TheGoodDoctor’s BodyBlog

Hi all, time to write another blog

Now i must admit, part of the reason why i have not been blogging as of late is that i have been partying like a rockstar! haha! Yes, i admit it! Life is too short not to have fun in my opinion. still eating super, super clean but the weekends are my time to party! Life is too short not to and as i have mentioned before my physique is not the be all and end all for me

Now, the topic of todays blog relates to carb sensitivity. High protein diets have without doubt, gone mainstream. Hell, there are a lot of people using them in some form or another. As i have mentioned in the previous blog "cardio phobia and high protein madness", in my opinion they are WAY overdone! Some folk are using diets that are 70-80% protein year round!! I could think of nothing worse! I think of lot of this goes with the "go with the crowd mentality" too, people see everyone else using them and think that they must rather then testing the waters with a more balanced diet first.

Let me tell you something a hell of a lot of people on this site may not even be aware of: You CAN build a lean, hard body without a high protein low carb diet! Now i admit, to get SUPER ripped, i use one for competition purposes. But the bulk of the time i use a diet that is high in carbohydrate, moderate in protein and low in fat and am building muscle and keeping lean without much problem  

A high carb diet should be everyones first point of call in my opinion. The reason: to determine carb sensitivity.

Now carb sensitivity if you will basically relates to tolerance of carbohydrate. Your muscles have a saturation point or threshold for stored glycogen: after that point is reached, unless there is sufficient activity, the glycogen excess will be stored as body fat. The problem with high protein, low carb diets is that they asssume everyone is carb sensitive: not true! In fact, the vast majority of people will be able to consume a large ammount of carbs when resistance training without putting on body fat.

By starting with a diet high in carbohyrdrate, you are able to determine how many carbs you can consume without gaining much fat. For example, right now i am consuming nearly 400gms of carbs per day. That is a lot of carbs! but i know that is how much i am able to handle. I personally know of ectomorphic bodybuilders who eat around 600gms of carbs per day in the off season! Most people on this site are probably choking reading this, but, they stay lean. And that is my point, determining carb sensitive FIRST gives you a point you are able to come back to in the off season. Also, remember as your lean mass increases, your capacity to consume greater quantities of carbs will also increase. 

The other problem, i have with high protein/low carb diets is what i call metabolic adapation: You see, when you go for prolongued periods eating low in carbohydrate your body becomes lazy and inefficient at process carbohydrates. The result? A reintroduction of carbs results in large increases in bodyfat levels, and people WRONGLY assume they are therefore carb sensitiive.

No, you are not carb sensitive, rather, you have become metabolically inefficient at processing carbs!!

A classic example of this is a friend of mine: He had been eating a high protein low carb diet for approximately 25 weeks. He then went on holidays for 2 weeks to italy and as such was eating food high in carbs. the result? he gained 10kgs (22 pounds) in two weeks!!! He is not alone, i have seen bodybuilders blow up massively in a matter of days after a contest due to chronic high protein, low carb dieting!

Myself, i use a high protein, low carb diet for competition purposes and then move back to a diet high in carbs for maintence and growth. All transitions on and off a high protein/low carb diet must be carefully planned and monitored. Unless you plan on never eating another carb again for the rest of your life, high protein, low carb diets are not viable long term solutions in my opinion

The other thing, high protein low carb diets are not really balance in my opinion. I mean, in my pre contest diet there was no fruit or dairy, and that is no fun. Remember, dairy and fruit are health foods, and should never be forsaken permanently for want of a lean physique.

There are some classic bodybuilders who NEVER went high protein, low carb either. Mike Metzner is a classic example, he typically used a diet that was 60% carb, 25% protein and 50% fat.

Clarence bass (who is still ripped to this day and has been recorded on numerous occasions at 2.4% body fat) started off using a high protein low carb diet but found he lost muscle mass. He switched to using a balanced diet and was able to get leaner, faster whilst holding more muscle!

