You're the high volume, high frequency guy with personal trainer credentials. You first. Are you muscular and ripped?
You would think someone with his kind of money could afford a good trainer. Might also consider those could be fake weights. They're all the rage now days. Big plates which are plastic exterior and Styrofoam interior. A 45 actually weighs about 2 lbs. Very big in crossfit and those obsessed with setting PR's for show on twitter and Instagram., with some logic behind it as those Olympic lifts require a large diameter plate to do safely, but there are armies of pretenders out there. Might be a few here too.
Already stated on the forum somewhere that I'm ripped and muscular (visible, defined abs, visible defined back muscles etc) but I could do with another 10-20 pounds of lean mass. Finding it hard to put it on. Probably due to free testosterone levels being at the lower end of the range (my SHBG is insanely high).
Perhaps we have different interpretations of ripped and muscular. No, I don't consider myself "ripped and muscular." You said you were 5'8" and weighed 130 pounds. I'm short, just under 5'4", say 5'3.5". And I weigh just over 130 pounds. Last year, the InBody scale measured me at 13.2% body fat. My frame, according to wrist and elbow measurements, is on the border of small and medium. At what was probably my peak, in the '90s, I actually hit 150 pounds. But it was for a very brief period of time. Either not long before or soon after (I don't remember exactly), when I weighed in the mid-140s, my gym estimated my body fat at 7%. (This was the Dunfield Club on Eglinton, just east of Yonge in Toronto, if anyone here is familiar with it.) This was with calipers, so I know it was only a rough estimate at best. But I had an impressive 6-pack, better than what I have now, and I was asked very occasionally if I was on steroids. Admittedly, the people who asked didn't really know what they were talking about, since if I stood next to an actual steroid user, I'd look like a "before" picture. But compared to anyone with an average build, I would have made a pretty good "after" photo. I will admit that I was into fairly high volume for someone who didn't do drugs. I worked out 3 times a week with an ABA routine, and I did as much as 12 sets for larger muscle groups, so that averaged 18 per week. The workouts were at least 2.5 hours long, and included 30 minutes of cardio. I was stupid. (Between December 1993 and December 1996, I worked in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. For 2 of those years, I worked out at King Fahd Coastal City Gym. The gym manager actually asked me to participate in a local bodybuilding competition that was to take place. I declined, and rightly so, because not too long after, within a matter of days or so, I saw a couple of guys at the gym who were obvious steroid users and who would have made me into a "before" picture. Guy's gotta know his limitations. ) I maintained that routine and similar volumes until 2005, when I decided to do whole body twice a week. I was still in the lower to mid-140s and I still held on to too much volume. But it became too much for me to handle. It felt like too much well before then, but it eventually became unsustainable. It was in 2012 that I went to whole body 3 times a week but with considerably less volume. And after that I slowly began ratcheting down both the volume and frequency. So, yeah, I lost weight and size, but I'm also 60 now and whereas I could get away with too much exercise, and eating almost anything within reason when I was younger, I have to be more circumspect now. Don't worry, you'll find out for yourself in due course. You'll still be able to go hard, even all out, just not as often and you'll need more time to recover. Consider the parallel with heavy partying in your youth. Regarding the volume and frequency thing, I may well be underdoing it now for all I know. But I was certainly overdoing it then. I suspect I began reducing the volume/frequency when the body begins to experience an inevitable drop-off, so to speak, so I think I would have begun to lose some size anyway. And if I tried to maintain my old volume, I'd have probably been ground to dust by now. But I will note that reducing my frequency from twice a week to once a week with the reduced volume did not meaningfully alter my body composition. And so, do I want to increase the effort by 100% for a couple of percentage points, if that? Hell, no. And, if I may say so, I still look better and work harder than anyone even close to my age in the gym and most of the people there half my age. I have a pretty good "V" especially when I have a pump going, and I can see my abs in the mirror when I tuck in my t-shirt. And I still get the occasional compliment. But no one asks if I'm on steroids anymore.
Just a point of clarification. When I went to full body 3 times a week with reduced volume in the spring of 2012, it was around there that I started to lose a bit of weight. I also changed my diet, so that may have contributed. I then went to twice a week at the beginning of 2015, and found little or no difference in composition or strength. I think it was in 2016 that I started experimenting with 3x/2wks, and then finally once a week. I then went back to twice a week and then, in June of 2017, I went to once a week and remained there ever since. I won't pretend that I got stronger and, in fact, my pull ups and dips suffered very slightly mostly as a result of an injury in my left shoulder, which I sustained in the spring of 2013, when I was doggedly trying to pull a window out of its frame during spring cleaning. (Momentum!) That shoulder has not been the same since, but it has gotten better. It still requires me moving it around in a certain way for a second or two before each set, especially for pushing exercises. So I believe that was the cause of a slight drop-off in strength. Anything beyond that was almost negligible. Also, while chest and leg measurements remained the same since I measured them in December 2014 before reducing frequency from 3x/week to 2x/week, my arms have lost almost a quarter inch since that time. (Despite repeated measuring, hoping it was measurement error. But no.) I can't attribute that decrease in size to the shoulder injury, since that injury occurred about 1.5 years before the first measurement in December 2014. So I imagine any loss in size due to the injury and the associated weakening would have already been present by then. Okay, Visaria?
Absolutely. A lot of history there! Would i be fairly accurate in saying that the years in which you did your 2.5 hr workouts was when you built up muscle and as you switched down into lower frequency, that generally maintained to slightly reduced your mass?
Sure, but you need to put it into context. I had more muscle mass when I was younger. By the time I began reducing, the volume had gotten to be overwhelming. I had regular bouts of joint pain, I often had insomnia and I was tired on most days. It was not sustainable. I was no longer a young man, and hadn't been one for a while -- I was approaching my mid-50s. So the question is, would I have started to get smaller irrespective of the change in volume? Almost certainly. Admittedly, I cannot ascertain what role, if any, the reduction in volume had in my diminished size. But the point is moot. The volume at intensity to positive failure was no longer sustainable. I will say this, though: if I could do it all over again, I'd do it differently. I wish I had the presence of mind to do what Arthur Jones suggested. To paraphrase, Rather than see how much exercise you can tolerate, try to figure out how little you actually need (to get pretty much the same outcome). I think I would have saved myself a lot of time and grief if I had adopted that mindset a few decades ago. Also, please keep in mind the clarification I made in my previous post. Yes, I reduced overall volume in 2012. And I lost some size as explained above. But from that point until the end of 2014, I had been working out whole body 3 times a week. That is when I took the 3 measurements (chest, leg, and arm circumference). I subsequently reduced both workout volume and frequency (to one-third!) with little if any difference in size or strength.
Fair enough, I see what you mean. A decent trade off. Kudos to you. For myself I'll carry on at 4x a week, full body workouts. They take me just over 1 hr each time which is ok. When i'm older, i may reconsider.