Ask a personal trainer anything

[Durete]

Hey man, thanks for making such an awesome thread.

How do you eat to hit all of your macros for the day? Do you do any batching at all, or is there another method you use?

I've just recently gotten into weight lifting again, but I've always had a difficult time measuring exactly what I eat. So for the last 3 weeks, I've been hitting the gym 6 days a week and trying to batch my own food for the week on Mondays.

I'm sure it's too early to see results just yet, but every Monday has been a massive pain in the a$$ so far - I spend about 4-5 hours just making my meals for the rest of the week. I've also never cooked before, so that's probably a big part of it lol. But if there's a more efficient way to be hitting my macros, I'd love if you could share it.

Thanks Chris!

After 3 weeks you should start seeing your first results.
Like tightening of your muscles.(Which means that you're increasing in strength- Myofibrillar hypertrophy)
Gaining size in the muscles (Which means that you pump more water in the muscles but not necessarily gain strength- sarcoplasmic hypertrophy)

They're ofcourse not big yet, but even if your diet stays the same but your workout changes you should start seeing some results after 3 weeks.

In 3 weeks I went from just having somewhat of a 6 pack, to a 6 pack popping out of my body while in rest.

 

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[Leo Hendrix]

Firstly thanks @ChrisJHarrington ! You might be able to build on this for a business/fastlane.

Anyway dude, my questions/problem or issue.
I have stubborn abdominal stomach fat, mostly the lower abs, I have had sleeping problems but not in the recent few month. Besides that I do some Jogging, about 3-5 kilomotres 1-3 times a week, slacked off weights recently but try and compensate with push-ups.
Anyway Im not sure if this is enough info for you to advise me or in a order that helps or makes sense to you to utilize and help me.
I have lifted regularly before, played rugby and soccer for a while but mostly Rugby and self-taught in JKD and had little informal boxing training.

P.S Do any of thsoe fut burner supplements work or should I try?
I have tried fasted training, doesnt seem to affect the abdominal fat much, training consists of jogging, some short sprints in between.
I've been thinking its the food here, Taiwan's version of the FDA or food regulatory body might not be so effective in practical terms and it could be something in the protein.
I am also into Paleo but its kind of hard to maintain due to my time limited lifestyle and other factors.

 

[KLaw]

I figure this would be a way for me to give back a bit to my fastlane community, since you guys are brilliant with all of your threads, here's a way I can help YOU:

Ask me anything fitness related.

My credentials:
Certified Fitness Trainer
working on my SFN (Specialist in Fitness Nutrition)
I am working with a popular online bodybuilding-prep coach (My goal isn't to bodybuild, moreso fitness modeling)
I run an online fitness coaching business


Bit of a timeline:
14 years old - Learned about bodybuilding, was intrigued, but never got serious. Weighed 95lb

17 years old - Started walking to the local gym, got serious and was dedicated

18-19 years old - Really started getting results. Continued my passion. Weighed 165lb. Worked at a gym, helped a lot of people, and also ran my own online fitness coaching, helping friends and such with personalized routines and plans. Became a CFT (Certified Fitness Trainer)

21 years old (now) - Still running the online fitness coaching. Working on the SFN. Weigh about 183lb

Rules of this thread:
Ask questions and I can answer them, but do not ask me for personalized routines or nutrition plans etc. Those things take a lot of time to put together. If you are interested in that, PM me and we can talk further. This thread isn't to be used as a marketing scheme for me to try to get clients, it's just my way of giving back to you all with a bit of my expertise. I can coach you and do personalized routines etc, and if you are interested I ask that you do not post that in this thread and instead PM me. Thanks.

Not sure if this will be helpful or not but figured I'd share it with you. I copied and pasted your progress pics above and shared it with several of my girl friends and asked them what they thought just because I was curious... Not just the majority of them but all of them (about 12 total) liked your 18-19 shot. Comments about your 21 pics ranged anywhere from "deranged", "obsessed", "little peter syndrome", "get a life", "this guy is serial". All of the previous quotes are from females ranging from 28 - 42 yrs old. Maybe it's just an age thing and the younger crowd of girls dig it? IDK - just food for thought. Good luck - bro.

 

[Adam Cerantivu]

But here's Travis Jones "Result Based Training" campaign he has taken to the next level. You can kind of model your business off of his I guess. check out http://www.resultbasedtraining.com.au/

Do you use them yourself? Reason I asked was because TJ's RBT is based in my neck of the woods (in Australia, I mean) ..First time I heard of TJ and RBT

 

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[FeaRxUnLeAsHeD]

Sorry all I was on a hiatus from this site (I only go on here early in the morning and well frankly, I hadn't been getting up early enough when I got flooded with school, end of the year, finals etc) - I'm back

Is clean bulking a real thing? If yes, how?

Yes, slight caloric deficit, less storage of fat, focusing on quality lean muscle gain.

