The Skinny Fat Lifter, Part 2 | Robert Santana

[stef]

"When I was 20 years old a friend of mine was concerned about “being fat” because his abs were not visible at a bodyweight of 5’10” 155 lb. My response to him was to gain “mass” (i.e. muscle mass) and he responded, 'I have plenty of mass, I just need to lose the fat.' I’ve heard this quite often over the last two decades, and was guilty of saying it myself prior to learning a few things."

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[CommanderFun]

Y'know, it's funny, at 270+ pounds I can still see the upper portions of the abs if I flex them. But that might just be me having weird fat distribution patterns.

[Robert Santana]

Sounds like you’re pretty muscular. I was 150 at one point and the only muscles that were defined were my calves.

[CommanderFun]

I'm not though. Really I don't know WHERE the hell my bodyweight comes from sometimes. The largest share of the fat mainly goes into the waist-down I think, but I still look at myself and 270 seems like an overestimate. My strength levels still haven't really caught up with the weight entirely. Just recently did a full 3 sets of 275 squats. I wonder if I have denser bones or something. I've managed to avoid breaking any, at least. Or maybe I really am behind the curve when it comes to fast twitch fiber/NME type stuff all around. Hard to tell.

[Robert Santana]

What are you lifting on the other lifts?

[CommanderFun]

Nothing stupendous. 195 bench, 127.5 press. Last good deadlift set was 345.

[Zappey1]

You could do one of those scans where you lay in a water tube and they measure all that stuff. It is like $80 or so.

[Slow Uncle Joe]

The sequence of running the NLP until you get too fat, then running intermediate (or "fake" intermediate) until the waistline gets back to reasonable is what I've figured out by trial and error. I have a tendency to skinny-fatness. Also, being in my fifties I feel I have less tolerance for excess body fat. I notice my heart rate, blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar creep up along with the waistline. So I'll stop high calorie intake before I pass 38" or so.

The important thing is not to get discouraged when you lose some strength on the intermediate "cut." Just see it as preparation for the next round of gains.

[Mark Rippetoe]

In your 50s, you have no business running your LP in such a way that it makes you too fat.

A Clarification | Mark Rippetoe

[CommanderFun]

You could do one of those scans where you lay in a water tube and they measure all that stuff. It is like $80 or so.

Seems like a waste of time and money to me. I'm fine just getting an estimate from a set of skinfold calipers. I don't know what else of value one of those would tell me. Maybe I've just gotta accept I'm at the low end of the curve in terms of strength potential. Combine that with height naturally skewing the strength/bodyweight ratio down, maybe I'm just not gonna have as easy a time getting up there as others. Doesn't mean I'm gonna stop trying for it.