After taking a 4 year break from weights alltogether, I got back in last month. After 2 weeks of slowly starting up, I jumped into Sheiko #30. Some people would probably consider that insane, and they would be right! Still, Sheiko used to give me some pretty solid gains back in the day, and this time was no different.
Of course, muscle memory played a big part in this. I’m still very estatic with the results though. Because I would literally get stronger every session, I increased the weights every week for the sake of progressive overload.
The only thing that really changed in the setup was that I used a belt for my after lifts, as well as squat shoes for the squat, no other equipment was used. I supplemented with creatine and BCAA’s, nothing else.
Hoping that my next sheiko cycle will yield just half of this!
Well, forum seems to be acting up so I apologize if this is a double post.
My previous lifts 4 years ago were something like 375/260/500 in the 230 lbs area.
Cut down to 160 while lifting around 325/240/450 if memory serves me right.
I’m not sure what is so misleading about the title? Then again, I’m not a native speaker, so…
I lifted for about 3.5 years to get to the 230 lbs mark. After 1 year and 8 months I cut to 160, so in total that would be a little over 5 years. Not that impressive, but since I started out being able to just barely bench the barbell it was a great personal triumph.
I lifted at most, once a month, and never close to fail. I didn’t do any sports, but leading up to now I did have a pretty physically demanding job that probably helped me keep some work capacity.
I’m also pretty surprised that I was able to gain so much in such a short time, especially considering that I’m not that far off my old strength at 160 lbs. But I am currently taking a leave of absense, so I eat extremely dedicated and get about 9 hours of sleep.
As for bodycomposition, I lost 1 lbs and my measurements went from:
arm: 14 inch
chest: 42 inch
waist: 33 inch
thigh: 23 inch
calf: 13 inch
to
arm: 15.25 inch
Chest 44.75 inch
Waist: 32 inch
Thigh: 24.5 inch
calf: 14.55 inch
The weird part is that I was eating around 200-300 kcal deficit a day, since I knew that I’d still make gains due to muscle memory. I never expected it to be this much though. I can only speculate what the strength gains would have been if I had been in calorie surplus, but that remains speculation.
Either way, Sheiko is an excellent way to add mass while dedicating yourself to a powerlifting routine.
Well I guess I deserved that one. After all, I shared a personal story of victory. The audacity?! CRUCIFY HIM AT ONCE!
4 years of inactivity with a body that has always had problems gaining strength, plus 80 hour work weeks, plus lots of travel.
But I did actually take performance decreasing drugs; Beer.
What you did was regain a bit of muscle, mostly sarcoplasmic hypertrophy, but your strength gains came from retraining your neural pathways. Your “strength” and “muscle” haven’t increased, you’ve just sharpened your skills. Extra calories wouldn’t have helped much at all.
[quote]cavemandiary wrote:
Well I guess I deserved that one. After all, I shared a personal story of victory. The audacity?! CRUCIFY HIM AT ONCE!
4 years of inactivity with a body that has always had problems gaining strength, plus 80 hour work weeks, plus lots of travel.
But I did actually take performance decreasing drugs; Beer.[/quote]
lol, sorry dude, I was just having some fun with you. It must feel good to be back in the swing of things.
[quote]Rock978 wrote:
Misleading thread title to say the least…[/quote]
What is misleading about it?
[/quote]
The fact that you didn’t really add 300 lbs to your total, not in the sense that anyone would normally make this statement at least. In a month of training you gained back a good portion of what you lost over the course of 4 years, but that’s quite a bit different.
Congrats on being back in the swing of things, I’m sure it feels great. But I don’t think anyone can conclude much of anything about whether Sheiko is good for building strength and/or mass, at least based on this thread.
Well for some inane reason I find myself unable to quote;
Solar: No harm done, but your reply makes no sense. Neural pathways IS strength. There’s not really much more to it than motor unit recruitment patterns, rate coding and synchronization, which is exactly what is happening. Of course, we can all agree that there’s a big difference between gaining and regaining, but it is strength nonetheless.
It’s also pretty common knowledge that hypertrophy is never isolated in the form of sarcoplastic, sarcomere, hypertrophy (and in some cases hyperplasia) but is always a combination.
