Meal Frequency and Consistency for Mass Gain

October 8, 2019

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Nathan Waters - Total Health Performance

Last week we had some of the boys come in and do a mass gain camp during the school holidays. The biggest takeaway from the whole thing for me (and now I think the boys too) is that it doesn't matter how hard you train, to gain mass, you have to eat all of your meals and have them at a consistent time. This is something I stress often but was highlighted a lot last week. In my opinion it is one of the biggest thing missing in most people's plans, along with lack of sleep.

The boys train really hard but where they tend to fall down the most is with their nutrition. Lack of planning is one thing, but just eating the shear volume of food needed to grow day in and day out seems to get them. Most people don't realise how far off they are until they really try to put on some quality lean mass. I find it to be much harder than fat loss for the majority of people. It takes a lot of discipline as you can't get away with missing meals. 

If you don't eat consistently, you won't grow. It is as simple as that. You can't build muscle without eating. 

When I question the boys meals, asking what they have eaten, they will say they ate heaps. Then I ask a few more questions and they may have missed breakfast, that's not in the plan. Or they say I had eggs, and I say how many? 2. Well you need more like 6-8 whole eggs to grow. So, what the problem is, is that often people think they are eating a lot when in reality they aren't. 

For mass, most people aren't eating enough and they aren't eating frequently enough. 

I tend to recommend 5-7 meals a day when trying to put on mass. This include a post-workout shake. Now I know people say you don't need to eat that frequently but from experience with clients, that amount of meals tends to work best. The only time we have shakes is post workout. No substituting shakes for solid meals. As Charles Poliquin said in a seminar, you have to eat solid food to get solid.

If you want to gain mass, my advice is to eat frequently, eat a lot, and be consistent with it. 

Tags:

Lean Mass

muscle mass

Hypertrophy

Charles Poliquin

Nutrition

Hypertrophy Bootcamp with Charles Poliquin

November 18, 2018

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Nathan Waters - Total Health Performance

This photo is of Charles Poliquin and myself after the 2013 hypertrophy bootcamp he held in Sydney in 2013. At the beginning of this class Charles told us all that whoever he thought was the best trainer of the 5 days would win an internship with him. I was already keen to learn and train with Charles but this took it to another level for me, which I needed.

At the time I had just finished another rugby league season and was recovering from a fair few injuries I had suffered throughout that year. I broke my back in round 1 that year and played two weeks later. I then broke my wrist and collar bone on the right side and played every game with them throughout the season. In the first semi final of that season I tore my right pec of the ribs, done my AC, tore my delt, and tore my infraspinatus all on that right side again. That happened about 5 minutes into the semi final and I played through it as I knew that was me done for the year and my teammates needed me. 

This was only about one month after the season finished so at this point I had seen the surgeon for my wrist and was wearing one of those casts they mould but you can strap on and off. So leading up to camp I would just take it off and train then put it back on. In class I would rock up, take it off to train, then put it on in between the sessions.

Now for those of you who don't know the hypertrophy bootcamp is 5 days of 3 x a day training with Charles giving a lecture on the system and things you can do nutritionally in between each workout. Charles teaches you how to gain the most size in the shortest amount of time and the lessons I learned from Charles during the week have been invaluable. 

Day 1 was arms, day 2 legs, day 3 torso, day 4 legs, day 5 remedials. By the end of day two I was buckled. The upper body workouts were very hard for me to get through but I didn't care I had that goal of winning the internship with Charles in the back of my mind so I just kept pushing through the pain and lifting as hard as I could. Dips were a nightmare, I remember that clearly. 

During the camp Charles said that myself and Michael (a fellow student) had the best squats on the day. This was a huge confidence booster for me as Charles rarely says things like this and for me I could not break 90 degree in the squat at the beginning of that year due to so many issues with my hips and upper back. Meeting Gem early that year and doing the corrective based exercises she prescribed had allow me to full squat and now with good enough technique for Charles to mention. Not a huge deal in any case but to me it was.

