I decided to move my report out of BuddyBuilding to it's own topic, so that the posts which will cover a long time interval will be kept together for easier reading. [quote:85efd7b2a4] [b:85efd7b2a4]Result desired: New muscle/strength growth.[/b:85efd7b2a4] SCT produces great muscle growth in the shortest and most efficient way I have seen anywhere. New muscle helps to burn fat. Strength training is good for bone strength and health. New muscle make you better at whatever you physically do. Strength training and new muscle give you more energy. Etc. SCT provides you with all these health benefits in the most efficient, calculated, scientific and precise way possible and gives you plenty of time to stretch and do light cardio in between you muscle/strength building workouts. It all comes back to the same thing. You want to be stronger and leaner, IMO, the way is clear ---> SCT to get stronger, light cardio for additional weight loss - daily proper stretching for flexibility.[/quote:85efd7b2a4] Ok, based on all the discussions on this thread, my wife and I decided to get the XF-7000 SCT exercise machine (after gulping over the cost, good thing they had a time payment plan). After a long 3 month wait it arrived a week ago. I must say that we were both shocked by the first round of exercises. 5 different 5 second exercises and we were both wiped for the next 2 hours! I felt like I had been working out for hours! 4 days later we did the alternate 5 different 5 second exercises. Wiped me out again! I am sure the wiped out feeling is an indication that the muscles have had a maximum intensity event that will trigger growth. I take a scoop of Zone Ribose right after the workout. So far, even though the muscles feel over-worked for a day, I have not had what could be called soreness. I can see why only half the exercises are done every 4 days (longer as the muscles get bigger). Doing them all at once would put a real load on the internal organs to recover. I decided to also make this a test of the protein requirements needed in the Zone. I am not going to increase my protein as long as my LBM continues to increase. I only want to increase my LBM by 15 pounds, but I do not want to take in any more protein than I need. I will see how it goes.

[quote:554216319c]I will be happy to share some info as soon as it makes sense. No point in posting anything until some gain can be measured first. Both my wife and I have www.mystrengthcoach.com accounts and we have entered in everything to start. It will be easy to post results by cut and paste once we get to the second weigh-in in a couple more weeks. My first impressions of the machine is that it is well built and easy to set up. It is a bit like an erector set for moving the parts around for different exercises. The first thing I did was use a marker to number all the height adjustment slots so I could duplicate setups for different people and exercises very quickly. That makes it a snap to adjust. If I had to go to a gym or even if I had a home gym, It would take 10 times as long to make the setups for each exercise, and finding the proper weights and sets would be trial and error. I think this machine is the easiest way to do SCT. I have the feeling that I may be running an ad hock SCT gym for the neighbors by the time I am through --it is a shame to let the machine just sit there 99.8% of the time. I have good strength, but I am not very muscular to start nor terribly active. I get about 15 min of aerobics a day on an elliptical machine and about 30 min of easy yoga exercises a day. I eat 12 blocks a day with about 2-3 times the normal fat to maintain 13% body fat. 30 grams of my fat is PGFO. The rest if my dietary fat is from normal Zone sources. I regulate my body fat % by adjusting the amount of fat I eat up or down. I will watch my stats carefully to see how much protein I really need to grow more muscle mass. My goal is to keep the protein to a minimum which will also keep my carbs to a minimum. Excess protein is hard on the internal organs to digest and clear from the system. Excess carbs are hard for me to keep my insulin response even. Good fat does not seem to phase me a bit. Only time will tell. 8)[/quote:554216319c] It has been a few weeks, so I thought I would provide an update on my progress. My wife and I are following the protocol on mystrengthcoach.com and my wife's sister is following along with us. We have had 4 "A" sessions and 4 "B" sessions. The "A" exercises are 5 different "Pushing" type, and the "B" exercises are 5 "Pulling" type. Each exercise consists of pushing or pulling as hard as possible for about 5 seconds (or until the muscle group is exhausted). The peak effort "weight" is logged on a display for each exercise. It takes about 30 minutes for all three of us to go through 5 exercises including making all the different setups on the machine. Currently we go through one set of exercises every 4 days, so it is 8 days between complete workouts of each muscle group. Strength increases from baseline --every 8 days: Dennis: +6%, +13%, +17% Wife: +15%, +25%, +33% That is for a total active exercise time of about 3 minutes each! My last +17% figure would have been higher, but I brused my left palm the day before on a rock, so I don't think I pushed against the bar with my full strength on 3/10 of the exercises (I actually logged a negative gain on those three). We will see how it looks next week. So far there is no meaningful changes in physical body dimensions or weight. Neither of us have changed our diets. I won't bore you with unnecessary details at this point :) (Thread moved to "Dennis' SCT Experience with the Explosive Fitness machine")

