Answer: The above question, in one form or fashion, has come up on the support forum and is certainly relevant enough to be worth addressing.  Because while I tend to focus on the goals of bodyrecomposition (losing fat and/or gaining muscle), clearly that’s not the only reason that people choose to work out.

Certainly, I think that, to put it somewhat crassly ‘looking better naked’ is a primary goal for most people who get into training but clearly some people are simply interested in basic overall health and wellness.  For that explicit goal, what kind of training is necessary?

And the answer, really is not much.  Here the basic American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) guidelines are going to be more than sufficient in that they target the primary factors involved in basic health and wellness which are basic cardiovascular health and muscular strength.  Of course there is more to overall health than just those two factors.

For basic cardiovascular fitness, a training frequency of three times per week minimum has been found to be necessary.  Certainly more than that can have other potential benefits (in terms of body composition or what have you) but three times per week is the basic minimum. Durations of 20-60 minutes at an intensity that is typically defined relative to maximum heart rate (i.e. 60-85% of maximum heart rate) are what’s recommended.

I’d note that using estimates of maximum heart rate is problematic at best since there tends to be a great deal of variability here both in terms of maximum heart rate (which can vary massively from prediction equations) as well as functional threshold.

Using Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE) as I discussed in Training the Obese Beginner (e.g. an RPE of 3-4 on a 10 point scale, challenging but doable) or something like the talk test are not only equally valid but are probably easier to use than heart rate monitoring and will put people in the right range.  And an intensity of 3-4 on a 10 point scale puts most people where they need to be.  The talk test I mentioned in that same series, working at a level that allows for a broken conversation to be maintained is another easy way of putting people at the right place.

Certainly interval training, the alternation of bouts of higher intensity with lower intensity, is being found to provide some potential further benefits for both health and fitness.  If nothing else, it can help to avoid some of the monotony that tends to occur when folks do the same types of training day-in and day-out.   As I’ve discussed rather endlessly elsewhere on the site, it can’t substitute completely for steady state type training; but it can provide a nice adjunct for people who want to push things a bit harder from time to time.

Intervals could be incorporated in multiple ways for those seeking general health.  Either a block of intervals, for example doing them twice weekly for 6 weeks (along with 1-2 lower intensity steady state sessions), could be done between every 6-12 weeks of steady-state training or one interval session could be done per week for longer periods of 6-12 weeks (i.e. two to three steady state sessions, one interval session per week).

Interval durations of anywhere from 30-60 seconds all the way up to several minutes with an equal rest interval at varying intensities would be done after a warm-up with a total of maybe 10-20 minutes of ‘on-time’ during each workout; as the duration goes down, the intensity should go up.

So following a 10 minute warm-up, someone might do 10 sets of 1 minute hard/1 minute easy (10 total minutes on-time) at a near-maximum pace during the on bit and a very easy recovery pace during the rest interval and then cool-down.  Longer sets of 3-4 minutes with a 2 minute rest or so could be done for 3-4 sets but at a lower intensity.

While early ACSM guidelines for resistance training were exceedingly moderate (e.g. 1 set of 8-12 repetitions done twice per week), more recent guidelines have embraced more periodization concepts with different ‘levels’ of training for different populations.  Beginners, as discussed in my Beginning Weight Training series need very little training, 2-3 days per week at low volumes (1 set often gives the same gains as multiple sets in this population).

At the intermediate level (after perhaps 6-12 months of beginner training), a frequency of 3-4 days/week might be used.   Some type of basic split routine would tend to be used at that level.  The ACSM guidelines recommend 4-5 days/week for advanced trainees but, honestly, I can’t see 5 days/week in the weight room when the goal is simply general health and wellness.  Four days/week would seem to be more than plenty for all but the most performance oriented folks.  Two to three days/week is probably more realistic for most.

Repetitions can vary and there is probably benefit for even the general health seeking individual to go to lower repetitions ranges (perhaps sets of 5-6) from time to time since that will tend to have benefits for bone health and other important parameters.  Constant pounding in that range can become problematic, especially in older folks for whom connective tissues are often the limiting factor.  Heavy work is good but too much can cause joint issues.

Some type of basic periodization scheme, starting with sets of 12 and gradually adding weight and dropping repetitions every few weeks until heavier sets of 6 are hit before back-cycling and starting over would give the benefits of the heavier work, along with some much needed variety (needed to avoid boredom), without causing the potential for joint issues down the road.  So 2 weeks at 12 repetitions, 2 weeks at 10, 2 weeks at 8, 2 weeks at 6 before backing off and starting over or something very simple like that.

