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Nutrition
Or Training - Which Is More Important?
By Tom Venuto, NSCA-CPT, CSCS
Legendary
bodybuilding trainer Vince, "The Iron Guru" Gironda was famous
for saying, "Bodybuilding is 80% nutrition!" But is this really
true or is it just another fitness and bodybuilding myth passed down
like gospel without ever being questioned? Which is really more important,
nutrition or training? This IS an interesting question and I believe
there is a definite answer:
The
first thing I would say is that you cannot separate nutrition and training.
The two work together synergistically. Regardless of your goals - gaining
muscle, losing fat, athletic conditioning, whatever -you will get less
than-optimal or even non-existent results without paying attention paid
to both.
In
fact, I like to look at gaining muscle or losing fat in three parts
- weight training, cardio training and nutrition - with each part like
a leg of a three legged stool. pull ANY one of the legs off the stool,
and guess what happens?
In
reality, it's impossible to put a specific percentage on which is more
important - how could we possibly know such a number to the digit?
Nutrition
and training are both important, but at certain stages of your training
progress, I do believe placing more attention on one component over
the other can create larger improvements. Let me explain:
If
you're a beginner and you don't posses nutritional knowledge, then mastering
nutrition is far more important than training and should become your
number one priority. I say this because improving a poor diet can create
rapid, quantum leaps in fat loss and muscle building progress.
For
example, if you've been skipping meals and only eating 2 times per day,
jumping your meal frequency up to 5 or 6 smaller meals a day will transform
your physique very rapidly.
If
you're still eating lots of processed fats and refined sugars, cutting
them out and replacing them with good fats like the omega threes found
in fish and unrefined foods like fruits, vegetables and whole grains
will make an enormous and noticeable difference in your physique very
quickly.
If
your diet is low in protein, simply adding a complete protein food like
chicken breast, fish or egg whites at each meal will muscle you up fast.
No
matter how hard you train or what type of training routine you're on,
it's all in vain if you don't provide yourself with the right nutritional
support.
In
beginners (or in advanced trainees who are still eating poorly), these
changes in diet are more likely to result in great improvements than
a change in training.
The
muscular and nervous systems of a beginner are unaccustomed to exercise.
Therefore, just about any training program can cause muscle growth and
strength development to occur because it's all a "shock" to
the untrained body.
You
can almost always find ways to tweak your nutrition to higher and higher
levels, but once you’ve mastered all the nutritional basics, then
further improvements in your diet don't have as great of an impact as
those initial important changes...
Eating
more than six meals will have minimal effect. Eating more protein ad
infinitum won't help. Once you're eating low fat, going to zero fat
won't help more - it will probably hurt. If you're eating a wide variety
of foods and taking a good multi vitamin/mineral, then more supplements
probably wont help much either. If you're already eating natural complex
carbs and lean proteins every three hours, there's not too much more
you can do other than continue to be consistent day after day...
At
this point, as an intermediate or advanced trainee who has the nutrition
in place, changes in your training become much more important, relatively
speaking. Your training must become downright scientific.
Except
for the changes that need to be made between an "off season"
muscle growth diet and a "precontest" cutting diet, the diet
won't and can't change much - it will remain fairly constant.
But
you can continue to pump up the intensity of your training and improve
the efficiency of your workouts almost without limit. In fact, the more
advanced you become, the more crucial training progression and variation
becomes because the well-trained body adapts so quickly.
According
to powerlifter Dave Tate, an advanced lifter may adapt to a routine
within 1-2 weeks. That's why elite lifters rotate exercises constantly
and use as many as 300 different variations on exercises.
Strength
coach Ian King says that unless you're a beginner, you'll adapt to any
training routine within 3-4 weeks. Coach Charles Poliquin says that
you'll adapt within 5-6 workouts.
So,
to answer the question, while nutrition is ALWAYS critically important,
it's more important to emphasize for the beginner (or the person whose
diet is still a "mess"), while training is more important
for the advanced person... (in my opinion).
It's
not that nutrition ever ceases to be important, the point is, further
improvements in nutrition won't have as much impact once you already
have all the fundamentals in place.
Once
you've mastered nutrition, then it's all about keeping that nutrition
consistent and progressively increasing the efficiency and intensity
of your workouts, and mastering the art of planned workout variation,
which is also known as "periodization."
The
bottom line: There's a saying among strength coaches and personal trainers...
"You
can't out-train a lousy diet!"
If
your nutrition program is your weakest area, either because you're just
starting out or you simply don't have the nutritional knowledge you
know you need to get results, then be sure to take a look at the Burn
the Fat, Feed The Muscle program.
About
the Author:
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Tom Venuto
is a lifetime natural bodybuilder, an NSCA-certified personal
trainer (CPT), certified strength & conditioning specialist
(CSCS), and author of the #1 best-selling e-book, "Burn
the Fat, Feed The Muscle.” Tom has written hundreds of
articles and has been featured in print magazines such as IRONMAN,
Australian IRONMAN, Natural Bodybuilding, Muscular Development,
Exercise for Men and Men’s Exercise, as well as on hundreds
of websites worldwide. For information on Tom's Fat Loss program,
click
here.
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Articles By Tom Venuto
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