Good progress, time for some help.

Bigger Stronger Leaner Competitive Bodybuilding
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OK – Here we are. 7/4/03: 238.5 at 29% bfat (jesus) Today 213.5 at 18.9%. As you can see from the numbers, I think I have made good progress. I have shoulder and lower back injurys that puts heavy benching with a bar, squats, and deads out of reach for me. Doing 4 w/outs week, upper / lower body split. 2 cardio sessions week on concept 2 rower, using HIIT protocol for 4 five minute ramps. Diet is 1600 - 1800 cal / day, with <75 gms carbs and 175 gms protien minimum. So far, so good. I am trying to get back to 195 or so, where I was in 2000 (pre back injury). This has been much more difficult for me than any previous time I have gotten back into shape. I think there are several factors: injuries keep me from doing the most productive lifts, my age (almost 48), and I let myself get way too big. Now I am in striking distance, and I have a few questions that I hope some of the more experienced on this board can help me with:

1)I notice that I have a much better workout the morning after a cheat dinner. Last nite we ate Italian, and today for my UB workout, I felt like I was on “veal fuel”. Is there any scientific basis for this? If so, is a carb load the nite before a heavy workout something others do? Will it stall my weight loss?

2)Currently I do a few warmup sets, and then sets of 8-10 rep work sets. I am intrigued by the article this week about W. Maybe I should drop to 5x5 and up the amount of weight on most exercises. How does this fit in with fat loss? Maybe it won’t affect it at all.

  1. Any suggestions for chest exercises that will put a real load on the pecs, given my situation? I seem to be stuck with DB benches and fly variations. Neither of these give me the “full of blood” pump that I used to get from benching. With all the extra back work from the rower, I am a little worried about being out of balance.

  2. Supplements. I am currently on my second week of a two dose per day M10 cycle, and I take a T2 (original) twice per day. Creatine and grow, of course. Money is not a problem - anything else I can add to speed things up?

Thanks in advance.

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Nice progress man.

  1. I’m assuming you are eating something like tdawg or something else low carb, or what diet are you following? If low carb, my guess is you are now hitting that point that your body needs more carbs to continue growth. I hit that also, and decided I wanted growth more than ultimate fat loss so I upped the carbs.

Having big meals too often will slow fat loss, not necessarily stop it though. You can eat big meals every few days and keep losing, just not daily.

  1. Lower rep/higher weight I think is better for low cal diets than higher reps are. Muscles don’t get overtaxed so badly, and gains come in just fine.
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I’ve got bad shoulders too. Free weight bench pressing is completely out of the question. However, I have found some machines don’t aggravate my shoulders. I did incline dumbbell presses for awhile and got good workouts with them but they became a problem when I started trying to hoist 85-90lb db’s up in the air. The pressing part was fine. Getting them up there wasn’t. So, I’ve resigned myself to the fact that Nautilus and Cybex pressing and fly machines are my best friends and I’ve gotten excellent results using them.

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Thanks guys. I think I will drop my reps / increase weight. I am loath to add too many carbs, though as fat loss slows to a crawl when I do.
Machines are not available to me – I work out at home. I also have a problem with the dbells when they get heavy. Getting them into pos for the first rep is a bitch, as is letting tham down when finished.
I will post pictures when I am done. (If I can figure out how)