Yesterday was Back, Bicep, and Legs, Heavy weight, low rep, day.

3x6 Standard Curls
3x6 Hammer Curls
3x6 Cable Curls
3x5 Superman Cables
3x5 Standing EZ Bar Curls
3x7 Row
3x7 Lat Pulldown
2x6 Squats
3x6 Leg Press
3x6 Calf Extension

Today I'm resting because we currently have 8 inches of snow up here.

1/30/2010 2:09:20 PM

walked a mile in the snow with my doggy and played

1/30/2010 3:04:21 PM

5 mile run in the snow. Used my "YackTrax" and never felt like I was losing my footing.

1/30/2010 4:37:21 PM

24 miles total on the bike (did two rides today)

2 sets walking lunges across the gym
2 sets of 10 hanging leg lifts

swam 700m

1/30/2010 6:59:58 PM

going for 5000 calories on the day. i think porcha hit it by lunch.

1/30/2010 7:03:43 PM

Did and hour on the eliptical today, a little over 6 miles and 500 calories.

1/30/2010 7:04:44 PM

ring work

and jump roping

in the garage

1/30/2010 7:48:26 PM

Quote :

"The only way to get bigger and stronger is to lift heavy and eat massive amounts of food. "

there are plenty of ways to get bigger and stronger without lifting heavy, and eating massive amounts of food only results in massive amounts of fat gained. You only need 1800 calories to make a pound of muscle, and your body would be doing miraculously to gain a pound of muscle in a month.

Your second statement was quite possibly the dumbest statement I've ever read, and I didn't want to quote it in my response for fear that people would be subjected to reading your gibberish a second time.

1/30/2010 11:45:20 PM

"milk was a bad choice"

1/31/2010 9:20:59 AM

I didn't feel like running in the snow. Did an episode of P90X, was exhausted by the ab ripper segment.

1/31/2010 10:18:23 AM

14 miles on the bike today
2 sets of hanging leg lifts

i think i'm a little tired from yesterday

1/31/2010 11:36:57 AM

attempted muscle ups, front squatted 245, failed @ 305 bench, fucked around, had a ball

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6fB7M9awOg

1/31/2010 1:54:22 PM

bollywood dance and shive rea daily yoga

1/31/2010 1:55:31 PM

Did about a hundred lunges yesterday with 20 lb weights in each hand.

1/31/2010 2:05:45 PM

in a row
10 min of handstand pushup progressions
5 min of squats
2 min of pullups
1 min of pushups

1/31/2010 2:52:32 PM

Elusis

Quote :

"there are plenty of ways to get bigger and stronger without lifting heavy, and eating massive amounts of food only results in massive amounts of fat gained. You only need 1800 calories to make a pound of muscle, and your body would be doing miraculously to gain a pound of muscle in a month. Your second statement was quite possibly the dumbest statement I've ever read, and I didn't want to quote it in my response for fear that people would be subjected to reading your gibberish a second time."

I'd like to know your experience with strength training and resistance training.

1 pound of muscle in a month? Are you freaking kidding me? With a solid training program and a gallon of milk a day, you can put on 10-15lbs of mass on in 3 weeks. With most of that mass being lean.

Personally, I went from 159lbs to over 185lbs in less than 3.5 months. I would say roughly 75% of that gain was lean mass. My squat went from 185lbs to 315lbs. My overhead press from 115lbs to 170lbs. My dead lift went from 250lb to over 365lbs. There is no way I could have hit those goals with out eating massive amounts of food. In fact, I was stalled on most of my progress until I did 2 things... Started squatting 3x a week and eating ridiculous amounts of food.

The statement that fat is easier to burn than muscle is to build? That is a very true statement, especially for people who are further along in their training. To lose fat all you have to do is reduce calories. To gain strength and muscle, hard work and hard eating is required.

Please tell me how you can get massive and strong with out massive diet? You'd be proving almost all the reputable strength coach/authors, that i've been following, wrong.

Yes, you will get some body fat. But, IMO, it is a necessary evil to get stronger than hell. Plus, getting rid of that fat is damn easy compared to getting your squat past 300.

Here is a little write up on a study that confirms over-feeding dramatically aids in lean mass production and that the fat comes off easily after the over feeding cycle ends. http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2009/12/body-fat-setpoint.html

[Edited on January 31, 2010 at 3:32 PM. Reason : .]

