Thank you so much for your replies.

Anyone have a good way of thinking about the extra calories needed to add muscle? Or in my case to get back the muscle I had.

Sort of like - after you meet your basic caloric need, you then need XYZ more to adequately support more muscle growth.

I was also under the impression that whatever calories beyond what you need (sustaining sie, adding muscle, etc) just becomes fat. So the more precise the less fat added, right?

Thanks everyone!

I've started doing Kroc rows as a finisher on my back day and I'm finding them really effective. However, I've been finding that whichever arm I do first is stronger by a couple of reps (I can usually get the reps with the other arm, but form suffers a bit). I've been resting a couple of minutes between and this hasn't helped. Anybody else find this and have a way around it? I'm going to try resting 3 mins next time.

I rest atleast 4 minutes between each arm.

A set of heavy Kroc rows done to hell and back will kick your ass. If you're not sucking air like a freight train you ain't doing them right or using enough body english.

Cheers.

(05-15-2017 03:16 AM)Hannibal Wrote:  

(05-13-2017 01:53 AM)General Stalin Wrote:  Go on...

I'd love to get my squat endurance up. I know I just need to do it more, but if you can link me to something I'd like to have a look.

Super Squats by Randall Strossen is a good resource, but most of his book is just "drink milk and get fucking huge in six weeks". A session where you replace your regular squat routine with a set of 20 rep squats would work too, maybe do it once a week. The way the book describes it is that you take your 12 rep squat weight, bang out ten or twelve squats and then, while keeping the weight on your back (don't rerack it, this is the critical part), grind out another eight or ten reps while breathing between reps. The combination of a decent squat weight plus all that time you spent with the bar on your back drives some quick gains. If you don't want nearly as much chance of injury take a light weight (like 135) and do a set of 20 until it gets "easy" then bump up the weight.

Legs tend to grow from higher reps so it's a good idea to mix them in. Give them a shot and you'll know why they're called widowmakers.

I tried it out tonight.

Pretty tiring but not dreadful. The last couple reps were pretty taxing in a cardiovascular sense. I can see a lot of value doing this every deadlift day as a good variation.

Á cautionary tale.

About 18 months ago I suffered a knee injury. I visited the doc, who said "it's just tendonitis, it'll get better". Basically a polite way of saying "thank you for the consultation fee, now get out of my office". I wasn't really satisfied, but I accepted it. I rested it completely for 5 months, it got a bit better, but was never good.

I figured then it was time to start using it again, and got back into lifting and martial arts. It always hurt to some extent, but I was too tough for my own good and just worked through it.

It was around then that I decided it needed a second opinion. I went to another doctor, who said "yeah go get an MRI"" - another polite way of saying "thanks for the consultation fee, now get the fuck out of my office". I was happy with that, until I went to book the MRI, and they asked for 4 or 5 hundred dollars. I thought that was too rich for my blood, so I just left it again.

Several months passed, and the pain just ground me down, until I stopped doing leg exercises completely, and soon after stopped martial arts. I had been training with a doctor so I mentioned the porblem and he simply said "come in, I'll bulk-bill the MRI". This is an australian helath system thing, but basically it was upto a doctors discretion whether they'll charge you for it, or just charge it to the government. I got my free MRI, the report said "torn medial meniscus". I thought that was weird, its my tendon that hurts, but it didn't matter. I was told it was a simple 30 minuite arthroscopic surgery and I'd be back in no time. I was relieved.

So I see the surgeon, who immediately says 'You dont have a torn medial meniscus, youve got a torn patellar tendon. To make it worse, there are bone spurs around the tendon which just keep damaging it whenever pressure is applied. It's like pulling a rope through a pulley lined with broken glass. Basically, it's fucked and wont ever get better without surgery. But this surgery is far more invasive. The recovery time is likely to be several months.

I've deadlifted 195kg and squatted 150 with this fucked knee, because I was just too tough for my own good. Too fucking proud, too obsessed with cracking those milestones. I played myself, I'm a fool.

So Ive been keeping up with my upper body lifts, while my lower half wastes away. Í look fucking stupid, with my atrophied legs - which are only going to get worse - and a big upper body.

I'm just finding it hard to motivate myself the last few weeks to keep lifting at all. My upper body lifts have stalled, and I'm not even sure whether I even should lift, since I just get more and more out of proportion.

So, to sum up: I'm gonna lose a few years worth of gains on my legs, and if I'm not careful and disciplined, a fair bit of lost progress on my upper body. I'm not getting any younger either, so there's no guarantee the gains are ever coming back.

And this shitty outcome can all be traced back to me not taking care of a niggling injury, toughing my way through them.

Don't make the same mistakes I did. If something hurts, rest it. If it keeps hurting, see someone who knows what theyre talking about. Don't get brushed off by a GP who never lifted in his life.

Moral of the story: get good private health insurance.

I mean if anyone needs any help squatting, regardless of the 20 threads there are out there. I can always provide my advice, however, be warned that Olympic squatting is not for everyone.

