Bigger, stronger, leaner.

Training
61

[quote]super saiyan wrote:

[quote]Professor X wrote:

[quote]super saiyan wrote:
Good post Stu. You have to be wary of proper hormone balance and insulin sensitivity when you start to get sloppy. Your body is generally primed for better muscle gain at a lower BF%. How low is individual. I think 10-15% is about right in general. Thibs and Shelby I think recommend 10-12%.
.[/quote]

Your body does not get thrown out of “hormone balance” because you are 15% body fat. You are relating studies done on obese people to this topic.[/quote]

I didn’t say it does.[/quote]

No, what you said was that the body is primed for better muscle gains at a lower body fat percentage…which has no basis in science fact. Your genetics determine rate of anabolism, not how lean you are unless truly obese and having some hormonal problems.

Most of these studies are done on OBESE PEOPLE. Trainers relating that info to leaner people under 25% body fat is incorrect.

62

Some random opinions:

  1. Someone who is 150lbs with 20% body fat should not focus on “getting ripped” or “bulking up”… he should simply learn to lift properly, learn to lift hard, make good food choices, maximize peri-workout nutrition. A person like that is obviously a beginner and can really change his body composition simply by taking on the preceding habits. After a few months like that he can re-evaluate where he is at and take the best course possible.

  2. I do not think that using pro bodybuilders as example is a good idea. They use a lot of different drugs that drastically speed up the fat loss process (T3, clenbuterol and the likes, DNP for some, growth hormone, etc.) and they use high dose of anabolic drugs that help them prevent muscle loss when dieting hard. So a pro bodybuilder can gain 30lbs of fat during the off-season and lose it in 10-12 weeks with not muscle loss prior to a contest… a natural cannot do that. So adding too much body fat isn’t such a great idea… “bulking up” might help you gain 3-5lbs more but what good is it if you lose it during the dieting phase?

  3. Not all people are comfortable with the same level or body fat. Some people simply like to take up as much space as possible and do not care too much about their level of leanness. Others do care and value being lean just as much as adding mass. So the former might not care if he gets to 20%+ but the later might… I personally like being on the leaner side and I know that when I get too fat for my liking it actually decreases my motivation to train. We cannot judge people on their personal preference… ProfX might not care if he is in the 20% body fat range as long as he gets larger, but many do. And to this day I’m not convinced that over the long term, the guy who bulks up will have more muscle once he diet down to a fairly low body fat level.

  4. Even with the use of fat loss and anabolic drugs, the pros now tend to stay leaner during the off-season. I know I said not to take pros as example, but if they try to stay leaner year round despite all the weapons at their disposal, it means something! And it is true that they already have a lot of muscle mass… but they are still trying to gain as much muscle as possible.

  5. We all have different physiologies and our body is more efficient at a specific level. For example, someone who is genetically (or because of his past) fatter, might not be able to gain a lot of muscle if he tried to stay at 8% body fat. Whereas someone who is genetically very lean will not have the same problems. But there is also a point where too much fat actually reduces your capacity to gain, mostly by decreasing insulin sensitivity.

63

[quote]flipcollar wrote:

[quote]super saiyan wrote:

[quote]Professor X wrote:

[quote]super saiyan wrote:
Good post Stu. You have to be wary of proper hormone balance and insulin sensitivity when you start to get sloppy. Your body is generally primed for better muscle gain at a lower BF%. How low is individual. I think 10-15% is about right in general. Thibs and Shelby I think recommend 10-12%.
.[/quote]

Your body does not get thrown out of “hormone balance” because you are 15% body fat. You are relating studies done on obese people to this topic.[/quote]

I didn’t say it does.[/quote]

Saiyan actually said the opposite. In what you quoted. That “10-15 percent is about right in general”. He said this can happen “when you get sloppy”, which is a pretty general statement. He could have meant 25+ by this.

<3 Saiyan[/quote]

My point was his focus on “hormonal imbalance”…which is something I would expect an obese person to be worried about…not someone much leaner who is simply working on gaining muscle.

None of us are trying to become “obese”.

64

Also, my current stance, to make it clear, is to stay leaner when gaining…but I already put the mass on. I consider those earlier stages INVALUABLE and the main reason I put on that much size despite the other things I was dealing with at the time.

65

[quote]Professor X wrote:

[quote]Furyguy wrote:

What do you guys think are some rough boundaries for that continuum so rookies can know when they’re straying into ‘retarded’ territory without needing to ask ‘should I bulk or cut???’ every single time? The Starnes article above did this to some extent but I’m curious as other people’s thoughts.[/quote]

I would say avoid all out “gut and love handles”. Have I done so…yep. So that makes me a huge fucking hypocrite.

