My current fitness goals (seeking advice)

RobertWhite1 wrote: »

I'm not looking to add much mass, is the thing. At the most five pounds and that's it. I'm more interested in total body fitness with a bit more focus on building muscle.

Please read your statement again...notice the contradiction?
Hornsby is 100% correct.

You will not gain any muscle mass on P90x or body beast while shredding fat.

RobertWhite1 wrote: »

Let me put it like this; if I have little interest in every getting bigger than, say, 180-185 lbs, is a serious weight lifting program with heavy weights and little to no focus on anything else really necessary?

Seems like it's pretty clear what your goals are and I'm not sure you really want/need "advice" but you asked, so here's my take.

It sounds like your priority right now is to get cut/lose fat. So, go do that. I don't know anything about the programs you mentioned except that I think that they are all HIIT oriented and designed to burn fat off ASAP. If that's what you want now do that. However, even though you say you don't want to lose weight, if you are doing such a program, you have to accept that you are going to lose weight in both BF and LBM.

Now, you also say you want to gain some weight/strength but you really can't do that while you're cutting. So, when you've cut as much as you want, you can then move into a bulk/muscle development phase. When you reach this phase, you WILL need to focus on a "serious weight lifting program with heavy weights and little to no focus on anything else. . . "

As you may or may not know, the ability to lift heavier weight is largely dependent on how much you yourself weigh -- ie., bigger/heavier guys and lift bigger/heavier weights. You've set an arbitrary limit of around 180-185 for your max BW, so you should consult the charts for lifters at 181 to see what their max lift rates at various levels (Int, Adv & Elite) and set those as your goals.

Just so happens that I'm about your weight and have set a similar limit on my weight, 175 in my case, but I assume that I am a lot older than you, and the older you get the less weight you can lift regardless of how big you are but, in your case, the weights that can be lifted by men under 40 at the Nov/Int/Adv levels w/a BW of 181 have been published as follows:

SQT 220/269/367
OHP 110/138/164
BP 164/201/275
DL 274/315/438
PC 158/194/264

After you cut and you get down to 160 (less than 10% of your current weight), which is probably as low as you want to go and BTW it is probably going to happen a lot faster than you think. You will probably lose this weight in only 2-3 months. So, you will not need to be on the program for a year. This would be a good time to get a DXA scan done to measure exactly what your BF and LBM are then, so that you can compare it with later readings.

Now's the time to start putting on the weight by eating more and gaining strength by working out with heavy weights. Pick any "beginner" program you like. I'm partial to Starting Strength but many people here love Stronglifts. Choose whichever appeals to you most.

Your objective will be to achieve the weight lifting goals at the Nov/Int/Adv levels that you are capable of doing. Don't assume that Nov means "weak." It just means less time training than Int or Adv. I am 65 years old and can do a 275# DL, which only makes me a Novice in the less than 40 charts but in the age adjusted charts for men over 60, that puts me between the Adv and Elite levels, even though in an absolute sense, it's nothing to brag about. It's just a label. What matters is what you can realistically lift based on your age, training and genetics.

Now, let's assume you're at 15% or less BF at 160, which translates into 24# BF and 136# LBM. When you bulk, you will probably want to gain at least 40 lbs to 200 with a BF of around 25%, or 50# BF and 150# LBM and then you're going to want to cut back down 10% to 180 with a BF of around 20% with 36# of BF and 144# of LBM. Of course, you need to take subsequent DXA scans to know exactly what the numbers are when you do this.

If you get numbers close to this, you will have gained 8# of LBM going from 160 up to 200 and back down to 180. Some of that will be muscle mass (MM) but there is no way to exactly measure MM, only LBM. All of the LBM gained will NOT be MM, only a part of it and, even if you assume 50% of it is MM which is optimistic, that's only 4# of MM.

While LBM is not the same as muscle mass, that's the only thing that can be measured. If you maintain your BW and your LBM stays the same (or goes up in relation to BF) and your strength increases, one has to assume that your MM has increased. This is the only measure of an increase of MM that I know of; it's not precise but it's the best proxy available. So, when you hit 180 after the 2nd cut, the trick will be to maintain your weight at that level while getting stronger by lifting heavier weights. Then you'll know that you've converted more LBM into MM.

This whole process of cutting, bulking and cutting again and then maintaining while building strength should take at least 1-2 years. I've done it in the past and am currently doing it again which is why I've gone into such detail about how it can be done. I'm currently in the maintaining/increase strength phase and I've only recently done my last cut. So, if you're serious about doing what you say you want to do, you need to plan for the long haul.

Good luck!

I'm 38. Don't count yourself out.

check out a program called stronglifts 5X5

Here's a link to that list of lifting programs that I mentioned above: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10332083/which-lifting-program-is-the-best-for-you/p1

For some reason, I can't copy/paste links from MFP from my phone (or I just haven't figured out how to do it yet). Doing this from my desktop.

There are 11 different "beginner" programs in the list. Body Beast, that the OP is planning on doing, is on the list along w/Starting Strength (my preference), Stronglifts and many others.