Dante's Blog

This feels like Deja Vu. It feels like its the 90’s again and i have to come in and try to de-brainwash everyone because a lot of people are being sold a pipedream and a lot of people have gotten lost. Sometimes the best way to get people to think things out (AGAIN) is to put them into a certain scenario and also PUT SOME MONEY BEHIND IT! It makes people really stop and think. So lets do just that. Here is the equation, a problem to solve if you will: A mega-wealthy billionaire comes up to you today and says “Here is my 6’3″ 245 lb son Johnny, he is an athlete, he is a lineman in high school, a standout, he is being recruited by top colleges but they want him to be 290-300 lbs in college and Johnny’s dreams are eventually to go on to play Pro football someday. Johnny is currently at a reasonable bodyfat.” The billionaire wants him to be 290-300 lbs at a reasonable bodyfat in 2 years.” Billionaire: “I have a deal i want to make you. I will pay you 10 million dollars if you can accomplish the following. We will DEXA scan him right now and again in 2 years. We will WADA drug test him every two weeks for the next two years because i want him natural, if he tests positive you are kicked out…again I will give you 10 million dollars if you can get it done. ” What would someone do? What would you do? I KNOW WHAT I WOULD DO!

So the pipedream people in the bodybuilding genre would have you believe is that all you have to do to gain a great deal of muscle mass is to eat only 50 calories over maintenance. Some of the pipedream people would have you believe that a bunch of isolated cable exercises are going to create the massive amount of muscle mass that is needed here on Johnny… to get 10 million dollars in 2 years. Have him eat 50 calories over maintenance? Over the next 2 years? <—that sadly is the pipedream I have seen shoved down so many peoples throats online…..it isn’t even a discussion. You dont create 45-55 lbs with the majority of it being muscle mass in 2 years with 50 calories over maintenance. There isn’t a chance in hell he would even get close to making it, and there isnt a chance in hell you would even get close to 10 million dollars. He would probably gain 8-12lbs if lucky and thats me being very giving….its more likely he would gain 4-6 lbs in 2 years with that route. Kiss tthat 10 million goodbye.

So let me tell you what I would do and I guarantee you I would put myself in the best possible position to get 10 million dollars far above anyone out there selling you a pipedream. I want that 10 million! I would make that kid be a food ingesting, daily cardio doing, progressive strength training, frequent bodypart hitting, human blast furnace MACHINE for the next two years. Instead of 104 workouts over the next two years for each bodypart he would probably be doing 182 workouts or thereabouts for each bodypart (2x every 8 days or so) over the next 2 years. Again I would turn him into a human blast furnace with higher protein/good fats and then enough carbs so he was never flat…and this would increase as he went up the ladder. He would be walking everywhere, EVERYWHERE everyday, id make him park his car in the furthest parking spot of any grocery store, any shopping mall, the DMV, anyplace he goes. Going out to get the mail at the mailbox? He has to walk around the block first and then come back to the mailbox. Take the dog for a walk. Listen to podcasts on his walks. Quality time with girlfriend? Walk……10 minutes there, 5 minutes here, 12 minutes over there. Walk Walk, Walk. Ingest food, + progressive training=human blast furnace, essentially tricking the body into getting larger and larger while trying to keep bodyfat at bay…. sleep, eat, train, walk….again I would turn this kid into a food processing blast furnace. The walking creates the hunger needed to get down the food that is necessary to accomplish this and it creates the blast furnace i need. .. and I would do everything in my power to take home that 10 million. Would I accomplish it? Obviously nothing is written in stone but I think I would accomplish it. I would do everything in my power to be 10 million dollars wealthier in 2 years and that kid would be 290 plus and a heavy slag lifting, metabolic blast furnace monster.

Now thinking out loud, if that would be the process on how to to accomplish a great deal of muscle mass on a football player at a reasonable bodyfat percentage naturally {remember NATURALLY….all you guys that depend on the Turkey Baster for any and all gains of muscle mass don’t look so magic anymore when you dont have the old “ill just crank the mg’s up” solution in there)…so if thats how a natural football player would attempt to accomplish this feat while keeping bodyfat at bay and creating the most hypertrophy episodes per bodypart he could in 2 years, it stands to reason that what works naturally would also most likely be the best course of action to accomplishing things like that enhanced (which is so much easier).

It has been my experience that you cannot make dramatic changes in someone unless you take some dramatic means to do so. The human body wants to rebel at a certain point and its an all out war like I have previously said after the first few years of lifting natural and then the first few years of sauce. Only the people with extreme fortitude are able to force themselves past those telltale sticking points that virtually all others stay stuck on for their lifting careers. It sounds so simple but if you are 220lbs and want to be 240lbs you better be eating like a 260lber to get there. And you have to be meticulous in keeping bodyfat at bay if possible on that journey.

