10 Lessons From The Engineering The Alpha Seminar - Part 1

Leaders are readers.

And because of that you should read.

In fact, you should read the book Engineering The Alpha by John Romaniello and Adam Bornstein.

Why?

Well, it’s more than just a fitness book. It’s a book that helps guide you to become a better person inside and out.

The vehicle of change is fitness because for most guys the first step towards the mastery of self is through mastering your own body. And hormones are the big change agent!

So that is why.

The other reason is that it has so much information along with a plan that I don’t want to do it injustice and try to cover it in bullet points. Get it and follow the blueprint!

What I will do is share my take-away from the Engineering The Alpha seminar we hosted at Vigor Ground Fitness and Performance. What I learned and/or got reminded may have some golden nuggets that give you an “AHA” moment and get you to take action on it, which will lead to helping you make a change.

John and Adam delivered more than great content and were funny, informative and shared some stories that were “AHA” moments for me, but unfortunately won’t share (talk to me about it when you see me).

So here’s my top 10 lessons/reminders from the Alpha seminar in no particular order of importance:

#1. Hormones run shizz!

Your internal environment affects hormones and they affect how you look, feel, perform and even think.

Our internal environment is influenced by what we eat, how much and how we sleep, how we train, how we think (because thoughts create stress). You know - lifestyle.

I know most people will say: “I know this!” but the truth is that I don’t think people really understand how much it affects it.

A bad hormonal environment is like a ticking time bomb and doesn’t affect just training. Reduced intelligence, stunted sex drive, accelerated aging, lack of sleep, insulin spikes, lack of confidence, boobs instead of pecs, men turning into boys and fertility issues, are all a side effects.

Rather than pointing the finger at cars, fat, lack of training/activity, fad diets, etc., we need to look at behavioral decisions and lifestyle choices that mess up your hormone environment.

Testosterone, growth hormone, insulin, cortisol and estrogen all affect one another. The great thing is that when you start making the right behavioral changes and lifestyle choices, all of them start coming together in a healthy hormone environment.

Sounded like something out of a fairy tale!

The first you should be focused on is insulin…but more about that later.

If you are interested in your hormonal environment then you should check out Wellness FX, as they do testing and re-testing and it will not only help you see where you are at but also give you a better idea of what to do next.

I’m going to do this in the coming weeks. Remember, if you’re not assessing you’re guessing!

#2. To START hormone optimization, begin with the insulin reset!

Most guys who are looking to get into shape, which really means “build muscle, lose fat, feel better”, don’t have good insulin sensitivity (actually, the exact opposite, a horrible one). This means that the first step is to get that in check as that will be the catalyst to get all the other hormones on track too.

Optimizing insulin sensitivity is done with both nutrition and training.

John and Adam are both fans of intermittent fasting and carb cycling, which is exactly what we do with our “Mansformers” at Vigor Ground. To create an insulin reset we take it a step further and start of with something a little more extreme.

Do you want to get amazing results or not?

Ok, so I’m going to keep it moving…

We’re still going to carb-cycle but we’re really going to cut down on the carbs!

For the first two week you’ll:

#1. Have zero carbs on non-training and non-weight training days (when I say no carbs that doesn’t include fibrous vegetables which are considered “free foods” so it really isn’t bad at all).

#2. On weight training days you’ll get 30 grams of carbs, which are recommended to all come from a post workout shake after the training session.

This will get your insulin under control, which will help your body become more sensitive to it and allow for more carbs later on.

Week 3 and 4 you’ll start bringing more carbs into your diet but only on days when you strength train. So here are the steps:

#1.Continue to eat zero carbs on non-training and non-weight training days.

#2. On week 3 on weight-training days you’ll bump up the carbs to 75 grams per day, which will all be consumed within 3 hours after training. Most of these should be in the post-workout shake and the rest should be from starchy carbs like sweet potatoes/yams, etc.

#3. Week 4 you’ll add 50 grams of carbs to your non-weight training days and bump up the carbs to 100 grams a day on your weight training days.

This way we re-set the insulin and gradually add carbs rather than just going back to eating “like we used to.”

Other factors which are very important during the reset (and later too if you decided to continue intermittent fasting):

• You’ll be using the 16/8 fasting protocol, which means you will fast (not eat) for 16 hours and eat in an 8-hour window. More about intermittent fasting later…
• This is a flexible plan so it won’t matter too much how you break down the eating window but its recommended to start go earliest between 12pm – 8pm, and latest from 5pm – 1am.
• Number of meals you eat is up to you, it can be 2 or 5; your focus is only eating by the clock.
• You’ll eat your carbs later in the day so you can maximize the effects of your naturally higher insulin sensitivity. On non-workout days eat your carbs three to four hours

There are also calculations for your calories in these phases, which are based on lean body mass and body fat percentage range, which is why it’s a good idea to get the book and have the blueprint (or let me know and I’ll put a post together on what we do for our Mansformers!)

If you’re thinking: “I don’t wanna cook!”

All I can say is pucker up and read the following statement:

“Remember, part of being Alpha is being self-sufficient – and the ability to feed yourself is a basic human function that has been lost on the men of the world.”

So take a cooking lesson or something or watch Iron Chef and emulate.

#3. The other part of resetting insulin – Metabolic Resistance Training

There are better ways of training when it comes to improving your insulin sensitivity. Metabolic Resistance Training is it.

It’s what we use at Vigor Ground for many of our programs so it is not “new” but it’s important to emphasize how crazy it is not to do this type of training if your goal is fat loss and maintaining or building lean muscle mass.

This style of training uses resistance (whether weights or your body weight) in a fast paced, circuit style training session; circuits have very short breaks between exercises and are organized in a non-competing fashion.

