Thanks again for the responses so far, I think this has been more helpful that everything else I have read and people talked to.

None. I have swapped routines before, going to 4-5 days a week part weights part cardio, all weights slim cardio, all cardio no weights, etc. I have no stopped dieting or working out. My cardio workouts are usually an hour, doing different machines sometimes and sometimes the same machine for an hour. I also walk the dog for 30 minutes 5-6 days a week at night (he loves it!).

It takes me about an hour and a half and consists of chest, tri, bi, back, and legs. Low emphasis on legs due to a bad knee and all of the cardio. I have also tried breaking it up into just chest/tri (45min to an hour) with 1-2 days rest then (back/bi) and legs in the middle somewhere. Like you said with the calorie deficit it probalby doesn't make much of a different except for swapping up routines to burn a little more calories.

As for my ABS, the 30 minute AB workout is 2 sets of 30 (instead of 3x10) on 5 different ab/weight machines and then some regular situps and stuff. Abs are always sore for a few days after and can lift a great deal more than say a year ago.

That actually makes a good deal of sense. So if my body is just used to the current deficit what do I do to get it started up again? I could give it an even worse calorie deficit (I did that one time back around 150lbs when I got stuck, went for < 1000 a day and got things moving again then moved back to 1500). Or do I need to actually stop exercising or stop dieting and then start again after some X number of days? I want to make sure during those days I don't gain body fat, since that is counter productive.

I guess I shouldn't have said "stop exercising" in there at all as an option. My fianceand I go as part of our daily routine for a long time now and really enjoy it. The gym isn't a burden :-) We even go when we are on vacation!

Glad to hear.

Here lies your problem my friend.

Think of your max stress potential as a bucket. You have different stressors that fill that bucket. Life (job, relationships, etc), exercise, caloric deficit, etc.

The bucket has a limited capacity and the body deals with all the various stressors in much the same way.

If you chronically keep your bucket filled to the brim (or worse, overflowing) you're going to run into a brick wall. Either you're going to drag ass, you're going to stall, you're going to lose motivation, etc, etc.

Our bodies are pretty freaking amazing, no doubt. But they are not unbreakable. They can't be 'beat on' without recovery. Our bodies actually demand recovery. If you don't give it recovery, it's eventually going to make it so you have to; injury, plateau, etc.

What's wrong with the knee?

I would avoid that routine. You want to be hitting your muscles as frequently as possible. Once per week frequency is suboptimal.

I'd also place less emphasis on arms. In reality, I'm curious to see exactly what you're doing in terms of exercises, set, reps... although this is a moot point until you get your body back 'in shape' to lose weight again.

I would not view weight training as a means of burning calories. Certainly it expends energy. Lying in bed expends energy. More importantly you should be viewing weight training as a means of muscle preservation as you diet the fat off.

My point is you don't do 5 different exercises for your chest or your legs. So why do it for your abs? It's just one muscle group...

Bro-science, meaning all the bodybuilders who don't truly understand physiology or biomechanics believe you have to 'blast the muscle from all angles bro" but that's far from true.

Muscle contraction is muscle contraction.

People tend to focus on their abs b/c that's where they have a fat storage problem. But all those isolated crunches aren't doing anything for the fat. If anything, you're building muscular endurance in the abs.

To boot, tons of flexion exercises (such as crunches) can be counterproductive and even injurious. You have to remember, the primary function of the core is isometric stabilization. Without it, you'd bend in half, lol.

You have to watch how you're defining 'counter productive.'

If I used your lenses regarding productivity, anytime I gained some fat I'd be failing. If you look at my pictures in my album... I'm not failing. The long term is what matters. Don't get hung up in the short term thinking it's going to make or break you. People who do this are the same people who spin their wheels for 6-12 months without making any real progress. Sound familiar?

I think you said your weight is 136, if I remember correctly. This means your maintenance intake is probably somewhere around 1800-2000 calories.

If I were you or you were my client, I'd come up with some sort of systematic plan of getting your caloric intake up to that level. I certainly wouldn't do it overnight, instead, we'd lay out a systematic step-up in caloric intake.

We'd also tweak your exercise plan concurrently. At first we'd probably remove all stress and eventually start you back up.

You have to let your body's systems (predominantly hormonal) 'reset' so to speak.

Weight gain during this 'resetting' period is a possibility.

What's better?

Minor weight gain (which will be a lot of water along with some fat and muscle) in order to lose weight effectively afterwords or another 6-12 months of spinning your wheels?

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I tore my meniscus a few years back either playing racquetball or wakeboarding, I'm not for sure. I had surgery and they trimmed about 15% out, and after my rehabilitation and what not for 6 months my knee never really got better. I have no pain unless I put a lot of stress on it and then it hurts and swells. So no squats, running, heavy racquetball, and I sure miss running. The last MRI I had a year ago showed a small tear where the lame doctor didn't get it all out. I've just given up on those types of leg activities rather than bear another 6 months of rehab anytime soon.

