what is your goal?
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My goal is to get big. Get big, then get lean. To have a somewhat impressive physique.
At least that’s what I’m hoping for.
I used to be very skinny as a kid and teenager. Now I’m 33 and in the past years I got kind of chubby. Due to relationship laziness, covid lockdowns and regulations… So I started going to the gym and started lifting again.
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By the way, I’m 178cm (5’11) and my weight is 90kg right now. It’s the heaviest I have ever been. And I’m proud of it lol
I have been bulking from may till September. I gained quite a bit of fat during that time.
Then I tried cutting for the first time ever. after I started TRT. In two months I lost about 2-2,5kg. I think it was a bit of a recomp too.
At the end of the two months my weight was 87kg.
I then went on vacation, started the cycle, but bulking there seemed difficult. Now I’m back home and can eat properly, track my calories properly etc.
Based on your pics your body is not in the correct anabolic environment to utilize the food and test to put on the most lean mass. (you are aromatizing the excess oil, you cannot eat enough to get the most from the oil and food without gaining even more bodyfat)
If I were you I would
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figure out a way to get labs in your country
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drop test dose to 150mg per week. Do not add var or sarms.
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stop taking the AI, unless needed for symptom resolution or have labs.
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begin a cut today. cut until you have visible abs, unflexed, in any light. once you are lean then we can up the drugs/food and add some size.
Based on your pic you have plenty of gains to make at a lower dose, with proper training and nutrition.
How exactly is your training setup? How many grams of protein did you get in yesterday?
I’m sure you saw in there where the bulk begins at 10% runs to 15% and stops?
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Can’t I just take a small dose of AI to prevent a higher amount of aromatisation caused by higher body fat?
My training is still a bit basic. At least the way I plan it throughout the week.
I do 2 days full upper body and 1 leg day a week currently. Each session is followed by 20-30 minutes of cardio.
I eat around 180-200 grams of protein every day. The majority of it comes from whey.
In the guide I’m following it says “ideally less than 15% body fat”.
So I thought when I’m around 20% it does not make a big difference.
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OR you could just lean out before running headfirst into getting even more fat.
It probably wouldn’t, but I believe if we were rounding to the nearest 10%BF, you would not be rounded to 20%.
You NEED to lean out dude, before you fuck up and give yourself gyno.
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Ezetimibe is what I use. Many use red yeast rice as well
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I also started taking arimidex last week to stop my E2 from going even higher. Dosage is 0.5mg 2x a week. What do you think? Is it a good idea? For how long should it take it?
Okay I thought about it for a few days. Of course what you and Andrew said wasn’t what I wanted to hear.
But I think you are right. The main thing that convinced me that I had high blood pressure the whole week. Who knows where it was at before I started measuring it. In the first 4 weeks of the cycle I mean.
Last injection was yesterday and I did only 125mg. I think I will go back to a trt dose and try to get more learn first.
Any other tips?
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start a food and training log so we can follow along.
join the challenge
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Okay guys what do you think? Firstly I want to thank you again for opening my eyes. It was hard to accept it but I was too chubby for a cycle. Thanks for being so direct.
I went back to my trt dose and went on a diet. I’m still dieting right now, since mid December.
Now I’m thinking maybe 2-3 more weeks of dieting, and then start a cycle?
Do you think I’m ready?
My diet became much more nutritious and I started to donate blood every two months. I started doing 30 minutes of cardio after every workout. I really love cardio now. It makes me feel great!
My blood pressure is really good too.
Strength-wise I didn’t loose that much. Maybe up to 10kg for most exercises, except for legs and row machine. Should be easy to regain that.
The last Pic is not a good pic. Only my lower belly fat is a bit too thick for my liking.
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Bump. Please read my previous post to check my progress.
fantastic progress. well done.
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Thank you very much. Do you think I should cut longer than 2-3 more weeks?
What do you suggest?
Your tips have been great so far.
Fat loss has slowed down a lot in the past 4-6 weeks. To combat this my idea was to cut down on fats to save calories and eat food that’s higher in volume. Lots of protein, no simple carbs.
And more activities like swimming, walking, cardio…
I think you did a great job dieting.
I hope you’ll appreciate it round 2 too.
