It's Bulking Season!

Training Bodybuilding
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FWIW though, a lot of people on here use fairly (to me) strange routines… Lots of sets at the same weight and whatnot… The only natural guys out of that bunch who look like bodybuilders (ok, big bodybuilders) to me… Are also those who have managed to get strong on that stuff (modok, but then his training is actually quite different from the others I mean etc).
Most people training super-high volume with lower weights never seem to make it anywhere…

I posted the whole number thing originally because the OP wanted to be fast at the size he was shooting for and extra fat usually makes you slower… And I know from experience that if your lifts are fairly low for your weight, that usually means that you are fairly sloppy at that weight.

Of course those numbers don’t work out for everyone, but they work fairly well in general imo… If you are of average height and you want to look big at 210, well, if you bench 200x12 or 300 for a single and similar, you likely won’t look like much especially relaxed or standing next to someone with much higher lifts at the same weight.

Someone posted one of those strength-standards tables (with elite level strength etc on them), and those worked out ok for lower weight classes… But you got to see stuff like a 425 lb bench for a 270-300 lb guy being “elite”… With that kind of low strength at such a high bodyweight, you will quite simple be fat.

I can pretty much promise you that if the OP gains his 40 lbs but only improves his lifts by a little, no matter what volume he does he’s not likely to be happy with his physique results.

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About the Benching comment at the beginning of the thread (i didnt read through all of it) nothing is impossible, my best friend decline benched 350 within his first 6 months of training so dont short change your potential. Anyways almost a month ago i came off a diet that was really badly done and i was at 179 and 10% bodyfat and my strength was just gone!

But now that im back on the bulking wagon (which i hate being on sorry) Im 214lbs and last week i checked myself at 12.5% bodyfat. Im going to get to 230 or so within the next few weeks then hold that weight for a few months before i cut down to 220 for my first powerlifting meet in april:) I dont know if this is considered good progress but im pretty happy for someone who hates bulking and can easily live off 900 cals a day:)

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About the set-points… Most of mine happened by accident… I.e., I was basically plateauing due to not increasing my food intake or protein intake as I should have or some such, basically not really going anywhere for a few months… Bang, new set-point :slight_smile:

Now back at around 265-275 and I’m not really looking to get much heavier (want to fit into the 275 class in powerlifting without any drastic weight dropping maneuvers) and am focusing on getting my relative strength up as much as I can, plus working a little on some weak points.

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[quote]165StateChamp wrote:
http://asp.elitefts.com/qa/training-logs.asp?qid=127567&tid=

Relates to the topic. And Shelby Starnes seems like a really cool guy and good at what he does so I like publicizing his stuff. [/quote]

lol I specifically remember him commenting earlier this year that as far as he knows there’s no reason for the muscle gained to stay any less so than if you held the weight for awhile :confused:

Another thing about set points: Basically the idea here is that if someone goes from 210 to 270 in say 1 year and then right away cut down, they may end up at like 225 or less after it’s all done.
But what if that same person went from 210-240 in 6 months then held it for 6 month. That 240 would now be a “set point” but before, even if they were 240 and above for the same time, there set point wouldn’t be as high? Doesn’t make sense to me. I don’t disagree necessarily with set points, but it seems like they would kind of get set as you go up as per the example above. Maybe just not at that highest weight. I’m just speculating though.

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[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
Maybe I’ll make a thread in the cell about that finally. Nothing magic though. But yeah, I really don’t like the average 5x5 routine setup for this kind of thing… [/quote]

I’d definitely be interested to see that

[quote]

[quote]I see so few guys training with 315+ (even the bigger/biggest guys at my college) it always surprises me when I see your point of view on the matter (not saying that it’s wrong)
[/quote] Sucks if you don’t have any truly strong guys around man… Like the Prof mentioned somewhere before, training with someone stronger than you really helps get the mental block out of the way. [/quote]

Yea to be honest though these are big guys. One guy, black guy with awesome genetics, actually went to my high school and at that time benched ~320 and was squatting 405-455 for reps at 185lb, even now though I doubt his bench is much more than 350-400. Another guy, a junior here (I don’t know if it’s different in Germany, but that’s basically around 20 years old), also black, is very lean and jacked, told me his bench last year was only 285 or so. Some of the other guys on the football team I’m sure are stronger, but there’s not too many that are working with more than 315.

