Inspiring as always paragon!
I really appreciate the kind words! And honestly, watching those girls in person in the training lab, they outwork pretty much every guy I see in our gym on campus. Those girls know how to get out of their comfort zones.
Keep busting ass, and good luck with your prep! The Indigo team ad I were just talking about meeting up at the Arnold Expo next year for a little reunion. So, if youâre ever planning on visiting the states, that would be a great time 
Paragon, thanks for mentioning, that the girls actually TRAIN. At my gym in the uniâs city, I got used to girls doing squats-deads-overhead presses-pullups and walking lunges, girls having decent shoulders and backs with thighs and glutes which actually look like they contain other tissue than adipose, skin and bone. I see it on the livespill. I know, that itâs the way girls should train.
But here in this fucking town something gone wrong⊠I bet some expert personal trainer came up with a âtemplate for womenâ, what every one of the girls is following. Itâs like:
10 mins on the treadmill, BP never exceeds 100.
2 sets of 20 abduction
2 sets of 20 adduction
2 sets of 10 thigh kickbacks
twister, crunches and situps, as much as you can do without breaking a sweat.
The funniest thing is the amorph mass of their subcutaneus adipose in their whole body. I know that I shouldnât cncern with such things, as itâs their own life, own training, I have zero right to say a thing.
But, Iâve seen too many women training hard and actually looking like they lift (in fact, back in the city whre my uni is, lot of the girls look more muscular than the guys, and shame them in training intensity tooâŠ). And after that seeing that jerking around what they do here in this town is just ridiculous.
By the way, Paragon, how is the lifting for women over there? Particular sports women love to do for âshapingâ and toning?
I love that post, especially the âsample routineâ.
Women in Switzerland donât seem to lift. Weight lifting in general isnât very popular over here. And women donât even posess a gym membership in 99.9% of the cases. The few that do go to a gym usually just do the kind of routine you posted, or stepper/elliptical only.
There are exceptions (like my girl), but they are RARE exceptions.
[quote]Vejne wrote:
Paragon, thanks for mentioning, that the girls actually TRAIN. At my gym in the uniâs city, I got used to girls doing squats-deads-overhead presses-pullups and walking lunges, girls having decent shoulders and backs with thighs and glutes which actually look like they contain other tissue than adipose, skin and bone. I see it on the livespill. I know, that itâs the way girls should train.
But here in this fucking town something gone wrong⊠I bet some expert personal trainer came up with a âtemplate for womenâ, what every one of the girls is following. Itâs like:
10 mins on the treadmill, BP never exceeds 100.
2 sets of 20 abduction
2 sets of 20 adduction
2 sets of 10 thigh kickbacks
twister, crunches and situps, as much as you can do without breaking a sweat.
The funniest thing is the amorph mass of their subcutaneus adipose in their whole body. I know that I shouldnât cncern with such things, as itâs their own life, own training, I have zero right to say a thing.
But, Iâve seen too many women training hard and actually looking like they lift (in fact, back in the city whre my uni is, lot of the girls look more muscular than the guys, and shame them in training intensity tooâŠ). And after that seeing that jerking around what they do here in this town is just ridiculous.
By the way, Paragon, how is the lifting for women over there? Particular sports women love to do for âshapingâ and toning? [/quote]
Here comes an updateâŠ
First of all I have to say that this prep is diffrent from previous ones. In many ways:
Genral stuff: I canât rememeber having ever worked that much and under sush preassure. Last week I worked 12 to 14 hours every day, trained twice on every day and just got too little sleep - even for my taste. Besides the preassure at work - which I can deal with pretty well - I still have a lot of work to do for my father. He is 80 years old and since my mother died, things got a bit difficult. Itâs a priority for me and I want to allocate that time for my family, but it feels harder than my actual work.
I believe things will get much better after my father will have moved in a month.
Training: I really focus on getting stronger and love it. Itâs very much diffrent from what people usually do in a prep. I focus on the basic powerlifting moves and to the main moves 4 or 5 times a week. It works fantastic and I would even fo that far and say that this will help me step on stage better than ever.
My strength went of in the first 6 weeks of the prep. I bench pressed 484 for 3 resp last week and believe I would get 500 in an all-out attempt. I do squats WHITHIN complexes with around 640, front squats with 490 and deadlifts with 640/650. All within the complexes.
I believe I am the strongest I have ever been. I lifted some heavy weights 12 or 15 years ago, BUT I was 20 pounds heavier back than. So I am very happy with my realtive strength.
One exercise that I got much WEAKER at is pull-ups. I have no idea why that is. I used to be able to do 27 dead-hang bodyweight pull-ups or weighted pull-ups with up to 220/240 pounds of additional weight. That really doesnât seem to be possible right now (???).
