Hi all,

I've been posting on H&F a bit, so I guess it's time to start a log.

First, some history. I trained Westside style for a number of years, eventually working up to a 455 lb bench. I trained with solid form, so I never had a shoulder issue throughout my training experience. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for my pecs themselves. I had a few pec tears, including two requiring surgery. The first one -- on the right side -- went on a 430 lb attempt. The second -- on the left side -- went on a 395 lb attempt five years later, and it tore on the way down (taking out a rib with it)! Here's that:

4/25/2011:

Wide-grip pull-ups: BW X 21, BW X 14, BW X 12
Narrow neutral grip pull-ups: BW X 10, BW X 8, BW X 8
Shoulder shrugs: 495 X 3 X 15
Lateral raise machine: Stack X 3 X 6
Elliptical machine: 1 hr at 20/10 - 20/8 interval, 130 strides/minute

Supplements: EC stack, 20g X 200g X 2; multivitamin; 1.25 g fish oil

It's amazing what could be done in 9 months. Have much do you weigh now and how much when you started?

21 pull-ups? That's pretty strong bro.

What program, if any, are you following? Are you still hindered by your injuries/surgeries at all?

If you don't like many small meals a day, I whole-heartedly recommend intermittent fasting as an approach. leangains.com is a good place to start if you're interested. Feel free to PM as well.

Good luck going forwards.

Thanks! I weigh 209.0 lb now. I was .... more than I should have been.

21 bw pullups is sick. At 209lb you definitely need more than 2000kcal/day otherwise you'll be breaking down muscle into amino acids to be used for energy, especially with the length of cardio you are doing. What does your HR get to while doing the elliptical?

I agree that 2k is a bit low if you're still doing a lot of cardio. More LBM-sparing to go with a more moderate deficit.

Thanks! Couldn't believe I still had a PR in me.

Back in August and September, I really struggled on pull-ups, even having to resort to that infernal machine where one kneels on the pad for assistance. Glad that's over.

IMO, pull-ups give great positive feedback for training, as one gets stronger on the exercise via both strength gains and weight loss.

I currently weight train three on, one off:

• Day 1: chest, front shoulder (anterior deltoid, though I don't isolate it), and abs
• Day 2: upper back and traps, and the rest of the shoulder.
• Day 3: lower back, legs, and abs
• Day 4: off

I keep the reps higher than I used to, mainly out of concern for future injury, but I definitely ensure I'm increasing in strength each workout.

My right pec healed perfectly. My left pec improved with surgery, but is pretty much hanging on by a thread (and I'd like to keep it hanging in there). Strength is down from back in the day. I can now bench BW+ X 3 X 10 with no problem, so at least it's no longer limiting me in terms of fitness.

As for the back, I can squat and DL fine now. No PRs for me there, but I do them with good form, completely unhindered by injury. My left calf is smaller and weaker than my right, but I can train and run on it.

The back injury, combined with being in a detrained state, did leave me with tight hip flexors. This caused a forward hip rotation. I worked pretty hard to stretch that out. It's fixed now.

So, I guess I feel really, really good now and am enjoying training again.

Thanks for the encouragement!

IIRC, you posted a link on intermittent fasting. It was a good read and seems to be a very sound approach.

For me, a funny thing is that I was less hungry over the past months than I was prior to that. A lot of it probably was because I was eating fewer simple carbs. I hope that this continues going forward, as it's much easier to stay in compliance without hunger pangs. If it doesn't intermittent fasting is something that would definitely work for me.

Thanks again!

Pull-ups and chins are just awesome. I'd consider doing weighted ones though.

I'd look into some of the programs other intermediate+ lifters here use if you feel like it - 5/3/1 and Texas Method are the most popular ones I believe. I think the guys who have tried the Greyskull Linear Progress program (like kidcolin and weasel) are happy with that as well, I'll be trying that next. And how about overhead pressing?

The thing with carbs, it's so easy to overeat. I can certainly understand that your current approach works better. If it works fine, no reason to change it if you don't want to. Compliance is king with regards to diet.

ETA: here's a quick primer on IF: http://www.leangains.com/2010/04/leangains-guide.html

Thanks. Yes, I agree that I should require more than 2,000 kcal/day. That's what all the literature says and I was aware of that at the time. However, that wasn't my case, as I tried to bring up caloric intake but without much luck.

First, I should clarify. I wasn't below 2,000 kcal/day for all 35 weeks. That would be insanity. Rather, the first few months required little more than some attention to eating less and to showing up at the gym. I was surely closer to 2,500 kcal/day or above, especially as I was not tracking calories (I was tracking weight change). Also, at that point I was not hitting the cardio as hard as now, as at that point I wasn't in condition to do so.

I started tracking food daily at the beginning of the year, so the 2,000 kcal/day was for 16 weeks. I was leaner by then, so I needed to work harder. In January, I averaged 2,045 kcal/day and lost 9.6 lbs. In February, it was 1,963 kcal/day for -6.0 lbs. March was 1,995 kcal/day for -5.6 lbs. And, April to date was 1,951 kcal/day for -6.8 lbs (some due to cycling off creatine...the total is still apples-to-apples though, as I was not using creatine when I started in August). So, in my odd case, it appears the intake was appropriate.

To prevent catabolism, I ensured I got at least 1 g protein per LBM and I stayed out of ketosis. Not that ketosis is bad, but it would have required more protein to prevent catabolism. I gained strength throughout the 35 week period and never appeared visually to lose lean mass, so I think I was okay.