What do you mean by this exactly? For my abs I'm doing exercises to make sure I hit my upper, middle, and lower abs, along with my sides. I know each machine "kind of" gets on all of them but some are set more for lower or upper.

As for chest, for example, I sure do at least 5 chest machines too. Some examples would be incline bench, incline freeweight, incline flies, flat bench, decline bench, I'm sure you know what I mean, so I must have missed the point on this one. I'd say for a chest workout I do at least 5 machines, and then 3-4 that are only for tri-cep. Similarly for back and bicep.

I don't follow some exact plan when I go. I'll pick 4-5 chest machines and 3-4 tricep machines. I try to pick some that I didn't pick the time before to swap things up and keep it interesting. I'll always hit incline, mid, and decline, upper and lower back, etc. I always do 3 sets of 10, some weeks I go the 10, 8, 6 approach making the weights heavier. Some weeks I go for low weight, 14-18 reps, and then some weeks I just picka mid weight and do 3 sets of 10 with it. I like to keep things fun and changing.

Calorie intake:
So it sounds to me like the best plan of attack is to raise my intake back up to my maintenance level of 1800-2000. Currently I'm running around 1500, so what kind of gradual process would you recomend since that is only 300-500 calories. I could hit that easily just by eating an extra helping of beans and a protein bar during the day.

Another question would be for what amount of time would I maintain the 2k intake before I start to slowly cut it down again to lose more body fat?

And a final question would be, can I continue doing my exercise routine that I am pretty happy with during this time? Not step it up but just continue as I am. I ask this because if I'm hitting the gym doing cardio for an hour and then walking the dog for a while, I'm burning at least 250-300 calories I would think. That would be coming out of my already low 1500, or soon to be normal 2000.

I guess I should also ask, since it is an option (just not a good one) if I increase my calorie deficit would it trigger omre fat loss too? I know it might be a bad path to go down but I would like all my options ;-)

Thanks!

Can someone bump this for me... I'm heading out the door and want to reply later or tomorrow.

Thanks

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Take your time cause I really appretiate the assistance, I can always bump it for you later too.

I had another thing to add in there, just to see if the "amount" I'm lifing seems normal, good, or bad for a 5'7" dude weight 136 pounds. The only good measurements I can think of are the standard ones, I do 55s (45 and a 10) on either side of the flat bench press. More if I have a spot. I do 25s for bicep curls, and I can also do sets up pull ups (back of hand facing toward my face). For tricep I can do dips where you "could" put your knees on the pad to offset your weight, but I don't need to offset any (actually I probably need more weight on me instead).

BUMP for Steve.

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Starting Weight: 227lbs | Current Weight: 205.6lbs | Goal Weight: 185lbs (9/26/08)

Hmm, that's shitty. If it were me I'd get it fixed but I'm all about being able to do everything I set out to do.

You also might consider some active release... check Active Release Techniques®

I assume you are talking about the rectus abdominis?

Otherwise known as the six pack.

Couple of things here:

1) A healthy core is the foundation of all human movement. The rectus abdominis is only one piece of a much larger puzzle. From the sounds of it you're blasting your abs by doing a bunch of crunches. The core actually includes muscles of your abdominals, back and pelvis/hips.

2) Why are you hitting each muscle with so many different exercises? What do you think you are getting out of that? I can tell you now that you can ditch that mentality of hitting your muscles from all the various angles garbage. At least it's garbage at this stage in the game for you personally. Some would consider me advanced in terms of physique and I don't waste my time doing that stuff, but for some elite body builders, there my be some logic behind it. But not for someone in your shoes.

3) You could probably use a complete overhaul of your routine but again, as stated above, this is the least of your concerns at the moment.

So things always have to be changing for things to be fun?

That can run you into problems. Not in the early stages but eventually.

The adaptations people like in response to the stress that lifting is (you know, things like getting stronger and growing bigger muscles) comes from challenging your body to do things that it is unaccustomed to doing. Variety and change doesn't give you that. In order to have this, there needs to be some consistency. If you're always changing things up, there's no way to overload the system, which is necessary.

For instance, if I wanted my chest to grow bigger, I'd do barbell bench presses (given all the other stuff required for hypertrophy). I'd focus on consistently increasing how much I lift in this particular exercise. If instead I was jumping around so I could "blast my chest from all da anglezz!!!111" I'd never have a foundation to build upon.

Do you see the idea here?

I thought you were between 1000-1500 most days?

Before I answer this question, I need to know for sure what your average caloric intake is? I know you said 1500 above. But I also heard 1000, unless I'm thinking of someone else.

Also, how are you tracking your nutrition?

