a frustrated guy looking for help

[corhof60]

hello all, just spent an hour looking for a good body building site and stumbled on this one.

ive been going to the gym for close to 3 years now, and just havent been getting the results i feel i should be.
i need some advice from some people who know what theyre doing, instead of reading books which contradict each other.

ok so some info.
im 18 yrs old, male roughly 180 pounds, 8%ish BF, uhh either 29 or 24 BMI, 6'1''.

as ive said, ive been at the gym now for 3 years, usually try to train everyday, for 1:30 to 2:00hrs a workout.

watch what i eat very closely, the only problem is, i dont know if what im told to eat is right, because everyone is all over the place.

anyhow. currently switching between leanness and muscle gain.

lean:
start of with 10 mins of intense cardio, followed by workouts lasting 1:30 followed by the same shorter, lesser intense cardio.

the workouts are
warm up, 2-3 sets, drop set: for each workout
chest/back/abs
legs/abs
bi/tri/abs
shoulder/traps/abs
usually stick to regular excersises, i do switch from time to time, and always go to failure.

for mass:
same cardio:
chest/tri/ abs
back/bi/abs
legs/ab
shoulder/trap/abs

stick with leg presses, leg curl, leg raise, calf press, lunges
dumbell bench presses, flat/inc/dec, flys, cable flys
bent over rows, dead lifts, pull downs
french curls, seated curls, pulley curls. skull crushes, arm ext, ect

and effective ab workouts, usually 3-4 sets, always failure at around 15reps


all in all, i just havent gotten the results im looking for, ive tryed supplaments, creatine, NO-xplode, caffeen/ephedrine, animal stack.

not considering steroids or GH

i guess im looking for routines, with detailed descriptions of sets, technique, time, nutrition, habits of anyone who experienced awesome gains when they started or at anytime.
i always read about people who tryed some routine and then got jacked in a few months, and they felt as if they just couldnt eat enough food ect, but most articles are followed by a subscription to read how.

im not a moron, and know it takes hard work to get what i want, but i think i have been working hard, and just need some pointers to help give me a better understanding about how bodybuilding actually works

spending close to 10hrs a week at a gym is getting old

im not saying i havent had any results, just not enough

i needs MORE!

thanks for any and all help

[MuSuLPhReAk]

I guess what you want really is to get bigger. First off 2 hour workouts are a little long. You may be overtraining. My max workout was never over 1.5hrs. Second, your exercises seem ok. Add squats to your leg workout. Don't warm up for each exercise, only the first. If you're doing it for all exercises on let's say chest, then it'll make your workouts a lot longer and benching 100lbs for 15-20 won't really make you bigger.

Now, the most important part. WHAT ARE YOU EATING. Your diet is one of the biggest factors. If you can post up your diet and how much protein you are taking, we can help you further.

[Nicknroll]

AND PLEASE LEAVE THE CARDIO LOL!!!!when you try to put on some mass!!if you really are under 10% BF

[Sean Summers]

Post diet.
SS

[KLM]

Welcome!

Definitely start squatting - and yes, post up your diet please.

[corhof60]

ok typical diet.

im at university, so i usually make one big ass dinner and eat that for a couple days.

breakfast. 1 whole egg, 2-3 eggwhite omlette

snack: almonds + carrots (or other random veggie)

lunch: usually right b4 workout so quaker instant oatmeal (plain) with blueberries, 0% milk, 0% activia yogurt

after workout: "muscle milk" protein shake.

dinner: usually consits of chicken or salmon with veggies, or brown rice, or egg noddle without yolk pasta.
if i eat beef its extra lean.

i dont usually stray too much from breakfast or lunch, and dinner is usually chicken, only varying slightly

[oharad]

you need a protien and carb source for every 3 hours you are awake.

egg + eggwhite omlete is good .... through in a carb...say oatmeal

almond and carrots? c'mon man get some real food there like chicken almonds and a potato

mix in a scoop of whey with ur oatmeal or poor some egg whites in there to get protien

chicken or salmon is good, keep veggies,,,, maybe add in a starch like rice

then add a 6th meal..... keep it for 2 months... if your still not gaining go to a 7th meal

[champcar99]

I would starve on that light weight diet you are eating , I don't know about putting on size with that diet..You need calories to add muscle

[corhof60]

ok, ill try eating more.

usually when i up it though, i find myself loosing definintion

any tips with sets/reps or is 3-4 with 12 reps fine

[KLM]

You need more cals, carbs and protein for sure. You need to be eating more often as well, with balanced meals (lean proteins with carbs like oats, brown rice, sweet potatoes, etc.).

Putting on size means you have to be OK with losing some definition. LeanER gains are possible, but you can't expect to put on mass and maintain the exact level of leanness. I stay fairly lean when putting on size, but I am still nowhere near stage-ready or at the bodyfat I prefer.

I would suggest lowering your rep range and increasing your weights as well. I'm a powerlifter by training, so I rarely go above 5 reps unless it's accessory work, but for hypertrophy I do incorporate sets in the 6-8 rep range. 8-12 works for many. I think with 3 years of training under your belt you should try lowering the rep range gradually. Along with eating more that should help a lot.