So for the bodybuilding guys who cannot think outside the box above and can only come back with “Well thats a football player what does that have to do with bodybuilding” EVERYTHING! The scenario is so similar. Ill give you a bodybuilding scenario:
We have two twin brothers….Eddy and Freddy…they both have good genetics and currently weigh 200 pounds at 6 foot tall after a few years of natural lifting in reasonably lean shape.

a) EDDY is a freaking maniac….he doesn’t give a crap about his health he just wants to weigh 250 and he doesn’t care what he has to do to get there. He is going to take 2000-3000mg of testosterone a week, on top of boatloads of gh and 4 grams of other steroids….”screw it im going for it” is Eddy’s battle cry. Eddy probably isn’t going to have to eat a huge abundance of food grossly over maintenance level because he is going to be on a surplus of testosterone and bodybuilding drugs that are going to skewer the ratio of hypertrophy insanely in his favor. At some points on his way to 250 he is going to have to increase food intake to keep the scale moving….but like most guys who use a lot of drugs, he is going to think food has hardly anything to do with the equation because ‘christ he just took off like a rocket ship when he added all these drugs in the equation’…no shit Eddy. In my opinion Eddy will gain 33 pounds right out the shoot within the first 6 months to a year and the last 17 pounds will be a little harder to accomplish but he will be at 250 in roughly 2 or so years. (im not quite convinced that Eddy will make it to 38 to 50 years old without having a heart attack, or some kind of kidney failure from high blood pressure with the toxicity that kind of drug abuse brings but Eddy doesn’t give a shit (right now) because his tunnel vision is 250 pounds.

2) FREDDY his twin brother wants to have a wife and family someday. He has set up boundaries for himself…he wants to live to 80-92 years old like his family genetics point to. Freddy also wants to get to 250 pounds just as badly as Eddy but absolutely refuses to abuse himself and maybe die early or have a major health event. He has set his limits on the following. 400mg starting off of testosterone to 600mg of testosterone a week TOPS later on…..and 2ius of GH a day….THAT IS IT…thats freddys rules for himself. Now how the hell is Freddy going to get to 250 pounds? What is the hidden variable in the equation? The only hidden variable that he has is what? ……..{FOOD!}………He (like Eddy) has to train progressively heavier but (unlike Eddy) he is limited to 400-600mg of testosterone and 2 ius of gh a day. I do think he is going to make it but its going to take him a lot longer than his brother….he will probably gain 17 to 24 pounds right out the shoot because of “first cycle gains”…and the last 26 to 33 pounds are going to be a fight/grind/battle no doubt about it…..but i think he is going to make it and it will take him probably 4 years at a minimum and more likely 5 years.

Now again 400-600mg of test, 2ius of gh, progressive training….what is going to be the hidden variable to get Eddy to 250 pounds? FOOD…there is nothing else he can do but to eat his way up to 250 pounds. Is he going to be as impressive or hard as his brother on the route to 250? No he isnt. His brother is a walking pharmacy with a death wish.. So if everyone trains hard, and you arent going to abuse the living hell out of yourself with drugs to get incredibly large….WHAT DO YOU HAVE LEFT TO WORK WITH? You have one thing and one thing only…FOOD.

You saw the football player scenario….If you are a 200 pound bodybuilder…its the same equation….and a lot of people who abuse the hell out of themselves with drugs, have absolutely forgotten the other variables at your disposal because drugs are so magical. So who is selling a pipe dream here? The pipedream “hey eat 50 calories over maintenance” approach which will only work if you bomb yourself with enough steroids and gh….or the “food is your anabolic” approach which is going to take you longer but you might see 44 years old and not die at 38 of a heart attack?

So again for people who DONT WANT to abuse yourselves…and your gear usage is kept within certain safety parameters that you will not go out of….what variables do you have to get bigger? You have hard training which everyone claims to do and you have FOOD.

So what is the moral of the story? Its this……

Transfer the same equations over to bodybuilding….A wealthy billionaire comes up to you and says “Here is my 6’2″ 155lb son Johnny, he wants to be a bodybuilder, I want him to be 230 lbs at a reasonable bodyfat in 4 years. We will DEXA scan him right now and again in 4 years. We will WADA drug test him every two weeks because i want him natural, if he tests positive you are kicked out…I’ll give you 10 million dollars if you can get it done. What would you do? Have him eat 50 calories over maintenance over the next 4 years? <— There isn’t a chance in hell he would even get close to making it. He probably would get to 170lbs if lucky! You ALREADY know what I would do….it involves turning that kid into a progressive overload, food ingesting blast furnace. Tricking this variable into getting bigger and tricking that variable into staying at a certain bodyfat percentage. Walk Walk Walk. ETC ETC ETC

So…..Its the virtually same exact thing these various equations in bodybuilding. If you are a 5’10” 185lb dude and eventually want to be a massive contest winning superheavy…guess what? You need to be 235-255 peeled ONSTAGE to accomplish that correct?….which means you need to be roughly 30-45 lbs over that in the offseason before dieting down for that….that isn’t going to happen at 50 calories over maintenance at 185lbs my friend! The greatest pipe dream you can sell in bodybuilding is that you can stay sub 10% bodyfat and lean as all hell from 150 lbs all the way up to 250 lbs. I have been around a long time and I have never seen it done. You can probably make a big dent in that trip if you want to just juice and GH the absolutely heck out of yourself to try to get there. If you feel a 15 dollar trophy and having a heart attack going to the mailbox at 47 years of age is worth it….thats a choice you can make. So there really is only 2 routes you can take: A) Sauce the living heck out of yourself and look awesome all the way there but maybe find yourself with severe health problems in your 40’s. B) Eat your way up there with a large amount of clean bodybuilding food, look somewhat smoother on that trip than doing route (A) and use the least amount of juice you can to get over every plateau. Food is your anabolic, Gear is your nitrous oxide, keeping active (walking) is you downshifting to slow down when going to fast, progressive training is the turnkey switch that the whole process rides on.

