Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Nice one mate.

I'd advise you also on having a look around this site - http://www.wannabebig.com/forums/

Some very knowledgeable and experienced people on that forum who have helped me a great deal.

Also, they have their own supplement company, AtLargeNutrition - all of their products get brilliant reviews. If I lived Stateside of the pond I'd order from them myself.

Good to hear you're training hard mate.

I am glad you found my advice helpful. I was pretty big into weightlifting about 5 years ago. Then I started teaching a special education class and it all went downhilll from there. I went from a 135 bench press to 315 in less than a year without roids. My brother in law who thinks he knows everything took roids and only went to 345 in the same amount of time. I am slowly getting back into it, because my schedule is better. I used to work 7:00 Am to 7:00 Pm because I did bus duty and homebound for one student. Now I get out around 3:00 so I have more time to get back into exercising.

As for your new workout routine, it looks much better. The only thing I would do different is move the shoulders from Thursday to either Wednesday by their self or Tuesday with the back. The chest needs its own day due to number of exercises and the back has less and could fit more shoulder exercises with it. On your chest days you want to focus on it mostly.

In addition when you do your back days there will be exercises that require you to hold the barbell on your shoulders. The weight is going to make those muscles sore anyways, so you might as well throw the shoulder rountine into the mix.

On your chest days, make sure you do incline presses and decline presses along with your normal bench presses. If you do this you will target your upper and lower pecs more than with standard bench presses. If you have access to the right equipment or a gym membership you can do these exercises a lot easier. Usually I take a incline seat (mostly used for dumbbells) and move it under the bar of a smith machine. For the declines you can take a situp bench and slide it under the same smith machine. Just keep track of your weight that you are lifting. A smith machine bar is roughly 15 pounds, where and "official" Olympic bench bar is at least 45 pounds. In addition when you are using the smith machine the bar will slide and press against the rack more taking some of the weight off. You will find that you may be able to bench 225 on a o; Olympic bench and 240 on the smith machine because of the bar sliding against the rack as you are benching it.

The incline and decline bench presses are essential though. If you use them, standard bench press and the butterfly presses with the dumbbells you are going to get some good results.

Also I am sort of just trying to ramble everything I have learned over the years as opposed to copying and pasting crap from the web.

Oly bars are 20kg, which is 45lbs for you Stateside types.

GazzyG wrote:Oly bars are 20kg, which is 45lbs for you Stateside types.

The better ones. I guess I should have noted that. Some olympic looking bars are not as heavy, but if you get a professional bench or a gym membership then you should be dealing with 45 pound bars like GazzyG said. Those cheap wal-mart jobs are not Olympic.

Lord Scythican wrote:
As for your new workout routine, it looks much better. The only thing I would do different is move the shoulders from Thursday to either Wednesday by their self or Tuesday with the back. The chest needs its own day due to number of exercises and the back has less and could fit more shoulder exercises with it. On your chest days you want to focus on it mostly.

In addition when you do your back days there will be exercises that require you to hold the barbell on your shoulders. The weight is going to make those muscles sore anyways, so you might as well throw the shoulder rountine into the mix.

On your chest days, make sure you do incline presses and decline presses along with your normal bench presses. If you do this you will target your upper and lower pecs more than with standard bench presses. If you have access to the right equipment or a gym membership you can do these exercises a lot easier. Usually I take a incline seat (mostly used for dumbbells) and move it under the bar of a smith machine. For the declines you can take a situp bench and slide it under the same smith machine. Just keep track of your weight that you are lifting. A smith machine bar is roughly 15 pounds, where and "official" Olympic bench bar is at least 45 pounds. In addition when you are using the smith machine the bar will slide and press against the rack more taking some of the weight off. You will find that you may be able to bench 225 on a o; Olympic bench and 240 on the smith machine because of the bar sliding against the rack as you are benching it.

The incline and decline bench presses are essential though. If you use them, standard bench press and the butterfly presses with the dumbbells you are going to get some good results.

