I got an email from a reader recently and wanted to share with you the general recommendations I have for simultaneously building muscle and losing body fat.

Rules of thumb for gaining muscle and losing fat simultaneously are:

• High protein
• Low carb
• Moderate to high fat (kind of comes with the high-protein territory, so to speak)
• Plenty of milk, eggs, beef, poultry, fish, nuts, protein powder (for between-meal snacks)
• 3 days a week weight training
• 3 days a week high-intensity cardio, coupled with 3-4 days of moderate-intensity cardio

How much protein? I'd shoot for an average of 1 gram per pound of body weight. This may sound high, but it's really not that hard to consume, if you're taking in 3 regular meals and 3 snacks a day. Even easier if you break it into 8 meals.

I'm a big proponent of cycling diet, supplementation, and training. By this, I mean that you should eat big 3 days in a row, then take off a day (same with training). Cut out all the supplementation (except for the joint supplements and daily vitamin/mineral) on this "off day" to give your body a chance to rest a little. I have had good success actually juice fasting on this "4th day" where I only ingest juice and water. It really sets the body up to load up on carbs the following day.

Your muscles will really swell the next day.

As for dieting "clean" – I do believe in cheating. On your diet! Meaning, once a week, eat nearly whatever you want in any portion you want.

All other days, eat virtually whatever you want, but in smaller portions than you may like. You'll get the flavors you need but you won't be taking in excess calories.

If you're interested, I've got some meal plans posted up on the User Forum – http://ow.ly/189YQ

You'll need about 3300 calories to maintain your weight (this is a rough estimate – there are a lot of factors that play into this) – if you want to gain weight, add 500 calories; if you want to lose weight, subtract 500 cals.

You may be in a situation where you want to maintain your weight, but just redistribute body fat weight to muscle weight…modify accordingly.

I know we're all in a hurry to get big, lose body fat, and otherwise enhance our athletic performance. In that light, I'm starting a series, a Top Ten if you will, on getting things done better and faster.

The first part of this Top Ten is all about building muscle: What are the tricks, tips, and techniques for building muscles that are bigger, faster, and stronger?

Without further ado, here they are:

1. Do compound exercises like squats, deadlifts, bench presses, rows, pull-ups, and overhead presses. In that order of preference. These exercises stimulate more muscle growth because they employ more muscle fibers at once, cause increased growth hormone production, and also facilitate the mind-muscle connection.
2. Do 2-4 sets of each exercise.
3. Do sets of 6-10 reps.
4. Train to concentric failure on the last "heavy" set of at least one exercise per workout. This means that if you work chest, back, and shoulders, do at least one set of Bench Presses, for example, until you cannot do another rep without help.
5. Throw in a forced rep or two every few weeks.
6. Cycle your training. Don't go stale. I suggest using mini-cycles of 3-6 weeks on, one week off. The harder you train, the fewer weeks of hard training you do before a rest.
7. Cycle your supplementation. I suggest 3 days on, 1 day off. Repeat. Make your diet coincide with your training. This means that every 3 to 6 weeks, you take some time off.
8. Work toward progress. A little progress is better than none at all. Tweak here and there to keep progress moving. There's no sense in trying to build Rome in a day. It won't work and you'll get hurt and/or disappointed.
9. Get plenty of rest and drink a ton of water. Reduce inflammation by cutting out junk food including sugar, high fructose corn syrup, caffeine, and other crap. It does you no good. Even if it tastes really yummy and gives you a killer buzz. Nothing in life comes easy.
10. Everything is subject to change. Nothing is written in stone. Including these "rules."

That's it for now. Next up: Fat-loss Top Ten.

Last month, I pushed you to visit Muscle-Build.com, hoping to get past 10,000 visitors. This month, is it too much to ask to try to get to 15,000? Is it doable?

Certainly.

Is it likely? No.

Sadly, I have to average 483 visits over the course of the entire month. However, 483, coincidentally, is the highest visitor number I’ve reached. I’ve only averaged 375 visits thus far.

So to get to 15,000 from here, I have to average a whopping 609. I’ve surpassed 600 visits in a day 2 times!

