Fitness And Nutrition General

So ive been doing free weights and lifting more, and my hands hurt more then any muscle i work out, which is a pain because i cook for a living and im constantly using my hands any suggestions? i didnt know if gloves would help with that or what not~

Gloves will certainly help. You'll have to fight for grip less, so your muscles and tendons will have less distracting movement to deal with.

Nothing is perfect, though, and between your job and your routine, it sounds like you're wearing your hands down. I've been through that myself and spoken to therapists and the like; there's only so much you can do.

kk ill try out some gloves, its not that i'm doing a lot of weight, i just got into lifting really, i just have always had soft hands lol makes cooking fun. been doing it for 7 years and have no calluses built up from it, i just don't seem to get calluses.

What kind of hurt? Just your skin or something more deep?

You'll have a hard time finding anyone who really lifts heavy that uses gloves since it's introducing an unnecessary point of failure.

If you aren't strength training and it's your skin, try gloves.

If you are strength training and it's your skin, man up.

If it's more than just your skin in either case, it sounds like a technique issue or pre-existing injury.

I forget which book it was in, but Lyle McDonald suggests you cut once you hit about 15% so you don't *** with your leptin too much. This is assuming you aren't juicing of course.

Not really a pain, and its not the skin. just a soreness like its hard to make a fist when i wake up the next day, but it usually wears off later in the morning. I know its probally me just being a wuss cause im not use to lifting weights but figured it didnt hurt to ask.

About the bolded part, that makes sense, i didn't really know what the gloves were for ive just seen people using them sometimes.

Suji is 100% correct. The answer is just "man up", and im not being a jerk. Like most of fitness, once your body adjusts it won't really bother you anymore. Give it a few more workouts, and if the problem is really serious, just use gloves.

I remember when I started working out with a former bodybuilder: the first two weeks my body was in EXCRUCIATING pain (soreness) from his workouts. I actually got into a habit of putting Icy Hot onto my body after lifting, because I seriously couldn't take it. In about a month, the pain started feeling great, and I realized I was just being a big baby. After doing it for a while, the body adjusts, and you don't even notice it anymore.

Of course people laughed at me when I told them this, but everyone's body is different.

Yeah I knew I was probably being a wimp but figured I'd ask anyways. So no offense taking I know I opened up a world of flaming but you all were just honest and I can handle that. Chick I work with also said to loosen my grip which I'm going to try cause it makes sense cause thinking back I am hold the dumbells for dear life.

Starting my new routine tomorrow; well more like an addition to my current routine.

A power-lifter I follow on youtube mentioned he was squatting 6 days a week when training for meets.


So I'm going to take my 3 main compound lifts (Weighted pull ups, squats, bench) and apply the same concept.

If I feel like I'm overtraining or it's too much I'll stop, but I want to at least give it a go.

So right now, each body part gets trained 2 days a week. The other 4 for the "extra days" I was thinking of doing light weight (For example I do 5 sets of 6 with +80 lbs on weighted pull ups. Perhaps I'd just do 2-3 sets of 10 with 40 lbs on "extra days") and see how that goes.

Squats for example instead of working with 225-250 lbs like on my regular days, on the extra days, I may just wake up and do 2 sets of 10 with 185 before heading to class.

Bench may just be body weight (+155 lbs) for 2 sets of 10 before bed or something like that.

Check how much he is eating too to go along with those workouts.

Wouldn't really translate at all to me, since I'm 5'5" 150 lbs and he's like 6+ (maybe up to 6"3') 230+ lbs

Well you aren't working with his weights either I assume.

I just mean don't look at part of the formula for this person's success. I am assuming that since you are emulating a powerlifter that you are wanting to pack on some dense muscle so I would be considering also, proportionally, what and how they ate.

Working out is the easy and fun part of fitness. Proper diet unlocked everything for me and was the hardest puzzle to solve.

Not particularly looking to emulate him or his results. I just enjoy lifting (it's my fav hobby) so being able to do it more often would be ideal. Just was worried about over-training/risking injury, so looking at a way to implement this for me so I can put in some work more often.

also, he's a vegan, so I can't think of anything that would translate over in terms of # of calories or what to eat in general, as I've no plans on giving up meat.

If it is something you enjoy doing, you've already got a feedback mechanism built in that will tell you when to slow down or take a break. Overtraining is something you worry about when you're either a.) forcing yourself to do something or b.) being paid to do something.

I use gloves for certain exercices myself. If your hands are really bothering you I would suggest full timing them. And Tiger, you know the drill. Your body will let you when“ enough is enough".

I've wondered this. I don't mind calluses on my hands. Do gloves hinder forearm growth since it's helping you with your grip?

Not that I have noticed bro. Straps will. But anything you are using straps on is very heavy and you could not hold it to long anyways.

I find when I switch to high rep high volume routines I need extra days of rest.

When I do routines when I'm hitting same groups more than once per week I keep it heavy and low rep. I recover a lot faster from those short intense workouts. I am not sure how well it will work mixing up both type of training and training nearly everyday. I think you should just keep it heavy if you are going to train that often. and Mangia! Mangia!


Side note. Ever try Yoga? It may sound silly if you haven't, I laughed it off myself until I tried it. Very humbling experience at first, but you will find areas of your fitness that you may be sorely lacking in. I've been mixing it in more often now. I set an odd goal for myself of being able to do a split since when I began my flexibility was so embarrassing. But seriously it is a tough workout. You will get a burn like you won't believe.

