*** The 2013 Gym Rats Thread ***

opethdisciple said:
I don't know what all the bickering was about earlier.

Can we just agree to stop it.

This is a new OP. Im doing the diet thing properly for the first time, so what came before is defunct. Advise me in the present not in the past.

Anyway I think I'm heading in the right direction with this, which is the first time I can say that. I am definetly dropping body weight and today I managed a personal best on the leg press. I managed 10x3 at 100kg which I have always struggled at. So thats progress.
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Well done on your progress, however, as others have said, I really encourage you to read Steedies 'New years resolution army' thread. Whilst you may not class yourself as one of these people, it gives links and foundations of knowledge that will basically give you most of the things you need to know. Once you have read it, I suspect you will have a few questions, and want ip things tweaked to your own goals slightly, which we can help with. But that thread, and the ones it refers to, provides so much fundamental knowledge that would take you years of asking questions in here to find out.

kd
 
opethdisciple said:
I don't know what all the bickering was about earlier.

Can we just agree to stop it.

This is a new OP. Im doing the diet thing properly for the first time, so what came before is defunct. Advise me in the present not in the past.

Anyway I think I'm heading in the right direction with this, which is the first time I can say that. I am definetly dropping body weight and today I managed a personal best on the leg press. I managed 10x3 at 100kg which I have always struggled at. So thats progress.
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That's great. I would advice to listen to the guys here too. When I started out I really didn't now what I was doing in terms of my diet and I was using a lot of machines like the leg press. But guys here are awesome and things like Squat, nothing can compare to it. I drop easily 500g a week now and its going along great with some really good gains too.

All I can say is try to get in more the 1500 calories and squat deep :p.
 
As much as opeth deserves the lambasting he gets I think he's had enough.

Opeth I hope you understand why people are getting wound up with you? You've been given advice, many times ad nauseum... good advice, and simple tasks to follow. Until you do that, and have some tangible results of these tasks people are going to get wound up.

Please heed to the advice given.

Yes I know it's 4:15 - I'm used to it by now :p
 
OPeth, you're receiving a fair bit of flack for your mental approach to your weightloss.

I suppse a couple of things apply here:

1) You've struggled with your consistency in both diet and workout;
2) You've felt limited in what you can do in the gym because of past failures and your perception of your injuries.

So...

You've lost 200g across two weeks. Practically - to most people - that's about as much as one would lose going for a dump and not that great in the grand scheme of things. However, for you, that's better than what you've had before, so it's an achievement, particularly if it's a structural thing (i.e. keeping all the variable listed in one of my previous posts consistent). Now I don't know you and I've never seen you eat/train so I can't tell if this is a structural thing, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

Now, from here, you should focus on accelerating this process, as you can lose a fair bit more than that and do it comfortably. Two things:

1) REview your diet: as posted before you're eating too much for your goals. It's simple thermodynamics because at a calorie deficit without exercise, you should be losing a pound a week or so. With exercise, this should be consistent or consistently more. So check your diet, be honest with yourself, and determine what snacks you could do without (assuming you're eating at your BMR +500/whatever).

The reason some have been skeptical about your diet is because of the above: you can't lose 200g over two weeks whilst exercising on a calorie deficit: the laws of thermodynamics is reasonably clear on this issue. So one approach is to trim your diet.

2) The second bit is cranking up your activity levels. This is my preferred option, because I like my food. The exercise regime we discussed a couple of months ago is still fine (in principal, given your objectives and limitations), but it's now time to step it up: increase the number of 'circuits' within it and force yourself to work harder.

There are no two ways about it. If you want to keep your food intake constant, you need to increase its burn rate.

I would personally suggest a mix of the two if you want reasonable results. Also, check out the 'Weightloss' thread as it's full of people who have achieved minor miracles and done very, very well for themselves who will give you a huge amount of support and encouragement if you match it with effort.

Weightloss is a lifestyle decision and requires hard work, commitment and consistency. Provided you can apply all those, you'll be well on your way to a better and more healthy you.

Get stuck in. And if needs be, drop me a PM and I'll make sure you stick at it. :)
 
Originally posted in Steedie's thread but think this could be a better place rather than derail his good work and hopefully as a beginner you'll go easy on me! I could use a bit of input on what I'm doing at the moment...

