What did you do today?

Preworkout meal is usually oatmeal and whey protein. I drink Superpump for my preworkout drink, and I drink BCAAs during my workout. Post workout I have simple carbs plus whey protein.

 

Yep, that's the way to do it. Simple, but effective. I'm liking Jack3d and Phenom Amped for pre-workout these days.

Need to fix my shin splints. They arent REALLY bad, but are annoying.

 

I hope they go away after a few more weeks of running.

Need to fix my shin splints. They arent REALLY bad, but are annoying.

 

I hope they go away after a few more weeks of running.

 

 

What type of material are you running on/ what shoe are you using?

 

What type of material are you running on/ what shoe are you using?

 

Reebok is one of my clients, and gave me a pair of the new Zigtech shoes, and I am running on a treadmill. Again, I was severely out of shape when I started running 2 weeks ago. I now feel like Forrest Gump, but without the mental disability, and with shin splints.

 

 

Reebok is one of my clients, and gave me a pair of the new Zigtech shoes, and I am running on a treadmill. Again, I was severely out of shape when I started running 2 weeks ago. I now feel like Forrest Gump, but without the mental disability, and with shin splints.

 

Run forrest, run...

 

How does your foot hit the ground? Toe first? Heel first?

VBOX can you post your workout details please? I am looking to switch things up a bit. I am like you, have to eat a lot and train hard to gain, good part getting lean is pretty easy, beans had been the staple for that - give me couple of weeks and replace carbs with beans, and besides gallons of farts it's lean body time.

 

For before bed I used to do cottage cheese and it works fine but now have been putting away about 10-12 eggs daily, usually 4-5 before bed

 

On mondays we do chest/tris. Its always different, but we have been doing a lot of flat, incline, and decline barbbell presses. Lately we have been starting with a different lift each workout and working out way up to a max. After the max we will drop the weight down to a good solid weight and rep it out, then drop the weight 2 more times each time repping them out to failure. Then we will move onto another lift type and just go with a good solid weight for reps. By the end my tris are already pretty beat from the presses, but we will normally finish them off with skull crushers and cable press downs. Sometimes we will do weighted dips and pushups.

 

On tuesdays we work back/shoulders. Lately we had been doing a lot of weighted pullups and chinups, but recently we switched it up to body weight pullups and chinups. For pullups we always do full range of motion pullups where you go down until your arms lock out straight (aka deadhang). For chinups, I will stick with good range of motion, but I like to keep my lats tight for the whole set, so I dont go to dead hang. For shoulders we have been doing dumbbell shrugs, but because of my back I have to do 1 arm at a time and I hold onto the smith machine bar with the other hand and stand with my body at an angle sideways (to keep the pressure off my lower back). We will then superset a somewhat light barbell shrug in after each set. We also do a cable rope pull while sitting on a bench for more traps and rear delts. We also frequently do lateral dumbbell raises for medial delts and traps.

 

On thursdays we work abs/core/biceps. We do all sorts of different core excercies, like supermans, bridges, crunches, planks, etc. We always try to get a lot of weighted ab excercises in such as hanging leg raises, weighted decline crunches, seated cable wood choppers, ball crunches with band resistance. For biceps, I cant do anything standing because that would put a lot of strain on my back, so I do everything seated. I get a lot of bicep work on my back day, so we usually do just 2-3 different excercises for them along with the abs. Most often we will do seated incline dumbbell bicep alternating curls, 1 hand or 2 hand preacher curls, and bicep cable curls. For the bicep cable curls I will lay on my back/head on the bench and reach my hands up grab the bar that is attached to the cable and pull the bar down to my face in a curling fashion while keeping my elbows stationary. This keeps my back out of it and gives me a really good isolation.

 

On fridays we do legs. Legs are my biggest challenge since I cannot do any heavy squats or deadlifts whatsoever. I have to rely on my plate loaded leg press for my big heavy leg move, and lets face it, its not as good as squats/deadlifts. We do lots of sets and go as heavy as possible on leg press while varying my feet position. We keep my range of motion to a 90 degree bend in the legs, anything further and the lower back gets into the lift. We also do leg extensions and leg curls with either 2 legs or 1 leg. For calves excercises we do seated plate loaded calf raises, and standing dumbell weighted calf raises. Most of the time we start the workout with a couple of sets of body weight lunges (20 steps), and finish with a few sets of dumbbell weighted lunges (20 steps).

