Drinking water hasn’t been mentioned yet. What about drinking water? Should I do more of it?
Also, in regards to the low-carb diet, what happens to the fat that doesn’t get stored as fat? Does it get burned off or does it get pooped out? I image it has to go somewhere.
A lot of the HIT guys propose you drink a lot of water. Read this.
Also, when and why would the fat that is already stored be burned off if the body if more fat is eaten?
You do the warm ups for the squat, and then the work sets for the squat. Then you warm up for the bench and do the work sets for the bench . Etc. [Notice that you do Squats Bench Deadlift on say Monday, then Squat Press Power Clean on Wednesday, then Squat Bench Dead on Friday, then Squat Press Power clean next Monday, and so on til you are no longer a beginner]
Squatting 3 times a week is doable IF IF IF you remember a few vital things.
First, “Most people don’t eat enough. This means you.” You really have to eat like there’s no tomorrow. Meaning at least a gram of protein every day for every pound of bodyweight, and probably double the calories you are consuming daily now. Sleep of course goes without saying.
Second, you have to get into this gradually. Most people, and we are talking healthy teenagers, use a work set of 80 pounds first workout. Even though they might be able to squat much more. Yes eighty. Not more. Don’t be ashamed to start with much less. Don’t worry, it will be plenty challenging very very soon.
The thing is, you should NOT be doing a “weight I can do 5 reps, but not 6” on your first day. That is way too much. You will burn out almost right away. The body has to acclimate to this new regimen, then find in itself reservoirs of strength to keep going up.
Third, better to be conservative in how much you add. Say Monday you squatted 80, then Wednesday you do 90. After a short while 10 pounds each workout will be too much, so you add only 5 each workout.
Fourth, you gotta use proper form.
Although it is not rocket science, the more you know the better off you are. If you can afford the book, buy it. If you can’t, read here. The guy who set it up did a great job, better than kethnaab.
“What do you think of HST programs? I’m planning on using one after I recover from my tendinosis. Maybe. Low volume is nice, and the strategic deconditioning has been pretty much forced on me.” - Snowflake
The principles are sound, don’t get caught up in the cookie cutter workout Haycock has laid out at his site. That’s a one size fits all template to give a basic idea how the program works. All successful programs follow HST principles, even if they look nothing like the cookie cutter workout. For example, 5X5 does follow HST principles itself. My last HST run was divided into 8s, 5s, and 3s, and instead of negatives after the 3s I followed the Max Stimulation protocol for those workouts. I found that dual factor 5X5 as laid out at MadCow’s site was better for me than anything else. Seems like my sweetspot for reps is 8 and below. Other people seem to need more volume. But as long as your load is progressing and your frequency is 2 to 3 times a week, you’re basically doing HST. Take a break whenever you plateau and you’ve sealed it. But the standard 15-10-5-negatives setup, while a good starting place, isn’t usually where most people end up. They either need more load or more volume, and so compromise on the other variables. And Haycock recommends doing just that.
If you’re coming back from injury though, starting with the 15s is a good idea.
“Oh, and i forgot. Smaller muscles like the rear delts don’t seem to be worked by any of the major lifts (maybe I am mistaken). Your workout routine, as well as many others, seem to neglect these kinds of muscles. Is there a consequence to this?” - Snowflake
Trust me, your rear delts will get a workout with 5 sets of full rep clean and presses. Full rep clean and press is like full rep deads, people rarely do them and for good reason. You clean the bar off the floor to your collar bone, press, lower, return the bar to the floor, stand, breathe, repeat. 25 of those, no matter how you set them, are a hard workout. It’s during the clean portion of the lift on the positive, and on the negative when you’re returning the bar to the floor, that your rears seem to engage the most.
“You piss and shit calories. That’s why it’s generally recommended that you consume less than 30g of protein in a meal, since any additional protein will be wasted.” - krazy kaju
Which is another myth. It’s a rule of thumb that’s been passed down, and for body builders eating 5-6 meals a day it’s not a bad option. However, when in a calorie surplus most studies show no difference in nitrogen balance despite varying meal frequency and protein intake. It’s possibly an issue when dieting. But, then again, protein takes a long time to digest anyway. Of course, if it were really necessary to get a certain amount of protein at a certain time in order to be HOOGE, one has to wonder why it didn’t matter so much in the old days. even before steroids, when people just ate a lot and lifted heavy. Amazing how they got so far without all this essential knowledge of diet minutiae…
And the number you can supposedly digest at any given time changes regularly, usually with the highest value of grams per serving in the latest and greatest protein bar or shake. Odd that.
So you’re saying that you can consume as many calories and as many protein as possible in a single meal and your body will digest most of it?
Here’s a good diet tip: Eat a pound of Frito Pie 5-7 times per day. lol
“So you’re saying that you can consume as many calories and as many protein as possible in a single meal and your body will digest most of it?” - krazy kaju
No, I am saying that with regard to maintaining a positive nitrogen balance that protein intake, so long as it’s adequate, can be spread out or concentrated depending on preferences and as circumstances allow. Which for most people means it doesn’t matter. For a pro body builder who is verging on 300 pounds, routinely taking steroids and GH and insulin and whatever the hell else they’re jamming into their veins or popping pills for these days, the spread out 30 gram rule might be more significant. But since very few people have the genetic capability nor the tolerance for hormone use necessary to reach that level and maintain it, that’s kind of a moot point. And it’s a perfect example of what I called wanking in another thread. Hypothesizing on the minute details of what might give a slight edge to someone who is already pushing the boundries of physical development and who is already way out from the normal distribution of the population with respect to body composition is irrelevant to the vast majority of people who would be lucky to even notice, much less be able to measure and confirm, the ‘advantage’ that eating in such way confers to them, if any.
