Bodybuilders – are so jacked that they can barely fit in clothes and definitely don’t fit in airplane seats. Check out their diets, and you’ll see they range from super-high-carb to ultra-mega-high-carb. Amongst them are a few keto-ers.
Can eating that much fat really get you jacked? Lawrence Ballenger designed a whole program around this diet called the Keto Muscle Workout Program. Let’s check it out.
About the Author – Lawrence Ballenger
Lawrence found his “home” in the gym in a way we can most relate to. He was young, and someone handed him a weight that he couldn’t lift, and people laughed at him. This is extremely common in the fitness world, as the gym can become a safe space for some.
He started training pretty seriously and made his bodybuilding debut at the Bodybuilding.com Fit Body Competition back in 2012. He continued to compete in bodybuilding but has changed his goals slightly since then.
Currently, he’s on a quest to help as many people as possible. This means engaging with various lifters and athletes to find what they need from a coach or creator.
For instance, most people will know that carbs are the main source of fuel for bodybuilders, yet some people cannot eat that many carbohydrates due to health reasons. Lawrence took it on himself to design the best program for someone who wants to gain on Keto.
Keto Muscle Workout Program Overview
Keto is the term used to describe a diet where most of your calories come from fats, and you really only eat trace amounts of carbohydrates.
This is kind of a hot topic in the fitness world for a few different reasons.
Following a keto diet is something you often see with individuals looking to lose weight, but very rarely with people looking to gain weight or get jacked. Lawrence believes that having carbs isn’t necessary, and you can build just as much muscle with fats.
The Keto Muscle Program is apparently a very high-intensity and high-volume approach and isn’t for those who are looking for easy answers. There’s apparently a reason for this mad approach.
- Fitness level: Intermediate
- Duration: 4 Weeks
- Workouts per week: 6 workouts per week
- Average workout duration: 45 – 60 minutes
- Equipment needed: Full gym
- Goal: Build muscle
The workouts are going to deplete muscle glycogen rapidly, which is where the keto-dieter might have an advantage. That being said, Lawrence admits neither the diet nor the training is for everyone.
The weekly volume is also going to be insanely challenging. You’ll be training for 6 days on end, followed by one rest day before you repeat the process.
Lawrence Ballenger Keto Muscle Workout Program Details
Now that we’ve established that the Keto Muscle Workout is not for the faint of heart, let’s dig into the program a bit deeper.
Training on Keto
Training on this plan is going to be intense. Firstly, the weekly schedule is quite intimidating:
- Monday: Chest and Shoulders
- Tuesday: Legs
- Wednesday: Back and Hamstrings
- Thursday: Arms
- Friday: Shoulders
- Saturday: Back
- Sunday: Rest
The lack of rest days in between some of these days makes it a hard pill to swallow. When you look into the individual training days, you’ll also be met with insane volume per day.
The very first training day on Keto Muscle has 21+ sets split over two muscle groups alone. This is definitely not something a beginner or even “new” intermediate would be able to follow. You’ll also be doing something called a “brutality set.”
Brutality Sets
We see some interesting intensifiers in the bodybuilding world, and using the eccentric part of the lift (lowering the weight) has become very prevalent with bodybuilders.
Brutality sets take that to a whole new level:
- Perform a 10-second negative
- Perform 4 full reps
- Repeat
Sometimes, a set will call for 20 reps, meaning you’ll have to do 4 “mini-sets” of these. With minimal rest between the mini-sets, you’re going to feel like you’ve been hit by a solar system.
The Biggest Pro of the Keto Muscle Program
- It’s a proper bodybuilding program: There will be no higher frequency or any other type of “new age” training here. This is an old-school training program that harks back to the training of Arnold, and if you’re into that style of training and building maximum muscle mass, you’re gonna love this.
4 Keto Muscle Workout Cons
- No Nutrition Guide: For a program that’s built around a singular diet style, you’d expect some type of dietary guide. Alas, there are none to speak of – not even a guide for supplementation.
- The volume is sickening: While there is evidence that volume is a large driver of hypertrophy, this plan has way too much volume. Not even just per day, but the weekly volume is just way too high for a normal human being to recover from.
- Rest Days: Only one rest day per week? I’m sorry, but that is way too little. If you have someone who can deadlift more than 500lbs for reps, they’re going to need more than one rest day per week.
- Not based on science: While not everything we do needs to be scientific when you design a plan, some science is necessary. At one point, Lawrence recommends you eat “Himalayan pink salt.” Pink Salt has literally zero effects that normal salt doesn’t have, as the concentration of the “other minerals” is woefully low.
Lawrence Ballenger’s Keto Muscle Program – Final Thoughts
I am not a fan of the Keto Muscle program at all. This plan has no insight into the lives of normal human beings who don’t sit around all day to recover. The volume is way too high, and the lack of any nutrition guides makes this a complete miss.
Yes, it’s a “hardcore” program, and you should expect something harder than other programs. That being said, harder doesn’t always mean “you’re going to be dead by day 12.”
Hard pass on this program.
Rating: 1.0 out of 5