One thing I have learned is that you can't really pay attention to the appearance of your body on a program like this as it's the fastest demotivator there is. Eating 3000+ calories a day is a caloric surplus that simply will not burn body fat, and even tends to create small amounts of new fat each week. Therefore any muscular development I have obtained is only known by touch, and I am otherwise just bigger with the same (if not higher) body fat percentage as ever before. Knowing that I will be able to burn this off at the end of my journey to reveal my efforts is the light at the end of the tunnel.
When I come home for break next weekend, we'll go and see if we can't work on some upper body stuff with declines. I might break you from your regular routine or just have you do an extra day with me, but there's some stuff we can play around with.
As for your diet, I can talk to you about it a little better about it in person, but as a kind of basic guide: The Chili from Wendy's is probably okay, has a lot of salt, the hamburger and sandwiches I would skip. It also destabilizes your diet a little bit too. You're eating enough, but changing the timing of your meals will help minimize fat intake.
You should shoot for the majority of your protein intake post-workout, meaning you want your carbs (and peanut butter fat) in the morning, before you workout. So what I would suggest is you take things with you that you can eat at work:
Wheat bread, wheat pasta, wheat pita (good with a few tablespoons of peanut butter on it), wheat crackers, fruit (banana, apple), vegetables (carrots, salad), whole wheat bagel.
These foods require relatively low preparation, they are mostly grab and go. If you eat a good breakfast too it helps stave off hunger. Good breakfast meals are shredded wheat, all-bran cereal, eggs, hash brown (home made). I'd pick two of those and eat them.
That way when you get home you can have time to make chicken and lean cuts of beef after your workout, your protein shake, and some cottage cheese.
So a sort of meal plan:
Morning:
Shredded Wheat
2-3 Eggs
10 PM Snack:
Apple
Lunch:
Wheat pita with 2 tablespoons peanut butter
1-2 cups wheat pasta
Some protein (You could opt to have your chili here)
3 PM Snack:
Wheat crackers, carrots
When you get home from work you can eat something light, such as a banana, but now with your carbs out in the morning it will be able to more readily use the protein to repair muscle and offset DOMs. This sort of methodology helps prevent water retention, bloating, and has been shown to decrease fat absorption in the body.
Otherwise, good work, and thanks for the shout out in your post.
Good/bad news. My clothes are starting to get too small, particularly around my chest and thighs. I just did some fall shopping about 6-7 weeks ago, and it's already time to swap these perfectly-good clothes out. :sad2:++:rolleyes2
So it's off to the mall this weekend to buy some new jeans and revamp my wardrobe.
I mixed up my programming by swapping shoulders from Thursday with abs on Tuesdays. This should allow for superior performance on my chest/shoulder days where I have typically struggled with bench due to tired deltoids.
When I read your blog I saw there myself as a teenager. It's now been over 20 years from my resurrection, and I can say with confidence that every hour consumed at gym is worth it. Keep on the good work, mate!
If you like, I could give you some hints/comments on your exercising for future reference:
In general, if you feel good with this program, you should definitely go on with it, although it is maybe not the most efficient and even if it gets criticised.
Since you are a beginner, and lived most of your life without exercising, the most important is to increase body awareness, especially innervation of the muscles. I know it sounds lame because everybody would like to get immediately a perfect body, but you need to look years forward, not weeks or even months. After a year you will be in better position in your development when you have a slow and sturdy start than if you'd try to achieve too much too fast.
Anyway, within a year your development with this program slows down to an extent you might get frustrated. Then it's time to change gear.
Firstly, more and more learn to listen to your body. It's not the schedule or program that you should obey but the progression of your body: when it aches or is tired, rest or exercise lighter; when you feel energized, give you body hell... Human body is not a machine: routines, schedules and programs are just guidelines. It is good to follow the guidelines rigidly in the beginning to adapt to the way of life, but when you have learned to listen to your body, do what it says.
One thing to understand about development, which applies to everything, is that it is not steady in the long run. Strength develops step-wise: sometimes you are able to increase weights, but then you might have to decrease weights for several weeks, until you feel strong enough to increase weights again. The key to the development is that the phase of the cycle, when you have a burst of energy, must be exploited for using bigger weights than no man has used before... At least you should feel that way
Also every once and a while some variations of the program are needed to avoid jamming of the development.
