detailed answer on camera because I think my female audience deserves one. Now I could sit here and tell you that the reason I choose to work with men, is because I…
Do Ab Workouts Burn Belly Fat? You can do ab-specific exercises at any body-fat level. But should you? I’d argue that most people should not. Only two things will get you ripped abs. 👉 First, you must be lean enough to see them. 👉 Second, you need abs developed enough…
I nearly quit the industry 9 years ago because of a small group of very vocal haters. There were people who could not stand that I was blogging about Martin Berkhan’s Leangains principles, and they used to cuss me out endlessly on Reddit. There was a guy who ran a…
I’m no fan of supplements. I despise the sleaze of the supplement industry. However, as I said in my supplements for fat loss and muscle growth guide, of all those claiming to improve performance out there, creatine is one of only two with vast amounts of research showing benefits. But,…
You know that your macro calculations are just a start point, and you will need to adjust your diet to keep progressing. But what are you likely to see in your body measurement and scale weight progress tracking data? What’s normal? What signals that you’re doing something wrong? If you…
All forms of stress in your life dip into the same pool of what we will call (for simplicity’s sake) “adaptive reserves.” Essentially, your body has both a specific response to each specific stressor it encounters (for example, if you stress your muscles with weight training, they get bigger and…
I like to joke that Vitamin S is the most potent supplement any trainee can take. Sufficient sleep! Poor sleep when dieting will lead to muscle losses. Similarly, when bulking, insufficient sleep makes it harder to accrue muscle. This means more of the caloric surplus you eat will be stored…
What RPE is and why you should care about it Hi, it’s Eric Helms here. Andy helped me create The Muscle and Strength Pyramid books and I’m happy to have this opportunity to talk about something I studied for my PhD and is close to my heart – Rating Perceived…
In the Nutrition Setup Guide, I talked about using body-fat percentage to guide your decisions on when to cut, bulk, and chase recomp (simultaneous muscle gain and fat loss) phases. But as I firmly stated, ALL the body-fat measurement methods we have available have horrible inaccuracies on an individual level,…
The 2020 version of The RippedBody Nutrition Setup Guide is finally here. It combines an ebook, macro calculator, and 7-day email course guiding people through all the ways people commonly screw it up. Think of it as the less-advanced cousin of The Muscle and Strength Nutrition Pyramid book. The original…
If you can’t get to the gym, you don’t need a new training program, you just need to know how to adapt your current program to train at home. This guide will show you how.
It’s more than 50 years since we figured out how to put a man on the moon. And yet, with all our technological advancements since, we live in a world where 95% of people fail their diets. We fail because we attempt to oversimplify things by following stupid fad diets…
The first thing to understand is that there are no “training plans for over the 40s / 50s / 60s” (or diet plans for that matter). You might see things advertised as such, but this is just marketing BS — advertisers preying on fears people have that they are doing…
It’s not so much that I don’t work with CrossFitters but that I want to be able to control the training inputs. A lot of fitness classes (all kinds, not just CF classes) are about getting people to work hard, sweat, and feel good afterward But how much you sweat…
Keto is trendy right now, in a way that the paleo diet was a few years ago, and many other diets before it. The problem is that when something trends, the algorithm’s reward extreme claims. The loudest voices rise to the top, muddying the waters for all…
I had a friend tell me the other day that he can’t drink dairy. “I also learned I should lift with high reps because my body type isn’t suited to strength work, and I need to do HIIT cardio to optimize fat burn.” Oh boy, people rarely respond well to…
In this article, I argue that for simplicity, people should count all carbs (including sugar alcohols) as 4 kcal per gram, and ignore the net carb concept. Only counting ‘net carbs’ is a mistake. If you google, “what are net carbs?” you currently get this pop up first: “The term…
I’ve made changes to the rates I recommend people aim to gain weight at when bulking. This was sparked when I received a comment from a reader last week on the Calorie and Macro Calculator, asking why the calculations there did not match what I have in my How To Bulk Without…
This article focuses on the extra nutritional considerations for vegan readers looking to minimize any performance and muscle gain compromises. There are three key areas: protein quality and quantity, fat intake, and the supplementation that may be necessary. In late 2019 I wrote an article titled “Debunking ‘The Game Changers’…
For Thanksgiving (or Christmas), the main thing is that you don’t use it as an excuse to binge eat. I imagine you’ll eat a very good-sized meal and probably have a dessert too. At the high end, that’ll be something like 1500 kcal over your usual consumption for the day….
