Get Fit: I want a folding vegetable.

[Florian]

On the topic of push-ups: Someone linked a video about proper form earlier. The guy stressed the importance of keeping the arms close to the body. I had understood previously that close or wide are not a matter of proper form but about which muscles you want to target. Can someone shed some more light on this?

Basically, that´s about your joints. They will degrade and you will have to build up certain muscle groups to counteract this.Video like his shows methods of training that don´t overly stress your joints by trying to be as natural to your body as possible.

[AMFV]

You can typically generate more force with your arms close to your body, which is one of the reasons. The further out from your body you position your hands the more difficult it becomes to keep your elbows directly stacked above your wrists as you descend (this is something which wasn't discussed in the video, but is critical if you want to build to more advanced pushups such as plance etc.), as you need more shoulder mobility and strength to do so.

Well that is true, supposing that your goal is to get to more advanced types of pushups, if your goal is to do more pushups, then a wider stance is generally slightly better. And again proper form REALLY depends on your actual physical construction. If you have a really big chest and very large biceps, close to your body may prove to be impossible or extremely uncomfortable. Especially if you have to go down to a specific height. So again how one performs a motion depends more on your goals and your build than any set of rules.

The wider hand position also reduces the distance you'll move your body, reducing the amount of work done, drecreasing the ganiz.

Not necessarily the amount of reduction in work done isn't going to significantly affect your gains, and if you're just doing pushups you aren't really going to have great gains.

There is some benefit in wider hand positioning if you're looking to target different muscle groups, but IMO that's a waste of time. Learn to do a proper pushup instead, with good form (including proper plank/hollow position which I didn't see in the video), and increase the difficulty over time and you'll build a very strong upper body if it is coupled with some pulling motion (e.g rope climbs).

It depends again on what your training objectives are, if that's a waste of time. Again, for doing as many pushups in as short time as possible, spreading your arms a little can help a lot, and this is coming from somebody who has won basewide pushup contests in the military. There are times when you want to do things differently for a variety of reasons. And understanding those is important if you want to be serious about exercising.

For pushing variation instead look at the dip, it puts larger reqs on mobility and engages different muscle groups.

Eh, dips should engage exactly the same muscle groups as pushups, it's the whole chest/triceps/shoulders deal. I mean you can alter which ones are the primary movers a little more, but it's the same set being worked.

Basically, that´s about your joints. They will degrade and you will have to build up certain muscle groups to counteract this.Video like his shows methods of training that don´t overly stress your joints by trying to be as natural to your body as possible.

Wide placement pushups aren't really going to strain your joints that much though. It's not a lot of weight and your shoulder joints (barring prior injury) can definitely handle that kind of thing with very little problems.I mean a 130 lb person is probably only pressing 50-70 lbs during the course of a pushup. That's not really enough injure yourself, at least not seriously, unless you do a lot of them.

Also everybody is built different. Again, all human beings have slight differences in build. So for some people arms close might be "natural" but not for everybody. Length of levers, all kinds of things helps you figure what natural is. General rule for exercises is that you should set up and perform the motion in a way that is comfortable for you. Like if arms wide is comfortable and arms close is not, you should do arms wide unless there is a specific training reason to do things the other way.

[Vinyadan]

For me, the big reveal was doing push-ups on wood flooring, instead of carpeting. Suddenly I had a frame of reference for the distances at which I was putting my hands, and whether the line between them was perpendicular to my spine. As it turned out, I had been keeping my right hand much closer to the body than the left, I had been oscillating towards the right when exercising, and the line between my hands wasn't perpendicular to my body, which was why my shoulder made weird noises.

[drakir_nosslin]

Well that is true, supposing that your goal is to get to more advanced types of pushups, if your goal is to do more pushups, then a wider stance is generally slightly better. And again proper form REALLY depends on your actual physical construction. If you have a really big chest and very large biceps, close to your body may prove to be impossible or extremely uncomfortable. Especially if you have to go down to a specific height. So again how one performs a motion depends more on your goals and your build than any set of rules.

Well, my view of the pushup is that it's the foundation for the pushing motion and leads into more advanced body weight exercises while building strength and mobility. If you enjoy competing in number of reps for pushups, sure, but that's not what my advice are for, if they were, I'd give different advice. When discussing the benefits of different approaches to an exercise we should have the same goal in mind, just as when one discusses anything within fitness.

Proper form does to some extent depend on your body, true, but in most cases the argument 'I can't because I'm too big' merely means 'I can't because I don't have the mobility'. The amount of muscle you need before 'too big' becomes a serious argument against shoulder-wide pushups is a lot. Look at elite gymnasts as an example.

I believe that building strength should always be done together with increasing the mobility, otherwise we end up with a body which operates at a sub-optimal capacity.

Not necessarily the amount of reduction in work done isn't going to significantly affect your gains, and if you're just doing pushups you aren't really going to have great gains.

If we limit the movement, the body will adapt to that limitation, shortening the muscles and training the nervous system to stop us from operating in positions which are completely possible, and for a person with full mobility, normal. When I talk about 'gainz', it's not only strength, and you do not train only strength when you do a movement properly.

If you think that pushups will not give you 'great gains' I'd say that you've been doing pushups wrong, if we're talking body-weight exercise and becoming great at those.

It depends again on what your training objectives are, if that's a waste of time. Again, for doing as many pushups in as short time as possible, spreading your arms a little can help a lot, and this is coming from somebody who has won basewide pushup contests in the military. There are times when you want to do things differently for a variety of reasons. And understanding those is important if you want to be serious about exercising.

Yea, as I said above, I don't do pushups for competition and I don't teach pushups with competing in mind. I would agree that there are situations where a wider stance is beneficial.

Eh, dips should engage exactly the same muscle groups as pushups, it's the whole chest/triceps/shoulders deal. I mean you can alter which ones are the primary movers a little more, but it's the same set being worked.

