Starting Strength or equivalent and fat loss

floggg

Hey guys

Just wondering whether people would recommend starting strength or any other similiar program for somebody who was looking to lose fat. SS has been recommended to me a few times on here before, but never really gave it a shot because it always seemed to be about adding weight rather than dropping it (albeit the good kind of weight gain). Can it be done while losing weight, and if so, what kind of changes should be made (obviously the milk would seem to be a big one, but could i swap it for protein shakes?).

I'm 24 year old, male, 5ft 10 and 11.5 stone, which is down from about 16 stone in Oct 07. I still have a bit of body fat i want to drop, particularly around the stomach, but don't want to really lose any more weight as such, and would eventually like to add some weight back on, but in the form of muscle. Is it possible to do both, or should i just concentrate on one or the other?

Also, i have been lifting weight for a year now, so is it "too late" to do startingstrength, or will i still see good gains regardless. Currently, i'm on 1 x BW squats, 1.05 x BW on deadlifts, and 0.75 x BW bench, all done at 5 x 5.

I currently do weight training in the gym 3 times a week, 5 a side once a week and maybe a 5k run or two thrown in on the other nights.

Diet is pretty good at the moment (thanks to G'em's stickies in particular), albeit one that is focused on weight loss.

Thanks

Roper

It doesn't really matter what lifting programme you do, fat loss will be 90% determined by your diet. Certain programmes are more suited to fat burning but I'm not convinced by some of the claims and to be honest, I think people are better off doing what they enjoy the most and letting the diet take care of the wobbly bits.

All I'll say is that you can't do both- lose weight and add muscle, as both are determined by calorie intake. One needs more calories, one needs less. I know you probably want to be shredded but I can't see how you have a lot of fat if you're 5'10" and 11.5 stone. It may be best for you just to keep your diet as is and add in resistance training.

On a plus side it's easier to look cut when you've more muskles.

BossArky

floggg wrote: »

looking to lose fat. SS?

I don't see why it wouldn't work as long as you are training hard. Your numbers after a year are maybe a bit low so perhaps you aren't training to near maximum. Everything could be a bit heavier and deadlift should be maybe 20% more than squat?

floggg wrote: »

I currently do weight training in the gym 3 times a week, 5 a side once a week and maybe a 5k run or two thrown in on the other nights.

Diet is pretty good at the moment

If you are doing that much exercise (gym x3, soccer x1, 5km x1 or 2) and still carrying fat you need to post up details of your diet and what exactly you are doing in the gym. Something dosen't add up.

My money is on your diet. Let's see it.

floggg

I never really said that i was unhappy with my weight loss progress or that i had an excessive amount to lose. As i said, i don't really want to go below my current weight, and i feel the last bit to lose is about half and half between fat and lose skin which is a whole nother story. It was more a question of whether SS would work as well if i don't want to up the calorie and milk intake.

Anyway, since you asked, diet looks like this

8am - porridge with dried fruit and honey, protein shake.
1pm - salad with turkey and ham
3pm - handful of nuts
5pm - ham and turkey Sambo on brown bread with tomatoes and lettuce
6.30 workout
post workout shake
9ish scrambled eggs with some ham and veg, or else if its flat mates turn to cook, could be pasta or rice with meat and veg, or something similar.

if i'm you training, i drop the Sambo and move up dinner.

I know pasta aint good but we take turns cooking and i generally have no more than a handful and use it as my post workout carb source. We take turns cooking so its hard to be too picky at times.

kumate_champ07

floggg wrote: »

Also, i have been lifting weight for a year now, so is it "too late" to do startingstrength,

its never too late

floggg

Roper wrote: »

On a plus side it's easier to look cut when you've more muskles.

WOuld it possibly worth while looking to bulk up for a few months to add on extra muscle and then go back to "cutting" as the say to shift the last bit of fat in a few months time?

rubadub

Have you calculated your calorie intake? I have a 6'4''mate whose "handful of nuts" would be 3-4 times as much as another guy I know!

Since building and maintaining muscle uses a lot of calories I am surprised more are not doing a "starting size" type program. Though size will also come with strength I still imagine a lot of people on starting strength might be more concerned with losing fat and/or gaining size, which they will, but going direct for size might give quicker results.

BossArky

floggg wrote: »

I never really said that i was unhappy with my weight loss progress or that i had an excessive amount to lose. As i said, i don't really want to go below my current weight, and i feel the last bit to lose is about half and half between fat and lose skin which is a whole nother story. It was more a question of whether SS would work as well if i don't want to up the calorie and milk intake

Ok. If you find your lifts stalling then you will have to take in more calories to push them higher on something like SS.

You can alter your body composition without really changing weight radically.

i.e. burn fat and put on a bit of muscle at roughly the same time: eat less junk and more good stuff whilst maintaining a similar calorific intake (but less "empty" cals). Your weight may stay constant but you'll firm up / drop a bit off the waistline, etc.

floggg

BossArky wrote: »

You can alter your body composition without really changing weight. i.e. burn fat and put on a bit of muscle at the same time. Your weight may stay constant but you'll firm up / drop a bit off the waistline, etc.

