Never been serious about body-building, til now ;)

(Denise) #122

Thank you Edie, I appreciate the reminder :slight_smile: denise :+1::smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

(Denise) #123

One day, I have a feeling I will try it Pete :+1::muscle: and not without my harness:grinning:

(Tony) #124

Hello. I’m new here, and new to Keto, but I have a history with weightlifting. I’m a 50 year old man, so I know we’re not necessarily comparing apples to apples. With your age, I don’t know how best to advise you, but the principles of bodybuilding are pretty universal to age and gender.

A little background about me and my weightlifting and fitness experience. In my teens, I was a fat kid with no muscle and no friends until I joined The Marines and lost 60 pounds in 4 months in boot camp (yes, I was so out of shape, I needed an extra month to lose fat and build enough muscle to graduate). During my time as a young Marine, I spent a lot of time in the gym. I learned a lot from the guys there about strength, bulk and tone.

After I got out, I went through a nasty divorce, which was what really kicked my weightlifting into overdrive. It was either lifting or drinking. I chose lifting. That was 22 years ago. For about 5 years, I spent every day in the gym for 3 hours a day with about half of that time doing heavy lifting. I once put four inches on my chest in 6 months and went from a 46 inch chest to a 50 inch chest. I used to have 18 inch arms, but just measured myself right now and they still measure 16 inches. I guess I still got it.

Protein intake:
At my peak, (I’m using myself as an example, but naturally your situation will require much less protein than I was using) I was consuming 5 dozen eggs in a week and a half, as well as protein shakes and peanut butter. Naturally, on Keto, we can’t have the latter, so I recommend increasing your egg consumption and eating more red meat. I don’t know how much you’ll need at your age, so you’ll have to do some experimenting. Maybe add an extra egg to your meals or increase your red meat portion a little.

Also, it is beneficial to consume protein just before and right after a lifting session. This will help feed your muscle growth and improve recovery time.

Weight and reps:
Here’s a hard fast rule:
If you can lift a weight over 11 reps, that is muscle tone territory.
If you can lift a weight only 4 to 10 reps, that’s muscle building/bulk territory
If you can lift a weight only 1 to 3 reps, that’s strength training territory.

I would recommend a lightweight warmup set to get your muscles warmed up. Then increase your weight to a safe weight where you can lift it between 6 to 10 times before your muscles give out. Then increase the weight just a little (if it’s safe for you) until you can only do 4 to 6 reps. Then cool down with a high rep set with a very light weight. Give yourself a few minutes between sets to rest.

Give your muscle group at least 3 days to recover before working it out again. If you feel the lactic acid burn on days 1 and 2, you did it right.

Safety: If using free weights, start light until you build the fine-tune muscles that keep your body stable during the exercise. If lifting weights is a safety concern, use a machine with the appropriate weight setting and/or have a gym partner. Always breathe in on the extension movement and breathe out on the flexion of the targeted muscle movement. (e.g. breathe out when pressing weights on a leg machine and breathe in when yo let your legs retract) Always lift with proper posture and with smooth controlled movements. Jerking and straining cause injury.

I always shook my head at the guys in the gym flinging weights around, trying to impress people.

Good luck in your muscle building journey!

Tony.

(Denise) #125

Hi Tony I so appreciate reading your reply every word and I’m real tired it’s late where I live on the West Coast and I will leave a message tomorrow morning when I’m more alert thank you so much for sharing your story and all the info I will get back to you in the a.m. thank you again and glad you’re here. Denise :+1:

(Tony) #126

Also, I forgot to mention that some machines give you a mechanical advantage, depending on how many pulleys are on the machine. A one pulley machine is pretty much a one for one ratio for weight. Pulley machines with more than one pulley give you a mechanical advantage, so the weight indicated on the machine doesn’t truthfully represent the effort required to lift it. You’re actually lifting with less effort. Nothing wrong with that, just wanted you to understand why you may be able to do more on a machine than with free weights.

Also, when I lifted, I focused on two muscle groups per day. This allows you to give your muscle groups 2 days to recover before working out on the third day.
Day 1-Back and biceps
Day 2-Chest and triceps
Day 3-Shoulders and legs
Abs: Daily

The muscle fibers in your abs are different than the muscle fibers in most other muscle groups. This difference allows your ab muscles to recover quicker than most of the rest of the muscles in your body.

Tony.

(Denise) #127

Edit: I just realized it’s “muscle-groups” which I think means that it works mainly the biceps, for example, but it has to be working other areas as well, so, bicep group, I think I understand, maybe :wink:

I knew it must be “different” with pulleys, but I didn’t know in what way until you explained it Tony, I really appreciate it.

Today is workout day so I think I’ll start just doing first on your list. I’ll just be using machines, so I’m not sure which to use for just biceps and back but I always have Google and will check it out. The machines also, as I’m sure your know, have little diagrams showing which muscles are worked. My problem might be finding machines that weren’t one since thing like my biceps.

