5 years of weightlifting - progress / opinions check

[Jimbo Mahoney]

I know that with any routine / subject / hobby, experience can sometimes not lead to wisdom, but to bad habits or bias.

I've been strength training for 5 years now, so I feel it's a good time to have a sanity check.

I want the OcUK BB crowd to critique my results and beliefs in order to correct the ones that are wrong and reassure me about the ones that are correct:

My beliefs:

1) Steroid use is not uncommon and gives unrealistic expectations for beginners. In general, all bodybuilding competitions, especially professional, will involve steroid use. Due to their legal status, they are not discussed as much as they should be (they are the most effective supplement by far) . Taking them is a personal choice and requires different training and nutritional approaches. I am pursuing the non-steroid route and all the following points assume non-steroid assisted training.

2) The best way to gain muscle is progressive overload. i.e. increasing the weight lifted as often as possible, assuming correct form.

3) Compound lifts are more effective than isolation work.

4) Something like Stronglifts or Starting Strength is the best overall routine, especially for beginners.

5) Concentrating on a few good exercises (e.g. squat, deadlift, benchpress, chinup, dips etc.) rather than many will result in more muscle gains.

6) Eating frequency is irrelevant (assuming calories and macros are the same). The only exception is meal timing - calories consumed after workout will be more effectively utilised than calories consumed before. It is best to eat how and when it suits your lifestyle / work / gym times.

7) The rule of 1 g protein per lb of bodyweight is a reasonable approximation for optimal protein intake for muscle growth. A better one is 0.8 g per lb.

8) More protein should be consumed when cutting to preserve muscle. A reasonable approximation is 1.5g per lb.

9) In order to build muscle, the weight on the scales (by eating more) and the weight in the gym should be increasing.

10) In order to lose fat, the weight on the scales (by eating less) should be decreasing while trying to increase or maintain the weight in the gym. Some strength loss is unavoidable.

11) Working a muscle every 4 days is a reasonable frequency.

12) Cardio is optional. It has both positive and negative effects on strength training and muscle growth.

13) Diet is 75% of the results. Too many calories = too fat. Too few = slow or no muscle gains. Supplements (ignoring steroids) are about 5% of the results.

14) Primarily due to insulin sensitivity, optimal carbohydrate intake varies from person to person. Some people will get fat quickly on too many carbohydrates and would be better consuming calories from fat. The best bodybuilders tend to do well on high carbohydrates as more of the anabolism is directed to protein synthesis rather than fat storage.


My results: (all figures given relative to bodyweight for comparison).

Bodyweight increased by 25%. Bodyfat levels are about the same as when I started judging by the mirror (I take progress photos every few months). i.e. approx 5% increase in lean tissue per year (probably not linear). i.e. muscle gains are a slow process requiring patience and realistic expectations - see point #1.

Strength:

Deadlift = 2.2 x bodyweight for 8 reps

Benchpress (Dumbbell) = 0.7 x bodyweight for 6 reps; 0.63 x bodyweight for 10 reps (I don't train barbell bench).

Chinups = Bodyweight + 0.54 for 6 reps

Squat (to parallel) = 1.5 x bodyweight for 10 reps

I believe that these are good results for 5 years of consistent training. Some are better than others and reflect my individual build and also my enjoyment of the lift (no prizes for guessing that chinups and db bench are my favourite and squats are my least favourite! )


My sources of information / inspiration:

http://www.LeanGains.com
http://startingstrength.wikia.com/wiki/Starting_Strength_Wiki
http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/
http://bayesianbodybuilding.com/

 

[opethdisciple]

If there was a like button. I just pressed it.

 

[iamtheoneneo]

I would agree that a scary amount of gym goers are on steroids, the signs are obvious and I will never agree with it. (relates to my last point)

I don't agree with 5 at all, In my experience (nearing 3 years) you have to change your exercises and also the set x rep combinations because you will stall and the muscles become to familiar with the activity. I have found that actually increasing exercises per routine has paid off big time.

i think the biggest one you missed off though is that these fad '6 week massive muscles & 6 pack' stories you see in papers and on the cover of fitness magazines are a joke.
This stuff takes years and years.

Finally my next point rarely gets mentioned but is so important to serious newcomers.
Muscle dysmorphia. Their comes a time where you have to get your head around what your doing, and understand when to back away. Your mind enters a need to get bigger/leaner attitude and it can lead to bigger issues mentally if you dont get some sort of grip on it.

 

[Steedie]

I would agree that a scary amount of gym goers are on steroids, the signs are obvious and I will never agree with it.