Bit of background to explain where I'm at:

How I got fat: <Slight sob story so feel free to skip>
Sept 2010 a 7.1 earthquake hit about 10km from our house and did a pretty good job of trashing it so we had to move out and live in a motel.
Dec 2010 our daughter was born and almost immediately had health problems (these lasted for about 15 months).
August 2011 my mother-in-law found out she had terminal cancer.
September 2011 we moved back into our house and my wife had to fly by herself back to the UK with our daughter to be with her mum
December 2011 my mother-in-law passed away, leaving a bit of a mess including donating her body to medical science unbeknownst to my wife (still waiting on cremation/ashes).
During that time I went from being in moderately good health to being a borderline obese unhealthy fatso (96kg at 1.81m and NOT muscle!!).

The death of my mother-in-law spurred me into action, I weighed myself and was horrified.
<end of sob story>

I started by sorting my diet, ditched all the real junk and now eat plenty of fruit and veg and clean meat as much as possible. I started going to the gym every day, only doing cardio (cross-trainer, bike, rower) and after about 3-4 months was making good progress on weight loss. For some reason I decided to start running a bit on the treadmill (guess the other machines were busy) and actually enjoyed it in between feeling like my lungs might explode. I started doing more running outside and before I knew it I had progressed to running a half marathon in June. Since then I've been running 3 times per week, generally 10km on Tues & Thurs and 15-20km on Sunday combined with better eating I have got my weight to 70kg. I've been doing quite a lot of bodyweight exercises like pushups, chins, pullups, dips and hanging leg raises but in a pretty ad-hoc fashion.

I've recently started the Stronglifts 5x5 program and I'm enjoying that and making decent progress I think. I'm doing it on Mon/Wed/Fri and have upped my calorie intake as well as having a daily smoothie with a couple of scoops of protein powder after my run/afternoon workout. I don't count every calorie (with a 2 year old) we're trying not to encourage any "odd" behaviour around food but ballpark I eat 2,500-3,000 per day and aim for 150-200g minimum of protein. We cook 90% of our food from scratch and grow about half our veg in the garden so whilst there is probably room for improvement I think I'm not too bad.

Where I'm at now is that I'd like to get stronger/bulk up a little but I've already signed up for three half marathons this year as part of a charity fundraising effort (new year's resolution) so I can't ditch my running. My current PB for a half marathon is 1:38 and it'd be nice to keep below 1:45 but I'm not too worried as long as I can still run the whole way.

Current SL progress (don't laugh too hard)

Squat - 62.5kg
OHP - 40kg
Bench - 50kg
Barbell Row - 50kg
Deadlift - 70kg

In terms of the shape I'm in, this is where I started and where I've got to (middle pic is a few months ago).

28a8gn8.png

In terms of supplements, I take Omega 3, a cheap multi-vitamin and glucosamine/chondroitin (GP recommended that latter because I was running quite a lot).

That's about all I can think of but shout if I've missed anything important!

So on to questions:

1) I'm currently doing Stronglifts split into 3 parts each day, my work is such that it is easier to take three 30-40min sessions than one 60-90min session (I work from home and have my own rack/weights). I do Squats in the morning, Bench or OHP around lunch and Barbell Row or Deadlifts in the afternoon followed by some bodyweight stuff. Is this okay or should I be doing them all at once?
2) For the last 6 months I've been following an 16/8 intermittent fasting plan, mostly because I find it helps me eat decent food in the 8 hour window rather than grazing and eating rubbish. Is this a good system to follow?
3) Should I add in another cardio session of 15-20 minutes after my last Stronglift workout? (I have a rower and road bike that I can use).
4) Is there a better program than Stronglifts given that I want to keep running?
5) Should I be taking creatine? A few runners have suggested this and I know it's popular amongst lifters too.
6) Is there anything else I should be doing (or not doing)?

I'm open to any advice and happy to give pretty much anything a try.
 
Thanks dude, copied your reply and added some comments (aka stuff I should have said before), really appreciate the feedback :)

1) I'm currently doing Stronglifts split into 3 parts each day, my work is such that it is easier to take three 30-40min sessions than one 60-90min session (I work from home and have my own rack/weights). I do Squats in the morning, Bench or OHP around lunch and Barbell Row or Deadlifts in the afternoon followed by some bodyweight stuff. Is this okay or should I be doing them all at once?

<b>Erm... my personal take would be to get it all over and done with in one go to get your metabolism cranked up as best it will go, and burn all those calories. The theory being you will burn off the glycogen and readily available sugars in your system and let your body get to work on the 'harder to process' energy source: fat. Gaps in training are a good idea to come to each exercises better rested and replenished (from a food perspective) and so better in principle for strength.

