Exercising More Effectively And With Less Stress

[Gl;itch.e]

You don't need to worry about weight gain throwing off your libido. In my experience more calories and actively gaining weight tends to improve libido.

The approach I would take for you would involve a mix of simple training methods. Id want to have relatively short, full body sessions (45minutes to an hour max) 2-3 days a week, low volume heavy compound exercises followed with some rather orthodox body building isolation exercises.

An example of how I would structure a single workout might be

"Heavy" Deadlift or Squat. Working up in weight with reps around 3-5 to a single hard set of 1-5 reps.
Some kind of pressing exercise (db overhead, bench press) in a higher rep range of 8-15 reps. Working up to a single hard set.
Some kind of pulling exercise (rows, pullups/pulldowns etc) in a higher rep range of 8-15 reps. Working up to a single hard set.
And some quick isolation work for 2-4 body parts. 2 sets of a weight you can manage 10-30 reps with. example: dumbbell curls 2 sets of 12, dumbbell
tricep extentions 2 sets of 20, dumbbell chest flyes 2 sets of 30, dumbbell rear delt flyes 2 sets of 30.

Should allow you plenty of recovery time to grow and help with hormones. Not overly taxing but stimulating enough to see results.

 

[vulture]

Nice, seems similar to What I do:
Squats, chin ups, deadlift
Squats, overhead press or ring dips, power cleans
I'm just not performing isolation excercises, occasionally some barbell curls or abs. Why? To reduce stress and catabolism

 

[Gl;itch.e]

Nice, seems similar to What I do:
Squats, chin ups, deadlift
Squats, overhead press or ring dips, power cleans
I'm just not performing isolation excercises, occasionally some barbell curls or abs. Why? To reduce stress and catabolism

Sounds good. I recommend the isolation exercises because they are minimally stressful, add more "regional" capacity to store glycogen and will help build more overall muscle.

 

[Palpatine]

I'm about 67 yo 68 KG and 1.82 m tall, I obviously wanted to pack a lot more muscle, being stronger, but right now my testosterone and libido is damn low, so, I'd like to raise it ASAP as main objective, so I'm willing to sacrifice weight gaining to boost testosterone, maybe when I'm satisfied with my libido I could focus on being even bigger. I'm a newbie in all these Peat and physiology stuff
Thanks bro

Hi @vulture , I'm new to this forum as well... been lurking for a while, but just decided to post on this thread because there is some great info imo... and some not so good (again imo).

I think what @Gl;itch.e has advised is really close to your best bet... with a few modifications for the best hormonal response i.e. raising Testosterone.

First off, training fasted is great for some... but not so great for others. I personally like to train first thing in the morning (around 6am), after I've knocked down my first coffee (sugar and heavy cream), but I do consider that fasted. I work out at home and actually continue to drink coffee and water throughout my workout.

I have plenty of energy for my workout and actually don't eat my first meal til about noon or 1pm on the work week. Weekends a little earlier. But if you don't have the energy to work out first thing in the morning, I would think that you could eat some eggs and fruit, wait a half hour at least, then get your work out going.

I like to workout every other day or so with weights while walking about 3 miles or so on my off days. Can't ever walk too much... but you certainly can work out too much.

Workouts should be kept to under an hour and should be pretty intense... but again without over doing it. And I'm not a fan of full body workouts 3 days a week. Not enough time for your body to fully recover.

I'd stick to the chest/tri... back/bi... shoulders/traps... and an occasional leg day and an occasional day of sprinting. I would definitely take a day off (or walk) after any one of the workout days.

Also, I'd stick to free weights as much as possible and compound movements (chin-ups or pull ups, weighted when you get there, bench press, military press, squats or dead lifts) for the beginning of the workout and go as heavy as you can go without injuring yourself. Also, don't lift til failure most of the time. Leave a rep in the tank so to speak. Straining to squeeze out that last rep all the time is very taxing on your CNS and will almost certainly negatively affect the hormonal response... poor sleep, low libido, crashing t levels.

Then follow up with your isolation exercises (tricep extensions, curls, lateral raises, etc.)

On your compound lifts, I'd rest anywhere from 2-3 minutes between sets if you're lifting heavy, and you should be lifting as heavy as you can without risking injury. Isolation exercises you can rest 1-2 minutes between sets.

Try to get, and I'm not sure how Peat-ish this is but it's certainly not too far off, .08 grams of protein per lean pound of body weight in a day. The rest should be split between carbs and fats (saturated and mono).

Well, this post is much longer than I thought it was gonna be and I gotta hit the road now, hate to rush, but hope this helps you out.

