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© Scott Marcaccio http://scottmarcaccio.com
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http://scottmarcaccio.com
Copyright © 2011 Scott Marcaccio. Some Rights Reserved. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. You are free to copy, distribute and display the work granted you attribute the work to the author. The work is not to be used for commercial purpose, nor can it be altered, transformed or modified from its original state. To view a copy of this license, go to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA. Contact me at [email protected] Visit my websites at: http://scottmarcaccio.com http://MultiplyYourMuscle.com Disclaimer and Legal Notice The information in this book is for educational purposes only. None of the information, tips, ideas, or methods described are to be taken as medical advice. I am not a doctor. The information I present is based on my experiences and my interpretations of said experiences. If you have health issues or suspect you might, consult with your doctor before beginning any kind of exercise regimen or new diet. The author does not accept any responsibilities for damage or liabilities, perceived or real as a result of this information.
© Scott Marcaccio http://scottmarcaccio.com
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Table of Contents
Where It All Started… ............................................................................................ 3
The BIG Picture ...................................................................................................... 7
Consistency Is Your Best Friend ............................................................................ 9
Strong Like Bull .................................................................................................... 11
Breakfast Of Champions ...................................................................................... 15
Be Master of Mind rather than Mastered by Mind – Zen proverb ..................... 17
Size matters not, ... Look at me. Judge me by size, do you?” - Yoda .................. 19
Plan, Do, Review ................................................................................................. 21
No Excuses! Start Now. Don’t Stop. .................................................................... 23
© Scott Marcaccio http://scottmarcaccio.com
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Where It All Started… Have you ever started to learn something new and discovered how
much fun and happiness you can get out of it? That was my experience
with lifting weights. In January of 2005, I set out on a journey that
changed my life forever. I was weighing in at a humble 135 lbs. at just
less than 6’0” tall. Needless to say, I wasn’t getting much attention
from the girls I wanted and started to feel depressed and introverted.
It all started when I was 16 years old. Two friends and I were sitting in
my basement watching the very first season of The Ultimate Fighter. A
guy named Mike Swick was getting weighed in and I thought to myself,
“Holy crap, what would it be like if I could look like that?” I was inspired
to get muscular for the first time in my life.
The first trip to hit the weights wasn’t
pretty. I walked into a commercial
gym with my friend Paul, who
outweighed me by about 40 pounds
and had been lifting for almost a year
already. We walk over to the smith
machine, where he proceeds to put a
25 pound plate on each side so he
could teach me how to bench. I
proceed to almost crush my face.
Embarrassing as it is… I had to start
with the bar.
I was lean from playing soccer and
hockey… but I had A LOT of work to do. I had the strength levels of a
newborn baby. Let me take you through my transformation…
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© Scott Marcaccio http://scottmarcaccio.com
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© Scott Marcaccio http://scottmarcaccio.com
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Fast forward 5 years and I make my living teaching you how to get in
the best shape of your life. I now have a physique that many would kill
for. There were no steroids or prohormones involved – I did this
entirely through putting the time and the work in, day after day. My
inner world has changed along with my outer – I’m infinitely more
confident, more outgoing, and happier with myself.
I’m going to let you in on seven of the biggest things I’ve learned over
my last five years of my body transformation. If you continue to apply
and use these techniques every single day, you’ll soon discover the
power behind them. With these new mindsets that I’m about to reveal
to you, you’ll be able to achieve and perhaps even surpass results you
only dreamed of… far faster than you ever realized was possible.
Feel free to send this to everyone you know who could use it, they’ll
get access to the free e-course as well by registering through
http://www.MultiplyYourMuscle.com, so send them there. Enjoy the
book! Make sure to visit my personal blog at http://scottmarcaccio.com
for the latest updates on everything related to helping you get in the
best shape of your life, and be incredibly happy doing so.
© Scott Marcaccio http://scottmarcaccio.com
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The BIG Picture
You probably have a goal physique in mind – a picture in your
mind of what exactly you would love your body to look like. I
want you to think of yourself as starting at the base of the
ladder with where you are right now, today. At the top of that
ladder is your goal physique. This ladder symbolizes your
journey.
