MuscleGainTruth - The Review
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MuscleGainTruth - The Review - 12/28/2005 9:49:03 PM
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Marc David
Posts: 9184
Joined: 4/6/2003
From: Bay Area -CA
Status: online
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The Truth About Building Muscle
Sean Nalewanyj of MuscleGainTruth
http://www.musclegaintruth.com
December 2005 I got a note from Sean Nalewanyj of MuscleGainTruth.
He asked me to take a look at his book, bonus items and then let my readers know about it. And since I'm always a fan of the more information you have, the less likely you'll be to ever get stuck in a rut, I'm going to do just that.
Starting tomorrow, I'll be using this post as a blog to talk about MuscleGainTruth, Sean Nalewanyj and his writing style and what he offers his visitors in his e-mail courses, books and bonus downloads.
Here's a little promo about his book from the site:
In a bodybuilding world where intense marketing hype and exaggeration have become the norm, Sean Nalewanyj has stuck to his guns and provides his readers with a truthful and honest approach to building muscle and gaining strength. "The Truth About Building Muscle" is a complete step-by-step muscle-building system that is jam-packed with valuable information, covering some extremely important topics such as workout structure, proper nutritional techniques, efficient and cost-effective supplementation, injury prevention, cardio and fat loss as well as a large handful of other useful subjects. All of this information is combined into a 250-page, picture-filled, instantly downloadable e-book.
REVIEW:
As with most of these books (including my own), I'm going to just take it one day at a time.
On a side note, I've always noticed that so many reviews are nothing but sales pitches themselves. Very short, no real info and just a "oh this is the greatest, come see for yourself" and then a buy now link.
While you can review this with me (link below) I urge you to let me go thru it and give you a chapter by chapter take. You'll know quite a lot about this book by the time I'm done with this thread.
If you would like to join me in this review, get your own copy at
MuscleGainTruth
P.S. Feel free to ping me if you don't see frequent enough updates.
< Message edited by Marc David -- 1/4/2006 12:04:59 PM >
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RE: MuscleGainTruth - 1/4/2006 11:55:03 AM
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Marc David
Posts: 9184
Joined: 4/6/2003
From: Bay Area -CA
Status: online
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Sean's Truth About Building Muscle
MuscleGainTruth
Chapter Breakdown:
Chapter 1 - Introduction
Chapter 2 - The Muscle-Building Philosophy
Chapter 3 - Structuring The Perfect Workout
Chapter 4 - Proper Muscle-Building Nutrition
Chapter 5 - Harnessing Your Inner Power
Chapter 6 - Supplementing For Massive Gains
Chapter 7 - Critical Feeding Times
Chapter 8 - Muscle-Building Myths Uncovered
Chapter 9 - Proper Rest & Recovery
Chapter 10 - Closing Words
< Message edited by Marc David -- 1/4/2006 11:57:17 AM >
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RE: MuscleGainTruth - The Review - 1/4/2006 12:12:09 PM
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Marc David
Posts: 9184
Joined: 4/6/2003
From: Bay Area -CA
Status: online
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Chapter 1: Introduction
Simply put, Sean just tells you about himself, how he felt being a skinny kid who had to hide behind baggy clothes and that building muscle is simple but not easy to implement. In fact, this chapter was 7 pages overall and basically a very nice, easy to read story about a person who obviously was frustrated as a beginner, not getting the body they wanted and just decided to do something about it. My favorite quote of the chapter was "Building muscle is one of the simplest things to understand but one of the most difficult to implement."
It's pretty obvious after reading the introduction that you get to know Sean a bit, understand his passion and that he's going to lay out the simple steps to bodybuilding for gaining as much muscle as possible but without using all the technical jargon and such. That I like. It's not rocket science and while there are people that love to discuss muscles, growth, supplements to such details, the rest of us just want to know what works, how to do it and how to make gains without taking out a load for another college degree. I think Sean is making that promise and so far, Chapter 1 delivers a nice, short story without fluff and no University style language. One thing that Sean mentions that I agree with is that in order to excel at this sport, the more information you have, the better off you will be. He mentions up front that he spent a lot of time reading everything he could about bodybuilding, nutrition and such. That was the case for me as well. I'm a firm beliver in that the more education, the more books and the more resources at my disposal, the better I will do. That attitude has paid off nicely so far. Chapter 1 was a good read. Flowed nicely. Now I have a sence of the author. :::::::::::::::::::::::::::: What Am I reading? The Truth About Building Muscle At MuscleGainTruth
< Message edited by Marc David -- 1/4/2006 12:13:13 PM >
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RE: MuscleGainTruth - The Review - 1/4/2006 2:16:23 PM
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Marc David
Posts: 9184
Joined: 4/6/2003
From: Bay Area -CA
Status: online
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Chapter 2: The Muscle-Building Philosophy
"You never build a house without blueprints, and this situation is no different."