‘The Game Changers’ documentary is little more than a cleverly-disguised attempt to scare people into being vegan with false health and performance claims. Netflix benefits their view count from the outrage; the backers (James Cameron, among them) benefit financially from their vegan product investments. There are plenty of legitimate reasons…
This calculator is built on the back of 9 years of experience coaching people online, full time. They’re based on the recommendations in my book, The Muscle and Strength Nutrition Pyramid, which is a 290-page, fully-referenced guide for powerlifters and physique athletes. But if you think you wondering whether the…
It is absolutely possible to gain strength while cutting. However, in this article, I argue that focusing on strength alone can lead to poor training decisions, I explain why true progress becomes increasingly difficult the leaner we get, and I give guidelines on what to expect. Dieting, cutting, shredding the…
Reverse dieting — the latest thing the fitness kids have decided to flex their orthorexia about. I thought this shit had died a few years ago, but alas, I’m getting a fair few questions about recently, so let me put this one to bed before explaining how to finish a…
I’m excited to announce that the second editions of The Muscle and Strength Pyramid books I co-authored with Eric Helms and Andrea Valdez are now available on Amazon!
In bodybuilding, middle deltoid development is important to make you appear wider and tapered. Due to this, I often see emphasis placed on lateral raise variations and hear the concern that without their inclusion, delt development will lack. While I don’t dispute the importance of lateral raises (you will even…
If you’re a fan of boxing or MMA, you may have wondered how professional fighters can walk around in the ring some 15–20 lbs heavier than they weighed in the day before. The answer, for the most part, involves an extreme level of water manipulation. Professional fighters with a 24-hour…
We all find ourselves struggling at a specific point of lift, at some time or another. Addressing sticking points might be a more efficient way to attack the weakest link in the chain of a movement, and therefore a faster way to increase strength. If you have stalled with traditional…
Everyone starts their journey by taking a pre-built training program and trying it out. I made my first program choice after a three-minute perusal of my local supermarket’s magazine rack. That month’s copy of Men’s Health advertised a program promising 10 pounds of gains in 6 weeks, which was exactly…
This is possibly one of the most important articles I have ever published. It addresses how to break through a training plateau, which is probably one of the most commonly asked questions on the internet, along with, “How do I break through a bench press plateau?” — The principles, whether…
A caloric deficit doesn’t have to come entirely from the diet, and you probably guessed that adding some cardiovascular work to expend more energy rather than restricting your energy intake alone, could also be useful. A simple way to estimate energy expenditure during cardio requires you to determine a rating…
The “should I bulk or cut?” question is probably the most commonly asked among the fitness community. This is for a good reason — the answer to this question depends on more than just your current body composition.
The term ‘energy availability’ refers to whether or not you have adequate energy to maintain not only the energy demands of exercise or sport but also of normal physiological function. You can be at energy balance, maintaining a stable body mass, but be in a state of ‘relative energy deficiency’…
Some people really overcomplicate their warm-ups. Do ALL the people I see on the stretch mats have issues that require a 30-minute complex of body pretzeling before hitting the weights? I think not. The majority are just mimicking others, avoiding getting the real work done…
Keto is currently trendy, and I’m sick of answering questions about it. So, what does the science say about high-fat diets for people that lift like us? Here’s an excerpt on the topic from our Muscle and Strength Pyramid Nutrition book.
What I am about to tell you is obvious but often overlooked: To achieve your physique goals, you need to make a habit of the actions that will get you there. I have to remind clients of this when they beat themselves up unnecessarily after a single slip up. “We are the product of…
“I’ve coached over 1000 people in the last 7 years of working online. You know the biggest lesson I have learned from all of that experience? 👉🏻 The value of keeping things as simple as possible for people. Set things up in a way you can sustain – Two big…
If you keep finding yourself frustratingly short of hitting one or two of your macros at the end of the day, this guide will teach you how to fix that. The implicit assumption I’m making is that you understand the benefits of focusing on macro targets, have calculated your macros, learned…
Here’s a little protein powder scam that few people know about: supplement manufacturers dumping cheap ingredients into their powders so that they can pass tests to claim a higher protein content than they truly have. Scandalous, right? Well, that’s the supplement industry for you. Here’s how it happens and what to…
Is it better to take Branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs) or whey protein when training fasted? Though the difference in outcome is likely small, it is exactly this kind of question that clients pay me to know and advise them on. If you do your weight training fasted (in the morning…
Many people have told me that they appreciate my objective, unbiased approach to exercise and nutrition. I’m going to tell you right now, though, that I am not unbiased. In fact, I’m very biased. I’m biased towards science. As a scientist myself, I am, by default, very biased towards science, and…
I’d like to share some of those longer-term client success stories today from the past year and I thank them for giving their permission to do so. In 2016 I started working with people for longer than a three month period. It has enabled me to get to know my…
If looking like The Hulk, Wolverine, or Batman is your primary goal, then a training program with a bodybuilding focus is what you need. If you have been struggling to grow, this program may help by giving some balance to your routine. Don’t make the mistake of training your chest,…
If getting strong as hell is your primary goal, knowing that size and symmetry will mostly come along for the ride anyway, then you need a strength training program that will emphasize that for you. This Novice Powerlifting Program taken from our Muscle and Strength Training Pyramid book is a…
Do you know what I think when I see a guy who has a body carved out of granite like the guy above? That man has discipline. There is an immediate feeling of respect. Plenty of guys have muscle, but very few have the abs that they want. We are so desperate…
I want you to imagine it is the end of March. In January you committed to taking care of yourself better. You dusted off your gym membership and spent the last three months hitting the gym every morning. But you have just quit like two-thirds of the other January returnees.…
Dr. Brad Schoenfeld is a prolific research machine and an absolute asset to the lifting community. I’m ecstatic to have been able to steal an hour of his time to have him answer reader questions. The key topics we covered are considerations for older lifters, hypertrophy mechanisms, training splits, the value of mind-muscle connection, and how to tell if you…
Joseph Agu talks about the challenges he faced working as sports nutritionist to the British Athletics Team, and how those lessons apply to us regular trainees.
