To all you skinny sh*t motherfuckers

Harie

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I totally disagree with you on the cardio JayMan.

To keep as much muscle as possible, one needs to keep the cardio short, but high intensity. With long cardio sessions, your body eats up your muscles.

Illustration: How many runners have you seen with lots of muscle? I've never seen any. Reason is because they do lots of long duration cardio (at mid range heart rates) which eats away at their muscles.

CCS - Maintaining nearly 90% maximum heart rate for an hour is just plain crazy. That's even a more sure-fire way to lose muscle mass than JayMan's 45 minutes of low intensity cardio. If you must do long sessions of cardio, then, listen to JayMan.
 

CCS

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I have two conflicting understandings of this situation:

1. As long as you are putting out a pretty decent amount of energy (like moderate cardio) you may have less blood sugar and nutrients in your blood for you recuperating fast twitch muscles to build off of, since some of it is going to your legs for the cardio, even if you are getting energy from your fat supplies. Therefore, to burn the same amount of energy, it makes sense to do a fast burst to minimize the time the muscles are without optimal nutrition.

2. The more intense and longer the cardio, the more sources your body has to turn to for energy. First it takes ATP, then creatine, then glycogen, then other blood sugar, then body fat, and finally protein, but at any given time, it takes all of these, but just a lot more of the first ones in the beginning and more of the next ones as you go along, in a continuous spectrum. So long intense cardio will tape into protein. As for short intense vs long moderate cardio, I'm not sure which uses less protein. Maybe the short long cardio since your body has more time to reach into the fat reserves, and does not have to take just whether is available. But I don't know.

I think endurance athletes are smaller just because they are 80% slow twich muscle, and slow twich muscle does not get big like fast twitch muscle does, even if you shorten the sessions.

Building muscle is easy: give your muscles exactly what they need, when they need it, in 7 meals a day, but not more than they need so you don't put on fat. But if you don't know the exacts and what to grow fast, a little fat gain may be needed.

Losing the fat without losing muscle is more complicated: I know I have to keep up my protein and do full body resistance work and do a calorie deficit, which is fastest with cardio, but I don't know what kind of cardio is best and how soon I should eat after the cardio. I just know that long intense cardio is bad, and that anything over 1 hour is bad, though I can break it up.

If I follow the first directions and just pick one of the cardio routes, I probably won't lose much muscle, but I'd really like to do whatever will give me the best results.

If short intense cardio approaches resistance work, does that mean my legs would need more food for the muscles to grow, and that I'd not be burning fat?
 
G

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Harie said:
I totally disagree with you on the cardio JayMan.

To keep as much muscle as possible, one needs to keep the cardio short, but high intensity. With long cardio sessions, your body eats up your muscles.

Illustration: How many runners have you seen with lots of muscle? I've never seen any. Reason is because they do lots of long duration cardio (at mid range heart rates) which eats away at their muscles.

CCS - Maintaining nearly 90% maximum heart rate for an hour is just plain crazy. That's even a more sure-fire way to lose muscle mass than JayMan's 45 minutes of low intensity cardio. If you must do long sessions of cardio, then, listen to JayMan.

This is not true at all, Harie.

Diet is what keeps muscle. Doing cardio for 45 minutes at low intensity won't result in catabolization(if that's a word).
 

CCS

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I did some reading at bodybuilding.com. Here is the concensus:

1. Eat 7 meals and drink a lot of water and don't let yourself go hungry. Once you start starving, your metabolism drops. Get 20 grams of protein at each meal.

2. Do anearobics as well as aerobics. Do not do them one after the other. Suggested different days, but I think aerobics a few hours before anaerobics should be fine if the cardio is light and 30 minutes.

