Man 2.0 Engineering the Alpha (24 page)

The day after lactic acid training, the order would be switched—starting with a compound upper-body lift (like a bench press or a push press) followed by lower-body lactic acid training. Don't worry about the exact details right now. Your easy-to-follow plan will be nicely laid out in chapter 11.

 

PHASE IV: COMPLETE

Living Like a Boss

Phase IV is the final stage. Here, you're able to combine all the elements of the first three phases into one meta approach. You can't typically do this in training because you have to build strategically in order for your body to reap the benefits of multiple techniques being utilized at the same time. This phase uses a mixed-methods approach to both training and diet that will change what is possible with your body.

Complete is a four-week phase. Here's what you can expect:

The Training

Weeks one and two are pure muscle building—you'll enjoy higher calories and carbs as well as a few meathead workouts mixed in with your density training. Because of the increases in strength and work capacity that were created in Phase II, you'll be able to make significant improvements much faster than normal. And that speaks to the overall design of this program. Every workout you perform is building toward a next step and something bigger. That's the science that we figured out so you wouldn't have to, and it's why our clients and the people who tested this program saw unprecedented and uncharacteristic results.

In week three, you'll throw your body a curveball by dropping calories and transitioning to a program based on pure strength. The goal here is to put the brakes on mass building in a way that prevents any fat gain while still cementing and fine-tuning your muscle gain with heavy lifting. Surprisingly, what you'll find is that even though your calories will be lower, your strength will
not
decrease. Much of this will be due to the peripheral benefits of intermittent fasting, but it's also because of the hormonal environment of improved insulin, GH, and testosterone. These hormones will sustain and bolster performance even in the absence of calories. And as your strength increases and your calories are lower, you'll be dropping fat at an accelerated rate.

In week four and beyond, we transition into a rotational program—one workout of various types each week. You'll still be eating just a tad below your maintenance level so you're able to stay lean, but you counterbalance that and keep leptin in check with a healthy dose of weekly epic cheat days.

Transformation

At the end of Phase III, your body will look radically different. You'll be leaner and bigger, but you'll also be harder and denser. These changes will be impossible not to notice. Just as beneficial, you'll
feel
different. You'll be mentally and emotionally centered, your increased confidence will have taken firm root, and you'll begin to explore new things with greater ease. You'll be more self-assured and self-reliant, so things won't distract you as much. And you'll have a sex drive that will reduce or completely eliminate one of the biggest stressors that all men experience—a lack of libido.

This is the reality of the more than three thousand men who have gone through this program. And now it's your turn.

CHAPTER 9

Phase I: Prime

ENGINEERING ENGAGED

“People do it every day. They talk to themselves. . . . They see themselves as they'd like to be. They don't have the courage you have, to just run with it.”

—
TYLER DURDEN IN
FIGHT CLUB

 

ENGINEERING THE ALPHA: THE PROGRAM

T
he Engineering the Alpha training and nutrition program consists of four phases, each lasting three or four weeks. Every phase has a different purpose, and—with the exception of Phase IV—each will focus on helping you to optimize a specific hormone through diet and training. Phase IV is a bit more comprehensive, so rather than focusing on just a single hormone or modality, all of them are brought together in a cohesive fashion.

In order to accomplish this, each phase utilizes a different training style to elicit the desired effect. There are commonalities among all phases, of course. With regard to training, while each phase has you training in a different
way,
the exercises will be very similar. The reason for this is twofold. First, there are only so many amazing exercises; the fact is, while there are a thousand different pressing variations, you really only need three to five versions to build an incredible, well-balanced physique. The second point is that mastering a thousand pressing movements is impossible or, maybe more appropriately, counterproductive.

The truth is, in order to get the most out of any exercise, you have to be
good
at it. Or as we say in the industry, you have to have a high level of proficiency.
^*
In other words, each set and rep you do is not only an end unto itself, but it's also—in a very real sense—practice for subsequent sets. By sticking with a core group of movements and branching out with slight variations of them, you'll be consistently improving rather than starting from scratch to learn new skills all the time.

A number of nutritional aspects will carry over from phase to phase as well. With the exception of your cheat days, you'll generally be eating a bit on the low-carb side (especially during Phase I). But as you'll come to discover, after the first two weeks, the definition of
low-carb
is actually many more carbs than most people think, which means you're not restricted as much as you'd expect on a typical low-carb plan.

There are two foundational nutritional principles of every phase of the diet: intermittent fasting and cycling.