Here is a little geeky cool stuff about it though:

• It challenge’s you both anaerobically and aerobically – means you’ll work your muscles and your cardio.
• This increases EPOC (excess post-exercise oxygen consumption) --> EPOC = speed up cellular repair, muscle growth and hormone optimization
• Metabolism increases for 36-48 hours after training

Metabolic Resistance Training improves insulin resistance and allows us to build muscle and burn fat at the same time (Journal of Strength and Conditioning and Journal of Applied Physiology), need I say more?

There are many ways to do circuits or MRT. I get many people asking me whether Crossfit is MRT and essentially it is. At the end of the day you just want to make sure that whatever circuit training it is, that it is individualized and adjusted for the person rather than fitting them into a system where a round peg is trying to get pushed through a square hole.

Find a great program with great coaching stay diligent with it!

Density training is what we use for a lot of our MRT as the simple explanation is doing more work in less time and becoming efficient at moving weight (also called work capacity).

Here’s the cool stuff density training will help with:

• Increased natural growth hormone
• Enhanced fat loss by burning more calories in less time
• Progressive resistance = Progressive overload = Muscle growth
• Improvement in VO2 Max
• Improved Cardiovascular Health

If you like those things then put density training on the menu. If you’d like to get a program that integrates strength and density training then check out www.VigorGroundFitness.com and put your name in the box and you’ll get a program we use along with the videos.

#4. Lactic Acid is gooooood!

Lactic acid training is good for you but it sucks. It sucks in a good way though.

If none of that makes sense then don’t worry, just do it as it does all of the following:

• Increases acidity of muscular tissue, which creates more blood flow and makes you look Alpha
• Increases in lactic acid = more GH production = muscle gain and fat loss (metabolism)
• Increase in lactic acid = decrease in cortisol = better sleep and more fat loss
• Lactic acid is NOT bad. Fuel for your muscles, breaking down glycogen = growth

We don’t use LA training as much as we should and it’s a kick to implement some more of it into our programs.

Just so we are on the same page for an example of what lactic acid training is so you can put some sets into your next training session and find a reason to not like me that much.

Simple, each rep you’re going to:

• Lower weight under control with good form
• Lift the weight over a period of 4 seconds
• Immediately begin lifting again

Even if you put it in as a finished in your evening training session it will help out.

Knowledge is good and all, but applied knowledge is powerful. So use it!

#5. The lies and myths of dieting and - intermittent fasting

This would be considered leaving the ordinary world of mainstream dieting as intermittent fasting is still being looked at like “WTF, not eating?!” and the myths below are still considered to be true by mainstream media:

• We need to eat breakfast
• We have to eat multiple meals a day hypothesis
• The fear of too much protein
• The carb lies (they are bad for you)
• Eating carbs at night will bump up your insulin and make you fat

All of it - not true.

So let me give you the easy guide to intermittent fasting; here are the simple rules:

1. Fast. Go without eating for a period of time. Most days, this will just be sixteen hours.
2. Eat. Select and eight hour window – any eight-hour window – and use that as your eating time. You could start eating at 9:30am and then have your dinner at 5:30pm. For me it means start eating at 3pm and finish my last meal at 11pm.
3. Be flexible. If you want to eat at 10am one day or have business breakfast planned, go for it. Ideally you’d just eat from 10am to 6pm. Or if you don’t want to start eating till 4pm then don’t.

The best part about it is that it is designed to work for you. The restrictions are really just related to overcoming your mental blocks and learning to control your hunger, which are invaluable skills once you realize that symptoms of hunger are more because of your eating schedule you’ve created than actually your body telling you it needs food.

Intermittent fasting is not a gimmick and it is highly misunderstood. If you would like to check out the 101 of Intermittent Fasting and the 201 of Intermittent Fasting then check out all the data you need here and here, along with the Q & A about here on Roman’s site.
I’m passionate about intermittent fasting as I have been doing it for around a year and half and have been my own experiment along with doing it with all our Mansformation Challenge’s where we put guys on the intermittent fasting plan.

The results have been beyond great and I have made it a lifestyle along with more than half of the guys staying on it after they finish the challenge.

The leanest and biggest I’ve been because of intermittent fasting (and training off course)

I personally use the Renegade Diet, which is another way of intermittent fasting that fits my lifestyle great.

The great thing about the intermittent fasting is that whether guys want to drop fat or drop fat and build muscle, it’s an easy adjustment with calories/day to get there.

On the left is Matt who dropped over 40lbs and put on muscle and on the right you have Ben who put on 14 lbs ands dropped 3% body fat (in only 6 weeks!).

Intermittent-fasting works.

It’s not the only thing that works and it may not be the best lifestyle choice for you (I believe everyone has some type of nutrition that fits their lifestyle).

The truth is that there is a lot of b.s. out there and most people haven’t even considered doing this method of lifestyle nutrition, which works insanely well and can be sustained long-term (especially because of flexibility of the plan and the fact that you have re-feeds and cheat days).

Whatever you decided to do when it comes to making changes of nutrition, training, and lifestyle in general, there needs to be the following:

1. Cut through the noise so you can answer the call. Always remember that there is a very strong psychological component involved in change, so you need to buy in (ambivalence doesn’t help with committing and doing!)
2. Learn the truth. Once you know that there are reasons for your prior failures (the mistruths) then you can learn the how of hormone optimization that will turn you into an Alpha and help you transform your life  another reason why you should get the book!
3. Do the work. Once you have the nutrition and training that serve as your vehicle to the life you want, go and DO it.

2500 words later I’m half way.

Damn it!

As always, I start writing with the intention of making it a short to the point post and end up making it longer because I’m focused on delivering as much great information as possible and I get to keep you hostage until the second part for 5 more lessons of the Alpha seminar.

Would you be willing to try intermittent fasting, why and why not?