[corhof60]

thanks.

any tips on number of cals?

my basal is close to 2200 i think

[bigben]

You need more protein and calories. Its not so much the numbers (although clearly 2200 is way too low), as it is finding what works for you. You will know you are on the right track when you start gaining weight. If your weight stands still, you are not eating enough. You are being too restrictive from what you have posted of your diet.

As for training, keep it simple. Concentrate on major, basic compound exercises like squat, bench, shoulder press, chins and rows, all else secondary, and make it your goal to improve in strength on all of them. As you get stronger, you will get bigger. Do the compound exercises first as you need to make them and improving at them the priority.

And don't forget to eat more. Eggs, tuna, salmon, protein powder, peanut butter, meats. Eat 6 meals a day.

[Strateg0s]

You need more protein and calories. You will know you are on the right track when you start gaining weight. If your weight stands still, you are not eating enough. You are being too restrictive from what you have posted of your diet.

As for training, keep it simple. Concentrate on major, basic compound exercises like squat, bench, shoulder press, chins and rows, all else secondary, and make it your goal to improve in strength on all of them. As you get stronger, you will get bigger. Do the compound exercises first as you need to make them and improving at them the priority.Right on the money.

Switch your cardio to first thing in the morning, about 20 mins of HIIT. That will help keep you lean without sacrificing gains. But if that's not enough, run a carb-cycling diet so that you are getting plenty of nutrition, but your gains are lean. If you follow the advice given in this thread, you'll put on a significant amount of mass without even resorting to extra supplementation. Train the major lifts, eat like a horse, and get enough rest.

Be sure to track your caloric intake. I'll paste a post on diet which is relevant to your case:


You see it all the time. It is asked "what's your diet like?" and the reply is "don't worry about that, the diet is good, my problem is somewhere else..." OK, fine. Sure, we all eat somewhat regularly and try to get a good amount of protein. But is that enough to call what you are doing a "good diet"? Not by a mile.

Here's a few things that help knowing where you stand with your diet:

1. Know how many calories you need for maintenance on both active days and rest days.

2. Know how many calories you are taking in each day. This means keeping a food journal. Unless you have kept food journals for a LONG time, then you can't really know where you stand with regards to your nutrition. A good place to keep a food journal is at FitDay, which also calculates how many calories you need. It's free, too. Here's the link: fitday.com

3. Know how much protein you need and how much you are taking in. Protein is the single most important nutrient to watch, at least in the early stages of discovering your best diet. 1g/lb of bodyweight is a good base, which means that under no circumstances should you go under that. 1.5g/lb of bodyweight is good and some people do even better at 2g/lb.

4. Know that there is protein in many things. "protein" doesn't mean "powder". Fish, chicken, meat and dairy are all high in protein.

5. You need to know which nutrient ratios you do better with. If 40% protein, 40% carbs and 20% fat works for you, you HAVE TO KNOW THAT. If 50/40/10 is better, then fine. And so on. Some people do very well on 40/05/55 for 5-6 days, followed by 40/50/10 for 1-2 days. That's called a CKD.

6. To discover these things, you will need to experiment. Start with a good 40/40/20 and see how you feel. Adjust and see the results. Then again. Then again. You'll eventually find what works best when cutting, when bulking and when maintaining.

7. You need to eat REGULARLY. That doesn't mean "every single day". It means every set number of hours. For example, say you're up 16 hours per day, and sleep for 8 hours, then you can eat approximately every 4 hours. You can schedule things like this:

06AM: Breakfast
09AM: Snack
12PM: Lunch
03PM: Pre-workout Snack
06PM: Post-workout shake
0730: Dinner
1000: Bedtime snack

Yes, this way you eat 7 times a day. This is pretty ideal. Too much work? No time? Too much trouble? Then either hire someone to do it for you if you have the money or get it out of your head that you will ever have anything more than a "nice" body. Being in GREAT SHAPE is a lot of work! If it were that easy, you'd see legions of 235lb men with shredded 6-packs. THAT is why there aren't that many. Yes you can get away with eating 4 times a day, but 5 to 7 are better.

8. Know what you're doing with what kinds of carbs, fats and proteins you're taking. Know what low glycemic index carbs are, what high-GI carbs are and which do what for you. Know what essential fatty acids are, what saturated and unsaturated fats are, which foods they come from, what they do for you. Know what complete protein is and what isn't and make sure you have complete protein on as many snacks and meals as doable.

9. Once you've been at training and dieting for long enough that you have experimented with enough variations of all these factors and finally figured out what works best for gaining, leaning, or maintaining/recomping, and have disciplined yourself enough to apply all this knowledge no matter what, day in, day out, THEN you can say you have a "good diet". Not before.

