Goal Change - What to do Differently

Training Bodybuilding
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Hi,

I’m not an experienced lifter, I’ve been training for something like 2 years now, pretty consistent though (at least for my taste).

My initial goal was what I’ve read and saw most ppl doing - to put on MASS. Well, I actually managed to put on around 6-7 kg of pretty lean muscle, so now I’m 96-97 kg at 193 cm height.

It’s time to revise my goals, though. I’ve never been skinny and have always had pretty good muscle definition, I guess. No point in adding kgs just for the sake of it. On the other hand I’ve discovered, that lifting more and more weight somehow didn’t make me strong overall.

This article Morphing From Blobby Bodybuilder to Bad Ass inspired me further - I guess I’d rather be strong and athletic that big and weak.

I mean, I can barely do 20 pushups and my pushup performance hasn’t improved since I started lifting, actually it has worsened. I recently started a 100-pushup program, which is designed to gradually lead you to do 100 pushups in one set. Well, so far I’m not improving much.

So how do I change my set/rep range to go for strength and endurance? So far I alternated “strength” and “mass” days, the former being in the 3-5 rep range, and the latter in 6-8 range.

Do I go now for only 3-5?

I also started running, around 2-3 times a week so far, lots of hard, ass-tearing uphill / cross country streaks. It’s scary, I hope I can keep it up.

I hope I can get some advice on how to make this attempt and what to focus on.
Thanks!

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Edited Post

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If like you said you have pretty good muscle definition and are almost 100kg, why would you want to lose all that hard work just so you can run around and do push ups?

Try adding in some performance mass training ideals from the training lab, things like power cleans, olympic box jumps, cleans variations, neural charge work outs and so forth. IT makes you feel like your training like an athlete instead of just going into a gym doing the same shit doing the same reps all the time on a program that everyone else is on type thing…

Cuz your gonna do this shit ur starting now and lose all ur size and its gonna hit you one day when you wear a shirt and look like a chicken, then ur gonna ugly bulk and fuck urself up…

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[quote]Am14g08 wrote:
Good god. Forget what the hell you’ve written. I just read that article you linked too. THAT inspired you… here is an extract:

"By the time I turned 40, my training had stagnated. I wasn’t bored; I still loved going to the gym, but I’d reached a plateau. I stopped getting big and the only thing that was growing was my gut.

I was fat, soft, terribly out of shape and suddenly on hypertension medication. When I finally was ready to face my denial, I knew I had to change. Bodybuilding was my life, but now I knew I’d run my course with this type of training. "

Doesn’t sound like the guy who wrote that article was much of a bodybuilder … sounds like someone who failed for 20 years at training, and then decided to start running and shit… in order to pretend all along that he was a “performance” athlete…

don’t be like that guy.
[/quote]
Allright, I’ll admit it sounds a bit lame or simply exaggerated to emphasize the point the article is trying to make (I think a lot of articles here do that).

[quote]Diluted56 wrote:
If like you said you have pretty good muscle definition and are almost 100kg, why would you want to lose all that hard work just so you can run around and do push ups?
[/quote]
I definitely don’t want to lose the hard work / muscle. What I want to do is change something, because:

  1. I’m happy with my size/mass achievements so far (for now).
  2. I want to avoid getting bored and/or chore through my established routine without much passion, which always results in poor workouts for me.

I’ll probably get back to a more mass-oriented routine at some point, but for now I have to change gears to keep myself motivated and interested.

Running has to stay, I love it too much and I strongly believe it’s really good for my overall health and heart condition in the long run. Is it going to cause me to lose mass? I don’t know, I hope not if I keep doing regular workouts 3-4 times a week? Is there a consensus that running and mass-building/keeping are mutually exclusive?

Pushups are a personal challenge of mine, I just want to do it to see that I can. Once I complete the program and hit the magical 100 I’ll probably start doing something else.
I always sucked at pushups and although I looked and felt pretty athletic in high school/college I could never squeeze out more than 15-20. Reading and hearing all the time about how pushups are a great (if not the greatest) whole body exercise and how they are used to measure the overall fitness of a person (from a high school gym to the military) I decided to try and stop sucking at it.

I thought I’ll start a FBW with 1-2 days rest between trainings, keeping sets heavy (in the 3-6 rep range), and running and doing some additional ab work on the days in between.

How does that sound?

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If your goal is to get away from bodybuilding why are you posting in a bodybuilding forum?