Help me get to 120 bench :)

[Filmbuff81]

Pretty sure no one on this thread is at below average testosterone levels.

With how emotional coach gets he actually probably has high estrogen and low free T

[Filmbuff81]

Every single time Hater #3 shows up, this thread gets funnier. His own advice to others was to ignore me and stop responding.

Anyways, regarding TRT, this is just a small tidbit:

“While dieting men receiving placebo lost both fat and lean mass, the weight loss with testosterone treatment was almost exclusively due to loss of body fat.”


So SHUTTY!

Hypogonadal men lost muscle vs non-hypogonadal men there’s a shocker.

[EliKoehn]

Oh so now it’s a 9.5?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKBQurPr388

0:59 was your failed rep?

That's not even a fly at all... The set started as a bastardized fly/press and at the end of the set, you were just incline pressing it lol. If you're going to preach going to failure, at least do the actual exercise you're talking about.

Not sure why you'd caveat a failure set with a preface that you're not even going to be doing the same exercise at the end of it.

[coachcalande]

0:59 was your failed rep?

That's not even a fly at all... The set started as a bastardized fly/press and at the end of the set, you were just incline pressing it lol. If you're going to preach going to failure, at least do the actual exercise you're talking about.

Not sure why you'd caveat a failure set with a preface that you're not even going to be doing the same exercise at the end of it.

You win the prize for observation here ELI, the incline flys were maximized to form failure and deliberately turned into presses…that means I trained BEYOND failure. How astute. If you kept an open mind and open ears, you’d hear me explain that my flys would turn into presses.

That’s deliberate and it’s known as pre-exhaustion, see, you guys that don’t really have much training experience mock things you don’t understand.


The seated rows are also taken beyond failure with brief rest pauses for additional reps.

Keep in mind, as young as you are, I was a 230-240 pound bodybuilder before you were even born. So from me, you will see various ways to extend sets, increase time under tension and extend the continuum of failure. You have quite a bit of training to do, experience to gain and experiment and studies before your opinion of my programming and technique will matter. Have you ever even done incline flys? Have you ever used a pre exhaustion principle?

In the end as always, those who say it can’t be done shouldn’t interrupt those busy doing it. Let me know when you, as a natural powerlifter, reach my natty bodybuilding stats. With your extensive “knowledge “ of the best diet and training, that shouldn’t take long, after all, you claim to know what is efficient and what is counter productive. I knew you couldn’t stay away.


Let me add this, as a 20
Something year old. You should have all of the time in the world. You dont have a wife
And kids, a business outside of your full time job and probably not a home and four cars to maintain- so you dont have many excuses to be weak or out of shape- reach your goals and carry that progress into your 50s, maybe Ill be impressed then.

I’m not so sure FB actually has a definition of failure nor can he determine another persons RPE when he cannot manage how own without injury.

[coachcalande]

Hypogonadal men lost muscle vs non-hypogonadal men there’s a shocker.

Are you really so dishonest as to claim there’s no obvious huge advantage seen here? Constantly minimizing the benefits of TRT when it’s well documented in its anabolic and metabolic advantages, particularly for the older folks, and not just for muscle mass AND FAT LOSS but even injury recovery and training energy. So save your absolutely misleading BS and accept it…

If a person takes TRT, they aren’t “natty” and it’s dishonest to deny the benefits.

[coachcalande]

With how emotional coach gets he actually probably has high estrogen and low free T

Is this what happened to you? Is that why you went on TRT? I would imagine that my T is on the way down. That happens to men as they age.

[jaxqen]

[EiFit91]

In on popcorn thread

[EiFit91]

As far as progress in maintenance, happens to untrained, poorly trained and inconsistent lifters. Let’s get honest about that.once you maximize progress at that nutrition intake you 100% will need more calories to create more muscle. Basic stuff.

Entering a hornet's nest here but

I've found that as long as your body fat is reasonably high (think close to 20%) then you can succesfully make gains at maintenance even as an experienced lifter and still make gains all the way down to a small calorie deficit. The key being a very small deficit (say less than 250 kcal/day), high protein intake, solid overall programming and not letting your glycogen levels drop too much - i.e. not going too low on carbs. The fatter the lifter the larger the deficit at which you can still recomp succesfully regardless of experience level. This is of course assuming that there are still gains to make.

