Yet another "watch me grow" thread

[NeonQwerty]

Hey guys, I'm using this thread to measure my periodic progress; feel free to comment, or not.

Sorry for the crappy pics; I'll use a digicam instead of my webcam next time.

The goals: bigger triceps, better chest, less fat/better abs. I'll post a pic of back and thighs at some point; I need more thickness in the former and definition in the latter. A problem with my chest is that I'm pretty sure that the muscle is just shaped in such a way that it will never have total "fullness" as far as inside definition is concerned. I'm pretty much resigned to that.

I'm happy with my biceps and calves. My abs are passable, but will only look top-notch when I get rid of some fat. I'm also proud of my wholly unspectacular triceps, mainly because they were a huge weak point for me not too long ago.

Point in fact, I think my whole body (almost) needs some work, but I won't get all teary eyed about what needs to be done; I'm getting motivated instead.

[NeonQwerty]

Come to think of it, "watch me grow" is a misnomer. It's more like "watch me get more jacked".

[muscledup]

Hey big guy some pretty good size you have there bud, what is your age and stats bro?What is your routine and what is your goal over the next year? Got more pics and what do the wheels look like bud, you look awesome now dude keep up the insane gains bud.

[NeonQwerty]

Hey big guy some pretty good size you have there bud, what is your age and stats bro?What is your routine and what is your goal over the next year? Got more pics and what do the wheels look like bud, you look awesome now dude keep up the insane gains bud.

Thanks a lot!

I'm 5'11", and have weighed 170 pounds for forever. I've only clean bulked, mainly because I got a lot of whatever size I have before I discovered a lot of the common theory of how to put on mass. Looking at mags like Flex, I assumed that it was normal to be ripped while getting bigger.

My calves are pretty good, but that's the one body part (okay, maybe 2. zing!) in which I'm genetically endowed. Until a few weeks ago, some horror stories that I've heard made it so that I had never squatted (or done any leg workouts other than cardio) , did deadlifts or bent-over rows. Now those are some of my favorite exercises.

My routine: every bodypart gets 2 exercises of 4 sets each, except back which gets for exercises of 4. I usually go low-rep, mainly because it kicks ass when you see a lot of weight moving around

Monday / Thursday: chest, delts, tris
Tuesday / Friday: back, bis
Wednesday: legs

Week 1 is normal lifting
Week 2 is a little more intense, maybe a few negative reps thrown in
Week 3 is anarchy. Drop sets, negative reps, whatever it takes to tear down my muscle
Week 4 I do 1, maybe 2 workouts, in which I train with all the intensity of a sleepy little girl that just got her nails done

Incidently, a lot of the muscle came about when I was vegan, with the exception that I would allow myself whey because I couldn't afford soy or rice protein.

My cardio has been lagging; I want to get it back to what it used to be: 4 times a week. At least once or twice, I do it first thing on an empty stomach, with only some glumatine and caffeine in me. At least once is a relatively long, low-intensity session and once will be high-intensity. I don't hate cardio; I used to regularly run for 10 miles without really getting tired.

I've supplemented with whey for years, and have started taking glutamine a few months ago... I found that if you do a lot of cardio, it's pretty much unbeatable. It means that I no longer have to risk serious muscle when I go out on a run.

Goals:

-get up to 180. It's a pain in the ass to eat enough to gain weight, so I might need some weight gainer
-lose at least 1-2 % bodyfat, based on what the mirror tells me
-up my bench from 225 to 260
-want to know how weak my legs are? I squat 185. I want that up to 250, and probably eventually higher, given that a proportionate body is supposed to have something like a 0.65-1 bench-squat ratio.
-thicken my back, although I have no idea how to quantify this goal (help?)
-increase tricep size

It's a little awkward for me to write goals, since I havn't really had any specific goals for quite a while, but I think that writing the preceding actually did me a lot of good, as far as motivation and visualization is concerned.

