You’ve close to the build I have as a goal - a good balance of size and definition.
The original pic is from 2006 - correct? And it may have been some time before you go serious with your training if I understand correctly. How long would you say? Also, can you give a general sense of your training (or if you have a link to a post where you describe it)?
With your build, if you shaved your hair to just the stubble, you’d kind of have the Jason Statham look…
Anyway - great progress man.
Alive:
Yea, that pic is actually from 2005, but I don’t have any from 2006. I actually got smaller after that picture was taken. Here’s why that happened, and what happened afterwards.
I was in college from 02 until 06. I entered college weighing about 130. I started lifting, and got up to around 160. Then I started drinking a lot, stopped lifting, and lost weight again. The picture was taken by a friend in the spring of 05 when he and I decided to get back in the gym.
It didn’t happen. I became a heavy drug user in the fall of 05, and used through all of 06. I was arrested on a possession charge in September 06. That’s how I know I weighed in the 130’s at that time. Spring of 07 I entered a year long rehab program, and during that time I got back in the gym. I had ups and downs for a little while, and my next recorded weight was in 2010, at 150.
It was around that time that I made a more serious commitment to the gym. In college I had gotten some decent results, and accumulated knowledge and experience through those years. So the second time around, the gains came more efficiently. I’m currently weighing 185ish, a week into cutting fat, and was as heavy as about 192 in the summer last year.
My most effective training (the training method I’ve used the last few years) has been a VERY loose version of 5/3/1, with the boring but big assistance template. I’ve done 5/3/1 strictly before, and couldn’t keep to it for more than a few cycles. Just doesn’t mentally suit me. I don’t like to use anything but 25’s and 45’s on squat and deadlift, and nothing less than 10’s on bench and OHP.
I base my week on those 4 lifts, and I’ll basically work up to a few high weight, low rep sets, and then drop the weight and do 5ish sets of 10ish. I use ‘ish’ because I vary this a lot. The exception to this is deadlift. I keep the volume significantly lower on deadlift. Sometimes I’ll do a challenge set for reps, but for the most part, I keep the volume very low, and then do assistance work like hamstring curls, or band-resisted back-extensions.
On squat days, I generally just squat. Nothing else. My quads and hamstrings respond very well to squats, so I see little reason to do things like leg presses or extensions. I’d rather put that time/effort into more squats.
Bench and OHP days have much more variety. My assistance work on those days generally consists of a curling motion, a tricep extension motion, and then something like face pulls. I prefer cables, dumbbells, or just bands for this stuff. All in the 10-30 rep range, 2-5 sets.
Sometimes I’ll do some oly style lifting for fun. But I don’t practice it much. On Saturday mornings, I do a crossfit class for conditioning and for fun.
Overall, keeping my training very simple and barbell-oriented has been the most effective thing for me, along with using full range of motion on everything. I overhead press from a clean position, I bench to my chest, I squat deep, and I don’t hitch dead lifts. I’ve fallen in love with the basics, and I think that’s key to success.
Thanks for the great info Flip. Glad to hear you’ve made some good life changes. I have some similar demons and made some major changes in the last couple years too.
Your routine sounds very similar to what I do and have gotten some pretty good results too. The only difference is you were a skinny guy who got bigger, and I was (am) a fat dude trying to recomp. Other than that, I am glad to see you’ve had success with these methods.
I’m rapidly gaining respect for fat dudes who have lost weight. I’ve only been dieting for a week, and I’m getting some pretty insane cravings for fast food (which I never used to crave in the first place). Like, reading about food, or passing by it on the road.
The second day of my diet, I was driving home from work, and passed by a Popeye’s. I actually thought to myself “I could get a meal there and eat it by the time I got home. Nobody would know”. I live 2 minutes from the Popeye’s.
And I want a burrito right now.
Keep up the good work champ
Shoulder veins are pretty cool but the vascularity in your traps is nuts! You’ve made more progress in the last 6 months than in the six years (? can’t be stuffed checking agian) prior to that. Nice, nice work.
Solid gains bro. I was a skinny guy when I started lifting. 140 lbs soaking wet. Got up to 205 and then sank back down to 186 right now slowly trying to get up to 200 with as little fat as possible.
In regards to your story would you be offended if I asked you what sort of drugs you took? I only ask because when I went to college in 2008 I noticed how many of my friends got caught up in drugs. To me it seemed to start with people taking adderall to study or just for the hell of it and escalated rather quickly and pretty soon many of them were blowing oxy. It ruined many of their lives. I fortunately found weightlifting and that was a good way for me to avoid getting caught up with that. But I definitly feel like many of these addictions my friends had started with adderall either as a study aide or them doing it just to do it.
By the way are your goals purely aesthetic or are you in it for strength?
[quote]flipcollar wrote:
Alive:
Yea, that pic is actually from 2005, but I don’t have any from 2006. I actually got smaller after that picture was taken. Here’s why that happened, and what happened afterwards.
