This site is OUTSTANDING. Lots of great info… I need some advice, I am 47, 5’10, 186lbs and after many many years of inactivity started on weight training prgram in October 07. I have cycled thru different programs (about a month each) : whole body 3-days a week, then six day push pull, now I am on a 4 day split: 1 heavy upper, 1light lower rest, 1 light upper, 1 heavy lower , 2 days rest. Thru all these I have dropped 10lbs and gained some (i think) good muscle mass.
I have also been incorporating whey and more recently creatine. I have one major concern and one major goal-- the concern is love handles, should I do 2 days of cardio to try and combat them?? or will it compromise my muscle mass goal
1 major goal – I want to get SCARY big before April of 2008… can anyone recommend legal supplements that will work at my age.
Hello philly! Glad you found us here. You can certainly get some mass on you in that time. But it will take a bit longer to get scary big. At our age it is still possible.
I’m not real big on giving advice, I just know what’s worked for me, and sir, I love the big movements, the compound movements. Dead lift, squat, bench press(my bench sux), the bent over rows. Diet and rest are equally important, and can often be the hardest part. I’m weak when it comes to food, I simply love to eat!There’s one thing I will advise you on though bud, simple carbs have got to go!
Pop, candy, junk like that,no longer in my diet. I will eat white pasta, because I hate whole wheat pasta, but my bread is only whole grain bread. SaraLee to be precise, best whole grain bread I’ve found. My kids hate white bread, I’ve never given it to them. And when they get it at school they won’t eat it. Anyway, I guess I’m rambling now, so I’m gonna go workout. Later Bro!
[quote]stuward wrote:
Cardio twice a week won’t hurt. Keep it intense and brief (20-30 minutes).
It’s going to be hard to get rid of the love handles if you are trying to get big.
Cut out all grain, sugar and potatoes except for post workout.
Eat tons of veg, fruit in the morning, protein, good fats.
Stu
[/quote]
Good advice. You can melt off the love handles while building muscle if you have patience and don’t expect it to happen overnight. Compounds movements with minimal rest between sets and dialing in good nutrition over a period of six months to a year should yield good results. Ass kicking wind sucking workouts are the key. Alpha Male or HOT-ROX Extreme would be helpful. Pick one or the other as they both contain Carbolin 19. Flameout is an essential IMO for good health and to help reach this goal.
Using Waterbury’s SOB training, then Waterbury Method, then Hybrid Hypertrophy and then repeat the sequence whilst ocntinuing the supps - according to instructions - throughout the routines.
Should take you through to April easily and you’ll train your arse off.
One tip though - to maintain the target of April improvements, listen to your body and don’t push through pain. An injury will set you back too much with so little time to reach your goals.
Also, ice any pains and strains immediately after training to aid recovery.
Phillymann,
once you find a workout that suits you (time available etc.) stick with it for three months or so. This will allow you to evaluate it better.
Good luck!
Don’t go balls the wall crazy. You haven’t been exercising for many years according to your post. Your ligaments, tendons and cartilage are not going to support heavy or ballastic lifting. At your age give it a year to get back in decent shape with higher rep sets (12-15) basic exercises emphasizing movements over isolation (Over head squat, Vs
Leg press machine)
Concentrate on cleaning up your diet and losing fat at reasonable weight. You will feel tons better (then beating yourself up each workout) and by April 2008 you will look great!. Your muscles will look bigger because they are now hard and defined instead of big and flabby. One thing I hope you did before embarking on your quest is to get a thorough physical checkup telling your Doctor what you intended.
If you push it, you can go hard for quite a few months on pure motivation. Then either injury (and you’ll be one of those guys who don’t squat anymore because of his back or knee or something)or you will lose motivation after a bout of sickness (flu, cold whatever). I am 45 and have had my share of over (stupid) training injuries and my share of periods of lost motivation brought about by excess eagerness for gains.
I have also blown my back out deadlifting having to get disc surgery and not able to really train for a full year after surgery (I was in my 30s) Today I still squat and deadlift but intelligently (read: making progress but not getting injured or de-motivated) Hope this helps!
[quote]daddyzombie wrote:
but my bread is only whole grain bread. SaraLee to be precise, best whole grain bread I’ve found. [/quote]
I hate to lower the boom, but Sara Lee Whole Grain Bread is not really whole grain. What most commercial brands do when they create a “Whole Grain” bread is just use white flour and throw in a little wheat bran to make it look brown.
You can usually tell, because this type of “Whole Grain”
has pretty much the consistency of white bread. Sorry but it looks like Sarah Lee may be one of the culprits in this ongoing scam: http://www.yubanet.com/artman/publish/article_72981.shtml
Have you heard of “The Anabolic Solution for Bodybuilders” Great stuff about hormone optimizing through diet. I personally did the Ananbolic Diet for two months, ate like a king, and lost two inches off my waist. The A-Solution is a higher in protein muscle building version of the A-Diet. It’s really worth looking at to achieve your goals.
EDIT : I’m 47 also, and chasing younger women too!
Thanks guys, I really appreciate your time. I have been working the compound movements and although I hate them with a passion “pull-ups” have given me the most bang for the buck so far… right now I am on the tail end of my experiment with the 4 day (1heavy uppr, 1 light lower, 1 heavy lower, 1 light upper nody)
I must say I feel more rested but I just don’t think I am challenging myself, after several hours it feels like I haven’t worked out at all… I don’t want to kill myself but I guess I am being to cautious in guarding against injury…
oh by the way I am currently deployed on active military duty in a very hot place, but the gym is awesome so I have plenty of equipment and reasonably good chow is not a problem…
I’ll also order Alpha Male and Rez-V (?).
I am supplementing with whey, glutamine and creatine…keep the advice cooming fella’s …thanks
I am also 47 and I haven’t lifted much in a long time, besides what I do at work. I am going to have to take it slow and build back up over several months before I will even be able to do a full workout.
Right now I just do enough that I can really feel it, but not to the point of fatigue or pain that will last very long.
I want to get my muscles used to lifting even fairly light weights for about 2 months before I will start to add much weight to the barbell and dumbbells. Right now it is more about getting some hardness back into my muscles, at their current size, without pushing enough weight to make them grow in size. That can come later.
I purchased about 100 pounds of 2.5, 5 and 10 pound weights this afternoon in order to more easily get the desired weight amounts on my barbell and dumbbells.