Hi all,
I would like to know if anyone is using Huel Powder with fitness purposes. I do not intend to replace all my meals, just a few of them or adding an additional one, afternoon snack for instance. My main goal would be increase of weight. I have though that including 500 Kcal (three scoops?) in my afternoon snack would be great.
I am still waiting for my order but I am looking forward to hearing your comments.
Best regards,
Works well, quick and easy calories with a good macro balance.
It sounds great. I thought the same, but I have never used it. Are you using it with that objective?
I intend to drink huel powder 1 hour before my workout.
Thanks for your reply!
I second this, Huel works great!
Makes macro tracking all the more easy.
I’ve made decent gains over the last 2 or so years of using Huel.
I’m about to start a mini cut and I’m looking forward to how easy that’ll be!
@Drsky - if you ask them nicely I’m sure @Stole_My_Sweetroll and @GTIPuG will show you their gym bodies…any excuse. 
It’s great to hear that.
I kindly ask them for their gym routines as well. I’m sure all of us can learn from the fitness masters here in Huel 
You might find you fell a bit heavy if you down a whole shaker of it an hour before hand. Maybe half the serving size and have maybe 200ml and then go nuts with it afterwards.
Been using it solidly for a year – I climb 3-4 times a week and also do weights/HIIT. Huel has been a godsend but I’m careful about timing it.
Good advice. Many thanks! I’ll take it into consideration. My current weight is 85kg and I would like to increase it until 90. Of course I train hard every day and my cal intake is a little bit heavy, that’s the reason why I decided to test huel, I do not have so much time for cooking all my food
Might have missed it (I’m quite bad at missing information in posts…) but what is your height?
I’m 5ft11 at 83KG right now.
My current gym routine is based around the mini cut I’ll be performing over the next month or so ready for summer, so it’s not in any way aimed at cranking up the weight.
Current routine is a PPL (Pull, Push, Legs) routine which roughly goes like this:
Pull:
Push:
Legs:
it’s a huge amount of volume but I struggle with intensity during cutting season so it’s my only way to maintain.
In terms of eating during this, I love to fast from breakfast through to getting home from work (17:00) and then chugging a pre workout for the empty-stomach buzz.
Once I’ve done the workout, I’ll come home and consume either two Huels or an evening meal and a Huel.
If I choose two Huels, that will be 114g with 500ml water and one scoop of chocolate whey at 19:30, then another of the same at 21:15.
When I’m not cutting, I follow NSuns 5/3/1 program, which I won’t go into… Check it out if interested though, I’ve seen fantastic progress.
Currently on a deload week from the gym so not actively following either, but I can vouch for both!
Great comment! Many thanks.
My height is 180cm (sorry for the measures) and my routine is very similar. I usually do two strength workouts per week, I mean, a few reps with many kg in main exercises. My RM are:
Chest: 120kg
Squat: 170kg
Deadlift: 160kg
All with the complete range of movement of course.
The rest of the days I usually do hypertrophy through torso-leg routine.
Sorry for the names, maybe they are not correct because I usually write it in Spanish.
My diet protocol is made by 5 food, but all of them plenty of cal (healthy food mostly).
Now I am answering through my phone, but we can discuss the routines if you like once I arrive home :). I’m sure we can share interesting information, my supplement protocol for instance.
Best regards!!
I have been reviewing again your routine and it’s really great. With your permission, I am going to use it for a few weeks :).
GTIPug, are you not doing any dedicated ab work? I do some at the end of the legs session (although I appreciate abs are used in some of the exercise you’re already doing).
I used to do a tonne of ab work every leg day, but since my Front Squat hit 120kg I just don’t have the capacity for it at the end of the session - They’re absolutely on fire! I guess that’s a good indicator they’re being worked plenty. Deadlifts seem to burn them out pretty good too at times. I guess any heavy compound has an impact.
Feel free - I built it from the PPL round at /r/Fitness on Reddit.
It’s a great community, should check it out!
Yes, I’ll take a look
Thought I’d give my 2 pence worth.
I use an upper lower split, Mon Tues Thurs Fri.
An average upper day is…
4 x Chest Press (or alternative push movement)
4 x weighted pull ups
3 x Row
3 x shoulder press
3x Chest flys superset with “cavaliere crossovers” between sides and sets.
3 x side lateral raises
3 x face pulls
3 x Biceps curls (or alternative)
3 x Triceps extentions
3x Grip work
2x very heavy shrugs
Plus 20-25 mins semi intense cardio after
The paired exercises are antagonistic/agonist supersets. Keeps the time down a little. I also go to and past failure on the last set of most things but especially accessory exercises etc,
Average lower day…
4 x Deadlift (or variation) sumo etc.
3 x crouched calf raise (its an odd idea I sorta invented/improvised, I’ll squat down and brace the end of the bar from the deadlift on my hands, then proceed to calf raise for reps, it’s working really well, I’ve actually got quite decent calves all things considered, especially since I’ve got really narrow ankles/joints etc.
