Gaining muscle while doing a (relatively) physical job

[badcar]

Hi guys,

I've been moderately serious at the gym for a coupla years now

without gaining a lot of muscle (but losing some excess fat and enjoing myself)

Dietwise I do pretty well, apart from a couple dozen cans of beer a week, six-seven meals per day including a couple of shakes and other protein hits.

Any comments about the fact that as a farmer I don't get the rest periods that say an office wallah has?

Also how about age? I started at the gym at the ancient age of 35(why had no-one told me before that it was so much fun and so rewarding?)

I certainly have made progress but in such minute ammounts compared with the effort put in.I always train to maximum, 3 day split mon/wed/fri.

Any ideas /comments/ suggestions would be cool

cheers- Brad :?

[jono]

Hi guys,

I've been moderately serious at the gym for a coupla years now

without gaining a lot of muscle (but losing some excess fat and enjoing myself)

Dietwise I do pretty well, apart from a couple dozen cans of beer a week, six-seven meals per day including a couple of shakes and other protein hits.

Any comments about the fact that as a farmer I don't get the rest periods that say an office wallah has?

Also how about age? I started at the gym at the ancient age of 35(why had no-one told me before that it was so much fun and so rewarding?)

I certainly have made progress but in such minute ammounts compared with the effort put in.I always train to maximum, 3 day split mon/wed/fri.

Any ideas /comments/ suggestions would be cool

cheers- Brad :?

hi an welcome!.

i think you would be fine as long as your diet and sleep is up to par.

might wanna throw up a sample of your diet for us to look at.

about the age, im not too sure but i think you ccould still make good gains.

[Cornfed]

1. Eat more. Logically, if you are to gian weight, the weight has to come from somewhere.

2. Try to sleep a lot. Have a nap during the day if you can.

3. About the age, you have to space things out more. Which is to say, if it is recommended that the kids train a muscle group once a week, you should train it, say, twice every three weeks. You should expect gains to come correspondingly slowly. Sorry, but you knew that age would catch up with you sooner or later, and now it has.

[Pseudonym]

G'day!

Think of the "extra-curricular" excercise you get from your job like this:

You need to make sure that the energy you use while farming doesn't come from the energy you want to build muscle with. I'd suggest your diet is going to need more carbs and fats than a sedentary person's would, to provide that extra energy. I've been sitting here trying to thnk of all sorts of clever analogies to explain this with, but basically it just boils down to "Eat More".

I'm not sure I agree with Cornfed on the slowing down of training at 35... 75, sure - but 35's still young. The current Ms NZ for NZFBB is 43, and even at the ripe old age of 35 I'm sure you've got more testosterone left than her! :wink:

Perhaps a four-day split might change things up enough to stimulate more progress? But as with everything in this sport, everyone's different. The only way to find out what works best for you is to try both ways.

[Growth]

seems to me like you just about got it sussed. As the others have said as long as you eat enough then doing labourous work all day shouldnt make a huge difference. Keeping a high protein diet and, dare i say it, keeping a constant source of simple carbs going, would be a good start. The protein will help preserve muscle while energy levels are down, and the simple carbs will help keep your glycogen levels up, using these two approaches muscle catabolism shouldnt be a worry.

That just leaves your workout, i would think a 3 day a week approach is a pretty good idea, especially since you work a farm, you dont want to workout to much that it starts to effect your work. If your so inclined, another workout on saturday or sunday would probabley be okay. Like Cornfed said, getting a good amount of sleep is really important.

Eat big, train hard, rest hard, and as long as you keep up the energy levels during your farm work i see no reason why you wouldnt gain.

[badcar]

thanks for the comments y"all.

Dietwise , all I try to do is eat at least 6 times a day getting 30gms of protein a time and heaps of carbs in the morning and at lunch/early afternoon and bugger all carbs in the evening unless I'm training at night.

5.30am -- protein shake with a banana thrown in (can't eat that early)

breakfast --cereal/toast with protein powder or toast and 3-4 eggs

midmorning and midafternoon-- fish,chicken with rice or bread

dinner--heaps of meat,vege (salad or stir-fry) maybe kumera

b4 bed-- protein shake (just protein and water)

sundays we eat whatever we like but make sure we get plenty of protein, day off if ya like.As I said there'd be plenty of beer in this diet but apart from the xtra calories does it make any difference?

Sleep could be a factor, nobody getting up at 5 am wants to go to bed 8 hours b4 that so I'm getting 6.5-7 hours a night.Have never been able to sleep in the day.

thanks again, appriciate your input cheers --Brad