Getting back into HST

[imported_danishabs]

Hi all.  A little background: I've been weightlifting and dieting seriously since early April of last year, so it's been about a year.  This was me last April http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c78/danishabs/chrisbody002.jpg

This was me in August http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c78/danishabs/Christopher001.jpg

This was me in November http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c78/danishabs/chrisbody011.jpg
I've got a lot more pics than that, but I don't want to make this post longer than I need to.  

So like I said, I started last April, at 165 pounds.  I started doing a lifting routine, and began following The Abs Diet.  By a month later, in May, I had gained five pounds overall, and lost enough fat to clearly see my abs, which made a huge difference in my appearance.  Over the next four or five months, I gradually gained another five pounds of lean mass, bringing me up to about 175.  I'm 5'11", by the way.

I was stuck at 175 for a long time, though.  In October, I decided to try out HST, because I'd heard good things about it.  After the 15 days of strategic deconditioning, I was shocked to find how sore I was after my first workout!  I knew this would work, and it did - after the first three weeks, I stepped on the scale and it read 180 for the first time in my life.

Over the next five weeks, I gained a couple more pounds, so I was consistently weighing in at 182.  I was rather eager to reach 190, so  I decided to do another cycle of HST.  I did about 10 days of strategic deconditioning, and started the cycle.

Unfortunately, my weight didn't budge at all this time.  In fact, I went back to weighing in at about 180 or 179.  I was frustrated, and gradually began to lose focus.  Recently, things just fell apart entirely, and not only am I back down to about 174 pounds, but my abs have disappeared almost entirely!

So, I've decided to get back into HST.  I'm taking a vacation up on North Shore this week, so I'm going to use that to start off my strategic deconditioning.  After 15 days, I'll start lifting again.

Now, when I first did the HST, I didn't do it the exact way that is prescribed on the website.  What I did was just start each exercise with a really light weight, then each workout I just added five pounds until I was only doing 5 reps per set.  So, for squats I started off with 17 or 18 reps on 125 pounds, then next time I'd do 130, then next workout I'd do 135, and so on and so on.  This seemed to work really well.  

I think the main reason my second cycle failed so miserably is because I wasn't consuming as many calories and protein.  My first cycle, I was taking three servings of Muscle Milk protein supplement each day (I know it has a lot of sat. fat, but I didn't gain any body fat during that cycle, so I'm not worried about that).  The second cycle, I eventually realized that I was forgetting to take that extra serving each day, so that cut my daily food intake down by about 450 calories and 42 grams of protein.  I figure that's the problem.  This time I won't make the same mistake.

I've decided to stick with Muscle Milk as my main protein supplement, just because it's convenient and it worked for me the first time.  I have a rather busy life, and I live in the barracks on base.  My room doesn't have a stovetop or oven or anything, and I'm actually not allowed to have cooking supplies in my room other than a microwave.  So the food that I eat pretty much has to be easy to make and convenient.

My daily diet will have about 3000 calories and 175 grams of protein.  I haven't decided exactly what I'll eat when, but it'll involve the Muscle Milk, plus a fast-absorbing protein supplement post-workout, eggs, oatmeal, perhaps a tuna sandwich on whole-grain bread, natural peanut butter on whole-grain bread, almonds, and probably a grilled chicken and baby spinach salad from Subway.  I'll be taking a multivitamin, and I haven't decided whether I want to take creatine or not.  I've had mixed results with creatine in the past.

As for the workout, I'll be working out every other day, a full-body routine.  I think this time, instead of increasing the weight by five pounds every workout, I'll increase the weights by ten pounds every other workout.  

As for the exercises themselves, I'm thinking that this time I'll focus more on compound exercises, and I'll include some additional leg work (I was only doing two leg exercises the first time)

Squats
Deadlifts
Stiff-leg deadlifts
Incline bench press
Weighted pullups
Weighted dips
Bent-over rows
Military press
Underhand pullups

I figure those exercises would be good.  

So, anyone have suggestions or advice on any part of this?  I know I could probably improve this plan a lot, so any advice is more than welcome.

