I’ve been writing from the perspective of bodybuilding over 40… heck, far too close to 50 for my comfort. But, as time marches on, you can join the parade or be run over by it. I choose to not be run over. So, here I am, working out again, getting in the best shape of my life lifting weights, at 48 years old.
In my 30s, I lifted weights regularly, but apparently wasted a lot of time. I did full body routines, and although I got some benefit, I can’t help but think, “what if I knew then what I know now?” But I won’t dwell on that. It’s not productive. What I take away from that experience is that there’s a lot of new or recent research that doesn’t get a whole lot of coverage in most of the muscle magazines. (Actually, I stopped reading them a looooonngg time ago, except while burning time in an airport newsstand waiting for a flight.) Fortunately there are some guys who studied kinesiology and as a result, know the new material and are selling courses on the Internet. It is from these courses I re-learned how the human body responds to physical demands placed on it. Really.
I can vouch for the general theories because I tested them on myself. I am somewhat surprised, honestly, that I am making the gains I am. And, I have to admit, I regularly stack the deck against myself by not getting enough sleep, not eating six small, well planned meals a day at regular times, and not maintaining a regular enough workout schedule. If I want to see how far I can take this, I have to work my schedule and commitments to address these “enemies” of progress. But that’s more a “bodybuilding” goal than a commitment to being in shape.
Today, after writing the most recent bodybuilding over 40 post, I got to work out, starting at 6:30PM. It was perhaps the latest start since I began this “experiment” in late May. It was the second workout with weights that are perhaps too heavy for me for the five by five workout routine of compound exercises. I had increased my weights in a fit of frustration of not sticking to a good schedule. Since I had done a full workout with these weights, I didn’t want to “go backwards.” Being late in the day, the weights all felt heavier than they were upon the initial lift. I was hungry. I was somewhat tired. I didn’t want to wait until Monday for the next workout. I’ve broken that tendency and habit, and don’t feel like going back there.
But, despite it all, I finished in under 90 minutes. Not that I’m patting myself on the back, but it occurred to me that I am doing supersets of compound exercises now using weights that are very close to my old one set maximum weights. However, I might be pushing too close to the edge of failure. I’ll stick with these weights until I can complete this in 60 minutes. I don’t want to hurt myself and wreck progress. I do have the tendency of getting muscle knots in my right shoulder and trapezius, a leftover from breaking my collarbone umpteen years ago. That, coupled with near failure on the last set, can lead to bad form, jerky motions, and torn cartilage. No thanks. I might rethink the military press weight, though, as I reflect on that.
Since it’s mid-August, and I started about mid-May, I’ve been on this path for three months. I did not have 20 or 40 or more pounds to lose when I started. I had been living a somewhat sedentary lifestyle, though. Getting my “wind” back was tough, but it came back. I looked for any sign I was “packing on 40 pounds of lean muscle” on my scale, but have stayed in the 185 pound range. Now I wish I had done a body mass analysis and learned what percentage fat I had. The reason? My post-workout pump today surprised me again. Again, I looked larger than I’ve ever been. I jumped on the scale…. about 185. You’re kidding, right? No. So my percentage fat has to be dropping as I’ve obviously built muscle.
On one hand, it’s taken me perhaps two months to “get back in shape,” whatever that means. At three months, I’m still going, improving my fitness level. And, instead of just getting skinny, I’m getting stronger and more muscular. One more oddity: after a year, my alopecia (big bald spots that “forced” me to shave my head) is fading. The biggest bald spot had remained unchanged since two different dermatologists blasted it full of some steroid or another a little over a year ago. My hair was thinning, and I’ll keep it short, but the biggest bald spot is easily less than half as large as it was before I started lifting weights. Could this be a benefit of forcing my body to release its own growth hormone? It very well could.
I know I can carry my three year old around without thinking twice about it. That’s my motivation. I can carry my five year old, or toss him in the air as he howls with laughter. That’s my motivation, too. I can undertake any repair, construction, or landscaping project without worrying about hurting myself because I haven’t lifted anything heavier than my laptop in years. I don’t fear a heart attack from shoveling snow. My commercial lawnmower weighs almost 500 pounds. You get the point.