So thanks again!

[Snatch518]

You have a very untraditional training style, if its what gets you results then go for it. Where did you learn that training "style?" Also... you mentioned your bulking and doing cardio. Do you feel like you have put on mass and lost fat at the same time? I don't have any before photos to judge, but you're lookin built and ripped up. Keep up the good work. Also have you been critisized for training each body part twice and how do you think it has worked for you? That's what I did when I started lifting for the very first time and put on 10 lbs in like 6 weeks, but anyone who starts training will gain 10 lbs. Then I did 1 body part a week and have been getting steady gains, but I've thought about going back to training each body part twice a week.

[omnik]

Great physics, just learn 2 pose a little bit better

[Armitron]

nice genes. u r ripped. i envy u

[NeonQwerty]

Thanks to all for the replies. More specifically...

You have a very untraditional training style, if its what gets you results then go for it. Where did you learn that training "style?" Also... you mentioned your bulking and doing cardio. Do you feel like you have put on mass and lost fat at the same time? I don't have any before photos to judge, but you're lookin built and ripped up. Keep up the good work. Also have you been critisized for training each body part twice and how do you think it has worked for you? That's what I did when I started lifting for the very first time and put on 10 lbs in like 6 weeks, but anyone who starts training will gain 10 lbs. Then I did 1 body part a week and have been getting steady gains, but I've thought about going back to training each body part twice a week.

I learned my "style" through pure trial and error.I once read some cheesy book that Tom Platz was involved in, in which he advocated ramping up your workouts until you just start to overtrain, then pull back. I don't follow the specific workout the book advocated, but I guess I still follow the philosophy.

I havn't really gotten much flak for my training, but that's mostly because my friends aren't yet quite as advanced as me... I'm guessing that even if they know better than me, they're hesitant to go up to the proverbial Big Guy In The Gym to tell him what he's doing wrong. Having said that, I have been wondering if I'm overtraining. The glutamine certainly helps big time, and I've built in 1 week out of 4 in which I pretty much just rest and move my body around a little to keep the blood flowing.

You said that my regimen was "unorthodox", but I'll one up you and say that it might be flat-out wrong, at least as far as theory is concerned. Then again, a friend of mine and me were very ripped at one point in time... I was eating about half a loaf of bread a day and doing cardio like mad, while he was on Atkins and his cardio consisted of running away from the stairmaster. My routine is probably very imperfect, but as you said, it seems to work for me, at least for now. Open to suggestions, though!

Finally, I do think that I've put on mass and lost fat at the same time... or at least if I've improved overall, it certainly wasn't by bulking and then cutting or vice-versa. Maybe at various times one was emphasized over the other, but I hate feeling fat, so I could never justify bulking.

Having answered this post, I've decided that I might just go a month in which I train everything just once a week, in order to see what happens. I'm on week 2 of my program right now; if I change something I'll post it here. Good food for my thought!

Great physics, just learn 2 pose a little bit better

Thanks! Then again, I don't want to compete, and it was 1AM...

Still, I'll take better pics and pose better next time, just for clarity sake.

nice genes. u r ripped. i envy u

Thanks for the compliment! Half-jokingly, I'd advise you to read my signature!

In a more serious tone, it's possible that my genetics are good... but then again, I'm 24 and started lifting weights (with a few extended breaks) when I was like 16. I was very bad in gym class before I started exercising on my own... Also, I'm pretty anal about my health / physique. That means that not only have I always worked out pretty hard, I also put a lot of thought and discipline into my diet.

Just to clarify: I'm not writing this to angrily tell you that "I worked hard for it, it has nothing to do with genetics"! I'm saying that if I did have genetic potential, I am certain that it would have been pretty much wasted if I wasn't as dedicated and coscienscious for as long as I was. If anything helped me unlock whatever genetic potential that I have, it's a paranoia that someone that I know if training harder than me.

Good luck!