The Vets' Greatest Gains

Training Bodybuilding
41

I know some of you guys think all the pre/peri/post workout stuff isn’t significant, but I really think it is. It’s the same thing , it boils down to consistency. For myself, I already am doing the majority of things correctly so now I hone in on more of the details. I am slowly working in more minutia into my daily routine so that over the course of several more years all of this will add up.

Things like fish oil, peri workout stuff (just started doing this), slow release proteins before bed, splitting meals into P+f,P+C, adding in leucine at critical times and the list goes on.

Some stuff is still beyond my scope of understanding at this point, such as amino acid pulsing and stuff like that. However, genetics aside, the more things you do correctly the better you will look in the end. And I want to reach that “end” as quickly as possible. One of my favorite quotes is:

“Once you’ve clearly seen what you want, you just have to go after it. Despite what some will tell you, you don’t have all the time in the world.”

I’ve been drug free for about 5 months, circumstances demanded it, I didn’t decide this voluntarily, and I think it has been a very important time for me. I mean I’ve used drugs for 14 weeks of my 5 year lifting career so it has been nothing crazy, but even during that time I was starting to rely on them as a crutch. Taking time away has really made me hone in my focus and make sure I do everything right.

To answer the OP’s question, it’s times like these when I make the best gains.

42

[quote]greenhopper wrote:
Hey mighty stu, three of us asked you about fish oil timing. Why no response?[/quote]

Whoah, sorry guys, I sometimes just gloss over the responses I thought I’ve read :slight_smile:

I think someone else might have already touched on it, but it’s really nothing more than making use of the fact taht fats will slow digestion. I remember when I couldn’t afford Metabolic Drive to take pre-bed (“we were sooo poor when I was a kid!” -lol), so I would mix whole milk with some cheap whey powder hoping to slow the digestion in my gut while I slept (I don’t know how scientifically sound it was, but I was a young college kid). Now, I’m pretty conscious of what I eat, and even moreso, when I eat.

I’m sure some people will say it’s overanalyzing things, but I won’t take fish oils after training, in hopes of having my gut empty quickly, and then being able to have another feeding within an hour (high fat meals can kill your appetite, which is bad when you’re trying to put on size!).

Alternatively, just a few months ago when I was at a seminar with my training partner Corey, I was still in the middle of my contest prep, and was scheduled to have a low carb/cal day. My stomach was growling up a storm, and I had brought with me the small amount of food that I was to be allowed all day. I kept drinking water, but was just dying .

Corey suggested downing a handful of the fish oil pills to “slow everything down”. So with my tiny plain chicken breast, and a few pieces of raw broccoli, I popped about 5-6 Flameouts (about 5-6g worth). Amazingly, I felt full off of very little food, and wasn’t freaking out to eat again for another few hours.

Was it just a mental thing? Possibly somewhat, but I’ve started thinking this way, and it did help me through a lot of my prep (those low days were killers sometimes).

Make sense? (or am I just overanalyzing things again? -lol)

S

43

[quote]King of Kings wrote:
bond james bond wrote:
Frosted flakes WTF? I got a buddy that works at kelloggs and he told me that whenever they get an order for frosted flakes to go to the states the recipe requires them to double the sugar…nothing else,just sugar.I guess America likes sugar…alot.

One of the world’s best natural bodybuilders named Jeff Willet has frosted flakes for breakfast every morning.He has mentioned it several times in his blog he use to do.

People get caught up with what foods are good for this and good for that. Just eat! I will say the only time u should be counting calories and weighing food is if u are a top bodybuilder or u are trying to get into contest condition.[/quote]

Couldn’t agree more… and thank God someone said, seriously. Really, I think cereals are a good source of simple carbs (albeit with some sugar, depending on your vice. I like the worst of the worst.)

But seriously, waxy maize, malto, blah blah, blah blah blah. WTF? I have a Surge shake right after my workout. Then, about an hour later, I eat a shit load. I don’t know what’s in Surge, or why it does this and that, but it works.

I care that little about PWO nutrition - and I still make awesome gains week in and week out. I’m curious as to what half the people that are worried about waxy maize and shit actually look like.

44

Waylander, probably… I’m still a newbie, with 2 years background. And I think, at my level one can easily progress with just consuming regular food in adequate quantities and resting-lifting consistently. But when I see the supp programme of some guys out there, I always envy them a lot…

On the other hand, my performance-progress is mostly affected by my mental state… When I’m fired up totally, I can surprise even myself during workout…

45

[quote]MODOK wrote:

I too never in a million years could put any type of protein/aa concoction in my stomach during training. I’d throw up in a second. If your training HARD, your sympathetic nervous system is going full tilt…therefore your gut stops working. Whatever you put in their is going to make you sick and/or just sit in your stomach. I drink very dilute gatorade or very very dilute Surge…and even that makes me nauseous sometimes.