CARLA HELP! Deleted all the text in this post by mistake --ouch, I thought I hit the quote not the edit button. Now I messed up and the whole report is gone :cry:

Hi Dennis, just saw this thread now. Very interesting updates, thank you for sharing. If you are weaker on some exercises, it could be an indicator that you need more time off between workouts. The time off between workouts can easily vary between you and your wife or your sister in law... That could be one thing to look for. In the instructions for the exercises and the concept with the machine, do they explain what to do if only certain muscles are lagging behind? One of the solutions brought forward when working out conventionally is to not workout these muscles during your regular rotation and instead add an extra workout for just the lagging muscles and then re-introduce them in the rotation once they have caught up... Example: Today: Workout A without Chest and Shoulders 4 days later: Workout B without Biceps 4 days later: Workout C: Chest, Shoulders and Biceps. 4 days later: Workout A without shoulders and chest again... Etc... After about 3 rotations, your lagging muscles should have caught up and you just go back to regular A & B routines. This is an example if only 1 max 2 exercises are lagging behind BUT most of the time taking an extra day off altogether makes all the muscles catch up... IMO, before I would go back to the rowing full force again I would try not to disrupt the schedule of SCT at all and keep my focus on getting the proper rest times between workouts and finding the optimal positioning for the exercises you mentioned. I believe that your other muscles will catch up with the rest time and/or the bar adjustment... If you start the intense rowing again, will it not interfere with the entire cycle of exercises in terms of intensity expenditure? Another thing, when you log your weights on www.mystrengthcoach.com do you only log your highest "weight" or the warm up ones too? Pat

[quote:5a1868ebe4="itsallaboutbalance"]If you are weaker on some exercises, it could be an indicator that you need more time off between workouts. The time off between workouts can easily vary between you and your wife or your sister in law... That could be one thing to look for. [/quote:5a1868ebe4] Pat, I took this into consideration. However, my experience just did not match the way I expected this over-training to manifest. I never gained any strength at all on SCT with those muscles. It has been a steady decline. Now I am not a body building type that has overdone anything in that regard. It did not seem reasonable that I should start out loosing on an 8 day cycle. My under-trained state is such that I can usually gain substantial strength by working out (just hard "real" work) every day for a week or so before I have gone as far as I can go in that regard. I am pretty much a strong wimp. The elliptical trainer does not have enough resistance for me to max out my strength on it (perhaps 50%) so it does take a minute to get tired (50% duty cycle on each muscle). Not SCT material. However, I did not get the same level of working the muscles in question with the SCT machine setups. It seemed that other muscles were involved that were limiting the load I could put into the targeted ones. So I figure I was gaining strength in some weaker muscles while loosing it in the primary ones that should have been targeted. I figured eventually I would get to an equilibrium point and start regaining. However, I was not happy with the poor targeting. [/quote] [quote:5a1868ebe4]IMO, before I would go back to the rowing full force again I would try not to disrupt the schedule of SCT at all and keep my focus on getting the proper rest times between workouts and finding the optimal positioning for the exercises you mentioned. I believe that your other muscles will catch up with the rest time and/or the bar adjustment... If you start the intense rowing again, will it not interfere with the entire cycle of exercises in terms of intensity expenditure?[/quote:5a1868ebe4] I thought about this also. I decided that the quickest way to test my theory would be to stick to the SCT schedule, and do the "rowing" again for one cycle. If I gain significant strength, then my theory was right, and I need to modify the machine. If I loose more strength, then I am over-training, and I need to wait longer for those muscles. I have started playing around with different configurations of the machine to see if I can target some muscles better. My biggest problem is that I am not sure what they really intended vs what I can change things to. For now I will just do a few trial and errors, and log the results.[/quote] [quote:5a1868ebe4]Another thing, when you log your weights on www.mystrengthcoach.com do you only log your highest "weight" or the warm up ones too?[/quote:5a1868ebe4] I only log the highest "weight" during the real 5 second exercise. I am dealing with such small weights by comparison with a body builder, that there is almost no high loads on my joints at this time --except for the knees on the led press. I started about 900 and now about 1100 pounds. I have the bone structure of a football player, just not the muscles of one. That being the case, I do not do much warmup yet, just enough to feel that I have good circulation in the muscles. My feeling is that the machine should give me a peak and an average readout, but it only does a peak. If you "jerk" for 1/2 second it will take that as your peak, even of you can only hold 80% of that number for a full 5 seconds. I try to be as fair as I can, but the peak readout is the final number taken.

