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"We know what we are, but know not what we may be" (William Shakespeare).

Burn 2 live, that's the slogan of possibly the most intense person I've ever met, Ben Loughrey!  What does this slogan mean I hear you cry?  All I can say is… if you knew Ben you'd understand.  Let's get to know Ben a bit better.  Everything he does, he does it with FIRE, with passion and truly lives life without limits!!  Ben is quite simply one of the most athletically gifted young men I've come across.  His potential lies in strength/power sports, in one years training and 3 competitions he's shattered 8 World and 2 European records and his current best competition lifts are as follows: Squat 215kg (rock bottom and RAW), Bench Press 145kg RAW, Deadlift 280kg (narrow miss at 300kg) RAW.  Some of his best gym lifts include, Military Press 95kg, Chins bodyweight 100kg plus 60kg added (full length rep), one arm dumbbell power snatch 50kg, closed the No2.5 Captains Of Crush hand gripper (which takes about 250lbs of pressure and is a world class feat).  At this point two things should be stressed to the reader, 1) he has passed any, and all drug tests that have been asked of him, and 2) he recently celebrated his 20th birthday! 

However, when I first met Ben, just over 1 year ago, his calm demeanour and underdeveloped yet quite fat physique disguised his Herculean potential rather well.  Ben, up until that point had led a life of extreme excess.  Of  particular concern for me was his affinity for the party lifestyle.  Now, at this stage Ben was just turned 19yrs old so a party lifestyle kinda' goes with the territory, but Ben's approach was a whole different ball game!

Since his mid to late teens Ben had been drinking heavily.  This started to take a progressive nature until he reached a point where he was literally drinking about 10 times as much as all his friends!  Whilst living by himself for a year in Spain (at 18yrs old) he drank astronomical amounts of alcohol every single day for the duration of his stay.  He spoke of waking up and downing a whole bottle of vodka for breakfast most days!!  Such was his level of devotion to one bar in particular that the bar man used to give him free drinks after a while just to see how much it took to drop him, he never succeeded!

I was first introduced to Ben by another athlete who I coach John Goudy, they were friends at school.  Once I found out how he'd been living it became obvious to me the kid needed guidance, and as I'd had previous success in this area using training and physique transformation as a form of therapy I wanted to give it a shot with Ben. 

Instead of viewing his extreme personality as an obstacle I chose to view it as a weapon misdirected.  I knew if I could bring in a positive focus for this attribute it would turn out to be the catalyst for great success!  I sold Ben on the idea of taking some "before" and "after" pictures and setting himself a time scale for achieving the biggest change possible within that given time period.  To be honest it didn't take much salesmanship, Ben jumped on it and quit drinking that same day and hasn't drank since!!!! 

The time scale was 12 weeks and the attack on his fat stores was full on.  Ben's starting body fat percentage was sitting at 25%, his bodyweight was 16st 4lbs and although he had a naturally big frame and quite big legs, the majority of his body was devoid of any major muscle mass.  His first workout involved benching 50kg and doing close grip lat pulldowns with "12" plates or 130lbs.  It was the start of a rollercoaster ride that shows no sign of stopping any time soon. 

From the beginning I realised this had to be a four pronged attack, diet, cardio, resistance training and supplementation.  Ben trained with weights up to 6 times per week, it was a progressive program involving tried and tested exercises such as Squat, Bench Press, Deadlift, Pulldowns (progressing to chins, progressing to weighted chins), dips, military press, alternating dumbbell curls, tri pushdowns, some plyometrics (Ben still had basketball aspirations at this point), hanging leg raises, Russian twists, swing snatches, incline dumbbell press, Arnold press, lateral raises, upright rows, T-bar rows and ball busting circuits!! 

His cardio involved alternating days of longer slower runs with interval hill sprints.

Here are the basic principles that Ben's training followed:

1) Emphasis big compound movements
2) Get the proper balance between volume, intensity and time frame in order to maximise muscular growth
3) Don't focus on training to muscular failure on every set, consider omitting this type of training altogether!  "there's a reason its called failure and it should really creep you out" (Ed Coan, powerlifting legend)
4) Focus on free weight resistance, limit resistance machine work. "Machines belong on the junk pile of history next to communism" (Pavel Tsatsouline)
5) Build towards weighted bodyweight exercises (I truly believe that these are among the most result producing exercises you can do)
6) Apply similar principles of progression to cardio that you use for weights.
7) Have patience, but never stop striving for constant progression. "be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid only of standing still" (Chinese proverb)
8) Realise that in order to take two steps forward you must take one step back, i.e if you get stuck at a certain weight, don't keep banging your head against this "wall" take some weight off the bar, its not a cardinal sin, then build some momentum by cycling back towards that weight, so much so that you break the wall down! "if you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got" (Wayne Bennett)
9)  Focus on taking one step at a time don't look to the finish line every step of the way, enjoy the process "don't count the days, make the days count" (Muhammad Ali)
10) Believe in yourself "whether you think you can or you think you can't, either way you're right" (Henry Ford) "I'm the best I just haven't played yet" (Muhammad Ali speaking about golf)

Training however wasn't the only factor involved in Ben's transformation.  Nutrition played a big role.  Ben's diet needed to change drastically!