Please elaborate

 

[Somnambulist]

Please elaborate

Seen them taking creatine...

 

[mrthingyx]

The brotein shakes have hormones in don't you know!

 

[tom_e]

Please elaborate

The superman suit they rip their normal clothes off to reveal when they walk into the gym or when they turn green and burst out of their gym wear.

At the end of the day if normal sensible human beings want to use them then it's their body their choice and it effects no one else, as with most things it's when the idiots that think they're ten men already get hold of them that the problems begin but to be fair it's the same with alcohol and that's completely legal and acceptable.

People are welcome to disagree with my opinion as long as they've actually put some sensible thought into it and not just taken the medias "OMG STEROIDZ TURN YOU INTO A BABY MURDERING PSYCHO" line as gospel.

 

[eGu_Ryan]

I would say very few gym users are on steroids if I'm honest (at my gym at least). Really though I feel they have a bad reputation and they shouldn't do. If you're taking them correctly, with your diet on point and correct PCT you'll have very little side effects.

(Not including diuretics and "fat loss" drugs in this, they cane your heart)

Also, I don't agree with point 13. Too few calories, and you will not build muscle.

Edit: Also point 3 - isolating the muscle that you want to build surely will provide more gains than a compound movement recruiting more muscles? e.g. You aren't gonna get bigger triceps doing bench press than a guy doing skullcrushers for days.

 

[Freefaller]

I know that with any routine / subject / hobby, experience can sometimes not lead to wisdom, but to bad habits or bias.

That can be true, it depends on how much you have learned before, during your training and how open minded you are. I personally reset everything and effectively started from "scratch" and I'm now back up to where I was but a lot lighter, better form, and more powerful.

I've been strength training for 5 years now, so I feel it's a good time to have a sanity check.

Always good to be introspective. 5 years is quite early in your journey, and probably a good time to reflect.

I want the OcUK BB crowd to critique my results and beliefs in order to correct the ones that are wrong and reassure me about the ones that are correct:

I won't critique, but will add my opinions.

My beliefs:

1) Steroid use is not uncommon and gives unrealistic expectations for beginners. In general, all bodybuilding competitions, especially professional, will involve steroid use. Due to their legal status, they are not discussed as much as they should be (they are the most effective supplement by far) . Taking them is a personal choice and requires different training and nutritional approaches. I am pursuing the non-steroid route and all the following points assume non-steroid assisted training.

I agree, they give unrealistic expectations to beginners. However, not all competitions open themselves to drug use, and the debate of use of PED in the professional world is on going and inconclusive. People still get caught out.

However, they are NOT a supplement. They change your hormonal profile, and deeply affect your body and quite potentially your health. This is why they should not be discussed by amateurs. If they were not dangerous they would be more accessible to people. Even men who go through TRT do so with careful clinical observation and method.

They do enhance recovery, protein synthesis and enable your body to grow more quickly. However, there have been enough studies and anecdotal evidence, that the more natural your muscle gain, the easier it is to hold onto - i.e. if you push your body beyond its genetic potential it will reset itself back to it's "normal" zone. i.e. if you're a skinny runt, start gear, and get big, and stop, you'll go back to being a skinny runt. If you've trained for 20 years, and built a lot of muscle (muscle becomes more dense over years of use, thicker, and more sinewy I guess is the word) you will likely keep more from having done some gear. The issue being that the hormonal issues will likely make you fat owing to the way your body responds to it.

Most people pursue the non-gear route, and work bloody hard (just as you would "on" them) to achieve their goals. They are not that common at all.

2) The best way to gain muscle is progressive overload. i.e. increasing the weight lifted as often as possible, assuming correct form.

This works until you get to a plateau, in which case different techniques need to be applied until you are able to punch through that plateau. Always adding more weight doesn't always work for everyone immediately. Sometimes increasing the working weight and number of sets, and reducing rest times can have an equally positive effect.

Furthermore specific exercises can help enhance strength in other areas - i.e. strong lats = strong bench. Strong glutes = strong everything.

3) Compound lifts are more effective than isolation work.

For overall strength and size - but if you want to be a bodybuilder isolation work is critical for shape.

4) Something like Stronglifts or Starting Strength is the best overall routine, especially for beginners.

They are good beginner routines which can be adapted as you become more advanced. For more advanced lifters they don't provide enough volume or intensity without being heavily modified.

5) Concentrating on a few good exercises (e.g. squat, deadlift, benchpress, chinup, dips etc.) rather than many will result in more muscle gains.

