[quote]trextacy wrote:
Professor X wrote:
morepain wrote:
IronDude17 wrote:
morepain wrote:
right now 6’0" 265lbs thats about where i like to stay, been as high as 300lbs (bloated like a pig) and as low as 250 within the last year, but i like right about where i am. like i said the only real difference is i started lifting religiously when i was 12 or 13 and literally never stopped, i was obsessed with it as a child.
Damn, that’s awesome! It made me feel a little bit better to know that you’ve been lifting for 30 years . . . but only a bit. Although you’ve been bloated as you say at 300, would you think that was necessary to drop to 265 in the shape you are in during that full body pic? seems like theres always some point of discomfort for really large guys at least the first time they hit a weight. so in the end, you think it was worth it to get to your present condition? My answer would be yes but then again, I haven’t hit 300 (yet) so I don’t know what is involved specifically.
actually i am in the same condition both pics, they were taken on the same day. at 300 i just felt BAD, its really that simple. at 260-270 i feel agile, light, and oh crap here it comes…functional. But my advice is usually old school basic stuff…if you want to walk around at 250 in good shape you better shoot for 300 while in your growth phase…that way your body kind of “resets” its threshhold for lack of a better term. I can starve myself and never drop below 250lbs now, but had i not gotten as big as i did it would never work.
I’ve been saying similar for years on this site with regards to body weight set points. It seems that no matter how many picture go up over the last 9 years…or the fact that over that time, NOT ONE OF THE “gain slowly” OR “stay at or under 10%” CROWD HAS MADE ANYWHERE NEAR THE SAME PROGRESS…these guys are still fighting against the idea as if bulking up doesn’t work at all.
If your goal is a truly ripped “200lbs”, you had better be pushing upwards of 230 or more before dieting back down unless you are one of the rare genetic elite who can somehow diet up to contest shape.
this just isn’t true, no matter how many times you say it. first off, as CT has said, a TRUE 10% is a lot lower BF than people realize. In terms of BF, it’s pretty damn good, so you are making a straw man and arguing against it. second, i don’t have the time or inclination to dig through and trot out examples (rather than man up and acknowledge the wrongness of your claims you will explain them away anyhow) but there are plenty of examples of guys who have stayed at “relatively lean” levels of bodyfat while adding their bulk. i’m not a big fan of numbers/generalizations, but many guys have stayed below 15% while gaining w/ great success. Again, people are fatter than they tend to think they are and 15% is still “relatively lean” in my book, but it all depends on the person. one can be an advocate of the staying lean-ish while adding muscle school of thought w/o insisting that 10% is the cut-off- in fact, most people in that school of thought would not use 10% as any sort of measuring stick.
to clarify, no one other than Poliquin have said staying at or under 10% is necessary, although you are probably most anabolic at leaner levels. Under 10% BF is an achievement in and of itself assuming you aren’t just a scrawny teenager. However, many people (that aren’t still growing, ages 15-21 or so) have used the “gain slowly” approach and ended up w/ great physiques. it takes more time and discpline (people want to be over 200 lbs and THEY WANT IT NOW!) but in the long run pays off.
case in point- look at Artem in the T-cell. A teenager who was light a year or so ago, took all the advice to “just lift and eat”, turned into a fat slob, never did cardio, just figured he could “cut later, because it takes more to add muscle than lose fat”, THEN when he realized he was just a fat kid with some muscle, and to make matters worse, started taking advice from physiolojik (sp?) who is a pure Poliquin disciple (i’ve done biosig and worked w/ one of those guys before and it was like hearing an echo), had the kid on a low-no carb diet, trying to get him to cyle protein sources, the kid got burned out and injured and is now stuck with injuries and a whole bunch of fat cells and, in all likelihood, a wrecked metabolism at least in the short term. combining 2 extremes, for the loss. the irony of the whole situation (which i couldn’t chime in on becuause i’m not a cell member) was that poliquin would’ve also had the kid on German Body Comp program which would’ve worked better for Artem under the circumstances, but that was the only bit of Poliquin dogma that wasn’t recommended to Artem.
I have digressed, but my point is that the approach you are suggesting has been pooch-fucked by more new lifters, and that while the “just eat and lift” mantra has hardcore cache, the reality for bodybuilding is that leanness and conditioning count and you can’t jettison those for a size-at-all-costs approach. that just leads to a fat guy w/ muscle, months/years of looking like an idiot and a more painful cutting process.[/quote]
I think you shouldn’t be confusing, you’re using just one example to try to give an argument. And you’re assuming that he got hurt when he “dieted down so hard”, when he could’ve just used bad form on his exercises. Artem could’ve done better, he went on a severe cutting phase after bulking, but I think some of us have gone through that mistake.
Many of the guys you mention that made the “slow gain approach” since age 15-20 and had success are not the lifters in general; how much were many, the mayority? The thing is that this can cause MANY people in the age 15-20 who have just started and want to be well over 200lbs will think they have plenty of time, when they may have to push a bit harder than others for the goal. That mindset will get many nowhere.
The key of this is adding muscle mass with plenty of nutrients, not worrying about “keeping bodyfat in check”, but not eating bad food sources which can get him fat either. The bodyfat increase rate, the bodyfat set points are purely individual; while some can be gaining at max rate at 12%, somebody may have to push between 15%-18%.
If you’re eating with clean sources, or the ones that correspond to the glycemic index you can tolerate, there’s no reason that you’re following a bad diet.
I don’t give a fuck about what others say, but if someone is “bulking” and pushing over 20% bodyfat, he does not have any fucking idea what he’s doing, or he’s just eating shit, he realizes it but keeps going. I think that the message has been all over, but people you know…
you may tell 'em “eat a substantial surplus and train progressively heavier”, when their minds may have caught “yeah fucking eat! anyways I’m training and burning it right?”<— I think this is what has been happening, but you can’t get on people’s minds.
