....only 45 workouts left!

[Android]

It's the end of the year for me and time to prepare for next year.

I thought I'd share my way forward and upward with anyone who cares to read, and so I don't hijack other people's posts and get carried away with answering questions. Yeah I yhought about a Journal but I'm not likely to stick with it so it's going here :-)

I'm also writing this as a goal-setting exercise, something I learnt during my morning cardio sessions is not to 'wing it'. If I waited until I woke up in the morning to set my morning cardio goal I would be lenient and probably say 'just a quick walk around the block and back to bed' - lol. So I learnt to set the goal the day or week before and do what you set regardless of the pain or misery it causes on the day you have to do it. So somedays yeah...I rolled out of bed and hated myself for setting such stupid hard goals!

So I'm in my first week of post-comp and looking ahead, here's what I see:

At the average rate of working out a bodypart solidly once a week (maybe splitting legs between 2 sessions, or split back...but hit each single muscle group once a week), and subtracting sick days, birthdays, holidays and funerals (hope not!) leaves me with about 45 sessions per body part....woah that's not a lot!

And if I choose to 'bulk up' heavily that's probably going to reduce my 'muscle-building' workouts to about 40 weeks, 40 workouts for each body part is like...not alot.

So I tell myself that every single time I walk into the gym, every session counts.

It's pretty clear the way forward is to not go silly with bulking up and go for high daily calorie counts. I'm going to want clean calories in excess of my output but only just, and those have to be from quality proteins and carbs, and as usual less or no carbs after dark.

Oh, I'm 98kg and 6" tall...91kg on stage in the avatar.

So my way forward for a typical day might be like:

morning x6 eggs , mid-morning x1 can tuna, lunch and afternoon split the 500gms chicken, dinner 200gms beef.

That's 150gms protein or 600 calories.

Supplement that with a morning shake, a post-workout shake, and a bedtime shake. All shakes are double scoops (50gm protein)

That's another 150gms protein or 600 calories.

Clean carbs are coming from oats mainly. I think I've said this before I'm having 100gms (dry weight) oats in the morning and taking 300 gms (dry weight) with me to work.

That's about 250gms carbs or 1,000 calories from oats.

Then there's sandwiches or veges for lunch, and dinner has potatoes or chips; oh and in my post-workout shake is 50gms Glucose plus fruit (a couple of bananas have 40gms carbs).

That's another 200gms carbs or 800 calories.

If you're a calorie-counting kind of person you'll notice that's only 3,000 and if I ingest more than that I'm likely to go over 15% b/f in 6 months time and shorten the amount of weeks I have to build muscle by the number of weeks it takes to shed the excess fat.

I won't be so anal as to exclude higher calorie days. If the body isn't growing I'm changing something, nut I'm confident that the above will take me up over 100kg and then I'll add in more food.

I've learnt over the years coming from 68kg up to 98kg that you have to eat like a person 10kg heavier than you in order to gain 5kg. Eat excess in addition to the training and resting, but keeping the excess to a minimum to slow the inevitable increase of fat. That in turn at the other end means less time spent shedding fat while trying to maintain muscle.

I promise that the above is not set in stone and if I deviate or adjust from it I'll post that.

The kind of training I do to build muscle is all above the 20 rep range for 4 good sets, any less than that and I'm lifting too heavy. Rest-pause sets are ok to get up to the 20 rep limit. Aspirin or Panadol before bicep workouts are ok too for the pain high reps causes, the pain can be a barrier to continueing even though the muscle is not exhausted.

Warm-up sets are a minimum of 50 reps so if you see me squatting with just a bar please don't laugh (or laugh out loud) as you walk by, I already know it's embarrassing don't rub it in! :doh:

I do use supplements (right now Creatine Monohydrate and BCAA powder, plus Multi-Vit and Vitamin C) but will get on to those and others later.

The most important thing is that food is the greatest anabolic for growth and will give you solid energy in the gym.

Bedtime, time to grow :-)

[Varven]

Have you looked at D.C / DOG Crapp training ?

[Android]

Have you looked at D.C / DOG Crapp training ?

Never heard of it until now, and thought u were taking the piss Varven :twisted:

Interesting read-up on it, my first thoughts are this is written for someone on the gear. Just my experience with hitting bodyparts twice a week for an Ectomorph, is a tighter stronger leaner body and no muscle size gains. I have had success from HIT but I had to swamp my body with Glutamine, BCAAs, Beta-Alanine plus nap in the afternoon or I would start yawning during training and not up to giving it 100%.

Not saying it doesn't work! Hell it's got everything in it I can think of that stimulates growth, the one set exercises worked for Dorian, Heavy weights worked for Menzter.

Carb cutoffs I do anyway.

Extreme stretching is something I believe in but yet to start properly. Stretching the skin fascia for bigger muscle bellies and even lengthening your lats is controversial but over a long period of time is supposed to work.

Cheers for the insight, if I ever go on the gear I'll do this for sure.

[NZPT]

nice post will keep an eye on it.

With regard to your reps how come so high? obviously your've done lower rep schemes and they didnt get you growing as much? or you aim for maximal muscle pumps? not questioning your training just curious

so as with your cardio whats the plan while you bulk?

NZPT

[Varven]

Go on to http://www.intensemuscle.com ... its the home forum of D.C. training. They have a lot of stickies including pictures which explains things really well.

I've never tried D.C. myself, but I know it has worked for many, including Marcus on this forum.

They have MANY raw users, including several blokes at 100 - 110kg, single digint body fat all year around and very thick looking.

I believe if you are advanced enough to be hitting a body part with one set, you can recover well if you eat sufficiently.

