Weights & Metabolism

Last week I had the pleasure of working with a really cool guy on a One-Week Intensive Personal Training Holiday Course of 6 Sessions. The client in question is a top Mayfair Salon & Fashion Stylist and is in fair shape and health already, and is motivated and capable, with both realistic goals and timescales to achieve them in. He also eats extremely well most of the time.

But despite a lot of hard work, and often up to 6 sessions a week, and a lot of Personal Training Sessions from various Trainers in London he has not been able to achieve and maintain the results he wants, neither in appearance, nor in performance as his upper body strength in particular could be a lot better.

We covered a lot of ground during the week, with sessions including running, cycling, kickboxing and a good grounding in functional resistance work, and working to understand why, with so much gym-going and training, he didnt have the body he wants.

His 6 sessions a week usually include up to 3 spinning sessions a week as well as his gym work so should have been taking the right sort of approach, but on closer scrutiny of his programs and his nutrition the answer became clear.

a) the gym work has always been relatively light weights and highish reps, and
b) he's not eating enough. See are you eating enough to lose weight for more information.

His high amounts of (steady rate) cardio , endurance style of weight lifting and undernutrition have been ensuring that he loses as much muscle fibre as he does fat tissue, thereby further lowering his metabolism and making his body try to conserve it's fat energy reserves.

Over the course of the week we re-aligned his thinking regarding muscle bulk, upped his weights well into his overload range, and told him to back off with the cardio for a few weeks and concentrate on heavy lifting, low reps, high weights and always pushing forwards his progression on a bi-weekly basis. Once we have the musculature we want then we can gradually ease in a little cardio more if required.

Nutritionally he was consistently 3-400 calories under his Low Limit Threshold which is already 15% lower than his daily maintenance requirements, putting him firmly into reduced metabolism land, which along with loads of cardio & endurance work also plumps him squarely into catabolism (muscle reducing) world.

He's gone home now to crack on with a functional resistance program, with interval work in his much reduced cardio, that will given time totally redefine his looks, I cant wait to hear his results, as he has a 9 week deadline for a trip in mind and 9 solid weeks of that will have him looking fantastic. :)

Anyway the point of this rambling blog post is to say that this finally galvanised me into action regarding an article I've had in mind to write for months.

It's here Weights Exercise Intensity & Metabolism