I am a bit of an inferential statistics geek, so I might run some data for a period and run some stat tests.
In this particular case I wanted to test the possible benefits of the SARM Mk-2866 (ostarine).
I had some “before” body weight and % body fat data from 7/15/2019 thru 8/5/2019. I started taking Ostarine on 8/6/2019 and took data thru 8/25/2019. When I didn’t see a positive result, I lost interest in continuing the test, and quit tracking the data.
My primary metric interest was to stop weight loss. So I ran a Two-Sample T-Test on weight before and during Ostarine. The results were: Two-Sample T-Test and CI: weight, stage
Two-sample T for weight
stage N Mean StDev SE Mean MK-2866 20 204.120 0.925 0.21 off 18 204.43 1.26 0.30
Difference = mu (MK-2866) - mu (off) Estimate for difference: -0.313333 95% CI for difference: (-1.050013, 0.423346) T-Test of difference = 0 (vs not =): T-Value = -0.87 P-Value = 0.392 DF = 31
The paste isn’t perfect, but the test showed that there was no statistical significant deference between before Ostarine and during Ostarine. If the 95% CI (confidence interval) includes zero indicates no difference. To accept the alternate hypothesis the P-Value must be less than 0.050. As you can see it is 0.392 which is greater than 0.050.
So I ran an I-mR Control Chart with Stages for illustration purposes. This chart will show averages for “before” and “during” Ostarine. They are the green lines. The red lines are control limits. I will explain if someone wants an explanation, but it isn’t necessary for the illustration.
The first chart is body weight and the second chart is % body fat:
On the body weight chart you can see that my average weight is down slightly.
And on the % body fat chart my percent body fat is up slightly.
Neither of these results is what I was hoping to see.
(some may ask about the “Moving Range” charts on the lower half of both charts. That indicates the variation from one date to the next date. Also there are Special Cause data points in red. I can attempt to explain them. The body weight Special Causes are less telling than the % body weight Special Causes, which seem to show an increased body fat, though a Two-Sample T-Test says otherwise - not included on this post)
Today I bought a 90 capsule bottle of Bio-Gen Innovations Osterine MK-2866. I will start tomorrow taking one capsule about every 8 hours (as schedule permits: one upon waking, one at mid-afternoon, and one just at bedtime.) for 30 days. I have tracked and constructed an I-mR Control Chart of my body weight the last 30 days. So, essentially this is a re-test of the possible benefits on body weight of MK-2866 on a 73 year old aging bodybuilder.
I try to keep the same diet throughout the 60 day test period. Below is the baseline of my bodyweight without MK-2866:
I will post the updated chart approximately weekly going forward the next 30 days.
As you can see my average body weight is 199.77lbs. (I weigh the same time everyday. My current scale does not indicate % body fat, so that metric cannot be followed. I will periodically check strength as best I can ascertain.)
Back to my training adjustments. I had been working out at my new gym about 8 months and had turned 66 years old. I read an article in The Weekly Dose of T-Nation about calf training. It rang a bell that I had seen happen to a young bodybuilder when I was turning 30 years old. He never made it to competition condition, but had developed some very nice, large calves. He prioritized his calf training as the first exercise he did. (I would never do that, as I prioritized heavy compound exercises, and typically did calves after thighs) But what he did different than everyone else at the time was focus on time under tension, though he never verbalized it as such. That is just how I would describe it today. He is the only lifter I have seen to significantly increase his calf size in the gym.
Back to the T-Nation article: They were describing the calf sets as performing 12 reps within a time frame of 90 seconds. The reps were started at the stretch, holding a second or two to negate stretch reflex assistance, then slowly raising to the contracted position and holding flexed for 3 seconds. So, to give it a time frame perspective, it took 7.5 seconds to complete each rep, which totaled to 12 reps at the end of 90 seconds. I did 3 sets of 12 reps with a 60 second rest between sets. (Because of my artificial hips the only calf work I can do with sufficient weight this method is seated calf machine raises. I know the seated calf raise is much better at targeting the soleus, and not nearly as effective targeting the gastrocnemius heads. And if you remember the medial head of my gastrocnemius has wasted away.)
This is the only exercise that I do where I am stronger today than I was the first 6 months of incorporating it into my leg program.
The gym also has a homemade anterior lower leg machine that can be placed at the back of the seated calf machine. I warm up with 20 warmup reps on the anterior calf apparatus, and finish off with another set with more weight after I have completed the 3 seated calf machine sets. I like to do these exercises as much for increased circulation in my lower leg as muscle building. My former blood clots have left me with a circulation problem that causes quite a bit of swelling in the lower leg, particularly the right leg, as the day goes on.
