@Two Sandwiches Just a little background I am a coach and own my own online biz. I've never sold my services via clutch and don't ever plan to but I just wanted to let you know that I'm not just some dude who stayed at a holiday inn and thinks he knows everything. I do know what I know and am constantly seeking to expand my knowledge in fitness/nutrition. My clientele base is 35yo and older, I even work with some 50 plus dudes and they are all lifting heavy, of course relative to them. I rarely program exercises in the 10 plus rep range unless equipment access is limited or there's a specific mechanics reason. A quick primer on muscle building or maintenance even, you can build/maintain muscle with reps as low as 4 up till 30 reps. Is the cutoff 30? Probably not but there's just as much joint wear and tear in higher rep ranges as people believe there are in lower rep ranges, potentially even more in the higher rep ranges. For perspective I don't work with people looking to put on as much muscle as humanly possible, they're not trying to step on stage. They want to move better, feel confident with the shirt off but they are super busy, they've got families or super taxing careers, often times both. As an example I put it to them like this (using arbitrary #'s) "Why do 20 sets in a workout when 8 sets will do?" You save time, stress on your joints, you're less fatigued, etc... The key is pushing in your workouts, often times *close* to failure but just shy. No ego lifting either. Look for slow and steady progress. Sometimes I have clients stay with the same weights and reps for 2-4 weeks until they earn more weight. This allows your joints/tendons time to catch up to your muscles so you're less likely to get injured. As far as cardio what do you enjoy doing? Treadmill? Elliptical? Assault bike? What are your goals there? Are you training for something specific? Or is it just General physical preparedness? How much time do you have to commit to cardio?
Great post. This is in line with everything I've heard and read. I'm basically your typical client. The broad goal is to be as healthy and fit as possible, as most of my family is riddled.with metabolic disease and it's starting to catch up with them. I want to build muscle and confidence, and be comfortable with my shirt off, and to be able to keep up with my kids for as long as possible. Thinking long term on that last one. Absolute goals would be to have a fairly decent six pack, even if briefly (I am getting fairly close), and to be able to do 3 sets of 10 unassisted pull ups. This will take me a while. I can do maybe 3 sets of 5 - haven't tested in a month or so. As far as cardio, I don't know that I super enjoy much of it. I used to enjoy Insanity type HIIT, but it's been a while. Wouldn't mind getting back into that. I'd love to be able to get into running and enjoy it, but I just can't seem to. My only typical cardio is a level 2-esque treadmill walk while I work. Think: a cheap walking pad with speeds showing 3-3.7 ish mph. Heart rate around 115-125. Can still talk/sing. I will do this for 1-2 hours a day typically. Though lately I've been slowing it down to about 2.7 mph and walking for wish hours. Just trying to move as much as possible and track my steps because my job is otherwise sedentary. I've taken the chair out of my office, so I just stand and walk. The thing about cardio is, as I've lost weight, I've been trying to maintain/add as much muscle a possible, which, as has been mentioned, is a tough task. Part of doing that is a commitment to try and keep my heart rate at level 2 or lower. It will peak up higher after a tough set when I'm working out, but it quickly comes back down. I've long hear that any cardio above level 2 will burn as much, or more muscle than fat, hence runners bodies. Mostly I'm at a cross road of should I add in something like a day of HIIT a week to help shed those last few pounds? Am I doing this too quickly? Etc. Thanks for the reply. Appreciate it. Love hearing your thoughts. I wish this thread was more active. I love listening to things like mind pump and Huberman, but that's about the extent of my fitness consumption.
The long cardio stuff is unrealistic for me. I do sets of jumping jacks until I get tired. I started getting some massive gains with Nitro Tech Whey. The chocolate flavor is delicious, it's very affordable, and no crash downs from the cheap ingredients. It also has creatine which is probably why I feel bigger
@Two Sandwiches Congrats on losing the weight! 100lbs is incredible. First things first is so many people like to argue about the "best" method but it all works to a degree. Full body, upper/lower, push pull legs, high or low reps, high or low intensity. At the end of the day you have to decide what YOU enjoy most because then you'll stick to it not just for 30 days but for 30 years, and even then it'll change. All of my clients strength train 3-4 days per week. I rarely program a 5 day strength training program. Cardio is usually 2-3 days (sometimes on the same day as training) but it's time permitted. As far as cardio goes start with what you like. I try to simplify for clients as much as possible. Most weeks you should have three phases of cardio, zone 2 which almost everyone has heard of nowadays, a medium and hard day. Except I don't even bother with HR zones unless a client wants that level of precision. I break it down like this.... Most of your work should be zone 2/3 (Easy/Medium). Zone 2 is your able to talk no problem while doing whatever activity, zone 3 would be you can carry a conversation but have to take a couple of pauses, again, it's more intense but you can still have a conversation. Above this (hard) you aren't able to carry on a conversation usually it's a pointing a finger up saying, "hold up! I need a minute." The reason I don't use HR is become zone 2 riding a bike could be zone 3/4 while doing some other activity but you can always gauge easy, medium, difficult. Do mostly easy/medium and every now and again do hard and unless you have some specific goal that's really "enough" cardio to get you healthier and receiving all the benefits. Doing all cardio is a great way to lose muscle mass BUT that is why strength training is a great thing to do concurrently. It signals to your body, "Hey I need the muscle I have." I know I sound like a broken record but if I was trying to put on as much muscle as possible (I'd use steroids : ) jaja, no I would be more mindful of cardio but 99% of the population don't have to worry about this imo.
