Serge Storms Experimentation Log - New Methods to Gain Muscle and Lose Fat

Training Training Logs
261

While I’d be perfectly happy to achieve your BEFORE physique, the AFTER is damned impressive.

A few brief comments and questions, if I may:

  1. You mention that this is one year of “Just Keep Lifting” but you obviously had some muscle tone at the start of this. What’s your athletic background? Ex college athlete? Manual laborer? I don’t know many dudes who walk around with that physique without SOME kind of physical stimulus…I know that you’ve mentioned playing tennis and golfing so you’re obviously a sterling recreational athlete.

  2. I’m heartened by your continuous recomp approach because (although I’m doing a verrrrry slow cut) I don’t really like the idea of “bulking” and “cutting” phases that much, myself. I want to home in on a good dietary intake that’s sustainable (which I think I’ve found) and will ultimately result in settling around the weight and leanness that I want to walk around at, obviously given that I put in the proper physical training as well.

262

Awesome progress pics. I’ve been following your log for quite some time now, and I find it fascinating. Partly inspired by you, I dabbled in some freestyle type training earlier this fall. It was fun, and I mostly enjoyed it. But I constantly found myself wanting to turn it into a program to follow.

Perhaps I will try it again some time, or maybe it just doesn’t work for my personality. But your day to day work and overall progress is truly inspiring. I look forward to seeing where you are next year.

263

Thanks for droppin’ in, guys and thanks for the comments. I really appreciate it.

I need to pop back in here soon I’ll make sure I throw some thoughts back at you.

But for now I just need to leave a

NOTE TO SELF:

Meeting recap with superstud southside club volleyball coach super high value ultracontributer insanely fit triple triathlete mother of five CCD teacher. She was the most impressive person I think I’ve ever met.

I’m at a national meeting with about 300 other people, so of the thirty new people I meet every day, maybe one will be from here.

Last night, the dinner event was a “Chicago Style” buffet. It was embarrassment. I ended up at a random high-top table with a woman from another division in the company. We were both eating deep-dish pizza and drinking beer, and she just casually commented, "I’m from Chicago and this is NOT what we consider good pizza. Boom. We ended up talking forever because it turns out that we know a bunch of the same people and share some deep roots. She is about seven years older than me. She’s done multiple triathlons. She’s done multiple triathlons IN THE SAME DAY. And she has a sportcourt in her backyard with a flexible backstop contraption so her FIVE KIDS can go out there and get super awesome at whatever sport they choose.

Second-most-impressive person I met this week was the editor of Fast Company Robert Safian.

Crazy that the two of us would randomly end up at the same table at such a big meeting.

There are definitely some impressive people at this meeting. The top two are two of the most impressive leaders I’ve ever seen. They are both into fitness and you can tell that really value taking care of yourself as the number one priority.

264

[quote]panzerfaust wrote:
Just popped in to say what up, and obviously chose a good day!

Really good results in the past year bro. Particularly can see increased thickness and size in the traps, chest and delts. Oh and everywhere else! Well done.

I must read through your log, but did you bulk and cut, or some kind of re-comp?

I’ve just posted “before pics” and nailed down my calories for the official start of my semi-dirty bulk from slightly fat to probably end up very fat. Haha! Never really done an official bulk before. Any advice welcome.[/quote]

Thanks!

I didn’t do a bulk and cut, I’m in more of a perpetual recomp mode. I tend to naturally sway between loosening up my diet for periods and then clamping down, but I never get too far from “striking distance” of being lean enough to feel, well, not fat.

I think your approach to gaining size will ultimately depend on your mindset, which is of course shaped by many different forces. So my first piece of advice is to be aware of those things that are shaping your attitude and don’t be afraid to question them a little and shine some light on them.

I think if you end up pushing the food, you should do it with a higher proportion of real food vs. supplements, bars, and powders. I also think you should push your activity level to the max, and then keep pushing it more. I think you should not be afraid to throw mini-cuts in there.

I don’t want to try talking you out of your approach…I keep up with your log and I think your mind is made up on that one. Just keep an eye on yourself. If there is some kind of benefit to bulking, it lies in that first 400 or so calories above maintenance intake. When you start chronically going beyond that, you need to realize that whatever metabolic damage you are doing will eventually have to be undone.

Good luck!

265

[quote]ActivitiesGuy wrote:
While I’d be perfectly happy to achieve your BEFORE physique, the AFTER is damned impressive.

A few brief comments and questions, if I may:

  1. You mention that this is one year of “Just Keep Lifting” but you obviously had some muscle tone at the start of this. What’s your athletic background? Ex college athlete? Manual laborer? I don’t know many dudes who walk around with that physique without SOME kind of physical stimulus…I know that you’ve mentioned playing tennis and golfing so you’re obviously a sterling recreational athlete.