Diet: goes very well, but again, things are different. My weight first went down very quickly on Indigo-3G, then stabilized and then went up. I weighted 226 this morning, which is 6 pounds heavier than at my lowest within the last 6 weeks.
Indigo-3G: still believe this is the greatest supp I ever used. Work capacity is just immense on it. I first used it âthe wrong wayâ and ate to little carbs. This is some advice I can give everyone trying to diet on I3G:
Do not restrict carbs too much. I found that I make faster progress and am able to gain lean mass and strenth and at the same time lose fat when I eat carbs with almost every meal and every day while using I3G.
I upped my peri-workout carbs to 2 FINiBARs and 3 scoops Surge Workout Fuel AND an additional 2 scoops of SWF comsumed over 90 minutes after my sessions. I just sip on it while working (see pic). After that 90 minute period I have a serving of Metabolic Drive Muscle Mass.
So I basucally eat, and eat, and eat carbs over 3.5 hours first thing every day. And then have 3-4 more carb-containing meals later the day.
60something days to go. Iâm feeling great, just have to get a little more rest next week. This weekend I feel very tired. By the way: tomorrow will be our Swiss national holyday. Iâll have to work⊠aaaarrrghhhâŠ
Training Lab: many thanks to all the guys from the Indigo Project for the inspiring vids. And many thanks to all the gals, too, of course. Fantastic videos. Great work. Great inspiration.
Cheers, PA
@ashylarryku: Arnol Expo sounds great. That would be in March, right?
HEY! The old Spike Pill Holder Keychain!!! I had a few of those! -lol
Yeah, The Arnold is in March, so this should be a serious testosterone-fest all around 
S
@Stu: I have many of them. You can have some of them. As a true T-Nationer you should have one, as well as an empty bottle of the old MAG-10
Sounds great with the Arnold. Hope I can schedule that in. Iâll leave for my honeymoon mid-April, so I would have to come over a month prior to that. No proplem, though. If my boss letâs me, I will.
You guys are realllllyyy making me consider going to the Arnold, that would be a blast to meet up with everyone from the boards here.
Paragon, glad to hear the Indigo appears to be working for you. Weight going UP on a contest diet is definitely counter intuitive, but if you are getting stronger AND losing fat⊠What more could you ask for? Those lifting numbers are beastly. I hope you come in lean and big beyond your wildest expectations.
[quote]Lonnie123 wrote:
You guys are realllllyyy making me consider going to the Arnold, that would be a blast to meet up with everyone from the boards here.
WORD.
[quote]ParagonA wrote:
Here comes an updateâŠ
First of all I have to say that this prep is diffrent from previous ones. In many ways:
Genral stuff: I canât rememeber having ever worked that much and under sush preassure. Last week I worked 12 to 14 hours every day, trained twice on every day and just got too little sleep - even for my taste. Besides the preassure at work - which I can deal with pretty well - I still have a lot of work to do for my father. He is 80 years old and since my mother died, things got a bit difficult. Itâs a priority for me and I want to allocate that time for my family, but it feels harder than my actual work.
I believe things will get much better after my father will have moved in a month.
Training: I really focus on getting stronger and love it. Itâs very much diffrent from what people usually do in a prep. I focus on the basic powerlifting moves and to the main moves 4 or 5 times a week. It works fantastic and I would even fo that far and say that this will help me step on stage better than ever.
My strength went of in the first 6 weeks of the prep. I bench pressed 484 for 3 resp last week and believe I would get 500 in an all-out attempt. I do squats WHITHIN complexes with around 640, front squats with 490 and deadlifts with 640/650. All within the complexes.
I believe I am the strongest I have ever been. I lifted some heavy weights 12 or 15 years ago, BUT I was 20 pounds heavier back than. So I am very happy with my realtive strength.
One exercise that I got much WEAKER at is pull-ups. I have no idea why that is. I used to be able to do 27 dead-hang bodyweight pull-ups or weighted pull-ups with up to 220/240 pounds of additional weight. That really doesnât seem to be possible right now (???).
Diet: goes very well, but again, things are different. My weight first went down very quickly on Indigo-3G, then stabilized and then went up. I weighted 226 this morning, which is 6 pounds heavier than at my lowest within the last 6 weeks.
Indigo-3G: still believe this is the greatest supp I ever used. Work capacity is just immense on it. I first used it âthe wrong wayâ and ate to little carbs. This is some advice I can give everyone trying to diet on I3G:
Do not restrict carbs too much. I found that I make faster progress and am able to gain lean mass and strenth and at the same time lose fat when I eat carbs with almost every meal and every day while using I3G.
I upped my peri-workout carbs to 2 FINiBARs and 3 scoops Surge Workout Fuel AND an additional 2 scoops of SWF comsumed over 90 minutes after my sessions. I just sip on it while working (see pic). After that 90 minute period I have a serving of Metabolic Drive Muscle Mass.
