AlanAragon.com - Fitness Based on Science & Experience | |
Interview with Alan Aragon, By Lyle McDonald
1. Hi Alan, thank for joining us. Who are you and why should my readers care what you have to say?
First off, I wanna thank you for inviting me to do this interview, and waiting for me to actually get it done amidst a series of consecutive computer-related hell storms.
About me: I'm a full-time private practice nutritional counselor and part-time internet slacker. I also do continuing education lectures for health & medical professionals. Your readers don't have to care about what I say, I just want them to lend me their ears for a minute while I hypnotize them into yearning for anything I have to offer. On a more serious note, I feel like I've learned a lot of critically important things in my fitness career, and I'm obsessively compulsive about teaching them to whoever wants to learn.
2. What are your personal athletic accomplishments? Any current goals?
My personal athletic accomplishment that I'm most proud of, honestly, is not having sex for months at a time after my wife gave birth to my two boys. I understand you're married now, eh, Lyle? Wait till you have kids buddy. Then you'll KNOW what true "endurance" is. Other than that, 5 years ago, I went on a 7 day cruise to Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan, and Cabo San Lucas. It was myself, my wife, and one other couple. I challenged my friend to a duel of who could gain the most weight by the end of the 7 days. The women couldn't relate to the sporting spirit of the game, so they refused to participate. I won, gaining 8 lbs. My competitor gained 7 lbs. When I got back to the office, one of the trainers said "Damn Alan, even your eyelids are swollen".
My personal athletic goal isn't the most exciting thing in the world, but here goes. When I was on creatine and without any kids yet, strength and size gains came easy as hell. Now that I'm off creatine and sleeping like crap because of my two babies waking me up multiple times a night, my goal is to get my rate of strength gain back to creatine + adequate sleep levels. This will be next to impossible, but I enjoy tough challenges.
3. In your own training past, what would you say were your worst mistakes in terms of training, nutrition or both? Put differently, what would you do differently now?
Nutrition wise, I think my worst mistake I ever made was not taking advantage of my massive energy expenditure as a result of biking my way through college. Not having a car was my meal ticket - literally - to eating more quality junk food and not taking any significant hits to the gut. Unfortunately, I took it for granted and never took full advantage of it. I often reminisce about having a pint of Hagen Daaz (discontinued flavor: honey vanilla or New York Superfudge Chunk) every single night right before bed. This of course was after I biked to school, then biked to work, then biked my ass back home. I would make a stop at 7-11 and get the beloved pint of ice cream. I was leaner than I ever was in my life. Now I don't have time for the kind of work output I used to have, so I have to be a lot more careful with my indulgences. Hindsight hurts - badly.
Another nutritional mistake I made was neglecting the timing of protein and carbs. Basically, I HAD no nutrient timing. I just trained as hard as I could, and ate when it was convenient. Talk about taking one step forward and one step back. If you can remember as recently as 10 years ago, it was all about postworkout nutrition. Improvements in size and strength really didn't exponentiate for me until I grasped on to the "sandwich your training bout with protein + carbs" concept. On a tangent, this actually gets a little weird, but as of late, I've been remiss about pre-workout mental prep. Dorian Yates talked about mentally preparing for the training bout the night before, and continuing that prep for up to an hour prior to the bout. I don't have that kind of time, but there's something to be said about pre-training psyching and visualization.
Another nutritional mistake I made in the past was spending my money on isolated BCAA. It's amazing how you can get taken in by the hype of certain things, and I'm certainly not immune to it. BCAA is one of the most hyped supplements in the last decade, of course with an emphasis on leucine. The thing is, no one wants to accept that they're already taking down an ass-ton of BCAA if they consume the high amount of protein typical of bodybuilding diets. Anyway, I experimented with dumping my supplemental BCAA and slightly increasing my overall protein intake. Whaddaya know, progress never ceased, and I've been saving a lot of cash that would have literally gotten pissed down the drain.
Training mistakes I've made in the past were a couple of things. 1st of all, as a youngin' I got my initial routines out of Flex magazine, during an era when bodybuilders obliterated their bodyparts once a week with a whole lot of volume. As soon as I cut my volume in half and doubled the frequency, my gains accelerated. I've tried cutting volume down further to hit BP's 3x a week, but found that it didn't quite work as well. I also was a fan of Mike Mentzer, so I truly believed that every working set had to be taken to failure, with with partials, and occasional negatives. As soon as I became happy with sticking to concentric failure and nothing more, I saw a definite hike in progress. As an experiment I took failure training out completely for a stint of time, and didn't see the same rate of gains, not by a long shot.
Another training mistake I've made in the past - one I think that we've all done - is go more by the numbers than by the feel, letting the numbers dictate the workout rather than letting the muscles do it. I was overly concerned with the quantitative awareness of load progression, rather than what one of my old training partners called "finding the pump". This might be more of a bodybuilding thing than anything else, but people should work up to a point where they are indifferent towards the number stamped on the iron. Trainees should practice developing a sense of optimal resistance for the given goal of any set, even if you're completely unaware of the actual weight. Blindfolded sensation-based training, so to speak.
4. You recently released a book called 'Girth Control'. Can you tell us what it's about and what prompted you to write it?