Obviously I think that not all people grow efficiently at some leaner level. [/quote]

I don’t necessarily like the love handle/gut as the benchmark to know if you are getting too fat. Not everybody has the same body fat repartition. For example, Sebastien Cossette (one of the bodybuilders I trained) has a very even fat distribution… even if he gains 30lbs of fat he doesn’t have love handles or a gut.

PX you seem to be that way too… when I saw you, your body fat seems very evenly repartitioned. This is both a good and a bad thing: a good thing because you will still look good at a higher body fat levels… for example you at 20% body fat could look leaner than someone else at 15% who stores fat in “ugly places”.

The bad thing is that it can actually fool you into thinking that you are not adding much fat, or as much fat as you really are which could either make you overestimate the amount of muscle you really have (don’t get me wrong, you have a ton of muscle) or think that your approach will work on everybody.

66

[quote]Professor X wrote:

[quote]combatreadyss wrote:

Now in my case I sit around 200lbs, If I were to eat more or less calories in a clean way to maintain the current weight concentrating on increasing performance on the lifts (Bench, squat, dead lift, row, OHP)? Wouldnt this be another way of possibly improving your overall physique?
[/quote]

That is what some of us do with “recomp”…but it is a VERY slow process unless using steroids.

It is a great way to hold that higher weight though and is what I am usually referring to. Still working on “performance” but keeping calories at a level to maintain that body weight for a while.[/quote]

So would you say this would be a “better” approach for Athletes or Fighters trying to stay in a certain weight range then and if you are working toward physique competition utilize either one of the approaches stated earlier?

67

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
Some random opinions:

  1. Someone who is 150lbs with 20% body fat should not focus on “getting ripped” or “bulking up”… he should simply learn to lift properly, learn to lift hard, make good food choices, maximize peri-workout nutrition. A person like that is obviously a beginner and can really change his body composition simply by taking on the preceding habits. After a few months like that he can re-evaluate where he is at and take the best course possible.

  2. I do not think that using pro bodybuilders as example is a good idea. They use a lot of different drugs that drastically speed up the fat loss process (T3, clenbuterol and the likes, DNP for some, growth hormone, etc.) and they use high dose of anabolic drugs that help them prevent muscle loss when dieting hard. So a pro bodybuilder can gain 30lbs of fat during the off-season and lose it in 10-12 weeks with not muscle loss prior to a contest… a natural cannot do that. So adding too much body fat isn’t such a great idea… “bulking up” might help you gain 3-5lbs more but what good is it if you lose it during the dieting phase?

  3. Not all people are comfortable with the same level or body fat. Some people simply like to take up as much space as possible and do not care too much about their level of leanness. Others do care and value being lean just as much as adding mass. So the former might not care if he gets to 20%+ but the later might… I personally like being on the leaner side and I know that when I get too fat for my liking it actually decreases my motivation to train. We cannot judge people on their personal preference… ProfX might not care if he is in the 20% body fat range as long as he gets larger, but many do. And to this day I’m not convinced that over the long term, the guy who bulks up will have more muscle once he diet down to a fairly low body fat level.

  4. Even with the use of fat loss and anabolic drugs, the pros now tend to stay leaner during the off-season. I know I said not to take pros as example, but if they try to stay leaner year round despite all the weapons at their disposal, it means something! And it is true that they already have a lot of muscle mass… but they are still trying to gain as much muscle as possible.

  5. We all have different physiologies and our body is more efficient at a specific level. For example, someone who is genetically (or because of his past) fatter, might not be able to gain a lot of muscle if he tried to stay at 8% body fat. Whereas someone who is genetically very lean will not have the same problems. But there is also a point where too much fat actually reduces your capacity to gain, mostly by decreasing insulin sensitivity.[/quote]

The last sentence is the point I was getting at.

As you said, the fact that pros, natural and otherwise, are doing away with traditional bulks is not something that should be ignored.

68

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:

[quote]Professor X wrote:

[quote]Furyguy wrote:

What do you guys think are some rough boundaries for that continuum so rookies can know when they’re straying into ‘retarded’ territory without needing to ask ‘should I bulk or cut???’ every single time? The Starnes article above did this to some extent but I’m curious as other people’s thoughts.[/quote]

I would say avoid all out “gut and love handles”. Have I done so…yep. So that makes me a huge fucking hypocrite.

