Serge Storms Experimentation Log - New Methods to Gain Muscle and Lose Fat

Training Training Logs
181

[quote]EyeDentist wrote:
Some great stuff here, and a fun read to boot.

Maintaining on 3400-3500 cals/d @192, huh? I’m only ~5# lighter than you, but am finding 2500/d is about the upper limit of maintenance for me. Enjoy your roaring 40 y.o. metabolism while you can, whippersnapper.[/quote]

Thanks for dropping in!

Yeah, on the one hand, I’ve kind of been guiding my intake up towards that number gradually. On the other, I have always had a pretty good metabolism. I shall take your advice and enjoy it while it lasts.

182

[quote]ryanbCXG wrote:
Wasn’t able to read that long post so maybe you hit it. But if hunger is off the chart I wouldn’t try to control it too much. If it’s true hunger most likley your body needs its and needs the extra food for growth and repair. Just my option.

Need more meat for those side shots [/quote]

Good call, I agree. I changed my focus from arms and shoulders to chest/back thickness a little while back and the shift has already started to produce some promising early results.

I have other pics that I don’t post here where I take the least-flattering side-on shot I can possible find. If nothing else, this has helped motivate me to keep working hard on that front-to-back thickness.

Thanks.

183

Thursday Macros

3500 calories

320g P
360g C
67g F

Thursday PM - Tennis

I played singles for an hour yesterday with my old hitting partner - haven’t seen him in a while so it was fun to get out there and crush some tennis balls.

I love tennis.

Heart rate monitor said something like 155 average for the hour with a 176 max. 750 or so calories burned.

Here’s a little tip - if you do a very intense activity that you aren’t very adapted to, you can count almost all of those estimated calories burned towards your calorie deficit. If you do a not-so-intense activity that you are adapted to, you might as well not even factor it into your energy balance equation.

FRIDAY AM WEIGHT = 190.2 (down a little bit from recent average)

FRIDAY AM TRAINING

Chest, chest, chest, and more chest.

A little jump rope, a little bit of arms and shoulder pump work. But mostly chest. Cross-body flex/squeeze move with cables, machines, and DBs.

I might need to add more carbs to my workout drink - I seem to be burning through them. I can tell because my blood sugar is coming back down pretty low by the time I get home, and I also just get this feeling during the workout that I want to slam the whole thing - like I just need more.

I’m at the low end with just 66 grams of Serge Workout Fuel in 1.2 L water. I think I’ll bump to 80 or 100 maybe.

I’ve tried to add some fats like almonds or almond butter before I leave the gym, but it’s not making a difference - I just think I need more carbs.

At Boot Camp 2, they were letting us drink as much of this stuff as we wanted, and I seemed to be the one who couldn’t stop slamming the stuff - I probably had at least 300g worth of carbs during those workouts. Maybe I should try just going ape shit and mixing up like 3 Nalgene bottles one day to see what happens.

We’re having a huge party tomorrow. I’ll be mixing up some performance cocktails. This time, I’m gonna triple the beta alanine so my lips and eyebrows get extra tingly.

184

Have you always preferred such a high protein intake? Have you ever run significantly lower levels?

185

I just want to say that you’re pretty much my fitness man-crush and I want to look like that when I grow up.

I enjoy your thoughts on training, diet, and the above thing on hunger. I’ve kind of adapted to an IF approach (coffee, morning bike ride to work, snack on some meat/pemmican/beef jerky throughout the day, bike home+do more intense workout, gorge on 1-2 pounds of meat + 1-2 pounds of vegetables before bed), but definitely have struggled with hunger when training at higher volumes in the past. Endurance activity, in particular, makes me far hungrier than weight training…I used to run long distances at a moderately high level, and I would get home from a 13-14 mile run on Saturday morning and spend the rest of the day eating pretty much everything in sight.

Anecdotally, there does seem to be something (for me, anyway) with carbs making me hungrier. If I have my pemmican and beef jerky in the morning with no carbs, I don’t really get hungry. When I used to bring carbier breakfasts to work, I’d eat at 9 and be hungry again by 11 AM. If I start with pemmican and jerky and a large water bottle, I can go most of the day without anything else (admittedly, this leads to me eating 6-8 chicken drumsticks and a pound of vegetables every night after my evening workout, but I can live with that).

186

[quote]ActivitiesGuy wrote:
I just want to say that you’re pretty much my fitness man-crush and I want to look like that when I grow up.
[/quote]

Thanks! When it comes to compliments, I’ll gladly take whatever comes my way, so I appreciate it.

And same here, if I start my day without carbs, I can keep my intake much lower later in the day. First-thing AM training is the only option for me, though, so if I want to flood myself with carbs during my workout, the floodgates are gonna be open for the rest of the day!

