Fitness

I cannot actually believe that I have to say this in this thread.

# Reminder: If you are the kind of human Droopy Dog that likes to accuse people of taking steroids and lying about it , because your brain, body, and genitals are small, *please* feel free to do it so that we know you should be banned to keep our community free of your type of garbage.

OP dropped 20lbs while already having a fair amount of muscle, changed his posture to be more flattering and flexed a bit in his subsequent pictures. If you think this takes steroids your brain is fucking broken and you should give up on lifting.

purplespengler

Do you think someone can do this in 3 months without going through the divorce? I mean, it’s not a deal breaker but I kinda like my wife.

fatgirlsneedfoodtoo

>Depression due to inevitable pending divorce.

*cue soon to be ex’s regret*

Looking good broseph!

Little_Bed

When I first look at this, I thought this was completely bs but he doesn’t look like he gained much of muscle mass, just leaned out. So good for you man, that’s a hard journey. Hopefully you can maintain it!

purecalisthenics

What the fuck man. How on Earth. I can’t even shed a pound and what the actual fuck.

justmehaha34

Get stronger. Don’t lift so near maximal loads so often.

CaptivatedAudience

That just happens near max effort.

usernamecreationhell

That is a body’s pretty typical response to being near a max lift.

The fact that your entire body is shaking and not just your legs or arms might mean that your full body is fully engaged which would be a good thing.

Watch some videos of people PR’ing deadlift and you’ll see all kinds of shaking.

Be very aware of your form if you’re maxing out, and don’t try to max out every time you lift, you’ll eventually get hurt and won’t really achieve gains.

UncleLongHair0

Besides normal shaking from heavy weight due to grinding. The bar could be getting away from your body which makes you twerk on the bar.

Activate the lats and pull that bar through you to keep the bar close to your body as you rise.

darrylliu

Not sure if this is helpful at all but I have heard people will put on their 1 RM weight or higher for a lift then unrack the weight and just hold it for second or few seconds then re rack (or step out, setup with it then step back in, re rack).The idea is to let your body FEEL what that heavy weight is going to be like and how it feels to setup with your 1RM or more.

From what I understand is that it is “priming” your central nervous system. But is it a load of BS or not? I honestly do not know but it has helped me and it least seems logical.

Parting thought, when I do not setup well, brace enough or breathe correctly for setup it definitely throws me off enough for 1RM. Maybe just take more time to setup properly know exactly how you are going to do it.

Victor2Delta

I’m 55, started lifting when I turned 50. My son had a heart to heart with me and I lost 55 pounds and started strength training. I did Starting Strength. Added arms (don’t tell Riptoe) for looks. After about a year my wife was worried I was cheating on her because of my body transformation (I wasn’t and offered to go back to being a fat slob, she told me to keep training). Hit the thousand pound club at 52 1/2. I hurt my knee skiing and stopped deadlifting/squats for a while. I am back to powerlifting and back in the thousand pound club.

Best advice I heard is “listen to your body especially when it tells you what you don’t want to hear”. I found that I can not work out 3 days in a row, even with totally different muscle groups, I just get too fatigued and can’t function. Everyone is different and you need to find what works for you. but at 50 there is no reason you can’t lift heavy.

Good luck, it is a fun sport and has positively effected many aspects of my life.

Papdoc

This will be too long, but I hope it helps. I can’t answer your questions directly, I’m not qualified to do that, but I can tell you what I did.

I’m 55. Had a stroke 4 years ago. A mild one. Lost the use of my left arm and hand. Left leg was weak and I had a limp. Lost some vision in my left eye, and had trouble speaking for a few weeks. Yes, that was a MILD stroke.

So I went to rehab, and got better. In a few weeks I was back at work, able to drive, type, even went back to playing bass guitar (it’s good therapy).

After that I started working out at home with just dumbbells and bod weight exercises. Eventually put together a small home gym. Nothing heavy. No squat rack, no bench press, etc. Just dumbells, a bench, curl bar, tri/hammer curl bar, ankle weights, and a treadmill.

What I learned was this – commitment, form and light weights are the key to good health at my age. Do the exercise properly and never concern yourself with the number on the weight. It’s pointless.

Next is eating healthy (a lot) and resting (a lot). A good night’s sleep is your best friend.

About 4 months ago I joined Planet Fitness. Everyone hates on them, but they are perfect for me. I travel for my job, and there is always a PF open near me, 24/7. It has everything I need.

At the same time I downloaded a PPL program from here, or somewhere on the web, and started doing it. I modified it so it fits my schedule and abilities. I workout about 5 days per week with it.

I do squats, kneeling squats, and good mornings on the smith machine. I bench press and incline press on it. There are tons of videos out there that show the correct form and technique. It’s easy to learn, and hard to do.

