Stuck in a 'Beginner' Rut, Need Help

Training
21

[quote]ThyArtisMurder wrote:
Pwnisher, thank you for your input. I do not plan on competing in muay thai, or else i would not be so keen or interested in lifting. I want to excel at muay thai, but lifting is so fun and addicting not to mention i’m so early into it and have SO much progress to make. If i wanted to excel at weights, i would probably go 3-4 days a week, but i enjoy kickboxing more (self defense, fun etc) that’s why i’m trying to make the best of both. [/quote]

I know exactly what you mean because I was in this very situation. I also know you won’t listen to the advice I’m going to give, because I didn’t listen to it at your age, but I’ll say it anyway in the hopes that you may realize it at 20 versus when I did at 21, which will still give you a head start.

I spent years spinning my wheels and just making zero notable progress in both fighting and lifting when I tried to do both. They’re simply opposite activities that have opposite demands, and training for one detriments the other rather than enhances it. It takes a lot of time and energy to get good at fighting, which is time and energy spent not only not improving at lifting, but actively and negatively impacting your recovery from lifting. Trying to put on weight while doing what it takes to become a better fighter is almost impossible for an unassisted trainee, because it’s simply too demanding from a caloric standpoint. Hell, right now I’m trying to split my attention between strongman and powerlifting, two sports with what look like similar demands, and it’s still an effort to not regress at one to progress in the other.

When I tried to do both, I was just bad at two things, and really, spending your time and energy training to be bad at something is disheartening. If/when you decide which is ultimately your priority, you will be thankful you did. If you pick lifting, you can always do some bagwork for some conditioning, and if you pick fighting, you can definitely put on a little size and strength, but it’s going to be a very slow and gradual approach.

22

Damn…you’re right. I never wanted to be in the situation where I have to pick one or the other, because at this point, I honestly do not know.I’m not sure what to do in this situation. I know many people have lifted and boxed/kickboxed with good results, I’m just not sure if I can. I will be dedicated, and since I don’t want to compete wouldn’t that make it easier to focus on both? since i’m not limited to weight classes? I’m probably just making excuses at this point, because I really do not want to choose one or the other. :frowning:

23

[quote]ThyArtisMurder wrote:
Damn…you’re right. I never wanted to be in the situation where I have to pick one or the other, because at this point, I honestly do not know. [/quote]

It requires some inflection. I made the decision when I got married. I can explain my rationale in my choice, if it can help you in your decision.

Though I liked fighting, I ultimately sold it to myself as self defense, and upon my marriage, defense of my loved ones. I originally did martial arts and took up lifting to supplement my fighting. However, upon reflection, I realized that in many cases, it can be effective self defense just to be big and scary enough that people would rather not fight you in the first place, versus appearing very average and simply knowing within yourself that you have the capability to fight if needed. Instead of being able to win fights whenever they happened, I preferred to not have to be in fights in the first place.

I do miss fighting on occasion, and every once in a while I dig out the heavy bag and gloves and go a few rounds, but I don’t regret my decision at all. I love how well I’ve been able to progress since I picked one.

24

[quote]ThyArtisMurder wrote:
Yesterdays meals.
a glass of milk
two slices of lunch meat
two eggs[/quote]
Just wanted to point out that, that day - when you had a full body session including heavy squats - you had maybe 30 grams of protein total. This, in addition to taking in too few calories, is a huge and obvious problem. Make sure a good serving of protein is present every time you eat.

Fixed. Seriously, you’ve probably heard of GOMAD (gallon of milk a day). Instead of that, make it a goal to have a dozen eggs a day. DEAD. No, the cholesterol won’t kill you. And no, all the fat in the yolks won’t kill you. Yes, the protein, healthy fats, and calories will help you build size.

i’m not sure why you’re not sure. You’re a young dude with plenty of room, and time, to grow. And you’ve got the time available to do what you enjoy. With the right scheduling, especially since there’s no need to necessarily be in a rush to get to a certain point, I see zero reasons why you can’t keep rolling with what you’ve been doing. After making the noted corrections.

25

This has already been covered thoroughly and I hope you take all of the good advice that is being offered to you seriously. However, you remind me a lot of myself at your age and you seem like a really nice guy so I’m going to throw in my two cents as well, although like I said it may seem redundant.

