Weightlifting & Fitness - Everything old is new again!

[minutemancl]

PR'd my power clean yesterday. 235 @ 195bw. If I built up a little quicker or had a little more time, I could have hit 245 as well. Oh well; something to shoot for next time.

The killer was that, immediately after hitting a new PR 1RM, we went for 30 reps of 77% of that weight we hit. So that is 30 reps at 180 in 4.5 minutes. I felt really good about it at the time, but I am absolutely paying for it today.

Going for a back squat PR today, so hopefully my legs cooperate in about 8 hours.

[kingseanjohn]

On 11/8/2021 at 8:22 AM, ET80 said:

Now I'm focusing more on Cardio: Four days a week of running/elliptical/stairmaster or spin, along with a light individual muscle group workout. I'm also adding in a full stretch/foam roller/ab day every Wednesday...

One of the best things I did was add 15-20 minutes of stretching to the end of every cardio/core workout I did 3x a week.

[Hunter2_1]

5 hours ago, kingseanjohn said:

One of the best things I did was add 15-20 minutes of stretching to the end of every cardio/core workout I did 3x a week.

Yeah. For me, it’s a pain in A but it’s essential now…I’d be a walking wreck without stretching 

[Hunter2_1]

On 10/29/2021 at 12:40 PM, jetsfan4life51 said:

Instead of carb refeeds I'm trying protein refeeds on my days off.  So lift days will be 200-220g and then my days off will be 300+.  So far so good.

Are you farting the roof off your house yet?! Lol

[Hunter2_1]

On 10/29/2021 at 3:20 PM, JonStark said:

I've been having a lot of success doing this split. Ryan Humiston on youtube is a great follow for some new exercises.

Monday: rest or cardio
Tuesday: Chest/Tri
Wednesday: Back/Bi
Thursday: Shoulders
Friday: Legs
Saturday: Chest
Sunday: rest or Back

I have two workouts for each ready to go that I can switch between (or use the shorter one if I don't have as much time). One is just a full workout where I'll alternate between two exercises (ie do a back on and then a bicep one back to back for one set) and one where I just do two mega sets (ie 4 back exercises back to back for one giant set three times and then do the same with biceps). Separating rear/front/side delts in the mega sets feels amazing once you're spent. 

I figured the key thing to realise about Humiston is the intensity. He’s not conventional at all, he believes in attacking and destroying your muscle. 
 

you don’t count out your reps necessarily, you go until they burn. Then you keep going. Then you make it lighter and do 20 more reps. Then you need to vomit. 

[Hunter2_1]

On 10/30/2021 at 10:37 PM, Sugashane said:

I worked with Ken "Skip" Hill years ago and got to be a big fan of Skiploading. Something that stuck with me from like 10 years ago when I was afraid of it causing me to gain fat while leaning down was a post that showed me how off my concern was. Roughly paraphrasing because its way too long ago to remember  lol:

Topic - Carbs in the body.
Conventional take - Takes about 3 days to fill glycogen levels
Length of Skipload is 12 to 16 hrs

Topic - Glycemic carbs during a refeed
Conventional take - Thinking a high glycemic meal will immediately result in fat gain
Skipload - Not really possible since glycogen stores are sucking up the carbs, and they won't even be full enough for "spillover"

 

Keep us updated. I'm interested to hear how you feel protein refeeds helped you.

 

So what is skip loading exactly? I’d be thinking the same as what you originally thought

[kingseanjohn]

7 minutes ago, Hunter2_1 said:

Yeah. For me, it’s a pain in A but it’s essential now…I’d be a walking wreck without stretching 

I just switched to the Winter Solider workout that I previously posted. So I'm going from 3x a week to 1x per week now with stretching. I just hope that's enough. I came to enjoy and appreciate it.

[Hunter2_1]

On 11/8/2021 at 7:11 PM, JonMcC2018 said:

They're two different things.

CICO is merely the science behind why someone gains/loses body weight (not necessarily body fat). It's not a method of eating in and of itself. If you're body takes in more calories than it metabolises you will gain body weight, and if it takes in less you will lose weight. In much the same way that a company which takes in more money than it spends will return a profit and if does the reverse it will return a loss.

Severe caloric restriction on the other hand (as you mention in your post) is a means of losing body weight, and a pretty useless one at that. Whilst it may yield some short term results the evidence shows pretty clearly that long term outcomes are extremely poor (something like a 99.7% failure rate on such a diet) and in fact the metabolic adaptation resulting from such a way of eating typically increases body weight long term. To continue the analogy from above, a company which immediately cuts half out of its outgoings without much thought may see some financial benefits in the short term but is almost certainly setting itself up for long term ruin.

The thing about diet/food/eating is that its all very individual. There is no magic formula with carbs, fats, proteins, fasting, carb loading, supplements, etc etc. Most of the benefits with any form of diet come from simply not over-eating, whether that's keto, vegan, high fat, high carb, vegetarian, carnivore, paleo etc.

My personal opinion is that as long as you are eating 90% of your calories from single ingredient, minimally processed foods it's almost impossible to gain weight. This is why I would always recommend that people add foods to their diet when they want to lose weight, but the right type of foods. Vegetables, fruit, fish, meat, organs (if you can stomach them) eggs etc. These foods are naturally satiating, nutrient rich and consistent with what we would have eaten over the past million years.

