Ok t-folks here it is. the results of my 6 month mass/lean cycle are in. i spent 4months gaining and 2months leaning. i will be extending my leaning phase for a bit longer to see how low i can go, but these are the official results as of this morning.
apr 5th 2001 6’-0" - 165 @ 5% 157lbm 7fm
aug 5th 2001 6’-0" - 188 @ 12% 165lbm 23fm
oct 5th 2001 6’-0" - 179 @ 7% 166lbm 13fm
i want to try and get to 175 @ 5%, but as you can see these results got me pretty stoked! 9lbs of quality muscle in 4 months for me is truly amazing. i was actually able to gain llb at the outset of my leaning phase, but tapered off and managed to keep all that i had gained! i was a bit less disciplined than i would have liked and wonder about the results if i had been more strict. i’ll tackle that next time.
i want to thank each and every one of you for your words of wisdom and inspiration on this forum. you guys mean a lot to me! i would like to thank john berardi for all of his hard work in the area of nutrition his gracious sharing of this knowledge with all of us here. not to mention the entire t-mag staff who make who have created the best bodybuilding community ever. a community that i am proud to be a member of!
A question i have though is how long should i wait before i take another stab at it? is there a set amount of time to let my body level out so to say? i want to enjoy this new “look” while i have the time ,but am anxious to get back at it. kevo
Yeah, great job! And thanks for posting on the board here to let everyone know. We need more “real world” feedback like you’ve provided. Good luck with your next cycle, and let us know what happens.
Great job Kevo… did you eat Massive Eating style the whole time?
And hell no, don’t wait to get back at it, keep going!!! Take planned rest weeks for sure, but get right back into bulking. You’ve probably learned a hell of a lot about your body in the last six months, and I’ll bet you’ll gain even more the next six months. An alternate approach you might want to try is this: Bulk during your high volume phases of training, then cut down during your high intensity or power phases. Pavel likes this approach a lot. Since your lower rep training will be neurally focused anyway, you may as well take the time to cut yourself up a bit since you don’t need the additional energy substrates. Pavel also spills some stuff about this improving “tone” or “resting tension” or some such shit, but I’m not sure I buy into that. If you’re following some kind of alternating model, you’d be bulking for 3 weeks and training high reps, then cutting for 3 weeks while training with lower reps, then back to bulking for 3 weeks and higher reps, etc…
thanks for the props fellas! i appreciate the words of encouragement!
doug - i didn’t follow the massive eating guidlines during the entire cycle, but experimented with it off and on. it was easier to implement during my mass phase because i only did enough cardio to keep my system running smooth, so carb intake and timing wasn’t as critical (i generally followed a 30%c 45%p 25%f). once i hit the leaning phase my ratios changed significantly to allow for cardio fueling (i generally followed a 55%c 30%p 15%f). this worked out nicely for me.
i learned so much about myself during this last cycle while reading about new ideas and training methods on this forum. the only problem is i have hit a point of information overload where it is becoming more difficult to put together my program with so many quality ideas to choose from. i guess i could have bigger problems, eh? :o)
well, off i go to formulate my next cycle. thanks again t-bros. kevo