When it comes to getting to your goal physique, you’ve got a
few different areas you need to get keyed in on. You have your
nutrition (your right leg), your workout routine (your left leg),
your sleep and central nervous system stress (your left arm),
and your supplementation (your right arm).
Have you ever tried climbing a ladder with just one leg? With
no hands?
What you need to understand is that it isn’t just killing it in the
gym, or stuffing your face, or sleeping 9 hours a night that’s
going to get you there. It’s how everything you’re doing ties in
together.
The interesting thing is that not only do these different areas
work better together, but they amplify each other. If you’re
well-rested and full of clean calories, you’re going to have an
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awesome workout. If you’re dragging by on 3 hours of sleep
and you’ve managed to get down a protein shake and a pop-
tart today… not so awesome. Each area interacts with all of the
others.
The truth is… they really cannot work separately. At least not
for long.
When I started out, I figured I would lift some weights a few
times a week and get jacked. I was sleeping about 5 hours a
night thanks to late night computer gaming, I was eating Rice
Krispy squares for breakfast, and I had no idea what protein
was.
My saving grace was that I am an extremely curious guy, and I
loved to read. So I read, and read, and read, and started
making changes to my nutrition which was my biggest block to
the physique I wanted.
Now, any person just starting in the gym who pushes
themselves outside of their comfort zone should see at least a
10-15 pound weight gain if they keep at it. After that, they’ll
stall out unless they change something.
Stay completely focused on your end result and get all of
these areas working together. When you’re missing out on
any of them, your results will take much, much longer.
© Scott Marcaccio http://scottmarcaccio.com
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Consistency Is Your Best Friend
The biggest reason most people fail at putting muscle on is…
They’re damn inconsistent. They’ll eat like a champion one day,
and like an anorexic model the next three. They’ll workout for
a week and then take two weeks off.
Why? They’re just not seeing the results they want!
Here’s the key - You usually won’t see the results until the
majority of the work is already done. The effects of your
choices aren’t noticeable right away. When you make the right
choice, you won’t see the results today. When you make the
wrong choice, you won’t see the results today.
When you hit the gym, have a killer workout where you push
yourself harder than you’ve ever pushed before, go home and
drink your post-workout protein shake and carbohydrates
exactly as you’re supposed to… do you wake up the next
morning with pounds of new muscle?
If that was the way it worked, even your grandma would be
hella swole. That was the right choice though, wasn’t it? It
was… and if you keep making those right choices, and keep
crushing it every day, that’s when you will start to get the
results you want. There are things happening behind the
curtain that we aren’t aware of.
© Scott Marcaccio http://scottmarcaccio.com
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What You Should Be Focusing On…
The most frustrated people I know are the ones who gauge all
of their progress on their results. If you stay focused on the
actions, and take those actions day in and day out, that’s when
they start to add up to results. The results come LAST –
remember this! Consistency in taking action needs to be your
best friend.
One powerful technique you need to start using immediately is
to create an accountability sheet. Write down 3-5 of the most
productive actions you could take today. For example, one of
your goals may be to drink three liters of water. Another one
might be to have three protein shakes through the day.
Every night you should review this sheet and check off the
actions you took. If you didn’t take the action, why didn’t you?
See if you can identify a specific event or thought that makes
you not take that action. That’s called identifying a trigger. A
trigger basically is an event, thought, or action that gives you
permission to start a habitual response.
Continue to track your progress through the week. It’s the
simple little daily actions that add up to huge results – focus on
the most productive of those actions and make them non-
negotiable.
© Scott Marcaccio http://scottmarcaccio.com
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Strong Like Bull
For the average trainee, heavy training with lower volume is
much more productive over the long-term than volume
routines where you do countless sets and focus on feeling that
blood flow in the muscle.
Just to define the term volume for this next piece: if you just
started lifting weights, it’s referring to the amount of sets and
reps you do in a typical workout. A few sets in a rep range of 1-
5 reps would be considered very low volume, whereas 30 sets
in a rep range of 12-15 reps would be considered very high
volume. Keep in mind that most common resources explaining
how to gain muscle typically use volume on the high end, which
I totally disagree with being effective for most people… as far as
getting quick, lasting results is concerned.