It seems possible to me that recomp success and experience has a nonlinear relationship. It's easy for beginners, but then it gets trickier. I'd expect a very experienced lifter who still has gains to make to be more knowledgeable than a very early intermediate lifter, and that knowledge matters for the ability to make progress without a calorie surplus. So it's not obvious which of those two will have a greater chance of pulling of a successfull recomp.

There are studies showing recomp in experienced lifters so this is backed by more than my own personal experience.

[jaxqen]

OP, do what this guy does

[coachcalande]

Entering a hornet's nest here but

I've found that as long as your body fat is reasonably high (think close to 20%) then you can succesfully make gains at maintenance even as an experienced lifter and still make gains all the way down to a small calorie deficit. The key being a very small deficit (say less than 250 kcal/day), high protein intake, solid overall programming and not letting your glycogen levels drop too much - i.e. not going too low on carbs. The fatter the lifter the larger the deficit at which you can still recomp succesfully regardless of experience level. This is of course assuming that there are still gains to make.

It seems possible to me that recomp success and experience has a nonlinear relationship. It's easy for beginners, but then it gets trickier. I'd expect a very experienced lifter who still has gains to make to be more knowledgeable than a very early intermediate lifter, and that knowledge matters for the ability to make progress without a calorie surplus. So it's not obvious which of those two will have a greater chance of pulling of a successfull recomp.

There are studies showing recomp in experienced lifters so this is backed by more than my own personal experience.

There is scientific evidence that some
Additional body fat allows for carrying more
Muscle mass. This is just a simple example but an untrained obese person and an untrained skinny guy have significantly different muscle
Mass and strength.


Additionally there are studies to
Support greater calorie surplus being superior for strength and lean mass
Gain over slight calorie surplus.

The point of this entire meltdown here is that the fat phobic folks do not want to believe that gaining weight through a combination of surplus and resistance training is logical, efficient and fool
Proof. The OP was given the best advice in my first couple of
Posts addressing his goals.

The three haters are free to disagree but 1 is on TRT and has a different reality, the other two are newbies struggling to establish their own goals and programming.

To my knowledge, there is only one person in this thread that has both a degree in exercise physiology and more than 20 years training athletes in resistance training. I have more experience and more evidence than hater 2 and 3 combined but they are free to shout at the keto
World and gripe about bro splits and be afraid to eat protein.

[coachcalande]

OP, do what this guy does

Gee I wonder why he doesn’t want to be 10% body fat?

[EiFit91]

Support greater calorie surplus being superior for strength and lean mass
Gain over slight calorie surplus.

As far as I know there are no studies showing this wrt hypertrophy. And the only study I know that compares gaining rates found no benefit to a larger surplus, see this Nutrition thread:

https://forum.bodybuilding.com/showt...hp?t=169122713

There may be benefits to a larger surplus sure but it’s not been shown in a study to my knowledge

That more calories benefits strength seems trivial but not very relevant as fat always helps but most people who train recreationally want to make gains in lean muscle tissue so it seems more relevant to focus on that

[coachcalande]

As far as I know there are no studies showing this wrt hypertrophy. And the only study I know that compares gaining rates found no benefit to a larger surplus, see this Nutrition thread:

https://forum.bodybuilding.com/showt...hp?t=169122713

There may be benefits to a larger surplus sure but it’s not been shown in a study to my knowledge

That more calories benefits strength seems trivial but not very relevant as fat always helps but most people who train recreationally want to make gains in lean tissue so it seems more relevant to focus on that

Not sure how OPs strength goals keep turning into fat loss and body comp discussions…he wants to get stronger, that was stated clearly.

Now, I think you should spend some time searching about calorie surplus studies and lean tissue gain. I know I have read them as recently as this week. No biggie if you don’t have the time…but faster progress is definitely possible with a greater surplus.

If you don’t believe me, try it yourself.

[EiFit91]

Not sure how OPs strength goals keep turning into fat loss and body comp discussions…he wants to get stronger, that was stated clearly.

Now, I think you should spend some time searching about calorie surplus studies and lean tissue gain. I know I have read them as recently as this week. No biggie if you don’t have the time…but faster progress is definitely possible with a greater surplus.

If you don’t believe me, try it yourself.

It might be that you are thinking of metabolic ward studies where they show that lean mass gains are directly related to energy intake.

