The real muscle and fat gain: October – December 2009

I was having trouble believing the fat numbers using my omron fat monitor, so I analyzed my numbers using the measurements taken with the body fat calipers. There is a world of difference. These numbers are more believable. Makes me think if I should just stop checking fat % using omoron body fat analyzer. It will be an expensive body weight scale then.

I take fat caliper measurements every weekend only. As a result I cannot show the pretty graphs that I usually have in my posts because there will only be 4 data points per month. Anyway here are the numbers again but with body fat calipers.

October 1, 2009 Stats

• Weight: 118.51 lbs
• Fat %: 8.74%
• Fat: 10.64 lbs
• Lean Mass: 108.15 lbs

December 31, 2009 Stats

• Weight: 126 lbs
• Fat %: 11.6%
• Fat: 14.62 lbs
• Lean Mass: 111.38 lbs

Change in 3 months

• Weight: 7.49 lbs
• Fat %: 2.86%
• Fat: 4.26 lbs
• Lean Mass: 3.23 lbs

Those are much better numbers. When I set the goals I wanted to gain 3.75 lbs of muscle while limiting the fat gain to 3.25 lbs. I came close to that goal. I gained about 3.23 lbs of muscle and 4.26 lbs of fat. In retrospect I should have been careful with my fat gain, but overall I did good. Not as bad as my previous analysis led me to believe

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Missing gym due to work related travel

I will miss my gym all this week as I am on a work related travel. As a matter of fact I am typing this post in the flight (go to love free wifi on virgin america airlines during this holiday season . I feel bad that I have to take another recovery week because I took one just a couple of weeks ago. Actually there is a gym in the hotel I will be staying in, but I don’t think I will have enough energy after coming back from work to go to the gym. These business trips usually mean that I have to put a lot of time at work and get things moving as quickly as possible.

I might do some push-ups and squats with my luggage though . Just to remind my body to keep the muscle during this week. Although this is an unexpected break, it may still be good. Since my left arm has been creating problems for my shoulder press, I hope this time will be put to good use by my body to repair the damage.

My calories intake might also suffer now that I cannot have my protein shake first thing in the morning and I am not sure what I can get to eat and when. It is the end of the month, so time for another update of stats of my lifts, weight and fat percentage. Stats in my next blog. I just have to keep reminding myself to eat a lot and rest well. Had a pizza at the airport just before boarding the flight. So I have to get used to the just food then.

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Why does my bench press suck?

I have been benching for the last 5 months. Yet I am still not able to bench press a plate. What is wrong? I always believed and still believe that one should be able to bench press (1 rep max) 1.25 times his lean body weight. I mean it will not happen over night, but from what I heard the progress is pretty quick and one should be able to add 5 lbs to his bench press every week until the 1.25 times body weight limit. Then it becomes challenging to go upward from there. But it has not been the case for me.

My current body weight is about 121 lbs at 12% body fat. Which means I have about 106 lbs of lean body weight. Multiply it with 1.25 and you get 132 lbs. But I am currently able to bench press only 110 lbs and I get about 4 reps which correlates to about 120 lbs 1 rep max. Why is it so hard for me already. I am unable to increase my bench press by 5 lb every week. It is kind of a slow process. More like 5 lb every 2 or 3 weeks is where I am at currently. Am I doing something wrong?

I have read through “Starting Strength” a couple of times and tried to perfect my form. But I might still be missing a few things. Right now I don’t place my hands wide on the bar. Most people place their middle finger on the groves. I tried that but for some reason my rotator cuff used to hurt a lot when I used such a wide grip. So I started putting my pinky finger to the left of the grove because I have a small frame. Now my rotator cuff does not hurt as much. However I suspect that I probably should go even narrower (at the risk of working my triceps more and chest less). For the following 4 weeks I will use a narrower grip and see how things go.

As I go through my own self designed weight training I keep experimenting with various things. This is one more of those tweaks. Let us see if it helps me move the bench press barrier a little higher a little quicker. I just wish someone would have gone through what I am going through now and told me the solution. But after scouring the internet I found no one wrote any experiences. So I am hoping at least my blog will be the thing that will help others like me.