Honestly it’s just hard for me to believe. I know you know of IronAddict, well he obviously knows what he’s doing, has trained for 20+ years, got up to 250 AND took steroids and he admittedly only got up to a real 385lb bench (sloppy 405). So to get there in just a few years with no steroids and being ~220 or so, it’s just hard to believe for the average guy ya know?

Also, I love reading your stuff because it just seems to simple, but honestly if I just try to eat more than what makes me gain at a moderate rate, I just gain more fat it seems. Strength gains last year were pretty average/below average for bench, gaining about 1.5lb on bench for each pound of BW gained (40lb on bench for 25lb gained). It seems like some people have it significantly worse though. My cousin, not sure if he still posts, has been training for like 4 years and just barely benches 225. I’ve seen his diet and he eats high protein (as much as 2g/lb since the last time I saw his diet anyway) while gaining weight and I’m pretty sure he was actually on a routine by IronAddict, but the guy just seems to gain at least half fat when he puts on weight. Not all that different from me really. But since he started at a “skinny fat” or whatever 150lb that makes him look actually chubby at 180-190 at 6ft. From what I’ve seen from other students at this college, that’s not completely out of the norm.

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Yes pumped340, the skinnyfat genetics are the worst of all. Because you cannot overfeed yourself to quick muscle and strength gains, all the extra stuff becomes straight up fat. I’ d happily trade my genetics for some extreme ectomorph’s easily, even if I had to eat 5 k calories to grow.

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[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:

[quote]twiggy1 wrote:

[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:

[quote]twiggy1 wrote:

[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:

Maybe hold your weight occasionally, at 230-240 or so, then 260 etc… Def. hold before you consider dieting or anything like that<

[/quote]

I’ve heard this said a lot. What exactly does it mean to hold your bodyweight? Does it mean lose a bit of fat and slowly gain muscle? How long would you have to “hold” a certain bodyweight for?

Thanks![/quote]

I can’t give you exact numbers unfortunately. I (and many, many others long before me) have noticed that when you, say, go from 180 to 260 and then right the next day start dieting back down to 220 or so… You will likely get low net results… Lose strength/muscle… Your body I guess isn’t used to the new weight, it’s been forced to gain, gain, and gain more and now suddenly the opposite happens…

Instead it seems to be more effective to establish certain set points in your bodyweight… I.e. for me that was something like 200 lbs or so at first or 180 or whatever, then something like 240… Now I can basically stop training and start eating fairly crappy but I have to give it serious effort to end up below 260-270lbs of bodyweight (i.e. not talking about an actual diet, but basically what happens when things just don’t go so well)… My body is used to weighing 260-270 because I was around that weight a lot… I can go up to 300 but quickly lose that weight as well and restabilize at 260+.
I can in fact hold that weight on less calories and way less protein than I needed to reach a bodyweight 20 lbs lower…

It’s nice to have these set-points so that when you aren’t/don’t want to gain all-out and you want to relax a bit on your dietary intake, you won’t just lose a ton of weight, strength and muscle… I can “cruise” at that weight for a bit, take it easy, get my metabolism back under control and all that.

There is a thread about it in the t-cell I think.

There are several reasons for why so many people mess up on their bulks and do something like:
Go from 200 to 260, then diet down and end up with a 5-10 lbs net gain only.
One is the lack of adequate strength gains (I don’t mean getting the bar up via lots of cheating or a huge arch or whatever, but strength gains with the right kind of technique/exercises for the intended purpose) vs. bodyweight gain as mentioned before… Another is not allowing your body time to get used to the new weight and mass and just immedately doing a 180 when it coems to diet etc.

Note: I’m not sure how it works for guys on gear.

[/quote]

Thanks for clearing that up more! I only ask because my first “bulk” was pretty sloppy so the thought of being fat again for up to a year or more kind of makes me shudder :wink:

in about a year I went up to 207lbs (I think thereabouts) up from around 150lbs (6 ft tall) and my bodyfat went up quite a bit…can’t say exact numbers but the calliper readings were around the 20 point at the end and I guess that I was somewhere under 10% at the start (very lean and skinny).