There are different schools of thought on this, and as long as the level of work done consistently increases, you will achieve broadly the same results. </b>

Thanks, that makes sense. The main benefit of me splitting it up is that rather than doing one long session I can do them in my breaks at work and I get an extra hour with the wife and our little one. I take a break from the screen about every hour and usually do 10-20 pushups & dips & pullups, mainly to give me something to do that's not staring at a screen :)

2) For the last 6 months I've been following an 16/8 intermittent fasting plan, mostly because I find it helps me eat decent food in the 8 hour window rather than grazing and eating rubbish. Is this a good system to follow?

<b>It's one approach of many used for calorie/intake control. If it works, stick to it, but be open to change if it stops working.</b>

3) Should I add in another cardio session of 15-20 minutes after my last Stronglift workout? (I have a rower and road bike that I can use).

<b>You could, and I'd always advice (hypocritically) doing <i>some</i> cardio to keep your ticker ticking over nicely. However, if this is a hardcore session, you obviously haven't worked hard enough during your resistance training.</b>

I think I have the cardio covered with running from a health point of view but wasn't sure if there was any extra benefit to doing a cardio session after weights or if it's just tacked on because otherwise it gets neglected.

4) Is there a better program than Stronglifts given that I want to keep running?

<b>Why do you want to keep running? It's bad for your knees, bad for your mobility (tight muscles) and puts more stress on your heart than swimming (due to the way it fills up with blood in the upright position vs. the prone position). I appreciate swimming wasn't mentioned, but just thought I'd get that crack in there. </b>

<b>I suppose it depends what you want to focus on: if your end objective is strength or big muscles, then running will have to give way. If you want to run like Mo Farrah, then you're going to have to accept that big muscles and ripped-ness will be somewhat beyond scope.

Practically, Stronglifts is very good for building up a good strength and muscle base. We could spend ages tailoring your workout to suit your specific needs, but at this juncture, it would be pointless.</b>

I want to keep running mostly because I enjoy it and because I want to keep "fit" so I can enjoy getting out hiking with the family. I'm not worried about getting quicker or having a runner's build, I'd prefer a bigger build than I have now and I'm happy to slow my speed down in order to increase strength. Swimming is pretty much out sadly, we live 45mins from town and our local pool is about 10m long, unheated and full of kids (no time set aside for "proper" swimming).

5) Should I be taking creatine? A few runners have suggested this and I know it's popular amongst lifters too.

<b>
*Sigh* Popular myth I'm afraid. Creatine does nothing for cardiovascular/aerobic exercise. You're far better off with citrulline malate or beta alanine which play a more prominent role in aerobic activity. Creatine is popular amongst lifters because it does two things:

- It pulls water into muscles, making them look bigger;<br>
- With correct dosing, over time, it has been shown to improve maximum muscle power output (which is pointless for runners due to the sub-maximal contractions involved).

You can see why this would be a good thing for lifters.</b>

Thanks, that's really helpful, I'll skip the creatine for now.

6) Is there anything else I should be doing (or not doing)?

<b>Don't waste your money on glucosamine/chondritin: the evidence supporting is function is scant at best. You're far better off just taking regular fish oils and spending the money saved on something nice for your partner.</b>

Haha will do, I should show her this thread, she'll complain less about me being on here!

I'm open to any advice and happy to give pretty much anything a try.
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Am I wrong in thinking that leg press is worse for your knees?

As a sidepoint, my mate has not long recovered from a knee OP and has started squatting again (with instruction) and he claims his knees have never felt better and squats seem to be doing no damage to them at all if anything helping them!

But then everyone's body reacts differently and he may just be lucky -AKA doing correct form!
 
He has no cartilage from what I remember, hence the problem.

However as you say, you would think squats would work if he can do leg press, then again the movement is completely different, along with the load
 
Opeth's knee problems should be seen to by a decent physio and he should be given proper instruction on how to squat. Squats are easier on the kmees, as pointed out, but he is unwillimg to change (presumably because he can't learn correct form).
 
Learning how to squat properly from a good physio/PT and eating large amounts of fish oils will help him in the long run rather than using the leg press which puts a lot more pressure on the joint especially if you are locking out each rep.
 
Woop.

Second time squatting ever, first time in 2 months. Got 100 up for 4 reps and 110 up for 1 rep :D. Also leg pressed 310 for 2 reps too. :D

Rest day tomorrow.
 
Mason, get a video of your squat to get it checked off as being OK. 100x4 after only squatting once before sounds like you may not be doing it correctly.
 
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