Keep in mind that if you add in cardio you will need to change your diet to compensate for the increased need for fuel. Last year I was lifting 4-5x a week and running 5 miles a day. I hit a wall and had to change my diet. It was surprised (in a way) to find that I wasn't eating enough carbs and that I needed more veggies. I changed it to this and lost about 10 lbs of fat and gained 5 lbs of muscle in six weeks. One thing I had to change was putting even more protein in my shakes and raising it to 30 grams. No carbs after lunch, always have protein within 30 minutes of your workout. I was at around 220, got down to 212 at times. 6'1". I'd say 205-215 is my ideal weight range with about 9-12% body fat.
For hypertrophy, 6-11 reps has worked very well for me. For upper body, I always go to RIR0 (and sometimes failure, by accident). It's important that every single set be "hard". "If the set isn't hard, you are just warming up" is a true statement. Check your ego at the door and focus on controlling the eccentric and not worrying so much about maxing out the weight or cheating for more reps. A 2-3 second eccentric with (maybe) a pause in the stretched position will put max tension on your muscles and put less stress on your joints. Go out of your way to use good form until it becomes second nature. People who try to skip the eccentric while lifting in order to do more reps are clueless IMO. Long eccentrics, pauses in the stretch and an emphasis on form will allow to get the best results with less weight. This is a win/win. I use DBs, machines and cables. Being locked into the straight bar on BBs is annoying and feels unnatural to me. 3 days/week is the max I'll ever workout. To each his own.
His show is awesome. He already turned me on to using the sauna regularly and now has me intrigued by the potential of peptides like BPC-157 after tearing my rotator cuff snowboarding this past season.
After 20 months straight of pumping iron weekly...here are my observations on my routine: 1.) I've slowed down on the number of workouts in the last few months...going more once-a-week per muscle being worked. I was doing two repeating workout routines per week of the same exercises...one for chest/shoulder/arms twice a week and one for back/arms twice a week...and one routine for legs and one routine for stomach once per week each. 2.) I just recently broke arms off into a separate day once per week...whereas before I would do arms mainly at the end of chest/shoulder and back days. Those exercises as follows: Biceps - Seated incline dumbbell curls, Seated dumbbell concentration curls, Standing barbell curls Triceps - Seated dumbbell tricep press, Standing tricep barbell press Forearms - Standing dumbbell hammer curls On chest/shoulder day and back days (once a week currently), I do biceps Lying cable curls (BowFlex) and triceps Lying cable pushdowns. Sometimes, I'll add an additional set for biceps/triceps using free weights, too. Note: I have a nagging forearm unknown injury issue on my left forearm elbow area that I have to work through and hammer curls seem to agitate the issue. It seems okay when I loosen up but hurts during rest days. 3.) I stopped doing stomach exercises including sit-ups, hanging leg lifts, and hanging knee crunches primarily because the muscle gained in my stomach area felt a bit much without a better BF reduction per diet. Core is still strong and mid-section is still showing some definition. I only discontinued the last two months. Plan to resume. 4.) I stopped doing leg exercises including deadlifts, squats, seated leg curls, and seated leg presses. The muscle gained felt a bit much...especially in the buttocks. I only discontinued the last three or four months. Plan to resume (albeit with lighter weight). 5.) Push-ups...my push-ups are where I can do 25 pretty easily with max in low 30s. Tend to do 3 sets when I do them. Haven't been doing hanging curls and pull-ups as much using the bar (when I do, I use the assist mechanism) so need to get back into it. 6.) My cardio is 3 - 5 miles of treadmill walking at various inclines (mostly 5 - 7 incline setting varying) 3 to 5 days a week. Trying to skip more on weight lifting days because of burnout. 7.) My diet has suffered somewhat. Gained some weight that I had previously shed but also added some muscle. I had some sugar-related binges due to hunger cravings. Still keeping up with protein shakes and creatine intake most days. 8.) Overall muscle development has leveled off but I have made gains even still. My core and muscles are strong. Haven't been pushing up the weight as much but noticed I have upped the number of rods per BowFlex exercises I use so I know I'm gaining. Kept the free weight around the same poundage...it's a pain to change plates. In summary, strongest I've ever been. 9.) Lowering my BF leveled off and added some BF back because of diet. Need to cut out the sugar and add more veggies/leafy greens. Don't eat really much of any beef...mostly chicken and some pork. Get fruit with my protein shakes. But, 20 months of this ****, still going, and still into it. Where's my chip? Only had a rest week here or there...adding up to 4 weeks total over the duration. Still loving that burn and pump! It does get kind of old so I do try to mix it up by trying new things or changing order of lifts. This concludes my finger workout.
