A hill I will die upon is that anyone who wants to build muscle should start by spending a good chunk of time getting their body fat down.
Why?
Mostly because you cannot train efficiently and effectively while you’re carrying around a bunch of extra blubber.
Exceptions exist, of course. Generally in the form of elite strength athletes like super heavyweight olympic lifters and strongmen. But what you have to remember is, these rare individuals have obscene degrees of “general physical preparedness” from doing decades of basic conditioning work under various guises… not to mention supreme genetic advantages and entire teams of world-class medical and sporting professionals in their corner.
Not factors relevant to folk with regular jobs, families, and whatnot who want to be strong and in shape – at least none who I have met.
And it’s these normal people who so often find themselves unable to make meaningful progress and riddled with injury for not taking the time to address their “weight problem” before pursuing anything else.
You see, what you have to remember about carrying excess body fat is that it fundamentally alters your biomechanics, stressing your body in ways it is not designed to cope with.
Perhaps the simplest example of this is the way a plump belly pulls shifts your centre of gravity forwards, causing your lumbar spine to hyperextend (a phenomenon called “lordosis”).
Obviously putting a lot of weight through a hyperextended lower back (as happens when you squat, deadlift, and overhead press) is a Very Bad Thing that can quickly result in torn muscles or potentially nasties like disc herniations which can, if you are very unlucky, cause spinal cord compression and you needing to do your number twos into a bag for the remainder of your days.
Even if you avoid injury (unlikely) you’re still lifting with suboptimal form, which will dramatically inhibit the amount of weight you can lift and therefore muscle you can build. All the while embedding bad habits that can take literally years to deprogram.
The solution, as I am wont to say is:
“Lose fat first”
‘Tis not a popular stance, but the truth never is in my experience. Doubly so when it comes to anything to do with fitness where you can’t move for outlandish promises and people so bought in to certain modes of training you’d be forgiven for thinking they’d joined some sort of cult.
Given all of this, you won’t be surprised to learn the first phase (of three with an optional “advanced fourth”) of the muscle-building system presented in “The Greek Physique” is all about getting into shape before tackling more typical muscle-building work.
The book is currently in preorder so you can get it for a hefty discount (£350 instead of the regular £750) by using the code MARCUS at the checkout before 23:59 tonight (4th of July).
This is the last email I’m going to send about this, so if you want it go here immediately:
https://philtyreman.co.uk/muscle/
Thank you,
Phil Tyreman