Month 4

 

OVERVIEW

Your exercise guide · Athletic · Muscle Gain · Intermediate

Overview

Your body type and your goal: what is happening, how your body type reacts, and its pros and cons. Tap a section to open it.

Hi Alan, welcome to this month’s programme. Your goal is to build muscle size. You are an Athletic body type training at intermediate level, so everything here is set around how your muscles work best. Text in this colour explains why: the reason behind an instruction. Technical words are explained in the shaded “In simple terms” boxes.

Body type

Athletic

Goal

Muscle gain

Level

Intermediate

Your exact plan

Exercises, reps, sets, rest and tempo are in your programme and concept video

1. Your Body Type: Athletic

Your body has an even mix of slow-twitch (endurance) and fast-twitch (power) fibres, a medium-to-large frame and naturally favourable hormones for building muscle. That is why you respond quickly to almost any kind of training. You store plenty of fuel, recover at a moderate pace between sets, and your metabolism is relatively fast, with muscles that handle carbohydrate fairly well.

In simple terms: Muscle fibre typesMuscles are made of different fibres. Slow-twitch (Type I) fibres are built for endurance: efficient, slow to tire, and slower to grow than fast-twitch fibres, though they do grow with the right training. Fast-twitch fibres (Type IIa, and the most powerful, Type IIx) produce more force and grow more easily, but tire quickly. Your genetics largely set your mix, and it differs between body types.

In simple terms: MetabolismYour metabolism is the total amount of energy (calories) your body uses each day to stay alive, move and recover. Muscle is “expensive” tissue to run, so the more muscle you carry, the more calories you burn, even at rest.

Your strengths

• Gains muscle and strength quickly
• Loses fat and keeps muscle well
• Handles a lot of training
• Usually competitive and driven by a challenge

Your weaker points

• Can gain fat quickly when inactive
• Strength can rise faster than your tendons can adapt
• Can get bored with the same routine

2. Muscle Gain: What Is Happening

Muscle grows when it is given a reason to. Lifting a challenging weight, close to failure, creates tension in your muscle fibres. Sensors in each fibre turn that tension into a chemical signal that switches on mTORC1, the muscle’s “build” switch. Over the next day or two your muscles build new protein faster than they break it down, and the fibres get thicker.

In simple terms: mTORC1The master “build” switch inside your muscle cells. It is switched on by lifting weights, by protein (especially the amino acid leucine) and by insulin, and switched off when energy is short. When it is on, your muscles make new protein.

In simple terms: Muscle protein synthesis and breakdownYour muscles are constantly being rebuilt. Muscle protein synthesis is the building of new muscle protein; muscle protein breakdown is the removal of old protein. You gain muscle when building is greater than breakdown across the day.

Two things keep this going: the challenge has to keep rising over time, and you have to recover, and eat, well enough between sessions for the new muscle to be built. Growth happens after the workout, not during it.

In simple terms: Progressive overloadGradually making training harder over time: a little more weight, an extra rep or an extra set. Your body only keeps adapting while the challenge keeps rising.

3. How Your Body Type Responds to Muscle Gain

Your even fibre mix and naturally favourable hormones mean you build muscle quickly: one of the fastest responses of any body type. The risk is that your strength rises faster than your tendons can adapt, so steady progress is safer than rushing.

The pros for your body type

• You build muscle faster than any other body type.
• You can handle and benefit from plenty of quality work.

The cons: what to watch

• It is easy to do too much.
• You can gain fat if your eating outruns your training.

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KEY POINTS

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Your exercise guide · Athletic · Muscle Gain · Intermediate

Key points

The most important things to do, each with the reason why. Tap a section to open it.

1. Your Programme This Month

How to lift

• Effort: take every working set to the point where another good rep is not possible.
• Speed (tempo 3-0-1-0): lower for 3 seconds, no pause at the bottom, lift in 1 second.
• Pulling and lifting from the floor (rows, pull-downs, pull-ups, curls, deadlifts from the floor): start with the lift, then lower for 3 seconds.
• Session length: about 55 minutes, including a 5 to 10 minute warm-up.

Your week

3 resistance workouts, 2 cardio sessions and 2 rest days. You have 2 workouts this month: Workout One (upper body) and Workout Two (lower body). Your schedule shows which one to do each day, and your cardio has its own section.

Moving up

When you reach 14 good reps on every set, add the smallest weight you can and build back up from 10.