Add in weight training, walking, light activity, good sleep, the occasional HIIT and you can't go far wrong.

With the single ingredient thing, this refers to each item of a meal, right? So a bowl of oatmeal with water would be a single ingredient…what about the protein powder you may add to it? 
 

a meal of salmon, potato and broccoli - that’s all single ingredient, right? But if you were to put Mayo on it, that’s not? 

[JonMcC2018]

Yes, just anything that hasn't been heavily processed and remains in its original type of state.

In fairness both oats and protein powder are processed foods themselves, but I would personally regard them as relatively harmless. (Although some people would say otherwise). The processing just makes them easier to eat.

A good rule of thumb for the types of processed foods to avoid would be anything which contains a high amount of fat and a high amount of carbohydrate. So pastries, doughnuts, pizza, hamburgers, crisps, ice cream, chocolate. There are very few naturally occurring foods which contain a high percentage of both carbs and fats (breast milk being one of the few), and it's almost impossible not to over consume when you start eating these foods. Personally I don't even bother keeping them in the house as even though I have a reasonable control over my appetite etc, eventually at some I'll devour them. 😃

Edited November 10, 2021 by JonMcC2018

[minutemancl]

23 hours ago, minutemancl said:

PR'd my power clean yesterday. 235 @ 195bw. If I built up a little quicker or had a little more time, I could have hit 245 as well. Oh well; something to shoot for next time.

The killer was that, immediately after hitting a new PR 1RM, we went for 30 reps of 77% of that weight we hit. So that is 30 reps at 180 in 4.5 minutes. I felt really good about it at the time, but I am absolutely paying for it today.

Going for a back squat PR today, so hopefully my legs cooperate in about 8 hours.

Did it. 355lbs back squat PR. Beat my previous best by 40 lbs. That puts me at a 995 lbs total for the conventional 1000 pound club (415 deadlift, 355 back squat, 225 bench). 5 pounds left! I set my goal this year to hit the 1000 pound club, not actually anticipating I'd get there, but it really looks like I might. I think I can get that last 5 in any of those lifts.

[jetsfan4life51]

14 hours ago, Hunter2_1 said:

Are you farting the roof off your house yet?! Lol

Nope lol.  I eat foods that agree with my stomach.

EDIT- if anything I fart if I'm eating too many veggies

Edited November 10, 2021 by jetsfan4life51

[Sugashane]

15 hours ago, Hunter2_1 said:

So what is skip loading exactly? I’d be thinking the same as what you originally thought

Just letting you know I'm not ignoring you, just got called into work before I had the time to sit down and avtually type it out.  I'll put a small synopsis of it together tonight. 

[Hunter2_1]

8 hours ago, Sugashane said:

Just letting you know I'm not ignoring you, just got called into work before I had the time to sit down and avtually type it out.  I'll put a small synopsis of it together tonight. 

No worries, thanks man

[Hunter2_1]

8 hours ago, jetsfan4life51 said:

Nope lol.  I eat foods that agree with my stomach.

EDIT- if anything I fart if I'm eating too many veggies

What’s a typical full day of eating for you, Jet?

[Sugashane]

8 hours ago, Hunter2_1 said:

No worries, thanks man

Just got off a zoom meeting I was told I needed to be on. Nice of them to give me almost 15 minutes notice. 😅

 

Ok so just to preface this - calories in vs calories out is a good guideline for maintaining but not ALWAYS for weight loss. I'll explain.

Think of burning wood as if it were burning fat. You take x amount of time to burn either. The thing is that if you add something like gas it gets the fire hotter, so you can theoretically burn the wood a bit faster. That is the goal of a Skipload. When you are dieting down it causes your body to suddenly realize it is not getting the normal calorie intake and over time it will slow your metabolism. Dropping from 2500 kcals to 2400 kcals isn't going to cause a dramatic shift but it isnt going to cause much weight loss either. If you're doing a very casual diet then there isn't much of a reason to Skipload and it may actually work against you because there isn't much of a metabolic response to "kickstart."

So we will look at a diet and base it on a weekly protocol, 6 strict days and one Skiploaded day. I choose Sundays because football, family and moderate gluttony go hand in hand for me.  lol    So if I am doing it I will go Monday through Saturday with a strict diet, weigh myself upon waking every morning and then will give myself a period of time to 'refeed' or Skipload that day based off my weight loss from the prior week. I will not freak out following Sunday morning because I likely will gain a pound to up to three by Monday morning. Not fat, but weight.

