Rihad's log

Why are you cutting? Your not fat at all so wd be better served getting some mass first or you may as well be a hamster spinning in a wheel . 2 year straight bulk then cut
 
I want to get my six-pack visible before I stop cutting calories. "Traditional" eating for size involves gaining considerable amounts of fat, which masks true muscle gains (you can look into a couple of other threads here for some examples with photos), leaving people big&fat 10 months in a year. That's not what I want.
 
Your entire back is looking solid. Its funny how the back always looks better at lower bodyfat %. More v-taper, more definition, etc. At higher bodyfat levels, the back just looks bad, no matter how big the muscles underneath, I only recently started cutting, and my back is looking "bigger" as I lose some bodyfat.

I agree with you, you should keep cutting, really get the abs and other definition coming out before you try to gain mass again.
 
Thanks, I too think it now looks better than my foreground. Now I need to learn how to spin my head around and walk backwards ;)
 
Cut when your big enough to hold some mass otherwise it's just spinning the wheels. Don't have to traditional bulk. Light bulk on surplus get bigger and stronger. Can't do that on restricted cals
 
Grooveongreg said:
Cut when your big enough to hold some mass otherwise it's just spinning the wheels. Don't have to traditional bulk. Light bulk on surplus get bigger and stronger. Can't do that on restricted cals
Click to expand...

He's almost done, he didn't bulk right, didn;t count calories or macros, and he was really quite fat, and he has been cutting for awhile now.
 
Yea bulkin shouldn't be viewed as green light to pig out or it will reflect in your shape . Like me now (fat). Next cycle will be back on wagon while light bulking. Ewing crAp makes you look crap not surprisingly
 
Another pic of mine from today.

rihad.jpg

I actually added another inch to my chest despite all this calorie deficit (dropped from 110cm->97cm, and then upped that to 97cm->99.5cm) thanks to increasing training volume. I didn't do that on purpose, though, simply added another exercise for my chest (incline CGBP) and lats (1-arm incline DB row following VicNatural's form advice).

I'm also ditching the unfortunate "6-8 week work / SD start over" cycle I've been doing for the past 3 years of using HST. I may have understood it too literally. Working out under the mental pressure of knowing that you've got only 3 or 5 more workouts before you must bust and start over isn't the best thing to do. Now I can relax and know that there are no longer any artificial limits and work my way up. Some of my recent chest workouts:
65kgx4,2
65kgx4,3
65kgx5,4
65kgx5,5
67kgx3,3
67kgx4,3
(last w/o)

See this? It took me 2 weeks. Under normal HST time guidelines I would've had to SD and back-cycle already. Wah... Now I can simply follow the double progression of increasing the load and then the volume. Of course I can't progress this way eternally. When I'm stuck for 2 weeks with no progress, I will simply follow Lyle's Generic Bulk 2 week de-load to 70% of working load, and ramp back up in 5% increments, allowing CNS to recover along the way. Then maybe when I max out strength wise, will it be time to consider HST's SD.

p.s.: Just a thought...
 
You don't look 'bigger', per se, but do look 'fuller'. Wouldn't be surprised if you're glycogen partitioning is sorting itself out now.

Actually, you don't look smaller/leaner either, is the way still coming off? You look like you ought to be finishing the cut soon.
 
Weight has been coming off, naturally at a smaller pace now. I'm around 66kg now (145lb). Waist measurements are approaching those before starting the 10 day Istanbul binge (end August start September). Although now I happen to have more variety in the food I eat, so it's a bit harder to measure food intake than it was when I ate mostly same stuff day after day (half a glass buckwheat, a piece of chicken breast, 2 eggs, 1 glass milk, and that's it most of the days + 1 doner kebab post-workout to cover w/o energy expenses). I don't limit types of food eaten, either. Pasta, mayo, sometimes flour food, stuff like that. Deficit is what makes the difference. Been trying to sprinkle some olive oil into my food, to keep my good/bad cholesterol balance in check. Other than that, I am still losing in waist size slowly.

20131019 81.3cm 66.3
20131018 81.3cm 66.0
20131017 81.4cm 65.9
20131016 81.5cm 66.0
20131015 81.5cm 66.0
20131014 81.5cm 66.0
20131013 81.5cm 66.5
20131012 81.5cm 66.5
20131011 81.5cm 66.2
20131010 81.5cm 65.6
20131009 81.6cm 66.2
20131008 81.6cm 66.2
20131007 81.6cm 66.1
20131006 81.7cm 66.6
20131005 81.8cm 66.6
20131004 81.8cm 66.6
20131003 81.9cm 66.8
20131002 82.0cm 68.0 +after birthday binging
20131001 82.0cm 66.6
20130930 82.0cm 66.6
20130929 82.1cm 66.7
20130928 82.2cm 67.3 +ate a bit shortly before bedtime
20130927 82.3cm 66.5
20130926 82.3cm 66.8
20130925 82.4cm 66.9
20130924 82.4cm 66.9
20130923 82.5cm 66.9
20130922 82.5cm 67.4
20130921 82.5cm 67.4
20130920 82.5cm 67.4
20130919 82.5cm 67.4
20130918 82.5cm 67.4
20130917 82.6cm 67.2
20130916 82.6cm 67.2
20130915 82.7cm 67.2
20130914 82.8cm 67.2
20130913 82.8cm 67.2
20130912 82.8cm 67.2
20130911 82.9cm 67.5
20130910 82.9cm 67.5
20130909 82.9cm 67.5
20130908 82.9cm 67.7
20130907 82.9cm 67.6
20130906 83.0cm 67.6
20130905 83.2cm 68.2
20130904 83.4cm 68.3
20130903 83.5cm 68.9 after 11 days SD and Istanbul binging
...
Click to expand...
 
