Questions to help maximize my current efforts

[SomeDudeOnline]

Hello all,

I'm a small guy (5'6 150 lbs), just joined the forum, and am really just looking to maximize my time/efforts in the gym. I'm not looking to put on a ton of muscle as I have other things in life I want to focus on. But I do want to put on some muscle and just be generally more fit than I am now. I know that there is A LOT to learn about to get big and strong but I'm mostly hoping to increase certain muscles just a little for aesthetics, some other muscles for function, and other muscles to balance it all out. I did read the Road Map for the Beginner thread which of course has a bunch of good information but I'm guessing because I'm not trying to put on a lot of mass, that certain things won't apply to me (like eating a ton of protein 5 times a day), but of course, I could be wrong.

So my goals are basically to increase strength and size some but not a lot. I realize that's vague but I'm not really sure how else to describe it without getting into specifics for each muscle group so I'll list my questions below and if they don't make sense or you'd like more info before trying to answer, please don't hesitate to say so

1. Is it better/worse/indifferent to do a lot of different muscle groups on the same day? I typically try to get to do back/biceps on Monday, chest/triceps Wednesday, and legs on Friday. However, life and a lack of motivation occasionally get in the way and cause me to skip a day in the week or even two. I know, bad... stay motivated, stick to your regimen... but it is what it is. I'm thinking, I could do all of my workouts two days a week (Monday and Friday) and if/when something comes up that makes me unable/unwilling to get to the gym on one of those days, I can simply go on Wednesday instead. It's not a perfect plan but it's an improvement that should help me be more consistent. Unless of course there's a good reason not to do many different muscle groups on the same day.
2. I understand that protein is still going to be important for me even though I'm only wanting minimal gains but I'm not sure how important. Should I still be aiming for the 1.5-2 ish grams per lb of lean fat or maybe just .5? Should I still spread it out throughout the day every day? Just eat like that for x days after a workout? Eat whatever extra protein I need to eat in my regular daily meals (Lunch and Dinner for me, never been a breakfast person)?
3. This one might be answered with the answer above but I wanted to ask if there's any benefit to eating shortly before a workout? I try to get a run in before lifting as a warmup and just so I can get some cardio in, but I've always found running to suck extra if my stomach isn't empty. The food/liquid sloshes around making me generally uncomfortable and causes stomach cramps, stitches, or something along those lines. However, if having fresh protein as I'm working out would be a huge benefit, I may want to deal with the stomach pain in the run.
4. If I do end up splitting my workouts into just two days instead of three, would it be a bad idea to duplicate certain workouts where I want to see the biggest improvement but do them at like 70% or modified to be easier? For example, I would like to have strong legs again just to have strong legs so I'm doing parallel squats on Fridays and am thinking it would be good to add in box squats on Mondays (I'm not sure if box squats is the right term but instead of squatting parallel, you squat somewhere between standing and parallel).

 

[genetic freak]

Train your body parts as often as you can recover.

You do not have to eat 1.5-2 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight to build muscle, but you need at least 1 gram per pound. I lean towards 1.25 grams per pound. It should be spread throughout the day. Your body can only synthesize so much protein at a time. Additional protein will be wasted. If you have gaps where there are not enough amino acids in your body, you may have windows where you are not synthesizing any protein for muscle.

Do the cardi on an empty stomach, but have some sort of protein or BCAA/EAA and carb drink for your training session ready to just add water to cover you until you can eat. You do not have to eat right after training, but it really depends on how your meals are set up throughout the day. If you ate 6-8 ounces of steak a couple hours before the gym, you will be fine for a while, as the protein digests slowly. However, if you are training fasted or only had a shake that morning, I would not put it off.

FYI. Most people who have lagging body parts that are trying to bring them up by increasing training frequency for said body part never really see any additional gains for said body part. The reason, they do not know how to properly train the muscle, which is the reason it sucks and they just continue to throw more junk volume at it with crappy form, mechanics, mind muscle connection, etc...

 

[Bobby Cole]

A question: How old are you?
Some may think it doesn’t make much of a difference but to me as an oldster who has only been at it for 8-9 years, it does.

