Strengh/Muscle Building Question

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MallieRose91
MallieRose91 Posts: 159 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
HANG IN THERE. COMPLETELY NEW TO THIS AND KNOW NOTHING ABOUT STRENGTH/LIFTING/ETC. SO HOPEFULLY I CAN MAKE SENSE. LOL

I am now only 4.4 pounds from my goal weight of 150 pounds! Yay! May go to 140 or 145, but as I am getting closer to my goal, I thought I would start preparing myself. I have just started incorporating strength exercises into my workout routine the past few weeks. My only focus before was cardio.

I just started doing cardio and strength exercises on alternating days yesterday, and I am trying to get a plan together for once I reach my goal weight. I want to build muscle and become fit. I already know you can't build any serious muscle while in a calorie deficit. So I was going to raise my calories and start concentrating on muscle.

My question is, would this be something I can accomplish with just exercises involving my own body weight and the 25 pound hand weights I do have? (No weight machines) I am not able to go to an actual gym at the moment and I do not want to go into a calorie surplus (or raise my calories above maintenance.) if I can't accomplish my goals at home using just strength exercises with my body weight and hand weights until I can get access to equipment.

Also, any suggestions or recommendations of what I should do once I do reach my goal if this would not be possible?

Replies

  • rybo
    rybo Posts: 5,424 Member
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    Yes you can build strength & muscle doing BW exercises. Some resources to Google
    Convict conditioning, strength unbound, Al Kavadlo, and others
  • MallieRose91
    MallieRose91 Posts: 159 Member
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    Yes you can build strength & muscle doing BW exercises. Some resources to Google
    Convict conditioning, strength unbound, Al Kavadlo, and others

    Hopefully this is not another dumb question, but once I do get to my goal weight, how do I know how much to raise my calorie intake? I am very afraid of raising it and then gaining fat rather than muscle. Also, how do you know you are doing enough strength exercises to build muscle on the excess calories?
  • likitisplit
    likitisplit Posts: 9,420 Member
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    I'm doing Convict Conditioning at home and am happy with my results. Rybo mentioned several other progressive body weight programs. You can get where you want to go with body weight no doubt.

    I could probably get bigger gains faster using weights, but I'd never actually make it to the gym. and I find it way more motivating.

    ETA - you can build strength on a deficit, keep your muscle mass and bone density. These are all important. Also, strength will translate into faster muscle growth once you stop eating at a deficit.

    Another source is startbodyweight.com
  • likitisplit
    likitisplit Posts: 9,420 Member
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    Yes you can build strength & muscle doing BW exercises. Some resources to Google
    Convict conditioning, strength unbound, Al Kavadlo, and others

    Hopefully this is not another dumb question, but once I do get to my goal weight, how do I know how much to raise my calorie intake? I am very afraid of raising it and then gaining fat rather than muscle. Also, how do you know you are doing enough strength exercises to build muscle on the excess calories?

    I have a personal blog post that summarizes everything I know. It consists of excerpts from two sources that I have linked.
    Practical Advice on Bulking

    If you’re above 15% body fat (about 24-27% for women), diet first. If you can get to the 10-12% (19-24%) body fat range or so, I think you’ll be in an overall better position to gain mass. Trying to get super lean will probably end up screwing you in the long run because your body will be primed to put back fat on (and most other physiological systems are screwed up as well) when you get super lean.
    After finishing your diet, regardless of how lean you get, take 2 weeks to eat at roughly maintenance calorie levels before starting your mass gaining phase. The reason has to do with the physiological adaptations to dieting described briefly above. Although you can’t reverse all of them short of getting fat again (or fixing the problem pharmaceutically), 2 weeks at maintenance, which by definition should be higher calories than you were eating on your diet, will help to normalize some of them. Leptin, thyroid, SNS output should improve a bit, along with other hormones, putting you in a better place to gain mass without super excessive fat gain. Make sure to get at least 100 grams of carbs/day or more during this phase so that thyroid will come back up.
    Only try to add mass/bulk until you hit the top end body fat percentage listed in #1 above. So that’s about 15% body fat for men and 24-27% body fat for women. What this would mean in practice is that you diet to 10-12% body fat for men (22-24% for women), eat at maintenance for two weeks to try and normalize things, and then add mass until you hit 15% body fat for men (22-24% for women) and then diet back down. Over a number of cycles, you should be able to increase your muscle mass while keeping body fat under control.

    On average, a natural male doing everything right will be doing very well to gain 1/2 of pound muscle per week. A female might gain half that or about 1/2 pound muscle every 2 weeks.

    http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/muscle-gain/initial-body-fat-and-body-composition-changes.html

    1g of protein per lb of LBM as a minimum target

    0.35g of fat per lb of total body weight as a minimum target

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/819055-setting-your-calorie-and-macro-targets

    In my experience, if you're working a regular program of progressive compound resistance training and eating a healthy diet that's at or just above your maintenance level, at the end of the day, you'll net more muscle than fat.

    But your genetic predisposition is a HUGE wild card in calorie partitioning and the only way to know for sure is to do you. 12 weeks is not too long a time to take to learn something this critical about your metabolism. At the very worst, you'll gain a few pounds of fat that you'll be able to lose just like the first time.

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