[Edited on January 31, 2010 at 3:42 PM. Reason : .]

1/31/2010 3:26:02 PM

1 hour of yoga/pilates fusion with some cardio thrown in ... Didn't quite make up for missed spin class..

1/31/2010 3:56:52 PM

dunno about putting on 10-15lbs of mostly lean mass in 3 weeks without some type of increase in T...but I'd agree its certainly easier to lose body fat than gain quality mass. I'd say the average lifter in his mid 20s can put on maybe 1lb of lean tissue per week and continue to stay pretty lean.

i'd say there is a limit though as to how much you should bulk with, if my maintenance is 3500 cals/day and I bulk at 4000-4500 cals/day...I'd expect a rate of ~1-1.5lbs of weight gain per week...if I raised my intake higher, I'd expect more weight gain, but not more lean tissue gain

from my experience, I could definitely get rid of 1lb of body fat faster than I could gain 1lb of lean tissue

1/31/2010 4:19:05 PM

Porcha

Quote :

"dunno about putting on 10-15lbs of mostly lean mass in 3 weeks without some type of increase in T..."

You are right.... I should have qualified that statement. That amount of gain is for young, absolute beginners to weight lifting.

For someone more advanced that type of gain is impossible with out chemistry assistance.

1/31/2010 4:28:26 PM

those pull-ups are sick, I'm going to start trying to do things like that while at the gym.

1/31/2010 5:40:17 PM

thought about going to the gym

1/31/2010 5:40:39 PM

sledding

1/31/2010 6:15:02 PM

Quote :

"your body would be doing miraculously to gain a pound of muscle in a month."

I dont want to get into a giant debate but I've gained over 30lbs in the last 5 months. The only BF test I have easy access to is the hand held meter. It still says the same thing now as it did last nov (7.5% which IS bogus). Porcha can probably take a better guess at what it is. I would guess 10%-11%.

Quote :

"You are right.... I should have qualified that statement. That amount of gain is for young, absolute beginners to weight lifting. "

I agree. I have started to slow down. You can defy the norm as an underfed rookie for a pretty good length of time.


[Edited on January 31, 2010 at 6:27 PM. Reason : time to go eat another box of oatmeal creme pies]

1/31/2010 6:25:22 PM

^^If done right, most effective workout ever.

1/31/2010 6:30:48 PM

Pushups
shoulder mobility junk w/ pvc
pushups
foam roll
back stroke hiit
shoulder pvc junk
stretch

1/31/2010 6:32:50 PM

I haven't exercised in almost a week, and I ate a whole bunch of junk food yesterday cooped up in the crib.

But I took some laxatives last night so I'm pretty much fit as a fiddle, y'all!

1/31/2010 6:35:44 PM

cooped up will make you eat strange things

1/31/2010 6:37:01 PM

lap around LJ. Running on snow slows me down a bit.

1/31/2010 8:28:47 PM

Overhead barbell Press - 145 5x5
Power Cleans - 170 1x3, 165 1x3, 160 2x3, 135 1x5. My technique needs serious work.
Jumping Plyometrics - Box jumps, depth jumps, side to side hops
Towel Grip Chin Ups - Sets of 5,4,3
Chin ups - 2x8
Cable Drag Curls - 80 3x12
Cable pushdown tri-extensions - 120 3x10

2/1/2010 12:28:01 PM

dunno if I'll be able to get to the gym today

walked a good 2 miles to food lion & back

2/1/2010 12:32:39 PM

^ Time for at-home ninja training?

Yesterday: 45 minutes on elliptical
Today: 8-mile fun run

2/1/2010 12:38:02 PM

fun and run - two words that do not go together

2/1/2010 12:41:41 PM

Disagree, running is fun.

I had a blast running in the snow/ice on Saturday, except it was cold.

2/1/2010 12:45:28 PM

i'd like to think if my body could handle the cold weather (i get bad ear aches when i'm in the cold for too long) then running in the snow could be a lot of fun.

today will be a gym day. probably the spinning bike.

2/1/2010 12:55:03 PM

Those of you quoting "massive lean mass gain" in short amounts of time were (1)underweight to begin with/not near your genetic potential, (2) brand new to lifting/just started a decent routine, (3) just hitting puberty and beginning to lift, (4) juicing it up

Once someone is established in lifting and no longer a beginner it's much more realistic to expect gaining 1-1.5lbs per month of lean mass.

