When do the Muscles Come?

[Bicepzilla]

I’m a gym newbie making the transition to lifting after a foray into the cycling world (where lighter=faster and an upperbody is useless). SO…I started lifting 6 weeks ago, 6 days/week, (chest, back, arms, chest, back, arms, off day) doing 4 stations of 5x6 each day (I haven’t quite figured out all the short-hand lingo yet…my apologies).

I’m a skinny dude. When I started 6 weeks ago I weighed 147lbs and could max bench 120lbs. For the record: Yes, I’m a male. I'm also 6ft1, 23 years old. I know…lame…(but I had sick cardio.)

Anyways, I feel like I’m getting relatively good strength gains pretty quickly…but I still have little/no increase in visual mass growth. In 6 weeks I’ve gone from 147 to 162lbs (still all sorts of thin). My bench max is now 160 (I can do 8 reps @135 whereas 6 weeks ago I couldn’t do 1 rep). My dumbbell shoulder-press has gone from using the 20s to the 35s and 40s for my 5x6. My barbell curl is up to sets at 80lbs. I do three sets of 12 dips (6 weeks ago I could do about 3 total). Yet I still have NO improvement in mass (which I define as visible muscle).

Basically, I’m wondering what kind of weight I need to be lifting before I start to see at least some minimal improvements in mass. Like knowing: ‘if I bench ‘x’ lbs I’ll have to have some pecs’ or 'If I can do 3 sets of 'x' dips I should at lesat have some triceps'. I know I have a long road ahead of me...just looking for some goals to set. Anyways, thanks for any thoughts.

 

[BiggT]

There are no landmark numbers.....you've gained 15lbs, so you're bigger than you were 6 weeks ago. The key is to progress on a big lifts. You really should squat and deadlift. Train progressively. Keep a constant, like sets and reps and add weight each time, eat more calories than you burn, and you'll grow.

Read the training sticky on here and check out the madcow2 geocities site.....you'd be perfect for some nice, basic 5x5 style workouts and some heavy eating. Do you like milk? I recommend a gallon a day.....I'm serious. I do it, and so does xblitz44x on here....we both have training journals on here if you want to look. I haven't updated mine in a little bit, but I plan on it soon.

Read the sticky though, and I'll be more than happy to help you set up a routine or answer any questions.

And at 6'1.....you'll definitely need to be a lot heavier than 162 before you even look like you lift weights.....you can gain an enormous amount of weight in 6 months to a year, you just need to push the compond lifts hard, and eat big.

 

[Ruca]

hey man you have gained 15 pounds in 6 weeks so surely you can see something!?!?!? that is a lot of weight for that amount of time. eat big.....take the good advice from this board...and give it some time and you will be looking good. also...you are getting closer to the age (obviously different in everyone) where you will naturally put on more mass.

 

[Illuminati]

you won't notice the different from day to day, but take some pictures now, and then in 6 months take the same pictures, and compare them. That is when you will see the difference

 

[rick_hfh]

Definatley you will see little improvemants. A line here, a vein there, it is slow. I feel like I haven't grown much since highschool. I have seen pictures and I can definatley see that I have grown a lot. Congrats on the weight gain. Judging by your stats you sound like a hard gainer, someone who doesn't gain weight fast naturally. So that means that you can eat a lot of foods whitout putting on fat. A blessing and a curse. Try and get at least 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight, but shoot for 1.5. A lot of people use a simple rule of eating 17-25 cals per pound of bodyweight to gain. So say 20 cals X 162 Lbs = 3240 cals per day. But if you do lots of cycling you will burn tons of cals from that alone. So try and shoot for that, If you are not gaining after 4-5 weeks make adjustments. If you are getting fat, cut back. It will be harder to gain weight cycling a lot. It just means that you will have to EAT more. Go to Fitday.com. It has a calorie counting program that will keep track of your daily caloric intake. You can customize each food you add. Look at the nutritional info on the back of the label and type in the nutritional and it will save it for you, whenever you eat that food again you can just click on the saved food.

I agree whole heartedly with all the advice the guys gave gave you about training compound lifts, Bench, squat, deadlifts. You will not get big doing curls for the girls. Good luck and keep us posted.

 

[Anthrax Invasion]

Hardgainer = bull + shit

 

[BiggT]

You're probably not even a hardgainer.....cyclists burn an absurd amount of calories, I dont know if it is true, but I think I read that Lance Armstrong ate 10,000 cals a day during training and he weighed what? a whopping 150lbs? If you scale back the cycling, you'll burn thousands and thousands less calories a day and you'll pile on bodyweight, good bodyweight if you're training hard in the gym.

