Showing posts with label mass. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mass. Show all posts
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Return of the Kettlebell Year End Up Date Speed as Strength? Technique as Progress (update 10)
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Return of the Kettlebell (RTK) is Pavel Tsatsouline's double kettlebell program follow up to Enter the Kettlebell. The approach of RTK is aimed at muscular hypertophy strength. I started Return of the Kettlebell in September and have been going at it since then with the goal of putting on some arm mass - and of course getting stronger. Over the past few months, i've posted various updates on getting used to the new protocols in RTK, like double KB pressing and, especially, the hardstyle verion of the kettlebell longcycle.
The following post is more of a progress update since starting RTK in terms of its parameters for progress.
There are several ways in RTK to measure improvements:
Arms, Lean Mass & Fat. But first, a quick review of other points. A part of this quest was to let myself explore gaining weight to gain muscle. Have i gained muscle? Let's look at the numbers.
First, bave i gained muscle mass on my arms as intended. Yes. a quarter inch. Not exactly fabulous, is it? but perhaps pretty good. I'm not sure. I don't see it - without a measuring tape i wouldn't either. And what if that gain is fat around the arm?
A nice thing - at least for me - is that both arms are now closer to the same size than previously. My left arm still lags a bit in strength (or maybe co-ordination), but less so in size, and perhaps not so much in strength.
Second, the other measures. I didn't start measuring right when i started in sept, but about a month in, in oct, i did. So i have measures across 83 days, from Oct 9 to Dec 31:
Now lean mass is everything that is not fat. So that's tissue like bone and muscle and also water and sugar. So that means that part of that 2.09 pound gain is not just muscle fiber. We'll come back to this.
Other Measures: Hips & Waist And along with my arms putting on .25 of an inch (sounds good), my waist is .5 bigger (not so good) and my hips, where i carry my fat, are .75 bigger (bummer). Somehow i just don't believe those last two gains are muscle (so why would the first one be muscle?). So it's not all perfect. And while gaining fat is something one is warned about when deliberately going for improving muscle mass, somehow on a small 5'6" frame that seems like a lot on the waist/butt for 83 days. Maybe not, maybe so. It's just how it feels.
Muscle Gain Calculations. So yes i have the measures to say that lean mass has gonne up. a bit. I also have the measures to say that fat has as well. So far so normal. Sort of. According to Chris Thibaudeau, talking about guys and muscle mass (but is it *that* different for gals), if a guy is really focussing on muscle gain, he can put on .25-.5 lbs of dry muscle a week. But along with that dry muscle is 40% glycogen/water. so for 100g of muscle, one has to add 40g of other (glycogen/water). So that 948g of "lean mass" i've developed? 379g is glycogen/water. Grand total: 569g of dry muscle or 1.25lbs dry. Now when the low end of Tib's estimate is .25 a week, that would be 5 weeks of effort. I did this in 11.85 weeks. That's 2.37 times longer than predicted IF, according to Tib, one is both eating and training optimally.
Does that mean that my effort was less than optimal or that my eating was actually so below optimal or that the program is not as hypertrophic as advertized?
According to Thibaudeau, someone with 120 lean mass needs 2455 cals to build that .25 muscle.
so today at 117.9, i should be ingesting 2412 for optimal muscle mass development. Am i? Well, no. I'm not. Why not? Seeing the size of my butt go up without the consequent muscle development doesn't inspire confidence to take in even more calories. Yes i'm in caloric surplus (wouldn't be putting on gut/butt inches without that) but not *quite* that high. IF my butt and waist had increased nigh on an inch each BUT i had developed that additional .25 of dry muscle a week i'd be thinking about it. But as the two are not exactly going hand in hand, i am dubious to push this without better information for women. Bottom line: mass IS going up (along with some fat) and many folks have shown that one doesn't need to "bulk" to gain mass reasonably.
In other measures: practice & strength.
So if the muscle gain has not been as hoped, what about other measures, eg
Any Real Change at All?
A reasonable person looking at my progress, since rungs haven't gone up and weight hasn't gone up, is what strength changes have really occured?
Progress? Technique. I'd characterize progress in a few ways, one of which i haven't seen in the RTK text explicitly, and that's just getting used to the new moves with load.