Having 10 million dollars riding on the line changes the urgency of things doesn’t it? Taking away the gearbox solution makes you think things out a little bit more intricately doesn’t it?

Would you walk away with 10 million or are you currently in the “pipedream” crew?

     As said on my IG post, I will continue where i left off……    I will be the very first to admit I get very impatient and ultra frustrated with some of the current crew of bodybuilders and their total inability to think outside of this tiny little box they are in. Some of them (I’ll just say it) are just straight out DUMMIES and are severely limited in their way of thinking. Like SEVERELY to the point I wonder how they ever solve any kind of problem whatsoever put in front of them. I have seen some comments regarding my methodology (especially over the last couple days on other social media regarding my latest post) and I am just in disbelief staring at the computer screen at times and thinking “Are you seriously that dumb?” “This isn’t that hard!”…..So forgive me (I usually am a pretty darn optimistic, up-beat guy who likes to joke around) but i have to take these cats to task on their incredible inability to comprehend simple concepts that are so completely obvious! Like no wonder some of these guys are on a hamster wheel going nowhere fast when it comes to forging ahead to the next level in their bodybuilding journey…some of you cannot get out of your own way…

DUMMY BODYBUILDER #1 WHO IS SO LIMITED IN HIS THINKING: talking about the progressive training post (and i quote)  ” Great way to destroy every ligament and tendon in your body “, MY REPLY: “A very simple question for you? You the person right now reading this tell me what rep range you would like to train in (for every exercise/bodypart) that you personally feel you will not get injured in”……hypothetical answer from DUMMY BODYBUILDER #1..: “Dante i don’t think i would get injured if i did 14-22 reps for seated dumbbell curls”

MY REPLY: “Then i would suggest you do just that and train in a 14-22 reps range for seated dumbbell curls and train progressively in that range”….Damn! did you see how easy that was? Don’t you feel kind of dumb now? You should….Now i want you to take every exercise/bodypart and i want you to determine what rep range you want to train in with those exercises/bodyparts that you personally feel you can do so safely.so as not to get hurt in…. 8-16 reps? 12-20 reps? 20-30 reps? Ok got it down? Now train progressively in that range! Wow see how easy it is if you can just pause for a second and think things out before talking/posting and kind of looking idiotic? Heavy training and progressive training is not owned by the 1-5 rep club! It never has been. Heavy training and progressive training is in any rep range you deem feasible for your unique structure, injuries, strength level, and personal safety and comfort zone. Who said you have to do below 6 reps? NOBODY did! Science has fully shown that you can hypertrophy a muscle in a myriad of rep ranges.

    If you get hurt in training, sometimes its bad luck, we are after all doing repetitive movements with multiple pounds of iron over many, many years which creates repetitive trauma…. but a lot of the time if you get hurt in training, its your own darn fault! And it can be traced to something YOU DID wrong. If you have blown out knees,, nobody told you to bounce out of the bottom position on hacks and squats for the sake of weight used. …YOU DID THAT. If you have blown out shoulders, maybe you should have kept in a higher rep range and trained in a really tight form instead of so loosely. Progressive training builds muscle mass whether you use ultra strict tight form or ballistic choppy movements. The problem is when training ballistically most bbers who train that way end up with a multitude of injuries .I look around the gym and see people with awful form and quickly foresee a really dark future on their joint integrity down the road. Look around at some retired or over 40 pro bodybuilders who are all torn up and a lot of them were really sloppy with their form in their training. Like i said training heavy and progressively builds muscle regardless of form but when you see bodybuilders doing things like tearing lats at the top of pulldowns from rebounding with the weight from the stretched position and other forms of ballistic training, nobody told them to train that way, they chose to train that way.

