Just reading this and knowing where you are now. Even gives this grumpy old bloke a warm feeling. We can all get better we just have To want it bad enough and work hard enough.
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Yup. Being 8lbs heavier at this bodyfat would be nice.
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Pretty much. The amount needed to synthesis and maintain a new lb of muscle is pretty low, and extreme surpluses beyond what is needed wonât affect rates of synthesis anyway, so why get fat when youâre just gonna have to lose it laterâŠ
Unless you realize that course. I knew that I could drop 25 lbs for a contest fairly easily so I wasnât going to make myself uncomfortable or deny myself of anything the 3/4s of the year when I wasnât actively prepping.
S
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hahaha I love this.
Yea man, I remember maybe a year or so outside of my first powerlifting meet, I was STILL looking at something around a 1200 lbs total. At the time, I was weighing around 190 lbs, and I knew I wanted to compete as a 181 to put up anything respectable for my weight class. I was around a 400 squat, 300 bench, and 500 deadlift. And 9 lbs overweight, lol. As recently as 6 months before my first meet, I failed a 405 squat single. Over the next 6 months, I added around 5 lbs of bodyweight, and nearly 300 lbs onto my total. I squatted about 520 unwrapped (and it was a smoke show, should have gone higher), 385 bench, and 585 deadlift. Nearly 1500 total, elite for the class. If I had accepted what at the time would have seemed like a reasonable limit, I would have been nowhere near that.
Really, itâs just about working as hard as you can, and seeing where you end up at the end of the day. If you know you REALLY put it all out there, then wherever you end up is what your limit was. Itâs the only way to find it, no chart can do that for you.
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In regards to adding to your total over six months, did you follow a sub max progression or just go in and force yourself to lift more weight each session?
When I first started lifting seriously, I just did 10, 8, 6, 4, 2 on all of the multi joint lifts and Iâd AMRAP the set of 2. I just wanted to get to the next weight every week. I actually enjoyed that type of training but I was 17. Iâm not sure if itâs sustainable long term.
What does this mean? Iâm seriously asking - I donât understand
I actually logged pretty extensively in my training log during that time period! OK, Let's Lift! And 1 and 2 and 1 and 2 - #321 by flipcollar
^thatâs a decent place to start. That was January 2015. The meet was June. In that training session in January, I hit a 405 squat for a single, and missed 525 deadlift. So, I was at around a 400 and 500 max there, respectively.
It looks like I gained more weight than I thought during that period. I started right around 180.
So generally speaking, I would work up to a heavy weight for anything from a single to a set of 5ish, and then I would drop weight to something I could do for multiple sets of 5-10 in most training sessions, After that, accessory work was kind of whatever I felt like doing. I generally split my sessions into an OHP day, a bench day, a squat day and a deadlift day. Honestly, not a ton of structure to what I did. Which is why I consistently preach the value of time and effort over specific programming.
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They were talking about getting ready for a powerlifting meet. So stuff that really wouldnât have a huge impact on PL meet day, like cardio and conditioning could be way reduced or eliminated.
Itâs too late to gain muscle mass, so strenuous hypertrophy stuff like leg press drop sets and 10 rep weighted dips can be cut down or out.
Technique should be good by now so back off sets and and specific technique work can be reduced or dropped.
With your workload dropped you can focus on dominating a few heavy reps of the comp lifts, recovering and being ready to go heavier next time.
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I think Iâm missing the point. Why is that replicative of steroids? Or is he saying thatâs the only times naturals will see seemingly rapid progress?
Yeah, you got it.
Your mass and leverages are improving quickly because of thiccness from pounding food and gaining weight. The garbage bodyweight is coming on faster than max from natty muscle growth. Quick enough that you can feel the difference.
Your recover (whatever that means) is âenhancedâ because the workload is suddenly less than youâre used too. So youâre not as anabolic as a steroid user but you feel more recovered and ready to go so itâs easier than youâre used to add weight.
If your training went well and you planned right you should be expecting and ready to hit bigger weights at the end of the training cycle than you did in the middle. So even if your not building a ton of strength the last few weeks, you should be handling bigger weights than before.
All this stuff happening at once is like the most rapid progress, in terms of weight on the bar that a natural lifter can make.
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I heard someone quoting a study, it basically said that you only need roughly 1/3 the volume/sets/ effective reps however you want to categorize it, to maintain muscle you had built. So if you needed 20 hard sets to gain muscle then 6-7 weekly sets would maintain that. Do you find this to be true?
As far as genetic potential goes, I think you gotta shoot for more than youâll ever get unless youâre just happy with youâre physique. I know that after 5-6 years things slow down drastically if youâre natty. From experience. First few years I could just push a little harder and see gains now after 8 years of pushing hard and giving real effort I donât see much improvement after a year. The Greg duecette video I posted is great. Iâd recommend checking it out.
I think thatâs interesting. On one hand I remember Corey Everson talking quite a bit about how she was able to maintain very close to the size she had when she was competing with very abbreviated routines just a few times each week. On the other hand, you had Bill pearl, who I put a ton of faith in, discussing that the longer you train, the better you tolerate and make progress from more volume overall. I guess there are a lot of other individual factors at work between those two ends of a spectrum.
S
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I can say from personal experience, I have gained
Muscle training mostly high intensity low volume upper lower upper lower split and have done Blocks of moderate intensity with about the same volume and maintained the same size. I know thats anecdotal.
I always think to Wendlers 2 day a week plan he basically says itâs for old guys. Itâs not a ton of work but you wonât get small doing it.
I read this and zoned out on everything else you said. Cory Evereson 
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Think she was natty or not? Lol
Errrmm deff not. But from a time when female bodybuilders still looked hot.
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I think I miss the hair the most. The 80s hair stands out.
This is off the wall but I am a home health therapist. I go into a lot of homes and as a habit I look at pictures on the walls. I see lots of pics from 40,50,60 even 70s but I almost NEVER see pics that look â1980sâ. Most of these older folks keep pics up from the past but it seems the 80s pics are just all so bad nobody wants to look at them. Lol
This was just a conversation I had with a fellow therapist one time and I just thought of it.
Anyways âŠback on trackâŠ
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The flat top mullet seems to be making a comeback down under so maybe itâs time that 80âs perm came back too !!
Iâll have to bow out of any hair comebacks. I can grow a wicked skullet though.
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@Voxel thanks for the tag!
@brandonlord0, seems like youâve made a lot of progress already. Truthfully thereâs no way to know what your âmaximum potentialâ really is for size, LBM, etc., as others have mentioned on this thread. Sometimes having a clear cut goal of a certain number makes sense. In this case of trying to see how far you can really go, itâs a marathon mentality and thereâs no way to accurately put a set of numbers on it. Besides, letâs say you knew, somehow, the pounds or body fat or LBM or whatever you needed to reach your max. Then, you reach it. Now what? Are you gonna slow down? Quit? Stop trying to improve? Likely not. So, in this instance, keep aiming to improve, vary your training and youâll always keep improving.
On that note, youâre already looking quite lean and have a lot of strong points! Just throwing in some input so take it or leave it, focusing on your chest and legs would be a great starting point based on your pics.
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