Sounds great. Thank you for all the info and detailed update. Keep us posted! Pat P.S. If you want, maybe you could elaborate on the difficulties you have been having in the positioning of the exercises you mentioned, maybe I could help or help get you more info... Let me know.

[quote:15a5bc51b9="gofish"]I decided to move my report out of BuddyBuilding to it's own topic, so that the posts which will cover a long time interval will be kept together for easier reading. [quote:15a5bc51b9] [b:15a5bc51b9]Result desired: New muscle/strength growth.[/b:15a5bc51b9] SCT produces great muscle growth in the shortest and most efficient way I have seen anywhere. Etc.[/quote:15a5bc51b9] .[/quote:15a5bc51b9] [color=darkblue:15a5bc51b9]What does SCT stand for? And what is SCT? [/color:15a5bc51b9]

[quote:d853702b9a="jaydpiii"][color=darkblue:d853702b9a]What does SCT stand for? And what is SCT? [/color:d853702b9a][/quote:d853702b9a] Static Contraction Training. www.PrecisionTraining.com

[quote:32bef92e78="itsallaboutbalance"]P.S. If you want, maybe you could elaborate on the difficulties you have been having in the positioning of the exercises you mentioned, maybe I could help or help get you more info... Let me know.[/quote:32bef92e78] Pat, I would like to take you up on some advice about this. However, I'm afraid it will get a bit tedious for this forum. Perhaps you can email me off line and we can discus it, then I can post a synopsis here. see3d@writeme.com

[quote:d27be2270f="gofish"]I decided to move my report out of BuddyBuilding to it's own topic, so that the posts which will cover a long time interval will be kept together for easier reading. Ok, based on all the discussions on this thread, my wife and I decided to get the XF-7000 SCT exercise machine (after gulping over the cost, good thing they had a time payment plan). After a long 3 month wait it arrived a week ago.[/quote:d27be2270f] [color=darkblue:d27be2270f]Can you point me to the original thread? I can never see nor understand how anyone could afford, let alone justify spending over $1,000, let alone about $3,500 (?) for an exercise machine. Maybe if I can follow this thread from the beginning, I might understand. Thanks! [/color:d27be2270f]

[quote:10d5e11900="jaydpiii"][color=darkblue:10d5e11900]Can you point me to the original thread? I can never see nor understand how anyone could afford, let alone justify spending over $1,000, let alone about $3,500 (?) for an exercise machine. Maybe if I can follow this thread from the beginning, I might understand. Thanks! [/color:10d5e11900][/quote:10d5e11900] BuddyBuilding The way I could sort of afford it was taking a loan and buying it one month at a time, and sharing the the use of the machine with other people. Also they offered a 1 year money back guarantee if the machine does not live up to the hype. I will hold them to it if my wife does not gain 12 pounds of muscle in a year. It took me 6 months to convince my wife that it was worth a try. It is a fair test, because she is starting out without any bodybuilding training, so has a lot of room to grow. One of my main justifications was that I did not think my wife was doing enough load bearing exercise to reverse her osteoporosis, and I thought this machine was just the right ticket to get her to have an exercise she could do in a small amount of time that would put the right kind of stress on her bones to make them grow along with the muscle. Also, she has to do the exercises per the training schedule in order to qualify for the MBG. And since I do the exercises with her at the same time, there is no excuse for not doing them. If these machines were made in high volume in China, they would cost around $1000. However, they are made here by a small company. Now somebody who is a wood/metalworker, could come up with a reasonable do it yourself design for several hundred dollars that would do just about the same thing. In fact I had suggested that on the original thread before I found out about this machine. I was actually considering building a contraption myself, but that was the final straw that made my wife give in to buying it --she did not want me to take on one more project, when her to do list for me had a several year backlog already, plus the 1 year MBG was proof against the machine not being a rip-off.

[quote:e5da7c6571="gofish"] I was actually considering building a contraption myself, but that was the final straw that made my wife give in to buying it --she did not want me to take on one more project, when her to do list for me had a several year backlog already.....[/quote:e5da7c6571] LOL! Cool story :-) If you build a michine like that yourself, what would you use to measure the strengths of your pulls and pushes? Again, I am really looking forward to seeing your and your wife's progress! Pat P.S. I e-mailed you.

