Posts Comments

You are here: Home / Archives for adonis index

Commitment Equals Results, So Are You Committed Enough?

January 2, 2012 by

Today’s interview is with Andrew Peters, who won the sixth Adonis Index Transformation Contest.

Check out his pictures:

Adonis Index - Andrew front picture

Andrew is still getting over the fact that this is how he looks now. No kidding, when you undergo such an amazing transformation, it might take some time until you get used to that new look.

Adonis Index - Andrew back picture

Andrew has a great muscle definition.

Adonis Index Andrew front picture

Want to win the next contest? This is how you take the photos.

Andrew is 24 and has spent the past few years playing rugby and lifting weights, however his training lacked structure, a goal, and a serious commitment. As a result he didn’t have the body he wanted.

He realized that in order to succeed he had to changes his approach. He wanted to get in shape, but didn’t wanted to look like some huge bodybuilder.

He was after more of a model body shape and it was also obvious that something had to change in his life.

He searched for a workout program that would meet this requirements and that search lead him to the Adonis Index. What might surprise you is that he wasn’t a believer at the beginning and it took him almost two years until he decided to try the contest and the workout…and in as little as three months he completely transformed his body. The only things he regrets is not trying this approach sooner and wasting two years of his life doing other workouts.

Before training with the Adonis Index he was trying to change, but his effort was misplaced.

This is probably the most common issue with muscle building. Guys don’t understand that it’s crucial to have a well-designed workout program, not the newest or the most expensive supplement. While certain supplements like Creatine might help, if you don’t have a good workout plan then nothing else really matters. But since supplements are easier to sell and people seem to want magic pills most of the marketing is focused on selling them…this leads to a belief that supplements are the building blocks of muscles.

Well, they’re not.

You should make it a priority to get a workout that:

  1. Has purpose behind the training and targets some specific goal you want (ex.: building a V-shape dominant body with the perfect AI)
  2. Is designed by someone who looks the way you want to look (assuming it’s not a performance based workout)
  3. Focus on certain muscle groups more than others to build an overall shape and look
  4. Have variety of exercises, reps and sets (if you’re doing the same thing week after week, you will get bored and won’t stick to it for very long, plus variety can help you hit the muscle from different angles)
  5. Difficulty gradually advances (aka Progressive resistance)
  6. Doesn’t requires you to buy expensive supplements or follow some insane high protein diets

The thing that won’t hurt you either is having a deadline. For Andrew there just wasn’t enough urgency, but when he decided to participate in the Adonis Index Contest, the training suddenly had a deadline and things got serious. Plus he was putting his money on the line now since he booked a session with a photographer three weeks in advance.

What Andrew Had to Change in His Lifestyle

You might guess that winning a fitness competition and transforming your body would require some supper-strict lifestyle without any social interactions and you would have to be focused on the diet and training only.

While it obviously requires more effort and focus to get in shape than to maintain your look, it’s still about finding a balance with your social life.

The only things that Andrew did was walking every day, cutting a few calories and training on the Adonis Index system a few times per week. He was already hanging out in the gym, so this wasn’t such a stretch.

Getting in shape is not that time dependent.

Cutting calories doesn’t require any extra time, quite the opposite, because it can free you from constantly preparing food, eating and washing the dishes. Just think for a while how much time you spend doing those things every day.

What about the workouts?

Well, even if the workout session took you 90 minutes and you trained let’s say 5 times a week then it would still only be an 8 hours commitment per WEEK.

A week has 168 hours, so 8 hours of focused training dedicated to improving your body and possibly your social life doesn’t sound that much, does it?

Most people spend at three times that many hours in front of a TV or playing video games, so if you are one of them you only need to cut out 1/3rd of that and you suddenly have the time needed to work out.

Just be honest with yourself.

Some people get up at 5 am just to squeeze in the workout session before their work.

Find that time, it’s worth the effort.

It Was Mostly a Mental Game

While any change requires physical effort, usually the hardest part is mental.

You might guess that somebody who is in shape is motivated 24/7, however like Andrew discovered, it couldn’t be further from the truth. There will be days when you will wake up in 6 AM feeling like crap, annoyed by the rain and cold and definitely not feeling like working out or doing something worthwhile.

This is something that you have to expect to happen and find a way to punch through it.

Sometimes you will look at yourself and won’t see any results. You will trick yourself into thinking that it’s pointless to continue dieting, because in your mind it’ll seem like nothing is improving in the mirror or because the scale is still the same. You will find a reason to quit. It’s those who stay on track and push through these moments that succeed.