 

[faz]

Squats
Deadlifts

Incline bench press
Weighted pullups
Weighted dips
Bent-over rows
Military press
i would do it this way and dont forget to eat more if your training 6x a wk

 

[Fausto]

Chris

To get more exact requirements:

<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">
Step #1: Resting Metabolic Rate

Convert body mass to kilograms x fat % = Fat mass

then subtract Fat mass from total = Lean mass

Resting Metabolic Rate for Athletes (in calories per day) = 500 + 22 x fat free mass (in kilograms).

Step #2: Cost of Activity

Choose activity factor for your type:

Activity Factors:

1.2-1.3 for Very Light (bed rest)
1.5-1.6 for Light (office work/watching TV)
1.6-1.7 for Moderate (some activity during day)
1.9-2.1 for Heavy (labor type work)

Note: Don't consider your daily workout when choosing a number. We'll do that later.

Costs of Exercise Activity:

MET values for common activities:

high impact aerobics... 7
low impact aerobics... 5
high intensity cycling... 12
low intensity cycling... 3
high intensity walking - 6.5
low intensity walking - 2.5
high intensity running... 18
low intensity running... 7
circuit-type training... 8
intense free weight lifting... 6
moderate machine training... 3

So here's the formula:
Cost of Exercise Activity = Body Mass (in kg) x Duration (in hours) x MET value

Add these two together.

Step #3: Thermic Effect of Food

TEF = RMR x 0.10 for moderate protein diet (1 gram per pound of bodyweight)
TEF = RMR x 0.15 for high protein diet (more than 1 gram per pound of bodyweight)

Now add that to your calorie total.

Step #4: Adaptive Thermogenesis

I like to call Adaptive Thermogenesis the &quot;X factor&quot; because we just aren't sure how much it can contribute to daily caloric needs. Some have predicted that it can either increase daily needs by 10% or even decrease daily needs by 10%. Because it's still a mystery, we typically don't factor it into the equation.

Step #5: Putting it all together

Okay, so how many damn calories do you need to consume each and every day? Well, adding up RMR plus activity factor (3800 calories in my case), cost of weight training (819 calories), cost of cardio (137 calories), and TEF (360 calories), we get a grand total of about 5116 calories! (Remember, that's just my total. You'll get a different number.)

Now that's a lot of food! And I must eat this each and every day when I want to gain weight.

Are you surprised at how many calories I need? Most people are.

So the next time you complain that you're &quot;eating all day and can't gain a pound&quot; you'd better realistically evaluate how much you're really eating.

If you're not gaining a pound, then you're falling short on calories.

The Secret is in the Surplus!
</div>

Just something I extracted from the Berardi book, something that shows one that you may need a lot more than you think and the reasons why, it made clear sense to me!

That + HST you can't go wrong, BTW you made some &quot;lekker&quot; progress IMO as per the photos.

 

[imported_danishabs]

<div>
(Fausto @ Apr. 10 2006,05:03)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Chris

To get more exact requirements:

<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">
Step #1: Resting Metabolic Rate

Convert body mass to kilograms x fat % = Fat mass

then subtract Fat mass from total = Lean mass

Resting Metabolic Rate for Athletes (in calories per day) = 500 + 22 x fat free mass (in kilograms).

Step #2: Cost of Activity

Choose activity factor for your type:

Activity Factors:

1.2-1.3 for Very Light (bed rest)
1.5-1.6 for Light (office work/watching TV)
1.6-1.7 for Moderate (some activity during day)
1.9-2.1 for Heavy (labor type work)

Note: Don't consider your daily workout when choosing a number. We'll do that later.

Costs of Exercise Activity:

MET values for common activities:

high impact aerobics... 7
low impact aerobics... 5
high intensity cycling... 12
low intensity cycling... 3
high intensity walking - 6.5
low intensity walking - 2.5
high intensity running... 18
low intensity running... 7
circuit-type training... 8
intense free weight lifting... 6
moderate machine training... 3

So here's the formula:
Cost of Exercise Activity = Body Mass (in kg) x Duration (in hours) x MET value

Add these two together.

Step #3: Thermic Effect of Food

TEF = RMR x 0.10 for moderate protein diet (1 gram per pound of bodyweight)
TEF = RMR x 0.15 for high protein diet (more than 1 gram per pound of bodyweight)

Now add that to your calorie total.