In this second part of our interview, Menno talks about the recent HMB and Ketogenic diet study fraud, and why using steroids can be like creating a “game over” scenario which you want to avoid.
Recorded in my living room in Tokyo, Coach Menno Henselmans of BayesianBodybuilding.com shares tips on how he has stayed jacked and shredded while traveling for the last five years. I also asked Menno about the somewhat controversial topic of race-based muscular potential, why he isn’t a fan of HIIT, why…
This time I have Patrick Umphrey on the show, the man behind the legendary “Eat. Train. Progress.” Facebook group. I talk to him about the power of empathy when working with clients, building that community, and how that has lead to a stream of applicants for his coaching business.
This interview with Luka Hocevar was absolutely epic. Luka owns Vigor Ground fitness, a 12,000 square foot facility just outside of Seattle in a town called Renton. It’s the best gym I have ever walked into, so I invited Luka on to talk about his journey to opening that, from…
On this episode, I answer questions from members of The RippedBody.com Family Facebook Group, we discuss newbie gains, intermittent fasting, adjustments when moving to a bulk and much more. Thanks to all of the group members that submitted your questions.
“The thing that ties all lifters together, regardless of their level, is that we are all interested in getting to the next PR.” On this episode, I interview Mike Tuchscherer, founder of Reactive Training Systems, and father of using ‘Rate of Perceived Exertion’ (RPE) based on ‘reps in reserve’ to modulate…
In this 3-part interview, I meet with Greg Nuckols of StrongerbyScience.com, we talk about a variety of topics including how he started out in the industry and has come to speak internationally in such a short period of time, how crucial he feels it is to read research yourself versus rely on…
“I don’t track my macros either, and loads of people are surprised when they hear that because I talk about it all the time. But if you want to do it via the simplest method possible, why would you track more meticulously than you need to?” Ben Carpenter is an…
In this 60-minute interview, researcher and coach, Eric Helms, answers twenty reader questions posted in our Facebook Group. We talk about a variety of topics including RPE (Rating of Perceived Exertion), full-body versus splits, protein frequency and how bodybuilders can progress through a plateau. The show also starts off with an exclusive musical…
How can we stay up to date with training research? What is the point of even trying to do so when we have studies coming out that seemingly contradict one another so often? Fresh off of finishing up his Ph.D., I welcome Eric Helms back on the podcast to explain why…
On this episode of the Rippedbody Podcast, I welcome back researcher and online coach, James Krieger, who I have invited back on the show to discuss one of the most important considerations for tweaking a nutrition and training program, individual differences. Research is great at telling us what will likely…
Welcome to this frank conversation with writer, speaker, strength and conditioning specialist, power lifter, and the owner of Push Private Fitness in LA, Chad Landers. Chad has been a ‘legit’ trainer to rock stars and Hollywood actors for over 24 years and throughout this interview you’ll find simple, actionable, no-nonsense advice, which…
On this episode of the Rippedbody Podcast, I interview one of Britain’s most well-known sports nutritionists, Martin MacDonald. We discuss Martin’s beginnings in the industry, including his early “lucky break” that catapulted him into sports nutrition superstardom, becoming one of the countries most popular celebrity trainers, and now the owner and…
On this Rippedbody podcast, I answer listener questions. Topics covered include my stance on intermittent fasting, tips for maintaining strength during a cut, and maximizing metabolic rate coming out of a diet phase. Thanks to all of you that submitted your question via Facebook and Instagram and hope you gain…
On this episode of the Rippedbody Podcast, I interview sports nutritionist, researcher extraordinaire, educator, and one of the most influential figures in the fitness industry’s movement towards evidence-based information, Alan Aragon. Alan shares the inspiring story of his career journey to date, starting off the “wrong foot”, his feelings about…
On this episode of the Rippedbody Podcast, I interview James Krieger. James is a published scientist, author, speaker, fitness competitor, statistical wizard and the mind behind the immensely popular blog and membership site, Weightology.net. We discuss the different methods available for tracking body fat percentage [06:15], the two-component model used by…