In 4 months my progression has been amazing. Doing those compound lifts has done more for me in 4 months than anything I’ve ever done.

So my long-winded point – – your 52 ain’t old. You can build muscle and push your self. But stay in your lane (you know what I mean). I’m not in my 20s and my body tells me that every now and then. And it tells me with pain. If you want to add heavy weight, do it, but cautiously. Form and technique are everything.

Oh, and take rest days seriously. 🙂

I hope that helps you. And that I made some sense. 🙂

BradFlak

I came here to see what you were calling a “semi-advanced age” and had a good chuckle. Congrats on beginning a new journey!

mnemonicss

47 years old progressing slowly and doing full range of motion. Strongest I’ve ever been.

jgriggs828

You should attend a marathon to meet people that started running at age 70 because of a heart attack and now have done dozens of marathons and half-marathons. Meet those at 50 who weighed 400 lbs and started running to lose weight. Starting at 52 is nothing. Stop preparing your excuses in advance and get to work.

BlazingLadles

You have “muscle memory” from getting in shape in the first place. You’ll get back to where you were much faster than it took to initially get there.

limetaco675

Unless you’ve been lying in a hospital bed for months chances are you will retain some, if not, most of your gains and you’ll be able to bounce back without any problems.

Vindictus80

I said fuck it for 6 weeks, it hurt my soul and I knew I was over eating, but when things finally got back to normal I just went back to my routine. Life will always find a way to mess up your gym schedule, you just have to get back to it when you can and realize you didn’t lose as much as you thought.

SomeRandomGuyPDX

I’ve had 4 (1 major, 3 minor) surgeries in the past year for a tumor in my jawbone.

Each has put me out for 1-2 weeks.

My cardio always takes 3 or 4 weeks to get back but I’ve never noticed any strength loss

bonerdude420

I am struggling. I have no motivation. Let me know your tips when you find some good ones.

DrSixtyNine

See if you have an indoor climbing gym nearby. I know that’s where I’ve seen those ladders before. They should at least be able to point you in the right direction.

uhduhnuh

Swedish ladder or stall bars maybe?

ghostmcspiritwolf

They were probably campus rungs like what you’d find in a rock climbing gym.

TakeshiFallout

A Jacob’s ladder would have been my first thought.

Black_Sunrise92

It sounds like you’re describing those things we have at the climbing gym. I think they’re campus ladders.

You’ll find one of these in any half decent climbing gym. I use them often to train my grip and increase my climbing.

Snowbattt

Don’t get me wrong you look really good and did a great job but are you sure that’s 10% BF? I always thought 10% would be like crazy ripped with barely any body fat at all.

Either way, this is truly motivating and inspiring great job dude keep it up

CaliCrunch

Great job! Really visible progress over a relatively short period of time, you really worked hard and it shows. 👍

thien7734

Nice cock dude

JuicyChairs

Good work ! Amazing progress but like others have mentioned that isn’t 10% BF at 164lb. Looks more like 15%

ddarrko

My man, just what I needed.. never been above 200 but stuck in this 187-194 range for a minute lol gives me hope!

Kiddsoles

Lateral delts are tiny muscles. They don’t need heavy weight. I’d be surprised if you ever go much heavier than 20 lb on them. I’m not sure I ever have.

CaptivatedAudience

There is literally almost no reason to ever go heavy on these. Not every movement is about MOVE AS MUCH WEIGHT AS POSSIBLE.

Context just so you know i’m not some tiny guy spewing shit:
My Bench: 425
My Incline DB work: 115s for 5 sets of 8
DB OHP work: 100s 5 sets of 8

My lateral raises: 20s for 5 sets of 15 or 25s for 5 sets of 10

I’m fairly certain I have a submitted pic in my profile on here that shows my shoulders are not smol.

ShutUpAndDoTheLift

Like stated, the delts/ upper delt is relatively small, but also you are at a severe mechanical disadvantage holding the weight with an outstreched arm. In addition to that, you usually only have the option to increase 5 lbs at a time and going from 20 to 25 is is a 25% increase, which is huge. IMO 15-30 lbs is very normal for working sets. I think the best way to increase would be adding more and more reps as you can then up the weight and drop the reps rinse and repeat. I tend to stick with high reps of lat raise because my form breaks down pretty bad when I go heavy.

AverageOnAGoodDay

Have you ever tried lifting a person directly in front of you with your arms fully outstretched? Much harder than when you bring your arms in closer and try to lift them, right? It’s (mainly) a question of physics/leverages.

Lateral raises have you moving weight about as far away from your body as possible, which makes it harder to overload by adding weight. The best bet is to overload by increasing reps/sets.

ballr4lyf

10lbs to 20lbs is a 100% increase in weight! It’s much more impressive than going from a 100lbs bench to a 110lb bench.