For example, light and medium days are dandy to grease the groove. Don't get me wrong: medium days are no walk in the park; they're work, but heavy days are where, i'm finding anyway, that my control of the move is really being tested. First time i double snatched 16's for double presses was not a little freaky. Likewise it's taken till just about now for me to feel like i have anything approximating a groove on the long cycle with real weight, and i'll be very keen to have this checked at the RKC II cert to see if i've really understood the HS form here. It would almost be fair to say, ok, measuring could start now, since i feel i have the moves more in hand. So this technique grooving is definitely a place to measure progress. That's a whole lot of motor learning going on.
The way i'm noticing technique improvements is going from what has been total confusion or form devolution to starting to get into a groove.
Progress as Time/Speed. So the other main place i've been noticing progress is in terms of time taken for rungs, and this on a couple levels: especially on medium days of either block (explosive or grinding), the pauses between the first three rungs (the warm up rungs) are becoming vanishingly small. That's good. Likewise, the work sets (rungs 4 and 5) feel, well, groovier, stronger, like there's more left in the tank. This means that medium days are finishing at 30 mins +/-, rather than 40+ mins.
As for heavy days, as per the protocol, before thinking of adding in another rung, the goal is to get the time down as much as possible. Right now, heavy days for me are still heavy. Smoother, but still heavy. So i'm taking pretty good recovery between rungs, but focusing on technique, getting the moves smoother, that's happening.
What i've also noticed on variety days is that my single consecutive 16k presses on the left have increased, as has the ease of doing them - so better form. Likewise the smoothness of my 20k press on the right is better.
Resting HR
One other note of improvement - without thinking about trying for this, my resting heart rate has dropped pretty noticeably - at least to me - to pretty much the lowest it's ever been, ever, doing anything. Now that's something.
Take Away to Date
So, what's the assessment over the past 4 months of RTK?
The main progress seems to be in terms of technique on the long cycle (i hope), and perhaps coordination with double snatching and pressing. Definitely there's endurance strength gains from the cutting my recovery down between rungs, but hypertrophic strength?
There has been some mass gain, but it seems pretty slim to me - but i could be wrong. It's difficult to find good sources of information on this kind of measure. So in my experience, giving it my all to follow the protocol, i would not call this - so far - a particularly hypertrophic program.
Next Steps
Rungs and Ladders: My goal is to get to 5*5 on both the grinds and the explosive blocks for heavy days with the current loads, with good times, so that would mean getting to be ready to switch up to the next weight. After that, i'd like to get back to focusing on the beast challenge. The RKCII comes up at the end of Feb where the Long Cycle is part of the curriculum That's 7ish weeks away. It will be interesting to see how far i can progress towards that path in the coming two months. When thinking about doing five perfect C&J's with double 16's for the RKC II test for gals after three days of form and technique training, i've been biting my lip a bit, i admit. Those double 16's are a challenge.
Hypertrophy and Diet If i can stand it (it's rather tedious), i'll be keeping a closer eye on my calories and specific macro nutrient break down to see how that maps to lean mass and measurements, just to see what kind of tuning might be possible.
Variety Days. These have been either rowing or cycling or VO2max'ing. More recently i've been cycling in the AM (to give my arms a break) and rkc snatch test prepping in the evening (60 snatches a side in various set configurations from Randy Hauer with a tip of the hat to Ken Forsse).
This latter practice i've been thinking of as Astronaut Training. The snatch test for me is a bit of a bogey. By practicing these level of reps regularly (taking about 13 minutes rather than say 6 at test speed), my hope is that i will be well conditioned and prepped for the event. What does this have to do with astronaut training? My understanding of the early days of astronaut work is that the 'nauts practiced the same drills over and over in various conditions so that when the actual event ocured it was, well, well within tolerance and expectation.
Year End Thoughts on RTK
As said, right now the biggest take away seems to be about getting a base for technique - long cycle in particular. Once i get to heavy day 5*5's i'll do another assessment. In the meantime, something this very literally measured reflection is doing for me is raising the question what are my priorities for my practice? Where am i trying to go overall, and what is the optimal way to get there?
Inspiration to some Deep Thoughts
I've been looking at Fawn Friday's awesome ease in doing 24kg pistols which she's put down not to training the pistol, but heavy squatting (she's also nailed the 24kg press). Fawn has some pretty clear powerlifting goals from what i can tell from her blog, and that focuses her practice, and from my perspective seems to be getting fabulous results. She's particularly inspiring to me as she's a wee bit smaller than i am and significantly stronger. That's motivation/inspiration.
