Finished first 2 weeks....confused

<div>
(seemore @ Jul. 31 2007,04:09)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Regarding my losing strength, it was probably more endurance, I didn't differentiate.

<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">That he expects to gain much less than 5-6lbs is a sign that he does not know the what'when of hypertrophy.

The point is, his expectations are low. Probably due to his current knowledge. </div>

I'm happy with anything in the upward direction. I noticed that trained indivuduals have been reporting 8 pounds, if I got that then great.

<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">He probably also expects to gain exclusively lean body mass. Or perhaps eats with the intent of gaining only lean body mass. With the presumption that muscle will grow regardless of his caloric intake.</div>

I have been eating carbs, haven't cut anything out, but I guess I could go more carbs to be on the safe side.

I've gained a total of 36 pounds over my 3 years, (almost none in the last year), and this was ridign as I always do and I do know how to eat, but I'll up the carbohydrates again.

Thanks for the help, don't want to start fights on here.</div>
Check your diet, see how much protein you consume. Everything I read suggest to consume about 1g per pound(body mass) per day of protein when growing muscles. Muscle requires protein to maintain, to repair and to grow. It does not suffice to eat more sugar or white bread, as I said. But you must eat more than you spend in order to grow.

We all agree on this point. We must eat more to grow. If you fear getting fat as you eat more, consider that it will be that much easier to cut with more muscle. Unfortunately, there's nothing I can do about the appearance during the bulking phase. If you find it difficult to eat as much as you need, consider eating more often but smaller portions. A smaller portion is easier to digest and doesn't bloat you as a big meal would. I can eat as frequently as 2 hours apart, for instance.

One way of looking at it is to bulk up as much as you want as quickly as you want and cut only when you're as big as you'll ever want to be. How big do you want to be?
 
I wanna be 85kg lean, but the last year I've gained nothing, lost a bit if anything, so HST is my final hope before steroids or I am thinking that follistatin shows potential as a supplement.
 
Just to weigh in on the 5-6 lb lean mass gain per cycle being low expectations...

I think a 10-12lbtotal gain per cycle , yeilding 5-6 lbs. of lean mass could be catagorized as successfull for all but begginers and low-intermediate. Expectations much beyond this would lead me to think chemical assistance , or someone who is a bit &quot;optimistic&quot; when assessing fat/muscle ratio of weight gained while bulking. But hey thats just MY humble opinion of course...
smile.gif
 
<div>
(RUSS @ Aug. 01 2007,13:49)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Just to weigh in on the 5-6 lb lean mass gain per cycle being low expectations...

I think a 10-12lbtotal gain per cycle , yeilding 5-6 lbs. of lean mass could be catagorized as successfull for all but begginers and low-intermediate. Expectations much beyond this would lead me to think chemical assistance , or someone who is a bit &quot;optimistic&quot; when assessing fat/muscle ratio of weight gained while bulking. But hey thats just MY humble opinion of course...
smile.gif
</div>
I agree. But to be &quot;over the moon&quot; with 5-6lbs means to expect much less than that. Hence, the OP's expectations are low. I think the OP wants to gain LBM exclusive. I think he does not want to go through the classic bulking phase then cutting phase.

For the benefit of the OP, the bulking phase means to eat surplus calories in order to guarantee growth. It also means some fat will be gained during this phase, generally half of total mass. The cutting phase is done to cut that fat once the person has attained his size goal. For example, to gain 25lbs LBM, one would gain at least 50lbs mass total which would include about half in fat. Then cut down to the size goal of 25lbs LBM.

We read frequently that eating 500 calories per day over maintenance would give us about 1lbs per week. So, we'd gain about 50lbs per year. Cutting would mean eating 500 (or whatever is recommended, I don't know exactly) calories less than maintenance to lose about 1lbs of fat per week. Which would come out to 25 weeks to cut back down to the size goal of 25lbs LBM.

Bulking and cutting phases require different training. For instance, cutting would mean doing much less volume than during the bulking phase.
 
<div>
(Totentanz @ Aug. 01 2007,07:23)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Gained nothing as in nothing, or gained nothing as in only gained fat?</div>
Gained nothing, I've lost weight in the last year really (2-2.5 kg)
 
And you say your diet was spot on? How many calories were you consuming?

Clearly, if you made no gains at all in a year and in fact lost some, then you are not eating enough. It really won't matter what your training is if you don't eat.
 
