[Juan]

Lovely to hear! The doctor suggested a biopsy but i think i should avoid that becuse the risk. Btw are your albumin blood levels a bit low?

Albumin levels in blood for me are normal. For peace of mind, I personally would do the biopsy and an ultrasound and ask for constant monitoring. Your number is quite high but with no other sign of kidney damage is just a marker. You just want to make sure the bodybuilding lifestyle is not making the problem worse as time goes by. Get 2nd opinions if needed and err on the side of more tests if possible 🙂

[Juan]

I have actually. Not that high and no other sign of kidney damage at all based off bloodwork and kidney ultrasound. Have seen loads of doctors and nephrologists and seems to be genetic as my grandmother and uncle have it as well. They recommended just monitor every 3 months. It has actually surprisingly reversed a lot throughout the last few years yet I’m bigger and eating more protein than ever. Doctors have no explanation. Year round I do use good dose of astragalus, I’m extremely anal about blood pressure, and I’ve been on irbesartan which has been shown to reverse kidney damage if there is any.
It used to stress me out so much but now I just have to accept is all I can do is monitor all markers. Hope that helps as I know how frustrating it is to not have solid answers to this.

[Juan]

Thanks for all the great answers guys! Will be adding some hiit and higher intensity steady state ad opposed to lower intensity this offseason and see how body responds 🙂

[Juan]

Same for me when I shred 7-8 of mass for fat loss and comp my heart rate goes down to 50-60 and lower when am asleep . The first time it happened I was so new that I got scared lol – and yes if on gear and mass mode my rest heart the is anything lower than 70-75!

I think hit cardio and sprints (maybe just once or twice max per week ) mixed with liss is a good idea . You can do liss with 100-120 and hit shorter time with bursts to push diver 130-140.

Thanks so much bro!!! I was thinking of that option as well!

[Juan]

Hi Kristian!

I know exactly what you are talking about as many of my clients throughout the years (INCLUDING MYSELF) have dealt with this. One of the most amazing and easy fixes I have found for this is doing yoga. I truly believe every strength athlete (actually every athlete really) should do yoga. In bodybuilding it helps with posing, with stability, with mobility, with breathing, with relaxation, with awareness, with cardio and ultimately with strength.

I started doing videos by a gentleman named Travis Elliot on youtube as a way to do some active recovery and was shocked at how my pressing strength went up as a result due to the increased stability. I noticed results within about 2-3 weeks of doing yoga twice a week at about 25 minutes. The downward dogs and straight arm planks I would say have been the biggest factors to help with pressing strength.

I know doing yoga it is not as “Sexy” as ripping some heavy weight off the floor but I promise you will not regret it. I have been doing it about a year consistently now and as logn as I am a bodybuilder, I will not give it up as part of my routine as the benefits far outweigh the small amount of time commitment.

[Juan]

After you have dieted down for a comp, don’t repeatedly push up 60 pounds over your baseline weight , stick to 30 pound pushes and just be more patient . That’s it in a nutshell , I pushed my weight too fast and forced the food too hard

Thanks so much man! This is great advice and I will keep it in mind 🙂 Really appreciate it!

[Juan]

Hey buddy I think you the base idea us right but I don’t think you need to over complicate this.

Fasted blood glucose 3 x weekly once hydrated.

500mg metformin daily I prefer last off.

If BG rises use a base dose of Lantus.

You could also use insure a GDA Supp with higher carb meals.

Dependant on your current body composition also as if your holding too much Bodyfat you run the risk of insulin resistance. So make sure your keeping an eye on stress, fatigue management, body fat levels. 100% keep cardio in. And go from there.

Thanks so much to you and everyone else here for the awesome suggestions! ???

[Juan]

This is golden by friend thanks soooo much!!!!

[Juan]

Now my voice note isn’t there I think ffs

It’s not brother I’m so sorry to keep bothering you 🙁 I really appreciate all your effort!

[Juan]

I don’t think a slow concentric is horrible in terms of learning how to keep tension on a muscle if that’s what you struggle with. So in that aspect it can be helpful in the long-term of gains in my opinion if you implement them from time to time on the body part that you feel you don’t have a good connection with. But it’s really going to limit the loads you can use which are the main driver for hypertrophy. With control, the more explosive and aggressive the concentric the more motor units you will engage.
When it comes to eccentrics I am a big fan of a 2 to 4 second eccentrics in many exercises, especially when hitting lower rep ranges.