    My opinion? Form is a standard. Progression is the goal but YOU NEVER SACRIFICE FORM FOR ADVANCEMENT OF POUNDAGE! EVER! You either do the movement in good form or the moment your form gets dangerous… the set ends!. Write it in the logbook. That’s the key to longevity in this endeavor. Myself? I will be 58 in a few months, I used to grind out 6-9 reps in my young buck days. Moved that up to about 9-13 reps until about age 34, then moved that up again after 34 years of age to about 9-20 reps, at about 42 years old I again moved the rep range up to about 12-25 reps (maybe a 8-12 thrown in on some movements i felt safe in) …..now in my 50’s i train pretty much 12-30 reps (some stuff in the 16-30 range)… it is and always has been progressive…always. For some reason people think 12-30 reps are “light”….I grind out things in that rep range so heavy that the young cats in my gym cant even approach. I just keep in that range out of the “potential risk” factor, I’m not willing to risk a tricep tendon tear or patella tendon tear by grinding out 5-8’s at this point in my life. Its not throwing in the towel at all, a 20 rep squat or a 30 rep leg press with a boatload of weight that you have never accomplished before builds muscle mass, a reverse grip incline smith press for 16-20 reps that you have never done before builds muscle mass. A 16-20 rep machine shoulder press at a weight you have never accomplished before builds muscle mass. I do it just like I did when i used to grind out lower reps in my 20’s, I wrap my elbows with my Inzer knee wraps, slaughter my log books last weeks stats and just grind…..There is a very simple mentality i have, you can take chances in your 20’s and early 30’s that you cannot take in your 40’s and 50’s via joint integrity. Jump off a 6 foot wall at 24 and your off and running, do that at 44 and you take a good chance of blowing out both your patella tendons….it is what it is.

   I do think its very beneficial while your in your 20’s to grind out some 5-9’s while your joints are indestructible…it builds a power base that allows things to adjust very easily when its time to move the rep ranges up. But try rowing big weights for 12-20 reps or squatting big weights for 12-20 reps or shoulder pressing a machine press for 12-20 reps with the whole stack and 45’s chained to it…..not exactly easy or a walk in the park. Do you know whats great about heavy weight, high reps? It gives you a lot of room to beat the logbook! Much easier to beat a rest pause set of 20-30 reps than it is do beat a 9-13 rep rest pause. Both build muscle! You guys have seen my instagram posts, I am chaining weights on machines and gym pinning plates onto apparatus…it aint’ light…and I’m doing it for 12-20 (sometimes 30 reps).

I digress

    DUMMY BODYBUILDER #2 WHO IS SO LIMITED IN HIS THINKING: <—This guy right here might be one of the dumbest people I have ever come across in bodybuilding. Yet he is out there in many forms, on IG, on Youtube, in forums. Do you know what this guy always says? “There is a limit to how strong you can get. Its not like you can bench press 1000 lbs for reps” and “everyone has a limit to how strong you get, you don’t just continue forever just piling on the plates forever.” ….I so want to comment on this I could probably go on for the next 30 minutes about it…Where do i start?! MY REPLY: Ok DUMMY BODYBUILDER #2 let me ask you a question like i asked the other guy. So DUMMY BODYBUILDER #2 (lets use chest for a hypothetical point of view) …you are telling me that you have maxed out the weight for 12-20 reps on 10% inclines, and also 20% inclines, and 30% inclines, 40% inclines, 50% inclines, 60% inclines, 70% inclines, you have maxed out the weight for 12-20 reps on all four hammer machines both with two arms and also unilaterally…you have maxed out the weight on various angles of dumbbell presses with a 2-5 second pause at the bottom in the loaded stretch…you have maxed out the weight for 12-20 reps on every chest machine in your gym, AND every chest machine that is found in 3 local gyms? What did i just give you about 30-35 exercises for chest? And you are telling me you have maxed every single one out in weight in the 12-20 rep range?! No your a bullshit artist, because if you did actually accomplish that on chest and every other bodypart, you would be the most massive bodybuilder your unique genetics would allow you to be. So in your limited, cant get out of your own way thinking, you are full of crap.

    Your job as a bodybuilder is to put yourself into successful mechanical positions over and over up to strength plateaus and at that point do one of three things, ONE) go to a new exercise and go up to a strength plateau with that one, TWO) Reset the current exercise you are on by starting with high reps again and going up in weight and down in reps over many weeks/months trying to go past the last strength plateau, or THREE) tweaking the current exercise somehow so its a little bit different this time around. It sounds like DUMMY BODYBUILDER #2 is so limited in cognitive ability that he thinks you have to do 35 degree incline barbell presses on the first day til the last day of your bodybuilding career and every day in between. I am sorry but that is a complete idiot and you will not progress that way.

    I have done this for so long now that I have 12-30 alternative exercises for virtually every bodypart that i can pull out at any time i reach a strength plateau. When you go back to that original exercise you replaced (somewhere in the future) you will find that by the time you get up o a strength plateau again on it, you will go PAST THE PREVIOUS STRENGTH PLATEAU!. That’s called progress!. I reset exercises all the time especially ones i love doing but I am currently tapped out on and I reset by starting at a lower weight and higher rep scheme and work my way back up in weight and down in reps, and most of the time i get past the PREVIOUS STRENGTH PLATEAU. I tweak exercises all the time to make them harder or more productive when i reach a strength plateau but want to keep a version of that exercise…it might be the grip, it might be a 2-4 second pause in the hole, it might be rest pause this time rather than a straight set like last time, it might be a slightly different angle. How do you guys think i came upon doing all these weird exercises ive done like rack chins and things like incline reverse grip presses for triceps? It was because i was tapped out on flat reverse grip tricep presses but loved the results that exercise gave me so i went to a incline version, with a much higher rep scheme.

