Lyle McDonald on Training for Fat Loss & Muscle Growth
Lyle McDonald Interview
One of the best podcasts ever recorded on training for the purposes of fat loss and muscle growth! Sit down and enjoy your ride, even the most educated and experienced fitness expert will be sure to learn constantly in this episode.
Lyle McDonald is notorious as one of the brightest minds in the fitness and nutrition industry. His ability to communicate even the most complicated concepts in simplistic terms is rather remarkable.
Whenever I need clarity on fitness or nutrition topics, Lyle McDonald is the first person I seek out!
Lyle runs the amazing resource that is bodyrecomposition.com. He’s authored great books including A Guide to Flexible Dieting and Ultimate Diet 2.0.
In this episode, you’ll discover:
- How effective is cardio for fat loss (00:50 seconds)
- How much can interval training boost your metabolism by (7:50)
- What effect does cardio have on appetite and dietary adherence (13:00)
- How much muscle can you gain as a natural (15:40)
- What causes muscle growth and what’s most important; intensity or volume (18:30)
- The most important factor to muscle growth that no one wants to talk about (23:30)
- Why strength gains in the moderate rep range builds the most muscle (28:20)
- Why it’s difficult to gain strength with higher reps (19:13)
- Do certain muscle groups respond better to high rep ranges (33:15)
- Can you build muscle in a calorie deficit (36:30)
- Can you build muscle at a very low body fat (44:00)
- The danger of getting really lean (48:30)
- Free weights vs machines: do machines have their place (49:30)
- The reason free weights got popular (54:40)
- The importance of isolation work (57:40)
- Can squats and deadlifts trigger whole body growth (1:00)
- What we can expect from Lyle McDonald in the near future (1:04)
Watch The Video Here
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Good deal! Because I think RPT is the most logical and efficient way to train.
1) Should I do only 1 extra rep on each back-off set, to make sure I stay a couple reps short of failure, to help with recovery…?? (I find that I naturally tend to push to the max even on the back off sets.)
2) I’m still loving the Greek God Program… And I want to specialize. Do you still think those specialization protocols are effective? (Especially, the 2 extra sets of 8???)
1) No need to stick to any rules, probably 1-2 additional reps. Judge by how you feel. But don’t kill yourself on the back off sets
2) They work for the extra volume. That said, I find the specialization work in the superhero bulking program to be a lot better.
Thanks.
Greg, I have one question for you.
What do you think about antagonistic training?
Let`s say Monday: Chest/Back, Wednesday: Arms/Core, Friday: Shoulders
No supersets.
But a lot guys in the old days of Bodybuilding thought that antagonistic training gives you a better line between musles. What`s your thoughts?
Thanks for taking the time.
Yeah but it’s possible that your biceps and triceps are still recovering for the arm session on wednesday. Also, your triceps might still be recovering for the shoulder workout on friday. So that’s why I think that antagonistic training isn’t always ideal. Recovery for muscle groups isn’t perfect.
I bet Lyle doesn’t agree with your max set RPT protocol where we try to get PRs every workout. He would prefer we stay two or more reps shy of failure on all sets. Does his insight or advice make you want to ease up on maxing out every workout? It’s making me want to try 5 x 5 (with 8 rep max) to give my CNS a break for a couple weeks.
Just wondering…
I’ve talked about RPT in the last podcast I did with Lyle and he thought it was very effective. The back off sets help avoid the neural fatigue. But yeah, even on RPT, you don’t have to push to complete failure. You want to stop one rep why of failure on the first set. The next couple sets are usually 1-2 reps shy of failure.
I honestly haven’t found a better lifting style than RPT for strength and muscle gain.
Greg, how can you learn so many different training and nutritional approaches and not get distracted from your own way of doing things?
For instance Lyle, Eric Helms, Greg Nuckols, Alan Aragon, Brad Schoenfeld, all of these really knowledgable guys propose a much higher training volume than you as being ideal from strength and muscle (for most guys). When you read their stuff or talk with them, don’t you sometimes question your own training approach?
Or you did this in the past but eventually got to the point where you uncovered what is best suited for yourself?
Lyle for instance actually recommends a pretty low training volume, especially on a diet. Right in the ball park of what I recommend, although I often do less than the workouts I have crafted, at times. Martin Berkhan also recommends a pretty low volume. Greg Nuckols likes really high volume – but his physique is predominately the result of the fact that he’s built up to significant lifts. And high volume is a lot easier if you’re going to be eating a lot and maintaining higher body fat.
But yeah, I’ve tried it all and nothing seems to work better than a smart low volume approach with RPT. But do what you want.
Lyle McDonald talks about something known as adaptational reserves. Meaning, there’s only so much you can do, while progressing. On a diet this is reduced. People that go higher in volume are shooting themselves in the foot on a diet. But in the end, find what volume best allows you to make gains in the gym.
From my experience with myself and working with tons of people, I kinda cracked the code in my courses. And I’m sure you’ve experienced that yourself. But if you find a workout that leads to better gains, let me know, I’d be curious.
Yeah you’re right your low volume approach works very well. It worked for me as well as the vast majority of people I recommended it to.
I was asking you this because it seems almost no one else does it. And considering you meet so many people on the podcast and online I was curious how you manage to not get influenced by them.
Well I found Lyle to be a proponent of the low volume approach. At-least to some degree. Greg Knuckols is definitely in the high volume camp and it works for him. But I know without a shred of doubt, that does nothing for me. I trained for about 8 months with very high volume and my strength moved so slowly.
Enjoyed the podcast. As someone with long legs I know exactly what he means with the lower back limiting progression on the back squat. Any advice for alternative exercises for those of us who want to gain size in the legs and glutes? Mostly the glutes.
Sumo deads can work the glutes hard! As well, single leg varieties will take the low back out of play. Forward lunges and high box step ups!
This was a good episode. Lyle definitely gives thorough answers. The segment on machines was cool! And as you said, using them towards the end of your workout can be very useful.
Exactly!