Many trainees approach weight loss with the idea that you have to spend countless hours performing aerobics that compromise your hard-earned muscle. Now the world’s winningest strength coach offers a sensible way to lose fat without sacrificing muscular size and strength. It’s the German Body Comp Program, and it was designed by Charles Poliquin.

A native of Ottawa, Ontario, in Canada, Poliquin has developed conditioning programs for more than 400 Olympians and countless professional hockey, baseball, football and basketball players. He’s also coached numerous successful bodybuilders. Poliquin’s reputation has inspired the best and most dedicated athletes to seek private instruction from him in his new state-of-the-art Tempe, Arizona, gym.

In this exclusive interview Poliquin talks about his new book, The German Body Comp Program. It’s one of Coach Poliquin’s most popular workout protocols, as it enables trainees to lose fat without aerobics’or following carrot-stick diets’and at the same time gain muscle.

KG: Do you actually have your athletes use German Body Comp training?

CP: Absolutely. The German Body Comp Program is the fastest way to change an athlete’s body composition. I’ve had great results using it with speed skaters, hockey players and other athletes who want to lower their bodyfat and increase their endurance. And it’s ideal for bodybuilders, who want to keep every ounce of hard-earned muscle while obtaining the absolute lowest bodyfat percentage.

KG: What do you say to those who believe you can’t gain muscle and lose fat at the same time?

CP: I just tell them to look at my results. Many of my athletes report to me that they’ve made their very best gains using the German Body Comp Program. I’ve seen men gain 12 to 18 pounds of muscle within 12 weeks. And it’s not uncommon for a woman with 16 percent bodyfat to go down to 9 percent within 12 weeks.

KG: Why should someone choose your book over any of the popular weight-loss books written by fitness trainers who train movie stars? Celebrities often have amazing bodies. Is there something special about what they do that’s also in your program?

CP: First, you need to understand that being popular doesn’t always mean being good. One of the most popular exercise books for weight loss on the market first made the best-seller list because the author, who is a millionaire, bought 50,000 copies to help move it to the top of the list. When the public saw that it was a best-seller, they assumed it was good, and that hype helped generate sales to keep it on the best-seller list. Second, it’s no secret that the most special thing many celebrities, such as movie stars, do is cosmetic surgery. And let’s face it, many of the celebrity clients those trainers are working with simply have superior genes.

KG: So what you’re saying is that no matter how good a program is, Oprah Winfrey is never going to look like Britney Spears?

CP: I’m confident the German Body Comp Program would help Oprah look the best she’s ever looked, but it’s obvious that Britney Spears has the right genes to help her look like she does.

KG: Genetics and liposuction aside, are there any similarities between the type of training the best celebrity trainers do and the German Body Comp Program?

CP: Not to my knowledge. The workout protocol in the German Body Comp Program was designed a long time ago by Hala Rambie, a Romanian exercise scientist who defected to West Germany. Rambie was the first exercise scientist to propose the concept that the lactic acid pathway was better for fat loss than the commonly accepted aerobic pathway. He found that when you increase your blood lactic level, your blood pH decreases, and that sends a message to your brain to accelerate its production of growth hormone. Growth hormone helps the body burn fat. Simple as that.

KG: Studies have suggested that a small amount of aerobic training, such as 20 minutes three times a week, doesn’t compromise strength gains. Would adding such a relatively small amount of aerobics to the workouts increase the amount of fat loss in your program without sacrificing muscle mass?

CP: That approach might be all right for some, but the way I look at it is, most people work for a living and can fit in only so much training. One of the advantages of the German Body Comp Program is that you can achieve maximum weight loss with a minimal investment of time. Beyond that, aerobic conditioning does little to improve sports performance for most of the athletes I train. ALL KG: Are you saying that aerobic training is overrated for most athletes?

CP: That’s right. For example, the average VO2 max in the NBA is only about 47, compared to about 42 for the average couch potato and about 80 for a world-class rower. If you look at the research, there are studies showing that the higher your aerobic power, the lower your vertical jump. To make a basketball player, or for that matter any athlete who needs speed and power, perform a lot of aerobic work would be counterproductive.

KG: Are aerobics at least used as a warmup for your program?

CP: They can be, but the best warmup is to take the first two stations in the program and do about two sets of five, using increasingly heavy weight. If your first exercise is the deadlift and you expect to use 150 for your primary training weight, you could start with 95×5 followed by 135×5.

KG: Is it better for athletes to use this program in the postseason or in the preseason, when their improvements in muscular endurance are greatest?

CP: No question about it’it’s always better for athletes to make the biggest changes in weight loss or weight gain as far from the competitive season as possible so they have more time to become accustomed to the change. Take figure skating, a sport that involves an exceptionally high degree of body awareness. Say a female skater drops eight to 10 pounds of fat just before a competition; she may not perform well because she’s not used to jumping at that lower bodyweight. Likewise, a football player doesn’t want to perform a hypertrophy phase in the preseason because he won’t have enough time to get accustomed to his increased size by the time the season starts.