 

[Cynical Simian]

you won't notice the different from day to day, but take some pictures now, and then in 6 months take the same pictures, and compare them. That is when you will see the difference

Great advice. Along with a bodyfat caliper and a scale, pics are essential for gauging changes. Buy a cheap digital camera and take pictures from a few different angles once a week. You won't regret it, and you'll probably wonder who that skinny guy is when you look back after a few months.

 

[BiggT]

Start up a journal too.....if you do this right, it could be a lot of fun. You're the type of guy who could realistically gain 100lbs in a year. Actually, as a cyclist, you're probably used to eating big.....you just probably burned all of it and more off.

 

[Sassy69]

Definitely do the progress pix, get the bodyfat done, track your weight and you see changes when you stop looking for them.

Definitely diet for what you are trying to accomplish -- that will be 80% of your progress.

Couple comments on the training -- You're doign all upper body -- So you have good mass on your legs? Personally I would put some leg trainning in there to keep you balanced both size-wise & strength-wise. I would also put a break in there somewhere as you really can't isolate upper body muscle groups w/o touching on the other upper body muscle groups.. Recovery time is just as critical as training time.

 

[rick_hfh]

Hardgainer = bull + shit

You know your'e right. A grown male that weighs 140 Lbs at over 6 foot. Have you ever heard of an ecotmorph? Not saying that he can't build mass. I have seen plenty of guys make great physique changes with diet and training.

 

[Bicepzilla]

Thanks everyone for the responses...I was pretty shocked to see so many helpful responses so quickly. Thanks for the picture advice...I snapped a few with the ol' digital camera, so we'll see if I can't better track small gains. Also good to confirm what I pretty much thought: the lifting is fine (add some lower body), and that it pretty much all comes down to eating eating eating.

 

[Anthrax Invasion]

You know your'e right. A grown male that weighs 140 Lbs at over 6 foot. Have you ever heard of an ecotmorph? Not saying that he can't build mass. I have seen plenty of guys make great physique changes with diet and training.

I bet you have.

The term hardgainer is overused. He's burning a substantial amount of calories daily, and likely not eating as much as he thinks.

 

[theprofessor]

You know your'e right. A grown male that weighs 140 Lbs at over 6 foot. Have you ever heard of an ecotmorph? Not saying that he can't build mass. I have seen plenty of guys make great physique changes with diet and training.

agreed... there is such thing as a hardgainer...

 

[letsrun4it]

I hear you have enormous biceps.

 

[rick_hfh]

I bet you have.

The term hardgainer is overused. He's burning a substantial amount of calories daily, and likely not eating as much as he thinks.

Agree on both accounts. Many guys that can't bench 350 or don't have 18" guns are self proclaimed hard gainers. Whatever makes them feel better.

Well Bicepzilla, congrats on the progress. Elite is an awesome place to learn tons of cool stuff. Good luck and keep us posted.

 

[Anthrax Invasion]

Aww, I was hoping you'd let me turn this into a flamewar. I need someone to argue with.

Yeah, Elite is teh awesome.

So are refeeds. I'm fucking insane right now. I think I've developed a twitch. 320 grams of dextrose in an hour time-span will do that to you.

 

[tgriff]

deads, bench, squats should be the foundation of you program.....stick with compound lifts...

 

[xblitz44x]

You've got all the advice that you need, but to sum it up, here is your checklist:

-Focus on compound lifts such as deadlifting, squatting, and overhead pressing.

-Use the same rep range over and over again to gauge your progress.

-Up your weights each week, even if it's only 2.5's on each side more than the week before.

-EAT. EAT. EAT. If you go to www.fitday.com you can sign up and it'll help track your calories. Once you're on a steady diet you won't have to type everything in but for now I'd start typing to make sure you're around the 3,200 calorie range.

-Drink at least a half gallon of milk per day. It'll account for 800 of your calories.

 

[vin01]

I think 15 lbs in 6 weeks is decent if not great progress.

With the name Bicepzilla, I figured this thread would be all about the curls for the girls..

Make sure you standardize your photo-taking.. ie. use the camera in the same light from the same distance at the same height everytime.. this way, without taking measurements, your comparison photos will be of the same scale every time...

 

[silver_shadow]

i think since your almost a complete newbie to the gym, mark rippetoe's 3x5 would be a good training program. there's a link to it in the training vault sticky at the top of the first page of this forum.