Sure, but dips and pushups lead in quite different directions once you start getting into the more advanced versions. Pushups transition neatly into handstands, handstand pushups and planches, while dips lead into more advanced ring exercises.

Wide placement pushups aren't really going to strain your joints that much though. It's not a lot of weight and your shoulder joints (barring prior injury) can definitely handle that kind of thing with very little problems.I mean a 130 lb person is probably only pressing 50-70 lbs during the course of a pushup. That's not really enough injure yourself, at least not seriously, unless you do a lot of them.

Also everybody is built different. Again, all human beings have slight differences in build. So for some people arms close might be "natural" but not for everybody. Length of levers, all kinds of things helps you figure what natural is. General rule for exercises is that you should set up and perform the motion in a way that is comfortable for you. Like if arms wide is comfortable and arms close is not, you should do arms wide unless there is a specific training reason to do things the other way.

Teaching someone to have a bad shoulder position (which, in my experience, tends to be the reason why they find shoulder-wide pushups uncomfortable.) only increases the risk of a future injury once they try different exercises in the same area. Pushing should be done with the shoulder joint in a stable position, because one day we might find that we're not pushing, but bracing against something pushing us, which has a pretty high risk factor.

I try to teach with the mindset that the movement and it's variations will be used outside of the gym and from that perspective, widening the hand position and opening the shoulder joint is not beneficial.

With that said, there are lots of differing opinions and most people will probably not notice a difference if they have their hands shoulder-wide or wider when doing pushups.

[Florian]

Also everybody is built different. Again, all human beings have slight differences in build.

While true, when trading tips with complete strangers on the internet, it´s better to be safe then sorry.
You simply cannot know pre-existing damage or whether or not some of the conditions that are common in our society are there unless the person you talk to volunteers that information.

[AMFV]

Well, my view of the pushup is that it's the foundation for the pushing motion and leads into more advanced body weight exercises while building strength and mobility. If you enjoy competing in number of reps for pushups, sure, but that's not what my advice are for, if they were, I'd give different advice. When discussing the benefits of different approaches to an exercise we should have the same goal in mind, just as when one discusses anything within fitness.

Well that's why it's really important to state what the end-goal of your advice is, because I think that most people doing pushups are not working towards a planche. I mean outside of a very small group of calisthenics folks that's definitely the case. Like I've not been giving folks the same sort of advice as I would give somebody with my goals. Because frankly, some of my goals require that you give up things in terms of general fitness and stuff.

But most dudes who do pushups are just looking for a simple exercise that will make them stronger, and if you have your arms a little further out, you'll still get that. Probably 5-10% of them are looking to do as many pushups in a set as possible, and they'd be well advised to train both wide and narrow grips and variations as well. Probably 2-5% of them are wanting to move onto planches (or at least would seriously consider doing so outside of saying "dude wouldn't it be cool if?") and they'd be probably advised to limit their training to narrower pushups, even if that might make them not as good at doing pushups as the person that did a lot of different training variations.

Proper form does to some extent depend on your body, true, but in most cases the argument 'I can't because I'm too big' merely means 'I can't because I don't have the mobility'. The amount of muscle you need before 'too big' becomes a serious argument against shoulder-wide pushups is a lot. Look at elite gymnasts as an example.

Yes, lets look at Olypmic Gymnasts! In 2016, all of the Olympic male gymnasts (from the US) were roughly around my height 5'7", and only one of them was less than a hundred pounds less than my weight. And I'm not that high in body-fat (not crazy low), but the point is that there is a point when you do get too large to do certain kinds of movements as well. And that's just how it is. That's a sacrifice you make when you're deciding to get a certain size.

I believe that building strength should always be done together with increasing the mobility, otherwise we end up with a body which operates at a sub-optimal capacity.

Well that depends entirely on what you are optimizing for. If you're optimizing for moving the biggest weights possible you are going to have to sacrifice mobility some of the time. That's just how it is. Because optimal performance depends on what thing you are doing as your performance.

If we limit the movement, the body will adapt to that limitation, shortening the muscles and training the nervous system to stop us from operating in positions which are completely possible, and for a person with full mobility, normal. When I talk about 'gainz', it's not only strength, and you do not train only strength when you do a movement properly.

You CANNOT shorten your muscles by exercise. You can't change your insertions bud. I mean you can lose some mobility but gaining more muscle or altering your muscle isn't really the thing that steals your mobility, as much as it is not working on doing mobility.

If you think that pushups will not give you 'great gains' I'd say that you've been doing pushups wrong, if we're talking body-weight exercise and becoming great at those.

Well when 90% of people talk about "gains" they mean strength and size, more typically size. So that's probably something to keep in mind. And I've never seen somebody I would call sizable who got that way doing just pushups. I mean it's certainly possible, but I've never seen it.

Yea, as I said above, I don't do pushups for competition and I don't teach pushups with competing in mind. I would agree that there are situations where a wider stance is beneficial.

Well the thing that's most beneficial for somebody serious about doing pushups is to do a bunch of different variations and then accessory exercises. But for the average person, putting your arms slightly outside of your shoulders is just fine, not going to hurt anything.

Sure, but dips and pushups lead in quite different directions once you start getting into the more advanced versions. Pushups transition neatly into handstands, handstand pushups and planches, while dips lead into more advanced ring exercises.

I would say that handstands are almost completely divested from pushups, I mean that's all core stability and shoulder strength, and not shoulder strength in the same section of your shoulders that pushups primarily train. Pushups train primarily your front deltoid head, not the center one, which is the one most involved in handstands. I mean it'd help some, but you'd be better off doing wall stands and stuff to get handstands than regular pushups, basically as close as you can get to the actual motion. Dips can get you closer to ring work, but it really depends on how you're doing them and all kinds of things.

Teaching someone to have a bad shoulder position (which, in my experience, tends to be the reason why they find shoulder-wide pushups uncomfortable.) only increases the risk of a future injury once they try different exercises in the same area. Pushing should be done with the shoulder joint in a stable position, because one day we might find that we're not pushing, but bracing against something pushing us, which has a pretty high risk factor.