[quote:8987d6b2d3="itsallaboutbalance"]If you build a michine like that yourself, what would you use to measure the strengths of your pulls and pushes?[/quote:8987d6b2d3] :idea: I would use the kind bathroom scale or a package scale with the readout portion on a long cord. Then use a 20:1 mechanical lever to reduce the force on the scale so that it could handle a 5000 pound load. I actually have such a scale in the basement --very many years old, but works. The EFT machine is set up so that it can read both pushing or pulling on the bar. A scale only reads one direction, so part of the home made machine setup is positioning the scale in the appropriate locations to read out the load. I just did not get very far in a design on paper before my wife said Ok to buying it. I was going to make it mostly out of solid oak with metal reinforcement in the critical load areas. I guess I was getting dangerously close to actually making it a "project". :shock:

[quote:28cd5ea5d9="gofish"] I was actually considering building a contraption myself, but that was the final straw that made my wife give in to buying it --she did not want me to take on one more project, when her to do list for me had a several year backlog already.....[/quote:28cd5ea5d9] [quote:28cd5ea5d9="pat"] LOL! Cool story :-)[/quote:28cd5ea5d9] I thought the same....and my next immediate thought was is this guy for real?!? :lol:

Time for another update: We have had 8 "A" sessions and 7 "B" sessions and a third weigh-in as of today. We were going through one set of exercises every 4 days, so it is 8 days between complete workouts of each muscle group. However, in the 6th & 7th sessions I made negative gains, so the program suggested I add a day to each rotation, making it 5 days (10 days for session 8 "A"). My wife saw negative gains on most exercises in session 7 so she joined me in lengthening hers also (instead of having another negative gain before the program caught on). I must say that the myStrengthCoach does not have a very sensitive algorithm to determine that you are going down hill in the Explosive Fitness machine mode. It only uses the total for each group of 5 exercises. If you are past your peak on 4/5, but the 5th one is the largest muscle and makes up for the loss of the other 4, the program will let you keep on with your schedule until you are losing too much. Comparing the individual exercises and just looking at the developing pattern is a much more sensitive way of adjusting the schedule. A real live coach would pick this up, and I can too, now that I see how the simplistic program algorithm works. Strength increases from baseline --every 8 days: Dennis: 6%, 13%, 17%, 24%, 19%, 18% Wife: 15%, 25%, 33%, 41%, 45%, 45% The first exercise on the new schedule 10 days (actually 11 this time) showed significant gains on most exercises once again for both of us. Interestingly on the 3rd weigh-in, neither my wife nor I measure any increases in the size of our muscles in spite of her being half again as strong as she started out --go figure. So far, I am not convinced of two statements about body building that were stated on the web site --which is Ok with me. The first is that you can't get stronger without increasing the physical size of your muscles. I have argued before, that you can also increase your muscle efficiency initially to gain strength --if you have not been strength training previously. The second is that if you increase the largest muscles, the other muscles will automatically grow. I have found that without giving smaller muscles the full stress of the larger ones, they quickly lose strength. However, I must fairly point out that my large muscles got stronger, but did not grow any perceptible amount. So perhaps my testosterone levels are not as high as a youngster (I'm 55). I will continue to monitor these. I mentioned before that I did not think the machine was optimally isolating the targeted muscles with the standard setups for some exercises. I am still using the standard setups for consistency in this trial --with one minor modification. However, since the setups were failing me in two exercises, I follow those exercises with a good old fashioned isometric to make sure I have completely exhausted the muscles in question. The result is that I reversed the losses and am almost back up to where I started in only two sessions --and it is only an extra 5 seconds each, and no extra machine setups. I did not go back to the daily hard pumping on my elliptical machine --I just do moderate pumping to get my breathing up to aerobic levels. So it will be interesting to see how this EF machine trial progresses. So far I can see that there is nothing magical about the machine. You can create the loads you want on your muscles without to much ingenuity by using isometrics. The problem, is that without being able to measure your strength gains, you don't know when to lengthen the recovery time. You need a way of measuring each exercise accurately. That is what the EF machine does --but the price is weighing heavily on me!

Time for another update: We have had 9 "A" sessions and 9 "B" sessions and a third weigh-in. We were going through one set of exercises every 5 days, so it is 10 days between complete workouts of each muscle group. Strength increases from baseline --was every 8 days: Dennis: 6%, 13%, 17%, 19%, 24%, 18% Wife: 15%, 25%, 33%, 41%, 45%, 45% Strength increases from baseline --now every 10 days: Dennis: 17%, 22% Wife: 52%, 64% It is obvious from the results that the slight modifications I made to the workouts and increasing the recovery period 2 days has allowed our gains to get back on track. My previously declining muscles are now back up to or stronger than the starting scores. You really have to pay attention to the results to get that recovery time right. Who would have thought that 8 days vs 10 days would make such a big difference. To really fine tune this for a professional athlete or body builder, each muscle group would be tracked and scheduled individually.