Intermittent Fasting

During the program, you'll fast for anywhere from sixteen to thirty-six hours (that's not as bad as it sounds). How long each fast lasts will vary depending on which phase you're in, but some form of fasting will be utilized nearly every day. Not only does this allow for better results, but it also just makes life much more manageable without putting extra restrictions on what you eat and when you eat. Yes, there are rules, but you select the eating window, how many meals you eat during that window, and which foods you want to eat. Does this mean you can eat just crap? Of course not. But as you'll see from the Alpha-approved food list, not even a world-class chef would complain about the number of options available.

Cycling

In the context of dieting,
cycling
just means that you strategically alternate how much food you eat on a day-to-day basis. This means that on days you exercise, you eat more; on days you don't exercise, you eat less. Throughout the program you'll be cycling carbohydrates and total calories.

During various phases of the plan, you'll be eating up to three times as many carbs on workout days as you do on days you don't train. This is known as carb cycling, and has to do with energy utilization and recovery. Put in the most succinct way possible, you need more energy on days you expend more energy.

Cycling calories and carbs is important for both hormonal optimization and body recomposition (shifting to a body with less fat and more muscle), but there's another advantage as well: researchers at Louisiana State University found in a 2005 study that calorie cycling prolongs your life. This conclusion was further supported by research conducted by the National Institutes of Health in 2008. This means calorie cycling has some pretty sweet benefits . . . if, you know, you like being alive longer.

 

GETTING STARTED WITH PRIME

Prime is intended to do just that: prime your body for everything to come. However, don't think of Prime as some sort of optional video game tutorial
^*
that you can skip; this is arguably the most important phase. In fact, none of the other phases will be nearly as effective without it.

The diet, which will be explained soon, is the most important part of Phase I—nearly everyone coming into the program will have
some
level of insulin resistance (or insulin insensitivity). Because of this, the nutritional programming is designed to rapidly get your endocrine system back on track by immediately addressing insulin in a truly aggressive manner.

As for exercise, Phase I is set up for two very specific goals. For those relatively new to the gym or those who haven't trained in a while, the exercise setup of Phase I will have you seeing results fast. For everyone, it will set the foundation for the following three phases so you can experience exponential improvements. Even if you train regularly, learning the movements the way we want you to do them is going to take a little time. From a hormonal standpoint, Prime is geared toward improving insulin sensitivity, which will be accomplished through exercise as well as diet.

We'll talk about each of these benefits, but before we do, we just need to point out the obvious: synergy. By pairing a nutritional structure with a training approach, both of which are proven to improve insulin management, you increase the efficacy of both, allowing for not only rapid hormonal optimization but also rapid results in terms of fat loss and muscle gain.

Training Program

Phase I will be comprised of what is known as metabolic resistance training. This style of training uses resistance (either weights or your own body weight) in a fast-paced, circuit-style workout; circuits are executed with very little rest between exercises and are arranged in a noncompeting fashion. This means that you'll never work the same muscle in two consecutive exercises; rather, the exercise order alternates between opposing body parts. Sometimes you'll do an upper-body exercise followed by a lower; others times, you'll do a pressing movement followed by a pulling one.

By setting things up this way, you are not in danger of reaching muscular fatigue early in the workout; instead, you'll be challenged both anaerobically
and
aerobically—meaning you will work your muscles and your cardiovascular system. This leads to an increase in something called EPOC,
or
excess post-exercise oxygen consumption.

As the name implies, EPOC is a measured increase in the rate of oxygen intake following strenuous exercise. In recovery, oxygen facilitates a number of processes that adapt the body to the exercise just performed (such as cellular repair, muscle growth, and hormonal optimization), so increased oxygen consumption can speed those processes. Another use of EPOC is to fuel the increased metabolism from exercise-induced increases in body temperature.

All of that is a really long way of saying that metabolic resistance training has been shown to drastically and rapidly increase metabolism, making it exceptional for fat loss.

Metabolic resistance training has also been shown as one of the best ways to increase insulin sensitivity. While it is true that all weight training helps insulin sensitivity, two separate studies published in the
Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research
have specifically demonstrated that the effect of metabolic resistance training on insulin sensitivity is greater than with other training modalities.

Each workout in Phase I will consist of two or three metabolic resistance circuits, each of which will be made up of as many as five exercises.

Nutrition Program

Your dietary prescriptions for Prime are some of the most effective and thoroughly researched methods ever discussed. As with all other phases, Prime focuses on intermittent fasting and carb cycling, with an added twist: the insulin reset.

