Let the Gains begin! - Growth Stimulus Training (GST) by Sid

[rsid97]

Hi everyone, despite having spent a lot of time on this forum I've never had a journal of my own. Considering that I've been running popular programs like Fierce 5 and SL 5x5, I never saw the need to publish my results anywhere. However, I think its time for a change now.

I started off lifting at an anorexic 45kg/99lbs. I wasn't by any means unfit, being a national level swimmer, age group leader in sprinting and hurdles, playing cricket for a club,being on the badminton as well as rowing teams at school. I was also capable of decent calisthenics movements such as performing 20 reps of full ROM pull ups and 64 push ups in a row. I could touch rim at basket ball. I've ran a 100m hurdle under 13 seconds,yada yada. Point being athleticism came to me naturally but size and actually looking impressive continued to allude me. At the age of 16,I decided to take charge and turn this ship around.

Like most people I've had an up and down lifting career,plagued with injuries,mistakes regarding nutrition and training which took several years to sort out due to a lack of proper guidance and a non-supportive family. Once things fell into line, I noticed that I seemed to have really got the short end of the straw with regard to genetics. Small wrists and a blazing fast metabolism (thyroid issues) which allows me to eat well over 5500 calories currently. But all we can do is work with the hand that we have been dealt,so I soldiered on.

Fast forward to today I've added a net total of 15kg/33lbs bringing me up to a much healthier 60kg/132lbs while maintaining a bodyfat under 12%. Which,most would regard as a not so impressive achievement considering it took me 5 years and having to stuff down a heck of a lot of calories on a daily basis. So naturally I felt that there was still a lot left on the table.

My best lifts to date (at 60kg/136lbs) is as follows -

Squat - 121.6kg/268lbs
Bench- 83.3kg/183.8lbs
Deadlift- 162.5kg/358lbs
OHP- 60.8kg/133.8lbs
Rows (x8) - 106.6kg/235lbs

Its at this point that I've stepped past the novice phase relative to my bodyweight and progression scheme and took a moment to analyze my lifting career thus far. The one thing which clearly stands out,is the fact that my physique doesn't speak by itself for what it is capable of doing. And thinking back on everything,this suggests that I have walked off of my path at some point in time, I had,strayed away from my pursuit of size,so to speak.

I realize that there is a flaw in the system somewhere which people are not so happy to talk about. Hardgainers are commonly labelled off as under eaters without any real attention being made to discuss if anything can actually be done to help someone who builds strength and athleticism with relative ease but struggles to build size. So I decided to take it upon myself to figure these things out for myself and write out this success story dedicated to all the skinny guys out there who are lifting more than the beefed up guy who only squats 130lbs.

While,to some degree I will accept that MOST people who claim to be hardgainers are just under eaters,I plain and simply will say that doesn't apply to every single last one of us (and I'd be more than happy to discuss this later if anyone wishes). You can't tell me that I'm moving the weights that I am,at the size that I am without eating enough to fuel my progress.

So well,enough with the rambling,what am I actually going to do about it? What I did was I stepped off of the general full body,low volume routines. They have worked tremendously and much better than most bro splits but I feel like there is stuff left to discover. I should say at this point out that I have been running a three day version of GST for about 6 months now and have experienced the most size gains that I have in my life. Bringing myself up to 70kg/154lbs (+10kg/22lbs in 6 months).

Now that I have more faith and understanding in the system I'm going to start the bigger part of my project - bringing together volume and frequency and finding the sweet spot to produce maximal size gains. This has been discussed in depth both with 2020Wellness as well as my mentors and what we have concluded on is to use all the same GST principles in a 4 day split, having days dedicated to squat,bench,deadlift,OHP and Rows (or pull ups) but shifting around the accessories to provide a high frequency split which is unlike the traditional low frequency-high volume versions of GST which are more popular in the stickies and which also happens to be what I have used in the past.

So tomorrow is the start of my new Macro Cycle starting off with Squat day. Hope this will motivate or entertain people and I'm more than happy to answer any questions.

Until then -

[fluidZ]

hey dude glad to see you getting a log now!!

Just curious though, I thought that novice stage was generally all about strength... and then intermediate was when you actually started to see the results in an appreciable amount... hence everyone says "2 years of consistent work" to look decent.

Just wondering if your last 6 months on GST was really due to the programming, or just the fact that you were now building muscle instead of strength.

Just a though, I've been curious about the GST sticky and would be happy to hear your thoughts!!

innn

[rsid97]

hey dude glad to see you getting a log now!!

Just curious though, I thought that novice stage was generally all about strength... and then intermediate was when you actually started to see the results in an appreciable amount... hence everyone says "2 years of consistent work" to look decent.

Just wondering if your last 6 months on GST was really due to the programming, or just the fact that you were now building muscle instead of strength.

