gthorn2000’s BodyBlog

I feel that many recreational bodybuilders have a difficult time guaging their progress- especially after they’ve already made their noob gains. Personally, I have often found it very hard to determine if my current workout routine was working efficiently. Here are a few tools I have used to guage my progress in the past three years- The scale, bodyfat %, and strength records. Unfortunately, it took me three years to realize that these are not the best indicators of progress when it comes to building the ideal physique.

I now believe that watching the scale is one of the most misleading and inefficient ways to track bb’ing progress. For instance, Sylvester Stallone weighed around 180lbs when he looked incredible in Rocky III. One of my friend is about Sly’s height and also weighs 180lbs…and looks nothing like Rocky. Now you will tell me, "Duh. Their bodyfat percentages are way different." That’s true- but let’s say that someone exists who is the exact same height, weight, and bodyfat % as Stallone during his prime. Would they look exactly the same? Would the hypothetical man store fat in the same areas as Stallone? Would he have the same ripped abs or balanced proportions as Sly simply because they have the same bodyfat %? In short, we cannot fully rely on the scale and bodyfat percentages to tell us where we are and what we should do next in our bb’ing pursuits. If the scale ever tells me I weigh 200lbs and the calipers tell me I’m 6% bodyfat, but I still don’t have wide enough shoulders or large enough legs, then I haven’t reached my goal yet- regardless of how impressive the stats appear to be. 

Tracking strength also appears to be a good strategy for guaging muscle gain progress, but it has some flaws. Now, it is obvious that strength usually leads to size. Ronnie Coleman, one of the greatest bodybuilders of our time, is also one of the strongest. A guy in your gym repping 225lbs on bench is most likely going to be bigger than a guy repping 95lbs on bench. This is common sense. However, strength gains and size gains are not directly proportionate to one other. For instance, elite powerlifters can often push more weight than bodybuilders twice their size are able to lift. Because of this, we can’t completely equate making strength gains with gaining muscle. Over the past month, I’ve the upped the weight I use on Incline Dumbbell Presses by about 10lbs. Have I gained strength? Yes. Have I gained muscle? Most likely, but it is not guaranteed that I have gained muscle based on this strength increase alone. If I don’t take in enough calories and protein, I can stay the same size forever and gain strength. Therefore, we can’t rely on tracking strength alone to guage our progress in terms of building muscle.

So what’s the best way to guage progress? Aside from pictures (the camera never lies), MEASUREMENTS. This summer, I finally shelled out for a cheap Myotape measuring device for sale on bb.com. Since then, it has really helped me determine what it takes to put on quality muscle. For instance, during a 4 week bulking phase over the summer, I gained 10lbs and increased my strength. This seemed pretty good…until I looked at the measurements. My waist got bigger and my arms barely got bigger at all. WTF? How did this happen? Maybe it was because all I was eating was fast food and ice cream…I was getting in my protein though! After this, I started to clean up my diet. Once I did this, my waist started to shrink and my arms continued to slowly get bigger. I learned a great deal from this experience. Even though measurements are still just numbers and can’t compete with progress pictures, they can help you track progress in an objective way that sometimes the naked eye can’t accomplish.

Now, rather than shooting for a certain weight, a certain bodyfat percentage, or a certain level of strength, I am shooting for certain measurements. I have found a great article that helps you determine your own personal ideal measurements based on the Grecian standard (http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/drobson207.htm). While I have no intentions of stopping to work on my body once I reach these goals, this is a good method of determining what areas to focus on in order to achieve the Greek Physique.  Now I know that if my arms are getting bigger and my waist is staying the same or getting smaller, then I am making progress and will one day reach my goals. 

If you are a noob to bodybuilding, you are probably looking all over the internet for a workout routine that will pack on mass quick. That was what I was looking for when I first started training a few years ago. After 6 weeks of noob gains, I began reading articles and forum posts on bodybuilding.com in order to find the "miracle" program that would help me reach the next level. According to the bb.com forumites, the answer was clear: RIPPETOE STARTING STRENGTH.

