boardn10

Right now I am on a mass building phase. I am 6'3" and only 212 lbs. I say only, because I am never satisfies. I want to be at least 225. Unfortunately we are on a tight budget and I had to cut out protein powders. I am just eating a lot of food, peanut butter or almond butter on whole grain bread, cereals, oatmeal, yogurt, soy milk, nuts, sauteed tofu with liquid aminos and turmeric, pancakes, quinoa and whatever else I can find.

Arnold was a God. Even though I don't take steroids, I would love to be able to attain such a level of muscle mass.

I had half a pound of whole grain pasta with dinner. Just now I had two huge bowls of cereal and soy yogurt. I am bulking, so I am eating everything in site.

I eat tons and tons and tons of cereal, oats, potatoes, brown rice. I am a carb junkie!

I know some guys like Clarence Bass like to get cut and then build mass while staying lean. I have to accept for me, I will have to have some fat gain with my muscle. I am in a mass more now but I want to he cut up for beach season by July!

I did a little test this week. Monday I did heavy squats and deadlifts and I was fine!

I know many will say it is nearly impossible building muscle on anything less than 8 hours, any it is preferable to get 9 or more. I do tend to get 8 a night but a few nights a week I am only able to get about 7, sometimes 6 which is horrible when that happens. The worst part is the headache I will get with only 6-7 hours.

Do you all place enough emphasis on sleep? I put a lot of emphasis on sleep and tend to get a solid 8 hours a night. I do not function well on anything less than 7 hours, but most nights I get 8. I seem to throw in one or maybe two clunkers a week where I only get about 6 or so hours. The best approach for me is to go to bed somewhat early and to keep things consistent. Having a child helps me because I tend to go to bed and get up at about the same time each day since my daughter goes to bed at about the same time each night, as does my wife. But, sometimes I wonder if having one bad night or sometimes two bad nights a week of sleep, can really hinder my gains?

Me too. I might have to combine Back day with deadlifts. If I do rows first, I might be good to do deadlifts second in my workout.

I will have to play around with different scenarios. When I try to do reads on Monday after squats, my legs shake terribly. Then my upper back can be really sore on Wednesday which messes up my Wednesday workout. I tried bent rows one program right after deadlifts and I hurt my lower back because my thighs were so spent by the time I did bent rows. I find for squats, deads or heavy rows, my legs and back need to be fresh so it is tough to do any of them the same day. One thing that may work is right now I am doing squats on Monday so I can do stiff legged deadlifts Wednesday which is back day. I say that because my hams are never that sore after Monday squats, it is always my quads that get blasted, so my hams seem ready. I will just avoid barbell bent rows during this program. Thanks everyone for listening.

I love having squats in my program but I have yet to figure out where to squeeze in deadlifts. Since deadlifts hit back as well as legs, it creates a problem for me. I get the best results working each body part once a week and I don't like working legs the same day I work back. See my problem? I also don't like to train squats and deadlifts the same workout, but the few times I did, my back was very sore and I didn;t want to do then do back two days later. Thoughts?

I definitely was able to build more upper body strength and size doing dumbell chest presses than I have in a very long time and I was constantly reaching new bests. also including weighted dips made a big difference. I find dumbells much easier on the joints.

I read up on it and it is not for me. I don't like to sacrifice enjoyment from my life when there are other ways for me to accomplish this. Thanks though, I appreciate the help! I am a lightweight. I weighed myself today and I am only 208 right now. It is embarrassing. So, I am going to have to just pack on the pounds and lift heavy probably will take a year or two, but I want to get to 225 or so.

leangains.com? Sounds like I would gain fat because the body can think it is starving when you go long periods without food so the body can tend to really pack away the calories into fat storage when you do eat...plus that is not very enjoyable, I like eating too much. I can;t see cramming 5,000 calories into 6-8 hours, yikes.

When I say clean I mean whole foods that are not loaded with fatty sauses and sugars, avoiding cakes and cookies, etc. I can tell you right now, when I add a lot of nuts to my diet, I always gain unwanted fat, due to the loads of fat found in nuts....so I have to be careful.

