Subject: RE: Muscle gains while training Originally posted by Ericaonelove Hi! New here. I am training for the ironman in may, and I'm trying hard to gain muscle, keep weight, while training 2 hours a day. I weight train every day, but I wondered if my schedule isn't ideal. I workout at 4:30 am then try to run 5 miles. I then swim at night. I tried lifting before swimming in the evening, and it was no good. I had no energy to swim, and my muscles were very tired. I'm 5'7" 135 lbs and eating about 2400 calories. Suggestions? I was a skinny runner for 30 years before switching to Triathlon. weight as a runner was 160-165. Three years into Triathlon my body fat is percent is down a few points from where it was as a pure runner but and my weight is 168-172. I don't do a lot of weight training but the instructor of my health 101 class in college did and she said that the rule of thumb was to work larger group of muscles before working on isolated muscles. So...following that rule of thumb you would want to do your running or swimming before your weight raining. When I ran track for my university we always did weights after our runs and never before. You may have more energy is you lift after your work out. Rather than trying to swim on fatigues muscles. I am 6'0", and I burn about 1000 calories and hour. If I were working out two hours a day I would be burning 2000 calories during work outs and then another 2000+ for the rest of my activities of the day going 1500+ calories in deficit every day. I am on a 3500-4000 calorie diet, doing and average of 7-8 hours of training a week but I have 35 lbs on you so I don't know how the calories adjust, but 2500 calories would starve me. :-) I try to get 35 grams of Carbs consumed with in 30 minutes of any hard work out to help with recovery so i am not tired for the next work out. You may need to look at your post run refueling if you are tired for you run later in the day. So...1) assuming you are in your 20's or 30's you should be about to gain some muscle just from adding multi sports activities that you weren't doing before.If you are over 45 years old you may be to ware building muscle with be very difficult and about all you can do is slow its deterioration. 2) Try lifting after work out vs before. 4) make sure you are taking in more calories that you are consuming if you want to gain weight. 3) Make sure you are refueling properly after work outs (and through out the day) so you aren't tired for afternoon work out. |