Andrew had the same problem, he wanted to quit the diet, but he decided to adjust the amount of calories he ate everyday and kept on going. He knew this would work and that it was just a matter of time and consistency.

The result?

After 12 weeks he got ripped.

Take home message from Andrew:
  • You don’t just wake up totally motivated every single day, there are tough times too, but you’ll get there
  • If you’re having a hard time with really low calories , you may consider eating more closer to your BMR more often
  • It’s best to focus your workouts on building muscle and let your diet take care of fat loss
  • If you want to create an even bigger deficit then try some low intensity walking for few hours per week
  • Listen to podcasts to keep motivated during the contest
  • Don’t stress yourself about progress, it takes time. Just keep going and compare results after weeks or months of consistent work
  • You won’t get ripped after just one workout, remember it’s just one of the next eighty days so you need to keep going to see significant results
  • Three months are nothing compared to the years you were out of shape
  • Diet and workouts are not effortless, but the real challenge is the psychological side of the transformation
  • You have to build certain habits to reach your desired shape (ex: waking up at 5am and going to the gym first thing in the morning)
  • Limit you alcohol and fast food intake
  • Realize why you eat, usually it’s not because you are hungry
  • Get in shape first, because once you see what you are capable of in the mirror, it’s easier to improve other areas of your life
  • Find out your core reason behind your workout and diet, why do you want to get in shape? (ex: happiness, being confident and calm with yourself in social interactions etc.)
  • Write down your goals, you will make it more real when you physically write them down on a paper
  • Some people will not like you improving yourself, the problem is in them not in you. They are just rationalizing why they are not in shape and you are
  • There is no secret to getting in shape, just eat less and work out properly, if you keep doing that for few months, you will see amazing results
  • Book a session with a photographer or a friend who will volunteer to take your pictures in advanced to have a deadline
  • Make a commitment that you will do whatever it takes to achieve your goals
  • There is never going be the perfect time to get in shape so START NOW!
  • Participate in a fitness contest and challenge yourself
Words & phases mentioned in the podcast:
Listen to the interview here:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Android | RSS

Filed Under: Contest, Podcasts, Transformation Tagged With: , ,

Contest Winner Shares His Best Tips & Tricks

December 26, 2011 by

Today’s podcast is very special. It’s an interview with the Adonis Index Open Contest winner Ryan Williams.

Ryan has been on board for several months now and he didn’t have a long way to go, but he definitely took it to the next level.

Check out his pictures:

Adonis Index Contest - Ryan William

Ryan not only got in an exceptional shape, but he also took great pictures.

Adonis Index Contest - Ryan William

Ryan's back shot.

 

Ryan thought that it’s near to impossible to get ripped and look like a Hollywood action movie star. He thought that it would require a very strict lifestyle and an incredible amount of work, which would be impossible to fit into his work schedule which requires a lot of traveling.

However, with two kids (six and two year old), wife and regular trips across continents he managed to get in a great shape, a cover model shape you would say.

The best part?

He is willing to share how he did it.

You have a chance to learn how he planned his workout, structured his diet and the other stuff he did to get in shape, you can take his best tricks and tweak them to fit to your own lifestyle.

New Approach Got Him Results

Ryan revealed that before finding the Adonis Index he was eating a lot, definitely more than his body could burn.

He, like many other guys, thought that he can muscle his way to leanness, he thought that if he got big enough and built enough muscle, his metabolism would be so fast that it would burn all the fat on his body. On top of that in the past he read in a fitness magazine that he should never eat below 2000 calories. He never really weighed himself, but Ryan’s estimate is that at one time he must have been way over 200 pounds, probably even close to 250.

It wasn’t until he found Eat Stop Eat and Adonis Index that he realized this is probably not the best approach to take to get in shape.

Probably the biggest revelation for Ryan was that he could just diet once and stay like that forever, just do some micro diet management for maintenance and that would be it.

He set his daily calories intake at 1800 calories and added two fasts on top of that. He wasn’t counting calories, he was doing more of calorie guessing and just eye balling the food to know the rough calorie content.

In the past he never followed a real muscle building program either. It was always just a mix of bodybuilding splits that he thought he should do from what he read in fitness magazines. In his own words: “I just trained the mirror muscles, that was it.”

The biggest shock once he started doing the Adonis Index workouts was of course the training volume. He thought that he was over-training and doubted that he could do it. However, after a few weeks the soreness went away and he realized that it wasn’t over-training, but rather under-conditioning, he just wasn’t used to such a physical stress before, so his muscles needed some time to get accustomed to such a high volume and intensity of training.

