I’m a 32 year old male, 6 foot, 202lbs with a waist circumference at the naval of 36 inches, no health issues/injuries. My main goal is to have a build similar to Dr Baraki/Feigenbaum (With the strength to match :)). So for my height I presume i’d need to be around 200-210lbs with a waist around 32 inches although I have small bone structure (small wrists/ankles, weak jawline etc).
For the past few years I’ve been cutting/bulking between 180-205lbs, always ensuring protein is at least 180g per day, but keep ending up with the same body composition, every time I get to 200+ my waist hits around the 36inch mark, so I switch to a cut and end up back at square one.
Current training is the intermediate Upper/Lower program from Eric Helms in the Muscle and Strength Pyramid. My most recent lifts of 5 reps x 4 sets at RPE 8 are:
Squat - 125kg
Bench - 97.5kg
Deadlift - 130kg
I’ve been tracking my nutrition accurately for as long as I can remember, currently using MacroFactor which has my maintenance calories at 2795kcals.
Do you have any suggestions on what you would do if you were me? I am enjoying this current program and have been using it for the past 3 months, adding 2.5kgs to the compounds each month as planned. But I also own the BBM 12 week strength and the GPP Hypertrophy if which I haven’t ran for a few years
Thank you for any advice and for all that you and the team do.
Thanks for the post and the detailed history. I’d be curious to know what your bodyweight and waist circumference have done over the last 3 months? Similarly, I’d like to know what your squat strength has done in the same time interval?
Most resent squat: 4 x 6 with 125kg @ RPE 8 on the first set.
Looking back through my logs it hasn’t really changed over the last few months, finished a Powerbuilding program by Jeff Nippard with the final workout doing 140kg x 4 reps @ RPE 9.5.
I think i started started this Upper/Lower program 3 months ago with a far too conservative weight for squats. I think I might need to start pushing myself a bit harder as I think my ability to judge RPE lands me lifting a bit too light.
It does not look like you’re at maintenance level intake overall, given your weight trajectory. I would not continue to gain weight until your waist is < 35". You could just hang out at maintenance if you wanted to see if your waist comes down. It would likely 300-400 Cal higher than your current “maintenance” intake. I do not think the Calorie target delivered to you via that app is accurate, though it seems like you’ve been above that, on average, for the last 4 months or so.
I would not recommend using a program without autoregulation, but I’m not familiar enough with Mr. Nippard’s programming to say whether it’s good or not. I do not think undershooting on weights by an RIR or two has in this context reduces gainzZz though.
I would not run the 12-week strength program.
I’d be considering one of our Powerbuilding or Strength programs depending on how many days per week you want to train. -Jordan
Apologies for the lack of clarity, I am currently using the weight gain mode, recently reduced the rate of gain to 0.2% per week, I was just mentioning what it says that my maintenance calories are for reference.
So would dieting down to 34 inches then returning to weight gain suitable? Or perhaps a longer cut to around 32 inches?
I have plenty of time to train so i’m to do 4/5/6 days per week whichever would likely produce this best results.
Yea, I don’t think the energy needs are likely to be accurate either way.
I would only consider weight gain once your waist has been ~34" for 4-6 weeks.
Regarding programming, after your available time to train, it depends on your training history, current fitness level, and goals. I don’t have a clear insight into that, but would be happy to make a recommendation upon obtaining that information.
Training history:
Started training with full body 3 x per week type stuff for about a year, then switched between upper lower workouts and Dorian Yates style stuff e.g. working up to 1 top set per exercise. Then ran 531 for a few years, BBM 12 week strength, BBM 7 Week Hypertrophy, Jeff Nippard Powerbuilding and now the Eric Helms Upper Lower Hypertrophy program.
Weight has gone up and down over the years and so has strength.
Fitness is pretty good, I play basketball once per week, a ride a stationary bike once per week for 25 mins at RPE6, and hit 8000 + steps per day.
Main goal is more muscle. But strength is something I want to improve also.