Tales from the Ripped: Mike Whiting

Mike Whiting is the kind of guy with the body YOU want to have. Not only is he big and lean, however, he is as strong as he looks!

Let’s see what he has to say about training…

As Mike does not live in town anymore, I emailed him a list of questions that he thoughtfully responded to. Read on to learn what Mike divulged throughout our Q&A.

1) First, if you could give us some background on yourself…

I pretty much have the typical story.  I was always the skinny kid in school.  At my current height (5’ 10”) I weighed 130lbs.  I joined a gym that was across the road from my high school and started working out there after class.  None of my friends joined with me, and I had no idea what I was doing.  Everything I learned was from trial and error.  I never really asked people for advice nor did I have anyone take me under their wing. Some of my friends eventually ended up joining the gym so I had a couple training partners that I would go to the gym everyday with at 6am before classes.  And hence, my dedication to the world of lifting was born.  Long story short, I got away from the trial and error thing because I realized I wasn’t making anymore gains.  I started doing more and more research and learning how to do things properly.  Today I weigh in between 175-185lbs depending on my conditioning; basically I’ve gained a clean 50lbs.  And that includes a HUGE setback from some shoulder problems that I’ll talk about a little bit later.

2) Can you outline your training approach?

My training approach varies, but usually not too much.  However, I do think my approach is a little bit unique.  This is because I typically lift for strength with low rep ranges (1-8 reps), although I am still very focused on my body composition.  Most people who are more concerned about body composition would usually take a Hypertrophy based approach to training, but I definitely do a lot of compound strength movements.  I just use diet to reach my body composition goals.  Actually, even when I want to bring my body fat down to very low levels temporarily, I do very little cardio.

I do occasionally add in some Hypertrophy based training, which I am actually currently staggering with some Strength training as follows:

Week 1:

MONDAY: OFF

TUESDAY: Chest, Abs Strength
WEDNESDAY: Back, Calves Hypertrophy

THURSDAY: Shoulders, Traps Strength

FRIDAY: Arms Hypertrophy
SATURDAY: Legs, Calves Strength

SUNDAY: OFF

Week 2:

MONDAY: OFF

TUESDAY: Chest, Abs Hypertrophy
WEDNESDAY: Back, Calves Strength

THURSDAY: Shoulders, Traps Hypertrophy

FRIDAY: Arms Strength
SATURDAY: Legs, Calves Hypertrophy

SUNDAY: OFF

The point of this is to not do all my strength days in one week and all my hypertrophy training in the other week.  I’ll give you examples of what I would do for my Strength Day vs. Hypertrophy Day. You’ll see that for my strength day I keep the total reps per exercise below 20 and for hypertrophy my total reps per exercise are between 25-50.

Back – Strength

Deadlift (Mixed Grip “Powerlifting” Style) – WUx2, 1×6, 1×4, 1×2, 1×2, 1×2
Bent Over Barbell Rows (Cheats) – WU, 1×6, 1×5, 1×4, 1×3

Weighted Wide Grip Pullups – 1×6, 1×4, 1×2

Close Grip Pulldowns – 1×8, 1×6, 1×4

Back – Hypertrophy

Deadlift (Stiff Legged w/ Straps) – WUx2, 1×10, 1×8, 1×6
Weighted Wide Grip Chinups – 1×10, 1×8, 1×6
Bentover Dumbell Rows – 4×10-12

Reverse Wide Grip Lat Pulldowns – 2×15

6)  How about some theories on how to get/stay lean?

Basically, I never really bulk or cut; at least not within the realm of the typical way most people would define a bulk or cut.  However, I obviously go through periods where I eat calories in excess of my daily expenditure.  But when I do this it is very calculated so that I am barely eating in excess of my daily energy expenditure.  I guess you could call this my ‘bulk period. ’ As you know, I’m the type of guy who likes to stay lean 365 days of the year.

Usually my body fat never goes above that 10% mark.  If I feel my body fat is creeping beyond that point, I’ll progressively cut my carbohydrates over a 2-3 week period, replacing those calories with healthy fats.  This helps me keep my body fat in check.  A lot of people ask me why I don’t just figure out my maintenance calories and stick to that.  I have tried that and for me it doesn’t work.  First, it’s pretty much impossible to get your exact maintenance calories right.  There are too many day-to-day variables that can increase or decrease your energy expenditure.  Second, if you are not eating in excess of your expenditure at least some of the time, it’s going to be almost impossible to make progress in the gym.

As far as my advice for getting/staying lean, I would say first and foremost you MUST plan out every meal for the week ahead of time.  This is where most people’s pitfall is.  Many people try to eat well, but when pressed for time, they stray from their goals.  They really just need to plan a little more.  It’s not just by luck that I get 5-6 healthy meals in per day.  It only takes me about a total of an hour and a half each weekend to go grocery shopping and cook up the majority of my meals for the whole week.

Here is a sample of what I eat on a daily basis – this varies slightly, mostly with the type of meat, veggies, and fruits.  The eggs, oils and shakes stay pretty much the same.  This is basically a 3200 calorie plan with a 3:2:1 protein:carb:fat ratio.