Obviously I think that not all people grow efficiently at some leaner level. [/quote]

I don’t necessarily like the love handle/gut as the benchmark to know if you are getting too fat. Not everybody has the same body fat repartition. For example, Sebastien Cossette (one of the bodybuilders I trained) has a very even fat distribution… even if he gains 30lbs of fat he doesn’t have love handles or a gut.

PX you seem to be that way too… when I saw you, your body fat seems very evenly repartitioned. This is both a good and a bad thing: a good thing because you will still look good at a higher body fat levels… for example you at 20% body fat could look leaner than someone else at 15% who stores fat in “ugly places”.

The bad thing is that it can actually fool you into thinking that you are not adding much fat, or as much fat as you really are which could either make you overestimate the amount of muscle you really have (don’t get me wrong, you have a ton of muscle) or think that your approach will work on everybody.[/quote]

What I found is that if you lean up, your body tends to lose body fat in the same areas in the same sequence. I use that now to be honest. By the time I get to true love handles, it is too late.

I suppose that may be a better way of saying it.

I gain fat very evenly but the one place I show the most change is the love handle area. My obliques are wider than most.

69

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
Some random opinions:

  1. Someone who is 150lbs with 20% body fat should not focus on “getting ripped” or “bulking up”… he should simply learn to lift properly, learn to lift hard, make good food choices, maximize peri-workout nutrition. A person like that is obviously a beginner and can really change his body composition simply by taking on the preceding habits. After a few months like that he can re-evaluate where he is at and take the best course possible.

  2. I do not think that using pro bodybuilders as example is a good idea. They use a lot of different drugs that drastically speed up the fat loss process (T3, clenbuterol and the likes, DNP for some, growth hormone, etc.) and they use high dose of anabolic drugs that help them prevent muscle loss when dieting hard. So a pro bodybuilder can gain 30lbs of fat during the off-season and lose it in 10-12 weeks with not muscle loss prior to a contest… a natural cannot do that. So adding too much body fat isn’t such a great idea… “bulking up” might help you gain 3-5lbs more but what good is it if you lose it during the dieting phase?

  3. Not all people are comfortable with the same level or body fat. Some people simply like to take up as much space as possible and do not care too much about their level of leanness. Others do care and value being lean just as much as adding mass. So the former might not care if he gets to 20%+ but the later might… I personally like being on the leaner side and I know that when I get too fat for my liking it actually decreases my motivation to train. We cannot judge people on their personal preference… ProfX might not care if he is in the 20% body fat range as long as he gets larger, but many do. And to this day I’m not convinced that over the long term, the guy who bulks up will have more muscle once he diet down to a fairly low body fat level.

  4. Even with the use of fat loss and anabolic drugs, the pros now tend to stay leaner during the off-season. I know I said not to take pros as example, but if they try to stay leaner year round despite all the weapons at their disposal, it means something! And it is true that they already have a lot of muscle mass… but they are still trying to gain as much muscle as possible.

  5. We all have different physiologies and our body is more efficient at a specific level. For example, someone who is genetically (or because of his past) fatter, might not be able to gain a lot of muscle if he tried to stay at 8% body fat. Whereas someone who is genetically very lean will not have the same problems. But there is also a point where too much fat actually reduces your capacity to gain, mostly by decreasing insulin sensitivity.[/quote]

Thibs, thank you for this. Really happy that you are posting again because some of this stuff is just pure gold and helps to reinforce it to some of us(cough cough…me) who tend to forget when trying to go through a size phase. Im looking at 2-3 extra months of dieting this year when I could use them to grow because i gained too much fluff during my ‘bulk’.

Going to make myself read ‘truth about bulking’ once a month after my diet to make sure i dont steer off path.

70

Hey CT - do you have any clarification on how this new forum is supposed to differ from the BB forum?

71

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:

[quote]Professor X wrote:

[quote]Furyguy wrote:

What do you guys think are some rough boundaries for that continuum so rookies can know when they’re straying into ‘retarded’ territory without needing to ask ‘should I bulk or cut???’ every single time? The Starnes article above did this to some extent but I’m curious as other people’s thoughts.[/quote]

I would say avoid all out “gut and love handles”. Have I done so…yep. So that makes me a huge fucking hypocrite.

