Beginner problems (long)

Chris Comeau

New Member
First of all, congratulations on the interesting and intelligent web site. There's a lot of clear thinking going on here.
(edited to focus the post a bit)

Some background info:

I'm a 23 year old guy who's been weightlifting on and off for quite a while without making progress. Everyone says beginners respond to pretty much any program but for some reason I've never had much success, and often would actually lose ground. I'm in the middle of turning my life around overall and I'm redoing my fitness approach as part of that.

I'd say my failure in the past was mainly due to being inconsistent and halfhearted in my approach... I had been depressed and sedentary most of the time, and even during the workouts it was kind of a lazy approach with long breaks between exercises.

Fat loss is my first priority. My goal is to get slim and fit first, then worry about packing on the muscle later. I'm on a 1500 calorie diet with lots of water, about 4 meals a day. Probably not getting the recommended amount of protein. I'm 5'10, 180 pounds with a waist still around 36. I'm hoping to get down to 160 with maybe a 30 inch waist (10% body fat?) by the beginning of august. Once I get rid of all the extra fat I'll start eating more so muscle gains will be easier. Until then, I'm using HST principles to try to make the best of the situation.

I don't have a lot of money to spend on supplements. I don't really want to waste money on them if there are some simple mistakes I'm making that would keep me from triggering their benefits.

I've done some research but have a feeling I'm missing some of the basics. I know a lot of you must be way past this point but maybe you can think back and remember how you got around this stuff. Trying to rebuild my computer geek body here :)

The issues:

- Lack of energy. (feeling lazy / tired)

I'm assuming this is just an aftereffect from being sedentary, and this will improve over time with a more general fitness approach (strength training + daily interval aerobics + moderate diet + sleep).

I assume I need to keep a more consistent level of activity overall, so I've split everything up as much as possible. Every day has a 30 minute morning strength training session (alternating upper body / lower body days) with a 20 minute interval aerobics session later on (alternating running or a fun martial arts style workout). I assume since the overall volume's low, training this frequently shouldn't cause overtraining and should help my metabolism. I use the "1 set, stopping when you start slowing down" approach since it makes the most sense to me. (I find I get more sore with 2 sets on most things, so I may try 2 sets done the same way soon)

One other thing I forgot to mention - I probably haven't been warming up adequately because I usually don't work up much of a sweat.

Sleep's obviously a factor here, so I try not to over or undersleep, trying to factor in about 9 hours for it at consistent times, although I'm usually getting to bed around midnight. I had found 8 hours usually wasn't enough - I'd actually be sleepy instead of just unenergetic.

- Shaky muscles

This was a big problem with my abs. It's not so bad any more. I assume it's just a nervous system training thing where the muscle wasn't really used to the controlled movement.

- getting "the burn"

In the past, I would usually wind up ending a set because the reps "weren't doing anything". This isn't as much of a problem any more as I've focused on keeping the tension more constant during the exercise with smooth controlled movement.

That works well on some things, but on a lot of muscles (mainly smaller ones) there's still no burn at all, at any weight. Is the burning sensation a necessary thing, or is getting 15 reps and stopping due to slowing down fine?

- using HST concepts in beginner training

I'm experimenting with an HST style approach for now, where I work from my 15RM to my 5RM over a 6 week period (smooth sweep from one to the other over time, since that makes the most sense to me).

Since the weight ranges are small, I wind up repeating some weights 2 weeks at a time, but I saw somewhere that it wasn't the end of the world, I'd just get some diminishing returns.

I started with a 3 week SD where I was sick most of the time, so it was a pretty good one. (Edit: I had found my 5 rep maxes but guessed on my 15's because I wasn't sure what they were supposed to "feel" like).

Overall it seems to be working. I'm sore in most places so the SD did what it was supposed to. I probably screwed up this cycle a bit with the initial estimates too light, but I don't think it'll be too much of a problem.

Since I'm on a restricted diet I don't expect a bunch of growth anyway. I just want to make sure I have HST and training in general right by the time I start "eating for growth" :)

That's it for the specific questions, but any general advice is appreciated (links, etc).
 
Chris

Welcome aboard mate!

What can I start with?

[b said:
Quote[/b] ]I'm assuming this is just an aftereffect from being sedentary, and this will improve over time with a more general fitness approach (strength training + daily interval aerobics + moderate diet + sleep)

Someone once said: You have to create energy to have energy, so you are right, as you progress with training you energy levels should get better. Sounds a bit like you lacking some vital vitamins, try a B compound for a while to get that right.
tounge.gif


As for aerobics, if you are not looking at loosing weight it is not really necessary, it seems like you are but it could get much just keep in check.

An approach of suppersetting cutting rest in between to a minimum gets your workout quite aerobic thus providing that extra bit for fat loss.

Issues

Energy: take a good multivitamin as this could be the reason for your lack of energy, some of what you say is partly true. I am sure the rest will come. No need to go and get to extremes though!
laugh.gif


Sleep:
minimum 8 hours
maximum 9 hours

Shaky muscles:

This is temporary and it generally happens as lactic acid is generated in the muscle it wears out as lactic acid reduces and glycogen is replaced in the muscle.

The burn

You are being ever so slightly impatient, take it easy, get the form by all means, ;) but don't get too impatient, remember that your muscles have to learn that particular curve and yes, in the 15's this is not uncommom specially in the first few workouts, however it can be corrected, slack the speed of each rep to 2 0 4, 4 0 6, even a superslow approach is it is that bad, that is a bit drastic though we are talking 10 0 10.

About the 15's - get them to 65% of 1 RM, 10's to 75%, 5's to 85% and negatives to 95 - 100%, those are good guidelines to keep you going.

