If you're still making linear gains (workout-to-workout), you might consider a beginner program such as Starting Strength for a couple of months. Since it sounds like you have experience with lifting, you also might want to check out Madcow 5x5, Texas Method, or Wendler 5/3/1, which are intermediate to advanced programs with slower progression.
Looking at that madcow routine, I am thinking of just doing the standard stronglift 5x5 that came before it. I am still seeing week over week gains on MBP and I like the overall simplicity of it. I think I will do that another 12 weeks and then contemplate re-introducing trips to the kettlebell gym back into my life after that. I also like the 3 day a week aspect, because it makes it a bit easier to fit into my growingly hectic work schedule and then try to get 3 swims a week in as well on my off days of 5x5 (or even with the 5x5 as a cool down.) Thanks for the advice!
Fuck Smolov. Seriously, fuck it in the ear hole. It doesn't help when training partners can't make it, so I ask for spots from random douches. One guy asks me if he should spot me from the front or from the back, another one simply puts his hands on the bar. I can move the weight, but it's nice to have someone who knows what they're doing in case something goes catastrophically wrong. JWags, it could be a number of things. Your hip could be tighter one one side, which would lead to you being slightly tilted which would make one side take more of the brunt of the weight. More drastic could be that you could have one leg slightly longer than the other. I previously posted a video on hip mobility drills, I'd take a look at that and see if it helps.
That is seriously one of the funniest gymtarded stories I have ever heard. He must think you have beautiful eyes. I would have loved to ask him how exactly WOULD he spot you from the front? Shove it off your shoulders when you can't raise it? Spoiler
Tip for the day: On a squat day, when younger friends ask you to play pick up football after training, refuse. Adamantly refuse. Ignore all comments questioning your sexuality and wondering if you have to go home to take your metamucil; continue to say no. That was a horrible idea. Although I can still outrun these punks, so fuck them.
Sweet lord thank goodness, Saturday is the PR day. I don't even want to look at a squat rack at this point.
I've never been one to be addicted to working out...yoga, yes, but working out, no. Now that I'm injured and forced to work out (turns out being able to walk is something I'd like to do), I'm finding I'm dropping weight pretty steadily. Since I'm concentrating on building muscle, stability, and endurance in my legs, they're looking just fine. With my knee as my focus, my program includes the elliptical and stationary bike for cardio and dozens of squats, lunges, toe raises, leg lifts, etc. But it seems like all the weight is melting from my neck and settling in my lower torso. I feel like I'm wearing a flesh-colored inner tube floatie all the time. If it floods here, I'll be prepared. My question is the following, all you work out gurus: What is the best training/exercise to do to get rid of lower belly blubber without putting any added strain on my knees? My physical therapist suggested an ab/back weight machine because you're much less likely to "cheat" and strain the knee ligaments and muscles. I'm finding that's primarily helping my upper abs. That's fine but it's the spare tire that I'd like to shed. Thoughts? I'm talking right here:
If you're trying to get rid of fat, the best exercise is... wait for it... a caloric deficit. Seriously, fat loss is all about diet. Spot reduction is bullshit. You can do all the crunches you want, but unless you eat less than you expend, you're not gonna see your abs. Calculate your TDEE, and eat 500 calories below it. Use this calculator: <a class="postlink" href="http://www.fitnessfrog.com/calculators/tdee-calculator.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.fitnessfrog.com/calculators/ ... lator.html</a> (set it to sedentary, otherwise it'll vastly overcalculate the amount of calories you burn) Now, you want to make sure you're not losing muscle along with your fat (otherwise you'll just look like a stick) so I would advise a solid beginner's weightlifting routine. Cardio is good, but you shouldn't do it expecting calorie burning as the main goal. The main goal is to get your heart and lungs in shape. Burning some calories is a nice side benefit. Speaking of fat loss, I just started an EC stack. I'm about 20% body fat right now, and I'm trying to get down to 12% before I start bulking again. Here's hoping I don't have too many side effects.
Step 1) Realize exercise and fat loss have very little to do with each other. You can easily lose weight while being completely sedentary. My girlfriend is over ten pounds below her goal weight and hasn't been to a gym in over 6 months. She just eats paleo, including bacon and eggs every morning after STRUGGLING for years to lose weight. Fuck what your doctor says. Step 2) Do whatever lhprop tells you works, dude knows what the fuck he's talking about and will probably have a few tips that are more helpful than what your doctor says. I'll throw my hat in the ring with saying I think well performed squats will help, it's a knee neutral exercise if performed correctly. Step 3) Planks are the shit. Do them. No risk, no knee strain and very good for the mid section. As has been already noted you can't spot reduce, but good stabilization work will make you feel much better and make your mid section look stonger. Good luck on your recovery.
