Building My Physique

To give insight into the building of the brand, I wrote a page titled Background of Art of Anatomy and detailed the journey that brought me to developing this website. However, I did not give much insight to the process of building my physique and how I’ve continued to maintain it.

Before getting into the details, I think it’s important to note that I do not consider myself a bodybuilder in the sense of the competitive sport. While the goal of my training is to shape my muscles in a specific way, that goal does not include having my physique subjectively compared to the physique of other people. For those who do participate in competitive bodybuilding, I salute you; it’s just not for me.

So, how did I do it?

I chose to write this page because I believe most people would make the wrong assumptions when seeing how my body is developed. So here are some details about my training, diet, and other habits.

I’m 5ft 8in tall, and I currently weigh ~160lbs.

Diet and supplements

First and foremost, I have never taken a performance enhancing drug. I am a true, lifetime natural. I also don’t take any peptides which have become a new wave of interest in the fitness/performance realms.

As far as diet goes, I struggle with a poor relationship with food; I get anxiety around certain foods (particularly fats, and more so unhealthy fats), and this certainly adds a layer of difficulty in trying to grow and maintain a particular physical appearance. My current meal plan is around 3,000 Calories per day (~440g carbohydrate, ~64g fat, ~193g protein).

I take just a few supplements:

I don’t take:

Factors in building my physique

As briefly mentioned in the page on Muscle Hypertrophy, mechanical tension is the primary variable that stimulates muscle growth. Thus, anyone telling you that a certain way is “the best way” or “the only way” is either misinformed or lying to you.

Resistance training

Likely the most repeated single theme across this website, heavy resistance is not required to develop muscle mass or shape, and I believe many people will be surprised to see sample of the resistance I use for certain exercises considering the shape of my body. Some highlights:

Exercise performance

Not only do I not train with particularly heavy weights, I also don’t:

Instead, I prioritize controlled contraction of the target muscle or group and stop when my attempts to contract that muscle become too difficult. I don’t consider this traditional failure, as most people know it, because I could absolutely continue to move the resistance, but I would be recruiting more synergists or using cheat techniques (e.g., momentum, bouncing, shifting body position, etc.) which render the exercise useless to my target muscle(s). I describe this as “volitional fatigue.”

The “deep stretch” is a different issue I briefly addressed here; in the future, I’ll have more information and education on the role of fascia when sculpting your goal physique.

Rapid or explosive concentric movements would be more valuable to a performance athlete that requires power (force * velocity); for example a football lineman or a track & field sprinter. For sculpting a muscle, control and target contraction are more valuable than explosive movement.

Lastly, specialty sets have not been shown to provide greater growth than standard resistance training.*

Program design

Program design is another commonly misunderstood topic. How many training sessions per week? How should I split my routine? How many exercises for each muscle? How many sets per exercise? How many repetitions per set?

Other common misinformation is the priority of particular types of exercise (e.g., “compound movements are better for growth,” or “build your foundation with <insert exercise here> before doing other exercises to ‘shape’ the muscle.” And yes, these are comments I hear regularly.).

Some more don’ts from my training experience; I don’t:

What is my full protocol?

As I continue to publish more pages on this site, one of the most important sections falls under The Science where I’ll be teaching individual muscles. On each muscle page, you’ll learn basic information, attachment sites, movement patterns, training ranges, exercises, how to stretch, and—if you’re interested—my specific training program (my exercises, the order of their performance, how many sets, repetitions, etc.).

For now, I’ll just give you my weekly split:

The takeaway

Ultimately, the purpose of this post is to show you that your exercise protocol needs to be what works for you, and nothing else matters. So, when you come across social media influencers, gym bros, and even many of the so-called / self-proclaimed “exercise scientists” who use phrases such as “the only way” or “the best way” to achieve a goal, know that they’re more than likely selling you their bias; after which they will likely try to sell you something else (e.g., supplements, a coaching package, their pre-fabricated training programs, etc.).

Be wary. My goal is to teach you the objective science and to expose you to the current trends in research so you can find what works best for you.