Every so often, the right training program meets the right diet and supplement regimen. When this happens, the individual who follows all three phases as prescribed achieves the desired goal: more muscle, more strength, and a greater capacity to make even more progress in these areas.
We believe we’ve found such a program right here—one that’s backed by science, specifically a recent University of Tampa study in which subjects achieved considerable gains in strength and size. The training portion consists of hard-hitting workouts centered around foundational exercises, with a high-protein diet to support the hard work.
The supplement regimen, which will fill all holes in the diet and ensure optimal recovery from the intense lifting sessions, comes directly from MuscleTech, one of the leading sports nutrition companies in the world and makers of the brand-new Clear Muscle supplement (so named because it’s a see-through capsule, the first of its kind), a free acid derivative of HMB called BetaTOR.
In just three months, the synergy of the training, food, and MuscleTech products is sure to produce the namesake of this program: Clear Results. Results you’ll see in the mirror in the form of a more muscular physique, and results you’ll feel in the gym when the numbers on your squat, bench, and everything else begin climbing higher and higher.
Clear Proof
The University of Tampa experiment was a double-blind, placebo- and diet-controlled intervention study in which Phase 1 (eight weeks) was a non-linear periodized resistance-training program; Phase 2 (two weeks) was an overreaching cycle; and Phase 3 (two weeks) was a taper. The results, which were subsequently published in the European Journal of Applied Physiology, were nothing less than groundbreaking.
Twenty-four well-trained males participated in the study and were separated into two different supplementation groups: those who took BetaTOR (called by the generic name “HMB free acid” in the published study) in the exact same dose found in the MuscleTech Clear Muscle formula, and those who took a placebo. At the end of the 12-week program, the BetaTOR group showed average strength increases of 36 pounds on the squat, 28 pounds on the bench, and 62 pounds on the deadlift (all numbers converted from kilograms and rounded up or down to the nearest pound), compared to 16, 8, and 31, respectively, for the placebo group. The BetaTOR group also showed significantly greater increases in power (as measured by the Wingate peak power and vertical leap tests) versus the placebo group. For all strength and power metrics, gains were made over the entire course of 12 weeks for the BetaTOR group, with increases shown at Weeks 4, 8, and 12; in the placebo group, strength actually decreased in the bench and squat in the last four weeks, and was virtually unchanged in the deadlift over that same period.
Perhaps most impressive were the enhancements made in body composition. At the end of 12 weeks, the BetaTOR-supplementing individuals gained on average 16 pounds of lean body mass (pure muscle) while losing nearly 12 pounds of body fat, versus just five pounds of muscle gained and four pounds of fat lost for the placebo group. In the supplemented group, that’s a net gain of only four pounds of body weight—which may look insignificant on the bathroom scale, but represents a drastic change in body composition that will be readily apparent in the mirror. The Clear Results training program laid out in this article (Phases 1 and 2) as well as in the upcoming July/August issue (Phase 3) is the exact protocol followed by the University of Tampa subjects. Follow it to the letter, along with the recommended diet and supplement regimens (specifically, Clear Muscle), and you can expect to see results similar to those found in the Tampa study.
During Phase 1, you’ll train three days a week (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday), doing bench press, squat, and deadlift in each of those workouts, followed by assistance work on Monday and Friday.
In Phase 2, training frequency is ramped up, as you’ll be lifting all five days during the week, hitting at least one of the Big Three lifts in each of those workouts and assistance work on all days except Friday. Training the same lifts five days in a row? Yes, which is why they call it “overreaching”—because it’s more frequency than you’d normally do in your training as you push yourself for greater gains. But with only three sets of each exercise per workout, total volume is kept at an optimal level.
Not to mention, Clear Muscle, in addition to proper food intake, will ensure adequate recovery, thus allowing the overreaching phase to be effective. The Tampa researchers concluded that BetaTOR supplementation “enhances hypertrophy, strength, and power following chronic resistance training, and prevents decrements in performance following the overreaching.”