Concentrating on doing the exercises properly will be better for gains, but it's not always about muscle, but about strength, whilst the two aren't mutually exclusive, there is also a dichotomy between them.

6) Eating frequency is irrelevant (assuming calories and macros are the same). The only exception is meal timing - calories consumed after workout will be more effectively utilised than calories consumed before. It is best to eat how and when it suits your lifestyle / work / gym times.

Food timing is generally irrelevant, though having the right nutrition to enhance performance is also important. Supplementation can help to give you boosts pre workout, but ensuring that you have eaten well will also ensure you will perform well. Food is not immediately digested, so if you train in the morning, your dinner will have more of an impact than the breakfast you have.

7) The rule of 1 g protein per lb of bodyweight is a reasonable approximation for optimal protein intake for muscle growth. A better one is 0.8 g per lb.

The 1g per 1lb of LEAN bodyweight is largely inaccurate and unnecessary for most people.

8) More protein should be consumed when cutting to preserve muscle. A reasonable approximation is 1.5g per lb.

You shouldn't have to worry hugely about that, as long as you keep training hard. If you enable your body the mechanism by which it can burn fat rather than muscle. Protein intake should still be reasonable, however increasing it a little can help, but only if the rest of your lifestyle is modified to suit. Things like HIIT do not tend to burn muscle tissue if performed correctly.

9) In order to build muscle, the weight on the scales (by eating more) and the weight in the gym should be increasing.

You should ignore the weight on the scales, and if you're increasing the weights in the gym, but not performing the right intensity, or correct type of training it'll be largely irrelevant, certainly if you'er not eating the right number of calories. To get big you need to eat big. To get big you need to train big and hard with decent volume.

10) In order to lose fat, the weight on the scales (by eating less) should be decreasing while trying to increase or maintain the weight in the gym. Some strength loss is unavoidable.

Not true. You can lose fat but retain strength - it isn't easy. However, again the scales don't tell you anything, body composition can change, your body fat can decrease, but lean muscle mass can increase or stay the same. You're also not discussing visceral fat which is more of an issue for health.

11) Working a muscle every 4 days is a reasonable frequency.

It's reasonable but once your training intensity increases this can increase too. Training a body part several times a week is perfectly fine once you get to that level of training.

12) Cardio is optional. It has both positive and negative effects on strength training and muscle growth.

Cardio has no negative effects, if you do it correctly. Personally I also think it is an important addition. Most call it conditioning - high intensity work outs in short spurts. Or also HIIT is effective. Whilst training hard can get the heart going, when you start straining and pushing your body hard, you need to ensure your heart can cope with the stress. This doesn't mean doing marathons, but doing some form of cardio intensive exercise is advisable. It does not have negative effects - I do a lot of conditioning, and I'm not exactly a waif.

13) Diet is 75% of the results. Too many calories = too fat. Too few = slow or no muscle gains. Supplements (ignoring steroids) are about 5% of the results.

Supplements are about 1%, dit is at least 80%, and the training is the rest. Ultimately though, it is lifestyle. i.e. your life. Do you walk / cycle to work. Do you go to bed at a decent time. Do you sleep well. Do you eat well all the time? Do you do activities that enhance metabolism. Do smoke or take drugs or drink alcohol? Etc.. there are a lot of factors that affect your training. Steroids are not supplements.

14) Primarily due to insulin sensitivity, optimal carbohydrate intake varies from person to person. Some people will get fat quickly on too many carbohydrates and would be better consuming calories from fat. The best bodybuilders tend to do well on high carbohydrates as more of the anabolism is directed to protein synthesis rather than fat storage.

You can change your insulin response through diet and lifestyle, furthermore insulin is an anabolic hormone so you need to make sure you can use it to enhance your gains and development. Carbs do not make you fat.

My results: (all figures given relative to bodyweight for comparison).

Bodyweight increased by 25%. Bodyfat about the same. i.e. approx 5% increase in lean tissue per year (probably not linear). i.e. muscle gains are a slow process requiring patience and realistic expectations - see point #1.

I would say that an increase of bodyfat by 25% is high. However you're never going to be able to increase LMM by a huge factor. Generally I'd be happy to increase LMM by 1kg per year, i.e. so that my minimum weight is 1kg more of lean muscle mass. That is actually quite a lot. So if you train for 10 years, that 10kg of pure lean muscle, excluding fat increases.

