Menno Henselmans is a fitness coach, scientist, entrepreneur, bodybuilder and model. In the world of evidence-based bodybuilding, he has become a trusted name. His life goal: to investigate how to achieve optimal lean muscle growth. Henselmans regularly appears in interesting podcasts, including this Q&A with Siim Land, an inquisitive biohacker and YouTuber from Estonia. We highlight five interesting issues. (Video at the bottom)

1. CAN YOU BUILD MUSCLE AND LOSE FAT AT THE SAME TIME? (18:15)

Menno: Yes, that is certainly possible. People often think that you need a calorie surplus to build mass. But you don’t have to. With a calorie deficit, your body will lose energy on the one hand by burning fat reserves, while on the other it uses energy from your diet to build muscle mass. This is also known as body recomposition.

Body recomposition is certainly not a purely theoretical thing, or something that is only reserved for absolute beginners and people who are very overweight. I apply it to a large part of my customers, for example also to people who have already trained for several years, but not optimally. However, the process will then become increasingly difficult after a few months. And with elite bodybuilders, body recomposition is virtually impossible.

2. HOW HARD SHOULD YOU TRAIN FOR MUSCLE GROWTH? (31:55)

Menno: It doesn’t really matter. As long as you train close to muscle failure, you can achieve just as much muscle growth with light weights as with heavy weights.

There is a lower limit of roughly 30%1RM, or 30RM. So that’s a weight with which you can do about 30 reps before you reach muscle failure. The last repetitions of such a set feel just as heavy as those of a set of, for example, 8 repetitions with a much heavier weight (8RM). And they therefore also provide the same growth stimulus, despite the fact that the absolute weight is much lower. Now doing sets of 20 or 30 reps is not ideal. It demands quite a bit of your stamina and you get tired faster.

From a formal point of view, there is not really an upper limit: you can also achieve muscle growth with very heavy weights (>85%1RM). This has the disadvantage that you only do very short sets: 2, 3 or 4 repetitions for example. However, for muscle growth you also need sufficient volume. The muscle must be under tension for a longer period of time (time under tension, TUT). When using heavy weights you will be doing extra sets to get enough TUT.

It works much better if you use weights between 65 and 85%1RM, so weights with which you can do somewhere between 6 and 15 repetitions. This way you realize enough TUT without having to do tiring, long sets. So yes, 6-15 is the ideal rep range for muscle growth, but not because something ‘magical’ happens in that rep range. It is for purely practical reasons.

3. IS TRAINING MORE OFTEN BETTER? (33:52)

Menno: Not necessarily, but most scientific studies suggest it is. This means that if you train a muscle group more often per week while the total volume remains the same, more muscle growth is possible. This is probably because at a higher training frequency the level of muscle protein synthesis remains high for longer. And perhaps because you can train more intensively, better with shorter sessions. However, the benefit of training more often at the same volume is relatively small and in some studies even marginal.

If you’re increasing your training frequency, don’t make the mistake of increasing your overall volume right away. People often do the same training twice a week, with the same number of sets, so that the training volume is doubled in one fell swoop. In principle, you should maintain the training volume correctly and then spread it over two sessions instead of one. In the long run you can increase the volume per session and thus the total volume.

4. HOW SHOULD YOU TIME YOUR DIET IN RELATION TO YOUR TRAINING? (37:36)

Menno: After training, the so-called anabolic window opens, a period in which muscle protein synthesis is increased. According to research, this “window” gets smaller the more advanced you are. For beginners, it can stay open for up to 72 hours or more, while for advanced users, it sometimes closes after 24-36 hours. One study found that the timing of nutrition (especially protein) doesn’t matter in beginners, because muscle protein synthesis is consistently high.

For advanced bodybuilders, timing of nutrition is probably an important factor. Several studies suggest that it is best to facilitate muscle protein synthesis as much as possible in the hours immediately after training. That’s certainly not a stopwatch issue, but I’m a big believer in supplying the body with most of the daily calories between workout and bedtime. In other words, only feed the muscle after it has been stimulated. This principle can also be useful in body recomposition (see question 1).

Still, I recommend having amino acids in your blood before training, so that they can protect you against muscle breakdown during and immediately after training. These amino acids are best obtained from whole proteins, for example those in your pre-workout meal. I do not recommend the use of BCAA supplements, because BCAAs (the three most important amino acids for muscle building) do their job best in the company of all other amino acids. So even if you do intermittent fasting – logically with a fasting window before training – it is best to take some whole protein before training instead of BCAAs or instead of no amino acids at all.

5. WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU EAT TOO MUCH PROTEIN? (37:36)

Menno: As a bodybuilder you need 1.6 to 1.8 g of protein per kg of body weight daily. No added value has been shown from eating even more protein, although many bodybuilders do.

The excess protein is usually oxidized, that is, converted into glucose for energy. With an energy surplus, your body will store the fats from your diet that it does not use for energy (it uses the excess proteins for that) as fat. In short, too much protein also leads to fat storage. Those excess proteins simply do not just disappear.