I remember when I was 15 years old thinking to myself, “If I live to be 65 years old, that means I’ll be around for 50 more years. Wow, that’s a long time!” When you were 15, 50 years seemed like forever, didn’t it?

We’ve all had these kinds of thoughts when we were young. Our bodies were strong and vital and we thought we’d never grow old. But years sneak up on us, don’t they?

At 40, you start to notice that you don’t recover from exercise like you used to. The aches and pains that disappeared after a few days now linger for months.

At 50, you realize that your body has definitely seen better days. Fifty-five brings a medicine cabinet that is starting to get populated with prescription meds for what our society calls lifestyle diseases. You know what they are: high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, and even heart disease.

At 60, aging starts to become a concern. Maybe you notice it’s a little bit of a struggle getting up the stairs, maybe at times you forget where you put your car keys, maybe you hesitate to pick up your grandkids because your back isn’t as strong as it was 20 years ago.

Wow, isn’t this all kind of depressing? Is the best we have to look forward to a continuous descent into ever worsening physical decline? I mean, is a walker or a wheelchair or the assistance from a stranger just to go to the bathroom what we’re destined for?

No! It doesn’t have to be. In this post, I’m going to show you that it’s scientifically and empirically proven that we can delay the aging process or even, possibly, make our bodies young again.

Reversing The Curse

I’m not saying that we can get rid of gray hair (if we have any hair left to gray). I’m also not saying that we can get rid of those crows feet around our eyes or the brown spots accumulating on our hands.

What I am saying is that even if you’re a 57 years old aging couch potato (like I was), you can once again have a strong and vigorous body, perhaps even one to rival the one you had in your thirties or forties.

And here’s something very important. Not only can you recapture strength even into your eighties, but your muscle cells can also actually regain a gene expression that is of a much younger age than your actual chronological age.

Did you catch that? Your muscles can not only get stronger, but they can also get younger as well!!!

Life Span Versus Health Span

Now, no one can guarantee you a long life. Our lifespan (the number of years we live) is in the hands of the Lord. But we can strive to improve our healthspan (the years we live with good health).

In this post, I’ll show a scientifically proven way to improve the cellular age of your muscles.

And I’ll also show you how to develop better muscle quality. That means you’ll have stronger, healthier pain-free muscles and joints.

You don’t have to resign yourself to the fact that your body has to eventually disintegrate into a pool of mush.

Before we look at the science, let’s take a deeper look at the problem.

Aging Muscle – The Danger Of Sarcopenia

After the age of 30, our muscle mass begins to deteriorate. It happens to everyone, and it’s called age-related sarcopenia. However, for sedentary individuals, the loss of muscle mass can be profound and ultimately become a dangerous health situation.

Researchers estimate that physically inactive individuals can lose as much as 3% to 5% of their muscle mass each decade after age 30. This study is a little more conservative and states that age-related sarcopenia begins in approximately the fifth decade of life (our 40s) and proceeds at a rate of 8% every decade.

That means by the time you’re 70 you could have lost about 24% of your muscle mass.

Different muscle groups may also be more affected than others. Research has shown that you could lose as much as 40% muscle mass in your quadriceps muscles (thighs) between the ages of 20 – 80. See my post here on why barbell squats are an important exercise for all adults.

Age-related Loss Of Muscle Strength

Muscle loss translates into a loss of muscle strength. Older adults can expect to be at least 20% to 40% weaker than their younger adult selves. However, after the age of 60, the loss of muscle strength exceeds the loss of muscle mass. This study concluded that,

Muscle strength might be more important than muscle mass as a determinant of functional limitations and mobility status in older age.

Think about how the loss of muscle strength could affect your quality of life. Does your house have stairs to climb? What about taking packages out of your car? Do you get off a toilet every day? If we want to be able to perform these activities well into old age, we must maintain muscle strength.

Losing too much strength due to aging means losing independence and perhaps even a devolution into a life of frailty.

Why Do Our Muscles Decline With Age?

As researchers delve more into the science of aging, they have proposed a number of reasons why our muscles deteriorate with age. These include programmed cell death, oxidative stress, alterations in protein turnover, inflammation, hormonal dysregulation, disuse, and mitochondria dysfunction.

While all these factors play an important role in the aging of muscle mass, mitochondrial dysfunction has caught the attention of researchers.

The Role Of Mitochondria Dysfunction

You’ll remember from high school biology that mitochondria are the power plants of your cells. Researchers are now convinced that dysfunction within these mitochondria is a major cause of aging. They are, however, not as of yet sure of the exact processes involved.

If you’re really into the geeky science behind mitochondrial dysfunction and aging, see here and here. Also, Dr. Rhonda Patrick from the Found My Fitness podcast has a fascinating interview with Dr. Judith Campisi of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging here. They discuss various theories of aging and possible life extension strategies. Again, beware, it’s science heavy.

But consider this. If you could limit mitochondrial damage, you should theoretically be able to slow down the process of muscle aging. Let’s take that a step further. If you could improve the function of your mitochondria, could you reverse the aging process and possibly make your muscles young again?

Researchers suggest that this may be possible.

Strength Training Reverses Aging in Human Skeletal Muscle

In a 2007 study, researchers led by Simon Melov of the Buck Institute studied 25 healthy, relatively active, older individuals (65 – 79 years old) and 26 younger (18 – 28 years old), sedentary individuals. Skeletal muscle biopsies were performed on the younger and older individuals. The older individuals were placed on a 6-month progressive (weights gradually increased) strength training program.

After the 6-month exercise period, muscle biopsies were performed on 14 of the older individuals. Okay, you’re probably thinking the population size is not that large. True, but studies of this type are extremely difficult to perform. However, the study was well randomized and controlled.

Okay, you’re probably thinking the population size is not that large. True, but studies of this type are extremely difficult to perform. However, the study was well randomized and controlled.

Nonetheless, the results were astounding!

The Results Of The Buck Study

Strength Increases

After the 6-month strength training program, the study researchers found that,

…the older individuals were able to improve strength by approximately 50%, to levels that were only 38% less than that of young individuals…”. This means that the older individuals who were engaged in the weight lifting program were able to narrow the strength gap between themselves and the 30-year-olds from 50% to 38%.

That’s a 36% improvement in strength in just six months. Imagine what could happen after three years of training. See my results later in the post.

Does Stronger Mean Younger?

