Haven't used one - here's a link that might help. https://www.roguefitness.com/conditi...acobs%20Ladder

I did one at the state fair. That MFer was impossible!

Looks like a bitch can't wait to try it

JFC, that thing costs $6500.

That's what I'm saying

Scored a Craigslist find today. X-mark plate loaded last pull down and low row. Came with a ton off attachments too. It was a couple years old and in fantastic shape.

Just waiting for the rack. Need to grab stall mats for the floor and start grabbing plates.

After a night of drinking (10-12 beers) do you guys workout the next day? Weights, not cardio…..

Yes, may need a barf bag nearby but if it is a lifting day then lift.

Yes I try to power through doing something.

But I'm so old and scheduled now, that my drinking day is usually always followed by a scheduled rest day from the gym anyway. No more random drinking days anymore. Sigh.

Getting old sucks!

Found a source at the gym. I go to a small gym at 5 am and this other guy and I have been talking for the past few months about training and such, both similar age. I could tell he was "on" as he was blowing up fast. We got to talking about the legality of steroids and TRT clinics. He said he was using Test first but he was putting on weight/bloat too fast so he switched to Tren. He offered me 6 bottles of Test for free. lol.

I have no experience in this area at all, I've always been natural. My plan is to go to a clinic next year for a full hormone workup. Things really do just feel different over the past few years and I'd prefer to do this the legal route if needed but free Test for some small cycles is enticing.

Test is really all you need at the start anyway. 400 mg a week for 12 weeks will blow you up. First cycles are awesome...plan it out and don't waste it.

Worst part is pinning followed by feeling like back in jr high with the non-stop stiffy that pops up for no reason and at the most inconvenient times.

if you want to blast check out r/Testosterone/ . A lot of people there blast and can give some decent suggestions if needed.

Look forward to making Lew rage and break his keyboard

Nah, test is pretty nice in that regard and it generally makes you feel good, not ragey (unless you are already one of those rage assholes).

Only concern I have it not being able to fit in all my new dress shirts I've recently purchased. ROFL

Yeah that could be weird. I could probably get my wife to do the pinning.

I still want to do the legal TRT route soon too. I just know how good people say they feel on Test as it's mood enhancing, not aggression boosting like so many people think. My biggest drawback is the history of hypertension that runs in my family and that I've been treated for a decade for already. It's under control with medication but it is worrisome adding something like this.

If your current meds control your BP OK then you should be fine. It can also make your cholesterol increase as well so you might have to treat that later.

I am on a half dose of Benicar and low does of Crestor and both stay completely in check.

As far as pinning I alternate quads. It is uncomfortable the first few times but quickly becomes part of routine.

Aren't u at a bigger risk for cancer (and some negative cardiovascular events) if you supplement with Testosterone? I know it doesn't cause cancer but so many ppl have cancer and walk around years and years before they even know it. The worry would be cancer blows up to a stage that is no longer easily treatable.

Pardon my ignorance..been out of the real workout game for a decade now.

Test may raise the risk a little but HGH is the one that will cause cancer to take off rapidly if you already have it manifested in your body.

Keep us all posted on your continued progress with any new progress pics or vid clips. Show us what you got man. Wanna see how freakn' huge, solid, thick and tight you can get. Thanks for the motivation.

Not going to happen with just Test.

Yeah, I'm just looking for a little boost and some added muscle. Not wanting to do anything crazy at this point in my life.

Cardo events? That's debatable if you are just doing physiological amounts with TRT. You'd be at no higher risk than n average Joe with normal test levels.

Bodybuilder cycle dosages? Yes, much more cardiovascular risk. Cancer, not so much aside from prostate, but the risk there is easily monitored via PSA. Overall, there are tons of ways to monitor what is going on through blood work and there is no excuse to let it get out of hand. It's easy enough to avoid or head off if you pay attention and take care.



The cancer risk comes from GH and resulting increases in IGF-1, which causes hyperplasia in all available cells, including any cancer cells that might be present. It doesn't actually create new cancer, but it dramatically speeds the growth od anywhere cancer that does happen to be already present.

Well tight enough to a layman if he keeps e2 under control. Maybe not to IFBB standards without mast or winny or something.

What are your big 3 lift number at now and what are your goals?

I lift 4 times a week as well trying to cut some more working on the deficit goal is 2,300 cals a day. Is this adequate for cardio?

Steps isn't a good measure of cardio. Get yoru heart rate elevated for 20 minutes a day and you are good as far as keeping your heart and lungs healthy.

If you are looking to cardio to cut then you are wasting your time. Lift more. A moderate 10 minute lifting session burns more calories than a 30 minute jog.

I walk a few miles every day though isn't walking still considered cardio?

Yes, but if you are looking to increase caloric output in order to cut down on BF then it isn't the best option.

