What training are you doing/have you done today? Vol.2

[Johnny]

Yesterday

Military Press 3x10@40kg, 5x6@60kg, 2x2@70kg
Barbell Upright Rows 5x10@50kg
Single Arm DB Hang Clean & Press 5x10/side@22kg
Superset:
Smith Shrugs 5x10@100kg/Lat Raises 5x10@12kg

Not done the clean & press previously. Bloody hell they were hard work! Got a right sweat on

[mcelliott]

Right, Friday back to the gym, mostly bench and bent over rows. Bench topped out at 125kg for 6 reps so I'm quite pleased with that. Looking to do a 150kg before the end of the year (140pb) - long way to go but fairly confident.

Saturday morning super easy spin on the bike enjoying the sun, back to the gym on Sunday, a little circuit of weighted dips and weighted pull ups with some shoulder presses in between. Felt good.

Then yesterday evening was quite frankly a bh of a ride, but super pleased with how I felt other than a slightly sore hip. Tonight 120 pull ups at home with 240 dips. All good.

https://www.strava.com/activities/668201206

[oilydan]

Looking at some of the numbers here, I feel a little aprehensive asking what might seem to be some very novice questions, but I guess we all had to start somewhere.

Any chance you professionals could rate my regime and help me improve?

I started at 105kg, 6'1", with a goal to get down to my weight 10-15 years ago at around 85kg. Many years of ex-pat living and ex-pat indulgence, along with zero exercise meant a bit of a belly and a layer of fat all over.

This year (April) I moved to Saudi and found myself with little in the way of entertainment so decided to get a bit trim.

I cut out booze, obviously, apart from when I go home to the UK every 7 weeks or so for a week. I dont drink heavily in that time, just a couple pints a day, or a couple of wines. Lost my stamina!

No junk food, and pretty-much cut out carbs. Breakfast is a large handful of nuts and dried fruit and about 100g turkey slices not much for lunch but dinner will be a decent meaty meal with some veg. No spuds or pasta or rice etc.

I take a couple of scoops of protein after working out and 5g creatine daily.

The workout 6 times a week in the afternoons:

All 3 sets of 10 reps.

Smith Machine:

Bench press 50kg
Decline Bench press 50kg
Shoulder press 25kg
Upward row 25kg

Life Fitness Machines - no idea of weight values, only numbers??
Lat pulldown 14
Leg extension 15
Tricep pushdown 16
Fly (cable machine) 5

Dumbels curls 14kg

I have dropped to 95 kg but dont seem to be getting any further, and notice a little muscle building on my arms and shoulders.

What more can I do? Runing is a no-go as I started this and found me knee almost collapsing under me, I did a bit of 30 mins on the recumbent bike but get bored of long cardio stuff.

Do I need to just keep plodding along, doing what I am doing and increasing the weight when it gets too comfortable to lift? Or do I need a plan in place to see some decent results?

I want to see the body fat reduce to a point that I can have some definition, can doing weights alone acheive that or do I need to head back to the cardio wastelands?

[Burwood]

oily, you really need to track your calories to determine where you're at. Each to their own but nuts and dried fruit have masses of calories. It wouldn't be my choice of foods when trying to cut weight. Green vegetables and limit fruit, high protein (lean white meat such as chicken and fish). It really is that simple. It gets tricky when one is lean but I would imagine someone your size and activity should be looking at a diet to lose weight of over 2,000. Work out your BMR and go from there

[oilydan]

That's an eye opener; I hadnt realised there were so many cals in nuts. It works out to about 1000 or so per day

So nuts are out, it seems my smoked turkey is OK. What can I eat all day at work to keep me filled, i would usually graze on the nuts, how about boiled eggs?

I dont have much fruit anyway, apart from fresh lemon juice in the morning, and I guess I can swop fish and chicken for my usual beef and lamb

My BMR is about 2000 and I would assume with the weights I am doing that if I consume less than this I will lose weight? I did use a fitness tracker for a little while and was usually coming in way under 2k cals per day.