  2. I’m heartened by your continuous recomp approach because (although I’m doing a verrrrry slow cut) I don’t really like the idea of “bulking” and “cutting” phases that much, myself. I want to home in on a good dietary intake that’s sustainable (which I think I’ve found) and will ultimately result in settling around the weight and leanness that I want to walk around at, obviously given that I put in the proper physical training as well.[/quote]

Thanks!

My before pics this time around came after about a 4 or 5 month layoff where I pretty much just played tennis and golfed, with lots of other random summer activity. The size I started with this time around came from what I did for about 16 of the previous 24 months. In the big picture, I’ve been lifting quite a bit over the past three years, but just never for 12 months consecutively.

I was a volleyball player in college, but I never really had much muscle back then except for having pretty huge legs. The jumping seemed to make them grow like crazy. Not huge like a bodybuilder, but just big and bulky, even compared to the other volleyball players. For some guys, jumping makes their calves blow up. Some guys can jump out of the gym and have small calves AND quads. For me, my legs grew quite a bit when I first started playing and then pretty much stayed that way.

With the re-comp thing, I guess it’s now maybe partially just an identity thing because I’m known for and proud of being that guy who is always pretty lean. I just don’t look that impressive when I’m bigger and not lean. Part of it is also that I’m just more into looking and feeling awesome right NOW, not so much going through a cycle to peak at any one moment. And now that I’ve been trying to get it right for so long, I guess I’m a bit attached to the approach and want to show people that it can work. I think for certain people, it really is the way to go.

266

[quote]booksbikesbeer wrote:
Awesome progress pics. I’ve been following your log for quite some time now, and I find it fascinating. Partly inspired by you, I dabbled in some freestyle type training earlier this fall. It was fun, and I mostly enjoyed it. But I constantly found myself wanting to turn it into a program to follow.

Perhaps I will try it again some time, or maybe it just doesn’t work for my personality. But your day to day work and overall progress is truly inspiring. I look forward to seeing where you are next year.[/quote]

Thanks for dropping and for the great comments, I really appreciate it!

Free-style training. I may need to borrow that term.

Yeah, I don’t make much effort to convince people to try it, because even I probably wouldn’t be doing it this way today if it was something I tried to jump into.

For me, it slowly evolved. The more I let go, the more fun things got. The more fun things got, the better the results.

But mostly music. That has been the key. Anyone who is a rhythm junkie would absolutely thrive with this style of training. I’ve done a few “classes” on my porch with my wife and some of our other neighbors, and the girls really like this stuff.

267

I guess I should throw up a log update.

I’ve been at a national meeting all week eating at probably 1,000 calories over maintenance just about every day.

I haven’t logged my food this week.

I did not go crazy with the booze, though - and that has made a huge difference. This new team I’m with is a bit older than my last team. They don’t stay out as late or party as much. That’s been a good thing.

I have been getting at least an hour and sometimes a 90 minute workout in every day this week except for one.

We stayed out pretty late Wednesday night, so I took Thursday off.

But this gym at the hotel was awesome so I crushed some pretty hard workouts.

Nothing new - arms and shoulders, entire back, chest, abs, rope, and mostly stretching for the legs.

268

[quote]Serge A. Storms wrote:
I ended up spending about two songs worth of time probing around with this, and in the process, got some great TUT work done.

I also figured out that faster, pumping reps can bring on the burn much, much faster. This is true for many muscles, but especially true for the lower back. I could light up a burn just by pumping out 8 or so super-quick reps. I guess when you don’t give the blood a chance to completely clear out, the pain cytokines accumulate much faster.
[/quote]

Funny how often you and I end up focusing on the same training variables (although I think you’re well out ahead of me on this particular curve). Of late, I have been experimenting with extended TUT (in the 3-5 min range) consisting of short/fast reps that could be described as ‘pumping.’ I’m excited about its potential to stimulate growth.

As for mechanism, your aside re ‘not giving the blood a chance to clear out’ may prove to be the crux of the matter. More specifically, I suspect contraction-induced bloodflow occlusion might be the factor accounting for the effectiveness of this sort of training. (An hypothesis I first encountered in the writing of Borge ‘Blade’ Fagerli.)

269

[quote]EyeDentist wrote:

Funny how often you and I end up focusing on the same training variables (although I think you’re well out ahead of me on this particular curve). Of late, I have been experimenting with extended TUT (in the 3-5 min range) consisting of short/fast reps that could be described as ‘pumping.’ I’m excited about its potential to stimulate growth.