Another important fact Ryan mentions in the interview is the importance of periodization, which is crucial, because if you don’t change your workout often enough, you will get bored and you will not enjoy your workouts.

And how do you plan on sticking to something if you don’t enjoy it?

You Need to Have a Flexible Approach

Ryan said that what got him hooked about Adonis Index was the fact that it is oriented on aesthetics and proportions, the goal isn’t to just get big, but to actually achieve a specific shape.

Ryan is an opera singer and sometimes he needs to perform without his shirt on, in the past he would do some crazy strict fitness stuff like eating six times a day, eating tons of protein, because he was afraid of losing his muscles for the show and training a lot. Basically this made him a slave to his diet and gym routine for the sake of looking good on stage, however after the show he would always go back to looking pretty average.

The big mind shift came once he tried the program.

Six months is all he needed to get in the best shape of his life (sounds like something several previous contestants have in common). Don’t get me wrong, Ryan has some training history, but once he got in decent shape for his show, he gained all the weight back right after that show, he could never keep that shape for more than a short period of time.

Basically this lifestyle was killing him and he couldn’t sustain it for long term. He travels a lot and of course wants to spend some time with his wife and two kids when he is finally at home, so you can imagine he is not interested in preparing his six meals every day and spending half the day in the gym.

He combined the Eat Stop Eat and Anything Goes Diet principles into his workout routines and almost without any significant effort lost more than 20 pounds of fat. No countless hours spent on cardio, which he could never do for more than a month in the past anyway.

He let the diet take care of the fat loss and dedicated just 90 minutes, five times a week to training for muscle gain and aesthetics.

Obviously this worked almost like a magic and at the end he has a cover model body.

The best part?

He is able to sustain this after the show and keep his abs visible.

You need to find a flexible approach that allows you to change things as you go, is easy to implement into your lifestyle and is sustainable for years not just weeks.

You do want to look great for the rest of your life, don’t you?

In that case you need to find a way to stay in shape with very little effort while being able to enjoy your life in its fullest way possible.

Let’s clarify one thing though, there is a difference between your “regular look” and your “photo-shoot look”. Sometimes guys have a hard time getting over this one, so let’s break this down.

When fitness models are preparing for a contest or a photo-shoot, they know they will be in that shape for just a few hours. When you get down to single digit body fat, your look becomes transient based on the physical activity you do and the specific food you eat. Not that eating tacos would make you fat, but if you have a visible six pack abs and you can see different muscle fibers on your shoulders, each food will have a different affect on your look. Some foods will make you look sharper, some will make you more bloated. This is something you will have to experiment with once you get to this level.

And fitness models know this, they know exactly what foods affects them and how. They know what time a day and after what amount of hours after training they look the best, most cut, and most shredded. Put aside the drugs and photo editing, they know their bodies well and they surely know how to take advantage of that for the photo shoot. So, the point is that if you think that you are going to look like a cover model 24/7, you have some big disbelief that you need to get over.

You will look different in the morning, in the evening, after eating a big steak with fries, and after eating a bowl of apples. That is just how your body works, it changes it’s look very frequently based on your action. If you are over 10% body fat you may have not noticed those change. The reason for that is simple, you have fat on your muscles that prevents you from seeing those changes.

The fitness industry and it’s models are extreme, they’re like looking at a concept car at an auto show, it’s got wings and all sorts of fancy stuff that looks like it’s borrowed from Star Trek, but the car you buy doesn’t look like that, even if you buy a Ferrari, it still looks like a car compared to the concept models at the show. Your body is pretty much the same, the body you “buy” or build and live with on a daily basis is different from the one that fitness magazines are “selling” you.

Bear that in mind when reading magazines and looking at the models.

This is why it’s pointless to compare your pictures you took on your vacation with the one on a cover of a fitness magazine.

You Don’t Need to Hire a Professional Photographer to Get Good Photos

While some people decide that once they put the effort into the training and diet, they want to maximize the outcome by getting a professional photographer, Ryan did it almost all by himself. For him it would be too complicated to get a photographer, so he borrowed a camera from a friend, got up a bit earlier before his kids woke up, hung a lamp from the ceiling, put some black clothes behind him as a background and asked his wife to take the pictures.

And the result is pretty good. He proved that if you can’t get a photographer and a studio, you can take great pics yourself and still win. Don’t let the opportunity of winning a contest and some money slip through your fingers just because you think you need a photographer.

