End of 5's results

C

charr

Member
Hello.

I've made a few posts before about losing weight. In the last few months I'd only lost 3 pounds. I'd been on a diet for 1 and a half years and had been getting a bit tired of it. I've also been using HST for throughout my diet. I've been waiting 1 and a half years to truly test it.

I decided to finally give it a go on a conservative bulking diet. This time I did everything right. I calculated all my macro's. My diet is just over 3000 calories (i'm 6ft). 350 carbs, 235g protein and 85g fat. I have experience with HST from the cut so I set this cycle up perfectly.

I'm at the end of my 5's and I'm disappointed in the results. My weight has gone up 4 - 5 pounds but I haven't gained any muscle. My waist size has gone up so it seems to be all fat. I've waiting along time for this and I thought I was going to get the best results I'd ever had. I have gained most of the strength back that I lost on my diet though. But hyptrophy is what i'm after.

After my next 2 weeks of 5's I'll do another sd and try hst for a second cycle to give it a fair go.
 
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You say you have gained no muscle, how have you calculated this (calipers?) - how much do you weigh, what is your current routine - the reason I ask is in the last 6 weeks I have allegedly (based on caliper readings) gained best part of 6lbs with no gain at all in fat lbs (DW indicates a 3 lb loss in fat and 9lb gain in lbm) following a 3 month cut - my current routine is full body training on a 3 day on 1 day off
 
Hi Mick.

I can tell I haven't gained muscle by how I feel and look. I didn't use calipers. My jeans have gone tighter and my underwear is digging into my hips so I know that there has been fat gain.

I now weigh about 13 stone 12 pounds. I started around 13 stone 5 - 7 pounds so I could have gained a little more than the 4 - 5 pounds i mentioned above.

My Routine is 3 x per week whole body. Exercises are below.

Squat
Bench press
barbell row (pendlay).
Standing barbell press.
Wide grip lat pull down.
Close grip lat pull down.
Dips
Barbell curl
lateral raise

I also deadlift on each alternate workout. Also I swap all machine pull downs for pull ups on 5's.

Thanks
 
Ok, what is the volume like as you are doing 3 different exercises for back and then hitting your biceps again,two compounds for chest (assuming dips are for chest and not triceps), one compound for shoulders then lateral raise (small muscle group) and only one for legs
 
Hi Mick.

I do 2 sets on everything apart from barbell row's which is 1 and squat which is 3. I read a lot of chad waterbury stuff so I have always grouped exercises based on push, pull and legs. So I have 6 sets of push exercises and 5 sets of pull exercises. 3 sets on legs. Plus a couple of isolation exercises (barbell curl and lateral raise). I do those at home later in the day

Thanks
 
I would say based on your calorie intake and macros you shouldn't gain too much fat, you could reduce your fat intake down to 20% (66g based on 3000 calories) up your protein to 290 (1.5g per lb of body weight) and adjust carbs to suit. I would also up the legs, maybe add hack squats or leg press.
 
Thanks for the input. I'll adjust some things on my second cycle. I was expecting muscular development from this first cycle though
 
charr said:
Hi Mick.

I can tell I haven't gained muscle by how I feel and look.
Click to expand...

Your feelings do not somehow magically tell you if you gained muscle or not.

I didn't use calipers.
Click to expand...

So... basically you are saying that there is no possible way for you to know how your body composition changed during the bulking cycle then? You do realize that there is a huge psychological barrier for almost all male weightlifters between how they think they look and how they actually look, right? You're probably just slightly bloated from eating more, which would make your jeans feel tighter even though you aren't actually fatter. Stop eating as much for a few days, take a few massive dumps and your jeans will be looser suddenly.

Also, you say you gained only 4 or 5 lbs. That is basically a meaningless amount and can easily be water. If your cycle was 8 weeks long, you should have gained 8 lbs at a minimum. Preferrably closer to 16. If you really did only gain 4 or 5 lbs, there is no possible way that you gained only fat. This never happens. Ever. Even if you just overate and didn't lift, you would still never gain only fat. It doesn't happen. That's not how the body works.