What does “back in shape” mean to each of us? At 25 years old, it might have meant having a great body to attract and meet someone special. At 35 or 45 it might mean just being able to walk the dog without getting winded. It might just mean a healthy blood pressure. One aspect of it has to include the strength of our heart muscles and avoiding diabetes. If you could get into the best shape of your life now, no matter what age, why wouldn’t you? Could it be fear of failure? It would require effort…. Is that it? It can’t be a fear of the time commitment. I’m proving it doesn’t take much time for the basic mechanisms to work. True, I didn’t start with an extra 40 pounds of fat to burn, but I am 48. The biological mechanisms work.
I have read great workout routines that take even less time and still get you to hit the right intensity to build muscle and burn fat. I signed up to a bazillion mailing lists and have been getting information from several other authors and trainers besides Vince DelMonte. They all have been saying similar things about muscle building being far better than low-intensity “typical” cardio exercises like running for getting in shape, and most have degrees in kinesiology. There are some interesting exercises and routines. I’ll gather some routines for bodyweight routines for muscle gain and fat loss, and post them in the not-too distant future.
Tags: Bodybuilding Over 40, Bodybuilding Routine, build muscle, burn fat, Commitments, Compound Exercises, Get In Shape, Getting In Shape, Human Body, Lifting Weights, lose weight, Muscle Magazines, Physical Demands, Workout Routine, Workout Schedule
Time and Obligations
I have to confess: Once I posted pictures of my progress bodybuilding over 40, I took a few days off at the ten week mark, as we had several family things planned. The timing was right. I felt a little guilty, but that passed quickly. Starting back up has been difficult, and like when I started, my workouts have been preempted by life.
My wife has had to travel more, as a few projects came due in her job, and the two little guys, a.k.a. Captain and Kid Chaos, have had some great days… if by “great” you normally assume whining, fighting, time-outs and crying…. Also, while I wait for the next consulting contract to kick in, I’ve been doing the Daddy Day Care thing, and teaching Kid Chaos to use the potty, and that it is not ok to wear a portable bathroom to nursery school. It’s a perfect storm of a little separation anxiety from their mom, the big change of potty training, leading to their requiring more attention and my finishing a large, drawn out masonry project in the family room (fireproofing the new wood stove hearth and the wall).
Taking that hour to hour and 15 minutes for working out, a little recovery, and shower just has been tough. Either the window came too late in the day, when the boys had to eat, or altogether impossible. As a result, I have not been able to keep the three workouts per week schedule for a couple of weeks.
That’s starting to really annoy me. I can tell how bad it’s annoying me by looking at how I hit the last workout, on Wednesday (“today” is Saturday.. I hope I finish this post today.). I haven’t focused enough to revise my routine. I figured I’d do the five by five workout routine a few more weeks. Frustrated by my lack of consistency, I increased my weights in nearly every exercise.
Duh. I had only increased the weight on only one or two exercises at a time previously, and felt the additional intensity.
That made for a difficult workout. The only thing I hadn’t increased was plate choppers. If you don’t know what the plate chopper is, check out the free workout routine video. The hardest part about increasing weight on this odd-looking, but brutally effective exercise is holding the weights. Adding five pounds to the fifty I’ve been doing holding two 25-pound plates requires a different grip on the plates. I tried Olympic plates, as the sizes were closer, but their edges were sharper. I tried moving my grip from the widest grip on the plates, but barely held the five pounder with my thumbs as I reached the top of the motion. As light as five pounds may be, a five pound plate hitting your head from any height would hurt like… well, a five pound piece of steel hitting your head. It’s a distracting thought. I’ll obviously have to work out some solution as I stay at 50 pounds.
Meanwhile, I had increased my squats and deadlifts. Assuming my Olympic bar is 40 pounds (I have yet to verify this one… is it 50?), my weight for these two is up to 170. Is powerlifting in my future? No. But when I started, I struggled with two 25 pound plates on the bar, for a total of 90.
My bench is up to 160. Bent over rows with palms up is up to 120 (I think… again, how much does that other bar and collars weigh?). Overhead press (seated) I’m finally using fixed 50 pound dumbbells I bought 15 years ago thinking I’d get huge after recovering from my broken collarbone (an obviously unrealized goal I had then). They might be too heavy, as I feel near failure on the third, fourth and fifth superset, but I’m not going backwards. My pulldowns are up to the 16th plate on the stack. I have no idea how much they weigh. 15? 20 each? It doesn’t matter, in that it’s one more plate than I did the previous workout.