Also I am sort of just trying to ramble everything I have learned over the years as opposed to copying and pasting crap from the web.

All duly noted. : )
The workout notes that you should do it "as is" for the first time you go through it. Then the second time, you can go around changing stuff. I will certainly keep your advice in mind for that! For example, next time I do this workout (and I will because it rules)
The phase 1 is going to be:
Tuesday: Back/Shoulders
Thursday: Chest
Saturday: Legs/Calves
Sunday: Arms

For the chest workout, it has me doing benchpress and incline db press. I have done decline press in the past and it's really good, so I'm going to add that in there as well next time.

I certainly appreciate that you're actually giving real advice, not just random theory crap from the internet. Thanks again!

@GazzyG- I have checked out the website, and it's loaded with info. Thank you for the website suggestion!

Btw I didn't post any pics, so I will post some next Monday.
Just did my heaviest deadlift yesterday, 170 pounds for 6 reps. It was insanely difficult but super rewarding. My back is super sore too. Also did 5 sets of pull ups. 3 sets of 10, 1 set of 8, and one set of 6. I may have to test out the Spartan challenge sometime to see if I can do 25- I'm sure I could do that. : )

Well, I'm sick so I had to skip to-days workout which is really, really disappointing. But I'm confident that i made the right choice. Sure I coulda downed some jack3d but I want to do this at my full potential.

Damned cough.

Anyway, besides the fact that I haven't eaten a ton today, I'm feeling better already. Gonna get loads of sleep later. Finish up a paper on Vladimir Putin and then go directly to sleep. I may end up skipping class tomorrow so I can sleep in. Then go workout.

Hey kids!
Slogged out the end of week 3 yesterday. Perhaps one of my most grueling workouts of all time. Was arms/calves. Coupled with the cough and the feeling sick and not having eaten, it was tougher than a 3 dollar steak.

However I persevered and got through it.

Tomorrow is the beginning of the second phase of the Triphase program, which has me doing much higher weight with much lower reps. Wish me luck!




oooooooh and you thought I forgot pictures? lol silly people, here you are : )
Be sure to when you see that 6 pack starting to show through.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/54848130@N07/sets/72157626059437372/

Sup trolls and brahs

Today I unveil the results of Week 5 of 9 here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/54848130@N07/sets/72157626176854572/
The pics are from yesterday. The biggest improvement I've seen has been in my lats, which has made for a really nice V taper.
P.S. you mirin my mullet?

It's hard to believe how much I've changed from the beginning of the program to now. It's even more hard to believe that I'm more than halfway done!

Today I started Week 6. Did a 190 bench (which is insane for me!) and also a 160 close bench. Used a spotter of course, and only did 2 reps for each, but did 3 sets of both. I've been gaining a good amount of weight and in short, I'm really proud of my accomplishments. Of course, the journey is the beautiful part, not the destination. I've learned so much over these past weeks that it's kinda mind-boggling!

Of course, the ultimate goal is to be a badass like Frank Zane here. Yes, I will be replete with an alpha beard like his, as well. I figure give or take 5 years, I will get there. I'm only 18 right now, so being right there by age 23 is my ultimate goal.


That's your inspirational picture for the day.
Btw, if you have a chance, purchase some Jack3d for your workouts. That gak is insane. I love it.

As always, take it easy. Eat big, lift big, and take a multi

-Sean

I don't know if your interested in this kind of thing, but if you really want a true test of your overall fitness, try running adventure races like the spartan race and such. I'm going to be running the super spartan in may, and it looks like it should be challenging and crazy fun!

Is that a Mullet?

rubiksnoob wrote:I don't know if your interested in this kind of thing, but if you really want a true test of your overall fitness, try running adventure races like the spartan race and such. I'm going to be running the super spartan in may, and it looks like it should be challenging and crazy fun!

That sounds interesting and I'd love to do it, but running isn't really my thing and cardio doesn't work when I'm bulking. : )

frgsinwntr wrote:Is that a Mullet?

