mojo_
05-12-2009, 01:18 PM
The Experiment.
I am calling this thread the experiment because its very much going to be an on going trial and error of various techniques and aproachs. I've been lifting for a few years now, with lackluster results following various programs, Since none of them have really given me any consistent progress its time to take things into my own hands and through trial and error hope to find out what actually works for someone like me, who has pretty terrible genetics and is all natural.
I recently out of frustration decided fcuk it, lets see what happens if I train a bodyart 3x a week, and have to say for the first time in a long time I was noticeing results in the mirror after just 1 week of
hitting a bodypart M W F. I decided to carry on an extra day and went sunday aswell and then fell ill with a sore throat and flu type symtoms which set me back plenty. This may have just been a coincidence and Id
caught an illness from else where, but I'm leaning more towards it haveing been too much for my body.
My last 2 workouts were sunday, and monday. I used rest pause techniques to up the intensity on both workouts and last night I had one of the worst nights sleeps ever. It was like i was asleep but my mind wasnt completely shut off at all, like half asleep? I woke up during the middle of the night, had a quick shake and went back to sleep, but again it didnt actually feel like propper sleep, very sureal. I'm guessing his is insomnia from overtraining, So Im going to use rest pause techniques sparingly from now and up the useage of them graduely (because i feel they can be very benificial).... I'm contmplating maybe just using them on fridays workout then that gives me 2 full days of rest for CNS to recover. And maybe with
just 1 excercise the other 2 workouts.
I feel like I was really onto something with the hitting a bodypart every 48 hours deal, from that weeks worth of gains I noticed. Also recently doing some research on the internet, turns out there are programs
and even science to support this way of training. Most popular of which being HST. My reps, volume, intensity are all yet to be decided and will most likely evolve over the next few months. I may even play
around with a 6 day a week thing, so I can focus on some other bodyparts.
In my desperation to put on more muscle size, I have been eating too much and have gotten fat. Not massively fat but its at a point where if i was to put on much more its gonna get UGLY (it aint too pretty right now), So my calories I am dropping down and have been somewhat lower as of yesterday. Actually, I wonder if that may have contributed to my bad sleeplast night? something to consider... a brutal workout followed by less food than my bodys been usually getting...hmm?
I'm gonna update this thing every workout day I think, and perhaps every sunday too, where I will weigh in take some measurements and such.
The Routine will start of like this
M-W-F:
Incline BB bench
Pull ups
Standing military BB
DB rows & Yates row
DB shrugs
seated Dip machine
You will notice that theres no squats and deadlifts in here! ZOMG you can't grow withough squats and deads alot of people will cry! Are they right? I'm no so sure anymore, if i'm brutally honest. It's a hotley
debated subject and theres good arguements from both sides. I will say though that I've seen some guys work their way up to some pretty impressive numbers on both those lifts and you know what, apart from great leg development they didnt have alot else going for them. I've also heard very experienced lifters that have been in the game for a couple decades + and deadlifted themselves speak about deadlifts as not being
essential for that asthetically pleasing and big look , which lets be honest is what most of us are in this for. So why not put this to the test while i'm at it eh? I think I will however just squat 1x a week so that I don't LOSE any quad size and strength, so purely for maintenece right now. I probably will at some point try incorperate squats back in full time... But untill I figure out how to get the rest of me growing they are taking a back seat.
My Focus right now really is to bring up my upper body becuase well...it sucks. Especially my back, I have no width and pathtic thickness from the side view. My chest needs alot of work also, unfortunately im
restricted to using the smith machine for my incline barbell, which Im not too pleased about, but it beats decapitating my self on a free weight bench because I have no spotters or a power rack. There is a couple of other local gyms that I am considering switching to, if they have a power rack and some other decent stuff like a dipping station with a varied grip (the one at the gym im at now the bars are too wide to hit my triceps well.) Perhaps Ill rest-pause the machine work and straight set the free weight stuff to bridge
the effectiveness gap somewhat..
Edit: I just phoned up a different gym thats twice as far away, but it has a power rack and varied grip dip station and other good stuff, I'm thinking Im going to see out the rest of this months gym membership where I'm at then make the switch to the other one. Will also allow me to do rack deadlifts which ive heard nothing but good things about, should I reintroduce them.
One other thing I just remebered, I may experiment with wakeing up mid sleep to down another shake, i know a few people that sware by it in terms of reducing muscle loss at night and all of them were people with natuarally elevated metabolisms such as mine...which makes me think perhaps its more of an issue if your burning nutriets at an accelerted rate over 8 hours, While i don'tthink I could do that everynight, I may experiment with doing it a few nights a week. I definately feel like some mornings i wake up smalled and
somewhat weaker.
