RustyMaw

Once upon a time I was a 65kg height 175cm 18 year old male who needed to pick up a barbell and drink a gallon of milk a day. Unfortunately, I have only discovered this advice as a 35 year old minimally trained obese male now 90kg with 25% body fat.

Would you advise using the starting strength program in a calorie deficit or continue to cut and then begin the program in a calorie surplus? Also at what body fat percentage would you advise switching to a calorie surplus?

Mark Rippetoe

A Clarification

Oso Rojo

How about you start the program, run it for three months. Get stronger and you will find your caloric burn rate increasing and likely some weight loss. At 175cm and 90kg you are likely more than 25% body fat. Get to work on putting on some muscle and fix the body fat once you get strong. You will find it much easier then!

RayK

Have you considered fasting? Fasting is a terrible idea if you are trying to get stronger. When you don't eat anything at all your body switches over to burning ketones for fuel. Those ketones come from breaking down everything else. You will lose fat, bone density, extra skin, and muscle mass (your pecker might even shrink), BUT fasting can be the quickest was for a metabolically unhealthy person to become insulin sensitive. If you are training during a fast you will not gain any muscle mass, but you won't lose much either. There are a few things to find out from your Dr. What is your fasting insulin level, and what is your HgA1C? Is it safe for you to fast? Diabetic ketoacidosis is very rare, but extremely serious so please consult your Doc before you consider severe caloric restriction. Fasting is to the typical fat loss diet as a barbell squat is to playing around with dumbbells. If you are basically healthy you can just start the program and eat real food--forget fasting. If you need serious fat loss for health reasons, fasting can be a tool to get healthy in little time. Trying to stay on a calorie restricted diet for months or years and do strength training at the same time will just keep you frustrated.

Mark Rippetoe

You're recommending fasting for a 35-year-old man at 25% bodyfat who wants to do a strength training program? Why would you suggest something this stupid?

Scott701

I'm doing the vanilla NLP (again after several years of not training) and am wondering what you think of the following method of quantifying chin-ups more precisely.

I am 6'3", 235lbs with a 39" waist. I am eating to gain weight and intend to be 275 by this time next year. I have noticed that body weight can fluctuate day-to-day which makes quantification of chin-ups rather imprecise.

My solution: use a weight belt to get "me" up to 250 and weigh-in on a bathroom scale (the same one each time) after S-P-DL on A-Day. (I can do about 1-2 reps of these right now). Perform the reps I can and then add eccentric efforts through 12 reps. Repeat weigh-in after S-B-PC on B-Day, but add reps to the first sets every time and increase the time and control of each eccentric. I would never go above or below 12 reps, but I would continue to increase the density of the first sets until I get to 12x1 @ 255lbs. Then I would add weight and repeat the process for as long as I can.

Thoughts: I realize this may take several weeks/months, and my bodyweight will be changing this whole time. My solution accounts for this with the weigh-in and the removing/adding of weight to achieve the exact weight of 255. (I have fractional plates.) Eating to get big will probably put 1 pound a week on my frame, so 255 will give me ~20weeks to reach 12x1.

Theoretically, I think this could be applied to anyone that can do one dead-hang chin-up at ~110% bodyweight.

Does this seem reasonable?

Mark Rippetoe

It's an assistance exercise. One of the aspects of an assistance exercise is that it doesn't train like the primary exercises. Stop worrying about it and try to PR something about your chins every couple of weeks.

Scott701

Ok. Thanks Rip. You just saved me a lot of pain and suffering. Lunch is on me.