 

There are a lot of other things we throw in on these days to mix things up. My trainer is always varying the types of excercises, the order we do them, how much weight we use, the amount of reps, sets, rest between sets, and the speed of the reps. He will randomly throw in bands when you least expect it. He knows what my goals are, what my weaknesses are, and which muscle groups I am trying to bring up. I have a really long way to go, but I am stronger and have more muscle mass at 35 years old than I ever have. For reference, when I was a senior in highschool, I was 6'3 and weighed 130 pounds.

I wouldn't go so far as saying I know what I'm doing More like continuous experimentation, some days I feel great and go all out, some days I feel horrible and will just run to clear my mind.

 

I'd say if nothing else, being an ecto/meso morph is great. We get to eat quite a bit, much better than being blimpish and trying to slim down! However if you want to trade two inches of height for 10lbs of muscle let me know

 

I'm pretty similar with my approach to squats/deadlifts/military press. Long story short, the guy I used to lift with hurt his knee (freak running accident), so after that I became extra cautious. If it means stopping while running, so be it. sometimes it means no squats for a week or two, etc. I actually started to row as a means to get some cardio in, and give my knees a break.

 

Do you take Ice baths? I've found those are always helpful with pain. What other creative exercises are you and your trainer doing?

 

Side note: One person every athletic person should have in their lives, is a good sports masseuse. They do incredible work.

 

TopCarbon, what kind of heart rate monitor are you using?

 

Better to be Meso (you) than Ecto (me). I have no fluid in one of my lower discs, and if I was to even attempt to do heavy squats/deadlifts/military presses, I would go back to having really awful back spasms that leave you debilitated and off your feet for up to a week. Even regular standing for 30+ minutes makes my back hurt and feel tired and I need to sit down and stretch it. My trainer does ice baths, but for me, I dont need them as long as I dont do stuff to overly aggravate my back. My trainer is 43 and is huge into that mountain biking up mountains for 5+ hours type of stuff. When I first found out about my back (MRI), I was devasted. I had already given up running, and I thought I would have to give up working out as well. But my trainer and I put our heads together, and we figured out ways around most things. So I am very happy with the progress I have made, even though its not coming as fast as I would like.

There are a lot of other things we throw in on these days to mix things up. My trainer is always varying the types of excercises, the order we do them, how much weight we use, the amount of reps, sets, rest between sets, and the speed of the reps. He will randomly throw in bands when you least expect it. He knows what my goals are, what my weaknesses are, and which muscle groups I am trying to bring up. I have a really long way to go, but I am stronger and have more muscle mass at 35 years old than I ever have. For reference, when I was a senior in highschool, I was 6'3 and weighed 130 pounds.

 

Jesus man, nice job getting to where you are if that's the case. Weighted pulls are hard for sure. I did a "modified" P90x a couple of years ago and got really good at them, and now I like them. Funny thing, I just read in a M&F magazine that the average man can only do 1 pull up. Crazy. Legs are tough for me too with my height (at least that's my excuse). I don't do a lot of "real" squats either, as they're hard on my back. I'm still getting growth out of the hack squat and leg press though, so....

 

I'm about your height (and about to be the same age), and was always more meso than ecto when I was younger. I was 190 after finishing high school and have been really big before in college when I was trying to be huge like the rest of my fraternity. I sit at about 220-225lbs right now, and believe it or not, starting about 2 years ago, I actually started to lose weight unless I ate. I went out and got a bunch of wellness tests done and one of the things they did was test your resting basal metabolic rate, which helps to determine how many calories you should eat each day just to live. Mine was just under 3000. Funny enough, with all my supposed knowledge about fitness and nutrition, I was losing weight because I wasn't eating enough.

 

I feel like as I get into my mid- and late-30s that I can keep building lean mass and dropping bodyfat as long as my diet is in check. I've been 11.4% on a DEXA scan last summer, and would like to hit 10% by this summer. It's all about the food I eat for me though, and I love sugar and fast carbs of any kind...lol. Kind of a problem, but it just takes a little extra discipline to say no to that stuff.