Alternately, a simple double progression using a repetition range of 6-12 would be workable.  So the trainee would add reps until they hit 12 before adding some weight to the bar (bringing the repetitions back down) and building back up.  I’d note that some people simply suck at adding repetitions in this fashion, but discussing that would take another article.

Another option would be some sort of undulating periodization scheme where one workout was done in higher repetition range (perhaps 10-12) and a second was done in a lower repetition bracket (6-8).  The possibilities are fairly endless here and finding a training style that the person enjoys and will do consistently is arguably more important than anything else.

Depending on the repetition count, anywhere from one to perhaps 3 sets should be more than sufficient (as reps go down, the number of sets should go up).  This also helps to keep workout length down.  Individuals with more lofty goals in terms of muscle growth or performance might do more than this but this Q&A is meant to be talking about general health.

For exercise selection, the general health trainee has many many options since there are no strict requirements for any exercise to be done or not done; I generally wouldn’t see much reason to do more than one exercise per muscle group/body part in any given workout.

There certainly appears to be some benefit of heavy axial loading (e.g. squats, overhead press) in terms of bone health and including those movements, or at least movements that load the spine and extremities from time to time  would seem useful.  Of course, doing those movements properly tends to require some amount of competent coaching which isn’t always available.  Even a horizontal type leg press will load the spine and lower body axially.

But trainees can mix and match exercises to their hearts content.  This is a case that it’s more important that the training gets done than how it gets done. Again, the possibilities for mixing and matching are fairly endless here.  Some trainees may prefer to use the same exercises for a complete block of training (perhaps 6-8) weeks and then switch everything out.

Others may prefer to perform one batch of movements for one workout each week and a completely different batch of movements for the other workout (I’m assuming an average frequency for each muscle group of about twice/week).  Personally I’m not a huge fan of switching things out much more often than that (it makes it hard to track progress) but certainly boredom can be avoided more easily with more variety.

As far as overall training structure, there are many possibilities.  Individuals just looking for basic all around fitness may want to put equal amounts of energy into both their strength training and cardiovascular work.  That might mean 2-3 basic weight workouts per week and 3 cardiovascular fitness sessions per week.   These workouts could be done on the same days (which can make for long workouts) or on different days (e.g. weights Mon/Wed/Fri or Mon/Fri and cardio on Tue/Thu/Sat).

Folks who prefer to push one or the other can simply alternate blocks of training.  So in a strength training focused block, weights would be emphasized (with perhaps 3-4 workouts/week in some type of split routine) and cardiovascular fitness maintained (with 3 low to moderate intensity aerobic sessions to avoid interfering with the weight work too much).

After 6-8 weeks, a switch would be made with weights being moved to maintenance (lowered volume and frequency perhaps 2 short workouts per week) and cardiovascular fitness emphasized.   Two to three short maintenance weight workouts per week along with perhaps 4 cardiovascular workouts (2 steady state workouts and 2 higher intensity sessions).  I’ve talked about how to integrate interval training with weight room work in Steady State vs. Interval Training: Part 1 and Steady State vs. Interval Training: Part 2.

Of course, eventually the general health trainee will be as fit as they need or want to be (or they may decide to become more serious about it and move into some type of competition and train more) and can simply move everything to maintenance.  I would note that things like mobility/flexibility work (e.g. dynamic or static stretching) and foam rolling type stuff can be done as part of warm-ups as described in Warming Up for the Weight Room.

In any case, that’s an overview of how someone would train for general health and wellness. In the big scheme of things, the only real difference between this type of training and something more goal intensive is that of scope; individuals seeking maximum hypertrophy or strength or endurance performance will generally do more total training and put more emphasis into that singular goal.  For general health, a more all around approach to training and less overall emphasis and total training is done.  But the fundamental principles of overload, progression, etc. are still relevant.

What I decided to do  is to cut back in sets and weight for some time. I decided to start with 1 set of each exercise and start at 50% of the weight I left off at when I was last lifting.   I’ve done 2 days thus far, major DOMs, but no injuries thus far. Then each week I’m going to bump the weight up by 10% until I get back to the 100% weight. Then I will start adding sets each week until I get to where I was lifting before. Is there a better way to do this?

Answer: The situation you’re describing is actually quite common.  For whatever reason, be it injury, sickness or just life, trainees often have to take rather prolonged layoffs from the weight room (or other training) and getting back into training can often cause problems.