I have been feeling better after a 4 month battle with a shoulder injury and during that time I got a little out of shape, because I hate doing cardio, LOL...and with the holidays and all, I started eating more junk! So, here I am getting back into the heavy weights and want to get back to gaining mass. Right now I am about 205 lbs at 6'3" and last summer I was 212 lbs and I thikn I was leaner. So, I am trying to pack back on the muscle and I would like to gain as much as possible. Right now I am working mostly with muscle memory, gaining back what I lost the last 4 months with the injury. I always struggle when I work through a mass stage because I always gain some fat due to the extra calories. Do I just deal with it? Do any of you have tips or tricks you follow? I mostly try to eat clean calories, limit the junk, sugar, stick to whole foods and limit my fat intake other than the required amount of good fats. Thoughts? Thanks! Rich

Pain has been getting MUCH better....not bothering me too much anymore other than a little twingy on chest day! Getting better. If you keep upping the weight, you can build with anything. I was able to get my chest and shoulders larger than they have been in years by doing mostly heavy DB presses and heavy weighted dips. Bench pressing really bothers my shoulders using a bar so I gravitated to the dumbells after years. Some of us have to find other ways to get form point A to B. Look at Robert, he has had to approach his legs differently due to a back injury. He can't do squats or deadlifts so had to concentrate on leg press, etc. Personally, for me the leg press is harder on my low back at times than the squat. What ambetious says, I sort of agree with from my own experience...dumbbells allow your joints to move freely and naturally and thus decreasing the chances of injuries. However, I am going to see if I can start slipping some bench press back in with a barbell. I wish I could find a way to squeeze the squat and dead lift into my program because I find too much overlap with back work so I tend to stick with squats and sometimes I will go through a period where I will do a leg press program and deadlifts, cutting out the squats for a while.

I used to take it as well but I just can;t afford so many supplements so had to cut this one out. Most protein powders also have some Glutamine or some precursors. I mostly now just do a protein powder and creatine.

Only time I ever have dizziness is if I am doing something like a heavy set of leg presses and then suddenly stand up, I have to grab onto something and close my eyes for a second or two till it passes. Only happens sometimes, but never a problem. I have always found eating about two hours before my workout and normally something like oatmeal and an apple gets it done for me to get through a good workout. My workouts never really go beyond an hour.

Looks like, not too many.

All good points man! Since I don't play any sports now other than tennis and snowboarding, and not competitively, I am not so worries about explosiveness or quickness. When it comes to lifting or bodybuilding, I am more concerned with overall health, appearance, strength and endurance. I know Clarence Bass was measured in his early 60s to have the endurance or athletes intheir 30s, so that is encouraging.

Chewybaws, that is all good to hear man! I am on the same page as you and only look at age as a stinkin number, period. I hit new personal bests this past summer at 41 and I thought I was hitting the top when I was 21, LOL. I shold have years of successful lifting ahead of me. You have pretty much helped confirm what was in my gut. I am a huge Clarence Bass fan and I know he was still hitting bests in his 60s. I have to stop believing garbage I read in mags. LOL. I do agree about losing the volume training. I train 3-4 days a week, depending on program and typically 45-60 minutes a session. With work and family, that is my limit anyway. Do you have more info on percentage loading programs?

I want to gain about 20 lbs. I am at 205 right now. So. I want to add lots of muslce! I got up to close to 215 last summer before I hurt my trap. I don't think I will ever let up on the big and heavy weights. IN 25 years, that has been my best formula. I will just learn to work through the pain if it persists. I want to get as big as possible before I have to get cut for my first competition. 240 lbs would be great! I am sure I will need to weigh at least 220 to be competitive.

Martin, then how come I have not seen light weights work for me? However I will say I have not tried to go super light....to failure. So, what you are saying from this study...if one can 120 lb Dumbells for a one rep max in the DB bench press. 30% of that 1RM would be about 36 lbs. So lets say I did reps with 35 lb DBs or wanted to push it to 50 or 60 lb dumbells. If I go to failure, I might be able to build the same amount or more muscle??? I will have to read the study. How many sets were taken to failure in the study and did they go to failure every week??? Thanks. I have always gotten bored doing really light weights so they have mostly been a warm up for me, plus I was never big on going to failure due to a fear of over training so I work within certain ranges. I will look into it.

I hear you baby Herc, but this seemed to be a welll written article by what seemed to be an intelligent bodybuilder. And I will say I to experienced a set back this summer with some strange clavicle or trapezius injury nobody can seem to solve. So or course that is when the "I am getting to old for this thought pops into my head." But if not for this right shoulder thing, I would be able to go head to head with anyone in my gym who is half my age. I am able to lift lighter weights but I have dropped a good 8-10 lbs of muscle in the process. It is not like I was huge to begin with. I was only 212 lbs at 6'2" over the summer. Bottom line is that I find I can not maintain size nor look impressive unless I am throwing around big weights. For example, I can't do bench press without pain in my right trap, so dumbell presses feel easier on my shoulders. That said, I know I will not start to see the muscle back on my upper body untill I can get up to 100 lb DBs or heavier in the DB press. It doesn't matter how good my technique is with the light weights, I don't get the impressive appearance untill I start working with the heavy weights and mostly in the big compound free weight movements. -Rich