Elite Physique The New Science of Building a Better Body

Building Muscle Versus Burning Fat
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to increase muscle size. And plan 3, with its high volume (up to 80 reps per exercise),
would be best for fat loss.
But what if you learned that every set in plan 3 is to be taken to momentary
muscular failure to create metabolic stress, a potent stimulus for hypertrophy
(Schoenfeld 2010)? Or that plan 1 includes lots of single-joint exercises for muscles
that wouldn’t typically be emphasized when the goal is pure strength? Or that
plan 2 has relatively short rest periods and thus limited recovery between sets,
which wouldn’t be optimal for hypertrophy? Wouldn’t that change your sense
of what each program was designed to achieve?
The truth is, any of the three can be a muscle-building or fat-burning program.
Training with heavy loads induces greater growth of type II muscle fibers, or
equal growth of type II and type I fibers, mainly by myofibrillar hypertrophy.
Training with lighter loads for a high volume or to momentary muscular failure
causes more growth in type I fibers and might stimulate sarcoplasmic hypertrophy
(Haun et al. 2019). What matters most is this:
• All muscle fiber types can grow with the right type of training. In chapters
8 and 9 you’ll see programming with repetitions that range from 3 to 30 per
set to get maximal stimulation of all muscle fiber types.
• Your daily nutrition is the difference maker. If you consistently consume 500
calories a day above your maintenance level, you’ll gain muscle with any
of the three programs I just described. If you eat 500 calories below your
maintenance level, you’ll lose fat with the same programs.
Regardless of your goal—to build muscle or to burn fat—the core component
of your elite-physique training programs will be three full-body circuits each
week. And you’ll prioritize multijoint exercises, since they stimulate more muscle
groups with each set than isolation exercises do. But this is where the similarities
end. A fat-loss program needs a few modifications because training and eating to
burn fat requires a caloric deficit, which imposes stress on your immune system.
With too much overall stress, you won’t be able to maintain optimal levels of
testosterone and other anabolic hormones (Fry and Kraemer 1997; Schoenfeld et
al. 2020). The modifications are as follows:
• Less volume: You’ll do four rounds of a circuit instead of five or more.
• Less intensity: You’ll stop each set one or two repetitions short of failure to
avoid excessive muscle damage (another form of stress).
• Fewer exercises: Fat-loss workouts often have three or four multijoint exercises
instead of five or more.
• Shorter rest periods: With 30 to 45 seconds of rest between each exercise in
a circuit, instead of 2 to 3 minutes, you’ll elicit a larger cardiorespiratory
response (Alcaraz, Sanchez-Lorente, and Blazevich 2008).
• More metabolic work: Each workout will end with a metabolic exercise (e.g.,
sprints or sled work) to stimulate fat loss. You’ll also do lower-intensity
cardiorespiratory exercise on nonlifting days to promote fat burning and
manage fatigue.
The first three changes—lower volume and intensity and fewer exercises—help
you limit training-induced physical stress at a time when your body is already
coping with the stress of a reduced-calorie diet. If you’re relatively new to strength