So why is everybody else but me having these miraculous weight losses on paleo. I have been following pretty well (I won't lie and say I have been perfect, but not too bad) and I can't lose any weight. I have actually even put on a couple pounds. And according to that calculator and subtracting the calories like recommended I would have to eat under 1100 calories per day. Yeah, fuck that. Somebody please tell me what I am doing wrong, it is getting frustrating. I just entered my calories for the day, a pretty standard day, and had about 1450 calories. FYI - I have been working out about 4 times per week, and probably eat a bit more on those days, but this was a non-working out day so I would say this is typical for that. Do I really need to cut back?
Just to ask, how do your clothes fit? You could be switching fat for muscle, which means you might weight the same, or even more, but be leaner and more toned. Don't focus so much on weight alone. See how you feel and look.
Well, I feel like I look like I would like to lose 10 lbs. I am not seeing any miraculous toning taking place. I have taken my measurements and no improvement there either. And my clothes certainly aren't fitting any looser. Although this is tricky because I wear scrubs 90% of the time (and realistically wear yoga type pants or comparable for much of the remaining 10%). I try to focus on the fact that I feel pretty good and the exercise is good for me, but it is still damn frustrating to not have any sort of visual payoff for the work and sacrifice.
Thanks guys. I've already cut back quite a bit. I was so surprised that just by lying on a couch for a month that I had dropped weight. I'll just persevere and be patient. Here's another on for ya: What are your thoughts on taking fish oil as a supplement? I don't mean it as a miracle cure for my tire fat but in all the research I'm doing it seems to be coming up as a little bit of a help, especially in women my age. (And lhprop, you're not off the hook...you've got to have something for me.)
Your body can't defy the laws of thermodynamics. If your TDEE is 1500 and you eat around 1500 a day, you're not going to lose weight. (Of course, it might just be that you really shouldn't be losing any more weight. If you have to calorically starve yourself to lose more, that's a bad sign.) Try to select foods that aren't very calorie-dense so you stay full and your stomach doesn't growl at you all the time. Protein Greek yogurt / cottage cheese / quark (paleo says no, but I really don't see how there's anything wrong with them) Chicken breast Egg whites Any sort of fish Fats (no fat does not make you fat, saturated fat is actually pretty vital for hormone production) Coconut milk (this shit is amazing) Nuts Avocados Olive oil etc Carbs Green veggies. Otherwise you don't need to worry about getting these in specific foods, to be honest. Carbs are a major factor in water retention and your body really doesn't need a ton of them if you're trying to lose fat. Omega-3 fatty acids are pretty fantastic for you. It's one of the only two supplements I take (other one is Vitamin D). <a class="postlink" href="http://liamrosen.com/blog/?p=3" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://liamrosen.com/blog/?p=3</a> <a class="postlink" href="http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/play/snake-oil-supplements/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/p ... pplements/</a>
I remember you saying something about having stevia in your morning coffee. That alone probably isn't an issue, but do you have sweeteners otherwise throughout the day? Do you eat a shitload of fruit? Maybe too many starchy tubers? I doubt it's a diet issue, but if you're pounding bananas like no tomorrow or having sweeteners throughout the day you might want to start there What type of exercise are you doing those four days? I think you said you stopped distance running which is a good step, focusing on sprints and strength training will do you some good. Double point here: like RCGT already pointed out fish oil is a phenomenal source of omega three fatty acids. Something that is not given NEARLY the amount of attention it should is how pro-inflammatory the western diet is, most of our polyunsaturated fats are omega six (I'm going to avoid a paleo tirade, but this is mostly because of grains fed to animals, if you eat grass fed meat and wild caught fish, you're fine). That's not bad in a vacuum, but we need the anti-inflammatory omega three fatty acids to balance that out. I hate to prescribe anything as a cure all, but I'd be shocked if you didn't recover faster by taking fish oil. At the heart of most chronic pain is systemic inflammation and fish oil is the most obvious way to nip that in the bud. Mya: You might benefit from fish oil from a weight loss perspective too. From what I understand the science behind it is a little shaky but I've heard people literally have pounds of omega six fat just waiting to be paired with omega three fat and passed through the body. Again, hate to prescribe it as a cure all, but it's worked for me and the GF. Lastly there's the potential of too much cortisol production, what does your sleep look like and how stressed are you? Even if you have all your ducks in a row diet and exercise wise if you're pumping out too much cortisol you'll never lose the weight even if you starve yourself. Make sure you're sleeping well and regularly in a blacked out room. We have a TV and a few other things in our room but whoever goes to bed last turns off the power strip so there is zero light when we sleep.