So I basucally eat, and eat, and eat carbs over 3.5 hours first thing every day. And then have 3-4 more carb-containing meals later the day.
60something days to go. Iâm feeling great, just have to get a little more rest next week. This weekend I feel very tired. By the way: tomorrow will be our Swiss national holyday. Iâll have to work⊠aaaarrrghhhâŠ
Training Lab: many thanks to all the guys from the Indigo Project for the inspiring vids. And many thanks to all the gals, too, of course. Fantastic videos. Great work. Great inspiration.
Cheers, PA[/quote]
27 dead hang pullups at your weight? Thats impressive holy, did you focus on doing them for a time or have they always been a strong lift for you? Great progress by the way, inspiring to myself
@Blackaggar: There were times when I was very weak at pull-ups, but they probably are a naturally strong lift. When I started bodybuilding at the age of 15 I was underweight and weak. I was a pretty good athlete, though, having done karate and other martial arts since I was 8.
When I finally joined a gym my coach had me do mostly basic lifts, Olympic lifts and a few other exercises. I bench pressed 90 pounds or so back then, but could do sets of 10-15 parallel-grip chins. Over the following 3-4 years I gained 90 pounds of bodyweight, but somehow forgot about pull-ups. Just didnât do them anymore.
I re-introduced the lift into my routine in the mid-90â after reading Poliquinâs article in the good old MM2K. He stated pull-ups and chins being essential back builders and a must-do.
At 240 or so I could hardly pull myself up 5 times. I really focussed on the lift for years and did some variation of the pull-up at leasr twice a week. Thatâs how I built my pull-up strength.
The two approaches that worked best fir me were doing many, many sets spread over the day, not going to failure, and doing them as force spectrum ramps, weighted, starting with bodyweight only and adding weight each set for 8-10 sets of only 3-4 reps.
Cheers, PA
STRENGTH TEST, FRUSTRATION, AND ENJOYING THE JOURNEY
Dear friends,
Today I did some strength testing to see where I stand. I have that strong desire to one day lift a combined total of 2000 pounds in the deadlift, squat and bench press.
Here are my current 1RMs:
Bench press: 493
Deadlift: 661
Squat: 595
The numbers are a bit weird since we think in kilos over here and I wanted to state the weights in pounds.
I also did a max attempt in overhead presses and front squats:
Overhead press: 299
Front squat: 551
This adds up to a combined total in the powerlifting moves of 1749.
After the testing I was a bit frustrated and felt some disappointment.
I know, those are pretty cool numbers if I look at it realistically. I mean, I am a natty bodybuilder after all and never have taken drugs, nor will I ever use them to get stronger or bigger.
I know that most, if not all guys in my gym are weaker than I am, I know that I could be proud of what I achieved so far, having started bodybuilding and strength training more than 20 years ago as an underweight high school boy not able to bench press 90 pounds or so.
But still, the 1749 are so, so very far away from my goal of 2000 pounds. How in the world will I ever be able to add another 50 pounds to my bench or 100 to my squats?
This will not be too easy to say the least at my age.
It felt very strange when I stepped under the shower after the workout. I felt ambivalence, doubt, anger and even fear.
Those feelings, fortunately, lasted 0.68 seconds only.
All of a sudden I remembered what this sport, or this life style means to me. I remembered what bodybuilding is all about and what it has given me over the last decades.
It has never been about numbers or beating others, much less about vanity, being the strongest motherfucker around, and not even about impressing girls (let?s face it, most women don?t really find huge, fat, grunting and sweating bodybuilders and power lifters attractive. We should rather do some cover model workouts and eat like male anorexics in order to get laid more often, isn?t it?).
Honestly, our noble passion is not about goals, it?s about walking the walk. It?s about the journey. It?s about taking a road not very often travelled by. It?s about self-commitment, discipline, dedication, about standing tall, about refusing to ever give in.
Every time I do strength tests like today, I realize that I will do the same thing again in a year or so, and that it will be just another year of blood, sweat and tears, of grunting and baring teeth.
Bodybuilding and strength training are powerful animals. If you let them, the can very well take everything from you. If you constantly rack your brains over how to beat your most feared competitor, if you are never satisfied when you look into the mirror, if you feel that you would literally kill somebody if that would make your arms half an inch bigger, than you are on the wrong way.
This will leave you frustrated more often than not, you will become more and more depressed, and you might start taking drugs, even though all the drugs in the world will not make you look like Jay Cutler, because your genes just will not allow you to.
And most tragically: you will somehow stop living, or at least forget what living is all about and that life is the greatest gift you will ever get. Too sad you will have to give it back some day.
