Vince Del Monte on Building Muscle & Getting Lean

• Why beginners should do full body workouts to maximize gains
• Why learning to cook great meals will make dieting easier than ever before
• How to get ready for a show or competition
• When to progress to more advanced split routines
• How to build the hard-to-grow muscle groups like shoulders, upper chest and arms

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Greg: Hey, what’s going on guys? You’re listening to the Road to Ripped podcast. And, today, I have a very special guest. We have on Vince del Monte. I’ve actually been queuing tabs on a stuff, you know, for a long time back in, you know, I wanna say 2009-2010. He’s just been exploding on the fitness scene, really helps guys build their muscle. What’s going on Vince?

Vince: Hey, great. Thanks for having me, man.

Greg: Dude, it’s, it’s my pleasure. So, we’re gonna get some really cool stuff today. You know, one thing I, I really, you know, like to appreciate about you is that there’s not so many fitness, fitness people that are actually in like really incredible shape. And, you’re taking your physique to amazing condition. You even won a very prestigious fitness model competition. And…

Vince: That’s right.

Greg: And, so it, it’s, it’s rare to have guys that, you know, that talked about fitness that also look like fitness models. It sort of like, a, you know, it’s sort of the double, the double threat.

Vince: Right. Right. Well, that’s cool. It’s just been my story grade. I mean, you know, a lot of people know me as a guy who’s got a lot of products on the internet and does… You know, I don’t really… I think one of the things I tried to figure out when I came online was like, you know, “What’s my position? Where am I coming at this all from? And, for me, I’m just a guy that is like you. I, you know, started off with horrible genetics. I was a long distance runner in high school, all three university. I took that really far, but if anyone who got in to body building with bad genetics, it was me. I mean, I was right away. I was running literally up to 100 miles a week and, you know, I wasn’t any well and all that. I had no knowledge as how to build muscle in the gym, so I was really starting off fresh and I was just very, very fortunate at a young age. When I was out in the university at 22, I was able to meet somebody at my church, of all places, a very, very smart provincial level body builder and this guy was a 100% drug free. And, he essentially took me under his wings. And, he kinda took all the size that I learn, all the concepts and things that I learn in the university from exercise Science degree, and he basically turned them in to actionable steps. He told me to do this and do that and don’t do this and don’t do that.And, I just did what he told me to do and I had a very dramatic transformation in the first six months of my lifting career. I experienced obviously some significant new beginnings but I also contribute my progress to a, a fairly intelligent way of training. One that was very different that I was hearing guys saying about, you know, the magazines and stuff. And, you know, I got a lot of people at my gym when I was a trainer ask me, “Hey.” You know, I used to be known as a guy, I used to be known as “Skinny Vinny.” And, you know, I made the transformations. All my friends were like, “Oh, man. How did you do it? How did you do it?” So, I really had no interest in creating a program or a book or selling anything. People just kept asking me, kept asking. So, I finally said, “Well, why don’t I just put my program in to an e-book?” and I put that all a long time ago. And, that program was essentially how I did my first transformation. And, then everything I have put out ever since then is essentially been what I have learned along the way to transform my own body. So, you know, I’ve just kind of evolved over the years. As you know, if you’re not growing you’re dying. And, people follow me, I think, because they know I’m on this journey and I’m learning and I have accessed, you know, very smart people that I can learn from to bridge the gap and I basically share what’s working for myself and with the people that follow me.

Greg: Okay. Yeah, that makes, that makes a lot of sense. And, and I think that’s the best way to get educated. When you work on your physique, you just get such a better understanding of what’s happening and then you can take that and then, you know, apply that to clients and then start running programs. And, it just seems like the most effective way to get a full understanding of what it takes to build muscle. So, that your first forum you created, which one was that?

Vince: No Nonsense Muscle Building.

Greg: Right. No Nonsense Muscle Building. So, that’s sounds very familiar. I’m recalling about that one back, way back in the day. And, you had some great YouTube videos, kind of explaining the importance of compounds movements. And, you know, while we’re on this thread, let’s talk about the difference between building muscle as a beginner. So, I know when you first started out, you’re that skinny long distance runner probably like about 45 and 6 feet or something.

Vince: Yeah.

Greg: What was that?

Vince: Yeah, you’re right. 149, I couldn’t budge.

Greg: 149. So, let’s talk about, you know, building muscles as a beginner. And, then, you know, right now, you’ve, you know, recently that you got this amazing transformation, when you really thickened out and built a lot of this stubborn muscle groups like the upper chest, the shoulders, and arms. And, let’s talk about what it took to, to achieve that, what, you know. First, you know, a lot of people listen to this, they probably are still needing to build their first significant amount of muscles. So, let’s kind of hit on that angle first.