Okay, so far this study showed that older people even up to their 70s can recapture strength. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they reversed their age, right?

Well, yes and no. If I’m stronger today at 61 years old than I was at 30 years old, then I’ve in a sense recaptured the strength of my youth. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that I’ll have another 30 years to live.

But it may have an important effect on my healthspan. If I can remain strong in my years going forward, then my risk of disability is greatly reduced.

But let’s get back to the question of getting younger. Did the seniors who lifted weights get younger? Let’s see what the study said.

Mitochondrial Improvement

Researchers in the Buck Study performed muscle biopsies on seniors before and after a 6-month training regimen in order to examine their mitochondria. Previous to weight training, even though the seniors were healthy, their mitochondria revealed a gene expression that was consistent with their age.

However, when the researchers observed the muscle biopsies in the seniors who had weight trained for six months, they found,

…a remarkable reversal of the expression profile of 179 genes associated with age and exercise training…Genes that were down-regulated with age were correspondingly up-regulated with exercise, while genes that were up-regulated with age, were down-regulated with exercise.

They continued,

Genes that are downregulated with age show a marked reversal to youthful levels with exercise, and genes that are upregulated with age also show the same trend to return to youthful levels in association with exercise.

In other words, the 14 older individuals who weight trained developed younger muscles as expressed by their genes.

The researchers summed up by stating,

We report here that healthy older adults show a gene expression profile in skeletal muscle consistent with mitochondrial dysfunction and associated processes such as cell death, as compared with young individuals. Moreover, following a period of resistance exercise training in older adults, we found that age-associated transcriptome expression changes were reversed, implying a restoration of a youthful expression profile.

Did you get that? When it comes to muscle mitochondria, weight training can reverse almost 40 years of aging!

Weight training, however, is not the only way to improve mitochondrial function. Let’s take a look at a Mayo Clinic study.

The Mayo Clinic Study — Mitochondrial Dysfunction and Exercise

As I’ve mentioned, researchers believe that mitochondrial dysfunction plays a key role in the aging of muscle. This dysfunction ultimately leads to a loss of strength and endurance.

In 2017, the Mayo Clinic released a report on their finding concerning muscle cell adaptations of younger and older individuals as a relation to different types of exercise.

The younger age group (aged 18 to 30) and the older (age 65 to 80) were split into 3 different exercise groups. These were high-intensity interval training (specifically biking and walking), strength training using weights, and a combination of moderate intensity interval training and strength training.

Following 12 weeks of training, researchers took a biopsy from the thigh muscle of each individual. They then compared the molecular makeup and lean muscle mass of each group, along with sedentary controls.

This is what they found.

Results of the Mayo Clinic Study

The Mayo team found that strength training is more effective at building muscle than the other forms of exercise. That was an expected finding.

Another expected result was that HIIT had the greatest effect at inducing positive changes at a cellular level, especially on mitochondria.

However, what surprised the Mayo researchers was the effect of HIIT on the muscle cells of the older group.

The Older HIIT Group Showed Dramatic Mitochondrial Improvement

While the younger group of HIIT individuals showed a 49% increase in mitochondrial capacity, the older volunteers experienced a stunning 69% increase. Combined training produced the least favorable results.

Also, the HIIT group comprised of older individuals showed the highest amount of increased gene expression which also surpassed that of the younger HIIT group.

The researchers also found that HIIT caused an increased expression of the genes that produce mitochondrial proteins and protein responsible for muscle growth. This means that HIIT may slow down or even reverses the age-related decline of muscle.

The Conclusion of the Mayo Clinic Study Authors

Dr. Sreekumaran Nair, one of the Mayo clinic’s study authors stated,

Unlike liver, muscle is not readily regrown. The cells can accumulate a lot of damage, however, if exercise restores or prevents deterioration of mitochondria and ribosomes in muscle cells, there’s a good chance it does so in other tissues, too.

According to Nair, exercise may prevent mitochondrial deterioration and possibly reverse damage already done, even in other tissues.

The editors from Science Daily were also enthusiastic concerning the results of the study.

… exercise — and in particular high-intensity interval training in aerobic exercises such as biking and walking — caused cells to make more proteins for their energy-producing mitochondria and their protein-building ribosomes, effectively stopping aging at the cellular level.

So, according to this study, the best way to restore or prevent muscle deterioration is to engage in HIIT.

However, is HIIT alone the best exercise for anti-aging?

The Best Anti-Aging Exercise Strategy

Concerning the best anti-aging exercise program, Sreekumaran Nair stated,

Based on everything we know, there’s no substitute for these exercise programs when it comes to delaying the aging process. These things we are seeing cannot be done by any medicine. Exercise is critically important to prevent or delay aging.

Ok, but which is the best? Nair clarified by adding,

If people have to pick one exercise, I would recommend high-intensity interval training, but I think it would be more beneficial if they could do 3-4 days of interval training and then a couple days of strength training.

From a cellular standpoint, HIIT is the best anti-aging exercise program. However, HIIT will not build the muscle quality that strength training can provide. Therefore, in order for you to achieve improved health and possibly a longer life span, it would benefit you to combine both methods of training.

Now, this is all good in theory. But an important saying goes, “the best exercise program for you is the one that you’ll stick with.” While HIIT has been proven to be the best at optimizing cellular function, it’s also extremely difficult to do.

Does it really help our cause if the best exercise for anti-aging is nearly impossible for us sedentary over-45er’s to actually engage in?

The Problem With HIIT

There is no one standardized HIIT workout routine. The Tabata method, though, gives an idea of what’s generally involved. This method calls for 20 seconds of maximum effort and is followed by a short 10 seconds of rest. This cycle is repeated eight times.

For example, you sprint on a treadmill at an all-out pace for 20 seconds and then rest for 10 seconds. You rinse and repeat for seven more times.

Greatist has a great infographic on HIIT.

I’ve never tried this type of exercise nor do I expect I ever will. If you can do it, God bless you. It’s supposed to be utterly brutal.

Recovering From Chronic Illness and HIIT

Now, if you’ve been sedentary your whole life or you’re recovering from a chronic health condition like I was (chronic fatigue syndrome), does that mean that we should entirely discount HIIT?

Not necessarily. Dr. Mercola has suggested a modified HIIT here.

Again, at 57 years old and recovering from CFS, I wouldn’t consider Mercola’s HIIT workout. After watching him do it, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to recover sufficiently.