In this episode, I interview Tony Gentilcore, one of the three original founders of the exceptionally successful, Cressey Sports Performance, and now founder-owner of the new CORE training center in Boston. The interview starts off talking about the subjectiveness of strength (6:20), moves to training with purpose and intrinsic motivation…
Andrea is a member of the 3D Muscle Journey bodybuilding and powerlifting coaching team. She is a bodybuilder, Grid competitor, and is my co-author on the Muscle and Strength Pyramid books. Today’s conversation covers three main topics: 1. Coaching philosophy and building the coach-client relationship. 2. The importance of getting…
This is a sample bodybuilding program from our Muscle and Strength Training Pyramid book. The explanation section in the book is fairly detailed, so I have cut it down to give just the overview, relevant notation and exercise selection explanations. This, the Intermediate Powerlifting Program, and the Detailed Guide to…
This is a sample powerlifting program from our Muscle and Strength Pyramid training book. The explanation section there is fairly detailed, so I have cut it down to give just the overview, relevant notation, and exercise selection explanations. This, along with the Intermediate Bodybuilding Sample Program and Detailed Guide to Training Progression…
What follows are the exact initial guidelines on training progression that I give to clients. They are an abbreviated version of the guidelines in The Muscle and Strength Training Pyramid book that I co-authored with Eric Helms and Andrea Valdez. They are exceptionally logical and structured, the antithesis to the approach of…
Spencer is an American family physician who specializes in helping people with obesity. He helps his patients with lifestyle interventions first, via diet and exercise, before using to his prescription pad wherever possible. We talk about many topics: why obesity has been recently classified as a disease, why calories in…
If you are putting in a serious amount of effort with your training and nutrition, you owe it to yourself to take the ten extra minutes each week to track your progress seriously. This will help ensure you get the results you deserve. I’d go as far as to say…
Mark is the man behind Mark Fisher Fitness, a unique gym in New York City. Actually, as Mark will tell you, it’s not a gym, it’s a club house, they don’t have members, they have ninjas, Mark is the ninja master, and their tagline is Serious Fitness for Ridiculous Humans. Now…
Jordan is contracted to train Gary every day for three years, with no holiday, getting flown around everywhere Gary goes. Jordan discusses what this is like and how it is giving him the business education of a lifetime. Jordan is 25 but already has an 11-year personal training career under…
It is no exaggeration to say that Sol Orwell knows everyone in fitness. He is on the advisory board for Schwarzenegger.com, has built Examine.com into the world’s biggest supplement information site, and yet, he has only been in the industry for five and a half years. This success is no accident. From…
It gives me great pleasure to share these four client stories because two of them aren’t mine. I had Ken translate every email back and forth between our Japanese clients for three years before letting him coach clients on his own. In hindsight, this may have been an overly lengthy…
When putting together a training program for yourself, exercise selection is an area where there is a lot of confusion. This guide will take you through how to choose exercises and incorporate them into your routine based on your training experience. There are some things that novices need to be…
“This is one of the most important articles I’ve ever written. Maybe the most important one in terms of getting this message across to practitioners.” – Alan Aragon It’s my pleasure and honor to share with you this guest article today by mentor and friend, legendary sports nutritionist and researcher, Alan…
Not long ago, I found myself getting grilled on Facebook over the concept of hypertrophy training. “Strength and hypertrophy training are the same thing,” my critic wrote, with all the passionate intensity of someone who spends a lot of time on social media but not a whole lot else. While…
I want to tell you about a powerful tool that often goes neglected among both fitness enthusiasts and people who are just beginning to diet. Imagine that you’re in the following situation: You come home from work. You’re exhausted. You’re hungry. You’ve had a long and stressful day and you just don’t…
Coach JC Deen, author of Stay Leaner Longer, discusses the importance of, and how to conquer, the mental games that go on when dieting.
