Happy birthday Alpha! Thanks for the comments and love the quote everything you want is on the other side of fear. Great progress this past year and hope you keep smashing it.
Panopticum it’s a rowing race. Will be a 2k regatta on the lake where the rowing was helding for the London olympics. As Alpha said, it is because I want it so much and I will be happy if I know I can deliver my best. Guess I just need to channel those nerves and agree competition nerves is a completely different feeling.
Happy birthday mate. Incredible progress at your level of development. Hope 2016 is even better!
Heracles_Rocks: Thanks so much brother! Great to hear from you again!
Pano: Thanks brother! If I can continue to progress the way i did last year, I will be a happy man!
Pwinsher: Thanks man, and thanks for sharing the car deadlift rig. I will definitely give that a shot!
IronWarrior: Thanks so much man! Now go kill it at this next race!
LondonBoxer: Thanks Boss! I hope it continues the way it is going!
Happy birthday! It looks like you’ve had an incredible year, and I hope you have many more. Thank you for being an inspiration and taking the time to log for all of us and put up with constant questions. I like the idea of listing and comparing what you’ve done over the year, I might have to borrow that.
I’ve enjoyed the last few posts, there has been lots of food for thought and some incredible PRs. Keep killing it!
I hope to make it back up a couple of times this summer but I’ve got some serious planning and scheduling to do, lots of things are changing in my life right now. I will definitely commit to at least once though.
Again, happy birthday, thanks for everything and good luck this year!
Happy birthday man.
I hope the best for you for your 35th birthday. May this year bring nothing but growth and prosperity in body, mind and soul.
I cannot thank you enough for all the knowledge you share with us and I believe I speak for everyone when I say that it has helped exponentially in the gym and has taught me that “whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve”
Alpha Dude! Happy Birthday brother, I hope this year is exponentially better for you dude!
Happy birthday man! I wish you shitload of PRs and another awesome, successful year.
Congrats man, go and have some 35 oz steak lol.
I actually have a question, if I may, prompted by your response to Sutebun.
I believe you said you were 230lbs, lifetime natural, which is pretty insane given what gets tossed around as ‘possible for a natural trainee’, particularly as you appear to be extremely lean with it. If I may, and I apologise for asking on your birthday, what has been your approach to putting on mass over the years?
Having always been a weight class athlete, I have really struggled with this aspect of training. Personally, I am 6’1 and 183lbs, and while I’m pretty lean at the weight, I feel in a way that I don’t actually have the structure in place at the moment to get really strong - ie the muscles and my current levers are not big enough to make significant strength gains.
I’m new to all this, so that’s probably a load of rubbish, but I don’t have a massive bone structure or anything, and I suspect I need to increase my surface area if I’m to continue making progress. So I’d be really interested to hear what your approach is, and how you yourself got to the size you are now. A lot of guys say ‘oh you can only build x per week/month, so don’t eat that much’ or ‘the body doesn’t build muscle linearly so there’s no point eating too much’, but then they haven’t got to where you are naturally.
I train by myself in the middle of nowhere, and have never had a training partner for all this, so the internet is the closest I get to picking the brains of guys who have got to where I’m trying to get to.
Happy birthday dude. I don’t contribute much in this log because I don’t have much advice to offer, but I do want to thank you for thea articles on your website. They are very helpful to me and I always look forward to them.
Congrats on the PRs man, especially on DL, where I know leverages and stuff make it tough.
@londonboxer well I can’t speak for alpha about hus aproach to mass buiding, but I have some thoughts about “big structure” and strength.
Things like being boned as a bull and having steel cables for tendons is going to make you more suited for strength. Things like training hard and focussing is going to make you more likely to make use of your potential.
Off course brick houses will be having a easier time getting strong, they are built for it. But guys like Lamar Grant got strong as hell with severe scolliosis. Hard work beats talent if talent doesn’t work hard.
If you focus and plan it out, you will get strong, or at least far stronger than you most guys who are built for it.
(that are enough motivational quotes;)
Muscle mass definitely could help with being strong I think. But big muscles are still pieces with potential. You need to learn to tap into their strenght. This is just what I feel. Im bigger than my grandad (bones, muscles, and weight), but he can toss me around (at 65). It’s like thousands of hours of manual labor made him a machine. He is strong and durable. Like he fine tuned himself to use minimal strength needed, but is able use everything in his body when feeling like it.
Hope that helps man!
Roran: Thanks brother! I really do enjoy keeping this log up and I really appreciate everyone’s support. Definitely make it back up to the gym whenever you have time brother!
gvaldes: Thank you so much for your kind words man, I am honored to have helped you progress. That is 100% the reason why I keep this thing going and it feels great to hear that it is helping some people!
