Weightlifting & Fitness - Everything old is new again!

[JonStark]

18 hours ago, Outpost31 said:

Since July 5th I have been sticking religiously to:

*No more than 90 seconds between sets.
*Hard keto diet (under 50 carbs per day, more often under than 40).

And a workout routine of:

Monday - Shoulders/Chest
Tuesday - Biceps/Triceps/Forearms
Wednesday - Back/Lats
Thursday - Shoulders/Chest
Friday - Biceps/Triceps/Forearms
Saturday - Legs/Core
Sunday - Off

4x8, 3x12, 2x15 for each muscle.

My ab muscles are visible again.  First time since I was 27 years old 5 years ago. 

Lifting weights haven't moved much though.

 

That's probably because for the muscle you're putting on, you're also losing some mass. That's a good thing and I'd bet your BF% is going down.

Keep up with the routine (especially the between set time) and you'll be good. I'm doing a 6 day week too along with a 16/8 fast and have seen some nice results over the past month. 

[LETSGOBROWNIES]

On 7/22/2020 at 4:51 PM, Danger said:

I've plateaued on my bench lately. Pretty sure my Anterior Delts are the limiting factor. What exercises do you guys recommend for that, and would I be focusing on them, treating them as the chest group, or the shoulder group?

I’ve found increasing work on military press or incline bench to be particularly helpful.

[Tetsujin]

I gained a lot of weight prior to mid March and was 292 lb, then COVID shutdowns happened. Since then, through a combination of HCG and malnutrition, I've lost 50 lb, 10 of that being muscle. I've been to the gym maybe 4 times this year before COVID.

I just started back at the gym Tuesday and it's been RRRRUF. I was benching 315 lb x 12 towards the end of last year, and now I'm doing 225 lb x 4. But when I was going through diabetic ketoacidosis at the end of 2018 , I could only do 225 lb x 2, and maybe 6 months later I was doing 315 lb for reps again. I'm way healthier this time around and eating really healthy with a lot of great supplements, so hopefully I get my strength and endurance back in a few months. I'm also about to drop under a 40" waist for the first time in over 10 years, when I briefly did it for the first time in 5 years.

[Sugashane]

On 8/12/2020 at 10:31 AM, LETSGOBROWNIES said:

I’ve found increasing work on military press or incline bench to be particularly helpful.

Lat work has helped me as well.

http://allaboutpowerlifting.com/lats-important-bench-press/

 

 

7 minutes ago, Tetsujin said:

I gained a lot of weight prior to mid March and was 292 lb, then COVID shutdowns happened. Since then, through a combination of HCG and malnutrition, I've lost 50 lb, 10 of that being muscle. I've been to the gym maybe 4 times this year before COVID.

I just started back at the gym Tuesday and it's been RRRRUF. I was benching 315 lb x 12 towards the end of last year, and now I'm doing 225 lb x 4. But when I was going through diabetic ketoacidosis at the end of 2018 , I could only do 225 lb x 2, and maybe 6 months later I was doing 315 lb for reps again. I'm way healthier this time around and eating really healthy with a lot of great supplements, so hopefully I get my strength and endurance back in a few months. I'm also about to drop under a 40" waist for the first time in over 10 years, when I briefly did it for the first time in 5 years.

You're going to get it back, remember you not only lost muscle and the level of function in the muscles but also after a 50 pound loss you dropped a ton of leverage that was working in your favor. There is a reason Shieko has a rough estimate for needed weight per your height for ideal performance (referenced below). 

Just make sure you don't forget about occasional/scheduled deloads. Getting weights to jump up is great and all, especially after a really humbling first few sessions, but your ligaments and tendons won't rebound as quickly as your muscles. 

Weight Class (kg/lbs)	Height (cm/inches)
60/132	155/61
67.5/148	160/63
75/165	164/64.5
82.5/181	168/66
90/198	171/67.5
100/220	174.5/69
110/242	177.5/70
125+/275+	186/73

[LETSGOBROWNIES]

15 minutes ago, Tetsujin said:

I gained a lot of weight prior to mid March and was 292 lb, then COVID shutdowns happened. Since then, through a combination of HCG and malnutrition, I've lost 50 lb, 10 of that being muscle. I've been to the gym maybe 4 times this year before COVID.

I just started back at the gym Tuesday and it's been RRRRUF. I was benching 315 lb x 12 towards the end of last year, and now I'm doing 225 lb x 4. But when I was going through diabetic ketoacidosis at the end of 2018 , I could only do 225 lb x 2, and maybe 6 months later I was doing 315 lb for reps again. I'm way healthier this time around and eating really healthy with a lot of great supplements, so hopefully I get my strength and endurance back in a few months. I'm also about to drop under a 40" waist for the first time in over 10 years, when I briefly did it for the first time in 5 years.

Health first my man, weights second.

Your strength will return in time, just keep doing your thing.

[Tetsujin]

1 hour ago, Sugashane said:

Lat work has helped me as well.

http://allaboutpowerlifting.com/lats-important-bench-press/

You're going to get it back, remember you not only lost muscle and the level of function in the muscles but also after a 50 pound loss you dropped a ton of leverage that was working in your favor. There is a reason Shieko has a rough estimate for needed weight per your height for ideal performance (referenced below). 

Just make sure you don't forget about occasional/scheduled deloads. Getting weights to jump up is great and all, especially after a really humbling first few sessions, but your ligaments and tendons won't rebound as quickly as your muscles. 

 

It's very weird how your body mass, just having more fat, makes your bench press better.

That's a good point about the ligaments and tendons.

Right now, I'm mostly doing full body in some manner with just a few sets of 1 exercise per body part, but I'm not hitting every body part each day. 