No, I am saying that with regard to maintaining a positive nitrogen balance that protein intake, so long as it’s adequate, can be spread out or concentrated depending on preferences and as circumstances allow. Which for most people means it doesn’t matter. For a pro body builder who is verging on 300 pounds, routinely taking steroids and GH and insulin and whatever the hell else they’re jamming into their veins or popping pills for these days, the spread out 30 gram rule might be more significant. But since very few people have the genetic capability nor the tolerance for hormone use necessary to reach that level and maintain it, that’s kind of a moot point. And it’s a perfect example of what I called wanking in another thread. Hypothesizing on the minute details of what might give a slight edge to someone who is already pushing the boundries of physical development and who is already way out from the normal distribution of the population with respect to body composition is irrelevant to the vast majority of people who would be lucky to even notice, much less be able to measure and confirm, the ‘advantage’ that eating in such way confers to them, if any.
I think this is essentially correct. It is much akin to shooting: 99.9% of rifles shoot better than 99.9% of shooters, it’s only that upper fraction of a percentile that gets any benefit out of ‘customized’ and expensive routines.
“I think this is essentially correct. It is much akin to shooting: 99.9% of rifles shoot better than 99.9% of shooters, it’s only that upper fraction of a percentile that gets any benefit out of ‘customized’ and expensive routines.”
Which is also why increasingly complex diet regimens don’t add up to results for people who can’t get the basic idea that eating an entire bag of doritos in one sitting isn’t a good idea. Or, more commonly, for people who can’t consistently estimate calorie intake accurately. By far the biggest problem facing the obese today is a lack of portion control, not carbs or processed this or that, or this kind of fat vs that kind of fat. All of that fades to nothing when someone is slamming a day’s worth of calories or more down during each meal.
I have been lifting for three months. I work out about 4 times a week. I use half a scoop of syntha 6 before, then another half of syntha 6 after my workout. My workout contains a total of 1 hour and a half of cardio and 1 hour and a half of lifting. I also use the shakes as a meal replacement. It’s been great so far. I’m about to run out, and have been considering buying a 5 pound container of the stuff. Before I do, I was thinking of trying new stuff (like no explode), I was looking at other BSN products, any suggestions?
Quit supplements.
Do it the natural way!
4 is fine. 5 is better.
You need to get your diet down. Supplements are crutches for losers who never make it. Don’t get me wrong, I take protein powder, but I also eat 5 whole food meals a day. You need to cook your own food and bring it with you wherever you go. Eat slow digesting carbs, like sweet potatoes, brown rice, or oatmeal. Eat lean protein like ground turkey, chicken, and tuna. Eat AT LEAST 1g of protein/lb body weight.
You will not get results if you do not do this. Also, PWO, you need about 50-100g of carbs and 25-40g of whey isolate depending on how big you are.
Your hormones aren’t going to know what to do. You need to separate your cardio and weights by at least 8 hours. I do cardio in the morning on an empty stomach. Weights at night. But its good you do cardio. Otherwise you’ll get fat.
5 whole food meals? How many calories do you take in per meal? So if I weigh 165 pounds, I want to be eating 165 grams of protein a day? Are raw unprocessed nuts good protein, because I eat and a lot of those. I could just bring those anywhere. I would separate my cardio if I could, but my gym is my college gym, and I only stop by campus 4 days a week (it’s 30 minutes away), so I have to kind of do everything together. I do cardio for 45 minutes, then stop lift for 45 minutes, I repeat this twice. I take the protein shake after my first cardio session, then after my last lifting session. Once I cut down this extra weight I’ve gained recently, it’s going to be mostly lifting by itself. I’m trying to do what I can, with what I have, thanks for the advice.
I can always try workouts that don’t need machines on the side, perhaps in the morning and night.
My goal is to gain simply a noticeable amount of muscle mass, and then just maintain it, for example a 6 pack. I’m starting to get there, I was very scrawny a few months ago.
As for the workouts themselves, my cardio consists of running and elyptical, I do hike on the side. Each 45 minutes lifting workout is lifting 50 times per machine (6 or 7 machines). I increase my weight for every 10 lifts by 5 to 10 pounds. I also increase the general weight as I see fit, I try to push what I can lift.
Yeah. Its not a big deal once you start doing it.
No. Plant protein is biologically unavailable. Don’t count protein from plant sources. Most of it is destroyed in your gut. Chicken, tuna, egg whites, ground turkey, etc.
Up to you. You can also do your cardio outside the gym. It doesn’t have to be difficult, just enough to get your heart rate up for 30 mins.
not to be a jerk, but why do you think this is a good idea? Almost no one does this. I don’t want to get into exactly why its sub-optimal… you should do a lot of reading on your own. Get arnold’s bodybuilding encylcopedia (not just for bodybuilding). Its cheap.
^Well, I really didn’t do much research . I just thought of starting some type of routine recently. I started lifting out of curiosity and with no overall goal, I was going to the gym simply for cardio for about 8 months prior (which is was for weight loss only, I lost about 70 pounds). I’ve been doing it just for fun, sort of a hobby, a nice overall goal. I’ve been doing the cardio like that, just because I did not want to cut cardio out of my routine, I really like running. That and, switching between cardio and lifting gives another part of my body rest, while I continue working out.
So animal protein, more meals, separate cardio and lifting? Would it be worth just lifting straight 2 days a week, and straight cardio 2 days a week, or is my current routine more optimal?
Where did you get that idea?
And lots and lots of anecdotes about vegans, who no matter how much soy protein they took in, could never gain very much weight.