I started the week at 84-85kg and after I finished the refuel over the weekend I was up to 92-93kg. So it was a 7-8kg gain. After a week I was back to about 89-90kg and have stayed that weight ever since, unless focusing of dropping weight for jiu-jitsu for example. I remember the boys at footy thought I was looking too light at the beginning of pre-season that year and were geeing me up about it and I said don't worry have a look at me next week. Then I came back that much heavier and they were all rattled asking what I had done. The surgeon also put me in a solid cast after the camp so I spent the next 12 weeks in that training with the boys on the field still doing skills and conditioning. 

At the end of the camp Charles wrapped up and someone asked who had won the internship. Charles said "Oh Nate you win the internship". I was so happy but tried not to show it too much. That is when I got the above photo with Charles. The next year I spent about 3-4 weeks with Charles (spread throughout the beginning and end) and I learnt the most I have ever learnt in my life in that time period. 

That one picture sparked so many memories for me. It was a time in my life where I knew 100% where I was going and one of the biggest reasons I am where I am today. All because of this great man. I am forever grateful.

All the best to those doing the bootcamp starting today with Carlos Castro. You will work hard but you will learn a lot and it will be well worth your investment. 

Tags:

Charles Poliquin

Hypertrophy

bootcamp

Nathan Waters

muscle mass

strength training

Injury

Sleep and Hydration

September 12, 2017

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Nathan Waters - Total Health Performance

Two of the most overlooked, beneficial things you can do for health and performance is getting quality sleep and ensuring you are properly hydrated. They may not be the most fancy things to work on but they are the foundation for everything else.

Too often people come to me and ask all these questions about things they are not even close to being ready for. For example they will come in and ask if we can do a salivary cortisol test because they think they have adrenal fatigue. When I ask some things about their lifestyle, like how well do they sleep, they are getting about 5 hours per night at best. Well we don’t need a test to know why you feel tired and burnt out. Get your sleep and lifestyle in order first and then after you have done that for a long period of time, you may want to invest in some testing. Just because you test something doesn’t give you the solution to your problem. If your results come back and say you are screwed up then you are still going to have to address your sleep, nutrition, and lifestyle choices anyway.

The benefits of sleep are enormous but people don’t realise or want to realise it because they don’t want to change their crappy habits of sitting up all night on Facebook or watching T.V.

Here are some benefits of sleep well:

• Reduce obesity
• Improve insulin sensitivity
• Improve hormone function
• Improve memory and learning
• Improve athletic performance including speed and reaction time
• Decrease body fat levels
• Decrease inflammation

When it comes to hydration I hear all sorts of ridiculous things like “I wish I could drink more water” When I ask why they can’t, I commonly hear “oh, I don’t like the taste”. So you can drink water but you choose not to. Their faces go blank.

There are many negative things associated with dehydration such as:

• Decrease in strength and power
• Problems with cartilage and the inter-vertebral discs
• Inflammatory issues and chronic pain
• Digestive issues
• Compromised immunity
• Asthma and allergies
• Fatigue
• Headaches

Optimal athletic performance cannot be achieved with sub-optimal levels of hydration since all the body's functions depend on adequate fluid levels. Avoiding dehydration will allow you to maintain peak power levels during repeated anaerobic efforts.

Greater hydration will allow you to train harder and longer, and there is evidence that dehydration causes cardiovascular stress as well as deterioration in central nervous system function.

Stop looking for extreme reasons why you aren’t achieving your goals. For 90% of people out there you are looking for an excuse. You have to have your foundation sorted and do it consistently for a long period of time, not for a week or two. It has to be an everyday thing. If you can’t do this, whether you have a gene mutation or some shit like that doesn’t really matter. Sure it may be having an impact but if you’re not sleeping or you are chronically dehydrated then I don’t think it matters. Half the shit that gets asked are things you work on when you have been doing all these things correctly for years. Then when you plateau you can begin to look into more complicated issues to further progress.

Stop looking for a quick fix, work hard, and be consistent with your sleep, hydration, nutrition, and other lifestyle choices.

Tags:

sleep

Hydration

strength

power

Health

immune system

asthma

fatigue

water

obesity

insulin

hormones

Athletic Performance

total health performance

inflammation