So since I would be dieting pretty strictly and still lifting over the course of 6 days glycogen stores are pretty damn depleted. Fat then becomes a secondary fuel source through the week, which aids in fat loss. Of course weight loss isn't perfectly linear so I am weighing myself daily and the lowest weight I have in this week will be taken against LAST week's lowest weight. Lets say my lowest weight was 230 this week and my lowest was 233 last week. That is a loss of three pounds, so I will give myself a 6 hour period where I can Skipload. The next week if I had a lowest weight of 227 that would result in the same 3 pound loss, so I would allow myself an 8 hour Skipload. If the following week I lost only 2 pounds at my lowest then I would go back to the 6 hour or step it down to 7 hours. If I maintained 3 or more I would step UP the time I Skipload. It is going to change week to week but the biggest goal is to find the sweet spot that you can Skipload as long as possible on that one predetermined day as possible while not sacrificing fat loss. Everyone responds differently but I have found the 7-8 hour window to be my own. This isn't a constant snackfest, but more of getting 3-4 good meals of whatever you want that fits the criteria. So if I start at 10am I can finish my last meal at about 6pm. Ill eat at 10am, 12:30pm, 3pm, and 5:30pm roughly. Sundays I always finish off my last meal with chicken and broccoli to start my "clean eating" period. Generally I'll take a meal every 2 to 2.5 hours during my Skipload. Some may only do a single too, but I've actually never tried that. At the lowest I've tried was 2 meals over a 3 hour period. I actually find this allows me to eat more overall than gorging since after one gluttonous meal I don't want to eat for 5 hours or so. With this I can be comfortable and ready to eat sooner. Actually when I was bulking this was the case too. I did much better with multiple reasonable meals than massive calorie pushing meals.

So what is a Skipload specifically? The basic thing is it is a window where you go against your diet, traditionally in a very high carb/low fat or high carb/moderate fat period. Generally unless you are getting REALLY lean then the moderate fat seems to about as effective, especially if you're just starting a diet - at least from my experience. Protein in this window doesn't seem to make a difference to me, I've sipped on protein shakes, had steak and potatoes, or gone low protein because I was gorging on pasta. You don't lose muscle after one day of lower protein intake.  Now this isn't meant to eat until you're miserable, but until you're content. Dieting shrinks your stomach as it is already so the first Skipload you'll likely completely overestimate how much youre going to put down. lol    The other caveat is that you try to make these carbs processed carbs (or at least high-GI) rather than low-GI foods like beans, nuts, brown rice, etc. Soft pretzels, pastas, pancakes, sushi, baked potato, etc are all staples for me.

The point of all this is to refill your glycogen stores - which likely will not be at 100% since the window is still abbreviated - while keeping your metabolism from setting a new, lower baseline. Rather than cut 100-200 kcals each week or two, or rotating carbs from high/med/low daily (which still works extremely well of course, Shelby Starnes has been getting people dialed down forever), you get to make a simple consistent plan and then reward yourself on one day. When I was carb cycling I HATE high carb day with a passion, so two days just sucked. Now I show just a little restraint on 6 days because I know I can have that big window Sunday. If I want to eat some pasta on Tuesday I can, just add a little more salad and eat is first so I get full a bit sooner. If I want a burger I will eat a double with it loaded and only a few fries. Next meal Ill make really healthy. It's just easier for me when I want to lose weight this way. Plus now my wife and kids can make a request for me to make a ton of something on Sunday and it will be almost a buffet style deal for us all to enjoy - be is me making a bunch of sushi rolls, a burrito bar, burger assembly line, or breakfast buffet kind of deal.

So why did Skip choose processed carbs? You're trying to fill glycogen stores and they fill them fast as possible. Your body is depleted so this is where the calories in vs calories out thing kind of gets thrown out the window. Rather than accumulate fat you're generally going to have these carbs fast cause a massive insulin spike (which you're probably going to be more insulin sensitive due to conservative carb intake over the last 6 days). Low GI carbs or fibrous veggies will slow the spike dramatically so you get less carbs converted to glycogen and forced into your muscles. With this spike your body doesn't believe it is "starving" so it doesn't lower your metabolism in the same manner as it would with the consistent calorie deficit from traditional dieting. Plus the weight you see on the scale the next day isn't spillover, your liver and muscles have taken in glycogen and you're going to be retaining water too. As you lift the excess water drops and you deplete glycogen stores over the next 6 days. Take your lowest bodyweight again, measure off the previous weeks to see if your Skipload will be a bit longer or shorter, and wash/rinse/repeat. Rather than constantly making adjustments I can generally go 2 months before making any real adjustments to my "diet" and that covers the whole diet for me. I don't let myself dirty bulk anymore so losing 10-15 pounds of fat is all I ever need. A lot of Skip's clients have gone longer and over long periods (like my wife when losing babyweight after our last child) she was able to only make like 4-5 moderate changes over something like 9 months. That is a hell of a lot better than weekly or biweekly adjustments. You won't have dramatic weightloss like with waterfasting or anything like that, but you can be consistent and have it be a much easier diet this way IMO.

That is the difference between Skiploading and other refeeds, cheat days, s***loading, etc. Its structure and how you approach it. I'm not an expert on the matter by any means, but I worked with Skip 10ish years ago and have been actively following him, DC, Justin Harris, and others that I highly respect in the field. It's worked great for me. I'm not an active bodybuilder or powerlifter but spent years trying to pursue both before I realized I'd have as much of a chance going pro as of being a competitive sprinter - none. lol. Now that I'm doing them as a hobby this has helped me maintain and keep healthy without feeling burdened. With my work schedule I absolutely love it.