[Juan]

Hilly thanks so much for your repsknd as usual man. You are so helpful here. But I’m so sorry if you listen to your response there are lots of gaps in the audio where I cannot hear your voice at all 🙁 I want to know qhta you have to say so bad as i greatly value and respect your opinion!!! I’m so sorry to bother you with this but if you could please resend it? Thank you so much for your time!

[Juan]

I don’t think that a constant 2-4 rep range is ideal for progress.
When doing 20 reps for an exercise, it’s relatively easy to add 1 rep. However when doing sets of 2, adding 1 rep is going to take a considerable amount of progress.
For me personally, adding about 10kg total on a deadlift, means I could do 3 reps less. So let’s say that my goal is to DL 230kg, have a 2 rep max at 220, 5 rep max of 210 and 8 of 200. With this math, I need to be able to do 10 of 200 before I have a chance of pulling 1 230.
Keep training at 220 will definitely not have me see progress, but training at 200kg will.
An alternative would be to add fractions (those tiny 1.25kg plates) and make progress with these, but still not in the 2-4 rep range

That totally makes sense guys thanks so much I think I just get a little greedy I want the Progress so bad. I really appreciate both your answers!

[Juan]

I think that’s a personal decision man, risk vs reward. But if you know your at 80 without the GH and then that’s the only change and it goes up to 100 we’ll we know why. Now you have your “new baseline” for lack of a better term. So make sure that it doesn’t continue creeping up over time.
Simply put if you do this for a month and drop the GH for a week and fasting bg drops right back down again, no harm no foul in my opinion.
There’s ways you can move
Around dosage timing as wel if you are extremely concerned. For example if doing 2iu, potentially taking it pre workout will lead to least insulin resistance due to “burning off” some of the releases fats/carbs. Maybe not the best for growth though. Again, risk reward.
That being said, I haven’t even seen you list the GH dose your using.

Thanks so much for sharing your experience and thoughts with this man 🙂 really appreciate it and this is helpful.
I’m using 3 units a day of pharma.

[Juan]

I think we give ourselves to much credit thinking we can manage something with so many variables as far as our fluctuations in blood sugar throughout the day.

Remember one of the first actions of GH is to dump energy into the blood (fats,carbs). So an increase is absolutely expected.

I’m not saying just turn a blind eye but if you are training hard, keeping body fat respectable, and not abusing GH, I wouldn’t worry to much. Keep an eye on your HBA1C when doing bloodwork.

As far as the Lantus 8iu Is very minimal, will it take some burden of the pancreas, technically yes, do you need it? I would say depends on carb intake.

Thanks so much man I really appreciate that response! Hba1c was awesome on my last bloodwork round so that’s a good sign 🙂
I totally understand if you’re what you’re saying. That’s why I kind of want to know what other people feel are respectable numbers. Kind of like guidelines you know what I’m saying?
Like at what point does it get too high and not optimal in terms of health and nutrient partitioning? Thanks again man 🙂

[Juan]

Hey, I personally don’t understand why everyone checks their blood sugar so much. An optinal diet with good activity will ensure bs is in a good place. Eat aload of food and they will take time to recover etc. I personally couldn’t think of anything worse than checking my bs constantly. I think many over think bodybuilding today, zero of the best physiques of all time checked the bs. I think the additional knowledge we have today is actually counter productive and makes things more stressful, a good diet, training like a mad man, rest and moderate gear will do the job. Anyway that’s just my opinion and others may think differently I’m just old school. 8 iu is alot of gh, are you a super heavy weight Competitor?

Thanks so much for your response Ryan! I will disagree with 0 of the best physiques of all time checked their blood sugar. First of all that is subjective on what these physiques are, second of all many great IFBB pros and Olympia competitors talk about the importance of maximizing blood sugar for health and to have a great physique. Although you are right in the sense that many amazing physiques have been built without checking it.

The same way many great bodybuilders have had great health without ever checking their bloodwork and many great olympia competitors have gotten there without weighing their foods. But if you have the option to optimize something, why not? And we do know optimizing blood sugar is important to great health and absorption/partitioning of food.

If you read my post again, I am talking about starting with 8 ius of Lantus which is actually quite conservative and some may even see it as too low to make much of a dent, but I want to take the approach of use as little as possible ( I have used it in the past) and preferably none. I am a heavyweight competitor with the goal of being at the top of the weight class next time around.

Thanks again for your response!