But these people aren’t strength training and muscle is just a portion of total lean mass so there’s no way of knowing from studies like this if more calories => more actual muscle

[coachcalande]

It might be that you are thinking of metabolic ward studies where they show that lean mass gains are directly related to energy intake.

But these people aren’t strength training and muscle is just a portion of total lean mass so there’s no way of knowing from studies like this if more calories => more actual muscle

No definitely related to advanced lifters and gains / comparisons vs two control groups, 1 in calorie surplus, other in larger surplus. Compared both lean and fat gain.

[EiFit91]

No definitely related to advanced lifters and gains / comparisons vs two control groups, 1 in calorie surplus, other in larger surplus. Compared both lean and fat gain.

Then please post the study.

[jaxqen]

No idea about muscle growth, but being on a large caloric surplus clearly improved my strength rather than on a small one.
No, I am not a fan of being on a large caloric surplus... at least, in my case and according to my goal, I'd rather be 12% and struggling with benching 1.5 plates than looking like Maddox and benching 800.

[coachcalande]

No idea about muscle growth, but being on a large caloric surplus clearly improved my strength rather than on a small one.
No, I am not a fan of being on a large caloric surplus... at least, in my case and according to my goal, I'd rather be 12% and struggling with benching 1.5 plates than looking like Maddox and benching 800.

Sure it’s a no brainer and why I have dropped 40 lbs myself. Was fun for awhile but my body can’t keep going that way.

This was my top weight, and I felt like a tank for sure but eating all that food was WORK!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYTlAo5H5hE

[coachcalande]

Then please post the study.

Google, cmon now you can’t expect me to do all the leg work here. This is also why I do my own studies, I want to know how things effect *me.*

When I want to get stronger, and get larger muscles, and gain weight- I eat more. I emphasize protein.

When I want to drop body fat and HOPEFULLY keep most of the muscles gained, I also emphasize protein but manipulate carbs and fats.

Larger surplus is similar to larger deficit…

[Filmbuff81]

Coach you’ve just proven you’re completely delusional if you think you train to failure.

None of those reps went to failure and there’s not a single bodybuilder alive, worth their salt, who would say you did.

You’re just out of shape and gave up when things got tough on the set and didn’t even look that tough.

Per usual you’ve also demonstrated your complete lack of understanding of TRT. if you can explain how placing someone in normal ranges of of testosterone levels = enhanced bodybuilding that would be great.

My point was you referenced a piece of a study that put hypogonadal men on a placebo and they lost muscle.

Like duh of course they lost muscle vs a group that was placed into normal T ranges.

Hypogonadism is a dangerous condition and can increase all cause mortality and premature death, not to mention earlier onset and more frequent cases of Alzheimer’s. it can also lead to diabetes, metabolic syndrome and loss of bone density among other things, kidney failure, COPD, etc.

And of course as the study illustrates loss of muscle and strength.

I’ve never denied TRT was life altering, but it doesn’t actually give someone an advantage. It just makes them “normal”

So yeah do a study on hypogonadism and of course when you reverse said hypogonadism those people see a marked improvement in their quality of life and the above issues start to reverse.

That is literally the entire point of the medication?

You seem to fail to recognize or you’re just willfully ignoring the fact that even though I’m on TRT you could still have higher levels of T than me.

And no what happened with me is shortly after I turned 30 I started feeling incredibly tired and off. Couldn’t figure out what was wrong.

People just said I was exhausted and I was but you can tell when something changes especially so drastically.

Spent like 4ish years being unable to get answers.

Lost muscle, gained fat, thought I had cancer at one point.

Was literally falling asleep on the couch at 6pm barely able to make it through a day.

RA runs in my family, so was having crazy joint pain in my hands and other areas.

Only found out what was wrong because a new doctor finally sent me for a complete work up because my wife and I couldn’t conceive.

So it was by pure luck that I even got to the root of my issues.

And then I still waited nearly another 2 years before even committing to TRT as I got ****ed up from other medication to help us have a kid.

Worth it since I have my son and we didn’t have to spend thousands on IVF.

Then finally only started on TRT when I was nearly at my wits end when I was 35.

And I hate to break it to you but it was a long slow process bringing myself back from the edge of the cliff.

It can take a long time just getting used to the medication because your body has been in such a messed up hormonal state for so long that it’s an incremental process that has taken me years to finally get to where I am.

I honestly wish it was as easy as you make it sound. Would’ve saved me a lot of sweat, blood, tears, and time.

