How to prevent fat gains until I progress to higher level exercises

[Guillaume Ponce]

(Note: this post can relate to this one from Erhardt Stopke, but I didn't want to hijack his post and I have some more specifics about my situation and the advices I seek).
 

Last year I made two major changes:

* Switched from weight training to GST. I started F1 from the very begining because I failed the week 11 test for all level 1 exercises but one. This was humbling, I guess I have some mobility work to do to support useful strength levels.

* Switched from a low carb paleo-style diet to a higher carb still-quite-paleo diet (mainly by reintroducing tumbers). I have been influenced by what I read from the Jaminets' Perfect Health Diet, Nate Miyaki and Joshua Naterman to do so. Plus I was getting some issues from very low carb dieting like loosing my hair (althougth I'm now 38, I loose far less hair now that I have upped my carbs).

I still think that those two moves are a good thing to do long term.
BUT I gained quite a bit of weight those last months, and the mirror tells me that it's not muscle (for the main part).

The switch from weights to GST certainly quite lowered the intensity of my workouts in terms of energy expenditure. I don’t challenge the idea of GST / callisthenics being a superior way to developp a useful form of strength, and I'm definitely going to stick to this approach. But until I fix my mobility issues and I progress to more demanding exercises, it probably won't tax my energy systems that much.

What do you think would be the best strategy IN THE MEAN TIME?

Nutrition-wise, I don’t want to go too low in calories and eventually crash my metabolism.
Should I go back to a lower carb diet? Maybe with just one carb refeed a week (ala anabolic diet) instead of after each one of my four workouts a week?

Or should I stay on my current diet and supplement my training regimen with some sort of energy demanding exercises? Maybe sprints, interval circuits, burpees, medecine ball, kettlebells, jump rope or bag striking?
Won't it slow my progress in GST?

 

Or maybe both?

[Daniel Burnham]

Add some sort of cardio training. I personally do sprints and swimming as part of my workout routine.

I also do hiking and kayaking for fun.

[Carmen Schult]

this also happened to me when switching from weightlifting to GST. in f1 you may not master all elements but with a weightlifting background you won't be really fatigued by those "easy" exercises.

here are some ideas:

if you didnt master the element dont start with week 1. rather start @ a higher week and do microcycles if for example week 8 to week 12

if you dont feel exhausted skip the deload week

do more sets

after your not yet mastered "easy" exercises try some harder progressions just for fun or until fatigue

after your f1 or between the f1 training days do some weightlifting. deadlifts for example is always good to do as there is no comparavle exercise in GST. you could also start some olympic weightlifting as this gives you a good overall body workout with 2 simple exercises. or try some other strength stuff for fun e.g. kettlebell oder clubbell training

[Alan Tseng]

this also happened to me when switching from weightlifting to GST. in f1 you may not master all elements but with a weightlifting background you won't be really fatigued by those "easy" exercises.

here are some ideas:

if you didnt master the element dont start with week 1. rather start @ a higher week and do microcycles if for example week 8 to week 12

if you dont feel exhausted skip the deload week

do more sets

after your not yet mastered "easy" exercises try some harder progressions just for fun or until fatigue

after your f1 or between the f1 training days do some weightlifting. deadlifts for example is always good to do as there is no comparavle exercise in GST. you could also start some olympic weightlifting as this gives you a good overall body workout with 2 simple exercises. or try some other strength stuff for fun e.g. kettlebell oder clubbell training

 

Every single one of these are very bad ideas.

 

-The idea of skipping deload week is probably the worst idea here.  Deload week is just as important as any other week.

-If you have more energy to do more sets or more energy to perform harder progressions for "fun," then why not just use that energy to go directly for mastery?  If you have energy left, you are not working hard enough.

-It's also not a good idea to be working on weighted lower body work until SLS is mastered

[Carmen Schult]

Every single one of these are very bad ideas.

 

-The idea of skipping deload week is probably the worst idea here.  Deload week is just as important as any other week.

-If you have more energy to do more sets or more energy to perform harder progressions for "fun," then why not just use that energy to go directly for mastery?  If you have energy left, you are not working hard enough.

-It's also not a good idea to be working on weighted lower body work until SLS is mastered

coming from a weightlifting background f1 exercises are less of a strength problem but more of an endurance problem and there is also new movement patterns to be learned. in my case when i started f1 back then i felt my muscles pretty swolen with blood and i couldnt do more reps in 1 set but i had a lot of energy left in my muscles because they were used to much more intense work. that's exactly what the threadstarter is experiencing and why he is gettinger fatter.

i did squats and deadlifts before doing single leg squats. if loaded properly over time there is no issue with it. i mastered single leg squats progressions easily without ever training them before so the carry over is intense.

i didnt say deload is useless or to cut it out of your training schedule. sometimes it's just enough for me at least to have 1 or 2 more recovery days and skip 1 deload week

[Daniel Burnham]

You think that lack of lifting is causing him to get fat? What leads you to that conclusion. Certainly there may be a change in stimulus but my suggestions will help with recovery and weight loss more than lifting after foundation

[Alessandro Mainente]

do you know what is the reason of deload week?