Dips and incline bent leg raises have stayed at 10 reps each, since I’ve been raising all my other weights.
I got through it. I had to dig deep for the motivation during the last set. But I lived to write about it.
Coming completely full circle on one of the theories we set out to test, the one about burning fat lifting weights, I have to tell you I still have not paid enough attention to my diet. When my little guys ask me to have ice cream with them, I don’t think I’ve refused yet. … Ok, I’m busted. I use their dessert as my excuse. They don’t have to ask. And I haven’t ditched pizza night either. Yes, I pay attention to how much… three or four slices of pizza instead of six, two scoops of ice cream. Despite this, I am still getting leaner. It’s crazy.
The other crazy thing about this new-to-me compound exercise theory is that my biceps have never been larger, ever, and I have not done a single bicep curl. Yet, I’m building my biceps.
Even though I started this post complaining about time and obligations interfering with my “bodybuilding” effort, the compound exercise approach is amazingly efficient at building muscle and burning fat.
I have to set a new goal for myself. Maybe more pictures in another 10 week period. I’ll have to think about this one.
I’m pretty sure I’ll have to pay attention to diet to keep this kind of progress going. We’ll see.
Tags: Bodybuilding Over 40, build muscle, Building Muscle, Consistency, Consulting Contract, Intensity, strength training, Weights, Workout Routine, Workouts
It’s only been ten weeks since I started this? Time both flies and stands still.
Yesterday, Monday, marked the beginning of the 11th week of lifting according to the workout routine I posted previously. My first workout was May 18th. Here I am ten weeks later… Am I back in shape? Yeah…. That’s a bold statement… but it’s true.
Last week I started on Monday doing five sets of five with heavier weights. When I got to the body weight exercises at the end, I pushed for 10 reps on dips and incline ab raises. I had mentioned that doing 50 dips in day and living to tell about it was something I’d never imagined I’d be able to do. Truth be told, the next day I suffered knots in my right shoulder and trapezius that prevented me from lifting last Wednesday. I could not get my shoulder loose enough to move through its range of motion without sudden twinges of pain. When I tried my first set of bench presses, I lifted the bar off the rack, and felt dangerously close to a twinge that would force my arm to collapse. I took the day off, but I was really annoyed.
I had broken my right collarbone somewhere around 1991. As my collarbone healed, it wound up about an inch shorter than my left. I think the slight difference leads to nearly perpetual knots in my trapezius muscles in my neck and under my right shoulder blade. I stretched a lot and was flexible and mobile enough to work out Thursday and Saturday. You can actually see the difference between my collarbones in the pics below.
Because I was somewhat concerned about the spasms and knots, I did not push my weights higher at any point this past week. I did try to do Thursday’s and Saturday’s workouts in less time. Because I had some serious business to discuss with my wife, I began Saturday’s session too late… 90 minutes before the time we were to be at our friend and neighbor’s house for dinner. I had no choice. I had to push myself on the time between exercises and sets.
It was the first time I completed any of these workouts in one hour. And let me tell you, that was DIFFICULT. It took me an hour to stop sweating. Even though I hadn’t increased my weights, I hit a new peak of intensity shortening the workout.
So enough of me talking about progress. It’s time for pictures.
I’m stalling. I’ve resisted…. It feels a bit weird and self-doubt creeps up… But, if anyone is ever going to believe me that Vince DelMonte KNOWS what he’s talking about, I have to bite the bullet and just get on with it.
My wife took these pictures Monday night. It was late, she was focused on having to get on the road at 6AM for a meeting, not on directing me on a photo shoot. I had to manipulate lighting in Picassa so you can actually see me. We’ll update them with pics we take in daylight.
We took a vacation in January 2009. Pics from that trip will have to suffice:
Actually Me in Jan 2009
Also me in not so great shape at 47 in Jan 09.
Since I never really imagined I’d be posting pictures of myself… I didn’t take any “before” shots as I started the routine. So, these are photos from January 09, when we were on a cruise vacation. Since I didn’t do much in the way of physical activity between then and May 18th when I started, this is a good enough approximation for… well… me.
Ok, so my wife admitted to being camera-challenged. She was distracted by her preparation for an important meeting early the following morning (this morning if you’re reading Tuesday). It was late at night. I had wanted to take these pictures right after my workout Monday so I could be a little more “pumped up.” How vain. I know.