Reduce calories and increase caloric output via resistance training will work much faster and efficiently.

Anyone read any credible information related to the age when max presses might become more risk than reward? Obviously, max presses are fine in your 20s. I assume max presses would be a bad idea in your 90s. So where is the line more or less where potential risk starts to outweigh potential gain? 50-something? 60-something?

Basically, starting to wonder how much longer I can play around with programs like the "Russian Bench" program and/ or the 5.3.1 program.

EDIT: Just to be clear, I plan to do resistance training forever. Just wondering if/ when I should modify the programs to less weight, more reps.

Most of your training should max at 80-85% of your max. Doesn't matter the age.

No reason to max out on a regular basis at any age. The younger you are the more you can get away with it but it still isn't the best thing to do.

I’ve got about 15lbs of winter fluff I need to lose but I’m the least motivated I’ve ever been to lose it. I’m filling out shirts nicely and people have said I look bigger but that muffin top be present with that shirt off! ROFL

I've dropped 30 lbs since Christmas, but the little bands of fat on my lower chest/armpits and lower back are being bitches. Abs are coming out and legs are pretty ripped, but it all looks goofy because of those stubborn areas.

Curious what calories and foods you eat every day? How low do you run your carbs?

You burn 300 calories lifting for 10 minutes? I don't think so.

I lost 100 pounds after my surgery 4 years ago. I gained about 20 back over the past 18 months or so. However, in the past month I've been losing again slowly. I'm down 20 from 6 months ago which means I'm back to the original 100 pounds I lost.

I'm not doing anything different either, so it's kind of weird.

Calories are pretty low now. I'm at 1800 calories. 200g of pro. The carbs and fats are interchangable as long as it fits into my macros. I don't go too low on either, and I avoid sugar of course.


Every day foods are grilled chicken, eye of round steaks, 90/10 ground beef, egg whites, oatmeal, jasmine rice, black beans, diet cokes, and sugar free jello.. I'll mix in other random things that fit in under the daily caloric total, as long as I met my protein goal. Sometimes I'll throw in a protein shake, but I prefer to eat my calories on a cut to stay full.

How spread out are your 200g of protein? Your body can really only process 30g or so at a time so you need to spread out your servings to get the full effect.

i eat like 6 times a day

Perfect.

I'm not a workout warrior or health nut by any means - many, many CP'ers have more experience there than I do.

But I do follow a specific nutrition schedule that was prescribed by a weight loss surgeon so I have experience there.

The thing about eating frequently and on schedule is that you never give yourself time to get overly hungry, which leads to bnging and cravings for bad foots. Eat like it's your job, not as a recreational activity. It's 10:00, time to eat a piece of chicken and a little bit of rice. If you plan, prep, and know what's in store for the day, you don't leave room for bad decisions.

Routine, routine routine. Build it it becomes part of you, good or bad. Your choice which routine to build.

People tell me all the time they don't see how I can have the discipline I have ( And I am far from perfect) like I'm some kind of freak, I just have been doing the routine for so long I feel off if I deviate for very long.

My favorite is when people say something to the effect it must be easy for you thats why you can do it. No its not easy its years of being focused on the results. Nobody likes getting up at 4:30 to work out or run. Or doing it after work etc....they like it after the work is done though.

My wife always tells me that it's easy for me because I'm on testosterone. No, it's not easy, but it's possible because I pay attention to what I'm doing and I don't eat bags of candy when I'm at work.

I just got a bike the past week riding the **** out of it has been along of fun good for fitness as well

...and it's a great way to stay in shape

https://youtu.be/tY6ddgTUsYY

I have been rowing recently. I just need a solution to my garage cooling. I think I need to bite the bullet for a ductless mini split.

Let's talk about chicken. How do you season it and cook it? Any low calorie sauces you put on it?

I'm gonna pull the trigger on an Ebike soon. Fuk all the pedaling!

I need to regain some muscle mass.

I had the brilliant idea of trying to carry my 350+ pound fwb on my back a few weeks ago. Didn't work out and my back hurt for about a week.

I've got no numbers to back it up, but maxing out just doesn't seem prudent, IMO.

Obviously there is always an element of wanting to push yourself in the gym, but this thread is a great cautionary tale. It's a bunch of old broken dudes who once deadlifted 400 lbs lol

I know you didn't ask me but I use this stuff quite a bit. Its not awesome but for what it is its pretty damn good. You can get it on Amazon. Also FWIW I cook all my chicken on my Traeger with some Dano's seasoning.

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/...SY611SH20_.jpg

Typically I marinate in italian dressing for 24 hours, butterfly it, and grill it hot and fast (high heat, 4 minutes per side). Sometimes I'll do unmarinated and leave room in my diet plan for some BBQ sauce. If I'm really going hardcore, I'll do plain and dip it in yellow mustard.