Well, this is all I have time for, try it and see...

Fausto
 
I'm glad to hear you're getting your life together. :)

A couple of questions to help guide you along:

Did you find your maxes or are you simply estimating? Finding your maxes before you begin will make your first cycle much more efficient.

You may want to write out your whole routine and diet, so you can receive some more precise advice. Feeling lathargic may be the result of too few calories in your diet.

Good Luck. :D
 
Chris

Kama is right, your post is so long that I overlooked that.

YOu have to be geeting +/- 1 g protein per pound bodyweight, have a look at Bryans article, "eating for size", good guideline to start with.

This can also be acalculated by getting you BMR and then adding calories to get to a target weight.

Adios

Fausto
 
Thanks for the responses. Yeah, this is a pretty long post, lol, I should have broken it up into topics. Just wanted to let people get an idea of "the big picture" in case some of the problems are interrelated.

If I post my workout later I'll do it in a separate post to avoid complicating things. It's kind of an improvised thing on a home gym with one of those old fashioned weight stacks with the pulleys, a barbell and a bunch of dumbbells. No spotter so I can't do negatives on most things.

I'll look at supersetting and picking up the pace overall for my workouts to increase the aerobic intensity - I have a feeling that will help keep the energy level up, since I had been taking relatively long breaks between exercises. If I start feeling worn out overall I'll reduce the aerobics first. Will probably do 15 minute sessions instead, with a 5 minute warmup, 5 minute HIIT, and 5 minute cooldown.

I found my 5 rep maxes but estimated on the 15's and got it too light on most things. (I had guessed because I thought that on the 15's you had to be getting intense burning around the 15th rep and that wasn't happening). Without that happening, I'm assuming the end of a 15 set can feel pretty similar to approaching failure on a 5 on some exercises, where you just start losing recruitment and can't lift as well. So that's what I'll go by when finding the minimums next time. It's not much of an issue now since I'm in the second week of the cycle and I've adjusted so the weights aren't "too light" any more. I do see why it's important to get it right the first time, of course.

About nutrition - I realize it'll be hard to gain muscle on a calorie restricted diet, but fat loss is my first priority right now. Someone posted that visceral fat responds better to caloric restriction and subcutaneous fat responds better to exercise. I have a lot of both to lose still, so I need to stick to the diet and "clean house" before thinking about eating more to maximize muscle gains. I had done some calculations in the beginning, and so far they've worked out. With all said and done, on the 1500 calorie diet I've been losing about 2 pounds of fat a week on average and haven't been losing muscle as far as I can tell. Actually I feel a bit stonger, so I assume neurological improvements are taking place.

I don't think the lethargy's due to the diet because it had been happening before without it. If it continues for another month or so after doing everything else right, I'll look at the diet, but for now I'm assuming it's going to improve as my fitness improves.

Right now as I'm typing I'm in the middle of my second week and some muscles are slightly sore. It definitely seems to be doing something, so overall I have faith in the approach.

So I guess I'm on the right track overall. I'll try not to worry about it too much and just stick with it consistently.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]I just found Creating Peak Performance On Demand. This focus is definitely something I had been overlooking and I have a feeling it will help me get into the right state of mind.

Find about NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming). It can be very helpful.
 
Vast majority of issues you raise: You understand things well and have a pretty good plan.

I have two comments.

The diet: If you've been on a 1500 calorie diet for a long time and are feeling low energy levels, you need to take a break or at least introduce refeeds. After a long time on a diet like that, the body compensates by reducing the rate of many metabolic process. This will inhibit muscle growth, and also slow fat loss. I realize fat loss is you goal, but your approach is going to lead to diminishing returns, if it hasn't already.

Consider ramping up your calories for a while to get your energy up. If you do this as you enter a 15's phase, and keep it up through the 10's, you stand virtually no risk of gaining fat on a "rebound." You will gain significant weight, though, as your glycogen stores get replenished.

Getting a burn on smaller muscles: I'm sure slowing down the reps helped. Additionally, I find it useful in the 15's to slow down the positive part of the rep, but to speed up the negative. You can also add a static contraction in the contracted position. The positive/concentric part of the rep lends itself to occlusion, and the peak contraction is great for occlusion. The restricted bloodflow will help retain the lactic acid and make for a good burn more quickly (and get you a nice pump.)

The negative/eccentric portion of a rep is, metabolically, practically a rest period.

When you get to your fives, you need to do the opposite. Then, it's more about spending more time on eccentric motion at high tension for the purpose of inducing microtrauma. Your goal then will be to lift quickly (to manage as many reps as possible) but to lower slowly (to spend more time under eccentric stretch.)
 
Oh, and congrats on engineering the turnaround.

You have our support. . . now become an inspiration for others!
 
Update: today I put effort into focusing and minimizing the breaks between exercises, cutting my workout down from an average of half an hour to fifteen minutes. Guess there had been a lot of time standing around scratching my head in there :). I felt much more energetic afterward.

Micmic - I've read about NLP but just have a vague understanding. How could it be applied here?

Edziu - I'm not surprised there are some nutrition concepts I've missed :). I've been on the 1500 calorie diet for about 2 months. I'm still losing about 2 pounds per week or so (fat, I think), which is on target, and I think my energy is improving overall. I'm flexible and keeping it simple. I time the meals for as soon after a workout as possible. If I'm still hungry a half hour after a meal, I'll eat more.

I'm reading about leptin and refeeding right now over in the nutrition forum. Looks promising, Looks like even a week on that diet would be enough to kill my leptin levels. I love this place.

Thanks for the advice on getting a better burn - that makes a lot of sense.

Thanks for your support!
 
Back
Top