[quote:332f4d9f97="gofish"]Time for another update: We have had 9 "A" sessions and 9 "B" sessions and a third weigh-in. We were going through one set of exercises every 5 days, so it is 10 days between complete workouts of each muscle group. Strength increases from baseline --was every 8 days: Dennis: 6%, 13%, 17%, 19%, 24%, 18% Wife: 15%, 25%, 33%, 41%, 45%, 45% Strength increases from baseline --now every 10 days: Dennis: 17%, 22% Wife: 52%, 64% It is obvious from the results that the slight modifications I made to the workouts and increasing the recovery period 2 days has allowed our gains to get back on track. My previously declining muscles are now back up to or stronger than the starting scores. You really have to pay attention to the results to get that recovery time right. Who would have thought that 8 days vs 10 days would make such a big difference. To really fine tune this for a professional athlete or body builder, each muscle group would be tracked and scheduled individually.[/quote:332f4d9f97] Hi Dennis. I have been following your progress but really have not had much internet time at all lately so couldn't reply... I have a couple of coments and questions: Are you still only eating 12 blocks per day? Has your weight on the scale increased? Any increases in measurements now? What are your wife's comments and feelings towards this training? Is she enthused and motivated by the progress? Do you think - at this point - that you will reach the 20lbs (12 lbs for your wife) increase in muscle mass within the 1 year period? The mystrengthcoach website has a number of limitations but since its free for you with the machine, its a good way to keep track. When doing SCT with the machine, you only measure one set, and because of that the % in gains in strength are accurate (they get thrown off when you change the # of sets when working with free weights...) 2 extra days rest definitely make a considerable difference! You will quickly see the number of days between exercises going to 7, 8 and 10 days while your increases get even better as you get used (both mentally and physically) to this type of exercising.... I really don't mean to sound like you are not doing something right, but one thing I do know is that there is a learning curve and comfort zone attainment necessary when working out in this way and it gets better and better as you get used to it. The very large gains made by your wife could be attributable in part also to her lack of previous training but also the mental "getting used to and believing in yourself" involved when doing this as it plays a good part in beginners... Same could be at play for you but seemingly to a lesser degree. That may be a reason that for the actual number you are seeing on the increases you are not seeing a corresponding increases in your muscle size and/or weight on the scale...... Let me know what you think and what your weight on the scale is doing also.... In other words, your numbers are going up but you may only be beginning to push your muscles to the true limits of their capacities now... I know you said you felt a really intense muscle fatigue after the workouts but that may also have been due to the physical and mental adatation period I allude to here. Again, let me know what you think and keep up the great work and great updates for all who are interested. Regards and a very hapy new year to you and your wife ;) Pat