As your innervation improves, you can concentrate on main exercises (=exercises with free, big weights) and reduce the portion of supportive exercises (=exercises with machines, small weights or one arm/leg). Strength and muscles grow with big weights. Also highly targeted exercises for single muscles are useless, actually worthless, unless you are a professional bodybuilder.
Then, everybody of course knows the importance of stretching, but not all truly understand how it should be done.
There is no use to stretch the muscles on the same day as they have been trained, assuming that the training has been hard enough for development. Actually, hard stretching after hard training would just do more damage to muscle fibers, and prolong the healing process. The most important time for stretching is a couple of days after training, when the energy stores of the muscles have been filled up (not completely though) and anabolic phase, i.e. building of muscle fibers, has begun. Because the fibers grow in width the stretching prevents the fibers end up stiffer. Also, hard stretching at this phase gives boost for anabolic process. The stretching must begin with some warm-up, start softly but slowly progress to pain treshold and beyond...
Now, one might think that I'm here talking about training for serious power lifting. Why should a regular guy aiming merely for a more aesthetic body care about serious muscle training? Well, the key word is "more" - which implies to development, and obviously the goal is also to change the life style for good, and not just temporarily.
Following and understanding the natural development cycle(s) of your own body is crucial for long term development, and avoiding overtraining and even injuries.
And then just one special thing: everybody, I mean everybody, end up having knee problems with squat when the weights increase unless the technique is correct. I highly recommend spending some time studying of wide-stance squat, google "squat rx", although you wouldn't be aiming for a power lifter. kthxbye!
Nomad and I worked out today, and I had one hell of a day. I overcame my flat bench plateau, did 25 lbs more on my decline bench than I've ever done on my flat, and owned the **** out of a burnout set that drops from 160 to 45 pounds over 30+ consecutive reps.
I've also altered my programming even more by completely dropping cable crossovers on Thursday, picking up decline bench and skullcrushers in the process. Also, I'm spreading my ab work by placing one on each day, and dropping Romanian situps for rope crunches. So now my Thursdays look (and performed) like this ('cept for plank, which goes to Tuesday):
Thursday (10/16):
Flat Benchpress: 3x8 @ 140 (Rep goal met)
Rope Crunch: 3x8 @ 120 (NEW)
Decline Benchpress: 3x5 @ 155 (NEW, did 165 but want to keep it safe w/o a spot)
Dips: 3x7/5/3 @ 15 lbs (My pecs/tris were punished after that much bench)
Incline Benchpress: 3x5 @ 100 (Shifted rep goal for more weight)
Skullcrushers: 3x8 @ 20
Plank: 75 seconds (2x75 in the future)
Also, I attribute my new-found success to narrowing my bench grip and finding the proper target on my chest when bringing the barbell into the hole.
And after two months, I officially weigh 181 eight hours after my last meal and a morning #2. ~184lbs after a night of endless feasting. That's +10 lbs of lean mass in 8 weeks. My body fat has changed very little, and I can tell this by the way my hands look (weird, I know, but it's an indicator for me). As a result, I'm up from a small to a medium in shirts and added +2-3" to my waist.
If you haven't looked into the bio impedance bodyfat gizmo's I recommend them. They're inaccurate to a degree but they're consistently inaccurate so you can track a trend. If you have a concrete bodyfat number you can break down your weight gain farther and fine tune your diet that much easier. You're trying to gain, so you can keep adding food and watching your gains and if you start picking up more fat than lean mass you can ease off the calories a bit. Likewise if you're still picking up mostly lean mass add more calories.
They're pretty helpful and a little more precise than the appearance of your paws! =)
I actually need to buy new fat calipers. Perhaps not as simple as an impedance scale, but certainly more accurate. My last calipers broke, bleh.
Actually they're all about the same accuracy wise. The impedance scales and handhelds are just easier to use in my opinion. The real benchmark for checking your fat level is to be weighed underwater but thats neither convenient nor easily accomplished or funded last I looked.
I was wondering which at home method was better too and then I read an article saying as far as accuracy they're all somewhat lacking, but they are all consistent, and thats the big thing.
Actually they're all about the same accuracy wise. The impedance scales and handhelds are just easier to use in my opinion. The real benchmark for checking your fat level is to be weighed underwater but thats neither convenient nor easily accomplished or funded last I looked.