I always thought I ate enough to grow until I took Tot's advice and ate like it was my job for a year. I gained over 40lbs that year and then spent four months cutting off some of the fat. Some would rather do a slower bulk but it's really fun getting bigger and stronger quickly, and just feeling stronger all the time. Since cutting and reducing my calories I just haven't felt the same, strength wise. Now I have to decide if I can afford the time and finances to do another year of full time eating!
biggrin.gif
 
<div>
(Lol @ Aug. 03 2007,06:04)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">I always thought I ate enough to grow until I took Tot's advice and ate like it was my job for a year. I gained over 40lbs that year and then spent four months cutting off some of the fat. Some would rather do a slower bulk but it's really fun getting bigger and stronger quickly, and just feeling stronger all the time. Since cutting and reducing my calories I just haven't felt the same, strength wise. Now I have to decide if I can afford the time and finances to do another year of full time eating!  
biggrin.gif
</div>
Everybody should listen to Totz , chasing strength and chasing asthetics are not compatable(imho) , if one was to combine your &quot;simplify &amp; win&quot; using 4-5 of the most basic compounds with Totz' wise advice for thier first couple of years of lifting and managed to avoid the traps of &quot;junk volume &quot; and &quot;beach ready at all times&quot; body expectations - they would be wisely building a mass foundation worthy of later &quot;chiseling&quot; .

Which is not meant to offend those that choose a different path (most I think), everyone has different goals+comfort levels.


Personally I have followed the &quot;cut? what's that?&quot; school of thought and while most here probably would feel a bit uncomfortable if they had my body (somewhere around 15-18% BF @ 250 currently- and no I can't see the bottom 4 abs... LOL!) , I REALLY , REALLY enjoy my strength ( esp. @ my age - I'll be 40 in october) , I highly doubt I will surpass PR's set in my 20's (heavily &quot;assisted&quot; then, clean and natural now- except for the occassional post w/o painkiller/muscle relaxer cocktail taken MAYBE twice near the very end of my cycles) and although I wouldn't say no to the ab fairy if she was to offer me free brad Pitt abs - I prefer the easily quantifiable , measurable strength gain/loss as my yard stick.
And although it's not really MY thing someone at my size/mass COULD decide to cut down to a killer 215-220 and ROCK the beach like a hurricane( pretty sure my wife would prefer I keep my &quot;ROCK-ing&quot; contained to the house tho! ):D .
 
ive tried all sorts of ways to pack muscle on but nothing worked like cutting out most of the crap and increasing my good callories.

i tend to cycle my carbs from low to high.low(relative)when im building up to a heavy cycle, then once i start the cycle boom i ramp up the carbs and protein and gain some serious weight fast.

i got this from another board where by you cycle low carbs for a while( low days high days),it gets to a point where your body is ready to absorb everything you throw at it.seems to work, but its mainly used along side aas.

it is rather more complicated than that. i just take out the bits i need that make sense to me.

as regards to strength or size, its nice to have the best of both worlds but really i dont care much for strength as anyone who lifts long enough inherits a given amount anyway, besides its very rare that i carry an engine block down the street or set my squat rack up in the middle of town lol, so no-one see's what i lift.
i do like to look like i could bench a car though
biggrin.gif
i was brought up with arnie and stallone movies, and they are the ones i wish to emulate.

its each to thier own once again, it wouldnt do for us all to be the same.
 
thats a good artical and he gets straight to the point which is= the main reason people dont grow is they just dont eat enough.some may say they eat this and eat that but often it falls short of what they really need to grow.

however he sounds like the type of bloke that recommends going to kfc for your protein source
laugh.gif
.and the reference that syrup is better at building muscle than potatoes  
rock.gif
 
Unless you’ve ever tried eating 300-600 grams of protein per day and surplus calories every single day for months on end it’s hard to comprehend how difficult it can be. Trust me it is. Nothing sucks worse then getting up at 3 am writhing in pain and stumbling into the restroom to puke up an entire undigested meal that you stuffed down your throat with water before bed just so you could get enough protein and calories in for the day. Not only is eating so much protein for months on end tedious, but unfortunately, the body adapts to a high protein intake by becoming more proficient at breaking down protein and using it as energy. The solution is simple. Don't eat the same damn amount of protein and calories all the time. Work in short cycles where you really go for the gains for a short time and then back off for a while and give yourself a break. (No, I'm not talking about that stupid protein cycling bullshit where you intentionally cut all the way back to an amount of protein that would starve a pigeon). I'm talking about maybe going from a protein intake of 1.5 to 2 grams for a month or 2 followed by dropping down to maybe 1 gram per pound for a week or 2 while you take it a little easier at the dinner table and in the gym.


now this part is very interesting and correlates to what i was saying about cycling carbs etc.
 
^I've done that before (not recently though, it was far too expensive)...over 1kg of meat a day, plus pasta to boot, with minimal gains....I think that the human body is more complex than we originally thought...there are more control and regulatory mechanisms that might not be so simple to override, our body tends towards an average homeostasis with many negative feedback loops and regulatory molecules. We haven't evolved to enable unrestricted unnecessary muscle growth. There will be limits.
 