 

Last thing for you Vboxking - I don't think many people have any idea how lean 5-7% bf really is. If you can see all abs, serratus, have veins popping below your belt line, striated lower back, etc. - you are in great shape. Well done - seriously.

Better to be Meso (you) than Ecto (me). I have no fluid in one of my lower discs, and if I was to even attempt to do heavy squats/deadlifts/military presses, I would go back to having really awful back spasms that leave you debilitated and off your feet for up to a week. Even regular standing for 30+ minutes makes my back hurt and feel tired and I need to sit down and stretch it. My trainer does ice baths, but for me, I dont need them as long as I dont do stuff to overly aggravate my back. My trainer is 43 and is huge into that mountain biking up mountains for 5+ hours type of stuff. When I first found out about my back (MRI), I was devasted. I had already given up running, and I thought I would have to give up working out as well. But my trainer and I put our heads together, and we figured out ways around most things. So I am very happy with the progress I have made, even though its not coming as fast as I would like.

I sit firmly in the middle of Meso and Ecto, but was gifted with similar back issues as yourself. In fact, by the time I was 21 I had already fractured both sides of my L5 vertebrae due to exercising/over-exercising. No impact events, or heavy lifting contributed. Not fun shit.

Lat pull down 5 sets 8 reps

Machine rows 4 sets 8 reps

Bent over row 2 sets 8 reps

Seated DB’s 4 sets 8 reps

Preacher curl standing 4 sets 8 reps

Standing DB’s 5 sets 8 – 30 reps

 

 

Does anyone have any suggestions on evening-out body mass?

 

Regardless of what I do, my right side is much more developed (back & lats in particular) from years of sports in my adolescence that favored that side.

 

I can get bigger without much issue, but I can't find a good way to balance out everything.

Jesus man, nice job getting to where you are if that's the case. Weighted pulls are hard for sure. I did a "modified" P90x a couple of years ago and got really good at them, and now I like them. Funny thing, I just read in a M&F magazine that the average man can only do 1 pull up. Crazy. Legs are tough for me too with my height (at least that's my excuse). I don't do a lot of "real" squats either, as they're hard on my back. I'm still getting growth out of the hack squat and leg press though, so....

 

I'm about your height (and about to be the same age), and was always more meso than ecto when I was younger. I was 190 after finishing high school and have been really big before in college when I was trying to be huge like the rest of my fraternity. I sit at about 220-225lbs right now, and believe it or not, starting about 2 years ago, I actually started to lose weight unless I ate. I went out and got a bunch of wellness tests done and one of the things they did was test your resting basal metabolic rate, which helps to determine how many calories you should eat each day just to live. Mine was just under 3000. Funny enough, with all my supposed knowledge about fitness and nutrition, I was losing weight because I wasn't eating enough.

 

I feel like as I get into my mid- and late-30s that I can keep building lean mass and dropping bodyfat as long as my diet is in check. I've been 11.4% on a DEXA scan last summer, and would like to hit 10% by this summer. It's all about the food I eat for me though, and I love sugar and fast carbs of any kind...lol. Kind of a problem, but it just takes a little extra discipline to say no to that stuff.

 

Last thing for you Vboxking - I don't think many people have any idea how lean 5-7% bf really is. If you can see all abs, serratus, have veins popping below your belt line, striated lower back, etc. - you are in great shape. Well done - seriously.

 

Thanks man. My RMR is around 3k calories as well. I was really lean in the summer, 6 pack visible without flexing, veins popping below the waist and in various places on my head, striations everywhere. At the end of my cut, my cheeks had sunken in, and my jaw bone/face was very angular. What's funny is, the more weight/body fat I lost, the more muscle definition I had, so people actually thought I was gaining weight and getting bigger. It's all about illusions. I have never done a dexa scan, few people have access to that. I have done several hydrostatic tests, and the best tool of all is the mirror.

 

 

and the best tool of all is the mirror.

 

 

Agreed.

I demand pics of Aaron! You must be the exact south african lookalike of my hero?!

