Q&A for: 13-Jul-08
2709. Q:
I'm 23 year old guy, 5 ft 7 and weight 165 pounds. Am I overweight? What should my ideal body measurements be and how can I determine my body fat% without having to go to a professional of having to buy expensive equipement?
A:
You are slightly overweight. For your height, healthy weight range is considered to be 125-160 pounds. As far as body fat percentage, unfortunately there is no cheap reliable method of measuring it. Most gyms will take your body fat measurement using skinfold calipers method for free (you might need to sit through the gym's sales pitch first) and that will give you an approximate figure, but unfortunately even when done by a professional skinfold measurement is not particularly accurate and many gym employees are not even properly trained in taking this measurement.
My advice is to simply not worry about the body fat percentage number. Instead focus on how you look now and how you would like to look and build your program accordingly.
For example, right now you probably have a bit of a spare tire around the stomach and maybe some unwanted chest fat. You may want to reduce that fat and in addition build up some muscle on your arms and upper body. That tells me that you first need to lose some weight and fat, maybe 15-20 pounds over the course of 3-4 months (it's nearly always a good idea to lose weight slowly and gradually instead of quickly all at once) while doing heavy weight training, some cardio, and of course having a good diet. After that you will be a lot slimmer and possibly somewhat more muscular. Then you can consider whether you still want to build up your upper body -- that would require slowly gaining maybe 10-15 pounds again of 3-4 months while continuing with heavy weight training and eating a somewhat more calorie-rich diet. This way after 8 months or so you would have reached your goals all without ever having to worry about what exactly your body fat percentage is!
All the information you need to either lose fat or build muscle is here on my site. Make sure to read my Nutrition and Weight Training articles and then use Fitness Guide to get a starter program. If you decide to follow through on this, you may want to start a Blog on my site so I can monitor your progress and chip in with occasional advice. Good luck!
2710. Q:
I bought Super Advance creatine High Performance muscle mass and strength fuel forumla shake.. it has 30 servings.. I am 29 years old and i weight 120 sometimes it's a little less but I have little muscles. Everyone says i have spiderman body like the ones in the comics lol.. but the thing is i skateboard alot and i know martial arts and been starting to take perfect pushups. i can do 300 pushups in a day, i done weights but have not lift any wieghts awhile.. i wanted to know if the forumla can increase my muscle or does it make me lose weight? i do eat very well too.. i'm highly active in my life i like to stay strong. I sometimes don't realize how strong i am and very movitated i am. i wish i did workout at a early age. i was a slacker back in the day, at least i skated..so what is your advice to gaining weight and muscle? I wanna be big and strong not overkill strong just the right body and core.. will it increase my muscles or only will do that with weights.. please help me here! I could use a trainer.. at least i'm doing perfect pushups everyday.. i'm not following the routine like i should. I just do'em everyday cuz i like it. is that safe? hope your answers will make my life easier too.
A:
The Super Advanced Creatine you bought (I believe by 'Body Fortress') is not really necessary or helpful for your goals. Creatine will make you a little stronger but won't significantly help you get bigger. That product also has nitric oxide ('NOS') which does absolutely nothing for you muscle-wise except make you look pumped up temporarily but can pose possible health dangers. I wouldn't bother with it because it's simply not needed and possibly dangerous.
Good news is that your goal of getting bigger and stronger is VERY easily accomplished without any supplements at all. You have the perfect base and body type to build on and you just need two things -- heavy whole body weight training and, most importantly, LOTS of healthy food. Your pushups are a good start but they train maybe 20-30% of your muscles (chest, triceps, shoulders) so they won't do a whole lot for you by themselves. Ideally you should train your entire body with heavy weights (12 reps or fewer before muscular failure) -- please read my Weight Training article and hopefully you can get gym access. But even more importantly than any training program is your diet. You MUST eat a lot if you want to bulk up. It doesn't matter what your program is or what supplements you take -- if you don't eat enough you'll never put on much bulk. It's really that simple.