If you train volume for your first six months or year of training,
it may look like you’re putting on quite a bit of muscle.
What is ACTUALLY happening is this in initial volume training:
Your muscles are getting bigger due to sarcoplasmic
hypertrophy - basically they’re getting better at storing water
and carbohydrates. It’s something that looks like muscle, but
you’ll only have a small, small percentage of that size come
from actual muscle growth.
© Scott Marcaccio http://scottmarcaccio.com
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Second, you’ll start getting stronger, and you think it’s because
of this “muscle” you put on. What’s actually happened is that
your untrained central nervous system is now becoming better
at recruiting muscle fibres (can recruit a higher percentage of
your total fibres during a lift) and this causes strength gains.
It’s a perception thing that traps a lot of people – why do most
guys using volume plateau after 15-20 lbs of weight gain? This
is why. Your body can only get so efficient at storing water and
carbohydrates - you need to build some muscle at some point
to continue to gain.
Speaking of building muscle, here’s the principle you need to
adapt to. If the weight on the bar isn’t consistently going up
by 1-5 pounds per week on your lifts, it’s going to be very
difficult for you to make long-term sustainable gains. If you’re
not keeping track of your numbers and trying to beat them
every single workout (yes, bring a physical logbook to the gym
with you) than there’s a very high chance that you’re going to
be about the same size next year as you are right now.
You’re not always going to be making constant progression of 5
lbs. every week (if that was true we would all be benching over
400 pounds in just over a year!), but you will get far, far
stronger following this approach than the typical one.
The typical approach is this: “Oh great, I got 135 pounds for 8
shaky reps with help from my spotter on the last 3. Time to
© Scott Marcaccio http://scottmarcaccio.com
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move on up, let’s put a 25 pound plate on each side.” This
sound ridiculous and stupid, but if you go to any gym and watch
people, this is what the majority of people do. Use the small
weights and focus on constant progression!
A few weeks ago, somebody asked me in a forum why I was
so sure that strength was better than volume, especially for
new trainees. Let’s look at this logically – here was my
response (well, it was a bit of a rant…☺)
“If everyone's routine is working SO AMAZING for them (and
most people are doing high volume), why do 95% of people
never make anything more than noob gains and look the same
year after year in the gym?
Because if the WEIGHT ON THE BAR ISN’T GOING UP, you ARE
NOT forcing your body to grow. If 18 sets are so good, why not
do 30? Why not do 100?
Look at Steve Michalik, Mr. America back in the day – he has a
set of articles called “Intensity or Insanity” about how him and
his partners used to do 100 sets per body part in a workout,
work out until they threw up, and so on. Here’s the thing:
He was absolutely no bigger than anyone else on stage...
interesting!
What if all you did were pull-ups, dips, bench, squat, deadlifts,
© Scott Marcaccio http://scottmarcaccio.com
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and military press.
Week after week you pounded away at those numbers.
You were then 3-4 years down the road doing pull-ups with
bodyweight + three 45 pound plates for reps, doing Dips with
bodyweight + four 45 pound plates for reps, benching 315 x 10,
deadlifting 495 x 10, squatting 405 x 20, and your military press
was 225 x 8.
Do you honestly not think you would be extremely well-
muscled at this point? Strength is the most obvious factor
preceding fast muscle gains as long as nutrition is suitable!
Just some food for thought... what the pros do shouldn't be
what WE do. We don't have world class genetics, most of us
aren't using steroids and hormones, and most of the
professionals didn’t get to the size they’re at by lifting like a
kitten doing tricep kickbacks with a pink 20 lb. dumbbell.
When it comes to gaining muscle, think about muscular
overload – can you honestly tell me that pumping some blood
into your muscles with light kickbacks or pushdowns for high
reps is going to cause your body to want to add and carry
dense, thick muscle? After putting on more than 70 pounds of
muscle myself… the answer is no. Get strong. Gain muscle.