Chapter 2 simply addresses the question of Why Muscles Grow. There's not a lot of science here and that's fine but it's an overview of why muscles respond to stimuli to grow, how the body adapts and why you must give your body a reason to grow.
Intensity and Progression!
Key concepts here. Sean talks about the concepts of intensity and that "The idea of 100% intensity is simply this: every set that you perform in the gym must be taken to the point of muscular failure."
"You must force muscel growth upon your body!"
Intensity
And while this seems odd, it's really not. Like he said in the Introduction, this isn't a complex science of building muscle but a very good overview. And once you read thru Chapter 2 and understand why a muscle will or won't grow, it's easy to see that the above statement is very true.
As far as every set being taken to 100% muscular failure, that is a Max-OT concept. In order to grow you must overload your muscles. And the way to overload them is to do more weight or more reps.
But the concept in Chapter 2 is preaching weight and training hard and to failure.
If you are trying to avoid the agony of the gym, you get the point that you won't be able to IF you are serious about packing on muscle.
Progression
" Every single time you set foot in the gym you have your plan of attack in mind."
Nothing could be more true. Having a plan every time you go the gym is imperative. Not only do you see this in Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle, The Beginner's Guide to Fitness and Bodybuilding but now you see it here as well. It's a fundamental concept of training.
Going to the gym without a plan, only leads to wandering around and ends up wasting time.
"You absolutely, positively will not experience any appreciable gains in muscular size unless you focus on increasing your strength on each and every exercise you perform."
Another Max-OT style principle. In order to get big, you have to train big. Pretty simple huh?
Keeping a Journal
"You absolutely must keep a written record of every workout you perform."
Nothing mind boggling here but you'd be amazed at the number of people who day in and month out, do the same things, same weights, same reps and at the year end, expect something different.
Keeping track of your progress is a key concept to getting to where you want to go.
The Less is More Philosophy
Something that's been talked about on Discussbodybuilding a lot. Sean doesn't preach marathon training sessions or endless reps and sets. He simply states in this section that to get the best muscle results you "will only need to spend roughly 1% of your total available time in the gym!"
So this program isn't about 2 hours a day training and doing nothing but training.
It's about sticking with the basic principles of muscle growth and nutrition in order to acheive the optimal results.
"In order to build muscle you must provide your muscles with sufficient recovery time in between workouts!"
The less is more philosophy goes on and it get very detailed but is explained well.
Bottom line is that you'll be working out less with Sean's program but making better gains then you probably have in the past.
Chapter then ends with a brief chapter review.
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What Am I reading? The Truth About Building Muscle At MuscleGainTruth
< Message edited by Marc David -- 1/6/2006 9:23:18 AM >
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RE: MuscleGainTruth - The Review - 1/6/2006 9:23:04 AM
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Marc David
Posts: 9184
Joined: 4/6/2003
From: Bay Area -CA
Status: online
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Chapter 3: Structuring The Perfect Workout
"Building muscle is not just about following set-in-stone numbers and exercise procedures, it is about understanding how to make your muscles grow and why certain approaches work better then others." - Sean Nalewanyj
A nice kick-off to the chapter on Structuring the Perfect Workout. Now here is where Sean dives into the overview of the workouts you'll get with his program.
He put together a precise 26 weeks plan, step by step with all the exercises, sets and reps you'll do but in this chapter, he's just going over key conceps you need to know about training.
Sean talks about:
- The 3 components of a successful workout
- If you don't follow these steps, you're just wasting your time
- The hypertrophy phase
- Duration
- Volume
- Exercise selection
- Machines vs. free-weights
- Resting between sets
- Ideal rep ranges
- Rep speed
- Proper breathing
- The cool down phase
- Frequency
- Taking a week off from training
- Total-body training
- Leg and arm training
- Strength imbalances
- Lifting straps
- Chapter review
PHEW! 
Alright, I blew thru that I know. But in these 18 pages, Sean is talking about all the key components of a successful workout. Things you need to know before you just grab a 30 lb dumbbell and start 'working out.'
Let's examine that.
First you need to warm up. And it's not just some 5 min warm-up and then you go lift heavy. Sean goes thru the proper warm-up procedures but really what he does is talk about why you want and need to do this.