Thats what i'm aiming for. As i've said, i don't wanna lose weigt - i always thought 12stone would be a good average weight for somebody my height, an i'm half a stone below that at the mo.

Do you reckon SS would allow me to do that though? I imagine all that milk wouldn't help me too much on the fat front, but if i swapped the milk for 2 or three protein shakes a day would i get results?

floggg

rubadub wrote: »

Have you calculated your calorie intake? I have a 6'4''mate whose "handful of nuts" would be 3-4 times as much as another guy I know!

Since building and maintaining muscle uses a lot of calories I am surprised more are not doing a "starting size" type program. Though size will also come with strength I still imagine a lot of people on starting strength might be more concerned with losing fat and/or gaining size, which they will, but going direct for size might give quicker results.

I haven't calculated calorie intake, i tried that fitday thing but got pissed off trying to flick through all the different combinations of porridge it could throw at me.

As for my handful of nuts, its generally a handful - i.e. what i can fit into the palm of my hand.

Could you explain a bit more about what you mean about going for size not strength. I have never really gotten the distinction - surely you can't have one without the other?

BossArky

Yeah, I don't see why it wouldn't work. Workout hard and eat well.

Milk may have you feeling a bit bloated, but will aid recovery.

Why not try 8 weeks of SS + milk + protein + good diet in an attempt attempt to pile on muscle

.... then take a week off followed by 8 weeks of SS with just protein / good diet with less calories to burn any extra fat.

You'll peak in time for mid summer :pac:

floggg

BossArky wrote: »

Yeah, I don't see why it wouldn't work. Workout hard and eat well.

Milk may have you feeling a bit bloated, but will aid recovery.

Why not try 8 weeks of SS + milk + protein + good diet in an attempt attempt to pile on muscle

.... then take a week off followed by 8 weeks of SS with just protein / good diet with less calories to burn any extra fat.

You'll peak in time for mid summer :pac:

So you're saying go the milk as well as protein? how much of each would you recommend? i currently take a protein shake in morning and PWO?

And surely to god nobody can manage the gallon of milk a day thing? thats four litres! No wonder rippetoe says you can expect to **** cheese!

DM-BM

The whole gallon of milk thing is not part of SS.

It is something he recommends for people who need to gain a lot of weight, or have trouble getting the required calories to grow. It's not something you HAVE to do for SS to work.

DM-BM

floggg wrote: »

Also, i have been lifting weight for a year now, so is it "too late" to do startingstrength, or will i still see good gains regardless. Currently, i'm on 1 x BW squats, 1.05 x BW on deadlifts, and 0.75 x BW bench, all done at 5 x 5.

I think the title of that book is throwing a lot of people off, it doesn't matter how long you have been training, but how your body has adapted to your training. Basically if you can add weight to the bar every time you lift it can work for you.

floggg

DM-BM wrote: »

I think the title of that book is throwing a lot of people off, it doesn't matter how long you have been training, but how your body has adapted to your training. Basically if you can add weight to the bar every time you lift it can work for you.

Does it really work like that though - adding weight every go? if you're squatting thrice a week and adding weight every time, it wouldn't be long till you run out of plates!

DM-BM

floggg wrote: »

Does it really work like that though - adding weight every go? if you're squatting thrice a week and adding weight every time, it wouldn't be long till you run out of plates!

Basically it does work like that.

Now how long you stay progressing, depends on lots of things, your own ability and determination, the amount of food and rest your getting, your age, your sex, everything else going on in your life etc, the variables are endless.

You will eventually stall, and need to drop some weight off the bar and build back up again, this can happen more than once, but eventually you will need to move on to another program to keep making progress.

It might be worth saying that you will limit how far you can go with SS if you worry about body fat levels, thats not to say you won't make progress, just that you will more than likely stall earlier if you are trying to keep fat levels in check.

Roper

floggg wrote: »

WOuld it possibly worth while looking to bulk up for a few months to add on extra muscle and then go back to "cutting" as the say to shift the last bit of fat in a few months time?

I would recommend not doing that. Reason being that most guys I know who are "bulking" also look like they lift pints and burgers on an all too regular basis, and the cut never seems to come.

Just train away and take care of your diet. You can stay reasonably lean and add some muscle and strength over time it's just not as quick and simple as banging in calories. For a guy who just wants to be in good shape I think this is the best method.

BossArky

floggg wrote: »

So you're saying go the milk as well as protein? how much of each would you recommend? i currently take a protein shake in morning and PWO?

It is up to you if you want to drink milk plus protein shakes. It is just extra cals (the milk) which will help you get stronger.

You don't have to have a gallon, just a few cups more than normal... see what happens.

Alternatively make your protein shakes with just milk and protein ... or 50/50 water and milk.

rubadub

floggg wrote: »

Could you explain a bit more about what you mean about going for size not strength. I have never really gotten the distinction - surely you can't have one without the other?