In that context, there is actually quite a bit of data on detraining (e.g. how rapidly you lose adaptations from training when you quit).  I can’t honestly say I’ve looked at it in detail recently and much of what I’m going to write below is based as much on personal experience training and coaching as anything in the literature.

In general, there tend to be a fairly small loss of gains in the short-term.  That is, over a few days, very little is lost.  For very technical activities (such as Olympic lifting) often ‘groove’ is lost quickly (and more quickly for the snatch than clean and jerk) but for less complicated activities, even that’s usually a non-issue.

Quite in fact, in the case of sickness or a very short layoff, often no time is lost.  Frequently, given how often people train too much too hard too often, they may come back stronger after a layoff of 3-5 days.  They often hit PR’s quickly upon returning to the gym because the time off ends up acting as a taper/peaking period.  They finally get much needed rest to adapt and gain.

At most it may take a single workout or even the first part of their first workout back to get their groove on and then they’d put up big numbers after such a short ‘layoff’.  I should also note that this is highly variable, I’ve also seen folks for whom a 3-5 day period totally off left them completely flat and unable to perform; they usually did their best 2-3 days after returning to training with light workouts on the first day or two.  One trainee would look terrible on day 1 back to the gym after a 3-5 day break, look better on day 2 and then hit PR’s on day 3.

Once the break gets beyond the 5-7 day mark, it is possible to lose some progress although most of the losses in the short-term are more the neural training adaptations than muscle mass per se (a lot depends on what caused the layoff).  Basically, the first adaptations that trainees get (neural) are the first ones to go.  For layoffs of perhaps 1-2 weeks (sickness or what have you), my rule of thumb is that it takes about twice as long to get back to where you left off before getting sick or taking the time off.

So if you lose 2 weeks of training for some reason, expect it to take about 4 weeks to get back to where you left off.   With this type of short-term, the basic idea would be to backcycle about 2 weeks and ramp back up over the first 2 weeks of training before pushing to where you were by week 4.

Of course, when layoffs get much longer, a month or more, the rules change as both neural adaptations and muscle mass are often lost.  The ‘twice as long to return’ rule of thumb starts to become less and less useful; of course as the training break becomes longer and longer, it becomes even essentially meaningless.  Basically, the longer away from training you are, the more you return to your basically untrained/newbie status.  And that has major implications for how to return to training.

What Not to Do

First let’s talk about what not to do.  Back when I worked a lot in commercial gyms, what I commonly saw was trainees (almost exclusively males) who would start training after many years of not training (usually they were in their mid-30’s and hadn’t lifted since high school or maybe college) and just figured they’d start back where they left off.  I mean, they benched 275 in high-school, that’s probably a good place to start, right?  Err, no.

And invariably one of two things would happen: either they would get injured or they would cripple themselves with so much soreness that that they never returned to the gym.  It sounds like that’s what you were doing prior to ‘getting smarter’.    So don’t do that.

Which brings us to the question of what to do; how to best return to training after a layoff prolonged enough to require worrying about it.

What You Should Do

And essentially what you described in your question is how to approach it.  Beyond a certain point away from training (and note that returning after an injury is different than coming back from a long layoff for a non-injury related reason), you should basically train as if you were a complete beginner again.

That means starting with a low volume and low intensity and gradually working back up.  You have to put aside what you ‘used to do’ because if you try to match those old performances, you will get yourself into trouble.  Put a different way, in this situation it never hurts to start more slowly and build back up gradually unless you are under some weird time pressure to get back into shape fast.  That situation does arise sometimes, usually with competitive athletes.

For everyone else, I prefer going slower and taking the more conservative approach.  This gives the body time to re-adapt to training; connective tissues need to restrengthen, work capacity needs to be rebuilt, etc.  And, the way I look at it, anything ‘lost’ by going a bit slower initially is far more than outweighed by the trainee not getting hurt or being so sore that they quit after the first day.

What you wrote above in your question is pretty much perfect so far as I’m concerned.  I’d probably tend towards full body for at least the first few weeks but a basic upper/lower split can also be appropriate.  Usually trainees returning don’t need quite as much practice on movements to get the neural pathways and technique back online so I’m not as adamant about using a full body routine in this situation.

Intensity should start very low, 50-60% of previous maximum is probably fine but I see no problem starting lighter rather than heavier.  You can always adjust the weight on the bar up as you re-adapt .   Every couple of workouts, you can bump the load on the bar assuming you’re not getting massive soreness or anything resembling injury.  Again, there’s no real hurry and it may be 4-6 weeks before you even approaching particularly heavy weights.   Again, there’s no hurry and, as a generally tangential comment, trainees need to realise that training is a journey and not a race.

