Advice on building strength whilst not ganing weight

Joeyjoejoe83

Hey, started out last June with mission of getting fitter and dropping alot of weight, and have been quite sucessful and really pleased with results. I have lost alot of fat and my overall health has improved and havent smoked since August - huge gains.
I have been hitting the weights aswell and am happy with results, but I seem to weight alot more than I feel I should. I am 6'4", and I weight 107kg. I could lose another 0.5 stone of fat and I'd say I have lost about 2.5 stone fat but have gained alot of muscle. My friend is a bit taller than me, doesnt do much weights and is alot stronger than me, yet weights 13 stone.... How can I increase my strength further and become lighter, I want to be able to run further and feel the weight is holding me back.

sharky86

keep your diet clean to drop fat... maybe post it here?
Keep lifting weights, squats deadlifts etc.. you will only gain mass if you eat above your needs..strenght will come and more strenght means more muscle, more muscle can mean less fat...107kg seams ok if you lifting heavy..I'm 5'10 and 95kg at the minute..was up to nearly 110kg last year when I was just building strengh and eating all around me

Elohim

I started doing that 5x5 program back in september.
I weighed about 75-80kg at the time (i'm 185cm tall). I wasn't very strong at all and quite unfit.

I started running every second day and doing weights on the other days.
I went on a calorie deficit diet in combination with this training.

I now weigh less than 70kg but can squat about double what I was comfortable with back then. I have also dramatically increased the weight I can lift with the rest of my body too.

I was doing all my weights as a 5x5 routines.
I think the idea for building strength is heavy weights with low reps.
I've read that higher reps builds the muscle mass (in combination with calorie surplus).

Get yourself a protein shake and a proper calorie deficient diet, lift heavy and you'll see results (from my experience).

martin699

I think bodyweight exercises are probably your best bet...

how many pull ups can you do?? how many push ups can you do?? these exercises are great for gaining strength without getting what I would call the beef cake look...

maybe also look into explosive exercises and doing them in a circuit... that should be good for loosing weight and gaining strength...

all of the above with a good balanced diet also... no point kidding yourself thinking you can eat what ever you want after a session in the gym... but by the sounds of it you have already got that sorted...

keep up the good work anyway...

Joeyjoejoe83

Yeah the fat loss is fine, have got that covered and if i wasnt in the middle of doing exams would have the rest blitzed off in a few weeks, diet is pretty good, low carbs, plenty of protein and veg.
I dont do enough bodyweight exercises, again my strength at the start wasnt great in relation to my weight, so sit ups and pull ups werent very motivating!
I think I might be overdoing it, lifting weights every other day is probably too much, thinking of dropping back to weights one day a week, then maybe bodyweight exercises another day a week and more cardio to tone?

Elohim

Joeyjoejoe83 wrote: »

Yeah the fat loss is fine, have got that covered and if i wasnt in the middle of doing exams would have the rest blitzed off in a few weeks, diet is pretty good, low carbs, plenty of protein and veg.
I dont do enough bodyweight exercises, again my strength at the start wasnt great in relation to my weight, so sit ups and pull ups werent very motivating!
I think I might be overdoing it, lifting weights every other day is probably too much, thinking of dropping back to weights one day a week, then maybe bodyweight exercises another day a week and more cardio to tone?

Not gonna get many happy responses about doing cardio to "tone".
Weights one day a week isn't a good idea.

When you say you're doing weights every other day, what exactly do you do?
I trust it's a little more than bicep curls.

Do a proper weights session every second day if you're only doing the same few exercises and do cardio whenever ya want. You need to mix it up a little and give muscle groups time to recover (A day or two max each).
Best thing would be to target legs one day, shoulders the next, back and arms the next. Do the stronglifts 5x5 or something similar.

Joeyjoejoe83

Elohim wrote: »

Not gonna get many happy responses about doing cardio to "tone".
Weights one day a week isn't a good idea.

When you say you're doing weights every other day, what exactly do you do?
I trust it's a little more than bicep curls.

Do a proper weights session every second day if you're only doing the same few exercises and do cardio whenever ya want. You need to mix it up a little and give muscle groups time to recover (A day or two max each).
Best thing would be to target legs one day, shoulders the next, back and arms the next. Do the stronglifts 5x5 or something similar.

Well I would consider losing fat to be toning, so i'll stick with that description!
Do a bit more than bicep curls:
3x12 for all these inclined bench, butterfly, shoulder press, lat pull down, cable machine bicep curls+tricep extensions+butterfly, leg press, hamstring curls, leg entension, calf machine thingy.
Have cut back on the upper body stuff as feel i'm bulking up too much but doing more leg stuff because i have neglected them a bit.

Elohim

Joeyjoejoe83 wrote: »

Well I would consider losing fat to be toning, so i'll stick with that description!
Do a bit more than bicep curls:
3x12 for all these inclined bench, butterfly, shoulder press, lat pull down, cable machine bicep curls+tricep extensions+butterfly, leg press, hamstring curls, leg entension, calf machine thingy.
Have cut back on the upper body stuff as feel i'm bulking up too much but doing more leg stuff because i have neglected them a bit.

Do you do that routine every day?
You surely can't do your chest, shoulders, back, arms and legs all in one day can you? You'd never be getting anywhere near maximum effort from your muscles towards the end of that routine. If you do that routine in that order each day I'm not surprised that you're just getting gains with the upper body since you're getting tired as you go through the list lifting lighter weights than you could if you had enough energy.
Do lower reps with a much heavier weight in each of your exercises and you'll get stronger with what muscle you already have.

My problem was with your idea of just doing cardio to "tone". If you have a decent weight program and eat a great diet then you don't even need cardio to lose fat, although it helps to burn calories and speed the process along alright.