In that case, they should train both wide and narrow grip, because if I'm pinned, it's not like I'm going to be able to tell a falling object "hol' up, let me just adjust my arms", actually if I'm pinned, I'm dead, there is nothing at my work that I could lift off my body if it falls and pins me, generally speaking. And I'm a guy who can bench a considerable amount.

I try to teach with the mindset that the movement and it's variations will be used outside of the gym and from that perspective, widening the hand position and opening the shoulder joint is not beneficial.

That's not really true though, because again, outside of the gym you may not get a choice about your hand placement and so you need to know how to function at a variety of different hand placements. Dude, I'm a strongman, I would bet you 100 dollars that I have more experience moving odd-shaped **** closer to the real world than most people, and I'm a heavy highway carpenter, the best thing for real world training is not to obsess over form, cause real world you won't get a ****ing choice, the object will be where it is, you are where you are, and you have to be able to stabilize all that crap.

With that said, there are lots of differing opinions and most people will probably not notice a difference if they have their hands shoulder-wide or wider when doing pushups.

Again, it depends entirely on what your goals are.

While true, when trading tips with complete strangers on the internet, it´s better to be safe then sorry.
You simply cannot know pre-existing damage or whether or not some of the conditions that are common in our society are there unless the person you talk to volunteers that information.

That's why you have to bookend your advice with talking about what certain things might work towards or what certain concerns might be, that's why I always say why I would give certain advice, because you don't know that person or really what their specific goals are.

[drakir_nosslin]

Ok. You go ahead and teach people what you think is right, and I'll do the same.

[Haruspex_Pariah]

Hey guys, first time posting in this particular thread. Personal stuff below.

Spoiler

Show

I've been overweight from the at least the age of...ten? Based on family testimony and old pictures, I used to be a skinny hyperactive kid that ran around and kept bumping my head into things, but at some point there was a switch and I just got fat. And it's just gotten worse as time passed. I was forced to go to a specialist store "big people ok!" because at a normal clothes store I'd just skip to the biggest size they had and flip a coin as to whether or not that would fit.

I'm not 100% comfortable sharing exact numbers (sorry), but I am fat. Vehicles lower when I get in. I've broken chairs that were fine until I sat on them. I've lived with ankle and foot problems that I'm ashamed to admit I have. I also get out of breath easily. A girl 1/3 my weight beat me at arm wrestling. I can hurt myself trying to scratch my back. Whatever I think about fat acceptance as a concept, I know I am in bad shape. And I'm not getting any younger so when my dad bought a treadmill (supposedly for everyone, but pretty obvious who in the house needs it most) I decided to get on it.

So my current issue is, a kind of tension in my lower back when I do my treadmill walk. So far there's no long term effect, it goes away when I stop, but I have concerns for the future. Our treadmill has horizontal hand grips (the kind with pulse-measuring metal plates) and I often put my hands there. Could that be an issue? I have to let go of the grips if I want to have a straight back, though there are side rail-like things I can balance myself on. Or should I just be swinging my arms organically.

[Florian]

@HP:

The human body type can only handle a certain amount of stress caused by weight until the wear and tear will start to have a permanent effect. In addition, we try to make ourselves "comfortable", which comes down to avoiding work and exercise of any kind as unnecessary and unpleasant.

Basically, when you're overweight, your body has to build up certain muscle groups to compensate the stress on joints, ligaments and so on to compensate that, before being able to develop any "strength". So if you weight, say, 300 pounds, then you must first train up the ability to handle that before you can lift a bottle of beer and don´t feel exhausted by doing so.

Roughly put, it is a good sign when you feel "tension" while doing an exercise. In most cases, it means your body goes to work adapting to a situation and that is rarely a pleasant feeling but more often than not a sign of (necessary) improvement.

[Sivarias]

So I'm keeping a running weekly average of my weight. (I weigh myself every day and take and average on Sunday.) For the last 10 or so days I've been fluctuating around the same weight by half a pound, sometimes up to a pound.

Because my previous weight-loss experience was so lightning fast (I was NEVER hungry due to hormone imbalance). Is it normal to stall at a certain weight this long? I'm used to dropping close to 5 pounds in the first week, so seeing myself lose MAYBE pound and then stay the same is disconcerting to say the least. My wife says I'm definately shrinking around the middle, and I am getting bigger in all the right places, but I'm not sure. If this keeps up I might just take another InBody next week even though I usually only do those monthly. I dunno, I'm confused.

[Florian]

@Sivarias:

Imagine it like this: You have to "hurt" a muscle group to cause it to grow and develop, provided it has enough body mass to convert for doing so. Once you've reached a certain performance level, no further development takes place and your body just sustains itself at that level, broadly meaning that once you have trained yourself up to go with the dog for 10 miles and afterwards go jogging for 2 miles, there will be no further gains by repeating those.

[Glass Mouse]

Okay, I'm throwing in my hat.

I'm starting small. Mostly I'm terribly out of shape and energy-deprived and have been putting on weight for the past year. So if I don't want to replace all my jeans (again), I have to do something.

In December, I decided to bike to work at least twice every week. In between, four weeks were lost to vacations and Christmas, but I have actually managed to stick to it on weeks where I was working. It's roughly 11 km per day, so nothing majorly ambitious, but doable beats ambitious right now, and it's better than anything I've done in the past year and a half (go me!).

I want to keep it up throughout February. On March 1st, I'll evaluate and decide whether to upgrade the minimum, but so far I just want to stick to it 100% through a month at least.

Biking is good for my general well-being and for getting into some semblance of shape, but I also need to do something serious about my weight. So since the bike thing is actually going well, I'll add one, actually ambitious thing: No sweets at all throughout February. I usually just try to cut down and never succeed, so I wanna experiment with going cold turkey for a temporary period of time.