I would use a low volume of training in the first few workouts, as noted above, work capacity has to be rebuilt and this takes time.  This might mean a single set per exercise in the first workout.  Depending on the specifics, I might add a set per workout during the first week or I might wait a full week of training before raising volume.  That’s just a judgement call.

Whether I used high or low repetitions when returning would very much depend on the situation; I talk about this a bit in What’s the Best Way to Teach/Learn a New Exercise.  If I were coaching someone hands-on, I might very well use multiple sets of lower reps but with the caveat that the weight would be very sub-maximal.  If someone were training themselves or had poor impulse control, a single set of high reps might be most appropriate in the first workout.

In terms of exercise selection, there are many different opinions.  I tend to use a large number of movements (perhaps 8-10) for less sets per movement (as I am a bit obsessive about proper balance across body parts); other coaches use more sets per movement for fewer movements.  It all works out about the same so far as I’m concerned.

But that’s the basic approach when coming back from a long layoff: train as a beginner.  What you do usually find in this case is that progress is faster the second time around compared to a true beginner.  While the topic of muscle memory is a bit outside the scope of what I want to talk about, there is something to it.  Whether it’s neural, physiological or just a function of the person knowing better how to train themselves; folks always make faster progress when they return to training than they made as true beginners.

Even there, I’d caution trainees about pushing things too hard or too fast. The slowest adapting tissues are the connective tissues; even if your muscles can handle the loads, you may predispose yourself to an injury by getting into heavy loads too quickly.  As noted above, this isn’t a race and the time ‘lost’ to going slower is still a lot less than what you lose by getting hurt by being macho.

What About Injuries?

Which brings me to a final comment about returning to training after an injury, since the rules change a bit there.  While the above still holds in general, there is more to take into account.  The single most important question is this: Has the injury healed?

Most people try to return to training too quickly, before the injury is fully healed and they often do nothing but re-injure it again, losing even more training time.  Years ago, my mentor gave me a valuable rule that I follow to this day both in my own training and that of trainees in the case of injury:

Wait until you think the injury is healed, then wait another week.

Sage advice.

There are two reasons for this piece of advice.  The first is that motivated trainees and athletes always think that they are healed when they really aren’t.  They’ll convince themselves that what is actually joint pain is just a bit of stiffness and get back to training far too early.

The other is a more practical one: you lose less time by waiting longer initially.  Say you get hurt and you lose 2 weeks of training letting it heal.  But you really need a third week.  So if you followed the rule, you’d lose 3 weeks of training in total before getting back to things and being able to train effectively because the injury is actually healed.

But say that instead of waiting that week, you get back in the gym and get hurt again.  Now you lose another 2 weeks to the injury plus the extra week; that’s assuming that you didn’t make the injury much worse requiring even longer than 2 weeks to heal.   So by not waiting the third week initially, you actually lose 5 weeks (the original 2 weeks + 2 or more weeks for the re-injury + the extra week you should have taken).  As frustrating as it is, being patient in the short-term pays dividends in the long-term.

There’s more: when you return to training after an injury, it’s crucial that you only do a single set of a single exercise that works ‘through’ the injured area.  So say you had a shoulder injury that caused you to need 4 weeks off while it healed.  When you return to training, if you do 1 or more sets of bench press, overhead press, rows and pulldowns and it hurts the next day, you don’t know what movement caused the problem.  If you did multiple sets, you don’t know if it was the exercise per se or the volume that caused the problem or what to modify.

But if you do a single set of bench press and your shoulder doesn’t hurt the next day, you know that a single set of bench can be done.  If at the next workout you add a single set of shoulder presses and your shoulder hurts, you know that shoulder presses are still out.  If you add the shoulder press and it doesn’t hurt, you know that shoulder press is ok.  So you add rows.  Oops, now it hurts again.  Rows are out.  Get it?

Yes, this takes longer and certain injuries are relatively more or less problematic because of where they are (shoulders are always a bitch because so many movements work ‘through’ them).  As well, when returning after an injury, it’s often necessary to retrain muscles that may have becoming inhibited or what have you.  Which is far beyond the scope of this article.  I just wanted to make some general comments about returning after an injury.

