Finally 12 straight weeks of lifting done...nothing to show for it lol

[xuerebx]

This lol.

Plus I hope someone else new comes in and learns something and actually listens to it.

Definitely - me! Thanks to Ego and WolfRose sharing a few links to strongerbyscience and name dropping Eric Helms a few months ago I've learned a tonne. Also like reading your posts and discussions in these threads, I always learn something new.

In the past (2010) this forum used to be more active. But I was a kid and stopped working out anyways so I didn't really learn a tonne. Plus I remember the stickied threads included Starting Strength and the go-to advice for novices was to read Rippetoe's books...

[Animal2692]

It evokes the feelings of..

'What a pretentious, self righteous bellend.. '

I'll have to start using that "bellend" word here in the states to sound more sophisticated and take my insults to the next level.

We got a gas shortage here from a pipeline closing due to hackers caused by a bunch of bellends panic buying. They're gonna cause us to infiltrate the Middle East again and grab oil.

[paulinkansas]

IWe got a gas shortage here from a pipeline closing due to hackers caused by a bunch of bellends panic buying. They're gonna cause us to infiltrate the Middle East again and grab oil.

That's great news for me. 95% of my income comes indirectly from the midstream sector of the oil and gas industry. "Midstream sector" sounds more sophisticated than "bellend". "Bellend" sounds like the description of a pear shaped woman.

[Animal2692]

That's great news for me. 95% of my income comes indirectly from the midstream sector of the oil and gas industry. "Midstream sector" sounds more sophisticated than "bellend". "Bellend" sounds like the description of a pear shaped woman.

Oil and gas isn't sophisticated either..it's "petrol" according to Ego I believe. 95% of your income comes indirectly from the midstream sector of the petrol industry.

[paulinkansas]

Oil and gas isn't sophisticated either..it's "petrol" according to Ego I believe. 95% of your income comes indirectly from the midstream sector of the petrol industry.

The midstream sector of the petrol industry derives its profits from a fixed set percentage markup on the selling price of the finished product. Suppose the product sells for $2 a gallon and the markup is 1%. They make 2 cents a gallon. When the product sells for $3 a gallon, they make 3 cents a gallon. That's more money that have to spend on expansion, maintenance and repairs. About this time last year, most of the midstream sector ceased all expansion, maintenance and repairs in the United States. I went from 73 renters to just 1.

[Filmbuff81]

Good question, I thought of that too. If I'm not benching 185 for 3x5 by 6 weeks, then that means I had to reset once at some point so it will just take longer than 6 weeks which I'm fine with. 6 weeks is if no resets are needed which I'm fairly confident about given that I started lower than usual (I could of done 165 for 3x5 instead of 155) and started bulking again. I don't see resets as a setback at all. If anything I'm finally going to have a proper progression scheme with fatigue management built in, something I never had when I was doing my own thing and I still won't be going back to my own routine, making Air2Fakie proud of me for the first time ever by proving him wrong. He's so confident that I'm gonna go back to doing own program but underestimates how much I gave up on doing my own program, 12 weeks was enough for me to not go insane.

But I've even thought further than this. Later down the road I will eventually stall with adding weight each week even with resets.
As Davis says here, "How long can I run this program? You run this program until you legitimately stall * on at least 2 of your major lifts while bulking (Bench, Rows, Squat, DL). 4-6 months is a good average for someone bulking. I don’t advise moving onto an intermediate program if you’ve been cutting the whole time on this program.
*Legitimate stall- After deloading (taking 4-7 days completely off), dropping 15% (reset) and working back up you cannot break your plateau."

Once I reach that point which will be I don't know, 6 months or however long I can run the novice weekly progression without stalling, I'm going to then switch over to the intermediate progression from F5 where you add the same increments but every 2 weeks and a rep on everything for the week no weight is being added. I really want to keep using the same full body routine suggested by Paul so if I have to increase volume, I'm thinking of just adding a set to whatever exercises without changing the split or adding new exercises.

I was being more philosophical vs practical on that question, because it feels like if numbers don’t progress how you feel they should, you freak out a bit.

Even this thread is called “nothing to show for it” even though your goal was gaining muscle, which you did.

[Animal2692]

I was being more philosophical vs practical on that question, because it feels like if numbers don’t progress how you feel they should, you freak out a bit.

Even this thread is called “nothing to show for it” even though your goal was gaining muscle, which you did.

No no, for sure you helped me realize that numbers are just proxies. Like you said, unless I **** the bed nutritionally, I had to have gained some muscle lifting for 12 weeks. You also said at one point that for hypertrophy purposes only, by no means do you need your numbers to go way up like in the case of a powerlifter which gave me some hope. It's just that with all of that in mind, I don't want to jump to the other end of the spectrum and ignore a lack of long term strength progress either because eventually the numbers must go up. I started bulking again Sunday so I can get up to 180 by March or so and that should definitely help my numbers

[Filmbuff81]

I still think you should try helms intermediate bodybuilding routine.

It uses wave loaded linear periodization.

It’s nothing magical, but it builds in slow progression without making you chase numbers since it’s still auto regulated.

But you can bias the reps to be higher than his sample routine, but either way the method is sound.

using your squat of 185x10

Say you can do 165 for 3 sets of 10

Week 1 - 165 3x10
Week 2 - 170 3x8
Week 3 - 175 3x6
Week 4 - 170 3x10
Week 5 - 175 3x8
Week 6 - 180 3x6
Week 7 Deload
Week 8 - 175 3x10
Week 9 - 180 3x8
Week 10 - 185 3x6
Week 11 - 180 3x10
Week 12 - 185 3x8
Week 13 - 190 3x6
Deload
Repeat until it stops working and you need more volume or more advanced programming.

It’s not rocket science but as you can see it is a way to yield long term slow incremental weight on the bar to gauge one element of progress

[Corbets]

Don't underestimate tech gains in bench, most new lifters put some effort into learning how to squat and deadlift but think bench is just lying down and pressing and see very lazy with getting set up, unrack, back and hip tightness etc.

Holy hell is that accurate. Ever since hiring a coach in February, I’ve learned that a proper bench is about 200x more technical than I had ever imagined.

Of course, just getting the right form put 10kg on my 1RM by itself, never mind reducing aches / pains / injury risk, so well-worth learning.