Hello all,
This is my first post on any kind of bodybuilding forum so bare with me.
Technically I have been lifting for about 5.5 years. However the first four of those years I had bad training (focusing too much on overly complicated, isolation based workouts, working out like 3-4 times a week, sometimes not at all lol), awful recovery (irregular sleeping pattern with 4-6 hours sleep a night), and bad diet (basically constant ready meals from tescos and no nutrition/veg and often slacking off and not sticking to my calories.) During this time I was at university so there was also lots of drinking, going out and just a generally unhealthy lifestyle. I was bulking pretty much the whole 4 years and gained like 8KG/17lbs. It’s pathetic I know and it’s because I would eat like 3000 calories for a couple days and train, then go out on a bender and feel too hungover to eat properly and end up only eating 1500-2000 calories for the next couple days. Then repeat.
This is me at the end of uni on a lads holiday in Bulgaria after at least a month of no training and not sticking to my calories.
I was 5’9 and around 76KG/176lbs, maybe like 17% bodyfat.
There was a free bar don’t judge.
As you can see I was on a diet of cheap booze, cigs, all nighters and kebabs. It’s probably the worst I’ve looked but I also didn’t really care cos I was having a blast.
Since uni I’ve been training pretty solidly for about 1.5 years now.
I mostly train 5 days a week, 4 at the least. Push, Pull, Legs, Upper, Legs. Train each muscle group twice a week. I focus on compound based workouts (Bench, Deadlift, Military press, Squats) I make sure to use progressive overload (increasing reps within a range before increasing weight.) Recovery is much better (at least 7 hours sleep a night mostly 8 with consistent bed time), and diet is much more consistent currently bulking on 3100-3200 calories with plenty of nutrition/veg. I take creatine, multivitamin and fish oil. I still slack off from time to time and lay off for like a week or so but overall my training/lifestyle is much better than when I was at uni.
Currently I am 5’9 84KG/185lbs and probably like 20% bodyfat.
Current physique:
I uploaded a lot of pictures with various lighting some with a pump some straight out of bed.
My problem is that while I think I’ve definitely made some progress with my physique I’m not sure if it’s enough or even anything decent. Sometimes I think I look alright, other times I think I look too fat and sometimes I think I look like I’ve made very little progress and look like I barely lift/skinny fat.
So do I have decent physique? Or should it be way better considering the time I’ve been lifting etc? Should I carry on bulking or do a cut? Currently I’ve been training at home with some dumbells, barbell and a pullup bar cos of lockdown so my intention is to carry on bulking for when gyms are open and then I can really focus on strength again. Any honest opinions and advice to what areas I could improve would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers.
