aj_rock

So no night out with the wifey? She'll be disappointed to wait another 7 weeks to try again.

scott: good challenge, even if you don't think it went so well What I want to address though is the RFL-ness, which I personally would recommend against. As far as Lyle's products go, he's got books out there to help you make informed dieting decisions much better than RFL. He quite literally only wrote the damn thing because of that urge to drop as much fat in as little time as possible. It is by FAR not the optimum way to go. For your current stats, either look at A Guide to Flexible Dieting, or Ultimate Diet 2.0. UD2 is wonkier than most programs, but it will get results if you follow it to a tee. Edit cuz apparently you already saw AGtFD. Shoulda looked at offish IF first. Still, lookit UD2

Indeed. [ATTACH=CONFIG]4732[/ATTACH]

Quite honestly, if there's any book by Lyle that EVERYONE should read, it's A Guide to Flexible Dieting. Gives you all the tools and info you need to make an informed decision about how you should go about gaining/losing whatever.

Most effective hypertrophy program I've seen out there, barring using AAS: www.hypertrophy-specific.com/hst_index.html Mind you, it's HYPERTROPHY, so it makes you big, not necessarily very strong. Still a useful resource for understanding a bit of why weight-lifting does what it does To summarize: - your body responds best to not straight up overloading, but progressive overloading. You don't get a sun tan by staying outside all day for one day, you get it by gradually increasing sun exposure day after day. Most of your body's responses to stimuli that throw off homeostasis react this way. - as a result, the program above has you go through a 6-8 week cycle where you constantly lift more weight every workout, even if that means that early on in some weeks you actually aren't lifting that much. It's all about increasing the stimulus over time. - After the cycle, it has you take nine days off from working out in order to let the system 'calm down' a bit, and make it sensitive to the same stimuli again. - So you can go through say two cycles, only improve your lifts by say five-ten pounds each over 4 months, but still gain a LOT of size. So, in relation to what I said, sometimes taking a break allows you time to rest and re-energize that you wouldn't have given yourself otherwise. By the time you get around to vacation or what not, most people are at least a little over trained before they decide to take a break. Finally, the body has a chance to finish repairing those proteins, catch up on protein deficits, and start normalizing the systems again.

Meh, I'd put it somewhere above BMI in terms of usefullness... in terms of statistics amongst people lifting weights, the 2/3/4/5 stands out. Being off from it just means you stick out from the statistical norm. What you choose to do about it is up to you Unfortunately, MOST of the time I see the ratios broken is because someone emphasizes Bench above all else, and gets way too high. Squat = deadlift I can live with. Benching more than you can deadlift, well... Far be me from judging, but holy f*** man do some leg workouts!

Hey Bruce, your bench is actually ahead of your squat and DL numbers, and squats are only lagging optimal levels for your DL by like 10 lbs. Besides that, if you haven't changed your diet much from when you lost the fat, well, there's public enemy NUMERO UNO. Moar food. Carbs in particular.My best growth days over last winter came on days after I did a carb load with 600+g of carbs. Despite doing squats and deads on the same day, pushed squats to 275X5 and deads to 335X5.

Hey Scott, some pointers for your work outs: - Check out sumo dead lifts. Wide stance, arms are between legs. Allows you to keep your torso more upright if you're a gangly one. - Only one day of chest? Or am I missing something? - Your legs can definitely take more punishment than just two days of squats. Chuck some cardio in on rest days maybe? - I'd recommend a wider rep range for RPT if you wanna keep strength high but still achieve hypertrophy. 5-10-15 might do the trick. Yeah its not what Martin does, but your goals aren't Martin's goals either.

Not only what has been said above, but it really does NOT take a huge amount of carbs to significantly raise blood glucose levels when fasted. Literally have like an apple as you walk into the gym and you should feel right as rain.

I know lots of people (friends, fellow ruggers, etc) that use the same gym as I but I never see them there because of scheduling. Good luck broham. Honestly though, starting with light weight and working up again can only do good things for overall growth. There's a chance that, instead of DESPITE taking a break, and getting bigger, you'll get bigger BECAUSE of the break.

Most re-hab programs tend to center around a few basic principles: - Joint mobilization. Include some light knee extensions and hamstring curls at higher reps to keep mobility up and blood flow high in the injured area. - Start anew. Think about your strength levels as they were when you started, and start there again. "muscle memory" will ensure a quick return to previous levels, assuming no re-injury. - Listen, listen, listen. Something hurts, twinges, or just plain don't feel right, STOP. Basically starting strength type stuff with extra mobility work.

Read that as: I'm australian. Sorry mate. It just never gets old.