 

[vulture]

I have experimented with fasting and training with just a glass of water in the belly. Not a big deal for me, but as long as I'm not sure it's a good idea, I would avoid it.
I can work out in my home gym (except for cleans), but currently doing in a gym because it's cheap and they have rubber plates (can perform cleans), also, I can check out some asses and boobs to keep mood high haha
Full body seems taxing for 3 days a week routine, but it's widely used at powerlifting and weightlifting, if I get stuck I would eventually try to split things or add rest days

 

[kayumochi]

Brief, intense weight lifting along with brief bouts of sprints along with IF works for me, but I understand it doesn't with others. Yoga? Got two hernias from that.

 

[DuggaDugga]

I don't think intermittent fasting is appropriate. Depleting your glycogen is a signal to your liver to down-regulate the conversion of T4 to T3. Active thyroid hormone along with insulin sensitivity (sign of short term energy status) stimulate the uptake of cholesterol for metabolizing the sex steroid hormones. If anything I think you would want sugar in your system before workout and again after work-out to minimize the stress response. You have to consider what fasting is signalling to your body, then consider what would be the body's intelligent response to that stimuli. Low carb dieting and intermittent fasting increase cortisol to liberate amino acids for gluconeogensis. These amino acids come primarily from your thymus and skeletal muscles.
Building muscle mass also means you're going to need sufficient protein and zinc. Balance muscle meat intake with gelatin to control the relative levels of tryptophan and methionine in your system. Coffee and tea will minimize iron absorption.
Starving yourself in any capacity is going to be at odds with your goals, anabolic metabolism. If you are increasing the energy demands of your body, you would probably be best served to satisfy those energy demands.

 

[kayumochi]

There are two people in my life who train chronically and competitively. Both of them eat all the time. Neither one of them is healthy. But you couldn't tell them that.

 

[DuggaDugga]

There are two people in my life who train chronically and competitively. Both of them eat all the time. Neither one of them is healthy. But you couldn't tell them that.

I'm sure those two individuals have many other influencing characteristics. I'm simply providing the physiological effects of fasting rather as a surrogate to the anecdotes and marketing ideology.
Head on over to pubmed and play with combinations of 'glucocorticoid' 'gluconeogensis' 'triiodothyronine' 'testosterone' 'fasting' 'endurance exercise'.

 

[kayumochi]

IF works for me. It doesn't work for others. If it doesn't work for you, then stop. Eating all the time doesn't work for me. I have been there. So I stopped. Neither does a sedentary life work for me. Neither does chronic exercise. So I train intensely yet briefly.

 

[DuggaDugga]

IF works for me. It doesn't work for others. If it doesn't work for you, then stop. Eating all the time doesn't work for me. I have been there. So I stopped. Neither does a sedentary life work for me. Neither does chronic exercise. So I train intensely yet briefly.

Well eating too much is certainly its own problem, one I think propagated by the consumption of nutrient-void foods that don't effectively satiate the appetite.
Anyways, glad to hear IF is working for you I guess. It's apparently at least partially rectifying some aspect of your diet that existed before.

 

[vulture]

IF works for me. It doesn't work for others. If it doesn't work for you, then stop. Eating all the time doesn't work for me. I have been there. So I stopped. Neither does a sedentary life work for me. Neither does chronic exercise. So I train intensely yet briefly.

Are you ecto, endo or mesomorphic type?

 

[Wagner83]

Personally, as someone who is heavily involved in strength training, I think most of the gym culture /bodybuilding/ weightlifting/ powerlifting methodology is broken, built on bad foundations. I don't actually train like anyone else I know, I've actually engineered my own equipment. I can lift 100kg overhead with relative ease, yet I don't have huge arms at all. I'm just a normal person that wants to feel strong, not a competitive lifter (currently).

I've said this before on this forum, and been crucified. Not to be a conspirationalist, but I really don't think the government wants it's populace strong enough to throw a police officer through the air. Or any authority figure. The state likes it's populace weak and dependent.

Body building is just nice looking muscles, no strength. Powerlifting puts huge CNS stress on the body, and so does "strongman training", but it causes terrible inflammation. None of these methods are really very good for their intended goal. Even weightlifting training is ridiculous, they've never heard of physics, don't even understand high school text book.

I look at the popular guy doing the 16/9 training, um Kino Boy or whatever. The guy has no strength, you could push him over with your thumb. He does very high reps and then eats nothing until 5pm or whatever. This is one of the many poor pictures of strength and fitness training that gets advocated in the visually obsessed culture we are all living in now.

I think the human body has great capacity for strength, but I really don't think any of the popular methods really lead to it in a very direct way. Hence I made my own system, seems to be working, and it doesn't wear me down.

So @chispas what are you training physically to have great improvements and minimal effort?