With no carbs going in I do feel somewhat exhausted most of the time, or lacking in energy but I assume that is par for the course.

What about the weights regime, is that reasonable or should I be looking to do more - it equates to about an hour in the gym, 6 days per week.

[mcelliott]

oilydan said:

With no carbs going in I do feel somewhat exhausted most of the time, or lacking in energy but I assume that is par for the course.

What about the weights regime, is that reasonable or should I be looking to do more - it equates to about an hour in the gym, 6 days per week.

I would definitely include carbs in any diet - great source of energy. My own diet I would say that I am low to medium carb, you can still get very lean by including them. I would say you are going to the gym too often, cut it down to maybe four times a week but perhaps up the intensity, any more than that you are wasting your time.

So tonight 38km on my Tuesday night course, 400m of climbing, ripped round in 33.5kph average. Lungs duly fried.

[Burwood]

Things that fill you up when dieting:
Water
Coffee
Fibrous veg like brocolli
Rice cakes

Oily, maybe you need to take a close look at your diet. Eggs, nuts etc are not bad for your health but will make you fat when consumed in excess.good luck dude

[SWIMBO]

I'd go for protein with good fats (rapeseed oil, olive oil, coconut oil, butter, nuts, seeds, avocado etc) that combination will stop you feeling hungry plus plenty of vegetables including green leafy for fibre. Personally I don't eat flour, rice or white potato (i eat sweet potato occasionally) and I'm never hungry, my portion sizes are small compared to what they used to look like - I eat off a smaller plate. I don't do much in the gym but walk every day, plus swimming and some work with resistance bands, I'm very overweight (morbidly obese) and I'm 56 (and I'm losing weight bit by bit). I have lots of energy and I sleep like a log from the moment my head hits the pillow until the dogs yell for me to get up around 6:30 the next morning.

I would also say that food intake is a very personal thing, no one size fits all, try things to see what works for you but at the very least try inputting your food into a tracker like MyFitnessPal plus your exercise and then take it from there.

[TurboHatchback]

oilydan said:

The workout 6 times a week in the afternoons:

All 3 sets of 10 reps.

Smith Machine:

Bench press 50kg
Decline Bench press 50kg
Shoulder press 25kg
Upward row 25kg

Life Fitness Machines - no idea of weight values, only numbers??
Lat pulldown 14
Leg extension 15
Tricep pushdown 16
Fly (cable machine) 5

Dumbels curls 14kg

I see a few problems here:

• There is almost no leg work at all. Legs are the largest muscles in the body and will accordingly use the most calories if you develop them, thus helping with your weight loss (and real-world strength).
• There's a lot of isolation exercises and not much heavy compound free weight lifting. The big compound lifts will burn hugely more calories and build more muscle all over, helping to burn yet more calories.
• You're doing the same exercises almost every day, there's no recovery time built into your program. You would make better gains working each muscle group hard then giving it a day or three off before hitting it again.

Personally I would recommend a program more like 5x5 or similar. The meat of it should be the 5 big compound lifts: Squat, Deadlift, Barbell Rows, Bench Press and Standing Overhead Press. By all means fill it out with other stuff, I particularly rate pullups and dips but to really burn that fat off and build some muscle to make sure it stays off I would make sure you are doing the big compound lifts, heavy and regularly.

[Burwood]

Whilst I agree that some extra leg work will help with balance, it won't solve the elephant in the diet room, being the nuts. To keep it very simple. Knock off 500 calories from your total expendable energy(daily). You said your BMR was 2,000. Plus what you are burning at the gym, say 500. So look at a 2000 cal diet. Im not advocating it but don't worry too much where that 2,000 comes from. I would add some light cardio into your work out. Say, 4 days weights and 2 days cardio(30 mins) even long walks do wonders. Too many times, people over complicate things. When you get to 10% body fat then you can agonise over that extra cracker but not now.

