Shock & Awe: Total Domination Chapter One
“Bodybuilder: any man or woman looking to shape their body by adding muscle mass and losing body fat.” – Chris Johnson
Chapter One: Shock & Awe The Theory
The body is an amazing organism that can adjust to pretty much anything we throw at it…eat your face off and eventually you’ll stop gaining weight. Eat once a day and eventually you’ll stop losing weight. Train with high volume or low volume, eventually your size and strength gains will stop. Our bodies are incredible at adapting to whatever we can throw at them. They want to stay in a state of homeostasis – “the tendency of a system, especially the physiological system of higher animals, to maintain internal stability, owing to the coordinated response of its parts to any situation or stimulus that would tend to disturb its normal condition or function”. – Dictionary.com
The body simply doesn’t want to change! It’s no wonder then that bodybuilders have such a tough time building muscle after the initial year or two of training. We eat more, try different training routines, and use the latest nutrition supplements and, if we’re lucky, have extra few ounces of muscle to show for our efforts and money. It’s the reason we’re all looking for that “magic pill” or next piece of exercise equipment that’ll do it all. The truth is, the magic pill and the Super-Ab-XT machine can work, but like everything else they won’t work forever…
I remember measuring my arms when I first started weight training. I drew a graph and figured if my gains continued on the same vector, within three years I’d have arms the size of Hulk Hogan‘s (over 20 inches!). Of course that never came to pass. If I had known then what I know now, I would have made much better gains, maybe not 20″ gains, but better. I have no regrets – I get to use the system now AND I get to share it with you, the culmination of what I’ve learned over a span of 25 years.
I think we can all agree that the body needs to be tricked or “shocked” in order to get a response. It’s the whole premise behind final week prep, carb cycling and periodic training. The thing is, most bodybuilders only shock their bodies a few times a year. My philosophy is to shock it more often…not monthly, not weekly, but daily.
In the weeks to come I will share with you the “Shock & Awe” nutrition program and training series that is designed to keep your body guessing, and growing while getting leaner. Not only is this system effective, but also fun, letting you eat and train in ways that never get stale. And it’s the first system out there that I can confidently say will work for EVERYONE.
In the next chapter we’ll take a closer look at nutrition and the basic premise on how to design your own eating plan…