I'm mostly posting here so I'll have the public shame element in March if I fail either of those. Good luck to everyone else!

[Florian]

@Mouse:

"No sweets" might not be the best strategy, sugar being a prime power source. Rather, try to be more conscious on your intake and adopt a "reward strategy" and thereby avoid your "public shaming" come march.Try to avoid the cheap stuff, like Coke, Oreos and that heavily sugared coffee over at Starbucks, but rather grab some of the more expensive belgian pralines and enjoy the taste.

[Tvtyrant]

Okay, I'm throwing in my hat.

I'm starting small. Mostly I'm terribly out of shape and energy-deprived and have been putting on weight for the past year. So if I don't want to replace all my jeans (again), I have to do something.

In December, I decided to bike to work at least twice every week. In between, four weeks were lost to vacations and Christmas, but I have actually managed to stick to it on weeks where I was working. It's roughly 11 km per day, so nothing majorly ambitious, but doable beats ambitious right now, and it's better than anything I've done in the past year and a half (go me!).

I want to keep it up throughout February. On March 1st, I'll evaluate and decide whether to upgrade the minimum, but so far I just want to stick to it 100% through a month at least.

Biking is good for my general well-being and for getting into some semblance of shape, but I also need to do something serious about my weight. So since the bike thing is actually going well, I'll add one, actually ambitious thing: No sweets at all throughout February. I usually just try to cut down and never succeed, so I wanna experiment with going cold turkey for a temporary period of time.

I'm mostly posting here so I'll have the public shame element in March if I fail either of those. Good luck to everyone else!

I approve of the cutting out sweets, especially if you have tried limiting them to little success. Pretty much my entire philosophy on weightloss has been "cut out compulsive behaviors" and it has been very effective.

You may want to look up your TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure), it will help prevent your body from making you eat the calories you are losing.

Decent site here: http://www.sailrabbit.com/bmr/

For instance, my TDEE is 4,544. That is for "Moderately active," walking 10 miles a day, 3 trips to the gym a week and a moderate hike on Saturdays (8-10 miles, 1,000-2,000 ft elevation change).

December I lost 10lbs by eating 2800 calories a day, January I didn't lower my calories and lost 5lbs and now I need to go down to 2600 a day (three pieces of bacon difference).

[Ancient]

"Sweets", can be pretty ambiguous, and your body/mind is pretty good at tricking you into getting them from one source if you restrict another. To truly cut out sugars, you have to give up the obvious culprits, (candies, cakes, sodas (diet too, even without calories it produces an insulin response), but also fruits (fructose), and dairy (lactose), and the high amount of sugars in pastas and starchy vegetables. It can be a rough hall and expect some feelings of unwellness for a day or two (headaches, cravings).

[AMFV]

Hey guys, first time posting in this particular thread. Personal stuff below.

So my current issue is, a kind of tension in my lower back when I do my treadmill walk. So far there's no long term effect, it goes away when I stop, but I have concerns for the future. Our treadmill has horizontal hand grips (the kind with pulse-measuring metal plates) and I often put my hands there. Could that be an issue? I have to let go of the grips if I want to have a straight back, though there are side rail-like things I can balance myself on. Or should I just be swinging my arms organically.

As some people have pointed out, some soreness and tension is normal. I wouldn't stress too much over it if you haven't had any functional problems because of it and if it goes away. What I would suggest trying is doing a regular walk at the same intensity as your treadmill experience, if you don't get the soreness doing that (or try a different cardio method for the same intensity and time), then you know that something with treadmills isn't working for you. Lower back tension from walking is probably not productive, I mean it's not necessarily bad but it isn't "good pain" so I wouldn't try to seek it out if you can find an exercise methodology that can maintain the same intensity without it you're probably well enough off.

So I'm keeping a running weekly average of my weight. (I weigh myself every day and take and average on Sunday.) For the last 10 or so days I've been fluctuating around the same weight by half a pound, sometimes up to a pound.

Because my previous weight-loss experience was so lightning fast (I was NEVER hungry due to hormone imbalance). Is it normal to stall at a certain weight this long? I'm used to dropping close to 5 pounds in the first week, so seeing myself lose MAYBE pound and then stay the same is disconcerting to say the least. My wife says I'm definately shrinking around the middle, and I am getting bigger in all the right places, but I'm not sure. If this keeps up I might just take another InBody next week even though I usually only do those monthly. I dunno, I'm confused.

Cut your calories by 500, for one week, see how that treats you. On a cut you're going to have to continue to reduce calories and 4500 is really high for cutting, so I'd cut down at least 500 and see if you start losing again, if you don't cut another 5, and then keep doing that until you either start seeing response or you're clearly able to identify it as a different issue. Also you could increase the volume of work you're doing and the volume of cardio.

I approve of the cutting out sweets, especially if you have tried limiting them to little success. Pretty much my entire philosophy on weightloss has been "cut out compulsive behaviors" and it has been very effective.

You may want to look up your TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure), it will help prevent your body from making you eat the calories you are losing.

Decent site here: http://www.sailrabbit.com/bmr/

For instance, my TDEE is 4,544. That is for "Moderately active," walking 10 miles a day, 3 trips to the gym a week and a moderate hike on Saturdays (8-10 miles, 1,000-2,000 ft elevation change).

December I lost 10lbs by eating 2800 calories a day, January I didn't lower my calories and lost 5lbs and now I need to go down to 2600 a day (three pieces of bacon difference).

One thing you have to remember with TDEE calculations is they tend to grossly overestimate your physical activity level. I've found the best results come from stating that I do no physical activity, and then adjusting as needed based on how the scale responds. Since that's a much more accurate way of figuring out your actual TDEE than it's guess at your activity level.

As far as the "cutting out sweets" I think people are using that to refer to removing junk carbs, rather than just a straight reduction in sugars. Like I'm not going to eat those extra pastries with breakfast, instead of, I'm going to weigh out all my sugars and get rid of fruits and certain veggies and dairy because of the sugar potential in them, which is a much more extreme process than just reducing sugary carbs.