187

[quote]EyeDentist wrote:
Have you always preferred such a high protein intake? Have you ever run significantly lower levels?[/quote]

Nope, I’ve really just jacked up my protein this week.

My normal target has been in the 185-220 range for protein.

But keeping my fat intake at 65g/day or less seems to be the one variable that really keeps my diet clean, consistent, and sustainable.

That means that if I want to push calories up towards 3500ish, I end up in the 500g/day range for carbs.

This week, I just wanted to see how I would feel if I shifted some of those carbs to protein. I’m mostly looking for a difference in the ease of the diet vs. results, as I seem to get pretty good results either way.

The extra protein is coming mostly from protein powder, which I mix with just enough skim milk to make a cement-like substance. Eating this a few times a day really seems to help me manage my appetite and step off the carb carousel just a bit. For me, carbs beget carbs and it can spiral quickly if I let it.

So far, the increased protein intake definitely hasn’t hurt. I’ve felt pretty awesome all week and I’m looking as sharp as ever - I think swapping some protein in for those carbs might also pull water into the right places a bit better, but I’m not sure.

One of the drugs I’m involved with at work is used for kidney transplant patients, so my experience in that arena has instilled a little fear of high protein intake for me. (Even though many of those patients really start down that path because of sugar-related issues, not protein.)

But hey…I figure I’ve got 3,500 calories to work with, I don’t think it will kill me to make these little shifts because every metabolic pathway is getting stressed to a certain degree anyway.

188

[quote]Serge A. Storms wrote:

[quote]EyeDentist wrote:
Have you always preferred such a high protein intake? Have you ever run significantly lower levels?[/quote]

Nope, I’ve really just jacked up my protein this week.

My normal target has been in the 185-220 range for protein.

But keeping my fat intake at 65g/day or less seems to be the one variable that really keeps my diet clean, consistent, and sustainable.

That means that if I want to push calories up towards 3500ish, I end up in the 500g/day range for carbs.

This week, I just wanted to see how I would feel if I shifted some of those carbs to protein. I’m mostly looking for a difference in the ease of the diet vs. results, as I seem to get pretty good results either way.

The extra protein is coming mostly from protein powder, which I mix with just enough skim milk to make a cement-like substance. Eating this a few times a day really seems to help me manage my appetite and step off the carb carousel just a bit. For me, carbs beget carbs and it can spiral quickly if I let it.

So far, the increased protein intake definitely hasn’t hurt. I’ve felt pretty awesome all week and I’m looking as sharp as ever - I think swapping some protein in for those carbs might also pull water into the right places a bit better, but I’m not sure.

One of the drugs I’m involved with at work is used for kidney transplant patients, so my experience in that arena has instilled a little fear of high protein intake for me. (Even though many of those patients really start down that path because of sugar-related issues, not protein.)

But hey…I figure I’ve got 3,500 calories to work with, I don’t think it will kill me to make these little shifts because every metabolic pathway is getting stressed to a certain degree anyway.

[/quote]

I love pro from all sources so much. If they weren’t so expensive I’d have my protein intake through the roof. Mainly just becuse I love eating it

189

Re the effect of early carbs on metabolism…I became aware of this study via the writing of Borge ‘Blade’ Fagerli. It uses an animal (mouse) model, so caveat emptor. Still, it’s very interesting, and has me contemplating its implications for my own diet. From the conclusion:

“The implications of the present research are important for human dietary recommendations. Humans seldom eat a uniform diet throughout the day, thus requiring the ability to respond to alterations in diet quality. Currently, a typical human diet consists of a high carbohydrate morning meal followed by higher fat and/or more calorie-dense meals later in the day. Our studies provide evidence that the capacity to adjust to the dietary composition of a given meal or bout of feeding is an important component in energy balance and that such capacity appears to depend on the meal ingested upon waking. Consumption of a high fat waking meal is associated with increased ability to respond appropriately to carbohydrate meals ingested later in the waking period, while a high carbohydrate morning meal appears to “fix” metabolism toward carbohydrate utilization and impair the ability to adjust metabolism toward fat utilization later in the waking period.” [emphasis mine]

190

[quote]ryanbCXG wrote:
I love pro from all sources so much. If they weren’t so expensive I’d have my protein intake through the roof. Mainly just becuse I love eating it[/quote]

Yeah, I’m pretty sure that I could eat 5-6 pounds of meat every day and never get sick of it.