If anything hurts, as opposed to feeling hard, stop and tell us.

2. In Your Workouts

• Watch your concept video before you start each new month. It shows you every exercise and the technique for each one, so every rep is done right from your first session.
• Work to failure, or within a rep of it. The last hard reps are where your muscle gets the strongest signal to change.
• Control the lowering, then lift with power. Your even fibre mix grows from both tension and force.
• Respect the pace of your programme, even when you feel you could do more. Your muscles get stronger faster than your tendons can adapt, and that gap is where injuries happen.
• Keep chasing new targets. Your body type responds quickly and thrives on a challenge.
• Aim to beat your last session: one more rep, or a little more weight. Your body only keeps changing while the challenge keeps rising.

In simple terms: Training conceptThe overall way your workouts are performed that month: the exercises, how they are grouped and the style of session. Changing it each month gives your body a fresh challenge so it keeps adapting.

In simple terms: Training to failureFailure is the point in a set where you cannot complete another rep with good form. Taking a set to failure means working right up to that point; stopping “two reps short of failure” means finishing when you could still have done two more good reps. How close you go depends on your body type, goal and level.

3. Your Cardio

• Go all out in every interval. Your even fibre mix handles all-out efforts well and builds fitness quickly from them.
• Work at the best steady pace you can hold for the whole lactic acid removal phase. It should not feel easy, but you should be able to keep the pace to the end. Hard, steady work keeps blood flowing fast through your muscles, so lactic acid is cleared and burned as fuel while you keep building fitness, and your second block of intervals is as good as your first.

In simple terms: Lactic acidWhen you work very hard, your muscles break down sugar faster than oxygen can be used to burn it, producing lactate and acid (hydrogen ions). The acid is what causes the burning feeling and makes muscles tire. Lactate itself is not waste: steady, hard work keeps blood flowing and carries it to your heart, liver and slow-twitch fibres, which use it as fuel, while the acid is neutralised. That clearing process is the lactic acid removal phase.

4. Outside the Gym

• Recover as hard as you train: take your rest days and make sleep a priority. Muscle repairs and gets stronger between workouts, not during them. Your personalised sleep and water recommendations are on your 9 Pillars Lifestyle page.
• Eat around your training as set out in your Nutrition Guide. What you eat before and after training decides your fuel and your recovery.
• Keep a training log, and tell your coach if your performance drops two sessions in a row or anything hurts. Your programme can then be adjusted before small problems become big ones.

5. Before You Start

• Anyone new to exercise, returning after a long break, pregnant, or living with a medical condition or injury should be cleared by their doctor before starting.
• Check with your GP before starting if you have high blood pressure, a heart condition, diabetes, a current injury, are pregnant or have recently given birth, or are returning after illness.
• Stop and seek advice if you feel chest pain or tightness, unusual breathlessness, dizziness or faintness, or sharp joint pain during exercise.
• Tell your coach about any injuries or health conditions so your exercise choices and intensity can be adjusted.

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MONTHLY WORKOUT SCHEDULE

Below is our recommended order and number of workouts. Try to stick as close to this as possible. Always keep the order of the workouts the same even if you have to take days off. Ideally do not have more than one day off in a row.

Your Day 1 Clear

Cardio Workout One Workout Two Rest

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Day	Session	Day	Session
Day 1	Rest	Day 15	Rest
Day 2	Workout One	Day 16	Workout One
Day 3	Rest	Day 17	Rest
Day 4	Cardio	Day 18	Cardio
Day 5	Workout Two	Day 19	Workout Two
Day 6	Cardio	Day 20	Cardio
Day 7	Workout One	Day 21	Workout One
Day 8	Rest	Day 22	Rest
Day 9	Workout Two	Day 23	Workout Two
Day 10	Rest	Day 24	Rest
Day 11	Cardio	Day 25	Cardio
Day 12	Workout One	Day 26	Workout One
Day 13	Cardio	Day 27	Cardio
Day 14	Workout Two	Day 28	Workout Two

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DYNAMIC WARM-UP

The warm-up is to mobilise and prime your body, it should be specific to the exercise you are about to perform. We recommend 5 mins of gentle cardio to increase body temperature and blood flow to the muscles. Follow this with movements that mimic your exercises but at a slower pace with reduced intensity.
Try our basic warm-up or advanced version with a medicine ball.