    One of the very best things a bodybuilder can ever do for himself is travel to another gym after he feels he has gotten tapped out at his current gym. Every piece of equipment will have different perks, different angles, different mechanical positions, new machines, new strength plateaus to conquer. I am going to tell you how important it is that you train progressively first of all and second of all that you change the mechanical positioning if you can when you reach a strength plateau. If every single one of you reading this right now was on a deserted island that had a solitary fixed shoulder press machine on it with a 200lb stack, and you trained on that machine in strict form until you pressed that 200lb stack for 30 reps over time…you will at that point make minimal gains in shoulder muscle mass going further. Why? Because you are limited in load…you cannot go further than the 200lbs weight stack because thats all you have, and you have already accomplished it for 30 reps. Secondly you cannot change the mechanical positioning of that machine. So you are done. That is how important mechanical positions and even more-so progressive training is. But the aforementioned DUMMY BODYBUILDERS cannot figure that simple concept out for some reason. They only think in a small box and in a straight line.

    This is not that hard guys. The very day you conquer every viable piece of machinery that is worthy, in mechanical positions that you find are safe and allow progressive training, in both your gym and surrounding gyms…. with a lot of weight in the 12-20 rep range…..and just the road you took to get there (eating, supplements, wraps, enhanced) will be the day you will be so massive in size that you wont even be reading blogs like this….YOU WILL ALREADY HAVE ACCOMPLISHED WHAT YOU SET OUT TO DO.

One of my biggest pet peeves in bodybuilding is advanced bodybuilders who get amnesia and totally forget how they actually put on great amounts of muscle in their beginning years in the first place. Many, many years later after they have built a great deal of muscle mass and can stay leaner due to the metabolic rate assets of all that muscle mass they will shout to anyone within 1000 feet about the “comfortable” BS training they are doing now (that is greatly unlike the actual training they did that produced that muscle mass!).  Here is a question i want you to think about: When is the last time you heard any bodybuilder say or think that the training they are doing at this moment right now is not working? NEVER! So many people fool themselves into thinking what they are doing now is working when the reality is you see so many bodybuilders who look EXACTLY and i mean EXACTLY what they looked like 5 years ago. Maintenance is not gaining! Of course you look better NOW…you put years of hard work in building all that muscle mass and now you walk around leaner and tell everyone and anyone that the way you are lifting now (which again is at best comfortable maintenance) is the way to do it. The scale and the mirror does not lie. A majority of intermediate/advanced people look exactly the same they did 5 years ago.

I need you to open your mind for a second and think about some things that are so important in what I am going to say in the following paragraphs. I am a pubmed junky. I love to read pubmed about drugs, supplements, health, the human body etc. What irritates me to no end is when people will try to pubmed-brainwash groups of people to death to drive home a preconceived notion they have in their mind.  I proved this to a great many people on MD many years back by showing a study showing “fasted cardio being the best method to losing bodyfat”…in the very next post i put up a study showing “why fasted cardio did not matter and doing cardio any time during the day was the best”….now just think if you were shown just the first study…YOU WOULD BELIEVE IT. Just think if you were shown just the second study. YOU WOULD BELIEVE IT. People can pubmed-brainwash the heck out of groups of people to steer them in a certain direction….a direction they want you to go in. Ive seen it done too many times over the years that it has become beyond annoying.

So this is my problem with pubmed studies on lifting/bodybuilding and what have you. EXAMPLE: “We took a group of 24 male weightlifters and had them perform 3 sets of leg extensions at 60% 1RM for 12 reps…..etc etc etc”….STOP RIGHT THERE. Ok i want to ask you the reader something. If someone came up to you and said “Every person that goes to Stanford will become a great doctor” or “Every person that goes to Columbia will be a great lawyer”…How exactly do you measure “hard work” or fortitude”?…You are telling me every single person in that classroom in every subject at that college every single year works extremely hard? I call BS. So when you have a pubmed study using weightlifters…how exactly do you measure individual genetics? Because I guarantee you, if you conduct the study in Salt Lake City Utah its going to be far different than Atlanta Georgia. How do you measure someones intensity? How do you measure hard work and a ‘never say die fortitude’ in weightlifters? YOU CANT! So i generally take lifting studies somewhat with a grain of salt to be honest. Drugs/supplements and other pubmed studies? The human body and how it reacts to drugs, supplements etc is somewhat universal in nature (disregarding genetics)…but lifting studies? Very hard unless you want to do lifting studies using multiple sets of identical twins.

But I will tell you something that you can put in your craw and lock it up as a bonafide fact. Power in numbers blows virtually any study out of the water. Power in numbers does not lie. IF 2987 OUT OF 3000 PEOPLE SAY SOMETHING WORKS, IT DOES NOT MATTER WHAT 4 GUYS IN LAB COATS SAY, power in numbers is correct. We had science come forward many decades ago with the AMA with its official statement on steroids saying “they did not work and it was a placebo effect”….UHHH..sorry, power in numbers proved this to be absolutely false. We had pubmed studies on HMB, Ribose, DAA and other supplements lauding them as the greatest thing since sliced bread. What proved out? Power in numbers of 1000’s upon 1000’s of people came forward and said “no not so great”…and who was right? Power in numbers was.  Every highly touted drug (pgf2, MGF FGF that came down the pipeline in bodybuilding) ended up thrown to the wayside no matter what the data and literature said benefits wise…..because THEY DIDNT WORK for the masses,

So lets go thru the greatest human studies ever put out on this planet shall we? All you have to do is observe and look at massive groups of people to show you the way. And these studies don’t have 12-24 participants…they have MILLIONS of participants in them. The stats don’t lie. The data is there. Just open your eyes and look at it.