Just a though, I've been curious about the GST sticky and would be happy to hear your thoughts!!

innn

Hey man,thanks for having a look! Pleased to have you on board.

The general consensus is that as a novice strength and muscle gains go hand in hand,so theoretically speaking regardless of which you value more,you can acheive both with the same style of programming. But of course focussing on strength is the smarter way to do it since it allows you to still be sensitive to increases in volume which is why people recommend that approach. The thing with me though is that the correlation between strength and size has been quite far away from the R=1 mark.

You do raise a valid point about questioning whether the latest progress was due to the programme or simply the fact that I'm no longer a novice lifter. And I think there's an argument that can be made for both parties which I'll explain below.

So sure, your view point (which is valid for majority of people), being that until you push into intermediate you don't really see physical progress since you're just not lifting enough. That is a valid and potential reason.

The reason why I would say that the programe had a role to play is this point here - if you were to compare my newbie gains from the start of my lifting career,plus the times when I was injured, ran F5 as well as Stronglifts,that whole period of almost 5 years of training added up to gaining 15kg of bodyweight. However,with GST I gained 10kg in 6 months while actually eating LESS calories than what I was eating when I was on Fierce 5.

Which if you think about it,makes no sense,unless programming had an effect. Because,so, on one hand we have F5 which is low volume,so I'm doing less work and should be gaining weight faster than on a program which has higher volume which keeping the intensity pretty similar. In theory,and based off of what we all know so far if you kept the weights some what similar and increased volume,then you would also have to increase caloric intake if you want to be gaining weight at the same rate. But in my experience I actually gained weight faster without increasing the calories. So the only variable which I can point a finger at right now is the programming.

I should say though that this isn't the first time I've noticed this phenomena. My mentor is actual an even MORE extreme example than me. The guy is 136lbs and has deadlifted 606, squatted 464 and benched 281. And simply never managed to go past 145lbs bodyweight no matter how much stronger he got. Each time he deloaded and came back up he'd get stronger but wouldn't get much bigger.

It's definitely quite a unique routine! If you do plan on reading through it I would say that its more of a style of programming rather than one fixed program which gives you an interesting amount of wriggle room,but for that same reason makes it bad for novices. And the volume is pretty much in your control so you'll have to do quite a bit of self modulation to see how you respond. I've been studying the shizz out of the sticky for ages now! So more than happy to tell you anything about it if you want to know more

[rsid97]

******(This is technically going to be Macro 7 even though I haven't recorded anything before. I'll probably stick to using kg since its more natural for me so its going to look than less than half of what it should seem like to most people,lol)******

Macro 7,Micro 1

Squats (72.5kg) - 8,8,10

Leg press (100kg)-8,8,8

Lunges (14kg) - 8,8,8 per leg

Leg curl (43kg)-8,8,8

Face pull (23.75kg)-8,8,8

Weak point training was abs. Cable crunches (23.75kg)-8,8,8

Legs and lower back were feeling a bit wonky since I was still recovering from my last deadlift session which had to happen later than usual last week.

[CW47]

Excellent! I'll definitely be following your progress.

[rsid97]

Excellent! I'll definitely be following your progress.

Sweet! Glad to have you on board. I more than welcome any questions if you have any.

[rsid97]

Micro 1, Macro 7

Upper body day with a focus on vertical pulls and pushes.

Pull ups (10kg) - 8,8,9

OHP (35kg)-8,8 anddddd ... ***drum roll*** god damn 22!

Cable rows (40kg)- 8,8,8

Incline Dumbell bench press (16kg) - 8,8,17 <--- forgot that this was no longer a core lift and went for an AMRAP on the last set which should have only been 8 reps,stupid me.

Preacher curl (39kg) - 8,8,8

Reflections of the day - Pull ups felt pretty crappy even though the 1RM being used for this was a very conservative weight. Which is strange. but shoulders really brought their A game today with that 22 rep AMRAP with what was supposed to be my 8 rep max. Unfortunately had to do dumbell incline rather than barbell since some hooligans were trying to have a bachelor party at the only incline barbell bench station in the whole gym,smh. Will have a think about what needs to be done about that for next week. Until then, I'm going to go try to swallow down a small 2000 calorie snack.

[daawhitty]

In for this.. Damn strong bodyweight ratio pal.

[17mahmoods]

In.

Didn't know you were this freaking strong.

[ItsTiME35]

In... look forward to seeing the progress dude

[rsid97]

In for this.. Damn strong bodyweight ratio pal.

Haha,love the gif! Thanks man, I am hoping to balance out that ratio through this endeavor though.

[rsid97]

In.

Didn't know you were this freaking strong.

Thanks bro,appreciate the compliments!

[rsid97]

In... look forward to seeing the progress dude

Sweet! You bet I'm going to deliver that progress

[MynameisGregg]

Im in. Im doing GST myself so definitely interested in your progress.