I was in college from 02 until 06. I entered college weighing about 130. I started lifting, and got up to around 160. Then I started drinking a lot, stopped lifting, and lost weight again. The picture was taken by a friend in the spring of 05 when he and I decided to get back in the gym.
It didn’t happen. I became a heavy drug user in the fall of 05, and used through all of 06. I was arrested on a possession charge in September 06. That’s how I know I weighed in the 130’s at that time. Spring of 07 I entered a year long rehab program, and during that time I got back in the gym. I had ups and downs for a little while, and my next recorded weight was in 2010, at 150.
It was around that time that I made a more serious commitment to the gym. In college I had gotten some decent results, and accumulated knowledge and experience through those years. So the second time around, the gains came more efficiently. I’m currently weighing 185ish, a week into cutting fat, and was as heavy as about 192 in the summer last year.
My most effective training (the training method I’ve used the last few years) has been a VERY loose version of 5/3/1, with the boring but big assistance template. I’ve done 5/3/1 strictly before, and couldn’t keep to it for more than a few cycles. Just doesn’t mentally suit me. I don’t like to use anything but 25’s and 45’s on squat and deadlift, and nothing less than 10’s on bench and OHP.
I base my week on those 4 lifts, and I’ll basically work up to a few high weight, low rep sets, and then drop the weight and do 5ish sets of 10ish. I use ‘ish’ because I vary this a lot. The exception to this is deadlift. I keep the volume significantly lower on deadlift. Sometimes I’ll do a challenge set for reps, but for the most part, I keep the volume very low, and then do assistance work like hamstring curls, or band-resisted back-extensions.
On squat days, I generally just squat. Nothing else. My quads and hamstrings respond very well to squats, so I see little reason to do things like leg presses or extensions. I’d rather put that time/effort into more squats.
Bench and OHP days have much more variety. My assistance work on those days generally consists of a curling motion, a tricep extension motion, and then something like face pulls. I prefer cables, dumbbells, or just bands for this stuff. All in the 10-30 rep range, 2-5 sets.
Sometimes I’ll do some oly style lifting for fun. But I don’t practice it much. On Saturday mornings, I do a crossfit class for conditioning and for fun.
Overall, keeping my training very simple and barbell-oriented has been the most effective thing for me, along with using full range of motion on everything. I overhead press from a clean position, I bench to my chest, I squat deep, and I don’t hitch dead lifts. I’ve fallen in love with the basics, and I think that’s key to success.[/quote]
[quote]A-rod wrote:
Solid gains bro. I was a skinny guy when I started lifting. 140 lbs soaking wet. Got up to 205 and then sank back down to 186 right now slowly trying to get up to 200 with as little fat as possible.
In regards to your story would you be offended if I asked you what sort of drugs you took? I only ask because when I went to college in 2008 I noticed how many of my friends got caught up in drugs. To me it seemed to start with people taking adderall to study or just for the hell of it and escalated rather quickly and pretty soon many of them were blowing oxy. It ruined many of their lives. I fortunately found weightlifting and that was a good way for me to avoid getting caught up with that. But I definitly feel like many of these addictions my friends had started with adderall either as a study aide or them doing it just to do it.
By the way are your goals purely aesthetic or are you in it for strength?
[/quote]
Cocaine mostly, that was my drug of choice. I was pretty much an every day user for awhile. I’ve taken plenty of other things though. Many of my friends took Adderall on a regular basis. That wasn’t a gateway drug for me though. I drank a whole lot before I started using coke. I also played a lot of poker, and coke was everywhere in the underground poker world. Oxy wasn’t really around, otherwise I’m sure I would have done that too.
As for my goals… I don’t really have aesthetic goals. Aesthetics are just sort of genetic for me, since I don’t put on fat. I lift like a powerlifter, but I don’t necessarily have any tangible lifting goals either. I lift to keep my head right, and for me, that involves pushing myself hard in the gym. I don’t do de-load sessions well, because it doesn’t suit me mentally.
I initially got into lifting back in college for aesthetics though. I wanted to look good for teh gurlz. So I didn’t do any leg work for the first full year, and generally skipped leg day once I started doing leg work. It’s only been in the last 2-3 years that lifting has become what it is for me today.
Now I love the squat. It’s the only day I won’t skip. I have to push myself to do upper body work, because it’s tedious and much less satisfying to me. Bicep curls don’t make me feel like passing out, so I generally don’t want to do them, haha. My lifting preferences have definitely manifested themselves in my numbers.
3 years ago I got up to a 305 bench, and had about a 275 squat. Today, my personal best squat is 405, and my actual max is probably about 30 lbs higher than that (haven’t hit a max recently), while my bench press is probably closer to 285 now.
The reason I’m dieting now falls in line with my reasons for lifting in the first place. I’ve never dieted before, and I want to know what it’s like. I want to see how far I can push myself. I want to feel hungry.
Awesome stuff in here.
I would love to hear more about your diet approach. It sounds to me you are doing IF? What are your macros?
Any history of injuries? How big do you want to get? Do you do any cardio at all?
And I have the same hairline as well.
tweet
[quote]theBird wrote:
Awesome stuff in here.
