bradl’s weight training

I updated my BB.com body weight stat based on the more conservative measurement I took at home, but that started me thinking about what has changed since the last measurement. The last one was when I went to the endocrinologist, 6 Mar, and my weight was stable then. What has happened since then? I started the new cycle of my program about then, but it was basically the same, just a few different exercises with lighter weights, which I have been slowly increasing. (That’s the program I abandoned this week.)

One thing that is different is that I started taking a cortisol management "supplement". Cortisol is catabolic and consultation with the doc was because my level is high and may be a cause of my osteo. I don’t know what the level is now that I’ve been on the pill. I was thinking of stopping them, since I haven’t noticed any change in about a month.

Maybe I’ve been just been eating more and haven’t noticed it. Too many variables.

Though apparently I’ve gained some amount of muscle (and fat) in the ~3 weeks, based on the doc-related weighing, I started a new program yesterday. This one is a split routine designed by Tony (coleyspoint / tonylifting4life). He has made a number of suggestions in comments to my blog, so I asked him if he would do a full program for me. I thought it would be a simple, quick thing for him, but he’s thorough and has a real life too. I don’t know if people are going to be offended that I didn’t ask them to help, since other people have made workout suggestions too, but I like Tony’s approach. He’s been on my "friends list" since the beginning, etc. I may hit other people up later LOL Though seriously, probably not, unless I enlist a personal trainer to meet in person.

This routine should be good. It’s fresh and different for one thing. It may be more effective than the previous one. Maybe the previous was starting to be effective, causing gains. If I want to try it later, I can go back with more experience then.

Yesterday was leg/ab day. Because the leg rep and set counts were higher than I’ve been doing, I estimated the lower weights I thought I could handle. I was mostly too light on the squats, but I have this mental thing about those and going heavier. I’ll up it for next time and do the reps though. The other weights weren’t too far off.

It was weird to not have pumped arms when I was done. My other workouts have all been full-body ones and all the compound exercises caused that pump.

This morning I asked the wife if she noticed if I was any fuller or more muscular. She said, "I guess".

:-)

In the progressive poundage scheme talked about in hard-gainer programs, they use fractional plates so the weight can be slowly increased without to noticeable change. A 5-lb step can be a big one. A while back I bought a set of 1-lb plates, which was four plates. With those I can go up 2lb at a time. I was curious about making smaller steps, so looked up fractional plates on the web. They are cheapest as a set of pairs of 1/4-, 1/2-, 3/4- and 1-lb plates, but $50. Last night I was reading a back issue of Hardgainer magazine and there was a letter from a reader who wrote that he made his own with 2-in pipe, so as part of hardware-store errands today, I bought a 2×6 length of metal pipe for ~$7. When we came home, I cut off the threaded ends then cut the remainder to make a pair of sleeves that are each 1/2lb. Saved the money, but cost me time and wear on the hacksaw.

I’m in the process of starting a new program, but might want to go up by a pound later. Now I’m ready for that.

I had a physical appointment this morning. (The doctor keeps Sat office hours once a month.) The scale showed I gained 10lb since the last doctor’s appointment, which was a different doctor. In the last 6mon or so I’ve seen a number of doctors and had a bunch of blood and urine work done. I was surprised by the weight gain, so I measured on our scale when I came home. It showed a 6-7-lb increase. I had commented that I think I’m filling out around the middle with fat. However, when we were discussing my calcium, vit-D, exercise, etc., the doctor commented that I looked fuller and more muscular, so it’s not all fat that I’ve gained in the last few months working with the weights, which is good.

The conclusion was that I’m doing what I can to offset the osteoporosis, but shouldn’t expect much to change because the drugs are the only things that significantly improve the bone matrix. We also talked about the links in the chain, i.e., gum issues, pectus excavatum, small bones, osteo, and he said that they add up, but doctors don’t always put the pieces together.

Yesterday, I noticed that I had comments on my last post but didn’t get any emails from BB.com until much later. When I saw there were comments, I didn’t have time to read them the way I wanted to, so I printed them and took the printout to read during a slow period in a test I was going to run. It was like I wanted to savor a good letter at a time I could concentrate on it.

They were all "food for thought" (using Tony’s phrase), but point to a need for experimentation with different methods. That’s how you / people get their experienced points of view. My plan, which started months ago, was to use something that worked and run with that until I was ready to try something else.

I may be just too conservative in my ideas about evaluation, but trying to compare one approach to another one, when each takes several months, seems like a daunting task. Having a log book for weight and measurement progression (track of strength and size gains) would be necessary, but that’s compounded by other factors, like diminishing returns as you get closer to your potential for your age. You see where I’m going with this: how do you determine success of one program v. another when strength and size gains take so long? You can treat that as a rhetorical question, since the answer could be a book in itself.

In a few months (perhaps 6w), you’re going to change to something else that you think will work too, so I’m obviously worrying too much about nothing. I’ve seen the phrase "everything works, for six weeks". I’ve also read the phrase "there’s no such thing as a hard gainer, just an under eater".

I’ve continued with the program that I’ve used with the idea that I needed some time to adjust to an exercise program (something about recruitment of muscle and nerve fibers) before experiencing results, then gains would come after that. Patience. I’m into the "after that" phase and read about these "other programs" and how people have these great experiences with burns, DOMS, hard work, getting spent, while I’m just plodding along. I’m getting tired of it … and writing about it.

I have no idea if what I’m doing with regard to my exercise plan is moving me toward my bone strength objective. The only indicator I would have is muscle strength gains. I’m creeping up some weights, but not on the big ones. It’s mostly shuffling deck chairs for fewer reps in exchange for more weight.

