The Numbers: January 2010

I was so busy this month that I did not know when the month started and ended! Time just flew. As I mentioned in my previous blog this quarter I am trying to get rid of some of the fat that I gained during my bulking phase from October to December 2009. The goal was to lose 1 lb of fat while gaining 1 lb of muscle during the same time. Basically replace fat with muscle pound per pound.

Here are the raw numbers for the month of January

• Weight: 124.26 lbs
  
• Fat %: 10.99%
• Fat: 13.66 lbs
• Lean mass: 110.60 lbs
• Weight change: -1.34 lbs
• Fat % change: 1.51%
• Fat change: -2.04 lbs
  
• Muscle change: 0.7 lbs

The program did not go as planned. I lost 2 lbs of fat which is great! But on the flip side I was able to gain only 0.7 lbs of muscle instead of the planned 1 lb. The main reason is that I got very busy at work and could not give enough attention to my diet. I ate only when I felt hungry. However I did not miss a single workout during that very busy month.

I have to be more careful from next month. Eat a bit more yet be slightly below my daily calorific requirements so I can continue to lose fat.

Filed under: exercise, fat, lean mass, muscle, numbers, reps, stats, weigh

Before and After Pics: Sep 2009 – Dec 2009

Another transformation picture session. In three months I gained a lot of weight and a lot of fat too. Sorry the after picture isn’t clear.

Date: 26 September 2009 – Weight: 117.5 lbs – Fat: 10.34%

Date: 26 December 2009 – Weight: 126 lbs – Fat: 15%

I see some changes. Not a lot. I gained some fat that is very visible in the after shot and some muscle too. I can still see the ab definition ever so slightly. Overall I am not very satisfied with the amount of change I see in 3 months. I hoped I would have more muscle and look a lot bigger. Oh well I have to remember that I am an ectomorph and every little helps.

Filed under: before after pictures, fat, lean, muscle

The Numbers: December 2009

Time for some numbers now that december 2009 has come to an end. Not just the month, but the year and decade as well have come to an end. In december again I have gained a lot of fat while I gained very little weight. The reason mainly is because I reduced the amount of calories to a more “maintain weight” level.

Body weight and fat gain for the month of December, 2009

• Weight: 126.00 lbs
  
• Fat %: 15.51%
  
• Lean mass: 106.46 lbs
  
• Weight gain: 1.46 lbs
  
• Fat % gain: 1.48%
  
• Lean mass gain: -0.61 lbs

It is indeed strange that I have lost muscle. Unfortunately since I am doing slow tempo reps I am using lower weights so I cannot be sure if I really lost muscle or it is just an error in the body fat analyzer. I have a theory that my body fat analyzer has a lag in noticing the fat% change. When I gain weight I usually don’t see a quick gain in fat. It comes after a few days of the weight increase. So I am assuming I will see the fat reduction will come a little later after the weight has remained constant for a while. Only time will tell.

Ever since I started using a slower tempo I am unable to lift a lot of weight for the same number of reps that I used to do. Here are the latest numbers.

Exercises

• Squats: 150 lbs, 9 reps
• Deadlift: 185 lbs, 8 reps
• Bench Press: 100 lbs, 7 reps
• Pull-ups: 120 lbs, 9 reps
  
• Overhead Press: 70 lbs, 6 reps
  

All the weights have gone down, but I am getting a better pump. I would like to continue this on for a few more weeks and then I will switch to strength training. That is it for this post. Not a lot of improvements but I am closer to my target than when I started three months ago.

Filed under: exercise, fat, lean mass, muscle, numbers, reps, stats, weight

Time Under Tension Changes

I have made some good progress so far as my strength and weight goals are concerned. Although I did not reach any of my strength goals I am very close to achieving them. Almost a week into December and I already reached my weight goal of 125 lbs. That means I gained a whopping 6 lbs in 3 months (for an ectomorph that is a big deal believe me). However along the road I gained a huge amount of fat too. A full 3.5% to be precise.

In the past 2 months and 1 week I have only concentrated on increasing the strength. Always performed the exercises with quick bursts of energy when lifting and quickly bringing the weight down in the negatives. So the time under tension was very low. Perhaps around 2 to 3 seconds per rep. Total time under tension for a set was around 10 to 30 seconds depending on the reps. As a result I could keep adding weights more often and kept going. Now that I have reached a certain point in my strength I want to concentrate more on form and letting my central nervous system cope up with the increased stress. For this reason and also to help me burn more calories I am planning to switch over to longer time under tension and using lower weights.