I would love to hear more about your diet approach. It sounds to me you are doing IF? What are your macros?
Any history of injuries? How big do you want to get? Do you do any cardio at all?
And I have the same hairline as well.
tweet[/quote]
A lot of questions here.
So at this point, my diet is not particularly strict. I want to have plenty of room to adjust things as I go along. It’s mainly been an elimination diet so far. I feel like simply eliminating milk and alcohol should be sufficient for noticeable body changes.
As far as nutrient timing/IF: I’m naturally sort of an IF’er. I don’t generally have an appetite before I go to work in the morning, and I’m busy at work, so I usually don’t break my fast until 10ish. Sometimes a little later. As I mentioned before, my main calories in the daytime are coming from the Metabolic Drive shake/bar. I sometimes bring a small lunch to work, which can vary tremendously in calories, but I don’t always.
Workout nutrition comes in the afternoon in the form of Plazma, and dinner afterwards. I think it was Dani Shugart who recently had an article on the pitfalls of IF. The main one was the propensity to over-eat after the fasting period. This is not an issue I have. I’m fairly disciplined in that regard.
Weekend eating is much less structured, because my weekend schedules are always nuts and never the same. I eat when I can, basically.
Dinners are whatever my wife cooks. They tend to be sort of carb heavy, but not always.
At this point it should be apparent that I’m not counting macros. All I really know is how much I have cut out. Milk macros are easy to count, so basically I at least know what deficit I’m working at as compared to my previous eating habits. I won’t be counting dinner macros anytime soon, so really the only thing I could count is my basic protein intake throughout the day, which amounts to 100 grams before my workout. Plazma adds another 20+, as I usually use a scoop to a scoop and a half, and then dinner is probably 15-20. Fat intake is minimal.
I’ve got a pretty minimal injury history. No surgeries. I had a shoulder labrum injury in 08’ish that kept me out of the gym for 9+ months before I finally got it checked out and did rehab for it. I’ve also injured my other labrum (happened shortly after I got back in the gym). Nothing else has really affected my gym time much.
I don’t really have a size goal. Size is more of a byproduct to me. If I ever decide to go the steroid route, I would assume that I’d cross the 200lb mark. If I don’t use, I seriously doubt I’ll ever be that heavy.
I’ve recently been engaging in some cardio. Stationary bike at the gym mostly, plus my weekly crossfit metcon workouts. Once it warms up a little bit here, I plan on doing quite a bit of conditioning work this year. That’s something I’ve never worked on much because a) it’s not my favorite thing to do, and b) I didn’t want cardio to get in the way of lifting.
Now that I’ve hit some fairly good lifting milestones, I don’t necessarily need to be 100% dedicated to strength goals. I would certainly like to be stronger, but I feel like I can pursue a few other goals as well. I have a feeling additional conditioning work may even assist my lifting goals these days.
Thanks.
Good read.
tweet
Legs have come up. They’re great. <<<<<<. Is that proper usage asshole lol. Good work.
Hey OP. Great read overall. I hope this doesn’t bother you but, would you be willing to post a loose description (or full) of what your diet look likes at the moment/in general? I know you’ve been dieting, but just wondering. Thank you!
[quote]neoi78 wrote:
Hey OP. Great read overall. I hope this doesn’t bother you but, would you be willing to post a loose description (or full) of what your diet look likes at the moment/in general? I know you’ve been dieting, but just wondering. Thank you![/quote]
I covered it in a couple posts on the second page of this thread. I’m still mostly doing the same thing, although I was on vacation over the last week and consumed alcohol in excess. Generally, I’ll have 1-3 drinks in a week. Sometimes none.
Monday-Friday: 4 scoops Metabolic Drive, throughout the day. either dinner leftovers, or a Metabolic Drive bar at lunch. So basically 100g of protein by about 4:00pm every day. 6:00 pm I go to the gym, usually 3-4 times during the week. I use 1 1/2 scoops Plazma during the workout, then dinner. If dinner’s not ready when I get home from the gym, I’ll usually drink some milk for post-workout recovery. So training days I’m getting 140-150ish grams of protein, non-training days about 120-130.
Saturday: This is the only day I’m consistently having breakfast, because I’m doing a crossfit workout at 11:00am every week. So, it’s usually breakfast tacos or something similar. Usually carb and protein heavy. I mix a scoop of surge and a scoop of Plazma for the workout. Usually some milk after the workout, then whatever for lunch and dinner. No structure here.
Sunday: No eating structure all day. I spend my Sundays working on my house, and I’m usually busy as hell, so I eat when I can. Since milk is convenient, I’ll usually go through half a gallon to a full gallon throughout the day. I justify the excess calories/sugar content because of my energy expenditure. Eventually I’ll have less manual labor to do at home, and I’ll be able to structure this day better.
Supplements: In addition to the supplements listed above, I drink a Brain Candy every morning, and take 4000 IU’s D3 every day. I add 5g creatine to Plazma shakes.
Lookin good Flip.