Obviously I think that not all people grow efficiently at some leaner level. [/quote]

I don’t necessarily like the love handle/gut as the benchmark to know if you are getting too fat. Not everybody has the same body fat repartition. For example, Sebastien Cossette (one of the bodybuilders I trained) has a very even fat distribution… even if he gains 30lbs of fat he doesn’t have love handles or a gut.

PX you seem to be that way too… when I saw you, your body fat seems very evenly repartitioned. This is both a good and a bad thing: a good thing because you will still look good at a higher body fat levels… for example you at 20% body fat could look leaner than someone else at 15% who stores fat in “ugly places”.

The bad thing is that it can actually fool you into thinking that you are not adding much fat, or as much fat as you really are which could either make you overestimate the amount of muscle you really have (don’t get me wrong, you have a ton of muscle) or think that your approach will work on everybody.[/quote]

One thing I want to ask/add to this. I am one of those people who store fat very poorly and really cant see my abs at all until single digit bf. at 15% i just look freaking sloppy. Why is it that everyone has a different ‘threshold of lean’? I get that it is ‘genetic’ but what exactly is it? Location or concentration of fat cells? Muscle belly length/insertion point etc?

72

[quote]LankyMofo wrote:
Hey CT - do you have any clarification on how this new forum is supposed to differ from the BB forum?[/quote]

It’s still in development/transition.

The way I see it, not everybody wants to do actual “bodybuilding” (for competition or training like those who do competition). The vast majority of the people simply want to get bigger, stronger and leaner without necessarily training “bodybuilding-style”…

It is not for less serious or less advanced individuals. In fact I consider myself as belonging in that category. It’s for those who want to maximize what their body can do and look like without a competitive goal in mind.

73

[quote]Professor X wrote:

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:

[quote]Professor X wrote:

[quote]Furyguy wrote:

What do you guys think are some rough boundaries for that continuum so rookies can know when they’re straying into ‘retarded’ territory without needing to ask ‘should I bulk or cut???’ every single time? The Starnes article above did this to some extent but I’m curious as other people’s thoughts.[/quote]

I would say avoid all out “gut and love handles”. Have I done so…yep. So that makes me a huge fucking hypocrite.

Obviously I think that not all people grow efficiently at some leaner level. [/quote]

I don’t necessarily like the love handle/gut as the benchmark to know if you are getting too fat. Not everybody has the same body fat repartition. For example, Sebastien Cossette (one of the bodybuilders I trained) has a very even fat distribution… even if he gains 30lbs of fat he doesn’t have love handles or a gut.

PX you seem to be that way too… when I saw you, your body fat seems very evenly repartitioned. This is both a good and a bad thing: a good thing because you will still look good at a higher body fat levels… for example you at 20% body fat could look leaner than someone else at 15% who stores fat in “ugly places”.

The bad thing is that it can actually fool you into thinking that you are not adding much fat, or as much fat as you really are which could either make you overestimate the amount of muscle you really have (don’t get me wrong, you have a ton of muscle) or think that your approach will work on everybody.[/quote]

What I found is that if you lean up, your body tends to lose body fat in the same areas in the same sequence. I use that now to be honest. By the time I get to true love handles, it is too late.

I suppose that may be a better way of saying it.

I gain fat very evenly but the one place I show the most change is the love handle area. My obliques are wider than most.[/quote]

I agree with the sequence of fat loss, but that sequence can actually differ from one to another. I’m the same way as you regarding the obliques… because of my olympic lifting background ,my obliques are actually overdeveloped AND I have a long torso which makes me look like I have love handles even when lean.

What you are saying is applicable to YOU and those who store fat evenly… not for everybody. But really, it is all about liking how you look and being happy with what’s happening with your body. We all have different goals and we should respect those who have a different view points than us.

Is it possible to add muscle while staying lean or losing a small amount of fat? YES… will it make the process longer? Probably… but if you are happier during that time, then it’s fine by me.

74

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:

[quote]LankyMofo wrote:
Hey CT - do you have any clarification on how this new forum is supposed to differ from the BB forum?[/quote]

It’s still in development/transition.

The way I see it, not everybody wants to do actual “bodybuilding” (for competition or training like those who do competition). The vast majority of the people simply want to get bigger, stronger and leaner without necessarily training “bodybuilding-style”…

It is not for less serious or less advanced individuals. In fact I consider myself as belonging in that category. It’s for those who want to maximize what their body can do and look like without a competitive goal in mind.[/quote]

Not sure if you guys are taking suggestions, wanting to hear comments, etc., but can the forum really handle more dilution? Looking at the first page of the BB forum, there are threads on the page that haven’t been replied to in a week. And I get the whole quality vs quality thing, but are the methods to getting bigger, stronger and leaner drastically different than the methods used in bodybuilding (excluding actual contest prep)?