So lets take that journey and look at monumental amounts of people shall we? Lets do our best to take genetics out of the picture because people with great genetics can grown no matter what they do, even with bad deductive reasoning they grow. They can curl milk jugs filled with sand while wading in a pool and grow biceps. Thousands of you reading this right now, trained 100X harder, ate 100X better, supplemented, enhanced and did everything better than Paul Dillet to be the best bodybuilder you could possibly be yet you still got dwarfed by Paul Dillet didnt you? Because genetics  cannot be beaten. So with us removing genetics to the best of our ability lets look at millions of people and make some determinations.

A) Newbie lifters: This is you, me, anyone and everyone during their first 2-3 years of lifting. Everyone makes gains. No matter what you do even if its horribly incorrect during this time period you make gains to some degree because of the new stimulus presented to the human body. People gain sometimes 20-50lbs during these years. They can gain a lot of muscle correctly and even a little muscle incorrectly (hopefully they have some mentors/guidance and do it correctly). Across the board newbies gain muscle mass. NOTE TO EVERYONE: What else is highly noticeable at this time? Training weights go flying upwards during this time….. 20lb dumbells become 30, 40, 50 LB dumbbells. 135 lLB squats become 155, 185, 205, 225 LB squats for reps. All training weights go up pretty dramatically during these 2-3 newbie years at the very same exact time period that every newbie puts on a great deal of their original muscle mass. A coincidence? NO ITS NOT A COINCIDENCE! Take note of that…. lets move on…

B) Group 2 This is the post 3 year mark where newbies are no longer newbies. Past 3 years is the point where things slow down dramatically. This group right here is the majority of gym goers across the globe comprising millions if not 100’s of millions of members of this group. A lot of you guys reading this right now are part of this group. And what is the telltale sign of this group? They never change. This group right here is the greatest human study ever done on bodybuilding on this very planet and it shows exactly what not to do…and yet so many of you guys don’t observe, notice or learn from it. Go to your gym tomorrow, heck go to other gyms, you will see millions upon millions of members of these gyms that are 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45 years of age that look the same as last year, 3 years ago, 5 years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago etc etc etc. You will say “hi” to them tomorrow as you go by and  five years from now they will look the exact same when you say “hi”.  What is their telltale calling card? These millions of “never change ever” members DO NOT LIFT HARD. The go in and do comfortable training and train at about 70% intensity for years and years like clockwork. So when i hear the modern day cry of “you dont need to lift that hard to get bigger”, and “you can leave multiple reps in the tank, no problem and you will grow”…CHECK THE FREAKING SCOREBOARD!!! The biggest study ever done with the ultimate proof is in every gym in America and around the globe, proving this to be untrue! This membership in group 2 is so large in number it should be irrefutable proof that “not lifting that hard” does not work! Please I am asking you….go to your gym tomorrow and just watch….look at the same guys there you have seen for 5 years looking the EXACT same. They do not train very hard do they? If you don’t have to train very hard to gain muscle mass this group #2 would be comprised of a majority of individuals with a lot of muscle mass first of all and secondly the groups of people pushing this “you dont have to train hard to gain muscle mass” mantra should not and would not have to use anabolic drugs to overcome the limitations to what that kind of lackadaisical training produces. I am not calling out anyone specifically….Im calling out YOU the modern day group of bodybuilders……how the hell did we get to this point where we try to make everything easier when the hardest training bodybuilders in every gymout there banging away at heavy slag iron have been the ones changing for decades. The sad reality is the drugs in the sport which allow non-intense, people to make gains…..has skewered everyone’s thinking. A lot of people need to go back to natural training to remember how the heck you actually trained yourself to get larger when you were clean. A lot of answers become real clear when there isn’t a bottle of testosterone helping things along the way……try that “ahhhh no big deal I don’t have to lift that hard today” as a natural guy trying to improve the size of your quads. Of course its easy to do it when you load up a turkey baster to exceed all plateaus. That wasn’t done far and wide in the old days when guys got after it training wise and the drug dosages were 1/4 to 1/2 of what is used now. Take out the genetic marvels and people using drugs, do you see anyone training at 70% getting huge? No, no you don’t. So by my calculations up to 95% of this group 2 right here is not changing, will not change, and will look the exact same in 5 years. The other 5%? That other 5% are the actual guys over in the corner grinding out heavier and heavier T-bar rows, doing progressively heavier squats, leg presses, skull crushers, CG presses, machine shoulder presses, curls, for reps like their life depended on it. Those guys push thru this stagnant point in a lifters career with progressively heavier training for reps. <—-these guys right here know their shit and they figured out how to train to keep progressing.