Vince: So, what I did back then is very different than what I do today. I took a very qualitative approach to training. I would have been in the more low volume, high intensity check back when I started, so training only a few times a week. I’ll share a couple of the key principles. You know, one of the main things was full body workouts and most people kinda block it those also for beginners. And, you’re exactly right. I was a beginner. And, the whole thing for me was to avoid junk sets. And, when I… You know, one of my mentors taught me right off the bat is that a lot of these programs guys are really about in the magazines or are trying to follow from guys on YouTube, you know, a lot of people come in fake not this, or whatever. They’re drug programs and they’re essentially designed for guys who have great genetics or taken helpers to help them recover from it. But, for normal guys like us, those workouts just end up cause me to pace yourself. They’re like marathon kind of workouts, you know what I’m talking about, 20 to 24 sets per body part. And, that you can do 20 to 24 sets. That’s easy, but they’re all gonna be at about 60% effort.

Greg: Right.

Vince: You have to understand that intensity is inversely related with volume. So, the whole, my whole… My coach is essentially, essentially like, you know, it’s, it’s, you know, what today Tim Ferriss calls the minimum effective dose. If you can create a stimuli on your muscles that they’ve never experienced before with one set, why would you bother doing two sets? Then all goes back, you know, getting a sun tan instead of a sunburn. You know, if you only need 15 minutes in the sun, why would you go out in the sun for 20 minutes. So, you have to understand that things are effective to a certain point and that he is not to do any more than necessary which was very counterintuitive because most people think, “I gotta go to the gym for an hour, two hours. How could I possibly get results from 15, 20-minute workouts?” So, my approach was full body workouts at the start of my transformation and hitting the muscle twice every five days. And, the exercises stayed the same for the duration of the entire program. So, exercise selection is one variable that needs to be, that doesn’t need to be changed especially when you’re a beginner. The key is to develop those, those neuromuscular patterns and learning how to do the movement, so youcan actually get good at them. And, that’s actually one concept I still follow today. I apply very little exercise selection rotation in my programs today. Usually, and I’ll go up, I’ll go up for as long as 18-week, you know, 18-week cycles on the same exercises, but the variables that are changing are the reps, the sets, the rest periods,the temples. So, I find it, you know, what I found was as a beginner that your body adopts faster the reps, the rep ranges than any other variable. So, I was a big proponent of variable rep training when I first started. So, every workout was like a different rep range, but we were working on the same exercises. So, I’ll give you an example. Exercise one… I’m sorry. Day one maybe, you know, five sets of five and then four sets of 10 and then three sets of 20. So, by the end of the week, we hit all the different fiber types. So, that was the simple premise behind the program design when I first got started, few sets but with a very high effort, effort, intensity, whatever you wanna call it. So, more challenging weights and changing the rep ranges from workout to workout Is that make sense?

Greg: Yeah, that makes absolute sense. And, you know, as you’re talking about before, bring up the minimum effective dose, if you can get, if you can promote muscle growth with one set, you know, why do three or four. And, it’s a brilliant point and people don’t really… This is so hard for people to accept and sink in because it’s just to them, right, they feel like it have to do so much to get results, it’d be killing it and how could they make progress on, you know, a low volume approach, but it’s so true. And, then, like I think you brought up or talked about this point, or you know, you talked with the whole cause of big guns, like why bring the bing, the big guns in now, save them for when you need them. So, if you’re able to get results on a more simplistic program, that’s brilliant because then you can milk out as much gains out of that workout as possible before going on to the next step. Maybe try and do an advance one at first, what are you gonna do next?

Vince: Where are you gonna go? Yeah, exactly. Where are we gonna go? It’s… I’ll get, I’ll give you an, an analogy. You know, you see a lot of people running marathons these days, and they’re, they’re like, “What’s the point? You know, running a four or five-hour marathon. Come on.” Like, “Let’s run a fast 5K.”

Greg: Right.

Vince: And, then you get really good at the 5K, then let’s try and sustain that intensity for a 10K. And, then when you get good at the 10K, then let’s look at the 15K. But, these people will jump in to a two, a 26-mile race. Are you crazy? Like, it makes zero sense if people do it because, you know, they’re not concern with quality. They’re concerned with quantity. So, that’s a key, key concept. I think it’s so easy to, you know. You know, everybody, it’s kinda like gas pedal versus break. Everybody wants to hit the gas pedal, gas pedal, gas pedal, but well let’s think about kind of, you know, stir, let’s think about stirring wheel. Let’s think about break. Let’s think about the things that are, you know, gonna keep us on track. Not just, you know what I’m saying? So, it’s a very different mentality. It’s tough because when you see all these people online, and in the magazine, what do you see? You see guys grunting and they’re cracking up these insane workouts. Like, “Oh, that’s that must be what I need to do to look like that.” And, you know, I think one of the reasons I’ve kind of captured created the voice that people, you know, some people wanna listen to is because, you know, I’ve had to take a different route because I wasn’t blessed with those kinds of genetics.

