well, I eating a lot and hitting the gym before deciding to switch over to P90X. I actually gained 20lbs doing so, and am now 180lbs at 6ft 1. But I also developed a bit of a belly as well. I'm aiming to not only keep weight, but to tack on another 5-10lbs and get my 6-pack back. Thanks for the info man. I'll just try both out and see with one works best.
I would think that using a machine to to lat pulldowns would help with this. I'd recommend using a weight where you can do, at most, 8 reps (and no less than 4). If you can do more, you don't have enough weight on the machine. If you can't do 4, then you have too much weight on the machine. Also, do drop-sets on the machine. Let's say do do the above at 80 lbs. After you've done your 8 reps, immediately drop the weight on the machine to around 30 lbs and do as many as you can. Do 3 sets of the above in your workout about 3 times a week (one day on, one day off). That oughta do it.
Thanks for the advice droxford. Problem is I don't have a machine. Only some free weights and a pull-up bar. Maybe I can attach ankle weights when I do pull-ups?
the problem is you're doing it every day.... when you overload your muscles by challenging them (going up in weight, reps, etc) You're breaking down muscle fibers. when they heal they come back "bigger", thus you gain muscle...but they need to be allowed to heal. if you're challenging them every day or too often they may improve initially, but eventually the stress will get to them and theyll tire out. The way it should work is, you challenge your muscles one day, give them a few days rest, then challenge them again and so on. Personally i feel good working out a muscle group once a week, i can see gains that way. Some people need or can get away with 2 workouts a week for a certain muscle group. 3 is probably too much if you're looking for improvement. For maintenance it may work though, but that's about as much as i'd do for one muscle groups/exercise. So consider resting for 2 -3 days to get your muscles recovered, then start training them about twice a week, with 2-3 days rest in between. Also, your workouts should incorporate more than pull ups. Pull ups target the back and biceps, so work those muscles specifically on those days too. bicep curls, hammer curls, reverse curls for biceps and for your back do pulling exercises horizontally and vertically, switching between underhand grip, even grip, and overhand grip. Training these muscles individually will strengthen them locally and that'll help you with more compound movements that use both, like pull ups. also, nutrition is key...get some good protein and carbs in after your workouts...make sure you get some decent protein throughout the day as well. You want complex carbs prior to workouts to keep you energized.
For one way of possibly increasng, google up "greasing the groove" I don't think that approach is ideal if you're doing p90x simultaneously but it worked for me if only for the 2 weeks I did it increasing chins from 10-20 and higher reps for pullups which I'm weaker at. The same style of approach helped when I wanted to be able to do 100pushups. But I was only doing that to work my chest/shoulders nothing else. If you were to pair p90x with that it'd probably be too taxing on your muscles
When you lose weight you lose both muscle and fat so it should stand to reason that the same works for bulking. The kind of lifts you're doing at the gym will be a factor to the proprtion of fat/muscle lost/gained and what you're eating, I think you would know, is 75% of revealing your 6 pack. If you read testimonials for p90x you'll see that some people may have gained weight in the first phase or two despite improving their proportions so it goes to show p90x is not immune to anecdotal bro-science as far as wight loss is concerned.
Thanks for the advice RV6 and vinsensual. I always thought pushing to the point of failure was a good thing, "greasing the groove" seems the total opposite. Will try RV6's advice of 2 days rest in between first. (When I was in the army, our training was the opposite of what you guys are saying. We did 12 sets of however many reps you can muster a day 5 days a week, and I went from doing 2 to 13 max reps within 6 weeks. That was when I was younger though.)
I'd say we're both technically right....i think a big issue is proper form and you can't have proper form without having good beginner's even strength. So that means you need sufficient back and arm strength to enable you to use proper form and it must be even or close to even on both sides. That's also dependent on your own weight, since that's the resistance you'll be using. So you may think you have good strength because you lift significant weight at the gym, but if youre a heavier guy, then it may not be sufficient for a pull up. And if you're light, then it's easier to get to a strength where you can manage to move your body weight easily.... So in other words.. a lighter person may be able to use the grease the groove technique since they don't need much beginner's strength or it's easier to overcome their light weight, while someone heavier may need to do some individual work (what i suggested) first, to get their strength up to do the grease the groove technique. So its muscle endurance vs muscle strength. Muscle endurance is just being able to move the same weight a lot of times, which is what you want to accomplish. muscle strength is increasing the load you can move. So here you need to increase your muscle strength (individual work), to get you to a point where you can increase muscle endurance and try the grease the groove technique.
And not to blast the army, but i've heard a lot of their training is very outdated....but also a big problem in schools, gyms, and anywhere where they train people is they don't get them ready to make those training movements. they just throw them in there and expect their form, posture, and begining strength to be good enough to knock out rep after rep, and it's not. Especially as we get older, our posture starts to go bad, we accumulate muscle imbalances, etc, which is probably what happened to you. So you're at a worse starting spot when you're older compared to when you were younger, so you're movement will be inneficient and incorrect to some degree, therefore affecting your performance.
Downloading these now. I have been having trouble staying consistent at the gym lately, so I figured I'd give this a shot. Gonna start with the lean program since I'm not in the greatest shape at the moment. Do the cheap pull up bars from Academy work well, or do I need to spend some extra money and order a better brand online?
would probably do the job. Just have some lighter dumbbells / weights. I use one of the iron gym bars, that doesn't dammage your door frame.
do you mean the ones that use pressure to stay on the frame? I'd go with the iron gym instead..i think it's the same price.....the only thing i dont like about it is the length, but maybe that's just me, since i have long arms. they have a similar version, that has longer handles, but it's more expensive.
http://shop.ebay.com/?_from=R40&_tr...ron+gym+pull+up+bar&_sacat=See-All-Categories yep, I got one with the ab straps included for like $20.
just about any store carries the as seen on tv stuff now. Staples, Bed Bath and Beyond, etc. They are easy to find.
Just started on P90x for 3days I noticed alot of you guys have done this already ... how's the results now? did you guys continue after the 90 days?