[quote:9dab6535f3="itsallaboutbalance"]Hi Dennis. I have been following your progress but really have not had much internet time at all lately so couldn't reply... I have a couple of coments and questions: Are you still only eating 12 blocks per day?[/quote:9dab6535f3] I just started eating 13 blocks per day two weeks ago because I stopped all PGFO for a few weeks in preparation for a baseline AA/EPA test. I needed to replace the calories lost due to the large amount of PGFO I was taking. It looks like I will be lowering my dose of PGFO in the future, so I may have to stay on 13 blocks now. [quote:9dab6535f3]Has your weight on the scale increased?[/quote:9dab6535f3] Weight for myself and my wife as well as body fat% are absolutely the same as when we started. [quote:9dab6535f3]Any increases in measurements now?[/quote:9dab6535f3] Neither of us has noted any change in measurements yet. We will be doing another weigh-in soon. [quote:9dab6535f3]What are your wife's comments and feelings towards this training? Is she enthused and motivated by the progress?[/quote:9dab6535f3] I have always been enthused and motivated about this training, and still am. However, I did expect to see faster progress. I never hold back an ounce of effort. My wife on the other hand was not at all thrilled with my purchase of the machine, but agreed because she also wants to benefit her bone density. I did wonder if she was not giving it everything she had at the beginning, leading to greater gains after that, but she is competitive, so I can not assume that she was sandbagging at first. (Just jealousy on my part, I think, because I was not making a much progress). [quote:9dab6535f3]Do you think - at this point - that you will reach the 20lbs (12 lbs for your wife) increase in muscle mass within the 1 year period? [/quote:9dab6535f3] At the current rate, it will never happen 0*0=0. However, my guess is that gains would be somewhat exponential rather than linear, so that could change in time. 20% change in a small muscle might not be detectable with the highly variable tape measurements, where 10% in a large muscle might be easily seen. Time will tell. As long as my strength keeps increasing, at some point, it has to become measurable in muscle size and weight. BTW, my MD did test my testosterone levels recently, and I am in the middle of the normal range. [quote:9dab6535f3]The mystrengthcoach website has a number of limitations but since its free for you with the machine, its a good way to keep track. [/quote:9dab6535f3] It is free for my wife, but I have to pay each month, so I have a right to complain about it's shortcomings. So far, I could do just as well with a spreadsheet program! However, it is worth it for starting out, until you understand what it does for you and how you can duplicate the functionality yourself --if you are handy with spreadsheets. [quote:9dab6535f3]When doing SCT with the machine, you only measure one set, and because of that the % in gains in strength are accurate (they get thrown off when you change the # of sets when working with free weights...)[/quote:9dab6535f3] They have another subscription service for the free weight training. That is much more complex to figure out, so I would go with their program for that. [quote:9dab6535f3]2 extra days rest definitely make a considerable difference! You will quickly see the number of days between exercises going to 7, 8 and 10 days while your increases get even better as you get used (both mentally and physically) to this type of exercising.... [/quote:9dab6535f3] Yes, I can already see that the amount of time at 5 days is not going to last long. I was just considering moving to 6 days this morning. [quote:9dab6535f3]I really don't mean to sound like you are not doing something right, but one thing I do know is that there is a learning curve and comfort zone attainment necessary when working out in this way and it gets better and better as you get used to it. The very large gains made by your wife could be attributable in part also to her lack of previous training but also the mental "getting used to and believing in yourself" involved when doing this as it plays a good part in beginners... Same could be at play for you but seemingly to a lesser degree. That may be a reason that for the actual number you are seeing on the increases you are not seeing a corresponding increases in your muscle size and/or weight on the scale...... Let me know what you think and what your weight on the scale is doing also.... In other words, your numbers are going up but you may only be beginning to push your muscles to the true limits of their capacities now...[/quote:9dab6535f3] I can not argue with you about this, because it is true for everything in life! [quote:9dab6535f3]I know you said you felt a really intense muscle fatigue after the workouts but that may also have been due to the physical and mental adatation period I allude to here. [/quote:9dab6535f3] I still feel the muscle fatigue after the workouts, but not as much of the systemic fatigue as the first couple of times. I don't actually feel any real pain, just a bit sore for a day. [quote:9dab6535f3]Again, let me know what you think and keep up the great work and great updates for all who are interested. Regards and a very hapy new year to you and your wife ;)[/quote:9dab6535f3] Thank you :D

[quote:2b6e8d38e6="gofish"] I just started eating 13 blocks per day two weeks ago because I stopped all PGFO for a few weeks in preparation for a baseline AA/EPA test. I needed to replace the calories lost due to the large amount of PGFO I was taking. It looks like I will be lowering my dose of PGFO in the future, so I may have to stay on 13 blocks now. [/quote:2b6e8d38e6] I really dont mean to get too off topic but I really quickly read the skin thread and did not really follow... Why do you say you will be taking less pgfo now? Too low AA/EPA? Symptoms reaction? Or TG effect? Also, as you continue with this training, maybe you could increase your blocks even before you see any weight gain to see if that helps you gain.... Although I would be curious to see if you can make gains with the exercise alone but everything I have read seems to contradict that including this Dr.Sears quote: "Creatine Q. Dear Dr. Sears, How does creatine fit in with the Zone Diet? A. Dear Mike, There is scientific proof that consuming 20 grams or more of creatine monohydrate a day can help build muscle. Creatine is one of the few supplements that appears to be beneficial, at least in strength athletes. However, the doses at which the effects take place are very high. But here is my basic rule on supplements: take them as directed for two weeks. If you see a positive benefit, then keep taking the supplement. If you don't see benefits in two weeks, then it probably won't happen. If you are using creatine, the Zone Nutrition Program can help you build new muscle mass by adding one extra protein block (balanced with a carbohydrate and fat) each day. Building one pound of new muscle mass per month is a noble goal. One pound of new muscle equals 454 grams. But muscle is 70 percent water, which means that one pound of new muscle contains about 136 grams of protein. Divide 136 grams by 30 days, and you get 4.5 grams of extra protein per day required to build new muscle. Taking in one extra block of protein (7 grams) a day (balanced with a carbohydrate and fat block, of course) is more than adequate to achieve new muscle growth. Dr. Barry Sears" ................... Although, as I've said before, I believe you can gain quite a bit more than a pound of muscle a month.......... Pat