 

[SomeDudeOnline]

Sorry for the big delay. I had responded with something similar last week but apparently I never submitted my response.

Train your body parts as often as you can recover.

You do not have to eat 1.5-2 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight to build muscle, but you need at least 1 gram per pound. I lean towards 1.25 grams per pound. It should be spread throughout the day. Your body can only synthesize so much protein at a time. Additional protein will be wasted. If you have gaps where there are not enough amino acids in your body, you may have windows where you are not synthesizing any protein for muscle.

Do the cardi on an empty stomach, but have some sort of protein or BCAA/EAA and carb drink for your training session ready to just add water to cover you until you can eat. You do not have to eat right after training, but it really depends on how your meals are set up throughout the day. If you ate 6-8 ounces of steak a couple hours before the gym, you will be fine for a while, as the protein digests slowly. However, if you are training fasted or only had a shake that morning, I would not put it off.

FYI. Most people who have lagging body parts that are trying to bring them up by increasing training frequency for said body part never really see any additional gains for said body part. The reason, they do not know how to properly train the muscle, which is the reason it sucks and they just continue to throw more junk volume at it with crappy form, mechanics, mind muscle connection, etc...

Thank you for the great info.

Can you define recovery? Is that when you're no longer sore or something else? My thighs typically take 2-3 days to no longer be sore but for other muscle groups like biceps, they just feel completely drained the rest of the day, are likely weak the next day, and don't really get sore after.

Regarding the lagging body parts, I don't think I'm really lagging, I'm just comparing my strength to my youth and would like to have at least that strength again. I think squats are one of the few things I'm pretty confident with in my form and such. No guarantee for mind muscle connection but based on a few experiences I had in high school wrestling, I think I'm normal there. The experiences I had were training with certain people that were bigger than I was and definitely had muscle but just didn't seem to know how to use it. I was an even littler guy then and when I just stood there without resisting, they somehow couldn't take me down. So I assume that's what you're referring to. If I'm correct, is there a way to improve that even if you're not necessarily deficient?

A question: How old are you?
Some may think it doesn’t make much of a difference but to me as an oldster who has only been at it for 8-9 years, it does.

I agree that it will make a difference. If nothing else, it will make a difference in how quickly I can ramp up the intensity. I just turned 34 and went camping where I had to hike in/out a bunch of gear over several trips (about a mile each direction with elevation changes and no real trail)... My muscles were ok but it really took a toll on my knees (joints and tendons). I seemed to recovered fine after a few days but I was worried and definitely want to make sure I don't over do it in the gym which can be tough because as mentioned above, I wrestled in high school and a big part of our training was to push ourselves beyond what we thought our limits were.

 

[Bobby Cole]

Sorry for the big delay. I had responded with something similar last week but apparently I never submitted my response.


Thank you for the great info.

Can you define recovery? Is that when you're no longer sore or something else? My thighs typically take 2-3 days to no longer be sore but for other muscle groups like biceps, they just feel completely drained the rest of the day, are likely weak the next day, and don't really get sore after.

Regarding the lagging body parts, I don't think I'm really lagging, I'm just comparing my strength to my youth and would like to have at least that strength again. I think squats are one of the few things I'm pretty confident with in my form and such. No guarantee for mind muscle connection but based on a few experiences I had in high school wrestling, I think I'm normal there. The experiences I had were training with certain people that were bigger than I was and definitely had muscle but just didn't seem to know how to use it. I was an even littler guy then and when I just stood there without resisting, they somehow couldn't take me down. So I assume that's what you're referring to. If I'm correct, is there a way to improve that even if you're not necessarily deficient?

 

[genetic freak]

Sorry for the big delay. I had responded with something similar last week but apparently I never submitted my response.


Thank you for the great info.

Can you define recovery? Is that when you're no longer sore or something else? My thighs typically take 2-3 days to no longer be sore but for other muscle groups like biceps, they just feel completely drained the rest of the day, are likely weak the next day, and don't really get sore after.