Edit: a few years ago I started over in fitness after many years of treating myself badly and very poor health. I stumbled into Yoga when I tried P90X and although their Yoga workout sucked it got me interested in it.

I've seen on bodybuilding.com forums a lot of guys advocate drinking BCAA's and some type of simple-sugar when waking up. My question is how do you do this if your doing IF?

Right now I'm not doing IF, but was thinking about going back for leaner gains.

The science done on BCAAs suggests that they're only meaningfully useful to someone who is either protein-deficient or non-athletic. You're neither, so I doubt you need to supplement them at all.

As for the sugar on waking, that's unnecessary. Breakfast is evil particularly because of sugar and how bloody useless it is to eat it upon waking.

I'm about the least coordinated person you'll ever find. Without proper instruction, I'd just *** it up (and I have; simply following videos does no good for me). Would be interesting to get into if I could afford it.

Surely there's a yoga studio near you. I know money is tight, but the one down the street from me does drop-in classes for about $15 and runs series at an average of $12.50 a class. Or maybe check out around your school. I was wandering through my alma mater a couple years back and someone tried to convince me to join their yoga group for reasons I never quite fathomed.

Nah I didn't have the balls to try a class when I was so terrible at it. Just did it trial and error and practice using different DVDs. Then I just practice things on my own that I know are my weak points, mostly flexibility. I'm still very much a beginner though.

lol when I saw that price, I was like oh damn per month? lol then I saw per class, yea that's definitely a bank breaker for me.

I do general flexibility and stretching daily, but nothing you'd really call yoga

I've never been a fan of Fasting in the morning, but sugar in the morning is not as evil as some can get the impression. Downing Kool-aid is certainly not great, but a lean shake or a grapefruit in the morning actually does wonders for boosting your metabolism.

I understand the craze right now is trying to drop huge amounts of fat in a short period of time with fasting, but I could never advocate skipping breakfast altogether. Something to feed your muscles in the morning so you're not chewing away muscle tissue.

Or better yet, look into Casein before bed if you are still heavy on the IF craze. At the very least, you will have a good supply of nutrients in your body and sugar in the morning won't really be a concern.

Our bodies' metabolisms are not smart enough to realize "Crap, I haven't eaten for 8 hours, time to start converting muscle!" If you burn 3000 calories in a day and eat 3000 calories in a day, you'll stay where you are. It takes something like 60-72 hours (or more) for our metabolism to change according to new circumstances, as anyone who has ever cut/dieted should be well aware.

If you're cutting, you are going to lose some muscle. Period. Unless you're one of those rare freaks who can put on muscle in spite of being at a considerable calorie deficit, something will get lost.

But regarding breakfast specifically, in most cases it has been found to make people hungrier and grumpier. Even if you're nominally not on an intermittent fasting schedule, calories in the morning are rarely a good idea. This is especially especially true of something stupid like simple sugars, e.g., orange juice or Coca-Cola or whatever. Studies have shown that calories drunk are unfilling; people drinking caloric beverages, sugar-alternative beverages, and water all end up eating the same amount of food because the body apparently doesn't recognize fluid calories. The exception would be if you're the sort of person to work out soon after waking, at which point you're probably so depleted from both being asleep and your routine that you'll need something, though you're still better off looking at protein and fat and complex carbs.

I drink ON Casein before bed at moment, which has virtually no carbs. I was thinking of switching to Muscle Milk before bed since that has some more calories and carbs.

But yeah right now I only insulin spike post workout with dextrose. But from what I understand insulin spike with fast acting BCAA's or whey in the morning is the same concept.

I eat 3 eggs, 2 biscuits, 2 cups corn beef hash, half cup of cheese, tomatos, diced sausage, and country gravy for breakfast.

I insulin spike with Ritz peanut butter cracker sandwiches after a workout. Yum.

Protein all day. Every couple hours 20-30 grams.

Muscle Milk is too expensive for me and has lot of calories. I go bulk and cheap. A big bag of Muscletech Premium Whey at Sam's club is like 30 bucks. 70 servings, only 120 cals and 20g of protein, with all the BCAA's you are after.

After what I have experienced in the last two and a half months I am a believer in high protein diet, consuming protein in small doses virtually all day. It isn't easy but I try to hit 200g a day. I have put on about 15 pounds since I started lol, but I have lost fat. I broke through every plateau I was stuck at and passed every goal of mine strength-wise; well not the 100 pullups in 10 minutes yet but that one is going to be a journey.

Otherwise I keep a very clean diet and I rarely take in more than 600 calories in a meal. I believe this is the real key to staying lean while bulking. I can't argue with my results. You can get paralysis by analysis just trying to find the right way researching stuff. Just try it and see what works.

Cheap is good.

That is a good deal on the MuscleTech!

I'm at 160g of protein a day right now. Yeah ON Casein is a bit pricey, also the mixibility is horrendous. The consistency is like sludge.

I have to consume a 400 calorie meal with one of my meds before bed so that's the main reason I was looking at Muscle Milk. Plus Costco sells two 2lbs containers for $25 bucks.

Costco is amazing! I recently discovered the Cellucor C4 was cheaper than even bodybuilding.com. Two containers for 28 bucks!

But yes cheap is good! Damn supplements add up!