His 5x5 Warmup section talks about the proper way to use weight acclimation. A term coined in Max-OT where you get your muscles ready for the heavy lifting without fatiguing them first!
This was something I used in Max-OT and it worked like a charm. Do this wrong and you'll end up wasting a lot of energy warming up and you'll wonder why you are getting weaker.
Anyway, Sean does justice to breaking the warmups into an easy to read section.
The Hypertrophy Phase
A few pages on duration, volume, exercise selection, rep ranges, rep speed and rest.
Now what's important about this entire chapter is that when you grab that 30 lb weight, if you know how many sets, reps, breathing, rep speed and such, you will actually get a lot more out of each rep then if you just grab something and go.
I know this sounds like B.S. but I assure you that after 16 years of training myself, you can use all kinds of techniques to make the movement much more effective.
In fact, I'll let the bird out of the bag on this one.
Rep Speeds
"One big error a lot of lifters make is asssigning a set speed to the concentric portion of the rep.... In fact, some stidies show that more muscle breakdown actually occurs on the eccentric phase rather than the concentric phase. The most important factor when it comes to this part of the rep is that you are in complete control of the weight at all times."
Jeff Anderson, the Muscle Nerd, the author of the Optimum Anabolics program and Tom Venuto of Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle both preach this in their programs and so do I in my own Beginner's Guide.
In fact, if you let gravity take over, you'll lose up to 50% of the benefits of that rep!
Re-read that sentence again.
You can essentially make your workouts 50% more effective if you simply use your muscle to lower the weight then letting gravity do it for you!
I agree with Sean here. I see so many people letting gravity do the work that 50% of their efforts are lost and ONLY the concentric phase of many workouts is being used.
Learn to use both the concentric and eccentric and you are golden!
If you need to know what those terms mean, you can check out Sean's book or do a Google search. 
In sum, this chapter does a nice job of explaining the structure of the perfect workout. Sean doesn't talk about exercises here or reps or sets yet but he does go over the key concepts.
You'll be doing a lot of low rep, heavy weight sets with this program which is a lot like Max-OT. But it's more structured, better written and easier to understand in this context.
Sean is a beliver in:
In order to grow big, you need to train big. And to train big, you need to lift heavy and go to failure on each and every set.
Of course, as you'll see in this chapter, he's a firm beliver in less is more, making the most of your workouts and you won't be doing countless sets and reps in his program. His low reps, heavy weight, less sets approach is on track with what AST says and many on this forum have found to work quite well in getting stronger and bigger.
Chapter 4 is about nutrition. Which frankly, I'm excited to read about! 
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What Am I reading? The Truth About Building Muscle At MuscleGainTruth
< Message edited by Marc David -- 1/6/2006 11:20:31 AM >
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RE: MuscleGainTruth - The Review - 1/6/2006 11:43:46 AM
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Marc David
Posts: 9184
Joined: 4/6/2003
From: Bay Area -CA
Status: online
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Chapter 4: Proper Muscle Building Nutriton
The Truth About Building Muscle... pretty much so far is just telling the truth. Stuff you've seen on this forum, other forums, articles, books, PMS, chat and such.
But it's organized and in this chapter it's very clear that:
"Eat losts, everyday, all the time, at LEAST every 3 hours, even when you don't feel like it, oryou can kiss your muscle gains goodbye!"
The 5-7 meals a day is advocated. I 100% agree and it's clear what is meant by that as well.
The next 12 pages talk specifically about: - Calories
- Protein
- Carbohydrates
- Fats
- Water
- Alcohol
And I mean Sean dives into them. He gives you the specifics on why each is important to your nutrition (or detremental) and exactly how to calculate the numbers just for you. Basic math here. Standard formulas. Nothing fancy just the facts.
I especially liked the section on Alcohol consumption and why it was not good for optimal muscle gains. Becuase this is a book about building the maximum muscle, Sean clearly states that alcohol consumption has negative consequences because it: - Affects protein synthesis
- It lowers testosterone and increases estrogen
- It dehydrates you
- It disrups your sleep
- It depleates your body of vitamins and minerals
- It increases fat storage
Just for those reasons alone, you can see that anything above moderation will derail your progress. In fact, many very competitive bodybuilders will not touch alcohol during intense training or upcoming shows just for these reasons.
I liked the blubs under each section that clearly talked more in detail about why this was bad for muscle growth.
Lastly, Sean makes it very clear that there's no need to freak out about the numbers. I really liked that point. Once you do all these calculations you feel that if you miss a gram of protein in a day, you are finished, life is over and you failed!
It's clear this isn't the case. That the numbers are there as a guideline and you do your best to hit them but if you go slightly over or under, it's not a big deal at all.