C) Group 3: This is the journey into being enhanced lifter group….this is a really large group of individuals who come from a myriad of different backgrounds and knowledge. EVERY SINGLE BODYBUILDER WHO USES BODYBUILDING DRUGS GAINS. FACT! This group is just like the newbie lifters in that they can gain no matter what even when they are idiots sometimes. Again every bodybuilder that uses bodybuilding drugs for those first 2-3 years will make gains. A lot of this group of people gain 15-35lbs of muscle. They could lift buckets of sand while riding a unicycle and they would gain because of the incredible advantage that the bodybuilding drugs give them. The majority of these guys think they know their stuff (even when they don’t) because the drugs give them a false sense of “I know what I am doing” but its the milligrams that are dictating the advance of muscle mass and not their intellect. NOTE TO EVERYONE: What else is highly noticeable at this time? Training weights go flying upwards. 60lb dumbells become 80, 90, 100, 110, 120lb dumbells during this time. 245lb squats become 275, 315, 365, 405lb squats for reps. All training weights go up pretty dramatically during these enhanced 2-3 years at the very exact same time that this enhanced person puts on that 15-35lbs of muscle mass. A coincidence? NO ITS NOT A COINCIDENCE! Take note of that! Do not overlook it.

D) Group 4:  This is the post 2-3 year enhanced group period. This is the most dangerous group in bodybuilding. This group comprises huge groups of individuals who give false information and false hope but lets get to that point in a second. This is a massive group of enhanced bodybuilders. A majority of them are only as big as the drugs allow them to be. What is so dangerous about these individuals is they will give out information to anyone in a 50 mile radius based on the look they have (that the drugs impart to them) but they dont know their stuff at all. They are only as good as the drugs let them to be. But bodybuilders smaller than them listen to them intently because they don’t know better and heck these guys look like they must know what they are talking about right? The majority of these guys are trapped. If they get off the drugs they disintegrate….because they never learned how to train to gain muscle or keep muscle…they only have muscle mass due to the drugs and the milligrams used. So most of these guys never get off and thats ok but I will give you one telltale sign of these guys and how you can tell they don’t know their ass from their elbow training wise. Like group 2 after that 2-3 year phase they never get bigger. EVER! They reach that 15-35lbs of muscle mass gained from drugs and stay there. For the rest of their lifting career they will be the same size…unless they abuse the hell out of themselves with drugs to go past that setpoint but thats another story alltogether that usually ends up with them dying in their 40’s. Again these are the guys who are the most dangerous people to listen to in bodybuilding because they give advice on various topics but 90% of what makes them up as a bodybuilder is the drugs and the milligrams they dare to use.

E) Group 5: These guys know their shit! Oh my god do these guys know their stuff! These are the individuals who learned how to train progressively to gain muscle mass in the beginning years and carried it all this time right through the enhanced post D group and they keep gaining. This group makes up pro level bodybuilders, people with good genetics, people with intermediate genetics and a whole bunch of people in between. The telltale sign of these guys is 3 years after they became enhanced they pull every trick out of their training bag and train viciously heavy for reps AND THEY KEEP GAINING past the Group 4 stage while the majority of the people in group 4 stop. I cannot give these guys enough superlatives and compliments…these guys and the 5% in group 2 are the true superstars of the sport who figured out how to train to get larger continuously. Who are these people? An example that you would know is look at pro bodybuilders who get their pro card. Most of them never get much bigger than that do they? Now look at the ones that do get larger after they get their pro card….the Shawn Clarida’s, and others like him…look at the progressively heavier and heavier weights they use to get larger and larger in the years after they got their pro cards. Its not coincidence. Any guys in your gym who are past that 2-3 year enhanced stage and continued to get larger….I guarantee they are grinding it out. If anyone here thinks im talking about singles or triples for reps your nuts. I am talking progressively heavier weights used for 8 to 30 reps (whatever you determine is your safe rep range you want to train in). TrainedbyJP, Jordan Peters….look at him. Guy went to pro size and then went to freak pro size….I had a front seat view to that trip…progressive weights used the whole time. So i give my ultimate respect to this group right here and the 5% group in group #2…they figured it out. RESPECT!

So look above…just observe these examples of massive groups of people. What stands out? Seems like the guys who gain tremendous amount of strength for reps over time (newbies and enhanced) also put on a great deal of muscle mas and only the groups of guys who sanely grasp that concept continue on to get larger and larger over time once the newbie and newly enhanced periods are over. Its sad to see so many people confused by both newbie gains and worst of all the number of 2-3 year enhanced bodybuilders who get so brainwashed with what drugs give them as far as a look, that they think they know what they are doing training wise. People who train progressively…THAT SUIT OF ARMOR IS THEIRS. It does not go away over time it becomes dense viable tissue that does not get lost in dieting processes and a large part of that suit of armor stays with progressive training bodybuilders when they go down to TRT. The bonafide sign of a someone who is lost training wise is someone who is large when on the drugs and shrinks to nothing when they get on TRT….it really is an embarrassment that the only thing that keeps you “a bodybuilder” is polypharmacy and milligrams…..

