Considering Throwing in Towel

Bigger Stronger Leaner Competitive Bodybuilding
1

My first post. I’ve certainly been impressed by all the ultra-successful posters on this board, but would appreciate some help on the following:

I’m 42 and have been lifting off and on for 20 years and am seriously considering giving up lifting since I cant seem to make any significant gains. I’m hoping to get some advice to try before I go down this road, since most everyone on this board seems to experience success. Stats are 6’ 2", 189 lbs, 34" waist. I’ve always been on the thin side (hardgainer) and also struggle with gains in fat around the waist.

Currently, I am using working out 3-4 times a week going as heavy as I can for three sets per exercise at 6-8 reps, 4-5 reps, 3-4 reps, using the follow routine:

Incline bench, Flat DB press, dips - chest
Hangbangers and pushdowns - tris

Bent rows, V-grips pulldowns, Pull-ups, Cable rows with straight bar - back
Barbell rows - traps

DB press, Military press (front), side lateral raises - shoulders
Barbell curls, Hammers, EZ bar curls - bis

Squats, Leg Ext, Leg curls - legs

Nutrition

Have recently tried two different approaches for pre/post workout:

One was 20g whey, 40g simple carbs pre-workout, same thing post-workout. Eat small meal 30 mins after (serving white rice and 20g lean protein), 60-90 mins after a meal replacement shake, 2 1/2 hours after another small meal(serving white rice and 20g lean protein). This approach makes me bloat up like a stuck pig and gain loads of stomach fat. So I stopped and tried the following post-workout:

50 g whey, 80g simple carbs shake(drink half and consume remaining over the next hour), 20 postworkout 5g glutamine with multvitamin, 30 mins after shake is done, full meal - 40g lean protein, 40g low gi carbs, green veggies. This approach also seems to bloat me up and I feel like I’m gaining fat.

Other nutrition:

7:00 am - 1 banana, 30g whey shake

7:30 -, 6 egg whites, bowl or oatmeal or whole grain cereal.

10:00 - Meal replacement shake with 42g protein, 25g carbs or small meal of 40g lean protein, 30-40g of low gi carbs, green veggies, 2 flax oil tabs

12:00 - small meal of 40g lean protein, 30-40g of low gi carbs, green veggies

Between 12:00 and 4:00 the pre/post workout nutrition from above.

6:00 - small meal of 40g lean protein, 30-40g of low gi carbs, green veggies

8:00 - Snack of whole grain cereal with some cottage cheese.

10:00 - 30g caesin, 8 oz milk, 4 oz water shake and a banana.

I seem to make to decent gains in strength, but not in muscle. And I feel uncomfortable all the time because my stomach feels huge.

Sometimes I try to work in a little cardio, 40 mins at 130 BPM (low intesity) or 30 mins at 130 BPM with 3 40 second spikes to 170 BPM at each ten minute interval. But I feel this seriously robs any muscle I’ve gained.

Sometimes I cheat on the nutrition, not on frequentcy of meals but on type of food, but still try to get the carbs and protein at these cheat meals.

I would love to get some advice from the 40+ crowd, as I’m tired of working my arse off in the gym and kitchen and not making progress. I feel there is little sense to keep doing it if I’m not going anywhere. The wife thinks I’m little obessive also.

Would VERY much appreciate any advice, as I am at my wits end.

Thanks.

2

I’m only 28, but I was convinced I was a hardgainer. I was a skinny teenager and it took a lot of focus to get up to weighing 205lbs at 6’3 but I couldn’t break it without the following approach – pretty simple, two things really.

First I monitored all my non-lifting, if I was eating as much as I could handle but still couldn’t make gains in the gym, I would reduce 1-2 non-lifting workouts a week (I was as high as 9-11 extra workouts a week between surfing, martial arts and running and by the end was down to 1-2 non-lifting activities).

Then I monitored how many calories I was taking in. I ate 5 meals every day with the same amount of calories per meal, when I either felt hungry or felt that I wasn’t gaining weight, I upped the calories by 50 or 100 for all meals. I started at 5 meals x 600 calories and by the end was eating 5 x 900 calories. I also gained 50lbs on my back squat (from 265 to 315) and weighed in at 223.5 with 12% bodyfat.