What I want to tell you, is, that it is totally ok, even desirable to be competitive, to aim high, to have goals, even if they are as childish and stupid as mine of powerlifting 2000 pounds.
But you should never forget that working towards those goals has to be FUN!
It?s the same thing with weight training as with any other thing in life: you should only do it if it makes you feel better, if it enriches your life, if it makes you dream and sleep better, if it makes your day more joy- and colourful. Never do things that eat you up, that make you feel like you were wearing a corset.
Don?t complain too often, don?t talk bad about others when the only true and honest reason for doing so is, plain and simple, jealousy. Don?t ever believe that the grass is always greener on the other side. Or that others got things that you would actually deserve to have, but don?t.
Don?t curse. And don?t break over the fact that you will never beat Jay Cutler on stage, or bench press 550.
Just shut up, take a deep breath and walk the walk.
I?m sure you have all watched Rocky Balboa. I know, it didn?t get an Oscar and some people, for whatever reason, loved to bash it. But, honestly, that movie touched me. There is that scene when Rocky talks to his son and this is the memorable quote:
?You let people stick a finger in your face and tell you youâre no good. And when things got hard, you started looking for something to blame, like a big shadow. Let me tell you something you already know. The world ainât all sunshine and rainbows. Itâs a very mean and nasty place and I donât care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ainât about how hard ya hit. Itâs about how hard you can get it and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. Thatâs how winning is done! Now if you know what youâre worth then go out and get what youâre worth. But ya gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ainât where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody! Cowards do that and that ainât you! Youâre better than that!?
Bodybuilding has given me so much. It has helped me to leave my not-so-nice childhood behind me, it has taught me humility and to respect other people, their takes on things, opinions, cultures, religions, and ways of living.
It has taught me that whenever I got hit, I have to stand up and keep going. It has taught me that life is fragile, and much more of a mental construct than we want it to be. It has taught me that what counts is not how hard you hit, but about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.
I digressed. And I keep repeating myself; still I want to say this one more time: you only live once. Do so like you really mean it. Find things that enrich your life, find something you want to put your heart into and than fight for it, get hit, keep going, persist, defend.
Cheers,
PA
This thread is so full of win. Great post! And those truly are amazing numbers.
This is something Iâve gotten a lot better at, is not letting a missed lift or bad day inthe gym get to me. I chose to train for my goals, so if something doesnât go the way I wish it would have, I let it go and strive to do better next time. Itâs no reason to let it effect your life outside of the gym. Life is too short to be angry, especially about something as little as a number you can lift in the gym.
Keep your writing up! I love that seen in Rocky by the way. I actually watched the first movie yesterday morning
Man always great insight into lifting bodybuilding and just life. Thanks for all of thoughts. Keep training hard (of course you will). I would guess with your dedication and CTs programming you will achieve your goal.
paragonA,
I really enjoy your posts. It would be really cool to see a video of a natty BBer like yourself hitting those big 3 lifts!
Keep striving towards 2000!
-deat
one thing that stuck out to me:
âa natty BBer trying to hit a 2000 lb power lifting totalâ
you gotta give yourself some credit lol.
most power lifters dont hit a 2000 total w/o gear and significantly more âleverageâ (fat) than you
oh and not to mention youâre 10% BF in the middle of a contest prep
@deat: thatâs definitively on my list of things to do. Wanted to take some pics this morning with the self-timer, but that didnât work so well⊠Hope my shirts with âParagonâ printed on will be ready soon
[quote]MAF14 wrote:
one thing that stuck out to me:
âa natty BBer trying to hit a 2000 lb power lifting totalâ
you gotta give yourself some credit lol.
most power lifters dont hit a 2000 total w/o gear and significantly more âleverageâ (fat) than you
oh and not to mention youâre 10% BF in the middle of a contest prep ;)[/quote]
Thank you very much, man! I have to be fair and realistic, though. There is a HUGE difference between 17something and, say, a Wendlerâs 21something. Huge, huge, huge. I also realised that Iâm relatively strong in those basic lifts, but pretty âweakâ in many more bodybuilding-kinda lifts. My overhead press is weak and my squat, compared to my front squat, too.
Iâm happy with what I have achieved and feel well in my body, but itâs certainly not something to brag with.
[quote]ashylarryku wrote:
This thread is so full of win. Great post! And those truly are amazing numbers.
This is something Iâve gotten a lot better at, is not letting a missed lift or bad day inthe gym get to me. I chose to train for my goals, so if something doesnât go the way I wish it would have, I let it go and strive to do better next time. Itâs no reason to let it effect your life outside of the gym. Life is too short to be angry, especially about something as little as a number you can lift in the gym.
Keep your writing up! I love that seen in Rocky by the way. I actually watched the first movie yesterday morning :)[/quote]
Lifeâs too short to be angry⊠true, brother, true. Thank you for your great post.