So i'm asking myself, where am i going?
My motivation for doing RTK has largely been to prep for the RKCII - to be as best prepped as i can so that i can take best advantage of the coaching that will be on offer. Beyond this, i've had the women's beast challenge in my sites (24k press, 24k pistol, 24k pullup). But as the RKC II approaches, and i'm feeling in the right place prior to that, i'm starting to pull back or up to the forty thousand foot level to ask, what the heck am i doing? Am i hearing the siren call of GS or the iron call of going back to bar bells? and if either WHAT FOR? What is the Big Picture? Does there need to be one? etc. Not questions i'd anticipated asking, but it seems they are both surprising and interesting questions to explore - especially as i find myself without a complete sense of an answer. A worthwhile journey, perhaps apt, heading into a new year.
All the best of the New Years to you all. May your health and wellness visions for the new year and decade all be bright. Tweet Follow @begin2dig
Return of the Kettlebell (RTK) is Pavel Tsatsouline's double kettlebell program follow up to Enter the Kettlebell. The approach of RTK is aimed at muscular hypertophy strength. I started Return of the Kettlebell in September and have been going at it since then with the goal of putting on some arm mass - and of course getting stronger. Over the past few months, i've posted various updates on getting used to the new protocols in RTK, like double KB pressing and, especially, the hardstyle verion of the kettlebell longcycle.
The following post is more of a progress update since starting RTK in terms of its parameters for progress.
There are several ways in RTK to measure improvements:
- putting on muscle, for the promised hypertrophy.
- increasing rungs in the program's ladders
- increasing the number of ladders
- increasing the speed of completing the ladders (decreasing the time of recovery between rungs).
- Moving up weight for workouts
Arms, Lean Mass & Fat. But first, a quick review of other points. A part of this quest was to let myself explore gaining weight to gain muscle. Have i gained muscle? Let's look at the numbers.
First, bave i gained muscle mass on my arms as intended. Yes. a quarter inch. Not exactly fabulous, is it? but perhaps pretty good. I'm not sure. I don't see it - without a measuring tape i wouldn't either. And what if that gain is fat around the arm?
A nice thing - at least for me - is that both arms are now closer to the same size than previously. My left arm still lags a bit in strength (or maybe co-ordination), but less so in size, and perhaps not so much in strength.
Second, the other measures. I didn't start measuring right when i started in sept, but about a month in, in oct, i did. So i have measures across 83 days, from Oct 9 to Dec 31:
- bodyweight goes up by 2.7 pounds
- lean mass goes up by 2.09 pounds
- body fat% goes up by .163%
Now lean mass is everything that is not fat. So that's tissue like bone and muscle and also water and sugar. So that means that part of that 2.09 pound gain is not just muscle fiber. We'll come back to this.
Other Measures: Hips & Waist And along with my arms putting on .25 of an inch (sounds good), my waist is .5 bigger (not so good) and my hips, where i carry my fat, are .75 bigger (bummer). Somehow i just don't believe those last two gains are muscle (so why would the first one be muscle?). So it's not all perfect. And while gaining fat is something one is warned about when deliberately going for improving muscle mass, somehow on a small 5'6" frame that seems like a lot on the waist/butt for 83 days. Maybe not, maybe so. It's just how it feels.
Muscle Gain Calculations. So yes i have the measures to say that lean mass has gonne up. a bit. I also have the measures to say that fat has as well. So far so normal. Sort of. According to Chris Thibaudeau, talking about guys and muscle mass (but is it *that* different for gals), if a guy is really focussing on muscle gain, he can put on .25-.5 lbs of dry muscle a week. But along with that dry muscle is 40% glycogen/water. so for 100g of muscle, one has to add 40g of other (glycogen/water). So that 948g of "lean mass" i've developed? 379g is glycogen/water. Grand total: 569g of dry muscle or 1.25lbs dry. Now when the low end of Tib's estimate is .25 a week, that would be 5 weeks of effort. I did this in 11.85 weeks. That's 2.37 times longer than predicted IF, according to Tib, one is both eating and training optimally.
Does that mean that my effort was less than optimal or that my eating was actually so below optimal or that the program is not as hypertrophic as advertized?
