Thread: Conflicting Advice - How much should I be trying to lose?

ANYWHO, BACK TO THE TOPIC......

CB, triathletes are very lean so I suppose it's up to you to see how much more bf you want to lose. Maybe try 5kg and see how you feel. I think that is the best indicator is how you feel as opposed to how you look. If you drop too much more bf and are struggling with your training then you know you've lost too much.

BTW, you've done such a fantastic job so far and are an inspiration to others.

Originally Posted by soriminah

BTW, you've done such a fantastic job so far and are an inspiration to others.

I couldn't agree more!

Originally Posted by soriminah

CB, triathletes are very lean so I suppose it's up to you to see how much more bf you want to lose. Maybe try 5kg and see how you feel. I think that is the best indicator is how you feel as opposed to how you look. If you drop too much more bf and are struggling with your training then you know you've lost too much.

I struggle when I am cutting but feel okay 2-3 days after I start eating again. Will do as you say. Will probably spend 4-5 weeks over April cutting (my only race is a fun little sprint thing that I can carb load for 2-3 days for). Aim for 5KG and see how it feels. then I will be eating strong to compete right through until November I guess - with A grade races in July, August, October and November.

And thanks for the compliments guys. Isn't it funny how we are each our own harshest critic. I recognise I have come along way but still feel the sting over not looking like a lean yet muscled machine! Agonise about still running slower than I want too. I am sure Tim criticises himself for not lifting enough even when everyone else is in amazement. Same goes for each of our own disciplines.

I’ve noticed there have been few posts re the subject of size and strength connection; basically if there is or there is not a correlation between muscular size and strength.

I honestly do not see this subject as a debatable one. No, I’m no claiming to be more knowledgeable than anyone of you here; I just simply found the missing link which in my opinion is at the core of this “created” confusion.

The missing link is the failure to ask for clarification. Check this out: is it colder in winter than it is in Alaska? You’d be surprised of the number of people who’d begin to answer such an ambiguous question!

I will first give a direct answer to ClownBoy by saying yes; you can lose 10kg of bodyweight and get stronger than you are right now. Now if your brain is working overtime trying to comprehend the seemingly contradictory/confusing statement I’ve just made, I say stop, relax, and let us analise where we’re going and how I can make such a statement and feel confident about it.

I’ll get back to the exciting stuff soon enough however for the meantime, let me give you some facts.

An Olympic weightlifter who weighs in at 77kg, after few years of training increases his bodyweight to the next weight class of 85kg. Would this extra muscle size contribute to more strength or not? The answer is an emphatic yes! How about if he went the other way around and lost 8kg so he can compete at the 77kg class, would he lose strength by doing so? The answer is again yes! Okay then, so far it seems that Fadi is contradicting the answer he has earlier given to ClownBoy, yes? Not at all, keep reading.

A bodybuilder, who weighs in at 77kg, after say a year of training, increases his bodyweight to 85kg. Would he be stronger than he was at 77kg? Only a fool would say no; of course he would be!

Now to the fun bit…

A bodybuilder weighing 85kg stopped bodybuilding and took up weightlifting; lost muscle size by coming down to 77kg. Would he be stronger as a weightlifter now at 77kg than he was a bodybuilder at 85kg? The answer is YES!

Confusing? Soon it won’t be.

A weightlifter trains specifically for strength and speed which as you all know, when combined go to produce a beautiful baby called power. Now weightlifters are not interested in gaining size but very much interested in increasing their strength, (power to be exact).

A bodybuilder trains specifically for well…size, not strength, speed, or power. That is why bodybuilding or musclebuilding is named so; otherwise we’d call it strengthbuilding or whatever.

What we need to understand and differentiate with here Gentlemen is how one gains muscle size and/or by which cellular pathway did he gain it? Was it through sarcoplasmic hypertrophy (bodybuilding), or was it through myofibrillar hypertrophy (weightlifting)? Generally speaking, the low reps (of 2s and 3s) employed by the weightlifter, do not cause a great deal in the way of muscular hypertrophy as seen by a bodybuilder who uses reps in the range of say 8-12. One has the word density written all over it, whist the other one has “puffiness” or rather a “semifluid interfibrillar substance” as its appearance. Have you noticed how gold is denser than silver, which means you need twice the size (or more) of silver to equal the same weight of gold (which comes in a smaller volume/size)?

If you’re interested in the subject of muscle size and strength, then please cast your eyes over to page #50 in this book by doing the following:

1. Click on the link
2. Click on Contents
3. Click on Athlete Specific Strength
4. Scroll to page #50

Science and practice of strength ... - Google Books

Recently I lost 15kgs on purpose of mainly muscles because I had no use for them. They were mainly built through the hypertrophy pathways and not the strength pathways. What I’ve kept is what I had brought with me to bodybuilding 25 years ago; muscles that were built through myofibrillar hypertrophy and not through Sarcoplasmic hypertrophy (mainly on my legs)

So ClownBoy, you can be compared to that bodybuilder who (as in your case) weighs 99kg, and who decides to lose 10kg but is afraid of losing some strength. My advice to you would be to lose the weight and work with lower repetitions to target the “strength” part of the muscle cell instead of its “size” part if you like, just the way weightlifters do.

As a final note, you may come across articles on the internet discussing this very same issue of whether there is a connection between size and strength, and you would almost always find the answer to be: “well yes of course, to get huge think strength training.” Now for as long as you put what the authors of such articles write in context of what I’ve written here, you’d never get confused. In other words for as long as you compare apples with apples, you’ll be fine…bodybuilders with bodybuilders, weightlifters with weightlifters etc. Confusion is created only when one begins to compare apple with oranges or does not ask for clarification. I just remembered something, if you decide to come down 10kg but continue with the same way of training, you WILL lose strength. A change of training style is necessary to compensate for your muscle/weight loss.


Fadi.

Equal favourite post of yours for me.
Another is in some other thread.
Apples and oranges are compared with too much here and this is definitely one of 2 posts we should direct people to when it does happen.

Nice one, Fadi.

Originally Posted by MO

Equal favourite post of yours for me.
Another is in some other thread.
Apples and oranges are compared with too much here and this is definitely one of 2 posts we should direct people to when it does happen.

Nice one, Fadi.

Your appreciation has always been appreciated MO; thank you Sir.


Fadi.

Update - I am keeping details in my diary thread but it looks like I will probably dip below 90 (somewhere around 87 I guess) before I get the ab definition I hope for.

This was the start of my thread at 99kg.


I am on week 4 of a 5 week cut. This morning I weighed in at 95.3 but next Monday is my official weigh in day. The following Monday will end the cut and I will be back on maintenance - goal weight on that day is 94KG.

This shot was this morning. Granted it is a bad photo but a better one will be taken at the 94kg day.

less bagging maybe around the abdomen. And much better definition in my legs and such (not visible in the pic).

Otherwise not much of a difference. Although 2-3 people who haven't seen me for 3 weeks commented so maybe it is more visible change than it looks.

Great work! Thats a noticeable difference....keep it up.

for a great review, we need the after photo taken with your hands down like in the before. cheers

edit: i do realise it takes a 2nd person for that shot.

I will do that on the final day. Am jumping the gun a bit here.

That is a bit over a week away.