Back to the Future

With my last post I have completed recollecting my past bulking and leaning phases. Now to the present. After my first round of bulking and leaning I understood my body more. I still am not sure what is the best formula for leaning. However I think I have a better understanding of how to bulk up. Since it has been over 4 months of leaning I decided to switch to bulking phase now. Starting this week I am increasing my calorie intake and see if I can lift more weights.

Here is what I found out about me when bulking:
I should not be overeating suddenly but instead increase my calorie intake slowly and let me body see the change in calories. I should be eating more carbs than either fats or proteins. In fact I decided on 60% carbs, 20% protein and 20% fat ratios. Without all the carbs my body hates me. I have headaches and feel very tired. I should reduce the number of exercises, sets and reps. Instead I should concentrate on lifting heavy with low number of reps. Since my body recovers quickly if I don’t overdo, I should reduce the number of sets. To reduce the production of cortisol I have to finish the workout in 45 mins. That means I have to reduce the number of exercises. If my body can recover quickly with the reduced, sets, reps and exercises I am hoping I can do workout everyday, hitting all muscles twice in a week.

Accordingly my current workout plan is to do:

• 6 to 10 reps per set
• 3 sets per exercise
• 3 exercises working different muscle groups per day
• 6 workout days per week

I tried to add as many compound exercises as possible

• Monday: Chest, Lower Back, Triceps
• Decline bench press
• Deadlifts
• Dips
• Tuesday: Middle Back, Abs, Biceps
• Rows
• Crunches
• Ez Bar Bicep Curl
• Wednesday: Shoulder, Traps, Legs
• Seated Dumbell Shoulder Press
• Barbell Upright Rows
• Calf Press
• Thursday: Chest, Legs, Triceps
• Benchpress
• Squats
• Seated Dumbbell Tricep Press
• Friday: Upper Back, Lower Back, Biceps
• Wide Grip Pull-ups
• Back Extensions
• Dumbbell Bicep Curls
• Saturday: Shoulder, Traps, Shoulder Joints
• Military Press
• Dumbbell Upright Rows
• Random shoulder joint exercises

We will have to see how things go. I did very well in my exercises today and I am not too tired. With just 3 exercises, going to gym is more fun. Not as stressful at all. My muscles also did not feel the burn as much as I usually do.

Filed under: Uncategorized, skinny, strength training, workout

Strong lifts was a good experience

After doing strong lifts for 3 months, I was very satified with the results. I did not become huge but I did become strong and I was more confident about myself. During the strong lifts phase I made a small home gym with all the barbells and weights. I always worked out at home after coming back from work. I was very shy to go to gym because I was so skinny. I was worried that everyone will make fun of me if I could not even benchpress the empty bar that weights 45 lbs.

Strong lifts helped me come out of my shell. So I decided to go to gym at my workplace along with my colleagues who have been asking me to join them ever since I told them I wanted to become strong back in december 2008. Since I have gym partners now I wanted to do what they were doing so we can spot each other at one place instead of me running all over the gym with the strong lifts routine. That was the main reason I stopped doing strong lifts.

It was fun while it lasted though. I would definitely recommend any skinny guy to start with strong lifts. Definitely not P90X . In my next blog I will try to upload some before after photos.

Filed under: Uncategorized, muscle gain, strength training, strong lifts

Strong Lifts 5×5 log

I started strongs lifts on Februry 23, 2009 and ended it about 3 months later on May 13, 2009. Here are the logs of my workouts by day and weight lifted.

 

All the weights are in lbs. The cells marked with a blue background indicate that I could not do 5×5 and so I had to repeat those weights. As you can see I had some good progress overall. I never did squats and now I know what those are and how much I can squat. Bench press has always been my weakest workout. I could not go over the 100 lb weight (even today). For push-ups I used a weighing scale below my hands and checked how much weight gets exerted on it when I try to do a push-up. The scales showed 70 lb (I weight 120 lb). So I am not lifting my full body weight when I am doing push-ups. I was able to do 3 sets of 5 reps each. Then for my next push-up day I kept a 5 lb plate on my back and did my push-ups. If I was able to do 3×5 then for the next time I added another 5 lb plate and so on. That is how I got those numbers for my push-ups.

More logs here

For chin-ups and pull-ups it is the same thing again. If I could do 3×5 with my body weight then I would hang a 5 lb to my waist and do them. Did not go too far with my pull-ups before I gave up.

That’s it for now. Fat and weight numbers in my next blog.

Filed under: Uncategorized, muscle, strength gain, strength training, strong lifts