Greg: Right. And, you know, going back to, you know, what you’re outlining as far as building strength as beginner, it’s so amazing how fast you can progress. Like if you’re doing a squats and bench some chance the first time, like you can make such fast gains. Doing them three times a week is amazing because then…

Vince: Right.

Greg: …you’re gonna progress three times faster than if you have to do them once week. Now, obviously you can’t.We doing that forever because eventually you, you need to get more form on each muscle group or would just be too freak, you know, if you hit it too often. But, but, yeah, so that’s like I kinda, I totally agree there because I always, for beginners, I always try and get them to do more simplistic, even full body routines just so they can, just in a few months make dramatic progress. So, let’s kind of, let’s kind of shift gears and talk about what you’d been doing recently to kind of fill the gaps and to, you know, build muscle at an advance level?

Vince: Okay. So I think, you know the piggy back up for four-day split You know, everybody wants to do five-day split. My, my simple advice to people I work with, you know, when they say, “Vince, when do I get to do the, when do I get to do the five-day split?” I always tell them, “You need to earn a five-day split.” So, first off, let’s spend six to 12 months taking full body workout as far as they go, and then we’ll go to a two-day split where we can put more volume for the upper, for the upper body than lower body. Then, let’s see how far we can take that. Maybe we get another half a year. Maybe we get a full year gains out of a two-day split. And, then let’s go to a three-day split. No push, pull, legs, whatever. There’s a no way different ways to do that. And, then we’ll go to a four-day split. But, you’ve got to earn it. All right? And, it all… It’s all based on sustaining the quality. If all of a sudden your workout just turned in to junk sets just to achieve something, then you’re totally missing the point of building muscle. Muscle… And, this is, this is probably the key concept that people wanna write down. Building muscle has to do with training disadvantages. What that means is that you wanna figure out how to make things harder on yourself,not easier on yourself, and that all comes down to learning how to create tension to achieve within the muscle, breaking the muscle down and that requires quality and effort. So, once we applied that, you know, training disadvantages equal training effects, you know. If we wanted to train and if you are looking… People that want training advantages, advantages or people who are in like crossfit, power liftings, athletics, people that actually want to get better at that individual thing. But, building muscle is very counterintuitive. You never want your workout become easier. You’re always looking for ways to tell your body, you say, “Holy crap.” You’ve never experienced this before better that. So, I mean, the concept of hypertrophy is the simplest thing in the world. The key is just how you manipulate the variables. So, you know, which leads in to our question. So, for me, today I found that… I’ve found that there’s a lot of different variables. Generally speaking, I train five times a week now and I find that I do very well taking two full days off a week, so every Thursday and every Sunday. So, three hard, one off, two hard, one off. That’s been my goal to split. But, you know, it needs to be mentioned that when I’m trying to lean out, there is a time and place for increasing training frequencies. So, I’ve gained already for a photo shoot in a couple of weeks. So, I still have that same split, but I got 3 a.m. workouts as well on top of all of that, but that’s because we’re in fat loss or deficit mode. So, there’s certainly a time and place to manipulate frequency. You know, we, I’ve even had clients trained up to 10 times a week for a short periods of time. But, it, that’s followed up by also, you know, five plus days of total time off so that they can super compensate. So, but, you know, right now, I find that most people respond in advance. Most advance trainees respond well to that five-day a mark if they’re not working out with helpers.

Greg: Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, so many people right off the bat before they’ve actually gone and built some good strength, jump right through the five-day routine, the five-day split. And, and this is probably most people that are new to training go right to the five-day split. And, it’s, it’s, they don’t realize that they are reading so much in the table just by doing a workout for advance lifters. But, yeah, so I mean, that makes a lot of senses. So, what’s… So, when you’re getting ready for a photo shoot or when you’re getting, you know, ready for competition and you’re dropping the calories down, what, so what’s, what kind of workouts are you adding on top of that? You mentioned that the three extra days in the A.M.

Vince: That’s really important to say, you know, before… I mean, I do my best to all cause grade not to drop my calories. Okay. One of the key principles for me in fat loss especially that I’m actually a skinny guy, right? So,anybody who’s listening who is a skinny guy, he needs to pay close attention here. The slower it takes to build muscle, the faster it comes off. Right? So, when it comes to fat loss for a guy who’s naturally thin, who has a hard time building muscle in the first place, I have to cut very, very slowly, like half a pound for a week for the best results. And, that’s actually something I’m doing now. A lot of people don’t have patience for that. They want to lose to two-pound, one, two-pound a week about one or two pounds per week. So, my whole philosophy of losing fat is to burn it off not to starve it off. So, my goal is to keep my calories as high as possible but to increase my training for frequency, plant more energy to train and so that my workouts can be more productive so that it was actually effort there so that I increase my metabolism. I can break more muscle down. I can create more, you know, energy domain after the workout is over. So, does that make sense?

