On September 20 2017 16:44 Malinor wrote: @L_Master
You are an amazing endurance athlete and I assume you are pretty good with losing weight when you have to. With your frame you really should not worry about putting on a little fat. Just eat slightly above maintenance (like 300-500kcal). I think you are basically in the optimal position to do the Starting Strenght / Stronglift protocoll. You gain 20lbs, most of it will be muscle. When you decide to shred 10lbs afterwards (adding endurance workouts and keep training hard) you will shred most of the fat you've gained easily without losing much muscle at all.
It is just sooo much easier to build muscle when you eat above maintenance, especially when you are thin to begin with.
Oddly, this has always been my big weakness. When I'm super motivated it's not bad, and I usually do enough to keep weight gain from going nuts; but I've always struggled pretty hard with sugar binges. You can run 4-5 solid days at a nice 750kcal deficit...only to blow it up and spin your wheels for the week net eating a package of oreos, some ice cream, and a soda.
On multiple occasions I've successfully lost 20-30lbs, probably getting down to as low as 10-11% BF, but I've had plenty of times where I've made no weight loss progress, despite wanting to, for six or more months at a time. Ironically, while I was a good climber on the bike, the thing I always felt that held me back from being great was the BF aspect. That 10-20lbs between 12-15% BF and 8-9% BF make all the difference in the world when it comes to running, or cycling uphill.
I will take the advice and keep gaining for now at a reasonable rate of 3-4 lb/month (not comfortable adding say, 6+ lb/month, especially if big rates in a beginner are at best 2-3 lbs/month). Also, depending on time there is a good chance I will still ride some in the Spring for the team, and getting too big before that could become a hindrance.
You should try tp pull your shoulders back a bit more, the bar comes off the ground a tiny bit forward on some of those reps. So you end up pulling mostly through your back and not enough with your hips and glutes. Bringing the shoulders back and therefore pulling with a "tighter" back should help with this.
You should lower the bar faster during the eccentric phase of the lift. Doing it slowly is very risky and can lead to injuries. It doesn't matter with 135lbs but it will with more weight.
Thanks Malinor and Mordek!
When you say pull the shoulders back more, do you mean tightening that area in the phase right before you start to move the bar, or physically thinking pull the shoulders back as you lift? My guess is more the former, but want to make sure.
Good to know about faster bar lowering, I was going slower to try and make sure I wasn't losing tension/posture in the lower back, but what you said makes sense. I will keep that in mind. Will try and get squat/bench/BB row videos up next time my friend and I can make it to the gym together.
I am not really comfortable with giving advice in my second language and limited to writing...
What I basically mean is the "Chest Up" cue. When you get into the starting position and think chest up, the shoulders retract automatically and it also helps with tightening the lower back.
Also, "thinking" chest up is more important than physically maintaining a strict upright position. What I mean by this is: try retracting your shoulders all the way through the lift when there are 500+lbs on the bar. It is just not gonna happen for 99% of lifters.
We all know that weight loss and weight gain are bitches... People that want to gain weight cannot manage to stuff enough food down their throats and people trying to lose weight just think about food 24/7 and just cannot eat less. The self discipline it takes to break these cycles is just crazy. .And anyone telling you that genes don't play a major role in all of this is not very observant in my opinion.
On September 20 2017 22:25 Malinor wrote: I am not really comfortable with given advice in my second language and limited to writing...
What I basically mean is the "Chest Up" cue. When you get into the starting position and think chest up, the shoulders retract automatically and it also helps with tightening the lower back.
Also, "thinking" chest up is more important than physically maintaining a strict upright position. What I mean by this is: try retracting your shoulders all the way through the lift when there are 500+lbs on the bar. It is just not gonna happen for 99% of lifters.
Pretty good explanation for your second language I usually tell people to pretend they're pinching a pen between their shoulder blades and holding it there through the lift.
Basically you want to make sure your engaging those muscles because if you don't its going to compromise other areas of the chain. I like to externally rotate my hands against the bar and squeeze my lats before starting the lift.
On September 20 2017 23:23 mordek wrote: Basically you want to make sure your engaging those muscles because if you don't its going to compromise other areas of the chain. I like to externally rotate my hands against the bar and squeeze my lats before starting the lift.
Great! Is that a similar concept to the pinching your shoulder blades together to make a solid platform when you bench, or is the cue subtlety different from that?
On September 20 2017 22:25 Malinor wrote: I am not really comfortable with given advice in my second language and limited to writing...
What I basically mean is the "Chest Up" cue. When you get into the starting position and think chest up, the shoulders retract automatically and it also helps with tightening the lower back.