So what kind of high-intensity exercise can we actually do that will give us the best anti-aging cellular benefits?

One thing we shouldn’t do is despise the day of small beginnings. Meaning we start from where we are and then progress. Let me briefly illustrate this from my experience.

57 Years Old Untrained, Sedentary, and Recovering from CFS

Four years ago, at 57 years old, I was about 80% recovered from a 30-year struggle with CFS. I was also recovered from a two-year bout of severe bursitis in both shoulders.

Needless to say from a musculoskeletal perspective, I was in pitiful shape (I had been doing a brisk 35-minute walk at least 5 days/week for about 6 years)

One evening, I happened to glance at my arms and was shocked at what I saw. My arms were puny and frail looking. That was my motivation to start strength training.

Initially, I started with 15-pound dumbbells. I did three sets of eight reps of bench press, overhead press, and curls three times a week. I didn’t have a specific plan.

Since I had no pain and little fatigue, I continued on. After a few weeks, I graduated to a barbell. My son had an inclined squat machine so I used that to exercise my legs.

As the months went by, I thought I could do this consistently, but I needed a plan. I eventually found the Starting Strength method. This system is a barbell program that involves four basic exercises: the deadlift, back squat, bench press, and overhead press.

So, I went out and bought some Olympic weights and a power rack, and I started the program. Remarkably, I experienced very little fatigue from Starting Strength and I progressed rapidly. If you’re interested in Starting Strength, check out Mark Rippetoe’s excellent book here.

See my post here on how I used Starting Strength to get stronger.

Where My Strength Is At Now

After three years of lifting, I’ve graduated to an intermediate level. At this stage, it’s a little more difficult to make gains. However, last month at 61 years old, I pulled a 300-pound deadlift at a weight of 167 pounds.

 

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A post shared by Barbara ? (@glutenfreehomestead) on Jun 26, 2018 at 4:31pm PDT

I’m not saying you have to lift weights to get strong. Some people get ripped on body weight exercises. But strength training with weights the right way is guaranteed to build muscle.

So if a completely untrained individual recovering from CFS can lift weights, many of you can as well. The only thing holding you back is if you have a debilitating illness.

By the way, for you ladies out there thinking weightlifting is not for you, Barbara has been lifting for 3 years as has my 28-year-old daughter Nicole.

If you’re an older adult and you want to get into barbell training, an excellent resource that will answer all your questions is The Barbell Prescription: Strength Training for Life After 40.

But what about HIIT????

Me and HIIT

Until recently, I haven’t been able to do any kind of serious HIIT. Every time I tried, I developed severe fatigue that often compromised my weight training. So, I just continued to walk.

If you can’t do HIIT, then definitely walk. I believe this has been one of the most important factors in my healing from CFS.

Recently though, I’ve started to introduce my body to some HIIT.

I Begin HIIT

I went on a keto diet in August 2017. Within a few months, I felt better than I had in over 30 years. Most of the fatigue symptoms left my body and I experienced a surge of energy.

So last month I decided to start to add in some HIIT to my routine. Here’s what I do on my treadmill.

• 3-minute warm-up at 3.5 miles per hour (heart rate is at 60% of max)
• 1-minute run at 4.0 miles per hour (HR is at 80% of max)
• 2-minutes at 3.5 miles per hour
• Continue the above 2 sequences for 4 more times
• 3-minute warm-down at 3.5 miles per hour

I do this twice a week.

So far this has been working well for me. I suspect over the coming months I’ll probably improve cardiovascularly, and I may be able to intensify the program.

Even though I’m not doing the classic HIIT, I am getting some intensity. As I said, we should not despise the days of small beginnings.

Okay, am I getting younger? I don’t know. I do know I’m the strongest I’ve ever been. And I know I feel better than I have in 30 years. Something must be working.

The Bottom Line

HIIT combined with resistance training is a scientifically proven anti-aging strategy. Experientially, I can attest to that fact.

As the people from Nike say, “Just do it”.

Okay, that’s it for this post. Remember, we would love to hear from you. Have a blessed week.

This article originally appeared on glutenfreehomestead.com.

The post One Scientifically Proven Way To Reverse The Aging Process appeared first on The Progressing Pilgrim.

Okay, guys. You’ve put your kids through school. Your mortgage is almost paid. Your job… well, we won’t dwell on that. It could always be better, right?

You’ve come to that place in life where you can finally start to think about living the dream.

But then you start to notice little things about yourself. You’re a little (I’m being kind here) larger around the waist.

And you’re not really comfortable in a bathing suit because of your moobs and all.

You can’t bound up a flight of steps like you once did. And you hope none of your friends asks you to help him move because you know your back won’t stand the strain.

Then the reality of mortality really sets in. You visit your doctor, and he says to you, “Your cholesterol and blood pressure are a little high.” And, then he drops the final hammer, “Your blood sugar is high as well.

He doesn’t give you any medicine this time, but he tells you that if you don’t lose weight and your numbers don’t come down, he’ll have to give you a prescription for ___________ (you fill in the blank) at your next visit.

What do you do? If you gain weight or even keep the status quo, you’ll probably end up on a statin, BP meds, or a diabetes med for the rest of your life. And, remember, those meds don’t come without some adverse reactions.

And even if those meds reduce some symptoms, chronic disease will eventually take its toll.

Fortunately, you can pursue another course of action.

You can take control of your health and in the process transform that dreadful dad bod into a lean, metabolically healthy machine, similar to the one you had years ago or (if you’re like me) into one you never had.

Can It Be Done At Your Age?

Yes, it can. Because at 60-years-old, I did it.

In the last 10 months, I’ve lost 20 pounds, got my waist down to 35”, reduced my waist to hip ratio (WHR) to 0.85, dropped my BMI to 23.1, and dropped my body fat percentage to less than 20%.

As I’ve done this, my strength numbers have gone up. In this post, I’m going to tell you how I did it.

If you want advice on how to win your next bodybuilding competition, stop reading this post. It’s not for you. But if you’re a regular fellow like me who needs to get stronger, leaner, and healthier, then keep reading.

There’s no magic pill involved. What I’ve done does require some dedication and work. If you’re really out of shape or overweight, it may take you a little longer to get the results you want.

But after a year or less, you’ll end up being a better version of yourself and quite amazed at your new body.