I’ve enjoyed reading about your journey and perseverance. Your ortho seems very conservative – I know several lifters who are lifting quite heavy weights after having had hip replacements. Was there something about your particular situation that led him to impose the weight limits on you? (Note I’m also assuming these lifters are following their doctor’s orders, which I suppose is an assumption I shouldn’t be making.)
I’m pretty sure that high impact activities (running, skiing through a mogul field, etc) are strongly discouraged after hip and knee replacements. There seems to be a lot more variation in what people are willing to do when it comes to slow heavy lifting. I suspect that a conservative surgeon would say we don’t have evidence that it is safe, so until we do, don’t do it. Most of them clearly don’t want to have to redo a joint implant that has worn out or broken.
I read a story some years ago about a guy who got one of the early metal hip implants which subsequently broke. The metal ball broke or caved in for some reason (defect, wear and tear, too much load)? The guy ended up bedridden for months while lawyers and insurance companies argued about who was going to pay for the surgery to repair it. I think the cost to repair the broken device was estimated to be $250,000 -$400,000. Not sure why it was that expensive, but that is the number that sticks in my mind.
This too seems to depend on the surgeon – a friend in his early 50s with a knee replacement tells me his doctor didn’t restrict him from running and just told him not to do a lot of it and my wife has two hip replacements and her surgeon just told her not to go to try to run a marathon. Generally though I think you’re right about what most surgeons would tell their patients with new knees or hips. Apologies for the partial hijack of the thread.
I hadn’t gone into any weight increases that I have made through these years.
On the leg press I have increased from 200lbs of plates to 320lbs of plates, where I am doing 2 or 3 sets of 2 minutes of 6 second reps (slow descent, stop at the bottom, fast positive, and no stop at the top) which totals to 20 reps. This is still fairly easy, far from to failure. From my previous weight estimation, 200lb conservative carriage weight plus 320lbs of plates equals 520lbs. With the 30 degree angle, equates to pushing 260lbs.
I increased my deadlifts to 135lbs for sets of 15 reps.
My concern is with excessive weight that it is possible to squish the polyurethane out from between the ball and socket. That would be a bit of a mess, but probably a rather simple repair, but an undesirable situation to be in.
Another concern, though it might not be possible, is driving the pin through my femur, splitting the bone to the knee. That would be a real mess, but it is in the back of my mind.
And now I can add that as something else to think about.
If you haven’t played around with BFR and it is something your doctor will allow, you might benefit from it. I see @average_al mentioned it above but I’ll add my two cents – I am convinced using it when I needed it has helped me keep quad size despite using lower loads. Done right it produces a crazy pump and burn.
Is that Blood Flow Restriction?
How would I go about doing that.
Please make note that both vastus heads of my quads have receded far above the knee. My rectus femoris is prominent, and doesn’t appear to have wasted.
Yes, blood flow restriction. It can be as easy as using a pair of old knee wraps or as complicated as using a cuff you pump up. I’d start your reading here: Blood Flow Restriction Training Made Simple. I like gadgets and so after trying the cuffs that pump up with the physical therapist I was going to at the time, I bought them even though they are expensive (several hundred dollars if I remember right).
This is one of the reasons I often go with the belt squat over the leg press. It’s just too much work hauling all the weights and loading them on the leg press. With the belt squat, it’s an up and down motion, and I am lifting my body weight too.
That detail of lifting the body weight has also changed my ideas around using percentages in programming. I believe that lower percentages are needed for bar weight for lifts like squat and deadlift, as the weight of the body is also lifted.
I’ve seen programs where the same percentages are used across the board (one week bench would be at the same percent as squats and deadlifts for example). Often I see complaints on these programs that they made progress on lower body, but not upper body. Maybe the percentage was correct for lower body, but needed to be higher for the bench for example.
I never got the opportunity to do a belt squat. I have never known a gym in close proximity that had an elevated platform to do belt squats. John Parrillo talked about the belt squat and its benefits to train to failure. Squats just cannot be done high reps that cause thigh failure, at least for me. My back lights up way before my thighs. (I really like the idea that doing belt squats you could get deep without the weight falling forward, causing a break in form that causes a premature miss without achieving failure.)
How many reps on the belt squat are to targeting? Parrillo would talk about the 100lbs for 100 reps as a target.