Think of the increases in terms of % and not so much pounds. Lateral delts are small muscles, *and* the fact that you have a whole ton of leverage working against you… yeah it’s hard to do much weight. Even compared to something like DB shoulder presses, you won’t be able to do too much weight.

Micro-loading seems to be the answer. Increasing the weight on your 20lbs lateral raises by 10% to 22lbs, is like increasing your 100lb bench press by 10% to 110lbs.

AlbanianDad

Really a lot of bad advice in this post.

1. There’s a vast difference between Couch to 5k and this plan. You say someone should be able to run 3 miles straight (with no pace indication) and then proceed to have them run 5 miles at a 7:00 pace in week one. For most people that will take months of training after couch 2 5k.

2. Most of your paces are aggressively fast and the distances too short. Maybe you made it through this program without getting injured, but it is just way too much intensity for this goal pace.

3. A 9 mile 6:30 pace a week before the race is not a good idea.

4. Your carb-loading protocol is a good way to shit your pants during the race. By all means load up on veggies and fruits the week of a race, but the previous two days diet should be as close to normal as possible.

I know this is harsh, but you shouldn’t be recommending habits that will lead people to injury.

Hooty_Hoo

Nice work! Way to make a plan and implement!

no-fear-cavalier

Overall, very solid. I’m a huge proponent of getting to 30 mpw; it really seems to be a common tipping point where people go from struggling to get through runs to actually training. Training is really heavy on tempo runs – that month four has you doing three days of half marathon pace in a row. That’s rough. I generally recommend an easy/recovery day after a long tempo like any of those runs.

> I suggest your last long run should be at 6:30 pace for 9.5 miles (or 15km) a week before!

That’s also really aggressive. Typically a 1:30 half marathoner wouldn’t be able to do that in a race effort, let alone as a long run. If you run a 1:30 half, 6:30 would be an expected 10k race pace.

Big fan of the rotational core aspects in the core training that you have too. That’s an underlooked aspect of core and really important in running. A lot of form breakdowns result from issues there.

PrairieFirePhoenix

I’d love to do something like this but I f*ed my knees up in the Army. Cardio is something I don’t get to do much of and I hate it.

Justin-six

This is wild. I’m the same height as you but weigh 165, but I look like your before pic at 190 lol. I think I should lift more weights or something.

thekidbjj2

Awesome pics. Great size. Look thick. Solid. Tight. 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.

webistheway

Really good progress!

IsmailGuendogan

Your hard work and healthy diet are definitely paying off! Best thing you can do for yourself! 👍👍👍

gzehren

Oh yes, among all the serious complications of low T like depression, mood swings, fatigue, unexplained weight fluctuations, and sexual dysfunction, there’s also the secret most dangerous symptom: failing to meet your unrealistic gains expectations.

Seriously, you look fine and your progress is good. If you feel fine, you have no reason to freak out over a number. If you go down the path you’re pursuing, it has huge risks, and right now you can choose to be the guy at 25 who is absolutely jacked and looks back and laughs at 19 year old you for freaking out and self-diagnosing himself, or you can be 25 and have permanently damaged your body’s natural hormone creation and be stuck on hormone therapy for life.

branyk2

Nice progress, dude! This is the right age to make this lifestyle routine. Find a workout and diet that is manageable and keeps you stable (tweak as needed) and your future self will thank you endlessly. Keep it up!

AureliusCM

If you allowed yourself enough time to recover, yes.

It also wouldn’t be 100% more gains.

Pacman1up

I switched from a 4 day to a 6 day program and am seeing slow and steady strength and aesthetic gains, I started sleeping ~9 hours a night which felt pretty critical to the success

BlueFiSTr

From what I understand volume is more important than frequency.

So if your 6 day split is equal in weekly volume with your 3 day split, you probably wouldn’t see any significant increase in muscle growth.

However, more frequent training almost always coincides with greater volume, so yes.

wubbzywylin

Growth is a three part thing, nutrition, work, and rest. If you’re giving your muscles enough recovery time before working them again, and you’re working them properly when you do, you’ll see more muscle growth than working them less often.

WyrmKin

Yes, you most likely would. That being said everyone is different. Muscle formation only occurs when you allow them to heal/rest. Nutrition pre and post and maintaining your electrolytes would be important but you said that so you already know.

That being said, I feel like once the initial shock of the increased lifting was over, you might stagnate as your body would be in constant stress mode and not hitting enough recovery.

Track reps/weight to see if you’re increasing your strength, stats don’t lie. If you plateau, back off some.

A hard workout is better than a half ass one any day so if your ability to “go all in” decreases due to working on tired muscles than I’d slack off. And maybe look at 4 or 5 days per week vs the 6 to you find what works for you.

miss_runningshoes