Regarding the lagging body parts, I don't think I'm really lagging, I'm just comparing my strength to my youth and would like to have at least that strength again. I think squats are one of the few things I'm pretty confident with in my form and such. No guarantee for mind muscle connection but based on a few experiences I had in high school wrestling, I think I'm normal there. The experiences I had were training with certain people that were bigger than I was and definitely had muscle but just didn't seem to know how to use it. I was an even littler guy then and when I just stood there without resisting, they somehow couldn't take me down. So I assume that's what you're referring to. If I'm correct, is there a way to improve that even if you're not necessarily deficient?



I agree that it will make a difference. If nothing else, it will make a difference in how quickly I can ramp up the intensity. I just turned 34 and went camping where I had to hike in/out a bunch of gear over several trips (about a mile each direction with elevation changes and no real trail)... My muscles were ok but it really took a toll on my knees (joints and tendons). I seemed to recovered fine after a few days but I was worried and definitely want to make sure I don't over do it in the gym which can be tough because as mentioned above, I wrestled in high school and a big part of our training was to push ourselves beyond what we thought our limits were.

Soreness can be a good indicator for some and not in others. I almost never get sore unless I try something different, while some people will be sore for a week after training legs. I think a better gauge is fatigue, endurance and strength. Is the muscle still tired? If it is, do not train it. Are you getting less reps or doing less weight than you did the last session? You are not recovering fast enough for your micro/mesocycle. This will be a trial and error. Like you mentioned, legs may take a few days, while arms can be trained almost every other day, as long as you are not doing a ridiculous amount of volume each time you hit them.

When I was referring to lagging body parts I was speaking about growth and not so much strength. One would think they go hand in hand, but a lot of times they don't. I have watched people gain 100-200% in strength with very little to no growth.

The mind muscle connection basically just means if you are doing a chest exercise like, incline press, then the prime mover should be your pecs and you should feel your pecs doing a large majority of the work. A lot of people will press and not feel their pecs. They will feel their anterior delts. If they are feeling their delts over their pecs then their delts are now the prime movers and are doing most of the work. For squats, most people want to feel it in their quads if they are bodybuilding, but they feel it in their glutes and hips. It is probably the hardest movement for most to find that mind muscle connection. It took me about 20 years to be able to focus on my quads as the prime movers on squats. My squat weight went up (I hit 710 lbs at a raw meet), but my quads never really grew from squats. I had to add other ancillary movements to get my quads to grow.

 

[SomeDudeOnline]

Soreness can be a good indicator for some and not in others. I almost never get sore unless I try something different, while some people will be sore for a week after training legs. I think a better gauge is fatigue, endurance and strength. Is the muscle still tired? If it is, do not train it. Are you getting less reps or doing less weight than you did the last session? You are not recovering fast enough for your micro/mesocycle. This will be a trial and error. Like you mentioned, legs may take a few days, while arms can be trained almost every other day, as long as you are not doing a ridiculous amount of volume each time you hit them.

When I was referring to lagging body parts I was speaking about growth and not so much strength. One would think they go hand in hand, but a lot of times they don't. I have watched people gain 100-200% in strength with very little to no growth.

The mind muscle connection basically just means if you are doing a chest exercise like, incline press, then the prime mover should be your pecs and you should feel your pecs doing a large majority of the work. A lot of people will press and not feel their pecs. They will feel their anterior delts. If they are feeling their delts over their pecs then their delts are now the prime movers and are doing most of the work. For squats, most people want to feel it in their quads if they are bodybuilding, but they feel it in their glutes and hips. It is probably the hardest movement for most to find that mind muscle connection. It took me about 20 years to be able to focus on my quads as the prime movers on squats. My squat weight went up (I hit 710 lbs at a raw meet), but my quads never really grew from squats. I had to add other ancillary movements to get my quads to grow.

Very interesting. I knew that certain workouts like bench could be working muscles other than those you're trying to target like you mentioned but I thought it was form/technique issue like not getting your grip wide enough or the bar close enough to your chest. Thanks again!


@Bobby Cole It looks like you responded with a quote but I can only see the quote and not your message.