What's the best way to train someone who's just endured 3 months of starvation?

[vinylgroover]

I'm with The Machine.

Launching stright back into heavy compound stuff will not do him much good. Maybe he could even start back with some light machine work just to get his body and muscles attune to training again.

If he was on a starvation regimen, he would have lost alot of muscle, so i think he needs to get slowly back into some conditioning work before launching into heavy training.

 

[kronk]

Ideally you would get him to train just like the rest of us on this board. If he wants to gain mass on his upper body he needs to incorporate a variety of heavy resistance exercise for his full body (legs included). There's nothing wrong with pullups, situps and pushups as long as they are weighted heavy enough that he can't do more than 6-10 reps per set. But he should be throwing in some squats, deads, rows and/or olympic presses too.

Well said.

What is his diet like?

 

[Gladiola]

hmm, well if he were in starvation mode, after he was able to eat as much as he likes, it makes perfect sense that his body would put on lots of fat. Fat is stored energy, we have it to live off of in the event that we don't get enough food. Whereas muscle uses up energy - it's expensive to your body.

So now that his body is NOT in starvation mode, it will definitely want to hang on to that fat!!! I would agree to be sure to get at LEAST 6 meals per day, probably more snacking, at least some food every 2 hours. Also not doing anything too strenuous - isolated movements - working out like someone totally out of shape (machines, bands, etc.).

Once he feels like his metabolism has balanced back out, he can train like anyone else to "Bulk up" his chest & shoulders. Unfortunately the bulk he wants there may not be in line with army training - they train for muscular endurance (over 15 reps at once) - which works the slow twitch muscle fibers, MUCH smaller than the fast twitch - which work in the strength range. So sets of 6-10 for his chest, shoulders, & upper back will not help him AT ALL when it comes to Army workouts.

I wouldn't recommend trying to lose fat & gain muscle at the same time, especially now that his metabolism has crashed. Get the metabolism back, then bulk, then cut.

 

[MS]

Well there you have it. You couldn't get more conflicting advice!

I certainly agree with Gladiola. His body is no longer in starvation mode. But now that he's got some fat back on him and wants to gain muscle, I would opt for compound stuff (like THeMaCHinE said, leave out the isolation work for now). When I say heavy, it's all relative. If he's weak from overtraining/under-recovering then his 'heavy compound moves' may be very light to begin with. He has to take things at his own pace and listen to his body. Back off the training if he's not recovering adequately. But high reps (more than 15) is not gonna cut it in the long term. He might want to look into something like HST (Hypertrophic Specific Training). This starts out with 2 weeks of reasonably low intensity, high rep weights and then graudally increases the weights while decreasing the reps. Workouts are 3 times per week and almost never to 'failure'. Should be relatively easy on his joints, tendons and CNS to begin with.

 

[circusgirl]

You might find some info checking out the Minnesota Starvation Study from just after WW2. The army put a bunch of guys on 1000 cals a day for a year. They were also monitored for 6 months after that. I'm assuming the army wanted them back in fighting shape afterwards so there should be info on the training they did etc after the study on sites that describe it.