Strength:

Deadlift = 2.2 x bodyweight for 8 reps

Benchpress (Dumbbell) = 0.7 x bodyweight for 6 reps; 0.63 x bodyweight for 10 reps (I don't train barbell bench).

Chinups = Bodyweight + 0.54 for 6 reps

Squat (to parallel) = 1.5 x bodyweight for 10 reps

I believe that these are good results for 5 years of consistent training. Some are better than others and reflect my individual build and also my enjoyment of the lift (no prizes for guessing that chinups and db bench are my favourite and squats are my least favourite! )

Over 2x bodyweight on any exercise is good - so well done.

Without knowing your numbers it's hard to tell, and without knowing where you've come from again it's hard to gauge. However seems like good overall strength.

I'm glad you're still enjoying, in the next 5 years you should look into more advanced/intense work outs, with variations on the main compounds to help your break out of plateaus and really start pushing your comfort envelope.

Good luck with the rest of your training. It is a transient thing, you have to experiment with diet and training regimes, and it takes months to get an understanding of whether it has worked, and you have to be disciplined and boring in your workout / lifestyle, i.e. pretty much groundhog day - it can be tough, but if you really want to understand how your body responds to different things it is the only way to do it.

keep at it and good luck!

 

[iamtheoneneo]

Seen them taking creatine...

in one gulp

 

[tom_e]

Edit: Also point 3 - isolating the muscle that you want to build surely will provide more gains than a compound movement recruiting more muscles? e.g. You aren't gonna get bigger triceps doing bench press than a guy doing skullcrushers for days.

Not sure I'd agree with this, I've never been one for massive amounts of isolation work but my tris for example are a good size and that's just through dips and pressing I do the odd bit of tri push downs but they're very much as a quick finisher at the end if I do them.
FF also has some decent arms and does little to no isolation work iirc.

Either way I'd rather have a slightly smaller muscle but actually be able to use the power they create in some meaningful way which is going to be much more difficult if you've just spent your time in the gym isolating them.

 

[eGu_Ryan]

Oh I agree you'd definitely pack on some size on them, but in my opinion isolation work will promote more growth. I guess it completely depends on your goals - I would definitely recommend doing both compounds and isolation exercises though, not one or the other.

 

[tom_e]

As with most things in the gym world it's different strokes for different folks, I'm an ugly bugger anyway so have no interest in building a beautifully sculpted physique I just like getting stronger one of the side effects just happens to be that I look better than I used to.

 

[Freefaller]

Tom has the physique and build to end up being phenomenally strong - but you're right, you'll never be pretty

 

[tom_e]

Tom has the physique and build to end up being phenomenally strong - but you're right, you'll never be pretty

We can't all be as handsome as you you big furry love monkey. I'll take the initial compliment though

 

[Freefaller]

It's true though. You did so well at the strongman day, with a bit of effort and careful training (with you being as young as you are) you have the potential to be brutally strong

 

[tom_e]

Fingers crossed that's the plan Once my bikes back on the road I'm hoping to head over to Birmingham to a gym with the full load of strongman kit and maybe get a coaching session or 2 with one of the guys over there just to get me heading in the right direction. Mark's lucky I don't live closer to Bristol or he'd never get rid of me

 

[tom_nieto]

Strong glutes = strong everything.

Excellent points. I think unrealistic expectations are the biggest factor in stopping or stalling people's training. There's no substitute for hard work (this doesn't only apply to fitness training) and nothing in life worth having comes easily. I completely agree with your point about the 6 week miracle programmes being rubbish. Great steps can be made in this time, but you're not going from fat slob to gym hero in that time.

 

[Freefaller]

People ask me how I developed my physique and strength etc...

a) I'm not that strong in terms of powerlifting and power:weight - but things like strongman I do a lot better at than powerlifters - it's weird.
b) I've been sporty all my life which will help.
c) I've been doing weights for a fair while now (10 years) which has been peaks and troughs. If I took it more seriously I should be a lot further along.
d) This is a hobby and I enjoy a relaxed lifestyle - I'm never going to be uber cut, or uber big or uber strong - I accept this. I really started a bit late at least in doing this properly.

You just have to manage expectations and stop comparing to everyone else. We all have our different genetic potentials, different physiologies etc... As long as I'm pushing myself then that's all I want and know that honestly it'll be good for me.

 

[Jimbo Mahoney]

I would say that an increase of bodyfat by 25% is high.

Sorry, I mean my overall bodyfat is the same, not that I've increased my bodyfat by 25%!

Otherwise, many thanks for the feedback. I'm glad I'm generally correct in my thinking.