Changing Body Shape and Composition.

Hi there my name is Jack and my goals are:

1. Reduce my weight to 72kgs while maintaining a high level of strength.

2. Increasing active, static and dynamic flexibility.

3. Become generally more mobile and gain greater proficiency at moving my body weight around.

OK! So here is the background information:

I'm 20 years old living in England while at University in Ireland, where I play football (soccer) and box.

I am 5ft 8" and weigh 12 stone-77.9kgs – 171.7lbs. Body fat %-10.9 and BMI- 26.3

Here is a basic outline of what my aims are and where I am at the moment and below it is a more detailed history and story of what is going on, feel free to read what you want I realise this post is long. Any help, constructive advice and pointers are greatly appreciated.

I am heavy set athlete due to a quite a bit of weight training and I am looking to reduce my weight in a way that will retain as much strength as possible. I find it very easy to increase muscle however I want to avoid hypertrophy as much as possible. Gymnastics seems the obvious choice; the strength to weight ration of male gymnasts is jaw dropping. I want to do this for the sports I am involved with while also improving my gymnastics skills. At the moment I can do 8-10 HSPU’s (supported), hold a decent l-sit for about 15 secs at a time, do a couple of dragon flags. I can do about 10 pull ups (needing a long rest before doing another set) I can dip my body weight plus 20kg/45lbs for 5 reps (4-5 sets). One rep max: Bench press- 95kg/ 211lbs, Squat-145kg/ 321lbs, Deadlift – 140kg/ 307lbs.

I feel that I am too heavy and that if I reduce my weight so that I am comfortable being around 70kg/155lbs this will help to improve my football and also keep me strong for boxing and rugby as well as making it easier to progress with more difficult gymnastics skills.

I f anyone could point me in the right direction about the best way to basically reshape and start again with my body that would be great.

Here is some more detailed info if needed:

I have played sports since very young, starting off with football then moving onto rugby. At 17 got into doing weights and read up and learnt about lifting effectively so packed on decent amount of muscle to all areas- did go through the just benching phase for a little while, but didn’t we all. From the age of 8-11 I did gymnastics once a week which I enjoyed and obtained various basic level certificates. Included bodyweight and gymnastic exercises into my workouts-handstand holds/ HS press ups. V-ups, dragon flags etc. Also bought some paralettes and have practiced l-sits, tuck planche, and handstands on and off for 2 years never really making much progress. I can run the 100m in 11.9 secs. I am hoping to improve my general speed, acceleration and mobility by reducing my weight.

Injuries:

About 2 and a half years ago developed a wrist problem. When performing handstands I get a pain at the edge of the wrist just below the thumb. Sometimes it is not very severe and it always goes away quickly after stopping handstand. Have seen the doctor a few times about it but they just say R.I.C.E. etc it will go away. Still an issue.

Left shoulder problem from rugby about 2 years ago. Sleeping on left side hurt and it was weak-would give in and tire quickly when doing weights. Saw a physio regularly for a while for deep massage (i.e. pain). Not much trouble any more after doing general stabiliser strengthening exercises.

Training at the moment:

Uni starts on the 8th of Sep so I will be returning to my full training then. For the holidays I have been doing some sprint work on and off, going to the gym fairly regularly (3 times a week) where I was focusing on explosive and heavy major lifts (Squats, Clean and Press, Snatches, Deadlifts and Bench Press).

At Uni my training is: Mon/Wed/Fri- Boxing, Tue/Thurs- Football, Sat- Football matches.

I normally lift weights 2 times a week, and when I get up or before I go to bed I sometimes practice handstands/ l-sits/ tuck planches if I’m not too tired.

I realise that I might need to cut back in some areas of my training in order to give myself significant rest and develop these gymnastics moves. I am willing to do this.

Hopefully if I can get some good feedback and with some help I can devise an appropriate workout plan.

Thanks for reading all of this!!!

Honestly, you could cut down the BF by a little if you were probably picky about dietary intake and making sure to hit a lot of intense workouts or strength build.

An easy solution may be to just swap BW exercises for BarBell lifting and see if that does anything. Your lift numbers are good in general.

It's not really good to sleep on one side or one arm. Sleeping on one's back is probably what most chiropractors would reccomend, but it takes training.

Begin wrist conditioning prior to workouts and do some more at the end.

Thanks Blairbob,

I definitely can clean up my diet a little which i will do when i get back to uni, its hard at home when you have younger brothers and sisters and lots of junk food around the house. Also when i get back into my training with the added cardio and generally being more active during the day that should help me lower my body fat a little.

However I do not have all that much to lose BF wise. I think i would need to lose a little bit of muscle weight as well, and I am wondering what the best way to go about that is.

Yeah i dont lie on my side anymore front or back.

I'll start researching some wrist conditioning excersies and include those into my workouts and hopefully that should help my wrist.

Thanks again

Yeah, I do think it's going to be cutting down the bulk muscle that will be difficult. 170 pounds still isn't very bulky at 5'8" IMO.

Honestly, long steady state cardio is known for cutting down muscles. As much as I hate LSD activity it may help you cut down a bit. However, I would look into adding quite of bit of high intensity interval work and seeing if that helps. Tabata circuits or crossfit could be of some use. It just depends on how time you have.

Diet wise, you are very close. I'm of the opinion that cutting body fat lower and lower gets tougher and tougher the lower you go. That it isn't quite linear in difficulty. Ever look into the Zone diet? Eventually you would have to change the zone diet towards maintaing versus fat/caloric loss.

"170 pounds still isn't very bulky at 5'8" IMO. "

Let me describe it a little better. I am not very bulky, I am very athletic with a decent amount of muscle mass. I do however feel heavy for my size. I am strong quick and relatively flexible, however I do not think that I am particularly "functional". But before we go down the "functional" strength debate route; it is just in my case that i feel i am going to gain greater strength and benefits if I incorporate body weight training into my routine.

I have done a great deal of gym work and find it very easy to go to the gym and get good gains. However i feel that i need to be challenging myself in a different way and working on my weaknesses. Which i feel are specifically:i feel half a beat off the pace of my game/ overall my body tension and explosiveness can be better/ mentally that feeling of lightness and body awareness that comes from gymnastics will give a greater edge to my game.

The high intensity workouts are an interesting idea and make sense.

The only problem i think I'm facing is where i cut back in my current training routine, which is obviously a decision i have to make.

I think though it would be a good idea if i avoidied the gym and wieghts for a good while at least untill i have made some progress towards my goals.

http://www.powerathletesmag.com/wforum/ ... php?t=1037

this looks like a great article that i am picking my way through to design a workout plan. I think know the basic skills i should be practicing (handstands- no support, l-sits, front and rear levers, plyometrics) so all thats left really is to design a workout routine. I'll put one up tomorrow when i have more time but any pointers or other research tips i could do would be great.

Thank you for that Zone Diet link Blairbob, i haven't managed to look through it properly yet but looks like theres a lot of helpfull stuff in there.