My Dad Bod Problem

People who’ve known me always considered me to be fairly slim. However, lurking behind my clothes was a metabolically unhealthy man.

Besides having severe chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) for 28 years, I had what is known as a skinny-fat body type. That meant that I had an unhealthy proportion of fat compared to muscle.

To make matters worse, I was considered an apple type skinny-fat. That meant that I also had a large waist.

In fact, at 58 years-old, my waist was 38.5 inches and approaching obese territory even though I only weighed 185 pounds.

As I related in my last post, health professionals consider this body type to be unhealthy as it significantly increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and, cancer.

I did try to improve my body type during my younger years. Prior to 30-years-old, I did some running and weightlifting, but I never looked especially lean or muscular. 

At 30-years old, I developed CFS and spent the next 28 years just trying to regain my energy levels. That meant I got skinnier (less muscle) and fatter. At one point, I hit 193 pounds with a 40” waist.

Fortunately, at 58 years old, I regained significant energy and began the process of trying to restore the muscle mass I’d lost from years of inactivity.

Two Years of Strength Training And Still Skinny-Fat

After two years of lifting, I did build muscle, and I gained significant strength. There’s no doubt about it, strength training is an excellent path to good health. See my post here.

However, if you have a metabolically deranged metabolism or if you’ve spent 25 years abusing your body because of poor lifestyle choices, strength training alone won’t make you healthy.

In my case, two years of lifting (also 30 min/day of walking), did nothing to reduce the amount of excess fat around my abdomen. Again, most of that fat was in the form of dangerous visceral fat around my abdomen. 

So, lifting weights did nothing to significantly change my skinny fat body type.

These were my body stats from June 2015 – January 2017.

1. Age: 58 – 60
2. Weight: 185#, height: 5’11”
3. Waist: 38.5”
4. BMI: 25.94 (overweight) (BMI readings can be deceptive. If you’re a muscular person a high BMI may not be a good indicator of health risk. Strong legs and hips may compensate for a little extra weight around the waist. Unfortunately, this was not my case. See #4)
5. WHR: 1 (moderate risk)
6. Body fat %: approximately 25%
7. BP fluctuated (normal to moderately high)
8. Lipid profile and HbA1c (within normal limits)

Maybe you’re saying, “I wish I were only 20 pounds overweight. I’m a hundred pounds overweight and a type 2 diabetic.”

Okay, but I’m still recovering from CFS, and I’m a hard gainer. For me, putting on muscle and losing fat is like putting on wet socks.

It Doesn’t Matter Where You Start From

The method I’m going to give you works no matter where you’re coming from. It may simply just take longer for you to get where you want to be. But you’ll definitely be on the right road.

Nevertheless, my numbers represented the classic skinny-fat. Though my HbA1c was within normal limits, I didn’t have a fasting insulin done so it’s quite possible I was becoming insulin resistant. Oddly enough, normal weight people can be obese and have insulin resistance. See here.

So, you see my problem. I was getting stronger, but I wasn’t getting metabolically healthier. My body type attested to that.

This meant that I had to incorporate another strategy. I had to lose body fat and still build muscle.

In the weightlifting community, this is known as body recomposition. Experienced strength training professionals will tell you that this is one of the most difficult things to do.

But it’s something I had to do if I was going to be a better version of myself.

Internal And External Body Recomposition For The Mature Man

If you want to look like Arnold in his prime or the Rock, yes, it’s extremely difficult to gain huge muscles and cut body fat at the same time. To be highly muscled at 5% body fat requires a lot of serious work.

But if you’re in your 40s – 60s, and if you set a reasonable goal and put some effort into it, you can recompose your body.

These results are going to manifest in two different ways. First, as popular nutrition innovator Mark Sisson says, “You’ll LGN (look good naked).”

Secondly, it’s going to transform your metabolism.

Those weak muscles, moobs, and big belly which are signs of a metabolic derangement taking place within your body are going to disappear.

If you’re in my age range and you’re thinking I’m too old to lose weight and build muscle, you’re wrong. As I said, if you don’t have a debilitating illness you can do it. And you might eventually be able to get off some of those meds.

Setting Definable Goals

In order to get my body to a strong healthy state, I had to set clearly defined goals.

My first goal was obvious. I wanted to continue to build muscle and get stronger. I’ll talk more on that later.

Second, these are the criteria I set that would indicate that my body was on the right path to good metabolic health.

1. Reduce my waist to 34”
2. Optimize my BMI and WHR
3. Maintain a good blood lipid profile
4. Maintain a low Hb1Ac
5. Achieve a constant normal blood pressure
6. Achieve a body fat percentage under 20%
7. Body weight unknown
8. Maintain current physical strength or increase
9. Feel great

At the time, I didn’t know if I could achieve all these goals, especially #8. I suspected that a smaller waistline would translate into a lower body weight. This meant that I might get weaker.

My Progress To Date

1. Age: 61
2. Waist: 35”
3. BMI: 23.1
4. Lipid profile: good (see here)
5. Hb1Ac: good (5.1)
6. Normal blood pressure
7. Body fat percentage: 20% or less
8. WHR: 0.85
9. Body weight: 165.5#
10. Deadlift: 292.5#, Bench Press: 170# 1 x 5, Squat: 195.0# (Yes, I know. My squat compared to my bench is ridiculous), Overhead press: 105.0#
11. I feel great

As you can see, my body recomposition quest has been successful. I was able to reduce body fat without losing strength. The process took about 10 months.

Okay, here we go. This is how I did it.

Body Recomposition Requires a Two Prong Strategy

As I said previously, I wanted to build a leaner body. This meant I had to not only build muscle, but I also had to lose fat. In order to do so, two necessary factors had to interplay.

First, I had to have in place a good strength training routine.

Secondly, I had to find a way of eating that allowed me to spare muscle and reduce body fat.

Let’s look at each strategy individually.

Strategy I: Strength Training

When I talk about strength training, I’m not talking about simply exercising. You won’t lose weight by exercising, and you won’t build muscle.

The only way to efficiently build muscle is by engaging in a strength training method that employs progressive overload. That means progressively increasing the stress placed on your musculature.

This method must be structured, uncomplicated, and produce measurable results.

The method I decided upon was the Starting Strength Method. It consists of four major lifts: the deadlift, squat, bench press, and overhead press. These compound lifts work major muscle groups of your body.

