micro-loading or alternate-day increases?

[valan]

Thanks everyone.

You could maybe try to eat a bit more

- Skander

somehow, you need to get in a fuck ton more calories than you are

- TBone

The amount of food required to recover will feel physically uncomfortable to you

- Maine
Do I detect a trend here? Message received: eat more! I'm going to double my portion of protein in each meal and track it on paper to make sure I'm eating enough. On Friday I ate about 2 whole chickens worth. I did not feel comfortable (too much food!), but I WILL get used to it. I'm going to follow the advice on 70's Big:

How much do I need to eat?
1) More


2) There is an old business adage, “don’t dress for a job you have; dress for the job you want.” Apply this to your eating. If you want to be 215, you need to eat for 215, not for your 165 pound sprint-Tri doing self. You won’t get 70’s Big by pushing bird seed around your plate at your local hippy bistro. Start with 125-150% of what you’re eating now and see how that goes for a couple weeks.

On micro-loading: thanks for the advice. I'll try the eating thing first, and see if I can get a couple of good workouts in. That's easy and simple I should have been doing it from day 1.
I'm thinking of getting these plates . Any experience with these?

I'll get some videos of my press and get angrier under the bar. Thanks all.

[tennisgod]

I don't understand this fixation of prescribing more food, more food to guys who have trouble lifting (as TBone described them) girly weights. The guy is 38, 200lbs yet can't lift 100 press, 140 bench, and 225 dl. TBone is right... these are girly weights and I don't care if the guy is eating 2 crackers a day, he should lift them.

So either he has bad form, (to which videos might help), but I doubt that he has bad form on every lift. I suspect his problem is that he is just not MANing-up. He is only on week 6, so he needs to start training the mind to accept the higher weights... he needs to put himself in the right frame of mind to progress. This doesn't sound like a 'physical' issue.

[Tamara Reynolds]

I don't understand this fixation of prescribing more food, more food to guys who have trouble lifting (as TBone described them) girly weights. The guy is 38, 200lbs yet can't lift 100 press, 140 bench, and 225 dl. TBone is right... these are girly weights and I don't care if the guy is eating 2 crackers a day, he should lift them.

So either he has bad form, (to which videos might help), but I doubt that he has bad form on every lift. I suspect his problem is that he is just not MANing-up. He is only on week 6, so he needs to start training the mind to accept the higher weights... he needs to put himself in the right frame of mind to progress. This doesn't sound like a 'physical' issue.

Well, that's why I want to see videos and why I suggested in nicer terms that he is just being a pussy under the bar. Still, the problem isn't that he's lifting girl weights. He can't help his dubious past as a weak distance runner. The problem is that he is STALLING or coming close to it on girl weights. That is a signal to me that he isn't recovering regardless of the weight on the bar. Plus, he's supposedly gained one pound in 6 weeks. More eatz.

[Mark E. Hurling]

As far as relatively cheap microload solutions, you can get 1 and 2 lb. soft wrist and ankle weights used by aerobics class types or some walkers. These are relatively cheap and available at all the big box sporting goods stores like Sports Authority, Big 5, Sports Chalet, and Dick's Sporting Goods. You may have to grit your teeth over some of the colors they come in, like pink. They are round, soft, and will slip right over an olympic bar.

[Maine]

Regarding the point about eating, assuming he is sleeping 8-ish hours a night, the numbers he quoted for bench and press are not high enough to get stuck for a 200lb man. Arguably going up 5 pounds per workout you are going to get stuck way faster on the press than on the bench, but he got stuck on them at the same time, in a range that should still be valid for novice programming. He said is "eating as much as he wants" and the fact is this is not enough. I'm not nit picking semantics here. It may just be that he is not resting enough between sets, and it may be that the weight intimidates him on some subconscious level, but based on his own comments about his diet, it is easy to see he had an insufficient mindset about food, and that needs to be corrected regardless of anything else that is going wrong.

Regarding microloading, it depends on what's worth the money to you. When you get to the point where you really truly need them even after resetting, you are probably ready for intermediate programming anyways. But if you feel like dropping some cash to extend the novice program as far as you possibly can, then buy the 1.25's. Hell, you can go crazy and buy fractional plates if you want. I'm not sure that will make gains faster than intermediate programming, but nobody will know how far you can extend novice programming with them until you try it out.

[tennisgod]

Well, that's why I want to see videos and why I suggested in nicer terms that he is just being a pussy under the bar. Still, the problem isn't that he's lifting girl weights. He can't help his dubious past as a weak distance runner. The problem is that he is STALLING or coming close to it on girl weights. That is a signal to me that he isn't recovering regardless of the weight on the bar. Plus, he's supposedly gained one pound in 6 weeks. More eatz.

If he is weak at 200lb then he's probably at the high 20% bodyfat right now, so the last thing he needs is to eat more... this is how fat people get fatter. And I can't believe that he isn't recovering well enough on his light weights.

He needs to take it slow and grind-out the weights.

[Maine]

Fat people get fatter by eating more and not exercising. We already know the OP is losing fat. And nobody has any reason to believe he was eating enough to begin with. You just think he is a pussy and that by some magical extension this also implies he eats enough food.

[tennisgod]

I would never call anyone who is trying to do what 99.99% of the population wishes to do but don't... a pussy. And I should have said 'light' weights as opposed to 'girly'. I just think he is a absolute novice who doesn't have the right mindset as-of-yet.

And I don't think that he is going through this magical body re-comp at his weights.

[Maine]

On the first page he says he has gained one pound and,

In the mirror I'm a completely different person - my shoulders, arms, legs and chest are all much bigger and more defined (i'm told my back is looking better too). I have definitely put on muscle.

So he must have lost fat or he would have gained more weight.

[Tamara Reynolds]

I'm not interested in engaging in yet another fat people getting fatter on SS discussion.

OP, if you post some form videos, I promise to critique them.