[Tvtyrant]

One thing you have to remember with TDEE calculations is they tend to grossly overestimate your physical activity level. I've found the best results come from stating that I do no physical activity, and then adjusting as needed based on how the scale responds. Since that's a much more accurate way of figuring out your actual TDEE than it's guess at your activity level.

As far as the "cutting out sweets" I think people are using that to refer to removing junk carbs, rather than just a straight reduction in sugars. Like I'm not going to eat those extra pastries with breakfast, instead of, I'm going to weigh out all my sugars and get rid of fruits and certain veggies and dairy because of the sugar potential in them, which is a much more extreme process than just reducing sugary carbs.

I hear that a lot, but it has been pretty accurate for me. I put in 10lbs a month and I lose 10lbs a month, my mistake was not dropping more calories when I lost weight. It also helps give people a baseline, as I had no idea how much I was actually eating when I started.

True. I don't think you need to cut all carbs and sugars to get rid of the compulsive need for them, but you certainly need to make sure you don't replace muffins and poptarts with a bucket of strawberries (I did that before I went on Keto, was eating berries and bananas with every meal).

[Sivarias]

I approve of the cutting out sweets, especially if you have tried limiting them to little success. Pretty much my entire philosophy on weightloss has been "cut out compulsive behaviors" and it has been very effective.

This! So much this!

One thing you have to remember with TDEE calculations is they tend to grossly overestimate your physical activity level. I've found the best results come from stating that I do no physical activity, and then adjusting as needed based on how the scale responds. Since that's a much more accurate way of figuring out your actual TDEE than it's guess at your activity level.

As far as the "cutting out sweets" I think people are using that to refer to removing junk carbs, rather than just a straight reduction in sugars. Like I'm not going to eat those extra pastries with breakfast, instead of, I'm going to weigh out all my sugars and get rid of fruits and certain veggies and dairy because of the sugar potential in them, which is a much more extreme process than just reducing sugary carbs.

And as always AMFV states more or less what I'm thinking and from a more informed and better position than me.

Cut your calories by 500, for one week, see how that treats you. On a cut you're going to have to continue to reduce calories and 4500 is really high for cutting, so I'd cut down at least 500 and see if you start losing again, if you don't cut another 5, and then keep doing that until you either start seeing response or you're clearly able to identify it as a different issue. Also you could increase the volume of work you're doing and the volume of cardio.

Um, I'm only doing 1850 calories a day right now, so cutting a further 500 calories a day will literally make it impossible for me to get the 200g of protein and 150g or so of carbs I need. Do you maybe have me mixed up with TVTyrant? The last TDEE I took put me at 3500 calories at a baseline of no activity, and that's what I've been basing my cut at.

[AMFV]

I hear that a lot, but it has been pretty accurate for me. I put in 10lbs a month and I lose 10lbs a month, my mistake was not dropping more calories when I lost weight. It also helps give people a baseline, as I had no idea how much I was actually eating when I started.

Well, it can help, also in the case of somebody that's more overweight, you'll lose easier and so finicky stuff with caloric counts isn't really the best bet. Like in the case of somebody who is relatively low body fat and still trying to cut it's a lot more important to be accurate and not be a little off.

True. I don't think you need to cut all carbs and sugars to get rid of the compulsive need for them, but you certainly need to make sure you don't replace muffins and poptarts with a bucket of strawberries (I did that before I went on Keto, was eating berries and bananas with every meal).

Um, I'm only doing 1850 calories a day right now, so cutting a further 500 calories a day will literally make it impossible for me to get the 200g of protein and 150g or so of carbs I need. Do you maybe have me mixed up with TVTyrant? The last TDEE I took put me at 3500 calories at a baseline of no activity, and that's what I've been basing my cut at.

That is exactly what happened, sorry there's a bunch of numbers floating around here and I'd been reading things on my phone, which is screen damaged so I got the numbers mixed up.

I would probably cut 250, only from carbs, and increase your activity level in terms of cardiovascular stuff. I mean 1500 is probably about the lowest I would want to go in terms of caloric intake unless it's extremely short term. So I'd aim for that sort of goal. As far as being stalled, you can either cut calories or increase activity, or accept that you're just in a slower gain/lose spot.

Sometimes what can be really good is a short bulkup period, a couple weeks maybe, with a very high volume of work. Then that can help jumpstart things again, since you're going to be adjusted to working more and eating more and that will help if you're stalled, and it can help mentally if you're stalled.

Also as things get tougher it might be time to evaluate where you want your body fat to sit at. Unless you're aiming to do comps, then you don't necessarily need (or want trust me) that shredded 8% body fat. And so you might be wanting to start gaining again once you get to a reasonable amount. One of the key things to remember is that how good you look is largely a factor of body fat percentage, not total fat mass. So if you gain muscle, you can have higher fat mass and still look decent. Like if you have 20 lbs of fat at 150 lbs, you're in pretty good shape but if you have 20 lbs of fat at 220, you'll look much better and you won't have to have lost a single fat pound for that transition. So again stalling out is pretty bad, I would re-evaluate if you've tried corrective actions and nothing changes in the next week or two.

[Sivarias]

Also as things get tougher it might be time to evaluate where you want your body fat to sit at. Unless you're aiming to do comps, then you don't necessarily need (or want trust me) that shredded 8% body fat. And so you might be wanting to start gaining again once you get to a reasonable amount. One of the key things to remember is that how good you look is largely a factor of body fat percentage, not total fat mass. So if you gain muscle, you can have higher fat mass and still look decent. Like if you have 20 lbs of fat at 150 lbs, you're in pretty good shape but if you have 20 lbs of fat at 220, you'll look much better and you won't have to have lost a single fat pound for that transition. So again stalling out is pretty bad, I would re-evaluate if you've tried corrective actions and nothing changes in the next week or two.