We just hijacked the hell out of this poor guy’s thread. We’ll answer your Q’s in the OP…I promise. :wink:
[/quote]

I’m gonna keep the highjack going…I have a feeling there’s more going on that “your sympathetic nervous system is going full tilt.” Would I be wrong in assuming certain individuals just have weak stomachs? I doubt the roller coaster analogy works here, but I know for a fact that people on this forum train just as hard as you or PX and swear by para-WO nutrition.

I feel my longevity and strength are both influenced by the nutritional protocol I’ve developed and become most comfortable with in the gym.

46

[quote]Vejne wrote:
Waylander, probably… I’m still a newbie, with 2 years background. And I think, at my level one can easily progress with just consuming regular food in adequate quantities and resting-lifting consistently. But when I see the supp programme of some guys out there, I always envy them a lot…

On the other hand, my performance-progress is mostly affected by my mental state… When I’m fired up totally, I can surprise even myself during workout… [/quote]

Oh yah no doubt about that, you can get pretty far by sticking to the basics. I mean for instance, you have to learn Algebra before you can do Calculus. I just think that eventually you have to start doing more stuff correctly if you ever want to reach the goal of being huge and lean.

I mean look at the pro’s from 20 years ago, IFBB AND natty’s. Todays physiques are monumentally larger/more shredded than the guys of yesteryear. Why? Not just because of drugs, but because of breakthroughs in nutrition and supplementation (I am not referring to drugs here).

47

[quote]phatkins187 wrote:
MODOK wrote:

I too never in a million years could put any type of protein/aa concoction in my stomach during training. I’d throw up in a second. If your training HARD, your sympathetic nervous system is going full tilt…therefore your gut stops working. Whatever you put in their is going to make you sick and/or just sit in your stomach. I drink very dilute gatorade or very very dilute Surge…and even that makes me nauseous sometimes.

We just hijacked the hell out of this poor guy’s thread. We’ll answer your Q’s in the OP…I promise. :wink:

I’m gonna keep the highjack going…I have a feeling there’s more going on that “your sympathetic nervous system is going full tilt.” Would I be wrong in assuming certain individuals just have weak stomachs? I doubt the roller coaster analogy works here, but I know for a fact that people on this forum train just as hard as you or PX and swear by para-WO nutrition.

I feel my longevity and strength are both influenced by the nutritional protocol I’ve developed and become most comfortable with in the gym.[/quote]

There isn’t more going on. Everyone doesn’t respond the same to the same medications so why would you think we ALL would respond the same to eating while training?

Not only that, but unless you have the same genetics as us and lift exactly the same weight, there is no way in hell you can claim you match our intensity as perception has more to do with that than anything else.

The take home message is you do what you need to do. You don’t follow someone else’s protocol especially if it is making you so uncomfortable that it hinders training.

Refueling your body is very important after training. I haven’t seen anyone claim it isn’t. That doesn’t mean that you will hinder progress by not taking in some exact specific amount of nutrients.

Beyond that, if the guys being that anal about their “post-workout shake” don’t even look that developed, it makes all of this concern seem misplaced and pointless.

The majority of the people here are not advanced huge bodybuilders. Most don’t even understand the basics…they complicate things as simple as “ramping up in weight” to the point that they confuse themselves even more. Someone like that needs FOOD after training, period.

Once they get ready to win a pro show, then maybe they act like they have a grant to do research with their protein shake.

48

I’m not going to go dig for a quote PX, but I thought you once said it that it’s important to get some simple carbs in you when training/after training?

As for shakes, yeah I sometimes have some trouble keeping it down after leg day. I threw it up once after squatting when my abs cramped up.

Something I’ve noticed on this board, the guys that are very anal about their supplementation and have lengthy discussions about it in the t-cell and so, are all in more of a ‘medium’ category when it comes to size. The truly BIG people are all saying something along the lines of: “meh, I never noticed a difference.” I just don’t have the interest to be all geeky about this shit, so I hope just focusing on lots of protein+ enough food to gain weight will be enough to get me there.

49

[quote]Mr.Purple wrote:
I’m not going to go dig for a quote PX, but I thought you once said it that it’s important to get some simple carbs in you when training/after training?
[/quote]

That’s my main focus. I can drink some Gatorade or even some Surge immediately after lifting, but trying to actually stomach a heavy protein shake is out of the question. I just make sure I eat fairly soon after lifting, which may be up to an hour.

50

[quote]Mr.Purple wrote:
I’m not going to go dig for a quote PX, but I thought you once said it that it’s important to get some simple carbs in you when training/after training?