2/1/2010 1:02:03 PM

Quote :

"Those of you quoting "massive lean mass gain" in short amounts of time were (1)underweight to begin with/not near your genetic potential, (2) brand new to lifting/just started a decent routine, (3) just hitting puberty and beginning to lift, (4) juicing it up Once someone is established in lifting and no longer a beginner it's much more realistic to expect gaining 1-1.5lbs per month of lean mass."

I qualified my statements as such... My personal experience, where I gained ~30lbs, mostly lean mass, in 3.5months; was after a 10lb diet and then an initiation of a squat based program and massive amounts of eating.

And when I say mostly lean mass, I mean at least 51%. In my case, it was around ~75%.

You are right. The quickness of gains is inversely proportional to the proximity of genetic potential.

Mainly this point was brought up as an argument for the efficacy and benefits of 'over-feeding'

2/1/2010 1:20:58 PM

gaining mass is hard work that you have to think about 24/7 its taken me about 8 months to gain 10 lbs. now that i finally touched 190 on the scale im gonna cut back to 9% bodyfat and go back to bulking all over again.

2/1/2010 1:47:17 PM

you are taking the overfeeding concept to a retarded level. in order to gain a pound of muscle in a month, you need to add approximately 50 calories of protein a day to your diet. the original poster was going to overeat by 2-3000 calories in one day. If you were to overfeed by just 200 calories a day during a bulking cycle, you'd be putting on a pound and half of fat for the pound of muscle you gained. If you assume that you're going to lose a third of a pound of muscle for every pound of fat you shed off - which is a fair assumption - then you're going to end up with a half pound of muscle built by the time you strip the extra fat back off of your body. If you doubled your overfeeding and gained three pounds of fat for each pound of muscle, you'd lose that pound of muscle you gained in the process of removing the fat you gained.


If you're so undertrained or pubescent that you can gain 10-15 pounds in three weeks, your body will gain muscle without requiring much overfeeding at all.

Just so you know, the 25 pounds of lean mass you gained in 3.5 months of training was probably 80% trained glycogen retention. There's a legitimate reason why you couldn't add another 25 pounds in the following 3.5 months, and it's not because you reached your genetic potential in less than half of a year.

Quote :

"I'd like to know your experience with strength training and resistance training."

why? Are you going to determine if my statements are valid or not based on my physique? Do you really need to know what I lift to tell if my advice is sound or not? I can tell you with certainty that I have no idea what my 1RM is because I haven't maxxed out on anything in over 3 years, and I haven't worked in anything less than a 10 rep range in over 4 years when I was toying around with 5x5 training.

Quote :

"Please tell me how you can get massive and strong with out massive diet? You'd be proving almost all the reputable strength coach/authors, that i've been following, wrong"

every reputable strength coach and author will tell you not to get pudgy during a bulking phase, yet this is exactly what you're trying to encourage.

Quote :

"The statement that fat is easier to burn than muscle is to build? That is a very true statement, especially for people who are further along in their training. To lose fat all you have to do is reduce calories. To gain strength and muscle, hard work and hard eating is required."

I never commented on that statement before, mainly because you're making the wrong argument. Sure, losing fat is easy to do. Losing fat without losing muscle is extremely complicated. You fail to mention how you plan on accomplishing the latter.

[Edited on February 1, 2010 at 2:40 PM. Reason : retention typo]

2/1/2010 2:35:00 PM

Zumba tonight

2/1/2010 2:50:16 PM

^ you'd better hope it's not canceled...all the morning classes were

[Edited on February 1, 2010 at 3:01 PM. Reason : ]

2/1/2010 3:01:12 PM

^ Dammit, thanks... I'll call and check a little later

2/1/2010 3:01:51 PM

zumba's still on so far (remember it's at 7:30PM now)

if not - I can start training you and Justine tonight

2/1/2010 3:08:07 PM

My question concerning your training status has nothing to do with your max's, but more concerning your experience with how diet can dramatically affect your training. Especially how over feeding helps your recovery tremendously.

It is practically impossible to come up with a linear formula that predicts fat/lean mass loss when trying to lose weight.

Yes, you can make it very complicated to maximize fat loss and minimize lean mass loss. But, it isn't that hard. In a simple and generalized plan: reduce calorie intake gradually, while keeping protein levels high. Keeping on eye on the scale and your kcal intake, adjusting when the scale isn't moving downward on a weekly basis. All while continuing to train for strength and you could throw in some metabolic conditioning.