Sometimes I'll use Walden Farms calorie free BBQ sauce. It tastes OK considering it's calorie free, but it's expensive as hell. I really like the Walden Farms calorie free syrups - they go very well on egg white french toast.

Rebuilding the muscle breakdowns from a lifting sessions consumes more calories over more time than recovery from a jog.

The more muscle the more calories burnt while sitting still.

Can just go cheep and get a cooler, fill it with ice and have a fan blow across it.

Even better is to just suck it up and suffer. Will be miserable while doing it but will condition your body more.

Cooking in coconut aminos is good. Very similar to soy but fewer calories and much less sodium.

I also like to just throw a 10 breasts or so in the crockpot and cover with salsa or broth with cumin and garlic. Makes terrific tacos/burritos.

That’s not a bad idea. I can freeze 4 one gallon water jugs, and have the fan blow those, then just put them back in the freezer

I may give that a try

I live in AZ, and the garage gets insane in the summer. I am sure 110 plus.

If you want to have some DYI fun.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FS2YaJkkHQY

Yea I understand how all that works but the idea you can burn, lets say 300 additional calories conservatively, from a 10 minute workout is a stretch to say the least.

I am in no way arguing that the more muscle you have the more calories you burn when recovering or not lifting etc...I'm not debating that you shouldn't lift, ( I lift 3-4 days a week) but I would argue all day long you will burn more calories lifting and doing cardio than just lifting which is essentially what your claim is.

I also understand that the fat burning heart rate zone is in the 100-110BPM range which is where you reside more in hard lifting than running so you can actually burn more fat lifting than running, but not straight calories.(lets not get into running when fat adapted as that changes the whole scenario).

I know this for a fact as I used to lift a lot more than I do today, probably 4 hours a week or so, and as I got older the only way to shed weight was to add in cardio. I now lift for about 2 hours a week and do cardio and am almost as strong but way leaner than I was in my 20's. I could be stronger if I focused on that but that's not my goal.

I fully understand some people hate cardio but the idea its not effective or as useful as just lifting isn't accurate.

Do you listen to the Huberman Lab Podcast by any chance? He has some great stuff on there. His series with Andy Galpin has a ton of good data and info on workouts and nutrition etc...

Not ineffective just not the most effective.

For burning calories lifting is going to always exceed cardio but as you noted if age or other reasons mean you can't lift like when younger then you have to supplement with more cardio.

Hate on cardio is real for many, but it can't be left out either. If you push weight to make chest, arm, legs, etc stronger then only an idiot is going to ignore the exercises to make the most important muscle stronger.

I am fighting this battle with my 16 year old. he only wants to lift but no cardio. Doesn't understand that just doing something minimal like riding the fan bike will benefit him in the long run.

Is that a free podcast? Ill take a listen unless it costs $.

I feel like for most people, the idea that lifting will always burn more calories than cardio only extends to how often you should be lifting... I've stuck to 3 days/week for a few years and I know as you get more advanced you'll potentially lift 4 or 5 (or 6?) days a week.

At some point you can't just say, lift in the morning, then replace that afternoon jog with more lifting... and instead of cardio on your off day, just lift more.

I think that's the point being made, outside of age or whatever.

Its 100% free, his goal is actually to make free fitness and health advise available to people. He is a scientist at Stanford. He is a wealth of knowledge but he also has some super super great resources on his podcast like Andy Galpin and Peter Attia.

I encourage everyone in this thread to give it a listen though I know there are many podcast on the topic of health and nutrition this is the one I seem to keep going back to.

https://hubermanlab.com/

Lifting alone will never burn more calories than lifting + cardio, its just simple math.

I wouldn't argue that if you are starting out from scratch and could only do one thing, lifting is the most beneficial. Once you get into reasonable type of shape adding cardio then becomes a force multiplier.

The most accurate answer IMO is find something you like to do whether its cardio, lifting, cross fit, whatever, and you will more likely stick to it. Not everyone is the same and if you hate the exercise you wont stick with it, no matter what it is. So I always say the most effective work out is the one you will enjoy enough to keep doing it.

Just 15 minutes of exercise a day can have a huge effect on health and life expectancy.

This sounds awesome definitely checking it out

Well for one, cardio builds endurance.

It doesn't do you any good to be strong enough to lift a car if you can't lift your own body afterwards...

So you think you know more than a 16 year old? ROFL

I get what everyone is saying. I am thinking more on the idea of an addition to an existing workout to burn some more calories vs creating a new plan or just starting out.

Throwing in an extra session of heavy core or compound lifts is more effective and an easier recovery than 30 minutes of knee and lower back destroying running/jogging.