© Scott Marcaccio http://scottmarcaccio.com
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Breakfast Of Champions
The most important thing when it comes to nutrition is your
habits. Right now, you have a general, habitual diet that you
might follow. Perhaps you always eat out for lunch, or maybe
you always have cereal for breakfast.
The key to overhauling your nutrition is to keep it in line with
your habits. Most guys will try to throw everything they know
out the window when they start and immediately start eating 6
meals a day… and fail miserably.
A much better approach is to take the “tweak” mentality. Start
with a protein shake with your cereal. Do that for a week.
What if you made one small tweak like that every week for a
year? 52 chances to completely overhaul your diet... and you
will look like a completely different person.
Look at nutrition the same way you look at your gym routine!
You want to only tackle challenges that your discipline muscles
can handle. Once they get a little stronger, keep tweaking and
adding those small changes in.
Learn something about nutrition. You can spend years on
forums picking up bits and pieces, or you can go to a resource
that has all of the information for you to immediately start
© Scott Marcaccio http://scottmarcaccio.com
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learning from. My favorite resource for new clients to read is
the Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle e-book. Read my review at
http://scottmarcaccio.com/burn-the-fat-review/ – this book
will give you an incredibly useful knowledge that you can start
to apply immediately if you’re trying to lose fat, see your abs, or
if you’re just trying to limit fat gain while gaining muscle.
A big issue for many people is just getting in the calories every
day, especially if they start out skinny and weak like I did.
Here’s a quick list of some top foods that you can throw in your
diet that will lead to optimal performance and mass gain while
limiting fat gain. Keep an eye out for more resources on this
topic on my website, as I have some in depth articles coming.
Examples of Calorie Dense Foods • Farm Raised Meats (Beef, Chicken, Pork, Turkey, Elk,
Bison)
• Any kind of sweet potatoes, or sweet potato noodles
(vermicelli, find in asian grocery stores)
• Nut Butters – Natural Peanut Butter, Almond Butter, etc.
• Whole Eggs, especially farm raised free range eggs.
• Olive Oil, Macadamia Nut Oil – use a LOT on everything.
• Whole Milk (use lactose pills if needed)
• Coconut Milk (use for curries, stews, and liquid base in
shakes)
© Scott Marcaccio http://scottmarcaccio.com
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“Be Master of Mind rather than
Mastered by Mind” – Zen proverb
I typically spend about five hours training my mind for every
hour I spend at the gym. I used to spend zero hours training my
mind and countless hours at the gym. My results are far better.
When you take the time to calm and empty your mind, things
become much, much easier. It gets easier to ramp up the
intensity in the gym, it gets easier to fall asleep at night, and it
gets easier to hit your meal goals day in and day out.
Obsessive-compulsive thinking is incredibly common-place in
bodybuilding and people involved in the fitness industry.
There’s so much conflicting advice in this industry that it’s easy
to start questioning yourself and what you’re doing. We’ll
cover more on how to beat this in a few paragraphs using the
Plan, Do, Review technique.
If you miss a workout once in awhile, stay focused on the
present. Regret is totally and utterly useless. In the grand
scheme of things, whether you worked out three or four times
this week doesn’t matter.
One big factor that many people overlook when it comes to
training is stress levels. If you’re running around all day under
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a lot of stress, your body will be releasing catabolic hormones
that will not only limit your ability to gain muscle, but you will
store food as fat far easier. Even the thought of all that hard-
earned muscle getting replaced by fat might be stressing you
out! Fun stuff…so by adopting a more peaceful, focused
mindset, you’ll be eliminating yet another big sticking point that
could potentially stop you from getting to your goal physique.
Take the time to write your thoughts down in a journal when
you’re feeling stressed or overwhelmed. Take the time before
bed to just sit and be. You are where you are, don’t get lost in
the past or the future.
© Scott Marcaccio http://scottmarcaccio.com
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“Size matters not, ... Look at me. Judge
me by size, do you?” - Yoda
This is something that I feel is so, so important. This section is
straight from my heart. If you’re not into that, move on to the
next section. If you don’t take anything else from this book,
take this point. Your body is basically a walking pile of rotting
flesh. If you tie up your whole identity with your body, you’re
setting yourself up for devastation, stress and depression
when your body starts to age or you get injured. If you base
your happiness on if you “look big” today, you’re going to be in
for a hell of a shock when you get to your first physique goal.