So, you've heard of the lying cable curls where your lying flat on a bench with feet toward the pulley machine on ground, knees bent, and rest of body/head lying flat doing palms out cable curls. But, have you heard of lying dumbbell curls where you are lying flat on the bench body parallel to the ground but you're curling dumbbells in that position? Intuitively, it seems a bit strange. But, I started doing it and gives you really good stretch on the muscle. You need to go lighter on the weight (start with 10 or 20 pound dumbbells). The start position is basically palms facing outward with dumbbells / arms down by your sides out at a slight angle but the starting position of the dumbbells is below the bench where the dumbbells are just off the ground. Then, while lying flat, you lift them up and curl to perpendicular and bring back down while lying flat. The play between the dumbbells and gravity is different in this exercise obviously. Anyway, if you have the means (bench/dumbbells) and are working out biceps, then you should try it. I saw some bald big-ass muscle dude on a YouTube video saying he swears by it and it is highly effective at working the long biceps. I did my arms workout with the exercise yesterday and I feel it pretty good as far as soreness today. While doing the exercise I felt some areas in my arms being worked I hadn't felt before. I can tell it is different and effective. Anyway, this guy swears by it and the seated incline dumbbell curls. So, on arms day, my biceps routine currently consists of (I rotate between 3 exercises of the five below with 3 sets of varying weight and reps): Lying cable curls Seated incline dumbbell curls Lying dumbbell curls Standing barbell curls (w/ wiggly bar) Seated concentration curls On triceps, Seated dumbbell (or cable) triceps press Lying triceps cable pushdown Standing barbell tricep press On non-arms days (other muscles day), I usually just do 3 sets of Lying cable curls and Tricep cable pushdowns each (along with sets of push-ups) at the end of the workout just to re-pump. I usually like to get push-ups in at the end of any workout just as a finisher. Working out arms is fun! The pump is great.
Ya'll have complex workouts. For me, I just workout for martial arts strength. Once a week, go heavy on barbells squats, deadlifts, bench, pullups, back rows, military press. Do some hip hinge and Planks sets, a few forearm/neck/calf exercises and call it a day. The rest of the week I dedicate to smashing people on the mats and whatever exercises we do along the way (tire flips, medicine balls, etc.). Pretty strong for my size even though I don't look like it.
Anyone have good running/workout playlists? Some songs on mine just aren't hitting anymore. Any genre, any decade.
Did my biceps/triceps arms workout today and went pretty hard. After, some muscle in my left arm started spasm-ing and it would not stop for a little bit. Guess it might have been a forearm muscle on my top arm around the elbow area. I guess I overdid it? I never had that happen before. The pump was really good and the muscles were max bigliness. The only other time I've ever had muscle spasms was pedaling too hard on a stationary bike during a workout and one of my legs spasm-ed. It's weird when it happens. It stopped but it feels like it could start up again.
It could be over exertion but don't discount lack of fluids or minerals. As long as they are not severe you are probably okay, but should try to pinpoint the reason to avoid it in the future.
Could have been hydration. I wasn’t drinking as much water as I normally do yesterday. Hmm. Said arm does feel a little “off” today but nothing major. The other part I forgot to mention is I went really hard on the guitar after. I was so pumped and belting out “Master of Puppets” by Metallica requires some ferocity. So, maybe it was that versus the workout or a combo of both?
I know there's a newer thread but I couldn't find it. Sorry. I read that Rick Springfield was coming to my town and I went out watched a few minutes of a concert he put on in 2024. He would've been about 73-74 at the time and was rocking out on stage shirtless. Dude looks better than the majority of 20-year-olds males in this country. Not kidding. Here's a pic from when he was 73... Spoiler It's never too late to get off your asses, people. You can get to this level or better with time and dedication!
All you need is a pile of money to hire personal trainer/nutritionist/housekeeper/driver/assistant...it's so easy anyone can do it! Reminds me of the South Park episode about Cartman having "aids"...
Tips from my algorithm IG: 2-3 min rest between sets is optimal. Carbs are a necessity after a workout. Cold plunging stunts muscle growth. Inclined cardio is superior. HIIT training kills cancer cells.
Nah. Cut back on the bad **** (which I've utterly failed to get to tonight), eat well, watch YouTube for how-tos, and dedicate time to working out.
