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Comment by madeuptempacct | Hacker News Reader

I can't handle more than 3 days a week at the gym. I do my main lifts only once a week or I don't recover, but I am still getting stronger on my program. I have been lifting for more than a decade though.

I do cardio and lift on the same day, I also can't run every day or I don't feel great.

On off days, I just walk and do minor accessory stuff. Can't imagine lifting like this every day.

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I believed I was susceptible to overtraining for most of my life. N=1 and all that, but I made an effort to consume more protein and switched to a higher volume program and have had much better results (and I bike to work ever day).

One important aspect is that I de-load every couple of weeks when the volume starts to really wear on me. (I’m also vegetarian.) Most of my “program” is from Charles Poliquin’s writings.

I thought I was, too, until I committed to 2 hours a day, 6 days a week. After maybe a month of this I completely stopped being sore and it was tremendously beneficial to my overall health, even years after I dialed it down (2 hours got to be too much). I get sore now after working out but I no longer have the back, neck, and hand pain I used to have.

It depends on what training do you do and your personal recovery capabilities. You can do 7 days a week low intensity (in sense of resistance, not necessary cadence) cardio, no problem, but I don't know anyone who do can do high intensity weight training (as Mike Mentzer's and Arthur Jones defined it) that often and for that long.

What kind of training do you do, which exercises? I'm mainly asking because I too want to avoid "back, neck and hand pain" as I get older.

How much are you eating? I used to have similar troubles with recovery until I realized that I just wasn’t eating nearly enough to train at the volume I was. For me, adding two cups of Greek yogurt and a protein shake every day (so roughly 500 calories and 50 grams of protein over what I was eating before) made an enormous difference.

I am eating 90 grams of protein @ 190 lbs body-weight with a pretty low fat %.

More anecdata: I aim for 125g per day, 1800 calory target, at 138 lbs/5’ 5” and can lift strong every day. I usually take a “rest” week (calisthenics and 3-7 miles of walking) every other month when I travel somewhere.

That seems crazy high to me, but maybe I am just too used to my own thing and should try upping it.

It depends on your goals. I’m trying to gain muscle. 90 isn’t bad for maintenance in my case. Some folks would say I’m low as the recommendation is as high as 1.1g of protein per lb to gain.

Way too low. Try doubling it (not kidding). If you’re worried about calories, reduce your carbs.

Everything I read says .5 - .75g protein / lb of bodyweight for lifters. Maybe I will do more research.

Your number may (may) be a bit low but the number I settled on after researching it extensively was 1g / lb of lean mass.

Yeah, that tends to be around the consensus.

This is what my strength coach recommends.

Yeah, way too low. Shoot for at least 0.8g / lb.

as others have said, that does seem pretty low. I am 220lbs (tallish at 202 cm) and was eating about 120g. When I increased it to 175g I found my recovery was much better and and even though I was increasing my weekly distances (I run ultras for fun!), I wasnt getting any nagging overuse injuries. I try to get most of my protein from food rather than powders, but found it hard not to cheat a bit with whey, hemp and pumpkin in the mornings mixed in with my coco-puffs :)

Protein powder is essentially powdered milk. I don't think you can really 'cheat' with it, it's just 'food' :)

Random pro-tip: unflavoured whey powder goes into just about anything (and is 150% less gross than I thought it was before I tried it).

I get the unflavored whey too, and personally, I can be quite mercenary / practical about my food when I need to :) But I am a bit suspicious as to the bio-availability of these powders. Are the proteins really as good (or even good enough) as compared to actual food sources ? Quality also seems to vary immensely from what I have read. My intuition tells me 30g of protein from chicken breast and not the "restructured" stuff which is jacked with soy[1] is probably better than 30g of whey.

1 https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/marketplace-chicken-fast-fo...

I think I personally handle high volume well genetically, but I also haven’t been lifting as long and am probably moving a lot less weight than you are.

(For context, my squat max is 335, and my deadlift max is 405. Not bad, but nothing near competitive.)

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