Sure, if you'd like to cause further damage and reach another, close plateau that's harder to get out of in addition to losing muscle and looking and feeling like shit.

I'd say it doesn't sound like a hard decision but given the logic most people I encounter seem to follow, I'll hold my tongue.

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That's pretty tough to say since a lot more goes into strength then just physical size.

For how many reps, I'm assuming your talking about one rep... your max.

I can't remember how much you weigh, was it 136.

So you can lift 1.1 x your body weight.

I'm not sure what you want to compare it too? Me for example.

I'm 185 lbs right now and my bench is around 350.

So I can lift 1.9 x my body weight.

To be honest, I think this is pretty futile. I'd focus more one how to get your metabolism healthy again and less on how much you're lifting.

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For the flat bench press with 55s on either side I can do 3 sets of 10. Is that what you are calling one rep? If it's the last chest thing I did I would have to go down to 45s.

That makes pretty good sense to me. So you are saying pick a few machines and do that routine for some number of weeks increasing the weights each week? Does it help to do multiple machines that hit the same area? For example, I have one buddy and he only does 1 upper, mid, and lower chest machine when he does chest where I am doing more than one of each. Also, how do you determine when to switch it up?

I realize that I'm only maintaining muscle at this point, but better maintaining it the right way than some crazy way...

I suppose it varies day to day and depends if I have an extra snack or a beer with dinner, things like that.

Today I have had:
2 eggs, 3 bacons (210 cal)
yogurt snack (60)
turkey burger (no bun) and pinto beans (~350 cal)
Still have 2 snacks and a dinner to go, so today it will probably be 1100 to 1200 depending on what I have for dinner.

I used to track it all in my PDA, but now know pretty much what is going in at all times and how many calories it has. After tracking everything going in over many months, you kind of get the picture. When I tried the carb thing I had to start tracking it again though. If I do the increased calories and I'm trying to hit an exact number I'll have to calculate that too.

Increasing my intake shouldn't be that big of a problem, I can just change what types of food I am buying. Like a normal 140 calorie yogurt instead of a 60 calorie one. I'll just need to make sure I know the exact amount to hit and over what period of time to do it.

I can say that I'm never hungry, never tired (bed around 11-12, up at 6:30), but definitely want to change for whatever will get the job done.

Let me give you a sample routine I would place someone on if they were training full body twice per week. Notice how much it contrasts what you're currently doing. I'll assume the same knee injury you have, without really knowing what you're capable of.

Workout A:

Romanian Deadlift 3x8
DB Lunges 2x12
Cable Rows 3x8
Flat BB Bench 3x8
Cable Pulldowns 2x12
DB Overhead Press 2x12

Workout B:

Leg Press 3x8
Leg Curl Machine 2x12
Pullups 3x8
Military Press 3x8
Some sort of Row 2x12
Incline DB Bench 2x12

At the end you could throw in 1 or 2 exercises for a couple of sets for arms and core each.

That's it.

Read it twice if you have to. In some cases I'd suggest even less. And this isn't something that needs to be followed, it's just an idea to show you were you're going wrong.

I take my workouts to the point where I'm either 1) bored, 2) plateaued, or 3) hurting.

I don't ever change just for the sake of changing. Why would I?

I don't look for variety. I look for progress and success.

After I milk this routine for all it's worth or until I'm bored, I'll change things up based on whether or not my goals change, what I'm in the mood for, or what my body needs.

From my perspective what you're doing, especially given the fact that you're in a caloric deficit... is crazy. Worrying about hitting your muscles from various angles while dieting is really silly.

All you want to do is focus on maintaining your strength (possibly increasing it) while using the big, primary exercises.

It's really tough to give specific advice when you don't really know how much you're eating on average. You said 1000-1500 and here you're saying 1200. 1200 might be a safe bet for your average.

Hmm, so I'm actually wondering at this point if you need a diet break. I mean I would assume so if you were getting in 1000 calories per day for the last year coupled with all the exercise you're doing. Actually I'd know for a fact you need a break.

But given that you aren't exact about measuring your food, I'd lean toward the idea of you underestimating your caloric intake. I base this off of experience, really. People who don't measure and track their foods pretty much always underestimate.

You might be different, but it's hard to tell from where I'm sitting.

And I'm certainly not suggesting you have to 'doom' yourself and count calories the rest of your life, weighing every morsel of food that passes your lips. I'm actually a fan of guesstimating and eyeballing, ASSUMING you're losing weight. If the 'winging it' approach isn't working though, the root of the problem usually lies in eating too much.

Have you ever heard of FitDay - Free Weight Loss and Diet Journal

A food scale purchase would be an excellent idea if you're serious about figuring out in which direction you need to go from here. If you could be honest with your recording and track a 3-7 days of intake (preferably weekends are part of this) we'd have a better metric to assess from.