As for mechanism, your aside re ‘not giving the blood a chance to clear out’ may prove to be the crux of the matter. More specifically, I suspect contraction-induced bloodflow occlusion might be the factor accounting for the effectiveness of this sort of training. (An hypothesis I first encountered in the writing of Borge ‘Blade’ Fagerli.)[/quote]

I’m surprised I hadn’t stumbled upon that guy yet, but I just checked out his site and read some of his blog posts. I feel like I’ve heard of “myo-reps” somewhere before. Anyway, very interesting stuff, thanks!

I feel like part of the magic with this type of training is that you can build up to a relatively high frequency without taxing the other supporting systems. Higher frequency means more glycogen turning over, and I feel like more glycogen turning over provides a better capacity to buffer excess energy intake.

One thing I just picked up from his blog was a point he made about going too deep, to often into the “burn” zone and turning on the endurance-adaption pathways, which I guess he thinks shuts down the muscle-building machinery. I don’t really kill myself with sets that create a huge burn…it’s just not mentally possible to sustain that. I find that I probe the edges of the burn and then back off. That’s why I do mostly unilateral stuff…I can creep up on that burn and then just switch sides.

I also like that her recognizes autoregulation as a good method of progression. Although I’d like to see more people take it a few steps further and just stop counting altogether. There is bliss to be found in a totally right-brained approach to training for those who are open to it.

270

[quote]Serge A. Storms wrote:

[quote]panzerfaust wrote:
Just popped in to say what up, and obviously chose a good day!

Really good results in the past year bro. Particularly can see increased thickness and size in the traps, chest and delts. Oh and everywhere else! Well done.

I must read through your log, but did you bulk and cut, or some kind of re-comp?

I’ve just posted “before pics” and nailed down my calories for the official start of my semi-dirty bulk from slightly fat to probably end up very fat. Haha! Never really done an official bulk before. Any advice welcome.[/quote]

Thanks!

I didn’t do a bulk and cut, I’m in more of a perpetual recomp mode. I tend to naturally sway between loosening up my diet for periods and then clamping down, but I never get too far from “striking distance” of being lean enough to feel, well, not fat.

I think your approach to gaining size will ultimately depend on your mindset, which is of course shaped by many different forces. So my first piece of advice is to be aware of those things that are shaping your attitude and don’t be afraid to question them a little and shine some light on them.

I think if you end up pushing the food, you should do it with a higher proportion of real food vs. supplements, bars, and powders. I also think you should push your activity level to the max, and then keep pushing it more. I think you should not be afraid to throw mini-cuts in there.

I don’t want to try talking you out of your approach…I keep up with your log and I think your mind is made up on that one. Just keep an eye on yourself. If there is some kind of benefit to bulking, it lies in that first 400 or so calories above maintenance intake. When you start chronically going beyond that, you need to realize that whatever metabolic damage you are doing will eventually have to be undone.

Good luck!

[/quote]

Figured you’d say something like that; you didn’t strike me as a bulk and cut kinda guy! Just did some log-browsing and I was surprised by what I found… Now I know where your squat and deadlift comment came from.

I like the idea of re-comp. I’ve never actively tried to bulk before; in the past I just concentrated on getting strong and ate what I liked. As long as I had a girl on my arm, I didn’t really stress too much about aesthetics haha.

Actually I would strongly consider the idea of a re-comp approach except that I currently feel too light in total mass. So at this stage, the quality of that mass is not concern number 1. I’m willing to carry some extra beef in the interest of not swimming in my clothes!

But I think for a man who is comfortable in his skin - or simply more patient than I - your approach is awesome.

Advice noted, and I share some of those philosophies. Particularly on the source of nutrients ingested. I have always been very opposed to bars, supplements, processed food in general.
With my new anatomy, it pains me to have to opt for lower fibre options and fairly low fruit and vegetable intake.
But I’m still doing my best with food sources; quality fats, fresh foods as often as possible; no real snack foods, drink only water (sometimes beer), takeaways maybe once a week max. Too much chocolate tbh ;-).

I consider myself a fairly self-aware person and do acknowledge there are somewhat negative forces driving me. IE my surgeon has said over and over “you will never get that big again.” Jamin-ego says “fuck you, I’ll get big if I have to become obese to achieve it!” My parents say “you look better smaller, you were outside the bmi before and unhealthy.” Jamin-ego says “you know nothing, I look like a skinny bitch, bmi is for retards, I’ll get huge!”