You don’t eat anywhere near enough. In fact, you’d probably be better off if you literally doubled your intake than if you kept it the same. For some perspective, this is what I ate yesterday:

First breakfast (immediately upon waking)
-Protein Shake
-Medium Banana

Second breakfast (about an hour later)
-6 scrambled eggs
-1 cup (dry) oatmeal with honey

  • 1/4 cup walnuts
    -Couple handfuls of raw spinach

Lunch
-1.5 scoops whey protein w/ flax seeds mixed in
-1.5 cups brown rice
-broccoli

2nd Lunch
-1 cup cottage cheese

  • 1 medium sweet potato

Intra-workout
-10 grams BCAAs
-half a large bottle of gatorade

Post-workout
-1.5 scoops whey protein
-Handful of gummy bears

Dinner

  • 6 scrambled eggs
    -1 large sweet potato
    -couple handfuls of raw spinach

Granted, I’m a bit heavier than you (185 lbs) and train more frequently (4 days lifting, 1 day conditioning) but I’m also not actively trying to put on weight. I’m just trying to give you a perspective on how much food people who are serious about training tend to eat. While I’m not saying you need to start putting away this much food right now, I wish someone told me this when I was a 130 lb high school senior who had wasted countless hours trying to get bigger while eating like a bird. If you want an easy and quick way to get in more calories, make this shake in a blender: 2 scoops chocolate whey protein, 2 medium bananas, a cup and a half or so of 2 percent milk, and ice. Now obviously the recipe can be messed with a bit, but thats what I do sometimes and it yields a delicious and calorie/ nutrient dense shake. If you want more calories, throw some peanut butter in there. If you’re as lean as you say you are and train with any intensity at all you really should be trying to pack some more food into you.

As for the suggestion to quit your martial arts training, I can’t speak from personal experience because I’ve never been there. However, I don’t see why you couldn’t put on weight while training for muay thai a couple hours a week so long as you’re eating enough, sleeping enough, and applying yourself to your strength training program as well. Now I don’t think you’ll be able to invest the time necessary to get great at the sport, but a few hours a week should be enough to steadily improve your skills while getting some cardio in. I know guys who use boxing training as their conditioning, limit it to 2.5 hours per week, and still manage to gain muscle and strength. They’re not going to with any boxing matches any time soon (or bodybuilding shows for that matter), but they’re big, strong dudes who can throw a decent punch. If thats all you want then I don’t think its impossible.

26

[quote]TrevorLPT wrote:
However, I don’t see why you couldn’t put on weight while training for muay thai a couple hours a week so long as you’re eating enough, sleeping enough, and applying yourself to your strength training program as well.
[/quote]

In the realm of training for combat sports, a couple of hours is 1 day of training (and that’s really a light day in some cases), which is generally enough to maintain your skills, or slowly let them decline. Generally, 2-3 days a week of practice is what you’ll need to actually make some steadily noticeable improvements, and 4-6 would be enough to really be able to reach some higher levels (to include running 2 a days during some of those practices). It’s not like lifting, where a 1 hour workout done 3 days a week can be more than enough to make substantial growth sadly. This was another one of the factors that helped me make my decision.

27

[quote]T3hPwnisher wrote:

[quote]TrevorLPT wrote:
However, I don’t see why you couldn’t put on weight while training for muay thai a couple hours a week so long as you’re eating enough, sleeping enough, and applying yourself to your strength training program as well.
[/quote]

In the realm of training for combat sports, a couple of hours is 1 day of training (and that’s really a light day in some cases), which is generally enough to maintain your skills, or slowly let them decline. Generally, 2-3 days a week of practice is what you’ll need to actually make some steadily noticeable improvements, and 4-6 would be enough to really be able to reach some higher levels (to include running 2 a days during some of those practices). It’s not like lifting, where a 1 hour workout done 3 days a week can be more than enough to make substantial growth sadly. This was another one of the factors that helped me make my decision.
[/quote]

Makes a lot of sense. But if someone just wants to pursue muay thai as a hobby/ form of cross training, would it make sense to you to only do it 2 or so hours a week? Or in your opinion is that just a waste of time and they’d be better off getting their conditioning in some other way?