According to Thibaudeau, someone with 120 lean mass needs 2455 cals to build that .25 muscle.
so today at 117.9, i should be ingesting 2412 for optimal muscle mass development. Am i? Well, no. I'm not. Why not? Seeing the size of my butt go up without the consequent muscle development doesn't inspire confidence to take in even more calories. Yes i'm in caloric surplus (wouldn't be putting on gut/butt inches without that) but not *quite* that high. IF my butt and waist had increased nigh on an inch each BUT i had developed that additional .25 of dry muscle a week i'd be thinking about it. But as the two are not exactly going hand in hand, i am dubious to push this without better information for women. Bottom line: mass IS going up (along with some fat) and many folks have shown that one doesn't need to "bulk" to gain mass reasonably.
In other measures: practice & strength.
So if the muscle gain has not been as hoped, what about other measures, eg
- increasing rungs in the program's ladders
- increasing the number of ladders
- increasing the speed of completing the ladders (decreasing the time of recovery between rungs).
- Moving up weight for workouts
Any Real Change at All?
A reasonable person looking at my progress, since rungs haven't gone up and weight hasn't gone up, is what strength changes have really occured?
Progress? Technique. I'd characterize progress in a few ways, one of which i haven't seen in the RTK text explicitly, and that's just getting used to the new moves with load.
For example, light and medium days are dandy to grease the groove. Don't get me wrong: medium days are no walk in the park; they're work, but heavy days are where, i'm finding anyway, that my control of the move is really being tested. First time i double snatched 16's for double presses was not a little freaky. Likewise it's taken till just about now for me to feel like i have anything approximating a groove on the long cycle with real weight, and i'll be very keen to have this checked at the RKC II cert to see if i've really understood the HS form here. It would almost be fair to say, ok, measuring could start now, since i feel i have the moves more in hand. So this technique grooving is definitely a place to measure progress. That's a whole lot of motor learning going on.
The way i'm noticing technique improvements is going from what has been total confusion or form devolution to starting to get into a groove.
Progress as Time/Speed. So the other main place i've been noticing progress is in terms of time taken for rungs, and this on a couple levels: especially on medium days of either block (explosive or grinding), the pauses between the first three rungs (the warm up rungs) are becoming vanishingly small. That's good. Likewise, the work sets (rungs 4 and 5) feel, well, groovier, stronger, like there's more left in the tank. This means that medium days are finishing at 30 mins +/-, rather than 40+ mins.
As for heavy days, as per the protocol, before thinking of adding in another rung, the goal is to get the time down as much as possible. Right now, heavy days for me are still heavy. Smoother, but still heavy. So i'm taking pretty good recovery between rungs, but focusing on technique, getting the moves smoother, that's happening.
What i've also noticed on variety days is that my single consecutive 16k presses on the left have increased, as has the ease of doing them - so better form. Likewise the smoothness of my 20k press on the right is better.
Resting HR
One other note of improvement - without thinking about trying for this, my resting heart rate has dropped pretty noticeably - at least to me - to pretty much the lowest it's ever been, ever, doing anything. Now that's something.
Take Away to Date
So, what's the assessment over the past 4 months of RTK?
The main progress seems to be in terms of technique on the long cycle (i hope), and perhaps coordination with double snatching and pressing. Definitely there's endurance strength gains from the cutting my recovery down between rungs, but hypertrophic strength?
There has been some mass gain, but it seems pretty slim to me - but i could be wrong. It's difficult to find good sources of information on this kind of measure. So in my experience, giving it my all to follow the protocol, i would not call this - so far - a particularly hypertrophic program.
Next Steps
Rungs and Ladders: My goal is to get to 5*5 on both the grinds and the explosive blocks for heavy days with the current loads, with good times, so that would mean getting to be ready to switch up to the next weight. After that, i'd like to get back to focusing on the beast challenge. The RKCII comes up at the end of Feb where the Long Cycle is part of the curriculum That's 7ish weeks away. It will be interesting to see how far i can progress towards that path in the coming two months. When thinking about doing five perfect C&J's with double 16's for the RKC II test for gals after three days of form and technique training, i've been biting my lip a bit, i admit. Those double 16's are a challenge.
Hypertrophy and Diet If i can stand it (it's rather tedious), i'll be keeping a closer eye on my calories and specific macro nutrient break down to see how that maps to lean mass and measurements, just to see what kind of tuning might be possible.