Here are the basic principles behind Ben's diet:

1) Eat 5-6 small meals each day
2) Use, roughly, fist sized portions of both carbohydrate and protein in each meal.
3) Eat "healthy" fat in your diet
4) Chose unprocessed foods (i.e if it didn't exist 10,000 years ago in roughly it's current form, don't eat it)
5) Use low GI (glycemic index) foods.
6) Don't become obsessed and pedantic about precise ratios of macronutrients, counting grams etc (honestly, in the real world, who could be bothered)?
7) Understand the very real advantage of using quality supplements!
8) Use Creatine Monohydrate!!  No other supplement has as large a body of evidence behind it, creatine works!  Find out how LA Muscle made the best BETTER with Explosive Creatine!!
9) Drink plenty of water!!

This is a sample day from Ben's diet at his leanest:

Six meals daily.
 
Meal one:
Pint of water 2 pieces of fruit
Twenty minutes later 3 egg whites, one egg yolk and pita bread. Maybe some olive spread as well/bowl porridge
Pint of water
 
Meal two:
2 pieces of fruit
Protein shake
Pint of water
 
Meal Three:
Chicken Breast/tin of tuna/other lean meat and brown rice/wholewheat spaghetti
Pint water
 
Meal Four:
Protein Shake
Tuna/chicken salad
Pint water
 
Meal Five:
Chicken Breast/tin of tuna/other lean meat and brown rice/wholewheat spaghetti/sweet potato with veg- broccoli/lettuce etc
Pint water
 
Meal Six:
Before bed protein shake
 
General Rules:
NO Bread
NO white carbs
NO Sweets
NO salt on foods
NO Butter
NO Chocolate
NO Crisps
Very little red meat
NO processed meats
No limit on water
Only milk to drink was skimmed. ie no semi-skimmed, no full fat
Fistful portions
One cheat day weekly, no restrictions on type or amount of food.
 
This is an example of what I could have eaten over the course of 12 weeks.
 
Overall:
257 eggs, 48 tins of tuna, 11 tins of salmon, 14 steaks, 64 chicken breasts, 309 LA Whey 2.2KG protein shakes, 140 LA Whey Protein Bar
 
Supplements used:
LA Whey Protein Bar
LA Whey 2.2KG
Norateen Heavyweight II
Fat Stripper in my last 4 weeks
Explosive Creatine
Discorea Deltoidea
 
Since the initial 12 weeks I have also used in addition to the above:
LA Flapjacks
Fatstripper INTENSE

I must say, Ben did use a selection of different supplements during his 12 week transformation but LA Muscle's product's were his favourites for both taste and results!!  He ended up sticking with LA Muscle after trying other company brands because he feels that nothing matches LA Muscle in every department! 

"I really rate LA Fat Stripper, I could feel the acceleration in fat loss after adding this to my diet" Say's Ben, " I really loved the taste of LA Whey 2.2KG drinks and protein bars, they made it feel as though I wasn't dieting, it felt like I was eating treats everyday LOL!"

All in Ben lost 42lbs of fat and gained 25lbs of muscle in 12weeks, going from 25% body fat to 5% !!   The weeks and months since then has saw Ben go from strength to strength (literally) as he's put on another 2 stone (mostly muscle) and exploded onto the drug free powerlifting scene in the process (during this period he's been exclusively using LA Muscle Products). 

In the days since his first workout so much as has changed with Ben, both outwardly and inwardly.  Now tea total, Ben's personal life has under gone as big a  metamorphosis as his body has, if not bigger!  Bouncing back from a year "on the tiles" he's not only become a world record holding athlete but is also currently studying for a medical degree!!  "none of this would've been remotely possible had I continued down the road I was headed" says Ben.

Ben's plans for the future include winning the WDFPF World Powerlifting Championships leaving a plethora of world records broken in his wake.  We are also currently working on his transition to one of the major field throwing events (javelin or shot putt looking most likely) with eyes on London 2012.  Deep down Ben also envisions himself competing to become the World's Strongest Man one day, maybe 10 to 12 years down the line, and with myself and LA Muscle behind him who would deny the chances of such an extraordinary young man!! 

"If you always put a limit on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life.  There are no limits.  There are only plateaux, and you must not stay there.  You must go beyond them" (Bruce Lee).