On cycle training vs off
I've been doing a routine similar to the Mike mentzer heavy duty routine. I have altered it some since I feel like taking four days off between each exercise is too much. Especially mentally, I feel lazy even doing it this way but I've gotten results so far. So I work three days and then rest four. It feels like I'm being lazy and I miss doing my six day routine but this has seemingly built more muscle.
Here's what Im doing.
Monday through Thursday are off Days
Friday arms/legs
Saturday chest and shoulders
Sunday back and traps and neck
On cycle I should be recovering quicker right? So should I add more days to my routine or switch it up some way?
I typically am able to get 8-9 hours of sleep nearly every single day. Sometimes I get about 6-7 but those are rare and more a product of insomnia and anxiety than it Is just me choosing to not go to bed early.
Diet is currently at a deficit. Right now I am doing a fast trying to make it to 72 hours. Then after that until I'm at the weight I want to be at I will be eating 1000 calories a day and making sure I get my protein and fats more than carbs.
I eat a lot of chicken and beef, veggies and sweet potatoes and also bananas.
Please don't bash me if I'm doing a stupid routine, I have had people telling me I'm basically being lazy and I'd rather have constructive criticism than just criticism lol.
I'm here to listen and learn so if anyone wants to teach me some stuff I will most definitely be paying attention!
I take all of my sets to failure usually doing 5-8 sets per muscle group, not necessarily all one exercises per muscle group usually 3-5 different exercises.
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Do you have a food scale?
I don't, probably need to invest in one don't I?
I'm not giving you shit here - but if you don't have a scale, how do you know how many calories you're actually eating? I weigh EVERYTHING, I even take my scale on the go with me. Get in the habit of weighing everything you eat, log it into MyFitnessPal, or another free calorie tracker, and see how much you're really eating. THEN you can start dialing in your diet. Scales aren't very expensive, look on Amazon for an inexpensive one.
Edit: To give you an idea, one serving of my protein powder is 33g, however the "scoop" only gives about 26g. I'd almost be getting 20% less calories and protein than I'm expecting.
You're absolutely right. The only thing I've been able to do is eyeball my food but I did use to weigh it so I feel like I'm typically close. But yeah you're right I can't actually know it without one. With everything else I've bought a scale won't hurt my finances lol. And I don't think anyone here is really giving me shit, just being honest and I appreciate that
Close only counts in horseshoes and grenades. You have to weigh your food and measure your liquids.
No worries man. Ten years ago I was here soaking up the knowledge as well. I was also eyeballing my food and using the "fist" method to determine food weight, but I was weigh (heh) off. I can't remember if it was Makwa, Rusty, or Viking that put me onto utilizing a scale, but it was the best decision ever.
Yeah we all have to start somewhere lol. This place has really opened my eyes as far as what I thought I knew. Reddit is full of misinformation whether they're doing it on purpose or because they were told wrong. But I'm really glad I started an account on here before I started running test. Probably would have just gotten fatter if I wouldn't have came here first
You probably would have. You’d start eating more to “maximize your cycle” and end up a fat estrogenic mess. Many guys do.
Let’s drill in on that nutrition first. I’d add like 20 minutes of cardio first thing in the morning, nothing crazy just to ramp up your metabolism a bit. Start counting steps, shoot for 10k per day because daily activity is often overlooked. And then weigh all your food, cut out anything restaurant prepared and prep all your food for a few weeks in a row then check back in when you know exactly what those macros are doing.
Sounds good man, that's a good plan. Going to go for a walk tonight and in the morning. Ordering the food scale too. I'm not gonna suffer that fate of going on cycle to just get fat and estrogenic lol
Can yo lose weight on just 1800 calories a day? For a while. Your body will get used to whatever deficit you use eventually and it will just become you new maintenance level. You aren't leaving yourself anywhere to go with your calories once that happens. Start with something like a 300-500 deficit from your normal maintenance calories. Once the scale stops going down in a few weeks you drop it another 200-300 calories and repeat as needed. There are only 3 ways to lose weight. cutting calories, being more active and drugs. By dropping your calories so far at the beginning your limiting yourself to only 2 factors you can adjust to try and keep losing weight.