The point i am trying to make here is start with a balanced diet first. Work out how many calories you need each day and then create a calorie deficit with diet, cardio or both. This WILL get you leaner and harder. High protein, low carb diets should only been used for breaking a plateua or competition purposes, then you can move back to a balanced diet for growth and maintence whilst stay lean.  Determining how many carbs you are able to handle is valuable information, and will give you a point you are able to refer to at later periods. And, to reiterate what i said eariler:

IF YOU HAVE GAINED A LOT OF BODYFAT AFTER REINTRODUCING CARBS AFTER PROLONGUED LOW CARB DIETING YOU ARE NOT CARB SENSITIVE, RATHER INEFFICIENT AT PROCESSING CARBOHYDRATE!

Started with a balanced diet first and go from there accordingly

Yours sincerly

The good doctor 

Hi everyone!

Because i am not as busy at work i have the time to put down another training blog.

Now today, as has been the case over the last few weeks, i have been on an ongoing mission to increase leg mass. To date, i have not had much success. As i have mentioned in previous blogs, since i have altered leg training a few things have happened:

i)My legs have gotten stronger

ii) they look more toned

iii) They have gotten more vascular

But

To date there has been no real increase in leg mass.

The other annoying thing is that ever since i have changed my routine, everything has been hurting, EXCEPT for legs! Last week i repped out doing squats and my legs were like jelly at the end, i could hardly walk at the end! And yet, no soreness the next day. 

Still, i am not one to give up so easy, so rather then change my leg routine again, i decided i was going to take things to the extreme: Basically, i was going to do an all out, half an hour effort: very little (if any) rest between exercises, and just work my quads until i could do no more.

So what i did, I put a moderate weight on the squat rack and just kept repping, after i could do no more, i move immediately over to the leg press and did the same, then straight over to the seated leg extension for more of the same and finished off with a weighted set of sissy squats. Now by this stage, my legs were feeling like they were on fire! But i wasn’t done yet. I called over one of the gym instructors called jeff and said to him straight up: "Jeff, i am just going to keep repping out on one final set of sissy squats, basically if you can, catch me, because i am seriously going to keep going until i can no longer stand up"

So Jeff (his eyes wide) agreed. By this stage, even though there where not that many people in the gym when i was working out, most stopped to have a look at the madness that was about to follow. So i picked up a 25kg weight, held it to my chest, and started.

At about the 10 rep mark, particularly after all i had done previously, my legs started to burn

At the 20 rep mark, my legs started to feel like jelly

But i was determined, I was going to rep out till that quadricep was no longer able to fire

At the 30 rep mark, I was starting to see stars, but by this stage because of my lunatic intensity, everyone was shouting words of encouragment.

In the end, i busted out 39 reps before people thankfully caught me. I was exhausted. Nor could i stand, the quadricep was completely and utterly worked till failure.

The funny thing is, i am only a few hours removed from that training session, and finally, for the first time, my quads are finally starting to ache! Now obviously i am not advocating this type of training day to day, i mean, it was extreme! but the point that i am trying to make is that it worked, and sometimes, you have to be able to push yourself well beyond your limits in order to achieve the results that you seek.

Well, i’m off to eat and recuperate! I will be very curious to see just how sore my quads pull up tommorow! At any rate, i will blog it and keep you all posted.

Remember, train hard, train heavy

The good doctor 

Hello everyone!

As i have mentioned in some of my previous blogs, the key bodypart i am trying to address right now is legs. In my last contest, my legs were probably the difference between first and second place (I got second). I found out later i only lost the contest by two measly points! Comparitively, the guy that beat me had supreme legs, whereas mine are average, at best.

So in the off season i have made it my mission to not only try to bring my legs up to scratch, but to make them one of my best bodyparts. The last time i went on a mission like this was in relation to my abs (they were once my worst bodypart), now they are arguably one of my best, if not my best.