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RESISTANCE WORKOUT ONE

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Workout One Upper body

4 blocks · 2 exercises per set · every working set to failure · tempo 3-0-1-0 · 3 min rest between blocks

Block 1 Superset: opposing muscles

4 sets · 80 s rest between sets · 3 min rest before Block 2

1. 1A Chest press — Bench / Barbell · 12 reps
2. 1B Chest fly — Swiss Ball / Dumbbells · 21s: 7 bottom half, 7 top half, 7 full reps, no rest

Block 2 Superset: opposing muscles, run as AMRAP

1 set of 4 minutes · as many rounds as possible · 3 min rest before Block 3

1. 2A Press-up · 12 reps
2. 2B Lat pull-down — Machine · 12 reps

Block 3 Superset: same muscle

4 sets · 85 s rest between sets · 3 min rest before Block 4

1. 3A Pullover — Swiss Ball / Dumbbell · 12 reps
2. 3B Row — Bench / Dumbbell · 12 reps

Block 4 Superset: opposing muscles, run as descending ladder

1 set · rounds of 16, 14, 12, 10 reps · no rest between rounds

1. 4A Triceps pull-down — Cable
2. 4B Biceps curl — Preacher Bench / Z-Bar

How the block types work

Superset: opposing muscles

Two exercises for muscles on opposite sides of a joint or of the body, done back to back. That is one set; then rest.

21s

Reps through the bottom half of the movement, then the same number through the top half, then the same number of full reps, without rest. One set.

AMRAP

As many rounds as possible. Repeat the exercises round after round for the time given. The whole AMRAP is one set, and your score is the number of rounds completed.

Superset: same muscle

Two exercises for the same muscle back to back, then rest. Also called a compound set.

Descending ladder

Two or more exercises at the same weight, with the reps falling every round and no rest between rounds. Your reps are in the block above.

The videos for each block are below.

Before commencing your workout click here for technique advice on some of the big exercises.

Block 1: Chest press + Chest fly · 4 sets, 80 s rest

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CHEST PRESS — Bench / Barbell

Lie on an incline bench (small incline) with your arms fully extended and the barbell pressed up in a vertical line. Lower the barbell to your chest by bending your elbows, allowing them to flare out to the sides. When the barbell touches your chest press it back to full extension.

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CHEST FLY — Swiss Ball / Dumbbells

Support your head and shoulders on a Swiss ball, feet flat on the floor and hips raised in line with your knees. Hold a dumbbell in each hand above your chest, palms facing each other, with a slight bend in the elbows. Keeping that bend, open the arms out to the sides until you feel a stretch across the chest, then squeeze the dumbbells back together over your chest.

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Block 2: Press-up + Lat pull-down · AMRAP, 4 minutes

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PRESS-UP

Begin in a press-up position, hands just wider than shoulder width and arms extended. Bend the arms, elbows flared to the side slightly and lower yourself until your chest is just off the floor. As you extend the arms take 1 hand to touch the opposite shoulder maintaining core stability. Repeat other side.

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LAT PULL-DOWN — Machine

Sit on the lat pull down machine with a wide overhand grip. Retract the shoulders, lean the torso backwards an inch and pull the bar towards your breastbone. Keep the chest lifted and core engaged. Raise the bar with control maintaining an open position across the chest.

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Block 3: Pullover + Row · 4 sets, 85 s rest

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PULLOVER — Swiss Ball / Dumbbell

Support your head and shoulders on a swiss ball, raise your hips and hold a dumbbell above you in both hands. With slight elbow flexion, lower the weight behind you on the inhale. Keep the arms lengthened and bring the weight back over the body as you exhale. Maintain neutral spine.

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ROW — Bench / Dumbbell

Place the same hand as knee onto a bench, other foot on the floor to stabilise and hold a dumbbell in your free hand. Engage your core, draw your shoulders down and maintain neutral spine. Bend your arm and pull the dumbbell towards you into a row. Extend the arm.

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Block 4: Triceps pull-down + Biceps curl · descending ladder 16, 14, 12, 10

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TRICEPS PULL-DOWN — Cable

Stand side on to a high cable and hold the handle in the far hand with the arm bent and elbow held at your side. Press the cable diagonally downwards as you extend the arm.

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BICEPS CURL — Preacher Bench / Z-Bar

Sit on a preacher bench and hold a z-bar with both hands, arms extended. Flex the elbows bringing the bar towards you, lower with control.