Variety Days. These have been either rowing or cycling or VO2max'ing. More recently i've been cycling in the AM (to give my arms a break) and rkc snatch test prepping in the evening (60 snatches a side in various set configurations from Randy Hauer with a tip of the hat to Ken Forsse).
This latter practice i've been thinking of as Astronaut Training. The snatch test for me is a bit of a bogey. By practicing these level of reps regularly (taking about 13 minutes rather than say 6 at test speed), my hope is that i will be well conditioned and prepped for the event. What does this have to do with astronaut training? My understanding of the early days of astronaut work is that the 'nauts practiced the same drills over and over in various conditions so that when the actual event ocured it was, well, well within tolerance and expectation.
Year End Thoughts on RTK
As said, right now the biggest take away seems to be about getting a base for technique - long cycle in particular. Once i get to heavy day 5*5's i'll do another assessment. In the meantime, something this very literally measured reflection is doing for me is raising the question what are my priorities for my practice? Where am i trying to go overall, and what is the optimal way to get there?
Inspiration to some Deep Thoughts
You go ahead and try the above, described here as "Fun" and see if you aren't humbled.
I've been looking at Fawn Friday's awesome ease in doing 24kg pistols which she's put down not to training the pistol, but heavy squatting (she's also nailed the 24kg press). Fawn has some pretty clear powerlifting goals from what i can tell from her blog, and that focuses her practice, and from my perspective seems to be getting fabulous results. She's particularly inspiring to me as she's a wee bit smaller than i am and significantly stronger. That's motivation/inspiration.
So i'm asking myself, where am i going?
My motivation for doing RTK has largely been to prep for the RKCII - to be as best prepped as i can so that i can take best advantage of the coaching that will be on offer. Beyond this, i've had the women's beast challenge in my sites (24k press, 24k pistol, 24k pullup). But as the RKC II approaches, and i'm feeling in the right place prior to that, i'm starting to pull back or up to the forty thousand foot level to ask, what the heck am i doing? Am i hearing the siren call of GS or the iron call of going back to bar bells? and if either WHAT FOR? What is the Big Picture? Does there need to be one? etc. Not questions i'd anticipated asking, but it seems they are both surprising and interesting questions to explore - especially as i find myself without a complete sense of an answer. A worthwhile journey, perhaps apt, heading into a new year.
All the best of the New Years to you all. May your health and wellness visions for the new year and decade all be bright. Tweet Follow @begin2dig
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Wednesday, October 14, 2009
A gal DELIBERATELY gaining "mass" (not weight). How can this be?
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So, i'm female, like to be lean and ripped AND i'm trying to gain mass - a new way to say "gain weight." What is that about? If awhile ago someone had told me i'd be looking at mass going up rather than down i would have paled, horrified. So what's happened?
Two things:
So, with the release of Pavel's Return of the Kettlebell (start of a review series here)- geared at hypertrophy strength in particular- i thought i'm in a good enough place now to push on this strength side with RTK's double KB work and investigate the mass side promised with it. And i know for my NSCA CSCS text book - and every other sentient knowledgeable person on mass tells me so - this means eating to achieve a caloric surplus not a deficit. I have never eaten for caloric surplus deliberately in my life.
The result so far is a strange thing. Over the past 6-8 weeks i have been watching the scale go up AND i have not freaked out, i have not panicked, i have not broken into a sweat of fear.
Don't Panic
Part of the reason for this lack of panic is perhaps knowledge and control. I know something about what's going on, and i am doing it cautiously and deliberately. Whether it's optimally remains to be seen, but i'm ok with that, too, as the weight going up is not huge leaps and bounds.
Part of the ok'ness is also that in the knowledge side, i know how to evaluate the number on the scale from a few metrics. One of the most powerful ones is girth and the other is skin fold testing.
With Girth i whip out a wonderful gadget called a myotape, and cuff it around my biceps. Not
a ton of change, but it's an honest 1/8th of an inch. And after a workout the measure is considerably greater. But we're talking post rest not post workout measures. the real stuff. I can also keep an eye on more sensitive areas like hips and waist with girth and see if this is beyond my mental tolerances or not. The best check there however is still feeling comfy in my clothes.
With skin fold measures i track what i really want to track here: improvements in lean mass. These are slower to grow than fat to be sure, but seeing weekly progress is a good thing. So far i haven't seen bigger jumps than when i've been trying to lean out and work out at the same time, but it's only been a short trial so far. The main thing is the trends are going in the right direction, and the BF% is still well within tolerable limits.