No, i don’t think you’re ready. I said that last time because you were for sure too chubby. This time i say it because you can still make a lot of progress naturally, and steroids are frankly not needed for you to progress. My stance has pretty much always been ‘when you have reached your genetic limit (or very near to it), then you have justification to run steroids’… it is this mentality that kept me natty through 15 years of training.
You can absolutely progress naturally, and my opinion is that you do this until progress slows so significantly that it becomes reasonable to consider AAS.
What does your diet and training look like, exactly? I ask this because both need to be dialed in before touching the sauce, and touching AAS before these are dialed in is merely a crutch for the real problem.
Thank you for following up, I’m very proud of you for making the progress you have.
FWIW, i don’t think you need to diet more at this point, but if you’re still making progress on that front - dont stop until you’re happy with where you’re at.
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I applaud you for listening to everyone’s advice and putting in work! Kudos man.
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Edit: sorry for the wall of text.
My workout routine absolutely needs to be dialed in. Not sure about my (bulk) diet. But I need to calculate my calories better for the next bulk.
I know it’s not right, but I’ve been using the same workout plan that was made for me when I joined the gym 1,5 years ago.
I always wanted to change to a different plan, and with the next bulk I really want to do it.
I only use machines and no free weights. I want to use free weights more but I don’t have a training buddy who can teach me. Last year I did 2 days upper chest and 2 leg days per week.
When I started the diet I removed one leg day per week. Because I thought: “right now I can’t gain lean muscle tissue anyway. I can only maintain it.”
However, with the next bulk I want to go for 5-6 workout days per week.
9 months ago I started training by the reverse pyramid method. It brought be great gains and I’m still using it most of the time. 4 Sets ranging from 6 to 12 reps. Each set until failure.
I like to do drop Sets too. During my diet I train a bit lighter with more reps.
I do these exercises in this particular order:
(Machines only)
Upper body:
Seated rows
Lat pulls
Lateral raises
Chest press
Butterfly
Biceps curls
Triceps press
Hanging leg raises (started with the diet)
Leg day:
Leg press
Leg curls
Leg extension
Hanging leg raises
I used to implement leg abduction and the adductor machine but I’ve read they are bullshit exercises.
So yeah, there’s a lot to change about my workout routine, and I know it. It sounds stupid, but for me it seems hard to change my workout routine that I’ve been using for 1,5 years. And switch to free weights or cable machines.
Now about my diet:
During my previous bulk I had about 3300kcal every day and I tracked it pretty accurately. However, I think it was calculated way too high. As I gained a lot of fat.
I aimed for 2g of protein per KG of body weight. Most of it came from whey. But also eggs and meat.
My carb to fat ratio was pretty random. Most of my carbs came from oats. I just love oats. Especially oat flour which I like to add to my shakes.
I tried to eat healthy fat sources like nuts. I didn’t eat a lot of sugar, I’ve set myself a limit of 30 grams of sugar per day. In future I want to reduce my sugar intake even further. Something I learned from my diet. During the diet I don’t consume any sugar at all.
However, during my bulk last year I used to make a home made bulk shake after every workout. It contained 30g dextrose, 30g maltodextrine, 100g oat flour, 40g whey.
I did this to create an insulin spike. But maybe that amount of sugar in one go wasn’t a good idea. Retrospective…
Sometimes I was struggling with the volume of the food at 3300 calories. So I had fast food or junk food here and there. Calory dense food. There were countless days where I had frozen pizza for lunch.
I didn’t eat a lot of veggies and fruits because of the food volume problem…
Quick note on my current diet: no sugars, no simple carbs, no wheat, most of my calories come from protein, I’m decreasing my fat intake the longer I diet, upping my low-calory veggie intake the longer I diet (to feel full)
Lean meat, lean fish, lots of whey, Casein and whey/Casein recipes.
I think I will diet for 2-3 more weeks and then start the next bulk.
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I think we should work on this first. I’m not against cycling or steroids by any means, there is just a time and place when it is justified, and I don’t think we are there yet.
Problem #1. There is nothing wrong with machines - there’s actually a bit of dogma against them from most, some of which is deserved. They are great, but for certain things more than others. I guess it’s been so long for me that I don’t recall needing to be taught how to use free weights… I probably had a spotter because I started lifting in high school with other football players, but I think I always just kind of watched the dudes who knew what they were doing - then did that.
