The Stubborn Fat Solution

Today, I want to talk about stubborn fat. What it is, what causes it, and (more importantly) what you can do to get rid of it.

There isn't really a universally recognized definition of what constitutes "regular" fat and "stubborn" fat.

For most people, normal fat is the fat that comes off without too much effort when you do a bit more exercise and cut back on calories. Stubborn fat, on the other hand, is the kind of fat that you can never seem to get rid of, even after months of regular exercise and hard dieting.

In men, stubborn fat tends to accumulate around the belly and lower back (I always struggle to lose it from my lower abs). In women, it tends to be on the thighs, hips or the back of the arms.

When it comes to getting rid of stubborn fat, the common approach is to exercise the area of the body where the stubborn fat is located. So you’ll find men trying to burn the fat from their stomach by doing lots of sit-ups. Or women spending hours on the inner and outer thigh machines in an attempt to get slimmer hips and thighs. While it sounds great in theory, the only problem with “spot reducing” is that it doesn’t actually work.

There is a far more effective option, and that's to use a nutrition and exercise program designed specifically to target stubborn fat. While many such programs have come (and gone again) over the years, one of the most effective is Lyle McDonald's Stubborn Fat Protocol (SFP) 2.0.

Now, I should point out that most people don't really have "stubborn" fat. Rather, they just need to tighten up their diets and exercise a little harder for a little longer.

And the majority won't qualify for Lyle's SFP 2.0 – men should be at 10-12% body fat and women at 15-17% body fat before they even consider using it. As Lyle himself points out, the SFP is not for everyone. And after reading the book myself, it’s clear that not everyone is going to be able to do it.

But if you do qualify (and you can think you can handle it), SFP 2.0 is one of the fastest and most efficient ways to attack those trouble spots.

You can read more about the SFP 2.0 in Lyle’s new book, The Stubborn Fat Solution, which describes four distinct protocols of diet and training (with several optional supplements) that will integrate with your current nutrition and training program to strip off stubborn body fat.

For more information, you can read an excerpt from chapter 7 of the book (Why is Stubborn Fat Stubborn?), and here are some pictures of people who have successfully used both SFP 1.0 and SFP 2.0.

What's The Best Way To Build Muscle?

A reader, JM from Australia, wrote in to ask a question about building muscle.

"A lot of the routines I see in the bodybuilding magazines involve 20-30 sets per muscle group in each workout," wrote JM. "And each muscle group gets trained only once per week. But your programs don't have as many sets, and the muscles are trained more frequently. Surely the routines that professional bodybuilders use are the best way to build muscle?"

Here's what I told JM...

Professional bodybuilders will typically use large training volumes (e.g. lots of sets and repetitions) and/or various techniques designed to fatigue the muscle (such as forced repetitions or descending sets).

These kind of high-volume, high-fatigue workouts create a large amount of muscle damage. And as with any injury, the more damage you create the longer it'll take to heal. So if you use a very high volume of exercise for each muscle group, you'll need more recovery time before training that muscle again (that's one reason training each muscle group once per week has become so popular).

The problem is that anything professional bodybuilders do has to be seen in light of the fact that the majority (with the exception of those competing in "natural" contests, and even then I have my doubts about some of them) are using vast amounts of anabolic drugs.

You can't take a program used by a heavily drug-assisted genetically gifted champion bodybuilder and assume that someone who trains without the same level of pharmaceutical assistance will get the same results simply by following the same program. It just doesn't happen.

Going back to your original question, there are a few reasons why such high-volume, high-fatigue workouts are not optimal for the natural trainee who wants to build muscle.

Firstly, while a small amount of damage helps to trigger growth, too much is counterproductive. Damaged tissue won't respond as well to the various anabolic hormones your body produces, such as testosterone, which may limit the potential for growth.

What's more, studies show that the short-term increase in protein synthesis that occurs after a workout returns to normal after 36-48 hours. And simply creating more muscle damage doesn't appear to make this rise in protein synthesis last any longer.

(SIDE NOTE: This is covered in more detail on Gavin Laird's Ultimate Hypertrophy Training website.)

In other words, when you train a muscle group directly only once per week, the muscles might spend a few days in an "anabolic state" after the workout. But for the rest of the week you're missing a second (and maybe even a third) opportunity to stimulate more growth. Blitzing your muscles just once a week with lots of sets, repetitions and high-fatigue methods is going to extend your recovery time. But it's not necessarily going to make you grow any faster.

If you've built a decent "base" of muscle and want to improve certain muscle groups, then some kind of split routine might be the way to go. But it's my view that most people will respond best to either a) a whole-body workout done 2-3 times per week or b) an upper-lower body routine performed four days each week.

I've covered the subject of training frequency in more detail in Do This And Your Muscles Will Get Bigger.

And if you're looking for step-by-step training programs that incorporate these principles, take a look at the Maximum Muscle Plan.

The four-day program is the one I'm using at the moment, though you can turn it into a three-day routine, which means that each muscle group is worked three times over a two-week period.

As I mentioned earlier, one other resource you'll find extremely useful is Gavin Laird's Ultimate Hypertrophy Training site.

I'd read quite a few of his articles and forum posts, and downloaded his e-book at the weekend. Not only do you get detailed information about how a muscle grows, Gavin also reveals why most people get it completely wrong when it comes to building bigger muscles and – more important – how you can be one of the few to get it right.

This isn't a book full of theory and no practical application, and there are some great sample training programs that you can use right away to start packing on muscle.

You can read some of Gavin's articles here.