Why else am i doing this?
I want to see if i can "get arms" (and maybe some other body parts too, but arms has always been the one for me). As far as i know there's no genetic reason why my arms shouldn't respond approriately to appropriate forces for hypertrophic adaptation. However, i also want to walk the walk.
I confer with lots of folks who are more into bodybuilding than strength. The interesting demographic is young lads and post 30's gals - in my experience anyway. So while i'm giving council like "eat more to gain" where have i been on that continuum? Strength and leanness.
So i figure now is the time to fish or cut bait. I'm not going into body building, but i am experimenting with how muscle mass growth can be stimulated, fed, supported, with what one might see as the *minimal* set of moves to achieve that goal, and where RTK right now is my main mission.
For now, part of the experiment is just figuring out how to be cool like a little fonzy with this weight gain thing while the mass gain thing comes along.
The basics: how one reacts to food.
The far more challenging part at least for me and perhaps for other women too who may want more mass (as opposed to weight, dam it. weight bad; mass good - we know what we mean) - is feeling ok about seeing the scale go in the usually dreaded direction.
The take away from this for me so far thinking about it is that it's been my work in nutrition that's let me feel comfortable exploring this uncharted territory in strength and mass (mass. ha! so far i say ha! we'll see. an eighth of an inch for pete's sake! ), not the workouts.
The workouts psychologically seem the eas(ier) part. There are certain principles to which muscle reacts when stimulated appropriately. Check. But the scale? Really, i think if i didn't have those other measures, and a faith that i know how to reduce the weight again, i couldn't do this.
The Way i've Found Thinner Peace.
I'm stealing thinner peace from a fabulous book on how we react to change and how to make habits successful called the Four day Win by Martha Beck (US || UK ) - recommended. If you want to see why, i talk about habits, and the change of pain that is changing one's dietary ways and how to do this with as little brain pain as possible over here. That's potentially a first place: to know how change can work safely. And whence from there?
For me, how i got to a place of really knowing my body in terms of nutrition is with Precision Nutrition that i've reviewed over time, and have been using now, literally for years. The thing i'd like to draw attention to here are three parts of that approach that i think are relevant to this weight going up mental safety zone.
We're complex systems. Why wouldn't it take that kind of time to get to know how these complex mechanisms interact with complex inputs?
So i think it's great that there's a base case from which adjustments can be made. Second, once the base case is established, time to look at parameters for individualizing to get on with one's body comp goals: where start sensibly to work towards losing weight or gaining mass? how tweak either calories or macronutrients? why? how do that again in the spirit of change one thing, maintain the change for two weeks, assess.
The third part is actually having guidance on how to do girth and skinfold measures and make sense of those measures. A lot of that material is in the PN guides that come with the huge amount of material available in the program. Much more comes from the feedback of folks on the PN forum. The experts there from a diversity of backgrounds are awesome. A breakthrough for me, for instance, happened when i'd seemingly hit a plateua doing everything i thought right, and a power lifter trainer from London, Alex Gold, said, that happened to me: i hate calorie counting, but why not check in with fitday for a couple weeks to get a reality check and see what happens?
Wow. super. Did it for a month, actually, and, combined with what i knew at that point, and advice on tuning my workouts (also from PN) i had it nailed - the light turned on and i got what it took to tune my intake for that particular goal. Now i might not always choose to do that of course, but i know what it is - at least in that direction. I am so grateful for that collision of practice, reading, and the space in which to consult with knowledgeable and simply more experienced people. The photo on the left is from a time just after this tuning process.
Whither Voyager?
My modus operandi now seems to be figuring out how to use that knowledge from leaning up to muscling up (and then leaning again, leaving the mass in tact, more or less ).
What some folks may notice is that the above getting to know my physiology for food was a month here, two week tests at a time there - easily adding up to more than a 12 week body transformation. You bet. But, the point is, do it once, do it right, and the knowledge is there for well, so far, my life since then.
Diets suck. they're about temporary deprivation for the most part. They're not about skills or about self-knowledge to have confidence to take knowledge gained to new places.
With ETK (review) and the RKC cert (review), i learned a lot about single kettlebell work. Not everything, but a great foundation with solid moves that will also last a life time. Likewise i'm using that to transfer to the different beast (but related cousin) of double kettlebell work. I'm looking forward to the RKC II in feb 2010 to develop the vocabulary a bit further.
