The MET - Maximum Efficiency Training System

How to completely transform your body, and your life
MET Blueprints for success

Lesson 10

Welcome to Lesson 10 of the MET blueprints for success! With what you have learned so far of the MET lessons, I can now say that you have the bulk of what others refer to as the "insiders" shortcut guide to stripping fat and adding muscle to ultimately create a sensational physique. Mastering and following these MET lessons and this exact program is how the fittest folks I know get and stay in great condition all year round! This is how real people with full time jobs, school classes and many responsibilities (like I have) really exercise, diet and supplement to get their killer bodies.

This is not just something that works for the elite athlete. This shortcut, 30 minute a day routine will build muscle and strip away fat while super-charging your life - even if you have failed to succeed an untold number of times before.

This program has helped create great bodies for virtually every kind of out of shape body you can imagine; people who were toothpick skinny, folks who were obese from child hood, folks who through years of inactivity and bad eating habits put on huge fat stores, and folks with the worst of genetics and metabolic disorders who believed that transforming their physique was impossible. I have seen so many people turn it around and build enviable physiques just by systematically implementing what they learned here in these lessons.

The most common scenario is people who trained hard and consistently for years, but they could only get so far and then just could not break beyond their plateaus to truly move their size and shape up to that next greater level. They seem to have been in a holding pattern for years with a lot of hard work going into their training, but no substantial new gains to really speak of. This is a clear sign that they have gotten off course and they should have made a course correction years ago.

Resetting your course with a proven system that you can really stick with and that would ultimately allow you to break new boundaries consistently without wasting valuable time is what MET and these lessons are all about.

I have already received letters from many readers sharing information about the increases in gains and newfound enthusiasm they are experiencing since starting the MET system. Congratulations! Keep doing what you're doing and keep learning through these lessons.

If you missed a lesson or are new you can catch up by clicking on my name at www.bodyfitness-uk.com.

Now let’s start this month’s lesson.

Muscle recuperation:

The powerful but most misunderstood link

Another important topic that needs consideration while on the MET Program has to do with muscle recuperation. The goal in any truly effective exercise program is to strike the right balance between exercise intensity, volume and rest.

The reason this is so important in any successful weight lifting program is because of the stages of the muscle-building process:

- stimulation (lifting weights)

- recovery (allowing enough time away from the gym for full muscle recuperation to occur)

- then growth

Stimulation and growth cannot instantaneously occurring at the same time. Hence, the actual exercises and intensity that go into executing an effective weight training program can only be as good as your recuperation strategy.

In the MET Program, you are specifically advised to NOT weight train every day, but every other day, with Sundays off.

Also, you are advised to perform each exercise session within a very exact framework with a specific number of sets based on your recuperative abilities thus allowing full and complete recuperation to occur between workouts.

MET provides the optimal recuperative strategy for ongoing change and growth.

The key to remember is that only when you have provided proper and adequate recovery time along with the right intake of absorbable protein and nutrients will full muscle growth take place.

The second part of the variable is that after full recuperation and muscle growth have occurred, you have to get back to the gym and stimulate them again with intensity, always within the framework of your MET level or number of sets.

The best way to understand the mechanics behind this theory is to look under the cover and into the muscles themselves to see what is actually going on. For starters, when we train a given muscle group, say shoulders; when we are doing an intense series of shoulder presses and laterals, we are causing (at the level of the muscle fibres) a small amount of microcellular damage.

Then, by feeding the muscle with high quality UDA protein and absorbable, targeted nutrients, and giving it the necessary rest and recuperation, the muscle will grow back stronger so that it can better handle that level of stress next time (the adaptation response).

That’s why, after the proper amount of rest and recovery, we need to get back into the gym and try to slowly increase the weight or level of resistance step-by-step.

The body can adapt to almost anything. It can adapt to heavier and heavier weights, and in the process become more contoured, shapely and strong. Or, it can adapt to a poor diet and laying around the house all day watching TV. After a while it will invariably level down to that. Our goals, attitude and strategy coupled with our level of follow-through (action) ultimately are what tip the scale.

(See MET lesson 1 regarding goals, attitude and success.)

Now, when exercising in a gym, you will see people doing 90 minute-plus marathon workouts, people who are absolutely set on training the whole body more then once a week. They believe that more is better. The fact is that more is not better - especially for natural lifters. Sure, some genetically-gifted individuals will make some improvements at the start, but the real question is how much more could they achieve if they went with brief but intense workouts and allowed the full amount of time for their body to repair and grow?

Marathon workouts come at a price. Typically, what I see is that they end up reaching a plateau over time. After that, they don't seem to grow and improve much more beyond that. Yet, they continue to train all the harder, thinking that if they just add a few more sets here or there, then maybe the muscle growth will really take off.

