Also, for posterity’s sake, and because this is my log. I’m going to post a long write up i did for Reddit explaining who i am and where i’m coming from right now. Other’s may find this sort of thing useful?
Alright! Here we go!
Let’s get the requirements out of the way first…
Sex: Male
Age: 29
Starting Weight: 180lbs
Ending Weight: 180lbs
Height 6’1
Before and after photos
While I am very pleased with my results, I can see how many might view these pics and think that I didn’t really change all that much…that I perhaps look largely the same. There are several things here to note…
- It was just one year of training and dieting.
- I hate to be “that guy” but I’m tall and small framed. I should be out there running marathons, not lifting weights. But hey, you deal with the hand you’re dealt.
NSFW Pics Below. Dude in his underwear incoming
Relaxed Front View
Left: ~180lbs
Right: ~180lbs
From the very beginning when I started on the left to the very end on the right. I wish I had taken some flexed pictures when I embarked on all of this but I didn’t and so here we are ¯_(ツ)_/¯.
Double Front Bicep
Wide Lat Spread
Most Muscular
Left: 195lbs
Right: 180
By now I had bulked from ~180 to 195 with 5lbs to go and then back on down to 180lbs
Most Muscular - 200lbs
200lbs
I wanted to include at least one picture of what things were like at 200lbs.
Full Album
Numbers
December 2016
Bench: 180lbs
Squat: 200lbs
Deadlift: 260lbs
Press: 110lbs
March 2018
Bench: 236lbs
Squat: 308lbs
Deadlift: 354lbs
Press: 154lbs
My lifts are still pretty unimpressive, but lightyears ahead of where they were stuck forever.
Background, Motivation, and Other Bits
I’ve been lifting seriously since I was 24 years old (I am now 29). Over that time, I farted around a bunch and got nowhere. I ate like a bird for 4 years and wondered why my lifts were so pitiful. I am quite good at tracking macros and calories but the targets were just not enough. The primary reason for this is because I thought I was stuck in this limbo of “skinny-fat” where I needed to bulk to get strong but I was still bothered too much by the belly fat I carried around.
I ~ran~ farted around with 5/3/1, Starting Strength, Texas Method, PowerliftingToWin Novice, etc etc etc. I skipped around way too much for four years to honestly say I ran any of these very much. As noted earlier, it wouldn’t have mattered if I had run them to completion though because I ate like a bird (we’re talking like ~1800kcals a day).
In December 2016 I hired Alberto Nunez of 3DMJ to coach me. Working with 3DMJ would provide me a few things: someone to finally tell me if I should just cut or bulk, actual intelligent programming, and a real sense of accountability. I would meet with him every three months and we’d do an hourlong Skype call where he would then shoot me an excel spreadsheet of programming that would last me 12-18 weeks. This spreadsheet also included macro/calorie/and supplement targets.
I should pause here for a moment and give a bit of a disclaimer. While I won’t be sharing any of the actual excel sheets I was given, I’ll go into some of the general advice I was given + the programming to a degree. I don’t think this would piss off 3DMJ as all of this info can be found in their Muscle and Strength Training Pyramid books.
Nutrition
It was Alberto’s advice that I go from 180lbs to 200lbs in bodyweight. Gaining no more than 0.9lbs - 1.4lbs per month. If I gain too much, cut it by 100 calories, if I gain too little then add 100 calories a day.
For cutting; lose up to 1.6lbs per week.
The app “Happy Scale” for iOS was a freaking life saver in this area.
Bulking Macros: 200g Protein, 325g Carbs, 85g Fat ~2640kcals, though this grew over time to around 2800kcals.
Cutting Macros: 175g Protein, 149g Carbs, 45g Fat ~1700kcals
Again, I did not start with these macros to cut at 200lbs. I got as low as 1600kcals the closer I got to 180lbs.
Training
The routine I was given, and performed, for a year and some change was a 4-day a week full-body routine with plenty of assistance work. I spent, on average, an hour and fifteen minutes in the gym at a time.
I think it makes the most sense to show what exercises I trained, what the mesocycles focused on, and maybe the rep schemes…
Exercise Selection
Here is a dump of all the exercises I trained…
Primaries
- Bench Press
- Low Bar Squat
- Overhead Press
- Conventional Deadlift
- Front Squat
- Chest Supported Row
Secondaries
- Lat Pulldown
- Standing Calf Raises
- EZ Bar Skull Crushers
- Hamstring Curl
- One-Arm Cable Curl
- Lateral Raises
- Preacher Curl
Mesocycles
The training was 4 days per week with a hypertrophy focus. Mon/Friday was Hypertrophy intensive. Tuesday was a speed strength day (technique work). Thursday was a strength day.
