Continue Hypertrophy Training?

Bigger Stronger Leaner Competitive Bodybuilding
1

Hi guys, this is going to be a long read so I apologize if it ends up being boring… but I’m looking for comments and advice.

I’m 23, 5’11 and about 2 months back I was 120lbs.

Yeah - disgustingly skinny - anyways, for the last 3 years I worked out on and off but I didn’t have the right mindset and training until 2 months back when a buddy of mine started personal training me.

He is a great trainer and under him, I have gained about 15 pounds in the last 2 months.

My current body fat is 10%.

Anyways, my buddy just got a fulltime job so it doesn’t look likely that he is going to be able to train me anymore (regularly atleast).

Here’s what we did so far

weeks 1-2 : some strength training with strip sets to shock my muscles to gauge where I was at

weeks 3-6 : muscle hypertrophy - lower weights focus on tempo with 3-5 sec. concentric and 5-7 sec. eccentric lifts (w/ +2 failure reps); 3-4 exercises in a row and 10 min. circuits of each muscle group.

weeks 6-8 : strength training, max reps with goals of greater than 4 reps + 2 failure. (I had some good gains here, I went from benching about 85 to 150).

week 9 : hypertrophy, at this point in the first week, we pretty much just did a lot of circuits (with different exercises for each muscle groups to shock the muscles) and kickboxing at the end of each session to completely gas out.

week 10 : hypertrophy, here I was by myself - I followed a slight variant of week 9 - went ok - I could’nt do the +2 failure esp. for chest as I couldn’t get anyone to spot me :frowning:

week 11 : here’s where I’m at, I just did bi’s and tri’s today and they went well, I managed to push myself to the max which felt good :slight_smile:

Well my question is - how long should I continue the hypertrophy for?

I was guessing for about another 2 weeks because my weight has plateaued for the last couple of weeks - I can’t seem to make much gains. So I think I need to increase my cycles.

I have a lot of other questions but I’ll wait for some comments and discussion before I ask them.

Also, this may look like it does not belong in the beginner forum - but I’m not all that competent so I figured that this would be the best place to start.

Diet:
oatmeal + milk (breakfast - 8:30)
banana/some crap (10:00)

burger + fries (lunch - 12:30)

Weight Gainer (5:00 either after workout or just in general)

Dinner (could range from chicken leg + rice to pasta to whatever I feel like cooking - 6,7:00)

Weight Gainer (10:00)

It’s simple and I haven’t clocked the calories and protein but I try to hit 4000 with atleast 135g of protein. Also, the times vary but that’s what I try to intake everyday.

======================

Again, comments appreciated. Thanks for reading if you made it this far - cheers!

2

I honestly think you are over thinking this. You havent been working out long you need to just get in there and train. sure mix it up a bit do 4-6 week heavier say 5x5 etc. then bump it to 3 x 8-10 etc etc. the main thing is get in there do the work and eat.

aim to do better each time. If your bored change it up. if you stagnate change the training or diet. mopst of all eat, bust ass, have fun and the gains will come.

Pick a program here follow it pick another follow it etc. thats always a very solid option as well.

3

Aight sweet thanks :slight_smile:

[quote]Phill wrote:
I honestly think you are over thinking this. You havent been working out long you need to just get in there and train. sure mix it up a bit do 4-6 week heavier say 5x5 etc. then bump it to 3 x 8-10 etc etc. the main thing is get in there do the work and eat.

aim to do better each time. If your bored change it up. if you stagnate change the training or diet. mopst of all eat, bust ass, have fun and the gains will come.

Pick a program here follow it pick another follow it etc. thats always a very solid option as well.

[/quote]

4

Chad Waterbury’s TBT has worked very well for me. As long as you’re eating and lifting heavy, you’ll keep gaining, and Waterbury does all the set/rep parameters for you. If you didn’t want to do it yourself, you could at least use it as a model for how to structure a program of that nature.

Good luck man.

5

Hi n00i3,

I second the suggestion to check out Chad Waterbury’s articles. I really like his methodologies as they are often times based on real world examples of people who have built appreciative levels of muscle and not genetically elite, hardcore bodybuilders.

He also seems to really go “against the grain” of what a lot of people have come to believe are the “rules” of how to build muscle. But, he also backs up his theories with both emperical and scientific data. So, it’s not just “I got big by doing this, so you should follow my lead without question”.

A congugated periodization scheme would probably be a good idea for you, as it would allow you to workout your muscles much more frequently than a split routine would. Frequency is (at least according to Waterbury, and also in my experience) one of the key factors in the rate at which you will gain muscle. And as you are naturally really skinny, your first goal should be to put on muscle. Don’t worry you’ll also get stronger and quite possibly decrease your body fat %.

Good luck and good training,

Sentoguy

6

Hey!

wow, well its been about a year since i started training and well, 8 months since my last post, but I wanted to throw in a quick update.

Training is going good - I am more dedicated than ever, and a big Ian King fan, haha :slight_smile:

Current weight 160 lbs (so thats 40 pounds gained in about 10 months)

Squat: 315 lbs (4 reps)
Deadlift: 315 lbs (4 reps)
Bench: 225 lbs (2 reps)

Anyways, I have a question for whoever is reading this - My left shoulder is busted due to overtraining (or whatever cause); how should I go about bringing it up to speed with my right?

Thanks!