Post: #26

(08-11-2011 09:00 PM)AJ Wrote:  

(08-11-2011 05:24 PM)basilransom Wrote:  Gaining weight is like fucking bitches. In order to succeed, you have to stop being a pussy. Hell, half the advice on this forum boils down to "stop being a pussy." For our purposes, that means eating lots and lots of calories: several whole eggs, whole milk if you can stomach it, several strips of bacon, cream, butter, cheese, fish and fatty meats. Forget fucking around with overpriced undersized protein bars. If you really have trouble, make shakes with a cup of heavy whipping cream, that's 800 calories right there. The skinnier you are, the more sugary carbs you can handle without getting fat.

If you're not gaining weight, you're not trying. You'd rather bitch about being skinny than take decisive action. Show me a hardgainer and I'll show you a guy who's putting down a piddling 3000 calories a day.

I don't always eat enough to gain. And I'm not huge by any means. But I don't delude myself that I'm a "hardgainer."

Is what you suggested the best way to go about gaining way in the shortest period of time. Absolutely. I went down a similar route for a couple of months packing hard boiled eggs as snacks, eating only chicken breasts for lunch/dinner and gained a decent amount of weight. But no lies.. it sucked.

That's the exact opposite of what I recommended. You, like many others, focus on protein to the exclusion of everything else. When you eat sizable portions of whole foods, principally animal products, you will never have to worry about protein consumption.

Someone already said it for me:

From 70's Big (like the other quote),

Quote:Listen Skinny Guy, you aren’t trying. You sit down at night and wonder why you aren’t getting stronger as you pick at chicken breast and broccoli. You might even be the guy eating a bowl of cereal for breakfast…like a child.

It’s time to man up Skinny Guy. I don’t like skinny guys, much less you, Skinny Guy. You either think you ought to be skinny like all of the psuedo-manly guys on TV and in movies or you like to be skinny. If you didn’t like being skinny, you’d do something about it. You would take your skinny jeans and skull cap off (you probably wear the skull cap in summer time too), and you would engage in activity that would require you to not be skinny.

Some of you Skinny Guys have actually decided to do something about it, but you haven’t gotten past this phase of BITCHING about everything that goes on. If your name is Skinny Guy and you don’t gain five pounds in the first week of training, then you aren’t trying. Guys in our gym gain 15 pounds in two or three weeks. I have heard some of you rejoice in the fact that you gain five pounds in a month. That disgusts me, Skinny Guy. I know you’ve been skinny your whole life, but get over the fear of gaining some kind of bodyfat. Your name is Skinny Guy for chrissakes! As we have said before, if you have been skinny your whole life, you don’t get to have an opinion on being fat.

Things that are worth doing are typically not easy, but some of you give up and think that you have a special scenario that requires some kind of unique advice that is not A) eat more food, B) squat, press, and deadlift, and C) stop your whiny bitching.

For some reason I have been in a foul mood, and I think it is Skinny Guy’s fault. My patience is wearing thin. If you think you have a form issue with any of your lifts, then pick up Starting Strength and figure out what that might be. There are plenty of videos on Rip’s Q&A Board. Find a coach if you can. Assuming you have done these things, you should know what you are doing wrong and may be able to cue it yourself. If you think your form is “pretty good” and your name is Skinny Guy, then you aren’t eating enough.

From now on, you guys are only allowed to ask for programming advice if you meet the following weight requirements:

If I didn't have a date soon I'd be preparing a big egg, bacon potato and cheese omelette right now .

Post: #27

is it okay to bulk up if you have 20% body fat and you're still skinny?

Post: #28

(08-11-2011 05:24 PM)basilransom Wrote:  Gaining weight is like fucking bitches. In order to succeed, you have to stop being a pussy. Hell, half the advice on this forum boils down to "stop being a pussy."

Ha. "stop being a pussy" is the secret to life!

Post: #29

that guys is a monster http://www.70sbig.com/blog/2011/08/vince-urbank/

btw you guys ought to check out High intensity training by Mike mentzer.

Post: #30

I have googled Starting Strength and looked around but can't find an answer that I think is satisfactory.

