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Wow it's already been four years since I joined this forum. Four years ago, I weighed 128lbs and I started learning about squats, deadlifts, bent-over rows, bench press and other barbell exercises.

Today I weigh 145lb but have 18% body fat. I'm 50yrs old, 5ft 7in. My waist is 34in, hips 35in.

My regular routine is
treadmill 20min - 4mph (5min at 5mph jog) heartrate from 155 to 168bpm (trying to look for that magic setting to keep the heartrate at approx 135bpm)

Squat - 145 to 185lb 5 reps each
Deadlift - 185 to 235lb 5 reps each
Bench Press - 135 to 155lb 5 reps each (to failure)
I mix these up with lower weights and reps at 12 to 8.

and a bunch of other exercises with the dumbbells
rows
shoulder press

I took a fitness test at the gym and the trainer said my body must be bored doing squats and deadlifts for so long. So she tested me with a couple of balancing exercises
1) one-leg squat using cable to keep me stable;
2) lunges with cable row on the opposite arm

She said if I keep my body fed at snacktime, and do stability exercises, initially I'll gain some weight but eventually my brain will recognize not to store the fat.

So I've replaced my squats with barbell lunges today (no weights), replaced my bench press with dumbell presses and replaced my bent-over row with dumbell row without the bench. Got too tired to do deadlifts.

I recognize I've reached my wall, but I don't want to give up barbell exercises.
1)Can anybody recommend stability exercises;
2)what do you think of the trainer's diagnosis;
3)and how to convert my belly into muscle mass.

Thanks

It's not your brain that determines whether to store calories as fat or muscle, it's the training stimulus, hormones and nutrients. If you're eating enough at meals, especially fat and protein, you don't need to snack between meals. However, there is some validity on her comment in that hunger can cause stress and that can raise cortisol which can cause increased abdominal fat storage. If you want to go into diet some more, maybe you could start a new thread in the diet section.

You can't "convert" fat to muscle. I'm going to assume that you and your trainer both know that.

Your body doesn't get "bored". It reacts to a stimulus and then adapts to be better prepared for it the next time. Eventually it stops adapting since, unless the stimulus changes, there's no need to. To keep improving you have to give your body new stimuluses and I think that's the point she was trying to make.

Instead of replacing basic exercises like squats, deadlifts, presses and pulls, just add in some additional single limbed exercises into your warmup or as finishers. It's harder to go heavy on these so it's harder to maintain your strength. You could also alternate unilateral and bilateral exercises from workout to workout.

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Let thy food be thy medicine, and thy medicine be thy food.~Hippocrates
Strength is the adaptation that leads to all other adaptations that you really care about - Charles Staley
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Thanks TimD

Some unilateral exercises that I do are:
Turkish get ups, single leg leg press, step ups, split squats, high kneeling squats, pistols, 1 armed dumbbell bench press, 1 arm dumbbell rows, standing 1 arm cable press, 1 arm high cable pull with external rotation, kettlebell cleans, presses, snatches, overhead carries, 1 hand barbell holds, suitcase lifts. I usually do each of these once or twice a month, maybe more for some.

_________________
Let thy food be thy medicine, and thy medicine be thy food.~Hippocrates
Strength is the adaptation that leads to all other adaptations that you really care about - Charles Staley
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Thanks TimD

This bothers me. This is the same idea as the adaptation to training I mentioned earlier. Your body will adapt to whatever you give it. If you try to keep your heartbeat at a steady pace, your heart will get very efficient at doing that. It will do it at the expense of being able to respond to peak demands. It's better to randomly challenge your heart to reach higher and higher rates. Your heart will respond by improving it's capacity, as will your lungs. You will also see fat levels drop and muscularity increase. That's why you see high intensity intervals and sprinting being recommended more and more. It works.

_________________
Let thy food be thy medicine, and thy medicine be thy food.~Hippocrates
Strength is the adaptation that leads to all other adaptations that you really care about - Charles Staley
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Thanks TimD

Stuart: Thanks. This is good information.

The underlying message is to put in variation (different stimulus).

I just checked those unilateral exercises on youtube and will add each of them one or two at a time for each session. As for the treadmill, I will also add some variation. I get different opinions about the heartrate. Target heartrate calculations say about 130bpm. But when I told my doctor I reached 168 without any pain or dizziness, he seemed ok with it. I know young athletes can maintain high rates for a long time. Others say treat the heart as a machine. As it gets older, no matter how well you care for it, don't overwork it. So that's confusing for me.

You need to ensure that your heart is up to whatever task it gets. There will be times of great stress and exertion that you have no control over and if your heart's weak, that's when you'll have a heart attack. If you progressively increase the stress during training, which is a controlled environment, you'll be better off in an uncontrolled environment, also know as real life.