Since I’ve detailed my experience with Starting Strength in other posts, I won’t go into details.

I did have a headstart in this process because I was engaged in barbell training for 2.5 years before I started to pay attention to fat loss. However, if you begin Starting Strength today, you’ll be amazed at you strength results in just two months.

Lifting weights for me was the easy part of the process. I enjoy training. The difficult part was cutting Fat!

Strategy II: Cutting Fat

Decreasing waist size and cutting fat is a more complicated endeavor than getting stronger, especially when you’re older. In order to get stronger, you simply add weight to the bar and lift it. Assuming you recover properly, your body adapts to the stress and you get stronger.

However, when trying to shed excess fat, we’re faced with a dilemma.

Suppose you employ the most common method of dieting. You consume fewer calories. It would seem to be intuitive that if you eat less you’ll lose weight. Maybe, but not always. See here.

But here’s a major problem with dieting and body recomposition. How do you know if by restricting calories, you’re not going to lose muscle instead of fat? If you lose muscle, your body composition will be worse than it was before.

Okay, you’re lifting weights so you assume you won’t lose muscle mass. But how do you know if you’re consuming enough calories for muscle gain? And how do you know if those calories contain the wrong proportion of macronutrients that might actually cause you to gain more unwanted fat?

These are difficult questions to answer. One of the biggest questions bodybuilders face is how to eat in order to optimize their lean muscle and lose excess fat. Strength trainers get paid a lot of money to help their clients do that!

Okay, here’s how I did it.

Cutting Fat Step 1A: Reducing Carbs

About 13 years ago, I went gluten-free (GF). So, instead of eating gluten-containing products, I simply switched to GF products. Big mistake! GF bread and pasta contain huge amounts of sugar.

Subsequently, I ballooned up to 193 pounds. I immediately recognized the problem and started to cut down on bread and pasta.

Then around 6 years ago I started a paleo-type diet. I eliminated all grains and ate mostly meat, chicken, fish, and fruit and vegetables.

I also ditched all refined sugar, polyunsaturated vegetable oils, and most processed foods. However, I still ate potatoes and rice. By June 2015, the month I started lifting weights, I was down to 185 pounds.

I Begin To Actively Reduce Carbs

In January of 2017, I started reading about the role carbohydrates play in excess fat accumulation and obesity. See here.

I was so convinced by the science backing up the theory that I decided to drastically cut back on my carb intake to see if it would help me lose the fat around my waist.

Initially, I cut my carbohydrate intake to about 50 grams per day. That meant limiting rice to once a week and perhaps ½ sweet potato per day. I also increased my consumption of extra virgin olive oil, and I ate more salmon and sardines in order to optimize my Omega 6: Omega 3 ratio.

In about a month’s time, I lost 10 pounds which brought me down to 175 pounds. I knew I had lost some fat because my waist had reduced to about 37”.

But I still had way too much abdominal fat. My love handles were still huge, and I still couldn’t see any abs. As long as I can remember, I never had abs.

That meant I had a lot more work to do.

Becoming A Fat Burner

By reducing carbs to about 50 grams/day, I had begun an important process in my body. I had started to shift from burning glucose as a primary fuel to burning fat.

How do I know that? The reduction of body fat was a sign that my body was using its own fat for fuel! However, after about 7 months on this diet, I still weighed 175 pounds. It appeared that I had hit a plateau.

However, even though I had stopped losing fat, I was still continuing to get stronger.

Cutting Fat Step 1B: I Discover A Ketogenic Diet

Over the summer, I started to read about the amazing health benefits of a ketogenic diet.

A ketogenic diet is an extremely low carbohydrate, healthy fat, moderate protein diet. It generally limits net carbohydrate intake to 30 grams or less.

A ketogenic diet is known to cause rapid weight loss. This is exactly what I wanted. As I read more about the diet, I found that this was a perfect diet for my situation. This is why.

A Ketogenic Diet

A Ketogenic diet forces your body to use fat as its main source of fuel. Remember, I mentioned before that I was becoming a fat burner.

Since your intake of carbs is very low and consists of mainly non-starchy vegetables, there is very little glucose available for energy. Therefore, your body turns to fat for fuel.

This energy will now come in the form of fats you eat or from your own body’s stores of fat. So if you consume less fat than your body needs for energy, your body will consume its own excess fat and you’ll get leaner.

But there’s more. A well directed ketogenic diet also has the following important health benefits.

1. Reduces inflammation
2. Controls hunger
3. Improves cognitive function in people who are cognitively impaired
4. Reduces cancer risk
5. Increases longevity and mental clarity

Researchers believe that these benefits arise from the ketones (hence, ketogenic diet) that are produced in the liver as a byproduct of fat metabolism.

Now, who wouldn’t want all those benefits? As someone healing from CFS (a chronic inflammatory condition) it seemed the diet would be perfect for me.

In a future post, I’ll examine the ketogenic diet in more detail.

Caution: Here’s something very important about low-carb diets. If you have a chronic illness or diabetes, you must do this diet in conjunction with your doctor. Low-Carb high-fat diets tend to reduce blood glucose drastically which could be a severe problem for you if you’re on medication, especially a diabetes medication.

Two Caveats To Remember

I said a ketogenic diet will make you leaner. But here are two caveats. First, you still have to strength train to build muscle. Second, you have to carefully track your macronutrient intake.

Think about it. If you eat more fat than your body needs for energy, where is the fat going to go? That’s right: into fat reserves in your body. You won’t lose weight, and you might even gain weight in the form of fat.

Let me briefly show you how I practically employed a ketogenic diet.

Tracking Ketogenic Macros

Keto diet experts generally recommend a diet with the following macronutrient breakdown.

Fat: 70-75% of calories

Protein: 20-25% of calories

Carbs: 5% of calories

What does that mean in terms of food allowances?

It is usually recommended that you keep your carb intake to below 30 net grams per day. Net carbs are the carbs you consume minus the fiber. Keto diet expert Dr. Steve Phinney recommends approximately 0.8 grams per pound of lean body mass.

Some ketogenic diet experts like Dr. Rosedale recommend a lower protein intake.

I chose to go with Dr. Phinney’s recommendation because I lift weights and I’m over 60 years old.

I weigh 166 pounds and have about 80% lean body mass. So that’s 0.8 x 132.8 which equals about 106 grams of protein per day to maintain muscle mass.