This is what I’m going to do. I’m going to beg

Seriously, getting there is my goal, but it is not the be-all, end-all. I really derive no benefit, other than more nice people like you get to experience what I have to say.

Can I ask a favor, though? Can you Stumble, Tweet, and send to Facebook these 3 links:

1. http://www.muscle-build.com/building-muscle-blog.html
2. http://www.muscle-build.com/gallon-of-milk-a-day.html
3. http://www.muscle-build.com/hardgainer.html

The first two pages get the most hits of any of my Muscle-Build.com pages (other than the home page). #3 is my attempt to show “hardgainers” how to rapidly put on weight.

Once upon a time, I was a hardgainer. Still am, really. I just used to be really skinny. It was a long, hard battle to put on weight for me; in fact, from 12 until about 28, I didn’t have much progress.

But I’m stubborn. Nearing my 30s, I decided to give reaching 200 pounds another try. I mean, I tried really hard. And you know what? I got there! Finally. The Hardgainer Manifesto is the blueprint I used to go from 140 to 205 in a little over a year.

How did I do it? You can check it out for yourself.

Getting back to my point of reaching 15,000 visits this month – when I have a goal, I reach it. But I cannot, of course, do it without you.

Visit the links above. Share them with your friends. Tweet about them. Stumble them. Get the word out that I share a lot of really good info here.

See those little buttons down there under “Share and Enjoy?” Feel free to spread the message that way. Remember, this is a self-funded site – the more visitors you bring my way, the more potential money they generate, and I can bring you even better stuff.

Thanks!

You may notice some new buttons on the Muscle-Build.com site. Yes, there are Forum and Sales buttons, and NO, they are not functional! They are future features of the site that I hope to bring to you.

However, I've not had time to set everything up.

You may remember that I sent out a reader survey a while back. That's where the Forum idea came to bear. Some readers really want a user forum. So I've started to make one. I'll let you know when it's live. The Sales button is going to be a redirect to another site I've put up where I'll be selling some fitness courses. Some you've already seen, like the Hardgainer Manifesto.

Others will be new. I'm working on a 16-week course that will take you from looking like this: 

To this:

In 4 months. Of course, your mileage may vary. Results not typical! Arnold was awesome. But you can go from fat (or skinny) to buff in 4 months with hard training, diet, and dedication. Anyway, that's the update. Two new features for Muscle-Build.com coming online. Hopefully before the end of the year. Stay tuned. Or, better yet, sign up here for all the updates to the site.

Alert, or at least long-term, readers of this site will note that I typically advocate a 2-way split, working out 3 times a week. My routine in the past has always looked something like this:

• Legs & Arms
• Chest & Back & Delts

I’d work the first on Monday and Friday, the second on Wednesday. The following week, I’d do the opposite.

I’ve been working out pretty heavy lately, using more sets and lower reps. I’ve also added really heavy partials with high reps (at least 20 per set at the end of a body part’s workout).

It’s been my experience that I’ve often not trained with enough volume because I’m trying to hit 2 or 3 body parts per workout. I’ve devised a new workout routine that allows me the rest I need to recover, the freedom to work a specific body part a second time in a week, and the space to work out more intensely per workout because I’m working fewer body parts per workout.

Here’s my new work out routine:

• Chest & Back, Monday
• Legs, Tuesday
• Delts & Arms, Wednesday
• Rest on Thursday
• Specialize on Friday (hit a lagging body part or something I want to really stress)

This routine allows me to follow my diet more closely, too. As you may remember, I suggest that people follow a nutrition plan pretty heavy on supplements and high protein, moderate carbs, and relatively high fat (for building phases); with the heavy eating, I want to give my body a rest every 4th day. So, Monday through Wednesday, I eat my “normal” heavy diet. Thursday, I pretty much fast.

Friday, I can go nuts on the supplementation while I blast the body part I want to crush.

Saturday and Sunday are pretty normal, except that I eat lighter because I’m not doing any weight training on those days.

In the next post, I’ll tell you about my back-relief supplementation plan. It’s given me the most pain relief I’ve had in years. Literally.