BAD 1ST CYCLE RESULTS

Randy,

In reading over this discussion I just thought I'd commend you on a pretty well-disciplined dietary/exercise plan. Regardless of whatever tweaks are needed, I'm sure you will be progressing in no time.

The three inches off the chest is still pretty weird, though. ;)

Blake
 
Restless brings up a good point. I read a study not long ago that showed saturated fat has a much greater (positive) impact on testosterone levels than unsaturated fats.

Maybe try replacing some of the fish and chicken with some good old fashion red meat. Unless you have a serious cholesterol problem, a little saturated fat in your diet certainly isn’t going to hurt you! In fact it’s probably unhealthy to cut it out completely!
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Calkid @ July 11 2003,8:37)]If you're not counting calories, you're hurting your progress. Would you go to the gym and not count reps?
I'd say maybe you were eating too little, but if you're not counting it's hard to say.
Just use fitday, man...don't make it a point of pride.
I disagree. If you train when your body doesnt want it, you're doing damage.
By "doesn't want it," I mean symptoms of joint pain, too sleepy, diarrhea, can't raise body temp, overtrained

Do you eat when you're not hungry or vice versa?

listen to your body or you'll have health problems.
 
I can't only ONE PERSON caught the real problem: Overtraining! It's got to be.

As for all that red meat BS. Well, it's BS. You didn't lose that much weight all of a sudden because there has been no red meat in your diet. The thing that changed is obvious. OK, for those who think it's NOT obvious (drum roll) Randy's routine changed.

Randy, if you're gonna try HST again (though I somehow suspect you won't) cut your sets in half. I don't say this from HST experience, but I know how overtraining can lead to muscle loss first hand.
 
NOTHING makes you lose muscle that quickly

if anything if it was doing anything, it would be overreaching, but this wouldnt cause a significant decrease in musclemass or increase in fat mass.
 
Randy:

I wish I read your post earlier.

Singleton is right. You are doing too much volume for this type of workout. You need to cut your workout in half. Perhaps you can increase the cardio, which tends not to impact your body as much.

I have a favorite lifting workout routine that spans about an hour. It is for improving conditioning and reducing bf. Unfortunately, one will also lose muscle and strength (unless one is using a good array of supplements and eating like crazy). For example, after the last cycle of my routine, after 8 weeks, I lost significant amount of strength and size. I averaged about 33 sets per workout, six days a week. Always come out of the gym drenched in sweat.

When I try to gain size and strength, I keep "serious" sets around 15, each set NOT going to failure.

==========================

BTW, as for girth measurements, it can increase even though you may not have gained fat. Personally, my girth increases when I do deadlifts even when I am losing body fat.
 
I listen to my body.

This has always worked for me, so I really dislike HST routine.

Aside from that, I determine how many sets to do by instinct. It is usually 1-4 heavy sets if I get warmed up.

Warmup takes 0-30 minutes.

Sometimes I am warm walking in, sometimes I do not warm up at all. When I don't get warmed up, then I don't go heavy at all and I just go take a shower.
 
I had also pretty bas results from my first HST, I gained 6kg of fat, my strength went up a bit (I think), but my muscles stayed the same. My only idea of what went wrong is undertraining. The thing is I did 2 work sets/excercise (like most people, but with poor results). If anyone has some ideas what do I do wrong. All post are welcome.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Singleton @ July 31 2003,3:15)]I listen to my body.
This has always worked for me, so I really dislike HST routine.
Interesting you should say that, singleton. I have been training seriously for 12 years and I have never used a system that allowed me to adapt to my body's present needs better than HST does.

In reality, there is no "HST routine". There is an example routine listed for those who would like to see how the pieces fit together. HST is is a series of principles based on current scientific evidence of what causes hypertrophy.

I suspect that those who follow the principles and listen to their bodies are getting much better results than those who train intuitively or those who get "caught up" in the numbers.

In other words, having a solid plan hardly prevents one from listening to ones body.

Just my 2 cents,
Kate
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Randy @ July 20 2003,6:52)]Virtually none. Isn't that a good thing?
Randy
I forgot to check this post again.

To answer your question, no it isn't a good thing. To much of it can be a bad thing but none of it can be a disastrous for your muscle building goals. It will wreck your male hormone levels and that is not a good thing. If I were you I'd start there.
 
This is an excerpt from an article by Lyle McDonald at think muscle:

Studies have linked the majority of health problems associated with a high dietary fat intake to saturated fats and trans-fatty acids. In fact, cultures which consume most of their dietary fat as unsaturated fats (such as the Italians) show none of the health problems found in America, despite a high-percentage of dietary fat in their diet (note: there are other differences than simply dietary fat intake, such as higher vegetable intake, greater amounts of exercise, etc).

Despite the link between "high" fat diets and a number of disease states, bodybuilders are arguably best-served by consuming 15-25% of their total calories as dietary fat as a rule of thumb. As well, ideally most of this dietary fat should come from unsaturated fats, although small amounts of saturated fats aren't going to kill you.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (restless @ Aug. 15 2003,8:58)]
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Randy @ July 20 2003,6:52)]Virtually none. Isn't that a good thing?
Randy
I forgot to check this post again.
To answer your question, no it isn't a good thing. To much of it can be a bad thing but none of it can be a disastrous for your muscle building goals. It will wreck your male hormone levels and that is not a good thing. If I were you I'd start there.
Yes, he was saying virtually no saturated fat. Restless, are you saying that he should have more sat. fat ?
 
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