Low Carb = Low Lifting?

Training Beginners
23

[quote]thosebananas wrote:
…i can deadlift 185 kg… thats up from 140 in december, and it was always my grip giving out, so i did some sets on the fat bar and a lot of dead hangs and that seems to have worked althought i still think i could pump out higher numbers if my grip didnt fail…[/quote]

That’s a big increase, well done. It’s no surprise that your grip is not keeping up. You might try farmer’s walks. I’m doing them with dumbbells because I don’t have proper implements at my gym but they work quite well if you have them balanced in your hands correctly.

Diesel Crew has lots of good stuff on grip training.

Stu

24

I didn’t read all the responses, but I got as far as you saying you did one warm-up set before going heavy. I’ve found that when going heavy first thing in the morning, I need much more warm-up than usual before I can approach any kind of real performance. I’ll usually do five or six sets, starting light and going up to a couple of tough sets of 8 or 10 before I start lifting heavy, and it makes a huge difference in how well I do on the low rep sets.

I can’t speak for everybody, but this is what works for me in the mornings.

25

i will try some new approachs like these… the max dumbells in the gym are 50kgs… are there any ways of doing farmers walks with a bar? or any other exercises that are similiar?

main objective is explosiveness and power for rugby…

ive been advised to do the benchpress in a different way to the norm… when doing it with dumbells… basically let the weight fall untill my elbows are past 90 degrees then react and fire it back up. i think this sounds good… wat does the forum think?

i use a similiar idea with the dead lift… i let it drop but then try to stop it hitting the floor and come back up. any advise on this?

on the increase… it aint that god in my mind. i was doing 180kg dead lifts in the summer when i got in injured and had to stop training… so i think its just my body getting back up to speed…

Cheers

Scott

26

I’m sure your could do farmers walks with bars. It’s hard to stay balanced but that would add to the fun :slight_smile: I’ve heard of it being done with a trap bar.

The best wat to train for power is with Olympic lifts and to do all you concentric motions explosively. I’m not sure that benching a deadlifting that way is safe. I’m all for speed training but weighted plymetric lifting sounds like an injury waiting to happen.

140 to 185 sounded good. At least your back past where you were. That’s good.

27

yea i suppose it is good… but ive just had a talk with a mate at uni and it seems ive been deadlifting wrong???

i grip the bar with both my hands facing away from me… basically the same way id grip for bench press.

he says for it to be a dead lift im to grip with an alternate grip. im going to try this on sunday… do u reckon this will help my grip or change the weight i can lift?

ive been doing it the wrong way for years now then if thats the case…

Cheers

Scott

28

The alternating grip is definately stronger. When your hands face the same way, the bar tends to roll out of your hands as your fingers get weak. I generally use an overhand grip up until my last set when I switch to the alternating grip.

29

[quote]thosebananas wrote:
yea i suppose it is good… but ive just had a talk with a mate at uni and it seems ive been deadlifting wrong???

i grip the bar with both my hands facing away from me… basically the same way id grip for bench press.

he says for it to be a dead lift im to grip with an alternate grip. im going to try this on sunday… do u reckon this will help my grip or change the weight i can lift?

ive been doing it the wrong way for years now then if thats the case…

Cheers

Scott[/quote]

Wow, if you haven’t been using an alternate grip you don’t know what you’ve been missing. You should be able to handle a LOT more weight easily. I also use an overhand grip until it becomes a factor and then switch to alternate. If I’m also doing chin-ups, cleans or other grip intensive work that day I’ll also use straps for the last, heavy sets of deads. Avoid straps as much as possible but don’t let your grip keep you from getting a good posterior chain workout!

30

my max squat is currently 180 and i dead lift 185… using a different grip wat weight mite i be able to this sunday coming? would love to touch 200… theres a strong man competitor doing about 200(although i reckon he only weighs about 16 stone and i weigh 20)… means i could work in with him etc…

31

the concentric portion should always be explosive anyway and the eccentric controlled. . .

dont know about the whole ‘let the weight fall’ and propelling it up sounds like plyometrics and a recipe for disaster! especially on the DL. . control the lift and explode through the concentric portion. . .

you say u go for the dumbells 1st? try going for the bar first for a while get your max up a bit then hit the dumbells or use dumbells after the bar. .

