Q and A thread - Angus is peppered.

SideSteel wrote: »

quiksylver296 wrote: »

Butterchop wrote: »

How do you build up to pullups? I know its random but it's one of my fitness goals. I just don't know how to get there at all.

I did pull-ups on the assisted machine, and negative pull-ups, and band-assisted pull-ups. It took about a year of this, two or three times a week, before I could do a real pull-up.

Sorry, @sidesteel. I keep barging into your thread. Ban hammer me if you want.

Hah, I can't ban anyone. I'm not a moderator here, just a regular old dude.

And even if I were, I wouldn't ban you and it doesn't bother me that you are posting

SideSteel wrote: »

MegaMooseEsq wrote: »

Wow, I just read all seven pages and I can’t believe this thread has flown totally under my radar all these months! And I even have a question I’ve been too embarrassed to ask elsewhere because it’s boring, personal, and makes me look kind of neurotic. But you asked for it! First, the basics: I’m a 34 year old woman, 5’2”, 164 lbs and losing about a pound a week on 1800-2000 net daily calories, aiming for 135 lbs.

I’ve been at this a little over a year now and feel really comfortable with the process generally, but have consistently struggled to hit my protein goals. I’ve been kind of blasé about it as I am rarely hungry and it’s not that low (I’m generally averaging 75g), but reading the earlier question on protein, I realize I probably should get serious about boosting it some. My goals here are basically all around strength and fitness, plus preserving muscle. I do 30-60 minute body weight interval or agility workouts 5-6 times a week (fitness blender) and stretch every night. I expect another year of deficit to my goal weight.

I’ve read a lot of the “how do I eat more protein?” threads and I understand the basic answer (eat more eggs, chicken, shakes, etc). The roadblock I keep running up against is that my meals have become very structured over the last year and I’m really reluctant to change that given how well everything else is working for me. I also am not usually satiated drinking my calories. Go ahead and tell me to suck it up and drink a shake for breakfast if that’s the bottom line here. But I’d love to get some more specific suggestions on how to reach a solid protein intake with minimal structural impact to my diet. Hard no on yogurt (barf) but I’m pretty good eating anything else. My diary is open.

I use a TDEE/weekly average model: roughly 1665 calories in, approx 175 exercise not eaten back, twice a week “refeed” averaging 2000-3000 additional calories (i.e. drinking and eating lots of carbs mostly) ending up at that 1900 ish average. I usually skip breakfast and lunch the day after a refeed. Although I occasionally have a sandwich for lunch or fast food for dinner, most days look like this (I know the math isn’t perfect, sorry):

Breakfast (215 kcal, 12.5g protein): coffee, string cheese, fruit

Lunch (550 kcal, 30g): one hard boiled egg, 1-2 ounces of cheese, fruit and/or raw veggies, 1-2 oz meat (usually cured), 1-2 oz crackers, a small portion of nuts, seeds, or chocolate.

Snack (120 kcal, 4.5g): 1.5 oz feta and olives in olive oil

Dinner (650 kcal, 30-60g): 3-4 times a week I eat whatever my husband cooks, calories estimated, if it’s higher on the protein side I usually make my daily target, but it’s not averaging out. The other days are usually more of the same as lunch, often with a can of tuna, usually hitting about 30g protein. I usually also drink a half cup of milk.

Snack (250 kcal, 0g): red wine and jelly beans

Sorry for all the detail - like I said above, kind of neurotic, but so it goes. Thanks!

I'll give a few suggestions but when clients ask me about food suggestions (which is essentially what this is) I think soliciting a group of people is a better method. So when this happens with a client on a Skype call I will ask them to post it to our client group on facebook, because now there's 50+ people who are mostly diet-conscious people who can provide different suggestions based on their preferences.

Having said that, I see the most opportunity in breakfast and the two snacks, and we also have at least some evidence that a decent sized protein feeding at breakfast can better regulate appetite later in the day.

You could add in whey protein (you don't necessarily need to drink it, you could use it to make a beltsander brownie for example). You could try cottage cheese (I hate this food but many people love it), you could try other dairy products with low fat so that it doesn't add calories.

I would actually consider the addition of whey protein to be the least disruptive to your current diet habits and you could easily add in 1 to 2 scoops per day to make a significant increase to your protein.

Sorry I don't have much more to add -- but I'll also suggest you just make a post about it in the public forums here because it will allow you to solicit feedback from a lot of people who all have different taste preferences, and that's the sort of situation you WANT for an issue like this because someone may have an idea that I'll never come up with, and you might love it.

SideSteel wrote: »

AnnPT77 wrote: »

This question wss triggered by the pull-up progression sub thread.

Would you be willing to say a little more about how you think about volume, fatigue & recovery - the relationship between per-workout fatigue and inter-workout recovery, if there are rules of thumb to avoid avoid stalling progress or raising injury risk, what warning signs there might be, or really anything in that neighborhood?

I can try.