So of course, Jamin-ego is yelling at me to cram food, lift as much as I can, and get as big as possible as fast as possible, fat gain be damned. Thankfully I do have a little rational mind remaining; having just the other day dialed my calorie targets back when I realised I was packing it on too fast.
My goal is .5kg per week until I hit 90kg or start feeling disgusting - whichever comes first. At that point I will evaluate a new direction.

I find myself floundering in my new reality at times, but I feel I’m slowly starting to find my bearings. And I am sure as I do, I will end up on a rational path to achieving a Healthy body I enjoy inhabiting.

But srs, I will never have a build like yours. I’m too fucking lazy haha. Low self-standards are my friend :).

Thanks for your opinion, it is always appreciated!

271

[quote]Serge A. Storms wrote:

[quote]booksbikesbeer wrote:
Awesome progress pics. I’ve been following your log for quite some time now, and I find it fascinating. Partly inspired by you, I dabbled in some freestyle type training earlier this fall. It was fun, and I mostly enjoyed it. But I constantly found myself wanting to turn it into a program to follow.

Perhaps I will try it again some time, or maybe it just doesn’t work for my personality. But your day to day work and overall progress is truly inspiring. I look forward to seeing where you are next year.[/quote]

Thanks for dropping and for the great comments, I really appreciate it!

Free-style training. I may need to borrow that term.

Yeah, I don’t make much effort to convince people to try it, because even I probably wouldn’t be doing it this way today if it was something I tried to jump into.

For me, it slowly evolved. The more I let go, the more fun things got. The more fun things got, the better the results.

But mostly music. That has been the key. Anyone who is a rhythm junkie would absolutely thrive with this style of training. I’ve done a few “classes” on my porch with my wife and some of our other neighbors, and the girls really like this stuff.
[/quote]

Right after I wrote my above message I thought “you know what, I was never lifting to music.” I bet that was a big part of it for me. It gave me too much time to think of reps or sets or weight and how it compared to the last session or whatever.

And it is nice to know that this is something you evolved into doing more of. I was coming off a mild injury, and there were a few movements I couldn’t do. Those movements were basically key elements in all the types of programs I gravitate towards. So I just did what I could and didn’t really worry about anything else. Except like I said, I kind of did over think it sometimes.

Still, it was fun for the month I did it, and it allowed me to keep moving along in some areas and not lose much ground in others. So it is definitely something I will come back to. I could kind of see myself doing a program for 2 or 3 months and then maybe going freestyle for a month or so. But next time I’ll remember the music!

272

Sunday - 2600 calories

275g C
212g P
80g F

Monday

AM WEIGHT 193.0

Training - 60 minutes, 650 calories burned

Yesterday was the first day in about a week where I actually logged everything and made some kind of effort to hit my targets.

I still went back and filled in my Lose It! log for the days that I missed, but I just entered my generic “Dinner Calorie Package” x however many units it took to get to about 4,500 calories, which is about what I was averaging per day last week.

I am surprised I didn’t do more damage last week with all those extra calories. I was eating about 10 pieces of bacon for breakfast every day. Usually at these meetings, I struggle to restrain my eating because I’m so bored and they put all this shitty but tasty food out during the breaks and meals. Last week, I just said screw it, and I ate whatever I wanted.

Still back down to 193 by Monday. W. T. F.

Not complaining, but it’s weeks like those that will slowly lead me back down the path towards chronic overconsumption and its associated consequences. One week won’t kill me, it will just make me think I can get away with another. Which leads to another. Before you know it, they’re knocking down a wall in my living room so the crane can reach in and remove me from the couch.

Seriously, though. Even though you “can’t out-train a bad diet”, the way I’m training, you can get pretty close to it.

Still going back to counting and logging, though…it just works better for me in the long-term.

My targets this week are 45/30/25 C/P/F at 3200 calories = 360g C, 240g P, 88g F.

The nice thing about a week like last week is that I’ll drop some fluff and tighten up on those macros and calories now, whereas without that big metabolic slap-in-the-face, I might just maintain or even gain by hitting those numbers.

TRAINING UPDATE

I don’t have much of an update, I’m just going to keep doing what I’m doing.

I have been doing mostly rope work and floor work for the first 20 minutes of my workouts. I’d like to start using breakdance moves as part of this 20 minutes. There is nothing like it to keep flexible, quick, conditioned, and young.

The problem is that even with the level of conditioning I’ve built up, even just 5 or 6 revolutions on a full-out windmill will gas the shit out of me. Good problem to have, I can use this move for conditioning and have tons of room for daily and weekly progress.

I’m trying to do all of this floor work stuff with an emphasis on momentum, speed, and smoothness. If I try to do things slow with an emphasis on strength, I’ll put too much recovery demand on my joints. Especially my left elbow. The faster I get going on that windmill, the less I need to use that left wrist and elbow to push off in-between revolutions.