Now that I'm on a maintenance plan, I'll ramp up to 2,500 kcal/day for a couple of weeks and see how it goes. If all goes well, I'll shoot for the 3,000 kcal/day Lyle McDonald says should be my baseline.

If I'm going for high intensity like yesterday, around the upper 150s or even lower 160s. On lower intensity days, I'll keep it around 130 - 135 bpm. Today's HIIT saw it peak in perhaps the 180s or so.

Yes, I'll definitely throw some weighted ones into the mix.

Thanks. Yes, Westside method is the exact opposite of what I need now at this point in my training. You can probably tell from my description of my current training that I've been throwing a lot of volume at this, and it worked well. However, now that I'm transitioning from that, I'll be moving to something new. I'll check out all the plans you posted.

No doubt about carbs being easy to overeat. I don't know if my current approach will work better forever. It works fine now because I'm making better choices, but if that changes I'd be inclined to move to intermittent fasting.

Nice comeback!

455!

Did you ever compete? What are/were your PR's for squats & DLs?

4/26/2011:

Squats: 135 X 10, 185 X 10, 225 X 5, 235 X 5, 245 X 5
Good mornings: 135 X 10, 185 X 2 X 10
Hanging leg raises (feet to the crossbar): BW X 3 X 8 (five all the way up to the bar or at least head-high, the final three progressively lower but still chest-high or higher)
Elliptical: 20 min HIIT

Supplements: EC stack, 20g X 200g X 2; multivitamin; 1.25 g fish oil

I've heard some Lyle McDonald stuff at several conferences now, I'd still very much disagree with this...

"I'll shoot for the 3,000 kcal/day Lyle McDonald says should be my baseline."

And this.

"I'd be inclined to move to intermittent fasting."

If it isn't 3K, I'll find the sweet spot and will stick with it. Based on the data I posted earlier, it seems closer to 2600 kcal/day at my current activity level, but I guess we'll know for sure via trial and error.

There's a big "if" associated with that. Again, my intention is to eat five or so moderately-sized meals. Now that I'm training well, I suspect that will work out just fine.

Amazing transformation, great recovery from the slump. Sorry if I missed this, but you're aiming for 2k calories, any particular fat/protein/carb breakdown?

Thanks!

I'm done with the 2K phase as I'm now at target weight. I enjoyed (thoroughly) a 2,500 kcal day today, in fact.

When I was sticking with 2,000 kcal/day on average, I sought to get at least 1 g protein per LBM, 85 g carb post workout, and 1.25 g fat from fish oil caps. The daily averages over the past two months were: 1,981 kcal, 52.4 g fat (23%), 174 g carb (35%) and 202 g protein (42%).

Thanks. Yes, I competed in some small meets back in the day, but never anything huge. It was fun. Louie Simmons was at one, which was cool.

I was never a big DLer or squatter, unfortunately. My PR in the DL is in the mid-500s, while my squat was just lower-400s. I'm holding onto hope that I can manage a new squat PR.

Your detailing during the transformation is quite impressive. I wish I had more clients as committed.

I'd recommend you don't make such a drastic caloric change though. Adding 25% more calories will cause fat storage initially. You can, however, train your metabolism to change. You may consider going up to 2,100 calories for 1-2 weeks and gradually increasing from there.

I weigh 206lb and maintain my body composition with 3,700kcal/day, and it's not difficult to calculate. Trial and error is ok, but you may as well get the answer if it's available.

3700 kcals is really high, so I have to assume you're cardiotarding a loooot. Basically, you're the outlier here. Using 14 or 15 kcals/lbs is a good baseline for most of the male population who at least lift 3/week.

I do taekwondo and MMA maybe 3-4 times/week for 45 minute classes and I lift twice a week, I wouldn't call that a lot by any stretch, nor would I call myself an outlier. I think 14-15kcal/lbs is too general to be accurate at all. It doesn't take into account gender/body fat composition/diet type, all three of which significantly impact metabolism.

My story is a little similar, but not nearly as impressive as yours. I was pretty strong 15 years ago, good at benching, decent at DLs and was relatively bad at squats. I had shoulder surgery, then got fat & lazy & hurt all over for a long time. A little less than 2 years ago I started working out again, lost weight, took care of a lot of nagging aches & pains with mobility & soft tissue work, then got fairly strong. My bench is not quite back to where it was, my DL is a little better, and my squat is a lot better than ever.

I havent seen you say much about soft tissue or mobility work. Have you ever had ART or Graston done? How about deep tissue massage? Do you roll with a foam roller, pvc pipe or lacrosse ball? All that stuff helped me go from being a borderline cripple to where I am now.

Apparently you don't know the meaning of 'general' and 'outlier'. It's probably best not to discuss this further in someone's log though.

...anyway. My point is that if TE wants to figure out exactly how many calories to eat, "general" guidelines aren't going to be useful, especially with the amount of detail he's already recorded. I don't see your patronization of my calling out your "general" suggestion as being helpful to the thread. I was simply giving an educated opinion based on science.

lol, you really believe it's possible to calculate exactly how many cals would be his maintenance? If so, congrats - you're the first in the world to develop such a powerful tool. And besides, you must have missed this post from TE:

Which is probably the best approach possible.

It would also be rather fun to see you quantify how diet types affect metabolism. Please including detailed specifications on how to differentiate between different diet types and how to account for compliance issues.