FarmerOwen: Hahahaha thanks brother, that made me laugh!
Regev: Hahahaha thanks man! I actually ate 1 and a half 16" pizzas for my birthday dinner! But a 35oz steak would have been genius!
LondonBoxer: Honestly man, I don’t think the 2 are mutually exclusive. I DO NOT think that you need a big bone structure or mass to be extremely strong. There are countless individuals in the powerlifting and Oly lifting world that look like completely normal guys, yet are stronger than i am.
I actually agree and disagree with Pano on this one. i do not think that being big boned naturally means that you are more suited for building strength. It probably DOES make it easier to gain muscle mass. But muscle mass does not necessarily mean strength gains. However, if you are really struggling with strength, gaining a little mass will usually help you out. Honestly, it is such a subject thing t each individual lifter that it is really hard to say. i have seen skinny guys get absolutely jacked and strong and I have seen guys who are very gifted genetically barely being able to squat their bodyweight because they were mentally weak.
i agree with him that effort beats talent and that hard work can make you achieve more than you would believe is possible or that other people would tell you is possible.
All of that said…I have been a weight class athlete for my entire adult life much like you, so I have never really attempted to gain much mass. For me it was always just about getting stronger. As i got stronger the mass just slowly kind of built up. People look at my amount of mass and forget that there is like 20 years worth of work put into it. Don’t think about your current build too much, or listen to what people say about body types and what is possible. All of that is bullshit and (in my opinion) is nothing more than a scapegoat for people who are looking for something to blame for them not reaching the results they want.
When you said, “A lot of guys say ‘oh you can only build x per week/month, so don’t eat that much’ or ‘the body doesn’t build muscle linearly so there’s no point eating too much’” …Whoever told you those things is an idiot. Don’t listen to anything they tell you. When building mass naturally, eating is the most important factor.
Ok, I am just wandering all over the place right now so i am going to stop writing. I guess I need to know what your actual goal is and then I can narrow down what i am trying to say. Just know that you don’t need bone or body mass to gain strength, although gaining muscle mass may help your strength levels. Make sure you are getting 1-1.25g of protein per pound of bodyweight per day.
Just let me know what it is you are trying to achieve and I can help steer you in the right direction, I guess I am just confused. Sorry brother.
Spidey: Thanks so much brother, I am an avid reader of your log as well! And I really appreciate you reading the articles I write over on my site. i never really know how they are received, so you saying that means a lot man!
Pano: Like I said above man, I agree that hard work trumps genetics or talent, but I disagree that being big boned leads to easier strength gains. There are too many smaller guys who can hang and even beat larger guys in strength sports (and absolutely annihilate them pound for pound). But I do agree that having a larger frame can make gaining muscle mass easier. Just my opinion brother.
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No training for me today, just coaching others. I am not sure what I hurt in my right calf/leg but now the swelling has gotten much worse and the bruising has started to pool all the way down into my ankle. I definitely tore something, so training may be a little bit lighter for a few weeks and I will continue to access to see if i need to go get an MRI done.
Is what it is. I’m not going to let it get me down. I just really hope it is not so hurt that I cannot compete in that upcoming strongman show where I get a chance at my pro card…
Alpha, thank you very much for taking the time to write all that out, I really appreciate the effort you put into your responses to us here, and I’m humbled that you’d take that much time to respond to someone you haven’t met. I realise when you say you’re also a weight class athlete just how much me saying that sounded like an excuse!
I suspect part of my problem is that I don’t have a competitive goal at the moment, so everything is pretty abstract. My whole life I’ve been a competitive fighter, so I tend to base all of my assessments of physical performance on how I believe I would perform against someone in a fight. As much as I try to chase numbers in the gym on the conventional lifts (I’m running 5/3/1), and do the training the program demands, my motivation is always to try to be a more dangerous human being. I don’t mean that in a thuggish way, simply that a man should aspire to be the most capable warrior (amongst other things of course) that he can be. Clearly, looking at you (and I apologise for theorising fighting you), the number of things you have stacked in your favour is totally overwhelming - to be physically much bigger, literally twice as strong, every bit as well conditioned (which is usually a strength of mine) and highly skilled in your own right, makes you pretty formidable. That, ultimately is where I am trying to get to - big enough to be competitive, strong enough to be competitive, fit enough to be competitive - the level of physical performance where your skill and mentality can come into play and allow you to prevail against high level opponents such as your self (hypothetically).
So although I’m disappointed that I’ve come so late to weight training, I know from what everyone says that 5/3/1 is a solid program for the time being, and that I need to stick with it. I know how to fight and I know how to get fit. But what I’ve struggled with in the year or so I’ve been lifting, is getting my bodyweight up intelligently.