By using online macro calculators, I know I need about 1800 calories/day to maintain about 165 pounds of body weight.

This means that I need 146 grams of fat to maintain my body weight. How do I know that? I could show you the math, but here is a handy online calculator that will do it for you.

So here are my macros in grams:

Protein: 106 

Carbs: 30 

Fat: 146 

As you can see, you must carefully track what you eat daily. I use myfitnesspal.com to do this.

Now, I still have to lose some body fat. To do this, I can reduce my fat intake. If I do that, my calorie intake would go down. Would that mean that I might suffer some energy loss?

Not necessarily. Since my body is a fat burning machine, it will burn fat from my excess stores.

Wow! That’s awesome.

There’s a lot more involved in a “keto diet” that I don’t have time to get into here. If you want to learn more about it, I suggest you see here or here.

Keto Caution

What made the diet easier for me was the fact that I had already been low-carb for a while. Just jumping into it without some adaptation to fat burning is not recommended. This book by Mark Sisson presents an excellent how-to concerning the diet.

So, friends, that’s how I’m recomposing my body. As you’ve seen from my numbers, my strategy is working. By the way, this week I set a new Personal Best on bench press (170# x 5). So I’m still gaining strength.

And by the way, I feel great.

That’s it for today. Have a blessed week. Remember, I would love to hear from you.

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The post How to Recompose Your Dad Bod in Less Than a Year (Even if You’re in Your 50s) appeared first on The Progressing Pilgrim.

When I started strength training three and a half years ago, my main goal was to regain some of the muscle I had lost from years of inactivity due to chronic fatigue syndrome.

After my initial two and a half years of barbell training, I accomplished that goal and more. Not only had I improved my muscle mass, but I had become stronger than I’d been in the previous 27 years.

However, what I had failed to do was eliminate 40 years of excess fat around my abdomen and chest.

Here’s something I learned after three years of lifting. If you’re in my age range, you won’t lose significant pounds by simply weight training.

If you’re a serious lifter or doing a lot of high-intensity training you might induce weight loss if you’re burning huge amounts of calories.

But if you’re an older guy you won’t lose weight. Sorry, exercise doesn’t produce significant weight loss.

Now here was my specific problem. The excess fat I was carrying around posed a significant health risk.

Even though I wasn’t terribly overweight my waist was approaching obese territory. And it was out of proportion to my legs and hips. Also, I was carrying around a disproportionate amount of fat to muscle.

This is called a skinny-fat body type and is considered by health professionals to be metabolically unhealthy.

With that in mind, my goal now was not only to continue to get stronger but also to become leaner and healthier.

In part 1 of this series, I’ll discuss the problems associated with a high waist measurement and excess body fat.

In part two I’ll explain how I was able to increase my strength and lose body fat and significant inches off my waist.

Becoming A Better Physical Version Of Yourself

Becoming a better physical version of yourself means becoming stronger and metabolically fitter.

Strength training will accomplish the first goal and also contribute to the second.

However, lifting weights alone will not get rid of excess abdominal fat which is often an indication of metabolic problems within the body.

Strength training alone won’t significantly improve things like insulin resistance or a poor lipid profile.

It can restore your muscle mass, but it can’t undo 40 years of a bad diet or poor lifestyle choices.

That requires another sort of training.

Getting Stronger And Fatter

Once I started lifting regularly, I got stronger quickly. I enjoyed this new found strength so much that I wanted to get even stronger.

To do so, I applied the classic weightlifting maxim: if you want to get stronger, consume more calories.

So I ate more, and I did get stronger. I didn’t deviate greatly from my paleo-type diet, but I did add a sweet potato daily and 20 grams of whey protein.

The problem was that I also put on about 5 pounds. That’s no big deal if you’re lifting consistently, right?

Well, not exactly. Those 5 pounds seemed to migrate right to my midsection. That was the last place I needed extra pounds.

Some of you older guys remember when you had abs or a six-pack. Well, I never even had a one-pack. My abdomen has never had any definition, and since my twenties, it’s always been rather prominent.

But now that I was gaining body weight, it was getting even bigger. 

No big problem right. At my age, it’s expected to have a little extra weight around my middle.

Well, that’s not necessarily a good thing. In fact, it’s often a sign of dangerous things taking place inside our body.

Let’s take a closer look at belly fat.

Hey, My Belly’s Not Fat. It’s Average.

According to the general population, my belly isn’t fat. It’s average.

Statistics from the Center For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reveal that the average American male is 5’9” tall, weighs 195.5 pounds, and has a waist circumference of almost 40”.

Eight months ago, I was almost in line with those statistics. At 5’11” tall, I weighed 185 pounds, and had a waist of 38.5”. I was almost average. In this case though, average is not where I or you should want to be.

Here’s why.

Body Composition And Metabolic Health: Waist Circumference

A waist circumference greater than 40” in men and 35” in women is one indicator physicians use to indicate abdominal obesity.

As you can see, I was approaching 40”. If my waist grew another 1.5 inches, I would have been considered abdominally obese.

Abdominal obesity isn’t something to be taken lightly. When health professionals refer to it, they are talking about a specific type of fat that accumulates around your abdomen.

This type of fat is not subcutaneous fat. Subcutaneous fat is pinchable and squishy. It’s the type of fat that accumulates under your skin.

It provides insulation from the cold, cushioning for your body, storage for extra calories, and is generally found in the arms, legs, or buttocks.

Abdominal obesity, on the other hand, is a buildup of excess visceral fat around your midsection. You may also hear this fat called belly fat.

Visceral fat is firmer to the touch than subcutaneous fat. It lies deeper in your midsection and often accumulates around your organs.

It’s considered dangerous by health practitioners and is a significant risk factor for heart disease, type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome and Alzheimer’s Disease.

Obviously, excess abdominal fat is extremely unhealthy. It was something that I wanted to eliminate as soon as possible.

Body Composition And Metabolic Health: Body Mass Index (BMI)

While waist circumference (WC) is one indicator of abdominal obesity, it’s not the best marker. Somebody could have a 41” waist but be extremely muscular. In this case, a 41” waist might not be a health liability.

In order to obtain a better diagnosis of obesity and metabolic health, practitioners also consider your body mass index (BMI). BMI is a measure of body fat based on height and weight.

After 2 and a half years of weightlifting, my BMI was 25.8. This placed me in the overweight category. You can check your BMI here.