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RESISTANCE WORKOUT TWO

Workout Two Lower body

4 blocks · 2 exercises per set · every working set to failure · tempo 3-0-1-0 · 3 min rest between blocks

Block 1 Superset: opposing muscles

4 sets · 80 s rest between sets · 3 min rest before Block 2

1. 1A Squat — Barbell · 12 reps
2. 1B Leg press — Machine · 21s: 7 bottom half, 7 top half, 7 full reps, no rest

Block 2 Superset: opposing muscles, run as AMRAP

1 set of 4 minutes · as many rounds as possible · 3 min rest before Block 3

1. 2A Lunge — Dumbbells · 12 reps
2. 2B Hamstring curl — Swiss Ball · 12 reps

Block 3 Superset: opposing muscles

4 sets · 60 s rest between sets · 3 min rest before Block 4

1. 3A Stiff leg deadlift — Cable · 12 reps
2. 3B Upright row — Dumbbells · 12 reps

Block 4 Superset: opposing muscles, run as AMRAP

1 set of 5 minutes · as many rounds as possible

1. 4A Shoulder press — Dumbbells · 12 reps
2. 4B Static jack — Medicine Ball · 12 reps

How the block types work

Superset: opposing muscles

Two exercises for muscles on opposite sides of a joint or of the body, done back to back. That is one set; then rest.

21s

Reps through the bottom half of the movement, then the same number through the top half, then the same number of full reps, without rest. One set.

AMRAP

As many rounds as possible. Repeat the exercises round after round for the time given. The whole AMRAP is one set, and your score is the number of rounds completed.

The videos for each block are below.

Block 1: Squat + Leg press · 4 sets, 80 s rest

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SQUAT — Barbell

Stand feet shoulder width apart and hold a barbell on your shoulders. Bend the knees into a deep squat, push the bottom backwards and maintain neutral spine. Press the heels into the floor as you extend the legs. Make sure your knees track in line with your toes.

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LEG PRESS — Machine

Place 1 foot on a leg press machine in line with your hip and engage your core. Ensure the foot is in parallel and push through the heel to extend the leg, your knee should track in line with your ankle. Do not lock the knee. Lower with control.

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Block 2: Lunge + Hamstring curl · AMRAP, 4 minutes

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LUNGE – Dumbbells

Stand feet hip width apart and hold dumbbells in both hands. Alternately step one foot backwards into a long lunge position keeping the back knee extended as much as possible. Allow the torso to lean forward slightly over the front leg and maintain ankle and knee alignment.

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HAMSTRING CURL — Swiss Ball

Lie on your back with 1 foot on a swiss ball (leg extended) and the other raised above you. Lift your hips and place your arms by your side for support. Bend the knee as you roll the ball towards you. Lower the hips to the floor, immediately raise the hips then extend the leg.

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Block 3: Stiff leg deadlift + Upright row · 4 sets, 60 s rest

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STIFF LEG DEADLIFT — Cable

Stand on 1 leg and hold a low cable in the opposite hand. Place your weight into the heel as you hinge forward from the hip, bend the supporting leg slightly and lower the torso towards the cable. Allow the free leg to move backwards. Only go to the point where you can maintain neutral spine, do not round the lower back. Straighten the leg as you stand upright.

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UPRIGHT ROW – Dumbbells

Stand and hold dumbbells in front of your body with the arms extended towards the floor. Raise the dumbbells up to your chest leading the movement with your elbows, keep the shoulder pressing down as much as possible.

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Block 4: Shoulder press + Static jack · AMRAP, 5 minutes

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SHOULDER PRESS – Dumbbells

Stand feet hip width apart and hold dumbbells to your shoulders with the knuckles facing forward. Extend the arms as you press the weights overhead and simultaneously externally rotate the arms to bring the palms to face forward.

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STATIC JACK — Medicine Ball

Sit upright with your knees bent then lean the body backwards and raise the feet off the floor. Hold a medicine ball in both hands with the arms slightly bent and engage the core. Rotate the torso taking the ball side to side, keep the chest lifted and navel drawn to spine.

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CARDIO WORKOUT

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CARDIO EQUIPMENT

This video shows examples of cardio equipment to use when performing your interval training.  

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Your cardio

You have 2 cardio sessions a week, on their own days, not on your weights days.