What is Starting Strength and how exactly is it different than other weight lifting programs?

I can tell that it is designed for beginners and has a lot of to do with compound lifts and barbells. All of which are great.

But what is so special about this program and why is it getting so much hype lately?

Sorry, experienced lifter here looking for answers.

Post: #31

I hardly do squatz at all anymore. When I did it once a week I couldn't get into my suit pants or my best jeans. Leg muscles put on size way faster than the rest of the body so you have to watch those proportions.

These days I just focus on bench press, rows, total abs and tricep.

Post: #32

Nutrition (and adequate caloric intake) is important but the standard advice to eat everything is sight is flawed. I tried it and gained a pound a week for 20 weeks. At the end I figured I'd gained about 15lbs of muscle and 5lbs fat. Boy was I wrong. I'd gained about 18lbs of fat and 3lbs muscle, and it took six months of moderate dieting to burn the fat off.

Fat distributes itself throughout the body (including visceral fat behind the abdominal wall, which is insidious). Men who aren't ultra-low body fat to begin with but who are nonetheless trim looking by modern standards will continue to look almost exactly the same to themselves (and anyone seeing them day-to-day) while increasing body fat by several percentage points.

This fellow thinks the overeating advice is bunk and suggests that most men will be able to gain at a maximum 1-2lbs of lean muscle mass per month:

http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_arti...ut_bulking

I wouldn't be surprised if with a *perfect* regimen of lifting and eating I'd get half that (I'm undertaking a serious experiment with a new routine now).

Post: #33

Raliv--

SS is a book (and program), and exactly what you wrote: it is designed for beginners, focused around compound lifts and barbells, and is simple.

One reason the book (and thus the program) is popular and recommended is exactly BECAUSE it is designed for beginners--too many aspiring "weightlifters" just looking to "get jacked and have a six-pack" quickly wind up doing silly isolation exercises or trying to jump into advanced progressions without ever getting the basics down... so a book which devotes 60 pages to squatting correctly and explaining it in a straightforward and clear manner is a Very Good Thing.

Experienced lifters may indeed find much of it pretty basic (on the other hand they may find some good "back to basics" knowledge). But Rip is very unapologetic about it being a beginner's program--that's what it's meant to be, and he even says the equivalent of "when the easy gains stop coming, you'll want to move to something else" in terms of progressions, reps, weights, etc.

But for most people who've never bothered doing basic compound lifts and think doing 30-rep beach-boy curls with 10lb weights is the way to look good with their shirts off... it's good information to get out there.

Post: #34

(08-14-2011 05:24 AM)Tim9000 Wrote:  Nutrition (and adequate caloric intake) is important but the standard advice to eat everything is sight is flawed. I tried it and gained a pound a week for 20 weeks. At the end I figured I'd gained about 15lbs of muscle and 5lbs fat. Boy was I wrong. I'd gained about 18lbs of fat and 3lbs muscle, and it took six months of moderate dieting to burn the fat off.

Fat distributes itself throughout the body (including visceral fat behind the abdominal wall, which is insidious). Men who aren't ultra-low body fat to begin with but who are nonetheless trim looking by modern standards will continue to look almost exactly the same to themselves (and anyone seeing them day-to-day) while increasing body fat by several percentage points.

This fellow thinks the overeating advice is bunk and suggests that most men will be able to gain at a maximum 1-2lbs of lean muscle mass per month:

http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_arti...ut_bulking

I wouldn't be surprised if with a *perfect* regimen of lifting and eating I'd get half that (I'm undertaking a serious experiment with a new routine now).

I think the idea of the weight of fat vs muscle is blown out of proportion too. I've been in a state of cutting fat while gaining strength for the past two months and while my strength, muscle definition and size has gone up at a nice pace, I'm still dropping weight like crazy.

We're told that fat weighs so much less then muscle and that a small increase in muscle can have huge change in your body weight, but I"m not seeing it.

