Weight Training or Nutrition?

It has been my experience, that most beginners seeking muscle gain come to the gym expecting that their weight training will have the largest impact on their goals. If they even put any thought into nutrition, it is typically third on their priority list, below weights and supplements.

This certainly isn't hard to understand. When the average person sees an impressive muscular physique, they don't say, "Boy I bet that guy eats a lot." Rather, they say, "Boy, I bet that guy works out a lot." And supplements get incredibly hyped by large advertising budgets.

"Good old food," however, doesn't get a loud voice. This is a shame because it is nutrition that will play the largest role in whether a beginner trainer succeeds or fails. Weight training (and supplements) only become a factor when the trainer has learned how to properly feed himself for muscle growth.

Below, Tom Venuto addresses the importance of nutrition and training to the physique building process. Pay attention to what he tells you. If you are a beginner (or an advanced trainer desperately holding on to the beginner beliefs presented above), prioritze your nutritional intake

and you will get results. Too often beginners endlessly search for "magic" routines when what is really holding them back is poor eating habits.

Tom's ebook, Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle, is a complete guide to losing fat while maintaining that muscle mass you worked so hard to build. Definitely check it out when you are ready to get that lean, ripped look.

Nutrition or Training -
Which is more important?

What do you think is more important; training or diet?

That’s an interesting question and I believe there IS a definite answer:

You’ve probably heard various numerical estimates quoted about the importance of training vs. diet. For example, the "Iron Guru" Vince Gironda was famous for saying "bodybuilding is 80% nutrition!" Others give different opinions of what percentage they think each component is responsible for. In truth, it’s impossible to put a specific percentage on what is more important - how could we possibly know such a number? Nutrition and training are both always important, but at certain stages of your training progress, I believe placing more emphasis on one component will create larger improvements than the other. Let me explain:

If you’re a beginner and you don’t posses nutritional knowledge, then mastering nutrition is far more important than training and should become your top priority. I say this because improving a poor diet can create rapid, quantum leaps in fat loss and muscle building progress. For example, if you’ve been skipping meals and only eating 2 times per day, jumping your meal frequency up to 5 or 6 smaller meals a day will transform your physique almost overnight. If you’re still eating lots of saturated fats and refined sugars, cutting them out and replacing them with low fat, unrefined foods will make an enormous and noticeable difference in your physique very quickly. If your diet is low in protein, simply adding a complete protein at each meal will muscle you up fast. No matter how hard you train or what type of training routine you’re on, it’s all in vain if you don’t provide yourself with the right nutritional support.

In beginners (or in advanced trainees who are eating poorly), these changes in diet are more likely to result in great improvements than a change in training. The muscular and nervous systems of a beginner are unaccustomed to exercise. Therefore, even a poorly designed training program can cause muscle growth and strength development to occur. Virtually any training program will work for a total beginner.

Once you have mastered all the nutritional basics, then further improvements in your diet aren’t really possible. Eating more than six meals will have minimal effect. Eating more protein ad infinitum won’t help. Once you’re eating low fat, going to zero fat won’t help more - it will probably hurt. If you’re already eating natural complex carbs and lean proteins every three hours, there’s not much more you can do other than continue to be consistent day after day.

At this point, as an intermediate or advanced trainee, changes in your training become more important, relatively speaking. Your training and recovery must become downright scientific. Except for the changes that need to be made between an off season bulking diet and a precontest cutting diet, the diet won’t and can’t change much - it will remain fairly constant. But you can continue to pump up the intensity of your training and improve the efficiency of your workouts almost without limit. In fact, the more advanced you become, the more training progression and variation is required because the well-trained body adapts so quickly. According to powerlifter Dave Tate, an advanced lifter may adapt to a routine within 1-2 weeks. That’s why Tate and other elite lifters at West Side Barbell club rotate exercises constantly and use over 300 different variations on exercises for max lift days. Strength coach Ian King says that unless you’re a beginner, you’ll adapt to any training routine within 3-4 weeks.

So, to answer your question, nutrition, while always critically important, is more important for the beginner, while training is more important for the advanced person (IMO). It's not that nutrition ever ceases to be important, the point is, further improvements in diet aren’t possible once you have the basics down pat. Once you’ve mastered nutrition and the proper diet is in place, it’s all about progressively increasing the efficiency and intensity of your workouts.

Weight Training or Nutrition?

Nutrition or Training - Which is more important?

Weight Training or
Nutrition?

Nutrition or Training -
Which is more important?