[quote:100240f71b="itsallaboutbalance"][quote:100240f71b="gofish"] I just started eating 13 blocks per day two weeks ago because I stopped all PGFO for a few weeks in preparation for a baseline AA/EPA test. I needed to replace the calories lost due to the large amount of PGFO I was taking. It looks like I will be lowering my dose of PGFO in the future, so I may have to stay on 13 blocks now. [/quote:100240f71b] I really dont mean to get too off topic but I really quickly read the skin thread and did not really follow... Why do you say you will be taking less pgfo now? Too low AA/EPA? Symptoms reaction? Or TG effect? Also, as you continue with this training, maybe you could increase your blocks even before you see any weight gain to see if that helps you gain.... Although I would be curious to see if you can make gains with the exercise alone but everything I have read seems to contradict that including this Dr.Sears quote: "Creatine Q. Dear Dr. Sears, How does creatine fit in with the Zone Diet? A. Dear Mike, There is scientific proof that consuming 20 grams or more of creatine monohydrate a day can help build muscle. Creatine is one of the few supplements that appears to be beneficial, at least in strength athletes. However, the doses at which the effects take place are very high. But here is my basic rule on supplements: take them as directed for two weeks. If you see a positive benefit, then keep taking the supplement. If you don't see benefits in two weeks, then it probably won't happen. If you are using creatine, the Zone Nutrition Program can help you build new muscle mass by adding one extra protein block (balanced with a carbohydrate and fat) each day. Building one pound of new muscle mass per month is a noble goal. One pound of new muscle equals 454 grams. But muscle is 70 percent water, which means that one pound of new muscle contains about 136 grams of protein. Divide 136 grams by 30 days, and you get 4.5 grams of extra protein per day required to build new muscle. Taking in one extra block of protein (7 grams) a day (balanced with a carbohydrate and fat block, of course) is more than adequate to achieve new muscle growth. Dr. Barry Sears" ................... Although, as I've said before, I believe you can gain quite a bit more than a pound of muscle a month.......... Pat[/quote:100240f71b] Pat, My AA/EPA was too low (.7), so I will need to take less PGFO in future. If the EE/TG trial works out favorably, then that means I would need even less (see the EE trial thread on the AMB-well site). At 12 blocks, I was already eating one more block of protein than my size and activity level indicated I needed (DrSears.com body fat calculator), so I was not concerned that I was not getting enough to build new muscle --initially. Now at 13 blocks, there can be no doubt. Remember, though, my goal is not size or pounds of muscle, but strength improvement --though form follows function.

Time for another update: We have had 11 "A" sessions and 11 "B" sessions. We were going through one set of exercises every 6 days, so it is 12 days between complete workouts of each muscle group. Strength increases from baseline --was every 8 days: Dennis: 6%, 13%, 17%, 19%, 24%, 18% Wife: 15%, 25%, 33%, 41%, 45%, 45% Strength increases from baseline --was every 10 days: Dennis: 17%, 22%, 24% Wife: 52%, 64%, 68% Strength increases from baseline --now every 12 days: Dennis: 25%, 25% Wife: 78%, 83% Both myself and my wife weigh the same, and have the same BF% on the scale as the baseline. I have noticed that once I smooth out all the bumps in the graph, that I gain a compounded 2% for each workout cycle, and my wife gains 5-6%. My intuition tells me to try doing 2 sets for each exercise to see if that will result in better strength gains for me. My wife seems to be doing just fine with the standard single set. I am wondering if most of her gains to date have been new nerve growth to better actuate the muscles she has (not something an experienced trainee would run into). Her next phase would be new muscle growth. After all, she can't keep getting stronger like this without eventually getting bigger muscles. :shock:

Time for another update: We have had 15 "A" sessions and 15 "B" sessions. We are now going through one set of exercises every 7 days, so it is 14 days between complete workouts of each muscle group. Strength increases from baseline --every 8 days: Dennis: 6%, 13%, 17%, 19%, 24%, 18% Wife: 15%, 25%, 33%, 41%, 45%, 45% Strength increases from baseline --every 10 days: Dennis: 17%, 22%, 24% Wife: 52%, 64%, 68% Strength increases from baseline --every 12 days: Dennis: 25%, 25% Wife: 78%, 83% Strength increases from baseline --now every 14 days: Dennis: 27%, 35%, 38%, 39% Wife: 85%, 88%, 85%, 88% Both I and my wife weigh the same, and have the same BF% on the scale as the baseline. None of our measurements have changed! This is starting to border on sci-fi. I wonder if we are getting stronger, or the machine is getting weaker! LOL I started doing two sets of each exercise starting with the 14 day period. I saw an immediate strength gain benefit. The second set numbers are close to or exceed the first set numbers. It seems like the first set is just a warmup for me. My biggest problem now; as I am getting stronger, I am bruising my palms when pushing against the bar in some exercises (ouch!). I tried wrapping rubber mouse pads around the bar, but I need to spread the load out even further. The bar just concentrates too much force onto a small area of my palms.