Benching = 150lbs up to 280lbs (don’t go all the way down to chest though! get bad shoulder pain when I go all the way down)
[/quote] Shoulder pain, or is it the bicep tendon at the shoulders?
Do you know how to properly set up for benching?

Not touching the chest is fine, but get a good setup going anyway (no need for a huge arch, but some arching helps… Learn how to pin your shoulder blades together etc… Watch that 600x3 vid in the PL section by sincityiron, he doesn’t quite touch but uses proper setup, so that should fit your situation).

Also make sure you do some heavy rowing and/or mike wolfe style face pulls where you retract the scapulae on the positive and “relax” that position on the negative… I.e. the retraction being the main part of the rep… I’ve written about that before a lot, try the search engine or google.
Also, try getting a vid of yourself benching and post it.[quote]
Deadlifts = 200lbs up to 300lbs (got stuck around 300lbs because injured lower back…can’t seem to do normal deadlifts while keeping lower back straight??? I think it’s something to do with my build?)
[/quote] Try sumo deadlifts. You don’t have to put your toes right next to the plates, in my case it helps to just have my knees outside and my arms in… Basically get the thighs out of the way of the pelvis… Maybe part of my build, too, but a conventional stance does not allow me to get into proper setup position for a deadlift without rounding. [quote]
Squat = 150lbs up to 300lbs (parallel or just above - going lower causes me to badly lose balance?)
[/quote] Hm. Got to set up properly then.
Got a medicine ball or some such? Put it between your legs and then try to get your hands on it with arms straight and low back arched (abs braced, but not drawn in).
Basically try a wider squat stance, toes pointed out some, break at the hip joints first…

Make a video of you squatting and post it in the PL forum for help perhaps. You don’t need to squat super-deep or anything, but slightly below parallel would be nice… With a narrow stance though (like Ronnie), that’s probably hard (for me anyway).

You’re like a gold mine of strength training info, thanks!

I’m sure it must have been the front deltoid/rotator cuffs?? because whenever I did pushing movements I had to like REALLY warm up my shoulders before pushing (rolling/stretching them) and they’d always click like they were gassy? will try focussing more on the arch for benching. once in the past I managed to trigger off my lower back pain (which was exasperated by bad deadlifting technique) and I think it was something to do with not arching back like I should have on the bench. it’s one of the most unlikely ways you expect to injure your back (benching) lol…

I’ve heard good things about sumo deadlifts (mainly from ones like hungry4more I think?). Will start to do them next. will my hips automatically adjust/get flexible the more I do them? i think thats a major drawback for me (used to hate gymnastic type movements in physical exercise class!). got zero flexibility lol

Will try a wider stance squat. got to get those hips lubed mind!

Thanks again!

oh yeah, another thing, how much fat would you consider being “ok” for a gain of say 20lbs bodyweight? I will do what you said, shoot for about that much (from 185 to 205lbs) and hold it for a few months, then maybe trim a little (say 4-8 weeks of a very mild diet - like just under maintenance) before I go for another 20lbs? does that sound good to you? i know there aren’t gonna be exact results/numbers…but just to get some direction…

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[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
Now back at around 265-275 and I’m not really looking to get much heavier (want to fit into the 275 class in powerlifting without any drastic weight dropping maneuvers) and am focusing on getting my relative strength up as much as I can, plus working a little on some weak points.

[/quote]

Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, but I remember some time last year you said you were damn near pushing 300. Did you decide to put on the brakes a little bit?

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[quote]desolator wrote:
Yes pumped340, the skinnyfat genetics are the worst of all. Because you cannot overfeed yourself to quick muscle and strength gains, all the extra stuff becomes straight up fat. I’ d happily trade my genetics for some extreme ectomorph’s easily, even if I had to eat 5 k calories to grow.[/quote]

I feel the same way. Too bad there’s nothing we can do about it :confused:

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Good Heavens!

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Hahaha, good one!

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I gotta get in this. I’m gonna try and gain 20 pounds by december. I’m tired of being so fucking skinny

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Next month gonna hit 200lbs… Started the year at 154lbs, now at 185lbs! :slight_smile:

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[quote]Diluted56 wrote:
Next month gonna hit 200lbs… Started the year at 154lbs, now at 185lbs! :)[/quote]

You look more than 200 in your avatar.what height are you?