Also, "thinking" chest up is more important than physically maintaining a strict upright position. What I mean by this is: try retracting your shoulders all the way through the lift when there are 500+lbs on the bar. It is just not gonna happen for 99% of lifters.
We all know that weight loss and weight gain are bitches... People that want to gain weight cannot manage to stuff enough food down their throats and people trying to lose weight just think about food 24/7 and just cannot eat less. The self discipline it takes to break these cycles is just crazy. .And anyone telling you that genes don't play a major role in all of this is not very observant in my opinion.
Makes sense on the advice, thanks!
And yea, it definitely seems to be feast or famine in one direction for most people. I can tell you for sure I'm one of those people that thinks about food 24/7...the "live to eat" type :D
I've seen people the other way too, that just can't seem to eat enough...but I gotta be honest, I'd much rather have that struggle than the other way around. Gaining all you have to do is nail it for maybe 30-45 minutes out of a day. Force a big 3k meal with some calorie dense food down, do it once for the day, and your set. 30 minutes of making the right choices and you're successful for the day. Weight loss on the other hand...you can be a good little boy for 15 hours...then fuck it all up with one bad meal. Basically, for weight gain you need to get it right for a brief window in each given day. For weight loss, you can't ever make a major mistake. I think the latter is logically more challenging.
I also think that's why most people struggle alot more with nutrition, especially weight loss, than they do with lifting/working out. You can have garbage willpower all day, be unmotivated, then suddenly at 9pm find some energy and go smash your workout. Job done for the day, even though 90% of the day you were badly off your game. Do the same thing with eating and you might have already eaten 4k of calories with most of that being junk, then when you get motivated at 9pm, not much you can do. I guess you could do 2-3 hrs of intense endurance training...but we all know that's not good if you're trying to maintain mass, not to mention a very unhealthy cycle to fall into.
That's actually one of the draws for me though, is that I do want to break the cycle and gain control of my eating better. It's important in endurance stuff, but far more so as I understand it in lifting. Gaining might not be an issue, but go to cut and if you end up having binge days it totally nullify's your cut...which means you get stuck "cutting" (read: maintaining) for eternity, a state in which you don't make any mass gains and probably not strength ones either. There was this mindset as a cyclist that I could just "focus on the good training now, drop the weight later when I 'wanted to', and race good". Not entirely true, but close enough. Doing that when you try to cut almost completely defeats the purpose of going to the gym. Should add a little extra incentive to control the bad eating days.
Looking forward to the new challenge, especially during this two year school period where I don't have the time to train 15-20 hours a week like you must to be reasonably successful at higher level bike racing. I'm going to miss being able to fly up hills for sure, but at the same time I've never been big...so I'm curious to see what that side of the coin is like
The diet thing is mostly just a habit. Once you're in the routine of buying the same stuff at the store (in my case: eggs, meat, beans, rice, fruits, veggies) and not going to shitty food place it's pretty easy to avoid accidentally binging on an extra 1k calories. Good fats and proteins will stave off hunger much better than shit food too so you'll be less tempted.
You'll also be burning through more calories when you pack on more muscle mass. It's easy enough to add some high intensity interval training at the end of your work outs when you want to start cutting/getting into cycling shape. You'll probably find the extra leg and core strength will help your cycling in the long run (at the expense of your cardio endurance in the short run).
On September 21 2017 01:43 decafchicken wrote: The diet thing is mostly just a habit. Once you're in the routine of buying the same stuff at the store (in my case: eggs, meat, beans, rice, fruits, veggies) and not going to shitty food place it's pretty easy to avoid accidentally binging on an extra 1k calories. Good fats and proteins will stave off hunger much better than shit food too so you'll be less tempted.
I've found that to be VERY true. Once you manage to eat healthy (read: cut out ALL the sugary crap), and stay away from it for 2-3 weeks you definitely get less cravings. It's being motivated enough to nail out those first 2-3 weeks that can prove tough. But in all my decent weight loss runs where I've dropped more than 15lbs...it's definitely been much less of a battle against the addiction demon the later weeks as compared to the first few.
With regard to the protein/fat stuff. Absolutely can back that up with my own experience. I did 4 days of PSMF about six months ago just out of curiosity, and it was pretty stunning how satiated (other than some psychological hunger) I was off 250g of protein and not much else. That with a 1000-1500kcal ride each day too. Even the difference between getting say 80g and 150g is pretty dramatic. Fat seems to help as well, but not quite as dramatically as protein does for me.
It's easy enough to add some high intensity interval training at the end of your work outs when you want to start cutting/getting into cycling shape.
Absolutely, especially since I'm used to it and one of those mentally unhinged people that actually enjoys slaughtering myself with short "pukervals" or hours of mod intensity steady state (not so great for cutting, so I understand).
