[quote] Brook wrote:
I have never in my life…
This is 10,000x more complicated than it needs to be.
Jesus, in this case - i would seriously say, you gotta stop reading! You seem to be confusing yourself with the information overload.
You have read so many conflicting workouts and diets, you have lost all reason.
Basics… back to basics… jesus man.
i feel for you, as annoying as you are, i feel for you. You are almost TOO bright for your own good - there is nothing wrong with simple.[/quote]
Can’t really disagree there.
But when you’re overloaded with advanced info, you first need to find out what simple actually is.
People seem to forget all about simple these days.
In all seriousness, I have two questions:
-
How much weight are you gaining per month?
-
How much weight are you adding to the bar? THIS IS THE BEST PROGRESS RIGHT NOW.
Aside from this stuff, just refer to my above post for some advice. Good luck mate.
[quote]David1991 wrote:
well i really dont like to go over 16%. i get man boobs lol and just look bad, i do this to look good so that wouldnt make much sense. plus the lower your bodyfat is the more of what you gain is LBM instead of fat
[/quote]
So you read that in some article right ?
I guess all those bodybuilders and powerlifters who bulk up big time just had it wrong all these years. What a bunch of morons, huh ?
/sarcasm
No really, this thing has been debated to hell and back.
Don’t people ever learn ?
Then again, looking like the average men’s health cover model doesn’t require bulking… Can’t change your face, but that type of physique is that of a beginner in his latter stages dieted down…
Part of your problem is probably the fact that you over-complicate things. you are using a stressful over-complicated diet - just eat and watch your carbs in the evening. Make sure you get plenty of protein.
As far as your lifting routine, i personally don’t like the NROL workouts. I have the book, read it front to back and tried some of the workouts. Its hard to track progress on the routines because you are CONSTANTLY changing exercises around and shit. Pick something you will enjoy doing and is easy to track progress. Make sure you feel the muscles working, focus on contracing them. Control the negatives, don’t just throw the weights around without any attention to what muscles you should be feeling.
How is your intensity? Honestly, are you in pain and hurting during your workouts? Are you sweating like a mofo? Do any cardio post-lifting?
[quote]josh86 wrote:
Part of your problem is probably the fact that you over-complicate things. you are using a stressful over-complicated diet - just eat and watch your carbs in the evening. Make sure you get plenty of protein.
As far as your lifting routine, i personally don’t like the NROL workouts. I have the book, read it front to back and tried some of the workouts. Its hard to track progress on the routines because you are CONSTANTLY changing exercises around and shit. Pick something you will enjoy doing and is easy to track progress. Make sure you feel the muscles working, focus on contracing them. Control the negatives, don’t just throw the weights around without any attention to what muscles you should be feeling.
How is your intensity? Honestly, are you in pain and hurting during your workouts? Are you sweating like a mofo? Do any cardio post-lifting?[/quote]
I’m glad I never heard of NROL during my time as a beginner…
Had one of those Ian King books by Men’s health though, when I read that these days I can’t help but think how totally unnecessarily complicated some people make lifting…
Dunno about his more recent works though, didn’t follow him.
Also have one MH Book by Lou Schuler (sp?), which is flat out useless.
Good thing I listened to the big guys.
320 protein
1280 kcals
130 carbs
520 kcals
80 fat
720 kcals
2520 kcals on non w/o days
~2900 w/o days (480 from shake 60c 40p post 20p bef/aft)
There is a better breakdown of how I would set it up. Taper carbs throughout the day.
From what I’ve seen around the forums, David appears to be a lost cause. His obsession with minutiae is ridiculous. It’s not a difficult concept to grasp. If one is truly training hard and not eating complete shit, they will make progress and look better. I know this from experience. If one is eating complete shit and training ridiculously hard, they will probably make progress and look better.
David, I suggest to you that you train like a pansy, as you seem hyper-aware of your diet. If you’re such a strict nutritionalist, then your training must be really off to actually gain fat and seemingly lose muscle. Tarin hard, train more. You will not overtrain. Ever. Sit on your studies and your waving carbs days and whatever the fuck else you do.
David, I admire your dedication to learning as much as possible about this stuff, but you are over-complicating things. In the past I was just as guilty of paralysis by analysis as you are, but you need to change your perspective on training for the sake of long-term progress. The minutia will not get you substantially greater gains than the general
1)eat a lot and eat well
2)train enough and train hard
3)sleep a lot
rules of training.