According to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI),

The higher your BMI, the higher your risk for certain diseases such as heart disease, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, gallstones, breathing problems, and certain cancers.

According to this chart by the NHLBI, my waist circumference together with my BMI put me at an increased risk for several diseases.

However, BMI like waist circumference can be deceptive when assessing body composition and metabolic health.

Some individuals can possess a lot of muscle mass causing their BMI to be high, yet they may be very healthy.

However, with my WC almost in the obese category and my BMI in the overweight category, I had two findings suggesting that I had to start paying attention to reducing my body fat.

There is, however, another marker available for assessing the danger of excess body fat.

This marker is considered superior to the previous two.

Body Composition And Metabolic Health: Waist To Hip Ratio

A better indicator of metabolic health is waist to hip ratio (WHR). It’s determined by taking your waist circumference and dividing it by your hip circumference. If you want to find out how to get a proper measurement, click here.

Discovering my WHR ratio and understanding what it meant was an eye-opener for me.

After two and a half years of weightlifting, my waist measurement was 38.5” and my hips were 39”. Yeah, I know, I had a fat belly, a skinny butt, and skinny legs. More on that later.

Nonetheless, my WHR was 0.99. According to some WHR charts, that put me at a moderate risk for the health problems associated with obesity, diabetes, coronary heart disease, and high blood pressure.

The World Health Organization defines the ratios of >9.0 in men and >0.85 in women as one of the decisive benchmarks for an increased risk of metabolic complications.

The Dangers Of A High Waist To Hip Ratio

Medical researchers today are in general agreement that waist to hip ratio is a good predictor of health problems.

Data from the famous Nurses’ Health Study has shown that women with a high hip-to-weight ratio are more likely to suffer higher rates of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, cancer, and mortality.

This correlation also holds for men and is not limited to one’s ethnicity.

A High WHR With Normal Weight

Now, you might think that if you have a high WHR but are not overweight, you have nothing to worry about.

That’s a dangerous assumption because you don’t have to be overweight to have an unhealthy amount of visceral fat.

In the Nurses’ study, researchers found that elevated cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality was also present in women who had a high WHR but who also had a normal body weight.

So there it was. Even though I was getting stronger and not terribly overweight, I was still at risk for a number of serious diseases.

Three markers said I was still carrying around way too much fat compared to lean muscle.

And this fat was in the worst of all possible places, my belly.

I Confess: I Was A Skinny Fatty

As I started doing some research on how to get stronger and leaner, I discovered that I had inherited a body type that’s called skinny-fat. Can you imagine a 60-year-old worrying about his body type? Sheesh!

Anyway, for 60 years I was a skinny-fatty. Wow, doesn’t that sound like a logical contradiction? How in the world can you be skinny and fat at the same time? This is how.

Skinny-fat individuals have relatively low levels of lean muscle mass (skinny) and too much body fat. We usually look good in clothes, thank you.

But, in reality, our muscle mass is low compared to our fat content.

In fact, I was one of the worst kinds of skinny-fat. My hips and legs were relatively free of fat and non-muscular while the bulk of my fat resided around my chest and abdomen.

For most of my life, I was a large-bellied skinny fatty with a high WHR.

After two and a half years of strength training, my body type changed slightly. I did add muscle mass, and that was good. It meant that I was increasing the amount of muscle compared to fat.

However, there was still significant fat around my waist. 

My Goal: Building A Better Body

Strength training experts said lifting weights could make me stronger, and they were right. After lifting for two and a half years, my deadlift was at 250 pounds, bench press at 180 pounds, and I was starting to do back squats with a barbell. My body weight at this time was 185 pounds.

My strength gains for a 60-year-old recovering from severe CFS were not something to make light of. I was proud of my achievement. But I wasn’t satisfied.

It was time to take my body to the next level. I had to tackle the excess fat and the high WHR problem.

In order to optimize my WHR, I could do two things. I could increase my hip size or I could reduce my waist size. However, and here’s the hard thing, I didn’t want to lose strength in the process.

Experienced weight trainers will tell you that recomposing your body without losing strength is one of the most difficult things to do.

Well, I did it, and in my next post, I’ll tell you how.

That’s it for this post. Have a great week.

The post Why I Needed To Recompose My Body At 60-Years Old: The Skinny-Fat Problem appeared first on The Progressing Pilgrim.

Strength coaches will tell you that strength training programming for us older guys and gals can be difficult.  If we’re not careful, excess volume or intensity can wear us down very rapidly.

Since we don’t recover as well as 25-year-olds, the danger of over-training for us masters lifters (45 years old and up) is always something to be critically aware of.

However, under-training can also be problematic as it often leads to stagnation or regression.

Finding the proper balance between overtraining and undertraining requires experience and self-awareness.

If you’re a member of a gym that has a good coach, that’s great. Your coach can analyze your progress and seek feedback from you on how your body is handling the stress.

However, most of us who have realized that healthy aging is strong aging are probably working out in our basement or garage. That means we’re our own coaches. We, therefore, have to be the ones who evaluate what our bodies and progress are telling us.

During the novice phase of lifting, this is not as critical for a masters lifter, but it is once you enter the intermediate phase.

The weights get heavier, we get a little older, and programming gets a lot trickier and more crucial.

Over the last month, this realization forced me to take a harder look at my own programming.

My Body Told Me Something Was Wrong With My Programming

Three weeks ago, my body told me that I may have been over-training. While deadlifting an easy weight, I suffered a pretty painful back spasm.

It was the first I had gotten during lifting, but the third and worst one in the last two months. Obviously, my back was telling me something was wrong. See here.

So far, my back seems to be holding up pretty well. However, even though I’ve had no new back spasms and my back hasn’t hurt during training, I still believe I’m in need of an adjustment in my programming.

There are only a few variables that can be adjusted in weightlifting programming. These include volume, intensity, diet, and recovery time.

Let’s look at diet first.

Programming Diet

Diet is a highly subjective programming variable. While it seems that younger lifters need huge amounts of calories to maximize gains, I don’t think most masters lifters can get away with that.

Most of us come to the sport already needing to lose weight.

I myself am on a low-carb healthy-fat diet. It works for me. When I feel I need more carbs, I’ll add in half a sweet potato.

One thing that masters lifters do need is adequate protein. Protein is absolutely necessary to maintain and build muscle mass.