KG: Is there any difference in the results seen by men and women who use the German Body Comp Program?

CP: It works equally for both; however, many women prefer this type of training because they don’t like the feeling associated with the blood engorgement that comes from doing a lot of sets that concentrate on a single bodypart.

KG: Because German Body Comp training focuses on multijoint exercises over isolation movements, is it better for athletes suffering from overuse injuries such as tendinitis?

CP: Possibly. But tendinitis is most often associated with uneven tension in the muscular structures, which sometime can be resolved with soft-tissue treatments.

KG: Some exercise authorities would say that if people are in extremely bad shape, it would be better to have them build a minimal level of strength by performing a low-intensity aerobic program such as walking before beginning a weight-training program. Is that good advice?

CP: Exercise physiologists say that strength is the mother of all physical qualities, so even if you want to go for a walk, you still need some strength to get out of your chair. For the chronically obese, weight training is a better way to train because it can bring about faster changes in body composition. I would have them start the program by taking up to three minutes between sets, then reducing the rest interval by 15 seconds at each workout. Most people will be able to handle my protocol in about 10 workouts.

KG: Is there room in your program for people who need to perform rehabilitation exercises, such as rotator cuff work for the shoulder? And how should they modify their workout?

CP: They should either incorporate the exercises into the training process or simply shorten the program and perform the rehabilitation exercises at the end. KG: What type of evaluation process, if any, do you use at your training center for overweight clients?

CP: Normally my first step is to put them through a full blood profile so we can prescribe precise food selections and supplement choices. Interestingly, you can almost predict their blood work by doing a 12-site bodyfat test to determine where they have the highest fat stores.

KG: Is there a particular diet that the German Body Comp Program works best with, such as high protein/low fat?

CP: Only about 25 percent of the population does well with lowfat/high-protein meals. For most people a high-protein/low-carb diet with an emphasis on the good fats would be more appropriate. As a general rule, the best way to diet to lose bodyfat on this system can be summed up in one sentence: ‘If it doesn’t swim, run or fly, or it’s not green, don’t eat it. In other words, you should focus on eating vegetables and animal-based proteins’sort of a Paleolithic, or caveman, diet.

KG: Many weight-loss programs recommend eating numerous small meals throughout the day rather than two to three large ones. Is it better to eat more frequently?

CP: Generally speaking, I would say yes, but everybody is different. Some people don’t react as well to eating frequently, and there are some who need food about every 1 1/2 hours. I would say the accepted range is between 1 1/2 and 3 1/2 hours, and beyond 3 1/2 you might shortchange yourself.

KG: It’s been suggested that to enhance fat loss, people should train in the morning on an empty stomach, as the body’s glycogen stores are low and fat is immediately accessed. Is that safe?

CP: If you lift weights in the morning, I’d say eat a light meal beforehand because your blood sugar is so low in the morning and the workout is going to lower it even more. That effect causes most people to feel nauseated and dizzy. If you’re talking about performing a short, low-intensity aerobic session, then it may not be a problem, except that the aerobics may compromise muscle tissue.

KG: Many people who use programs with short rest intervals get nauseated during the workout. To prevent that, what should people eat before performing the German Body Comp Program?

CP: Obviously, sausages are worse than whey-protein powders, but it’s not so much what you eat as when you eat. People often get nauseated because they train too soon after eating. But I know athletes who can eat right before they work out and have no problems. You’ll find that weight trainees have a transition time that’s four times slower, so their ability to process food fast will improve. Some guys who are well trained can eat 30 minutes before performing GBC and don’t feel nauseated at all.

KG: Most popular weight-loss programs use meal-replacement drinks, whereas your book advocates actual food.

CP: The problem here is that there are very few good meal replacements on the market that are truly low carb’one dead giveaway that it’s a bad product is if you can purchase it at any discount store. Although meal replacements are convenient, it’s been shown that whole foods are more thermogenic. That said, however, it’s better to use a meal replacement than to skip a meal.

KG: There’s a school of thought that athletes need to take frequent breaks from strength training, such as a one-week break after four weeks of training and then several weeks off after several months of training. Do you recommend that people take such layoffs when following the German Body Comp Program?

CP: One of the primary reasons many trainees have to take frequent layoffs is that their workouts don’t have enough variety. As for weight loss, it’s been shown that if a program lacks enough variety, you will stop producing as much growth hormone even though you may continue to become stronger. It’s been said that for a man to live to be 100 years old, he must sweat every day. That’s good advice.

Editor’s note: Charles Poliquin’s German Body Comp Program is available from Home Gym Warehouse for $29.95 plus shipping and handling. Call (800) 447-0008 to order, or visit www.home-gym.com. IM