I was wondering which at home method was better too and then I read an article saying as far as accuracy they're all somewhat lacking, but they are all consistent, and thats the big thing.
Calipers, when properly used, are the most accurate measurement short of hydrostatic testing, but a consistently reliable barrier is more important.
Thrax you go man! You're inspiring and I like the accountability in posting your activities.
Thankfully, I've never been really out of shape but I hear you on the skinny fat thing. I think I've got a different body composition than you, though. I have no problem with gaining or maintaining muscle. I can also see my abs but I really want to cut them up.
One night the wife and I saw P90x on TV. We're going to do it. Ya, I hit the gym 2 to 3 times a week and eat decently, but I think the nutrition in P90x and the regular workout routines will get my body where I want it to be.
I'll keep reading the thread for your progress. Hey! Where's the pics?
Ummm and that would be the first time I asked for pics of a man.
11/6 I bailed because my back hurt, and on 11/8 I could only do half my routine due to sudden exhaustion and the feeling that I was going to vomit everywhere.
It's been a bad week.
0
BlackHawkBible music connoisseurThere's no place like 127.0.0.1Icrontian
11/6 I bailed because my back hurt, and on 11/8 I could only do half my routine due to sudden exhaustion and the feeling that I was going to vomit everywhere.
It's been a bad week.
How was your diet on the pukey day? I find if you push really hard on big compound exercises and you haven't been eating well its very easy to hit that 'im gonna ralph' point.
Some people think if they don't yack in a bucket doing squats they didn't push hard enough. I think its possible to get a good workout short of vomiting but thats me.
Keep going Rob. I have those days as well, it just depends on what you have done in the day previous. Some days I am just so tired but I fight on because I am committed to doing this. You are a good example of the determination needed. I am in it to win in with ya mate
Comments
Bench press: 3x6/6/5 @ 140lbs
Lateral Dumbbell Raise: 3x10/8/8 @ 15
Dips: 3x8+10
Incline bench: 3x8 @ 100lbs 7/7/6
Cable Crossovers: 3x10 @ 50lbs 10/8/6
Barbell Shoulder Press: 3x8 @ 90lbs 8/8/6
okay day, I guess.
A rewrite of my introductory post with new information and a new closing.
When I come home for break next weekend, we'll go and see if we can't work on some upper body stuff with declines. I might break you from your regular routine or just have you do an extra day with me, but there's some stuff we can play around with.
As for your diet, I can talk to you about it a little better about it in person, but as a kind of basic guide: The Chili from Wendy's is probably okay, has a lot of salt, the hamburger and sandwiches I would skip. It also destabilizes your diet a little bit too. You're eating enough, but changing the timing of your meals will help minimize fat intake.
You should shoot for the majority of your protein intake post-workout, meaning you want your carbs (and peanut butter fat) in the morning, before you workout. So what I would suggest is you take things with you that you can eat at work:
Wheat bread, wheat pasta, wheat pita (good with a few tablespoons of peanut butter on it), wheat crackers, fruit (banana, apple), vegetables (carrots, salad), whole wheat bagel.
These foods require relatively low preparation, they are mostly grab and go. If you eat a good breakfast too it helps stave off hunger. Good breakfast meals are shredded wheat, all-bran cereal, eggs, hash brown (home made). I'd pick two of those and eat them.
That way when you get home you can have time to make chicken and lean cuts of beef after your workout, your protein shake, and some cottage cheese.
So a sort of meal plan:
Morning:
Shredded Wheat
2-3 Eggs
10 PM Snack:
Apple
Lunch:
Wheat pita with 2 tablespoons peanut butter
1-2 cups wheat pasta
Some protein (You could opt to have your chili here)
3 PM Snack:
Wheat crackers, carrots
When you get home from work you can eat something light, such as a banana, but now with your carbs out in the morning it will be able to more readily use the protein to repair muscle and offset DOMs. This sort of methodology helps prevent water retention, bloating, and has been shown to decrease fat absorption in the body.
Otherwise, good work, and thanks for the shout out in your post.