When you design a program (lets assume the goals are a mix of strength and hypertrophy and lets assume the exercise selections are matching the goals, limitations, etc of the individual for purposes of me not including all of those caveats lol) you need to manage frequency, intensity, and volume in such a way that:

1) You are able to adequately perform during the session. This means not doing too much volume on any given exercise or body-part. This means managing fatigue on a per set basis so that you don't fall behind. One example using the chins ups, if I had someone take a set of chin ups all the way to failure, and then try to do 2 more sets of chin ups, the per-session volume of chin ups would likely be LOWER compared to not going to failure, or only going to failure on the final set.

It may look like this going to failure:

set 1: 11 reps (fail)
set 2: 6 reps (fail)
Set 3: 3 reps (fail)

And taking each set to RPE 8 (leave 2 in the tank) may look like this for that same person:

Set 1: 9 reps
Set 2: 8 reps
Set 3: 6 reps

The latter would be a increase in total training volume compared to the former and the latter would also likely lead to more productive work AFTER the chin ups in that same session because you wouldn't be as fatigued.


And so it's about managing program structure in terms of arranging the exercises in such a way that you can perform them well, and managing intra-workout fatigue from set to set or exercise to exercise so you can keep performing in that session.

Intra workout and pre workout nutrition make take a part in this too. Caffeine could help a bit, avoiding blood sugar crashes could help. Glycogen gets brought up too but I think most people don't fully deplete glycogen and so it's likely less of an issue.

2) As far as session to session, you need to be well aware of how fatigue from session A may effect performance in session B. Some trial and error is obviously needed but basically, if you do too much volume on a given lift or bodypart in session A and you try to train the same lift two days later, your performance may suffer.

One very simple thought process might be to structure it like this: Challenging, Easy, Challenging. So session 1 you do 4x8 at RPE 8 on the squat which is pretty tough. Two days later you do 8 x 1 on the squat at RPE 7 (heavier weight on the bar but FAR less fatiguing), Two days later you do 4x4 @ RPE 8 to 9 on the squat which would be very heavy strength work.

And so that middle session on the squat is actually easy even though it's fairly heavy. The volume is low but you're getting really good strength practice in that session and by the time the third day of squats rolls around, you're better recovered and able to really crush a heavy session.

You can also train lifts back to back. I have programmed bench press 5 days per week for some clients although it's not often I'll do that. But you CAN do it if you manipulate volume and intensity intelligently enough to not get someone buried with fatigue.


3) As far as avoiding stalling, a very simple way to diagnose it that isn't ALWAYS going to be correct but it's a very good starting point:

"Do I feel constantly beat up, some soreness in the muscles used on this lift, and somewhat demotivated?" - You could be doing too much and need to back off a bit and allow for better recovery.

"Do I generally feel good, I just can't get stronger" - You probably need to do more.

Doing more may consist of adding another set. It may consist of adding another session on that exercise, plenty of ways to "do more".

Could also be technique related or mental (as silly as that sounds it's definitely a strength variable).


4) As far as injury risk, I think anytime you start lifting weights you are accepting some amount of injury risk. The goal should be to minimize that risk of course, but I think you can do everything right and still get hurt.

My main concerns around injury would be not performing technically demanding exercises under conditions of high fatigue whether that's chronic fatigue (ie training for months on end with no deload) or acute fatigue (20 rep sets of squats where the last 5 reps all suck because acute fatigue turned your form into garbage).

And the obvious one, making sure your technique is reasonably sound to begin with.

As an older person (62) my experience-based perception is that I need a little more recovery time or intensity/volume caution than I did a decade or two ago; and that minor injury (maybe even fatigue/weakness) that can result from "too much" has a higher cost in the sense that I also seem to de-train a tiny bit faster if I have to back off my workout routine due to minor injuries and such. Still, I like to push myself (but safely).

I'm really asking about concepts or rules of thumb I can apply in my mixed-modes framework.

From a PP, you may recall that I'm a rower, which involves some small strength/resistance, but very substantial reps. At this point, I'm better off if I don't row hard every day in season (recovery needs, marginal knee), but every other is OK, and things like spinning or biking work on the alternate days, even though there's some leg action.

But I tend to avoid any serious resistance leg work in rowing season based on fears about under-recovery. I can keep some upper-body work going in rowing season, but tend to drop out things that use the same muscles in the same general way as rowing but keep some that are complementary (upper body push, like bench press, for example).

So, I'm wondering if you have any general principles you can share about volume, fatigue, recovery, that might help me clarify my thinking about how to balance stresses from varied activities, while pushing myself a bit.

I know this is an abstract, messy question, so "No" is a perfectly valid answer! If you even know of sources I could use to self-educate a bit, that would be hepful.

Thanks.

Yep, I remember you being a rower

Let me know if this answers your questions. I just arrived in CA today to hang out with and coach @Sarauk2sf and another client of mine who are both powerlifting tomorrow. About to go grab some food but I'll check in this weekend or tonight and answer any other questions.

I sort of rambled here but that's also sort of what you asked for I think, lol

SideSteel wrote: »

Most important question answered first: Pie, but it does depend. A really good cake will certainly beat out bad.