Take home message from Ryan:

  • Use the Adonis Index community, they are honest awesome and helpful people
  • “Contest was fun, it was definitely a good push that helped me to get in a better shape”
  • Figure out what is sustainable and what fits your lifestyle, it won’t be the same as thing as it is for the next guy over
  • Ryan is a “sprinter”, he can put a lot of energy into something for a short period of time, if you are the same, try to incorporate some of his tips into your routines
  • If you are tall and lean or don’t have much fat to get rid of try to guess calories rather than count them
  • You will have little slip ups, as long as you keep making progress you will get to your goal, so don’t worry it is okay to make mistakes, some would even say necessary
  • Being in shape is something you want to keep for the rest of your life, so find what works for YOU
  • The goal is to make it sustainable, fitness models can’t sustain the look for they have for the show for very long, so don’t aim for the impossible
  • Find your motivator, for Ryan it was his job and the fact that he is required to take his shirt off from time to time on stage in front of a lot of people
  • Train for aesthetics, but don’t train just your mirror muscles, train it all and just focus a little more on the muscles that make up the best AI ratio
  • Take pictures, you will see your muscles from completely different angles then you are used to and you will be able to notice how thick, wide and shaped your muscles naturally are
  • You don’t need a professional photographer to take good pictures, just play with what you got
  • Everybody looks different and have different genetics, so don’t compare yourself to others

Words & phases mentioned in the podcast:

Listen to the interview here:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Android | RSS

Filed Under: Contest, Podcasts, Transformation Tagged With: , ,

He Got Ripped without Counting Calories or Doing Cardio

November 7, 2011 by

Brad Greyeyes Brant has a very interesting name, but what is even more interesting than his name is the fact that he placed 4th in the Adonis Index Contest specifically in the transformation category.

He went from being lean to being ripped, just take a look:

Brad B Adonis Index Transformation Back

He has achieved a great muscle definition, just look at his shoulders.

Brad Adonis Index Transformation Front

From average to ripped.

When Brant first got interested in getting his physique handled he was 260 pounds. Even though he is 6’5”, 26o pounds is a lot. At this point even taking stairs was starting to be an issue. Just take a look at how Brant looked at this weight several years ago.

Brad_before_working_out_and_Adonis_Index

This is a picture of Brant at a body weight of approximately 260 lbs.

After looking at himself in a mirror Brant decided to get in shape. And he started as most guys would, he found some muscle building and fat loss programs designed by a bodybuilder, he signed up for them and followed it for about six months.

He was doing about an hour of cardio each morning seven times a week. He was training at specific times of the day, if the program said go to the gym at 5 p.m., he would go at 5 p.m.

He was timing his meals to the minute, always made sure he ate every three hours no matter where he was or what he was doing.

Even though his wife was very supportive, this approach was incredibly inflexible. Could you imagine not being able to eat your birthday cake? Or have a Christmas dinner with your family? This is exactly what he did.

Brant is the type of guy who is all out or nothing at all. He though that his approach was a sign of dedication, but in reality what it really was, was an obsession.

He Found Out He Can Enjoy His Life & Look Good at the Same Time

After a while Brant came across Brad Pilon’s blog and once he read what Brad eats during his day he was completely confused. Because Brad is in exceptional shape and he eats like an average person (some would even say like a kid), brownies, pizza and pasta are regular foods in his meal plan. In his schedule there was nothing about eating every three hours, having protein with each meal or preparing his meals upfront. Brad was just saying that he is enjoying his food and that the only thing he aims for is to limit the amount of calories to keep lean.

On his blog he noticed the workout Pilon was doing and he decided to give it a try. He bought the Adonis Index Workout and started following it.

Brant never wanted to look like a huge bodybuilder, so the Adonis Index philosophy of building a proportioned body with lean waist and visible six pack abs was something he was interested to build for himself.

He gave the workouts a shot and after seeing the results never looked back

It’s all about what you truly want. Is it a really good looking body or do you want to be strong and focus on performance? What do you really want?

Brant has chosen the look and even though he made this choice ironically he is stronger than ever.

However, you still need to know what you are after. Most guys really want to just look good, strength and performance is secondary but many guys cannot separate the two ideas.

If you have the same problem with getting over the goal of becoming stronger, you need to understand something. Strength is relative and specific to only those exercises you do on regular basis. For example you can get really good at incline dumbbell press, but completely suck on regular barbell bench press. Another example, Brant’s dad is incredibly strong, because he is used to doing physical work, however he can’t do a pull-up. On the other hand Brant is not as strong as his dad overall, but pull-ups are not an issue for him. Strength is relative.

And if you are not a competitive power lifter then there is no point in aiming for strength for it’s own sake. Set the goal of improving your physique and the strength will come along with it.