Pullups: 3x5/4/3 (No improvement in total reps)
Deadlift: 2x8 @ 185 (+10)
Barbell Curl: 3x10/9/8 @ 75lbs (+5 lbs)
Dumbbell Curl: 3x10/8/6 @ 35lbs (-0/-2/-4 reps. Fail.)
Lat Pulldowns: 3x9/8/8 @ 95lbs (+1 rep improvement)
Barbell Row: 3x8/7/6 @ 115lbs (-1 total rep)
Mixed bag of a day.
So it's off to the mall this weekend to buy some new jeans and revamp my wardrobe.
Tuesday (10/14):
Leg Press: 3x10 @ 215lbs (+15 lbs)
Barbell Shoulder Press: 3x7/7/7 @ 90lbs (Missed rep goal again)
Squats: 3x8 @ 180lbs (+10 lbs)
Hamstring Curls: 3x8/7/5 @ 105 (Missed rep goal)
Calf Raises: 3x8 @ 135 (+15 lbs)
Lateral DB Raise: 3x10 @ 15 (Finally, consistent performance! Changing the programming helped)
Plank: 2x75 seconds (keeping here for a while)
If you like, I could give you some hints/comments on your exercising for future reference:
In general, if you feel good with this program, you should definitely go on with it, although it is maybe not the most efficient and even if it gets criticised.
Since you are a beginner, and lived most of your life without exercising, the most important is to increase body awareness, especially innervation of the muscles. I know it sounds lame because everybody would like to get immediately a perfect body, but you need to look years forward, not weeks or even months. After a year you will be in better position in your development when you have a slow and sturdy start than if you'd try to achieve too much too fast.
Anyway, within a year your development with this program slows down to an extent you might get frustrated. Then it's time to change gear.
Firstly, more and more learn to listen to your body. It's not the schedule or program that you should obey but the progression of your body: when it aches or is tired, rest or exercise lighter; when you feel energized, give you body hell... Human body is not a machine: routines, schedules and programs are just guidelines. It is good to follow the guidelines rigidly in the beginning to adapt to the way of life, but when you have learned to listen to your body, do what it says.
One thing to understand about development, which applies to everything, is that it is not steady in the long run. Strength develops step-wise: sometimes you are able to increase weights, but then you might have to decrease weights for several weeks, until you feel strong enough to increase weights again. The key to the development is that the phase of the cycle, when you have a burst of energy, must be exploited for using bigger weights than no man has used before... At least you should feel that way
Also every once and a while some variations of the program are needed to avoid jamming of the development.
As your innervation improves, you can concentrate on main exercises (=exercises with free, big weights) and reduce the portion of supportive exercises (=exercises with machines, small weights or one arm/leg). Strength and muscles grow with big weights. Also highly targeted exercises for single muscles are useless, actually worthless, unless you are a professional bodybuilder.
Then, everybody of course knows the importance of stretching, but not all truly understand how it should be done.
There is no use to stretch the muscles on the same day as they have been trained, assuming that the training has been hard enough for development. Actually, hard stretching after hard training would just do more damage to muscle fibers, and prolong the healing process. The most important time for stretching is a couple of days after training, when the energy stores of the muscles have been filled up (not completely though) and anabolic phase, i.e. building of muscle fibers, has begun. Because the fibers grow in width the stretching prevents the fibers end up stiffer. Also, hard stretching at this phase gives boost for anabolic process. The stretching must begin with some warm-up, start softly but slowly progress to pain treshold and beyond...
Now, one might think that I'm here talking about training for serious power lifting. Why should a regular guy aiming merely for a more aesthetic body care about serious muscle training? Well, the key word is "more" - which implies to development, and obviously the goal is also to change the life style for good, and not just temporarily.
Following and understanding the natural development cycle(s) of your own body is crucial for long term development, and avoiding overtraining and even injuries.
And then just one special thing: everybody, I mean everybody, end up having knee problems with squat when the weights increase unless the technique is correct. I highly recommend spending some time studying of wide-stance squat, google "squat rx", although you wouldn't be aiming for a power lifter. kthxbye!
