The Official Gym & Fitness Thread

I'm already sick of cutting weight... It's amazing how much less energy I have while training. Hopefully I adapt to the deficit soon, but this fucking sucks.

 

You got it man.

 

Are you carb cycling? I found that helped a bit when cutting for the heavy work days.

 

Yeah I am. But I'm not getting my 500g of carbs like I was lol

 

500g?! Holy fuck lol. You’re lean for eating that much.

 

Yep usually had 475-525g carbs on deadlift and strongman events days. Now I'm down to around 150g or less on off days and 275g on training days. Basically all my carbs are from my meal right before training, intra drink, and right after so that helps.

Weighed in at my last comp at 298lb in shorts Mar 21st. This morning I was 284lb nekked. S4 and GW seems to be working thus far, but I also drop weight fast when I cut carbs so it may just be that. Main reason for the SARMs is to keep muscle mass, I'll know if that's working when I get my next dexa scan in June.

 

*giggles in 540g carbs daily while maintaining 185lbs*

 

*cries in literally dirty bulking and eating everything he can but stuck around 215lbs with a shit deadlift*

 

Serious yet kinda BS post. TRT/“steroids” helps with recovery , right? They don’t necessarily make you stronger. They just help your muscles heal faster. While the normal person muscles would do a lot of recovering while sleeping.
Would Test help someone with a hectic schedule recover while running on little sleep?

 

No. Sleep and nutrition are far more important than anything else. If your sleep and recovery sucks it doesn't matter how much test you're on.

Get your sleep and nutrition spot on before even considering test. And by spot on I mean many months of discipline and focusing on prioritizing the two.

Also "steroids" and "trt" are completely different things. Trt is usually a dose that puts low T men at or around the average test level of men your age, while steroid use puts you way beyond and includes multiple types of injectables and orals.

Go get your total and free test checked and see where you are. If you aren't low you'll know quick if it has anything to do with your test levels.

 

You know why they don’t like throwing rice for weddings anymore because birds will eat it, the rice will expand in their stomach and they’ll explode?

That is what would happen to me on 500g of carbs a day.

 

Sounds like you should clean up your diet. That extra fluff may be fucking with your leverages for deadlift.

 

I wish that could be the excuse but it was weak before the fluff too lol.

 

Yeah it was just a conversation and curiosity thing. I had an offer to go back to my 40 hour job that was 10 minutes from the house which means all the sleep and proper diet but the money from this gig is helping a lot for getting on top of life so strongman is taking a backseat.

 

This. Also, gear increases protein synthesis, which results in greater muscle mass and increased strength. In addition to increasing the size of muscle fibres they also increase the number of them too.

The way you’ve worded it above almost makes it seem like a natural lifter, given the right recovery, could achieve the same results as an enhanced lifter. This is not possible...


And in the weight gain, I have found it is rarely linear...my weight stalls and then jumps when I am bulking

 

Welcome to my world lol! I work 24 hour shifts (sometimes up to 72 hrs!), typically 3 times a week and for all intents and purposes, I'm pretty much awake for the entire shift. My workouts suffer greatly from it and I find it difficult to string together multiple constructive workouts and plot progression, but I'm here to tell you that IT IS POSSIBLE! It's taken me a while but I've been able to dial in auto-regulation and make it work. I could honestly write 6-8 paragraphs on what I've learned through the process but for everyone else's sake i'll spare the novel.

To continue on the recover stuff... like Travis is saying, you've got to maximize everything else before considering other options. Trying to add in gear is only going to give you more variables to juggle and make your body's reaction much harder to predict. Like with the recovery issues; I can't count on regular sleep so I try and eat well (so hard to resist all the carbs when you're sleep deprived), continue my workouts as best as I can, keep hydrated, and keep close tabs on my bloodwork. Just learning that I needed to supplement my diet with extra Vitamin D and B12 has made a huge difference. Also making sure what little sleep I do get is optimized- dark room, getting rid of excess blue light, no distractions, 1-2mg of melatonin, etc... I can't predict my sleep schedule but I can control other variables and find a workable solution.

Strongman is hella fun and all, but sometimes life has other priorities in store for us

 

Not everything can be prioritized at one time and thats OK.

 

Yeah my bad. The natty guy, given the same sleep, diet, and genetics as non natty will always have less results.

I'm more saying if you can't get your diet and recovery right then adding gear is gonna be trash and do more harm then good long run. Top level strongman aren't where they are because they eat like shit, recover like shit, but take grams of tren. Granted, the grams of tren make a huge difference but if that's all it was down to then these guys wouldn't be dedicated to strict diets and recovery regimes... Doing gear right is a big commitment and takes a shit load more discipline than just going to the gym 3-4 days a week. Especially in strongman.... Your life will begin to revolve around cycle timing for shows and you'll schedule everything around when you're on or off lol

Also, if you can't be disciplined enough to get diet and recovery right, or if training isn't what's most important in your life then gear is pointless. You wouldn't go buy $20,000 worth of guitars but make practicing/learning to play your last priority lol same with gear. Why spend the money, take the risk, deal with the side effects, and all that jazz for something that's not your main passion?

When diet, training, and recovery are top priority to you then it's time to try gear. Or you know blast some tren a few times and then look back like "damn was my titties dripping milk and losing my hair really worth it for something I don't have a passion for anymore"?.... I know LOTS of dudes like that lmao

 

I totally agree with what you typed, I was pointing to WelderTaco's mention that gear is something that is limited to helping recovery, sorry for the confusion, but it looks like it spurred a great post so...

As you point our, gear is serious stuff that can and will make changes to your body, some of which are irreversible. I believe it's possible to do safely, but I also know guys who have gone a dark route...

 

Yep. And the ones who don't do it safely are always the ones looking for quick gains with no discipline who aren't fully passionate about the sport they are doing it for.

It's very hard to do it right and it takes a high level of discipline and patience as well as mindfulness. You have to be self aware and know what's gonna happen when you're on, off, or in between and understand how your mood/thoughts are effected by hormone changes. Not to mention the amount of research and knowledge needed.

Everyone thinks it's just take drugs get big and that's why when they see top level athletes the main response is "well it's all steroids". Like yeah it's that to an extent, but it's primarily discipline, drive, and consistency. "I could do what he does if I took 500mg of tren too!"... Ok, then do it lol