I do have stevia, probably too much of it as I also use it in my tea. Do you think that could be the problem, and, if so, why? To be honest, a little bit of sweet stevia in my tea and coffee is enough to keep me from craving desserts and other sweet things. Please oh please don't say that I am sabotaging myself with it. Regarding the others, I have cut down to maybe 1 fruit a day (oranges, apples, berries, or melons, I avoid bananas), I have not re-added in any dairy other than the cream in my coffee after I miserably failed that Whole 30 thing (but I did have a bit of some sort of creamy salad dressing that was brought in for lunch, and my salad has a few sprinkles of feta), tubers I have maybe once per week (sweet potatoe hash), I love veggies and eat a ton of them (although I just realized that the squash I had about 4 times this week had tons of carbs, so maybe I am overconsuming without realizing). I guess I really just need to be religious about tracking my food so I can see where I go wrong. I honestly was just really hoping that this type of eating was going to break me of that since everybody else seems to say that they can eat whatever they want as long as they follow the basic rules. I am tired of tracking and obsessing about such things....sigh. I have read a bit about the Intermittent Fasting thing from Mark Sisson's site and am seriously considering starting that, anybody tried it? I have played around a bit but not consistently. Exercising, I am trying to switch things up. I have been doing about two weight training classes per week (say what you will about girly classes, but they are kind of kicking my ass), and am trying to do some sort of interval stuff with cardio once a week with another slow and steady once a week (hey - what can I say, it is like therapy and I don't want to give it up). I have been having one of those Larabars before hitting the gym, I am thinking maybe i need to cut that. Anyway, maybe I am wanting too much, or am looking for results too quickly. I swear my metabolism just sucks. edited to add: (FYI - I'll stop my whining in this thread, not the right thread, and how boring is it to hear somebody whine about such things anyway)
So I went for PRs on Thursday. I pretty happy with them but wanted to get an outside opinion from people so here they are. I'm 6'2 and weighed in at 161 that day. Deadlift: 370 Bench: 215 Pullups: 28 (regular not kipping) Squat: 275 Mile Run: 6:42
Welp that was fun. I don't know if I warmed up too much, which is a problem that I tend to have. Did my usual routine of a quick 5 min walk, then dynamic stretching, followed by just the bar for a couple of sets, then 95 lbs, 135, 225, 315 for triples. 405 for a double. Easy enough, used knee wraps. 455 for a single. Was actually kind of happy because when I set up I kinda lost it for a second, re-balanced, and still hit it smoothly. Everything else from here was wraps/belt. 475/single. Still easy. 495/single. Surprisingly easy. Hardest part is the step back and the set up. I would sell my left kidney for a monolift. 515/single. I actually went down a bit quickly and rebounded well. 525/single. Really felt it. I thought for a second I wasn't coming back up, but spread the floor and powered through. 535/single. Needed the spot to get back up. Called it a day. All in all I felt good. I know it's not strongman level numbers, but am pretty happy with 5 plates. I'll take off for a bit, will probably do Coan's deadlift program next and supplement it with texas method for pressing.
Alright, I am taking a week off to recover from finishing MBP and then will do a 14 week run on the Stronglift's 5x5. On MBP I did 6 weeks, a week off, 6 weeks, and a week off so I am going to do the same with the SL program. I am currently reading through the guide and I noticed he mentioned eventually getting a weight belt, but I figure I won't need that for a while yet. Is there a rule of thumb on when that makes sense? Currently I can rep 205 on squats for 3 x 2 (this is a clean wide stance squat where my ass is lower than my knees). I figure I gotta get up to the 275'ish range before I even think about adding lower back support (if ever), but I am much older than when I was last squatting heavy so I'm not sure the thoughts around these parts.