Each session has five parts. Warm up for 5 minutes. Then do 5 intervals of 60 s, each as hard as you can hold for its whole length, followed by 30 s of comfortable recovery. Then 20 minutes of continuous movement, as hard as you can keep up for the whole time: this helps clear the lactic acid built up by the hard intervals. Then the same intervals again, and 3 minutes comfortable to finish. About 43 minutes in total.

Your cardio session
Sessions per week	2
Whole session	43 mins
Warm-up	5 mins comfortable
Intervals	5 × 60 s
Interval effort	Very hard: one or two words at most
Recovery after each interval	30 s, comfortable
Lactic acid removal	20 mins, as hard as you can keep up for the whole time
Then	Same intervals again
Cool-down	3 mins comfortable
Equipment	Running, rowing, cycling, skipping

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STRETCHES

Hold each position for 1 minute and increase the length of time on particularly tight muscles.

GLUTES & BACK

Lie on your back with your arms stretched out wide, take one knee across your body and apply gentle pressure drawing the knee towards the floor. 

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GLUTES

Lie on your back and place your foot onto the opposite knee. Press the top knee outwards as you clasp the underneath leg and draw it towards you. 

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BACK

Sit back onto your heels and simultaneously reach your hands forward with your forehead resting on the floor.
 

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ABDOMINALS

Lie prone (on your front) and place your hands beneath your shoulders. Press into the floor, straighten your arms and raise your body. 

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HIP FLEXOR

In a half kneeling position tuck your pelvis under, squeeze your glutes and press your hips forward. 
 

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QUADS

Draw your foot towards your bottom. Squeeze your glutes, tuck your pelvis under and keep your knees together.
 

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HAMSTRINGS & CALF

Raise your foot onto a surface and lean your body forward. Flex the foot bringing the toe towards you.

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CALF

Lean into a wall, extend the back knee and press the heel into the floor. Ensure both feet are in a parallel position. 

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LATERAL

Place one foot behind the other and reach the same arm (as back leg) overhead. To increase the stretch lean laterally.

UPPER BACK

Place your hands together and reach forward. Drop your head between your arms and curve your upper back.
 

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CHEST

Place your hand flat on a wall with your arm raised just above shoulder height and the elbow slightly bent. Turn your chest and body away from the wall until you feel a stretch across the front of your chest and shoulder.

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TRICEPS

Take one arm overhead and bend at the elbow. Apply pressure with the opposite hand and keep the head raised. 

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ALTERNATIVE EXERCISES

Use this section to replace specific exercises in your programme which do not work for you. This may be due to not having the correct equipment, the exercise being too challenging / not challenging enough, or possibly due to an injury. Click on the links below to find alternative exercises for the same body part or movement. 

• SQUAT

• LUNGE / STEP-UP

• QUADS

• HAMSTRINGS

• KETTLEBELL SWING / GLUTES

• DEADLIFT / BACK EXTENSION

• LAT PULL

• ROW

• PRESS-UP / CHEST PRESS

• SHOULDERS

• CRUNCH

• PLANK / LEG RAISE/ CORE / PIKE / JACK

• OBLIQUES / WOODCHOP / LATERAL FLEXION / SIDE DROP / CLIMBER

• AEROBIC

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EXERCISE SCIENCE FOR THE CURIOUS

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For the curious: the science behind your training, in more detail, for those who want to know exactly what is happening inside the body. Tap any topic to read more.

How muscle gain worksStep by step, inside your bodyRead moreYour muscle fibresAn even, all-round mixRead moreYour fuel and energyGlycogen, carbohydrate and metabolismRead moreHormones and signalsWhy you adapt so quicklyRead moreYour body type and muscle gainFast growth, and the one limitRead moreCardio and lactic acidWhat the removal phase doesRead moreRecoveryWhen the muscle is actually builtRead moreWords used in your programmeReps, sets, tempo and moreRead more

How muscle gain works

Step by step, inside your body

Here is what is actually happening inside your body as you train for muscle gain, step by step.

Step 1: Tension and recruitment. Your muscles are controlled in motor units: one nerve and all the fibres it controls. Light efforts use small, slow-twitch units; as a set gets harder and nears failure, your body calls in the large, fast-twitch units, which have the most potential to grow. That is why the last hard reps of a set matter most.

Motor unitOne nerve cell plus all the muscle fibres it controls. Your brain switches on small motor units for light efforts and large, powerful ones for heavy lifts.

Step 2: The signal. Sensors in the fibre wall detect stretch and tension and switch on mTORC1. The lowering part of each rep, when the muscle lengthens under load, produces an especially strong signal. Training also reduces myostatin, the muscle’s natural growth brake.