I've lost a good amount of fat, but I've also added muscle, and in no way would I have though I had lost 20 pounds (under the old ideas of how much fat and muscle weigh)

Before I would've read 1-2 pound of lean muscle a month and called bullshit, but from my own personal experience that sounds about right.

Post: #35

What's this obsession with gaining mass/weight all about?
Guess it's body building etc
Think you'll change your mind once y'all hit 35....then you'll be trying to work out how to get rid of it!

At 6ft4 I'm around 210 ,eat normal,run and callesthenics 3 x a week

Young Tyson had a great physique....no weights anywhere in his training programme!

Post: #36

I don't think you can compare Mike Tyson with your average Joe. He was born with that physique, the type it takes some people many years to build. Nonetheless I'd be very surprised that his whole training regime was void of weights. Do you have a source for this?

Lifting weights is not all about becoming a muscle bound bodybuilder. There is nothing wrong with wanting to add a few pounds to an otherwise skinny frame. This helps develop strength and confidence which has a massive carry over in all areas of life. The only people who question lifting weights are the ones who've never lifted.

Post: #37

slow down pilgirm! as far as I'm aware Tyson did train with weight at least twice a week, unless you got proof nobody is gonna believe that Mike Tyson never touched weights.

Post: #38

(08-14-2011 12:14 PM)Pilgrim37 Wrote:  What's this obsession with gaining mass/weight all about?
Guess it's body building etc
Think you'll change your mind once y'all hit 35....then you'll be trying to work out how to get rid of it!

At 6ft4 I'm around 210 ,eat normal,run and callesthenics 3 x a week

Young Tyson had a great physique....no weights anywhere in his training programme!

"Eat normal." No wonder you have trouble staying lean. Eating normal in America today means getting fat. In some countries, or the America of 50 years ago, not so much.

Mike Tyson was 218 at 5'10 for a BMI of 31.3. You'd have to gain 47 lbs to get to the same size relative to your height (i.e. 31.3 BMI). And that's lean weight. 99% of people have to lift seriously, for years, to get a physique like that. How do you operate a computer and yet still be so oblivious to reality? Retard or troll.

Post: #39

Mike Tyson is a freak of nature!

That type of muscularity is just a gift from God. He is only like 19 or 20 in that picture. You can workout perfect, eat a perfect diet, and do the best steroids, buy you still might not ever be built like him.

Some guys are just blessed.

Post: #40

(08-14-2011 04:01 PM)Giovonny Wrote:  Mike Tyson is a freak of nature!

That type of muscularity is just a gift from God. He is only like 19 or 20 in that picture. You can workout perfect, eat a perfect diet, and do the best steroids, buy you still might not ever be built like him.

Some guys are just blessed.

Maybe I'm being ignorant, but Tyson doesnt look "freak of nature" built in that picture, he looks like a muscular guy who has a good training regiment. You wanna talk freak of nature talk about Magnus Samuelsson, he's what a grizzly bear would look like if you shaved it.

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Post: #41

So what measurements do you guys have for your thighs? I have been squatting 2-3 times a week for several months now. I am at about 25.5 inches. I tend to carry all of my weight in my stomach, I lost all the easy areas first.

I am interested in hearing what you guys are shooting for when it comes to leg size. At ~6 foot what do you personally want your calves/thighs to be?

I am about a 36 inch waist, but I have to buy 38 to get them over the hips/thighs.

Post: #42

I can't figure whether this discussion is about weight-lifting or a particular program called starting strength.

But, to answer the original poster: you need just one principle when working out - in fact, this applies to any goal you have in life. Work at it. Consistently. As AJ posted.

Consistently expending effort on your goals will ensure you make progress - however slow or fast, none of it is possible without persistence. Persistence and dedication alone are omnipotent - plenty of guys with excellent genes who never use them.

So before you spend a lot of time sitting at home figuring out what NOT to do, get out and DO something. It doesn't have to be complicated. Just 1 hour three times a week is an excellent start. Come back after 8 weeks of that and let us know how it went, and there'll be plenty of excellent advice for you. But you'll get more out of that advice after you've been hitting the gym consistently for a couple of months.