Step #4: Adaptive Thermogenesis

I like to call Adaptive Thermogenesis the &quot;X factor&quot; because we just aren't sure how much it can contribute to daily caloric needs. Some have predicted that it can either increase daily needs by 10% or even decrease daily needs by 10%. Because it's still a mystery, we typically don't factor it into the equation.

Step #5: Putting it all together

Okay, so how many damn calories do you need to consume each and every day? Well, adding up RMR plus activity factor (3800 calories in my case), cost of weight training (819 calories), cost of cardio (137 calories), and TEF (360 calories), we get a grand total of about 5116 calories! (Remember, that's just my total. You'll get a different number.)

Now that's a lot of food! And I must eat this each and every day when I want to gain weight.

Are you surprised at how many calories I need? Most people are.

So the next time you complain that you're &quot;eating all day and can't gain a pound&quot; you'd better realistically evaluate how much you're really eating.

If you're not gaining a pound, then you're falling short on calories.

The Secret is in the Surplus!
</div>

Just something I extracted from the Berardi book, something that shows one that you may need a lot more than you think and the reasons why, it made clear sense to me!

That + HST you can't go wrong, BTW you made some &quot;lekker&quot; progress IMO as per the photos.</div>
Hmmm.... that's interesting. Eating that many calories, though, seems like it would just be asking for some massive fat gain. I don't know. That first HST cycle I did, I seemed to gain weight easily enough on just 3000 calories. I'll try that formula, though, and see what kind of number I get.

BTW, what does &quot;lekker progress&quot; mean?

 

[imported_danishabs]

According to that formula, I should get 3883.72 calories per day. Maybe I'll try that for a little while, see how it goes.

LOL it'll be hard getting that much food, though.

 

[Bishop]

You quoted that you are going to North Shore...are you vacationing in Hawai'i or do you live there?

 

[Maximuscrates]

Hi,
My girlfriend is studying to be a dietitian and this is what she had to say on this:

the energy requirement formula that we use (for men 19 years and older):

EER= 662-(9.53 x Age(in years)) + PA(15.19 X Weight(in Kg) + 539.6 x height (in meters))

The Physical Activity factors (PA) are:

1 - if sedentary
1.11 - if person is low active
1.25 - if person is active (you probably fall in this category)
1.48 - very active (professional athlete)

This includes all physical activity and extra doesn't have to added for weight-lifting and cardio.

I require 3200 Kcal, and I weigh 160lbs and my height is 1.85m.

Eating more kcal than this value will result in weight gain as fat.

As for protein, you really don't need to take in that much. Protein is not a major energy source for weight lifters and is only used to build tissues. Your body recycles almost all of the protein it breaks down in the body, so everyday, the average person excretes as much protein as they take in. This means that if you are building muscle, your body will simply excrete less protein. Your body only requires about 0.8 g/kg and if you are weight lifting this requirement is increased to 1.2 - 1.4g/kg. So I only require about 100g of protein each day.

Consuming excessive amount of protein (ie: high protein diet, where more than 35% of your calories come from protein or 2g of protein per kg of body wieght) you will go into ketosis, which is harmful to your kindneys and can hinder athletic and brain performance. In this state you are actually using protein as your main source of energy and you are not using it to build body tissues. If you want to calculate how much of your calories come from protein take the grams of protein you consume in one day, multiply by 4 and divide this number by your total caloric intake and then multiply by 100. A good number to aim for is 10 - 35%.

Also, when monitoring protein intake, you have to take into consderation all of the foods and beverages you consume. Even fruits and vegetables contain some protein.

The best foods to eat immediately after exercising are high in carbohydrate and a moderate source of protein. Good optins are muffins with nuts, chocolate milk and a banana, yogurt and granola or just a sandwich.

Finally, protein shakes and whey protein are basically skim milk powder, they all contain casein and whey protein which is milk protein. So save some money and buy a bag of skim milk powder.

I hope this helps!

 

[Fausto]

All facts aside, if you find that you are putting in too much fat or too quick go down by about 500 Kcal, you will eventually find a balance, I have seen guys here eating up to 5000 Kcal per day and none complained about getting too much fat.