Greg: Yes, exactly. I, I mean just to burn half a pound of fat per week is, is not much of a deficit. That’s like 250, 300 calories a day extra, I guess.

Vince: So, I mean I’m trying that my goal, you know, my calories right now, fat loss around 2,700 and that’s very different than when I was cutting for a show. They were like under 2,000 and, you know, at the end… And, I was lean and rip, but I lost way too much size. You know, I’m like, “Oh my God. This is frustrating.” So, my goal now is just, you know, do a slower cut, increase, introduce more training frequency to keep those calories high. So, it’s a slower process but allows me to stay fuller and bigger. And, again, it’s probably something kind of counterintuitive for people. So, you asked me, you know, what kind of things do I add. So, the weight training stays primarily the same. It’s mostly hypertrophy workouts. However, this is something most guys don’t talk about. What I have found to be very, very effective when guys are cutting who, you know, have a tendency to lose muscle or who intend to be skinny is to introduce strength based basis for two weeks every maybe month. And, this is very counterintuitive because people are thinking fat loss. I got to do metabolic workouts. I got to burn a lot of calories. I got to keep my rest period short. But, I found that by introducing hypertrophy, sorry strength based workouts like really heavy kind of stuff, I can give you some examples if you want, with longer rest periods and really challenging the load, you, the, the stimulation on the nervous system really helps keep your muscle mass intact more so than, you know, high volume pump style workouts. So, that’s been something I’ve learned recently. And, so, you know, I got the five days a week of weight training workouts. And, then what I also do in the same concept, minimum effective dose, I do barbell complexes once a week. And, are you familiar with barbell complexes?

Greg: Yes. When you do it kinda like when you hold the barbell and you go through like a few different exercises one after the other without really resting the barbell.

Vince: You got it, man. Yeah. So, I have one workout where I do… Those are brutal by the way. They’re excruciating and, the idea is to increase your performance on them from week to week. So, I have this one work that I’m doing. I do this once a week and this would be considered, you know, my fat loss workout where I do a stiff-legged deadlift in to an explosive jump. That’s exercise one. Then, I go to a bent over rows and then I go to standing shoulder press and then I go on back squat. And, the first week, I did it seven weeks ago, I did five sets,sort of like five rounds of six reps, on each with a 135 pounds and I took two minutes between each round. Last night, so seven weeks later, I’m up to 12 rounds, seven reps a set, still two minutes rest, but I’m doing it with a 155 pounds.

Greg: Wow.

Vince: And, it’s just been like really small increases in energy output each week. And, just very good, the whole of principle of consent and I have already an improvement. So, I take that approach to all my workout. So, that would be the barbell complex workout. I also do the track. I started off going once a week, but now that as I’m getting leaner, I have to do more. Now, I pumped that up to twice a week. But, like you said, you don’t back yourself in to a corner. You don’t start off with five cardio workouts a week for an hour in a machine. That’s retarded. So, you start off with the minimum effective dose and everybody asked me, “Well, how long do you do it for?” You do that until it stops working. So, you know, I was doing the barbell complexes for, you know, I got a lot of weeks out of it. I was losing my half a pound per week, and then all of a sudden, I just stopped losing fat. I think it was like two or three weeks straight. So, I thought, okay. We’ve plot hold on the barbell complex as I started doing intervals. And, then when I plot told after a few weeks on the intervals, I went back to barbell complexes. So, another concept people need to understand are all these techniques they hear about are simply tools. There’s no right or wrong tool. It just depends on what you need at that moment.

Greg: Right. Okay. That makes a lot of sense. You’re kinda flash us some good points there. One of which is, is utilizing strength workouts during a cut which is very senseful. That’s something that I’ve been doing because it’s cool to see… If you build up some solid strength and you lean down while holding that strength, you improve your relative strength and I’ve always been really focused on, you know, building relative strength which is really cool because then body weight exercises like muscle up someone and push, it become really easy. When you’re lean and then you maintain a high level of, of strength which is something that I find pretty cool and so.

Vince: You’re right. That’s the form of progressive overload, but a lot of people don’t realize that. If you’re able to do the same amount of weight or lower volume with the, while weighing less, that is a form of progressive overload.

Greg: Right. Right.

Vince: Right. Yeah.

Greg: My… I don’t really think about like that. That’s, that’s absolutely right.

Vince: Most people think progressive overload more reps, more sets. It’s like meathead, the whole meathead mentality. Well, there’s actually like literally a dozen different things you could do for manipulating progressive overload. So, you know, that’s just one of many.