I do belt squats 2-3 times a week. I do a volume day and a heavy day. Volume day lately has been 5x10, heavy day has been 3x5. Usually if I do a third day it’s tempo day with 3x10.
I feel the same as you. My back is usually first to go on squats. I’m trying to get some growth with the belt squat. I find I go closer to failure with the belt squat compared to the regular squat.
My gym has a rogue belt squat machine. I really like it. I think it can handle a lot of weight (7-800 lbs). It’s one to one mechanical advantage, so I’ll never max it out.
RE: Blood Flow Restriction. I know I suggested this as something to look into. But then I remembered your blood clotting issue. So extra caution is probably in order, especially with the legs…
In the mid-1990’s Bill Phillips recommended a training method that I tried for leg curls on a leg curl machine. As understood the principle, you started with a weight you could do 12 reps. You were to rest 1 minute between sets. The 2nd set you added weight and did 10 reps. The 3rd set you added more weight and did 8 reps. The 4th set you added more weight and did 6 reps. I felt the intent was to pick the correct weight for each set so that you could just do the recommended reps before failure. On the 5th set you were to wait 1 minute and lower the weight and do 12 reps. The main misunderstanding I had was how to determine how much weight I was supposed to use and get 12 reps. I never got the best answer. I usually attempted to do 12 reps the same weight as the second set.
Back to 2016 at the new gym I saw a T-Nation article that did a much better job of explaining a similar program. The guidelines were the same for the first 4 sets, but the difference was the clarity concerning the 5th set. Following the heavy set of 6 reps was a rest of 15 seconds and then dropping the weight to 50% of the 4th set and performing 20 reps. I felt I was making some strength progress. I had incorporated the program for most of my upper body exercises on one of the chest and back days each week. The other upper body days were the shoulder and arm day and one of the chest and back day, which I did as usual.
This program worked fairly nicely for about 4 or 5 months, and then my strength suffered a slight step decline. That seemed to follow the way my gains were in my 20’s and 30’s. The gains would seem to plateau for a while, and then in what seemed like a moment in time, I made a slight step increase in strength. Only in my older years the effect was working in reverse.
My conclusion was sarcopenia took another hit on my body…
Around 2019 there was a T-Nation article about Rest-Pause. I decided to give it a try one day a week of my upper body chest and back day, on the seated dip machine. It seemed like a good feel doing multiple reps of heavy weight.
To add this to my upper body program I dropped the 12, 10, 8, 6, 20 strategy completely during the three months I did Rest-Pause. Though the variety was fun, it added no strength.
Because I was doing low rep Rest-Pause on the seated dip machine. I decided to add seated dips to the Saturday shoulder and arm upper body day. On this I did 3 sets of 20 reps. I though maybe a high reps day might help stimulate some slow twitch muscle. I could do 20 reps on the first set, but the subsequent sets my reps dropped usually 17 reps on the second set and 15 reps on the third set.
I cycled this routine of Rest-Pause/20 reps seated dips from there two months on followed by 2 months of my normal sets and reps, then back on.
Then in 2020 I heard about Biotest “micro-PA” supplement and decided to give it a try on upper body days. (to boost mTOR) In a couple weeks I noticed that my 20 reps sets began to improve. I was up to 2 sets of 20 reps, and the third set up to 18 reps. The problem was that my Rest-Pause strength was not improving, though at first I thought it might be.
I have been taking 100mg of testosterone cypionate every 5 days (sometimes I forget and it is every 6 days) since around 2004, if I recall correctly. For that reason it is difficult to say empirically it is any benefit now. I would not like to stop now.
I will add that for my MK-2866 test period that I have added two “supplement” changes:
I take 100mg of testosterone every 4 days (or 25mg/day)
Yesterday I jumped my glutamine from 5mg/day to 20mg/day
I know that complicates the test for the efficacy of MK-2866. But I am so limited in time (getting old too fast), I am not waiting to add each change a month at a time. The instructions on the bottle suggests cycles of 4 to 8 weeks, so there’s that time consumption I would have to absorb.
I have a strength metric on the seated dip machine that I am monitoring along with my body weight.
I should add that as long as I have lived I have always looked younger than my age.
After reading about your previous experience with steriods, I have assumed that your natural production of testosterone probably had been permanently impaired, and that you were probably on TRT forever. I have the impression that is a pretty common outcome for people who have used anabolics extensively (e.g. pro bodybuilders). But that is a very uninformed impression. I wonder if you could comment both for yourself, and for what you have observed in other aging bodybuilders.