The only complain seemed to be having to buy new clothes as they could not fit in their current clothes!

&quot;lekker&quot; - Afrikaans term for good or nice.

From an interview to Dr. Berardi

<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Wannabebig: Great, you hate my question - how about this one. How much protein should a bodybuilder/athlete consume to maximize muscle and strength gains?

John B: Now that's better! I usually recommend that protein intake be in the neighborhood of 3-4g/kg. If this recommendation seems excessive and you think that you should stop this interview right now, hang on one second.

Again, I'm not crazy. Basically the reason someone might think this intake is excessive is because they have a narrow view of how protein fits into one's dietary strategy.

They're looking at protein in the same narrow way that people used to look at vitamin C; essential at a specific dose but conferring no additional benefits with a higher intake.

With vitamin C, we all know it's important to consume enough of it (at least 10mg/day) to prevent scurvy. However, it's also commonly known there are a host of health benefits associated with much higher doses (200mg/day or more) including a reduced risk of cancer, increased HDL cholesterol, reduced risk of coronary artery disease, and a reduced duration of cold episodes and severity of symptoms.

Like vitamin C, instead of thinking of protein as a macronutrient that provides no benefit beyond preventing protein deficiency, we need to recognize the benefits of eating protein (at any dose).

Increased Thermic Effect of Feeding - While all macronutrients require metabolic processing for digestion, absorption, and storage or oxidation, the thermic effect of protein is roughly double that of carbohydrates and fat.

Therefore, eating protein is actually thermogenic and can lead to a higher metabolic rate. This means greater fat loss when dieting and less fat gain during overfeeding.

Increased Glucagon - Protein consumption increases plasma concentrations of the hormone glucagon.

Glucagon is responsible for antagonizing the effects of insulin in adipose tissue, leading to greater fat mobilization.

In addition, glucagon also decreases the amounts and activities of the enzymes responsible for making and storing fat in adipose and liver cells. Again, this leads to greater fat loss during dieting and less fat gain during overfeeding.

Increased IGF-1 - Protein and amino-acid supplementation has been shown to increase the IGF-1 response to both exercise and feeding.

Since IGF-1 is an anabolic hormone that's related to muscle growth, another advantage associated with consuming more protein is more muscle growth when overfeeding and/or muscle sparing when dieting.

Reduction in Cardiovascular Risk - Several studies have shown that increasing the percentage of protein in the diet (from 11% to 23%) while decreasing the percentage of carbohydrate (from 63% to 48%) lowers LDL cholesterol and triglyceride concentrations with concomitant increases in HDL cholesterol concentrations.

Improved Weight-Loss Profile - New research by Layman and colleagues has demonstrated that reducing the carbohydrate ratio from 3.5 - 1 to 1.4 - 1 increases body fat loss, spares muscle mass, reduces triglyceride concentrations, improves satiety, and improves blood glucose management (Layman et al 2003 - If you're at all interested in protein intake, you've gotta go read the January and February issues of the Journal of Nutrition. Layman has three interesting articles in the two journals).

Increased Protein Turnover - All tissues of the body, including muscle, go through a regular program of turnover.

Since the balance between protein breakdown and protein synthesis governs muscle protein turnover, you need to increase your protein turnover rates in order to best improve your muscle quality.

A high protein diet does just this. By increasing both protein synthesis and protein breakdown, a high protein diet helps you get rid of the old muscle more quickly and build up new, more functional muscle to take its place.

Increased Nitrogen Status - Earlier I indicated that a positive nitrogen status means that more protein is entering the body than is leaving the body.

High protein diets cause a strong positive protein status and when this increased protein availability is coupled with an exercise program that increases the body's anabolic efficiency, the growth process may be accelerated. Increased Provision of

Auxiliary Nutrients - Although the benefits mentioned above have related specifically to protein and amino acids, it's important to recognize that we don't just eat protein and amino acids - we eat food.

Therefore, high protein diets often provide auxiliary nutrients that could enhance performance and/or muscle growth.

These nutrients include creatine, branched chain amino acids, conjugated linoleic acids, and/or additional nutrients that are important but remain to be discovered.