Greg: Right. And, so, you, you know, some people when they’re, they’re going on like bulking programs and they are, you know, eating way too much, putting on a few pounds a week, they might actually lose, you know, relative strength even though they’re adding weight to the bar because the, you know, the, the weight, the body weight is coming up way too fast versus them on the way they’re lifting which is usually a risk key for disaster. Now, now when you’re cutting like because, you know, you mentioned how you usually cut half a pound per week and you usually, you know, up your, you know, your workload whether it’s through, you know, more, more, you know, barbell complexes or intervals or track workouts or whatnot, how long are you usually cutting for? Like… what body fat percentages do you usually stay in, when you maintain or bulking up, and then what body fat percentages when you’re trying to lean down to, and how long does that take like half a pound per week?

Vince: Yes so this is, this is, something , this is the trickiest thing again you’ll don’t really learn this until you’ve done a couple of photo-shoots, or competitions, you know, with the hard gone to your head deadline so, the key to all this, is to give yourself enough time, so you want to your –listeners wanna write that down, give yourself enough time, the people that have to resort to all the idiotic you know, extremes styles of eating and things and methods of training, again which have the time and place, you know, if you said, hey Bennie let’s go to Vegas in two weeks, and I wasn’t ready, you better believe I’m gonna do some idiotic things next two weeks, its like pool party in two weeks, so I get it there’s a time and place for that, but, ultimately if you want to look your best, you have to give yourself enough time, so you know , for this photo shoot, I’m doing, I didn’t give myself a hard deadline, now its like you know, I’m getting near the last ten pounds, you know, I’m gonna be shooting at the end of September now, now it’s game on, now I have to stay on track, so I’m you know, how long does it take, it really it’s up to the person, you know, it depends on how quickly they want to arrive at their destination, and how they want to travel to their destination, right so, I’ll be honest half a pound per week is not hard, I mean, you know what I mean? Like You got to stick to your diet but I mean, if you slip up here there, I mean it’s pretty hard not to lose half a pound per week. It all depends on how comfortable and how fast you want to arrive at your destination, so you know, if I wanted to make my diet a little harder, I could definitely do that, and I’m gonna start to loosing fat a little quicker, but I think the key is, I mean that just results in our cascade of negative, not negative, negative but catabolic hormones, right? You start getting stressed, then you don’t enjoy the process and then you regret it and then you binge when you’re done, it’s hard to sustain when you arrive there, so I always find that the slower the progress, the more likelihood of you sustaining it when you achieve it. Does that make sense?

Greg: Oh, Exactly! I can relate first hand to myself, and countless examples of people that I work with or the people I know, and you know, it’s funny because the first time I loose cutting to a low body fat, I went hard, I went really hard, I.. calories were where well under 2000 and it was brutal, there were a lot of binge eating then, and a rebound that came after and it just, it just felt like, it just food was just always on my mind. I could just not think about food, and then it was hard just to go back to a middle ground where I just maintained my weight. I just want to constantly eat, and so I did that a couple of times and it just didn’t work so, now, I don’t even like having deadlines. I mean them like having a photo shoot that I have to get ready for. I’ve rather just take my time, get really lean, and then once because I hate the pressure thing. It’s a backfires at me this days because I did that, and I’ve burnt hell from it, even though I’m a young guy but it’s true, so you know, I just like to kinda naturally take my time, getting its like seven to ten percent body fat range and, if I want to cut it like, few body fat percentage points, I can do it slowly over couple of months and I enjoy the whole process and when I get there, there’s like you said there’s not like that, that binge eating that rebound – that re balance.

Vince: Got it, yeah, I think that’s the key, so you because yeah, when the changes are smaller they’re easier to manage but when they’re drastic they’re you know, too much change too fast, you know in anything in life, it’s just too much for people,so you know, they get there, and they’re like “Holy crap! What do I do with this body” but when it comes off slowly those habits that they’ve created to get there they’re most likely more solidified.

Greg: Right exactly, so like for me, in a like how what I tell my clients is, um well I guess, this first develop for myself, but I just never wanted to to do a cut that I didn’t enjoy. If I wasn’t enjoying it, like I won’t do either, find a way to make it enjoyable and you know, when you’re like 12-13 percent body fat, trying to lose two pounds per week. It is brutal, like those big –it is killer, and then you know, you lose your sex drive and the testosterone drops and so, I rather take a much longer approach for me to be able to enjoy the journey, than slam it with a pedal, probably screw up along the way and you know, the fast approach tends to be the slow approach in the long run.