IMO, use 2 measures for the next training cycle:
- Increases in training volume (more weight/reps/sets)
- Increases in weight (at LEAST +.5 lbs. a week)
For diet:
- 6 meals a day
-
50g protein with each meal
-
20g protein with each snack
- eat lots of fruit and vegetables
- get 4-5 tbsp. of good oils and at least 1 cup of nuts every day
That is all you need to worry about for now, if you ask me.
[quote]Airtruth wrote:
hard time finding a partner? you need competition to motivate you to hit the weights harder.
Has your stomach size went down?[/quote]
i am very motivated and extremely strict but after awhile i can see that starting to fade from lack of results (hasnt happened too much yet but i can kind of see a pattern for lack of a better word)
no my waist line is a little higher
[quote] Brook wrote:
I have never in my life…
This is 10,000x more complicated than it needs to be.
Jesus, in this case - i would seriously say, you gotta stop reading! You seem to be confusing yourself with the information overload.
You have read so many conflicting workouts and diets, you have lost all reason.
Basics… back to basics… jesus man.
i feel for you, as annoying as you are, i feel for you. You are almost TOO bright for your own good - there is nothing wrong with simple.[/quote]
im not trying to make it complicated…i love simple things but thats what i did and its not working it seems. i admit this isnt on a huge time scale but still its hard to understand why i wouldnt be getting at least good results from doing the big compound lifts along with some accessory work and a good diet…
i take a few supps (vitamin, fish oil when at home, creatine) and for the most part thats the basics. i just seem to be losing definition while my measurements are not going up at all
[quote]Der Candy wrote:
In all seriousness, I have two questions:
-
How much weight are you gaining per month?
-
How much weight are you adding to the bar? THIS IS THE BEST PROGRESS RIGHT NOW.
Aside from this stuff, just refer to my above post for some advice. Good luck mate.[/quote]
well like i said maybe im not increasing my maxes enough (if at all) since im not going to failure past my previous maxes much…but still challenging myself a lot in workouts. per month i’d say i gained about 1/2lb per week so 2lb. a month (i was hoping to have a slower but cleaner bulk)
- 2.5-5lb each subsequent workout depending on the exercise
[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
David1991 wrote:
well i really dont like to go over 16%. i get man boobs lol and just look bad, i do this to look good so that wouldnt make much sense. plus the lower your bodyfat is the more of what you gain is LBM instead of fat
So you read that in some article right ?
I guess all those bodybuilders and powerlifters who bulk up big time just had it wrong all these years. What a bunch of morons, huh ?
/sarcasm
No really, this thing has been debated to hell and back.
Don’t people ever learn ?
Then again, looking like the average men’s health cover model doesn’t require bulking… Can’t change your face, but that type of physique is that of a beginner in his latter stages dieted down…[/quote]
well i’ve seen a few studies on it confirming it and that it was a significant amount. it basically compared normal, overweight, and obese and i’ve read it from a few authors but its not like i could actually test it to know it’s true. again i dont like to make things too complicated but either way i dont like to be over 16%bf, not a desireable look
[quote]josh86 wrote:
Part of your problem is probably the fact that you over-complicate things. you are using a stressful over-complicated diet - just eat and watch your carbs in the evening. Make sure you get plenty of protein.
As far as your lifting routine, i personally don’t like the NROL workouts. I have the book, read it front to back and tried some of the workouts. Its hard to track progress on the routines because you are CONSTANTLY changing exercises around and shit. Pick something you will enjoy doing and is easy to track progress. Make sure you feel the muscles working, focus on contracing them. Control the negatives, don’t just throw the weights around without any attention to what muscles you should be feeling.
How is your intensity? Honestly, are you in pain and hurting during your workouts? Are you sweating like a mofo? Do any cardio post-lifting?[/quote]
i agree about NROL, i find its hard to judge progress because the reps are always changing. for instance in NROL h-2 which im doing now i only do the same workouts once every 3 weeks, and that was after i changed it from once every 4 weeks.
intensity seems to be different lately, hard to explain. i push myself without a doubt but if you mean do i hit failure i’d say rarely. still i do push myself and there are a number of times where im at a point where i couldnt get another rep with the weight but did get that last one.
i havent been too sure in a while but thats not a great indicator anyway from what ive been told and experienced. cardio i do HIIT 2x a week…hiit has always worked well for me.
[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
I’m glad I never heard of NROL during my time as a beginner…
Had one of those Ian King books by Men’s health though, when I read that these days I can’t help but think how totally unnecessarily complicated some people make lifting…
Dunno about his more recent works though, didn’t follow him.
Also have one MH Book by Lou Schuler (sp?), which is flat out useless.