It would be a mistake to head back into the gym before time. Nor do you want to leave too much time between workouts. Again, the formula for reshaping or growing a muscle is far more exacting then that. If you train any body part intensely (MET intense) and too often (i.e. more then once a week), you won't be giving your body enough time to repair and rebuild.

Now, for a better understanding of the importance of rest and recuperation in the muscle growth process, I’ve included below what the MET training manual has to say on the matter.

The case for R& R

When speaking about rest and recuperation, we are talking about leaving the weights alone completely on non-training days so that the body can begin rebuilding broken-down muscle tissue. However, during that time, if you truly want to maximize the muscle rebuilding (and energy recharging) process, it is highly recommended that you also try avoiding late nights out, excessive stress or anything else that negatively affects your nervous system.

When possible, listen to relaxing music, take more time to read and allow yourself a few extra moments whenever possible to completely rest and let go. Know that whatever extra attention you can give to not stressing the body while away from the gym, the more your body will respond.

As to how much sleep you should get to optimise the muscle recuperative process, there is no one-size-fits-all magic formula that will answer this. However, if you want a good rule of thumb, pay attention to your day-to-day energy levels and be aware of how you feel. If you’re doing everything right, you should be waking up rested and ready to go. If you find yourself wondering how you are going to make it to work (or class), it’s a pretty good bet that you are depriving your self of much-needed sleep and should try to get more.

Obtaining enough sleep plays a very big role in the whole recuperation process. It’s during deep sleep that the body has a chance to repair the nervous system, release natural growth hormone (also know as the youth hormone) and restore its vital reserves. Just as diet and nutrition is important to rebuilding and strengthening muscles, getting the right amount of sleep each night is important to overall recuperation.

Sound sleep improves training - sound training improves sleep

Studies show that those who do exercise regularly actually sleep better and deeper then those who do not exercise regularly. For example, sedentary people who start exercising raise the level of time spent in slow wave sleep. This is the level believed to be the most restorative to the body. What’s more, people who exercise regularly report waking up less often throughout the night. A recent study showed that after a 12-week strengthening and aerobic training regimen, test subjects reported drifting off to sleep faster and sleeping better than before they started exercising. The key point - while on the MET Program, get your rest. Nuff said!

A special note for the guys

For all the males out there whose main goal is to increase muscle mass, here is an insider tip:

One of the most fundamental Venice Beach strategies for clients who needed to add more muscle to their frame while on the MET program is to put them on the highly potent supplement PRIMESTRIN+ for an extended period of time.

Primestrin+ was the key for many Venice Beach athletes and everything else was built around that - again for those clients whose main objective was mass building.

Now, when this product is used in concert with the MET protocol, it’s sort of like the match that lights the wick. When combined with proper diet and training, this product has produced dramatic results in muscle mass and strength gains even for beginners. This is the key ergogenic supplement many trainers prescribed to clients looking to boost mass and strength, mainly because it contains the precise micronutrients which scientific studies have shown increase body levels of testosterone and growth hormone.

As readers of my column know, since we have talked about it so often, these are the two main hormones necessary for muscle growth as well as fat loss.

So, if you are thinking about taking supplements, be sure to target what you take based on your specific goals. If off-season mass building is what you are gearing up for, then Primestrin+ and Ultracal Mass Action by Venice Beach are the supplements of choice while on the MET program.

Furthermore, Primestrin+ is now super-charged with Absorbal, which increases the absorption rate of all the ingredients in the formula by 250%!

Athletes using Primestrin+ ultimately experience a greater release of growth hormone in a sustained fashion while also triggering higher testosterone production throughout the day, resulting in faster growth and recovery of working muscles.

When taken as instructed, the Pro Stat HGH component in Primestrin+ creates the perfect metabolic environment for real and substantial GH elevations. The big side benefit here is that with GH and testosterone levels amplified, other supplements, such as protein powders and cortisol suppressors like ADL3, work far more effectively.

Primestrin+ has the best ability to stimulate testosterone production more effectively than any other supplement can. With superior absorption, Primestrin+ goes further and effectively increases greater levels of luteinizing hormones (LH) in the body. Luteinizing hormone is responsible for transmitting instructions directly to the testes to produce more testosterone in the body, which in turn naturally increases serum testosterone levels.

Remember, testosterone levels are naturally elevated with Maximum Efficiency Training, but after we leave the gym they drop back down to normal. By keeping the levels elevated well after the training session is over and at other key times in the day, you pick up an additional advantage.

It’s been proven in medical studies that ACETYL - L - CARNITINE prevents the post training testosterone levels from dropping back down as quickly as they normally would. Thus, another great benefit of Primestrin+, which also contains ACETYL - L- CARNITINE, is that it keeps testosterone levels elevated much longer after workouts. So, if you want to get the most out of each of your MET workout, then using Primestrin+ is but one more way to do just that.

That’s all the tips we have room for this month. Until next month, train with passion!