[quote:63fc77701c="gofish"] We have had 15 "A" sessions and 15 "B" sessions. We are now going through one set of exercises every 7 days, so it is 14 days between complete workouts of each muscle group. Strength increases from baseline --now every 14 days: Dennis: 27%, 35%, 38%, 39% Wife: 85%, 88%, 85%, 88% Both I and my wife weigh the same, and have the same BF% on the scale as the baseline. None of our measurements have changed! This is starting to border on sci-fi. I wonder if we are getting stronger, or the machine is getting weaker! LOL[/quote:63fc77701c] Wow, your wife is near doubling her initial strength and she has not seen any increase in muscle mass (inches) nor LBM weight increase on the scale. You are 40% stronger and no increase in size or LBM weight either... That is surprising... Or as you said bordering on sc-fi :) Have you guys noticed benefits in everyday life (easier to get around, better overall shape & energy, easier to lift things, etc., etc...)? Still at 13 blocks for yourself? What happens to you if you eat 2 extra blocks instead of one extra (i.e. 14 blocks)? How many hours per night do you sleep? [quote:63fc77701c]I started doing two sets of each exercise starting with the 14 day period. I saw an immediate strength gain benefit. The second set numbers are close to or exceed the first set numbers. It seems like the first set is just a warmup for me.[/quote:63fc77701c] Really curious to see how your progress goes with 2 or maybe even 3 sets... [quote:63fc77701c]My biggest problem now; as I am getting stronger, I am bruising my palms when pushing against the bar in some exercises (ouch!). I tried wrapping rubber mouse pads around the bar, but I need to spread the load out even further. The bar just concentrates too much force onto a small area of my palms.[/quote:63fc77701c] I don't really have any suggestions for this other than a good pair of gloves... sorry! Thanks again for sharing your progress in this awesome experiment and others ;) Pat

[quote:ef95f9c114="itsallaboutbalance"]Wow, your wife is near doubling her initial strength and she has not seen any increase in muscle mass (inches) nor LBM weight increase on the scale. You are 40% stronger and no increase in size or LBM weight either... That is surprising... Or as you said bordering on sc-fi :) Have you guys noticed benefits in everyday life (easier to get around, better overall shape & energy, easier to lift things, etc., etc...)? Still at 13 blocks for yourself? What happens to you if you eat 2 extra blocks instead of one extra (i.e. 14 blocks)? How many hours per night do you sleep? [/quote:ef95f9c114] My wife does most of the weed pulling around the house. I have noticed that she is a lot stronger in that regard. The weeds don't win anymore! I gain fat weight with more blocks. I should note that I went back to 12 blocks in mid Feb. when I noticed that I was starting to gain a couple of % of Body Fat after restarting my PGFO (after a washout period for the EE vs TG trial). Recently I noticed a drop of a couple of % so I started adding back a few extra fat blocks. That is how it goes, I add or subtract a couple of fat blocks to keep my BF at 13-15%. That is my gas pedal. We get about 7 1/2 hours of sleep a night. [quote:ef95f9c114] Really curious to see how your progress goes with 2 or maybe even 3 sets...[/quote:ef95f9c114] So far, when I tried 3 sets (if I could not match my previous weight with 2 sets), I could not come close to the first two sets, so I am sure that I have used up the strength on 2 sets. I have thought about doing 3, but I want to take things one step at a time, so I don't confuse what is causing progress with too many variables. I might have to make gloves with a rigid plate insert in the palms area to spread the load evenly over a large area.

[quote:e8d923a493="gofish"] My wife does most of the weed pulling around the house. I have noticed that she is a lot stronger in that regard. The weeds don't win anymore! I gain fat weight with more blocks. I should note that I went back to 12 blocks in mid Feb. when I noticed that I was starting to gain a couple of % of Body Fat after restarting my PGFO (after a washout period for the EE vs TG trial). Recently I noticed a drop of a couple of % so I started adding back a few extra fat blocks. That is how it goes, I add or subtract a couple of fat blocks to keep my BF at 13-15%. That is my gas pedal. We get about 7 1/2 hours of sleep a night. [/quote:e8d923a493] I've wondered two things: 1. If we can significantly add/gain muscle without adding fat and 2. If gaining muscles in the midsection affects BF% measurement. You know, as your ab muscles get stronger and bigger, does it increase the waist measurement and therefore BF% measurement......? I wonder if decreasing fat intake a little and increasing protein blocks to 14 per day would help build new muscle... Maybe you just have low testosterone or do not produce a big enough amount of growth hormone... Just a little awed by your increase in strength without increase in muscle size or weight... Also, can you give me more comment on the machine and its use for yourself so far... Do you like it? Are you happy with it and what it has brought to your life? Pat