Good thing I listened to the big guys.[/quote]
lol Lou Schuler is the other author of NROL, in addition to Alwyn Cosgrove
[quote]laroyal wrote:
320 protein
1280 kcals
130 carbs
520 kcals
80 fat
720 kcals
2520 kcals on non w/o days
~2900 w/o days (480 from shake 60c 40p post 20p bef/aft)
There is a better breakdown of how I would set it up. Taper carbs throughout the day.[/quote]
well thats roughly what i was doing in the past just with less carbs on average. thats about where i stopped gaining weight (as you can see in the past i had an average about about 2800+ calories with higher carbs and gains were slowing.
thanks though because i can just bump everything up equally. would protein be too high here with almost 50%? seems like i would be using a lot of protein as fuel at this point
[quote]Vicomte wrote:
From what I’ve seen around the forums, David appears to be a lost cause. His obsession with minutiae is ridiculous. It’s not a difficult concept to grasp. If one is truly training hard and not eating complete shit, they will make progress and look better. I know this from experience. If one is eating complete shit and training ridiculously hard, they will probably make progress and look better.
David, I suggest to you that you train like a pansy, as you seem hyper-aware of your diet. If you’re such a strict nutritionalist, then your training must be really off to actually gain fat and seemingly lose muscle. Tarin hard, train more. You will not overtrain. Ever. Sit on your studies and your waving carbs days and whatever the fuck else you do. [/quote]
maybe i do need to train harder, idk. i have been told a lot lately not to train to failure that much. i push myself hard so i dont know what to tell you with that. one example would be pull ups which i started doing more 7 weeks ago. i did them building upto 5x a week 2 sets to failure, 2 sets of negatives and i got from 5 to 9 in about 3 weeks then i started regressing and feeling burnt out (just with the pull ups though, everything else was fine for the most part) so its not like i dont train hard. thats why im having a hard time understanding what the problem is.
[quote]Flow wrote:
David, I admire your dedication to learning as much as possible about this stuff, but you are over-complicating things. In the past I was just as guilty of paralysis by analysis as you are, but you need to change your perspective on training for the sake of long-term progress. The minutia will not get you substantially greater gains than the general
1)eat a lot and eat well
2)train enough and train hard
3)sleep a lot
rules of training.
IMO, use 2 measures for the next training cycle:
- Increases in training volume (more weight/reps/sets)
- Increases in weight (at LEAST +.5 lbs. a week)
For diet:
- 6 meals a day
-
50g protein with each meal
-
20g protein with each snack
- eat lots of fruit and vegetables
- get 4-5 tbsp. of good oils and at least 1 cup of nuts every day
That is all you need to worry about for now, if you ask me.[/quote]
i see that and i think “i know that works…90% of my results will be from the basics and i “know” how to plan my diet” but it doesnt seem to be working. part of this thread was because of a mental aspect but hopefully i can make more progress. i would change my training to something i think is a little better and more fun but i dont want to change things up again and not be consistent
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND YOU FIND A NEW HOBBY.
/Advice.
Pictures! Videos!
I hate to say it, but … FTW!
[quote]mr popular wrote:
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND YOU FIND A NEW HOBBY.
/Advice.[/quote]
[quote]David1991 wrote:
ok well the diet is complicated.
[/quote]
You also said “i’m 6ft and 156lb at 13% bf or so”
So you are tall and relatively slim.
The complicated diet nonsense is holding you back. You ignore posts telling you to lift big and eat big because for you that seems ‘too simple’, somehow, and you are sure there must be optimal scientific route for you to follow. yet your losing time.
Want to be 6ft and 186lb’s at 18% bf instead of where you are now?
Seriously, do you want that? and be stronger at the same time?
We’re only talking about an extra 30lb’s here, and accepting a little bit of extra fat in the process.
You can get all this in a year or less if you give up obsessing over the tiny details, trying to cycle carbs and so on, and just get to regular eating of 5-6 meals a day, good portion of protein in each. No sweating the fats/carbs just being moderate and exercising a few times a week for 45 minutes sticking to strenuous compound lifts.
Take a nice whey drink 30 mins before exercise and 30 mins afterwards too. There, some nice ‘science’ to keep you interested.
come on, you can do it!
[quote]mr popular wrote:
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND YOU FIND A NEW HOBBY.
/Advice.[/quote]
because of physical factors or mental ones?
[quote]gswork wrote:
David1991 wrote:
ok well the diet is complicated.
You also said “i’m 6ft and 156lb at 13% bf or so”
So you are tall and relatively slim.
The complicated diet nonsense is holding you back. You ignore posts telling you to lift big and eat big because for you that seems ‘too simple’, somehow, and you are sure there must be optimal scientific route for you to follow. yet your losing time.