As for shakes, yeah I sometimes have some trouble keeping it down after leg day. I threw it up once after squatting when my abs cramped up.

Something I’ve noticed on this board, the guys that are very anal about their supplementation and have lengthy discussions about it in the t-cell and so, are all in more of a ‘medium’ category when it comes to size. The truly BIG people are all saying something along the lines of: “meh, I never noticed a difference.” I just don’t have the interest to be all geeky about this shit, so I hope just focusing on lots of protein+ enough food to gain weight will be enough to get me there.[/quote]

ehhhh I don’t know about that. I chat with the guys in the steroid forum quite a bit and some of those guys are monstrous. And they are definitely very anal and meticulous about their diets and all forms of supplementation.

That’s also were the majority of our competitive bodybuilder population reside, so it makes sense.

51

[quote]waylanderxx wrote:

That’s also were the majority of our competitive bodybuilder population reside, so it makes sense.[/quote]

If I was getting ready for a contest (and this has been stated before) that is when you get hyperspecific about food intake.

How many of these guys rambling off how many grams of this and that fit that category or are even close?

Someone experienced can do what they see fit. They know their own bodies by that point.

Other people can get lost in the minutia or worse start acting like they have to do that just to see progress.

52

any opinions on liquid aminos, bcaa and glutamine blend? here in hungary they’re getting really in fashion, it’s almost cheaper to supplement with them than with whey for instance… some friends told that they sip a shake consisting of those three during workout… i even tried some of them (one portion “premier versions”) and they felt relly good. no stomach upset, just provided more energy for the “last reps”, and felt like refuelled by the end of the workout…

too bad I don’t like to spend on fancy things… later, when progress stalls with the basics… I don’t know, but I have a feeling, if someone shoots all of his rounds at the beginning, that guy will have harder time making progress later…

Also I noticed that even Stu made his little adjustements over time, whenever he stopped making gains… Quite the opposite those 15yo wannabes, who take dianabol after two weeks of “training” to have bigger arms… they pretty much come to a plateau after their juice runs out, and stop working out because the lack of results…

53

[quote]Professor X wrote:
waylanderxx wrote:

That’s also were the majority of our competitive bodybuilder population reside, so it makes sense.

If I was getting ready for a contest (and this has been stated before) that is when you get hyperspecific about food intake.

How many of these guys rambling off how many grams of this and that fit that category or are even close?

Someone experienced can do what they see fit. They know their own bodies by that point.

Other people can get lost in the minutia or worse start acting like they have to do that just to see progress.[/quote]

Yah I completely agree.

It just needs to be noted that if you plan on competing in BBing at some point, unless you have stellar genetics (I hate having to put this disclaimer in here every fucking time so I don’t get flamed lol). Just eating a lot isn’t going to cut it.

I’ve been doing this long enough now to know what things I need to change or add in order to keep progressing. Yes it still boils down to calories in vs out, but eventually it will come down to the details. Especially when you reach an elite level.

I mean look at CT, that dude has some of the craziest supplementation protocols I’ve ever seen hah, but look at him. His physique is very impressive, especially for a natty guy.

Noobs don’t really need to worry about it but us intermediate to advanced guys, IMO need to start working towards that end.

54

[quote]waylanderxx wrote:
Mr.Purple wrote:
I’m not going to go dig for a quote PX, but I thought you once said it that it’s important to get some simple carbs in you when training/after training?

As for shakes, yeah I sometimes have some trouble keeping it down after leg day. I threw it up once after squatting when my abs cramped up.

Something I’ve noticed on this board, the guys that are very anal about their supplementation and have lengthy discussions about it in the t-cell and so, are all in more of a ‘medium’ category when it comes to size. The truly BIG people are all saying something along the lines of: “meh, I never noticed a difference.” I just don’t have the interest to be all geeky about this shit, so I hope just focusing on lots of protein+ enough food to gain weight will be enough to get me there.

ehhhh I don’t know about that. I chat with the guys in the steroid forum quite a bit and some of those guys are monstrous. And they are definitely very anal and meticulous about their diets and all forms of supplementation.

That’s also were the majority of our competitive bodybuilder population reside, so it makes sense.[/quote]

I admit that my experience is limited, so don’t take this as me arguing.

I’ve just noticed that many of the ones who seem to be the most geeky about this aren’t very big. Competing heavyweights are people I don’t concern myself too much with. I’m sure they need to be very meticulous to get into that sort of shape while keeping so much muscle, but I just don’t feel most of it applies to me. Are they really that particular in the off-season, though?