I still haven’t found a seamless transition between the jump rope and the floor work. You know, for my big show someday.

273

Legs wide toes pointed sweep right kick left head down abs tight and for god’s sake hurry up that re-stab!

Windmill life :confused:

274

[quote]marrot wrote:
Legs wide toes pointed sweep right kick left head down abs tight and for god’s sake hurry up that re-stab!

Windmill life :/[/quote]

Dude, I threw down an insanely fast and smooth windmill this morning. Funny, I was going to post in my log the keys, which include getting my legs wide and letting the momentum do the work.

The sweep is no problem, getting started is easy and then once I get going, everything is super smooth. I’d say the only glitch right now is the first re-stab. I can go unstabbed almost directly after just two revs, but as of now I still need just that one re-stab to get my speed up before I pull my hand in. If I was younger, I might just go back to coindropping in and bypassing the stab altogether. It would save my left wrist and elbow some mileage.

275

Monday - 3500 calories

406g C
260g P
83g F

Tuesday AM Weight = 192.4

Those are pretty hearty macros, and I still dropped another .5 pounds overnight. The metabolic slingshot is in full-effect.

If I had better control over my appetite, I might take more advantage of it and throw some lower days in right now.

But nah. Work stress + working from home today + no protein leftovers in fridge = raisin bran

Tuesday AM Training - 70 minutes, 660 calories burned.

Real good session today - got my heart rate redlining with a few good windmills and lots of intense jump rope - 20 minutes total to start the session. Then I cranked out some pump and contraction work for shoulders, upper back, arms, and chest.

276

Thanks for the previous reply.

Your log (as well as many of the other logs on here) are an enlightening thing for me. I spent ages 9-22 training heavy compound lifts for my sports (football, wrestling, and track)…and while I loved that & feel that it gave me a very solid strength base, it’s enjoyable to see how other people have been able to build very impressive physiques with such varied approaches. Really shows that intensity (real intensity, not faked-for-the-cameras intensity) and commitment matter a lot more than the exact choice of program.

277

[quote]ActivitiesGuy wrote:
it’s enjoyable to see how other people have been able to build very impressive physiques with such varied approaches. Really shows that intensity (real intensity, not faked-for-the-cameras intensity) and commitment matter a lot more than the exact choice of program.[/quote]

Thanks!

Yeah, one thing that kills me is to see people struggle to make progress and to find enjoyment in lifting because they don’t see the mismatch between their true goals, their internal wiring, and the approach they’ve chosen. There are enough different ways of lifting out there to get all of those things aligned pretty easily.

And like you said, commitment is a big part of it. I’d like to see more people committed to making the jump from “beginner” to “intermediate”. That goes for all sports and for all ages.

I used to think the difference between a beginner and an advanced tennis player was just the amount of time they’ve been playing. But over the years, I observe this group of beginner/intermediate (3.5 - 4.0 NTRP) level players who stay at the same level for their entire playing career. They’re still living on internet forums and buying all the latest gear, but they don’t seem to have any interest at all at jumping up to the 4.5+ level.

I mean, if lifting is just a daily routine for you, like brushing your teeth, then that’s cool. But if it’s a passion, then you should be trying to find out just how good you can get.

278

Still crushing it on the training front.

I’ve been sticking with 20-30 minutes of “floor work” and rope work, and then hitting shoulders, back, chest, and arms as hard as possible for another 30-40 minutes.

Played tennis yesterday for an hour and holy shit…my legs were a mess this morning. But after the 30 minutes of floor work and rope work, I felt good as new.

I really pushed the calories last week and over the weekend. Woke up this morning at 198.0 - that’s gotta be an all-time high.

November is a good month for a focused push towards leanness, though. Even though it’s been fun to loosen up a little bit with my diet, I’m feeling a strong pull to flip the switch.

Breakdance as part of my training is becoming lots of fun and really seems to be improving my flexibility and level of conditioning. I’m going to ride it out for as long as it feels good. It would be nice to be in the kind of shape where I can just coin drop into a nut roll on a moment’s notice. That way, I can bust it out at work meetings more often. I think I have it in me.

Today I was working on plain old backspins. I was spinning so fast, my headphones kept flying off. So I started spinning with my hands over my ears to keep the headphones on. This move is now named the MotoRolla.

279

This is about as full-house as it gets for me.

200lbs here.

[photo]40605[/photo]
[photo]40604[/photo]

280

Basement could do with a tidy. Body however looks to be well-maintained - phat deltoids in particular. Are you right handed? Sweet new thread title, by the way