[quote]johned87 wrote:
[quote]lift206 wrote:
Edit: OP, I think the goal is achievable for you given your body weight if you train smart and do everything necessary to get there. It just depends how bad you want it. If you keep making bad choices for training and aren’t learning what your body needs then you may need a trainer that has worked with clients achieving that same goal. I have a friend that 2.5 years ago never trained, wasn’t very active and weighed around 270 lbs. After getting into lifting his two goals were to get under 200 lbs and hit a 405 lb bench. He hit both goals and got that 2xBW bench recently.[/quote]
I’d be interested to know how he achieved both at the same time, considering it is what I’m trying to do. [/quote]
I guess I exaggerated his weight - he said he was in the mid 230s. I thought he was about 270 because he had similar proportions to another guy I train with that started at over 280. The weight loss is not as impressive but it doesn’t take away from his progress going from being inactive and benching 155 to losing 35 lbs and benching 405. Here is his response since I don’t feel like summarizing:
"I kinda focused both from the beginning, which wasn’t exactly ideal haha. I wanted to lose weight, but i enjoyed lifting heavy. I knew i would lose interest if i just did a strict cut. I didn’t really change my diet much during the first year. Near the end of the first year I started tracking my food and was trying to stick around 2000 calories and 200ish g of protein. I got my bench up to about 365 last summer, and was sitting around 215. My chest tanked pretty hard after that as i started training for a half marathon, and i didn’t get it back up until this summer. Over the past couple years i fluctuated from about 205-220 lbs. Near the end of august this year i was about 210-215 and was struggling with 315 on bench. That’s when i started working with the trainer and made a pretty hard push through september and early october. Each week i kept going up. I think the first week with him i did 315, 335, and 355. The week after that i went for 375, then 395 the week after that. And then on the 4th week, i went for 405. During that time i kept probably the strictest diet I’ve ever had. I’m usually pretty good during the week, but ease back a little on the weekends. The main thing i changed during this time was just keeping it up through the weekends. I also was doing a lot of cardio to cut down. My typical week was chest on monday, legs on tuesday, arms on wed, and back/shoulders on thurs. With core 2-3 days each week. After lifting, i would do 20-25 min of cardio everyday. And then on the weekends, i would do longer cardio. About an hour if i went to the gym, but i usually tried to ride my bike on the weekends, and that was anywhere from 1-3 hours. THe day i went for 405, i hit 202 lbs and the week after that i was down to 199. I think a lot of it was mental because i really don’t think i put on that much muscle over such a short period of time. I just lost a lot of motivation when i started to drop, and working with the trainer helped get me motivated again. And once i started pushing for it, it came pretty quick…So yeah, that’s about it…
I pretty much kept the same program, but he helped me switch up my lifts. Chest stayed about the same though. I lift 4 days a week and do chest, legs/deads/core, arms, back/shoulders, and i do core again on one of the other days. I usually do 4 lifts per muscle group and 3-4 sets each. My reps vary from 5-12 probably, depending on how hard I’m pushing."
He didn’t get into specifics about programming but I remember it being similar to a bodybuilding split since he mentioned doing incline, flat and decline.