Summing Up

When coming back off a layoff more than a month or two, I highly recommend training as if a beginner even if it’s just for the first few weeks.  Trying to go back right where you left off never works as strength, technique and muscle mass can deterioriate in relatively short time periods.  Trying to do that; jumping right back to where you left off or think you ’should be’ either gets the person hurt or leaves them wrecked with soreness.

Taking a few weeks to ease back in gives everything time to re-adapt and, even if it’s frustrating in the short-term, works much better in the long-term.  Unless you are a competitive athlete with a fixed time frame to get back to high levels of training, there is almost nothing to be gained by pushing too hard too fast and everything to be gained by being more patient.

Answer: Arguably the most common recommendation for teaching someone a new exercise, or learning a movement in the weight room is to use light weights and high repetitions (usually 10-12 or even higher).  The idea is that the higher repetition count will force the use of light weight and allow the trainee to get in a lot of reps per set.

However, this approach has a problem, especially with relative beginners.  That problem is that, with such high repetitions, even with light weights, fatigue starts to set in towards the end of the set and form/technique deteriorates.  The set may start with good form but it will fall apart as they get tired at the end.

The reason that this is a problem is that at least one aspect of motor learning (and please note that this topic is much more complicated than I’m making it out to be) is that learning new skills is best done when the individual is rested and unfatigued.  And as fatigue starts to build up with higher repetition sets, the problem is that form tends to deteriorate.  You end up teaching the trainee bad habits.

In this vein, you will actually find that many top coaches stop their athletes when form starts to fall apart in practice; all it does by letting them continue in bad technique is to teach them how to do the movement poorly.  So when form falls apart, the workout, or at least that section of it is over.

I’d note that for more advanced athletes, deliberately practicing technique under fatigued conditions is often advocated.  This is because, in high level sport, athletes often have to perform when they are tired.  They need to have learned how to maintain proper technique while fatigued.  But this is only for advanced athletes who have already established technical mastery (or something close to it) and you asked about learning for newbies.

An alternative approach to learning new movements is to do multiple low-repetition sets (5 repetitions is a good number) but still with a fairly light weight. Done for 5 sets, you can get 25 quality repetitions without generating the kind of fatigue that you’d get with multiple set of 12 or 15 repetitions.  I talked about this topic before in The 5X5 Program.

With this approach, you might start a new trainee with nothing but a 45 pound bar (in some cases, you might use bars lighter than that for learning; for example, many Olympic lifting coaches start teaching the movements with pieces of PVC pipe).

The athlete or trainee would then do 5 repetitions, if a coach is available, they would not only explain demonstrate the movement beforehand but would generally be giving feedback on each repetition on what to fix or change.

If the 5 repetitions were done correctly, or at least mostly so, a small amount of weight would then be added to the bar.  Depending on the movement, this might be 5 pounds or less; for movements like squat or deadlift, it might be more than that.  This is a judgment call on the coach’s part based on their past experience.  With a 16 year old strong male squatting, you might put 10-20 pounds on the bar.  For a 45 year old beginner female, 5 pounds might be too much.   In any case, after adding a bit of weight, 5 more repetitions would be performed.

If those were still good technically and not too challenging, more weight would be added. If the weight started to get challenging, or form started to break down, you’d either stick with that same weight for the workout or possibly drop back down.  I’d suggest this last strategy as being beneficial.  I have a personal pet theory that the body and nervous system remember the last thing that you did on a movement and finishing with a weight that the trainee can do absolutely perfectly accomplishes at least two things:

1. Let’s them finish with a final set of perfectly performed repetitions
2. Lets them finish the workout/set on a high point

That second one isn’t me being facetious by the way.  For many athletes, ending a workout in what they perceive as failure can become a real negative feed-forward loop; they come into the next workout thinking about the last workout and it all starts spiralling down.

If you let them finish on a high point with something that feels like success, that also becomes a feed-forward loop; success breeds success because they come into the next workout remembering how well they ended the last one.

In any case, a beginner being taught the squat might go:

BarX5, 55X5, 65X5, 75X5 (let’s say that this looks challenging), 75X5 (or you might drop them back to 65X5 to finish on a perfect set).

in their first workout.

At the next workout, you might start them at 55 or 65 and pyramid up again.  So they might go 55, 65, 75, 85, 85 at the secon workout. Then 65, 75, 85, 95, 100 at the next. You get the idea.

Learning movements this way accomplishes several things.  The first is that they are accumulating a lot of good repetitions at each workout.  As well, since they are adding small amounts of weight, they see that they are progressing (a huge aspect of keeping them training is positive reinforcement).