 

[Tweakle]

Also good to confirm what I pretty much thought: the lifting is fine (add some lower body),

no, your lifting is far from fine - you need to read the stickies on the top of the page.

goals to aim for? using the bench as an example You'll probably have 'pecs' when you're benching 315 for 10-15 reps.

 

[BiggT]

Bicepzilla,

What is your routine layout?.....lifting for size and strength isn't about going to the gym to do a bunch of random shit for each 'bodypart' trying to work hard and get sore and hope something works.....you need a plan for progress. Eating a lot is important, but you need to train big lifts progressively.

Tweakle is right that the training is far from fine.......and TRAIN LEGS....as a cyclist, they are most likely proportionately large right now, but at 6-1 and 160, they aren't large by any means I can guarantee. And, once you stop all the cycling (which you need to do in order to gain weight) you'll have no legs. So, start squatting asap.

And, I honestly don't think it is fair for people to say you're an ectomorph. the reason I say this is because an ex-gf of mine is a triathlete, and I have met many pretty high-level cyclists, and the amount of calories they burn is disgusting.....you may very well weigh 220lbs if you didn't exercise like you do......you just can't say considering the amount of physical activity a cyclist does.

 

[al420]

Thanks everyone for the responses...I was pretty shocked to see so many helpful responses so quickly. Thanks for the picture advice...I snapped a few with the ol' digital camera, so we'll see if I can't better track small gains. Also good to confirm what I pretty much thought: the lifting is fine (add some lower body), and that it pretty much all comes down to eating eating eating.

Wrong little guy - not one person said your routine was even decent - I'm supprised you were not crucified - people on EF are too damm soft some times.

do a search on Madcows 5x5 and start the beginners program on Monday.

 

[silver_shadow]

^^^
not trying to be arsey but your routine sucks bicepzilla, try out mark rippetoe's 3x5 before trying the 5x5 IMO.

 

[Bicepzilla]

Thanks for correcting my stupidity ... you've all confirmed what I already suspected: I'm largely ignorant when it comes to weightlifting. But hey-that's why I made the post in the first place. Thanks for the advice on the 3x5, been reading up on it and I'll be seriously modifying my routine accordingly...and eating more.

 

[BiggT]

Thanks for correcting my stupidity ... you've all confirmed what I already suspected: I'm largely ignorant when it comes to weightlifting. But hey-that's why I made the post in the first place. Thanks for the advice on the 3x5, been reading up on it and I'll be seriously modifying my routine accordingly...and eating more.

It isn't stupidity, everyone learns something every day. Without either a weightlifting background or a college-level or higher background in football or track, how else would you know most of that stuff?? I'm pretty uninformed about cycling.

Look into those links and consider posting a journal.

 

[Cynical Simian]

Thanks for correcting my stupidity ... you've all confirmed what I already suspected: I'm largely ignorant when it comes to weightlifting. But hey-that's why I made the post in the first place. Thanks for the advice on the 3x5, been reading up on it and I'll be seriously modifying my routine accordingly...and eating more.

Like BiggT said, it's just a matter of background, and after a few weeks here you should be up to speed quite nicely.

I'm a bit worried about the implications of the first part of the post for the second. If you don't know much about training, you'd probably be better off just running the 3x5 exactly as Rippetoe has it rather than trying to modify what you're doing (which, as others mentioned, isn't a very good program, if it can even be called that). You might also want to check out GSP's 3x5 journal lower on the page in addition to the program description in the sticky.

 

[wrknonit]

I'm new here, this is only my second post, and I haven't pushed iron in almost 6 years (but I'm back come Monday!) so take my advice for what it's worth. Starting out, you need to be concentrating more on learning how to lift correctly than going for instant gains. Work almost exclusively on compound movements like bench, squat, and rows or deadlift. Almost every beginner will make tremendous gains if you stick to the basics and keep pushing progressively heavier weight. Dude, you added 33% to your max bench in 6 weeks, that's tremendous. Like the others said, EAT! and lay off the cardio if you're looking to pack on muscle. Keep reading these boards, these fuckers have a ton of real-world knowledge to share.

 

[maldorf]

you sound like me way back when I was in high school. I used to cycle an average of 150-200 miles per week or so and then dropped doing that and went into bodybuilding when I was 16. Back when I stopped the cycling I was 6 foot and weighed a whopping 140 lbs. I am now the same height and weigh 245 lbs and I would say I am even leaner now then when I cycled. Like everyone else here said, diet is the key. I would also get a new training program, do the single factor 5x5 by Madcow. I think you can try that. Consistency is the key to putting on the mass. You have to keep training year after year and you have to not miss your meals. After 20 years of training I have done pretty well considering how thin I was when I started.