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i've gotten stronger now i need some mass building workouts. help please.

wolfman87

New member
i've been doing a 5x5 workout for awhile now and i've gotten a lot stronger and added some weight but i still look the same. it's funny when i play lacrosse and i push big guys out of the way when i look small compared to them. now i want to start trying to put on some size now that my season is almost over. what should my reps per set look like to add size? i thought i saw that 3 sets of 10 on everything helps with size but i really have no idea. also do i go as heavy as i can for each set even if it means going down a little each set?
 
Sounds like you just need to eat more. Are you still making gains on the 5x5? How long have you been on it? Post up your routine.
 
Muscle Hytrophy occurs best within the 6-10 range. I'd go as far as to say stay within the 6-8 range, but there's probably a lot of disagreement with that sort of statement.

Keep in mind also that in order to gain weight, you HAVE to be consuming more kcal than you’re burning.

What is your diet like?
 
5x5 is fine for size gains, although I hear it builds fake muscle :p

Keep doing what you're doing, size gains aren't linear.. here's something to ponder

As a trainer here is an example of something I hear quite often by new trainees a few weeks into their new programs. OK, I gained 20 lbs on my bench press, how come my chest isn’t bigger yet?

Well the answer has a few parts to it. The first one is that most initial gains on a new move or new loading pattern of an old move are mostly neural adaptations.

The second part of the answer is that after going up in weight, you must do workouts for a period of time with the higher weight before your body builds more muscle to accommodate for the additional weight.

The third part is that for many trainees, a good amount of weight to the bar has to be added before more muscle is accrued, and a sub-category of the third part is that MANY trainees simply do not add mass on a linear scale, by that I mean as the amount of weight lifted continues to climb, mass does NOT accumulate in a straight-line fashion. MANY people grow in spurts and the weights will climb and climb, and the trainee keeps looking in the mirror wondering WTF? And BAM, over a short period of time, he will add a lot of mass. That’s just the nature of how things work for a good percentage of the trainees out there. So don’t despair if you just added 15 lbs to your bent rows and your back isn’t any bigger, or 30 to your squat and your legs aren’t the size of tree trunks. As long as diet is there to back up the training the growth WILL occur. Just keep your focus on adding weight to the bar and you will succeed!

Iron Addict
 
oh i eat as much as i possibly can cause i'm a "hard gainer". people are amazed how much i eat through out the day if they've never seen me eat b4. i weigh 144lbs now and when i started i weighed 136-137lbs. i've been on the 5x5 routine for almost 7 weeks with pretty good strength gains. it's starting to taper off now so i'm trying to eat even more. when i started i didn't want size cause i liked the element of surprise (small guy with decent strength) when playing lacrosse. now that the season is a couple weeks from being over i want to add size and then switch back to the 5x5.

the way i see things is that i "filled-out" what size i had with as much strength as possible and now i need to add more size so i can fill that out with more strength. i know that sounds retarded but it seems like that really is the case because i'm much harder now than b4. so now i need to add more size so that i can turn that hard too and then repeat the process.
 
If you have stalled out after only 7 weeks you certainly need to eat more. Im in the exact same boat as you. Bench and pullup has slowed for me (been increasing since january) but my squat and deads have a long way to go.


Post up your weekly routine and when you practice and play lacrosse. How many calories are you eating per day? Done the math yet?
 
as you grow bigger you have to up your caloric intake just to maintain it, not to mention gain more weight.
it is just impossible that you can eat *alot* and not grow. what i'm implying is that you *think* you eat alot but it isn't so - what people who don't lift weights think doesn't count. remember at the end of the day if you eat more cals than you burn, you will grow. also as you become bigger, you burn more. your body can't defy simple physics!
i posted this countless times but i'll do it again. this guy explains it well:
http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=459839
 
sardonicone said:
Muscle Hytrophy occurs best within the 6-10 range. I'd go as far as to say stay within the 6-8 range, but there's probably a lot of disagreement with that sort of statement.

Keep in mind also that in order to gain weight, you HAVE to be consuming more kcal than you’re burning.

What is your diet like?

That is what I have read, even on the main 5x5 and 3x5 site he explains 8eps being the best for Hytrophy, and the few BB friends I have say that like 4sets is the best with less than 10reps each, and they are pretty built guys telling me this