This illustrates the need to get most of your protein from food, rather than supplements alone. Looking over this list of benefits, isn't it clear that getting lots of protein would be advantageous to anyone's training goals?

Since a high protein diet can lead to a better health profile, an increased metabolism, improved body composition, and an improved training response, why would anyone ever try to limit their protein intake to the bare minimum necessary to stave off malnutrition?</div>

One other interesting fact is that 3883.72 Kcals per day is your maintenance level during exercise, but if you take away the exercise factor you probably land up with dietary excess of 1000 odd calories on non-training days, which your body will lap up and say &quot;thanks for coming&quot;

From what I could gather you will be traing 6x/week, right? So you'll only be in caloric excess for one day a week, hardly a problem for your metabolism, I think!

Anyway, I am simply stating what the experts wrote, and I could obviously be corrected but so far it makes sense to me!

 

[imported_danishabs]

<div>
(Fausto @ Apr. 11 2006,06:46)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">All facts aside, if you find that you are putting in too much fat or too quick go down by about 500 Kcal, you will eventually find a balance, I have seen guys here eating up to 5000 Kcal per day and none complained about getting too much fat.

The only complain seemed to be having to buy new clothes as they could not fit in their current clothes!

&quot;lekker&quot; - Afrikaans term for good or nice.

From an interview to Dr. Berardi

<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Wannabebig: Great, you hate my question - how about this one. How much protein should a bodybuilder/athlete consume to maximize muscle and strength gains?

John B: Now that's better! I usually recommend that protein intake be in the neighborhood of 3-4g/kg. If this recommendation seems excessive and you think that you should stop this interview right now, hang on one second.

Again, I'm not crazy. Basically the reason someone might think this intake is excessive is because they have a narrow view of how protein fits into one's dietary strategy.

They're looking at protein in the same narrow way that people used to look at vitamin C; essential at a specific dose but conferring no additional benefits with a higher intake.

With vitamin C, we all know it's important to consume enough of it (at least 10mg/day) to prevent scurvy. However, it's also commonly known there are a host of health benefits associated with much higher doses (200mg/day or more) including a reduced risk of cancer, increased HDL cholesterol, reduced risk of coronary artery disease, and a reduced duration of cold episodes and severity of symptoms.

Like vitamin C, instead of thinking of protein as a macronutrient that provides no benefit beyond preventing protein deficiency, we need to recognize the benefits of eating protein (at any dose).

Increased Thermic Effect of Feeding - While all macronutrients require metabolic processing for digestion, absorption, and storage or oxidation, the thermic effect of protein is roughly double that of carbohydrates and fat.

Therefore, eating protein is actually thermogenic and can lead to a higher metabolic rate. This means greater fat loss when dieting and less fat gain during overfeeding.

Increased Glucagon - Protein consumption increases plasma concentrations of the hormone glucagon.

Glucagon is responsible for antagonizing the effects of insulin in adipose tissue, leading to greater fat mobilization.

In addition, glucagon also decreases the amounts and activities of the enzymes responsible for making and storing fat in adipose and liver cells. Again, this leads to greater fat loss during dieting and less fat gain during overfeeding.

Increased IGF-1 - Protein and amino-acid supplementation has been shown to increase the IGF-1 response to both exercise and feeding.

Since IGF-1 is an anabolic hormone that's related to muscle growth, another advantage associated with consuming more protein is more muscle growth when overfeeding and/or muscle sparing when dieting.

Reduction in Cardiovascular Risk - Several studies have shown that increasing the percentage of protein in the diet (from 11% to 23%) while decreasing the percentage of carbohydrate (from 63% to 48%) lowers LDL cholesterol and triglyceride concentrations with concomitant increases in HDL cholesterol concentrations.

Improved Weight-Loss Profile - New research by Layman and colleagues has demonstrated that reducing the carbohydrate ratio from 3.5 - 1 to 1.4 - 1 increases body fat loss, spares muscle mass, reduces triglyceride concentrations, improves satiety, and improves blood glucose management (Layman et al 2003 - If you're at all interested in protein intake, you've gotta go read the January and February issues of the Journal of Nutrition. Layman has three interesting articles in the two journals).