If you want that workout routine and it works for you then go for it. But at a minimum don't group the days together. Have them be separated by at least a day between each other. Just because the muscles you're working the next day weren't taxed today doesn't mean your central nervous system wasn't and would benefit from some rest.
Alright buddy appreciate the info. I've did just that and lost about 6 lbs since Thursday. I'm actually planning on adding a day for cardio and I can put one rest day in between them all if I need to
You've lost 6 lbs according to the scale but you haven't lost 6 lbs of fat in 5 days. A fair amount of that is probably water weight which is typically what the majority of the initial huge weight loss is. The human body is an amazing machine and can adapt to way more than most people think. That's why the slow and steady approach to weight loss tends to be the one that sticks for the reasons i mentioned in the above post about about adaptation.
Yeah you're definitely probably right about that, I'm not going to go for dramatic results quickly. Just limiting my carbs, making sure I meet protein requirements and eating a little more healthy fats than usual. I'm eating about 1800 a day since I did a 24 hour fast, probably going to implement a 24 hour fast once a week also
That seems like a huge deficit for a guy you're size. At 180+ my maintenance calories are about 2700/day. You're 35 lb's more than that and eating almost 1000 calories less. It's too big of a deficit to start with if you want long term, lasting fat loss. You're supposed to aim for a 1/2-1% of your bodyweight lost a week. You've done almost 3% in less than a week.
If I eat that many calories daily I gain weight though. I was gaining weight eating a relatively clean diet at 2500 calories a day. I also was eating oatmeal and sweet potatoes and a banana every day so maybe it was the carbs?
I'm definitely not the expert on diet here. @Makwa has some good articles he's posted about it. Personally i'd go for a higher protein diet of 1+ grams/lb of body weight and fill in the rest with carbs and fats. Especially if you're going to be eating so little. Protein is the most satiating of the macros. So it will help you feel full longer.
Do you know what you're maintenance calories are?
It's not positive but since i gain weight around 2500 I would guess it's around 2000-2200. Unless I was just having too many carbs.
Having been doing this a long time, I think how these guys say they train and how they actually train are usually very different. Take the best bits from each and find what works for you.
You need to reevaluate your dieting strategy. 72 hr fast and then 1k cals/d. Good luck keeping any muscle after that diet
Lost four pounds already, I only fasted for 24 hours. And I worked out arms and legs yesterday and shoveled about 7 different driveways yesterday. I think I'll do a 24 hour fast once a week. And rest of the week I'll shoot for about 1600-1800 calories a day until I'm where I want to be. I think that should work without losing a lot of muscle, what do you think buddy.
Edit: I will be doing low carb also but not straight up keto or no carb.
I shouldn't lose much during the fast though since I'm still working out. Almost to 24 hours. How many calories would you advise to keep muscle and lose fat? Should I just do keto after this?
I’m gonna thrash you a bit but I do it with love bruv
There’s a lot wrong with that statement.
First off Makwa is right.
Secondly training WHILE fasting is going to accelerate muscle wasting even more. In the gym you’re breaking down tissue even faster than normal. Then you aren’t eating right after to stop that breakdown and start building back up so you’ve got a twofold loss there.
Exactly right. The last thing you want to do during a fast is workout. Body is in a total catabolic state and working out breaking down muscle tissue compounds that tenfold. Direct path to losing muscle mass and lowering metabolism
Good to know
I'm not going to do that harsh or a diet after my fast. Might not even do a full 72 hours. I'm going to try to do keto or at least low carb and stick to around 1800 calories. See how that works out and adjust if needed.
You're good brother I appreciate any corrections because how else am I gonna learn
1k cals daily? No
To lose weight before cycle? I'm currently fasting and trying to reach the 72 hour mark. How many calories would you recommend to lose weight? It's not my bulking diet just a few weeks to get more lean before cycle. I really need to lose about twenty lbs lol
No more than 500-1000 cals per day LESS than your TDEE. Your TDEE is completely unique to you and we can’t just give you an arbitrary calorie goal to hit. If you go for one of those crash diets of 1,000 cals per day total, your body will use all calories/nutrients for vital bodily functions (which I can promise you is not preserving muscle mass) and start shedding caloric demanding tissues (ie muscle tissue).