The downside was that my body naturally feels best at 205, but that was regardless of the situation as I’ve also weighed 165lbs. A big range for someone who used to have a ton of trouble gaining weight (at 165 I was as well convinced I couldn’t gain weight, but was exercising constantly and again, not eating enough).

I also tend to gain fat in the waist and had very little fat gain initially as I ate all my calories from clean sources. When I switched to less healthy means (due to convenience, 4500 calories a day of chicken, rice, almonds, etc. can get old) I started to add fat with the muscle.

For the gym, I got in and lifted hard 4 days a week. It wasn’t much more complicated than that for the weights.

3

Yeah, just about to hit 25 here, so not exactly a big help as far as the age goes, but a few things I noticed…

  1. Was kinda confusd about your training. Maybe it was me, but I didn’t quite understand all of it. Are you doing 3 sets in the 6-8 range, then the 4-5, then 2-3? For all those exercises? If so, you’re probably overtraining.

Also, it’s great to lift heavy, but higher rep work has it’s merits too. Try switching your rep ranges up some. Maybe try one of the programs listed on the site, like Waterbury’s Total Body Training. Gets your volume in and switches rep ranges greatly during the week. Your muscles adapt and you plateau if you’re always stressing them in the same manner. Sometimes it takes more than just switching the exercise for that bodypart.

  1. From what I saw, your diet is woefully lacking in fatty acids. As in, you have almost none whatsoever. This can not only cause problems with joint pain, etc, but can greatly cause your body to store/retain fat, and causes your test levels to crash like the Hindenburgh. Being in the over 40 crowd, bad joints and lowered test levels are not going to help you out any with regards to muscle building.

Check out John Berardi’s Massive Eating 1 and 2 on here. Basically, you should add more carbs into your meals after training. Your body can use them then. Your last 2 or 3 meals of the night should be low carbs. Don’t be afraid of the fat either, hahaha. Most of my late night meals are around 40 or 50 grams of fat, and I’m 20 lbs lighter than you are (I’m a midget, or close to being one). I’m staying lean this way, but if I was drinking milk before bed, the lactose/insulin spike right before bed would have me smoothing out quick.

  1. I don’t know what your financial situation is, in regards to your supplement bill every month, but a lot of people in the over 40 crowd on here have had a LOT of good things to say about Alpha Male. Again, whatever you can do to bump your test levels up some should help, everything else in order.

  2. Don’t give up. You are 20 years into this. Plateaus are frustrating, but all they are is a chance to learn and make you smarter, and thereby, stronger. Sometimes it takes extra effort to get past those sticking points, but that’s what makes having muscles and being strong cool to begin with. Because it takes more effort than most are willing to put in. Don’t be one of those people.

Best of luck,
Kubo

4

3 presses, 3 rows, 2 shoulder presses, and 3 bicep curls. Your upper body is way overtrained and you aren’t training your legs enough.

Your breakfast is too small. Egg whites? You need to add more fat in your diet. You emphasize lean this and lean that. That’s great if you want to get and stay small, but if you want more size in you, don’t eat like you’re dieting down.

Are you sleeping 8-9 hours a night?

You’re overtrained and underfed. Less exercises (ditch the cardio), more food. Your waist sounds like it’s the first place your body stores fat in, and if you don’t want that to happen, then your body won’t have enough calories to grow. If you like staying small, then you would be much better off lifting whole-body twice a week or something just for maintenance.

5

[quote]MikeKubo wrote:
2) From what I saw, your diet is woefully lacking in fatty acids. As in, you have almost none whatsoever. This can not only cause problems with joint pain, etc, but can greatly cause your body to store/retain fat, and causes your test levels to crash like the Hindenburgh. Being in the over 40 crowd, bad joints and lowered test levels are not going to help you out any with regards to muscle building.
[/quote]

Give this man a CIGAR! Biggest flaw in the whole regimen.

Add a TBS of olive oil to shakes, eat some “fatty” meats instead of “lean” all the time. Tuna in oil is good, so is a big steak.

Fat’s/oils are absolutely necessary for testosterone production. Get on it! Oh, and buy some fish oil caps and take 9-12 per day, you’ll be happy you did.

Have you tried ZMA?

6

Listen to the crowd, in this case.

I’m 37, lifted for 20 - mostly powerlifting.