28

I really think your biggest problem is that you have conflicting goals. I’ve trained muay thai and BJJ as well, for years. Just to maintain my weight i had to eat an insane amount of food, and my lifting always suffered it is just inevitable. It’s really difficult to get big and strong while training several days a week like that.

To me it’s like you’re sending your body mixed messages about what adaptations it needs. If you want to spend some time getting bigger and stronger, I would strongly recommend scaling back the muay thai and stepping up the lifting and most definitely you need to eat a LOT more, you’re not even close.

If you completely stopped the muay thai, focused completely on lifting and eating like a crazy sonofabitch, i guarantee you would surprise yourself with how much bigger and stronger you could get in a few months.

If you’re going to insist on continuing your current training protocol, then absolutely you need to dramatically step up your eating. missing a post workout meal (which should be a very large meal) is unacceptable if you’re serious. You just need to raise your standard about what is acceptable and what you really want to achieve. I can tell you honestly, I havn’t missed a post workout meal in years, it just can’t happen. So Eat Eat Eat all day no excuses.

29

[quote]TrevorLPT wrote:
Makes a lot of sense. But if someone just wants to pursue muay thai as a hobby/ form of cross training, would it make sense to you to only do it 2 or so hours a week? Or in your opinion is that just a waste of time and they’d be better off getting their conditioning in some other way? [/quote]

Yeah, I mentioned in a previous post, you can definitely hit the bag for some conditioning work, you just have to understand that, at that point, you are making your lifting better, not your Muay Thai, and you need to tailor it as such. The goal here is to improve your recovery, not hinder it, so you wouldn’t be pushing yourself as hard as when you are trying to become a better fighter.

It’s much the same way how a fighter might run to help their conditioning, but they aren’t employing the galloway method to improve their run time or focusing on having speed days, distance days and stride days. One is a tool for the other.

30

[quote]T3hPwnisher wrote:

[quote]TrevorLPT wrote:
Makes a lot of sense. But if someone just wants to pursue muay thai as a hobby/ form of cross training, would it make sense to you to only do it 2 or so hours a week? Or in your opinion is that just a waste of time and they’d be better off getting their conditioning in some other way? [/quote]

Yeah, I mentioned in a previous post, you can definitely hit the bag for some conditioning work, you just have to understand that, at that point, you are making your lifting better, not your Muay Thai, and you need to tailor it as such. The goal here is to improve your recovery, not hinder it, so you wouldn’t be pushing yourself as hard as when you are trying to become a better fighter.

It’s much the same way how a fighter might run to help their conditioning, but they aren’t employing the galloway method to improve their run time or focusing on having speed days, distance days and stride days. One is a tool for the other.

[/quote]

Sorry I missed that. I think that is very good advice and a solid analogy. I bet he could get away with a couple (hour-long) classes a week instead of just hitting the bag, right?

If the guy is anything like me at that age that would definitely be the way to go. As a little guy, it can be immensely frustrating to view yourself as a badass tough guy while nobody else does. Much better to be strong, look the part, and just enough skill to back it up if need be then to look like a weakling but know yourself that you could kick most people’s asses.

31

[quote]TrevorLPT wrote:
Sorry I missed that. I think that is very good advice and a solid analogy. I bet he could get away with a couple (hour-long) classes a week instead of just hitting the bag, right?

If the guy is anything like me at that age that would definitely be the way to go. As a little guy, it can be immensely frustrating to view yourself as a badass tough guy while nobody else does. Much better to be strong, look the part, and just enough skill to back it up if need be then to look like a weakling but know yourself that you could kick most people’s asses. [/quote]

I honestly have never seen a place train Muay Thai (or any combat sport for that matter) for only an hour at a time. I don’t really see how a lot could get accomplished in that time period of any benefit. The warm-up and cooldown alone is probably going to eat about 20-30 minutes of your time. As such, I honestly don’t know how this scenario would play out.

32

You could always just get as strong as possible given your other hobbies.

You’ll probably never go deadlifting 600lb+ or something, but I think someone who deadlifts between 450-500lb is plenty strong for a normal person.

33

i’ll try to shed some light on the situation. Class length-1 hour and 30 minutes (K1/low kick focus) Warm up-Shadowboxing. Our own pace. (Light) after warm up- Partner drills. Could be many things, usually do Thai tag (kicking partner’s legs/body) this goes on for a little bit, we switch partners and so on. After this, we continue with partner drills, usually practicing defense and offense, defending punches and kicks, throwing punches/kicks on our partner (Light) after this we usually hit pads or the bag, sometimes we don’t even do that, just continue with partner drills.