32

wat is the difference in the dumbells and bar…?

i usually use dumbells cuz they dont need a spotter and theres always some tool on the bench press bar doing quater reps of 10 kg and grunting with gloves on ans 2 spotters, while drinking watever is the new “in” drink…
grrrr this kinda might have happened recently… they took forever!!! and when each of them worked in… they kept adding or takeing off 1.25kg from either side and taking there time about it… :S

33

well dumbells require stabilization and they have their place but you will always push heavier with the bar. training with dumbells wont necessarily cross over to your pb’s on the bench. . .you need to train using the bar to get good lifts with the bar. . .specificity etc.

well you dont really need much of a spot when training unless you are 1rep maxing all the time?! u should have a fair idea when you are gonna fail and bang out a few partials or somethin?

yea i know i had to get two clowns off the rack doing bicep curls the other day so i could squat. . .wrecks my head. . or even better one some antelope taking the olympic bar off the bench and wandering off with it to do upright rows with it and NO PLATES ON IT! ILL KILL THEM! and there is loadsa 10kilo bars everywhere and plates galore! i dont get it. . .

34

Got a lot of good advice so far, I’d definitely second the notion to avoid straps–you want to make your grip stronger, not use a crutch to help you lift more but not address the root problem.

An alternating grip will certainly help. Although in the interests of muscular balance, you should switch which hand faces away from you every set or so. Alternate the alternate grip…

Farmer’s walks are great with bars–I’d look for a trap bar. If you can find a trap bar that would be pretty good at mimicking dumbbells for farmer’s walks, and not as awkward as a regular olympic bar.

Also on grip strength–another idea for increasing grip strength is to use that fat bar you were talking about with a double overhand grip on purpose for your grip strength to get better, and then only move to your alternating grip on your really heavy sets. Overall, I like the idea of using farmer’s walks more though.

RE: training on an empty stomach. It is the worst conceivable thing to do. Light cardio may be ok in the morning w/no food, but intense lifting needs fuel. If you have to go to the gym right after you get up, get a shake in you. If you have some time to digest food before you go, get a solid meal. Low carb diets should not really hamper your ability to lift big weights (AFTER your transition period from a regular/high carb diet is done. Your body has to acclimate itself first)

----What he means by “doing a low carb diet correctly” is that a ton of people end up cutting out BOTH carbs and fats from their diet in an effort to lose weight. The point being, if you’re not getting your energy from carbs, you need fats in a big way to make up the calories you’re missing out on. Besides, there are such things as essential fats. It doesn’t do any good to cut them both out, but for some reason people do this all the freaking time and then wonder why they’re tired and cranky and weak and getting sick.

Example–Joe schmoe eats 2500 calories a day. He decides to go low fat, so he cuts out fats because he hears that its unhealthy to eat them. So now he eats 1800 calories a day and loses a little weight. Then Joe schmoe hears that carbs are bad for you, so he decides to cut carbs out. Now Joe eats 1100 calories a day and doesn’t understand why he’s getting sick and weak and not strong and healthy. The reason is because he’s an idiot–he should be eating 2000 calories a day with low carbs.

Same principle for you, just different (much higher) numbers. 2000 calories a day isn’t anywhere near enough to run intense training and rugby practice on.

35

Oh yeah, reasons for morning training on an empty stomach being bad for you…

Cortisol is high in the mornings. This is a catabolic hormone, which is not good for training. Food makes this hormone drop and sends the signal for anabolic hormones to surge. HOT-ROX does to, but not enough to counteract intense training catabolism.

You just fasted for 6-10 hours. You don’t have any quickly available fuel for your muscles. That means that if you train on an empty stomach, you’ll be using free amino acids along with some free fatty acids for fuel. Using free fatty acids for fuel is good (this is the reason LIGHT cardio in a fasted state can be good for you), but using amino acids that are recycled from your OWN MUSCLES is super bad. Leads to a potential loss of muscle mass.