Alright so I'm going to just eat less after the fast. Low carb maybe keto. From what I've read about keto it sounds like it would be effective
Definitely. 72 hr fast, keto then I’d consider maybe a sleep fast? Stay up 72 hrs then get all your sleep for the week in one go.
Once you’ve got that done I’d do whole30 for the next 30 days and then 75hard, then back to Mentzer for the gains.
Lmao sleep fast. I see you're just giving me shit lol.
I’m not really into all those fad diets. Nor do I need to do carb cycling to make my body “pop” on a specific day. I merely follow the simple formula of calories in - calories out = goal (positive = weight gain, negative weight loss, even = maintenance)
Try to keep it simple. The fine tuning and complicated diet stuff is for when you’re trying to squeeze out those last few % points. You can get 90-95% of the way there on the simple method.
Seriously, diet is the hardest thing to nail down. Anyone can go hit the weights hard as hell, but knowing exactly how many calories you need a day with the right macro percentages to meet your desired goal is a true science. The simpler you make it, the easier it’ll be to stick with it.
Right, I understand. I'm going to try to map it out and reevaluate everything. I want to be doing everything properly. I want my first cycle to be a great one and not something that was wasted
The Mike mentzer training is a wash. It's a wish for people that just want to take it easy and think they can grow that way. It's dumb. Mentzer wasn't even doing that shit. Your 5'11 and 215# your trying to get to 195 before you start and then gain back just lean muscle? Just eat cleaner and smash cardio right now. Can you really train arms and legs in the same day? I can't. After hack squats and extensions I'm trying not to throw up my water and wobbling around fucked up. Not to mention squats.
That mentzer crap is for the birds
Mike was a beast though. O yea he trained different than most.
He was a beast. But dude was running bunch of gear/growth and no way was he just running one or two sets to failure and competing against Arnold. I've met a lot of guys trying the Mike mentzer thing with nil results. It sounds great but it just does not work. You have to be mean to this body we were blessed with. To a point in the gym imo. Otherwise be nice to it
Yea he did abuse gear no doubt, and that along with other drug abuse cost him his life. But weird part is his brother died 2 days later. Man that was one of the strangest things ever. But about Mike...word is he wasn't a big eater. I think he probably did do more than that routine but he was blessed with the genetics too. Now some other bodybuilders had a method similar to Mike's and their routine worked.
Yeah I love mentzer @DeeMan. I kinda believe he was selling snake oil. Everyone else does it the same way and gets BIG results. Tom platz training videos from way back are the ONLY WAY I believe if you want to really make gains. Go heavy go hard go fucking crazy.
We both know the man had good genetics period. Haters can say whatever but fact is he should of won 80 Olympia. You know what I mean. He looked good. And nobody had legs like Platz.
Absolutely he should have won. I'm going to look into the platz workouts
Yea Platz was ahead of his time as far as his legs. And yea Mentzer was reckless but he deserves credit for sure. The dude was damn near a Scientist
And that's why I thought his plan would work lol. Dude was smart and eloquent as hell. Something about him just seems convincing. Doesn't hurt that he looked like a Greek god lol.
Yeah he knew more than most bodybuilders but I think he thought that he knew way too much with all the self experimenting.
More people should try to obtain his mustache and hairstyle than training style. I wasn't aware he dabbled in other drugs. I knew his bro was a heroin addict and I thought heroin od killed him
He used meth as a preworkout allegedly lol
Haha yea that Magnum PI thick mustache. You could hide a damn 45 pound plate in there and you wouldn't notice it. Yea he did alot of drugs man. Not sure but might of been an OD on both or just one of them. Either way it was 2 days apart.
Mentzer was catering to the masses who don't want to put the time and effort into the gym. But hey, Mentzer, designed it so it must be good
I feel you. You know I love ole school.
Alright can you shoot me a better routine? I think the reason it was more effective for me was because I was training to failure. Yeah I can do arms and legs same day, just two different sessions and I don't kill myself doing legs because I am lucky as far as lower body genetics. I would definitely like them to get more defined though. I'd appreciate it if you could give me some information on building a better routine. Thanks buddy