Remember, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. This is true of bodybuilding also. If you think of Training, Diet, Supplementation, Rest, Hydration, Hormones and Genetics as the links of the chain that ties you to your bodybuilding goals, then you have a pretty good mental picture of how things work. In this author's 15 years of bodybuilding experimentation and 11 years of internet discussion of bodybuilding, DIET comes on top as the most often weakest link in someone's approach to bodybuilding. No matter how much stronger you make the other links, if diet is not as good as it can be, all your efforts to make those links stronger will come to naught because your diet breaks your tie to the "building" part of bodybuilding.

How many times have I met people in my gyms who complain that "gaining muscle is SO hard" and even that they are "steroid non-responders" or, the newly best-loved method of bullshitting oneself about their way of doing things, that they "have bad genetics". As a matter of fact, unless you have tried every single combination of every factor that is known to affect the bodybuilding endeavour, or have undergone a nonexistent DNA test to this effect, you cannot have any idea if you have "good genetics for bodybuilding" or not. Sure, your dad and grandad might be weaklings. Maybe their lifestyles made them that way and they just wasted great athletic genes by being potato couches or whatever. Point is, what your immediate ancestors look like doesn't mean much. Every single time I've chatted up some guy who complained of his gains or genetics or lack thereof, there is a gaping hole in his method, and most of the time, it boils down to ONE THING. DIET

[corhof60]

thanks guys. i guess my problem was not enough food, and vagina isolation workouts.

ill work on dying at the gym, hopefully that reduces the time spent there

[Sean Summers]

20 x your bodyweight is a good place to start. So for you that's 3600 kcals.
SS

[bigben]

ok, ill try eating more.

usually when i up it though, i find myself loosing definintion

any tips with sets/reps or is 3-4 with 12 reps fine

I don't think you can maintain the degree of leanness to which you are accustomed and grow significantly. Be prepared to lose definition. You can diet off some of the fat later after you achieve and exceed your goals. The careful focus on maintaining definition is self defeating to growth.

As for set and reps, I would do a pyramid on all the major compound exercises like squats, rowing, chins/pulldowns, bench press, shoulder press.

Start out with 12 reps to warm up, then add weight until you can only do 10 reps to failure, then 8 to failure, then 6 to failure, then 4 reps to failure, then pull off some weight and rep out again. In my opinion you need to work heavier.

[MuSuLPhReAk]

I used to train like that bigben and then I started training 6-8 range or 4-6 range and it worked out much better for me. Not the say the pyramid didn't work, but just found reducing the rep range by incresing the weights and doing most of my exercise in those ranges, worked better for me.

[KLM]

I used to train like that bigben and then I started training 6-8 range or 4-6 range and it worked out much better for me. Not the say the pyramid didn't work, but just found reducing the rep range by incresing the weights and doing most of my exercise in those ranges, worked better for me.

Ditto for me. Once I got into PL my physique changed dramatically.

[bigben]

I have no doubt that would be effective. I'm trying to steer the guy towards lower reps and heavier weight, and I feel the pyramid is one way to do it, but no necessarily the only way. If he's been doing straight 12 rep sets for years, the change will do him good.

[MuSuLPhReAk]

For sure.

[Canadian Bodybuilding]

Great advice given in this thread. Would be awesome to see a few sample diets posted and the total calorie intake of each diet. This is my hardest part too. I could use the help.

[KLM]

I have no doubt that would be effective. I'm trying to steer the guy towards lower reps and heavier weight, and I feel the pyramid is one way to do it, but no necessarily the only way. If he's been doing straight 12 rep sets for years, the change will do him good.
Absolutely!

[shithead]

Thats some solid advice guys! Good work!

[corhof60]

alright, tryed a leg workout today, did smith squats, because i suck at them, and never done them before. did 4 sets with a warmup/drop followed by deadlifts. then went to low leg presses, with pyrimiding up to 5 plates on each side (vagina i know), then did high leg presses with the same weight. then i wrapped it up with air compressor leg ext/curls with a drop at the end. did enough weight to only be able to pop off 8-10 reps. YAY finished in 1:30 WITH ab workout.

[Shortdave]

On your next leg day do nothing but squats, free weights, because the smith machine is gayer than aids.

Do a warmup set of 10-12 reps, then find a weight that you can get 8-10 reps with and squat, do as many sets as you can in an hour.

You will be very hungry the next day.

[TL1000S]

Here is what I think....

#1
You need to train no more than 3x/week and for no more than 1 hour each time. After rigurous workouts your test levels drop and your body becomes catabolic, so even though you've just killed the weights, you've actually DECREASED your muscle!!

#2
Dump the cardio for now

#3
You need to consume more. Here is a guide that will makeit easier for you to plan a good diet: To add size you need to consume your bodyweight X 18 in cals, so (180lbs x 18 = 3420 cals). Of those calories you need to consume 55% protien / 30% carbs / 15% fat. Look online for a website that tells you the nutritional value for each food, and make yourself a 6 meal diet with the above parameters, tapering down the carbs after 5:00pm.

[Demonwolf]

something newbie forget often is that as you gain weight, you need to eat even more.

if you are 180 and you eat to be 200, you get to 200 without eating to be 220, the gains stop.