191

[quote]EyeDentist wrote:
Re the effect of early carbs on metabolism…I became aware of this study via the writing of Borge ‘Blade’ Fagerli. It uses an animal (mouse) model, so caveat emptor. Still, it’s very interesting, and has me contemplating its implications for my own diet. From the conclusion:

“The implications of the present research are important for human dietary recommendations. Humans seldom eat a uniform diet throughout the day, thus requiring the ability to respond to alterations in diet quality. Currently, a typical human diet consists of a high carbohydrate morning meal followed by higher fat and/or more calorie-dense meals later in the day. Our studies provide evidence that the capacity to adjust to the dietary composition of a given meal or bout of feeding is an important component in energy balance and that such capacity appears to depend on the meal ingested upon waking. Consumption of a high fat waking meal is associated with increased ability to respond appropriately to carbohydrate meals ingested later in the waking period, while a high carbohydrate morning meal appears to “fix” metabolism toward carbohydrate utilization and impair the ability to adjust metabolism toward fat utilization later in the waking period.” [emphasis mine]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3021134/[/quote]

Fascinating - thanks for sharing.

192

[quote]EyeDentist wrote:
Re the effect of early carbs on metabolism…I became aware of this study via the writing of Borge ‘Blade’ Fagerli. It uses an animal (mouse) model, so caveat emptor. Still, it’s very interesting, and has me contemplating its implications for my own diet. From the conclusion:

“The implications of the present research are important for human dietary recommendations. Humans seldom eat a uniform diet throughout the day, thus requiring the ability to respond to alterations in diet quality. Currently, a typical human diet consists of a high carbohydrate morning meal followed by higher fat and/or more calorie-dense meals later in the day. Our studies provide evidence that the capacity to adjust to the dietary composition of a given meal or bout of feeding is an important component in energy balance and that such capacity appears to depend on the meal ingested upon waking. Consumption of a high fat waking meal is associated with increased ability to respond appropriately to carbohydrate meals ingested later in the waking period, while a high carbohydrate morning meal appears to “fix” metabolism toward carbohydrate utilization and impair the ability to adjust metabolism toward fat utilization later in the waking period.” [emphasis mine]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3021134/[/quote]

Thanks for sharing that link. Great paper.

If those mice lifted tiny little dumbbells for super high reps every morning, I bet they could have maintained a higher degree of metabolic flexibility throughout the day.

Seriously, though…that paper does bring up some interesting points that seem to match my experience as a human.

I wish we could make more progress towards unraveling the mysteries of human appetite. So much of it is tied to emotions. As helpful as they are to science, mice just don’t stress out about the same stuff we do.

193

Friday Macros

3550 calories

315g P
385g C
87g F

Weight - 192.5

194

Quick Update

I’ve lifted maybe three of the last six days or so.

Been averaging about 5,000 calories/day for the past four or five days. Normal people food.

We had a big work meeting in Napa all week. I think I did almost as much damage as the earthquake…it might take them a few days to restock their food and beverage supplies.

Fun was had by all. We got a round of golf in, I was absolutely smoking the driver. I was tempted to buy that rental driver right on the spot. Nike…not sure exactly which model, all I know is that the ball was rocketing off the face. I eagled a super long par 5. Drove it about 300 and then hit the 3 wood about 230 to within about 8 feet. Lucky, but I’ll take it. It was pretty bad ass, though. On that second shot, I had to clear a little creek and fade it around a corner. I had a feeling it was good, but we didn’t know until we drove around the corner and saw the ball on the green. Sweet action.

I’ll be executing the damage control protocol over the next few days - I’m looking forward to it. I’m guessing I’ll weigh in at about 197 tomorrow morning, we’ll see. I did an afternoon workout at the hotel yesterday, and the extra food really filled me out - my arms and chest were so blown up it looked like my head was too small for my body.

195

Here is what normal people macros look like:

THURSDAY

2650 calories

113g P
209g C
153g F

17% P
31% C
52% F

Well, I’m glad that’s over. Off to a great start this morning with a kick-ass workout and flipping of the food switch.

I’m already at 170g C, 73g P, and 9g F.

FRIDAY AM WEIGHT = 193.4

That is why the scale is not always the best tool for the job.

There is a slight risk here that I could say, “well look at that, I can eat like shit for three days and gain less than a pound - maybe I should do that more often.”

But no. That is not how it is done. I am not in some kind of race to add 20 pounds of mass.

In fact, lately I’m not finding myself super interested in getting much bigger from an overall mass perspective. The prospect of jumping in a physique contest had sparked a little sense of urgency for a while there, but that is starting to fade.

However, I have no plans to slow down my training or really change anything - I still want to keep working on my metabolism so I can keep my intake high. Because food. And I still want to keep lifting because that’s what I do.

One thing that seems to keep me focused and energized during my workouts is the desire to demonstrate that my approach to building muscle is a valid option that deserves more consideration, especially for beginners.

One of the T-Nation contributors once wrote something like “nobody would be stupid enough to think that high rep isolation work alone could build muscle.”