So I am sticking to my 4x6routine, that is 3sets of 6reps of heavy weight, and the final 4th set is ball busting, and then ya up the weight every week or so, and my buddies have gotten built good off that program. Workout's last approx 45min or so
 
silver_shadow said:
as you grow bigger you have to up your caloric intake just to maintain it, not to mention gain more weight.
it is just impossible that you can eat *alot* and not grow. what i'm implying is that you *think* you eat alot but it isn't so - what people who don't lift weights think doesn't count. remember at the end of the day if you eat more cals than you burn, you will grow. also as you become bigger, you burn more. your body can't defy simple physics!
i posted this countless times but i'll do it again. this guy explains it well:
http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=459839

oh i know what you're saying for sure because i've probably heard it as many times as you've said it. there is no doubt that i can grow easily just not in the way i want. i want to keep my body fat in the single digits which means i have to burn a lot of calories but not so much that i don't keep gaining pure muscle mass. it's a bitch trying to balance that all out so what i'm thinking i'm gonna have to do is, not worry about how fat i get (since i have a fast metabolism i should be able to burn it off quick enough) and just focus on increasing my strength because with strength comes muscle. i suppose i'll just stay with the 5x5. when i reach 150 i might try some anavar to cut fat and keep increasing strength or something like it.
 
you can't gain muscle without some fat gain. usually as an athlete you'd have to gain weight during off season anyway - i'm guessing. anyway, i'm pretty sure you do alot of running which while playing laX, so you wouldn't have to worry too much about becoming fat.

just curious since you mention anavar how old are you?
 
150lbs and Anavar, lol....I hope that was a joke...var is for girls and sissies anyway.

Seriously, man, at 144lbs NOTHING on you is gonna be big unless you're hung like a porn star....my advice is keep progressing on the 5x5 and eat, maybe add in some backoff sets of 8-ish reps.

At 144lbs you're not eating a lot and you're not eating as much as possible, and thats all there is too it.
 
you should eat more and get on the 3x5. I've gained 30 lbs in less then 3 months using it...no need for another routine :D
 
Tweakle said:
what the fuck?
that's to keep a six going for the summer. i know a lot of you think anavar is for wusses but i'm only 19 and i don't want anything harsher than that to fuck up my natural hormones that are at their best.
 
wolfman87 said:
that's to keep a six going for the summer. i know a lot of you think anavar is for wusses but i'm only 19 and i don't want anything harsher than that to fuck up my natural hormones that are at their best.

No, you shouldn't be touching 'roids. You have plenty of natural test, and anavar by itself its going to do much. You need to get to 200lb+ before you consider them, and preferably be around 25. Get back to eating!
 
i'm never going to reach 200lbs naturally that's for damn sure.

my routine is: on mondays i do bench, dumbbell or barbell incline, cable pull downs, preacher or regular curls with a curling bar, dips, and whatever you call it when you do curls with a reverse grip for the forearms.

wednesday i do 2 different types of lat pull downs, military press, upright rows, shrugs, and another exercise for the lats where you put a knee and a hand on a bench and pull the weight up from a hanging position. i forget what it's called.

friday i do squats, deadlifts, calve raises, the machine where you sit and push on the platform (with your legs), and i'm going to start with lunges on this friday.

btw i do ab work everytime i go to the gym after the main lifts i do are out of the way.
 
are you 5'2"? Missing your legs? there's no reason you can't be a solid 180-200 if you can do the big exercises and eat enough food.

someone here telling you to do 'mass building' reps is benching 155.. if you want to get bigger you need to forget entirely the whole idea of 'mass building' and just get stronger for the next 2 years.

Your routine isnt great, m.w.f splits like that are fine when you're already big and strong but they're not the fastest way to get there.
 
Tweakle said:
Your routine isnt great, m.w.f splits like that are fine when you're already big and strong but they're not the fastest way to get there.
Argeed. You would benefit greatly from some FREQUNCY. Instead of doing a smattering of movements, pick the big ones and do 'em twice a week. You will be much better served by eliminating the 'fluff' and allwing yourself to squat, bench, row, etc. 2x/week. You can set it up a number of ways, but to keepp it simple just run linear 5x5 -- there's so much info on it that it's a fantastic default program for folks who are still kinda new to 'good' training.

Strength and size ARE corrollary; as the quote Tweakle posted states, they may not line up perfectly, but you WILL get bigger if/when you get stronger. I mean, how could you possibly add 100 pounds to your lifts without adding some muscle? You would have to go out of your way NOT to grow if you got that much stronger (i.e. focusing on low volume singles, restricted diet, etc.).

You're still a beginner, which is a good thing. What you need to do is train like a beginner so that you can take full advantage of your body's level of adaptability.

And EAT, man, EAT.
 
You must spread some Karma around before giving it to Guinness5.0 again.

I just started a competition between my friend and I. He is gonna do fluff bodybuilding isolation while I focus on heavy basic lifting for a few months. He already has a bit of time and arm size against me, but we have dead similar bodies otherwise. I wonder who will be bigger and stronger in 3 months?
 
Pullup, row, overhead press or incline press

If you push weight, you should be pulling the same weight in the opposite direction to stay balanced. Row balances Bench. Pullups balance OHP. Squats and deads need no balancing unless you want to throw in front squats every now and then.
 
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