Want to know when someone really knows their stuff? When they take natural bodybuilders and enhanced bodybuilders who have been lifting hard for 6-8 years who are tapped out and they get them up to a whole new level in size. Then you know your stuff! I dont know why so many people in bodybuilding cannot step outside of their own personal drug using box and think “hmmm what would natural me do?”…..Because the correct answer training wise to truly get “natural you” bigger is the exact same answer to use when you are enhanced….its a real eye opening experience when you don’t have “the good old PED help” in your back pocket. A lot of you would look at things much much differently.

I hope i gave you some thoughts to think about up above……sometimes sitting back and observing large groups of people can shine some light on the correct path to take

https://faseb.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1096/fasebj.24.1_supplement.92.4

https://faseb.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1096/fasebj.21.5.A156-d

http://article.foodnutritionresearch.com/pdf/jfnr-5-6-2.pdf

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23128450/

https://academic.oup.com/jn/article/147/3/323/4669740

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26762372/

silymarin https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4866124/

MSM Needs more study but is interesting nonetheless https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/13/10/3620

Note Omentum = basiclaly visceral fat —

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jpn.13497

Review of high dose melatonin in various studies —

https://www.melatonin-research.net/index.php/MR/article/view/34/282

Intra-abdominal fat —

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281258126_Effect_of_melatonin_on_metabolism_of_intra-abdominal_fat_of_rat

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7436261/

Look halfway down the page after “The treatment was yet not without (un-?)wanted side-effects”

https://suppversity.blogspot.com/2012/01/supplemental-melatonin-protects-against.html?fbclid=IwAR1I7wKKbqAuREd-I67mcEQmqjHGH9JSksLWsehgsnHj9BppMpz7e85JPP4

For those who will come in comments and say melatonin reduces testosterone…..

https://academic.oup.com/humrep/article/15/1/60/702022

https://bioone.org/journals/biology-of-reproduction/volume-104/issue-6/ioab046/Melatonin-promotes-male-reproductive-performance-and-increases-testosterone-synthesis-in/10.1093/biolre/ioab046.short

Click on any of the links below

a) Notes by Dante: The below Huai-Qi-Huang is another name for Astragalus

https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Preliminary-study-of-Huai-Qi-Huang-granules-delay-Duan-Pan/eb2844f8a531f4c8d9575b6aa59b2cba5e04f50b

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1561541312000026?fbclid=IwAR1DLnSAI0ZzhbDaC3SN9QBp1rNwPDFXyxuVgYSdcJio1dt8HD5BeaH6TSw

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18037104/

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0272638613008275

https://www.ajkd.org/article/S0272-6386(10)00474-9/fulltext

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18037104/

b) Grape Seed Extract

https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Grape-seed-powder-improves-renal-failure-of-chronic-Turki-Charradi/a964ef9b1165a39a770479a8ef46ff80b8474ca4

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5083963/

c) Pcynogenol

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1074248409356063

d) Cordyceps

https://europepmc.org/article/med/31049139

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/40455930_Protection_of_chronic_renal_failure_by_a_polysaccharide_from_Cordyceps_sinensis

Click on any of the links below.

This below is the detailed version:

https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.895.8013&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Laymans terms below:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8226539/

Meta:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/cpf.12622

And additional:

J. Silva,1 R. Lowery,2 J. Antonio,3 S. McCleary,1 J. Rauch,1 J. Ormes,2 K. Shields,2 M. Sharp,2 J. Georges,2 S. Weiner,2 J. Joy,2 and J. Wilson2

1University of Tampa; and 2University of Tampa Human Performance Lab, 3Nova Southeastern University

*Award Eligible—Undergraduate Student Research Award for an outstanding poster abstract presentation.

Previous research using the avian stretch model has demonstrated profound skeletal muscle hypertrophy and hyperplasia. Purpose: To investigate the effects of weighted intraset stretching on skeletal muscle size and strength in human subjects. Methods: Twenty-four recreationally trained subjects (20 ± 2.0 years of age) were randomly assigned to stretching and non-stretching conditions. In both conditions subjects performed 4 sets of 12 repetition calf raises on a leg press twice a week for 5 weeks. The first set was performed at 90% of subjects 1-RM, followed by 3 sets in which the weight decreased by 15% of subjects 1-RM per set. Between sets the stretching group allowed the weight on the leg press to stretch the gastrocnemius for 30 seconds before continuing, while the non stretch condition held the weight stack with their feet neutral and not stretched. Gastrocnemius muscle thickness was determined pre and post via ultrasonography. Results: There was a significant group × time effect (p ≤ 0.05) for muscle thickness in which the delta change was greater in the stretching vs. non stretching condition (+23 ± 5.0 vs. + 9 mm ± 4.8). There were time (p ≤ 0.05) effects for strength in which both the stretching (+49.7 ± 8.0 kg) and non stretching (+37.1 ± 7.0 kg) increased in strength, with no differences between conditions.Conclusions: Intraset stretching may increase skeletal muscle hypertrophy when combined with resistance training. Practical Application: Athletes interested in inducing skeletal muscle hypertrophy can implement intraset stretching into their regimens