Vince: You’re right that’s a great way to look at it, yeah that’s great, great insight for sure. It’s hard for people to wrap their mind around that, because it’s you know everybody wants, everybody want’s results yesterday so, but I mean, I always tell my clients, to like, let’s focus on the habits that are required not just to get you there but to keep you there, and most people can transform their bodies dramatically, like six to twelve new habits and you know, if you think about it, if you were just to add a new one every month, by the end of the year, you’ve got a dozen new habits, that are gonna help you get to where you want to go, and stay where you want, and ultimate, that’s where your efforts should be focused on things that you can control not the things that you can’t control. So that shifting perspective is very, very, the stuff is application about all areas of life too.

Greg: That is, that is a beautiful point, that is because sometimes when you’re just so focused on the external results, what you see in the mirror, what you see on the scale, it drives you crazy, none tells you your effort. And just that, what youjust mentioned instead of focusing on the habits, building the habits of someone that would have the body that you want, you know, worrying about, because weight can fluctuate.. the mirror can just see, it can just, someday it’s on your thin style and this it not and so that stuff can just creates so much anxiety or just so much negative thoughts, the best thing to do is, do we have the habits in place that support the body you want? And then yeah.

Vince: And to add to that to, when I always um –do with clients is I find out a lot of trainers just create unrealistic programs, for their, clients students to follow and often timesa client’s failure is because of the trainer, because he made the program too hard to start so. I think one of the key things is to chase people often call business low hating fruit, and Dr. Job already talks about the concept of cha – starting with the habits that have, the greatest physiological change with the least psychological resistance, so starting off with like here’s an example, glass of lemon water in the morning, and that’s it. I don’t need you to change anything else in your diet this week, except I want you to start each morning, with two litters of water with the freshly squeezed lemon. Next week, or you know, maybe whenever they get the habit doubt, two weeks three weeks, alright this weeks we’re going to focus on fish oils, that’s it, easy stuff, easy stuff and then all this things start to stack up on top of each other, and we don’t – start you know even with, I would use an example when it comes to fat loss. I had this client at our gym he was eating two double cheeseburgers a day, and I gave him to one of the trainers to get results for him, and this guy wrote about like the hardest diet in the world, it’s like boiled chicken breast steamed broccoli and baked potato, its like this guy is gonna get ripped. I’m gonna get him so shredded and you know, a few weeks later I asked how is he doing? How is he doing? And he’s like, the guy hasn’t dropped a pound. He’s actually gained weight, I’m like “Are you kidding me? Like let me see this diet” he shows me this body building meal plan, and like, “Dude You’re an idiot” and he said “What you mean I’m an idiot?” this is like –this is how, you eat if you want to get shredded, so he said, “what would you do?” I told the guy, I tell him to start eating one double cheeseburger a day, and the client was like “Okay, I can do that” and then a few weeks we had a meeting, one single cheeseburger and then we had a meeting one burger. And then we had him eating a chicken burger and then a deli sandwich and then we introduced the boiled chicken breast, that was like twelvesteps later.

Greg: Right.

Vince: That’s kind of like my approach to nutrition and the training, let’s take as many steps possible to overcome, any form of resistance. Whenever there is resistance, whenever it feels like, you’re moving a lot, people lose the motivation, so that’s kind of like my philosophy, let’s take as many steps as possible to make the change feel manageable and almost like there isn’t even change happening, so you know- that’s kind of like an example I use over and over.

Greg: Right and funny enough, he probably started losing weight once he wanted two cheeseburgers to one cheeseburger, that’s all he needed to do, that’s it.

Vince: Because he could become compliant and, that’s what matter’s compliance, its you know, the best diet is the one that you follow right? The best juicer is the water you use, the best workout is the one that you know that you follow, so it’s all like compliance, compliance, compliance, it figure out where somebody is and then just getting the take those small steps and this goes back to supporting a whole conversation about full body workouts then two days splits then three days splits and so I applied this concept of progression –I call it micro progressions. If people would remember one word from this call, a micro progressions are what you need to make in all areas of your, your all aspects of training, training nutrition, supplements all that stuffs. So focus on micro progressions.

Greg: Okay, right, okay cool, and so just one issue , that people being compliant is, is even if the training program is very, you know, and even if they enjoy following it and even the diet, works well for them, there’s always this ton of back of one’s mind that they should switch the program –so program hoppers, people changing the diet, they hear one thing then they, by their friend, then they change, its people constantly changing things up, so I mean what kind of advice do you have to kind of, for that not to happen?