[rsid97]

Im in. Im doing GST myself so definitely interested in your progress.

Sweet,I've had a look at your log too back before I got started on mine. Sure would like to see how much size gains we can get out of this routine! I have spoken a little about my progress thus far at the start of this long but I'll do a proper update sometime later and will do weekly weigh ins and uptake the log with that along with any improvements in my 1RM. As for size gains I'll probably update those at the end of a macro if there is any progress to show.

As far as I know there is one other individual who is also on GST and has a log on here so we got a trio going now!

[rsid97]

Micro 1,Macro 7

Deadlift day

Deadlifts (92.5kg) - 8,8,10 <-- Felt like I had another 2 reps left in the tank here on the AMRAP but decided not to put my lower back at too much risk since the AMRAP had already gone past the usual 8 reps.

Leg press (100kg)-8,8,8

Shrugs (36kg) -8,8,8 <-- These felt reaaaalllyyy good today so definitely moving up in weight week after next.

Lat pull down (42.5kg) - 8,8,8

Leg curl (43) -8,8,8

For my weak point training I finished off with some abs and forearm work.

Cable crunches (21.25kg)-8,8,8

Dumbell wrist curls (10kg)-8,8,8

[ItsTiME35]

solid work dude

[rsid97]

solid work dude

Thanks man Made some weight gains too this week! Will update that on Sunday

[rsid97]

Micro 1,Macro 7

Bench day

Flat bench press (50kg) -8,8,20 <-- weight moved really smoothly on this one,hopefully that stays the same but that's doubtful

Incline dumbell bench (16kg each)- 8,8,8

Rows (107.5kg) - 8,8,8 <--- These were murderous but finally managed to get a tiny PR

Close grip bench (40kg) - 8,8,8 <-- Weight moves fine but I'm still trying to work my round to using my triceps properly on these

Cable rope tricep extension (16.25kg) - 8,8,8 <--- Not a fan of these but I've neglected the long head of my triceps for far too long. Need to start putting some work into them rather than the usual push downs.

Finished up with abs and forearm work as weak point training.

[daawhitty]

Nice work fella.. how often are you training ?

[rsid97]

Nice work fella.. how often are you training ?

Thanks man. I'm running 4 days of lifting at the moment and on my off days I do some foam rolling and stretching.

[daawhitty]

Thanks man. I'm running 4 days of lifting at the moment and on my off days I do some foam rolling and stretching.

3 days for me. And 3 days stretching and body weight work.

[rsid97]

3 days for me. And 3 days stretching and body weight work.

All pros isn't it? Just had a read through your log and geez man, good on you for fighting back after that operation!

[rsid97]

Well apparently I forgot to do a weight update on Sunday so will get that done as soon as I get home. Until then,here's the workout for the day.

Micro 2,Macro 7

Squat day

Squats (85kg) - 6,6,10

Leg press (80kg)-15,15,15

Lunges(14kg per leg)-15,15,15

Leg curl (39kg)-15,15,15

Face pull (21.25kg)-15,15,15

Finished off with the usual abs and fore arm work.

Cable rope crunches (21.25kg)-15,15,15

Dumbell wrist curls (8kg)-15,15,15

[rsid97]

Weekly weigh in

Considering this is a Tuesday over here this is an over due weigh in. Nevertheless, I've added 0.825kg over this past week. Putting me at 70.275kg currently.

Not only is this my all time heaviest weight but its also the most rapid weight gain that I've ever experience in one week. Considering reducing the calories just a wee bit but I think I'll have a look at this weeks progress first before doing that since from past experiences I've noticed that my rate of weight gain always decreases in weeks following a rapid increase in weight or when reaching a new heaviest weight.

[rsid97]

Woke up with a cold and a sprained neck today but decided to fight through the pain....which turned out to be a not so great idea.

Micro 2, Macro 7

Upper body - focus on pull ups and OHP

Pull ups (11kg)-6,6,7

OHP (42kg)-6,6,9 <----This is where things went wrong. Felt the neck sprain starting to get worse between sets. Got onto the AMRAP and felt it suddenly getting a lot worse on the 8th rep and thought I'll take a break after the AMRAP,lost focus for a second and slammed the plate against the hooks of the squat rack on the way down. Recoiled from that and guess I made the sprain worse.

So had to cut the workout short there since the pain started to spread up into the back of my head. Oh well,just got to hope things get better before friday

[17mahmoods]

Take it easy man, too young to get injured.

[ItsTiME35]

long road ahead man... lift healthy

[rsid97]

Take it easy man, too young to get injured.

Honestly feel old walking around with a sprained neck and the flu.

But ya,you're right will give things a rest till I feel better. Thank you

[rsid97]

long road ahead man... lift healthy

Ya man,never had this happen before. Going to give it a rest and hopefully things get better soon