Although Im not exactly huge compared to some natural BBs, I have totally experienced what you are going through, but have made quite a lot of progress. I experienced the same thing with my arms at one point (they apparently shrank when doing more direct work). I used to only have 12.5 inch arms, now they range from 15 to 16 inches (depending on BF %).
I believe that like you, I was doing too much direct work on my arms (while not eating enough) and therefore overtraining them. Its so obvious I cant believe that no one else seems to have picked up on it on here.
Overtraining comes from either:
Lack of sleep
Lack of calories
Too much training
There’s two types of overtraining, theres:
Central nervous system overtraining
and
Muscle overtraining (dont know the exact name)
You can be gaining on other body parts but not the body part that you are overtraining (if its just muscle overtraining), but if you are CNS overtraining, no body part will grow.
I used to do an upper body split about 2 times per week and I used to neglect lower body exercises, therefore the workout volume was pretty low. I don’t do that anymore though.
I THOUGHT I was eating enough for my body type (Ectomorph) but I wasn’t. I then decided to add direct arm work to make them grow, but although they felt harder and more solid, my arms “seemed” to shrink! This was a combination of loosing fat and overtraining (both types).
If you are loosing size around your waist, you are NOT going to be gaining muscle (except in very rare circumstances). Id even go as far as saying that its difficult to even maintain fat while gaining muscle. Its far easier to gain fat and muscle together; that�??s usually a sure sign that you are growing muscle, and then diet down later. Always focus on one goal at a time, you are either trying to get huge, or you are trying to get lean. Trying to do both at once will lead to no progress or very slow progress.
Obviously you need to take into account that when you are only just eating enough to maintain your weight or even make yourself gain slightly, and when you add more exercises; it takes up more calories! And whats worse is that you will likely overtrain due to this and shrink!
If you add more exercises to your routine you need to add more calories to your diet too. If you are eating moderate calories you have to keep workout volume low. Its only if you are eating extreme calories when you can handle high volume work and grow.
Thats another reason why you THINK you never grew on a 8 to 10 rep range; its because your workout volume was higher and also when the rep range is higher it is more metabolically challenging (i.e. you burn more calories) and therefore will need to eat more to over compensate. Most BB’s grow really quickly if they go from a low rep range (e.g. 4-6) to a high one (e.g. 8-10)…only if you eat enough.
I started eating more and noticed more gains…but it wasn’t until I ate extreme amounts (4500-6000 cals / day) until my arms started growing. I realized that adding in exercises like Squats and Deadlifts almost doubled my metabolism…so I had to eat even more to compensate.
If you have a metabolism like mine, you may need about 3000 cals to maintain your weight (2000-2500 to loose), but you’ll need almost double that in order to Grow!
Eggs, cream and peanut butter are a Ectomorphs best friend…(just dont eat high carbs and high fat in the same meal).