Intro
 

Hi guys, new here so thought I'd introduce myself. I'm a 38 year old male 6'3" and 245lbs at around 14% bodyfat. I'd like to get down to 8% by Christmas. I'd like some opinions on my nutrition.

I've set up my diet as follows: 4 meals per day each consisting of 50g protein, from meat /eggs/fish, 50g fat from before mentioned foods/olive oil/nuts/fish oil and about 250g veggies. I also have a couple of pieces of fruit during the day.

Training wise, I have rugby sessions on Tue and Thu which are pretty tough and a match on Sat. I do low(ish) volume full body weights on Sun and Wed.

Do you feel that 8% is doable given this plan?

Cheers,

Keith

Sounds like a good set of nutritional guidelines. The only thing that I'd be wary of is adequate nutrition for recovery from your rugby sessions and matches. That's going to be a take it as it comes process if you feel like death after a week and your sleep and everything else is good then you might have to up your food a bit.

With that many practices I'd say the only thing else to to look at what you do on the 2 days you have availible to train. What do you currently do those 2 days?

Will you be playing rugby up until Christmas?

Thanks for the reply Allen. I'm a bit concerned about recovery too, but the nutritional guidelines are obviously a starting point.
The 'other' two days are off days, although I do stretch and do mobility work on a daily basis.

Keith

I meant your 2 full body training days.

Weights sessions are geared towards maintaining the strength qualities and muscle developed during the off season. Sunday is typically a higher rep, muscle maintenance day, something like:

step ups
incline db bench
incline db rows
face pulls
neck ext with harness
neck flex with harness

all for 2 sets of 8-12 reps.
Wednesday is more of an explosive strength/maximal strength maintenance day. Typically:

hang cleans
front squats
chins
presses
shrugs
ext rot

The cleans are done for 3x3, squats, chins, presses are 2x5, shrugs and ext rotation 2x8-12.

If I feel my conditioning is droping I'l add in some complex work on Wed, usually for 5 or 6 rounds.

Keith

Nice looking program.

I live in the UK so I'll be playing right through until April. Something like 30-35 matches depending on how the cup competitions go.

Keith

Speaking of rugby, where did James Evans go?

Keith,

What league do you play in? Which position do you play?

Also, is 8% bodyfat quite low of a rugby player? I appreciate the old days of fat old men playing rugby are past but you do not see too many lean players.

Hi Chris, I coach the team I play for. I live in Northern Ireland and we play in qualifying section 2 of the kukri league. It's a pretty good standard, just 1 league below senior rugby.
I play number 8, and when I played at top level I played at 260-265lbs carrying aroung 8% bodyfat. Now I'm 'getting on' in years I can't carry so much muscle and comfortably play, so I figured coming down to the lower bodyfat at around 225-230lbs is a good compromise.

Keith