Build Muscle With Shawn Lebrun Muscle Building Blog

I’ve tried just about every supplement brand over the past few years because alot of the companies send me their products to sample, since they know that
I sell supplements to my personal training clients.

And in all honesty, I’ve gotten the best results, by far, by using AST Sports Science products than any other brand I’ve ever tried.

In fact, I now use AST Sports Science exclusively, and pay for them out of my own pocket, because I believe in them so much.

It starts at the top of the company, Paul Delia, whom I have incredible trust in.

AST helped me transform my physique more than any other source, so I use their products solely.

I use their NytroPro-40 meal replacements, VP2 whey protein, their micronized creatine, and their glutamine.

AST has given me my best results, as far as muscle gains
and fat loss, than any other supplement company.

I have used Eclipse and I think they are a good company.

Twinlab is good, Weider is okay, so is Sportpharma, Lee
Labrada, Syntrax, and Optimum.

If you want the best results, I’d try AST for a while
and see what you think.

Any of the companies I’ve listed above are pretty good,
any company that’s been around for a while is going to
be pretty reputable or else they would be driven out of
business by angry consumers!

I get asked more about supplements by my training clients and web site visitors than any other topic, so I spent some time building a page that lists my top recommended supplements for people looking to build muscle and lose fat.

http://www.shawnlebrunfitness.com/supplements.html

The days of liver tabs and raw eggs for protein are gone and luckily, with the advance in science has come the advance in supplements.

Now, there is one thing I can say for sure.

There are a lot of supplement choices on the market…

And MOST of them just don’t hold up to claims.

In fact, most DO NOT work and this is coming from someone who uses supplements and also sells supplements to his training clients.

So, I would start with making sure you consume enough protein in your diet. You want 1 and 1/2 to 2 grams of protein per pound of body weight. So, if you weigh 200 pounds, for example, you want to consume 300-400 grams of protein each day.

If you have trouble getting that from whole food sources like chicken, beef, fish, eggs, dairy, etc, than I would say the first supplement you should look into is a whey protein powder or meal replacement powder.

This will ensure enough protein in your diet.

Protein is the most important nutrient for body builders (other than water) since protein is responsible for muscle repair and growth.

You could also use meal replacements as well, which are formulated to take the place of whole food meals. They are different than whey protein powders in that
they also contain carbs and some fat, so they do replace meals.

Whey protein powders are more to supplement your meals.

So, my first supplement recommendation is whey protein or meal replacements for protein requirements.

Next, I would have to say creatine is the next best “proven” supplement for strength and muscle gains. Creatine is safe and its a natural amino acid found in
hamburg and other red meats.

What creatine does is attract more water into the muscle cells. When the muscle cells hold more water, they get bigger and so do muscles, as a result.

Creatine is one of the most researched sports supplements currently on the market and all studies have shown it to be safe and effective.

Those are my top 2 picks for supplements.

If you want to prevent overtraining from occurring, you could look into taking glutamine, which will assist in your recovery and recuperation.

Finally, if you’re interested in boosting your testosterone, I would have to say DHEA and andro are the 2 safest and most researched supplements that have shown to increase natural testosterone production.

There’s no doubt that as we age, we decrease our production of testosterone and testosterone is the primary hormone responsible for muscle growth.

I would only recommend DHEA or andro as safe and proven testosterone boosters.
DHEA is 2 conversion steps away from testosterone and andro is 1 step away.

DHEA has to be converted to androstendione, which is then converted to testosterone via an enzymatic reaction in the liver, whereas andro can be converted
right to testosterone when taken orally.

So, if you want to try something more likely to be converted to testosterone, I’d go with andro, but DHEA is cheaper and has also been shown to raise
testosterone levels.

Other than these, I would skip the rest. I just don’t think many others are worth the money.

You can also add a good multi vitamin and maybe some EFA’s (essential fatty acids) to this group, but those are things that you can get more from your whole foods.

So, to recap, I would say:

1. Protein (either through meal replacements or whey)
2. Creatine
3. Glutamine
4. testosterone booster
5. Multi vitamin and essential fatty acids

The page I refer my personal training clients to that have the list of supplements I use and recommend is:

http://www.shawnlebrunfitness.com/supplements.html
–Shawn Lebrun
 

If you’re just starting out in the gym again, because you’re new or you’ve taken some time off, I’m going to give you the best plan of attack if you haven’t been working out for a while.

As I always try and stress to clients, the most important part of training and working out to build muscle is to use your head.  Train smart and approach fitness with common
sense. Believe me, this will get you further ahead.