Training while in an already catabolic starting state exacerbates the problems with catabolic hormones. This is because intense training also elevates these catabolic hormones. There’s no way around this–it’s part of the natural training effect.

However, it’s also the reason post-workout shakes are so important–you want to kill the catabolic stage and introduce anabolic responses as fast as possible. It’s not good if you’re introducing more catabolic hormones during training from an already catabolically negative starting point (empty stomach in the morning).

36

cheers for the really detailed reply…

explained a few things to me and you seem to know your stuff.

farmers walks?? basically deadlift the weight and walk about with it untill i cant anymore???

wat do you think about the 4 minute to fat loss squat article… of sqauting for 20 secs, 10 secs off… should i giv this a spin?

wat sporta foods should i be eating… ive completly cut out all white bread, biscuits and savory things like that.

money is also tight at the moment so im going to go T total for a month at least.

in the fridge/frezer at the moment i have 48 4oz 80% beef burgers from costco, 6 bags of precooked chicken breasts (500g a bag),12 pork chops, 3 fillits of cod, some pasta/noodles, tinned peas and tuna, 4x 1.25kg tubs of promax (only cost £95), half bottle of HOT-ROX Extreme, 3/4 bottle of norateen, roughly 200 multivitamin tabs… ive been cooking everything in the old george foreman…

something similiar to this every day.
how long should this kinda stock last me and wat crucial things am i missing?

diet at the moment is basically:

wakeup: 2 HOT-ROX Extreme, 2 Norateen, 1 multivit

Train

Shake with water

2 plain burgers cooked in george… no sauce no bread no nothing.

2 norateen and 2 HOT-ROX Extreme

4 egg white ommelete with a chicken breast in it

shake with milk before bed

ive been trying to eat more and often… but its tough with uni… so sometimes i just have a shake or two in uni but i hear too many protein shakes a day aint good…

also can anyone recommend a low carb protein shake that is better than promax. i only got these 4 tubs cuz they were on special offer…
but there is 3g of carbs per 30g serving…

cheers

Scott

38

PB??

39

PB = Peanut Butter. ANPB = All Natural Peanut Butter.

40

why peanut butter? i dont have a blender…

41

similiar thing happened today as my original post…

it was shoulders today. started with 10 reps of 25kg dumbells, then 8 at 30kg dumbells which was pretty easy. tryed the 32.5kg dumbells and cud only do one very very hard rep, so went back to 30kg and cudnt pump out one rep… WTF??? this sorta thing has never happened to me before?

i was training midday, i had my pills, 2 burgers, and 2 slices of brown toast in me so i had “fuel”…

in all the other shoulder excercises i was doing i ws doing the same or heavier than previous weeks… i think there might be something wrong with my triceps???

43

maybe next time stick to the 30’s and see if the 2nd set is still as tough rather than gettin overly ambitious and heading for the 32.5’s. . if you still get 8 on the 2nd set with 30’s theres no reason why you shouldnt be able to manage 4/5 of the 32.5s . . if your doin 8 at 30 technically your 1rm should be in around 38 or so . . . not 32.5?

dont do 8 at 30 do one or two and ‘potentiate’ the muscle and go for the 32.5’s. . see how that goes. . and drop back the weight again for your next set if you have to . . maybe the 8 reps is fatiguing the muscle

44

i hope thats just the case… kinda randam. its just happened this week. ive changed very little overall… apart from actually getting up earlier and eating before im in bed more than 10 hours.

doing a power sorta session tomoz. olympic lift etc… hope this doesnt happen again.

today so far ive had…
one shake,
2 HOT-ROX,
2 Norateen (which i can feel kicking in after an uncertain start), and a
multivit…
then 2 hours later i had 2 grilled burgers with nothing added.

should i be eating more/less on none workout days? or should it be different things? the only difference in my diets atm will be, i have a bowl of porridge before working out in the morning… then no carbs thoughout the day!

Scott