One thing I didn’t mention or add to the thread earlier is that I did my hike on Monday. For the first time, I actually felt some pains in my calves. I was kind of surprised because I walked “up” the hill like I was 20, but when I turned around to go down, omg, pain in calves, not like cramps, and not just muscle aches. I actually had to sort limp down all the way. It scares me a bit to talk about it and realize, that was not at all normal for me. I stopped and massaged my calves a bit, as I knew I had to make it down.

Anyway, as soon as the ground leveled more, I was sort of back to normal but I’ve just rested ever since. The night before I went for my hike, and got poor sleep, and an anxiety attack over not being able to stop my smoke detectors in the apt. to stop chirping. Maybe TMI but I just thought I should mention that, and huge reason I went to for walk/hike was to relieve stress/anxiety.

Ok, I gotta get going now, but I’ll come back after I go do some upper body stuff at the gym, thanks again Tony, and yes, I’ll be careful :wink: I’m sure I just overdid the hike. I’ve rubbed magnesium citrate on my calves and they are almost free from any soreness now :wink: denise

(Tony) #128

Great! Yes, going down can be more painful than going up. We call that “working the negatives” which is resisting gravity while still succumbing to it. Lifting is overcoming gravity. My legs always feel like jello after hiking down hill since it’s not a common action we do in daily life, unless you walk down a lot of stairs for a living.

For the exercises listed below, google the exercise name and you’ll see an illustration of the exercise (e.g. Bent over tricep kickbacks).

When I say I worked a set of muscle groups, I would perform three to six sets of all the exercises listed under that group. All the shoulder exercises I listed work a different subset of shoulder muscles, so I targeted the individual muscles in the shoulders.

And again, that’s how I did it. You can pick and choose which exercises are right for you and tailor the weight and frequency to your own needs.

As for exercised for muscle groups:
Arms: (note for the general public: triceps make up 2/3rds of your arm size. Bigger triceps= bigger arms)
-Biceps: seated or standing curls with free weights, or seated at a weight machine
-Tricep: tricep extensions on a machine, or overhead extensions with a dumbbell, or bent over kickbacks with a dumbbell (these will kick your butt!)
-Forearm curls (dumbell)
-Grip/fingers: grip machine or squeeze a racquetball

Chest:
-Flat press (free weight or machine)
-Incline press (free weight)
-Decline press (free weight)
-Flys (My personal favorite! these will kick your butt!) Look up fly machine. Dumbbell flys are even harder

Back:
-Seated row machine
-Lat pull down machine
-Bent over rows (dumbbell)
-Lower back: back extensions. This is a reverse sit-up. You’re facing down on a machine

Shoulders (my specialty, I have large shoulders):
-Seated overhead press (dumbbell or machine)
-Shoulder extensions forward (dumbbell or machine)
-Shoulder flys (to the side) (dumbbell or machine)
-Reverse flys (same fly machine, but seated backwards and working the back of the shoulder)
-Shoulder shrugs (dumbbell or machine)
-Shoulder rotations, internal and external (rubber band). This is a fantastic workout to strengthen your shoulder stability or to recover from a dislocated shoulder (ask me how I know!)

Legs:
-Leg press
-Squats
-Lunges
-Calf extensions (standing on your tippie toes)

Abs/core:
-sit-ups
-crunches
-yoga
-pilates

Tony.

(Denise) #129

I decided not to go to gym today, but I have some heavy, for me, dumbells and my bench, and yoga mat so can try some things here at home.

I love the pulley rowing, and flies with pulley as well. I do like the pulley types, but that’s a busy area unless I hit it at the right time :wink: I hope you won’t mind me printing off your suggestions? Will you let me know?

Just walking around this a.m. I don’t want to do too much until I feel they are back to normal. So it will be home-exercise at least one more day, or as needed. Something you mentioned is another asset I have here in my apt. building, nice stairwells to use to walk up and down, and the hallways are also all inside, so no excuse about Winter weather :joy::+1:

I’ve lost some loose skin on and I attribute it to my doing a lot of tricep work, not the only thing I work hard on but it’s working great so far.

I am so glad you came by the thread Tony, I’m really learning more and more things to try, and seems like if I rest 2 days after a hard workout, I do much better. I will keep reading your stuff over again, and yes, I will just do what feels right for me my size and age, and listen to my body :wink:

(Tony) #130

Very good then! You may absolutely print off my posts if they help in any way! Keep up the good work and let us know how it continues to go!

Tony.

(Edith) #131

A few articles on the importance of rest days.

(Denise) #132

Thanks so much for these Edith :+1::heart:

I really had to take another day to rest yesterday, so I did just that. I ate good as always drank lots of water, and this a.m. I’m feeling better. It’s hard for me to take it too easy because I know how good I can feel when I move my body with any form of exercise but my leg-pains worried me so I’m not hesitating to rest. I’m not bed-ridden, I’m just making sure everything is healed in my calve-muscles :wink: