I
imported_davisbm
Guest
Hi everyone, I've been reading everyone else's posts and following HST principles since 2005, but I never did my part and posted any pictures. I'm about to start my second bulk ever, and these will be my "Before" pictures. I'm 27, 5'10", and currently about 175lb.
I'm pretty excited to start this next bulk. Anyone here done the gallon of milk a day thing? I've looked around the internet and found only a handful of people reporting their experiences, and while it seemed those who did had mostly positive results, most people didn't do a good job of documenting their experiences. Ordinarily, I'd say it's quite a gimmicky thing to do, and that it would simply make you fat, but there are just enough interesting things about full fat milk that make me willing to give it a try.
Such as...
I'm doing a lot of paraphrasing here to be sure, but this article basically says that whey is good to stimulate muscle growth, and that casein is good at preventing muscle breakdown. You want both, but it also finds that if you had to consume either, you'd get the best net effect from casein. Milk has both, 80% casein, 20% whey.
http://www.pnas.org/content/94/26/14930.full
This article finds that saturated fat, and fat in general is correlated with higher testosterone levels. Milk has plenty of that.
http://jap.physiology.org/cgi/content/full/82/1/49
This article says whole milk worked better than fat free milk to stimulate muscle protein synthesis.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16679981
So who knows. Maybe it'll work, or maybe I'll just get fat. If I get fat, it's only temporary. Either way I'm pretty sure I'm going to get much stronger, and finally blow past that elusive 5 reps of 225 on the bench (though I honestly expect to get way more, cause i've gotten close before) and I'm going to document it all the best I can.
In the past, I bulked up to a fat-ish 198lbs and I was able to lift 225 3 times on the bench, so that'll be my reference point. This was all using vanilla HST.
That was over a year ago, after which I didn't have access to a gym. For the past year I've slimmed down a bit and been doing bodyweight pullups, overhead press, shrugs, and as many pushups as I can manage (101 is my best.) I finally broke down however, and bought a nice used olympic bench. It's great, because there are only so many ways you can do pushups!
I know I'll get stronger my first few weeks back on the bench no matter what I do just due to that neural strength coming back, so I'm not too worried about drinking an entire gallon right away just yet (though I come darn close anyway! I like milk for milk's sake.) After my strength gains taper off, THAT'S when I'll start labeling my gallon jugs with each day's date in Sharpie marker to make sure I'm drinking the right amount
As for my lifting routine, it won't be a true vanilla HST workout, but it uses HST principles. First day with my new bench, I threw a 45 on each side and found I could do 13 reps, then 11 reps. The days will go like this..
Day 1 = bench 13 reps, 11 reps @135
Day 2 = cardio
Day 3 = pushups As many as I can, 2 sets
Day 4 = cardio
Day 5 = bench 13 reps, 11 reps @140
Day 6 = cardio
Day 7 = pushups As many as I can, 2 sets
Day 8 = cardio
Day 9 = bench 13 reps, 11 reps @145
and so on.
When I reach a point where I can't do 13 reps of the new weight for the bench, I'll just start aiming for 12 or however many reps I can do, from that point on, and two less for the 2nd set, adding a third set when the reps get down around 10 or 9. This cycle will be done until I get down to only being able to do 5-6 reps of the first set. About 2 and a half months.
Of course, I'll still be doing my other 3 lifts (shrugs, pullups/bent over rows, overhead press) as well, but a combination of factors (spending time futzing around with poundages in Excel seems like a waste of time when I'm looking for a job + I do not have the same of variety of weights for the other exercises + For as much as I believe everything negative people say about the bench being overrated and all, I'll admit it I'm still a sucker for it, it's my favorite lift by far!) mean that I'll only be employing HST principles for the bench. So without further ado, here are three pics of me. They are after a workout of course! I imagine that has to be what most people do. Who would take pictures to post after they're all tired and flattened out after a long cardio run?
P.S. It's funny. I take a dozen or so pictures to post here and I'm making a normal looking face in 3, maybe 4 of em!
I'm pretty excited to start this next bulk. Anyone here done the gallon of milk a day thing? I've looked around the internet and found only a handful of people reporting their experiences, and while it seemed those who did had mostly positive results, most people didn't do a good job of documenting their experiences. Ordinarily, I'd say it's quite a gimmicky thing to do, and that it would simply make you fat, but there are just enough interesting things about full fat milk that make me willing to give it a try.
Such as...
I'm doing a lot of paraphrasing here to be sure, but this article basically says that whey is good to stimulate muscle growth, and that casein is good at preventing muscle breakdown. You want both, but it also finds that if you had to consume either, you'd get the best net effect from casein. Milk has both, 80% casein, 20% whey.
http://www.pnas.org/content/94/26/14930.full
This article finds that saturated fat, and fat in general is correlated with higher testosterone levels. Milk has plenty of that.
http://jap.physiology.org/cgi/content/full/82/1/49
This article says whole milk worked better than fat free milk to stimulate muscle protein synthesis.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16679981
So who knows. Maybe it'll work, or maybe I'll just get fat. If I get fat, it's only temporary. Either way I'm pretty sure I'm going to get much stronger, and finally blow past that elusive 5 reps of 225 on the bench (though I honestly expect to get way more, cause i've gotten close before) and I'm going to document it all the best I can.
In the past, I bulked up to a fat-ish 198lbs and I was able to lift 225 3 times on the bench, so that'll be my reference point. This was all using vanilla HST.
That was over a year ago, after which I didn't have access to a gym. For the past year I've slimmed down a bit and been doing bodyweight pullups, overhead press, shrugs, and as many pushups as I can manage (101 is my best.) I finally broke down however, and bought a nice used olympic bench. It's great, because there are only so many ways you can do pushups!
I know I'll get stronger my first few weeks back on the bench no matter what I do just due to that neural strength coming back, so I'm not too worried about drinking an entire gallon right away just yet (though I come darn close anyway! I like milk for milk's sake.) After my strength gains taper off, THAT'S when I'll start labeling my gallon jugs with each day's date in Sharpie marker to make sure I'm drinking the right amount
As for my lifting routine, it won't be a true vanilla HST workout, but it uses HST principles. First day with my new bench, I threw a 45 on each side and found I could do 13 reps, then 11 reps. The days will go like this..
Day 1 = bench 13 reps, 11 reps @135
Day 2 = cardio
Day 3 = pushups As many as I can, 2 sets
Day 4 = cardio
Day 5 = bench 13 reps, 11 reps @140
Day 6 = cardio
Day 7 = pushups As many as I can, 2 sets
Day 8 = cardio
Day 9 = bench 13 reps, 11 reps @145
and so on.
When I reach a point where I can't do 13 reps of the new weight for the bench, I'll just start aiming for 12 or however many reps I can do, from that point on, and two less for the 2nd set, adding a third set when the reps get down around 10 or 9. This cycle will be done until I get down to only being able to do 5-6 reps of the first set. About 2 and a half months.
Of course, I'll still be doing my other 3 lifts (shrugs, pullups/bent over rows, overhead press) as well, but a combination of factors (spending time futzing around with poundages in Excel seems like a waste of time when I'm looking for a job + I do not have the same of variety of weights for the other exercises + For as much as I believe everything negative people say about the bench being overrated and all, I'll admit it I'm still a sucker for it, it's my favorite lift by far!) mean that I'll only be employing HST principles for the bench. So without further ado, here are three pics of me. They are after a workout of course! I imagine that has to be what most people do. Who would take pictures to post after they're all tired and flattened out after a long cardio run?
P.S. It's funny. I take a dozen or so pictures to post here and I'm making a normal looking face in 3, maybe 4 of em!