My end point doesn't have a specific poundage in mind. Right now I'm at 36.3% BF according to my last in body. I want that down to about 15% or so. I want to get an adonis belt at least once to say I did it and to see what it would look like on me. We'll see how hard it was to get before I determine whether or not I maintain it.

Lifting Goals, I wanna Bench 1.5x, squat 2.25x, and dead-lift 2.5x my body-weight.
(Those are old numbers I read a while back for baseline for "fit" men. They seem reasonable so in lieu of anything else that's what I'm sticking with as far as lifting goals.)

I suspect when I'm done cutting fat and bulking up I'll be floating around 200lbs or so just from eyeballing the rest of my family. Right now I just need to get below 20% BF as fast as possible for hormone reasons. Once I'm sub 20%, that's when I'll start doing a more classic bulk/cut cycle. Until then everything is just cut, cut, cut.

[Tvtyrant]

My end point doesn't have a specific poundage in mind. Right now I'm at 36.3% BF according to my last in body. I want that down to about 15% or so. I want to get an adonis belt at least once to say I did it and to see what it would look like on me. We'll see how hard it was to get before I determine whether or not I maintain it.

Lifting Goals, I wanna Bench 1.5x, squat 2.25x, and dead-lift 2.5x my body-weight.
(Those are old numbers I read a while back for baseline for "fit" men. They seem reasonable so in lieu of anything else that's what I'm sticking with as far as lifting goals.)

I suspect when I'm done cutting fat and bulking up I'll be floating around 200lbs or so just from eyeballing the rest of my family. Right now I just need to get below 20% BF as fast as possible for hormone reasons. Once I'm sub 20%, that's when I'll start doing a more classic bulk/cut cycle. Until then everything is just cut, cut, cut.

I admire your goals! I'm satisfied with getting lean mass up to 200lbs and bodyfat under 50.

[Glass Mouse]

@Mouse:

"No sweets" might not be the best strategy, sugar being a prime power source. Rather, try to be more conscious on your intake and adopt a "reward strategy" and thereby avoid your "public shaming" come march.Try to avoid the cheap stuff, like Coke, Oreos and that heavily sugared coffee over at Starbucks, but rather grab some of the more expensive belgian pralines and enjoy the taste.

Oh no, not for me. That's been my strategy the last five times I've tried cutting down junk sweets, and I've failed spectacularly each time. I guess it would work for someone who doesn't eat sweets compulsively, but, uh.

This may be getting too into psychology and behavioural theory, but I've been reading a lot of Kahneman lately. He pioneered the idea of two cognitive systems:

1. System 1 is the intuitive, fast, lazy ways of decision making, such as determining your friend's mood from the way they say "hi" on the phone, or a firefighter realizing that a house is about to crumble without even knowing why he knows. We use this for the vast majority of our decisions, its internal workings are subconscious, and it is highly optimized for efficiency.
2. System 2 is the analytical, logical process, used to solve complicated tasks. System 2 is more meticulous and reliable but also uses up a lot of resources, and gets tired over time. We have to actively engage with this type of decision making, and it is optimized for correctness of conclusions.

System 1 is prone to jumping to conclusions and to substituting questions, like answering "which political candidate would be better for X political issue?" with "which candidate do I like better?". Or, relevant here, substituting "Is it a worthwhile decision for me to eat this piece of cake right now?" with "Do I want cake right now?". Like I said, this process happens subconsciously, and it takes energy for System 2 to activate and catch the error.

AFAIK, Kahneman doesn't touch on dieting, but I just realized that making complicated rules (like "only 'good' sweets and only when I truly desire the taste") is basically an outsourcing of my sweets habit to System 2. Which is bound to fail when I'm tired or hungry or it's late in the day.

Basically, the way to not fall in the System 1 trap regarding habit changes is to make the change as easy as possible. So I'm trying to achieve that by making "should I have cake?" into as easy a question as possible, the answer always being "no". No System 2 needed. No way for System 1 to cheat me with question substitutions.

Come to think of it, I should probably simplify the biking even more. New rule is: "If I haven't biked twice yet, and there's no actual traffic-related reason not to, I have to bike now." Which incidentally means I have to bike today

I approve of the cutting out sweets, especially if you have tried limiting them to little success. Pretty much my entire philosophy on weightloss has been "cut out compulsive behaviors" and it has been very effective.

You may want to look up your TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure), it will help prevent your body from making you eat the calories you are losing.

Thanks for the link, but I have to be honest: Calorie Counting gives me the heebie-jeebies. I can definitely see why it would work - there is a gamification element and it's an easy way to keep in control, and I know people who use it to great effect. It's just... I don't even know what. I just know my mental health has taken a nosedive every time I've gotten in the habit of considering health for every meal.

It could be an interesting experiment to go all in some day, though: buy a fitbit, use a fitness app, and outsource my eating decisions to technology for a period. It jibes pretty well with the simplicity principle.

As far as the "cutting out sweets" I think people are using that to refer to removing junk carbs, rather than just a straight reduction in sugars. Like I'm not going to eat those extra pastries with breakfast, instead of, I'm going to weigh out all my sugars and get rid of fruits and certain veggies and dairy because of the sugar potential in them, which is a much more extreme process than just reducing sugary carbs.

Yup. That's what I meant, at least. My big culprits are not carbs, per se, but the easy sugars like chocolate, soda and cake.

[Douglas]

Basically, the way to not fall in the System 1 trap regarding habit changes is to make the change as easy as possible. So I'm trying to achieve that by making "should I have cake?" into as easy a question as possible, the answer always being "no". No System 2 needed. No way for System 1 to cheat me with question substitutions.

I had some success a while back with a rule of a fixed specific amount of one fixed specific treat as dessert at lunch and dinner, and nothing at any other time. It's still very simple, and equally objective. You really have to stick to it, though, no making an exception "just this once".