Check how many calories in your protein shakes.

A recent tail. A guy at my gum used to drink 6 pints a night, eat like a horse and weighed 25 stone. Same height as you. He is now 100kg so down 9 stone. He is in the gym 4 hours a day offs. Dedicated but he burns 2000 cals on various bikes/cardio and eats power bars the entire time he is there (like 4 bars). He wonders why his weight refuses to drop any further. You may very well be eating far too much vs your gym session cal burn.

[oilydan]

TurboHatchback said:

I see a few problems here:

Stuff

This is great, and very helpful, thanks. I'll look into changing the routine.

Burwood said:

Check how many calories in your protein shakes.

Isopure Zero Carb - it's 210 per portion.

I have ditched the nuts and will look closer at everything else, although I do not use any other power-bar type thing, or other snacks, drinks etc etc. mostly meat and veg.

[Burwood]

A friend is in Saudi (JPM) for meetings regularly. He hates it due to the complete lack of beer I suppose you'd get used to it if you lived there. But beer and their heat would go so well together.

[oilydan]

Burwood said:

A friend is in Saudi (JPM) for meetings regularly. He hates it due to the complete lack of beer I suppose you'd get used to it if you lived there. But beer and their heat would go so well together.

No beer is OK if you are only coming for a few days, try it for 2 months....

Its been the main reason for my weight loss so far.

[chris watton]

Today's power session - everything fairly heavy (for me) apart from shoulder press:

Squats - 8x12-1 rep
Leg Press - 2x5 reps
Bench Press - 8x12-1 rep
Power Clean - 8x2 reps
Standing BB press - 5x12-5 reps (light)
Pendlay Row - 5x5 reps
Deadlift - 3x5 reps
Standing EZ Curl - 5x5

[Johnny]

Just home from a great chest session. Incline BenchPB@90kg, back to 100kg for reps on the flat.... It's been a good day!

Bench 3x10@60, 1x8@80, 1x6@90, 1x4@100, 1x1@100, 3x10@60kg
Incline Bench 3x10@60, 2x6@80kg, 1x1@90kg (PB)
Incline Flys 3x10@22kg, 2x6@30kg
Chest Press Machine 5x8@80kg
Seated Cable Flys 4x8@18kg/side

[mcelliott]

Dips and pull ups at home, 200 and 100 respectively, followed by a huge plate of stir fry and then a super easy recovery session on the turbo.

[smiffy180]

Deadlifts aren't complying currently.
I can't seem to rep at a heavy weight, open for suggestions as I feel lost.

Tonight's 270 single which should have been a triple, it felt slow and hard, I didn't have it in me for another.
Vid says the complete opposite.
https://youtu.be/wuVpbSPVyJw

[Johnny]

Got home from the gym to find my new punchbag had arrived so had a 15 minute or so play on that.

Not had one for a couple of year so it was bloody lovely to get back into it.

[didelydoo]

smiffy180 said:

Deadlifts aren't complying currently.
I can't seem to rep at a heavy weight, open for suggestions as I feel lost.

Tonight's 270 single which should have been a triple, it felt slow and hard, I didn't have it in me for another.
Vid says the complete opposite.
https://youtu.be/wuVpbSPVyJw

Mental block- you could easily have got another couple with that. I think you'd already decided (possibly subconsciously) you were only going to pull a single. Mentally prepare, or up the pre-workout

[smiffy180]

didelydoo said:

Mental block- you could easily have got another couple with that. I think you'd already decided (possibly subconsciously) you were only going to pull a single. Mentally prepare, or up the pre-workout

I think the mental block is that it feels heavy, and I'm lazy.
After I lifted it I thought another wasn't going up, I thought I was grinding that out, I don't have a concept of a slow rep, only fast.
I've read about intentionally pulling slow on a separate set to help this and also point out weaknesses. Any thoughts? Your grinding is amazing