75

[quote]LankyMofo wrote:

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:

[quote]LankyMofo wrote:
Hey CT - do you have any clarification on how this new forum is supposed to differ from the BB forum?[/quote]

It’s still in development/transition.

The way I see it, not everybody wants to do actual “bodybuilding” (for competition or training like those who do competition). The vast majority of the people simply want to get bigger, stronger and leaner without necessarily training “bodybuilding-style”…

It is not for less serious or less advanced individuals. In fact I consider myself as belonging in that category. It’s for those who want to maximize what their body can do and look like without a competitive goal in mind.[/quote]

Not sure if you guys are taking suggestions, wanting to hear comments, etc., but can the forum really handle more dilution? Looking at the first page of the BB forum, there are threads on the page that haven’t been replied to in a week. And I get the whole quality vs quality thing, but are the methods to getting bigger, stronger and leaner drastically different than the methods used in bodybuilding (excluding actual contest prep)?[/quote]

We want Bigger, Stronger and Leaner to be the big thing… ideally all training threads not related to actual competitive bodybuilding should be posted here. The bodybuilding forum should be left for those doing contest preps, contest discussions and the bodybuilding lifestyle. I personally do not see myself as belonging in that crowd, which is why I’ll hang more in the Bigger, Stronger and Leaner forum.

76

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:

[quote]LankyMofo wrote:

[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:

[quote]LankyMofo wrote:
Hey CT - do you have any clarification on how this new forum is supposed to differ from the BB forum?[/quote]

It’s still in development/transition.

The way I see it, not everybody wants to do actual “bodybuilding” (for competition or training like those who do competition). The vast majority of the people simply want to get bigger, stronger and leaner without necessarily training “bodybuilding-style”…

It is not for less serious or less advanced individuals. In fact I consider myself as belonging in that category. It’s for those who want to maximize what their body can do and look like without a competitive goal in mind.[/quote]

Not sure if you guys are taking suggestions, wanting to hear comments, etc., but can the forum really handle more dilution? Looking at the first page of the BB forum, there are threads on the page that haven’t been replied to in a week. And I get the whole quality vs quality thing, but are the methods to getting bigger, stronger and leaner drastically different than the methods used in bodybuilding (excluding actual contest prep)?[/quote]

We want Bigger, Stronger and Leaner to be the big thing… ideally all training threads not related to actual competitive bodybuilding should be posted here. The bodybuilding forum should be left for those doing contest preps, contest discussions and the bodybuilding lifestyle. I personally do not see myself as belonging in that crowd, which is why I’ll hang more in the Bigger, Stronger and Leaner forum.[/quote]

Same here.

My goal is a more full look and more strength than someone looking to compete.

77

[quote]combatreadyss wrote:

[quote]Professor X wrote:

[quote]combatreadyss wrote:

Now in my case I sit around 200lbs, If I were to eat more or less calories in a clean way to maintain the current weight concentrating on increasing performance on the lifts (Bench, squat, dead lift, row, OHP)? Wouldnt this be another way of possibly improving your overall physique?
[/quote]

That is what some of us do with “recomp”…but it is a VERY slow process unless using steroids.

It is a great way to hold that higher weight though and is what I am usually referring to. Still working on “performance” but keeping calories at a level to maintain that body weight for a while.[/quote]

So would you say this would be a “better” approach for Athletes or Fighters trying to stay in a certain weight range then and if you are working toward physique competition utilize either one of the approaches stated earlier? [/quote]

Dude, honestly, anyone trying to get really big is going to have to spend some time only working on size.

Yes, the goal is to keep fat in check.

No, the goal is not obesity.

78

Wouldn’t have been easier to rename the current BB forum and move out the actual few pure pro BB threads to its own section?

Eh, o well.

79

[quote]paulieserafini wrote:
Seriously an someone, like a MOD who knows what is going on comment on what this new subforum is all about?[/quote]

And where the thread starts. It’s obvious that there is quoted material in the first post implying that there were previous posts.

80

[quote]giograves wrote:
Wouldn’t have been easier to rename the current BB forum and move out the actual few pure pro BB threads to its own section?

Eh, o well.[/quote]

Obviously not since every post gets hammered if someone isn’t a competitive bodybuilder in that forum lately.

If someone isn’t talking about contest shape, they pretty much get shouted down.