Big Brain Bradley wrote: ↑Sat Dec 29, 2018 7:21 pm
Starting to get back into the rythym. Worked out twice this week. NY resolutions are shit so why wait.
Progress:
wednesday hit squats for 310! nearly back to pre ankle break weights. Also did deadlifts for 310
Hit almost all my reps on bench at 205. felt real nice honestly.
Pullup game is strong, still making progress.
Today:
squats at 310. I could feel that i didn't have excellent recovery.
press...felt weak af from previous good bench session during warmup. So i did a true 1RM @ 125, then did drops sets for sets of 5, then last set for as many as possible. I got 9 at 95lbs.
Did power cleans at 120 for 5 sets of three, with pullups in between. Not as strong on the pullup game as wednesday, but i overal felt a little weak in the upper body especially.
finished out with 15 minutes of cardio, 2 sets of 6-7 minutes on the rower with some push ups in the middle. True, no bullshit pushups which in itself is an accomplishment.
That being said i need to move onto a different program where i have a 'light day' at least for upper body. I totally felt the lack of recovery today and it affected the ability to do the press workout. 531 is the logical answer but I have to be honest about my ability to not hit the number of workouts per week consistently. So I'm thinking of trying the texas method, which has the advantage of being simple as well.
I am wearing a 2x tshit without looking like a sausage stuffed in it. This is after a week of heavy not giving a shit what i ate, IE lots of carbs, sweets, holiday food. I have some real muscles. that said, i need to lose some mass. I will start with morning cardio a few times a week and go from there. So, maybe i should just stick with the starting strength 'workout' to maintain my strength while i try to lose some fat? We are doing a 'dry january' so no beers and booze for a month and i want to take advantage of it.
Thoughts?
My thoughts are that you may have been dieting and lifting for too long to keep seeing strength gains while seeing body fat drop. There's lots of literature, and anecdotal evidence, that shows that you can't build mass (or strength) while dieting for a long period of time, and people who have been working out longer are more susceptible to this. Complete NOOBS can definitely build muscle while burning fat since their body isn't used to either of those stimuli, but yours has long since adapted to both diets and lifting weights.
I think you need to choose a goal, either losing fat or building muscle, and chase it for a good 6-12 months, and then switch gears for a bit to chase the other and provide a new stimulus.
If you go for fat loss, you don't need to stop lifting at all. If anything, I'd try to lift more often.. you just have to accept that chasing PRs isn't gonna happen. I was on a boat load of drugs, tracking every piece of food down to the gram, and hitting the gym twice a day for 16 weeks, and my squat went from 4 sets of 315 in the 6-10 rep range down to 275 for that same range. As a natural lifter, your drop will be even more substantial if you're actually dieting hard enough to lose a substantial amount of fat.
If you go for strength, just track your calories closer, find out how many you need to sustain your body weight, and hit that number +100-200 and have that excess come from lean protein and a few extra carbs around your workout. It'll be enough to maintain like we said, plus just a bit extra to fuel your workout and provide some material to recover from your workouts and maybe build new muscle with. It won't be so much that you gain much, if any, fat with it. If you're gaining more than half a pound a week, you're overdoing it.
Those are my thoughts. I know it sucks to hear, but you've been at this for a long time and I would hate to see you spin your wheels, especially if that leads to you getting frustrated and giving up on it all together.
Although if that happens, I'll cover shipping costs for you to send me your home gym set up