3. Do aerobics for 30 minutes, but do that twice a day, spread out far. I'll do 3x on my aerobic day. Only reason to do it in the morning is to get metabolism going, but do it 30 minutes after a meal. (the guy had a protein shake)

4. Have a FUN physical hobby to keep in shape.
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As for cardio intensity, only one source mentioned that. It he said 65% is the magic zone for fat burn. I'm not sure if I beleave that or not. I certainly won't burn nearly as many calories per hour there as I would at 80%, which burns twice as many.


there were guys with stores of gaining fat and muscle, then losing both fast, in cycles. Those guys starved themself and did not lift weights while dieting, though. There was not much information information about the optimal cardio intensity. Most guys made other mistakes instead.

I think it is believable that 65% is so easy that it would not even take fuel away from recovering muscles. I think distance runners are thin because they genetically are 80% slow twich and don't lift weights because fast twich mass is dead weight to them. Sprinters are big for the converse reason. I'll still do 10 minutes of 80% twice a week just ot keep my heart in shape.
 

CCS

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I just read a source that said "non of the above". Whether you are an athlete trying to get stronger, or just trying to lose weight, the best cardio is a 20 second alternation between high and low intensity aerobics. I'll shoot for 1 minute between 150 and 160, and then 3 minutes between 130 and 140. The cycle has a random mode that alternates the intensity very well, but my heart rate just averages everything out, so the longer intervals would force my heart rate to change. Though I could use the random mode on some days and alternate manual levels on other days.

People who are dieting should just create a calorie deficit compared to other people, but most other stuff is the same, though body builders should do less cardio than fat losers.



I wonder what is more detrimental to muscle gains: eating less, or doing more cardio, if they have the same calorie impact. I think eating less does, though if you do a lot of cardio and break down the slow twitch, that will affect caloric needs. But just 2-3 sessions of 30 minutes should be fine.

I'll do my 3 day split:
Day 1: 30 minutes of interval aerobics 30 minutes after a morning meal.
Upper body weight workout 5 hours later.
Day 2: 30 minutes of interval aerobics 30 minutes after a morning meal.
less thurough lower body workout 5 hours later
30 minutes of interval aerobics before last meal
Day 3: 30, 30, 30 spaced out, or maybe 30, 10 straight intense, 30.
pushups here and there
7 healthy meals with 20g protein, no hunger, lots of water, 9 hours sleep,
Juice and Whey after anearobic and intense stuff.

I re-measured myself and now think maybe i only have to lose 5 pounds. Hard to say, so I'll just base it off my abs.

As for how much to eat, I don't know how much of a calorie deficit is best. I don't think I should excede 2 pounds of fat per week. Maybe 1 pound is better. I'll know to eat more if my strength suffers.
 

CCS

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2 pounds a week is a 1000 calorie deficit per day. I'll just do that on day 3, and do maybe 200 under on Day 2, and 200 over on Day 1.
2/3 pounds of fat loss per week is still a good accomplishment if there is not muscle loss. Better to do something i know will get me there eventually than go to extremes and lose muscle.
 

CCS

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Of course the type of cardio will be varied too. Cycling, inclined power walking, and I'll think of something else. Maybe swimming. I can breath enough if I keep my face out of the water. Not best for speed, but I'm just trying to burn calories.
 

Harie

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JayMan - see quote below to see why your arguement is invalid.

As quoted by Layne Norton Pro Natural Body Builder
http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/layne36.htm

"Another question that often arises regarding cardio is the argument "Low-Intensity vs High-Intensity" cardio. Many people automatically assume that low-intensity cardio is better; citing that high-intensity cardio primarily utilizes glucose (anaerobic metabolism), while low-intensity cardio primarily burns fat (aerobic metabolism).

Once again, the substrate used during cardiovascular work is not as important as the caloric deficit created by the cardiovascular work. In actuality, high-intensity cardiovascular work is superior to low-intensity cardio for several reasons

High intensity cardio has a much stronger effect on GLUT-4 translocation in muscle cells due to the increased force of muscle contraction. This means that high-intensity cardio creates a much stronger nutrient partitioning effect towards muscle tissue than low-intensity cardio.

