Tell me about your training history.
The program you started with and at what age?
How your programming has changed over the years.
How is your programming set up now?
Are there any training philosophies you were dogmatic about that you’ve changed your mind on?
Is there anything you know now that you would change?
Have you ever trained specifically for a bb show or pl meet? What did that entail?
I have always been a “gym rat,” but for most of my life I had no idea what I was doing. When I was in the Marines I had a personal trainer make me a program and show me what to do; knowing what I know now, it was complete nonsense. So I never made any progress in the gym. When I was 39 (in early 2018) I was doing a program by Mike Matthews called Bigger, Leaner, Stronger. That was the first “program” I ever did.
I was partway through that program when I was involved in an industrial accident that made me immediately realize that I needed to get way bigger and way stronger. (At the time I was 6’4" and 180 lb). Mike had an article on his webpage about Starting Strength and he recommended it as a good program to get strong. So I switched to Starting Strength. I liked that program and made great progress with it.
After I had kind of run out Starting Strength I switched to Andy Bakers Strength and Mass over 40 which is kind of a 5/3/1-type setup. I had good success with that program, too. Then I got an online coach from Barbell Medicine for about a year. By this time I had finally pushed my SBD total over 1000 lb and had pushed my bodyweight from 180 lb to 240 lb.
During my year with the coach I lost 40 lb, leaning down to 200 while maintaining my total. The coach was pretty expensive, so I dropped him and just started doing the Barbell Medicine templates. I had never used RPE before and was skeptical, so I figured I’d give it a try. I really like their strength templates, but am “meh” on their hypertrophy stuff, but only because I don’t really like that style of training. Right now I’m in Week 5 of Super Squats. When it’s done I’ll go right back to doing the BBM templates.
After all of this I’ve got my squat up to around 400, my DL close to 500 and my bench to a measly 240-ish.
The only philosophy that has really changed for me is realizing that, while looking good and being healthy are nice and I’ll try to be both of those things, strength is the only thing that matters. If I’m ever in a situation again where peoples safety and lives depend on me, that I’ll be strong enough to handle whatever situation it is. That’s also the only thing I’d change; I’d tell 18-year-old me to just get in a hurry to get as strong as possible.
I’ve never trained for a meet, but I may try a powerlifting meet in the future.
Hope this was in the spirit of what you were asking and not me just rambling!
Oh boy…In my 50s now and have been training for years. Played College Football, but have a much more disciplined approach to training now than I ever have. Honestly, it was a combination of Joe DeFranco WS4SB and Jay Ferruggia TripleThreat muscle that got be back into it. I’ve been doing their programs for a long time. More Ferruggia than anything now at my age.
it was. thanks for the reply.
Posting a physique picture should be required. It makes sense if you are talking about your training history. What have all these years resulted in?
Big Arms in 6 weeks. I think I was about 20.
I switched to powerlifting when my dreams for big arms didn’t come true after about 6-8 years.
I think then I ran stronglifts 5x5 as my first strength training.
Then a version of Cube method for awhile.
Then I hired a powerlifting coach.
I learned at least for me, I got stronger over time by being systematic and training with a lower intensity (leaving more reps in the tank). I learned this from working with the coach.
I felt like his workouts were a waste of time starting out. Didn’t feel hard enough. But I was making progress steadily.
IDK? Probably just that you had to lift heavy to get stronger.
I wouldn’t have gotten so fat trying to get stronger. Sure it helped, but in hindsight I was a bit delusional about how fat I actually was, and looked fairly obese for at least 5 years. I thought I had the look of power haha. I looked like a regular fat dude with wide shoulders.
I should have been doing cardio in my training to help with this. I shouldn’t have been eating quite so much. It wasn’t necessary to have two pints of chocolate milk on training nights to help with recovery (just one example of the way I was thinking to get gains).
Powerlifting meet. Lots of triples and doubles with singles towards the end on the big lifts. Less BBing stuff after. Leaving a bit in the tank (doing a double when I could do a triple). TBH, peaking for meets was tough for me. I felt like the workouts took a long time and didn’t accomplish much. I wanted to do more. They worked fairly well though.
I will say that I think for me I don’t need a really long peaking period. I seem to be able to go from volume to intensity and have really good strength in a few weeks.
The first peak we did was 16 weeks. The second was 12, and I think the third was 8. The 8 weeks was the best for me. I felt like I detrained during the longer peaks with such low volume. I would get winded easily towards the end (partly due to being obese), but also the training involving only a few sets of low reps (partly not doing cardio too).
thanks for the thorough reply.
I like these types of posts. It’s cool to see where everybody started.
I started lifting in late 2017/early 2018 as a 6 foot, 165lb 27 year old who had never really done anything sport related. I searched online for lifting programs. The switch that flipped for me was seeing some beach vacation photos and realizing that I looked like a skeleton.
I found 5/3/1 and this site. 2018-2020 ish was spent on 5/3/1, @isdatnutty’s program and Paul Carter’s guaranteed muscle mass. I then took a chance with deepwater and trialed a few different programs trying to find what works for me and what doesn’t. Hired a PL coach for a few months and found out that I’m not really into training that way for an extended period of time. Ran a modified deepwater and now I’m running mass made simple.
While my “big 4” aren’t quite where I’d like them to be, I’m proud of what I’ve been able to accomplish in the time I’ve been concentrating on lifting.
I’m up 60lbs from where I started and I look and feel like twice the person I used to be. I wish I started lifting earlier in life, but I still have years and years to improve. At some point I’d like to do a meet, but it’s far from something I feel like I absolutely need to do. I just like lifting heavy shit and challenging myself to be better.
you deserve to feel that way. you earned it. amazing transformation.
I messed around in the gym in high school, probably starting junior year. I think the first real program I followed was probably Chad Waterbury’s Anti-Bodybuilding Hypertrophy program when it came out in, what, 2003?
I’ve tried everything from GVT to Dan John’s One Lift a Day. I gravitate more towards Christian Thibaudeau’s training ideas. My comfy t-shirt program is his Layers System. It never fails me, and is always there when I need it.
Overall, I’m very minimal these days compared to how I liked to train when I was younger. The same can be said about my diet and supplementation. At this point, I’m almost 38, and I just want to enjoy training, life, and keeping up with my kid.
I never really fell into any training dogma, but I was a big subscriber to John Berardi’s protein + fat and protein + carb meals back in the day.
If I could change anything, it would be to tell my younger self to not get lost in the details. But I think that’s part of the process for most of us.
I’ve never trained for a show or competition, but athletic performance has been my priority over the last handful of years if beer league hockey trophies count for anything.
they certainly do.