This morning, I was doing some reverse fly machine work and really getting some good burn and fatigue in my back. I figured I probably created enough stimulus after a few extended sets and was about to walk away to something else. But then I thought - wait a minute, the best way to show that this works is to produce some results. So I hammered out another good bit of work and really torched the shit out of those back muscles.

I don’t want to prove that anyone is wrong. My point has always been that everything works. I just get sick of people blindly buying into this meme that the only way to build muscle is through a plan that is based on fucking squats, deads, bench, and fucking shoulder pressing. I highly fucking doubt that 90% of the people who perpetuate that advice ever gave the opposite approach a fair try. So I guess that is one component of what keeps me striving for improvements.

THURSDAY TRAINING - BACK THICKNESS - 75 minutes

Variations of rows and high pulls, basically. Mostly connection, contraction, and pump work for the lower traps and rhomboids.
A few jump rope circuits and some abs.

196

So:

–You weigh 192.5.
–You go on a 5d food bender at ~5K/d, eating real food.
–You weigh 193.4.

That’s great man; I’m so happy for you.

[Who’s speechless with envy?

<—This guy]

197

Two things I really like in your post

  1. “Because food” - absolutely. I very much enjoy working out, and do so because I want to be proud of my fitness, but I also love to eat and could no doubt eat myself into morbid obesity without regular exercise.

  2. “Everything works” - depending on the goals of the trainee, I agree. I don’t think that a kid training to play football should train that way, but I absolutely feel you in that muscle can be built a lot of different ways and that heavy compounds are not ABSOLUTELY necessary. I think it takes a fairly advanced and intense trainee, though, to build significant muscle with high rep isolation work as the primary focus.

198

[quote]EyeDentist wrote:
So:

–You weigh 192.5.
–You go on a 5d food bender at ~5K/d, eating real food.
–You weigh 193.4.

That’s great man; I’m so happy for you.

[Who’s speechless with envy?

<—This guy]
[/quote]

Yeah, I still seem to handle periodic benders pretty well. I’m sure that will change at some point, though!

Ironically, this is what used to get me into trouble. I would get an inch and then take a mile. Before I knew what happened, three months would go by and I’d find myself driving through a Wendy’s drive-through. On my way home. To dinner.

199

[quote]ActivitiesGuy wrote:
I think it takes a fairly advanced and intense trainee, though, to build significant muscle with high rep isolation work as the primary focus.[/quote]

But what do you base this assumption on?

Totally not being argumentative, just trying to provoke some thought here for us and anyone who wants to jump in.

The one part of your statement I totally agree with is “intense”. Most people have no idea what kind of intensity level isolation work can be taken to, because they’ve never had a compelling reason to go there.

But I just don’t know if they need to be fairly advanced. Not saying I’m huge, but I’ve built a decent amount of muscle for a naturally skinny guy, and even in the beginning, I didn’t start out with meat-and-potatoes lifts.

Probably the difference is that I had a very strong athletic base to build from, though.

But I would just LOVE to take a few skinny beginners under my wing and have them train like I do. I really don’t think they would miss anything by completely skipping squats, deads, barbell bench, and overhead pressing.

I mean, I still do things like machine press, pull-ups, 1-arm DB snatch, intense push-up variations, L-sits, etc…so you can’t say they would be missing out on elements that build athleticism and a degree of bad-assedness.

Maybe they would miss the neurological hypertrophy-inducing effects of loading the spine with heavy weights or whatever. Maybe.

I would start a beginner off on a steady diet of high-volume, high-intensity training with a primary focus on arms and shoulders. Next thing you know, he’s flashing some guns for the young ladies, it builds his confidence, he keeps on lifting, and eventually puts muscle on everywhere else. Eventually he’s banging the football captain’s girlfriend. In the squat rack.

200

On intensity.

I haven’t been in this game very long, but I agree that intensity is very, very important. A lot of people do not grasp what that means. I see it in my gym all the time. Arms are moving and weights are being held in the hands, but sad-sack excuses and lamentations of no progress flow out of the mouth.

I believe that compound-based, strength-oriented programs are easier for a beginner to execute with intensity. Just lift heavy, follow the program and add weight to the bar. Poof, you are now lifting with intensity.

I have dabbled in bodybuilding-style workouts, and I find it much more difficult to get my head around these concepts I hear about. Mind-muscle connection, controlled tempo, this “pump” everyone keeps raving about. It is all Greek to me, but I haven’t exactly given that approach a whole lot of effort. I don’t doubt for one minute that you can have a very intense workout without ever picking up anything heavier than 50 pounds, I just have no idea how I would go about doing it.

Perhaps I am just a brute, better suited to strength-based approaches. Or, perhaps more likely, I’m just a guy who’s only lifted seriously for a year with a lot left to learn.

As an aside, I really like your mindset of “unleashing the power of habit”. That’s how I’ve been building my house, brick by brick, habit by habit.