I am calling this thread the experiment because its very much going to be an on going trial and error of various techniques and aproachs. I've been lifting for a few years now, with lackluster results following various programs, Since none of them have really given me any consistent progress its time to take things into my own hands and through trial and error hope to find out what actually works for someone like me, who has pretty terrible genetics and is all natural.
I recently out of frustration decided fcuk it, lets see what happens if I train a bodyart 3x a week, and have to say for the first time in a long time I was noticeing results in the mirror after just 1 week of
hitting a bodypart M W F. I decided to carry on an extra day and went sunday aswell and then fell ill with a sore throat and flu type symtoms which set me back plenty. This may have just been a coincidence and Id
caught an illness from else where, but I'm leaning more towards it haveing been too much for my body.
My last 2 workouts were sunday, and monday. I used rest pause techniques to up the intensity on both workouts and last night I had one of the worst nights sleeps ever. It was like i was asleep but my mind wasnt completely shut off at all, like half asleep? I woke up during the middle of the night, had a quick shake and went back to sleep, but again it didnt actually feel like propper sleep, very sureal. I'm guessing his is insomnia from overtraining, So Im going to use rest pause techniques sparingly from now and up the useage of them graduely (because i feel they can be very benificial).... I'm contmplating maybe just using them on fridays workout then that gives me 2 full days of rest for CNS to recover. And maybe with
just 1 excercise the other 2 workouts.
I feel like I was really onto something with the hitting a bodypart every 48 hours deal, from that weeks worth of gains I noticed. Also recently doing some research on the internet, turns out there are programs
and even science to support this way of training. Most popular of which being HST. My reps, volume, intensity are all yet to be decided and will most likely evolve over the next few months. I may even play
around with a 6 day a week thing, so I can focus on some other bodyparts.
In my desperation to put on more muscle size, I have been eating too much and have gotten fat. Not massively fat but its at a point where if i was to put on much more its gonna get UGLY (it aint too pretty right now), So my calories I am dropping down and have been somewhat lower as of yesterday. Actually, I wonder if that may have contributed to my bad sleeplast night? something to consider... a brutal workout followed by less food than my bodys been usually getting...hmm?
I'm gonna update this thing every workout day I think, and perhaps every sunday too, where I will weigh in take some measurements and such.
The Routine will start of like this
M-W-F:
Incline BB bench
Pull ups
Standing military BB
DB rows & Yates row
DB shrugs
seated Dip machine
You will notice that theres no squats and deadlifts in here! ZOMG you can't grow withough squats and deads alot of people will cry! Are they right? I'm no so sure anymore, if i'm brutally honest. It's a hotley
debated subject and theres good arguements from both sides. I will say though that I've seen some guys work their way up to some pretty impressive numbers on both those lifts and you know what, apart from great leg development they didnt have alot else going for them. I've also heard very experienced lifters that have been in the game for a couple decades + and deadlifted themselves speak about deadlifts as not being
essential for that asthetically pleasing and big look , which lets be honest is what most of us are in this for. So why not put this to the test while i'm at it eh? I think I will however just squat 1x a week so that I don't LOSE any quad size and strength, so purely for maintenece right now. I probably will at some point try incorperate squats back in full time... But untill I figure out how to get the rest of me growing they are taking a back seat.
My Focus right now really is to bring up my upper body becuase well...it sucks. Especially my back, I have no width and pathtic thickness from the side view. My chest needs alot of work also, unfortunately im
restricted to using the smith machine for my incline barbell, which Im not too pleased about, but it beats decapitating my self on a free weight bench because I have no spotters or a power rack. There is a couple of other local gyms that I am considering switching to, if they have a power rack and some other decent stuff like a dipping station with a varied grip (the one at the gym im at now the bars are too wide to hit my triceps well.) Perhaps Ill rest-pause the machine work and straight set the free weight stuff to bridge
the effectiveness gap somewhat..
Edit: I just phoned up a different gym thats twice as far away, but it has a power rack and varied grip dip station and other good stuff, I'm thinking Im going to see out the rest of this months gym membership where I'm at then make the switch to the other one. Will also allow me to do rack deadlifts which ive heard nothing but good things about, should I reintroduce them.
One other thing I just remebered, I may experiment with wakeing up mid sleep to down another shake, i know a few people that sware by it in terms of reducing muscle loss at night and all of them were people with natuarally elevated metabolisms such as mine...which makes me think perhaps its more of an issue if your burning nutriets at an accelerted rate over 8 hours, While i don'tthink I could do that everynight, I may experiment with doing it a few nights a week. I definately feel like some mornings i wake up smalled and
somewhat weaker.