King Bast are you gonna pull the trigger and get it done?
I wouldn't hesitate if I was you man! What's a few months of recovery versus laying in bed one night when you're 80 and a crippled leg, wondering "what could have been?"

If the injury eventually leads to you quitting the gym, then that will just snowball from there. Even if your gains aren't ever the same (which is probably not true since you already have a good base to work from), you'll miss out on the great positive mental benefits of lifting.

Good luck with the decision though - thanks for sharing...

The surgeon recommended I try Platelet rich plasma (PRP) injections first, but honestly, it just sounds like an expensive patch-up job to me. I'm not that keen on the idea.

I just want it fixed. I want to be able to run and jump and squat again and I'm prepared to spend months recovering from surgery, if it means it's a lasting solution.

I'm in communications with the surgeon and the PRP clinic, it should be clear by the end of the week what I'm going to do.

(05-17-2017 04:57 AM)king bast Wrote:  I'm just finding it hard to motivate myself the last few weeks to keep lifting at all. My upper body lifts have stalled, and I'm not even sure whether I even should lift, since I just get more and more out of proportion.

So, to sum up: I'm gonna lose a few years worth of gains on my legs, and if I'm not careful and disciplined, a fair bit of lost progress on my upper body. I'm not getting any younger either, so there's no guarantee the gains are ever coming back.

That really sucks. I've dealt with injuries that forced me to stop working out and they're really the worst.

I recommend keeping up with your upper body lifts. The additional testosterone production caused by lifting upper body (as compared with not lifting at all) should maintain more of your leg musculature than if you stopped lifting completely.

I've been running the 5/3/1 boring but big challenge the last couple of months. This week is the last week of the 70% assistance work and I've managed to get sick over the weekend. Dammit.

Still, got a easy single rep with 137.5Kg/302lb squat. Felt good bar the nearly blowing snot all over the cage.

Thinking about it, last time I tried the challenge I got sick in the last cycle too.

(05-22-2017 01:06 AM)Bluey Wrote:  I've been running the 5/3/1 boring but big challenge the last couple of months. This week is the last week of the 70% assistance work and I've managed to get sick over the weekend. Dammit.

Still, got a easy single rep with 137.5Kg/302lb squat. Felt good bar the nearly blowing snot all over the cage.

Thinking about it, last time I tried the challenge I got sick in the last cycle too.

How do you like this program?

(05-22-2017 03:06 AM)redbeard Wrote:  

(05-22-2017 01:06 AM)Bluey Wrote:  I've been running the 5/3/1 boring but big challenge the last couple of months. This week is the last week of the 70% assistance work and I've managed to get sick over the weekend. Dammit.

Still, got a easy single rep with 137.5Kg/302lb squat. Felt good bar the nearly blowing snot all over the cage.

Thinking about it, last time I tried the challenge I got sick in the last cycle too.

How do you like this program?

Enjoyed it mostly, but people aren't kidding about the 5x10 @70% being brutal. I'm definitely ready for something else, but the program works well if you eat and put in the work.

(05-16-2017 01:11 PM)samsamsam Wrote:  Anyone have a good way of thinking about the extra calories needed to add muscle?

A rough estimate is that one pound of muscle requires 1500 extra Calories.

There are a lot of assumptions that go into that number, many of which are incorrect. But I think the incorrect assumptions do not bias the estimate one way or the other too much. So 1500 is probably roughly correct.

(05-22-2017 07:50 AM)Bland Wrote:  

(05-16-2017 01:11 PM)samsamsam Wrote:  Anyone have a good way of thinking about the extra calories needed to add muscle?

A rough estimate is that one pound of muscle requires 1500 extra Calories.

There are a lot of assumptions that go into that number, many of which are incorrect. But I think the incorrect assumptions do not bias the estimate one way or the other too much. So 1500 is probably roughly correct.

The amount of caloric material in a pound of muscle and the calories required to build it are different.

Go eat 1500 over maintenance across a week and see how much you gained. It will not be a pound.

They say it takes between 3500 and 4200 extra calories to build a pound of tissue. However, its kind of difficult to say how much is fat and how much is muscle. Even a genetically gifted and geared lifter isnt going to put on 100% muscle. There is going to be some fat stored. It all has to do with how well you train, your diet, rest, hormones, insulin sensitivity, ect...

However if I was going to make some generalizations, I'd peg a pound of muscular gain at 4000 calories (they used to say 3500 but a new study has shown somewhere near 4200 to be where its at). You'd want to divide that over how fast you estimate you're gaining muscle. So if you think you can gain 2 lbs of muscle a month (which is actually very respectable, thats 24 lbs a year, you'll look like a whole different dude if you gain 24 lbs of actual muscle), you better figure that you'll gain atleast a pound of fat with that. So you'd want to eat another 12000 calories over what you burn over the course of a month. So that'd be an extra 400 calories a day over that month.