Vince: Well there a couple of ways to look at this rate, there is truth to the fact that every program has an expiration date, just like food goes bad, the training program will eventually go bad, great strength coaches are always trying to anticipate when that will happen, and they want to try and change the program before that happens, and not only occurs from the relationship with the coach, somebody whose source more, or a trainee whose keeping meticulous details on his program and noticing holy cow, every six weeks I hit a plateau, every twelve weeks I hit a plateau, so now you know that, we can use that knowledge but you know, the main thing for people to understand is that, you don’t need to change the program if it’s working. It’s not a sexy advice but if you’re moving in the right direction keep following it. I’m now at the point where I change my few first workouts around every six to eight weeks, just that that’s normally where I kind of plateau, but when I first started beginners could go for as longest twelve to sixteen weeks without any changes and see results. The more advanced you become the more often you need a trainer program. You change your program now because I’ve heard this, you know you brought up a great point. I’ve heard this over and over and over, a lot of the programs that I create, I use the one that um perhaps the most popular hypertrophy max , which is when I co –created with high pre pro in Elsie. It’s a twelve month program but the way it’s structured is that there’s a new phase every four weeks. So we have them train hard for three weeks and they go for one, and then they get a new program. Train hard for three weeks and then back off for one week and then every, it’s a curriculum based program so these are twelve random workouts, each phase builts upon the previous ones, so instead of kind of like tell people you suck it up, you don’t stick with it, we kind of say okay fine I get bored too with my workout, so let’s create a program that anticipates your boredom, that anticipates where you’re body’s probably gonna plateau so let’s hybrid the size, lets hybrid the practicality of people just wanting something new every (x) amount of weeks, and let’s just create a skilfully progressive program and I think a good coach you know, will create a program that accommodates the people’s needs like that, because if you know, you can’t program a guy whose getting bored every three four weeks, you have to take that in consideration, and you have to also lean of the flip side of the trainee, that the coach has explained to the trainee, we need to see this, I need to see you progress and tell you plateau, before its change up the program so.

Greg: Yeah.

Vince: I think I get your message, their needs and there needs to be like skillful organization and that’s the whole topic of periodization and that’s why strength coaches understand periodization which basically means a plan they figure out where the client needs to be on (x) day, and then they reverse engineer a program that gets them there, that’s how to look at your training most people try to go to the gym, and it’s just kind of like shooting darts with a blindfold on and they just hopes something they’re doing with works or sticks and it’s kind of like going to a casino. I always tell people hope is not strategy. You come.. you know you take over the gym and hope something works, so yeah, that’s why I been in a program, investing someone’s knowledge, find someone per iodized program could really help you people get faster results.

Greg: Right on, that’s your hypertrophy max program.

Vince: Yeah, that’s a big one. It’s a twelve month program and we put quite a few people through that one. It’s hard, it’s physical, so we ship it to people on the mail each month and it’s one of our, it’s pretty and its awesome, Ben and I created together and it’s just twelve months of greatness. It’s a weird where would people go to check that out. hypertrophymax.com it’s closed right now, we only open it up twice a year, once in June and once in December, so we let an influx of new members come in and then we work with, and the cool thing about the program is that all the new members started together, listen up and everyone starts phase one together. They can’t just sign up and start at phase three or four. It is a curriculum based program and you know there’s a lot of people doing it together, and it’s pretty cool that way.

Greg: Okay, okay, cool. Well you know what, we’ve covered some amazing points today. I had a few more things I want to talk about, but we might have to save it for another episode of you know..

Vince: If you want to go rapid fire that’s fine. I shorten of my answers.

Greg: Okay cool, lets hit on a couple of last final points, what supplements have you found useful for th purposes of either muscle gain, extra performance, fat loss, yes so what are your thoughts there?

Vince: For strength based workouts caffeine, honestly caffeine is is extremely higher dose of caffeine, that’s probably the number one supplement that is ever.. probably the only supplement is ever really helped with performance in terms of strength focus, mental alertness, delayed fatigue, in terms of overall health, I get, I buy my supplements based on blood work, which I do twice a year so for me I have some gut issues, so you know probiotics, magnesiums, zinc, fish oils, to be honest a lot of the non-sexy ones, higher dosages that people would probably be like whoa, and those are from a lot of reading I’ve done there’s certain dosages that are more effective. But yeah a lot of, I’ll be honest a lot of the basics, you know, just to ensure the body is working properly from a foundational standpoint because your body last goal is to build muscles, so it’s main thing is just to take care of its basic needs so um for some reasons, but I’ve got a few supplements in the cupboard, yeah, to be honest, a lot of the non-sexy ones are the things that get the job done for me, you know, I’ve got a couple of pre-workouts I like to have caffeine seldom that I used when I’m trying to keep things up.

Greg: Right yeah you know it’s very interesting. So lot of people just go with the standard multi mineral vitamin, which is very low in a bunch of different vitamins and minerals, that you may already be sufficient and so it makes a lot of sense. You have blood work done and then you might that, “Oh my god, I’ve a huge zinc deficiency” then your bulk my zinc up, and you took a multi vitamin mineral, you’re probably would not gonna get close to optimal intake.