[Carmen Schult]

You think that lack of lifting is causing him to get fat? What leads you to that conclusion. Certainly there may be a change in stimulus but my suggestions will help with recovery and weight loss more than lifting after foundation

as i said the intensity is low in f1 for someone with weightlifting background. i didnt say no lifting makes you fat dont get confused. the intensity will increase with harder bodyweight progressions. but the intensity is what actually burns a lot of calories after training.

do you know what is the reason of deload week?

i know its there to also regenerate connective tissue but i don't see everything just black and white. i am injury free if you want to know

[Alessandro Mainente]

i do not need this information.

btw if you can control the ratio between collagen sinthesis /degradation you can have a reasonable data to judge if you can skip this week or not. if not, it's on your own risk.

the first thing that person like Coach does is prevent injury, so his suggestions are realistic and only for prevention. no reason to use a "personal sensation" if sensitive data about physical condition are not available,

said that IF you are not a PT or a physician or a doctor, please be careful about your suggestions if you are not ready to manage bad consequences which can affect the health of other.

[Jesus Rojas]

(Note: this post can relate to this one from Erhardt Stopke, but I didn't want to hijack his post and I have some more specifics about my situation and the advices I seek).

 

* Switched from a low carb paleo-style diet to a higher carb still-quite-paleo diet (mainly by reintroducing tumbers). I have been influenced by what I read from the Jaminets' Perfect Health Diet, Nate Miyaki and Joshua Naterman to do so. Plus I was getting some issues from very low carb dieting like loosing my hair (althougth I'm now 38, I loose far less hair now that I have upped my carbs).

 

 

 

You can solve the problem of your hair by taking Alpha Lipoic Acid it works incredible.

[Kamali Downey]

You can solve the problem of your hair by taking Alpha Lipoic Acid it works incredible.

How and why? Do you have references for ALA and hair growth?

[Jesus Rojas]

How and why? Do you have references for ALA and hair growth?

ALA is a powerful antioxidant and some people that I know ( My dad and others ) has report some improves in the hair by taking ALA

[Guillaume Ponce]

Thanks for your replies — to all of you.

 

Althougth there is marked disagreement among your replies, there is some kind of consensus that I should look in the exercise side of things rather than diet.

 

I think I'm going to throw in some conditioning with jump rope, bag striking, uphill bicycling and maybe some weights (nowhere near max RM, I noticed 10×10 squats to be cardio intensive).

 

As I suspect that I needed to take F1 from the very begining precisely because of subpar connective tissue, I won't skip deload weeks.

 

I might also start H1 after my next deload week (to keep deload weeks in sync).

 

- - -

 

I mentionned my hair only to explicit that I wasn’t doing so well on a long term close-to-no-carbs diet and that I wouldn't go back to this pattern of eating even if someone would suggest me to do so.

By the way, it wasn't a hair growth problem but a hair LOSS problem: I was still growing hair but had much of it on my hairbrush every morning. Since I upped my carbs, it's solved (maybe it's not the carbs per se but nutrients found in carb containing food).

[Jon Douglas]

As I suspect that I needed to take F1 from the very begining precisely because of subpar connective tissue, I won't skip deload weeks.

 

I might also start H1 after my next deload week (to keep deload weeks in sync).

Good

[Carmen Schult]

i do not need this information.

btw if you can control the ratio between collagen sinthesis /degradation you can have a reasonable data to judge if you can skip this week or not. if not, it's on your own risk.

the first thing that person like Coach does is prevent injury, so his suggestions are realistic and only for prevention. no reason to use a "personal sensation" if sensitive data about physical condition are not available,

said that IF you are not a PT or a physician or a doctor, please be careful about your suggestions if you are not ready to manage bad consequences which can affect the health of other.

the deload week is pretty optional in my opinion and even a 4 week deload cycle may not prevent you from injury while a 8 or 12 week deload cycle may be able to because you also have to consider how often one trains specific connective tissue intense exercises. for example someone who trains planches everyday and does a 4 week deload cycle this may be much more injury risky than someone training planches 1 times per week but is only doing deload every 8th week.

but considering that gymnastics is a pretty injury risky sport and those of you warning others because you yourself may have hurted yourself already because of underestimating risks before i can understand your point of course. however i just stated what works best for me and everyone is responsible for their own health so taking advice from the internet is always at own risk.

sorry for my english

[Jesus Rojas]

I workout in the morning and in the afternoon I do about six to eight 60-m sprints with a Rubber tied on my waist at a 100% pace, I have been doing this for 5 weeks and I feel myself more leaner is something like this

 

[jamesheller]

I read your post, for you deadlifts and squats are sufficients. As daniel also said that you can add some cardio exercises and also helful to stay fit and healthy. Start running or cycling in early morning. For diet you can cut high protien foods with low protien food.