_________________
Let thy food be thy medicine, and thy medicine be thy food.~Hippocrates
Strength is the adaptation that leads to all other adaptations that you really care about - Charles Staley
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Thanks TimD

I agree with everything Stu said! Especially about NOT removing the basic movements from your routine. You can do front squats in place of back squats for a while. Or do box squats part of the time. On bench you can have one day a week with DB presses, inclines, declines, vary grip width. But on the other day do standard bench. Similar on DL. Maybe replace standard DL with snatch-grip (wide) DL. Or have a day per week for some accessory lifts--deficit DL, RDL, etc. The unilateral moves can be good accessories, or can be your main exercise for a time, but come back to the standard form of the lift after a time.

You say that you sometimes increase the rep-range, and that's good. Instead of just doing it once in a while, you can do it for a few weeks at a time, then go back to 5s, or even try lower reps--3s, doubles, or even (gasp) singles.

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Our greatest fear should not be of failure, but of succeeding at things in life that don't really matter.--Francis Chan

it's the variety of solutions that makes program design fun for some and frustrating for others. It's a giant optimaization problem.

another idea you can add unilateral variations along side bilateral, say, as a drop off set, or part of the warm up for that move. Soemtimes, I'll have High Volume and Lower volume days. On HV days, I may do BB OH Press and add some seated one are DB press. On low volume, its BB press only with less reps/se @ higher intensity. I would likely hit each of these days once/week.

Doing bench press to failure as a one split routine, possibly several times a week conserns me. How often do you really mix up the volume and intensity?

But how do stability exercises get you gain more weight? I think Barbell compound lifts are way better for that job. And eating like hell. Lose fat and gain muscle. Stability exercises are not likely the best way to lose fat.

Still, lunges are a good exercise, I wouldn't still keep it as a major exercise, maybe assisting.

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Prove the impossible!

You've make great progress.

Stu, as always, have provided you with some great information.



Balance Testing

What the hell is the point of this? I don't see much reason for this normal individuals.



She Full of Crap

"...my brain will recognize not to store the fat."

This is one of the stupidist thing that I have ever hears.

Stabiltiy Exercises

Squats and deadlifts ARE functional stability exerices. That means they are movements you perform and use daily.

Squats

They enable you to get on and off the potty and off the sofa.

Deadlifts

They enable you to pick up trash off the floor, etc.

Quote:

So I've replaced my squats with barbell lunges today (no weights), replaced my bench press with dumbell presses and replaced my bent-over row with dumbell row without the bench. Got too tired to do deadlifts.

Changing Up Squats

Making changes to squats (any exercise) be simply done by changing your squat stance.

Wide To Narror Or Vise Versa

Moving your stance from a wide to a narrow, or vise versa turns it into a different exercise.

Chaning The Repetitions

Chaning up your repetitions changes the squat.

Bar Placement

Going from a high bar squat to a low bar position on your back, makes it another exercise.

Chocolate and Vanilla Ice Cream

Think of your squat (any exercise) as ice cream.

Chocolate and Vanilla are still ice cream but they have a diffrent flavor, they are different.

Squats, Chocolate or Vanilla

You can make it a different flavor by changing your stance, bar placment, repetitions, etc.

Lunges

Unilateral exercise certainly have a place in training, for a variety of reasons.

I use Step Up instead of Lunges along with squats.

Trainer's Dignosis

She is a bit clueless

Stu already addressed your other questions

Kenny Croxdale

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Thanks TimD.

I share the confusion. I suspect the doc's recommendation has a lot to do with defensive medicine, so I decided to take my chances and ignore it, and if it means I'm going to follow Douglas Adams, so be it. I routinely get to 90% of my max HR (which, BTW, is much higher than the calculated one) and I can keep it for quite some time.

But, of course, you have to decide for yourself.

Definitely was not expecting to ever see a reference to Douglas Adams on a strength training forum

I used to use the "Don't Panic" logo as my wallpaper once. Don't start talking about Doctor Who or Monty Python.

_________________
Let thy food be thy medicine, and thy medicine be thy food.~Hippocrates
Strength is the adaptation that leads to all other adaptations that you really care about - Charles Staley
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Thanks TimD

You should just randomly follow people around in the gym, do what they to and you will end up at your destination.

</end obscure Douglas Adams reference>

Doctor practicing defensive medicine? I'm shocked at this outlandish accusation! :)

Actually, I don't think that there has ever been any solid scientific evidence for the use of prescribed heart rates, except what sounded safe to someone. It's become so much a part of the background of what "everyone knows" that it's accepted blindly. I could be wrong. But I don't think so.

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Our greatest fear should not be of failure, but of succeeding at things in life that don't really matter.--Francis Chan