Meet Craig. He’s a 47-year-old business owner (he does interior painting and wallpaper installation).

               When we met for the first time, he was 143 pounds, at 5’10. He wanted to gain some serious muscle. Fast forward to today – 9 months later, and he was able to pack on 18 solid pounds of muscle, and improve his strength tremendously.

               As a result, he has better posture, more confidence, and a mindset that if he can accomplish this, he can accomplish other difficult endeavors.

               How did he do all this? That’s what we’ll talk about in this case study. We’ll cover:

  • What he’s tried before to help him gain muscle (and how it worked).
  • The exercise and nutrition strategies that helped him put on 18 pounds of muscle.
  • The bottom-line results that he achieved.
  • How his life is different now.

               And if you want to see Craig tell everything in his own words, just check out this video:

               If you’re feeling jealous of Craig, and you want help gaining muscle as well (regardless of whether you’re a man or a woman. Women wouldn’t gain the same amount of muscle), we have a special program called “More Muscle Over 40.” If you want to see whether this program is for you, just fill out the application form on your home page.

What Craig Has Tried Before

               For a long time, Craig has been hearing about how important muscle is as we age, and how much harder it is to gain muscle as we get older (I actually dispel that myth in my article on strength training over 60).

               So one of his motivations was to avoid being a frail old man 30-40 years down the road. He wanted to be (in his own words) a “strong old guy.”

               So he’s tried a few different things on his own, like stretching, and strength training, but 2 persistent doubts kept running through his mind as he was doing it on his own:

  1. Is he doing it safely, or is his technique, and overall programming setting him up for injury?
  2. Is he doing it effectively? It’s one thing to be safe, but it’s another thing to be effective. He wanted both.

For about a year, he was doing things on his own, without any results to show for it. Pretty frustrating and discouraging when you’re spending several hours per week, and not seeing the fruits of your labour.

At that point, he’s been getting my newsletters for a while, and decided that it made sense to hire a personal trainer.

He didn’t exactly like the idea of strength training to begin with, but he liked the end goal – not being frail. So he thought he’d at least give it a shot. If not for the process, at least for the results.

So we paired him up with one of his trainers, Chris, and they got to work.

Craig’s Exercise Program

               To help Craig gain muscle, Chris divided Craig’s strength training into 3 different phases. Each phase was 3-4 weeks long, and they cycled through all phases twice so far. All the phases are intended to help Craig gain muscle, but by addressing different mechanisms and different muscle fibres.

               All 3 phases involved full body workouts. Why did Chris choose full body workouts instead of the popular body part splits? Because at Craig’s level, it’s better to hit the same body part multiple times per week with fewer sets than have 1 day where you work 1-2 body parts with a lot of sets, once a week. When you do many sets for a muscle group, fatigue accumulates, and each subsequent set gets weaker and weaker, and the risk of injury gets higher and higher. With body part splits, you do more sets when you’re fresh. So not only is it more effective it’s also safer.

Phase 1

               During this phase, the focus was general strength. Exercises were done for 3 sets of 10-12 reps, at a weight that represented 60-75% of Craig’s maximal weight.

               Some of the exercises done in this phase were:

Phase 2

               In phase 2, the number of reps dropped to the 8-12 range, and the weight rose to the 75-85% range. The number of sets also went up to 4.

               The exercises were kept the same.

Phase 3

               In this phase, the same muscles were targeted, but with different exercises. Also, the relative weight stayed more or less the same, but some special techniques were added to increase intensity a bit.

               These special techniques are things like:

  • Slowing down the “negative” part of the movement (the negative is when you lengthen under tension. For instance, when you’re doing curls – the lifting portion is the shortening phase, and the lowering portion is the lengthening phase). This increases the difficulty without having a significant effect on the number of repetitions.
  • Weighted drop sets: when you reach muscular failure with one weight, you lower the weight, and continue the set without rest.
  • Mechanical drop sets: when you reach muscular failure with one position, you change the exercise ever so slightly (maybe just changing the grip), and continue without rest.

…and others.

               And if you’re looking at this program as a whole, thinking “this is pretty basic”, where the real “secret sauce” of a program lies is not the exercises as much as the other variables, like:

  • The progression model.
  • The amount of weight used.
  • The number of sets and reps.

I elaborate on this in much greater detail in my article on the most important factor in an exercise program.

Craig’s Nutritional Guidelines

               As I harp about in so many of my articles, protein is key for lots of things. Amongst them is muscle growth.

               Chris gave Craig the target of getting 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight. After all, the body needs the “raw material” to make muscle. Strength training without adequate protein builds strength, without muscle. But Craig wanted muscle. Lots of it.

Results

               What were Craig’s bottom line results? Seriously impressive.

               First of all, he gained 18 pounds of muscle in 9 months. He went from a weight of 143, when he first started with us, to 161 pounds, 9 months later.

               Where was the muscle? Pretty much in his entire body, but here are some highlights:

  • His arm circumference increased from 25 to 28 cm. Now, he’s selling 2 tickets to the gun show.
  • His chest circumference increased from 90.5 to 93 cm.
  • His thigh circumference increased from 52.5 to 56.5 cm.

And despite all that muscle gain, his pants still fit the same.

Not to mention the increases in his strength:

  • His deadlifts went from 65 pounds, up to 185. So he has stronger hamstrings, glutes (butt), and lower back.
  • His dumbbell bench press went from 40 pounds, up to 80. So his chest, shoulders and triceps (back of the arms) are stronger.
  • His barbell bench press went from 55 pounds, up to 125.
  • His dumbbell rows went from 30 pounds, up to 50. So his mid-back and biceps are stronger.

How His Life is Different Now

               So now that Craig’s put on 18 pounds of muscle and significantly improved his strength, how’s his life different now?

               A side benefit that he got is that his posture is better. And as a combination of both improved posture, more muscle, and more strength, his confidence is higher. As a result of accomplishing the goal of adding 18 pounds of muscle, it carries over to other areas of his life. If he can achieve something that significant, what else can he do?    

               Lastly, and maybe most importantly – he started exercising for the result – to avoid being frail when he’s old. In the beginning, he wasn’t that excited about the process (exercise) that gets him to the end result. But now, he actually likes exercise for its own sake. He said to me that he actually looks forward to his Wednesday evening workouts with Chris.

               For all those reasons, we’re very proud of Craig, and the results that he’s been able to achieve.

As mentioned earlier, if you want results similar to Craig’s, we have a special program called “More Muscle Over 40.” If you want to see whether this program is for you, just fill out the application form on our home page.