A question for those experienced in HST

[Sylv]

4 months ago, I started going to the gym, lost 20lbs through a proper diet, resistance training, I got some great results. I paid a personal trainer to take me to the next level as I was getting through the resistance training with some ease. He put together an HST program for me, I got through about 2 weeks of it, then my daughter was admitted to hospital, I stopped going to the gym, turned to old habits of eating high fat, sugary foods for comfort.
Anyway, everything returns to normal, and i've thrown myself back into it, diet included.
Consequently I've put on a few pounds and my PT has said, just carry on with the program. It's killing me, I'm not doing any cardio but a 5 minute warm up (this doesn't seem right?)
I know buliding lean muscle burns fat,I don't feel like I'm making much progress.
Can anyone offer any advice to remove or add anything here, it's not sitting right with me, I feel like I'm missing muscle groups.
Chest then onto shoulders for example, I can barely lift 10kg on my shoulders after working on my chest.

Day 1 and 3
Squat 3 x 12
Leg press 3 x15

Assisted chin up 3 x 12
seated row 3 x 15

DB incline press 3 x 12
DB flat 3 x 15

DB shoulder press 3 x 12
machine shoulder press 3 x 12

Day 2 and 4
Flat dumbbell curl 3x 12
Dumbbell hammer curl 3 x 12

Skull crushes 3 x 12
Rope extension 3 x 10

Upright row 3 x 10
Shrug 3 x 12
Reverse fly 3 x 10

Roll out 3 x 15
Laying knee to chest 3 x 12

Calf raise 3 x 15

Typical daily diet:

Breakfast
Porridge
Whey protein shake (mixed w/ water)
Fat metabolizers x 2

*Whey protein shake after workout

Lunch
2 slices of medium wholegrain bread
1 chicken breast
mixed salad
half pot cottage cheese

Dinner
1 chicken breast
mixed vegetables
sweet potatoes

Whey protein shake a couple of hours after dinner.
I'll drink 2litres of water throughout the day and snack on fruit or protein bar in between meals, eating roughly 6 times a day.

 

[Syla5]

firstly, hope your daughter is ok, and out of hospital.

i am going to assume that your pretty new to the gym.

If so the best thing i could suggest would be to keep things straight forward and simple. Look in to starting strength or strong lifts or a 3x8 split rountine to get you going.

stronglifts is an A/B routine (day 1 a day 2 b day 3 a, 3 days a week mon a, tues rest, wed b, thurs rest, friday a, s rest, s rest, mon b, tues rest, wed a, thurs rest, fri a etc you get the point . Also you can train more often but i would stick to cardio/mobility on the 4th day rather then intensive weights, otherwise you will hit a plateau very quickly increasing weights each session)

A
Squat 5x5
Bench Press 5x5
OHP 5x5

B
Squat 5x5
Deadlift 5x5 (the program says 1x5 but lol that is crazy low, once weight creeps up 3x5 is fine)
Bent over row 5x5

Start weight as follows
everything bar except deads at 40kg to bring the bar to a better postion to start

each session add 2.5kg to all lifts, and add 5kg to deadlifts each time you deadlift

you can add in assistance exercises to the above rountines but no need to overwork yourself.

Follow this for 12 weeks and that should see you make some nice progress and lose some weight.

5 mins cardio for warmup is fine, you dont want to waste your energy running for 45 mins before hitting the weights.

Check out the form thread for form advise on all the lifts and there is a diet thread as well. I think there is even a Stronglifts 5x5 thread

 

[Sylv]

Yeh she is fine, had some feeding problems but all ok now thankfully!

You are correct in assuming I'm fairly new to lifting!
I was just concerned that I wouldn't be losing %fat as there is no cardio bar a 5 minute warm up, hard to get my head around I guess!

a lot of the programs I've seen, have a cardio day or cardio worked into lifting days. However, I get that people are trying to achieve different goals.
I'm not to keen on changing up what I'm doing too much, just adjust it.

Am I missing muscle groups in either of those days?

 

[Skillmister]

I was just concerned that I wouldn't be losing %fat as there is no cardio bar a 5 minute warm up, hard to get my head around I guess!

Cardio does not equal fat loss. Burning more calories than you consume is what loses fat and a high intensity weights workout burns a lot of calories anyway.

If losing fat is your main goal you need to add up everything you eat (http://tracker.dailyburn.com) and give this a read and make sure your diet is in check.

 

[Sylv]

I'm clearly not working myself hard enough, I need to up the weights then. Losing body fat is definitely a goal but losing weight is not, pretty sure my diet is OK.
Thanks for the links, i'll give them a good read.

 

[Syla5]

if you stick to your diet posted above 7 days a week, without cheat meals, booze etc then you will loose weight. You would also be suprised by how bad your diet is by comparison to how good it could be, i see quite a lot of processed carbs, and dairy in there still, also not a lot of good fats, and overall not a lot of calories, without knowing particulars its hard to know what you might need.

