Blonde will make you STRONG

[iRaise]

my current body fat is 42kg and the machine said the ideal amount of body fat for my size is 22-33kg so got another 15kg of lard to shift to get in the middlee of that range.  Not sure how reasonable that ideal level is.   15kg is roughly 2.5 stone which would take me down to 16.5 stone.

You can usually work out if the figures seem anywhere near reasonable if you apply a bit of logic to it.

You're currently 121kg and it's saying that if you lost 42kg you would have zero bodyfat and be 100% lean mass.

That makes 79kg of lean mass that you're carrying now.

If you were to be at 10% body fat you'd probably see a visible 6 pack as that's really lean.

If you were 88kg you'd be left with 9kg of fat to be at that 10%

Now you have to try to think how you'd look at 88kg or about 13st 12lb. Would you be ridiculously lean and have a proper 6 pack? That's going to depend on how tall you are and how much of your lean mass is muscle but if you're 6ft or more carrying a bit of muscle I'd say it falls in to the 'feasible' category.

There are hundreds of variables not included in the above but it shows that your machine isn't completely wrong and is probably worth feeding your money in to to monitor progress especially if that helps you to stay motivated.

That ideal level seems a touch high to me. Going by your mid-range target you'd be down to 106kg carrying 27kg of fat which is 25%

To quote from t'interwebs: "For men, a percentage of body fat greater than 25% defines obesity, with 21-25% being borderline. For women, over 33% defines obesity, with 31-33% being borderline."

Obese doesn't seem ideal so you probably need to be at the low end of that target range.

Still seems reasonable figures though and not overly far fetched.

I actually think those numbers look incredibly accurate, but don't forget unless you are on HRT or just hammering hormones, you are going to lose lean mass when you diet to a level. Speshly if you're going from 120kg to 80kg. Its not far from zero that you retain all of that. So if you account for some lean muscle mass lost those numbers seem to stack up really well.

Most men are going to be between 75-85kg and when they are pretty lean with a good amount of muscle mass. Obviously there are outliers on both of those scales, but if you took 100 natural men who've trained for 5+ years around the 10% mark I'm putting a big chunk the vast majority are in that weight range.

[iRaise]

my current body fat is 42kg and the machine said the ideal amount of body fat for my size is 22-33kg so got another 15kg of lard to shift to get in the middlee of that range.  Not sure how reasonable that ideal level is.   15kg is roughly 2.5 stone which would take me down to 16.5 stone.

You can usually work out if the figures seem anywhere near reasonable if you apply a bit of logic to it.

You're currently 121kg and it's saying that if you lost 42kg you would have zero bodyfat and be 100% lean mass.

That makes 79kg of lean mass that you're carrying now.

If you were to be at 10% body fat you'd probably see a visible 6 pack as that's really lean.

If you were 88kg you'd be left with 9kg of fat to be at that 10%

Now you have to try to think how you'd look at 88kg or about 13st 12lb. Would you be ridiculously lean and have a proper 6 pack? That's going to depend on how tall you are and how much of your lean mass is muscle but if you're 6ft or more carrying a bit of muscle I'd say it falls in to the 'feasible' category.

There are hundreds of variables not included in the above but it shows that your machine isn't completely wrong and is probably worth feeding your money in to to monitor progress especially if that helps you to stay motivated.

That ideal level seems a touch high to me. Going by your mid-range target you'd be down to 106kg carrying 27kg of fat which is 25%

To quote from t'interwebs: "For men, a percentage of body fat greater than 25% defines obesity, with 21-25% being borderline. For women, over 33% defines obesity, with 31-33% being borderline."

Obese doesn't seem ideal so you probably need to be at the low end of that target range.

Still seems reasonable figures though and not overly far fetched.

But numbers are great and all, but unless you are 85kg, the only number you want to be caring about is your calorie intake. Everything else can be a distraction. I see some merit in doing LBM/FM/FFM etc for some people, but all of those numbers pretty much boil down to, do you have abs or not. If you dont, you keep dieting, what affects dieting... calorie balance.