I guess the big thing here is foundations establishing a base of trust, and that trust comes from self-knowledge, and that the way to get that self-knowledge could be to hack around on one's own and hope to fall into it. Or it could be to get some good guidance, do some research, and find a space to ask questions to improve that practice.
With kettlebells it's been ETK and the RKC. With nutrition, it's been Precision Nutrition. In each case, i've gotten to a point where i'm gaining the confidence to fool around within the parameters of the space - play with a pump post the double pressing in RTK and explore IF that wiser people than I keep saying is cool.
The results of the good foundation and trust it perhaps this boldly going to a territory - weight gain - that previously would have devestated me and is now a new and if not undiscovered then potentially dangerous but with now acceptable levels of risk attached. That's likely a long winded way of saying it feels safe enough to have fun.
Does this process make sense to anyone else? hope if so, it helps :)
best
mc
Related Posts
So, i'm female, like to be lean and ripped AND i'm trying to gain mass - a new way to say "gain weight." What is that about? If awhile ago someone had told me i'd be looking at mass going up rather than down i would have paled, horrified. So what's happened?Two things:
- i've for a long time wanted defined strong and strong looking arms.
- But perhaps more importantly, over the past few years, i've learned how to do lean for me: i know what it takes to get lean dialed in, and have done it a couple of times - getting to the ideal weight, letting that slide a few pounds, going back. For me this has meant my weight has been consistently between 57 point something and 60k. Happy days.
So, with the release of Pavel's Return of the Kettlebell (start of a review series here)- geared at hypertrophy strength in particular- i thought i'm in a good enough place now to push on this strength side with RTK's double KB work and investigate the mass side promised with it. And i know for my NSCA CSCS text book - and every other sentient knowledgeable person on mass tells me so - this means eating to achieve a caloric surplus not a deficit. I have never eaten for caloric surplus deliberately in my life.
The result so far is a strange thing. Over the past 6-8 weeks i have been watching the scale go up AND i have not freaked out, i have not panicked, i have not broken into a sweat of fear.
Don't Panic
Part of the reason for this lack of panic is perhaps knowledge and control. I know something about what's going on, and i am doing it cautiously and deliberately. Whether it's optimally remains to be seen, but i'm ok with that, too, as the weight going up is not huge leaps and bounds.
Part of the ok'ness is also that in the knowledge side, i know how to evaluate the number on the scale from a few metrics. One of the most powerful ones is girth and the other is skin fold testing.
With Girth i whip out a wonderful gadget called a myotape, and cuff it around my biceps. Not
a ton of change, but it's an honest 1/8th of an inch. And after a workout the measure is considerably greater. But we're talking post rest not post workout measures. the real stuff. I can also keep an eye on more sensitive areas like hips and waist with girth and see if this is beyond my mental tolerances or not. The best check there however is still feeling comfy in my clothes.With skin fold measures i track what i really want to track here: improvements in lean mass. These are slower to grow than fat to be sure, but seeing weekly progress is a good thing. So far i haven't seen bigger jumps than when i've been trying to lean out and work out at the same time, but it's only been a short trial so far. The main thing is the trends are going in the right direction, and the BF% is still well within tolerable limits.
Why else am i doing this?
I want to see if i can "get arms" (and maybe some other body parts too, but arms has always been the one for me). As far as i know there's no genetic reason why my arms shouldn't respond approriately to appropriate forces for hypertrophic adaptation. However, i also want to walk the walk.I confer with lots of folks who are more into bodybuilding than strength. The interesting demographic is young lads and post 30's gals - in my experience anyway. So while i'm giving council like "eat more to gain" where have i been on that continuum? Strength and leanness.
So i figure now is the time to fish or cut bait. I'm not going into body building, but i am experimenting with how muscle mass growth can be stimulated, fed, supported, with what one might see as the *minimal* set of moves to achieve that goal, and where RTK right now is my main mission.
For now, part of the experiment is just figuring out how to be cool like a little fonzy with this weight gain thing while the mass gain thing comes along.
The basics: how one reacts to food.
The far more challenging part at least for me and perhaps for other women too who may want more mass (as opposed to weight, dam it. weight bad; mass good - we know what we mean) - is feeling ok about seeing the scale go in the usually dreaded direction.