Increased Protein Turnover - All tissues of the body, including muscle, go through a regular program of turnover.

Since the balance between protein breakdown and protein synthesis governs muscle protein turnover, you need to increase your protein turnover rates in order to best improve your muscle quality.

A high protein diet does just this. By increasing both protein synthesis and protein breakdown, a high protein diet helps you get rid of the old muscle more quickly and build up new, more functional muscle to take its place.

Increased Nitrogen Status - Earlier I indicated that a positive nitrogen status means that more protein is entering the body than is leaving the body.

High protein diets cause a strong positive protein status and when this increased protein availability is coupled with an exercise program that increases the body's anabolic efficiency, the growth process may be accelerated. Increased Provision of

Auxiliary Nutrients - Although the benefits mentioned above have related specifically to protein and amino acids, it's important to recognize that we don't just eat protein and amino acids - we eat food.

Therefore, high protein diets often provide auxiliary nutrients that could enhance performance and/or muscle growth.

These nutrients include creatine, branched chain amino acids, conjugated linoleic acids, and/or additional nutrients that are important but remain to be discovered.

This illustrates the need to get most of your protein from food, rather than supplements alone. Looking over this list of benefits, isn't it clear that getting lots of protein would be advantageous to anyone's training goals?

Since a high protein diet can lead to a better health profile, an increased metabolism, improved body composition, and an improved training response, why would anyone ever try to limit their protein intake to the bare minimum necessary to stave off malnutrition?</div>

One other interesting fact is that 3883.72 Kcals per day is your maintenance level during exercise, but if you take away the exercise factor you probably land up with dietary excess of 1000 odd calories on non-training days, which your body will lap up and say &quot;thanks for coming&quot;

From what I could gather you will be traing 6x/week, right? So you'll only be in caloric excess for one day a week, hardly a problem for your metabolism, I think!

Anyway, I am simply stating what the experts wrote, and I could obviously be corrected but so far it makes sense to me!

</div>
No, I'm only going to be lifting three to four times a week, with a full-body workout.

About the calories.... since I'm getting varied answers on protein/calorie intake, I think I'll try getting 3500 calories, and if it doesn't work, or I gain fat, I'll adjust from there. As for the protein, I'm going to stick with about 180 grams per day, as that's what worked for me last time. Then as I gain weight, of course, I'll have to bump both those numbers up.

To answer to question asked earlier, yes, I live in Hawaii. I'm stationed at Pearl Harbor.

As for the workout itself, I just put my data into the HST calculator, and I'm trying to decide what I'll do. My 15-rep max on squats, if I go below parallel, is about 125 pounds. Now, for larger body parts like the legs you're supposed to use weight increments of 10-20 pounds, but if I do that, I'll only be squatting 75 pounds on my first workout.

Is 75 pounds too small to have any positive training effect? If so, would it be effective in terms of progressive resistance if I only used 5-pound increments? I have similar concerns for other large compound exercises.

For pullups and dips, I'll have to start with body weight, then increase the load by 5 pounds every three or four workouts until I reach my maximum. I'm pretty sure that's effective enough, as I've noticed my 5RM went up by 10 pounds both on dips and pullups for that second cycle. Feels pretty cool doing pullups with a 40-lb dumbell hanging between my legs

As always, input and suggestions are appreciated.

 

[imported_danishabs]

<div>
(Fausto @ Apr. 11 2006,06:46)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">All facts aside, if you find that you are putting in too much fat or too quick go down by about 500 Kcal, you will eventually find a balance, I have seen guys here eating up to 5000 Kcal per day and none complained about getting too much fat.

The only complain seemed to be having to buy new clothes as they could not fit in their current clothes!

&quot;lekker&quot; - Afrikaans term for good or nice.

From an interview to Dr. Berardi

<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Wannabebig: Great, you hate my question - how about this one. How much protein should a bodybuilder/athlete consume to maximize muscle and strength gains?

John B: Now that's better! I usually recommend that protein intake be in the neighborhood of 3-4g/kg. If this recommendation seems excessive and you think that you should stop this interview right now, hang on one second.

Again, I'm not crazy. Basically the reason someone might think this intake is excessive is because they have a narrow view of how protein fits into one's dietary strategy.