I mainly mentioned it because you haven't got a lot of time on your hands to "bulk" and cut. So I thought you need something that will let you gain some size without moving your body fat more than 2% max.

Carb cut offs, super high protein intake, timing to seperate carb/protein and protein/fat meals makes sense to me.. so I'd say their diet looks sensible and as you mentioned stretching too.

1set per body part all out in the workout..... with body each body part average being hit twice every 8 days.... I just thought this would work well for you as you already incorporate the principles: rest pausing and going all out on 4sets !

I have always done volume and found it to be super slow:

I made MOST gains when I was on a powerlifting cycle: hitting each body part 2 a week, once for strenght, and once for hypertrophy.

I looked throught Arnolds bodybuilding encyclopedia.. some crazy shit there... hit each part 3 x a week with 12 - 20 sets each time !!!!!!!!!!!!

[Android]

nice post will keep an eye on it.

With regard to your reps how come so high? obviously your've done lower rep schemes and they didnt get you growing as much? or you aim for maximal muscle pumps? not questioning your training just curious

so as with your cardio whats the plan while you bulk?

NZPT

Good question and I had this conversation with a friend just the other day.

Everyone seems to start on heavy weights, 8 reps, 3 sets and of course I did too. I can say it put on about 20kg pure muscle over 8 years for me.

Even people who subscribe to high-volume training probably owe much of their physique to the heavy-weight low rep system but they forget the past and say what works for them now as th ebest thing for everyone. I don't.

So I believe in the following and it's not hard to see why:

Everyday the body is replacing cells so the stress you place on it and where you place it determines the repair job your cells get. If you don't turn up to the gym for 2 months you'll lose muscle size it's inevitable.

You can change your body shape beyond muscle mass. Arnold stretched his ribcage with dumbbell pullovers to expand his chest. At the extreme level doctors can stretch leg bones and pull out sunken chests over a shorter period of 6 months just by stressing an area and let the bodies daily repair function do it's job. So...heavy weights can shape your body, move insertion points and way more...but over years not months!

I wasn't born with wide shoulders, I wasn't born with low lat insertions and my biceps never reached my inner forearm when I started bodybuilding at the fully grown age of 28. Heavy weights have shaped me to have all of those now.

So my reason of moving to high volume is that I am happy with the shape and am now moving to the mass monster stage. Slabs of heavy meat on the v-shape I have built over the last 8 years.

So heavy weights works! 3 sets of 8 reps works no doubt about it. Don't be fooled by anyone who says it doesn't even if they are huge, they would have done them for sure as well. And high reps isn't light weights either, it's 'lighter' :-)

No cardio, zero, zip, nada, not a thing.

I'll do abs once a week on my day off for 15 minutes and sometimes miss that altogether.

[Android]

I mainly mentioned it because you haven't got a lot of time on your hands to "bulk" and cut. So I thought you need something that will let you gain some size without moving your body fat more than 2% max.

Cheers Varven will look at that site 2 4 sure!

[Android]

Had an awesome day today, hope this doesn't bore the s**t out of people.

Diet:

This morning I had porridge and a double-serve protein shake for breakfast like every other morning and a cup of hot water with Ginseng and Green Tea. I cooked 6 scrambled eggs and a single portion of chicken, and 2 cans of tuna for work.

When I got to work at 9am I had the 6 scrambled eggs and a coffee.

Then at 9:30 I had 100gms (dry weight) of oats (that's a bowl filled to the top with dry oats and water is added until it swells up and is edible) and an apple.

Then at 10:30am went out for hot pancakes and a coffee.

At about 11:30 I had kumara (cooked it was probably half a bowl) and a single-scoop protein shake.

At 1:30 I had two cans of tuna (2 of 185gms) in water and then about 2:00 I had another 100gms dry oats in a bowl with water.

More kumara at 4pm and the chicken (about 200gms cooked is 300gms raw).

I felt my legs were nice and tight today, not the DOMS with pain but they felt 'worked over' from the workout 2 days ago (yesterday was rest day).

Pre-Workout (6:30pm):

I had half a serving of Whey Isolate and a scoop of BCAAs, 2 scoops of NO-Xplode (Ozzy brand, the kind NZ NO-Xplode used to be), and a PowerBar Energy Gel.

Workout: Tonight was Shoulders, warmed up with 40 reps of side-raises on a machine, then a heavier weight for 3 more sets trying to reach 20 reps but never quite making it on the last 2 sets. Rest between sets is the time it takes training partner to complete his set. They pumped up pretty quickly after that warmup exercise.

Next was the Hammer-machine press (like an incline press but more vertical) and 25 reps first up, when my training partner was on that I was doing front raises with a bar for 15 reps. We alternated for 4 more sets and trying to reach 20 reps each time.

Then dumbbell side raises for 4 sets of 20+ reps, picking up lighter dumbbells when I was done with each set and and continuing until can't do anymore.

Lastly did bent-over side raises for the rear delts for 5 sets, squeezing out 30+ reps at speed for 1 set and changing to slower speed for 20/15/10 reps for final sets.

By then my shoulders hurt and were swollen, the hurt was a good hurt, tired hurt.

Time in gym: 7:20pm - 8:15pm

Post-workout:

A double-serve shake at 8:20pm it had 50gms Glucose, Creatine Mono, and extra 10gms BCAA powder.

Got homeand at 9:30pm cooked 400gms raw chicken (300gms cooked) and had half avocado, cucumber, and a tomato as well.

[2guns]

how many years have u been training android?

[Android]

Joined my first gym in 1999

[NZPT]

hows the training this week bro? updates?

[biggurl27]

He has a journal now, check it out in the workout journal section.

[NZPT]

:grin: found your journal so ignore my post

[Android]

Thanks Biggurl :-)