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The diet

I believe that diet and rest constitute to 70% of the mass gain, rest of the 30% is exercise. So what you put in your mouth is more important than what you lift at gym. I am also a strong believer in eating natural food and try not to depend too much on supplements. Supplements should be the last 10% of the diet. The only supplement I use regularly is Optimum Nutrition Whey. The other supplements I use from time to time are SportPharma Multi V vitamin tablets, CLIF builders bar and Optimum Nutrition Casein Protein. My daily diet consists of:

Morning snack (because I don’t have time in the morning as I rush to work)
1/2 glass 2% reduced fat milk
1 table spoon honey
1 scoop (about 24 grams) ON whey protein powder
1/2 glass water
I mix all the above and drink it first thing in the morning right after I brush my teeth. About 30 minutes later I drink 500 ml of water.

Breakfast
1 cup cereals with 2% reduced fat milk and muffin
or bagel with cream and 1 muffin
or waffles with chocolate syrup and grapes

During Workout
CLIF builder bar

Lunch
Whatever I can find with a mix of 40:40:20 protein:carb:fat ratio. Usually this is white rice, any vegetables, and eggs or chicken, or lamb or goat.
On workout days I take 1 multi V tablet

Evening snack
1 glass of milk
Fruits (banana or grapes or strawberries or whatever I can find and in the mood to eat) or cereals

Night
Same as lunch. What ever I can find. No particular choice.
Some fruits and nuts depending on how hungry I am after dinner.

Late Night snack just before sleep (very rarely if I feel I might get hungry in the night)
1 scoop ON casein powder mixed in 1 glass of water

Thats it. When I eat cereals it is usually a mix of equal measures of raisin bran, cheerios and all bran. I usually tend to eat anywhere between 1700 to 1900 calories a day. I don’t count them anymore. I know from my past experience of comprehensive records that I am eating about 1800 calories on average.

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I live by the numbers: Weight and Muscle Goals

Like most people who are dead serious about body building, I too believe in setting goals and trying to reach them. The goals should not be too easy neither should they be too ambitious. And the goals will always be measurable and be limited by time. So we come to the topic of numbers. I live by the numbers. In this post I will tell you what my goals are how I arrived at those numbers.

Baseline and Time
Taking my current weight and fat % as my starting point, I set myself a difficult yet reachable goal for a time period of 3 months. My weight on October 1, 2009 was 118 lbs at 10% body fat. Here is the data I have now:

Time = 3 months
Current Weight = 118 lbs
Current Fat % = 10%
Current Fat Mass = Current Fat % x Current Weight = 10% x 118 = 11.8 lb
Current Muscle Mass = Current Weight – Current Fat Mass = 118 – 11.8 = 106.2 lb

Muscle Gain Goal
Now since I know the deadline which is in 3 months and taking the somewhat commonly agreed muscle growth number of 1 to 1.5 lbs/month I arrive at the muscle mass I can put on in 3 months. Which is 3 to 4.5 lbs. I wanted this to be a bit challenging but not too challenging so I took a mass gain of 1.25 lbs/month.

Time = 3 months
Muscle Gain Per Month = 1.25 lbs/month
Muscle Gain = Muscle Gain Per Month x Time = 1.25 x 3 = 3.75 lb
Target Muscle Mass = Current Muscle Mass + Muscle Gain = 106.2 + 3.75 = 110 lb

Weight Gain Goal
Since I will inevitable gain some fat during a mass gain program I am willing to allow my fat % to go up to 12% by the end of 3 months. That is a 2% increase in fat percentage. I am very skeptical that I can keep my body fat percentage so low while gaining mass, but we will see after this experiment and I can make better calculations for the next time. There are usually no good limits to how much fat you can gain. You can gain a lot of fat if you just eat all day long. So here are the calculations for target weight:

Target Muscle Mass = 110 lbs
Target Fat % = 12%
Target Fat Mass = Target Weight x Target Fat %
Target Weight = Target Muscle Mass + Target Fat Mass
Target Weight = Target Muscle Mass + Target Weight x Target Fat % 
Target Weight = 110 + Target Weight x 0.12
Target Weight = 110 / .88 = 125 lb

There you have it so my target goals here once again:

Target Weight  = 125 lb
Target Muscle Gain = 3.75 lb
Target Fat Gain = 3.25 lb

Let us see if I can really reach my goals as I set forth.

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Going to the gym

Having a home gym is a very convenient. But there are some advantages to going to gyms outside your home. Like the experience I had today. I usually go to gym at my work place along with a few of my colleagues. You can recognize me from the tiny speck walking along with a bunch of huge guys. I say tiny not only because I am this short dude walking with 6′ guys but also because they are huge, weighing in at 1.5 times my weight. So when I go with them I always have a spotter. Usually my bench press weight is like their ez-bar bicep curl .