You didn't mention your height, but 120 pounds for an adult man is very light for almost any height. You need to eat A LOT if you are serious about putting on the bulk. The fact that you are so light now is actually a great sign -- your metabolism is probably sky-high and you simply need to eat a lot and healthy and you'll be putting on new muscle and little new fat. Make sure to read my Nutrition article to learn what foods you should be eating. Then start eating more and more until you are finally gaining a pound a week or so.
If you have trouble eating enough, do this: make peanut butter and banana sandwiches on whole wheat bread. Make sure to get 'natural' peanut butter where the ingredients are only peanuts and salt. You might need two or three or even four such sandwiches per day in addition to your regular meals, but if you eat enough, I promise you will gain mass.
So, it's very simple: get gym access, pick out a heavy whole-body weight training, and start eating A LOT until you are gaining about a pound per week in weight. If you do this, you will gain mass and strength. Once you reach the point where you are happy with your physique, cut out extra calories so your weight stabilizes. That's it and no need for any supplements.
2711. Q:
Hi My freind who asked me today, wanted to know after using the jym and freeweights, going for a sauna, after, does it make your mucle go down, meaning waste of workout??
A:
Sauna is great and will certainly not harm your muscle gains in any way at all. The only thing I would recommend is that if you won't be able to eat for an hour or more after the workout (because you'll be in sauna or for any other reason) is that you at least have a protein shake before the sauna.
2712. Q:
Hi Mike, I have 2 questions - I think! I started doing push-ups about 6 weeks ago - maybe 100 every second day. It's split into 2 sets of standard push-ups, 2 sets of incline, and 2 sets of decline. The most I can do per set is between 15 and 20 anyway. I also do tricep dips. I started weight training about a year and a half ago and at that time I couldn't even do 1 push-up. I thought it would be a good idea to stop weight training my chest and dive into puch-ups, just for a change and with the hope that it would improve my bench press later on when I resume using weights. Personally, it's seems that this routine has been the most effective for me in the shortest amount of time. I'm wondering if this is a good approach to take - focusing on bodyweight exercises at the expense of weight training for the upper body - or should I still pump the iron as well. I'm still learning the ropes when it comes to fitness. Up until 3 years 10 months ago I didnt' even have a fitness history. I wasn't involved in fitness of any kind up until then. Basically, my love of food was destroying me. Since then I've lost 150 lbs, mainly through cardio and progressively cleaner eating. I'm now 5'10" and 200 lbs. My ultimate goal is good symmetry and shape - put on a snug shirt and it's snug in the right places, like around the arms and chest! I'm not really trying to get big but a little size would be nice. I feel like for the past few months I've stalled or plateaued as far as my fat loss goes. I feel like I could lose at least another 20-30 lbs - and most of it is in front of me - my stomach and chest to a lesser extent. Any suggestions on what I could do to shake things up and break the plateau?
A:
150 pounds lost is very very impressive -- congrats! Unfortunately, as you've noticed yourself, the better shape you are in, the harder it becomes to keep making progress. You will need to make sure that your diet, cardio, and weight training are all as good as they can be.
For weight training, there is no one 'best' program but variety is very important. If you keep doing the same program for months on end, it stops giving results. That's probably why you have gotten good fast results from your pushup program -- simply changing from your old routine was beneficial. Ideally I would recommend cycling throughout the year from very intense/high weight/low volume program (very high weight with very low reps per set, few sets, and long rests between sets and not going to failure) to typical medium weight/medium volume program (weights that you can lift 10-20 times per set with 60-80 sets per week total across all exercises, mostly to failure) to low weight/high volume (using low resistance and doing a lot of reps -- that's what you are doing now with pushups, to failure). There are great many good weight training programs out there. Don't let yourself to get stuck on any one for too long or it'll stop giving results.
For your cardio, you may want to incorporate HIIT (search for it on my site) which is sort of a hybrid of cardio and resistance training and is very effective in burning fat while sparing muscle.
You didn't mention your diet but it also becomes more and more important as you get closer and closer to your goal. Make sure to read my Nutrition article if you haven't already and maybe post bakc here with your current diet so I can make some suggestions on how to improve it.
Also, if you are interested and since you are already registered for my site, you may want to start your fitness blog where you can keep track of your progress and where I can check in on you and make suggestions. Hope that gives you some ideas on how to keep going and good luck!
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