If you (not YOU individually, but any general person) are lifting for pure aesthetics and are terrified of gaining a few pounds of fat, then yes, dial in your diet to the Nth degree and fret over a few hundred measly calories.

If you are looking to turn yourself from a scrawny, underweight gym noob in to a somewhat respectable lifter; then you must eat massive and lift massive (heavy squats, bench presses, overhead presses, dead lifts, power cleans) on a program that has you progressing incrementally and allows enough rest.

Right now, I could careless about 6 pack abs. When I am able to squat double my body weight or press my BW over my head, I will be happy.

2/1/2010 3:14:02 PM

what do you mean by lifting massive? do you think you won't increase your numbers if you're working in a 10 rep range?

2/1/2010 3:33:16 PM

Quote :

"zumba's still on so far (remember it's at 7:30PM now)"

which means it will get out at 8:30PM

way after sunset...way after the roads begin to freeze again

Unless I had experience driving in icy conditions or had 4WD, I wouldn't risk it...it will be completely dependent on the group fitness instructor

2/1/2010 3:38:10 PM

Quote :

"Especially how over feeding helps your recovery tremendously"

it makes me sleep all day, which I suppose was the point, helping with recovery tremendously

Quote :

"not to get pudgy during a bulking phase"

yea i agree, if i'm able to actually get pudgy, I'm not doing it right...it would take days of binge eating to accomplish this...I reckon I could get away with ~5000 cals/day at the rate I train and not get too fat

Quote :

"Losing fat without losing muscle is extremely complicated"

eh, dunno how I feel about this, if you can keep the deficit at a moderate number, such as 500-750 below maintenance depending on your size, you're not going to lose too much lean tissue. the real trick is finding that sweet spot of calories. Now I'm no expert on determining if I've lost lean tissue when I lose weight, but I've yet to lose strength as a result of my cutting exploits. Sure it is probably just CNS adaptations but without a weekly caliper test, I dunno how else I'd gauge lean tissue loss. You definitely appear bigger as you lean out.

2/1/2010 3:39:43 PM

Quote :

" what do you mean by lifting massive? do you think you won't increase your numbers if you're working in a 10 rep range?"

Yes. you can increase your numbers using 10 rep ranges, but, depending on the training, it not may not be the most efficient for strength increases.

This greatly depends on the lift. For example, power (ie power cleans) lifts require a certain speed and weight relative to your max to be trained for efficient gains. Generally, they are best trained used within a 2-5 rep range. One reason is because these lifts require a weight heavy enough to cause adaptation, but low in reps enough to prevent technique failure from fatigue.

With high rep ranges (10+), your body fails mainly at a energy substrate level and not on a CNS level. With low rep ranges, the first thing to go is the CNS.

Finding a balance on where to fail on the CNS/Energy pathway (rep range) curve is the hard part of programming.

Furthermore, lifting heavy weights (weights you can't do high reps with) forces your CNS to adapt. This adaptation occurs as rate coding (the rate at which impulses fire to muscles) and muscle recruitment (amount/type of muscle fibers recruited). High rep ranges (10+) do not facilitate this type of adaptation.

An argument against 10+ reps for a new lifter is the technique failure issues you run in to when fatigue begins to set in. This only matters with structural lifts like the squat, press and dead lift.

2/1/2010 4:14:23 PM

Quote :

"which means it will get out at 8:30PM way after sunset...way after the roads begin to freeze again Unless I had experience driving in icy conditions or had 4WD, I wouldn't risk it...it will be completely dependent on the group fitness instructor"

zumba was canceled

so my 3 new clients and I are going to bodyattack instead

and I'll be at the gym courtesy of my 4WD SUV

2/1/2010 4:18:30 PM

I don't think Justine is going to Body Attack.. so she'll meet us after to get PT set up

but it'll still be me and Laurie

2/1/2010 4:19:20 PM

Gym was already packed (local college out, hs out, moms), so I beelined for the squat rack, where I kicked the guy out who was doing pullups.

squats
goodmornings
pistols (w/ help for right foot)
split squats
single legged leg press
single leg calf raise
stability disk for time

[Edited on February 1, 2010 at 4:21 PM. Reason : I also made myself cry jumping rope at the end (rehab gives you a gut wrenching pain) ]

2/1/2010 4:20:24 PM