Skipping meals is much more of a problem.
Sean's on the money on this one. 
Chapter review just went over the major points he just talked about. A nice bullet list to remind you of what points about nutrition were fundamental.
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What Am I reading? The Truth About Building Muscle At MuscleGainTruth
< Message edited by Marc David -- 1/10/2006 11:32:47 AM >
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RE: MuscleGainTruth - The Review - 1/6/2006 1:34:01 PM
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Marc David
Posts: 9184
Joined: 4/6/2003
From: Bay Area -CA
Status: online
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Chapter 5: Harnessing Your Inner Power
"Above and beyond anythingn else, it is your mindset that will determine whether you succeed or fail."
At first, I thought Sean was going Budda on me. He goes into the mind, visualization techniques, goal setting, creating imaginary situations and using special techniques to harness intensity and push past mental barries.
However, he's right.
If you don't have a clear goal, a reason to accomplish what you want and written and verbal goals, your chances of accomplishing them are much smaller.
One thing I would have liked to see is an actual goal chart. He talks a lot about visualization of your new body, the reasons for accomplishing this and how you are going to do it and then sign and date this paper.
I think an actual template, maybe a sample of his would have been helpful here to get people to understand that having this in thier wallet is something that would be of benefit to them.
This chapter is a step by step method to strengthening your brain!
The MOST unique portion of this chapter by far that I've not seen anywhere else except in maybe an old 1980's Ninja magazine is the special techniques you can use to take the energy of your mind and put them to the weights.
I found his techniques to be very good, very detailed and he had quite a few of them.
'15 Ways To Make Your Mind Be Your Training Partner"
Should be the title of the next article he sends me. <Hint Hint Sean>
These were unique and I really liked them. For a lot of us who do not have training partners, these are things you can use to push yourself in the gym when you don't have a buddy there to do it for you.
It's important NOT to socalize at the gym. Since you are spending 1% of your time there, you need to focus and make it efficient. I think we can all agree that if you want to build muscle, you actually need to workout. And chatting and resting for 10 minutes probably isn't the best thing you can do.
He ends the chapter with how to select a training partner. I have to agree with the spotting comments he makes as I've had some horrible spotters in the gym. To the point where I would rather change my workout then ask for assistance from these people.
Chapter review was standard. Just highlighted the major focal points.
Still, the mental techniques was very good. I have not seen that before.
I will see if I can get a re-print permissions just for that section in the Training forum....
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What Am I reading? The Truth About Building Muscle At MuscleGainTruth
< Message edited by Marc David -- 1/10/2006 11:33:04 AM >
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RE: MuscleGainTruth - The Review - 1/31/2006 11:54:41 AM
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Marc David
Posts: 9184
Joined: 4/6/2003
From: Bay Area -CA
Status: online
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Chapter 8: Muscle-Building Myths Uncovered
Sean's a reporter now? Well not really but he does go thru some of the common misconceptions about building muscle. But he doesn't just list off the myths and give you a two sentence overview. He gives details, gym experience, what he knows to be true and some personal opinions.
The Myths: - In order to build muscle, you must achieve a 'pump' during your workouts. The greater the pump you achieve, the more muscle you will build.
- You should gague the success of your muscle-building sets on the level of muscle burn you achieve.
- Bodybuilding professionals have more muscle than anyone on the planet. Therefore, they also have the most muscle-building knowledge.
- Muscle magazines are a good place to do muscle-building research.
- High protein diets should not be followed because they are stressful to the kidneys.
- The body can only absorb a maximum of 30 grams of protein in one sitting.
- Performing high reps with light resistance will make the muscles more cut and defined.
- You should swithc up your routine periodicaly by changing your rep ranges and exercises in order to 'shock' your muscles.
- You can influence the shape of a musle by performing certain exercises.
- Weightlifting will cause you to become bulky, and as a result you will lose your speed, agility and flexibility.
- People who use steroids should be labeled as cheaters because they have an unfair advantage and are sacrificing their health.
- You must perform all of your exercises using perfect, textbook form, or you may injury yourself.
- When you stop working out, your muscles will turn to fat.
- Eating before bed will make you fat.
- In order to achieve an impressive physique, you should use the same techniques as the 'buff' guys at the gym.
And there you have the list of myths Sean talks about. He gives a lot of detail to back up his point. 99% of the myths I agree with and I've either avoided them because of education or did the mistake myself until I learned. It would have been nice to avoid them in the first place.