They're looking at protein in the same narrow way that people used to look at vitamin C; essential at a specific dose but conferring no additional benefits with a higher intake.

With vitamin C, we all know it's important to consume enough of it (at least 10mg/day) to prevent scurvy. However, it's also commonly known there are a host of health benefits associated with much higher doses (200mg/day or more) including a reduced risk of cancer, increased HDL cholesterol, reduced risk of coronary artery disease, and a reduced duration of cold episodes and severity of symptoms.

Like vitamin C, instead of thinking of protein as a macronutrient that provides no benefit beyond preventing protein deficiency, we need to recognize the benefits of eating protein (at any dose).

Increased Thermic Effect of Feeding - While all macronutrients require metabolic processing for digestion, absorption, and storage or oxidation, the thermic effect of protein is roughly double that of carbohydrates and fat.

Therefore, eating protein is actually thermogenic and can lead to a higher metabolic rate. This means greater fat loss when dieting and less fat gain during overfeeding.

Increased Glucagon - Protein consumption increases plasma concentrations of the hormone glucagon.

Glucagon is responsible for antagonizing the effects of insulin in adipose tissue, leading to greater fat mobilization.

In addition, glucagon also decreases the amounts and activities of the enzymes responsible for making and storing fat in adipose and liver cells. Again, this leads to greater fat loss during dieting and less fat gain during overfeeding.

Increased IGF-1 - Protein and amino-acid supplementation has been shown to increase the IGF-1 response to both exercise and feeding.

Since IGF-1 is an anabolic hormone that's related to muscle growth, another advantage associated with consuming more protein is more muscle growth when overfeeding and/or muscle sparing when dieting.

Reduction in Cardiovascular Risk - Several studies have shown that increasing the percentage of protein in the diet (from 11% to 23%) while decreasing the percentage of carbohydrate (from 63% to 48%) lowers LDL cholesterol and triglyceride concentrations with concomitant increases in HDL cholesterol concentrations.

Improved Weight-Loss Profile - New research by Layman and colleagues has demonstrated that reducing the carbohydrate ratio from 3.5 - 1 to 1.4 - 1 increases body fat loss, spares muscle mass, reduces triglyceride concentrations, improves satiety, and improves blood glucose management (Layman et al 2003 - If you're at all interested in protein intake, you've gotta go read the January and February issues of the Journal of Nutrition. Layman has three interesting articles in the two journals).

Increased Protein Turnover - All tissues of the body, including muscle, go through a regular program of turnover.

Since the balance between protein breakdown and protein synthesis governs muscle protein turnover, you need to increase your protein turnover rates in order to best improve your muscle quality.

A high protein diet does just this. By increasing both protein synthesis and protein breakdown, a high protein diet helps you get rid of the old muscle more quickly and build up new, more functional muscle to take its place.

Increased Nitrogen Status - Earlier I indicated that a positive nitrogen status means that more protein is entering the body than is leaving the body.

High protein diets cause a strong positive protein status and when this increased protein availability is coupled with an exercise program that increases the body's anabolic efficiency, the growth process may be accelerated. Increased Provision of

Auxiliary Nutrients - Although the benefits mentioned above have related specifically to protein and amino acids, it's important to recognize that we don't just eat protein and amino acids - we eat food.

Therefore, high protein diets often provide auxiliary nutrients that could enhance performance and/or muscle growth.

These nutrients include creatine, branched chain amino acids, conjugated linoleic acids, and/or additional nutrients that are important but remain to be discovered.

This illustrates the need to get most of your protein from food, rather than supplements alone. Looking over this list of benefits, isn't it clear that getting lots of protein would be advantageous to anyone's training goals?

Since a high protein diet can lead to a better health profile, an increased metabolism, improved body composition, and an improved training response, why would anyone ever try to limit their protein intake to the bare minimum necessary to stave off malnutrition?</div>

One other interesting fact is that 3883.72 Kcals per day is your maintenance level during exercise, but if you take away the exercise factor you probably land up with dietary excess of 1000 odd calories on non-training days, which your body will lap up and say &quot;thanks for coming&quot;

From what I could gather you will be traing 6x/week, right? So you'll only be in caloric excess for one day a week, hardly a problem for your metabolism, I think!

