TheCrownedOne
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You top guys know a lot more than I do so I need your help in telling me if there is any merit to this or if it’s just hair-brained theory:
Take a guy like me for an example. He’s 6’2�, ~175 lb, sitting at about 12% bf (bleh), and is devastatingly handsome
. Now this guy happens to be in a very unique situation. He has free access to an awesome gym (it’s amazing what happens when you’re nice to the right people), but the downside is that it’s a pretty good way from his house. Because the gym is so far away, he’d really only be able to go 3 times a week at best.
This guy has all the nutrition info down pat. He knows what it means to follow a perfect diet and what all the perfect foods are to eat and so on. This guy has a desperate need to lose as much body fat as is humanly possible. He doesn’t just want to; he has to (job related). Moreover, he has full knowledge of the most effective exercises, perfect form, and TUT.
So everything is perfect right? Well, not exactly. The single caveat is that this guy cannot under any circumstances get any larger, but all things considered he keeps his aesthetic gains very easily (strength is easy come, easy go). So no muscle hypertrophy allowed, period.
My theory is this:
One of the reasons people go on ketogenic diets is because what’s supposed to happen is that once muscle glycogen and liver glycogen are depleted fat loss will soar through the roof. But this short term fat loss is usually accompanied by muscle catabolism also soaring through the roof with fat loss stalling. So what if you only got heavily “keto-ed� for very short periods, like during sleep. No matter what, you are losing muscle when you sleep. My understanding is that no amount of casein or low GI carbs before bed will stop this. And in this case a little extra muscle loss may be beneficial just in case any hypertrophy has occurred.
To get to the point: what if you take this guy, keep him on maybe a semi-fluctuating 40/40/20 diet, have him do a heavily depleting lifting workout right before bed 3 nights a week, and maybe either not feed him after the workout or only feed him something like salmon or tuna? It seems in my head that this would increase fat burning ever so slightly during sleep as the body seeks to replenish these stores and meet other increased needs. Moreover, you have this guy do low intensity walking cardio (60-65% of MHR) every morning before breakfast for maybe 60-75 minutes (I’ve seen some of you advocate only doing this cardio 4 days a week and for no more than 45 minutes – why is that?).
Like I said, all this sounds like it would work perfectly in my head (like many things seem like the Holy Grail on paper but in vivo is another story), but could be full of more holes than a screen door. What do ya’ll think?
Here is another, somewhat unrelated theory (related if it will work better than using weights to deplete):
I don’t know if this works the same, but it sounds like this would have the same effects as isometrics (do they have any merit anymore, maybe for strength gains but not hypertrophy? After all, Bruce believed in them). I’ve heard that Arnold called flexing and posing an exercise unto itself. It seems like it’s the same as isometrics because when flexing as hard as possible you’re exerting maximum effort with antagonistic muscles (so instead of a fixed bar or doorframe being your immovable object, your opposing muscle becomes your immovable object). My question is two-fold:
1) Could you use this form of flexing isometrics to deplete muscle glycogen the same as using free weights?
2) Can this form of isometrics be used to either increase or maintain strength without gaining hypertrophy?
Whenever I’ve done this sort-of flexing exercise for a few minutes I notice very rapidly that I feel soooo tired once I finish. From what I’ve read about isometrics they were really only good for increasing strength (especially in weak points of motion) but wouldn’t lead to an increase in muscle mass. It makes sense because instead of using progressively heavier weights to gain strength you’re using a seemingly infinite amount of weight.
I know all of this has been a lot to follow, but you guys are man enough. Think of it as a challenge of your vast knowledge :thumbsup:
Take a guy like me for an example. He’s 6’2�, ~175 lb, sitting at about 12% bf (bleh), and is devastatingly handsome
. Now this guy happens to be in a very unique situation. He has free access to an awesome gym (it’s amazing what happens when you’re nice to the right people), but the downside is that it’s a pretty good way from his house. Because the gym is so far away, he’d really only be able to go 3 times a week at best. This guy has all the nutrition info down pat. He knows what it means to follow a perfect diet and what all the perfect foods are to eat and so on. This guy has a desperate need to lose as much body fat as is humanly possible. He doesn’t just want to; he has to (job related). Moreover, he has full knowledge of the most effective exercises, perfect form, and TUT.
So everything is perfect right? Well, not exactly. The single caveat is that this guy cannot under any circumstances get any larger, but all things considered he keeps his aesthetic gains very easily (strength is easy come, easy go). So no muscle hypertrophy allowed, period.
My theory is this:
One of the reasons people go on ketogenic diets is because what’s supposed to happen is that once muscle glycogen and liver glycogen are depleted fat loss will soar through the roof. But this short term fat loss is usually accompanied by muscle catabolism also soaring through the roof with fat loss stalling. So what if you only got heavily “keto-ed� for very short periods, like during sleep. No matter what, you are losing muscle when you sleep. My understanding is that no amount of casein or low GI carbs before bed will stop this. And in this case a little extra muscle loss may be beneficial just in case any hypertrophy has occurred.
To get to the point: what if you take this guy, keep him on maybe a semi-fluctuating 40/40/20 diet, have him do a heavily depleting lifting workout right before bed 3 nights a week, and maybe either not feed him after the workout or only feed him something like salmon or tuna? It seems in my head that this would increase fat burning ever so slightly during sleep as the body seeks to replenish these stores and meet other increased needs. Moreover, you have this guy do low intensity walking cardio (60-65% of MHR) every morning before breakfast for maybe 60-75 minutes (I’ve seen some of you advocate only doing this cardio 4 days a week and for no more than 45 minutes – why is that?).
Like I said, all this sounds like it would work perfectly in my head (like many things seem like the Holy Grail on paper but in vivo is another story), but could be full of more holes than a screen door. What do ya’ll think?
Here is another, somewhat unrelated theory (related if it will work better than using weights to deplete):
I don’t know if this works the same, but it sounds like this would have the same effects as isometrics (do they have any merit anymore, maybe for strength gains but not hypertrophy? After all, Bruce believed in them). I’ve heard that Arnold called flexing and posing an exercise unto itself. It seems like it’s the same as isometrics because when flexing as hard as possible you’re exerting maximum effort with antagonistic muscles (so instead of a fixed bar or doorframe being your immovable object, your opposing muscle becomes your immovable object). My question is two-fold:
1) Could you use this form of flexing isometrics to deplete muscle glycogen the same as using free weights?
2) Can this form of isometrics be used to either increase or maintain strength without gaining hypertrophy?
Whenever I’ve done this sort-of flexing exercise for a few minutes I notice very rapidly that I feel soooo tired once I finish. From what I’ve read about isometrics they were really only good for increasing strength (especially in weak points of motion) but wouldn’t lead to an increase in muscle mass. It makes sense because instead of using progressively heavier weights to gain strength you’re using a seemingly infinite amount of weight.
I know all of this has been a lot to follow, but you guys are man enough. Think of it as a challenge of your vast knowledge :thumbsup:
