A few questions for the vets.

[Ninsha]

Ok, for the weight lifting vets out there...I need your opinions on what I should do next.

I'm relatively new to lifting, but I have always been muscular despite the lack of work that I had put into weights in the past.

Some background:
I am a hair under 5'8, and weighed in at 178 this morning. I've recently lost 92 lbs (woot!) and am going to cut some more fat before going onto a serious bulking diet. Unfortunately excess skin makes it difficult to determine how much actual adipose I have left to lose.

I love weightlifting, the ache, the pumps, and oddly enough the sore feeling that comes in the few days afterwards.

I have been lifting every muscle to failure, at enough weight to fail within 7-10 reps. 3 sets of each exercise. I do a 4 day split M-W-F +Sat or Sun (Depending on work)

Monday is Triceps & Pectorals; I mostly do Pec Flies on a machine, and Tricep pulldowns on a cable machine, or on a machine with arm pads.

Wednesday I do Quads, Hams, Calves & Gluts. I do each muscle separately, and then leg presses as a compound, but I avoid squats because I'm really scared of lower back injury.

Friday I do Biceps & Lats. I do 3 sets of curls on 2 different machines, as well as DB's and a BB. I do an overhead row machine for lats.

My Weekend day is devoted to Deltoids & Traps. 3 different exercises for Delts, and machine shrugs for the Traps.


The last few times I have done biceps I have had strength gains (curling 35 up from 20), however even though I always train to failure I have not had sore biceps for a few days afterwards. Is it possible to have hypertrophy take place if there is no muscle soreness?


In your opinions, should I be focusing more on cutting fat now, or on bulking? I haven't had a caliper test done, and depending on the machine I use, my bf% is either 17 or 43...I'd like to believe I'm closer to 17 than 43....but who knows - you are the experts.

I'm currently taking Leviathan RL (just got my bottle, on my 3rd day!) I'm waiting for my IGF-2, Sesamin Oil, and DCP to arrive, and plan on starting those ASAP.

Here are some pics taken tonight after dinner - Be brutal, I was 270 lbs of blubber in middle & high school, trust me...I can take it.

I'm really trying to figure out where to go from here. It took me less than 5 months to drop 92 lbs, I can kick the rest of this weight off in a month or two I think...but I don't know if I should do that first, or add more muscle. What do you think?
Invalid Link Removed

Invalid Link Removed

Invalid Link Removed

Invalid Link Removed

 

[LilPsychotic]

As far as what you should do, its really a personal preference. What do you want to look like? Its tough to give advice on this. However, if you do decide to keep cutting, the extra skin probrably won't go away, but not to worry that kind of thing is routine cosmedic surgery. Personally, for me, I'm not into the whole bulking thing. I think it kind of defeats the purpose of working out, because no matter how clean you eat you'll still put some fat on. I just eat clean fairly consistently year round, except for maybe around the holidays. This enables me to stay pretty lean year round, and any mass I gain is lean. When I cut in the spring I implement a carb cycling diet. This pretty much works for me. As far as the bicep training, it is critical that you change the routine frequently. Implement different curling techniques, and never to the same workout twice. Just like anthing else, your body will develope a tolerance to your lift, so you have to trick it into thinking that your doing something new. Also, you may want to look into some ways of improving your recovery. If your not getting sore until days after your workout, your body is rcovering slowly. There are plenty of ways to recover quickly without using supplements. Different eating routines, and meal timing could be of use here. For example, you want to get a good shot of carbs and protein as soon as possible after working out. If you want to take the supplement route, creatine would be beneficial in this regard, also directly after working out. If you have any specific questions, shoot me a pm. BTW congrats on the weight loss, 90lbs in 5 months is pretty impressive. Best of luck to you.

 

[MMAMONSTER19]

Congrats on the weight loss and depends on what you wanna do in relation to gaining size or getting lean, im 173ish and trying to gain size and eating is like having another job so if you want to try to bulk up it could be easier possibly, but im not sure its all in your own choice what you wanna do first cause i can relate i was a lil heavier in highschool then lost all that extra fat weight off end of junior year was extremely happy and now trying to get big is the hardest thing ive ever tried to accomplish so you can make your own choice but if deciding to lose weight supps that i took are Lipo 6 (awesome) hot rox, and methyl ripped all work extremely well just depends on how you eat and good luck to you!