That means I will not be getting any stronger, but I am prepping myself for the next bout of strength training. I am planning to do this for a month and a half. But I may go longer or shorter depending on how my body responds. For now that is the plan. The new tempo will be 3 seconds on negative contraction, 1 seconds at the lowest point, 1-2 seconds for the positive contraction and then one more second at the highest point. This will give me around 6 to 7 seconds of time under tension per rep. The total time under tension will be anywhere from 30 to 60 seconds depending on how many reps I can do.

I also believe that more time under stress means that more time for the blood to rush into various parts of the muscles and increases capillarity. Of course like almost all research in body building, no one knows for sure if the capillarity truly improves with increased time under tension, but from my experience it does work for me. I have seen more vascularity with more time under tension when I performed it before. More vascularity means more blood to muscles and more endurance.

So off to my new regiment. I perhaps will not be able to reach my strength goals because of this change, but I may be able to reduce the fat %. Who knows. Only time will tell…

Filed under: capillarity, fat, strength, time under tension, vascularity, weight

The numbers: November 2009

It is past end of November and time for some more numbers. Over all this month went well. I did gain a lot of weight, however I far exceeded my fat % limit. I know for sure that I will reach my weight goal but at the same time I will fail miserably in my fat % goal. Anyway here are the numbers for my weight and fat % at the end of November

Body weight and fat gain in 1 month

• Weight: 124.54 lbs
• Fat %: 14.03 %
• Lean mass: 107.07 lbs
• Weight gain: 3.74 lbs
• Fat % gain: 1.83%
• Lean mass gain: 1.01 lb

I was able to put on 4 lbs of weight, but at what cost? I added 2.73 lbs of fat just to gain a mediocre 1 lb of muscle. At least my body does prove that a gain of 1 lb of muscle a month is about the right rate at which I can gain muscle. Not everything is gloomy though, I am very close to reaching my weight goal of 125 lbs by the end of December! I will have to do something about the fat % though.

My weights have also steadily increased, albeit very slowly. Here are the numbers for my lifts

Exercises

• Squats: 175 lbs, 7 reps (+5 lbs)
• Deadlifts: 190 lbs, 10 reps (+5 lbs)
• Bench Press: 115 lbs, 5 reps (+5 lbs)
• Pull ups: body weight + 27.5 lbs, 6 reps (+2.5 lbs)
• Overhead Press: 75 lbs, 9 reps (+0 lbs)

All the lifts have increased by a very slight amount. I was able to add 5 lbs to most of the exercises in 1 month. Actually I took 1 week off for recovery so it is really 3 weeks worth of progress. Not very impressive. I skipped doing pull-ups a couple of times last month because I already reached my goal, but I plan to do them again this month just to keep working those muscles. The overhead press seems to be the one with least amount of progress. All I could do was add a few reps to the same weight. The main reason is the pain in my left hand when I do overhead press. I think I recovered a bit now. We will see how it goes next week onwards.

I want to do better this month but I already lost 1 week in my business trip where I did not do any exercise. One good thing I did however, is to eat a lot of stuff, so at least my weight did not change much. Graphs in my next post.

Filed under: exercise, fat, numbers, stats, weight

Before and After Pictures – Sep 2009

Here is the transformation from February 2009 to September 2009. This is after I bulked up from March to end of May and then leaned from June to end of September.

February 2009

September 2009

There are some changes that you can notice. During that period I could only gain 0.4 lb of muscle, but lost 3 lbs of fat. Since I took the second photo at my lowest body fat percentage of 10%, you can see very light ab definition in there. Very exciting! But now that I am bulking again the ab definition is slowly disappearing.

Filed under: before after pictures, fat, lean, muscle

Stats for Oct 2009

So it has been a month since I started bulking up. How am I doing so far? Here are the raw numbers

Exercises

• Squats: 170 lbs, 8 reps
• Deadlifts: 185 lbs, 10 reps
• Bench Press: 110 lbs, 4 reps
• Pull ups: Body weight + 25 lbs, 7 reps
• Overhead Press: 75 lbs, 6 reps

I am doing well in all exercises except bench press. The exercise that is already closest to my goal for end of december is my pull-ups. I can already do 7 reps with 25 lbs hanging off my waist! You can check out my previous post for the goals I have set.

Body weight and fat

• Weight: 120.8 lbs
• Fat %: 12.2%

I am able to add weight as expected. But my body fat % shot up too much. My goal for end of december was to weight 125 lbs at 12% body fat. But I am already over the limit for my body fat %. So I have to lower it and at the same time increase my weight. Very unlikely. I might have to revise my goals, but I will see how it goes and hope to make better predictions for my next bulking phase. It is not at all easy to keep the fat down while gaining weight. For my weight and fat goals check out my previous blog here.

Filed under: exercise, fat, stats, weight