Meal 1: 7am:
4 Whole Eggs
1 Scoop Whey
Small Serving Fruit
2 TBSP Natural Peanut Butter
Snack: 9:30am
1 Scoop Isobolic
1 TBSP Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Meal 2: 11:30am
10oz Chicken Breast or 7oz Steak or Fish
Vegetables
Small Serving Fruit
Balsamic Vinegar and Oil
Snack: 1:30pm
2 Handfuls Almonds (40 Almonds)
Meal 3: 4pm
1/2 Scoop Whey
1/3 Cup Rolled Oats
During Workout: 5pm
3 Scoops Whey Isolate and 60g Dextrose
Meal 4: 8pm
10oz Chicken Breast
Vegetables
1/3 Cup Rolled Oats
Before Bed:
1 Scoop Casein/Whey
2 TBSP Natural Peanut Butter

7) Tell us a bit about the dehydration techniques you used last year to get crazy dry/lean.

[Laughs]  It’s funny because when I tell most people I experimented with a dryout diet, they think that I just didn’t drink water for a whole week.  It’s rather the opposite.  The basic idea behind it is for 4-5 days I drank 10 litres of water per day while on a very low carb diet (less than 60g per day).  The extreme amount of water and the lower carb intake puts your body into a ‘flushing’ mode.  On the 5^th day, I began a gradual carb up (fruits at meal 1, starch at meal 2&3).  Then at about 4pm I completely stopped drinking water and didn’t have any liquids until noon the next day.  Thus, your body is still in ‘flushing’ mode while you suddenly cut water intake.  You can imagine the point of that is so all the water flushes out of your body.  You also have a crazy carb up meal made up of simple sugars after you cut water on the 5^th day (pancakes, syrup, pastries, etc!).  This pulls carbs (water) into your muscle causing them to look ‘full’ while the water between your skin and muscle is virtually gone.  The next morning you wake up and you can judge what you have as your next meal by how you look – full or flat.

This was completely experimental on my part.  And for those that think this sounds like a good idea, there isn’t really a reason to do it unless you are competing.  My advice if you DO try this is to drink room-temperature water.  I made the mistake of drinking cold water from my office water cooler and my body temperature accidentally dropped.  Check out T-Nation’s “Shredded in 6 Days” article.  This is basically the template I followed, with some minor adjustments (e.g. I didn’t take diuretics).

3) Can you give us some background on your shoulder injury?

Back in the summer of 2006 I was starting to make some good progress strength wise in the gym.  I was also very active – a lot of running and wakeboarding.   I started feeling minor pain in my shoulder which eventually over a month or so became much worse.  I’ll try to summarize what exactly happened.  Somehow during this time, I ended up with a stress fracture in my collarbone.  Whether this was due to heavy lifting or due to wakeboarding, I still don’t know.  I never suffered an acute/sudden injury.  The stress fracture led to my Distal Clavicle Osteolysis (basically this means I lost bloodflow to the end of my collar bone at the A/C joint; it softened, ‘died,’ and re-calcified leaving the end of the collar bone ‘rigid’).

The “see through/black” area at the end of my collar bone should be more white in comparison to the other white bone areas – this is the Osteolysis showing on the X-ray.

The Osteolysis gradually led to a separation of my A/C joint (the distance of the A/C joint in my bad shoulder was 5x the distance of my ‘normal’ shoulder), and it also led to a partial thickness tear in my rotator cuff.  Basically, I wasn’t smart about things.  I lifted heavy and wakeboarded through the pain.  I shouldn’t have ignored it.

After several tests, I ended up in a surgeon’s office and he told my options were to a) never lift weights again, or b) have surgery with an 85% chance of a partial recovery but that I’d never be able to lift heavy again.

To put all of this in perspective, the pain was terrible and getting an ultrasound/MRI and getting appointments takes a lot of time.  Totally lost as to what my problems were at the time, I ended up taking 4 months off the gym and lost 25lbs.  This, along with what the surgeon had told me, led to some big time frustration and I decided to figure out a solution on my own.

4) What steps towards recovery did you take?

First step was reading.  I read everything I could.  My goal was to educate myself about the shoulder and then learn exactly what my injuries were and then find a solution.  I read a lot of textbooks, articles (I read a lot of Eric Cressey’s stuff), and online forums.   The reason I found online forums helpful is because I could compare the issues/pains I was having with other people and understand how they overcame it.  Not every injury is exactly the same and never has the same solution.  Injuries are very individual.  Basically over time I began to understand what I needed to do to strengthen surrounding muscles and what movements I had to avoid to prevent any interference with my recovery.

5) Any advice for those who may be experiencing a similar injury?

Listen to your body.  There is a reason for pain.  Without pain we’d be dead because we would have nothing to regulate our actions.  If doing flat barbell bench press hurts, then don’t do it.  Taking a few weeks off of barbell bench pressing isn’t the end of the world, yet many think it is. There are alternative exercises you can choose from.  Pick a couple and do them instead.  In fact, I just took a 3 year break from flat benching.  And guess what? -  My max bench press went up, and I hadn’t touched that exercise literally for 3 years.

ON-Fit: Friends, there are a lot of valuable lessons here:

-Lift Heavy (especially if you want to look good!)

-Plan your meals

-Look after structural health

Thanks for a great interview Mike, great info!!