Vince: It’s not full in love so with the zinc deficiency, yeah definitely yeah like zinc vitamin C, vitamin D, Magnesium those are my big ones, probiotics and then I take a bunch of insulin management products things that help me with carb sensitivities and getting leaner, but those are kind of the staples. Like kind of my supplements which in two categories, staple supplements, which I take a whole year round , regardless and then their situational supplements depending on my goal, maybe fat loss and taking more carnitine as well, more caffeine more carnitine, you know when I’m trying to gain size, you know, each produce like creatine, beta alanine, you know things like that I take glutamine, product.. a lot that got helps and that so a lot of stuff that’s no immune support got health, digestion and absorption, those are the kind of things I’m thinking about, for people listening, your supplement decisions needed be based on your current settings, so or another way to put this your weakest links so what is your weakest links, so if you’re somebody who doesn’t sleep, you need to look at supplements that help with your sleep, that’s the most important thing so again, you have to kind of look at your body, what am I lacking, what am I deficient in and bring those levels up first, and all the other of fancy stuff those are kind of like thousand whistles that are icing on the cake.

Greg: Right that makes complete sense and your just final question, What are – what’s your favourite meal to eat this days, as your leaning down for your photo shoot?

Vince: You know what I just took professional chef – sorry professional cooking lessons with a chef in Toronto actually. I’ll hook you up with her if you want it great she’s incredible. I’ve done six days of full day cooking lessons with her. I mean, she taught me how to cook fish tacos which are pretty amazing, pork [inaudible] the stuff that I eat right now is pretty insane, it’s just takes a bit of crap time to create the marinades and the spices and all that, but my favourite, would by far be the fish tacos, which is delicious salsa homemade salsa, chilli chori sauce, and then with the tilapia, that I put on, I grill and then I finish off in the oven, with this home made slice shrub, dude it’s like, dining is never been easier.

Greg: Oh my, yeah, because that’s a hue – you’re just eating foods that you just meals that you don’t enjoy it’s just gonna be a huge croon of extra will power zapping and then if you love your meals.

Vince: I tell you – if you’re a body builder the best money you can send is cooking lessons.

Greg: Right.

Vince: Yeah I know I know a pro, a bodybuilder, and his wife is a cook, and he always joked around about how easy it was to get down a four percent, when everybody is complaining, oh my god, oh my god, dieting is so easy for me, and like, why? What’s your secret what’s your secret? It’s like my wife knows how to cook. Just a couple of simple marinades, a couple of different spices, those go a long ways. You do not have to go choke down tilapia, you don’t have to choke down fish and chicken you tell her how to make pestos healthy pestos and things that will meet your calorie needs, macros you may have to get a little, you might have to cut some back, probably two three weeks, but you can shave up a lot of fat, with really, really tasty food, so I used to do the same things like you said, hard core and hard core, hard core, hard core because that’s what everybody does right, that’s what you see, that’s what you think –that must be the what I have to do, just because everybody else is doing something it does not mean it’s logical it’s effective or it’s rational.

Greg: Right definitely… Um alright so anyone listening, definitely if your cooking some boring blends meals, trying to find some new recipes will do it, fit within your macro guidelines and or satisfying your tasting, so just makes things so much easier, I am pretty incentivised to do some cooking lessons.

Vince: Are you single Greg, do you have a girlfriend or anything?

Greg: I have a girlfriend.

Vince: Oh yes. She’ll love you even more man, like daddy knows how to cook man. I mean most guys are – I mean you’re in mid-twenties right now?

Greg: 23.

Vince: Twenty-three. Oh my god, if you learn how to cook now, wow! Cooking is pretty, I tell everybody, cooking is one skill everybody should every person who graduates high school should at least 5 recipes. This is, really, what do you need going to a university, you learn how to cook, these skills are so so valuable man, learning how to cook is very very valuable.

Greg: And its funny you said five recipes, because I find myself kind of rotating mostly through 5 different meals most of the time.

Vince: You know what, I’ll give you a goal, a challenge you just do 1 new recipe a month.

Greg: Right.

Vince: And you know the more you do it, your just get better and better at it, and by the end of the year, you’ll have 12 insane recipes, that you can impress your friends with..

Greg: Right perfect, perfect. Well thanks so much Vince for coming on, if people want to go and check out your stuff, and see what you have going on, I mean, where’s the best place to go?

Vince: Well I know most people like social media’s, there’s a fan page Vince del Monte live large TV, they just search Vince del Monte. Look find the verified one check off. I’ve also got a blog, vincedelmontefitness.com so people want to join the newsletter, then there’s a lot of ways to do that on that page.

Greg: Alright dude, thanks so much. Everyone go check it out and thanks for listening. Take care.

Vince: Thanks Gregg.

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