Yes, yes it is. : )
By the way, I'm really glad that you were the 69th post haha

Well, congratulations so far on your progress. It's nice that you're committed to improving your health; just be sure and have a long-term plan for keeping yourself in shape or you'll keep gaining when you don't want to.

Also, I bulked a lot before I started boxing, only to discover that I was out of condition thanks to not enough cardio. Give a run a chance! You'll get bigger quads after all.

Vladsimpaler wrote:Just did my heaviest deadlift yesterday, 170 pounds for 6 reps. It was insanely difficult but super rewarding. My back is super sore too. Also did 5 sets of pull ups. 3 sets of 10, 1 set of 8, and one set of 6. I may have to test out the Spartan challenge sometime to see if I can do 25- I'm sure I could do that. : )

Excellent mate, good to see you're getting deads in there. 90% of people who turn up to my gym never go near a deadlift. They're one of my favourite lifts.

If you get them in your routine, along with squat, bench and standing press, then you're well on your way to building a massive body! Just don't forget to eat, hehe....

GazzyG wrote:

Vladsimpaler wrote:Just did my heaviest deadlift yesterday, 170 pounds for 6 reps. It was insanely difficult but super rewarding. My back is super sore too. Also did 5 sets of pull ups. 3 sets of 10, 1 set of 8, and one set of 6. I may have to test out the Spartan challenge sometime to see if I can do 25- I'm sure I could do that. : )

Excellent mate, good to see you're getting deads in there. 90% of people who turn up to my gym never go near a deadlift. They're one of my favourite lifts.

If you get them in your routine, along with squat, bench and standing press, then you're well on your way to building a massive body! Just don't forget to eat, hehe....

Funnily enough, I've only ever seen two other people do deadlifts the entire time I've been working out at my gym. I too love deadlifts, they're one of the best exercises and my back has gotten way stronger since I started doing them!

My squat and my bench have also increased a lot which is fantastic. And yep, I've been eating a ton. At least 3000 calories a day. mmm dirty bulking haha

@ NashVentress- First of all, thanks for the compliments. : )
I'm definitely in this for the long haul (hell, Frank Zane still works out today, and he won Mr. Olympias in the late 70's!) and I have a pretty good program running.
When I start to cut in around April/early May, I will do some cardio. For right now though, all Cardio is going to do for me is make my metabolism higher and make me lose hard-earned weight, which I don't want to do.

Deadlifts rock.

Time before last when I did a set of 5 heavy-ish deadlifts (107.5kg I think) in the gym, there were two big blokes watching. One said to his mate, "He's going to drop that." I didn't.

I highly recommend Rippetoe's _Starting Strength_. Brilliant guide to weightlifting for strength:

http://www.amazon.com/Starting-Strength-2nd-Mark-Rippetoe/dp/0976805421/ref=dp_ob_image_bk

Ian Sturrock wrote:Deadlifts rock.

feth yeah dude. One of my favorite exercises

Time before last when I did a set of 5 heavy-ish deadlifts (107.5kg I think) in the gym, there were two big blokes watching. One said to his mate, "He's going to drop that." I didn't.

I highly recommend Rippetoe's _Starting Strength_. Brilliant guide to weightlifting for strength:

http://www.amazon.com/Starting-Strength-2nd-Mark-Rippetoe/dp/0976805421/ref=dp_ob_image_bk

Cot damn, 107.5 KG is like 225 pounds. Good stuff dude. If you could PM me a picture or two of your physique (no homo) that'd be cool.

Funny that you mention Rippetoe's, I'm actually planning on doing that after this current week. I'm just de-loading right now so that my body has a chance to recover over these last few weeks!

By the way, good news, as of today I'm 166.6 pounds. Crazy number, considering that at the start of my last semester I was around 145 pounds! I will post some pictures tomorrow, I don't have the time right now plus it's a bit darker out.

