@Thomas Chauvet thanks, brother!
40-ish year old male. Have exercised regularly for last 18 mo. Decent shape. Working some weight training. Have done 5x5, starting strength, 531, etc. in the past.
Am curious of a doctor's thoughts .........
Could you suggest a 4 to 8 week exercise / weight lifting plan for adding muscle to my legs? (While preventing lower back injury, excessive fat gain, etc.)
... exercises?
... frequency?
... intervals? set structure? % of max?
... time of day?
... calorie / carb intake ideas patterned around training?
... do something like defranco agile8 beforehand?
... do cardio after?
DM me if too much. Would be happy to pay you for your time / advice? Trying to fit it all in with lab results, Tlevels, nutritionist, supplements, etc. .......
You're welcome, thank you for your answer to this topic
TBH, most (99% or more) physicians have no specific knowledge whatsoever in strenght training. Of course we study muscle physiology, but not enough to be able to give people optimized specific training programs. So here I can only tell advice from my personal experience and training, which is to me, in line with my medical training, but it's only my point of view.
Good job on exercising regurlarly dude. 18 month is really great, you're in long term, it's the hardest.
I can give you some pieces of advice for strenght training, because I happen to have an interest in it also. I know a lot about the Lafay Method. It's a french doctor in philosophy who developped it over the course of the last 20 years. I think it's translated in english (actually, it's not on amazon, so I don't think so :
Olivier Lafay ).
I can't tell you if it's the fastest or easiest or most optimized method to get his shape, but I can tell that from my orthopaedist surgeon point of view, it's definitely the best one.
He uses a short rest time between sets to compensate for not using heavy weights. Most of the exercises are bodyweight. But you can use the same principles with a squat bar if you want.
First, of course, measure your performance in terms of strenght, bodyfat %, and body measurements, to check your progress.
Then try this :
1 set of 6 series of single leg squat. 25 sec rest between sets. Flex at 90° max at first, if it's too easy, flex totally. Hold yourself with the tip of the fingers, so that you don't fall but you can't lift yourself with the arms. Train one leg totally, rest for 3 min, then train the other leg. (video :
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nd0rSsMprR4
)
1 set of 4 series of jump squats (2 legs). same rep number. 25 sec rest between sets.
Lafay principles : start very easy. add 1 rep to each set every training (monday, 5-5-5-5-5-5, wednesday, 6-6-6-6-6-6, friday 7-7-7-7-7-7). After 2 complete weeks, the middle training should be at 70% of your last set (monday 10-10-10-10-10-10, wednesday 7-7-7-7-7-7, friday 11-11-11-11-11-11). You can keep adding reps if you fail to reach target number on the last 2 sets (eg 9-9-9-9-8-6). When you can't progress anymore (or before that if you want to), restart to a lower rep count. It's called a loop. If you started at 5-5-5-5-5-5, restart at 5. On the second loop, if you for instance went up to 13, you can restart at 7 or 8. You'll see that at the end of your loop, you'll go higher than your first plateau. Depending on when you hit those plateau, in 8 weeks you will probably do one or two loops, may be more if you started too high.
It works the same with weights.
I can't tell a starting number, since it depends of your actual physical capacity, so you may have to do some testing, but it should feel easy at least for the first week.
Lafay's method is pretty controversial in the world of strenght training, but he definitely have proved the effectiveness and sustainability of his method (
Photos et vidéos hommes – Méthode Lafay ). He's aiming for long term and health.
It's a pleasure to give some piece of advice to such an amazing contributor to this forum, I hope you will try it and it will help you.
About this :
@Thomas Chauvet thanks, brother!
... frequency?
... time of day?
... calorie / carb intake ideas patterned around training?
... do something like defranco agile8 beforehand?
... do cardio after?
DM me if too much. Would be happy to pay you for your time / advice? Trying to fit it all in with lab results, Tlevels, nutritionist, supplements, etc. .......
Frequency, ideally I'd say at least 3 times a week, it's a proven cutoff for muscle development, but if you can do 2 times a week it's already a million times better than 0. However if you train 2 times a week and feel disappointed about results, try 3 times a week (with a 70% training in the middle if it's too tiring).
For time of day, do what's convenient for you, it's hard already to train 3 times a week, it's not that important. If you can, avoid late evening since it will prevent you from sleeping (3 hours training free before going to sleep is good).
About food intake, it depends of your objectives. The priority should be the total quantity of calories eaten by day, whenever you eat it. If you can, protein intake <30min after training limits muscle catabolism. I think this, is more important than timing of carb intake. For carbs I'd recommend eating them not too early (max 1h) before your training, since it takes some time to digest it, but I don't think it's worth worrying too much about.
Didn't know about agile8, it seems interesting. Warming up is really, really major to avoid injuries, you should definetely pay great attention to it. It seems to include some stretches which is great (Just be wary that stretching for more than 5 secs before a training can limit performance. After training I'd recommend to stretch way longer, from 30s to more than 1min).
About Cardio, I don't think it's a good thing to do it after your strengh session. If you want your muscle to grow (in volume, or in strenght), you have to train them, but not too hard. Doing cardio and strenght on the same day put them under too much stress, you will hinder greatly your progress. Usually the main mistake of lifters are that they don't rest enough.
Pay attention to the amount of sleep you get, too. Muscle are developed while you rest in your sleep. Elite athletes often sleeps up to 10 hours a night.