Low periods of low-intensity exercise tend to "overtrain" the fast-twitch muscle fibers and convert the intermediate muscle fibers to slow-twitch fibers. This is not a desirable effect as the fast twitch muscle fibers are those that have the greatest chance to hypertrophy. If your body has less fast twitch fibers, then you will experience less hypertrophy from training.

The body's hormonal response to high intensity cardio is similar to the body's hormonal response to resistance training (i.e. increased insulin sensitivity, gh release, Igf-1 release, etc) without placing the same strain on the nervous system as resistance training.

High-intensity cardio causes the body to preferentially store more carbohydrates and burn more fat.

High-intensity cardiovascular exercise increases oxygen expenditure and forces the body to adapt by becoming more efficient at oxygen transport (increase in VO2 max). More efficient oxygen transport to the muscles will increase fat oxidation as fat oxidation is dependant upon the presence of oxygen.

High-intensity cardio seems to be more muscle sparing. Several studies have shown that high-intensity interval training (aka HIT) burns less calories when compared to continuous lower intensity cardio. However, the skinfold losses were greater with the HIT group than in the continuous intensity group. This means not only did the HIT group lose more fat, they also spared more muscle tissue by burning less overall calories."
 

CCS

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OK, what BPM average is high intensity, and how long can I do it for? 70-90% intervals, totalling 20 minutes? 4 per day?
 

CCS

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I have 5-10 pounds too much fat, but don't look fat at all. Just need to clean up my abs. So I don't have to do the fastest fat loss available. I wonder how many 20 minute sessions I can do in a day and not affect my muscle, if I do these on the third day.
 

roki

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shouldnt you be able to lose the fat just by eating a good low fat diet and doing a good muscle training program?
 

CCS

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I read that 25% fat is the ideal amount for weight loss. That's within the 10-30% range FDA approves of. Lowering the fat intake does not lower the body fat. It is the total calories burned and total calories eaten that determine the total weight lost. But optimizing how much of that is muscle vs fat is determined by other factors like how much and what kind of exercise I do, when what and how much I eat, and sleeping.

Anyway, I'm down with a cold, so I won't be able to put this into action yet.

I agree the high intensity stuff is better for max VO2, but I think the increased oxygen argument just means I burn more stuff per minute. I don't see how it specifies what I will burn. Maybe the hormonal argument makes sense. I think interval training, with short intense periods and longer mild periods, would be better for fast twitch muscles, especially if kept under 20-30 minutes. As for the overtraining of the fast twich muscles goes, I wonder how many of these intervals they could handle in a day. The way it sounds, it seems like I'd lose less muscle if I did just enough slow twitch to stimulate my slow twich, and did a lot of fast twich too, and then just cut my food intake rather than up my aerobics, since long aerobics are so bad.
 

CCS

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I just benched 185 pounds today. It was decline bench, but I did 2 reps and had to stop because my wrist was not lined up right. So my flat bench max is probably close to but under 185 pounds. I'm happy because my max used to be 165 a year ago and 170 a little over a month ago. I benched that after I just got over a cold and was not at the gym for a week. So I must be doing something right.
 

CCS

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Oh, and I hate the squat. Maybe my form was bad. First I did it in front of my chest, and my arms were doing so much work that I stopped. Then I put it on my back, right above the shoulder blads, or the back traps. It felt so light there. I could easily concentrate on my lets. Then I noticed it was digging in. I did not like that bar digging in like that. It hurt. So I stopped. Now my spine hurts right there. Feels like it was resting on the spine and I just did not know it then. I don't plan to do it again soon. Dead lifts should be good, though, and build a lot of grip. They will work my fore arms, but at least I won't have a metal bar resting where it is not supposed to.
 