3 x Zurcher squats, bulgarian split squats or jefferson squats, love jerfersons the quad pump is out of this world!
3 x hamstring curls (or variation)
2-3x Romanian Deadlifts, normally for higher reps. Or single leg straight leg deadlifts.
3 x barbell glute bridge (don’t judge!) it’s actually an awesome exercise, and it’s one which can be loaded up with tons of weight. Carries over to deadlift.
3 x Hanging leg raises, or alternative ab exercise
3 x oblique Exercises - woodchops, Russian twist, side bends etc
3 x Back extensions
2 x “modified” mountain climber ab crunch.
Then some prehab/rehab work - abductors, adductors, and piriformis stuff.
Followed with Intense Cardio for 20-25 minutes.
Again same story with the paired stuff being superseted etc.
The reason I’ve not listed rep ranges is it honestly depends on the exercise, the day and the week, it really depends, I find training in different ranges best for myself, heavier compound stuff is 6-10, everything else 8-12 ish, again it depends.
I eat around 3500+ calories per day at the moment which is just a hair over maintenance, I’m however dropping to 2500 calories (with a 3500 calorie “refeed” every 7 days) for a 4-6 week period, so a mini cut basically, I’ve not cut since I had my disaster with an eating disorder, so nervous is an understatement… This is why I’ve set a clear goal of not dropping more than 8lbs and not going over the 6 week mark, I’ll stop at whichever I hit first, then resume 3500+ cals again.
Oh and I deload every 8 weeks or so on average (which is next week!!!) bloody need it this week… And then I’ll proceed with my cut after im all rested up again! My typical deload is to reduce everything by 40-50%, and I mean everything, I don’t complicate it anymore, I’ll sometimes change to a push, pull, legs but depends what I want to do that week really.
Ahhh this… So a month ago I started feeling really burnt out in the gym. I could sleep 10 hours and feel lack of recovery, I’d eat 3500 calories and still be hungry. Bench completely stalled, squats stalled, dealift crept up by 5KG per fortnight.
Spoke to some of the veterans at the gym - “When was your last deload?”… “Sorry my last what?”
“Your last deload - Aim to deload every 4 months or so.”
Turns out I’d trained every day (pretty much) flat out for 3 years with no deload. Didn’t realise how essential it is to recovery and progress. Had to take 9 days off now to let the body fully recover. Feel way better for it though!
How exactly does a deload work? When you reduce by 40-50% do you workout with this lower weight level for a week then return to the levels you were before?
You can either do that or take a week off completely. I think the latter serves a little more benefit having now researched it.
This isn’t my comment, it was taken from Reddit but I least not a lot from it:
This is a widely known phenomenon with numerous studies backing it up, but it’s not in vogue anymore. It was part of the common knowledge of lifters in the early 2000s. Bryan Hancock popularized it with the HST program in around 2006.
The discovery you’ve made is the removal of something called the repeated bout effect. When a muscle grows it gets stronger, but it also gets resistant to more growth signal. The trick is to resensitize the tissue to the stimulus by… drum roll… doing nothing. DOMS is a bitch after a decondition though.
A lot of people will say “the repeated bout effect guards against doms” and don’t mention the flip side of that “the repeated bout effect guards against hypertrophy”. You’d think that part would be important to people…
I normally do them for 9-14 days after every 4 month cycle. The trick is to make them long enough to remove RBE (9+ days), but not cause significant atrophy (3+ weeks). Yours was long, but Muscle Memory probably got you right back where you were quickly, and you passed right by your old normal.
A lot of people get stuck for years because they max out RBE and even training with maximal loads does close to nothing in terms of stimulating hypertrophy. At this point people normally ramp up volume heavily because the muscle damage/tension path has essentially been voided. This has led to volume being given the throne in the debate over intensity, because lifters will max out RBE and then volume is really the only way to grow. People seem to have a collective amnesia about RBE and the ability to lower it.
Yeah, definitely.
I did something similar to be honest and in the beginning I think we can all get away with it for a little while, it’s when training starts to become more serious, with more volume especially, this is what I’ve found anyway.
Taking a deload has actually lead to better gains, seems totally backwards I know, but every time I deload I’ll start increasing on my lifts again.
Just learning to listen to your body goes a long way too, but I find at 8 weeks it’s usually quietly crying at me. Poor sleep, aching joints, loss of workout focus, and so on.
Just feels horrible to do still though, but that’s the mental aspect, it’s the mind playing mental gymnastics basically.
The harder you lift the more you’ll need to deload, or that’s how I look at it anyway!
Yeah I’ll cut both volume and intensity by that amount, for that next training week. Then I’ll pick up from where I left off essentially, nothing is lost put it that way.
The only thing I ever notice as a potential negative is the first 2 workouts after a Deload always results in DOMS From hell! But other than that it’s all good haha.
EDIT* or essentially what @GTIPuG wrote above 