Hey man, thanks for making such an awesome thread.

How do you eat to hit all of your macros for the day? Do you do any batching at all, or is there another method you use?

I've just recently gotten into weight lifting again, but I've always had a difficult time measuring exactly what I eat. So for the last 3 weeks, I've been hitting the gym 6 days a week and trying to batch my own food for the week on Mondays.

I'm sure it's too early to see results just yet, but every Monday has been a massive pain in the a$$ so far - I spend about 4-5 hours just making my meals for the rest of the week. I've also never cooked before, so that's probably a big part of it lol. But if there's a more efficient way to be hitting my macros, I'd love if you could share it.

Thanks Chris!

Cheers man, my pleasure in answering questions in here!

I personally log what i'm going to eat on MyFitnessPal early in the morning, that way I know every bit of food i'm going to consume during the day to hit my target macros. Makes it easier because you can adjust your food intake before eating to hit your macros, then you just eat those foods during the day. I don't do any specific meal times or anything, I honestly just eat when I'm hungry, and if I'm full and need to hit my macros with more food that I hadn't eaten during the day, I do it and eat. I'm not sure if that answers your question on "batching" - Not sure what you mean by that. Let me know if I answered that.

As far as preparing food, I recommend it. I used to cook every Sunday and package everything. I wouldn't divide it up, I would just cook a giant serving of rice and keep it in the pot in the fridge. I'd cook up a few pounds of steak and throw it all into one container and then divide it up during the week, measure it, and eat it. It was a bit more convenient for me. What are you cooking / preparing that takes that long? I was up to 5000 calories a day for a lean bulk (was doing track & bodybuilding at the same time) and still wasn't spending 5 hours preparing meals. I'm not a chef or anything though, so if you follow my advice, don't expect to have gourmet, spiced up, exquisite dishes. I'd just sit there and eat vegetables out of the can, or eat an entire can of beans in one sitting. It just makes life easier to hit your macros with pre-prepared foods, like canned goods etc. Try putting some of that into your plan for the week instead of cooking everything / preparing everything. Canned goods are your friend, someone else did the labor for you already (And the price doesn't reflect it.. $2 for a can of bush's baked beans is near 300g carb, 50g protein)

Hope that helps.

Will respond to the rest of y'all tomorrow.

 

[Testament]

Thanks a ton for the reply Chris!

Yeah I had never really cooked before at the time of my last post, so I was trying to batch all these complicated meals that wound up taking a ton of time. I've since scaled back to just eating pre-prepared things and it's much easier.

Although I do have a new question for you if you've got some time. I was wondering how you learned proper form for your exercises? I've been working out pretty consistently since my last post here, and I realized I haven't seen very much difference at all. My dumbbell weight stalled and I stopped feeling the burn in a lot of my muscles, specifically biceps and triceps come to mind.

I was visiting with a friend from out of town last weekend and he was watching my form on bicep curls - turns out it was extremely bad (I was swinging my weights and also lifting almost entirely with my shoulder). He had me go from a 40 lbs weight with the curls to a 15 lbs weight with him showing me proper form, and my biceps were burning like crazy for the rest of the day!

On one hand I was sort've pissed that I'd been working out improperly for so long, but on the other I'm happy that I figured out the sticking point I had going.

So, yeah! How were you able to learn proper form for your lifts?

 

[FeaRxUnLeAsHeD]

Firstly thanks @ChrisJHarrington ! You might be able to build on this for a business/fastlane.

Anyway dude, my questions/problem or issue.
I have stubborn abdominal stomach fat, mostly the lower abs, I have had sleeping problems but not in the recent few month. Besides that I do some Jogging, about 3-5 kilomotres 1-3 times a week, slacked off weights recently but try and compensate with push-ups.
Anyway Im not sure if this is enough info for you to advise me or in a order that helps or makes sense to you to utilize and help me.
I have lifted regularly before, played rugby and soccer for a while but mostly Rugby and self-taught in JKD and had little informal boxing training.

P.S Do any of thsoe fut burner supplements work or should I try?
I have tried fasted training, doesnt seem to affect the abdominal fat much, training consists of jogging, some short sprints in between.
I've been thinking its the food here, Taiwan's version of the FDA or food regulatory body might not be so effective in practical terms and it could be something in the protein.
I am also into Paleo but its kind of hard to maintain due to my time limited lifestyle and other factors.

If you're pretty lean already but have some stubborn body fat on your abs it may take a bit extra work to burn that body fat off. I think fat burner supplements for the most part are a waste of money.

My recommendations:

Do HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) - This is the most efficient form of cardio for fat burning. Do cycles of 100% maximum effort cardio, followed by a period of rest. This will increase your metabolic rate.
Weight train regularly - Not only will this help you sleep better (hormones activating etc), but it will also help increase your metabolic rate so you can burn more calories in a given day.
Carbohydrate / fat manipulation
Steady protein intake with heavy strength training - You want to retain the muscle you have, so it's important to lift heavy and keep a consistent protein intake. I'd say 1-1.2 lb per pound of body weight should be sufficient.