Have you ever putting pictures of yourself on line? Posing? After only ten weeks trying to get back in shape?
Enough disclaimers. Here goes nothing:
Some progress for 10 weeks of lifting.
Why didn't the flash work? Who knows?
We’ll get better pics up soon.
And one more just because…..
After ten weeks of the "six week workout."
Because the camera was taking literally 20 seconds when the flash was on, all the shots taken with the flash were blurry. So, I resorted to Picassa and lightened up the non-flash pictures so I could see them. I’ll replace these at some point soon.
I know I had to post pictures so I’d be the least bit credible.
If you’ve read any of my earlier posts, you’d remember I did no big extra diet modifications, still eat pizza with my boys on Friday nights, and have indulged a few times since I started this “journey.” Frankly, I’m amazed at how well DelMonte’s guidelines have proven out.
Sure, I don’t belong on bodybuilding dot com or “steroids R us” websites, but this is progress for ten weeks. How big can I get? I don’t know. I’ve been skinny my entire life. Some of my cousins are big. Maybe I have more potential than I was ever able to understand. After this week, I’ll take a week off, I think, and start up a new routine and use even more information contained in the full blown course.
Time to cook the boys dinner! Enough for today!
Tags: Bench Presses, Body Weight Exercises, Bodybuilding Over 40, Dips, Get In Shape, Getting Back In Shape, Getting In Shape, Range Of Motion, Trapezius Muscles, Weights, Workout Routine, Workouts
Here I am, now a little over eight weeks into this effort, and I am in much, much better shape than I have been for a long time. Yet, I’ve only ridden my bike twice. That’s a shame in and of itself, but my two little guys just haven’t been chomping at the bit to ride with me. Unwilling or seriously discontent passengers in the bike trailer can be a problem. I guess I’d push the issue a lot more if I weren’t doing this bodybuilding routine.
So, I’ve been doing the superset routine I put together after watching the two free workout videos I got, and have become quite a believer in the approach.
A bit of a confession is in order…. I had heard of supersets a long time ago. It’s just that the guy that told me about them was not a great communicator… actually annoying… and didn’t seem to be getting any results from whatever workout he was doing.
When I came across the superset workout consisting of compound exercises, I thought it would be an “easy” workout to get more of my body exercising in a shorter time. I figured I’d be lucky if I could do three workouts a week, and in fact, I haven’t been able to at least three times in the last eight weeks… My hunch was right. Sometimes circumstances just prevented me from getting to it.
What I didn’t know was how hard it would be to do a single superset of ten exercises. I guess my old perception of a superset was just two or three exercises focused on one muscle, like biceps. My years of meager progress following the advice in the Mike Mentzer course I bought eons ago brainwashed me into thinking anything more than one set would be overtraining.
To be fair, Mentzer was on to the notion that most people can’t work out like professional bodybuilders. There was no middle ground, though. It was one set done to failure per muscle. Period. That didn’t do anything for cardio conditioning… nor did it intend to.
So, I had all kinds of mental roadblocks to overcome. I’m glad I did. Not only did the first “week” of three supersets of 15 reps prove to be brutally difficult for me, it was impossible!
The approach Vince DelMonte laid out, of 3 supersets of 15 for two weeks, 4 supersets of 10 reps for two weeks, and 5 supersets of 5 reps for two weeks really did something great… The lighter weight you start with to make it through 15 reps of any one exercise helps avoid injury. It also builds endurance in the muscles involved. Work capacity, I think it may be called. As I’ve blogged in earlier posts, it took me at least two weeks to be able to finish three supersets, and that was just because I was gasping for air. Only after running into that complete cardio wall did I realize this workout was great cardio exercise too.
My wife had been running intermittently prior to our starting to lift weights, and was therefore in much better shape from a cardio perspective. She was able to keep on going as I had to slow down when we finally attempted to do two sets…. The same thing happened in our third sets the first couple of times we did them.
Moving to 4 supersets of 10 reps allows you to increase your weights, but you know that that last superset is going to be tough… Finally, at five sets of five, you can put more strain on your muscles with even heavier weights, but still not enough to hurt yourself… because you KNOW five sets will be tough to finish.