All the other stuff - diet, specific training programs, etc. - it'll fall into place as you get to a point where that kind of detail becomes necessary for continued gains.

Post: #43

Once you're done with starting strength, move on to "single factor 5x5." I've used this program on and off for years, closest thing to perfection (for a gym program) you'll get. Trust me.

Post: #44

(08-15-2011 11:06 AM)ElJefe Wrote:  I can't figure whether this discussion is about weight-lifting or a particular program called starting strength.

But, to answer the original poster: you need just one principle when working out - in fact, this applies to any goal you have in life. Work at it. Consistently. As AJ posted.

Consistently expending effort on your goals will ensure you make progress - however slow or fast, none of it is possible without persistence. Persistence and dedication alone are omnipotent - plenty of guys with excellent genes who never use them.

So before you spend a lot of time sitting at home figuring out what NOT to do, get out and DO something. It doesn't have to be complicated. Just 1 hour three times a week is an excellent start. Come back after 8 weeks of that and let us know how it went, and there'll be plenty of excellent advice for you. But you'll get more out of that advice after you've been hitting the gym consistently for a couple of months.

All the other stuff - diet, specific training programs, etc. - it'll fall into place as you get to a point where that kind of detail becomes necessary for continued gains.

Its going well so far. I had a lower abdominal burning during squats last week and I had to go back to basics.

I reread the squat portion of SS and realized that I was only quarter squatting (not going all the way to parallel). I was doing 195x5 (not bad considering it was about my 5th squat ever in my life) and I started getting the pain.

I could only do 165x5 this week, but I was pain free. Going to parallel definitely made me let out some primal growls. Shit is hard. Its definitely important to do the lifts correctly, specifically squats and deadlifts where the potential for injury is high, esp. when the weights increase.

I'm going to try to find someone the next time I do deadlifts to watch my form. I know from the book to basically drive your heels into the ground, using only your legs until the bar clears your knees, then lifting with your back. Its not easy to translate this however, even in front of a mirror, a side view from a person knowledgeable in deadlifts should be all I need.

As for the losing fat/gaining muscle. From what I read its indeed POSSIBLE, especially for beginners, but its also INEFFICIENT. You can make way more progress doing a bulking phase, and then a cutting phase. My current plan is to continue lifting 3 days a week full body for 2 whole months, eating about 3000-3500 calories a day. Hopefully I'll gain more muscle than fat, but we shall see. Once October rolls around for me, I plan on using the same exact lifting routine but drastically cutting my calories (attempting as best I can to keep protein relatively high). I had great results with Eat Stop Eat in the summer (fasting 24 hrs, two or three times a week). If you only eat maintenance calories on the "feeding" days, say 2400, you can easily lose 2-3 lbs of fat a week. The amazing thing here is that your body does not slow metabolism after 24 hrs (in fact it increases slightly), however if you were to eat say 1500 calories every day, your metabolism would decrease. Leangains.com is an excellent resource for intermittent fasting (a slightly different program than Eat Stop Eat).

Post: #45

(08-14-2011 01:18 PM)bengalltigerr Wrote:  slow down pilgirm! as far as I'm aware Tyson did train with weight at least twice a week, unless you got proof nobody is gonna believe that Mike Tyson never touched weights.

He trained with weights when he was in prison .And towards retirement.
Youtube Kevin Rooney his trainer,or tyson training when in his prime years,you won't see any weightlifting.

He was 190 pounds at 14 years of age ,so he was a heavy guy genetically!He didn't need to get big,he already was.

Post: #46

Sounds like you're doing all right.

I can't recommend a spotter enough. I am recovering from a serious back-injury due to bad form on the squats. Meant I couldn't do deadlifts either. For both, you have to have a core of iron. Keep the weights on squats easy - I find you can more easily do heavy deadlifts than heavy squats. Spend that time strengthening your core - weighted crunches, etc.

Your diet strategy sounds fine. I've tried cutting and bulking simultaneously too, but I enjoy myself more doing one at a time. Remember to take breaks from the weights every 8 weeks. I'll be starting HST wednesday, and I expect great things.

Good luck.

