Compound lifts like the squat, deadlift, bench press and overhead press work large numbers of muscles, making them a very efficient use of your training time. I like them a lot. However, they’re not always the most joint-friendly exercises available. Your joints are often the limiting factor when it comes to the type of training […]

You’ve heard that taking a protein shake before bed will help you build muscle faster. But you’ve also heard that doing so is a waste of time, and that protein timing is irrelevant. Just hit your macros by the end of the day and you’ll be fine. Will drinking a protein shake before bed give […]

The other day, I came across something called the PHUL workout, which is short for power, hypertrophy, upper, lower. Although PHUL is something of a misnomer (for reasons I’ll explain in a moment, it should be called SHUL rather than PHUL), it’s a solid approach to setting up a training program, and can work well […]

Some say that pull-ups (where your palms face away from you) and chin-ups (where your palms face you) are the best lat exercises, giving you a lot more “bang for your buck” than lat pulldowns. Personally, I take the opposite view. For most people, most of the time, pulldowns are a better option than pull-ups […]

Of all the training programs I’ve used over the years, the upper/lower split is one of my favorites. It’s simple. It’s flexible. And it can be used by just about anyone to achieve many different goals – building muscle, getting stronger, or even just retaining muscle while you drop fat. What Is the Upper/Lower Split? […]

Back in 2018, the publication of a new study on training volume and muscle growth led to a collective Roger Moore-esque raising of eyebrows [1]. It reports, amongst other things, that a whopping 45 sets per muscle group per week led to muscle being built more quickly than 9 sets or 27 sets. When I […]

How much protein do you need to build muscle? Is one gram per pound of bodyweight too much, not enough or about right? If you eat more, are you going to build muscle faster? Or will you do just as well with less? Let’s find out. Since you’re reading an article about how much protein […]

The other day, I came across this quote about the 40% rule in a book I’m reading: “The US Navy Seals have a theory that no matter how bad we feel or how tired we get, we’re actually nowhere near the limit of what we can achieve; the brain is deceiving us to save the […]

JD, a Muscle Evo reader, writes in with the following question: “In the last year, I’ve become quite addicted to following the CrossFit Games. It’s quite a spectacle. Musclebound men and women at the top of physical performance. Are they on juice? I really hope and expect not. It would be nice to know that […]

I was in the gym the other day, and saw a guy doing dumbbell curls. At least, I think they were supposed to be curls. It was more of a dumbbell swing – the curling equivalent of the kipping pull-up – where momentum (rather than the biceps) played a not entirely insignificant role in moving […]