My wife and I fell out of sync for two weeks, and Friday, two days ago, was the first time she did a 5×5, and my fifth time through. When she “complained” I was slowing her down, I got her to adjust her weights a little, going a little heavier, and we finished at the same pace.
The cardio benefit is stunning. The strength benefit is stunning.
Because I don’t have a belt for adding weight to do dips, I wanted to do “a little more” than the previous workout, and therefore did five sets of 10 dips. Fifty dips in a day, within an hour and ten minutes, actually, and I lived to talk about it!
To give you an idea of how far I’ve come (and I will post pictures… maybe in one week), when I started, I could only do three or four dips, and had to jump up and do negatives to try to get anywhere near 15 reps….
It’s a big deal to me… and I actually don’t care if anyone thinks otherwise. I use this as a particular example of building strength I’ve never had… a proof of sorts that this routine is great.
If you have read earlier posts, my wife and I started on this in part to test the theory posed by DelMonte that this kind of routine and intensity makes your body produce its own growth hormone, and that growth hormone is the best fat-burning catalyst we have. My wife is slimming down fast, too. Her coworkers have been asking her what she’s been doing, she’s fitting into clothes she hasn’t worn in a couple of years… and on and on.
Getting back in shape lifting weights has to be the best-kept secret out there… Really.
Tags: Biceps, Bodybuilding Routine, Compound Exercises, Free Workout, Get In Shape, Getting Back In Shape, Getting In Shape, Lifting Weights, Mike Mentzer, Superset Workout, Workouts
Now that I’ve posted the free workout routine videos from DelMonte’s blog site (allowed, of course), I’ve been able to watch a couple of times. I’ve been all over the map on my recollections of when I finally got through three sets, how many weeks of that, etc.
All I know is that this week marked the transition into five sets of five reps of each exercise.
We went away for the Fourth of July holiday weekend, and stayed with family right near Cape Cod. Let’s just let it suffice to say I did not eat or sleep all that well… but I had a heck of a lot of sorely needed fun.
We were all a bit wiped out on Monday, and made the call that this week would be a Tues-Thurs-Sat workout week. It turned out that my wife’s schedule changed, so we haven’t worked out together yet this week. Tuesday’s workout had a huge break after the first set. I can’t remember exactly, but I know it had something to do with the boys. So, as I re-started the routine on set two, my perspective on weights was a little off. I increased weight on a couple of exercises I may not have if I’d never had that break.
Today I finished the five sets of five reps in one hour and 15 to 20 minutes. I had increased weight on a few of the exercises, pushing hard. I read the free “Insane Muscle Gain” report from Vince DelMonte and was inspired to up my intensity. Mind you, I only had about 4 hours of sleep…
In trying to figure out how many reps for the body weight exercises like dips I should do, I figured that I should probably try to do just a little more than last week’s 4 sets of 10 reps, so I settled on 5 sets of 9 for dips. 45 dips on the day… and I pulled it off, without compromised form.
In fact, the reduction in reps to five helped a lot for all the exercises. I tried pushing up the weights I use for every other exercise… Success!
The intensity of the superset workout can not be understated. I have read more and more about intense resistance training having more cardio benefit than hours on a treadmill or bike. The clincher I read today: If you can actually watch television (at a gym) while you’re “working out,” you’re not working anywhere remotely near the intensity you should be for any benefit. I can’t argue with that one bit.
Maybe I worked too close to “failure” over the last couple of weeks doing ten reps, but with the five reps, it seemed easier to just get five out and get on to the next exercise. It felt like a different kind of intensity doing the more rapid transition from muscle group to muscle group. I quickly began to sweat profusely… There’s a psychological benefit to “I only have to do five?” which I find encourages me to push harder through reps with the extra weight.
Tonight I’ll definitely get more sleep, and tomorrow I’ll finish my first week of 5 x 5. Today is the 10th of July… so seven or so weeks into it since May 18… and I’m using weights nearly double what I started this program with on most exercises. I have to admit that when I started, I didn’t think I had this kind of reserve left in me, nor did I think I’d progress as fast as I have. I’m enjoying progress!
Tags: Body Exercises, Body Weight Exercises, Delmonte, Dips, Exercise Success, Free Workout, Gain Report, Intensity, Muscle Gain, Resistance Training, Superset Workout, Weight Lifting Routine, Weights, Workout, Workout Routine