Myth #8 I do not fully agree with. But you'll have to read his full explanation. I've tried some programs that do 'shock' the muscle because it's different and new. While it's still intense and I'm progressing, I like the shock value that my body cannot adapt to the new exercises.
If I keep doing heavier weights, that gets old for me personally. So the intensity for me is sometimes to 'shock' the muscle by simply doing something differently.
This might be just a case of my own reading of the myth and my interpetation.
Clearly Sean has some great points he's making and if you want to be anabolic and gain the most muscle, you will steer clear of them.
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What Am I reading? The Truth About Building Muscle At MuscleGainTruth
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RE: MuscleGainTruth - The Review - 2/1/2006 3:14:54 PM
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Marc David
Posts: 9184
Joined: 4/6/2003
From: Bay Area -CA
Status: online
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Chapter 9: Rest & Recovery
Here's where I fully agree with Sean's, bodybuiding is a 24x7x365.
You see, most people when they are done training, that's it. They grow in the gym right? WRONG!
All you do in the gym is stimulate muscle growth and changes. It's what you do outside of the gym that will bring bigger results. And that is your nutrition and rest and recovery.
Some of the concepts covered in this chapter are:
Sleep - and why it's important and how much to get. There's a description of why it's so darn important and what changes are happening while you are resting. There's even 7 tips for better sleep.
Injury Prevention - Just covers the warm up, proper form, training within your limits, knowing when to quite, sticking to a schedule and nutrition and supplementation.
Taking Time Off - I once wrote an article about this and basically taking a training break is a good thing. By taking a break you help to prevent injury. It's also covered here. And this is a biggie because many men will NOT take breaks. They think, if I miss a session, I'll lose everything. Entirely a myth. In fact, you'll probably come back stronger and get bigger for it.
Training When You're Sick - Again, covered in a podcast but Sean does it nicely and gives a brief outline of why resting and recovery are important during this time and what to do if you catch a cold right in the middle of the week when you are at the top of your game.
Taking a Day Off - Another deal breaker for many. How many people freak out when they miss a day of training? I know I do. Sean's got some insight here.
Then it ends with the chapter review. It's just an overall mental view of why bodybuilding occurs outside of the gym and that fitness is a lifestyle and not just a 4 hour a week occurance.
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What Am I reading? The Truth About Building Muscle At MuscleGainTruth
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RE: MuscleGainTruth - The Review - 2/5/2006 1:36:29 PM
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Marc David
Posts: 9184
Joined: 4/6/2003
From: Bay Area -CA
Status: online
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My Recommendation: Marc's Closing Words
At the end of this review, you should know if this book is going to add to your collection and increase your knowledge. Hopefully, you've already got an idea in your mind after read this chapter by chapter breakdown.
Imagine what it would be like if...
Somebody like Sean told you step by step what you needed to do to gain the most muscle possible? Without all the complicated formulas and steps and without making bodybuilding like rocket science.
Well he does. Sean doesn't make big promises and he doesn't go into the deep research like a Will Brink but what he does do nicely is just give you the facts, the proven fundamentals that we all talk about on DB and puts them into an easy to read guide.
Everyone knows you should probably print these things out as reading a PDF on the computer would make you blind. The nice thing about this book is that it wasn't 400 pages. I finished it in a couple of days and had a plan ready to go.
From the moment you step into the gym until you shut your eyes at night, Sean's got you covered.
If you're like me...
You just want to get fit fast. You don't want to spend too much time thinking about each rep, each workout, every piece of food, every second of the day about eating and such. The more complicated it gets, the quicker I fall off the wagon.
I just want something simple.
Granted, I do like learning about nutrition and other things in more detail but sometimes it's nice to just have a quick and easy step by step guide.
Now keep in mind...
Sean isn't telling you things you can't find on your own. Most people aren't. But what he's done is save you a boat load of time. The quicker you can learn the right steps and the faster you implement them, the gains will come. You'll skip all the newbie mistakes and get to the real deal.
Most of us... know a lot of these things since we've been on this forum. But when your head gets so cramed full of info, it is a breath of fresh air to have somebody just lay out the fundamentals.
At times I think bodybuilding is a very complicated science.
It's not. Work hard, eat right, rest and repeat. It's that simple and thanks to Sean, he reminded me of that.
If you are a man or a woman who's looking to get fit fast and build muscle, then Sean does a very nice job of making it easy. He just gives you the facts, a few quick formulas and you are on your way to making every workout count. I recommend this for anybody who's looking to gain some muscle mass.
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What Am I reading? The Truth About Building Muscle At MuscleGainTruth
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RE: MuscleGainTruth - The Review - 2/8/2006 10:01:35 AM
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