In my view HST isnt a straightforward routine to start with, i am on it now after training over a year on other routines and its a mass building routine, not a fat burning one, to get the best results out of it you need ot be eating to gain weight not lose it.

You will be working hard enough soon enough on stronglifts or another simple starter routine, and as flutter said, cardio doesnt = weight loss. You will burn as much or more cals doing 45 mins of weights then you will doing 45 mins cardio.

 

[Sylv]

I'd be inclined to agree with the overall calories and fats, I didn't think I was eating enough, but when I asked my PT about diet, he said mine was fine and diet was "something to focus on later." Which is utter ********
That typical diet is was the diet I was using to cut, which worked great, but thats the opposite of what I'm trying to do now.
I've always kept the processed carbs and dairy to a minimum. Forgot to mention the porridge is made with almond milk and probably the only processed carb and dairy in there.

 

[Dave M]

Seems like a lot of protein, more than carbs in fact, is that right?

 

[Sylv]

I'm roughly consuming around 100-120g protein a day and weigh 168lbs.

Lowering the carbs and upping the protein is the way to go right?!

 

[Skillmister]

Not necessarily, read the thread i linked above.

 

[icecold]

That's the HST routine your PT gave you? Well, it falls at the first hurdle, in that it isn't HST.

You have my permission to punch your PT in the face.

Upright rows as well :/

 

[Sylv]

That's the HST routine your PT gave you? Well, it falls at the first hurdle, in that it isn't HST.

You have my permission to punch your PT in the face.

Upright rows as well :/

I actually paid for this. :\

What is it? Not even sure what I'm achieving doing this 4 times a week, it's quite full on intensity.

 

[Greenja]

Losing body fat is definitely a goal but losing weight is not, pretty sure my diet is OK.

This is sometimes possible in complete beginners, but you must be eating very clean with just a small amount of excess calories to promote muscle growth without adding any fat and the work done in the gym burns some of the fat you have.

This is not the norm though and takes somebody working very hard and being very strict with diet.

Generally losing fat whilst not losing weight (which means gaining muscle to replace the lost fat) is not possible as they are conflicting goals. To lose fat you must be operating in calorie deficit (burning more calories than you consume) to gain muscle you must have caloric excess (consuming more calories than you are burning).

You can see how trying to do both will generally cancel each other out, or at the very least make progress very slow (eat at maintenance calories, which is just enough calories to not lose or gain weight, while working hard in the gym. But this makes everything a lot slower).

I would strongly recommend deciding which is more important to you, gaining muscle or losing fat and build your goals around that.

I can understand most people who start working out would like to lose fat, I would say the best route to take would to be to slowly gain weight (work out how many cals you need per day, search cunningham equation for a great tool for this, and eat 2-300 cals more. Weigh yourself every 2 weeks and when you don't gain weight on your weigh in add another 2-300cals. This will make nice slow steady muscle gains without adding much fat) and then when you have some muscle on your frame switch up to losing fat. Losing fat is much easier when you have more muscle as more muscle burns more calories.

 

[icecold]

The programme isn't actually terrible, it just isn't HST, which is a fairly advanced training modality.

You should be able to cope with that 4 times a week, even if days 2 and 4 don't make a huge amount of sense.

 

[Sylv]

I would say the best route to take would to be to slowly gain weight (work out how many cals you need per day, search cunningham equation for a great tool for this, and eat 2-300 cals more. Weigh yourself every 2 weeks and when you don't gain weight on your weigh in add another 2-300cals. This will make nice slow steady muscle gains without adding much fat) and then when you have some muscle on your frame switch up to losing fat. Losing fat is much easier when you have more muscle as more muscle burns more calories.

Good advice. How would I measure my % of body fat? or where can I get this done?

 

[Greenja]

I wouldn't get too hung up on arbritrary numbers for bodyfat % etc, just go off how you feel.

Keep gaining weight (mostly muscle if you follow the method I advised, but a little bit of fat is unavoidable) until you start to feel a little uncomfortable with your level of bodyfat. By this point you should have built a nice base of muscle and a lot of people find that they care less about the fat they carry (to a certain extent) when they have more muscle on the frame, so you may find you wish to keep gaining muscle longer. But like I say once you get to a point where you feel you are carrying a little too much start reducing calories to lose the fat.

This is the problem with following numbers like BF % that have very little meaning in relation to how you feel about your body, you might set some goal of say "start to cut at 18% BF" but like I say with more muscle aswell you might feel comfortable at 18% and want to keep gaining.

If you do want to measure BF you can get "bodyfat calipers" which are very cheap that can be used to measure BF, but to get an accurate reading this needs to be done by someone experienced in it. Everytime i've done it myself i've come up with a different reading every time lol. I don't really know where you can go to get this done but i'm sure others on here would know.

They also have machines at some gyms that supposedly measure bodyfat when you stand on them. These are useless from what i've heard.