Personal Trainer Q&As - Body Opus and muscle growth

Nick,

At your advice I read Dan Duchaine's old Body Opus book and researched new thoughts on carbohydrate rotation and the best way to use it to get big and lean at the same time.  I came up with this plan below, what do you think?

> Monday - low carb, High Intensity Training split 1, 1 set of 3 exercises with Rest Pause and drops sets
> Tuesday - low carb, High Intensity Training split 2, 1 set of 3 exercises with Rest Pause and drops sets
> Wednesday - low carb, training is a day off
> Thursday -low carb - training is a day off
> Friday - low carb - training is 12 - 15 sets depletion workout split 1 (15 rep sets using 50% 1rep max)
> Saturday - diet is low carb/ High Carb post training- training would be 12 - 15 sets depletion workout split 2 ( 15 rep sets using 50% 1rep max)
> Sunday - High carb - Off training

Nick Mitchell: This looks fine, but am not convinced its right for you as I don't think you can stick with it for long enough.  Have you ever stuck with this type of regime for long?

This is NOT to sound negative, rather its said to help you find the right plan for YOU.  My idea below is similar but allows you to train when fuller (ie fuller muscles that are more enjoyable to traine and "pump") than your plan outlined above.  You will enjoy this more and possibly stick to the plan better.  I have used somethign like this to great effect for putting on muscle for both myself and my personal training clients, in fact it is a modified version of one of my favourite approaches for muscular hypertrophy (muscle growth).

My own thoughts would be that you should low carb from Sunday evening to Friday evening, train with depletion workouts on Mon-Weds (split body in 3, train with 15 rep sets (but hard 15 reps) doing 30 sets in an hour), and then do an upper / lower body DC style split on Friday night and Saturday afternoon, slamming in lots of carbs post workout Friday night and up until 5pm on Sunday.  That should fit better around your family life too.

You should also use supplemets that help with insulin regulation etc such as Fenugreek on carb days / large fish oil doses on non carb days.  Defintely use BCAAs with all workouts, and waxy maize starch post workout (and maybe generally) on carb days.
I hope that this helps and let me know how you get on.

About the Author:
Nick Mitchell is a personal trainer and strength, conditioning, and nutritional coach who specialises in body composition and reprogramming for fat loss and muscle gain.  His personal training clients run the gamut from Victoria’s Secret models and professional bodybuilders, to Men’s Health editors and senior diplomats, and he is known for his success in rapidly transforming a body in as little as 4 weeks.  He is the head coach and MD of Ultimate Performance, one of the UK’s leading personal training companies.
He can be contacted via Caroline@UPFitness.co.uk / www.UPFitness.co.uk