Every 4 or 8 weeks or so I’d have a “test week” where I’d do AMRAP on certain lifts and those would be used as my new 1RMs to dictate the rest of my training. This is how progressive overload was decided.
If I was bulking, the test weeks came more frequently, like every other week I was testing one of my primaries. If I was cutting, I only attempted a test week every 8 weeks or so.
Sets/Reps schemes
A hypertrophy day might’ve looked like 5x8, 4x7, 3x10, 3x8, etc. Strength days were like 3x3, 4x5, 4x4, etc. It is pretty simple and typical of what you read on the interwebs. Hypertrophy above sets of 5, strength below sets of 5. The day-to-day was wave-loaded so it was always varying.
So here is what a single week would look like…
Monday
Bench Press: 4x7x167.5
Squat: 4x7x217.5
Deadlift: 4x7x247.5
Lat Pull-down: 105lbs x 12, 12, 12, 12
Standing Calf Raise: 85lbs x 12, 12, 12, 12
Skullcrushers: 45lbs x 12, 12, 12, 12
Tuesday
Bench Press: 7x2x172.5
Squat: 7x2x225
Deadlift: 7x2x257.5
Leg Curl: 85lbs x 12, 12, 12, 12
Bicep curl: 20lbs x 12, 12, 12, 12
Lateral Raises: 20lbs x 12, 12, 12, 12
Thursday
Press: 4x4x125
Front Squat: 4x4x182.5
Chest Supported Row: 4x4x137.5
Lat Pull-down: 90lbs x 15, 14, 14
Standing Calf Raise: 77.5lbs x 15, 14, 14
Skullcrushers: 40lbs x 15, 14, 14
Friday
Bench Press: 3x9x150
Squat: 3x9x195
Chest-supported row: 3x9x107.5
Leg Curl: 75lbs x 15, 14, 14
Bicep curl: 45lbs x 15, 14, 14
Lateral Raises: 20lbs x 15, 14, 14
So every week would look a lot like this. With particular workouts shifted around. Every 4th week would be a deload. I trained the same way while I cut or bulked. I only attempted PRs less while I cut.
A Rant
There is a cruel irony with IIFYM-style eating. It is “Flexible Dieting” in that you can enjoy donuts, pizza, or ice cream so long as it fits your macros. But the greatest issue I’ve found in the past year of weighing and measuring everything I eat is that it precludes eating foods that are not easily measured, but otherwise healthy-ish. Take for example these types of foods…
- beef stew
- chicken pot pie
- lasagna
- meatloaf
The only way to reasonably track these is to portion out the ingredients before cooking them and cook your own single serving. This may work for someone who is single, but not a married man with kids. Of course, you could “eyeball” it, which is what I do when eating out, but you cross a threshold where you’re just kidding yourself.
Next Steps
So after training and dieting this way for a year and a quarter, I’ve decided to focus on other things. I’ve got two kids, a wife, career, and a painting hobby I want to grow. I love training and hope to be that old dude who can still squat. Spending 1.25 hours in the gym four days a week (plus cardio) is something I’m not interested in doing anymore. I’m going to switch down to a three-days-a-week model and focus on strength much more. I made a spreadsheet for “The Bridge” to follow along with.
I’ve learned IIFYM is really a skill, one that I’ve grown in the past year. So, for now, I want to try to take that skill and eat as intuitively as possible and let the chips fall where they may.
Advice
If you are kinda skinny with some body fat and unsure about bulking or cutting first, do yourself a favor and decide to put on 10 or 20lbs SLOWLY while training. I believe you will find you don’t get super fat like you’re fearing and the weight is distributed nicely. Provided you don’t eat like an asshole.
At the risk of sounding like a shill; if you’re totally stuck, overthinking everything, and find you’re always browsing this subreddit and/or forums, I would strongly recommend hiring an online coach. There are many out there these days it isn’t hard to find someone. If you can afford it. There was immense value in simply having someone tell me what to do so I could use my brainpower for something else in life.
I hope this was helpful to someone out there. Feel free to ask any questions and I can maybe provide more detail. Thanks for reading.