Step 3: Building new protein. Over the next 24 to 72 hours the ribosomes, the protein factories in each muscle cell, build new actin and myosin, the proteins that make muscle contract. Muscle protein synthesis rises above breakdown, as long as enough protein, and the amino acid leucine in particular, is available.

Leucine thresholdLeucine is one of the amino acids, the building blocks of protein. It acts as the trigger that switches muscle building fully on. A meal needs about 2 to 3g of leucine to reach this threshold, roughly the amount in 25 to 40g of protein from meat, fish, eggs or dairy.

Step 4: Satellite cells join in. Each fibre can only run a limited volume with the nuclei it has. Training activates satellite cells, which fuse with the fibre and donate new nuclei so it can keep growing. These extra nuclei stay for years: one reason muscle returns faster after a break (“muscle memory”).

Satellite cellsMuscle stem cells that sit just outside each muscle fibre. Training wakes them up; they multiply and fuse with the fibre, giving it extra nuclei (control centres) so it can keep growing.

Step 5: Hormones support the process. Testosterone, growth hormone and IGF-1 increase the muscle’s ability to build protein and activate satellite cells, while cortisol pushes the other way. The balance between them is shaped by your body type, your sleep, your food and how hard and how long you train.

Anabolic hormonesHormones that help build tissue: mainly testosterone, growth hormone and IGF-1 (insulin-like growth factor 1). Training, sleep and enough food raise them; stress, poor sleep and under-eating lower them.

CortisolA stress hormone released during long or very hard exercise, poor sleep and low food intake. It releases fuel by breaking down stored energy, including muscle protein, so when it stays high for long periods it works against building or keeping muscle.

Step 6: The challenge keeps rising. Your body adapts to exactly what it is asked to do. Once a weight is easy it no longer sends a strong signal, so over time the weight or reps must rise.

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Your muscle fibres

An even, all-round mix

Athletic body types have an even mix: around 35 to 45% slow-twitch and 40 to 50% fast-twitch Type IIa fibres.

Type IIa fibres are both powerful and fairly fatigue-resistant, and they respond strongly to almost any kind of training. A medium-to-large frame and naturally favourable levels of muscle-building hormones complete an all-round profile.

Muscle fibre typesSlow-twitch (Type I) fibres are built for endurance. Fast-twitch fibres (Type IIa, and the most powerful, Type IIx) produce more force and grow more easily, but tire quickly. Your genetics largely set your mix.

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Your fuel and energy

Glycogen, carbohydrate and metabolism

Your glycogen stores are large and your muscles handle carbohydrate fairly well, so you can fuel hard sessions.

Your metabolism is relatively fast, but it slows noticeably when you are inactive, and that is when your body type gains fat.

GlycogenThe form in which carbohydrate is stored in your muscles and liver. Think of it as your body’s ready-to-use fuel tank.

Insulin sensitivityHow well your muscles respond to insulin. High sensitivity means a small amount of insulin moves sugar quickly into your muscles. Low sensitivity (insulin resistance) means more insulin is needed, fat burning stays switched off for longer, and spare sugar is more easily stored as fat. It is partly genetic but improves greatly with training.

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Hormones and signals

Why you adapt so quickly

Testosterone, growth hormone and IGF-1 respond well to training in your body type, and your stress response is moderate.

Both the building signal (mTORC1) and the endurance signals (AMPK and PGC-1α) respond readily, which is why you adapt so quickly to whatever kind of training you do.

AMPK (AMP-activated protein kinase)A fuel gauge inside every cell. When energy runs low, during exercise or when you eat less than you use, AMPK switches on. It tells the cell to burn fat and sugar for energy and to pause energy-hungry jobs such as building new muscle.

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Your body type and muscle gain

Fast growth, and the one limit

Why you build quickly. Your even fibre mix includes plenty of Type IIa fibres, which grow readily, and your hormonal response to training is favourable. After training, muscle protein synthesis rises around 100 to 150% above resting and lasts around 24 to 48 hours. Satellite cells are activated readily, adding nuclei so your fibres can keep growing.

The limit is your connective tissue. Muscle can strengthen in weeks, but tendons and ligaments, with their poorer blood supply, need many months of steady loading to catch up. Because your strength rises fast, the gap between what your muscles can lift and what your tendons can handle is larger than in other types: steady increases keep that gap safe.

