Dec 2, 2014 I'll post some of workouts here rather than in my own thread. Yesterday Just done Squats again. 145Kg 3x5. Not a good workout as my upper back was a little bit sore it resulted in me putting the bar too high. I won't make that mistake again.
Dec 2, 2014 Biggest reason that progress is not being made in the gym is because of nutrition, using myfitnesspal is so simple and makes tracking calories much easier Set your macros so they align with your goals and consistently hit them On a side note i ordered some Smores Quest Bars yesterday with the 25% off, about time they came out with a new bar
Dec 2, 2014 My experience is that it's very, very hard to cut while gaining muscles. When you're a beginner it's a little easier but most people won't be able to do both sufficiently, if not at all. You say you "shifted" fat/muscle around, although you don't see that result on the scale. This could mean that you've lost a certain amount of fat and gained that same amount in muscle tissue. But let me give you the advice an ex-bodybuilder gave me: If you're not competing in a weightclass (i.e. like boxing or judo or whatever), don't focus too much on the scale. If you see progress in the mirror, you're doing fine no matter what the scale tells you. Aside from that, make sure that you're eating enough calories. Yes, this means that you should count them or at least have a general idea of how many calories you consume with a meal, over the whole day, etc. Read into the Basal Metabolic Rate if you haven't yet. Also consider the amount of protein, carbs and fats (count them too!), which each should be a certain percentage of the calories you eat (I for example use a 40% carb/30% protein/30% fat split). With carbs and protein delivering 4 kcal a gram and fat 9 kcal, you can do the math. With these calculations you can put together a proper diet to begin with. I don't know how many calories, protein etc. you're getting with the diet you're using now, but it seems to me that you already understand the basic idea of clean and healthy dieting. This is a great starting point! Edit: @Graham is right, myfitnesspall is a very useful app when it comes to your diet!
Dec 2, 2014 If your goal is get strong. Eat plenty of protein. If u want to cut body fat/weight after it is easier to maintain strength than trying to gain strength while dropping bodyweight. Your relative strength will also be stronger. @Slyk if have lost some weight but u are still lifting the same weight u have actually got stronger.
Dec 2, 2014 I agree with the post above, while losing weight usually strenght suffers, if you have not lost any than you're doing a good job maintaining instead of losing fat and strength gains. During powerlifting season I would always cut down around 15 pounds to be in a lighter weight class, that was not to hard but after a while I was unable to get stronger without gaining weight.
Dec 2, 2014 @Slyk weight gain/loss is all about carbs in vs out. It seems like if you haven't gained weight, you aren't eating enough. Since you've probably gained muscle doing that routine (lots of good compounds) then it probably means your diet alone would've lost you weight since muscle weighs more than fat. It doesn't seem like you have much for carbs so adding pasta/rice in to your lunch and supper may be enough if you wanna gain
Dec 2, 2014 Solid response, and this is the piece I'm still trying to understand. Is it impossible to gain mass on a low carb diet? My inderstanding is that you can make gains with an excess in calories, even if those calories come from protein & fat, and no carbs. Is this not true & are carbs absolutely required in gaining?
Dec 2, 2014 You can gain mass by just eating protein and fat but it's a lot harder and hella expensive. A whole chicken breast is like 250 calories where a cup of pasta is like 400ish. Carbs aren't a bad thing especially complex ones. I saw an article a while back that said if you want to keep things simple, only eat carts with a 5:1 carbs to fiber ratio or better. Then you'll do a "clean" bulk as you up your calories.
Dec 2, 2014 Along the lines of what @Ryan said, gaining weight comes from having an excess amount of calories over the amount that your body needs to function properly each day. A pretty common starting point is to have 1 gram protein/ lb of bodyweight, .5 gram of fat/ lb of bw, and then make up the rest of your desired calorie goal with carbs. But some people respond better to high protein and carb with very low fat, others with low carb diets. My body ends up feeling like crap if i go too low with carbs but everyone responds differently
Dec 2, 2014 i've been taking in 200-300g protein per day. roughly 2500 calories. 50g carbs. duno on fat content. so, either i need to up the overall calories, or i need to start dabbling more with carbs. really looking to get a 6-pack tho, which is why i chose to go so low w/ carbs.
Dec 3, 2014 50g carbs is not a lot, h--- everything under 100g carbs is very low imo. But like @Graham said, it all depends on how you respond to carbs. You'll need to experiment with it to find out what suits you best. Try to find out how much your total fat intake in a day is. Easiest way to gain kcals is to eat fat (1g fat = 9 kcal) so if you're on the low end of that you might eat a little more. But if you're eating 2500kcal with 200-300g protein and just 50g carbs, my guess is you'll eat around 100g fat (or even slightly more) and if that's the case I would up the carbs a little instead of eating more fat. Do you know how many kcals you need throughout the day? And I don't mean 'guess', but actually calculated? That way it's easier to see if you're eating enough and/or how much you should eat more to gain mass.
Dec 4, 2014 How do you feel doing Squats and DL on the same day? Found I was killing myself with those two grouped together. I've been doing a PPL routine with Bench Press, Overhead Press / Deadlift, Pullups / BB Squats, BB Lunges as my 6 benchmark exercises.
Dec 4, 2014 Don't like doing normal DL as going very heavy on both the Squat & DL k--- your central nervous system. RDL's are much less stressfull as u don't use your back as much. 145 in RDL's is light enough for me anyway. I prefer RDL's to conventional DL's.
Dec 4, 2014 f---. my right arm is out of commission. 2 sundays ago, i came off a binge drinking day. woke up and my arm was in pain. figured i was just dead-armed from drunkenly sleeping on it awkwardly. throughout the next week, i was in constant pain, preventing me from sleeping, etc.. pain felt deep as the bone -- i could grab the bicep/triceps and have no pain, but touching between the two, at the bone, was excruciating. this past monday/tuesday, it started to feel better. decided to go back to the gym on tuesday & was gonna take it slow...warmed up to some burpees. within 3 minutes, it was in terrible pain again. said enough was enough & I went n got it checked out. x-ray came back okay, but they say it's likely a muscle strain near the bone; didn't rule out a tear or anything w/ tendons, etc...just told me to go to orthopedics (i think ima wait it out) & to just take it easy and ice it. f---. and i don't even know how it happened. browned-out on that saturday, but would have remembered falling or getting in a fight or something.. only thing i can think of (which i suppose it's highly likely this is it) is that saturday morning i had a bro-moment and armwrestled my m8. so stupid.
Dec 4, 2014 When I first started working out and didn't know any better, I followed Kris Gethin's 12 week trainer program and it was a great start. I don't care if he's a roid freak or whatever. I don't really do "bro-splits" anymore (prefer PPL full of compounds instead of spending an hour + on shoulders one day) but he has a new trainer coming out Monday that I may just have to check out. 84 videos, one for each day of the program to help motivate you. http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/kris-gethins-12-week-muscle-building-trainer.html
Dec 5, 2014 f----- up story bro, but s--- happens. If you can afford it, or have insurance, just go to the orthopedics as soon as possible. If it's bad news, it'll be bad news, whether you hear it now or in a few weeks. I had a shoulder injury and waited 7 months before I went to the orthopedics and ended up needing surgery anyway. Wish I would've not been so stubborn and went earlier. Injuries come and go, just make sure you get them treated right!