Try to get an idea of what your 'expected' weight loss is too. EG. I know that my average daily expenditure is about 3000 calories. Therefore, not eating for a day should deplete me of 3000 calories, or about 4/5-9/10 of a pound. Being of smaller stature and smaller BMR, you can expect less, nor will it be quite so nice and linear, but it'll give you a good idea of what to expect/if things are going right. A couple pointers: - don't do high intensity exercise while on an extended fast, and try to make sure it's on a day when you aren't expected to perform strenous or high reflex activities. Around Ramadan, incidences of over-exertion in athletes and car crashes spike in frequency. Some people respond well to fasting, many don't. - try to get in your normal daily vitamins, even while fasting. Better yet, take them with that meal at the end of your fast

Indeed. Take a look round teh interwebz and realize how little fun the outrageously ripped guys have. Awesome, six pack! Celebrate with be- wait, can't have that. OK, let's go to the beach!... wait no I have to be at the gym by 3...

it's just lawr of averages, but I was trying to show that going up and down will give you slower progress than just being down. -20/0 is another -10 overall, -30/-10 will get that -20 overall, but that's a big difference in food eaten every day. But yeah, just showing how cycling will tend to slow down fat loss, that's all. -20/-20 will net faster results than -20/0, cant argue that I mean, I still think that LG might be able to counter some of the problems associated with fat loss, but like MOST programs that do that, sacrifice speed of weight lost for increased work and slower rates of loss.

101 is Adult Male? I'd hate to think of what you find 88 to be.

See that's the problem though sometimes: even at -40 +20, assuming you do this every other day, you average out to 10% below every day. Your EE on average for your size is around 2500, so you're really only doing enough to lose 1/2 lb of fat a week. If you aren't already super small, you could probably afford to be more aggressive. -20% overall is sustainable for several weeks, -30% can be done for a couple weeks, -40% maybe a week, -50% for one day a week maybe. So to get -20% overall, assuming three workouts a week, if you only ate 10% over on workouts, you'd need to cut down to about 55% of your BMR calories for a day. And that's just for a pound of fat a week. Like Waldo said, it's slow going.

Hey Spez, since you're prepping for meets at a very specific time of the year, you'll probably want to look into a periodization model to get ready for it. Generally speaking, you spend a couple months caring for weak points in strength/endurance, and get more and more sport specific skill training in the closer you get to meet time. Either way it's worth looking at If you're training for an athletic event, might as well train like the pro athletes do

The more and more I think about it, the more I realize we are ALL still coming at our relationships as men vs women, regardless of equality or feminism or such. Let's stop trying to apply general population statistics to individuals in our lives. They deserve to be seen as the people they are, not as the dangley-ness or lack thereof between their legs. I mean, we're all trying to take these generalized statements and apply them to our own relationships where they might not necessarily apply. So what you have fallen into or out of stereotypical roles... who really gives a flying f***? If you feel like an INDIVIDUAL is treating you as an INDIVIDUAL justly or unfairly or stereotypically, you address it as it comes. Not by trying to frame it in terms of female power or male priviledge. aj out.

After 24 hrs without food, my thought would be that liver glycogen is probably depleted to some amount, and you're mobilizing a fair amount of fat. Muscle glycogen should be fine, so my thoughts would tend towards - higher rep workouts (anything but strength training, so like, 8 - 15 reps per set) and no problems - lowered liver glycogen = HIIT or similar being not recommended. Remember how I said that HIIT would feel like death after even an 8 hour overnight fast? Now we increase the fast length by 3 times. A happy camper this does not make. - Unfortunately, strength training can be largely impacted by the state of glycogen in the liver. AKA, low glycogen, and your body does not feel like working especially hard. If you feel up to it, by all means. There is a half decent chance that you'll fall victim to mental fuzziness and sapped concentration, both of which you need to lift heavy heavy things. So the real problem here is an increased chance of injury due to error Personally, what I would do is a short aerobic workout, about 30'. Burn off the last bit of mobilized fatty acids. Have a decent (NOT huge) sized meal, then a couple hours later you can go back to the gym and do your thing.

Humidex round these parts has been breaking 40 celsius on a regular basis. Simply spending an hour or two outside is like sitting in a sauna, nevermind performing rugby's equivalent of HIIT training for about 2 hours. Relatedly, I'm now basically on a two-period feeding window: eat as much as I can early in the morning, and again after rugby. The heat just messes with stuff still digesting far too much. WRT lachy's problem: what's your average deficit? Lethargy and drowsiness are common beasts when cutting calories too low altogether. You might just be running too much of an acute deficit by the time you get to feeding time.

Only 2-3 lbs? I suppose if you're measuring first thing in the morning... I can easily swing 7-8 lbs just from before rugby to after rugby. After re-hydrating, maybe 2-3 lbs come back.

I need to keep a Pat dictionary to understand some of the things you say. Shonky. Skadoosh. Blobby. Actually, I feel most of those terms could be placed in a Batman comic as sound effects and not look entirely amiss.

Sorry to backtrack on the bum staring guys, but back to Snake's issues... It sounds to me like she is able to provide for her and her kin just fine, but she can't provide for her, her kin, and school/living expenses for someone else. To me, it sounds perfectly reasonable that, for now, you guys just do your own thing, financially; she does her, you do you. That way, I doubt you even have to work full-time, ESPECIALLY if you take advantage of the multitude of back-to-school bursaries, grants, and loans available to you. Really, I don't think you are in a tight spot at all. I personally know someone who put themselves through engineering while working full time as a mechanic. Sure he was a little more haggard than everyone else, and was nowhere to be found near bars on the weekend, but it's doable.