Okay so each set to failure would mean you are hitting 32 sets to failure on upper body days, and 16 to failure on lower body days. I’m going to be blunt: you aren’t hitting true failure that many sets. I’m following Jordan Peter’s PPL program (a program that seems to work quite well for those who are somewhere between Advanced and Elite levels of muscular development), and there’s only 10 sets to failure on the longest days. I can barely finish the 10 sets, so it makes me rather suspicious of your 32 sets to failure on upper body days.
^I would recommend Jordan Peters’ program for you once you have full confidence and control in your reps with free weights. You need to be able to trust your form won’t break down when you have utterly exhausted the muscle, so that you know it’s the muscle that’s failing - not the form/technique. When you are at this point, that is also when I think use of gear is justifiable.
For you, I would drop the pyramids, and work on swapping in as many Barbell and Dumbbell movements as you can to replace your machine stuff. Standard 3x8-10 sets. Focus on the quality of the rep, and contraction of the muscle. 2-3 second negatives EVERY rep, explosive contraction.
Play around with different training splits. You’ve been doing Upper/Lower, which is fine. Give PPL a go, or try out a traditional Bro Split for a month or two - maybe even give Full Body a trial. The point here is to get familiar with different exercises and work on your mind-muscle connection. Yes, it’s a bit foo-foo, but it actually has a lot of scientific backing (decent video if you want to learn a bit).
I was nervous to change my beginner routines too, but the change was needed and absolutely worth it. Your routine doesn’t look bad, mind you, it’s just about getting you comfortable with other exercises, routines, progression models, etc.
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Were you gaining more than 1lb/wk of scale weight? If so, you are probably correct.
Good on protein intake, but I recommend only using protein powders to supplement when you have to. Animal-derived protein will always be better than powdered. (you could bump this up to 2.2g/kg, but that is a very small difference FWIW).
Mine is a bit all over the place on occasion too, but specifically on a bulk - you want to keep these dialed in too.
Protein is very anabolic, and required to build muscle. Nearly impossible to be converted into fat.
Fats are NOT anabolic (or very minimally so) and are only needed at about 0.55g/kg. Less will hamper hormone production. More will more easily be stored as fat.
Carbs are very anabolic, and harder to convert to fat than fats.
My macro recommendations are:
Protein - 2.2g/kg BW
Fats - 0.55g/kg BW
Carbs - to fill the rest
Veggies are nice, but if you’re struggling to eat all your food in a bulk (common complaint), skip them.
Good intent, bad execution lol. Just a protein shake would do fine - but even then, you don’t actually need one post-workout. 30-120 mins post-workout have a mildly increased protein absorption/synthesis rate; leverage it, but don’t think it’s the most crucial thing out there. Probably pass on the sugars and stuff like that for the next bulk - not a whole lot of benefit to them in terms of gaining muscle.
Let us know how it goes - take pictures for yourself along the way.
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Thank you very much for all the input and your detailed replies. I really appreciate all the knowledge from experienced bodybuilders in this forum.
At this point I’d consider bodybuilding my hobby. Even if I’m pretty skinny right now… But I feel great and healthy since I dropped so much body fat and started doing cardio.
I’ve never heard about Peter Jordan’s PPL program before but I will look into it and try it out. Before I try any other training programs.
“utterly exhausted muscles” is what I need more of. The feeling that I only get from drop sets. With my current training method. With the pyramid method I train rather heavy. So after 6 reps it feels like I can’t push or pull once more. I don’t have this burning sensation in the muscle as I get with lighter weights and higher reps. Or drop sets…
Then I slightly decrease the weights, go for 8 reps. I repeat this up till 12 reps. That’s what I meant by “until failure”. But I guess it’s not really until failure, is it? It’s just too heavy for another rep. So I guess you are right about what you said. That it’s not really until failure.
I can imagine that it’s a whole new level of exhaustion, the way you describe it.
Thanks for pointing me in the direction of muscle mind connection and quality of the reps. I know that it’s very important, but I’m not paying as much attention to it as I should.
The video was great. Some facts I didn’t know yet. It made me realize how important the muscle-mind connection is. With the door example.
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