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[quote]law8 wrote:

[quote]Diluted56 wrote:
Next month gonna hit 200lbs… Started the year at 154lbs, now at 185lbs! :)[/quote]

You look more than 200 in your avatar.what height are you?[/quote]

I’d say he looks like a lean 190. A lot of people tend to either exaggerate their weight a lot or they’re just tall. For instance I think you said you were around 205, but since you’re tall, I would have guessed 180 from your avatar (assuming an average 5’10 or so), meanwhile 1morerep looks like he could be 190ish but he’s actually in the 150’s, because he’s around 5’5 I think.

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[quote]desolator wrote:
Yes pumped340, the skinnyfat genetics are the worst of all. Because you cannot overfeed yourself to quick muscle and strength gains, all the extra stuff becomes straight up fat. I’ d happily trade my genetics for some extreme ectomorph’s easily, even if I had to eat 5 k calories to grow.[/quote]

Past a certain point no-one without drugs can just over-feed themselves to quick muscle. There’s a limmit. Strength gains (or lack of…ie plateaus) should be the gauge of whether you’re eating enough…you don’t just stuff you face and hope you’ll get stronger quicker.

I would class myself as “ectomorphic” (started off really skinny and lean) and can say without a doubt that it’s not better either way…we still gain fat when bulking…and the ratios aren’t that great.

The main reason for being lean is lack of calories and fast metabolism - this does not mean that when an ectomorph bulks up then most of it is muscle. This may be the case if enough exercise is done, calories aren’t stupidly high, and if we are starting out lean…but if an ectomorph does a decent bulk up to where he’s 15%+ bodyfat, his next bulk will likely give him a bad muscle/fat gaining ratio…unless he trims a little first/and or does enough cardio and good calorie/macro-nutrient timing/cycling.

Also, many are too quick to blame genetics when they don’t realise how much that their routines effect fat gain. Some people have too much fluff in their routines. Big focus on multi-joint “money maker” movements, rest pause, widow makers etc etc…this type of training (when taking appropriate “deloads” or cruises or whatever) is great for muscle gains while keeping fat gains lower.

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I always used to look at my brother and think “man he’s got such a good metabolism”, the thing is people just think in terms of calories. If that was the case then a 500 calorie surplus would result in the same fat:muscle ratio as it would for me, assuming the same training and whatnot. But the thing is there’s also insulin sensitivity and other factors. Someone who’s “ecto” and starts off at a really lean 150 is going to be much better off than someone else who is also a skinny 150, but kind of “skinny-fat” (i.e. maybe 17% body fat or so). When I was 5’10 and 130lb I was obviously super skinny, but actually not all that lean, certainly no visible abs. PX mentioned a lot about how he was I think 150lb when he graduated high school, but I’d be willing to bet he was extremely lean. I was 155 at the end of my senior year, but not so lean…

Of course, at a point, everyone will gain fat if they keep gaining weight, regardless of how lean they started.

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I’m not entirely disagreeing there.

Just to touch on what you said about insulin response - that’s what I was saying about it depending on how fat you are at the start of a bulk…a person who bulks at 15%+bf is more likely going to gain mostly fat when he bulks, and vice versa, a person who bulks at <12%bf will likely gain mostly muscle.

If a person like PX bulked up to say 220lbs and is 18%bf, he’s going to gain more fat than muscle if he tries to ‘force feed’ gains…whether he’s an ‘ectomorph’ or not. So an ectomorph may have a higher calorie requirement (can eat more), but if they start a bulk while fat (from a previous sloppy bulk), they’ll still get more fat than muscle.

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[quote]law8 wrote:

[quote]Diluted56 wrote:
Next month gonna hit 200lbs… Started the year at 154lbs, now at 185lbs! :)[/quote]

You look more than 200 in your avatar.what height are you?[/quote]

Haha sweet thanks bro, thought i looked like a runt in my avatar! haha! Im 185lbs as stated above, and standing at a mighty 5ft 7! lol

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Where you at now Diluted? still 185? its time for me to eat properly again and get the last 8kg on!!
bulk started at 185lb now at 205lb ending at 220lb ! lets do it!!