I didnt mention that I have to warm up, but the point of the workout is to complete a heavy set.

People always overstate their level of fitness by several orders of magnitude on anonymous internet forums.

450 is almost the expectation for anyone casually lifting for a few years.

[0] https://strengthlevel.com/strength-standards/deadlift

A 315lb deadlift is obtainable within a month.

Ok, seriously.... math: if you eat 3000 kcal per day and lose 1 lb per week, you're burning 3500 kcal per day. This is quite a lot. It's near impossible unless you work out a lot and are veeeery muscular... or are impossibly tall... or, well, fat. (Or a combination of those.)

Take me for comparison: I am 187cm (6'1ish) tall and weigh 75kg (165 lbs), pretty much smack in the middle of the "normal weight" range. I like running, do about 50km (30 miles) per week. I count calories and let my wrist watch measure my energy expenditure 24/7. On rest days (mostly sedentary), I burn about 2100 kcal. To get up to 3400, I have to do some sort of hard run and some lighter activity in addition, or do a long run (18km+).

Now I'm not everybody of course, but you can't be that abnormal, right? So I'm not buying your numbers.

A serious endurance cyclist or swimmer will certainly go through 3000 kcal on a normal training day if not more.

I've burned an estimated 5000kcal daily on the bike for weeks. What's more is I know these numbers are very accurate as we train with power meters that record our energy expenditure with minimal error.

It's important to distinguish between serious athletes and average people who exercise. It's possible that truly competitive athletes - for instance, who run 120 miles a week to your 30 - will be much more likely to get ill from their efforts. It can take serious fitness - and a mentality acquired only by years of serious training - to push yourself to the extent that you fall ill, and maybe the recreational "athlete" described in this text can't reach that point.

Yes, running is extremely inefficient. The most efficient form of movement known is a human on a bicycle. One's choice depends on whether the goal is to burn calories, or travel efficiently.

I've burned an estimated 5000kcal daily on the bike for weeks.

Wait a minute, what? You're going to take the most efficient form of locomotion and use that as an example of how to burn calories? The only reason you burned that many calories is because you spent all day on the bike. Maybe I'm completely missing your point, but for time spent, running burns more calories.

This is not correct. They are relatively close, though in fact swimming on average will burn slightly less calories than running per hour of activity for most paces of comparative effort [0].

> I've burned an estimated 5000kcal daily on the bike for weeks

This is around 3.5 to 10 hours of cycling a day depending on your weight and speed... There is individual variation of course, but there is no way you are burning this many calories without A LOT of hours on the bike.

[0]: http://www.nutristrategy.com/caloriesburned.htm

"Each day participants ride, on average, about 100 miles and burn some 6,071 calories"

As a competitive, but still amateur cyclist I would do something in this ballpark almost every day. Hence 3000 - 5000 calories. And I'd often run for an hour or play soccer on top of this since I wasn't a pro.

I did spend a lot of hours on the bike, as serious athletes tend to do. Years of experience with myself and many other national caliber athletes tells me that we do in fact get sick from strenuous exercise, all the time.

This is a very bad baseline for an average athlete. You are referring to pro athletes in a race event who average 40-45km/hr speeds on a notoriously hilly race. They don't maintain this level of exertion during training season, and an average athlete is nowhere even close to it.

> As a competitive, but still amateur cyclist I would do something in this ballpark almost every day. Hence 3000 - 5000 calories.

If you bike 160km a day, then you're cycling 4 - 6 hours a day. My original statement that you're not burning that many calories without ALOT of hours on the bike is correct.

> I did spend a lot of hours on the bike, as serious athletes tend to do. Years of experience with myself and many other national caliber athletes..

It's very impressive if you're able to sustain >30hrs week of exercise for weeks as you mention, but be cautious to not sound elitist.

Put another way, an average cyclist will find a 2 hour bike ride to be an average ride but an average runner will consider a 2 hour run to be quite long.

Incorrect. My BMI is 21.4, which is almost exactly in the middle of the "healthy" range for my height. (Healthy BMI range is defined 18.5 - 25)

Oh you put a smiley, that makes it alright then!

EDIT: According to this chart, I probably burned around 600 kcal per hour:

http://www.nutristrategy.com/caloriesburnedwalking.htm

It took us about 8 hours, so the total was probably closer to 4800 kcal.

In any case, the point I'm trying to make is that it's easy to burn a lot more than 2000 kcal per day.

https://www.strava.com/segments/8428908

https://www.bettercheaperslower.com/ways/to-the-summit-of-mt...

Who's willing to be the truth is significantly lower still?

Since about 3 years I've been counting calories and let various wrist watches with 24/7 heart rate trackers (fitbit, later garmin devices) estimate energy expenditure.

So I measure energy in and out (with unknown error bars). The energy balance I get as a result predicts what my body weight should do.

My control is stepping on the scale every time before I take a shower, log, and observe trends.

Result, consistent over the last three-ish years: my measured weight does almost exactly what the calorie counting and wristwatch estimating predicts. I see absolutely no systematic error in one direction or the other (measured over weeks, that is, to do away with short term fluctuations).

If you're going in cold right to 450+, my back is scared for you.

In any case, I don't think the premise underlying this makes sense. Resistance training is for triggering muscle growth, not burning calories. Perhaps there's some biological reason why a 1 rep workout is effective for you, but I don't think the PE equation helps here.

But the problem statement begins with- You need to finish the gym in less than 2 hours/week.

I like strength training, especially 3x5s.

My workout looks closer to a 5/3/1/5 pyramid due to warmup and trying to burn myself out on the last set.

I'm glad you mentioned this, I'll play with the math this weekend and try to find a point of diminishing returns.

How many warm up sets do you do?

I thought using the potential energy equation gave me a little credentials.

I also wrote a book about this topic. But I didnt include it in the comment.

looks like mkirklions responded and really he does 5 sets with increasing weight, then does his heaviest.

So it is more like the classic "pyramid" or "increased weight until near-exhaustion" sets, which have been around since forever...

Working up to a deadlift max doesn't take a lot of time, or a ton of sets. Like, 4-6 sets of 3-4 reps.

Longevity and injury-prevention is key to long-term gym vitality... but people don't usually appreciate this until they injure themselves somehow.

<40-something lifter, out...>

1 heavy deadlift set usually means 15 minutes of warmups.

You cannot do 5x5 deadlift sets once you are past 4 plates.

Deadlift warmups at 45lbs, 135lbs, 225lbs, 315lbs, 405lbs, then heavy set 435lbs.

Bench is 45lbs, 135lbs, 190lbs(or whatever my workout buddy does), then 235lbs for my heavy set.

The goal is to do 2-3 since that means its good form. I am for 1 heavy set rather than 1 heavy rep.

Got a gym crew that probably takes the longest to put on my friends weights.

How high do you lift it?

How's your back?

Who's we? (can I join)

Day 1 Deadlift- 435 Bench- 235

Day 2 Squats-345 OHP-160

Back is surprisingly great, my first deadlift was only 90lbs. Ive come a long way.

Here is the cheatsheet I follow: http://efficiencyiseverything.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploa...

I suspect your weight loss may be due to the exercise affecting your eating patterns (if you eat high calorie food before going to bed you will likely gain more weight than if you get same calories in a sweet drink right after a long ski race; not sure why).

I don't think that's right. Eating a hypercaloric diet will likely gain you more weight, and hypocaloric will result in weight loss. It doesn't matter when you eat the food. Eating carbs or protein right after a workout is the subject of the nutrient timing, which is largely moot for protein (as long as you get enough during the 24 hours), and only important for carbs if you are an endurance athlete or have multiple workouts per day.