Then I thought about the numbers a bit more and decided I really should cut it out entirely.

[caden_varn]

Re. cycling into work - about a decade ago I started to do this, and I set 2 targets. One, to cycle at least once a week, and over the entire year, to cycle at least 40% (which I tracked on a simple spreadsheet. This had the advantage of having the second target to motivate me when the first failed on the second week due to heavy snow (well, heavy for the south of england, so about 3 whole inches!). It's really easy to miss a week due to illness or bike malfunction, so I needed something to focus on after that so I did not give up.
After a few years I got to cycling to work 100% (OK, with a few days working from home, but I find that really tedious & avoid if possible).

Obviously, this will work for going to the gym etc. as well as cycling.

[Sivarias]

I have good news and bad news. The good news is the scale finally changed today, and going back exactly a week I did lose about 4lbs. Which is much more of what I was expecting. So YAY!

The bad news is I was dumb, and I wanted to hurry up and bench a heavier weight today and I didn't warm up properly in my haste. I strained something in my shoulder. While I finished my set, because my shoulder was in pain I couldn't increase the weight on the hypertrophy party of my routine.

I'm still young And judging from the pain I should be ok by next week. Just means I have to take it easy on Thursday.

Oh well, lesson learned.

I admire your goals! I'm satisfied with getting lean mass up to 200lbs and bodyfat under 50.

The the reason for sub 20% is because at higher numbers than that the male body starts converting testosterone to estrogen in large amounts.

[AMFV]

My end point doesn't have a specific poundage in mind. Right now I'm at 36.3% BF according to my last in body. I want that down to about 15% or so. I want to get an adonis belt at least once to say I did it and to see what it would look like on me. We'll see how hard it was to get before I determine whether or not I maintain it.

Yeah, if you're at 36.3% BF you should still be losing in a fairly smooth curve. Like for me when I started to have problems with consistent loss was usually at 16 percent and lower. What I might try doing is a non-scale focused training for a little bit, like a month. Like focus on improving your strength, cause if you can handle more weight fro more volume you'll be able to have a much better response from your workouts.

So I'd do like a period focused on improving a few lifts or on getting stronger, or maybe on bulking up just a tiny bit, to gain more muscle (although at 36.3 percent, bulking up is probably not what most people would recommend, but if you're stalling...)

Lifting Goals, I wanna Bench 1.5x, squat 2.25x, and dead-lift 2.5x my body-weight.
(Those are old numbers I read a while back for baseline for "fit" men. They seem reasonable so in lieu of anything else that's what I'm sticking with as far as lifting goals.)

Those are (I believe) numbers from Mark Rippletoe, they're good for a general guideline I think, but I wouldn't use them as gospel or anything. It's also worth noting that those numbers start to get further and further out of whack the heavier and bigger you are. Like take a 150 lb man, if they can pull 375, that's reasonable, not world class, but very reasonable. Let's go way up (just for purposes of demonstration) and say like a 400 lb person (like worlds strongest man weight), they'd have to be pulling 1000 lbs to be considered "fit" but in real life if they were pulling 1000 lbs, they'd be among the best deadlifters in the world. So as the weight goes up those numbers go down.

At your suggested end-weight, that would come out to a 300 lb bench (definitely doable), a 450 squat, and a 500 lb pull. None of those are world class numbers, but they're all pretty reasonable. Depending on your personal biomechanics and what-not (I've always been better comparatively at squatting than either deadlifting or bench). Although I would qualify as "fit" by most of Mark's baselines up there.

I also don't like Rippletoe, because he's given people a lot of advice without having trained a single world class powerlifter or strongman or having been one himself, which is something to watch for.

I suspect when I'm done cutting fat and bulking up I'll be floating around 200lbs or so just from eyeballing the rest of my family. Right now I just need to get below 20% BF as fast as possible for hormone reasons. Once I'm sub 20%, that's when I'll start doing a more classic bulk/cut cycle. Until then everything is just cut, cut, cut.

Well I think that's a good plan, of course, it's important to remember that if you're starting to be spinning your wheels some adjustment is probably called for.

Re. cycling into work - about a decade ago I started to do this, and I set 2 targets. One, to cycle at least once a week, and over the entire year, to cycle at least 40% (which I tracked on a simple spreadsheet. This had the advantage of having the second target to motivate me when the first failed on the second week due to heavy snow (well, heavy for the south of england, so about 3 whole inches!). It's really easy to miss a week due to illness or bike malfunction, so I needed something to focus on after that so I did not give up.
After a few years I got to cycling to work 100% (OK, with a few days working from home, but I find that really tedious & avoid if possible).

Obviously, this will work for going to the gym etc. as well as cycling.

That's really awesome! I'll have to try something like that.

I have good news and bad news. The good news is the scale finally changed today, and going back exactly a week I did lose about 4lbs. Which is much more of what I was expecting. So YAY!

Congrats man! Are you weighing yourself at the same time of day with the same stuff going on?

The bad news is I was dumb, and I wanted to hurry up and bench a heavier weight today and I didn't warm up properly in my haste. I strained something in my shoulder. While I finished my set, because my shoulder was in pain I couldn't increase the weight on the hypertrophy party of my routine.

I'm still young And judging from the pain I should be ok by next week. Just means I have to take it easy on Thursday.

Oh well, lesson learned.

Shoulder issues on the bench are common. Generally when you start having those problems it's a really good idea to start incorporating some bench variations. Like incline and decline bench, and definitely dumbbell benching. Those are a lot of fun and they have the advantage of not being quite as ego driven. (Since much fewer peeps know what impressive numbers on an incline bench are).

That and definitely do your shoulder cradle exercises, especially for your rear delts, those are often the cause of a lot of benching trouble, and frankly benching trouble is why a lot of lifters don't do flat bench at all.

The the reason for sub 20% is because at higher numbers than that the male body starts converting testosterone to estrogen in large amounts.

