Christian, at 43 years old, which one of the workouts will yield the most muscle gain? the 4 day, 5 day, or the 6th day? Original workout or the new workout? And how many calories and protein should I be consuming per day to gain the most muscle size? I am 5’ 10", 185-192lbs. I would like to get to 200lbs or a little more.I drink a protein shake after my workouts only. Should I be drinking them more often or drinking some type of pre-workout? Thank you very much
You’re better off posting these types of questions in the “bigger, stronger, leaner” forum.
Your questions ask for too many specifics CT (or anyone) cannot answer without knowing much, much more about you. Maybe think of hiring a coach.
What do you mean? If training 4 days a week, 5 days a week or 6 days a week will yield more results. OR if day 4, day 5 or day 6 is the most growth producing session?
If it is the former,provided that you can recover (which depends on your lifestyle, stress level, experience, etc) 6 days a week will lead to more results.
If it is the later, all the sessions are equally effective and are designed to work as a whole.
Both are equally as effective, they are only two variations of the same approach for more variety if one decides to stick to this methodology for a long time.
Provided that you push each work set as hard as possible, both programs will yield the same results.
It depends on each individual. Protein should be at 1 - 1.25g per pound. As for calories it depends on body fat levels,insulin sensitivity, metabolic efficiency, and activity level. It is impossible for me to recommend a specific amount.
My best advice is to record exactly what you each and increase calories until you are gaining around 1lbsevery 2 weeks. Faster than that you will gain too much fat.
If you are closer to 185 than 192 (e.g. if your morning weight is 185 and your evening weight is 192) reaching 200 by ONLY adding muscle tissue is actually A HUGE gain. Gaining 15lbs of pure muscle, if you are a non-beginner (especially over 40) and natural (not using steroids) would likely take 18-24 months. In fact if you have a lot of experience and have gained a lot of muscle in the past, 15lbs of muscle might not be possible.
Hey, I’m not a cheerleader, I’m telling you like it is. A normal, natural, non-genetic freak make can normally add 30-40lbs to his normal non-training adult weight in muscle over his “career”. The closer you get to your potential, the harder it is to build more muscle.
Someone might gain 20lbs of muscle his first year of training. But from there addining a lot more is increasingly more difficult. Someone might gain 5-7lbs the second year and than will have to fight for 2-3lbs per year.
I’m talking muscle weight here. A lot of people have the illusion that they are gaining more muscle than that because:
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There is very little visual difference between something like 12% body fat and 18% (just like there is very little visual difference between 20 and24%). So you could gain 4-6% of body fat (10lbs of fat or so) and don’t look any fatter and thus conclude that it is muscle.
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They gain added glycogen storage or water retention.
I’m not saying that reaching 200lbs is impossible.But if we are talking about ONLY muscle weight it will be long to add a true 15lbs of tissue at 43, while being experienced.
It would be much better to shoot for attaining a certain look rather than chasing a number.
Christian, thank you very much. would I gain more muscled going back to the old 4-day split with high volume, or the best damn workout? 4 5 or 6 day? Cortisol production is not an issue for me because of past surgeries, and having my adrenal glands removed therefore having to take
cortical steroids replacement for many years.
if you feel good with 6 days of training do it ! but if your recuperation isn’t good because of lifestyle or anything then reduce to 4-5 days a week ! use the best damn and run it 4-5 or 6 days as you wish