In general, people overestimate how damn much they can gain in a month, and they underestimate how much they can gain in 3 years. A pound a month over 4 years will put you up two shirt sizes, and into a new bitch most likely.

(05-22-2017 09:12 AM)Steelex Wrote:  The amount of caloric material in a pound of muscle and the calories required to build it are different.

Yes of course.

Quote:Go eat 1500 over maintenance across a week and see how much you gained. It will not be a pound.

It's not possible to gain a pound of muscle over the course of a week. You'd probably gain mostly fat.

Quote:They say it takes between 3500 and 4200 extra calories to build a pound of tissue.

3500 Calories is for a pound of fat. Protein has 4/9 the energy content of fat. 3500*4/9~1500.

That's where my number comes from. Again, it's an rough estimate based on some faulty assumptions, but I think it's probably in the right ballpark.

Quote:You'd want to divide that over how fast you estimate you're gaining muscle. So if you think you can gain 2 lbs of muscle a month (which is actually very respectable, thats 24 lbs a year, you'll look like a whole different dude if you gain 24 lbs of actual muscle), you better figure that you'll gain atleast a pound of fat with that.

I agree with all of this.

2 pounds of muscle per month is a huge amount. Only starting lifters with good genetics or those on steroids can hope to achieve that.

I think one quarter pound to one half pound of muscle per month is a good goal for most lifters.

Thanks for taking the time to share Bland and Steelx.

A bit of a follow on. Let's say I lost a little strength, would it take less to get that strength/muscle back?

Or sort of the same calc?

I'm just trying to set some reasonable expectations with myself.

Thanks!

(05-22-2017 10:16 AM)samsamsam Wrote:  Thanks for taking the time to share Bland and Steelx.

A bit of a follow on. Let's say I lost a little strength, would it take less to get that strength/muscle back?

Or sort of the same calc?

I'm just trying to set some reasonable expectations with myself.

Thanks!

I don't have a scientific answer here, but to me it's seemed easier to regain than to gain it the first time around.

I think a lot of that has to do with your body holding onto the muscle, and then it takes a few workouts and a few weeks of heavy eating to fill out and get back to your former strength levels.

I did a cut a while back and lost a good bit of fat and a good bit of strength. After a couple weeks of eating big again my strength actually went back up and beyond where it was before the cut, even though I was 10 lbs lighter.

(05-22-2017 10:16 AM)samsamsam Wrote:  Thanks for taking the time to share Bland and Steelx.

A bit of a follow on. Let's say I lost a little strength, would it take less to get that strength/muscle back?

Or sort of the same calc?

I'm just trying to set some reasonable expectations with myself.

Thanks!

Everything I've read says that it's easier to recover muscle than to build it the first time.

However, I don't think that would affect your energy balance. I think it just means that your body is more likely to store excess Calories as muscle if it's replacing muscle that you've lost.

So if you're replacing lost muscle I would think the upper limit of pounds of muscle gained per month is closer to one half than one quarter and may be even above one half pound per month.

Another important thing to realize (which you may already know) is that strength and muscle are not one to one. Strength depends on both the cross sectional area of the muscle and the recruitment which depends on your central nervous system. When you lift you both increase the size of your muscles and increase the level of recruitment of your muscles.

So it's actually possible to gain or lose strength without adding or losing muscle mass.

PR'd my Squat tonight. 6 X 275. 3 weeks into my spring cut. Totally psyched.

I've got a concern for the lifting bros, sometime this year I will have to take out 4 wisdom teeth all at once. I am wondering how negatively will this impact my training? What about my eating?

I'm the type of person to lose weight easily if i'm not constantly eating.

(05-23-2017 08:06 AM)Oz. Wrote:  I've got a concern for the lifting bros, sometime this year I will have to take out 4 wisdom teeth all at once. I am wondering how negatively will this impact my training? What about my eating?

I'm the type of person to lose weight easily if i'm not constantly eating.

I had my wisdom teeth out and I don't remember any negative impacts on my training. This was several years ago so I can't be totally sure that I'm not forgetting a minor impact.

You should be able to eat certain foods right away so just eat enough of those foods to keep on your weight.

One other thing to note, I had laughing gas instead of anesthesia, so it's possible my recovery was quicker than normal. Anesthesia can sometimes cause nausea immediately after it wears off.

@Oz be prepared and you'll be fine. Plan on:

1. not lifting - so go balls to the wall before surgery.

2. drinking lots of shakes. When I got my wisdoms out I had a lot of ensure and chill-fil-a peach milkshakes. This was before I was a gym rat so I didn't know about protein shakes. Get a ton of whey, bananas, oats, gelatin, whatever and make huge delicious shakes you can eat all day.

That and lots of juice. You'll want your immune system to be strong AF so load up on the green vegetables and vitamin C.

The big problem with wisdom teeth surgery is you don't want to be lifting heavy and clenching your jaw, which will cause your stitches to burst.

I was eating solid foods within 16 hours of my surgery - probably a bad idea. But I didn't lift for a week.