  • Increase your fat intake.
  • Decrease your carb intake.
  • Train only the compound lifts, ie: squat, deadlift, presses, cleans, snatches.
  • Train your body as a single unit, not in split routine style.
  • Do not perform the more common bodybuilding lifts or programs.
  • In short, get on a website called “crossfit.com” and read, read, read, until you understand what really works. There are months of links to read through and a helping hand to beginners on the FAQ link.

If you get bit by the bug, I warned you.

Good luck bro.

-SK

7

Think about how pathetic you would be if you didn’t lift.

Keep at it.

8

Crossfit?
Decrease your carbs?

That there is some really bad advice.

You want to gain muscle? Easy.

  1. Eat according to Berardi’s Massive Eating articles. Use the Search function and read them. Keep a food journal. Eat your weight in grams of protein, or more. Eat half that in healthy fats (fish oil, peanuts, almonds, etc.). Eat 200-400 g carbs. First thing in the morning and right before/during/after a workout.

  2. TRIBEX or Alpha Male. Buy some. Buy a lot.

  3. Sleep a lot - 8 to 10 hours a day.

  4. Bench, overhead press 5x5. Do pull ups until you can’t do another one. Many sets to failure. Squat and dead lift 5x5. That’s it. Don’t overtrain, like you are doing right now. If you can do the whole 5x5 on any exercise, you need to add weight. Keep a workout journal.

You aren’t a hard gainer.

9

Thanks to those who have replied so far with some great advice. Sometimes I try to go alone because of the challenge, but have to realize it’s OK to get a fresh look from the outside. So, I do appreciate the help. I will replying individually to some of the posts.

Just to clarify on the training routine, I currently train:

Each bodypart once a week.

Each exercise is 3 sets - one set 6-8 reps, then one set 4-5 reps, then one set 2-4 reps.

Not sure if those who thought I was overtraining thought I was training each bodypart 3-4 times a week.

Thanks

10

You’ve gotten some excellent advice so far in this thread!

I concur with the training advice. Switch to a whole body training routine and train 3x a week. Mix up the exercises a bit from workout to workout, and focus exclusively on compound movements training to near failure. 3 works sets per bodypart maximum.

Right now you’re overtraining each invidual bodypart in a training session, and then undertraining it by waiting a full week to retrain. That’s not very effective as you’ve found out.

Once you’ve got your training going on the right path, and fixed your diet with those nutrition tips too, you need to evaluate the results to see if you might be a TRT candidate. I never thought that I was until I was tested for it and it’s made a tremendous difference in my training results.

I nearly quit when I was 42 for the same reasons you stated. Glad I didn’t!

Good luck!

11

It took me just about twenty years before people openly acknowledged that I lifted weights. The other day I got the reverse compliment of my life. Someone noted my age and said, “I bet you used to be a bodybuilder.”

In point of fact, throughout my twenties and thirties, I was unremarkable in every physical sense, genetically bereft and amazingly resistant to progress.

We have the same waist and height, but I’m 203 now, and I’m 50 years old. As you move through your forties and beyond, you enter a rarefied place where you are preserving and improving what your peers begin to lose dramatically.

I’m not suggesting that looking better than your friends is a worthy goal. But I am saying that the paradigm shifts, and benefits of bodybuilding not emphasized in a young mind begin to emerge. The focus shifts from how short you’ve fallen to how far you’ve come. It may be age’s best consolation prize.

At 42, you have many good years of bodybuilding progress ahead. I pray that you do not give up your goals.

12

Thanks again to all who have replied, some great advice. It looks like there are some mistakes that everyone is pointing, such as,

Add a lot of good fats.

Get better or more sleep (only getting 7 hours) and even that is not good with a couple of pets moving around the house at night.

Change training routine, possible whole body workouts.

Keep a journal (I do for training), but not for food intake. Anyone know of a good website to track food intake?

Consider a supp to increase T levels.

I am going to re-visit Berardi’s Massive Eating again. I tried it once, but probably did not follow it close enough. It certainly will up the good fat intake.

Also, some have recommended full body workouts. I thought I’ve read that it is not good to train over 1 hour. If training the whole body, it seems like it would take well over an hour. Any comments on that?

13

[quote]bkmstr wrote:
Keep a journal (I do for training), but not for food intake. Anyone know of a good website to track food intake?[/quote] I use the tried and true method. Paper.

Superset.