[Filmbuff81]

Google, cmon now you can’t expect me to do all the leg work here. This is also why I do my own studies, I want to know how things effect *me.*

When I want to get stronger, and get larger muscles, and gain weight- I eat more. I emphasize protein.

When I want to drop body fat and HOPEFULLY keep most of the muscles gained, I also emphasize protein but manipulate carbs and fats.

Larger surplus is similar to larger deficit…

Your n1 studies prove nothing.

If you’re gonna post about studies at least back it up by posting then.

You’re being intellectually dishonest by telling someone to google it.

[coachcalande]

Coach you’ve just proven you’re completely delusional if you think you train to failure.

None of those reps went to failure and there’s not a single bodybuilder alive, worth their salt, who would say you did.

You’re just out of shape and gave up when things got tough on the set and didn’t even look that tough.

Per usual you’ve also demonstrated your complete lack of understanding of TRT. if you can explain how placing someone in normal ranges of of testosterone levels = enhanced bodybuilding that would be great.

My point was you referenced a piece of a study that put hypogonadal men on a placebo and they lost muscle.

Like duh of course they lost muscle vs a group that was placed into normal T ranges.

Hypogonadism is a dangerous condition and can increase all cause mortality and premature death, not to mention earlier onset and more frequent cases of Alzheimer’s. it can also lead to diabetes, metabolic syndrome and loss of bone density among other things.

And of course as the study illustrates loss of muscle and strength.

I’ve never denied TRT was life altering, but it doesn’t actually give someone an advantage. It just makes them “normal”

So yeah do a study on hypogonadism and of course when you reverse said hypogonadism those people see a marked improvement in their quality of life and the above issues start to reverse.

That is literally the entire point of the medication?

You seem to fail to recognize or you’re just willfully ignoring the fact that even though I’m on TRT you could still have higher levels of T than me.

And no what happened with me is shortly after I turned 30 I started feeling incredibly tired and off. Couldn’t figure out what was wrong.

People just said I was exhausted and I was but you can tell when something changes especially so drastically.

Spent like 4ish years being unable to get answers.

Lost muscle, gained fat, thought I had cancer at one point.

Was literally falling asleep on the couch at 6pm barely able to make it through a day.

RA runs in my family, so was having crazy joint pain in my hands and other areas.

Only found out what was wrong because a new doctor finally sent me for a complete work up because my wife and I couldn’t conceive.

So it was by pure luck that I even got to the root of my issues.

And then I still waited nearly another 2 years before even committing to TRT as I got ****ed up from other medication to help us have a kid.

Worth it since I have my son and we didn’t have to spend thousands on IVF.

Then finally only started on TRT when I was nearly at my wits end when I was 35.

And I hate to break it to you but it was a long slow process bringing myself back from the edge of the cliff.

It can take a long time just getting used to the medication because your body has been in such a messed up hormonal state for so long that it’s an incremental process that has taken me years to finally get to where I am.

I honestly wish it was as easy as you make it sound. Would’ve saved me a lot of sweat, blood, tears, and time.

Cool story, unfortunately due to your many misleading statements over a variety of threads, it’s just a story and I choose to remain skeptical at best .

The fact that you practice a great deal of fat shaming makes me believe you understood full well that your only hope to pile on large amounts of muscle and be leaner was thru chemistry.

As far as training hard, I’m not the guy working at “rpe@5”…nobody cares about how you “feel”…

[Filmbuff81]

Gee I wonder why he doesn’t want to be 10% body fat?

Because he’s a professional heavyweight power lifter?

You do realize the lower weight classes most of the competition is pretty jacked and ripped?

Carrying more fat is a disadvantage for them vs someone the size of Julius Maddox.

[Filmbuff81]

Cool story, unfortunately due to your many misleading statements over a variety of threads, it’s just a story and I choose to remain skeptical at best .

The fact that you practice a great deal of fat shaming makes me believe you understood full well that your only hope to pile on large amounts of muscle and be leaner was thru chemistry.

As far as training hard, I’m not the guy working at “rpe@5”…nobody cares about how you “feel”…

I’ve never fat shamed.

I’ve said gaining all the weight you suggest to do and have done is not worth it for most people.

It’s detrimental to their health. You wanted to hit a 400 bench.