Regarding looking "bigger": if that type of bulking involves overeating, I'm over it. If, and only if, I can get that enhanced water+glycogen storage (chest/bicep/leg size increase) without having some part of it go off to my waist sizes (seen as extra fat), I will do that.
 
Last edited:
HST_Rihad said:
Regarding looking "bigger": if that type of bulking involves overeating, I'm over it. If, and only if, I can get that enhanced water+glycogen storage (chest/bicep/leg size increase) without having some part of it go off to my waist sizes (seen as extra fat), I will do that.
Click to expand...

You've misunderstood me.

I'm saying that any size gains (you mentioned your chest) are likely due to glycogen + water, and not muscle fibre hypertrophy.
 
Glycogen+water is precisely the kind of hypertrophy I lost in the first place, so if it's coming back to me - hurrah :)
Since we can't judge simply by the look&feel what kind of growth has taken place, tissue or water, I don't care. But I wouldn't totally negate the possibility of fiber growth, since as Bryan said, hypertrophy can happen very quickly, don't know what type of it he meant, though.
 
Today I officially started using myo-rep metabolic sets after the heavier 6RM. I went easy and only added about 3-4 more effective reps than I would normally do in a single set. Activation set was taken to the point where rep speed started slowing down (probably 1 more rep left in the tank). Only exercises that I do higher rep sets in are listed:

Incline bench (load I normally do 10-12 reps with): 11+3+2 racked the load in between and rested for 5 breathes.
Incline CGBP: 9+2+1, rest: 3 breathes
BW pull-ups 6+2+2 separated by 7 breathes.
Leg press 12+3+3 separated by 6 breathes

In my partial heavy leg curls with load I do 5-6 reps with, I also tried Max Stim while resting 6 seconds after each rep, but it didn't help me much, as I only was able to do 7 reps before depth started to suck (yes, I distinguish between normal partials and partial partials :D), and didn't feel like doing more on that. Normally I'd do two normal sets: 6 in the first, 3 in the second, separated by a few minutes.
 
All these different techniques and protocols are wasted (other than 'getting-used-to-it' value) when you aren't eating enough to gain LBM.
 
And when you are eating to gain LBM (by which I suppose you mean gaining body weight), you're masking true tissue growth with glycogen+water/fat gains. It's a double edged sword! At least I know that all these techniques are more likely to ascertain a quality recomp.
 
You aren't eating enough for fiber growth. Put all the other stuff aside - we're aren't discussing it; just "true tissue growth". You aren't eating enough yet, by your own admission. So you can't judge the effectiveness of the technique.

Also, "recomp" - still a broscience myth.
 
In an effort to become bigger/stronger/more muscular I think we shouldn't forget that additional muscle & additional fat growth are different phenomena. The first takes place without the second provided there is the necessary hormonal milieu. Think a growing child. Additional fat gains are mostly the result of overeating beyond all current needs (including what's required for muscle protein turnover), and beyond replenishing depleted liver & muscle glycogen stores, the usual glucose recipients. Anything extra needs to go somewhere, hence storage as fat. This surplus doesn't have anything directly to do with muscle growth at this stage. True, we need to eat enough from time to time to replenish our depleted glycogen stores, and to tell our brain we aren't starving through one of its main detectors - hormone leptin, which tends to rise with risen food intake. But this occasional overeating doesn't get stored as fat, provided you diet at other times. This is how Lyle's UD2 gets away with eating twice the maintenance amount occasionally without it getting stored as fat - it simply refills the severely depleted bodily glycogen stores.

I said I'm eating enough to lose fat. Needless to say, all my energy needs are getting covered, partly from the food I eat, partly from my own stores. Body recomp is absolutely normal if we take this into account.
 
The first takes place without the second provided there is the necessary hormonal milieu.
Click to expand...

1. You don't have this.

2. If you're confident that you're going to lose fat and gain muscle simultaneously, or even just gain substantive muscle without the fat, good for you. Science disagrees with you, but there's no guarantee that decades of research is correct.

I said I'm eating enough to lose fat. Needless to say, all my energy needs are getting covered, partly from the food I eat, partly from my own stores. Body recomp is absolutely normal if we take this into account.
Click to expand...

This isn't "recomp", this is fat loss. Good job though, you've def. cut substantive fat away over the last 5 months or so.
 
Thanks, but the last stubborn bit of fat (to render abs visible) is the hardest to get rid of. All I need is some patience right now, because it's a slow process. Now I can lose one millimeter from my waist every 2-3 days, if all goes well. I simply make sure to eat at least 50 gr carbs, 70-80 g protein + some fats on days off to spare the muscle. On w/o days it's generally 20-25% more of everything. 4 meals eaten at specific times of day make for roughly 1000-1200 kcals on days off, ~1400-1600 workout days.

BTW recomp is defined as fat loss with no or very slight concomitant BW loss due to gaining some muscle, which I believe I've been experiencing to some degree lately.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top