CCS

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I think I really injured the part of my spine in my lower neck. It hurts. I started losing sideways range of motion just now, but I am now turning my head to do light stretches to keep the range of motion. I hope it does not freeze up or get more injured over night.
 

joseph49853

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collegechemistrystudent said:
Oh, and I hate the squat. Maybe my form was bad. First I did it in front of my chest, and my arms were doing so much work that I stopped. Then I put it on my back, right above the shoulder blads, or the back traps. It felt so light there. I could easily concentrate on my lets. Then I noticed it was digging in. I did not like that bar digging in like that. It hurt. So I stopped. Now my spine hurts right there. Feels like it was resting on the spine and I just did not know it then. I don't plan to do it again soon. Dead lifts should be good, though, and build a lot of grip. They will work my fore arms, but at least I won't have a metal bar resting where it is not supposed to.

Deadlifts are great, and a lot easier than squats. You probably still haven't developed enough squatting flexibility. Squat with just the bar, without any weight. And keep practicing with just your bodyweight. Do around one-hundred reps or more, and concentrate solely on developing your muscle memory.

Also develop that mind body connection by studying the form of a proper squat, check You Tube, and elsewhere. Take this imagery and visualize yourself squatting properly. When you feel comfortable enough with your progress, start adding weight slowly. The squat is one of the hardest movements to master, but also the most rewarding. When done correctly, there should be a real endorphin rush of synergistic strength and power.

BTW, to squat properly, your hands should be wider than your shoulders on the bar, feet underneath your shoulders, or slightly wider, with your toes pointed slightly outward. This is the basic full squat position. Keep your eyes straight ahead, with your torso erect, shoulders back, chest tightened. Going down you should lead with your hips, while feeling both your hips and knees flexing; your knees should stay behind your feet, at all times. I would recommend taking your hips past parallel, until your hamstring touch your calves... for full flexability. And never bounce at the bottom of the movement. You then should be driving up from the middle of your foot, which never loses contact with the floor, through your hips. As you develop more balance and explosive strength, you can actually start driving up with your heels. Good luck.
 

s.a.f

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Nobody likes doing squats they are about the most uncomfortable of all excercises. As Joseph said use light weights until you are happy with your technique and if you think it will help put some padding around the bar. Eg a small length of foam tube.
 

CCS

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My bench press strength is not as high as I thought. Declined BP is easier than flat, since I can use my lats and my body is in the way so I can't bring it down as far. I just benched 170 3 reps today, and had a little help with the 3rd. It is kind of dumb to get help with a third rep. If I get a little help on it, I should just take 5 pounds off.

Also, I've been feeling a little pain in my shoulder while pressing. And I feel like I'm pushing assymetrically. I'm just going to drop down to 155 and shoot for 8 reps next time.

I also think that wide (3 feet) grip chin ups are hurting my elbows, so I'm going to stick to close grip and neutral grip from now on.

I know I should alternate which muscle group I work first when I get to the gym, but it is hard to record how much weight to use when it changes a lot and is different depending on what exercise I did right before it.
 

Harie

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CCS - when you bench, are your elbows straight out to the side, at a 90 degree angle from your torso? If so, that's probably why your shoulder is hurting. I'd do power lifter bench if I were you...It's much easier on your shoulders.

Power lifter bench = keep your elbows tucked. If you pull your shoulders toward your feet while you bench, your elbows should remain tucked (tucked = no more than a 45 degree angle from elbows to torso).
 

CCS

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Harie said:
CCS - when you bench, are your elbows straight out to the side, at a 90 degree angle from your torso? If so, that's probably why your shoulder is hurting. I'd do power lifter bench if I were you...It's much easier on your shoulders.

Power lifter bench = keep your elbows tucked. If you pull your shoulders toward your feet while you bench, your elbows should remain tucked (tucked = no more than a 45 degree angle from elbows to torso).

If I tuck my elbows, that would make it just a shoulder/tricept movement. My chest would be completely disengaged. Is that good? How would i work out my chest, then? I know of other exercises to work my tricepts if I choose to isolate them. I also don't see how your press would be easier on the shoulders. Maybe it would be more natural, but for they would be used a lot more.
 
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