40 /m gaining weight and muscle

SeanStone22

I am a hard gainer but now when I am gaining since I'm older it seems to collect in my abs and sides as fat. If I do more than twice a week cardio I lose muscle

GaryRuns

I was always a skinny dude myself, until I hit middle age. The weight seemed to appear on me out of thin air! lol. Okay, it was more likely a sedentary job, not watching what I ate, a slightly decreased metabolism due to aging and decreasing hormone levels.

Anyway, when I saw a picture of myself it was scary how fat I'd gotten. A big gut on a thin framed guy is NOT a good look! So I had to be much more proactive about my fitness. At that time I took up running, started watching what I ate, including using MFP to quantify my caloric intake, and the weight came off.

After about 8 years of that I recently decided to refocus on strength training and I can see similar results as far as fat loss. The only thing that matters is a calorie deficit. If you want to avoid getting that dreaded middle-age spread on the gut then eat less or move more or do both until you're burning more calories than you consume. You can't get fat if you're doing that.

Chieflrg

As we get older we can be less sensitive to training. We also are far much less efficient at MPS.

I would first start with how rapid you're gaining on average and how much body fat you currently have. Higher body fat= less optimal at MPS.

Secondly I would look into your stimulus of resistance training and dissect if the majority of volume is in the sweet spot of intensity and sufficient to break homeostasis and force adaptation.

Third I would look into the quality of protein you're consuming, along if you're consuming the optimal amount of complete EAAs through your diet spread evenly throughout the day.

Doing more cardio isn't necessarily going to force you to lose muscle, though depending on what kind of intensity, and duration it can effect recovery. If you're gaining weight on average, I wouldn't dismiss cardio and would adhere to my goal(s) and at least the minimal standard recommendation of both resistance training and cardio.

mreichard

Chieflrg wrote: »

Secondly I would look into your stimulus of resistance training and dissect if the majority of volume is in the sweet spot of intensity and sufficient to break homeostasis and force adaptation.

I'm 51, and I think this is especially important as we get older because I think it gets harder to find the balance of enough training stimulus and enough recovery. I spun my wheels for quite a while with 531 because I was not getting enough volume for training stimulus but I was doing too many close to 1 rep max lifts, so I frequently felt slightly injured.

I recently switched to PHUL and I'm finding it WAY better, particularly in terms of recovery -- even though it's 4 days a week the structure is much smarter than how I was doing 531, and I feel like I have sufficient time for recovery while the increased volume is providing more stimulus, so I'm getting both bigger and stronger.

Chieflrg

mreichard wrote: »

Chieflrg wrote: »

Secondly I would look into your stimulus of resistance training and dissect if the majority of volume is in the sweet spot of intensity and sufficient to break homeostasis and force adaptation.

I'm 51, and I think this is especially important as we get older because I think it gets harder to find the balance of enough training stimulus and enough recovery. I spun my wheels for quite a while with 531 because I was not getting enough volume for training stimulus but I was doing too many close to 1 rep max lifts, so I frequently felt slightly injured.

I recently switched to PHUL and I'm finding it WAY better, particularly in terms of recovery -- even though it's 4 days a week the structure is much smarter than how I was doing 531, and I feel like I have sufficient time for recovery while the increased volume is providing more stimulus, so I'm getting both bigger and stronger.

Agreed entirely. Volume is inappropriate and intensity bounces around the sweet spot more than absorbs it.

I would add 5/3/1 is a poorly written program for the majority of people training regardless of age compared to just about any cookie cutter program which is saying alot. Chasing AMRAP's at any rep scheme on a regular basis is simply poor load management, which increases injury risk.