Some people will train for maximum strength and want to actually minimise muscle gain. Athletes in weight divisions will want to be as strong as they can be for that size. Gymnasts would be a good example, there is an article here about female gymnasts and how they should use weights in their training to lower their reps and minimise hypertrophy.

If an actor wanted to play a gymnast they would probably be better off following bodybuilder workouts than a real gymnasts workout. The bodybuilder is not concerned with strength, just size. You can't have one without the other like you say, Ronnie Coleman is very strong but the guy with the biggest muscles is not always the strongest.

http://startingstrength.wikia.com/wiki/FAQ#Is_This_Program_Right_For_You.3F

Is this program for mass or strength?

The bodybuilding magazine world is wrought with huge, vascular, "pumped up" fellows with bulging musculature, ripped abs and pecs, and enormously wide delts and backs. Yet there seems to be a disconnect between the size of their muscles and the amount of weights some of them move. Unfortunately, common sense takes a back seat to fantasy and silliness, and the result is that the novice trainee sees the pro on the cover of a magazine and now believes that he can get "big and hyooj" without making progress in their strength. This is a fallacy, for several reasons.

First, we must define what a "bigger muscle" is. Your muscle, after a workout, is probably slightly bigger than it was when you started the workout. Think about what happens when someone does a few sets of curls, his biceps looks bigger. This happens for a variety of reasons, but for simplicity's sake, we'll just deal with the increased blood flow. That is "the pump" that has been discussed elsewhere. Intermediate trainees know this all too well, and they flaunt it to best advantage. Some keep light dumbbells in the back seats of their cars, and prior to encountering members of the opposite sex (or perhaps the same sex), they will do some "pump sets" to make themselves look nice and 'swole'. However, this effect is short-lived, just as the flushing of your face from a hard workout is short-lived. It does not represent true "muscular size".

For our purposes, we will define 'a bigger muscle' simply as increased muscle tissue. It is beyond the scope of this discussion to detail the difference between myofibrillar hypertrophy and sarcoplasmic hypertrophy, except to say that additional myofibrillar hypertrophy is what results in "more muscle tissue", and is the type of size that causes the majority of muscular size and density in the vast majority of Homo sapiens sapiens. This is the type of growth we concern ourselves with. In the future, you can concern yourself with sarcoplasmic hypertrophy when you have been training for, perhaps, a year(ish). But for the novice, you need to understand that you MUST get stronger in order to get bigger.
[edit] Why do I need to get strong?

"I don't care about strong, I care about mass. Ronnie Coleman is bigger than the powerlifters, strength isn't really necessary, is it?"

I'll make this as brief as possible.

1) The majority of powerlifters need to eat somewhat limited/controlled calories because they want to remain in their weight class for competition. They want to be as strong as possible while minimizing their overall bodyweight. As such, they eat with this in mind.

2) Lean muscularity coupled with vascularity and small joints creates the illusion of much greater muscular size, whereas smooth musculature and large joints create the illusion of much less muscular size. This is ESPECIALLY prominent in pictures, so bodybuilders, even if they have much less muscle mass than powerlifters, frequently look more "jacked".

3) The type of person who is going to be extremely successful in powerlifting will have very specific structural "abnormalities". Great deadlifters will have longer arms, great squatters and deadlifters will have shorter legs, great benchers will have shorter arms, etc. What is a guarantee is that a champion powerlifter will have a large, blocky waist and thick joint structure. A bodybuilder will have a smaller, more wasp-like waist, coupled with much smaller joints.

4) Powerlifters are frequently endomorphs with some mesomorph tendencies. As such, they will respond to training much more differently than the average bodybuilders, whose body has to be adaptable to losing bodyfat easily and rapidly.

Moral of the story? Don't compare powerlifters to bodybuilders. If you add 50 lbs to your bench without changing your technique, do you honestly think you won't have thicker pecs, delts and triceps?

On a side note, the last 2 Olympias, Dorian and Ronnie, are (or were) widely considered the strongest high-level bodybuilders of their respective times. By now, you've probably seen Ronnie's 800-lb back squat and deadlift, his 585x6 front squat, his 200x12 DB press, his 495 x 10 barbell rows...that is strength.

"Strength" ≠ "1-rep max". Don't get them confused. "Stronger" means that your muscles can move more weight for any given rep range than they could before

floggg

floggg wrote: »

I haven't calculated calorie intake, i tried that fitday thing but got pissed off trying to flick through all the different combinations of porridge it could throw at me.

Ok - realised there's no point me asking for help if not prepared to do some homework myself. Banged in a typical day's diet into fitday - it worked out at about 2,200 cals, give or take, with a 40/30/30 carb/protein/fat split.

A lot of the carbs are from fruit and veg (except for 2slices of bread and a bowl of porridge daily), but it still seems higher than i expected.

did up another one for what i plan on eating on an average day going foward - cals up to around 2,400, but the split is now changed to 30/40/30 carb/protein/fat, which seems better.