Gaining strength & weight during fasting

[Jonathan]

I did a paper on fasting back in college. The average Muslim gains weight during Ramadan. Not sure how that relates, but I haven't posted anything in awhile.

[Tiburon]

Move to Wellington, New Zealand. Nice short days down there right now

[LarsM]

It is my understanding they can eat during a small window of time, is this correct? I think he should just go to town on as much food as possible during this window. Do your workout a couple hours after breakfast/first meal since this will give you some immediate energy to lift.

I know I could certainly gain weight eating once or twice a day.

I agree with this approach and see no reason a rank novice wouldn't be able to advance his lifts eating two big meals twice a day.

[Zenosparadox]

Yes my feeding window is after sundown and before sunrise.

I've heard people actually gain weight during fasting because of big feasts. I guess I could give this a try, eating as much as possible when I can as well as reversing my sleeping time.

If after about a week it ends up being counterproductive, then I'll just stop training for the month.. I'm rather pious so skipping the fasting month seems rather unlikely for me.

Thanks all. Will start a log to see where it goes.

Is being nocturnal an option for a month?

[zephed56]

I agree with this approach and see no reason a rank novice wouldn't be able to advance his lifts eating two big meals twice a day.

I mean christ, there are people who do this intermittent fasting shit ON PURPOSE, and apparently have no problem getting big and strong. I don't think it really matters much when you eat but rather that you eat (for your goals), but obviously having a little energy before a workout is nice.

[iskandar]

My 2 cents please:
If you share my same situation, ie:

- Not working on weekends;
- Train 3 days a week; and
- Have access to a gym that closes late (assuming you intend to perform tarrawih prayers)

I would suggest:
- Training on Friday, Sunday and Wed (post break-fast) so that you can pile on the sleep during the weekend and a short nap before before Friday’s workout; and
- Sitck to the basics with no accessory exercises.

Also some random thoughts based on my limited experience (was on my 7th month of advanced SS during last year’s fasting month):
- Strength progress is definitely doable, in fact I gained a physically noticeable amount of abdominal fat during this period (which I blamed on consuming too many carby/ sugary treats) but there are times that I did 3x3 rather than 5x3 (ie keeping the intensity)
- I always dragged my feet going to the gym (20 minutes drive) but felt better after a few warm-up sets
- I couldn’t handle training before breaking fast (probably due to the humidity here in Malaysia)
- Drink plenty of water whilst training

Hope the above helps and proceed with caution if you notice my post counts

[Reversed]

If you only started training last week your body is really going to be craving food & sleep when you train. You will really burn yourself out and get a poor experience of starting strength if you try to do it while fasting. Possibly so much so, that you will get put off training altogether. Its a lot to expect your body to be able to do all of a sudden.

That mehdi guy with the stronglifts website wrote an article about how to train through Ramadan. Gives some decent example of how to schedule your training and eating.


I personally would not embark on trying to do a full programme involving squats, deadlifts & bench press now. Maybe if you had been training for a few months already, you would have worked up the right tolerances and have the right mental fortitude to work through it. But I think doing something a lot more abbreviated would be better.

I'd give it a go for the first week and see how it takes off from there. Like I said, I'll stop training for the month if I don't see progress. I read the article too, I would consider following his approach.

Isn't the fasting only between sunrise and sunset? Can you get up early, eat and train in the wee hours? Not ideal to follow that with a whole day of fasting, but I'm sure you won't spontaneously combust or wake up a withered husk the next day or anything like that.

There's 3 options on when to train from what I've read: Right after sunrise (my morning meal), 1-2 hours before sunset (break fast) or after that. I'm lucky enough that my school vacation coincides with Ramadan so I could give each one a try.

Is being nocturnal an option for a month?

Possible but we're actually discouraged to waste our day away by sleeping during daylight.

My 2 cents please:
If you share my same situation, ie:

- Not working on weekends;
- Train 3 days a week; and
- Have access to a gym that closes late (assuming you intend to perform tarrawih prayers)

I would suggest:
- Training on Friday, Sunday and Wed (post break-fast) so that you can pile on the sleep during the weekend and a short nap before before Friday’s workout; and
- Sitck to the basics with no accessory exercises.

Also some random thoughts based on my limited experience (was on my 7th month of advanced SS during last year’s fasting month):
- Strength progress is definitely doable, in fact I gained a physically noticeable amount of abdominal fat during this period (which I blamed on consuming too many carby/ sugary treats) but there are times that I did 3x3 rather than 5x3 (ie keeping the intensity)
- I always dragged my feet going to the gym (20 minutes drive) but felt better after a few warm-up sets
- I couldn’t handle training before breaking fast (probably due to the humidity here in Malaysia)
- Drink plenty of water whilst training

Hope the above helps and proceed with caution if you notice my post counts

I'm your neighbour then =D (Singapore). I'd be free everyday throughout Ramadan because of school vacation so I have much options to choose from. However I don't have access to a gym late night so I'm not sure how I'd go about this. But thanks for sharing, good to hear!

[gzt]

Hope the above helps and proceed with caution if you notice my post counts

This is a place that values real-world experience, not message board experience.

[sergeant_81]

It would be more productive to stop being a Muslim, at least for this month.

Most sensible advice in this entire thread.

[LarsM]

If you can choose freely, working out in the evenings AFTER sundown is probably your best shot (so you can get something to eat both pre- and post-workout) - working out after an entire day of fasting sounds like a nice recipe for failure. Obviously this might be hard if the sun goes down at 10 pm so ymmv.