[arbboy]

Cheers boys for the input.   Not looking to get anything like as low as 85-90kg.  105kg will be fine for me.  No six paks needed been there done that in the 90s!

Machiine is free to use Matt i will take some pictures of the readings and graphs it kicks out on the screen and send them to you on whats app.   Its a pretty smart bit of kit to use tbh.   Think they had one at the DL in Nottingham but i only used it the day i signed up.  You have to take your socks off when you stand on the platform so all the readings work.   Not sure what the name of the device is called.

[EvilPie]

Cheers boys for the input.   Not looking to get anything like as low as 85-90kg.  105kg will be fine for me.  No six paks needed been there done that in the 90s!

Machiine is free to use Matt i will take some pictures of the readings and graphs it kicks out on the screen and send them to you on whats app.   Its a pretty smart bit of kit to use tbh.   Think they had one at the DL in Nottingham but i only used it the day i signed up.  You have to take your socks off when you stand on the platform so all the readings work.   Not sure what the name of the device is called.

Doubt I'd ever go a six pack again either. Last time I dieted pretty hard I got down to 14 10 and I was still a good way off a six pack but looking gaunt and almost ill. I reckon I'm around 20% bodyfat at the moment and more than happy sticking there. Might drop a few kgs if I go on holiday but I can't see me ever doing another drastic cut.

Regarding the 16/8 intermittent fasting having done it for a few months I can say it's good for losing weight but that's about it. People talk about other benefits but in my own experience that's all bollocks.

You could probably do it for 7 days if you change your mindset and rather than think of it as 16 hours without food just think of it as skipping breakfast. If you skip breakfast every day you're guaranteed to reduce your calories in and they are all that matter. 16/8 works because you consume fewer calories and that's it. There's no 'secret' to it it's just calories in vs calories out.

[arbboy]

https://discover.boditrax.com/

This is the machine i was talking about.

[iRaise]

https://discover.boditrax.com/

This is the machine i was talking about.

I haven't heard of that one, but I am sure they get more and more accurate as technology advances.

[iRaise]

DLs today 3x5 140/150/155. I peaked at 160 late last year. So hoping to get back to there pretty soon for all three.
DBs OHP 3x6 26kgs, can't remember what I used to do but thought it was 30s+ on these, and this felt really hard today.
Smith machine squats, I really struggle with the motion at the minute, so just some practice
3x8 Inc Bench at 70, hardly BB inclined in the old gym as it didn't have a made and ready one.
3x6 DB OAR 40kg, felt good today, think I said to Matt some days 34 for 6 feels so so hard.
3x6 dead stop rows at 80, again felt nice and easy
Some pull ups
Some cable flyes

[EvilPie]

DLs today 3x5 140/150/155. I peaked at 160 late last year. So hoping to get back to there pretty soon for all three.
DBs OHP 3x6 26kgs, can't remember what I used to do but thought it was 30s+ on these, and this felt really hard today.
Smith machine squats, I really struggle with the motion at the minute, so just some practice
3x8 Inc Bench at 70, hardly BB inclined in the old gym as it didn't have a made and ready one.
3x6 DB OAR 40kg, felt good today, think I said to Matt some days 34 for 6 feels so so hard.
3x6 dead stop rows at 80, again felt nice and easy
Some pull ups
Some cable flyes

Must be nice to pull that much weight. I managed a 150kg single today and then 3 x 5 at 120kg. Both actually very good numbers for me to be fair but so far from where I should be.

That looks a lovely full body workout. Do you do the same thing every session or are your other two for the week different?

[arbboy]

Feel strong as fuck today so going to attempt 200kg DL tonight.  Haven't done 200kg for over a year.

