Burn fat, not muscle

I’ve switched to daily walking with my new dog.  We do 45 minutes each day…fast walk with occasional running for 30 seconds.  The walk is uphill – flat and downhill, but it’s 7 days a week plus a couple of others probably makes for 9 sessions per week.

I’ve had to stop my 3 x 40 minute cardio sessions per week at the gym and I’ve noticed two changes

- I’ve lost more weight with the 7-day a week walking
- I’m hitting the weights more often and losing less muscle

It seems the cardio would cut into my recovery time.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ll do a few cardios anytime I’m passing the gym, but it’s not priority.

So far I’m losing around 4lbs per month on this routine.  I hope to increase dog exercise to 1 hour 5 days per week and 90 minutes per day at weekends.

I might add I haven’t been eating exactly healthy either – well, healthy but a few deserts/chocolates.

Strength increase after being ill?!?!?

I got ill 27th December.  I didn’t train since 23rd December.

I got back to the gym 7th January.  2 weeks+.  I did a leg workout.  Fine, not full strength.

Went back today 11th January to do back – I found I could lat pulldown 1 extra plate.  My muscles felt fresh.

I guess it really is true 1-2 weeks off per year can really help.  I need to cycle more also.

Getting into the rut…

Seems these days it’s getting harder to keep focused.  As my gains plateaued some years ago, all I get if I train really hard is the same body – if I train less, I lose fullness and sharpness.

I seem to go through fazes of maintenance where I force myself to train – where I just maintain and not grow.  My deadlift hasn’t moved in weight for over a year.

I’ll need to re-focus and just crank out high quality sets – it’s easy to overtrain so have to be aware of that.

I guess the best tip is just to clear your mind and focus on lifting – I always push to failure but sometimes there’s more focus needed to build muscle.

Cycling between light medium and heavy lifting

Experts say 6 weeks of heavy lifting then cycling to 6 weeks of medium lifting is right.

I would say for me 8-9 weeks of heavy lifting then 4 weeks of medium lifting.

Right now I vary the weight based on how I’m feeling that day.

But I may force myself to lifter light for 4 weeks.  Lifting too light for too long means muscle size disappears so it’s to be done in moderation but when you go back to lifting heavy you should be lifting even more from the rest your body has gotten.

Less is more…

This week I was washed out so took an extra days rest.

Next day I was still a bit tired but forced myself…normally doing chest + front delts…but my chest was enough for me.  I’d worked really hard on the previous workout (lats) and I guess my body was saying ‘cool it man!’.  So I cut out he front delts and no longer do cardio after weights.

I felt so much better and definitely wasn’t so ‘flat’ looking the next day.

I will have to work my front delts in with rear delts next workout…which makes a bit of sense….

New change…

I’ve stopped cardio after weights – it’s killing my recovery I think.  If I don’t feel it’s that bad, I’ll go back to it.

I want to give my all to the weights.

I’m also hitting the L-Glutamine prior to workout and creatine later on after workout. 

Protein up to 200g per day every day.

Let’s see how it works out.

L-glutamine and Creatine – a no no!!!

Just got a tonne of l-glutamine – I remember taking this years back and it worked.  Helped me recover better.

Anyway was looking for the best way to ingest and came across an article of how it doesn’t work with creatine - they use the same transporation route and it’s one or the other.

Good tip….anyways was happy to get the offer of tub of EAS protein + free l-glutamine from SNC Direct.  Bargain!

Lifting on holiday

Didn’t get much time to train the last 4 weeks due to holiday.

Did manage two sessions at Fitness First and 3 sessions in the hotel gym.  Didn’t do my usual workout but more an 2-day split for my whole body.  Or whatever I could.  1 hotel gym didn’t have any free weights which sucked. 

I have definitely lost size, shoulder width and shoulder mass.  But I should hopefully fix that in the next few weeks.

Lift for life

 

Bodybuilding – I’ve done it for 12 years seriously.  In that time I’ve gone from 144lbs to 238lbs.  Admittedly some bodyfat, but for a lean muscle gain, I would say I’ve put on 75-80lbs of muscle in that time.  Yes, I was a skinny dude lol.

Bodybuilding teaches you discipline.  And strategy coupled with determination when things stagnate.   When you’re feeling weak, it teaches you to become strong and push through.  It also focuses you on diet and health along and pushes you away from alcohol, late night partying and drugs.

Sadly some bodybuilders, particularly the ego type, don’t see ‘health’ as something they are interested in and continue with the alcohol, partying and drugs – using steroids, gh, ghb and hormones to continue their gains with 4 hours sleep after a hard night.  Try not to fall into this category people!

Bodybuilding is a way of life, make it so.  It’s a long term plan, you can only hope for serious gains (50% bodymass increase) and muscle maturity (deep cuts, muscle thickness and so on) within 10 years for average lifters.  For the lucky few with good genetics, this may be 2-5 years.  Enjoy your first 3 months of lifting, the gains you will make will be massive and slow down thereafter.

Keep lifting people…as Markus Ruhl says - train hard.