Why can't I upload a pic!?

Better to be Meso (you) than Ecto (me). I have no fluid in one of my lower discs, and if I was to even attempt to do heavy squats/deadlifts/military presses, I would go back to having really awful back spasms that leave you debilitated and off your feet for up to a week. Even regular standing for 30+ minutes makes my back hurt and feel tired and I need to sit down and stretch it. My trainer does ice baths, but for me, I dont need them as long as I dont do stuff to overly aggravate my back. My trainer is 43 and is huge into that mountain biking up mountains for 5+ hours type of stuff. When I first found out about my back (MRI), I was devasted. I had already given up running, and I thought I would have to give up working out as well. But my trainer and I put our heads together, and we figured out ways around most things. So I am very happy with the progress I have made, even though its not coming as fast as I would like.

 

I feel your pain today. I had to shovel today, and my back is killing me now. Obviously it's nothing as serious as yours, but it puts into perspective what you do. Keep up the awesome work!

 

 

 

Yesterday I ran for a nice relaxed eight mile run. Today I'm relaxing after getting another foot of snow.

Run forrest, run...

 

How does your foot hit the ground? Toe first? Heel first?

 

Heel first then toe. I have VERY flat feet though. My ankles and knees are in bad shape as well as my left fibula which I broke 10 years ago. It still gives me pain to this day when I push myslef hard.

Heel first then toe. I have VERY flat feet though. My ankles and knees are in bad shape as well as my left fibula which I broke 10 years ago. It still gives me pain to this day when I push myslef hard.

 

You might overpronate. To be honest I have no idea of how good the Zigtech is as a shoe, but I do know the Mizuno Waves and Asics Kaynos are great shoes for the flat footed. I really do recommend going to a running store and have them find the optimal shoe for you. Usually they will let you take them for a quick run around the area too.

 

Personally though, if I were you I would run on the beach. Take it easy and enjoy it!

 

One thing I found good to do is this....

 

~ When you are sitting in your chair, place a ping pong ball 12 inches to the left of your left foot. Then pick up said ball with left foot, and place the ball next to your right foot. Then pick up the ball with your right foot....move it 12 inches to the right. Place it down, then pick it up with the right foot and start the process in the opposite direction.... basically your goal is to build the foot muscles.

 

I also like to use this

 

http://www.rei.com/product/706082

 

Awesome product, really helps your foot.

 

 

Final question, do your everyday shoes have support? Or are you rocking flip flops like everyone else in Florida?

 

I demand pics of Aaron! You must be the exact south african lookalike of my hero?!

 

Whos your hero?

Final question, do your everyday shoes have support? Or are you rocking flip flops like everyone else in Florida?

 

 

Thanks for the info. I am just starting to get back into it, and I want to make sure it is something I will stick to before I go out and purchase a ton of gear like I have in the past.

 

I typically change out my work dress shoes every 3 months or so as I destroy them from the amount of walking I do at work. I have a pair of dress shoes I only wear on the weekends, and I have another pair of Zigtechs and a pair of sandals i rotate on the weekends.

 

They do make sandals for flat footed folks. I need to look into them

Thanks for the info. I am just starting to get back into it, and I want to make sure it is something I will stick to before I go out and purchase a ton of gear like I have in the past.

 

I typically change out my work dress shoes every 3 months or so as I destroy them from the amount of walking I do at work. I have a pair of dress shoes I only wear on the weekends, and I have another pair of Zigtechs and a pair of sandals i rotate on the weekends.

 

They do make sandals for flat footed folks. I need to look into them

nothing is better than top equipment. If you run, buy the best running shoes you can afford. It mask a ton of difference.

 

today, skated 18 miles in one hour

Whos your hero?

 

I can't upload pics for some reason.

 

Slowpokes Hero

I can't upload pics for some reason.

 

Slowpokes Hero

i cant either

I can't upload pics for some reason.

 

Slowpokes Hero

A CGI'ed Gerard Butler is your hero?

Machine crunches

Straight barbell curls

dumbell curls

reverse grip barbell curls (forearms)

hammer curls

lat pulls

single dumbull kneeling lat workout (forget the name of it)