Finally, many trainees find that movements are a little bit easier to perform with some weight on the bar; it can actually be more difficult if the weight is too light.  Adding some weight to the bar lets you find a weight that’s challenging enough to let them feel what’s going on without pushing them too hard and causing form to suffer.

It can be a real balance sometimes, finding a weight that is heavy enough for the trainee to ‘feel’ what’s going on but not so heavy that form falls apart.  That’s where a good coach and his eye and experience come in.

I should note that the low rep approach to learning new movements is not without its problems.  The big danger of approaching new movements this way, and this is especially true of males, is their impatience.  With only 5 reps per set and starting out very light, many trainees will try to increase their weights far too quickly and their form will go down the toilet.

If a coach is present, part of his job is to prevent this by only allowing appropriate weight jumps when the trainee is ready for them.  Left to their own devices, many trainees (again, more so males than females in my experience) will throw on far too much weight and get themselves into trouble.  In that case, sticking with the higher rep approach might be better just to keep the weights lighter.

I should note that this approach is described thoroughly in the excellent book “Starting Strength“, now in its second edition, by Mark Rippetoe and Lon Kilgore. I cannot highly enough recommend this book to any trainee or coach.

The only other aspect of motor learning I’d like to mention is that learning new movements tends to occur faster when they are trained more frequently. This is a big part of why I don’t like split routines for beginners, they don’t get as much practice with the movements as if they trained full body every workout.  I like to see new movements trained a minimum of twice/week and three times/week might be better. After 4-6 weeks, the frequency of training can be reduced (if desired) as the intensity increases.

A final note: for anyone reading this who is an expert on motor learning, I’m simplifying a lot of things and I know the topic is much more complicated than I’ve made it out to be with huge differences in approach for quick learning versus retention and all of that.  Feel free to comment but please keep in mind that I’m trying to make practical recommendations here, not delve into the minutiae of motor learning theory.  Thank you for your consideration.

Answer: This is one of those long-standing questions that’s been on my mind for years and the short answer is ‘maybe’. Some of it depends on what you’re talking about which will make more sense when you get to the end of my answer.

The idea of fat adapting endurance athletes has been around for years, I presented most of the early data in my first book The Ketogenic Diet. Summing that research up, the general consensus was this:

1. In the short-term (a few days to about a week), low-carb diets tend to destroy performance.
2. With sufficient adaptation (usually 3+ weeks), there may be performance benefits.

But even #2 is a bit questionable. In the most often cited study (by Phinney), the results were skewed by one of the five cyclists who got massive improvements in endurance, the other four stayed about the same.  So although the average performance improved, most of the subjects showed no improvement.

The results also depend on how performance is actually tested.   If endurance was tested at lower intensities, performance sometimes improved. When researchers tested high intensity activity (where glycogen is required for optimal performance), performance was invariably worse.  The conclusion was simple, no amount of adaptation to low-carbohydrate/ketogenic diets would benefit high-performance activities.

This led to the idea that perhaps fat adapting was most beneficial for ultra-endurance types (who typically go at a lower intensity for longer periods) and less valuable for endurance sports where high intensity efforts were required (think of a cyclist who may have to cover a breakaway or make a final sprint).

This also led to a second, more recent data set which was an examination of short-term fat adaptation (5 days) followed by a 1 day carb-load (looks just like a cyclical ketogenic diet). The idea was to get some adaptations in fat utilization AND refill muscle glycogen to support high intensity activity.

Research had shown that many of the adaptations to low-carbohydrate diets hang around for a while (at least a week) after carbohydrates are re-introduced so it seemed possible that the benefits of low-carbs could be generated while refilling muscle glycogen to sustain high-intensity performance.

And the data was mixed as hell.

On average, performance didn’t generally improve which led to the conclusion that the approach was still invalid. However, in the studies that showed individual data, a pattern emerged that I found interesting. The subjects who got the best performance on carb-based diets showed the biggest decrease on the fat adaptation diet. But subjects who did relatively poorer on high-carbs usually got a performance boost on the with fat adaptation.

This is very consistent with my experience with dieters (as discussed in the article series Comparing the Diets, on this site).  Individuals who do best on carb-based diets often do very poorly on low-carb diets and folks who do poorly on high-carb diets often thrive on low-carb diets.

Related to this, there is data suggesting that people differ in how well they adapt to increases in dietary fat, some seem to do a better job of increasing fat oxidation compared to others and I suspect this explains some of the difference here.  The subjects whose bodies ‘run better’ on fat may be the ones getting performance improvements from fat adaptations.