"Been training for less than a year? Get on Rippetoe, dude. You weigh less than 200lbs? You are skinny and weak- build up some mass on Rippetoe. Want bigger arms? Do rippetoe- Squats, bench, and deads are all you need to build up your arms. Curls don’t do anything."

I took all of this in and did Rippetoe SS for over eight weeks on two seperate occasions. Here is what I got out of it-

1. Strained lower back- took 4 weeks to heal

2. Messed up knee- lasted for 2 years, only recently fixed with orthoscopic surgery

3. Slightly injured shoulder and wrist- still experience minor agitation in these areas

To incur that many injuries, I must have been using horrible form and far too much weight, right? Not quite…I began each of the lifts with 135lbs and worked up each week from there- which means I was working submaximally for around 4 weeks. My form was fine. Did I use too much weight? Yes, because that is what the program requires of you. In order for the program to work properly, you must increase the weight each workout until you can’t do 3×5. Of course, my muscles could handle the weight just fine- it was my joints that were being beaten to death by these unnecessary compound movements.

Injuries aside, did I gain tons of mass? Yep, I got bigger- bigger all over. I was gaining weight, but I didn’t look any better in the mirror. I was just a larger, undefined version of myself that was 20lbs heavier. Why didn’t I look like a bodybuilder? This was the program all the gurus in the forum told me to do to gain mass. What was I doing wrong?

After about 3 years of trial and error, I have finally realized that in order to look like a bodybuilder, you have to train like a bodybuilder. Hit each bodypart once a week using a variety of different exercises with reps ranging from 8-15 per set. I have adopted the heretical belief that you can still build huge legs without squats and a great chest without the barbell bench press. After changing my ways, I have begun to improve my physique. Now people can tell that I go to the gym, even though I have been training hard for quite some time now.

In short, if you lift weights to look better in the mirror, then there is no reason to ever do Rippetoe Starting Strength. You will see much greater aesthetic results targeting each bodypart with exercises that are both safe and effective. You may lose strength when switching to this type of bodybuilding program, but to quote Bob Cicherillo, "It’s not how much you bench, it’s how much you LOOK like you can bench."

I have been working out for about 2 years now and have made considerable progress in improving my physique. As of late, I have developed my abs and built muscle mass (especially in my arms and shoulders) while on a low calorie diet.  I will load progress pics when I get a chance (my profile pic was taken within the last month), but for now I would like to share some things that have worked for me that I wish I had been doing consistently for the last 2 years rather than jumping back and forth between different methods of training and philosophies concerning diet and training.

 1. Develop abs by training them frequently with high volume

How many times have you read around the forums that "abs are like every other muscle and should only be trained once or twice a week-anything more than that is overtraining"? Tell that to Nick Edge or Frank Zane, two guys who have/had the best looking abs I’ve ever seen. Both of these guys train their abs 5 or more times a week with over 300 total rep ab circuits. 

This is what has worked for them and it has also worked for me. I had been closely following Layne Norton’s pre-contest dieting strategy for over 8 weeks and still had a hard time seeing my abs, even though I was losing bodyfat.  However, once I started doing Nick Edge’s ab workout 5x a week, my abs started to pop out and look better than they ever had before. Most trainers would say this is overtraining, but it really seems to work.

Therefore, if your diet is in check and you’ve been struggling to get a six-pack for the summer, try doing Nick Edge’s ab workout 5x a week for a couple of weeks- I honestly don’t know how you wouldn’t see improvement after doing this.

Decline Bench Crunches 4×30 (do with twists during the first 15 reps)

Lying Leg Lifts 4×20

Russian Twists 4×20 each side with 10lb plate

Cable Crunches 4×40 (50lbs) (do with twists during the first 20 reps)

I don’t necessarily understand the logic behind this routine, but it has worked well for me so I don’t plan on deviating from it anytime soon.