Weight and Muscle Goals: January – March 2010

It is already 3 weeks into the new quarter and I did not yet write my goals. I have it in my mind. it is just that I did not put it down on paper yet. So for the next 3 months my goal is to gain 3 lbs of fat while maintaining the same weight. It simply means I will have to convert 3 lbs of fat into muscle! Here are the raw numbers

January 1, 2010: Baseline
Weight: 125.6 lbs
Fat %: 12.5%
Fat: 15.7 lbs
Lean Mass: 109.9 lbs

Note that I am using the caliper measurement for fat. I don’t think I can rely on the omron body fat monitor. I will still keep track of the fat numbers from omron fat monitor daily but I probably will not use them in any calculations. Since I cannot take the caliper measurement everyday I will use the fat % number that is closest to a particular date I am refering to.

March 31, 2010: Goal
Weight: 125.6 lbs
Fat %: 10.11%
Fat: 12.7 lbs
Lean Mass: 112.9 lbs

Change in 3 months
Weight: 0
Fat %: 2.39 %
Fat: -3 lbs
Muscle: 3 lbs

I will try and not lose more fat at the expense of muscle. So it will be ok if I don’t lose the 3 lbs of fat, but I definitely do want to gain the 3 lbs of muscle. We will see how that goes…

Filed under: body fat, goals, muscle gain, weight gain

Is it possible to gain 55 lbs of muscle in 12 months?

Genetics play an important role in how you look and how much muscle you gain. All things remaining same a person with better genetics can gain more muscle than one without the gifted genetics. But what kind of genetics does a guy possess if he can gain 55 lbs of muscle in 12 months? I have no idea! But this guy over at bodybuilding.com claims to have done just that. Unbelievable.

He kind of dwarfs my measly goal of gaining 20 lb of muscle in a year. And even that is a stretch goal for me. I kept it intentionally high in the hopes that I will at least be able to do the minimum of 12 lbs of muscle in a year. He says that he did not use any steroids, and I believe him. I think it is possible to gain so much muscle with proper training, rest and nutrition and most importantly good genetics. I wish he had a blog where he wrote his daily routine and nutrition.

One thing is clear genetics play a huge role. I don’t wish I had that kind of genetics. It is more fun and challenging with my weaker genes. However I do wish he wrote a blog. It would have served both as an inspiration and as a checklist to mark off things that I am doing right. There are some questions that nobody can answer properly for ectomorphs, like is it better to bulk up a lot (example for a year) before leaning or is it better to bulk and lean every couple of months? How much body fat % can you hit before starting to get worried? I have no answers. Just experiences.

Filed under: ectomorph, genetics, inspirational story, muscle gain

Relation between muscle and lifts

I found this interesting article, that tries to form a relation between muscle gain and the gain in the lifts. In the article the author gives a very simple relation between the amount of muscle you gain and the increase in 1 rep max weights for deadlift, squat and bench press. While it may not be accurate and perhaps not applicable to everyone it gives us a chance to formulate and set good goals.

According to the author if you gain x lbs of muscle then you should be able to lift 4.5 times x lbs more weight in your deadlift. So for every lb of muscle you gain you should life 4.5 lbs more than you did before the gain. All the calculations are based on 1 rep max. Similarly for every lb of muscle you gain you should be able to sqaut about 4 lb more and bench press about 3 lb more.

So for my next muscle gaining phase I will use this information and come up with better goals for my deadlifts, squats and bench press.

Filed under: bench press, deadlifts, lifts, muscle gain, squats

I live by the numbers: Compound Exercises

In my previous post I wrote about my body weight, muscle weight and fat % goals. Today I will write about my weight training goals, in particular about my compound exercise goals. If I have to choose the 5 best exercises I would choose the following exercises and in that order

• Squats
• Deadlifts
• Bench Press
• Pull ups
• Overhead Press

It is very easy to understand why I like them. These are the exercises where I can lift heavy. Heavy like lifting close to or more than your body weight. Lifting so much weight simply means one thing, those exercise require more number of muscles and also mostly bigger muscles. One cannot bicep curl one’s body weight. The muscle is way too small and no other big muscles are involved. Also the distance these weights are moved is big. Work done is weight times the displacement. So you do more work moving the weights to a longer distance. Engaging more muscles means more hormone response, more repair and more muscles!

Now back to my goals. On October 1, 2009 this is what I could lift in my first work set

• Squats: 150 lbs, 10 reps
• Deadlifts: 170 lbs, 10 reps
• Bench Press: 90 lbs, 10 reps
• Pull ups: Body Weight + 15 lb, 10 reps
• Overhead Press: 60 lb, 10 reps

And this is my goal by the end of December 2009

• Squats: 185 lbs, 8 reps
• Deadlifts: 200 lbs, 8 reps
• Bench Press: 120 lbs, 8 reps
• Pull ups: Body Weight + 25 lbs, 8 reps
• Overhead Press: 85 lbs, 8 reps

Let us see if I can reach my goals. I am confident that I can.

Filed under: bench press, best exercise, deadlifts, goals, muscle gain, squats