Anyway, I am simply stating what the experts wrote, and I could obviously be corrected but so far it makes sense to me!

</div>
No, I'm only going to be lifting three to four times a week, with a full-body workout.

About the calories.... since I'm getting varied answers on protein/calorie intake, I think I'll try getting 3500 calories, and if it doesn't work, or I gain fat, I'll adjust from there. As for the protein, I'm going to stick with about 180 grams per day, as that's what worked for me last time. Then as I gain weight, of course, I'll have to bump both those numbers up.

To answer to question asked earlier, yes, I live in Hawaii. I'm stationed at Pearl Harbor.

As for the workout itself, I just put my data into the HST calculator, and I'm trying to decide what I'll do. My 15-rep max on squats, if I go below parallel, is about 125 pounds. Now, for larger body parts like the legs you're supposed to use weight increments of 10-20 pounds, but if I do that, I'll only be squatting 75 pounds on my first workout.

Is 75 pounds too small to have any positive training effect? If so, would it be effective in terms of progressive resistance if I only used 5-pound increments? I have similar concerns for other large compound exercises.

For pullups and dips, I'll have to start with body weight, then increase the load by 5 pounds every three or four workouts until I reach my maximum. I'm pretty sure that's effective enough, as I've noticed my 5RM went up by 10 pounds both on dips and pullups for that second cycle. Feels pretty cool doing pullups with a 40-lb dumbell hanging between my legs

As always, input and suggestions are appreciated.

 

[Fausto]

Danishabs

15's need not have a positive effect on growth, it is not ther for that reason, it is for flushing muscles and joints with lactic acid and preparing body for later much heavier loads.

Some guys are lucky though to get some +ve response during 15's

 

[faz]

do your squats like this
105
105
115
115
125
125
doing a weight a couple of times wont make any diference as long as you progress the weight over the entire cycle that is ok..good luck

 

[latin_blast]

Danish,

I see you have the same doubts as most of us here when started HST. Hey, look at this file, it is interesting, perhaps Bryan knows this guy. It talks about those doubts we face when preparing a HST plan, including what you have just mentioned.

 

[Fausto]

Excellent Latin...just what the newbies need...reading matter!

 

[latin_blast]

thx fausto, I have more material that I will distribute as we go along..... I am a kind of library mouse..... a web mouse... all the time looking for this kind of things.... hey, I have a series of article found in the same website... research analysis.... one of them was shocking to me..... tomorrow, I will be distributing it, I will call the topic &quot;HIT vs. HST&quot;... it compares the 2 methods from the physics/engineering point of view... don't be scared... HST has still the upper hand but is says something very interesting in order to increase the efficay of HST.... I am sure Bryan has read that article but I don't know his position about it... see you tomorrow, I am getting off work now

 

[style]

You mean the article in Dans site written by Ridgely recommending keeping the number of reps constant?

 

[Bishop]

In regards to Pearl...Kewl! I work out at Bloch Arena! PM me if you need any help or just motivation!

 

[Joe.Muscle]

Welcome back to HST!

 

[colby2152]

<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Increased Thermic Effect of Feeding - While all macronutrients require metabolic processing for digestion, absorption, and storage or oxidation, the thermic effect of protein is roughly double that of carbohydrates and fat.

Therefore, eating protein is actually thermogenic and can lead to a higher metabolic rate. This means greater fat loss when dieting and less fat gain during overfeeding. </div>

That is very interesting, but like most people, I always thought that amount of protein was bad for you (tax on liver.)

 

[colby2152]

<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">the energy requirement formula that we use (for men 19 years and older):

EER= 662-(9.53 x Age(in years)) + PA(15.19 X Weight(in Kg) + 539.6 x height (in meters))

The Physical Activity factors (PA) are:

1 - if sedentary
1.11 - if person is low active
1.25 - if person is active (you probably fall in this category)
1.48 - very active (professional athlete)</div>

That was the old equation I used, but it has no regard for lean body mass. I forget the name of the equation, but this is the one I use.

EER=(((bodyweight in KG-(bf%*bodyweight in kg))*21.6)+370)

multiply it by the PA