14

[quote]bkmstr wrote:

Also, some have recommended full body workouts. I thought I’ve read that it is not good to train over 1 hour. If training the whole body, it seems like it would take well over an hour. Any comments on that?

[/quote]
squat 10x3 (approx 20mins)
bench 5x5 (approx 15mins)
dumbbell row 5x5 (approx 15mins)

50 minutes max

15

[quote]Gl;itch.e wrote:
bkmstr wrote:

Also, some have recommended full body workouts. I thought I’ve read that it is not good to train over 1 hour. If training the whole body, it seems like it would take well over an hour. Any comments on that?

squat 10x3 (approx 20mins)
bench 5x5 (approx 15mins)
dumbbell row 5x5 (approx 15mins)

50 minutes max[/quote]

It’s not very popular around here, but I train in HIT. 12 sets, one set for each exercise to failure or close to it. It takes me 35-40 minutes.

The reason why I told you that you are overtrained is not because I thought you were lifting the same bodypart 3-4 times per week, but that you were doing different exercises for the same muscles and even the same movements. Keep the scheduled bodypart if you want to, but use different angles and methods. For example, do a pressing movement and a flying movement for the chest, and so on…

You don’t train calves?

16

[quote]bkmstr wrote:
Also, some have recommended full body workouts. I thought I’ve read that it is not good to train over 1 hour. If training the whole body, it seems like it would take well over an hour. Any comments on that?

[/quote]

I get the following done in under an hour:

Workout #1
Pullups
Squats
Dips

Workout #2
Deadlifts
Incline Presses
Barbell Rows

Warmups as needed to get up to 3 work sets each. Reps will vary a bit by how I feel, no less than 5-6 reps and up to 10 reps for a work set.

“no direct arm work?” you ask? Doesn’t matter, the arms are growing too!

17

Thanks everyone for the encouragement. Its been great to hear from some of the young and the moderately aged! I’ve been spinning my wheels for a long time without much progress, but with the great advice I’m receiving on this board I’m putting together a program I’m hoping will reverse my thoughts on “throwing in the towel” and move my gains forward.

At this point, my new program will likely use Berardi’s Massive Eating (I,II, I ReLoaded, and II Reloaded) and Waterbury’s Total Body Training
( http://www.T-Nation.com/findArticle.do?article=04-073-training ) for a routine 3 x a week, as some have suggested.

Its been a while since I did a total body workout, just a little hesitant with the back and leg compound movements due to chance of injury, so I will warm up well.

By the way Zap, you’re right, I would be pathetic if I did not lift. A lot of truth to that quote.

Derek - I have not tried ZMA, but have been researching it and I think Berardi recommends it, so I will likely try. Have you had good luck with it? Anyone else have any issues with ZMA?

BFPullup - I dont train calves enough, since I train in my basement, although I have a pretty decent setup. I only do standing calf raises on the edge of some of my equipment, sometimes holding a dumbbell. Is there anything else that would be helpful in a home gym?

It seems to me that adding the fats as suggested and the ZMA should really help with my test levels. Might even consider having the t levels tested if that does not seem to have an effect. I’m still on the fence about the test supp though.

Thanks again - I would be interested in hearing from any of you on whether you now think I have reasonable game plan or if there is something you would do a little differently.

18

About training calves at home, I have a very simple idea for performing seated calf raises. I have a squat rack. I put the loaded barbell on low pins in front of the rack. I sit in a chair up close to the rack, put my toes on a board on the ground, put a 2x6 across my lap (out near the knees).

Then I can get my knees (and the 2x6) under the barbell and raise and lower my heels. I use my hands just to keep the bar from rolling off the 2x6. At high weights, the 2x6 gets a little painful on the legs, but you could put some padding on it’s bottom. Cheap seated calf machine!

19

bkmstr;

I feel the same way. At 46, my gains are coming slowly, if at all. I lift 3 days a week, but don’t look like I lift. Lately, I’ve been changing routines a bit too often, instead of sticking with one for a while. It does get frustrating.

Sometimes I wonder why I bother, with all the effort I put in, and the small results I see. But I feel great after a workout, so no matter how I look (to myself), I will continue training and take whatever gains I can.

Hope this helps.

Brian

20

You’re doing too much. Seriously consider Dan John’s One Lift A Day program. This is an excellent program template for older lifters.

Also, as others have stated, eat well and be sure to include your olive, flaxseed and fish oils as well as some good red meat.