The reason I bring this up is I often hear of young guys trying to go all out the first time back in the gym.  They literally spend hours in the gym, doing as many exercises, reps, and sets as possible.

Big mistake.

More times that not, this will lead to either injury or such soreness that working out for the next few days will be impossible.

So that this does not happen, you’ll definitely want to approach this program slowly and build up a solid foundation.  After all, I’m sure you’re going to be looking at this as a long-term approach to building muscle, gaining strength, and getting in shape.

But by all means, you can definitely jump in and start lifting. But go light the first week or two. Use weights that are not real challenging.  Just use this time to find the weights that are right for you. 

This starts to build positive momentum.  And you’ll use this momentum to keep you progressing in the gym, each and every week.

Remember, the only way to build muscle is to lift progressively heavier weights over time. And by going slow at first, building up a good, solid foundation of strength, that will help ensure you keep progressing in the amount of weight you lift.

After the first couple of weeks, go up in weight and intensity.

In fact, now you want to find the weights you should be using for your heavy sets of 4 to 6 reps. Find a weight heavy enough were you can get at least
between 4 to 6 reps.

If you can get more than 6 reps with a weight, go up a bit.

If you cannot get 4, go down a little.

You want to fall between this rep range for all of your heavy sets, forever!

This lower rep range, which I talk about in-depth in my Simple Steps To Get Huge And Shredded training program….

http://www.shawnlebrunfitness.com/shred3.html

Will lead directly to more muscle growth in less time. Lower reps means you can lift more weight. The more weight you lift, the more muscle is stimulated. The more muscle that’s stimulated, the more muscle growth that will occur.

So, feel free to get back into the gym and play around with the weights the first few weeks, but definitely don’t go all out the first week. You have years and the rest of your life to lift and get stronger.

By slowing easing into it, you’re less likely to suffer extreme soreness, or worse, get injured.

Think of building muscle and bodybuilding as the rabbit and hare analogy.

By going slow and steady (hare) you sooner or later will get exactly what you want.

But go too quickly (rabbit) and you may set yourself up for trouble.

Go light and test out how things are going. Then you can go nuts

Best of luck and let me know how you make out.

–Shawn, http://www.shawnlebrunfitness.com

Although I feel the best approach to losing fat is a
long term one, there are some simple things you can do
to drop fat quickly.

You primarily do it by increasing the amount, duration,
or/and intensity of your cardio sessions while slowly
decreasing your calorie intake.

If you try and shed fat too fast, whatever you did to
lose it will not be permanent and you’ll more than
likely end up gaining the weight back.

So, the best way to lose any amount of fat quickly is
to focus on creating more of a calorie deficit in which
your body is forced to burn more fat for energy.

This is primarily achieved by:

1. Slowly cutting your calorie intake.

2. Slowly increasing your cardio input.

Notice how I put “slowly” in front of both.

If you start reducing calories too quick, you’ll force
your body into “starvation mode” in which it starts
holding onto stored body fat instead of burning it for
energy.

And if you start doing too much cardio too soon, you’ll
run the risk of overtraining or getting injured.

And what about weight training?

The weight training remains a constant in this
equation. It has little to do with losing fat fast.

In fact, you may want to lessen the weight training the
next few weeks and instead focus more on the cardio,
which will have more of an impact on the fat burning.

If you want to know how to set up cardio for maximum
fat burning, you can check out the article I wrote on
cardio here:

http://www.shawnlebrunfitness.com/sample.html

—————
Reduce calories
—————

Bottom line, to lose any amount of fat fast, you have
to burn more calories than you consume.

The best way to do this is by dropping your daily
calorie intake while increasing your daily cardio
output.

The first week, start getting rid of extras that you
may eat, like dressings, oils, butter, sugars, syrups,
and desserts.

Then the next week, reduce your calories again by
150-200 calories.

This slow, methodical drop in calories will not trigger
“starvation mode” in which your body will start holding
onto fat.

—————
Increase cardio
—————

Also, you’ll want to start upping the amount and/or
intensity of your cardio.

If you’re doing 2 or 3 sessions of cardio a week, add
another session.

If you’re already doing 4 or 5, then increase your
intensity more so than your time.

The combo of slowly dropping your daily calories
while also increasing the intensity and amount of your
cardio will get you in a fat-burning stage.

Then, continue on with this approach and soon you’ll be
staring in the mirror at a leaner, more muscular you.
If you’d like more help in losing fat in the fastest amount of time possible, check out my Simple Steps To Get Huge And Shredded program…

http://www.shawnlebrunfitness.com/getshredded.html