My physique is not all that impressive right now, and I've no pics -- this set is from 3 years back, though, when I was probably at my fittest:

http://serpentstar.livejournal.com/198514.html

Deadlift PB at that point was 152.5kg for one rep. Not sure how much I could lift for one rep now, but exrx.net's online calculator reckons 127kg, which sounds about right.

These days I look similar to that but with a slightly rounder belly! Determined to get stronger and fitter than ever though (hence the Rippetoe style routine).

Ian Sturrock wrote:My physique is not all that impressive right now, and I've no pics -- this set is from 3 years back, though, when I was probably at my fittest:

http://serpentstar.livejournal.com/198514.html

Deadlift PB at that point was 152.5kg for one rep. Not sure how much I could lift for one rep now, but exrx.net's online calculator reckons 127kg, which sounds about right.

These days I look similar to that but with a slightly rounder belly! Determined to get stronger and fitter than ever though (hence the Rippetoe style routine).

Dayum-mirin the legs and tats and deadlift 1RM PB.

Anyway, here's the most recent set of pics:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/54848130@N07/sets/72157626387872756/

My weakest part of my physique is my fething wrists-they're small as feth cuz. My forearms are pretty small too, so I've been focusing on them a lot more recently.

My legs are getting a lot better, they used to suck but after these 9 weeks they've been a lot better.

For funsies:

Here was me at the start of last semester:

Photo 3 by Vladsimpaler, on Flickr

Here was me at the beginning of the Triphase program:

Photo 28 by Vladsimpaler, on Flickr

Here is me at the end! (Note the lighting isn't as good, I have more definition than this)

Photo 51 by Vladsimpaler, on Flickr

Arms are starting to get to a decent size (relative to you), but your chest is kind of small.

Amaya wrote:Arms are starting to get to a decent size (relative to you), but your chest is kind of small.

Yeah I forgot to touch on that. My chest is pretty small compared to the rest of me, so I'm gonna be working on that a lot more. Lots of dumbbell presses and whatnot. Rippetoe's SS will get me on the right track for that. : )

Take up rugby... Speed, strength and stamina!

If you do the GOMAD part of Starting Strength (Gallon Of Milk A Day), and keep piling on the weight plates on your squats, you should get that big chest in no time.

Ian Sturrock wrote:If you do the GOMAD part of Starting Strength (Gallon Of Milk A Day), and keep piling on the weight plates on your squats, you should get that big chest in no time.

Hahaha, I don't have the money to do a gallon of milk a day but I do my best to consume at least 2 pints of whole milk a day. It's funny, most of my pants have been getting really thick around my thighs after I did squats.

Foofus wrote:Take up rugby... Speed, strength and stamina!

I would love to do rugby, the club team at our school are undefeated State champions this past season so that'd be sweet. I just don't feel like doing 5 mile team runs on Tuesdays.
I'm going for size and aesthetics, not exactly for speed haha

I do parkour and I jump off buildings and do flips off them, does that mean I am fit?
Because I train 3 times a day. And thats been going on for the past 4-6 months.

I then assembled a team to do parkour with so, if you want to get exercise go to a gym and train! Military style!

Asherian Command wrote:I do parkour and I jump off buildings and do flips off them, does that mean I am fit?
Because I train 3 times a day. And thats been going on for the past 4-6 months.

I then assembled a team to do parkour with so, if you want to get exercise go to a gym and train! Military style!

not sure if srs



loljk

Haha I would say that you're a lot more "fit" than I am, I seriously doubt I could do that!

I find that working out with other people slows me down, funnily enough. Everyone's talking about their own routines. Hell, yesterday it took me an hour to do half of a workout that I should have been completely done with in 45 minutes.

Vladsimpaler wrote:

Amaya wrote:Arms are starting to get to a decent size (relative to you), but your chest is kind of small.

Yeah I forgot to touch on that. My chest is pretty small compared to the rest of me, so I'm gonna be working on that a lot more. Lots of dumbbell presses and whatnot. Rippetoe's SS will get me on the right track for that. : )

I think its partly body type. I'm convinced I have small arms, but I have a relatively big chest and back and it's not like I lift a lot. 4x4 220 lbs flat bench at 195 isn't much.