This is a sport about never being satisfied. You can always get
stronger. You can always get bigger. You can always get
leaner. Accept this fact and take pride in the progression, but
please, get some other hobbies and satisfaction from other
areas of your life.
Most people who aren’t into this sport really don’t care if
you’re 7% body fat rather than 10% body fat. Most people
won’t care that your arms broke the 17” barrier. That’s fine -
you’re probably not into the sport of competitive knitting.
Same concept. You probably don’t care if Granny Fasthands
just beat the world record on making a quilt. Inspire people,
don’t tear them down or brag.
© Scott Marcaccio http://scottmarcaccio.com
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Understand that every time you start talking about a new
personal best in the gym in conversation with a non-lifter, they
will often cringe inside. Get out of the gym once in awhile and
try new things. Meet new people and try new foods. Expand
your mind and expose yourself to new experiences. You’ll be
far happier down the road and probably more successful and
passionate in the gym.
This summer I was planning to do a low intensity cardio session
in the gym and some stretching. It was such a nice day out
though that I thought I’d mix it up. I strapped on my Vibram
Five Fingers (shoes that feel like you’re barefoot), and went
sprinting through a local forest trail with my East European
Shepard. I completely lost track of time. It was hands down
one of THE most defining, exhilarating moments of my life – an
amazing peak experience. Embrace new things.
© Scott Marcaccio http://scottmarcaccio.com
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Plan, Do, Review
There’s a very simple philosophy you need to adopt if you want
to get to your goal physique in the shortest amount of time
possible. Plan, Do, Review.
In the planning stage, you will physically write-down the plan. I
like to plan in 12-week increments – enough to see what’s
working and what doesn’t work. This step is to just set some
measurable marker of progress and a clear target in the
future. Here are some great questions to ask:
• What tweaks am I going to make to my diet over these 12
weeks?
o What do I do if I’m not gaining/losing weight?
• What routine am I going to do in the gym?
• How am I going to keep track of my progress?
• Where in my day do I have time to clear my mind?
In the doing stage, you start crushing it. Get in the gym, crank it
out. Eat like a champion. It’s as simple as getting started on
the plan you outlined in the prior stage, and not stopping.
Here are some things I would suggest in the doing stage:
• Take a full set of pictures every two weeks for the review
stage.
• Keep a logbook in the gym – focus on beating your lifts
every time that workout comes up again.
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• Track your diet for a few days on www.fitday.com to get a
general idea of what is actually going into your body so
you can experiment with this later if needed.
In the review stage, this is where you see what works and what
didn’t work. This simple system is all about the constant
process of adapting and seeing what works for your body.
Here are the questions you want to ask yourself:
• Did I make progression based on the scale and my
numbers in the gym?
• What are the pictures telling me? Do I look bigger, leaner,
etc.?
• What did I find extremely difficult to do?
• What stressed me out about this?
• What can I change in the next plan based on these
answers?
The Plan, Do, Review system will help you kick ass. Once you
get to the review stage, simply adjust accordingly based on the
feedback you got, and repeat. Turns out this whole gaining
muscle mass thing is pretty easy if you come at it strategically.
© Scott Marcaccio http://scottmarcaccio.com
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No Excuses! Start Now. Don’t Stop.
It’s time to start your journey. You’ve started the mental
transformation needed to start or re-start your journey in
reading this book, and through the e-mail course you’ll be
receiving through Multiply Your Muscle, you’ll have all of the
pieces you’ll ever need to build the physique of your dreams.
We’re all different and there are no ultimate answers in the
fitness arena, and yet when you take these core principles and
apply them to your life and journey, in addition to what else is
coming through the Multiply Your Muscle e-mail course, I
have no doubts that you will accomplish far more than you
ever thought possible. Keep an eye out on your inbox for the
next lesson!
If you found this book helpful, I’d love for you to share it with
anyone you know who needs to read it and spread the word!
“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. To keep
our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in
the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.”
-Helen Keller