Brant’s Tips to Get Contest Ripped

Brant placed 4h in the contest and that is an incredible accomplishment and requires a big amount of effort. Let’s take a look at what it is that Brad did that was different from other contestants.

Because in the past he was obsessed with fitness and over complicating things, he took a very simplistic and flexible approach this time. From a diet stand point he followed the Anything Goes Diet and decided to just guess the amount of calories he eats and keep it really simple.

He calculated that his BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) is about 2500 calories, so he has a budget of 2500 x7 calories per week.

The way he was guessing his calorie intake was that he calculated things in 500 calorie chunks. This way he is not obsessed with counting calories and still knows what he puts in his mouth and never overeats. This approach seems to work quite well for people with high BMR’s (however if your BMR is 1600, you might need to adjust it to a smaller chunks).

Brant usually eats whatever he wants during the weekend and just creates a deficit during the week. If he happened to eat a little bit more, he would notice it in the mirror.

Today Brant is leaner than ever, he is in the best shape of his life and with significantly less time invested in fitness than before. He can eat what he is served when he visits his father in law who is Italian and makes delicious meals. He can enjoy birthday parties and doesn’t have to sneak away on Christmas to eat his protein rich, “clean” meal.

He doesn’t do any cardio, and his workouts are focused on building muscles.

He also stopped caring about what other people think in the gym about him and the weights he lifts. This is a very important aspect of your training, in order to really train properly you need to focus on yourself and let go of your ego.

Brant went from being called skinny to getting compliments on his shape. Suddenly he is confident wearing fit clothes and can look great and feel great as well.

Body weight is also no longer an issue.

The only thing he cares about now is how he looks in a mirror.

Here is the take home message from Brad:

  • Keep it simple as long as it is working
  • Do what you want to do, as long as you are happy with your results keep doing it
  • Weigh yourself before and after, not during the contest, get to learn your body, you will see whether you are moving forward or not, the scale can mess you up and can tell a different story than the mirror or your clothes
  • In order to build muscle, you need to train really hard
  • The quickest way to lose fat is to eat below your BMR
  • Getting and staying in shape is a lifestyle and it doesn’t have to be complicated
  • Your body measurements are much more important than your body weight, especially if you are very tall or short
  • In order to get great results you need to enjoy the process of getting in shape, so find your way to do so
  • The path will be as difficult as you make it
  • You can grab a slice of pizza instead of steamed vegetables even now and then, it won’t mess you up as long as you account for the calories

Listen to the interview here:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Android | RSS

Filed Under: Contest, Fat Loss, Podcasts, Transformation Tagged With: , , , , ,

Al’s Fat Loss Journey: Math Doesn’t Lie

October 31, 2011 by

Al Sandoval placed FIRST in the Adonis Index Contest in the transformation category. Al found a way to lose fat that he put on in the last 20 years. At the end of 12 weeks he managed to beat everybody else and win the whole transformation contest.

Take a look at what it took to win the fifth Adonis Index Contest:

 

Al Sandoval - Adonis Index Contest Transformation Photos

Al's back looks really good, his back muscles are starting to show up. And he finally god rid of the love handles or how he calls them the hate handles.

Al Sandoval - Adonis Index Contest Transformation Pictures

Al's front pictures. He is obviously very satisfied with his transformation. Well, who wouldn't be, he got in a great shape.

 

Al is somebody who was used to follow the conventional fitness advice. However, after his wife Naomi got in shape with the Venus Index all the proof he needed was right in front of him and he could no longer say that what she says doesn’t work. She proved him that what he was doing was not working and that she knew what to do to get in shape.

His Lean Wife Showed Him How Fat Loss Really Works

She showed him that what he hears in the gym and on TV is not really true. And he could not really argue with her since she got in shape and he still looked the same.

His wife made him to be honest with himself. Al would always carb up before the workout and that was what he believed would help him lose fat and build muscle. After his wife told him that is not true, he asked what he should do instead. The answer was something that he didn’t want to hear. From the fat loss stand point it all got down to diet.

He was scared of dieting. He didn’t know what being in deficit means, he also didn’t know what this would mean in the gym. Would it mean that he won’t probably be able to hit the same weights in the gym that he normally does? That would not be so much fun anymore, would it?

Well, it came down to what he truly wanted and losing fat won.

Losing fat may be simple, but is definitely not easy to do. And once you gain some fat, you have to diet otherwise you will carry it for the rest of your life. There is no accidental fat loss. If you were slowly gaining fat for the past 20 years it will obviously take some effort. This is was exactly were al was before the contest.

Once his wife started coaching him and he was doing what she told him, his body was slowly transforming and he was getting in shape.

