For the discussion of bodybuilding and lifting for aesthetics.
6d ago Bodybuilding
@Kloi it all depends on your goal
Strength/power? Rest longer.
Leaning out/cardio effect/muscular endurance? Shorter breaks and supersets.
6d ago Bodybuilding
I religiously run 2 minute rest periods and the amount of times I've been told that's way too long! is easily in the two hundreds.
I've seen big mother fuckers cracking open books when they're pulling plates for big numbers because they're resting for five minutes
6d ago Bodybuilding
I’m a long way from being jacked, but when I was doing serious training last winter I used the timer on my phone when I was lifting. It’s very time consuming.
For example, if I was working on muscle endurance and hypertrophy, I would do three sets of twelve for each exercise at around 60% of my 1RM (fairly light). Each lift was two seconds “up” and four seconds “down” for twelve reps, followed by 30 seconds between sets. That went fairly quickly, and the hard part was not taking longer breaks between sets.
On days when I was working muscle strength and muscle power I would do three sets of five at around 90% of my 1RM. I still followed the 2/4 rhythm for my reps, but my time between sets was about two and a half minutes.
150 seconds just looking at your stopwatch app is a long time, and it’s very tempting to just say, Screw it: I’m going” after your breath recovers.
Read More6d ago Bodybuilding
@woodsmoke he might not have been taking longer breaks because of his age. Most people are shocked at how long the recommended breaks are when you get scientific about weight lifting.
Most people's instinct when lifting is to go again once they have recovered their cardio (breathing back to normal, heart rate down again) which is about 1 minute. But most heavy lifting programes will recommend rest periods of up to 5 minutes. (I don't do the 5 min breaks, because I simply do not have the time).
If this guy was as jacked as you say, and lifting 3x to 4x your weight, then its likely that he had been training 'heavy'.
1w ago Bodybuilding
I’m on the wrong side of 60. My strengths have always been my lower body and core. I’m a lightweight (although by October I may be a featherweight). When I’m in top shape I’m in the high 140s, and when I’m forced to be on the road I edge into the low 150s (which is where I am now since I just got back from yet another flurry of trips).
Early this year I topped 350 with a hex bar for a new PR. I also pushed 856 on the leg press (not a PR: I topped 1000 once several years ago for my lifetime 1RM). I squatted 265 last summer for a couple of reps. My upper body lifts are comical, though (bilateral GHJ deformities).
No way I could do any of that now. I hope I can make most of that back between now and the middle of October.
1w ago Bodybuilding
I find that as I get older it just takes longer to recover.
I remember several years ago I worked in with an older guy on something upper body. I got my reps in and stood aside to let him do his and he waved me off, told me pretty much exactly what you wrote above and said to do my next set once I was ready.
Dude was jacked, lifting easily 3-4x the weight I was, so it caught me off guard. I ain't exactly old now (certainly not by your standards), but I'm "getting there" enough that I'm starting to get it myself.
It's like Gramps always said: "Gettin' old ain't for sissies!"
1w ago Bodybuilding
I don't recall your age but boy do I fucking feel:
I find that as I get older it just takes longer to recover.
I find myself taking less risk with activities because we just don't heal the same.
1w ago Bodybuilding
Thanks. I’ve been pondering workarounds, and I was thinking along the same lines. I have one more mission coming up that goes into the middle of next week, then l’m done traveling until late October.
I figure I’ll just suck it up and let myself heal until I get back (less than two weeks from now), and try again. I find that as I get older it just takes longer to recover.
Assuming I can start back up soon, I hope to be able to get back what I’ve lost before I start traveling again.
1w ago Bodybuilding
So post hip surgery, like 3 weeks into recovery I got cleared for to run upper body and if you get creative you can still hit a solid push/pull day.
Might look goofy as fuck but it's worth it.
A lot of movements that I'd normally stand I'd do seated or movement with no feet planted like bench.
Pain in the ass but if you want to get in there, it's manageable.
1w ago Bodybuilding
Well this sucks.
I managed to screw up my ankle, and I’ve been sidelined for quite a while. I’m not certain what I did to cause this, but I suspect that it’s an overuse injury from cardio. I spent the past several months traveling with only short stays at home between missions. Combine that with some relatively minor thoracic surgery, and the weight room has been pretty much off limits to me for months.
Since I have to eat restaurant food when I’m away, and I didn’t want to just turn into a giant potato, I really ramped up my cardio. I don’t know if that’s the reason, but it’s the #1 suspect. Now my ankle is jacked up, and I can only perform upper body lifts that don’t require putting weight or torsion on my ankle until it heals.
I made some MAD GAINZ over the winter, and I suspect that I’ve lost all that and then some.
Oh well… first world problem, I guess.
I guess I should be grateful that I made so much progress over the years that even with my current predicament I’m still in better shape than most men twenty years younger than I am.
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