But to do it you gained unhealthy levels of body fat no? So your strength to weight ratio was basically linear as you gained the weight to hit an arbitrary PR.

I’ve never actually misled anyone on anything.

Again your level of delusion is impressive.

Also my level of muscle is not impressive at all.

My avatar is a picture after a workout and I’m good at angles?

It’s solid but if I was contest lean I don’t think I’d be able to hang with elite natty bodybuilders.

Like Alberto Nunez and I are the same height and I think he’d dwarf me if we were side by side.

Also when do I lift at RPE 5?

Since you don’t wanna do a meet how about squats to failure? In 2 weeks I’ll be trying to establish a new 10RM before a deload.

Can see who actually knows how to train to an actual 0 RIR?

If I can only gain muscle through chemistry I guess you can only gain self worth by claiming you’re a super hardcore bodybuilder who trains to failure even though you leave a couple reps in the tank every set, but saying you train to failure makes you feel superior and makes the high school kids stare in awe as you strut through the halls.

And the only way you know how to gain strength is through gaining 20-50lbs and cutting your ROM in half.

Edit: you strike me as someone who was and is probably a bully since you can’t handle any form of discourse without resorting to getting emotional and being rude to everyone.

Or your ego is just that fragile which is also sad

[EiFit91]

Google, cmon now you can’t expect me to do all the leg work here. This is also why I do my own studies, I want to know how things effect *me.*

When I want to get stronger, and get larger muscles, and gain weight- I eat more. I emphasize protein.

When I want to drop body fat and HOPEFULLY keep most of the muscles gained, I also emphasize protein but manipulate carbs and fats.

Larger surplus is similar to larger deficit…

Instead of just googling with a blindfold I followed the reference list of studies citing the Garthe et al. study above. It would seem natural that another study comparing rates of gain would cite this study, but I cannot find a study like the one you describe in the list of studies referencing this one.

It seems intellectually honest to actually post a link to the study if you want to back your claims as supported by studies. The burden of proof is on the one making the claims.

[Filmbuff81]

Instead of just googling with a blindfold I followed the reference list of studies citing the Garthe et al. study above. It would seem natural that another study comparing rates of gain would cite this study, but I cannot find a study like the one you describe in the list of studies referencing this one.

It seems intellectually honest to actually post a link to the study if you want to back your claims as supported by studies. The burden of proof is on the one making the claims.

That requires someone to actually be honest though

Just take his word for it. He’s done his own studies.

[coachcalande]

Because he’s a professional heavyweight power lifter?

You do realize the lower weight classes most of the competition is pretty jacked and ripped?

Carrying more fat is a disadvantage for them vs someone the size of Julius Maddox.

…and why do they bother with weight classes? Cmon you can figure this out…

[coachcalande]

That requires someone to actually be honest though

Just take his word for it. He’s done his own studies.

Just like we should take your TRT story and believe it? Yeah every bodybuilder had a medical need for enhancement- sure.

Lets address your bully comment- aren’t you the very person that started the attacks on my (very good) post about gaining weight and strength? Why yes, it was you. Nice projection though.

* If
You feel “bullied” perhaps you should stop following me around the forum creating strife with your antagonist posts. * I addressed this months ago when you had a creepy few posts about my “RPE “ which I do not use as part of my programming.

[Filmbuff81]

Just like we should take your TRT story and believe it? Yeah every bodybuilder had a medical need for enhancement- sure.

Lets address your bully comment- aren’t you the very person that started the attacks on my (very good) post about gaining weight and strength? Why yes, it was you. Nice projection though.

Yes I called out your very bad blanket advice.

Because your first instinct is to always tell someone to gain weight regardless of their situation.

That’s not being a bully.

And No bodybuilders hop on gear to compete in untested bodybuilding? They also take 10x the test along with everything else they take?

They have to go on TRT after because they’ve shut down their system for so long their testes generally don’t work anymore if they’ve been stupid.

I don’t care if anyone believes me or not. Unlike you, I’ve never given anyone a reason to doubt what I say though.

I also don’t resort to turning into a grumpy old man whenever someone disagrees with me either.

So I can have debates with people on here and neither one of us resorts to name calling or unwarranted accusations such as your weird obsession with accusing me of abusing a controlled substance.

I also don’t feel bullied I said you act like one.

And I post in threads I feel I can give decent advice to and I’ll call out bad advice when I see it.

Not my fault you generally give piss poor advice.