You'll probably find the extra leg and core strength will help your cycling in the long run (at the expense of your cardio endurance in the short run).
This is one of the things I'm really interested in seeing the changes in. I'm almost certain my power output at 3' and longer will go down, probably dramatically, if I'm not training much on the bike. Anything past that and aerobic fitness/fractional utilization of VO2 max are just too prominent of factors. Weight training would certainly be better for that than nothing, but compared to serious aerobic training you might as well be doing nothing.
That said, I'm really interested in how my sprint tracks with lift improvement. I've got to think if I go from squatting 135lbs to squatting 3 plates that's going to be worth something decent in the sprint. That extra muscle mass usually helps anaerobic capacity too, so I'm kinda thinking 5"-1' type stuff will improve, perhaps dramatically.
Does anybody have any standard advice for punching through a perceived "plateau" in terms of strength and weight gain? Is this an actual physiological thing or am I possibly just getting too comfortable with my usual workout and weight sets?
For reference Im 6'0 and I weight 195, Im certain that there is room for plenty more muscle on my frame but I am encountering increased difficulty adding compared to when I got started
The answer to that question depends on another: how attached to remaining 195 are you? By far the easiest way to break plateaus is to go into a caloric excess alongside increased protein while doubling down on low rep, high weight progressive sets. If you're scrupulous about only consuming around 500 extra calories, fat gain should be minimal, but it'll be there no matter what.
On September 21 2017 04:51 farvacola wrote: The answer to that question depends on another: how attached to remaining 195 are you? By far the easiest way to break plateaus is to go into a caloric excess alongside increased protein while doubling down on low rep, high weight progressive sets. If you're scrupulous about only consuming around 500 extra calories, fat gain should be minimal, but it'll be there no matter what.
Not at all attached to it, would like to get to 210-215 range
I have been mixing in the low rep high weight sets, the only other factor that I'm concerned about is speed. Im a pretty good sprinter and am very good on the football and softbal fields as it pertains to explosive movement, I dont want to lose any of that but I still want to add weight and strength
To the extent that you want to preserve or continue to work on jerk movements, simply add in hang cleans or similar lifts alongside your focus and you should be fine. Many football workout regiments, for example, will include both strength days and technique days in the weight room in order to work on both fronts at once, though it's important to note that most teams avoid focusing on strength during the season.
On September 21 2017 04:51 farvacola wrote: The answer to that question depends on another: how attached to remaining 195 are you? By far the easiest way to break plateaus is to go into a caloric excess alongside increased protein while doubling down on low rep, high weight progressive sets. If you're scrupulous about only consuming around 500 extra calories, fat gain should be minimal, but it'll be there no matter what.
Not at all attached to it, would like to get to 210-215 range
I have been mixing in the low rep high weight sets, the only other factor that I'm concerned about is speed. Im a pretty good sprinter and am very good on the football and softbal fields as it pertains to explosive movement, I dont want to lose any of that but I still want to add weight and strength
As long as you're adding muscle and continue working explosive movements (power cleans, box jumps, sprints, etc.) you will only get faster.
Squat, first rep was especially bad, but none of them were really that close to full depth. Didn't realize it was quite that bad. Aside from that, what do you guys notice?
Look into how you're bracing your core before you squat, and keeping your core engaged. Looks like you're fighting to keep your chest upright a bit and making it harder to breath effectively.
I'd dramatically change your approach to rows through dropping Pendlays and going with regular old bent over rows instead. You'll notice that deading the weight every rep puts the back into a consistently close-to-flat position; this deactivates the glutes, hamstrings, and puts a huge amount of static stress onto the lumbar spine and lower back generally. Instead, do a normal deadlift rep to get the bar up to thigh level, bend over and sit back into a comfortable squatting position where the support muscles take up the stress being put on the back, and rep it out without deading the weight to the floor.
One thing that internet fitness does a poor job of communicating is the relative utility of particular movements. Pendlays are pretty good as a means of breaking plateaus or otherwise complicating a routine that has become stale, but they can be quite risky given the lower back positioning and they are shit for really putting heavy weight on the lats in the way normal bent overs do.
Frankly, discomfort from the squat bar is more an indicator that one needs to work on beefing up the shoulder girdle, less that one needs to get a cushion
On September 28 2017 01:43 farvacola wrote: Frankly, discomfort from the squat bar is more an indicator that one needs to work on beefing up the shoulder girdle, less that one needs to get a cushion
no, no it is not. The pads are there for a reason, use the damn things if you want.
EPT
I usually tell people to pretend they're pinching a pen between their shoulder blades and holding it there through the lift.
