Think_machine

If you started lifting in the last three months, you probably gained more mass in the legs than anywhere else. Second largest muscle group would be the back. So your body is adjusting to those proportions. If your are currently doing ten rep sets, try going to five reps with more sets, and heavier weight to blast through your plateau. Negative dips do well in this area for me. You could be over-training but that is impossible to tell through the internet.

No, and if you already have some weight around the ends then having super developed abs will make it look even worse. Less fat works the best. eating smaller portions will help naturally vacuum the midsection by holding less girth... some actually swear by the stomach vacuum technique and say it takes off 2 or 3 inches at the navel if trained correctly (personally I like it but I never measure at the navel).

I like vega too, but it is expensive... I would add glutamine, d-aspartic acid, histidine, arginine and a dash of branch chains to even out a brown rice protein. or use pea protein and rice protein mixed

Here it is, I am flexing abs in this pic. It looks terrible, like 9-10%you body fat, but i have been pinching myself and taking 3 site skin fold tests every day since i have access to the equipment any time i want. As I stated, i am actually at 6.6% or less so this is really freaking sad, guys. Do you think I am measuring wrong or something? should I start doing the 7 site skin fold test? P.S. my gyno looks worse as I trim down, how much will this effect my scoring?

You're right... but isn't there some sort of limit? I was at about a 1,000 calorie deficit yesterday and i measured 6.6% body fat two days ago. Is this just water weight? Should I cut all my sodium and carbs for a couple days? I will post a picture from this morning

You're very right, Gaia. mTor has become a buzzword lately. Unfortunately, other studies show that leucine helps mitochondrial proliferation, which is a really good thing. At the end of the day, I guess I'm confused why they would post an article so controversial and abstract about something like this on a bodybuilding website (without much more evidence for the claim)

1. Buy some Fat Gripz 2. Place Fat Gripz around 30lb dumbbells 3. Hold dumbbells for 30 seconds or to failure, take a 30 second break and repeat for a total of 8 sets 4. Repeat daily and increase weight by 5 pounds and seconds by 10 each week. I just started using these today, and I could only hold the 120 pound weight with a fat grip on it for about two seconds before it slipped right out of my hand. My goal is to be able to hold that thing all day. This is what I'm doing and what a friend (who has huge forearms) told me to do. Although it seems like some bro science, the same principle (overreaching into what I believed was over-training) has helped me to recently make significant and quick changes to my calf development.

I've experimented with all these. I guess the moral is to spread the love around and use multiple variations to emphasize certain muscles or parts of the muscle.

Right on. I agree with this because there are only three things you can do to a muscle; increase the mass, decrease the mass or increase the amount of fibers activated. Toning has a lot of meanings but I think (and correct me if I'm wrong here) that toning is just another word for cutting. In order for muscles to stand out more, they must either increase in size or have less fat covering them and at the end of the day, these are the only variables that we have control over. (shape, striation depth and pattern, etc. are all genetically determined). So the real question is, are you bulking or cutting (toning)? But to the original question... Is it possible that as muscle becomes firm (not big) weight will increase? Not really. If someone is very fat then maybe the intramuscular fat stores would shrink when they lose weight. Other than that, your muscles actually get lighter compared to their strength, since training does increase the amount of muscle fibers at command over time. Muscle density is genetically determined. Also, muscle does get bigger as it becomes more firm! Muscles get firm when they are full of glycogen (sugar water) but they are also getting larger... I believe you are asking about muscle density. If you want more dense muscle, dehydrate yourself. Think of the way a dry sponge expands with water, the water is like the glycogen. If you take the water out, the muscle shrinks, and is therefore more dense. Also less healthy since muscles are over 70% water...

I just read this article that I ran into on the home page, written by our own Derek Tresize: http://veganbodybuilding.com/?page=article_derek_011 Here is a quote that sums up the biggest concern, "A multitude of research dating back to the 1930s has shown that caloric restriction (reducing daily caloric intake by ~30%) can extend the lifespan of a wide range of species from insects to primates, and quite possibly humans as well. A new study published last year in the prestigious journal Nature pointed to one reason caloric restriction might work: reduced leucine intake. That's right, it's possible that the exact same biochemical process that leucine stimulates to generate new muscle mass is also responsible for accelerating the aging process. This is kind of crappy because if these research studies are true, then We should all stop trying to be bodybuilders for health reasons. The extra leucine would be needed for to maintain the extra muscle, so the bigger you are, the higher the risk." His sources: SC Johnson, PS Rabinovitch, M Kaeberlein. mTOR is a key modulator of ageing and age-related disease. Nature. 2013 493(7432):338 - 345. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23325216 L Yan, R. F. Lamb. Amino acid sensing and regulation of mTORC1. Semin Cell Dev Biol. 2012 23(6):621 - 625. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22342805 BTW, I just finished another tub of the stuff yesterday