Individuals over 60 don’t metabolize protein as well as younger people. The recommended daily allowance of protein is at least 1 to 1.2 grams per kilogram of body weight per day.

However, we can also err on the side of too much protein.

There are some in the health community who caution about the overconsumption of protein. Dr. Joseph Mercola suggests using this formula to estimate your protein needs:

100 – % of body fat = % of lean mass X actual weight X 0.5 gm protein = total grams of protein recommended

Me: A 170 lb individual with 20% fat mass

100% total weight – 20% fat mass = 80 % lean mass

0.80 X 170 = 136 X 0.5 = 68 grams of protein recommended

Since I’m lifting weights regularly, I keep my protein intake to about 80 – 90 grams per day.

My diet is pretty fixed. Besides adding more carbohydrate in from time to time, I can’t really adjust it radically.

Programming Recovery

As I mentioned before, recovery is important for all lifters but especially us masters lifters. We simply need more of it.

Since I perform each major lift once a week on non-consecutive days (see below) I have plenty of recovery time.

I also deload once a month. This consists of performing the major lift at warm-up weight only. The deload week has been important for me of late.

Because my total weekly tonnage is starting to get significant for my body weight and age, my body really appreciates the deload week.

Programming Sleep

Proper sleep is an important part of the recovery process. Many physiologic repair processes take place while we’re asleep.

Cultivating good sleep habits has always been a struggle for me. See here. However, remember, if you don’t sleep well, you won’t recover well.

Let’s now look at volume and intensity.

What Are Weightlifting Volume And Intensity?

Perhaps the most important programming adjustments for masters involve volume and intensity.

Volume in weightlifting terms is measured by sets, reps, and frequency. Frequency is the number of times you lift during the week. So the more reps you do over a training period, the more volume you incur.

Intensity is the weight that you work out with as the percentage of your maximum resistance for that particular exercise. For example, if your 1 rep max for the bench press is 200 pounds and you use 150 pounds for repetitions in your training sets, you work out at a relative intensity of 75%.

Adjusting Volume

As a novice lifter, my volume was constant. I performed each lift for 3 sets of 5 reps. The only factor that changed each week was intensity. If I were to stall on a lift, I’d cut back the intensity 10%, but keep the volume the same.

As I’ve written before, the volume demands of the Starting Strength novice program fit my needs perfectly. Even though I was a beginning lifter at 57 years old and recovering from chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), I experienced very little fatigue on the program.

I’m currently using the Wendler 5/3/1 program with some accessory lifts. In this program, volume is basically constant. More volume can be added if desired. But I’ve stuck to the basic routine to avoid fatigue.

Therefore, on the basic program, I technically can’t reduce volume. If I did want to increase volume, I could add in more sets on the day I do a particular lift.

If I was 25 years old, I would definitely go for it. But for me at my age and because I’m recovering from CFS, there’s no way I’m even going to attempt it.

In order to increase my volume without suffering severe fatigue, I’d have to add in another day of an exercise. More on that later.

Adjusting Intensity

Most strength coaches will tell you that for masters lifters maintaining high intensity is important. If intensity is too low, we can regress very quickly.

Intensity, however, was the one variable I could change easily. So it seemed that the obvious thing to do was reset my deadlift. This would be the first time doing so since being on the 5/3/1 program.

I’ll reduce my base weight 10% and move back up from there. This should allow my body to get stronger and adjust to the heavier weight.

During my first deadlift session following my injury, I worked out with 65# for 10 reps. Once I found that the injury was sufficiently healed, I worked on form. I used weights that were warm-up weights from the previous session.

My son, Peter, observed that my back was slightly curved when lifting heavy weight so I worked hard to maintain a straight back.

This week I also worked on form with slightly heavier weight. I had no pain at all.

Next week is a deload week so I’ll lift only warm-up weight again. That would give me 3 weeks of rest and recovery while hopefully doing little damage to my progress gains.

Changing Volume On Bench Press

I’ve stalled on the bench press for some time even after resetting a few times. After getting up to a base weight of 215#, I don’t seem to be able to get beyond that.

Yes, I could eat more and gain some weight. But I don’t want to do that quite yet. I still have some excess body fat I want to get rid of.

I do feel, though, that I could increase volume slightly. So I have been experimenting with a light bench day on Friday. I’ve been using only warm-up weights.

So far this seems to be working well as I’ve felt stronger on heavy bench days. We’ll see what happens during my next rotation.

Stretching And Foam Rolling

I neglected stretching for 3 years, but now I’m paying a lot more attention to that. Especially where it concerns my back and neck. I’ll go more into that in the future.

That’s it for this week. Remember nothing in this post should be considered medical advice. This is just what’s been working for me. If you have any questions, feel free to comment.

Work Out – Week of 9/11/2017

Body Weight: 170.0

Monday

Off (Labor Day)

Tuesday

Barbell Bench Press (Base weight 190#)

45.0# 1 x 5 (warm-up)
75.0# 1 x 5 (warm-up)
95.0# 1 x 5 (warm-up)
115.0# 1 x 2 (warm-up)
122.5# 1 x 5 (65%)
142.5# 1 x 5 (75%)
160.0# 1 x 5 (85%)

Dumbbell Rows

37.5# 1 x 10 x 3

Cardio: 30 min outdoors walk

Wednesday

Rest

Thuesday

Barbell Back Squats (Base weight 198#)

80.0# 1 x 5 (warm-up)
100.0# 1 x 5 (warm-up)
117.5# 1 x 2 (warm-up)
137.5# 1 x 3 (70%)
157.5# 1 x 3 (80%)
177.5# 1 x 3 (90%)

Cardio: 30 min outdoors walk

Friday

Overhead Press Dumbbell

20.0# 1 x 8 (warm-up)
35.0# 1 x 8 x 3

Tricep Extensions

50.0# 1 x 8 x 3

Cardio: 30 min outdoors walk

Friday

Cardio: 30 min outdoors walk

Saturday

A.M – Stretching (back and neck)

Barbell Deadlift (Worked on form )

65.0# 1 x 10
125.0# 1 x 5
155.0# 1 x 5
190.0# 1 X 5
230.0# 1 x 5

Cardio: 30 min outdoors walk

Sunday

Cardio: 30 min outdoors walk

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The post Adjusting My Programming As A Masters Intermediate Lifter – Weekly Workout 9/18 appeared first on The Progressing Pilgrim.