If I were to add extra cardio it would be bike or swimming. Just to save joints from the extreme impacts from jogging/running. Swimming would be most efficient.

You are sleeping on rowing. Low impact, total body.

I row for about 15 minutes 3 days a week, and do strength training 3 days a week.

I really need to nail down my diet. That’s my big struggle. I need to start at least tracking protein.

This is correct. Other than ego no real reason to do it. Keep it a weight where 8-12 reps is near failure.

For some lifts like squat and dead lift I shoot for 6-8.

If you are aging and natural, that weight will go down with time. If you are younger aim to progressively increase the weight or reps to hypertrophy.

Breaded chicken kicks ass

I usually only eat once, maybe twice a day. Not by choice i just don't get hungry. When I do get hungry I am ravenous and get my days worth of nutrients in. I force feed myself a couple of scoops of protein throughout the day to get that spread out.

I wish weed gave me an appetite.

Just finished the first 30 days of my latest P90X 3-month body reset. Doing the diet too. Eating mainly chicken breasts and steamed veggies.

I'm just a hair over 6 ft and I've dropped from 204 to 193 so far, and that's with a little added muscle. In the past the weight has really started coming off in days 30-90, so I feel like I'm headed in the right direction. That's also when most of the muscle-building happened.

Hoping to drop about 25 more while putting on about 10 more lbs of muscle. Went from 203 to 178 the last time I did the full 90 days with the diet, so that's what I'm using for a benchmark this time.

Try MK-677. It's actually a ghrelin receptor agonist (In other words, it causes a false hunger response).

Hmmm

Putting on that much muscle mass while simultaneously losing weight seems unlikely when natural.

Congrats on the body recomp, but P90x never struck me as being optimized for gains. It’s more for functional strength and athleticism. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

One can definitely gain some muscle while cutting, but your deficit needs to be minimal. Most people lose minimal weight while “main-gaining” because their muscle gain is mostly balanced with fat loss, so they maintain somewhat weight neutral.

Is your goal to lose weight, or to put on muscle?

I have learned to hard way that your attention to your macros needs to match your effort in the gym.


Sorry if I am giving unwanted advice.

Somebody tell me the secret to gaining/maintaining muscle while losing fat.

Never had an issue keeping weight off til about a year ago. Now it's getting tough. I could probably drop the belly fat pretty easily but I don't want to be scrawny and I definitely don't want to be one of those skinny-fat guys.

Low calorie but high protein diet, do an even split of lift days/cardio days. Eat a lot during lift days, but nothing too crazy. Then eat less during cardio days. That is the key in my opinion. This way you will build muscle during certain days of the week and then lose weight the other days. I'd also recommend doing a 24-hour fast once every two-weeks if you can pull it off. Just make sure after it is over you don't overeat.

Not going to beat around the bush - it's tricky and not for everyone. It takes a lot of hard work and dedication but it can be done.

The diet and split of lifting/cardio days is what I've tried to do, but I haven't been consistent. Haven't tried eating less on cardio days. That's interesting.

I've been lacking motivation lately (but still dragging my ass to the gym at least a couple times per week), so I was research drop sets last night... the consensus seemed to be there isn't a ton of research out there, but can be used sparingly.

And using the same general math that I've done for sets per muscle per workout and per week, I was needing more leg sets anyway and don't have much time to do several more sets with breaks.

Did my normal leg routine and just added a couple drop sets at the end of each thing during the last sets... if nothing else, it's a nice way to empty the tank at the end of a workout. Feels good, might not be able to walk tomorrow.

Yeah, I'm sure I've given my 2 cents on p90x before, but I think it would need to be modified quite a bit for most people to get a lot of benefit from it... basically apply progressive overload and then cut back a ton on the smaller muscle movements (there's zero need for 100 curls per workout). It's thorough in terms of hitting every muscle group, and the plyo is insane, but far more endurance-based out of the box and never helped me progress to doing more and more pull-ups and those types of movements.

I personally don't track weight... I'm no expert, but believe there's a lot of misconception around body composition, especially if you're seeing drastic changes on the scale. You'll shed 10+ pounds of water weight and then "plateau", or start gaining it back, and so forth... I think taking measurements would be more accurate as long as you're consistent on when you do them, if you want to know you're growing your arms or whatever... but I don't worry about it, because the results are in the progressive overload.

Exactly right.

When I was losing weight, my lifts were going up, but what I was mainly seeing is increase definition from weight loss. My main gains were from learning how to lift rather than hypertrophy. My weight has been consistent or maybe slightly going up for the last four months, and my muscles have definitely gotten bigger.

I don’t think that matters. Hit your protein goals and be a slight caloric excess.

There is a reason that in general people cut, bulk, repeat. It works better. And the math is simpler.