A lot of people think in order to lose body fat they just cut out some food and they're good. The problem is, they cut out protein and lose muscle. They lose water weight and then rebound. They do shitty crash diets that do exactly this.. they lose a few pounds of water initially and then rebound. They get their caloric intake so low that it's dangerous.

The safe way to do it is through manipulating fats and carbohydrates while increasing your metabolic rate through higher intensity exercise, combined with strength training to keep your nervous system primed to lift heavy and maintain as much muscle as possible.

If normally your body burns 2000 calories in a given day and you eat 1500 calories, you're at a caloric deficit to burn body fat, however that's a pretty low amount of calories to feed your body and muscles with.. so the goal of the higher intensity intervals and such is to increase your metabolic rate so you can naturally burn 3000 calories, cut back to 2500, be at a deficit, and still feed your muscles while burning body fat through carb / fat intake manipulation over time.

Hope that helps. I can't really get more specific without knowing more about you / personalizing something, and that takes time and $$

Not sure if this will be helpful or not but figured I'd share it with you. I copied and pasted your progress pics above and shared it with several of my girl friends and asked them what they thought just because I was curious... Not just the majority of them but all of them (about 12 total) liked your 18-19 shot. Comments about your 21 pics ranged anywhere from "deranged", "obsessed", "little peter syndrome", "get a life", "this guy is serial". All of the previous quotes are from females ranging from 28 - 42 yrs old. Maybe it's just an age thing and the younger crowd of girls dig it? IDK - just food for thought. Good luck - bro.

i loled. Thanks bro. I'm really not that big looking in person. It's all smokes and mirrors, even in bodybuilding. When I get lean enough, I can look bigger than most people, but I have a pretty small bone structure... so i'm really not that much bigger than the ordinary person, except I've got a solid muscle base and when i get lean enough it gives off the illusion that i'm bigger. If i stood next to you it wouldn't be ridiculous. I dated a 30 year old woman and she digged it. I like the fact that you have several girlfriends though haha (I'm also leaner in that 18-19 shot and will probably be back to being that lean soon but i'll have maybe 5-10 more pounds of muscle on my frame.. mostly on my shoulders, back and arms)

Thanks a ton for the reply Chris!

Yeah I had never really cooked before at the time of my last post, so I was trying to batch all these complicated meals that wound up taking a ton of time. I've since scaled back to just eating pre-prepared things and it's much easier.

Although I do have a new question for you if you've got some time. I was wondering how you learned proper form for your exercises? I've been working out pretty consistently since my last post here, and I realized I haven't seen very much difference at all. My dumbbell weight stalled and I stopped feeling the burn in a lot of my muscles, specifically biceps and triceps come to mind.

I was visiting with a friend from out of town last weekend and he was watching my form on bicep curls - turns out it was extremely bad (I was swinging my weights and also lifting almost entirely with my shoulder). He had me go from a 40 lbs weight with the curls to a 15 lbs weight with him showing me proper form, and my biceps were burning like crazy for the rest of the day!

On one hand I was sort've pissed that I'd been working out improperly for so long, but on the other I'm happy that I figured out the sticking point I had going.

So, yeah! How were you able to learn proper form for your lifts?

Proper form takes time. No different than learning to ride a bike.. then learning how to ride without holding the handle bars.. you gotta put time into it and practice and learn and then it'll work out. Watch videos, that always helps. As far as your bicep example, if you start out correctly and are activating your biceps, i don't see a problem with using your shoulder at all. It depends on the goal of the training session.

I have strength days / cycles in my training periods where i'll only focus on progressive overload. So if you curled 20s for 10 last week, you need to either get another rep or add weight. Eventually, your form will diminish. As long as your form isn't going to hurt you and you're activating your biceps and doing more than the last time, they'll grow. Biceps don't need to be a strict isolation movement with 10 pound pink dumbbells for the resto f your life to just get the blood pumping in them. Anyone can get the blood pumping if they isolate and go slow enough with the pink dumbbells, that doesn't mean they'll grow. The way they grow is progressive overload, and over time your form will break down, so don't be too cautious. It's not as black and white as you put it either, it's not "my form is wrong" or "my form is right" - There's an inbetween, and i prefer to live there. I currently curl like 50s for 8 reps.. with less than ideal form, but my arms have continued to grow because of the progressive overload principle. Just need to make sure you can control the weight and the contractions..

Make sure you're eating a caloric surplus and don't be afraid to sacrafice a little bit of form for progressive overload so you don't plateau so soon.

Hope that helps

 

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[Leo Hendrix]

Thanks that does help a lot especially the info about calories, have to get round to fasted morning walks/slow jogs. I think that could be the ticket.