His wife Naomi who already had this handled introduced him to intermittent fasting by simply telling him to skip breakfast, lunch and eat only dinner. Because she was always cooking for him, she made sure he had a low calories dinner after each fast. This way he had only several hundred calories each day he would fast.

Then he would throw in few maintenance days just to keep sane during the whole 12 weeks.

So there were basically three types of days he was cycling during the week:

  1. Maintenance days
  2. Fasting days
  3. Low calorie days

Then for the past 10 days he was drinking a gallon of water each day and eating only tuna and sweet potatoes.

12 weeks of dieting is tough and most people won’t do that. However, it is worth noting that most people are not in good shape and will probably never look like Al.

He started following the Adonis Index Workout and found out that it is all based on math and science and since those two don’t lie it must be true. And after 12 weeks of following this approach that also seemed most logical he arrived as a winner in the Adonis Index Contest. The only problem he encountered was that the dieting was so hard that Al had to stop working out three days before taking the photo shoot, because he just didn’t have enough energy for it.

Now he doesn’t care what other people in the gym are telling him about bulking up and carbing up, because it all comes down to how you look and since he looks ten times better than his buddies he choose to stay away from their influence and do what he knows works even though it goes against what everybody else is saying.

Once Al took those pictures he was surprised how good he looks and that he finally got rid of his love handles or how he calls them the hate handles. Because even though we don’t see our backs much often, other people do. And know like Al said he can enter the room looking good and leave the room looking good as well.

 

Here is the take away for all guys who are frustrated and are hitting the wall and really want to lose fat:

  • The step number one is being honest with yourself and facing your current situation, 99% of the journey is the mental shift, the rest is easy
  • Frustration comes from not getting results by following the wrong approach (ex.: Bulking up myth for muscle building)
  • In order to lose fat you need to create a caloric deficit through diet, while cardio and workouts will help you lose fat, you can’t out train a bad diet
  • Accept that it is okay to be light and that being heavy just means fat, muscles won’t show up if they are covered by fat
  • Focus on simple math – how many calories you burn and how big of a deficit you need to create in order to strip fat
  • Math doesn’t lie, if you want to lose pound of fat a week, you need to create a deficit of about 4000 calories a week
  • Don’t calculate someone else’s calories, calculate yours – your BMR
  • Complex approach like spreading out your meals into 6 and carbing up before your workouts is not going to help you lose fat

 

Listen to the interview here:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Android | RSS

Filed Under: Contest, Fat Loss, Podcasts, Transformation Tagged With: , , , , ,

He Could Eat Hamburger for Dinner and Still Lose 18 Pounds of Fat

October 24, 2011 by

Nick Yarbrough placed second in the Adonis Index Contest in the Open category. Nick’s after pictures are incredible. You would not guess that he is only 21 years old. His muscles really show in these photos and he is living proof that with effort comes great results.

Take a look at what it takes to place 2nd in the Open category:

Nick Yarbrough - Adonis Index Contest Transformation Pictures

You would say that Nick was in a pretty good shape even in his before pictures. However, he had to lose about 18 pounds of fat and water to get from a pretty good shape into an amazing shape.

 

Nick Yarbrough - Adonis Index Contest Transformation Pictures

Nick has achieved an amazing condition.

Nick has been working out for some time now. He played football and started lifting weights when he was 15. But because he played football, his workouts were based mostly on improving his performance and gaining strength and not on improving his physical look.

All he wanted was to get bigger. So Nick started working out 3-4 times per week. That would not be so bad if he had a good workout. Unfortunately his workouts were anything but good. When he was in a gym he would just do random lifts and not really plan ahead. One day he would go to the gym and do bench press, a few curls, some rows and go home. Next day he would do some squats and maybe bench press one more time and once he go tired he would go home.

After a year of eating ‘like hell’ he gained 25 pounds and went to up to 190 pounds. At the end he achieved his goal, he got bigger. But not in a way that he liked. He thought at 190 pounds he’d be big and ripped, not big and fat (his own words).

After a while he found the Adonis Index and just out of curiosity calculated his own Adonis Index ratio. The ideal ratio of your shoulders to your waist aka Adonis Index is exactly 1.618. Nick said that he expected to be around 1.5 or at least 1.4. Well long story short his real indicator of how good shape he was in was much lower, it was 1.2. Despite the fact that he worked out and had some muscle mass on his shoulders, his Adonis index ratio was still incredibly low, this was due to the fact that he carried a lot of fat around his waist. Finding this was tough. He couldn’t believe that he had to lose that much fat to get in shape.

However, if he wanted to get to the golden 1.618, his lifestyle had to change. He committed to his goal and dropped to 175 pounds. After losing that much fat, his shoulder-to-waist ratio of course went up.

After this weight loss transformation he got to a pretty decent shape. Now if he wanted to take it to the next level he would have to undergo a similar transformation. However, he didn’t want to lose more fat, because he was actually afraid of being too light. He thought that he had to just lift harder and muscles will show up…eventually. This lasted for about a year. Then he saw the transformation the other guys made in one of the past Adonis Index contests. After seeing this he decided to diet again and dropped down to 157 pounds. He went back to his high school weight, only this time it was mostly muscle mass not fat mass.

Once he got there he was amazed by how good he looked. He didn’t expect his muscles to be so incredibly defined and still couldn’t believe how light he actually was at the end. His friends think that he is at least 180 pounds. All from the illusion that he created by getting ripped and to a golden Adonis Index ratio.

Nick’s Fat Loss Plan to Get Super Cut

You are probably eager to know what Nick did to get to that super cut shape.

Fat loss is all about calories in and calories out. You need to create a long term caloric deficit to see noticeable results. What varies from person to person is the approach – and how quickly are you going to achieve that deficit. We are all different and what might work for you might not work for Nick.

The way Nick did it was that he split the week into two types of days.

  1. Workout day / Low calorie day
  2. Rest day / Higher calorie day

On the workout day, he wasn’t hungry at all. So this was a low calorie day for him, the day that he would use to create a big deficit. The next day he would rest and eat little bit more, he would use this as a “refill” for the next day, because he wanted to have enough energy for the upcoming workout. What this means is that he ate the night before to feel better during his workout the following day.

Here is an example. If he happened to work out on Monday, he would fast until the workout, do the exercise and go home. Usually he would not be hungry until a couple of hours afterwards, so he would fast for about 20-24 hours every second day. After the fast he would eat a low calorie dinner, some chicken breast or fish, roughly around 1000 to 1500 calories. If he went to work after the workout, he might throw in a protein shake before the dinner.

If Monday was workout and low calorie day, Tuesday would be rest and higher calorie day. On this day he would try to fast as long as he could and then have a big dinner, for example some pasta or a hamburger.

The way he looks at this is that on the day you don’t work out, you eat more, because you are getting ready for the workout. On the other hand workout day is the burn day. This seems like a good idea, because on the day you work out it is easier to control your appetite. You also don’t want to overeat and “spoil” your day, because you already did some work in the gym (no matter how ridiculous this sounds, you probably know this from your own experience, simply put exercise affects your diet). However, on the day you don’t work out, you need to satisfy your appetite and also refill for the next workout to be able to push hard.

Nick took this approach and you saw his great after pictures.

If we look at those two days in total, Nick would burn about 4000 calories and eat only 3000 calories. This is about 45000 calorie deficit in three months, roughly around 12 pounds fat loss. Because Nick was also working out he burnt some extra pounds just from the workouts itself. Nick went through about 50 workouts in those 12 weeks, he burnt another 6 pounds of fat (and water) just by creating a bigger deficit from this physical activity. In total you get almost 18 pounds of fat.

When Nick saw the pictures he was surprised by how 157 pounds looks like, he thought it would look way skinnier. This is a common misconception. It would even seem that being too light is not very manly and that in order to get in shape we would need to give ourselves permission to get light to get lean.

Nick ended up at the weight he was in high school, but obviously the muscle-fat ratio was completely different. This is just proof of how body weight tells nothing about how you look in a mirror.

At the end Nick completely abandoned the concept of eating big to get big. Because you can’t really eat your way up to bigger muscles. First of all, muscle growth is a response that is stimulated by working out not eating (that’s a shame, wouldn’t it be nice to build your chest just by eating more chicken?). Second, there is a limit on how many pounds of muscle you can build, the only difference is how quickly you can do it.

 

Here is the take away for guys who are interested in building more muscle and losing those last few pounds and getting ripped like Nick:

  • You never know how you will look like after you finally lose the fat and get lighter. And if you don’t like it, you can always eat your way up (that is the easy part)
  • Building muscle takes time, so be patient, you just have to stick to your workout
  • Don’t do the whole bulk up thing, muscles are built in the gym not in the kitchen
  • Don’t listen to what other people they say about diet, do what you know works – creating a caloric deficit for fat loss
  • If this is what you wanna do then do it, no excuses
  • You already have six pack abs, but they may just covered by fat. Getting rid of that fat is all about diet

 

Listen to the interview here:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Android | RSS

Filed Under: Contest, Fat Loss, Muscle Building, Podcasts, Transformation Tagged With: , , ,

Build Muscle From Just 52 Grams of Protein Powder: Interview with Calvin Chen

October 17, 2011 by

Calvin Chen is one of the younger guys who entered the Adonis Index Contest. He placed 5th in the transformation class.