My question, if I can phrase it a bit better than I managed last time, is how did you approach getting bigger? Is it something you have done consistently and slowly over the last 20 years, never really ‘bulking’ or ‘cutting’? Did you have a period where you allowed yourself to get a bit on the chubbier side to put on a lot of weight, and then ‘recomp’? I eat to fuel performance, but then outside of a boxing ring, I’m not performing at a very high level physically (although I am consistently getting stronger from a very low starting point), so I’m wondering whether a change in approach is required.
Apologies for the essay. Thank you in advance for your continued help!
@Pano - thanks for your input mate.
@ AIpha I deeply respect your opinion:) I Just see alot of guys with big jaws, broad clavicles and stout hips (who never really move more than needed) move stuff around without much effort, where highly athletic ‘frail’ guys struggle. At my job, we had 2 brothers. One was skinny and a bit frail. His brother built as a tank. Slighlty smaller and quite a bit chubbier. The stout fellow seems to catch up far faster with the work after a few weeks. Just an example.
Get well soon, I miss your workouts already!
@Londonboxer great goals I would say!
I’m sorry to hear about your calf but I’m sure you’ll heal quickly, I’ll keep you in my prayers.
LondonBoxer: I can totally relate brother. One of my biggest goals is to be as dangerous and as well prepared as I possibly can be. I think that is the most honorable thing you can strive for with weight training and learning some type of martial skill. And I can also totally relate to having trouble when you don’t have a goal to work towards. I tend to flounder if I don’t have a reason to get better.
Aa far as getting bigger and stronger: Well, I have not spent much time going for that as a goal, like I said, I have always focused on performance. And, much like you, if I got too out of shape to gain mass, then my fighting suffered, and I refused to let that happen. For this reason, I think it took me much longer to gain mass than it would have had I tried a proper bulking method. When i was younger and I did try to bulk, I found that i just got fatter past a certain point and then i didn’t like how I looked in a mirror or how my body felt, so i would quit it. Now that i (think) I understand more about how the human body actually gains muscle, i would say that most people tend to “over bulk” and just get fat because it is much more fun to eat pizza than it is to eat an equal amount of calories in dead animals and vegetables.
I think 5/3/1 is an excellent program for what you are trying to do with the strength stuff and i believe you will see great gains by using that method. That said, I think you may need to hit some more sets after your main work to force muscle to grow. I am not super familiar with his “big but bring” protocol but i think it is basically doing 10x10 sets after your main percentage work is done. I think doing this or something like a 5x8 rep scheme giant set after would be a good move. So it might look something like this:
Standard 5/3/1 working reps for the day followed by
Accessory Giant Set - 5 Rounds, Adding Weight Every Round
8 Bent over Rows
8 Incline Bench Presses
8 Weighted Pull-Ups
8 Weighted Dips
Ab Variation
Rest :90 Seconds to add weight and catch your breath, then start back at the top
If you did something like that it would probably help you gain both strength and size. But I would head over to the 5/3/1 Forum and see if that would be too much work from what Wendler prescribes. I would hate to mess up a program that he took the time to write.
Other than that, I would make sure to ht your protein requirements each day no matter what and then eat as much rice and vegetables as you can handle without getting too fat. Your abs can get “soft” during a bulk, but, in my opinion, should never completely disappear. There are a lot of guys who would disagree with me on that, but I am just sharing what worked for me in the past.
These days, i find that I am still getting thicker and more developed while staying lean by eating 1.25 - 1.50 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight and then filling the rest of my calories with fats and vegetables. But everyone has different carb tolerances and different diets work different ways for people. Whatever you decide to do, give it 6 weeks of determined strict effort before rejecting it. Less than that and you are just jumping from thing to thing and you will never actually know what is, or is not working.
I hope that starts you on the right path man, from your boxing background, you already know how to work hard and become successful at something, now it is just about refocusing that energy int something else. I really appreciate the kind words, and I am happy to help. All that I ask is when you are all jacked and strong, you pass along what you learned to someone else getting started. I think if we all did that, the world would be a better…and more “dangerous” place. Which in this example would be a very great thing.
Pano: I can see your point man and I appreciate it. As far as missing my workouts, don’t worry, they are not going anywhere. It would take a hell of a lot more than a little injury to stop me. I just need to work around it. Which you will see below. You are not getting rid of me that easily!
Roran: Thanks man, I really appreciate that! I will be better soon. I’m not going to let it slow me down.