(Moderate/Hard) after this class is coming to a close, when there’s 15-30 minutes left we spar. 3 minutes on, 1 minute off. Usually 3-5 rounds. (Hard/difficult) to be completely honest, I would NOT be sore most of the time after a Muay Thai class unless I have lifting in my schedule, which I have. That’s when things get difficult.

Sometimes I have an absolute bat-shit crazy class, where i’m completely exhausted from, It is very rare that a class is insanely difficult. Hopefully this gives you a little understanding of a regular Muay Thai class. I plan on doing this twice a week, three times a week maybe. Honestly, if i did zero lifting I would rarely be sore/tired unless I went to 3-4 classes minimum.

34

Yeah, I just want to get as strong as I possibly can while practicing Muay Thai. I’m not expecting serious fighting gains, or improvement. Just moderate improvement in self-defense, so that I’m confident in a situation if it every occurs. I don’t want to be a skinny bitch forever.

35

[quote]ThyArtisMurder wrote:
Yeah, I just want to get as strong as I possibly can while practicing Muay Thai. I’m not expecting serious fighting gains, or improvement. Just moderate improvement in self-defense, so that I’m confident in a situation if it every occurs. I don’t want to be a skinny bitch forever.[/quote]

Training for self-defense should be the most serious kind. In the ring, you can always tap out when you’re overwhelmed. On the street, you go to the hospital or the morgue and there will be no referee to make sure any rules are followed. Just something to think about.

I’ve been doing martial arts for most of my lifting career so far and I’ve managed to go from 135 to 165 (I’m still working on getting to 175 or maybe 180 eventually). The two issues you’ll have will be diet and recovery. You need to eat enough to gain weight (no matter how much you eat, if you stay the same, it’s not enough) and don’t do an exhausting MT session the day before you lift; if you enter the gym worn out and sore, you can’t perform well enough to gain size. Apart from these, I’m pretty confident it can be done IF you eat. Also, I’d recommend you lift 3x/week; 2x has never been enough for me to really gain.

36

Yeah me and my friend decided that Tuesday/Thursday would be our MT days. that leaves Monday, Wednesday, and Friday open for lifting. As a beginner I really think I would benefit from linear progression; I think I would gain, and get progress much faster focusing on adding weight onto the five lifts, and cutting back assistance. Wendlers is great and all, but it’s really long-term based. I really feel like i’m too weak to be on it.

37

Just be sure to perform each rep explosively.

You see a lot of people just half-assing things and that’s not useful.

38

I’m sorry for all the questions, and I appreciate the feedback from you all. It must be annoying trying to give advice to a noob with “broad” goals. Since I have Mon, Wed, and Fri free, I’m seriously thinking about doing starting strength for my weight training now, because of its simplicity. Would like to hear your feedback. Someone asked Rip about doing SS and Muay thai at the same time. Question- Hey Rip !!

I have recently read your book and I have to admit this is the most interesting book I have ever read. I like your simple yet very effective approach to training. I have recently moved to 5x5 program as i am intermediate now, but a few friends of mine (from a competitive MT team) would like to try your program, but im afraid they wont have enough recovery between workouts as we train for 2-3 times a week, 1.5-2 hours each. what are your thoughts of this? thanks

Rip’s answer-Thanks for the kind words, but if SS is the most interesting book you’ve ever read, you must have just started reading a couple of weeks ago. If your team guys are novices, I think they’ll be fine with both types of workouts, at least for a few months until they get stronger. Novices are generally hard to overtrain unless insanity is being approached.

I’m nowhere near a competitive fighter’s level, and do not plan on competing. That’s why I think it can be done. Again, I apologize for being stubborn. I have no plan on changing the routine or anything, and think I can maybe pull it off with a WHOLE lot of food and sleep.

39

Starting Strength is a good choice. Start with low weights and focus on moving them fast and with good form. Once you stall, switch to Madcow 5x5.

40

Yes I will start light forsure. Powerclean are very new to me, so it should be interesting. I don’t plan on substituting them for rows. Might do some chins/dips as my only form of assistance for the first few weeks.