I changed tactics a lot too, incorporating stuff that is not typically "bodybuilding" per se: bench squats, box squats, speed sets and a bit of plyometric work have been incorporated to try to shock my legs into some good growth.

Though its early days in the routine change, i can make a couple of observations:

i) The size increases to date, have been minimal

ii) My legs are looking more toned, there is definately some seperation now that is occuring within the quadriceps

But the really noticable thing is:

My legs are looking far more vascular. I’m starting to get some large, deep veins showing in the quad, but particularly the calf. In fact, the calf the other day was REALLY vascular, which surprised me, because my calves are rather ordinary in my opinion.

But again, no real great growth to speak of

So, i’m wondering, is that potentially a sign of growth to come?

Obviously an increase in muscle mass and activity requires an increased blood supply, hence the increases in vascular size, so it will be interesting to see in the coming weeks or months what gains i am able to make in the legs. At any rate, i will certainly keep you all posted  

Training today was the best session i have done in ages! Very happy with todays work. For the last couple of sessions (with the exclusion on sunday), i must admit i had been rather slack. Today though, i trained back and forearms and trained like an animal!!

Interestingly, last week i ran out of tribulus and didn’t start taking any again until yesterday. Now tribulus, for those that dont know, is meant to be a herb that naturally increases testosterone production. I mentioned under supplements on my profile page that i dont know if it works, but i seem to feel more aggressive when i take it. Sure enough today, there was the aggression back in the gym.

Maybe its just a placebo effect or maybe its just sheer coincidence, who knows! at any rate i will keep supplementing it in the short term just to be sure. Maybe i can get a friend to secretly replace the capsules with something else to really test it: if he replaces it with something else and i am still all aggressive when i go to the gym then we know that the aggression increase is simply all in my mind

Gotta keep moving people, work to be done.

Train hard

The good doctor

Afternoon everyone! (Well, it is here in australia at any rate )

Today i want to have a talk about cardio and fat loss, in particular, as it pertains to walking.

I’ll cut to the chase: personally, in terms of fat loss, I dont like walking as an activity at all. BUT, that is not to say under the correct circumstances it isn’t an acceptable activity for fat loss.

Currently, i am doing some walking as part of my cardio. In my opinion, it is a great WEIGHT MAINTENCE activity, but in terms of ripping up, i give it a wide berth. There are a couple of reasons for this:

i) Most people simply do not walk fast enough or long enough to burn a significant ammount of calories, nor reap any (or very little) cardiovascular benefit because their heart rate is insufficient. Fundamentally, when all is said and done, fat loss is essentially calories intake vs calorie expenditure. Let me ask you something, what do you think burns more calories, a 40 minute walk that leaves you fresh as a daisy at the end, or an all out interval training session that leaves you in a pool of sweating and breathing heavily? The answer is obvious. Now before someone goes and mentions that lower intensity cardio does burn more calories of fat, this is true. BUT, you would have do to a lot more of it to reap the same result. Ie, walking briskly for an hour, will burn similiar ammounts of calories to a hard 30 minute session on the elliptical trainer. Also, the cardiovascular benefits (ie, reduced resting heart rate, increased V02 max) and not nearly as great

ii) I like a challenge! Walking to me is NOT a physical challenge in comparision to high intensity cardio. To me that would be like going into the gym, finding a nice little pair of dumbells, doing a few easy sets then leaving the gym without breaking a sweat!

From a clinical perspective it is interesting too. 99% of patients that i see who are overweight or obese have this in common: when I ask if they are exercising, if they are, they will be walking. This is either: a) a remarkable, remarkable coincidence or b) in a day to day sense, a good illustration that walking is insufficient for fat loss. No boxing, no rowing, no cycling, or no running. Funny thing that. Why? comparitively its just too physically taxing. A lot of doctors prescribe walking for overweight patients because essentially they are working under the rule that walking is better then doing nothing, and it is. But as per was afforementioned, in terms of fat loss from day to day, I think there are better activities available.