THURSDAY, 28MAY2015 - Work For Today
Wave 2/Week 2/Day 4
STRENGTH
Paused Flat Bench Press (3 Second Pause): 315x2, 365x2, 405x2, 425x2, 435x2
Toes to Bar: 15, 15, 15, 15, 15
Goblet Squats (just testing out the calf): 70x10, 88x10, 88x10, 88x10, 88x10
MORE STRENGTH
Ring Pull-Ups: 15, 15, 15, 15, 15
Incline Log Bench Press: 245x5, 300x4, 320x3, 335x3, 355x2
Ring Dips: 20, 20, 20, 20, 20
EVENTS - 9 Rounds
5 Atlas Stone Loads Over a 52" Bar - 200b Stone
5 Tire Flips
NOTES:
Alpha, thank you very much for that response!
I like 5/3/1, but it’s a bit minimalist for how I’m used to training, and I think perhaps that’s why I’m frustrated and feel I could be making more progress. When I was boxing, nothing bad ever came from out training everyone else - quite the opposite in fact. I trained 4 or 5 hours a day for well over a year, and the only consequence was that I got good at twice the rate of everyone around me. The whole ‘less is more’ approach to training doesn’t seem to be doing as much for me as it’s able to do for others, and I think the kind of Giant Set you suggest is an approach that would suit me personally a bit better than some minimal ab and back work after the main 5/3/1 bit of the program that’s generally recommended.
Your advice has definitely got me feeling more certain about how to approach my training, thank you. I will do as you suggest. I am exactly the same when it comes to freaking out about getting soft. Not so much from a vanity point of view, but psychologically when my body gets soft, I feel that I am getting soft and unfit for purpose, so my bulking will definitely be slow, clean, and measured.
Thanks again mate. I will certainly try to help others where I am able. I’ll stop by in a few weeks and let you know how things are progressing with following your recommendations. All the best.
Alpha, sometimes I question if we belong to the same race! If you broke two legs squating, you probably would crawl to the bench dont stop the workout. Bill Kazmaier would be proud.
Londonboxer, I also don’t like too minimalist workouts, but strength training has different aproaches.
You can see it as skill work, like boxing and do 5 workouts a day with things that don’t kill you, but let you practice. The goal is learning being strong. The Bulgarians even maxed out every day, twice a day to learn to be strong at all times.
You can also see it as merely stimulating the body, just grinding yourself into the ground once a week, sometimes even less, and just let your body recover.
Im not saying one is better than another, I just feel I gotta do something alot to get good at it. I became less sucky at math by accumulating 8/9 hours a week. Not trying to do it at once till bleed came out of my ears.
Wendler seems to be in between both. Your not ‘practicing alot’ and your not grinding yourself really hard.
If you don’t like it, it’s not compulsory. Something doesnt work for everyone! Try something different (Thibs has alot of programs here that consist of higher frequency, volume and intensity than Wendlers, and they seem to be good at putting on mass. Look up Power Look or 915 or something. You don’t have to copy programs, but this guy knows his stuff and has a powerful concept or method to be learned everytime he publishes. He is the guy who connect the dots for me, because he analyses and applies, instead of argues about details).
Speaking about programming, a method Alpha uses, as he told, called the DUP method gets a great deal of good reviews. As far as I understand you train a lift/pattern multiple times a week, with a different goal each time. One hypertrophy day, one strength, one speed. Maybe it hits the sweet spot between digging yourself into a hole, and practicing being strong. Some claims are that by training the same muscles again in a certain time frame (24 hours after the first workout I recall) would lead to high muscle protein synthesis aka gunz in the making.
Take home point: Alpha is always right, one way or another.
Hope it helps man! Good luck
Londonboxer (with apologies to Alpha for the mini-hijack), Google ‘A Training Philosophy for Solid Mass Gain’ by Kelly Baggett. His approach is very compatible with Wendler’s and this article provides a great summary of the theory and practice of gaining muscle.
London Boxer: I am more than happy to help brother! Good luck!
Pano: Good suggestion brother, and I am definitely the same race as everyone else, I just want things more than most people I think.
justrob: Also a good suggestion, and great to hear from you again brother!
FRIDAY, 29MAY2015 - Work For Today
Wave 1/Week 2/Day 5
STRENGTH GIANT SET
3 Second Pause Squats: 135x5, 185x5, 225x3, 275x3, 315x3, 365x3, 405x3
Wide Grip Pull-Ups: 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10
Weighted Sit-Ups: 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10
ACCESSORY GIANT SET
3 Second Pause Front Squats: 135x5, 185x5, 225x5, 275x5
Glute Ham Raises: 10, 10, 10, 10
Dips: 25, 25, 25, 25
NOTES:
I can’t wait until I’m strong enough to test an injured leg with over 400 pounds… It reminds me of that Rippetoe quote on why bother strength training: “because stronger people are harder to kill.”