Back to the gym after 20 years

[Island_Moose]

Personal best last night on bench press, 100kg x 5. That's a 30kg increase in 3 months. 

I bench with my feet up, actually on the end of the bench itself. I've always done it, I reckon it makes it harder, but maybe it's cheating. 

[BeastBuilder]

57 minutes ago, Island_Moose said:

Personal best last night on bench press, 100kg x 5. That's a 30kg increase in 3 months. 

I bench with my feet up, actually on the end of the bench itself. I've always done it, I reckon it makes it harder, but maybe it's cheating. 

 

Feet up makes it harder for sure but you aren't really getting much out of it tbh. All it's doing is making you less stable and increasing your injury risk on an already big compound movement that is easy enough to injure yourself on anyway. You're actually doing less for your chest gains by having your feet up as your limiting the weight you can use by shifting emphasis to little stabilizing muscles rather than your prime movers.

 

I'd say put your feet down, have a stable base, you'll press more and be able to put more stimulus through your chest, delts etc so more growth.

 

If you want to do stability training go do some blindfolded, band resisted pistol squats on a bosu ball lol.

[Island_Moose]

I wish I had taken measurements when I started, because despite sorting out my diet, and training almost to the point of collapse 5 times/week for 3 months, I've actually gained 3kg (119kg).

 

My initial half-considered goal of 120kg at 10% is utter rubbish.  Revising that to 105-107kg at 10%, and adding a year.

 

I've had to auger a hole in my belt, and my shirts no longer fit in the arms and shoulders, so perhaps what has happened is that I've added muscle and lost fat to some degree.  Muscle is heavier than fat, or is it the other way around?

 

I'm pleased with the gains in strength, I've added 30kg to my bench press alone.

 

Any recommendations to improve recovery?  I'm noticing that the muscle soreness is starting to build like a bow wave, and last night was a real effort to get to the gym.  I'm on creatine, magnesium.

 

Sat: Rest

Sun: Legs & abs

Mon: Back &abs

Tue: Shoulders &abs

Wed: Rest

Thu: Legs & abs

Fri: Chest & Arms& Abs

 

My quads are lagging behind everything else.  I do calves with legs, they are naturally large.  I'm worried about this configuration, not enough of a gap between leg days, but if I cut back and hit them once/week, what do I do on that 5th day?

 

Shoulder day -thrashed them. 

 

 

 

 

[Pseudonym]

Yep, muscle is heavier than fat - so it's quite possible that's behind the wieght gain.

 

14 hours ago, Island_Moose said:

My quads are lagging behind everything else.  I do calves with legs, they are naturally large.  I'm worried about this configuration, not enough of a gap between leg days, but if I cut back and hit them once/week, what do I do on that 5th day?

How about targetting quads on one leg day, and hammies on the other?

[BeastBuilder]

Lol okay, a kilo of muscle and a kilo of fat, which weighs more ?

 

Muscle is denser than fat so a kilo of muscle will have a smaller volume than a kilo of fat. So say a guy who is 90kg mostly fat will take up more total space than a guy who is a lean 90kg.

 

But yea you may have lost fat but put on more muscle/glycogen than you have lost in fat weight so your bodyweight is up but you may still be in better condition.