[iRaise]

DLs today 3x5 140/150/155. I peaked at 160 late last year. So hoping to get back to there pretty soon for all three.
DBs OHP 3x6 26kgs, can't remember what I used to do but thought it was 30s+ on these, and this felt really hard today.
Smith machine squats, I really struggle with the motion at the minute, so just some practice
3x8 Inc Bench at 70, hardly BB inclined in the old gym as it didn't have a made and ready one.
3x6 DB OAR 40kg, felt good today, think I said to Matt some days 34 for 6 feels so so hard.
3x6 dead stop rows at 80, again felt nice and easy
Some pull ups
Some cable flyes

Must be nice to pull that much weight. I managed a 150kg single today and then 3 x 5 at 120kg. Both actually very good numbers for me to be fair but so far from where I should be.

That looks a lovely full body workout. Do you do the same thing every session or are your other two for the week different?

3 different days, will update the other two when I do them for some perspective.

[iRaise]

Feel strong as fuck today so going to attempt 200kg DL tonight.  Haven't done 200kg for over a year.

How did it go?

[iRaise]

Ticking along this week.

Highlights:

DL- 170x3 175x3 175x2- Little too close to failure for my liking with such a big movement so happy to ease off a touch. In hindsight I think I will just look for one working set at that rep range.
DB Press: 3x6 40kg. Feels kinda light but then that 6th rep is really tough.
RDL 2x6 100kg, grip lets me down a touch here. Might start using straps again.
DB OHP 3x8 26kg, weirdly light considering the last time I did this for 6 I think it went 6/5/5 and each rep was very tough.

I assume the variation in difficulty has to be neurological because everything else is pretty consistent. Enjoying it regardless of some up and down numbers. Trained 4 times last week, 4 formal days this time as opposed to the normal 3 formal and 1 isolation. Really drained me over the weekend so keeping it at 3 full body days a week for a bit.

[EvilPie]

Managed to go and injure myself last week so have had to take a few days off.

I think it was deadlift singles that did it. I got up to 150kg which I was really pleased with but then did quite a bit of accessory work which with the benefit of hindsight was pretty stupid.

Deadlifts were on Thursday, I did some heavy shrugs on Friday then heavy bench on Sunday. Bench was a real struggle and I only manged a 130kg double when I thought 140kg might be on the cards, just felt awful. By Monday I was really struggling and had to bail out of squats as 40kg warm up was very painful. By Wednesday luckily I was booked in for physio and he said I'd thrown my pelvis out of line. This is a standard injury for me so no big surprise. It's straight now but the muscles are still sore so I've taken the remainder of the week off and will start back again tomorrow with bench.

It's thrown the programme out a bit as I've missed my OHP 1RM day but I'll pull that back in the next few weeks. Just going to tweak things a bit so I get my OHP and bench singles in but not going to overly worry about squat singles. These are going great anyway so happy to see what pans out with those. 1RM is scheduled for Monday but it would be stupid to try so I'll just take it steady then maybe try a 1RM in a week or two.

Other than that it's all good

[iRaise]

DL session yesterday, brought my straps back to London which helped so much.

3x5 150 and only the very last rep was tough. Pleased with that one.

Few other accessory movements coming on nicely and ticked my 3 sessions for the week.

[EvilPie]

1RM test day today on the bench after a full 16 week programme. I've been slightly hampered after tweaking my back doing deadlift 1RM 3 weeks ago but felt as good as I possibly could today so was very confident.

Anyway 135kg warm up moved really fast and felt easy so I decided to go for a 'hail Mary' and whack 150kg on the bar for a 5kg PR. It moved off the chest but sadly didn't manage the full rep, it felt ridiculously heavy on the descent so that's always a bad sign but it was good to feel the weight even though I couldn't finish it. Tried at 145kg after that but failed again then managed to get 2 singles at 140kg to salvage a little something.

When I hit my 145kg PR a few months ago I think I was weighing in about 4 or 5kg heavier than today so that may have something to do with it. Also I've barely trained since hurting my back on the 16th Jan so not the best prep and I'm actually pleased with what I managed.

Training partner managed 170kg for a new PR which he made look easy. Huge for him as he's been stuck at 165kg for almost two years so it's evidence that the programme is working.