How to progress from here

[weavy88]

Started getting into lifting again seriously 18 weeks ago, main goal gain muscle, which i did. Went from 155 to 185 (in the first 12 weeks) and everyone noticed my increase in muscle. Obviously i focused on compound movements like bench, squats (focusing on ATG now) and deads, and made reasonable progress. Im just coming off a 6 week cut to shed a tiny bit of extra fat gained (178 now) and plan to bulk up again this time for much longer until i reach my goal of 200lbs. My question is what routine should i use from here? i know im still a novice and should stick to full body workouts, and i plan to. I've also been reading into growth stimulus training and thought that might be good to try but im not sure if it would be good for a begginer, maybe HST instead? please shoot some suggestion out wana do this right!

[andavari]

Most of the beginner (stickied) workouts are pretty solid but it sounds like you're making a decent amount of progress though.

[weavy88]

Most of the beginner (stickied) workouts are pretty solid but it sounds like you're making a decent amount of progress though.

thank you, i have been making decent progress but i guess the question here is at what point do i change things from beginner to intermediate? i have been reading into GST (growth stimulus training) and HST (hypertrophy specific training) and both seem like solid programs just wondering what would be best for me at this point

[andavari]

Well that depends on what you mean by becoming intermediate. Strength and size or being ripped, it all depends on what you want in the end.

I'd say you could take a deeper look into changing things up when you feel like you've hit a plateau (not really any more size gain, strength gains, etc). I know a lot of people feel differently about "changing things up" but I'm not referring to muscle confusion or any of that bunk, I'm simply talking about breaking through plateaus.

Check these articles out:

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/bbin...PlateauBusting

[Retardo-pex]

thank you, i have been making decent progress but i guess the question here is at what point do i change things from beginner to intermediate? i have been reading into GST (growth stimulus training) and HST (hypertrophy specific training) and both seem like solid programs just wondering what would be best for me at this point

Beginner/intermediate/advanced in strength training don't neccessarily mean the same thing as they do for other sports or activities. A novice lifter is pretty much anyone who can run a beginner oriented routine like starting strength and continue to progress on it. They usually take advantage of a novice lifters ability to recover quickly and add weight to several lifts every few days or every week.

An intermediate lifter is pretty much someone who can still gain on their lifts on a semi regular basis (every week or every other week) but probabaly would not be able to recover too well lifting heavy every workout, this is where programs like 5/3/1 and 5x5 and max ot come in.

An advanced lifter is someone who can't make gains that frequenently and need a longer time to recover form thier workouts.

There is really no time period or amount of weight gained/lifted that will designate you into these classes, but people still take being a novice or beginner as a negative thing when most advanced guys would kill to be able to lift like that again. Milk the beginner programs as long as you are seeing progress from them.