Changes in diet and exercise

For the past couple of weeks I noticed a few things and have decided to change my diet and exercise as a response. First I am not gaining any more weight with my 1800 calorie diet. So I increased that to 2000 calories and now the weight is going up again slowly. I lost a week or more by just eating 1800 calories and not gaining weight. I have to keep this in mind for my next gaining phase. Every day counts for an ectomorph.

The second thing I noticed is that while my weight remained constant I started to see an increase in body fat percentage. Again not good. In addition I was also feeling tired more often too. That is when I decided to give myself a recovery week. After coming back I did perform well in the lifts but still my weight would not increase and the body fat percentage was increasing. Moreover my left arm started to hurt whenever I did any dumb bell shoulder press. I had to skip the dumb bell press for 2 weeks now. This probably is an indication that my body is not recovering enough and I may be over training.

To fix that I am switching over to 4 day workouts instead of 5 days. So my workout days are monday, wednesday, thursday and saturday. Here is my new schedule

• Monday: Chest, Triceps and Back
• Decline bench press
• Deadlifts
• Dips
• Wednesday: Shoulders / Back, Traps, Biceps
• Dumbbell shoulder press / Pull-ups
• Barbell shrugs
• EZ bar bicep curls
• Thursday: Chest, Legs, Triceps
• Bench press
• Squats
• Seated dumbbell tricep press
• Saturday: Shoulders, Traps, Biceps
• Overhead press
• Behind the back barbell shrugs
• Dumbbell bicep curls

So there you have it. Hopefully these changes will let me continue to gain weight and be able to recover properly. Only time will tell.

Filed under: exercise, recovery, rest, weight gain, workout

Amazing what a recovery week can do to you!

It really is amazing what some rest can do for your mind and body. I am felling more energetic and in good spirit today. When I left my house to go to work, I was not sure if I will go to gym or take more rest. But as the day progressed I felt good about myself. I stretched a bit to see if any of the muscles are sore. No. Not at all. I decided to go ahead and hit the gym .

It was a good thing too. I did not feel tired, just fatigued after the work out. And guess what? I got 9, 7 and 5 reps for my benchpress with 110 lbs. You know what that means? It means its time to up the weight for the next benchpress. I can finally do a benchpress with 35 lbs on either side of the bar for the next time! It is time for the elusive weight to become true for the first time. It is so much fun to set goals and try to reach them. It is like building a house, brick by brick while you have the final completed house firmly imprinted in your mind.

Even the deadlifts felt easy. I was able to do 190 lbs with relative ease. Finally I can do a plate and 25 lbs for my next deadlift. All good. But I still have a long way to go to reach my goal of benchpressing a plate on either side. I know the target. I know the path. It is now just a matter of time.

Filed under: benchpress, deadlifts, energy, recovery, rest

The recovery week is here

I have been doing my strength and mass gaining exercises for about 6 weeks now. Time to take a break. Let the muscles recover completely before my next bout of extremities. I just completed shoulder and trapezoids exercises today and I did not feel good about it.

All this week my performance has not been so good at the gym. First I did fewer reps than before week on my bench press this past Monday. I also did not do as well as I expected on my deadlifts too. Then I had a very weak bicep curl on Tuesday. Today (wednesday) I stepped into the gym with very low confidence. My body does not feel all energized. I felt tired even before I started. Not good. I picked up 42.5 lbs to start my shoulder press but again could not do any better than previous week. I could not finished my 3rd set at all. Not even a single rep. Which is bad news. My body is demanding rest. And rightly so too. It has been a little over 6 weeks since I started my mass gain phase. I need some rest.

Respecting what my body is telling me I decided to give myself this week off. I have been lifting very heavy for the past few days and that compounded with a very busy week at work aggravated the situation. It feels great to even think about the week off. It is unlike the feeling I get when I have to miss gym because of other reasons such as I am busy at work or because I have to travel etc. Looking forward to a restful week…

Filed under: energy, fatigue, recovery, rest, tired

Importance of sleep

From time to time I meet people who routinely sleep 4 to 6 hours a day and they report they feel great with just so much sleep. I sleep 8 to 9 hours. They say that I am wasting a lot of time sleeping while I could be more productive. But I cannot sleep less than 8 hours. I feel very grumpy if I sleep less than 7 hours. And I feel great after a good night’s sleep and perform well in my daily duties and also my workouts. I feel strong and motivated when I am rested. Big weights don’t scare me as much in this motivated state. But when I don’t sleep my 8 hours I feel a kind of fear that I may not be able to lift heavy. And without the motivation the weights feel heavier.

It is not just a psychological factor it is really a physical problem. When you are in deep sleep your body and mind have little to worry about the worldly things. Your eyes are not picking up huge amount of data for the brain to process, you body is not moving, so no reason to stabilize various muscles or send signals to contract them, no need to convert so much glucose/fat/proteins to energy (well there is some conversion necessary to keep you alive, but not as much).

Your brain does not have a lot of work to do and it is good time for it to organize everything that happened through out the day, improve memory and generally keep you sane. And similarly your body is primed to repair torn tissues and replace cells that need replacing. I don’t mean that the brain and body don’t do this during the rest of the day. All I am saying is that they have more time and less distracting things to worry about when you are not active. This is also probably the reason why your body secretes the most amount of Growth Hormone during deep sleep. Typically a couple of hours after sleep and continues to spike several times during the night. The amount secreted is a lot more than what gets secreted during any other time.

This brings us to the question about how the Human Growth Hormone (HGH) is related to body building. Many athletes have been getting injections of HGH to improve their performance. Whether HGH really helps improve performance is up for debate and there are several conflicting studies about their role. HGHs are also attributed to reducing fat and thus increasing the lean mass. But in general it is an accepted fact that HGH helps in repair of damaged muscle, makes strong bones and converts fat into energy. All good things.

So folks if you are planning on building muscle stop late night parties and sleep up. Don’t bother what people say. They are loser of course. You should at least aim for 8 hours of good uninterrupted sleep everyday. More if possible all the way up to 10 hours. Any more will not help much and will make you lazy too.

Filed under: growth hormone, muscle growth, muscle repair, recovery