Trying to bulk up? Welcome to the club... we have about 10000000000000 members.
I've been trying to get bigger, unsuccessfully, for the past year. Been working out with weights for two years. Here's what DID NOT work for me.
Things that did
NOT work for me:
1) Benching every other day. Yes, I know, it's crazy. It only worked at the very beginning, when I first started training.
2) Working out 3 days (different muscles each day), resting 1 day, and repeat. I would work chest and biceps on day 1, back and traps on day 2, shoulders and triceps on day 3, day 4 rest. Used about 3 different exercises, 9 work sets per muscle group.
3) Working out 3 days, rest 1 day, working out 2 more days, rest 1 day, and repeat. Different muscles each day. Day 1 was legs, day 2 chest, day 3 back, day 4 rest, day 5 shoulders and traps, day 6 bicep/tricep, day 7 rest. Used about 3 different exercises, 9 work sets per muscle group. I started taking creatine during this period, and my bicep/tricep strength increased dramatically. No other muscle groups seemed to benefit from creatine.
Keep in mind, I was training pretty hard. After my leg days, I was literally limping out of the gym because my legs were so sore from squatting. I mean, I would go in the gym and actually be afraid of how heavy the weight would be. So, no progress after trying #2 for 9 months and #3 for about 2 months. I had a training partner that did #2 with me for 9 months and he also made very little strength/body weight increase. I also have 2 other friends that trained 4-5x a week, and they looked/weighed the same after a year.
Now, I am trying something completely different. I've been reading this book called "Beyond Brawn" by stuart mcrobert. He has a site at
http://www.hardgainer.com. Basically, he says that almost everyone overtrains, and that most people can only stand to exercise twice, max three times a week. He also advocates progressive poundage. All this means is you start off at 85% of your 8 rep max (or however reps you like to do) for the major exercises. So if you bench 100 lbs, then you start the first workout at 85 lbs. Next week, you come back and do 90% (90lbs). Week after that you do 95%, then 97.5% the week after that, then 100% the week after that. Once you get to 100% (100lbs), you get out the kiddy weights. Adding 0.5 lb, 1 lb at a time, you slowly increase each week until you can no longer add any more weight. Then that becomes your new max. So if you get to 115 lbs on the bench and can go no more, then you rest for 7-10 days, then start again at 85% of 115 lbs.
I've only been following his methods for a few weeks. I took about 14 days off from weight training to rest up, then started on a 2 times a week abbreviated training program. I weight train twice a week, working big exercises, for only a few sets (maybe 4-5, excluding warmup). So far I've only done 85% and 90% of my 7 rep max. Although it's felt harder since I'm paying extra attention to form. I haven't taken creatine in a bit over a month. (I've heard the effects of creatine last a month even after you stop taking it?)
My new workout routine:
Saturday: chest and back. I work on my barbell bench, incline bench, pronated pull-ups (just got a new dip belt, wee!), and rowing machine. I'll do about 4-5 sets for each muscle group, and then finish up with some weighted ab exercises.
Wednesday: legs and misc. Still trying to learn how to deadlift (2 sets gets me good), leg press (1-2 sets). And then I'll do 2-3 sets of calf raises, L-flys, biceps, and forearms (still trying to find a good forearm exercise). I'm thinking about adding abs on this day too, but we'll see.
That's it. No tricep work, no shoulder, no traps. And my workouts are way shorter (~45 min as opposed to ~90 min). I've only been at this for a few weeks. Starting my third week this coming saturday.
My usual body weight for the past year has been anywhere from 162-164 lbs, and 165 lbs on some lucky days. 165 lbs was the heaviest I had ever weighed until now. I weighed myself last wednesday and this wednesday, and both times I came in at 167 lbs. And I skipped a lot of meals this week too. So I'm definitely gaining weight with this program. How much of that is fat, and how much muscle... well, it's hard to tell. I've been intentionally consuming more fat, but looking in the mirror, I'm not sure if I'm gaining more fat or not. I'll be able to tell if I'm really making strength gains in a few more weeks.
The reason I started doing something so different from what I had been doing is because 1) my old workout wasn't working, 2) I wasn't the only one of my friends noticing close to no gains when working out 4-5 times a week, and 3) I occasionally noticed dramatic strength gains after missing workouts on my old routine. During May of this year, I missed TONS of workouts, yet I set my benching record that month. Go figure.
As for exercise execution, I'm getting my advice from stuart mcrobert's book called Insider's Technique (or something like that). I have my spotter watch me during both warm ups and work sets to make sure my form is good. I take 1-2 seconds on the negative portion, and then 1-2 more seconds on the positive portion of the movement.
I saw some guy bouncing the bar off his chest on the bench press last week. I've seen guys do this before, but this guy was really letting it bounce hard. The bar came down with almost no resistance, and he would literally let the bar sink into his chest, and then arch his back like a springboard to bounce the bar back up. The bar came down during one rep, and it looked like he didn't quite bounce it correctly or something... cuz the bar was stuck at his chest. He could not move it at all. After his spotter helped get the bar back up, he bounced two more reps before calling it a set. Looked scary to me.
Anyways, that's where I am at so far. I'm so used to going to the gym 5x a week, I almost forget that it's better to go less and get more result. Whew, long post.
dfi
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