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INFORM & TRANSFORM

KNOWLEDGE IS YOUR MOST POWERFUL WEAPON

Should You Cut or Bulk First? (2025 Update)

5/22/2025

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Bodybuilding is about building your body. Whether you do it to maintain your fitness levels, climb Everest, run the marathon, or be a competitive bodybuilder is up to you.
––Ronnie Coleman
Useful Links: 2022 article

The million-dollar fitness question.

The most effective choice for you depends on three factors:
  1. Your current body fat level
  2. How skilled you are at cutting and bulking
  3. Which phase will benefit your physique the most in the long run
 
To learn about each one in detail, read on.

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6 Tips to Minimise Muscle Loss and Maximise the Chances of Growth While Dieting

9/19/2024

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​If you’re totally sedentary and eat 2,500 calories a day, don’t instantly go to 1,200 calories and hours of aerobics––your weight loss will be sudden and violent, but also fleeting.
––Martha Beck
How likely is it that you’ll lose muscle during a fat loss diet?

According to some people in the more fear-mongering corners of the internet, it’s pretty much inevitable. In fact, as soon as your workout performance drops by a couple of reps… Gasp! You’re losing muscle.

For this reason, some will even say you shouldn’t go into a deficit at all if you hope to gain muscle, even when you carry excess body fat.

I disagree with these extreme positions.
 
So let’s delve into what the research seems to show and my six practical tips to give yourself the greatest chances of minimising muscle loss and maximising growth.

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How Long Should You Rest Between Sets?

5/16/2024

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Free stock photo from Pexels.com.
 
If you opened my old personal training textbook, you’d find the following recommendations:
 
  • When doing 1-5 reps: Rest 3-5 minutes between sets
  • 6-12 reps: Rest 1-2 minutes
  • 15+ reps: Rest 30-60 seconds
 
These are pretty common to this day.

You might also be familiar with the claim that shorter rest intervals of around 30 seconds are better for hypertrophy (muscle growth) because they result in a greater increase in growth hormone, testosterone, and IGF-1––all of which theoretically make a positive contribution to hypertrophy––than longer rest intervals.
 
How accurate is any of this? Read on to find out!

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19 Evidence-Based Ways to Maximise Fat Loss and Muscle Growth

2/2/2024

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Exercise to stimulate, not to annihilate. The world wasn’t formed in a day, and neither were we. Set small goals and build upon them.
––Lee Haney
​The start of the year is an exciting time for fitness.

You may be super motivated right now, which is fantastic. There’s no better mental place to get started!

But are your habits up to the task?

Fat loss and muscle gain are often oversimplified as a matter of calories, protein, and resistance training.

While these are fundamental components of the physique development process, fat loss and muscle-building phases require a lot more if you want to get the best results possible.

That’s why, when I take on a new client, I don’t plunge them into a deficit or a surplus on Day 1.

This approach could do them more harm than good if they didn’t have certain key habits in place, which I help them develop over the initial weeks of coaching.

Some of these habits are always a priority, whereas others are more important in a deficit and less so in a surplus, or vice versa.

Let’s start with the habits that are always a priority, no matter the phase.

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What’s the Best Range of Motion for Muscle Growth?

7/28/2023

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The term “range of motion” (ROM) has two main definitions:

  • The displacement of the implement you’re using, which is the difference between Position A and Position B achieved by a barbell, dumbbell, or cable from the start to the end of a movement
  • The extent to which a body part can move around a joint
 
As a muscle goes through its range of motion around a joint, it changes length from a shorter to a longer length, and vice versa. For this reason, the second definition of ROM is the more relevant to this article.
 
But why would you care about muscle length?

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    Nikias Tomasiello

    Welcome to my blog. I’m an online fitness coach with a passion for bodybuilding, fantasy, and bread.

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