Edited August 27, 2020 by Tetsujin

[Tetsujin]

[MacReady]

I love it when you put on more weight than you thought you did and lift more than you thought you could.  I wish I could always do that on accident. 

[MWil23]

@ET80 @LETSGOBROWNIES I know we were talking about "weight goals" back in like June, so I finally though I'd let you know that as of this morning, I hit my -10 lb goal and am down to 178. I may ride the momentum down to 170 while continuing to lift. Since school was closed and I didn't have access to free weights for several months, I essentially had to do Beachbody body weight and HIIT workouts. My strength numbers are way down, but my lean muscle is probably up. 

[Tetsujin]

On 9/2/2020 at 12:57 PM, MWil23 said:

lean muscle

redundant 

[MWil23]

1 minute ago, Tetsujin said:

redundant 

🙄 

[Hunter2_1]

@LETSGOBROWNIES You more than most are very realistic when it comes to hypertrophy; in that it takes years to put on quality muscle. And I agree with you. So, what do you think the following is;

Throughout lockdown I thought I was doing enough to keep my muscle on, but it turns out every day of looking in mirror, it clouded that judgement and I had lost a decent amount of size. The gyms here have been open for about 4 weeks now, and I seem to have packed a lot of (if not all) of it back on. I assume this is the ol 'muscle memory', but it can only be the enlarging of muscle fibres right. So, what is going on here? I have rebuilt muscle size in 4 weeks? That's impossible though...

 

* I eat around maintenance 

Edited September 7, 2020 by Hunter2_1

[LETSGOBROWNIES]

3 hours ago, Hunter2_1 said:

@LETSGOBROWNIES You more than most are very realistic when it comes to hypertrophy; in that it takes years to put on quality muscle. And I agree with you. So, what do you think the following is;

Throughout lockdown I thought I was doing enough to keep my muscle on, but it turns out every day of looking in mirror, it clouded that judgement and I had lost a decent amount of size. The gyms here have been open for about 4 weeks now, and I seem to have packed a lot of (if not all) of it back on. I assume this is the ol 'muscle memory', but it can only be the enlarging of muscle fibres right. So, what is going on here? I have rebuilt muscle size in 4 weeks? That's impossible though...

 

* I eat around maintenance 

You’re showing hypertrophy of the current cells, which can happen relativity quickly.

Building new muscle/adding new tissue is what takes time.

[Forge]

Have always struggled considerably with my weight up and down. Been as high as 300, as low as 158 over the past 10-15 years (was always big growing up...I was an 11 pound baby at birth LOL). I haven't ever been a hardcore lifter or anything (I tend to do better with at home videos and programs like P90X than I do going solo at the gym, so I've never been a big guy, nor is my intention to be). When I moved to Vegas, I was about 160. I added 15 pounds (purposely) over the next year or so when I moved here and was in the best shape of my life.

Then real life happened lol.  Settling into co-habitation, having a kid (a significantly disabled one, which ramped up the exhaustion from lack of sleep and time consumption, and really elevated the who gives a crap mentality ), my weight had ballooned up to 251 in early March. So I just kind of lost it. I'm a bit of a freak when I do decide to push in on the dieting and work outs and I just sort of jumped into the deep end. 

Putting the quarantine to good use so far. Was 251 on March 4th. Now 209 as of September 4th, and that includes a 3 week disaster period at the end of march / early april where I hurt my back and could seriously do nothing but sit down and probably lost every bit of the progress I had made during the first three weeks, so iti's probably more like mid april - now where I lost the weight. 

My goal is to shed probably another 40 or so over the next 8 - 9 months. The loss should start to slow as the weight decreases. The tricky part will be the plateaus. The last time I dropped all the weight I had a significant plateau at around the 180-183 mark. Took me forever to move past that, and then another at the 174-175 area. A minor plateau around the mid 190's, though this time I feel better about how I'm actually dropping the weight so I don't think that I'll have nearly as many problems that early on.  

[Hunter2_1]

15 hours ago, Forge said:

Have always struggled considerably with my weight up and down. Been as high as 300, as low as 158 over the past 10-15 years (was always big growing up...I was an 11 pound baby at birth LOL). I haven't ever been a hardcore lifter or anything (I tend to do better with at home videos and programs like P90X than I do going solo at the gym, so I've never been a big guy, nor is my intention to be). When I moved to Vegas, I was about 160. I added 15 pounds (purposely) over the next year or so when I moved here and was in the best shape of my life.

Then real life happened lol.  Settling into co-habitation, having a kid (a significantly disabled one, which ramped up the exhaustion from lack of sleep and time consumption, and really elevated the who gives a crap mentality ), my weight had ballooned up to 251 in early March. So I just kind of lost it. I'm a bit of a freak when I do decide to push in on the dieting and work outs and I just sort of jumped into the deep end. 

Putting the quarantine to good use so far. Was 251 on March 4th. Now 209 as of September 4th, and that includes a 3 week disaster period at the end of march / early april where I hurt my back and could seriously do nothing but sit down and probably lost every bit of the progress I had made during the first three weeks, so iti's probably more like mid april - now where I lost the weight. 

My goal is to shed probably another 40 or so over the next 8 - 9 months. The loss should start to slow as the weight decreases. The tricky part will be the plateaus. The last time I dropped all the weight I had a significant plateau at around the 180-183 mark. Took me forever to move past that, and then another at the 174-175 area. A minor plateau around the mid 190's, though this time I feel better about how I'm actually dropping the weight so I don't think that I'll have nearly as many problems that early on.  

Well done Forge, sounds like when you have it on you - you really go for it! Wish I had more of that. Keeping it is harder than achieving it, for most.