Writer (and noted pain in the ass) John T. Reed once mentioned that all good non-fiction books are written in anger. I'm not sure if Girth Control was written in anger more than a general dissatisfaction with the existing crop of nutrition books which for the most part present the reader with a set of steps or templates, and leave the reader without any valuable skills or lessons learned.
Girth Control started off as a one-day continuing education course syllabus for registered dietitians and personal trainers with an intense interest in manipulating nutrition for sports and/or body composition. What I did was take the existing manual and double its content. I go into more depth with the current research on the macronutrients and a broad range of the popular fat loss & mass gain supplements. I also delve into the art and science of evaluating fitness and bodybuilding information. Those who like my internet posts will like the book about 100 times more than my posts, although a lot of the profanity will be missing. South Texas University just bought the book and is considering using it for required reading, so I had to keep things somewhat clean.
5. Nutritionally, what do you find is the biggest mistake people when they are trying to lose bodyfat?
When trying to lose bodyfat, by far the biggest mistake is starting off on the foot with unrealistic expectations of progress. Newbies can get roughly 3% fat loss a month (4.5-8 lbs) without muscle loss. Intermediates should be happy with roughly a 2 percent decrease per month (about 3-4 lbs) while maintaining their lean mass. Some trainees can and will do better than those numbers, just don't stiffly set your expectations up for it.
6. Same question but for muscle gain.
In my observations, one of the biggest reasons people quit a program or bounce from one method to the next is an over-expectation of results. For muscle gain, rank newbies can sometimes see a 2 percent gain of total bodyweight a month (3-4 lbs or so), intermediates should be thrilled with 1 percent (1.5-2 lbs a month). Really advanced guys who have been at it consistently for many years and are close to their potential should be thrilled with half the rate of gain achievable by intermediates.
7. What's the best piece of nutritional advice you've seen recently?
The best piece of nutritional advice??? Hmmm... That's a tough one, since I'm so busy giving nutritional advice, I find that the opportunity to actually receive nutritional advice rarely happens. One tidbit that stuck with me, that isn't necessarily nutritional advice but certainly applies is a quote by Arthur Jones quoting someone else:
"Success comes from good judgment, good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment."
If I may cite my own advice given at a recent seminar, it was in response to the question of what I believe is effective but can't be proven. I sincerely believe that athletes will perform and transform better by sticking strictly to foods they personally like the taste of. Even better, stick to foods you LOVE the taste of, and this includes traditionally "unclean" stuff. Food affects mood, mood affects ergogenesis, and ergogenesis affects body composition. If you walk around dragging your ass through the day because you're dreading the next meal, you're ultimately worse off than the guy who's eating everything he likes (in amounts within the framework of the goal), and translating that psychosomatic energy into increased training power output.
8. What about the worst?
"Don't ever eat carbs in the final meal of the day while cutting."
My response: When you stop to think about it, allocating carbs immediately pre-bed would potentially help with muscle retention, regardless of caloric balance. Purposely omitting or avoiding carbs pre-bed is like telling someone to avoid carbs immediately before starting their 8-hour shift sitting at a desk.
"You should supplement your diet with green superfoods like blue green algae because of the wonderful nutrient density these foods add"
My response: Superfoods, my super ass. Genetic predisposition overrides any health or preventive benefit that supplemental doses of POND SCUM might add to the diet.
9. It's often claimed that, with a few exceptions (newbies, very fat individuals, folks coming back from a layoff) that it's impossible (or at least very difficult) to gain muscle while losing fat. Do you agree with this stance and, if not, how do you recommend going about gaining muscle while losing bodyfat?
It's definitely possible for newbs and formerly fit outta-shape folks to gain muscle and lose fat simultaneously. This has been demonstrated in a 1993 study by Donelly et al on obese women who were put on 800 kcals plus a resistance training program. The subjects experienced net weight loss, but also muscular hypertrophy. Then there's the relatively famous Demling study where the overweight police officers experienced the same type of body recomp, but on a less severely hypocaloric plan. The best way to accomplish this? Never become an advanced trainee! That's obviously facetious, but in principle, the closer you come to your potential, the more miniscule your rate of progress becomes, and the lesser your chances are for continuing the simultaneous swapping of fat for muscle.
So the solution is to first and foremost review the realistic rates of progress I mentioned earlier, which undoubtedly correspond with training experience. I'm very big on this, and tend to sound like a broken record with it because it's that important. And even though it's given that both goals can be achieved simultaneously, it still helps to pick an emphasis, whether it's fat loss or muscle gain. This will determine whether you set yourself up for a weekly surplus or deficit in calories.
If the focus is fat loss or muscle gain, the key to maintaining or gaining LBM is making sure you experience a steady (but not necessarily perfectly linear) upward trend in strength. You know that your caloric deficit is too severe if you can't at least maintain your lifts. Conversely, if your focus is muscle gain with fat loss being secondary, it's a little easier to detect an excessive caloric surplus by the detection of progressive smoothing out or love in the handles. The latter goal of muscle gain while maintaining or dropping bodyfat percent is definitely a longer, more challenging road. But if folks are willing to set 6-12 month goals for it, those blocks of time seem to pass by a lot quicker with the right expectations and objectives in place. I typically encourage my trainees to avoid extremes in nonlinear dieting unless they need to push the precontest envelope.
10. Where can people read more of your information (articles, etc.)?
Just click on the link below... Thanks a ton for the interview, Lyle.