charlesmauch Member

I usually do 10 or 20 shoulder dislocations before I step under the bar. Helps me get my shoulders warm and my arms comfortable with the position when starting to work with light weight during warmup sets. If I skip that particular stretch, I'm usually a bit uncomfortable for the first 2 or 3 warmup sets, but by the time I…

I drink protein in shake form as it's cheapest/easiest way for me to hit my daily macros. I've never had a protein shake that reduced my hunger or was in any way satiating without adding something more to it. So I wouldn't rely on shakes to actually help with reducing hunger pangs. Just saying. I do love to use protein…

I'm not a big fan of mixing any flavored protein into anything else. Adding unflavored powder works great for mixing though. And if your mixing flavored protein powder with flavored oatmeal, it will probably be very very sweet.

My understanding of how nutrition worked in regards to fat/carbs/protein (loss) is a bit different. I'm still learning this stuff, so if I'm wrong, someone correct me! As I understand it... When you eat a meal with carbohydrates, blood glucose (usable energy) rises and your pancreas starts pumping out insulin into your…

Buy "Starting Strength" by Mark Rippetoe, it will cover the major exercises you want to do and how to properly perform them so you get the most bang for you buck. Even if you and your husband use some other program like Stronglifts the information in that book will serve you well in the years to come. It's probably the…

http://www.muscleandstrength.com/articles/strong-strength-standards-raw-natural-lifters Above link is also interesting in that the numbers assume that your not using gear or drugs to get there.

http://www.exrx.net/Testing/WeightLifting/BenchStandards.html

Every morning, right after arriving at the gym at 6:30am (which I record) and after I workout (just because). It amazes me how much my weight can change over the course of an hour or two. Today for example, I was 4lbs lighter after running for an hour. Usually it's 2 or 3lbs, and I'm drinking throughout the entire workout.…

I used to mix espresso powder in my pre-workout shake. Then I discovered caffeine pills, which are WAY cheaper. ($2.99 for 200). I have no idea if caffeine/coffee helps with fat loss, but it certainly helps clear out your innards which makes the scale go down. :)

Buy chicken! It's cheap per pound in comparison to other meats. Yogurts, Cottage Cheese, Eggs (especially the whites). Lentils are cheap. Other veggies to look out for are Black Eyed Peas, and Lima Beans. Just be aware that beans and legumes are considered incomplete proteins because they don't have some amino acids.…

I lift 3x a week as well. On off days, I found that light cardio (45 minutes of brisk walking or jogging) actually helps me recover a bit more quickly. If you overdo it, you'll notice the difference in your performance on the next lift day or the one after. SAM_I_Am77's suggestion of a day or two dedicated to mobility work…

I drink at least a gallon a day (about 140oz), and a lot more on days when I lift and I'm sweating heavily for an hour plus. (I'll go through 60 to 80oz just during my workout). To be fair though, I'm pretty big so I probably need more water than the normal joe anyway. 6'4"/240lbs ish. Any less and my pee gets kinda dark…

Thanks for the replies, gave me a bit to think about. I lift heavy 3x a week, which usually takes an hour but to be honest half of that time is spent resting and fooling with my phone between sets. I'll follow that up with some conditioning work (jump rope, hill sprints, heavy bag work, etc) until I start to run out of…

A few months ago I visited my sister, who lives next to a PF. I had an hour to kill while one of her kids had to visit the doctor (another story) so I walked over to check it out. The very first thing I saw walking in was a table full of (free) pizza. The "weight room" was ridiculously small, and under-equipped. I didn't…

If you can't do a pullup, you can also try to slowly strengthen yourself using progressions. There are a couple different progressions you can pick from (should be easy to find with a google search), I used: * Vertical Pulls (Hang on to a door frame and lean back, pull yourself upright), pretty much anyone can do this. I…

I think the scooby site seems to calculate a little high compared to the iifym calculator which I use, but it's a good start. 3200 calories sounds about where I started out too. It will drop as you loose weight. I started tracking when I weighed 307 (similar to you) and eventually learned a few things about how I responded…

There are a ton of metrics to figure out if your drinking enough, but I think the easiest way to check hydration levels is to simply keep an eye on the color of your urine. If it's close to clear and not very yellow ... your drinking enough. For me, that's about 100 to 160oz a day, which doesn't include coffee, protein…

I don't have time to respond to everybody's posts today, but thank you for your replies! As has been pointed out to me here, it looks like rather than blaming HITT for hitting the wall and plateauing, it was my nutrition which was at fault. I get it now. ;) Again thanks for all the advice and encouragement!

Yeah, I'm a lot more skeptical when I read any fitness or nutrition articles these days. At least until I have time to pick through their source material Thanks, it can get discouraging working hard and watching the scale just sit there unmoving week after week. I notice that when I skip doing any cardio activity in the…

That's totally true. I figured I'd found the magic combination that was gonna burn fat and make me ripped. ;) I'm not sure I'll ever really stop figuring what what works best really. Maybe the best I can hope for is to just figure out what works best at this moment and at my current fitness level. Thanks for the…

Yeah, I agree. When I started, I really didn't know how carbohydrates could affect performance. I just knew that "low-carb diet = good!". I know a little better now ... maybe. ;)

When I started my goal was basically "loose some weight while trying not to lose any muscle". All the literature I was reading was praising HITT, barbell exercises using compound movements, and low-carb diets as the best ways to go about doing that. Never together, but I didn't see any warnings or obvious indicators that…

Thanks. It'll be a couple months before get close to transitioning, but I think I'll probably just slowly start adding calories (100+ per week) when I get close to 220, assuming I'm not looking emaciated at that point. Right now I seem to be averaging 7 to 10lbs a month loss at 2500 calories (180 to 200g of protein a day,…

Find a training program, set some goals, achieve them and repeat. Don't approach your time in the gym as simply as a "workout". I think there is a huge difference between going to the gym to "workout" and to "train". What I see a lot of people do at my gym is a "work out", which I think means jumping on a cardio machine or…