I don’t think a weight goal is a perfect metric. It can be a starting point, but if your goal is subjective (how you look), you have to be able to adjust based on what you see in the mirror. Basically, there is no benefit to getting fatter if you’re already fatter than you want to be.
If you’re as fat as you’d like to be, but not fatter, you can just slow it down a little and stay the course. Drop a couple hundred calories or add a little conditioning - you might enjoy the latter more since you mentioned athleticism.
Anyway, I’d say most of us are better served with patience, even though none of us likes to do it that way!
Made some minor adjustments to my plan, but sticking with the framework for another five weeks. Curious how it’ll all pan out but I’m pretty ready to just start another one of Alphas programs. They work.
When gaining weight, train so eyeball rupturing skull splittingly hard that you HAVE to eat enough food to recover and then you’ll be less concerned about fat gain, and most likely won’t get too terribly fat. I find the only time I start getting fluffy beyond justification is when the training has cooled off yet I’m still eating like it hasn’t. When I NEED the calories to recover, the fat gain becomes a non-issue.
I’ve been really good at eating all my clean pre pared meals etc but as I’ve been working n a bulk I’ve just relaxed too much by eating the cakes that the wife buys or a burger when eating out. I’ve noticed when I manage to consume all my protein I grow but for me it’s the extras I’m terrible at not eating when I’m not on a cut.
If I’m cutting I seem to be able to avoid it all really easily, I think this makes me an idiot.
Not to worry: I’m living proof of concept that being stupid can make you very successful at this: you just have to direct your stupidity in beneficial directions. Instead of stupidly eating things you shouldn’t be eating, stupidly take on workouts you have no business taking on. Both are equally self-destructive, but the latter will get you jacked!
But tongue-less-in-cheek, the slippery slope of weight gain is real. It’s too easy to just start eating EVERYTHING once you’re in a surplus. Making denial a regular practice helps. I’ve not eaten my wife’s baked goods for so long now that she doesn’t both to ask if I will, and the idea of doing so just seems weird to me.
I would never train like that if my goal was fat loss. Would be way too taxing to recovery in a nutritionally compromised state. It’d be something to do while gaining weight, but the workout itself wouldn’t be great for hypertrophy: it’d just be a conditioning exercise done while also training for hypertrophy.
I’ve done his linear progression program and followed that with the powerbuilder program. Both really solid, made plenty of progress in that time with very little thinking.
To be clear, I didn’t do it for fat loss. I did it as a challenge (Stupidly taking on workouts I had no business taking on). Although, I imagine 100min of burpees burned quite a few calories
For sure: you’d have to eat a lot to be able to recover from it and support the demand of growing muscle from your regular training. Can be helpful for those with lacking appetites.
I really like your way of thinking here. I think you summed it up nicely in your training log (but can’t find it now) how your training changes with hypertrophy vs specific strength training.
Thanks man. I’ve written about it a bunch, but yeah, training to gain size is BRUTAL. Strength will beat you down from the intensities, but it’s not the same.