Fitness rant
Like probably a lot of you know, the fitness industry can be some retarded shit! Literally what I see more than anything is some guy doing some 5 day greg plitt split, hammering out 20+ sets per workout while dieting. Not even just dieting, eating at a severe calorie deficit. On top of that, several hours of cardio per week.
Even in optimal surplus calorie conditions, high volume routines just absolutely suck for natural lifters! Your body really sucks at doing several things at once. With high amounts of glycogen depleting training, your bodies first priority is replenishing depleted stores. This takes precedent before any actual muscle growth can actualize. Now when you throw a calorie deficit into the mix and sub 120 grams of carbs per day, you're just asking for muscle loss. The truth is that outside of heavy drug users, the most jacked lifters are always the strongest. For this reason, low volume strength workouts with emphasis on consistent increases in weight lifted, lead to the best overall long term muscle gains. Without a doubt, many reasons why guys aren't making strength gains is they're asking their body to do way too much. When you hone down your workouts and simplify, adding weight to the bar becomes easy.
Now, if you're around 15% body fat, anything greater than a 20% calorie deficit is going to cause decreases in testosterone, strength and muscle mass. What I see frequently are guys eating at 1500-1800 calories to lose weight, creating monstrous 1000 calorie deficits per day. In actuality, maintenance calories tend to be around 15 calories per pound of bodyweight. Therefore, a good starting point for fat loss is 12 calories per pound. With usually about 40% protein, 30% fat and 30% carbs. It's always a bad idea to keep any given macronutrient low (under 25%). In fact, the research shows that both testosterone and carbs play an importnat role in testosterone. Furthemore, carbs stimulate insulin which plays a vital role in both muscle growth and muscle retention. Assuming a calorie deficit is in place, insulin ain't a bad thing. Just don't keep it elevated all day long and you'll be fine.
When you say jacked don't you mean ripped? And doesn't that mean they're shredded? Which means their body fat is lower? I'm not understanding some of your use of jargon.
I am having one of my students read this he's making some lame decisions when it comes to his body training. He's a vegetarian, is on a diet, is trying to lose weight but he's already skinny. "Skinny/fat". I'm trying to tell him to do a solid workout in the gym, add protein to his diet, and stop his incessant running. He needs to GAIN MUSCLE.. not worry about losing weight.
I go in and I'm crisp, clean and my vocals are fucking coming out like music. - Anonymous MW student
- Autismus Terminus Finis (Root Cause/Cure of Autism Epidemic)
- Called Off My Wedding & Other Turn Tail Signs Of The American Male
ahh sorry, I'm all over the place. But I'm sort of talking about it from both angles, levels of body fat and levels of muscle mass. When I said jacked in that context I was really just saying that usually the strongest lifters have the most muscle mass, at-least in non steroidal circles that is. So by this I was illustrating that the primary objectie behind any form of resistance trainig should be to increase strength. Getting stronger will allow for the greatest inceases in muscle size overtime. This is in direct contrast with many bodybuilding style training routines that focus on an excessive amount of volume (total number of exercises, sets and reps) that make it damn difficult to progress in resistance. And of course, achieving a low body fat is mostly about nutrition and training should be aimed at increasing muscle or preserving muscle while underoing dieting. This is one thing many people get wrong, they start dieting and start doing lighter weight, higher reps nad higher volume. This does nothing for definition, all it does is increase the amount of muscle mass and strength lost on a diet.
Your advice to your student is definitely solid! And even for his overall goal to lose fat and get lean, increasing protein and lifting will actaully increase fat loss. This is because without adequte protein and resistance training, a significant portion of the weight loss will be due to losses in lean body mass (muscle). For example, lets say he's 15% body fat and 160 lbs and wants to get down to 8% body fat. It's likely that without proper protein and strength training, he would lose a ratio of muscle to fat of 1:1.5. Therefore he would have to lose 20 lbs to get to 8%. This is assuming 12 lbs of fat loss and 8 lbs of muscle loss.
With strength training and proper protein in place to maintain muscle mass, he could get down to 8% body fat but only have to lose 12 lbs. Plus the extra 8 pounds of muscle that he didn't lose would make him look a fuck ton better and also help with maintainig a higher metabolic rate.
Yeah, MW your friend needs to take your advice.