Now i know that this point is sounds like i am bashing walking, but not true. I am just illustrating my own views and observations. As i said earlier, i am currently doing some walking for day to day in my cardio. Walking WILL work for fat loss, in fact there is a hell of a lot of bodybuilders who walk for their cardio, but the common denominator here is they ALL have super strict, pre contest diets and a calorie deficit to be able to achieve this. In conjunction with a strict diet, walking will be sufficient. But personally, I’d rather do high intensity cardio, save time, and reap great circulatory and cardiovascular benefits.

Pros of walking:

-Its easy, and you can do it anywhere

-It relaxing. I often walk to clear the mind

-In conjunction with a strictly monitored diet, it will work for fat loss

-Its low impact, and thus easier on the joints of the lower limb

Cons of walking

-It does not burn as many calories as higher intensity activities

-To burn equal ammount of calories, you will have to walk for far longer, thus taking up more time

-Unless you are really, all out speed walking, the cardiovascular benefits will not be as great 

-Personally, i dont find it nearly challenging enough

If you are going to walk for your cardio and fat loss regime, remember this:

-You have to walk fast, and hard! Exagerate the swing of your arms, pump those legs, and get your heart rate up to a decent level. You dont have to come back from your walk drenched in a pool of sweat, but you should be breathing a little hard and a least know that you have done a decent workout.

-Walk for a decent duration: 40-60 minutes in my opinion. But if you can get away with doing less, all the more power to you.

-You will get best results in conjunction with a strict diet with bears a decent calorie deficit rather then trying to create that deficit via walking.

Of course, opinions vary, and mine is certainly not the be all and end all! None the less, i would rather partake of higher intensity cardio to achieve fat loss , as opposed to lower intensity, but that is just me

Will talk to you all again soon

Your favorite chiropractor

The good doctor 

Hello everyone!

Well, its been a while since i’ve posted a specific training blog so here is the latest update.

Well, lets start by talking about my hardcore session with my friend. Now I have mentioned in previous blogs, we were scheduled to do some arm training together. This was meant to happen last weekend. Unfortunately though, if there is one thing me and my friend (lets call him G) do as well as training hard, its partying hard! We partied WAY too hard on the saturday night and come sunday both of us were too wrecked to really go all out in the gym. Dont get me wrong, we still both trained, but we decided to leave the hard stuff for the next weekend where hopefully we were a bit more sensible

So Sunday here we are at the gym training arms. Now in my previous blog i laughed and said it was going to be a wannabe version of the time dorian yates trainined with mike metzner, but truth be told we did do some very, very productive training. It wasn’t on that level of all out intenisty (hell, who COULD match that??) but it was very intense none the less.

Me and X match up well together physically, nearly the same height, same build. He is a little bigger then me at the moment because he had been bulking and i have been cutting until recently but i will catch him again soon enough In regards to arms, i have the bigger and stronger triceps, but he has the bigger and stronger biceps. We have kinda different gym goals too, he is required to stay leaner year round because he is an underwear model whereas my first focus is and always has been physical strength

So we started off with some preacher curls, and it was a killer! Lately, i have been getting into some static holding type stuff: That is, you work till failure, drop the weight to about half of what you were lifting, and hold it statically about halfway up until you hit failure again, its nasty stuff! We pushed each other to total failure and at the end my arms were so pumped and fatigued i thought they were going to fall off. We supersetted that with some super heavy narrow grip bench presses. Now G, sadist that he is (lol), pushed me to doing another 5 or 6 negative reps after failure…………………god damn! My arms are still aching as we speak from that, but, that is the name of the game after all!

Plus, i got him back: I smoked his triceps by getting him do a brutal, all out drop set of skull crushers after his last set of preacher curls. He couldn’t even move his arms! But the vascularity after that, insane……………..I will have to incorporate a set like that next arm workout because the pump was unbelievable.