Post: #47

(08-14-2011 02:42 PM)basilransom Wrote:  

(08-14-2011 12:14 PM)Pilgrim37 Wrote:  What's this obsession with gaining mass/weight all about?
Guess it's body building etc
Think you'll change your mind once y'all hit 35....then you'll be trying to work out how to get rid of it!

At 6ft4 I'm around 210 ,eat normal,run and callesthenics 3 x a week

Young Tyson had a great physique....no weights anywhere in his training programme!

"Eat normal." No wonder you have trouble staying lean. Eating normal in America today means getting fat. In some countries, or the America of 50 years ago, not so much.

Mike Tyson was 218 at 5'10 for a BMI of 31.3. You'd have to gain 47 lbs to get to the same size relative to your height (i.e. 31.3 BMI). And that's lean weight. 99% of people have to lift seriously, for years, to get a physique like that. How do you operate a computer and yet still be so oblivious to reality? Retard or troll.

Who said I had trouble staying lean?!
I'm 6ft4 and 210 pounds !
And I'm in the UK not the US....although we're not far behind on the obesity scale here.
If that's fat to you,you must be an Emo kid loving skinny jeans

I don't remember comparing myself to Tyson or mentioning BMI.
As I said before Tyson was 190 pounds when he was 13-14 before he ever stepped in a gym,so he was genetically predisposed to be big!
Callesthenics,running and hitting the bags brought him down in weight but sculpted the physique,not weights.

So better to save the insults when you're not clear on the facts.

Post: #48

(08-15-2011 04:48 PM)Pilgrim37 Wrote:  Who said I had trouble staying lean?!
I'm 6ft4 and 210 pounds !
And I'm in the UK not the US....although we're not far behind on the obesity scale here.
If that's fat to you,you must be an Emo kid loving skinny jeans

I don't remember comparing myself to Tyson or mentioning BMI.
As I said before Tyson was 190 pounds when he was 13-14 before he ever stepped in a gym,so he was genetically predisposed to be big!
Callesthenics,running and hitting the bags brought him down in weight but sculpted the physique,not weights.

You hold up Mike Tyson as physically ideal and acknowledge he's a genetic freak. Then you question people for trying to lift and gain weight.

Post: #49

(08-14-2011 09:40 PM)Chad Daring Wrote:  

(08-14-2011 04:01 PM)Giovonny Wrote:  Mike Tyson is a freak of nature!

That type of muscularity is just a gift from God. He is only like 19 or 20 in that picture. You can workout perfect, eat a perfect diet, and do the best steroids, buy you still might not ever be built like him.

Some guys are just blessed.

Maybe I'm being ignorant, but Tyson doesnt look "freak of nature" built in that picture, he looks like a muscular guy who has a good training regiment. You wanna talk freak of nature talk about Magnus Samuelsson, he's what a grizzly bear would look like if you shaved it.

Honestly, they are both probably freaks of nature...

But I'm not talking about looks. I'm talking about raw strength, power, explosivesness AND potential to get big, fast. Tyson was not a bodybuilder or power lifter. His strength and power was mostly a gift from God. Magnus trained for size, strength, and power. If Magnus boxed 4 hours a day and did tons of cardio, what would he look like?

Tyson ran for almost an hour a day and trained in boxing, and he still looked like that at 19 yeats old. If Tyson trained as a bodybuilder I'm sure he could get huge. He was so thick and muscular at a young age.

The best way to tell would be to look at a picture of both of them at 16 or 18 years old.

But this is not about Tyson vs Magnus. Its about genetics, potential to get big.

Most of us will train for years and never be as big as those 2 guys. They are both gifted.

And, in regards to the pictures...In the Tyson picture, he is 19 or 20 and looks like that without lifting much weight. The Magnus picture, he is in his 30's and has been lifting heavy for years. I would argue that Tyson looks better because he is a teenager who hasn't really lifted weights.

Personally, I would like to see them fight!

Post: #50

hey thanks for the information on Starting Strength.

I think I am going to buy the book. I read more into it and I really like his approach to barbell training and especially, his lift techniques.