The take away from this for me so far thinking about it is that it's been my work in nutrition that's let me feel comfortable exploring this uncharted territory in strength and mass (mass. ha! so far i say ha! we'll see. an eighth of an inch for pete's sake! ), not the workouts.
The workouts psychologically seem the eas(ier) part. There are certain principles to which muscle reacts when stimulated appropriately. Check. But the scale? Really, i think if i didn't have those other measures, and a faith that i know how to reduce the weight again, i couldn't do this.
The Way i've Found Thinner Peace.
I'm stealing thinner peace from a fabulous book on how we react to change and how to make habits successful called the Four day Win by Martha Beck (US || UK ) - recommended. If you want to see why, i talk about habits, and the change of pain that is changing one's dietary ways and how to do this with as little brain pain as possible over here. That's potentially a first place: to know how change can work safely. And whence from there?
For me, how i got to a place of really knowing my body in terms of nutrition is with Precision Nutrition that i've reviewed over time, and have been using now, literally for years. The thing i'd like to draw attention to here are three parts of that approach that i think are relevant to this weight going up mental safety zone.
- - the basic baselining
- - the individualization plan
- - learning about measures
We're complex systems. Why wouldn't it take that kind of time to get to know how these complex mechanisms interact with complex inputs?
So i think it's great that there's a base case from which adjustments can be made. Second, once the base case is established, time to look at parameters for individualizing to get on with one's body comp goals: where start sensibly to work towards losing weight or gaining mass? how tweak either calories or macronutrients? why? how do that again in the spirit of change one thing, maintain the change for two weeks, assess.
The third part is actually having guidance on how to do girth and skinfold measures and make sense of those measures. A lot of that material is in the PN guides that come with the huge amount of material available in the program. Much more comes from the feedback of folks on the PN forum. The experts there from a diversity of backgrounds are awesome. A breakthrough for me, for instance, happened when i'd seemingly hit a plateua doing everything i thought right, and a power lifter trainer from London, Alex Gold, said, that happened to me: i hate calorie counting, but why not check in with fitday for a couple weeks to get a reality check and see what happens?
Wow. super. Did it for a month, actually, and, combined with what i knew at that point, and advice on tuning my workouts (also from PN) i had it nailed - the light turned on and i got what it took to tune my intake for that particular goal. Now i might not always choose to do that of course, but i know what it is - at least in that direction. I am so grateful for that collision of practice, reading, and the space in which to consult with knowledgeable and simply more experienced people. The photo on the left is from a time just after this tuning process.Whither Voyager?
My modus operandi now seems to be figuring out how to use that knowledge from leaning up to muscling up (and then leaning again, leaving the mass in tact, more or less ).
What some folks may notice is that the above getting to know my physiology for food was a month here, two week tests at a time there - easily adding up to more than a 12 week body transformation. You bet. But, the point is, do it once, do it right, and the knowledge is there for well, so far, my life since then.
Diets suck. they're about temporary deprivation for the most part. They're not about skills or about self-knowledge to have confidence to take knowledge gained to new places.
With ETK (review) and the RKC cert (review), i learned a lot about single kettlebell work. Not everything, but a great foundation with solid moves that will also last a life time. Likewise i'm using that to transfer to the different beast (but related cousin) of double kettlebell work. I'm looking forward to the RKC II in feb 2010 to develop the vocabulary a bit further.
I guess the big thing here is foundations establishing a base of trust, and that trust comes from self-knowledge, and that the way to get that self-knowledge could be to hack around on one's own and hope to fall into it. Or it could be to get some good guidance, do some research, and find a space to ask questions to improve that practice.
With kettlebells it's been ETK and the RKC. With nutrition, it's been Precision Nutrition. In each case, i've gotten to a point where i'm gaining the confidence to fool around within the parameters of the space - play with a pump post the double pressing in RTK and explore IF that wiser people than I keep saying is cool.
The results of the good foundation and trust it perhaps this boldly going to a territory - weight gain - that previously would have devestated me and is now a new and if not undiscovered then potentially dangerous but with now acceptable levels of risk attached. That's likely a long winded way of saying it feels safe enough to have fun.
Does this process make sense to anyone else? hope if so, it helps :)
best
mc
Related Posts
- Return of the Kettlebell - double kb work prelim review
- the complete list of all the updates related to RTK at the b2d kb index
- exercise doesn't work without diet. - either way the weight goes, it seems.
- Myth busting: women are afraid to bulk up.
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