I've heard that, but I've been over 20 before and not really seen a spike in my estrogen levels. I think there are too many factors there to be certain that that's the only culprit. Also it's really easy to have chicken or the egg questions. Do overweight men have higher estrogen because they are overweight or are they overweight because of higher estrogenic levels, type-thing.

[Tvtyrant]

Anyone else get shin splint feelings in their shins during squats? I used to get them in highschool, when I was squatting 400lbs+, started getting them again at a lower weight.

[AMFV]

Today is my second day (of three) this week doing relatively moderately heavy deadlifts, and it's definitely catching up to me, although since I've been conservative with the weights I can say that it's not as bad performance-wise as I was expecting. Eventually with my new crazy program I'll be peaking at four deadlift days in a week. Trying to fix that lagging deadlift after the injury. It's definitely getting stronger though.

Also I can say that the worst possible combination (to my surprise) is deadlift and then overhead push-presses. My personal trainer had me doing relatively heavy presses and that was definitely killer after I'd been doing those pulls. It does do good prepwork for the event days though since you're pretty much always pulling and pressing on the same day, which is absolute misery (although on event day you have a lot more adrenaline to keep it going).

The worst pain and stuff has been in my core, since the deadlifts aren't super heavy I've been doing them unbelted so my core is definitely feeling it, especially in my upper abdominal region and some in my lower back, from both exercises which require a lot of core stability.

Anyone else get shin splint feelings in their shins during squats? I used to get them in highschool, when I was squatting 400lbs+, started getting them again at a lower weight.

I have not, although research suggests that it may stem from knee placement. Often when you have a problem that creeps as the weight creeps up it's form related primarily. At least from what I've experienced. So assuming that the internet is correct and it's knee placement there are a few things that you should try:

1.) Make sure your hips are open. Do some warming up and stuff, to make sure that your hips are well open so get a really good hip hinge, definitely do some squats without any weight probably just the bar to get that feeling and pay particular attention to your hips, because fewer things in a squat affect your knees as much as your hip placement.

2.) Adjust your foot placement, try wider and narrower stance squats and see if that improves it. I would guess that wider stance would be the way to go, and I know that most big guys (myself included) tend to find it a lot more comfy to squat with a wider stance, it just feels more natural and feels like there's less pressure on your knees and other ligaments and what-not, which could be part of your problem.

3.) Adjust your bar placement. Try moving to a lower bar squat position, since that will force your upper torso forward, your hips and will therefore adjust the track your knees are moving on to less of a track directly over your feet. As an added benefit you'll get ten percent more out of your squat in terms of weight, and that's always cool.

4.) Change your shoes, make sure that you're squatting in appropriate shoes for it, since that really impacts your knee location. Flat soled shoes are the preferred option since the heel is going to force your track and your knees forward. I buy cheap skater shoes usually, another option is to squat barefoot (or in socks in a gym), so that way you can really feel your heel placement and where the weight is actually tracking and stuff. That's always a fun thing to try too, because it makes you that weird guy who squats in socks, and people will think you're super serious about it, especially if you're low bar squatting.

5.) Stretch more, try and improve your hip and leg flexibility so that you can better control your track and kind of have a better less likely to injure knee position.

Those are the things I would try in the order I would try them, or just try all of them. But that's what I would recommend provided of course that it is a knee track, but that seems to be the consensus view on the internet and it makes sense to me. I just can't find any trainer whose opinion I value saying the same. Although Mark Rippletoe does for whatever the hell that's worth.


Edit: And if you have the cash laying around I'd bump your shoes to number 1.

[Sivarias]

I've heard that, but I've been over 20 before and not really seen a spike in my estrogen levels. I think there are too many factors there to be certain that that's the only culprit. Also it's really easy to have chicken or the egg questions. Do overweight men have higher estrogen because they are overweight or are they overweight because of higher estrogenic levels, type-thing.

The estrogen gets used up storing and maintaining the fat IIRC. While your estrogen didn't spike, did your Test noticeable drop?

So I ran the numbers for protein intake, and realized that I'm eating 3lbs of straight protein a week more or less. Does anyone know what the protein mass to muscle mass conversion rate is? Or know where I can develop an approximation? I'm just curious at this point, wondering how "efficient" my body is with this. Obviously some of that goes to muscle repair and other system needs, but the question is how much?

I assume for bigger guys lifting heavier, more protein is needed to repair the more severe muscle damage done by a workout routine. This will obviously leave less for new musculature to form.

I dunno. I'm a numbers guy. Spreadsheets, percentages, and efficiencies are kind of my thing.

[Tvtyrant]

Today is my second day (of three) this week doing relatively moderately heavy deadlifts, and it's definitely catching up to me, although since I've been conservative with the weights I can say that it's not as bad performance-wise as I was expecting. Eventually with my new crazy program I'll be peaking at four deadlift days in a week. Trying to fix that lagging deadlift after the injury. It's definitely getting stronger though.

Also I can say that the worst possible combination (to my surprise) is deadlift and then overhead push-presses. My personal trainer had me doing relatively heavy presses and that was definitely killer after I'd been doing those pulls. It does do good prepwork for the event days though since you're pretty much always pulling and pressing on the same day, which is absolute misery (although on event day you have a lot more adrenaline to keep it going).

The worst pain and stuff has been in my core, since the deadlifts aren't super heavy I've been doing them unbelted so my core is definitely feeling it, especially in my upper abdominal region and some in my lower back, from both exercises which require a lot of core stability.


Edit: And if you have the cash laying around I'd bump your shoes to number 1.

That does sound tough! I can see the relationship there, the OHP requires you to stabilize your back and the Deadlifts rough up the stabilizers. Interestingly I think combining them means you reinvented the powerclean :P

Glad to hear your deadlift is improving. When you do your competition remember to post photos/videos.

Okay, new shoes it is and trying to fix my stance. You said you use flat shoes, are lifting shoes a meme then?