I always tell girls the same thing lol. They're convinced that running and eating less will make them lose weight and gain muscle. -_-
Ok cool my workout and fitness routine exactly mirrors what you're saying. I go 8 reps every set, and am always looking to raise the weight 5-10lbs if I can go two sets in a row at 8 reps without going to exhaustion. Which probably explains why I'm bigger now than I have ever been in my life. Plus I have a great cock and stacked two girls on top of each other the other night and fucked them both at the same time.
I go in and I'm crisp, clean and my vocals are fucking coming out like music. - Anonymous MW student
- Autismus Terminus Finis (Root Cause/Cure of Autism Epidemic)
- Called Off My Wedding & Other Turn Tail Signs Of The American Male
What do you guys think about microsets (I think thats what its called), when you switch up the rep ranges every week. Therefore getting high volume workouts in, and low volume high weight workouts. I've found that that this definitely makes me the most sore, and probably causes the most muslcle confusion.
http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/shortcut-to-size.html
This is pretty much what I base my routine off of, but some exercises just dont work for me so I switch it up
Ok cool my workout and fitness routine exactly mirrors what you're saying. I go 8 reps every set, and am always looking to raise the weight 5-10lbs if I can go two sets in a row at 8 reps without going to exhaustion. Which probably explains why I'm bigger now than I have ever been in my life. Plus I have a great cock and stacked two girls on top of each other the other night and fucked them both at the same time.
Go on...
i feel like this one is Lay Report material.
(Meow) Well switching up the rep ranges every week can make it very difficult to accurately gauge progress, and it will be next to impossible to use a progression model for increasing strength overtime. The best course of action is to only make changes or adjustements when you hit a pleatu. So if you're hitting PR's in weight or reps each week then keep doing what you're doing. Only when you fail to increase the weight or get an additional rep on two consecutive weeks should you make any changes. When you do hit a plateau you can either change the rep range or use a difference exercise variation. So if you are stuck at benching 185 for 5 and can't seem to get 6 reps for the life of you then switch the variation. Maybe do dumbbells for a few weeks or do close grip bench for a few weeks and then when you go back to regular bench you should be able to progres for a few weeks before hitting another plateau. Alternatively you could also drop the weight by 20 lbs or so and work within a higher rep range. Example (8-10). You'll find that you'll be able to make progress in strength when you mix up the rep ranges every 4-6 weeks.
To ensure awesome gains and efficiency of training you should have 4-6 indicator exercises that you use to guage progress. Every month or so these lifts should go up. If they're not incerasing then you're probably fucking around. I like to use incline bench, weighted chin ups, standing presses and curls for upperbody indicator exercises. For lowerbody squats and deadlifts or whatever lowerbody lifts you do.
Okay awesome, thanks for advice man! I'm currently in soccer season getting nice and skinnylicious but I'll give that a try in December when I start lifting again.
Meow, you should still be lifting during the season.
Decrease weight and increase volume. Consider it a good chance to cut because of all the cardio you're already doing. You could get ripped in no time.
Its tough as hell, I have an intense training schedule for soccer. It kicks my ass and i'm left feelings too lazy to lift
Besides he's taking training with me he needs to concentrate on the ladies!
I go in and I'm crisp, clean and my vocals are fucking coming out like music. - Anonymous MW student
- Autismus Terminus Finis (Root Cause/Cure of Autism Epidemic)
- Called Off My Wedding & Other Turn Tail Signs Of The American Male
At most I can get in two workouts a week, and i'm not too sure if that'll be worth it
yes :)
Meow, if you can only lift 2x per week you can still make gains. I'd definitely start now, even if it's just two sessions per week. I've actually made good strength and muscle gains lifting twice per week. If you're playing lots of soccer then your legs are going to be super fatigued. I'd aim at focusing on your upperbody. Two workouts per week. Session A - Shoulder Press, Chin ups, Curls and Lateral Rasies. Session B - Incline Bench, Flat Bench, Rows and triceps extensions. Sort of a mix and match. One workout is aimed at vertical press and vertical pull plus biceps and lateral raises. The other workout is aimed at horizontal pushing, horizontal pulling and triceps.
When your schedule improves then you can add a leg day where you hit your lowerbody.
Yeah anyone who's not in the gym working their upper body (to exhaustion) is pretty much a pussy 
I go in and I'm crisp, clean and my vocals are fucking coming out like music. - Anonymous MW student
- Autismus Terminus Finis (Root Cause/Cure of Autism Epidemic)
- Called Off My Wedding & Other Turn Tail Signs Of The American Male
I'll give it a try for sure!
Nice