However today every one was busy so I had no choice but to go alone. And the main reason for me to quit home gym and go to gym at work is that I can have a spotter so I can lift much heavier weights without the fear of hurting myself. Today that was not the case. I went anyway hoping to do some light weights. The gym was pretty empty. Today is my shoulders and traps workout day. I wanted to start with shoulder press. There was one guy who was using the chair to do shoulder press ahead of me. After the initial greetings I asked if I could join. He was ok with it. I was not sure if I should ask him to spot me because today is a big day. I was planning to do shoulder press with 40 lb dumbbell in each hand. That may be a tiny weight for most people but for a skinny dude like me it is very scary. 

I did do the first set without much problem although my hands were shivering under the weights as I moved them up and down. For my second set I was struggling mid rep on my 5th rep and this guy came quickly to my aid and helped me push through the rep. For the third set he stood behind me and spotted me through the whole set even encouraging me every rep. This is the fun part about working out in a gym. Random people who you barely know come to your aid and encourage you when you are struggling. Of course there are another set of people who would laugh when I try to bench press with a 25 lb on either side of the barbell. The point I am trying to drive home I guess is that there are 2 sides to a coin .

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I might have hurt my back

Yesterday I did some chest and tricep exercises. I also did heavy squats. And today I was feeling very tired. My legs were hurting a bit when I step up or down. But that pain is nothing compared to my back pain. My lower back has been in rough weather since monday when I did deadlifts. Then on tuesday I did shoulder press which also put some stress on my lower back. On wednesday I did some hanging leg raise for my abs, but the negatives also applied stress on my back. Come thursday it was squats time. And everyone knows how many muscles it uses. It goes with out saying my back was getting a good pounding.

And finally today I did rows and back extensions. Back move man. The rows hurt a little but I did not do heavy weights nor did I push myself. But then came back extensions which I did with a 60 lb dumbbell in my hands. That is the last straw. Although I completed all the sets, my back is taking revenge on me now. I am feeling a lot of pain from mid to lower back and I might have sprained something or torn the muscles. Bad. Very bad. Weight training is supposed to create micro tears in the muscle and let them recover.

Now I feel like I am coming down with something. I am not sure if I have fever but it feels like I have it. I have the chills too. My body is ordering me to sleep and take rest. My legs which did not hurt much in the morning started to hurt a lot more a couple of hours after my workout even though I did not do any leg exercises. I could not eat much for lunch. And I know that is going to come haunt me. For a skinny guy every meal is important. A couple of months ago when I fell sick I lost 3 lbs in 4 days that I was sick. It could just be mostly water but I am sure I lost some muscle too.

Injuries are bad. Once you have an injury you have to stop working out that body part and not let any other exercise put stress on it. Since back muscles are core muscles it means I will not be able to do many compound exercises if I have really hurt myself. I had similar problem when I hurt my shoulder doing benchpress and now I lost a lot of time on that. I have to be more careful from next time. This post should be that bitter reminder.

Am I putting too much stress on my back? Almost everyday my back gets a workout directly or indirectly. So may be I should avoid back isolation exercises like the back extensions. Let us see. Now off to taking rest. I just hope I can recover completely.

Filed under: Uncategorized, injuries, workout

I have been called many names

In the past and still I have been called many names. Every time I step into the gym I just have to get used to the fact that I will be called names because of my stick figure and the amount of weight I lift. Chicken legs and pencil neck were rarely used on me. No. When I lift weights I am what they call as lifting like a girl. Or lifting the ladies weight. And that trend still continues.

Well if I weigh 120 lb it is not very easy to benchpress with a plate (45 lb) on either side now is it. Due to my small frame the 7 foot olympic bar causes stability issues. Only so much of my muscle is there touching the bench to stabilize the bar. And a weak rotator cuff does not help me at all.

The best advice these strong gym guys can give is “you are not trying hard enough” or “you are not lifting heavy weights, using light weights will take you no where”. These so called advices don’t help me. Guys remember I am skinny. I am not bulky like you with your broad shoulders and bug rib cage. And please believe me when I am saying I am trying my best. I am telling the truth. They have no idea how hard it is for a skinny guy to lift so much weight. How can they not understand I am giving my 100%. I am not acting that I cannot lift. It is not a joke to have a heavy  bar above your body and thinking I will not push it and let it crush my body. No. I am trying my best to push it. I cannot do it.

