For the last two weeks, week 9 and 10 of BFL, I've increased the number of exercises that I'm doing on the LBWO to include two more muscles. I've also been pretty wiped out and feeling more achey than before. I just came across this bit of infomation from Dr. John Hussman:



It makes me wonder if I'm distributing the fatigue like he says...over more muscles and 'bonking' my system? I'm interested in any opinions or further information anyone has.

Marlaine

It sure makes sense and is quite consistent with Phillips. Consider that everything, for the most part, that your muscles need to recover and grow must be transported by the blood. This is going to raise the elevation of substances in the blood that are normally not there - or at least not is such quantity. If you have to repair a whole bunch of different places along the muscle then the concentration is going to go higher and it only seems natural that it is going to have an adverse impact at some point.

Are you feeling very wiped out with the extra exercises? If so have you tried increasing your carbs a little? It's perfectly fine to do more exercises - I would break lower and upper body into a 3 day split however. Instead of working upper then lower in one workout each you would be doing specific muscle groups with more exercises per group - triceps and chest one day, biceps, shoulders and abs another day, etc.

This is something I will be doing once challenge 2 is finished and I've taken some time off. I do think that following the exercise program as it is written for the first challenge is a good idea, though. You can't decide if it works for you or not (as written) unless you complete it, after all.

Nat

M, here are some examples of what Hussman is talking about when he means



Splits You'll find examples of 2 day splits, 3 day splits and 4 day splits here.

Keep in mind that if you are doing more then you will probably need more time to recover. While you may not 'officially' work your tricpes on the day you do your chest, they do play an important role when you are pressing. It is during recovery that the muscles grow.

You might be interested in this article as well. A snippit:



HTH
Nat

Nat....

Thanks for the references. I'm working my way through the info. Can't know too much about getting the bod into shape. Found lots of interesting info on Hussman's site....thanks to you for pointing it out in the first place.

I have been more tired this week, but I thought it was the result of some foolishness on Sunday. Didn't occur to me until I read that by Hussman, that I might have done it to myself with the increased exercise. And yes...my carbs have been higher in general this week. I'm going to tinker with my numbers a bit again this coming week and see if I can get the carbs up a bit and the calories down a bit. I'm going to tweak and aim for 1.5 pounds of fat loss a week. I'm curious if I can acheive it with my increased LBM and I think I'd like to try lowering my calories about 100 a day.

But for the two added exercises, I'm still doing the rest Bill's way. I'm going to consider changing how the exercises are split for after my 12 weeks.

M

I'm just curious, M. Are you unhappy with your progress thus far? You seem to be doing great

Keep in mind when reading Hussman with regard to calories that he assumes you are eating low fat and higher carb - he probably doesnt put much stock in the metabolic advantage. If you are feeling tired and wipped out with your present level of calories lowering them further isnt going to fix this. Looking over your last few weeks worth of numbers I would increase protein and carbs (increase to something like 30 EC) and make every attempt to get 9 hours sleep a night.

Nat

Nat......

I wouldn't say that I'm 'unhappy' with my progress, but I feel that I could be losing a bit quicker. I know, I know....that slow and steady is just fine, but I'm curious to see if I can truely become a lean mean calories burning machine. I suppose that I shouldn't really be basing any decisions on this last week though because it's been a bit unsual in a lot of ways. LOL....maybe I'm just plain bored with status quo and looking for ways to make life interesting. I'll continue to contemplate, without making any drastic changes yet. Since there are just two weeks left to this challenge, probably consistency is the best answer if I want to be able to evaluate how well it worked for me.

As for the nine hours sleep a night. I'm usually in bed by 10, though some nights as early as 9:30 and I've been waking up at 6AM (25 minutes BEFORE the alarm) for a couple of weeks now, no matter what time I get to bed. I've realized that missed sleep cannot be made up so the best policy is to get what I need every night.

M

P.S. This early rising is ALL your fault! I used to be happily crawling out of bed at 9AMish.

Marlaine,

I think you should stick to the program for the last two weeks. You only have two weeks to go . . .

Don't start tweaking until the 2nd challenge.

As for getting faster results. I think you have already been getting faster results over the course of your challenge as compared to before you started. In fact, I would say you have had fantastic results.

If you are more tired and achey it means your body is trying to keep up with all the demands you are placing on it. Increasing exercises, therefore, doesn't make sense to me at this point.