Want to be 6ft and 186lb’s at 18% bf instead of where you are now?
Seriously, do you want that? and be stronger at the same time?
We’re only talking about an extra 30lb’s here, and accepting a little bit of extra fat in the process.
You can get all this in a year or less if you give up obsessing over the tiny details, trying to cycle carbs and so on, and just get to regular eating of 5-6 meals a day, good portion of protein in each. No sweating the fats/carbs just being moderate and exercising a few times a week for 45 minutes sticking to strenuous compound lifts.
Take a nice whey drink 30 mins before exercise and 30 mins afterwards too. There, some nice ‘science’ to keep you interested.
come on, you can do it!
[/quote]
as far the complicated diet and me ignoring the advice, thats actually not entirely true. i do eat enough to gain weight and my diet right now isnt at all complicated, i might even be eating too much now. my problem is more so about what i seem to be gaining. like i said its really annoying seeing my measurements not going up except for around me waist. I’m basically sticking to the basics for now…thanks for the motivation though i mean i do want it a lot its just i cant seem to gain how i want.
regarding 186 at 18%bf idk…i mean that would be put me at 15-16lb. more LBM but also 14-15lb. more fat, doesnt that seem like a ton of fat? i mean i dont get how people can gain almost entirely muscle with no fat. i’m ok with some fat but a 1:1 ratio seems like a lot doesnt it?
Dude…honestly, you seem as though you might have a body image disorder. I’m totally not being a dick, but at 155 pounds or whatever, and 6 feet…I’m 5 foot 7 and 155 is small for ME.
[quote]David1991 wrote:
…its just i cant seem to gain how i want.
regarding 186 at 18%bf idk…i mean that would be put me at 15-16lb. more LBM but also 14-15lb. more fat, doesnt that seem like a ton of fat? i mean i dont get how people can gain almost entirely muscle with no fat. i’m ok with some fat but a 1:1 ratio seems like a lot doesnt it?
[/quote]
Well, glad you are motivated but re-read what you are thinking of turning down - you’re not sure about gaining 16lb lbm because it might come with 15lb fat (in my example which may not be how things turn out anyway!).
Still, think about it.
And when you say “doesnt that seem like a ton of fat?”, well - not really. It seems like 15lb of fat.
Note also that the more muscle you carry the more energy burnt just standing still.
Reduced carbs per day may help, as i think someone suggested, but i’d fear you going off into some complex new diet!
Intensity doesn’t necessarily mean hitting failure on any of your sets man. I don’t really know how to put it into words, but if I were to watch you train I could tell you if your intensity sucks or not. I’m guessing it probably does, something has to be way off if you are truly losing muscle and gaining fat and staying the same weight. When are you checking your waist measurement? Hopefully first thing upon waking - because you are going to bloat throughout the day due to increased food volume intake.
-Train HARD
-Eat BIG
-Watch carbs in the evening (since you’re so worried about fat gain)
-If you notice you are gaining too much fat, don’t decrease food - just increase cardio and maybe start your carb-cutoff earlier.
Here is a simple program to compliment my previous dietary modifications that should help you acheive your goal. The focus is on energy intense compound movements and should provide you with a solid base.
Day 1
A. Power Clean from Floor: 7 x 3-5 180sec rest
B. Front Squats: 7 x 3-5 180sec rest
Day 2
A-1 Weighted V-Bar Dips: 7 x 3-5 Rest 100 seconds.
A-2 Chins ups 7 x 3-5 Rest 100 seconds.
Day 3
A. Power Snatch from Blocs: 7 x 3-5 180sec rest
B. Heel elevated narrow stance squats: 7 x 3-5 180sec rest
Day 4
A-1 Incline Dumbbell Curls: 7 x 3-5 100 seconds rest
A-2 Bi acromial Grip Bench: 7 x 3-5 Rest 100 seconds
Day 5
Take this day off.
Very simple, very effective.
Dont go up in weight until you can complete all seven sets of 5 repetitions with the same weight. Weights should be lifted explosivly but, not at the expense of form. Pay particular attention to you pre-during-post workout supplementation, as I explained in my post on hyperemia this provides a very important opportunity to build and as stated in a previous post building muscle lets you burn more kcals throughout the day…even at rest. If you are not getting 8 good hours of rest…START!! You don’t need to incorperate a whole lot of different movements into your arsenol and you don’t need to worry about the latest high tek methods for breaking through a sticking point, you need to be consistent and just make the few changes I reccomend. As I have said before you have to build the house before you worry aboutt painting it. Hope this helps!