The other exercises we did were lateral overhead extensions, seated bicep isolates, cable curls, overhead cable curls and finished off with some heavy, weighted dips to failure, it was some good work!

The other thing i introduced G to was the standing cable crunch for the abs. Now, i got onto this exercise via louie simmons (powerlifting guru) and his book Westside barbell book of methods. Its funny, because louie actually says in his book "u dont know just how weak your abs are till you do a standing cable crunch". He was right! I am only able to do half the weight i use for a kneeling cable crunch and my abs hurt more the next day after the exercise. G loved it straight away: because he makes a living off his body he is always in search of a new exercise to carve out his abs even more. To quote him "I thought i was stronger through the core then that!" Ah the joys of learning and reading

The other thing that i have done recently is stop measuring body fat. I was getting just too neurotic about it so thus, i have stopped it. I did this for a couple of reasons

i) I am still keeping very lean, just not crazy competition shredded

ii) Life to me is just too short to worry about things like that 24/7

iii) I am having fun again (I wasn’t in the pre contest phase!!)

iv) Suprisingly, people are telling me i am looking much better, particularly in the face. At the end of my pre contest phase, i got so drawn in the face people were coming into my office and asking if i had a terminal illness!! True story! As is stands now, dare i say it, i look, well healthier! I also feel much better too I may have to post a photo to illustrate just how bad i was actually looking!

Dont get me wrong, i am still eating super clean 95% of the time, but i am partying on weekends. Hell, a boy has to have fun too! Personally, i dont really know why anyone would want to try to keep ripped 24/7, i could think of nothing worse. I tried for about a month after my last comp but to be honest, life was no fun at all. Now, i am just eating lots of good food, training hard and heavy and not worrying about things. In fact, i most likely will not worry about things again unless i do another comp (The guys at my gym are trying to talk me into doing a big one in april next year………………………….time shall tell ). I’m getting bigger too but i can always get big, for me, its ripping up that is the problem.

Truly, unless you REALLY want to keep ripped year round, or you make a living off your physique, why bother? Personally, i’d rather eat well and have fun and save the really tough stuff for peak periods

Anyways guys, gotta go eat. I am always hungry! Got a quieter week at work this week so should be blogging almost daily. Remember, train heavy, train hard. Will talk to you all again very shortly

The good doctor 

Hi Guys, the good doctor here again putting down his latest blog

Today rather then talk about my own training (will talk about that later in the week), I want to talk about problems, both lifestyle and gym related, that i see in my office on a day to day basis.

There are three problems i see within my office every single day, these being, obesity related back pain, joint pain related to chronic inactivity and muscluar problems relating to chronic muscular weakness.

And all are preventable.

Yet, often i have encountered TREMENDOUS difficulty trying to educate my patients on the need to eat right, be physically active and improve strength.

Let me give you a scenario: Mr smith comes into my office, and he is massively obese. All of a sudden, as if overnight, his lower back, hips and knees (all weight bearing joints) are aching. X-rays reveal degenerative changes caused by years and years of chronic stuctural stress and inactivty. When i explain to Mr smith the need to reduce his body mass as it is causing this problem, the response i’d get was

"But this has never happened before"

And this used to cause me great difficulty, because when someone has been overweight for half of their natural life without pain, it is difficult to try to convince them otherwise that their weight had now become a problem.

What i typically do now is use this scenario: (a little overdone, but it gets the point across)

"Do you know someone who has suffered a heart attack?"

"Yes" (in this day and age, nearly everyone knows someone who has had a heart attack)

"Did they suffer from chest or heart pain before"

"No"

"But one day, their lifestyle caught up with them and they had a massive problem, right?

"Yeah, i guess so"

"So lets take your lower back now, you have provided 20 years of unwanted strucutral stress without noticable difficulty, now all of a sudden, it has become a big problem, this is due to your current weight and lifestyle, do you understand what i am saying?"