Measure with calipers next time. You should have been gaining 1-2 lbs a week rather than apparently .25 - .50 lbs a week.
 
Hi Totentanz.

I'm pretty sure I gained just fat. I have an endomoprh type of body. I store fat on lower belly butt and thighs. I can tell my hips have increased and my butt. I just seem to gain fat. There doesn't seem to be anything I can do about it.

I should have clarified that I have just finished my 5 rep max. My cycle has been 6 weeks so far. Still another 2 weeks pushing 5's to go. Then I will do an sd and cut the calories during that 2 weeks.

When you say I should be gaining 16 pounds over a cycle. How much of that would you expect to be muscle? I think If I did it that aggressive I would end up very over weight.

Is there any way I can change my proportions? I'm tired of having wide hips and butt fat.

I'll look into calipers.

Thanks
 
So all youve really done is six weeks of bulking? Id give it a couple of cycles tbh.
Have you made all your maxes now? Extend a week or so and shoot for new rms, SD, then start over.
I usually feel bloated as hell and fat during the bulk, even thougj Im not.
 
charr said:
Hi Totentanz.

I'm pretty sure I gained just fat. I have an endomoprh type of body. I store fat on lower belly butt and thighs. I can tell my hips have increased and my butt. I just seem to gain fat. There doesn't seem to be anything I can do about it.

I should have clarified that I have just finished my 5 rep max. My cycle has been 6 weeks so far. Still another 2 weeks pushing 5's to go. Then I will do an sd and cut the calories during that 2 weeks.

When you say I should be gaining 16 pounds over a cycle. How much of that would you expect to be muscle? I think If I did it that aggressive I would end up very over weight.

Is there any way I can change my proportions? I'm tired of having wide hips and butt fat.

I'll look into calipers.

Thanks
Click to expand...

The somatotype theory is pretty much universally seen as bullshit by modern scientists.

Dude, the fact that you've been cutting for a year and a half leads me to believe that you were quite obese before. That's why you're worrying so much about fat gain, and it's skewing your perception. There's absolutely no way that the 5lb you gained was all fat because this is impossible, and secondly, even if it were theoretically 5 lb more of pure fat, a 4-5lb difference on someone's frame is extremely hard to notice. Your waistline would not have increased substantially enough IMO.

Here's an example from my experience: back when I was losing weight in high school (I wasn't fat back then but I wasn't lean either) to get fit enough to join the military, I didn't know anything about fitness and ate whatever, but my caloric intake and increase in activity provided me with a steady loss. At one point, I was 140lb, and yet this pocket of what I thought was fat started showing up where slight love handles used to be when I was like 160lb. I thought I had started gaining weight again, and yet I wasn't...I was still losing weight. At my lightest, I was 124lb (the day I weighed in at MEPS). And yet I had this little pocket of fat on my waist...

In fact, it was possibly due to other parts of my waist leaning out.

Trust the calipers and your weekly weigh in. Eat a 500 calorie surplus and keep lifting. You're not getting fat again.
 
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Endomorph, mesomorph and ectomorph 'body types' do not exist. This is just another nonsense myth created by the fitness industry to get you to buy shit you don't need - supplements, protein, magazines, DVDs, books and more supplements.

Ever notice how the only 'mesomorphs' are those in the magazines, taking around 1gm of gear weekly?

Stop believing your genetics are this specific, and just work hard, measure your eating and don't try to micromanage your exercise-world.
 
Chris, you need to bite the bullet and buy some calipers it is the only way you can see numerically what the fat gains are.
 
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I'm not sure I believe the research about body types. There must be a reason why I fit the endomorph type and gain fat where other people don't. I also struggle with getting lean. I still believe the 3 different classes of body type exist.

Old and Grey.

I have gained most of my strength back. As I mentioned when I first discovered HST I was dieting. I used to just keep repeating a cycle but every time I would lose a little more strength. I have felt stronger than I have in all that time during this short bulk and have gained most of my strength back.

But like leonardopm above says. I thought that weight didn't equal size. I see it in the gym alot. Really strong guys aren't usually as big as there strength suggests.
 
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