55

[quote]Mr.Purple wrote:
waylanderxx wrote:
Mr.Purple wrote:
I’m not going to go dig for a quote PX, but I thought you once said it that it’s important to get some simple carbs in you when training/after training?

As for shakes, yeah I sometimes have some trouble keeping it down after leg day. I threw it up once after squatting when my abs cramped up.

Something I’ve noticed on this board, the guys that are very anal about their supplementation and have lengthy discussions about it in the t-cell and so, are all in more of a ‘medium’ category when it comes to size. The truly BIG people are all saying something along the lines of: “meh, I never noticed a difference.” I just don’t have the interest to be all geeky about this shit, so I hope just focusing on lots of protein+ enough food to gain weight will be enough to get me there.

ehhhh I don’t know about that. I chat with the guys in the steroid forum quite a bit and some of those guys are monstrous. And they are definitely very anal and meticulous about their diets and all forms of supplementation.

That’s also were the majority of our competitive bodybuilder population reside, so it makes sense.

I admit that my experience is limited, so don’t take this as me arguing.

I’ve just noticed that many of the ones who seem to be the most geeky about this aren’t very big. Competing heavyweights are people I don’t concern myself too much with. I’m sure they need to be very meticulous to get into that sort of shape while keeping so much muscle, but I just don’t feel most of it applies to me. Are they really that particular in the off-season, though?[/quote]

Most of 'em yah. Have you read any of Evan Centopani’s stuff? He’s crazy about the details, a very smart guy, and it only took him something like 4 shows to turn pro. Jay Cutler has said in interviews that he weighs everything he eats, year round.

I mean if you read some of Evan’s stuff, it’s crazy. He won’t eat eggs that weren’t raised on a veggie diet, won’t eat meat that wasn’t raised locally, and won’t eat farm bred fish. There’s a lot more examples if you read his thread over at the Animal forums.

You notice that Flex Wheeler and Paul Dillet catch a ton of flak because they are credited with having great genetics but didn’t live up to their potential because they were “lazy” dieters, etc.

56

waylanderxx,

Interesting that you brought Evan up. I was going to mention the forum he posts in you linked to in the “Tall Bodybuilder” thread a bit earlier in response to one of the posts in this thread (and ended up getting sidetracked-stupid work). I’ve read a good bit in, and it’s insane how meticulous he is with everything in his diet and supplementation. It reminds me of a warning made by an old Pontiac drag racer about bracket racing. I can’t bring to mind the exact quote, but essentially it was something akin to “The guys who are blowing you in the weeds aren’t doing it because they are lucky, it’s because they put in the time and are paying attention to the details.” Evan obviously has the details locked down.

57

what kills me is the dichotomy wherein guys much smaller than me, guys much fatter than i, guys who don’t look as if they’re in the gym at all are on 100 supplements but eat bologna on white bread w/ peanuts all day long.
i eat at least two lean beef meals a day plus a chicken or turkey meal, fish a few times a week.

i like my peri work out drink and the gains have been coming but for fuck sake read it’s cheaper to mix your own shit than buy a “Special” workout drink. i like this site but i’m sure as fuck not spending my money on Biotest stuff, i gotts to buy some FOOD, it’s wicked anabolic.

Sidebar: Evan is on point w/ his shit, and i agree w/ him on the BCAA’s

58

[quote]Professor X wrote:
SteelyD wrote:
The Mighty Stu wrote:
Prof X lifts cars, eats children, and then hibernates all winter long.

S

PX, do you only eat fat kids? I always wondered if eating skinny kids was even worth the effort, what with all the chewing probably results in negative calories-- like celery or lettuce.

Great for ‘cutting’, I guess.

I’m dieting. Fat kids are out of the question…aside from Thursdays and Sundays according to CT. That means, yes, the population of fat kids will grow slightly for about the next three-four months or so or at least until I bring sexy back.[/quote]

ROFLMAO! Man Senor X is the shit! I’m barely eating small babies. Someday…

59

[quote]Chidey wrote:
waylanderxx,

Interesting that you brought Evan up. I was going to mention the forum he posts in you linked to in the “Tall Bodybuilder” thread a bit earlier in response to one of the posts in this thread (and ended up getting sidetracked-stupid work). I’ve read a good bit in, and it’s insane how meticulous he is with everything in his diet and supplementation. It reminds me of a warning made by an old Pontiac drag racer about bracket racing. I can’t bring to mind the exact quote, but essentially it was something akin to “The guys who are blowing you in the weeds aren’t doing it because they are lucky, it’s because they put in the time and are paying attention to the details.” Evan obviously has the details locked down.
[/quote]

yup, my point exactly.

60

[quote]Growing_Boy wrote:
I’m barely eating small babies. Someday…[/quote]

Lol,… it’s good to have attainable goals.

S