The insulin reset is pretty much what it sounds like: a specific dietary protocol intended to reset your insulin sensitivity. The insulin reset utilizes carb cycling in the sense that you're always eating more carbs on workout days—however, this starts out in a relatively intense fashion: with
zero
carbs three days per week.

During the first two weeks of Prime, you will take in no carbohydrates whatsoever on the days that you don't train with weights. On days you do train, you're limited to 30 grams. We recommend that all 30 grams of carbs come in the form of a post-workout shake.

Although it's not exactly fun eliminating carbs for a couple weeks, it's incredibly effective and surprisingly easy to adjust to. This is not a gimmick. While some diets will put you through a crash course of low carbs where you lose water weight and
appear
to have a lot of success only to put it right back on, this is the first phase of a complex scientific strategy designed to keep the weight off. More carbs will be added after the first two weeks, and you won't become fatter. And as you progress, you'll see that more and more carbs will continue to be added because your insulin will be better able to use those carbs to create a muscle-building and fat-burning environment.

And, if you think that this level of carb reduction sounds extreme, keep in mind that technically it's not zero carbs. You will be eating plenty of fibrous vegetables that we consider “free foods.” These foods—when combined with the amount of fat and protein you'll be eating—will keep you much fuller than you'd ever imagine on a “zero-carb” plan.

We restrict carbohydrate intake to very low levels for these first two weeks because it's the fastest way to get your insulin under control. As you know, when you're minimizing carbs, you're also minimizing the secretion of insulin. Keeping insulin levels low will help your body become
more
sensitive to it—which means that you'll need less to get the job done by the second phase of the program. That would be impressive enough on its own, but what's more, this first phase is what stabilizes your blood sugar to allow for you to cheat with all your favorite foods later in the program.

While creating an environment that encourages insulin sensitivity is great, it's equally important to nurture that environment. In other words, you can't avoid carbs forever.
^*
However, you can't just go back to pounding doughnuts and expect to keep your newfound insulin sensitivity. Not yet, at least—the rebound effect would be too great, and in addition to messing up your insulin management again, you'd also gain back any weight that you'd lost up till that point.

For this reason, the second half of Prime focuses on carb reintroduction.

During weeks three and four of Phase I, you will close out your insulin reset by slowly bringing carbs back into your diet, starting with the most important time: post-workout.

For week three, you'll still be eating zero carbs on non-workout days, but on training days, you're going to take in 75 grams of carbs, all of which will be consumed within three hours after finishing your workout. Now, 75 grams isn't much, but you'll be surprised at how different you feel taking in carbs, particularly in terms of recovery. Most of these 75 grams should come from your post-workout shake, with the remainder coming from starchy carbs like sweet potatoes.

During the final week of Prime, you'll be earning another notch. On non-workout days, you'll take in up to 50 grams of carbs, and on workout days, you get a whopping 100 grams. This allows you to have both a post-workout shake and a secondary source of carbs.

 

MEAL TIMING AND STRUCTURE

Fasting

During Prime, you'll be using what you'll call the 16/8.
^*
We'd love to tell you that the 16/8 is a delicious sub sandwich with eight meats and sixteen toppings, but in fact it just means that you will fast for sixteen out of every twenty-four hours, with the remaining eight hours being your feeding window.

While in some sense it won't make a huge difference how you structure that breakdown, we recommend setting your feeding window to begin anywhere between noon (ending at eight p.m.) and five p.m. (ending at one a.m.), depending on when you wake up and go to bed. Put another way, you should look to have your first meal about six to eight hours after you wake up, but this isn't a hard rule.
^*
Remember, this eating structure is flexible.

The number of meals you eat during this time period is up to you, so whether it's two or five meals doesn't matter. Your only focus is eating by the clock. Plus, you can shift your eating window. So if one day you want to start eating at noon and the next you want to eat at three p.m., it's fine—as long as you still end up fasting for sixteen hours and eating for eight.

Training and Nutrient Timing

You'll be eating your carbohydrates later in the day in order to maximize the effects of your naturally higher insulin sensitivity. On non-workout days, eat these carbs three to four hours before you go to bed. (If you go to bed at ten p.m., don't eat carbs before six p.m.) Your meals prior to this will consist of protein and fat.

On workout days, it's best to have carbs after your workout; for this reason, we recommend training a bit later in the day. Your first meal of the day should consist of protein and fat and would ideally take place about three to four hours before your workout. Your next meal would be immediately after your workout, and all the allotted carbs for the day should be eaten then.