I like the idea in this hard-gainer program in that it relies on the basic compound movements. It seems like those should work, which points to something else: the set/rep scheme, the arrangement of the exercises (split), lack of effort, etc. Several people have suggested hiring a trainer, who in theory would lay out a plan to follow instead of my futile attempt to come up with a plan myself. Each of you reading this could easily come up with a plan. I’m NOT suggesting you should though. Following each of those would fill my schedule for the next year. If I go back and read the comments I’ve received already, those suggestions might fill another year

I’ll have to decide where to go in the coming days / weeks.

In case you’re wondering, I’m not going to quit before Jun. Change perhaps, but not quit.

Mon I did shrugs. Wed I did deadlifts. I reached my grip and lift limit on both this week. I couldn’t do any more reps in the set using proper form and I couldn’t hold the bar any longer. I nearly dropped the bar on the last deadlift last night, but that was rep 9 of 10, so I waited a couple breaths and did rep 10, but didn’t count it in the log. I could use a strap, but the target muscles can’t do any more.

I was searching for "McRobert" and "Beyond Brawn" and reading some of the BB.com forum posts yesterday. McRobert’s hard-gainer method is similar to HIT, both of which were getting flak in these board posts. I know there isn’t one ideal work-out plan, but I’d like to work to one that is respected to deliver. Those of you reading this have your own methods that work for you and might work for me too. Your suggestions make sense, but supposedly McRobert’s methods work too.

I’ve been thinking about delayed-onset muscle soreness (which people affectionately refer to by its acronym, DOMS). Y’all write about these workouts you do, followed by DOMS, usually, the next day. I know I only do one or two warm-up sets followed by two work sets, but I work with weights that I can do 2×8 or so and no more reps, i.e., failure. I don’t get sore. Sometimes my thighs after squats, but usually not. (Spending the morning scrubbing floors was an exception.) The standard prescription for people on "other programs" is to mix things up when they lose that DOMS-loving feeling, seeing that as the limit of the cycle, and go for different variations or different set/rep scheme to get the soreness back. In the hard-gainer method, the cycles typically run 12-20w, not ~six weeks. The people using them continue to make progressive poundage improvements throughout the cycle. I don’t know how much soreness is normal.

More and more I get the impression that the hard-gainer method is for people who know what they are doing, can compare their previous results on "other programs" to this program, and make intelligent choices from experience. Unless it’s just part of the learning process with any program, i.e., that first one has a big learning curve, and I picked a non-standard way to start, instead of going with a popular, tried-and-true method that everyone understands. No one is going to convince me that Ledford45’s 10×10 is a beginner’s routine.

On the other hand, does it really matter as long as I’m pushing and pulling weights around and doing some impact-aerobic work?

On a different subject…

One of my pet peeves is grammar (and spelling), not that mine is perfect. People don’t like to be corrected. I wonder why? Actually, I usually don’t point things out unless asked. Anyway, one error I’ve seen a number of times lately is variants on "in regards to". Argh. You might give someone your regards, but the phrase is "in regard to" or "with regard to". If that’s problem, write just "regarding" instead.

Yesterday evening included squats. Getting prep-ed for them I was telling myself that it was the same weight as last week and I’ve done it before. Again, I felt that I was going to collapse during them, but finished the 2×10 I was planning. During them, they felt hard. Afterward, I was thinking I should have gone slower and deeper. Something to work on more next time.

After that, everything was fun. I had upped the weights a few pounds on a few, but it was good stuff. Still stuck on lateral raises and bicep curls. Those are accessory exercises, so that doesn’t bother me too much. What bothers me is that, in the other group (alternate day), I’m stuck on leg curls too. It’s not a big compound one, but I would like to make some progress there. I’m only in the fifth week of this 8-10w, or longer, cycle. It’s early to be stuck already. All these stuck ones are at the top weight I was handling in the previous cycle.

Need to push past that level. Go iron.

My wife has a cold. Hopefully she will keep it to herself.

Our daughter is ten and is still a picky eater. I made some mild (veggie) chili using Yves "meatless ground" on Sun. She liked it. My wife also tried grilled-cheese sandwiches with tomato soup on her (us) too. She liked that too. Maybe she’s being more adventurous now and willing to expand her food choices, which will make it easier on all of us.

My upper back was sore yesterday after scrubbing the kitchen and sun-room floor and cleaning the gym (garage) floor Sat morning. Along with more 45-lb plates, I could deal with a weight tree, so the plates aren’t scattered on the floor around the rack.

Sat, the girls went to the "Vintage Fashion Expo" in the City. They wanted me to go, but I would rather go shopping for weights than go clothes shopping, even if the clothes are for other costume events that are coming up. I stayed home and did that housework, walked, wrote a few blog entries, did a weekend workout (including barbell side bend), went grocery shopping, etc., but didn’t go weight shopping.

I wrote that I’m not in it to become huge, so I haven’t bothered to measure where I was or am now. One reason I know I’m not going to grow much is that I don’t have the bone structure for it. I was curious, so I had my wife measure my wrist and plugged that into John McCallum’s table (given in McRobert’s "Brawn" and "Beyond Brawn") for hard-gainer men. McRobert refers to it as a realistic guide. If it is realistic, I’m not going to get very big with my 6.5-in wrist.

The table gives an estimated full-size potential arm of about 15in, chest 42in, thigh 22in, and my waist could lose some fat.

The whole table goes like this:
chest = 6.5 * wrist
hips = 85% * chest
waist = 70%* chest
thigh = 53% * chest
neck = 37% * chest
arm = 36% * chest
calf = 34% * chest
forearm = 29% * chest

Those are estimates and your mileage may vary because bodybuilding is an art and different body parts respond differently.