However there was another problem with those studies, they invariably tested exercise in a way that wasn’t exactly analogous to typical racing situations so applying the data to real-world performance was difficult.

In a very recent study, cyclists followed 5 days of fat adaptation with 1 day of carb-loading and then performed a time trial. The difference was that the time trial included several short sprints (this was meant to more closely mimic a true competition).  Power output during the sprints was lower after the fat adaptation even after the 1 day carb-load and despite the refilling of muscular glycogen.

It appeared that the body had temporarily lost the ability to generate energy from carbohydrates quickly enough to sustain optimal power outputs during the sprints.  So for the most part, it doesn’t look like a cyclical keto diet can really enhance performance, at least not those requiring high intensity bursts in the short-term.

However, there’s another way that cyclical ketogenic diets might be beneficial for endurance athletes but it has more to do with training than competition.  Increasing amounts of data are finding that training and diet interact in terms of the adaptations seen.  What you eat on a day to day basis as well as around training affects what sorts of overall adaptations are seen.

For example, early data had shown that several days on low carbs with endurance training increases gene expression for pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH) which is a key enzyme for energy production in skeletal muscle.

More recent data has examined a molecular energy sensor called AMPk (adenosine monophosphate kinase) which turns out to play a crucial role in endurance adaptations (you can read more in AMPk: Master Metabolic Regulator). AMPk is activated more easily when glycogen is depleted which might mean higher levels of gene expression for the adaptations that endurance athletes are looking for.

Based on a variety of data, it looks like training under conditions of glycogen depletion may enhance endurance adaptations and a theory of training with low glycogen and competing with high has been advanced by some researchers in the field.

The problem is that gene expression and protein synthesis aren’t the same thing and protein synthesis tends not to proceed very well when cellular energy state is low (as would occur when muscle glycogen is depleted and AMPk activity is high).

Which brings us back to cyclical ketogenic diets.  What if someone combined glycogen depletion with a large volume of low- to moderate-intensity endurance training; in theory this should generate a great deal of gene expression for stuff important to endurance athletes.  However, this wouldn’t be the optimal situation for actual protein synthesis.

What if now that person swung into high-calorie/carb-loading phase with a reduction in training volume (and perhaps an increase in intensity) so that there would now be sufficient energy to synthesize mitochondrial and energetic proteins?

Would this help drive adaptations further than training under normal carbohydrate intake conditions?  I don’t know but that’s sort of the idea I’ve been kicking around anyhow.

Basically, although it doesn’t look like a cyclical ketogenic diet is optimal for overall competition results it might be used during a base training phase in an attempt to drive adaptations higher than they’d otherwise go.

During the competition phase, higher intakes of carbs make the most sense based on the most current data, at least for sports which require bouts of high intensity performance during the event (if you’re an ultra runner or something, fat adaptation may work just fine).

Finally, it is at least worth noting that the current kings of endurance running (the Kenyans) are known for exceedingly high daily carbohydrate intakes (70% of total calories) although they are also known for doing consistent morning runs fasted as well as multiple training sessions per day.  So they may have actually stumbled on a training pattern where they get the benefits of everything I’ve talked about, some training done fasted/under glycogen depleted conditions with sufficient carbs/calories to sustain optimal rates of protein synthesis.

Of course, since most can’t train three times per day, it’s debatable how relevant that is to the average trainee.   A cyclical low-carb approach might be a more practical way of achieve some of what I’ve talked about and I’d love to hear from anybody who’s tried it.

A: The thing to keep in mind about the ‘extensive tempo’ running that sprinters commonly do is that the goal is not specifically aimed at fat loss (even if keeping the athletes lean is often a consequence of that type of training). Rather, it’s a way to get a large volume of relatively lower intensity work (to build work capacity, recovery, etc) while also getting in some technical work without having to slog endless miles.

Much of this reflects the odd situation that sprinters, and this is especially true in the middle distances of 400-800m have to deal with. They need the high power output for top speed but they also need the aerobic development and endurance that will allow them to

1. Be able to handle the high training volumes

‘2. Not run out of gas towards the end of the race

This puts them in a strange place metabolically, too much endless endurance work tends to compromise top speed and power output. But they need the aerobic development for the reasons stated above. Tangentially, it’s turning out (and cutting edge coaches have known this for years) that the size of the aerobic engine has a huge impact on how well the body handles acid generation during high-intensity activity.

