“From Skinny to Muscular”
(No longer being sold
that I can find)
Rating: 
Author: Jonathan Perez
Recommended For:
Beginner-Intermediate
Price: $ ?
Format: E-Book (Electronic Delivery)
At many times while reviewing this program I found myself saying “huh?” There are many recommendations contained in it that simply don’t line up with my own experience and research.
Don’t get me wrong, Jonathan Perez doesn’t take you off of the hardgainer reservation.
The basic recipe of eating big and training just enough to inspire maximum muscle growth are present. It’s just in the particulars that some of his ideas seemed a little questionable to me.
The workout section is first covered in the ebook. For the most part, I found this section adequate and even insightful in places. In other places I got a little confused by his reasoning and questioned the validity of some of the minor parts of his advice. But the actual workouts are challenging and prescribed in doses appropriate for the typical hardgainer.
It was when I got to the dieting section of “From Skinny to Muscular” that the “huhs” started. Perez doesn’t believe the quality of your diet will play a role in your muscle building quest?
For example, Perez doesn’t believe protein plays a role in muscle building. The main basis for his belief? It seems to come from tests he performed on himself. For 3 week periods he included various levels of protein in his diet.
The results? He gained no muscle at any of the protein levels. Perez presents this as convincing evidence that the protein you consume has no effect on muscle gain.
Huh?
Let’s say your car won’t run. You drain the tank of gasoline and fill it with grape juice. It still won’t run. So you fill it with milk and again get no response. Can you really conclude from this that your car does not need gasoline to run?
Perez’s dietary approach, basically eat a lot without concern for what you are eating, does have its merits.
It is clearly true that many novice mass gain trainers spend way too much time fretting over macronutrient ratios instead of just eating. The big picture to mass gain dieting is your total calorie intake and the Perez approach definitely puts the focus on that. But that is pretty much all it does for you.
Throughout the ebook I was unmoved by the logic used by Perez to support his views and advice. Perez relies a lot (maybe exclusively) on self-studies such as the one described above to reach his conclusions. The limitations of this should be obvious. He uses examples and analogies for support in places but I found many of these to be stretches.
The Bottom Line
2 of 5 Stars: Can you gain weight with “From Skinny to Muscular”? Absolutely. You can gain weight with any program that has you taking in more calories than you expend. My problem with this program is the quality of gains you’re likely to experience.
Perez tells his readers that they will first have to become quite fat in order to develop the muscular physique they want. He presents this as an inevitable truth.
I strongly disagree.
While accepting a measured amount of fat gains along with muscle gains is necessary for significant mass building, it isn’t necessary to the degrees that Perez suggests. There are dietary techniques that can help maximize muscle gains and minimize fat gains. These are techniques that Perez doesn’t believe in and therefore doesn’t teach.
There are smarter ways to go from skinny to muscular than following this program.
(No Longer Being Sold That I Can Find)
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