I am 57 and started a powerlifting routine 8 months ago. My weights are going up nicely, I have gained 5 pounds, my arms, chest and back are bigger, my arms, chest, neck, calves are leaner and are now showing veins. The strange things is my waist went up an inch which seems weird when the rest of me is getting leaner. Diet is so so, not bad for powerlifting.
Any idea what is going on.
You may have increased the size of the muscles around your midsection.
You may have just gotten fatter. I don’t know how you’re measuring that you’ve gotten leaner, but if you’re just going off the fact you’ve now got veins on your arms and calves (where you didn’t before) that may simply be a result of weightlifting.
I’ve got nothing to back this up but my personal experience, but I found my vascularity gains to be fairly immediate and substantial when I started lifting, despite the fact I was waaaay fatter than conventional wisdom would suggest the leanness required to see veins is.
If I were you, I’d get bodyfat callipers. They’re not very accurate for giving you a BF%, but they do let you know cheaply and quickly if you’re getting fatter or leaner than you were last week. If you are genuinely getting smaller readings on your fat pinches, but a larger waist circumference then, yes, I’d say Punisher is correct.
That could be it. I am only basing that my arms, chest, neck, calves are leaner because of the veins and some definition, but if you got that and you think you weren’t any leaner that might explain why my waist is bigger. I am not dieting nor am I doing any cardio, so I wasn’t looking to get leaner but to get stronger.
It is possible that I am just as fat as I was 8 months ago but when you add the muscle growth in lower back and abs…you get a bigger waist. 1 inch is not that much growth in my back and abs so it is very reasonable.
You described your own diet as “so-so,” which would be my guess as to why you are dissatisfied with your waist. The fat around our waist is the hardest to lose. I’m also a big fan of walking an hour or so a day as my cardio instead of jogging or running; there are articles on T-nation that can explain why better than I can.
Not only does your waist increasing in size not seem strange to me, it would be exactly what I would expect to happen if you gained weight.
My goal was to get stronger, which I am. I knew my waist would not get smaller with my diet I was on and it would not surprise me if it got larger. The fact that the rest of my body now shows veins leads me to think I am getting leaner, and if the rest is getting leaner…So I guess my question really is should be does showing veins where there were no veins before a sign that you are getting leaner?
Alright did some research. Lifting heavy and getting a pump pushes the veins out to the surface and it also enlarges the veins so that is why I am getting veins. So I am not getting leaner and since my waist is getting bigger I am getting fatter. My goal was to get stronger, which I am so I guess we are all good and maybe I should try to lose a little on the waist while still trying to get stronger. Thanks for your replies.