The purpose of this log is to keep record of my 2nd bulk in my goal to eventually compete in bodybuilding as well as receive comments, critique, help, and encouragement from those who care to share it.
Ok, so here’s a little bit of my training history, which isn’t too extensive, so it won’t be too long.
I started lifting last year in late August because I was tired of my body and college was my chance to open up a new leaf. I weighed 180 lbs @ 20% BF. I wasn’t exactly the best of shape. So I started running in a treadmill while lifting. Somehow, I ended up at 180 lbs @ 12% BF. I guess I built muscle and lost fat at the same time.
Then I decided it was time to bulk up. I did this to an extreme. I took in 500 - 600 grams of protein a day and at least 6,000 calories. I was gaining 13 lbs a month for the first 3 months. After 7 months, I was 70 lbs heavier, putting me at 250 lbs. I had gained 50 of that in muscle and 20 in fat.
In May, I stopped lifting for 2 months because I felt burnt out from lifting every day for the past 8 months. Despite this and now dieting I lost 30 lbs. Now I’m back at it and I’m gaining my muscle back while still losing fat. I love muscle memory.
I’m currently 220 lbs @ what I estimate to be 16% BF at 6’2". That’s a net gain of 50 lbs of muscle and 4% less BF in 11 months or so. I will be cutting for about 2 more weeks, and will be bulking again starting about August 25th. I will be keeping a log of my progress the entire time.
My training program I am writing for myself while taking elements from others’ as well as a few articles found here on T-Nation. I hate following programs to a T. It just doesn’t work for me. I like to march to the beat of my own drum.
The program isn’t set in stone yet, but it’s going to be along the lines of something like this:
Day 1: Chest/Biceps
Day 2: Legs/Shoulders
Day 3: Back/Triceps
Day 4: Traps/Calves/Shoulders/Abs
Day 5: Rest IF needed
Basically Day 1 is all of the presses, which includes the military press and all of its seated/standing and barbell/dumbbell/cable variations. Also, bicep isolation is super-set with the chest exercises.
Day 2 is all of the legs stuff, with only a little bit of calf work. The only calf work I do on this day is when I’m done with the leg press, I will hold the last rep and rep out on 6 second hold calf raises with the toes pointed inwards. This method could be used after squats, but usually my legs are too wobbly after a set to hold the bar up long enough to rep out on calves.
And the shoulders only get to do raises on these days. I will actually be doing super-sets within super-sets on leg/shoulder day. For example, I’ll do something like the following:
A1: Back Squats
A2: Raise Tri-set
I. Bent-over Dumbbell Raises
II. Seated Dumbbell Side Raises
III. Standing Front Raises
I’m not too worried about the anterior head of my shoulders because they get stimulated so easily, so I just do some low-volume work on this day for them, then really hit the medial and posterior heads. Oh, and no presses on leg/shoulder day. Why? Because the triceps need rest, so I just do the vertical presses on chest day.
Day 3 is deadlifts, rows, chin-ups and all of their variations. Then super-set with that is the tricep isolation. Nothing fancy.
Day 4 is basically a clean-up of the muscle groups to make sure that everything is hit. I will do a few sets of shrugs in front of the body and behind as well as all kinds of calf raises. I also hit the medial and posterior delt heads, again in their own super-set which is also super-set with abs. I really want huge delts, if you can’t tell already.
And day 5 is a day of rest only if need be. I have done Chad Waterbury’s HFT program and was extremely impressed by it. My recovery is pretty fast, so I have no problems with this kind of regime, thanks to Mr. Waterbury.
My workouts really never consist of more than 15 sets per bodypart, though total sets per workout vary due to how extreme I go into super-setting. I usually alternate my rep range. One cycle of my workout regime will stay in the 6ish rep range, while the next one will be more so in the 12ish rep range. I also move around my exercises somewhat.
My supplementation is as follows:
Creatine Mono
Whey Protein Isolate
Beta-Alanine
Fish Oil
Multi
That’s it, and that’s really all you need.
My diet is kinda hard to really keep track of in terms of calories because I eat at a dining hall where nothing is labeled in terms of macro-nutrients. I am a college student. The best I can do is estimate through looking up online labels. I did a fairly good job of doing this last time and made extremely good gains with this process. I remember exactly what I ate and can do it again. I will, however, start off with slightly smaller portions because I think I was probably eating a few hundred too many calories per day.
I follow a rough 40/40/20 diet. So with a 5k calorie bulk diet, that’s 500 protein, 500 carbs, and whatever the hell 1,667 divided by 9 is in fat.
My diet is hard to write down because the cafeteria served different things every day, so it wasn’t the same every day. But what I try to do is keep my foods as natural as possible so that the labels I look up online will be easier to estimate. For example, I consume a lot of eggs and milk because I know exactly is in them. I will just list what I eat every day as I go along for all of you to see. But I will tell you that I am a huge fan of drinking a gallon of whole milk a day. Like it or not, it’s what I do.
Measurements and pics will be taken throughout the log.
Goals to reach this bulk:
Weigh 260 lbs with little bodyfat gain
Bench 315 (3 plates)
Squat 495 (5 plates)
Deadlift 585 (6 plates)
20 BW pull-ups
40 BW Dips
My strengths are my legs and my erectors in my back to be specific. I HAD a high squat and deadlift for my length of experience, reaching 285x10 maintained for 3 sets for squat and 385x12 maintained for 3 sets for deadlift. I’m still working back up to those numbers since I took a 2 month break from lifting and it’s only week 2 back at it.
Pull-ups, I’m ok at. I can do about 6 - 8 depending on the day. Dips, I can do 6. One week ago, I could do 1. I had never done dips in my life, and I decided to start doing them and my triceps have EXPLODED in a week. My co-workers have all commented on it. I haven’t done bench this week yet, so we’ll see how this affects it.
Speaking of bench, that is my ultimate weakpoint. I can’t even bench 225, even with my 385x12 deadlift (which is really probably 385x14 or 15). I don’t know what it is, but halfway through my first bulk, only my squat and deadlift kept on moving up rapidly. My rows, pull-ups, biceps and triceps isolation all moved up slowly, but my presses just sucked ass. I actually got weaker even though I was trying my hardest.
I wasn’t overtraining either, even though I tried that for a short period of time, but in general this wasn’t the case. Again, I started doing dips and my triceps for the first time in 6 months or so saw dramatic improvement, so I am excited to see if this means I’m over my pathetic plateau.
Well, that’s all I have for now. It’s late, and I’d like to get a little bit of guitar practice in before I go to bed. I didn’t have time to do this earlier because of a corneal abrasion which resulted in a hospital visit. I may post a few pics tomorrow if I can get a hold of a camera and maybe even some measurements. Peace.