"Yes"

But people dont know. Truly, for some poor individuals ignorance is bliss. I had a patient present to my office this week over 100 pounds overweight insisting (and he was serious) that he was in good shape and going to live to 100!! The man could barely even STAND UP without breathing like Darth Vader!

And this is a worry because it happens all over the world. But at the same time, every single day i have inspiration to keep strong and active. I tell myself, well, i can end up like this guy out of shape, weak and in pain, or i can make a commitment to training and keeping active to keep strong and healthy for life. Trust me, in my position, I dont see how one could EVER allow themselves to be inactive!

 A lot of my patients are gym junkies, and then come to see me because they know that i practice what i preach. One of my rules of thumb is to never give a patient an exercise i am not doing or wouldn’t otherwise do myself. To me, that is just hyprocisy.

On the gym front, some of the most common injuries i see are:

i)Rotator cuff injuries

ii)Abdominal and core weakness

iii) Knee injuries

For core stability, I do a lot of core tracking exercices, simply for ease of execution. In short, there is far less that can go wrong with a bridging type exercise in my opinion then other available options. I dont recommend sit ups or crunches for my patients anymore, simply because even though i explained to them how to do it correctly, too many were doing them wrong and actually exacerbating existing lower back pain.

The other exercise i try to avoid is a lunge. Now there is nothing wrong with a lunge, its a great exercise when done with correct form, the problem is there is just too much potentially that can go wrong with them. 90% of lower body, weight training related injuries seen in my office are due to lunges, and i swear, perhaps 95% of people in my gym do them with incorrect form. Again, a great exercise but i try to steer people away from that one simply because its better to avoid potential problems. Besides, there are plenty of other exercises they can do

Well, gotta go, a boy has to eat (turkey sandwichs with tomato, lettuce, onion and fat free mayonaise………yum!) Stayed tuned for the next blog from your favorite chiropractor, the good doctor.

As per last blog, my body fat is on the rise. This very well may be the last of the good doctor as a bodybuilder so to speak. See as i mentioned, my body fat "set point" seems to be 13-14%, and my body is pushing up to that margin, and pushing hard. I have been fighting the good fight ladies and gentlemen, but i am losing, and i know my body well enough to know that when that point is reached, most calories will be directed towards muscle building, very odd genetics, i know.

As it stands, i am already making good gains, quite a bit broader already then in my profile pics, but that fat wants to come with it (and it is). Tweaking macronutrient ratios have failed to make any change.

 I can get very big, and very strong, very quickly, In fact, i’m tempted to go on an all out experiment, quit cardio, eat lots of good food, and show you guys just how much muscle i can stack on. But, its become blindingly apparent that genetically i will never be whippet lean unless:

i) I do a ton a cardio (my body seems to respond really well to heavy cardio in terms of fat loss)

ii) I keep my carbs super low (This works too, but i have already done the past 16 weeks super low carb for a comp………………And i was one mean SOB! to me, life is too short to stay low carb 24/7)

So what is the option? Well, to quit bodybuilding and return to powerlifting. The reason that this may be the best option is for a couple of reasons:

i) I have always been more interested in size and strength then aesthetics, plus i have good size and strength genetics

ii) It matters far less what i eat and how i look

iii) Life was more fun! Hell, its great knowing that you can eat chocolate and have a beer the week of the comp because the physique is secondary, strength is all important.

So this may be very well it for me as a bodybuilder as we speak, will think it over for another week. Its not that i dont care how i look (I do) but in order to maintain a super level of leaness basically to me it means zero fun, and personally to me life is better when i am eating a burger having a beer or some chocolate and not worrying about things. If you want to be super ripped, eat high protein and lots of lettuce and salad, all the more power to you if that makes you happy, but more and more i am starting to think that perhaps this type of lifestyle just isn’t for me. Now before anyone jumps the gun, i am STILL eating ZERO cheat foods, so you can factor that out in terms of diet. Also, since my last comp (some four weeks ago) I have been out on the town once.

Never say never, but this may be the end of the good doctors bodybuilding career