Vladsimpaler wrote:

Asherian Command wrote:I do parkour and I jump off buildings and do flips off them, does that mean I am fit?
Because I train 3 times a day. And thats been going on for the past 4-6 months.

I then assembled a team to do parkour with so, if you want to get exercise go to a gym and train! Military style!

not sure if srs



loljk

Haha I would say that you're a lot more "fit" than I am, I seriously doubt I could do that!

I find that working out with other people slows me down, funnily enough. Everyone's talking about their own routines. Hell, yesterday it took me an hour to do half of a workout that I should have been completely done with in 45 minutes.

I am serious, but its for a sport. And I have endurance and I am a Martial Artist.

Amaya wrote:

Vladsimpaler wrote:

Amaya wrote:Arms are starting to get to a decent size (relative to you), but your chest is kind of small.

Yeah I forgot to touch on that. My chest is pretty small compared to the rest of me, so I'm gonna be working on that a lot more. Lots of dumbbell presses and whatnot. Rippetoe's SS will get me on the right track for that. : )

I think its partly body type. I'm convinced I have small arms, but I have a relatively big chest and back and it's not like I lift a lot. 4x4 220 lbs flat bench at 195 isn't much.

Yeah, that's true. I have a meso/ecto body type, so I'm pretty good about gaining weight but even though I eat a lot I still look pretty good. 220 at 195 isn't much but it's still pretty good.

@ Asherian- I'm messin with ya brah, that's good. Endurance is really good for martial arts and parkour. Of course I'm not doing those so y'know.

Of course, again my main goal is to have aesthetics and a decent amount of strength. So while I'm sure you could beat me in a fight, I'd look good going down.

Greetings. If you're looking to supplement your workouts with something other than the boring 'ol gym machines, then I'd recommend this website: http://www.bodyrock.tv/
That woman is a flat out beast. She does it all through good diet and one home workout a day 5-6 days a week. She doesn't take supplements except for a bit of protein powder on occassions.
I use to go to the gym 60-90 minutes a day during the week. I saw results, sure, but it was a pain in the ass to get to the gym and spend as much time as I did there, not to mention being surrounded by sweaty guys that fart everywhere. Now I do whatever workout Zuzana (the woman on the website) posts up from day to day. I've seen much better results by following her workouts and dieting tips. Not only am I seeing better results, but I'm spending far less time getting to and spending at the gym. I understand you're looking more for bulking up, but doing one of her workouts a few times a week can only help you. Don't think for a second her workouts are just for women either. I recommend starting out doing her workouts alone so you don't embarrass yourself in company. If you put forth your full effort, they really are that difficult.

Lt. Coldfire wrote:Greetings. If you're looking to supplement your workouts with something other than the boring 'ol gym machines, then I'd recommend this website: http://www.bodyrock.tv/
That woman is a flat out beast. She does it all through good diet and one home workout a day 5-6 days a week. She doesn't take supplements except for a bit of protein powder on occassions.
I use to go to the gym 60-90 minutes a day during the week. I saw results, sure, but it was a pain in the ass to get to the gym and spend as much time as I did there, not to mention being surrounded by sweaty guys that fart everywhere. Now I do whatever workout Zuzana (the woman on the website) posts up from day to day. I've seen much better results by following her workouts and dieting tips. Not only am I seeing better results, but I'm spending far less time getting to and spending at the gym. I understand you're looking more for bulking up, but doing one of her workouts a few times a week can only help you. Don't think for a second her workouts are just for women either. I recommend starting out doing her workouts alone so you don't embarrass yourself in company. If you put forth your full effort, they really are that difficult.

Thanks for the suggestions brah, when I start cutting (I'm going to be cutting all of June and July) I could certainly see supplementing some of my gym stuff with this.

Also gym machines get boring fast; that's why I do free weights.

But yeah, I liked some of her stuff on diet. Always important. Plus she's pretty hot so that's always another plus!