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Cardio and lactic acid

What the removal phase does

Hard intervals use phosphocreatine and glycogen quickly, producing lactate and acid (hydrogen ions) faster than the muscle can clear them: the burning feeling that makes you slow down.

The lactic acid removal phase is not an easy recovery: you work steadily at the best pace you can hold for the full time. At a hard but sustainable pace, blood flow through your working muscles stays high and lactate is cleared quickly. Your heart, liver and slow-twitch fibres take it up and burn it as fuel or turn it back into glucose, while the acid is buffered.

Held at the right pace, around your lactate threshold (the fastest pace at which your body can clear lactate as quickly as it is made), the lactate from your intervals is steadily used up rather than building further, while the phase itself builds your aerobic engine. The second block of intervals can then be done at the same all-out quality as the first: twice the high-quality work, and a strong signal to PGC-1α to build new mitochondria.

Cori cycle and lactate shuttleLactate made in hard-working muscle is carried in the blood to the heart, the liver and slow-twitch fibres. The heart and slow-twitch fibres burn it as fuel; the liver turns it back into glucose (the Cori cycle).

PGC-1αThe master switch for building new mitochondria. It is turned on by cardio, especially interval training, and by the fuel gauge AMPK.

Your moderate mitochondria and blood supply clear lactate at a moderate rate. You handle both short, hard efforts and longer steady work well.

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Recovery

When the muscle is actually built

You recover between sets at a moderate pace. Your muscles adapt faster than your tendons, which need many months of steady loading to catch up, so the limit on your progress is often your connective tissue rather than your muscle.

Connective tissueTendons (which attach muscle to bone), ligaments (which hold joints together) and cartilage. They strengthen with training too, but far more slowly than muscle: typically over 6 to 12 months.

Muscle is built in the 24 to 72 hours after training, mostly while you rest. Deep sleep is when most growth hormone is released, and poor sleep lowers testosterone and raises cortisol, shifting the balance from building to breaking down.

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Words used in your programme

Reps, sets, tempo and more

The terms you will see in your programme and concept video, explained.

Term	What it means
Repetition (rep)	One complete movement of an exercise, down and up. Ten squats in a row are ten reps.
Set	A group of reps done back to back without stopping. “3 sets of 12” means 12 reps, a rest, 12 more, a rest, then a final 12.
Rest between sets	The pause after one set before the next begins. Short rests keep the heart rate up and add a fitness challenge; long rests let the muscle refill its fastest energy store (phosphocreatine) so the next set can be just as heavy.
Rest between workouts	How many hours pass before the same muscles are trained again, and how many full days off there are each week. Muscle repairs and grows stronger during this time, not during the workout itself.
To failure	How close each set goes to failure, the point where no more good reps are possible. Written as “to failure”, or as the number of reps short of failure: “2 reps short of failure” means stopping when two more good reps could still have been done.
Tempo	The speed of each rep in seconds: lowering, pause at the bottom, lifting, pause at the top. 3-0-1-0 means lower for three seconds, no pause, lift in one second, no pause. An X means lift as fast as possible while staying in control.
Time under tension	How many seconds the muscle is working during one set: the number of reps multiplied by the seconds each rep takes. Twenty reps at a 3-0-2-0 tempo is 20 × 5 = 100 seconds; six reps at 1-0-X-0 is about 10 seconds.
Exercises per set	How many different exercises are done back to back before resting. One is a straight set, two a superset, three a tri-set, four a quad-set (a four-exercise circuit). The rest is taken after the last exercise in the group.
Same body part grouping	Every exercise in the group works the same area, usually starting with the biggest movement and finishing with the smallest. For legs: squat, lunge, leg curl, calf raise. In a full-body workout this means one group for the lower body and one for the upper body.
Opposing body part grouping	The exercises in the group work muscles on opposite sides of a joint or of the body, such as chest then back, front of thigh then back of thigh, or biceps then triceps. Each muscle rests while its opposite works.
Steady cardio	Cardio at one even pace: the best pace you can hold for the full time. It should feel hard but sustainable, not easy. This is the pace of the lactic acid removal phase.
Interval cardio	All-out efforts (the fastest pace you can hold for the length of the interval) separated by recovery periods and repeated. Intervals last from 10 to 90 seconds. Every cardio session is intervals, then a lactic acid removal phase at the best steady pace you can hold, then the same intervals again.

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