Does anyone else do bent over rows with their back perfectly parallel to the ground? I just started doing them this way a couple months ago, and they are way more difficult. I return the bar to the ground on each rep and make sure it also touches my chest, so I end up using less weight, yet it is more difficult and uses the lower back a lot for stability. I feel like the difficulty should translate to better strength gains in rowing movements, but is this a superior or inferior way to preform the exercise for the sake of middle back hypertrophy? It sure feels better than just being bent over at a 45 degree angle.

My thought would be to use a protein that doesn't have much sodium. You can make a custom blend of most of your favorite protein powders at truenutrition.com, I actually get mine as unflavored and unsweetened brown rice/pea protein powder. Basically, no additives, flavoring chemicals, etc... It has only 97mg of sodium in a 30g scoop with 24.5g of actual protein per scoop

Could be bad if you're talking about a rotator cuff injury or strain, make sure you're not going below parallel with your elbow angle. Too much stress on the shoulders... And maybe don't do them for a while, let your shoulders gut a full heal for a week or two just to be safe? If it's just typical muscle soreness, then you will adapt.

I like to do two or three heavy compound exercises for any given day, then exercises to individually target each muscle, then another compound lift to finish. So back day for me is pull ups, bent over rows, one arm dumbbell rows, reverse flys, deadlift. chest and tris day is incline dumbbell press, tricep dips, decline bench press, reverse tricep pressdowns, incline flys (for weak point training), one arm cable pressdowns (for weak point training), one arm incline cable crosseovers (for weak point training) and push up-plus (shoulder rotation at the end of the pushup for serratus activation.)

Nope, that's called eating right. But the stomach vacuum looks awesome!

OK, I do train with intensity already, I like the heavy duty lifting approach. I have done a few high volume days, just to keep the body guessing. Truthfully, I want to diet down to 5% to see what I need to shape up (If all goes well, I will do my first bodybuilding competition this October). Isn't 5% body fat the point where you start to get the striations in your glutes and obliques?

Hey guys, I need advice. I am around 10% body fat according to my last body fat test. We use the 7 site skin fold test which is pretty accurate. My issue is that I still don't have a six pack... an I see several guys waking around at 13-15% body fat with six pack abs! I'm confused. I was under the impression that six packs require single digit body fat. I have lost even more fat the past couple weeks, and five pounds. Still no six pack! I am getting frustrated now. What can I do about this pot belly syndrome? Is is just water weight or am I literally storing the last few percentage points solely in my gut? Because the rest of my body looks extremely cut... in fact people are baffled when they realized I don't have a six pack. HELP!

Thanks! I need to start weak point training to balance out though. Calves, traps, triceps and forearms are kind of lagging

Thanks guys! I have been so dedicated and it is so releaving to finally see the results! Now I'm obsessed with it and bodybuilding is my life. I will continue onward and hopefully be ready to compete toward the end of the year.

Ill do another progress report on my 24th birthday (july 5th) in which I hope to be atshirtless 200 pounds while retaining the same body fat percentage (9%)

I also have a legs shot and a back shot from yesterday

This is a picture from only seven days ago. Bigger, just not nearly big enough!

All I want is to get to 220lose lbs, raw muscle! That means I need to gain 25-30 lbs as of now. This is my picture 7 months ago, -30 lbs. ago and quite homely looking!

So I messed up. I could not resist the temptation to keep training with people at my gym. I went back to training with volume and have seen ZERO improvement for the last three weeks. I feel like an idiot. Heavy duty training is clearly doing things for me that nothing else has ever done, so it's back to HIT for me... I will update in three more weeks. If I see more gains, I will be sticking to the heavy duty principles for the rest of my life!

I've been applying rest days much more liberally with my new program and I think it is working for me better than I could have imagined. I got 5x5 with 205 on bench press, which is a 20 pound improvement from 3 weeks ago. I also gained an inch on my arms within the last two weeks!