It was the first answer, haha.
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Building strength and mass are constantly overcomplicated by people, but they can be oversimplified too. I donāt know what your lifts are, or where you set your TM to, or how you did any of this, and so Iām not accusing you of anything, but I can say that from what I have seen, every time somebody has come on here prior to this and said that they ran 5/3/1 for a year/whatever and didnāt get results, there was more than one thing wrong with the way they ran the program. I havenāt seen all the posts, I could be wrong, but you asking if there are any strength programs that actually work doesnāt bode well.
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1 year of Wendler and 4 months of Kroc and youāre still no stronger?
Iām going to suggest its not the programmes. 5/3/1 is a good programme and the Kroc programmes are solid.
There must be other factors at play. Food is my guess. Its always surprising how under appreciated correct nutrition is.
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did Deep water get you your best gains across the board or just on bench?
No offence intended! Iām just a little frustrated now I guess.
Yeah I can imagine that a lot of people try to āimproveā routines created by elite lifters instead of just following the routine. Afaik I didnāt jack anything upā¦just tested my 1RM and put everything in a spreadsheet with Krocās programming and did exactly what the output was.
Oh wellā¦I must have done something wrong.
As an asideāand Iām not arguing with you; Iām sure a lot of people mess up routines written by advanced liftersāI thought I remember Thib saying he ran Wendlerās routine and it did nothing for him. I could be wrong, but I think he said that in one of his neurotyping vids. So, not being an expert, I figured that different people responded better/worse to various programming and, extrapolating, that I just hadnāt found what I should be doing yet.
I guess I should take up croquet insteadā¦
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You have a great attitude. I donāt think you should give up just yet. Choose a program, make a training log here, and tag strong people (hint: Iām not very strong) to help you get strong. Then we can hammer down what your problems may be, since you can log your diet, workout videos for form checks, and routine in there.
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And I THOUGHT I had solid nutrition, but youāre probably right. Itās probably time to give my nutrition a complete overhaul.
I canāt recommend a training log enough, honestly. @flappinit is bang on the money. You have a good attitude, however I donāt think that this can be diagnosed easily in a single thread. Thereās too many variables and too many voices.
I strongly recommend making a plan that youāre confident you can stick to, training and nutrition, posting it in a log and taking feedback from there.
And beware of complete overhauls. These go wrong more often than they go right in my experience.
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It was the most effective accumulation block Iāve ever run. As far as how it manifested in intensification, press and deadlift saw immediate gains. Squats were a bit lack luster, but I didnāt regress. Benching has remained very consistent in growth, but I didnāt change programming for it after it was done.
@theanalogkid Have you gained any bodyweight while training? Thatāll be a pretty good sign for the nutrition.
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Not an ounce. The only weight Iāve ever gained was a couple of years ago when I drank a gallon of milk and ate a dozen eggs per day in addition to my regular meals. Iāve always been scrawny so I was desperate to gain weight and I figured it would be muscle if I was lifting at the time, but all I did was gain fat. Guess it wasnāt the smartest thing to do at my age.
Waitā¦how did you gain fat without weight? Unless you mean during the gallon of milk thing.
Whoops, I misread your original question. I thought it read āhave I gained any weight while running the programā (that I had originally posted about)
Guess I canāt read either
Soā¦no, lately I have not gained any weight
I think chasing after this would go a long way.
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Got it, thanks
You gotta throw this type of mentality out of your head brother.
The only way this 16 week āblockā would be wasted is if you were unable to learn or gain anything out of it. Tons of cycles are left with little to nothing to gain 1RM-wise for many people starting out. The more you do, the more you (should) learn. So from here out, think about what you did right in the 16 and REALLY think about what you did wrong. The more you adjust the things you do wrong, the more youāre able to do right.
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Yeah youāre rightā¦I guess itās not truly wasted. Iām just bummed that I couldnāt add 30lbs to my press.
I want to be freakishly strong because, frankly, Iāve never seen anyone who was crazy strong and didnāt look like it, and by the time my girls are old enough to date I want whatever boy they bring home to look at me and shit his pants. I figure Iāve got about three or four yearsā¦
Figuring out what I did wrong is the frustrating part because I followed the programming to the letter. I guess like T3hPwnisher said, Iām just not eating enough.
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Programming is the least important variable in training. You have to eat a lot and push hard in the gym. The program is not going to make you strong, it just organizes your training.
In the past year how much have you lifts gone up? What does a typical day of eating look like be honest? What is your current height/weight? What are your current lifts?
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None. Tbh I donāt think theyāve ever increasedā¦
I had to add up all the macros that I typically eat every day because, to be honest, Iāve never really done that before. Anyway, it seems that I eat around 3,100 calories a day with about 200 grams of protein.
6ā3", 170lbs
Press 140
Bench Press 180
Front squat 180
Deadlift 335
Is that like your 10 rep max, or 1 rep, verge of failure, wheels about to fly off max?
If thatās your one rep, you might do better to try to increase a rep or two on your regular working weight, then add a 5āer to each side until you can do that for like 12 reps, etc.
Itās the most absolutely basic linear progression, and it works.
Good god, I wish those were 10 rep maxes