Apart from Mike, who was interviewed last week and was focusing mostly on fat loss, Calvin needed to build muscle and that’s exactly what he did.

12 weeks is a very short period of time to build muscle. Calvin had the advantage of juvenile muscle growth.

You can check it yourself, here are his before and after pictures.

 

Calvin - Adonis Index Transformation Front

Calvin obviously put on some muscle. Just check out his arms and shoulders.

 

Calvin - Adonis Index Transformation Side

Calvin's side shot.

 

Calvin - Adonis Index Transformation Back

Look at Calvin's back, this is a pretty big difference after just 12 weeks.


It’s obvious that Calvin has built bigger shoulders, this is because Adonis Index Workouts are focused on building upper body width.

Calvin is a college student, so he doesn’t have much of a training background yet. Before he found the Adonis Index, he started like most young guys. He was lifting some dumbbells at home, he didn’t have any good program to follow, he did everything just learning from fitness magazines. He trained only his bicep, triceps and chest.

This is probably one of the most common mistakes – not having a proper workout program to follow. If you look around yourself in the gym, you will see that most of the guys don’t look that good and don’t have a quality plan at all. Obviously this training is good only if you want to lift something…anything, but if you want to actually see any change in muscle mass, you have to take a different approach.

What you need is this, a workout program that:

  • Is designed to help you achieve your goals (performance OR look)
  • Has variety of reps and sets
  • Has fixed rest periods (This makes a big difference as far as intensity goes.)
  • Requires mostly free weights (dumbbells and barbells)
  • If the purpose is to look better, it should focus more on your shoulders and back rather than arms and legs.

During the 12 weeks Calvin did the most difficult task – build muscle. It’s easy to strip off the fat in 12 weeks, but to build muscle? Not so much. Usually you will see only little change in muscle growth in such a short period of time. Building muscles takes years of dedicated training. Calvin’s advantage was through his juvenile muscle growth. If you are his age (19) and you are not yet working out, you should start as soon as possible, because this is when you can get the best gains. This is as close to a steroid effect as you can naturally get. A lot of older guys beat themselves up, because they started late, the difference in the possible physique if you start young is huge.

Average Protein Intake Was Enough

Nowadays almost every guy is obsessed with protein intake. It seems that we are so affected by advertisements that we feel something Brad Pilon calls protein guilt. It’s really hard to avoid this. Most of the guys try to eat as much meat, eggs and protein foods as possible and supplement it with protein shakes on top of that. But is this really necessary?

Calvin views protein intake differently. He was following Pilon’s advice from the book How Much Protein. He didn’t watch or track his protein intake, the only thing he knew exactly is that he took 52 grams of protein powder each day and that’s it. Based on his diet, his protein intake was around 80-100 grams, which goes against the conventional wisdom of eating 150-200 grams a day to build muscle.

Calvin didn’t even worry about calorie intake. To prevent from gaining fat, he was eating mostly fruits and vegetables and regularly fasting.

Not exactly something you would find in a fitness magazine.

And all this obviously worked for him. He gained several pounds of muscle, and is no longer called skinny and is definitely on the right track.

Here is the take away for skinny guys who are interested in gaining more muscles in a short period of time:

  1. If you don’t have the experience don’t create your own workouts based on advice from fitness magazines and bodybuilding forums, find a professional workout program that is designed to help you achieve your goals
  2. Be consistent with your workouts
  3. Focus on your lifting form rather than lifting as heavy as possible with crappy technique
  4. Push hard, don’t be afraid of doing the hard work
  5. Follow the workout as it is written, if it says do 10 reps, pick the weights that you will be able to do only 10 reps with perfect form
  6. Take creatine every day, protein supplement might also help a bit
  7. Don’t worry about the protein intake so much, if you get about 80-100 grams a day, it’s enough. Focus on the training because that is what will force your muscles to grow

Here are few questions that you will get answers to during the interview:

  • How fast can I expect my muscles to grow?
  • How would I know if I plateaued on muscle growth?
  • How many years I have before muscle growth slows down?
  • If you don’t eat enough protein what will happen to the muscle?
  • How can weight training help my body become more efficient at protein consumption?
  • Do I have to count calories every day?

 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Android | RSS

Filed Under: Contest, Muscle Building, Podcasts, Transformation Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
« Previous Page
Next Page »
Support