Minimal gains meaning what? You just got fat? Because if you mean minimal weight gain... then you weren't eating enough.

Count your calories. That's the only way to know where your plans have fallen short. If you count your calories and you eat 500 over maintenance, or eat 18-20 times your bodyweight in calories, then you should definitely put on some weight. Unless you are the only human ever in the entirety of existence to have a dimensional gateway in his stomach that transports food into some negative dimension, causing you to not gain weight.

Even then, if you just got fat - count your calories, eat slightly fewer calories over maintenance so you gain weight slower. You should ALWAYS be gaining weight if your goal is to pack on muscle. If you aren't gaining weight and your goal is to pack on muscle, then you may as well quit training because you aren't going anywhere, just spinning your wheels.
 
<div>
(seemore @ Aug. 04 2007,22:59)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">^I've done that before (not recently though, it was far too expensive)...over 1kg of meat a day, plus pasta to boot, with minimal gains....I think that the human body is more complex than we originally thought...will be limits.there are more control and regulatory mechanisms that might not be so simple to override, our body tends towards an average homeostasis with many negative feedback loops and regulatory molecules. We haven't evolved to enable unrestricted unnecessary muscle growth. There

this is definitley true you only have to look at aas cycles,the body fights for homeostasis and eventually achieves this in most cases,this is why you cant continally gain from cycles by staying on all year round(unless u take into account cruising etc).</div>
this is another reason why i beleive the body grows in cycles if you prime the body correctly before a cycle good gains can be had even by the more experienced lifter.this is also another reason why workouts need to be changed every so often to break periods slow growth,homeostasis, plateus or fatigue.this is just my opinion.

however tot is right, if you increase your callories by a great margin then you will gain weight whether it be fat or muscle,its just plain ol physics.

if you dont then i suggest you get a local scientists to check for subspace temporal distortions and localised blackholes that maybe sucking your food into an alternate dimension
laugh.gif
.
 
<div>
(seemore @ Aug. 04 2007,22:59)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">^I've done that before (not recently though, it was far too expensive)...over 1kg of meat a day, plus pasta to boot, with minimal gains....I think that the human body is more complex than we originally thought...will be limits.there are more control and regulatory mechanisms that might not be so simple to override, our body tends towards an average homeostasis with many negative feedback loops and regulatory molecules. We haven't evolved to enable unrestricted unnecessary muscle growth. There </div>
this is another reason why i beleive the body grows in cycles.
this is definitley true you only have to look at aas cycles,the body fights for homeostasis and eventually achieves this in most cases,this is why you cant continally gain from cycles by staying on all year round(unless u take into account cruising etc).

if you prime the body correctly before a cycle, good gains can be by even the more experienced lifter.this is also another reason why workouts need to be changed every so often to break periods of slow growth,homeostasis, plateus or fatigue.this is just my opinion.

however tot is right, if you increase your callories by a great margin then you will gain weight whether it be fat or muscle,its just plain ol physics.

if you dont then i suggest you get a local scientists to check for subspace temporal distortions and localised blackholes that maybe sucking your food into an alternate dimension
laugh.gif
.
 
<div>
(seemore @ Aug. 04 2007,21:59)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">^I've done that before (not recently though, it was far too expensive)...over 1kg of meat a day, plus pasta to boot, with minimal gains....</div>
No offense ( these diet/nutritional discussions are always so prone to hostile turns!) , but something doesn't add up. If you experienced minimal gains in strength/muscle mass while eating a significant caloric excess , you still weren't eating ENOUGH.
smile.gif
 
I'm going to poke a little controversy into this discussion without answering anyone directly.

I'm not much of a believer in plateuas, cycles and other similar jibe about muscular growth.  In fact, I don't have confidence that doing something in our daily workouts and regular food intake will significantly alter those issues.

IMO, Hormones are the power behind it all.  If hormone testing was made I'd almost bet the slow growth periods would correlate with hormone issues.

Hormones are elusive elements in the growth process.  stimulation of the hypothalmus, thyroid and other glands is probably more of a holy grail to continued develpment than we realize.

Mixing up routines alternatively can make a different to muscle growth, especially since there are so many muscles that overlap each other.  We all know it  is definitely possible to micro-traumatize muscles that have not been micro-traumatized previously.  Even though those muscles were in close proximity to muscles that experienced a great deal of micro-trauma from workouts.

More specifically Amino Acids, Enzymes and all other kinds of chemical stimulants make a difference to growth.  I would say hormones balances/imbalances are major issues for those mystical periods of growth and non-growth.  

It might be a better course of action to have hormone testing on some type of periodic schedule, or especially during &quot;flat growth&quot; periods.

I doubt if you went to most doctors they would have the patience to outline a pathway to natural hormone enhancement. They'd just prescribe Anabolic steriods, if it could be justified for health reasons.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top