I've also altered my programming even more by completely dropping cable crossovers on Thursday, picking up decline bench and skullcrushers in the process. Also, I'm spreading my ab work by placing one on each day, and dropping Romanian situps for rope crunches. So now my Thursdays look (and performed) like this ('cept for plank, which goes to Tuesday):
Thursday (10/16):
Flat Benchpress: 3x8 @ 140 (Rep goal met)
Rope Crunch: 3x8 @ 120 (NEW)
Decline Benchpress: 3x5 @ 155 (NEW, did 165 but want to keep it safe w/o a spot)
Dips: 3x7/5/3 @ 15 lbs (My pecs/tris were punished after that much bench)
Incline Benchpress: 3x5 @ 100 (Shifted rep goal for more weight)
Skullcrushers: 3x8 @ 20
Plank: 75 seconds (2x75 in the future)
Also, I attribute my new-found success to narrowing my bench grip and finding the proper target on my chest when bringing the barbell into the hole.
Thanks, Nomad.
Here's this week's:
Thursday (10/23):
Flat Bench: 3x8/8/5 @ 145lbs
Rope Crunches: 3x8 @ 130lbs
Decline Bench: 3x5 @ 155lbs
Dips: 3x8 @ BW
Incline bench: 3x5 @ 105lbs
Skullcrushers: 3x8 @ 25
Improvements all around. Pissed @ missing reps on flat (again).
Tuesday (11/4):
Squats: 3x8 @ 190lbs (+5 lbs)
Barbell Shoulder Press: 3x8 @ 95lbs (+5 lbs)
Leg Press: 3x10 @ 250lbs (+15 lbs)
Plank: 2x75 seconds
Hamstring Curls: 3x8 @ 110lbs (+5lbs)
Lateral Dumbbell Raise: 3x10 @ 15
Calf Raises: 3x8 @ 145lbs (+10 lbs)
And after two months, I officially weigh 181 eight hours after my last meal and a morning #2. ~184lbs after a night of endless feasting. That's +10 lbs of lean mass in 8 weeks. My body fat has changed very little, and I can tell this by the way my hands look (weird, I know, but it's an indicator for me). As a result, I'm up from a small to a medium in shirts and added +2-3" to my waist.
Here's to the next 10!
They're pretty helpful and a little more precise than the appearance of your paws! =)
Just a thought. Good job by the way...keep at it.
Actually they're all about the same accuracy wise. The impedance scales and handhelds are just easier to use in my opinion. The real benchmark for checking your fat level is to be weighed underwater but thats neither convenient nor easily accomplished or funded last I looked.
I was wondering which at home method was better too and then I read an article saying as far as accuracy they're all somewhat lacking, but they are all consistent, and thats the big thing.
Flat Bench: 3x8/8/7 @ 150lbs
Rope Crunches: 3x8 @ 150lbs
Decline Bench: 3x5/4/3 @ 160lbs (bleh)
Dips: 3x8+5
Incline bench: 3x5 @ 110lbs
Skullcrushers: 3x8 @ 30
Saturday (11/1):
Pullups: 3x5 (My form is still terrible)
Deadlift: 2x8 @ 200 (This felt REALLY good)
Barbell Curl: 3x10 @ 80lbs
Incline Situp: 4x8 @ 60lbs
Dumbbell Curl: 3x10 @ 35lbs (Can't get this to move, always tired)
Lat Pulldowns: 3x10 @ 95lbs
Barbell Row: 3x8 @ 95lbs
Calipers, when properly used, are the most accurate measurement short of hydrostatic testing, but a consistently reliable barrier is more important.
Thankfully, I've never been really out of shape but I hear you on the skinny fat thing. I think I've got a different body composition than you, though. I have no problem with gaining or maintaining muscle. I can also see my abs but I really want to cut them up.
One night the wife and I saw P90x on TV. We're going to do it. Ya, I hit the gym 2 to 3 times a week and eat decently, but I think the nutrition in P90x and the regular workout routines will get my body where I want it to be.
I'll keep reading the thread for your progress. Hey! Where's the pics?
Ummm and that would be the first time I asked for pics of a man.
My body fat is still moderate, but there have been definite improvements. I'll get some pics up asap.
One thing I have learned is that I have no problems gaining muscle. I was just too lazy to figure that out before.
It's been a bad week.
How was your diet on the pukey day? I find if you push really hard on big compound exercises and you haven't been eating well its very easy to hit that 'im gonna ralph' point.
Some people think if they don't yack in a bucket doing squats they didn't push hard enough. I think its possible to get a good workout short of vomiting but thats me.