Mitochondria actually have lactate transporters and having better developed aerobic capacity ends up improving anaerobic capacity as well. And developing this capacity takes much less out of the athlete then grinding out lots of anaerobic style intervals (which tend to be mentally and physically exhausting). As far as the fat loss question, the thing to remember is that typically the rest intervals are kept fairly short during this type of extensive tempo training. You reach a pseudo-aerobic steady state of sorts because you’re not getting complete rests between sets.

Which would explain a lot of why it has the effects that it has. Since the speed of the ‘on’ bits is also faster, it’s probably a bit more specific to the requirements of a 400m sprinter than slogging slow miles (although, as noted in one of my blog posts, they do some steady state training as well). But the overall stress of the workout still tends to be towards the lower intensity end of things since the run bits are kept short.

Will it necessarily be ‘better’ than an hour hard run? Probably not because, if nothing else, the hour run will burn far more calories (which is still the ultimate determinant of fat loss) than a 30 minute tempo session or what have you. But, as noted above, it’s more specific to what those distance sprinters need and the volume will, as a consequence, help to keep them leaner. Hope that clears things up.

Hey, GREAT stuff. I’ve become a nutrition nerd over the past year and am devouring whatever info I can get my hands on…and this led me to a question you may or may not feel hits a large part of your audience. I continue to read a lot about the goals of hypertrophy, strength and power, what routines are best, what diets are best – but one concern continues to nag at me, over and over; while everyone has different goals, what about AGE???

I’m a 46 year old male who has lifted heavy since high school – right through till I was in my upper 20’s (coincidentally, just about when my career overshadowed my goals of looking good.) Now, at 46 I’ve decided I want to get back in the game! I’ve been lifting again and have dropped 17 lbs of FAT. I’m now stronger than I was in college and my wife says I look better.

Now, My wife and her trainer think I’m crazy but I want to lift for hypertrophy. I figure I have about 10 more years to gain muscle (I’ve heard at the age of 55 most men lose the ability to put on muscle) and want to try it for the next two years, WHILE keeping off belly fat at this point in my life. Am I crazy to believe I can and should do it, and how do I go about it???

Answer: Arguably the biggest difference in terms of age is that you won’t be able to recover from the same amount of training that you did when you were younger. You’ll also tend to grow more slowly which means you don’t need a massive excess of incoming nutrients. Finally, the upper limit of how much muscle mass you can gain will probably be lower due to changes in hormone levels which occur with aging.

When in doubt, I’d recommend that you err on the low side of trining volume and frequency. Three times/week is probably plenty, hitting each bodypart every 5th day or so. So something like a Monday: Upper body Wednesday: Lower body Friday: Upper body Monday: Lower body Wedesday: Upper body Friday: Lower body The other days would be taken off or used for some type of work capacity or conditioning. I’d recommend at least 1-2 days completely off of training per week.

As far as volume per workout, you don’t need a ton of sets. A conservative starting place might be 2 heavy sets and 1 higher rep set (2X5-8 + 1X10-12) per body part and you can pick different exercises for each repetition range. You might be able to handle more than that, you might not be but you should always start on the side of too little than too much.

You can experiment with higher volumes if you feel that you’re not growing adequately (a very reasonable rate of muscle gain for men is about 0.5 pounds per week or two pounds per month). You should focus on progressively adding weight to the bar (while keeping form excellent) and eating a slightly caloric surplus and you should grow to the limits of your ability. Good luck.

Answer: Ok, there are really two issues at stake here. The first is that your trainer seems to be slightly clueless to the fact that gaining lots of muscle and strength is generally antithetical to the goal of getting lean. Can it be done? Sometimes. But for most people, picking one goal and then optimizing training and diet towards that goal generally works better than trying to do all things at once. Most people will simply end up spinning their wheels trying to do that.

Put differently, if you want to get lean, you’re going to have to accept that you may not make any strength gains, or that they will be small. Aim to maintain your current strength while leaning out. If you want to get big and strong, then dieting is not the way to do it. You should optimize your diet and training towards that goal.

Which brings me to problem two. I do not think you are a hardgainer; I think your trainer doesn’t know what he’s doing. Sets of 15 aren’t good for getting much stronger in the first place. Working in the 5-8 repetition range on heavy compound stuff with some supplemental work in high rep ranges works better. High rep sets have their place to be sure, getting really strong usually isn’t one of them. So my advice is this:

• Pick a single goal and work towards it.
• Find a trainer who knows what he’s doing when it comes to training.