Can SD be prevented ?

K

khkiley

New Member
I have to travel a lot for work. I end up at locations where there is no gym access. So how do I stop SD from starting ?

Are body weight exercises the answer ? I understand I won't progress, just don't want to regress.

Last HST cycle I had to travel during my first week of fives, took over a week break, and lost strength.

So I just restarted at the 15's

I don't want to keep trashing my cycles, just postpone them until I can get back to the gym.

Any thoughts or recomendations of what I can do while on the road ?

Thanks,

K
 
Next time, instead of restarting the whole cycle, you could just restart that rep phase and you'd be fine. Bodyweight exercises might help you maintain lean mass, but they won't do a lot to maintain strength unless you find some way to do chins and dips on the road. Still, you will experience some strength loss either way.
 
The best you can do is do chins and pushups even when you have no gym access. Then continue your cycle when you get to a gym.
 
Both Tot and JV give you remedial "fixes" to your problem.

I've been doing that for a while, now that I've extended the 5's for the last two weeks, with work and family you end up missing out every now and then, just go back one or two steps and voi-la you're back on track!

The batman forgot one, if you have bar stool'd they are great for a few dips, do those with body weight too, or and some abs! Man...keep your muscle!
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There are also other BW exersizes that it would seem to me you could do as an 'alternate' workout to tide you over until getting to a gym. BTW, most gyms will allow you either a free or a $5 visit.
You can elevate your feet and do pushups to create a shoulder and upper chest routine. Sometimes you can curl a chair, maybe do 21's. You can bench the end of a bed. Wide and narrow pushups to hit chest and tri's. Sissy squats using your belt and a doorknob. Use the time to do stretches to improve your uh, 'limbricity' (for lack of a better word at 4:00 am)
 
Have you ever read Men's Health? Do you know how they will print little snippets from scientific studies that have been released regarding fitness, nutrition, etc... Well, I read one a while back about preventing atrophy. The study concluded that one full body workout per week was sufficient to avoid muscle loss.

To me, that suggests that working out at least once per week would prevent the effects of SD from kicking in. Of course I'm no scientist, and I have the actual study summarized in the magazine. To be safe, I'd try to workout a couple times. Body weight exercises should be good, I think, as long as none of them force progress beyond your current HST phase.

Push ups, chins, dips, or bench dips, one legged squats or step-ups...

Here's a body weight shoulder presss you could do in a hotel room:

Put your feet on a chair and palms on the floor. Your body is in an 'L' position in which most of your body weight is supported by youe hands, but some by your feet. Lower your head to the floor and then push up for one rep.

You can increase the resistance by having your feet higher up, even doing a wall push up, if you have the strength for it. The only down side is the some-what limited range of motion.
 
Actually, that one is right. Working out once full body is enough to maintain muscle.

However, there are also other factors to consider. For one thing, you have to be working with reasonably heavy loads. Working out with BW exercises may not be enough if you can bench 1.5x or even 2x your bodyweight, deadlift 3x your bodyweight... you get the idea. And for another, you also have to consistenly keep your diet in check - even if you do the obligatory one significant workout per week, you aren't going to be saving muscle if you are often starved on protein (or even just plain calories) regularly a few days every week.

Depending on how strong you are already and how much muscle you have, BW exercises may be enough (also depending on where you are in the cycle when you stopped), even if you do 3 a week. Do what you can (that will still save some muscle), but if you are pretty strong and already well developed, you just have to accept that you'll really lose a little (or maybe more than a little) when things get pretty hectic on your "real" life (as opposed to BB life, of course).

Don't worry about it too much. Just take it as it comes. Start a cycle, if you need to go to a far away place, see what BW exercises you can use, resume your cycle when you get the chance... remember, in bodybuilding, even with HST, the key to creating an excellent physique is consistency. You just have to keep doing the right things over time, and you know you're on the right track with HST
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Regards and good luck to you,
-JV
 
i asked about maintaning muscle mass on this forum a long while ago and bryan said using your 10rep max once a week should be sufficient
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I'm more comfortable using something like 8RM, but if it's the max 10RM, then I guess there really is only little difference. That's about right I guess, but for me (and I'm not that big at all), my BW exercises aren't even my 15RM. To really workout, I'd really need free weights. That's why unless you haven't been lifting weights for so long, BW really won't be enough to maintain your muscles totally. But you will get to maintain some, so there really is no reason to not do atleast BW exercises
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I think they made Batman (Christian Bale in Batman Begins) do that, when he gets up from bed, he just hits the floor immediately and does pushups. When I saw that I was like a real HST geek in my mind and went "Holy crap, dude, you've been to a rough night and I don't think you've eaten in more than 6 hours, cortisol is just gonna kick your butt..." Well, maybe he is immune to the muscle-catabolizing effects of cortisol since he's The Batman
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(quote)
Well, maybe he is immune to the muscle-catabolizing effects of cortisol since he's The Batman

or they gave him something to help a little
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I must say, I am overwhelmed by the number of responses.

Thanks!

Maintaining the diet IS very difficult when travelling.

Very good suggestions for excersizes, never even considerred using the furniture for resistance.

I tried rewinding back to the start of the fives, but was having difficulty making the reps- hence the rewind to the 15s, but I did throw on an extra 5lbs and things seem to be getting back on track.

I think the time off and messed up diet cause most of the problems.

Thanks for all of the advice,

K
 
Food is our most anabolic substance, and as a slacker in that department, I've learned that just like steroids, what you gain with food must be maintained by food. Although our level of muscle gains are lesser than AA's, the rule remains.
Garbage in=Garbage out.

I wish I was batman...
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When I travel for work, I can usually find a gym in the area that has daily or weekly passes. I've trained in gyms all over the place some real good some not as good but almost all better than trying to get a workout in on some hotel multi-station unit that is 20 yrs old.

Rarely can I not find a place to train.

Now when I'm in a place like Cancun - I just SD.
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Good Luck
Firm
 
<div>
(jvroig @ Jul. 28 2006,16:02)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">I think they made Batman (Christian Bale in Batman Begins) do that, when he gets up from bed, he just hits the floor immediately and does pushups. When I saw that I was like a real HST geek in my mind and went &quot;Holy crap, dude, you've been to a rough night and I don't think you've eaten in more than 6 hours, cortisol is just gonna kick your butt...&quot; Well, maybe he is immune to the muscle-catabolizing effects of cortisol since he's The Batman
biggrin.gif
</div>
Not wanting to continue the super hero theme too much (after my superman thread) but did you see christian bale in the machinist?

The difference between him there and in batman is amazing.

Cheers

Rob
 
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