Well I stopped taking advice from any one now. I just experiment with various routines and workout days and diet and I am trying to find what works best for me. I need not gain 5 lb of muscle a month. I just want to get slightly stronger every week and be able to notice some physical change in 6 months. That is all I ask. Is it too much to ask?

Filed under: Uncategorized, skinny

Chin ups and Pull ups

When I first started P90X I could barely do a couple of chin-ups. But in P90X video I see people doing 15 and 20 reps and that is not just in the first set. They consistently do as many chin-ups in every set. I used to question whether I can ever be so strong. I always hated my chin-up days. Not anymore.

How did I do it? I just kept doing them even though I could only get 2 or 3. When I could not do any more I used to do negatives. For this I would jump to the chin-up bar so that I am in the top most position. Then I slowly came down. I kept doing it for all the sets where I could not get even 1 rep. Coming down slow is the key. I kept doing as many negative reps as I could get without hurting myself.

The next time I did chin-ups I could get 1 or 2 extra reps! That worked very well. I later found another trick that helped me get more energy. The trick is to tighten the abs as I am doing chin-ups. This helped me do a few more reps. I am not doing negatives any more because now I can do 15 reps with my body weight. My goal is not to do 100s of chin-ups. My goal is to become strong, not have more endurance. So I started adding weights to increase my strength.

No matter what you do, never use the assisted chin-ups that you find in most gyms. They simply don’t work unless done right. Negatives are much better. In the gym I have seen people lifting their legs instead of pulling with the hands and thinking they are doing a rep. It simply does not work that way. Also the assist does not help much at the hardest part i.e. when you are at the bottom and gives too much assistance at the top where you don’t need much.

From the chin-up experience I found out is that I should never give up hope and I should simply try to find tricks that work for me to increase strength. Now if I can only find a way to improve my bench press numbers. I suck at it. And currently bench press is my weakest link. I will figure out a way soon.

  

Filed under: Uncategorized, chin ups, pull ups

Weight Set Point

Another interesting article http://www.biologiclabs.com/advice/details.asp?article_id=42

I have a weight set point dominant genetics and it does not help me at all in gaining weight. No matter what I eat it just becomes nothing. My body just does not care about what I eat. It just wants to be at the same weight no matter what I do. The curse of a skinny guy. Is there no solution?

Food:
The author says that skinny guys should just eat and eat like there is no tomorrow until they break the caloric buffer threshold. Beyond which point muscle and weight gain come “thick and fast”. Unfortunately he does not exactly say what the caloric buffer threshold is. He says gaining 10 kgs at a time should help the body keep its new weight while loosing fat. Basically I just have to eat a lot of carbs and proteins and any fat that comes with it. It seems I can eat bad food too after I fill my stomach first with good ones. Intriguing.

Eating frequency:
The author says that I should be eating every 2.5 hours. Each time I should just eat as much as I can. Should never miss a meal. Alright.

Getting ripped:
Skinny guys will have to grow into the weight and not plan on loosing weight. So whatever the new weight, I just have to keep it there while trying to loose fat. Come to think of it, this is what has happened when I was trying to loose fat after reaching a high of 128 lb and 17% body fat. I was able to keep my weight around 127 lb for a long time while loosing fat. Then I got anxious and tried to reduce my calories too much and lost all the hard gained muscle. Here is the data and graph to prove it

As can be seen from the data I was around 127 while going all the way from 17% body fat to 14.4%. I should have done it slowly. The article says that this process can be slow and can take up to 16 week (4 months).  Well I wish I knew about this before. Anyway whatever I do, I should not do cardio at all. Got it.

Training:
Skinny guys have high metabolism which means that they can recover faster. It also means they can detrain pretty quickly too. So I have to train more often and each time I train I have to lift as heavy as possible in just a few sets. Should be doing just a few exercises per day but should train more often. The article recommends training each body part every 3 to 4 days. This works excellently well with what I planned for my workouts. Less sets and exercises, more weights and more often. Done.

So there seems to be a solution for us skinny folks. First eat a lot. I mean a lot. Then train frequently with heavy weights in low sets. Don’t overtrain. I will keep all of this in mind.
 

Filed under: Uncategorized, hard gainers, skinny, weight set point