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Hi guys and gals!This post is a result of frustration after seeing my body comp results and comparing them to the ones I have from before. Before I go into more detail about the results, I'll share you a short history of my training and diet. I have some history from my teens doing track&field. I then got some weird health problems not related to my sport and I quit. I few years ago the health problems started to be a thing of the past and I have since gone to the gym and stuff. At first my gym training was something like a couple of months on, a couple of months off. Approximately a year ago I decided this had to stop, it was so frustrating to not get anywhere with my training and to always start over after a couple months break. So here I am, a year of consistent work, a few body comp measurements later. For most of that time, I have used a push/pull split and hitting every body part twice a week (4-6 tough sets per muscle per workout). The workouts are based on big compound lifts followed by a little bit of isolation work. My diet was at first paleo style with white rice and potatoes added on top as carbs. Late last year I stumbled on CBL and did that until a couple months back. Since then I have used CNS to shed some fat before the summer.OK, so last September, that's 9 months ago and after 3 months of consistent training, I had my body comp checked (InBody 720, bioimpedance method, see http://www.bodyanalyse.no/studier/FFM_720vsDEXA.pdf for comparison of accuracy vs DEXA). I was 72.3kg (I'm 175cm) at 12.0% BF. That's 8.7kg fat, 63.6kg lean body mass (LBM), and 36.2kg muscle. In November I was 71.7kg at 11.1% body fat. That's 7.9kg fat, 63.8kg LBM, and 36.7kg muscle. In February, after doing some density bulking, my numbers were 74.2kg, 13.1% BF, 9.7kg fat, 64.5kg LBM, and 37.2kg muscle. I continued with SA CBL and switched to CNS in the beginning of April. I tried to keep my calories high and apparently I did as my weight dropped quite slowly. This Monday I had my last Carb Nite after a full body workout (to maximize glycogen storage) and had my body comp tested again on Tuesday. The results: 72.1kg at 11.1% BF, that is 8.0kg fat, 64.1kg LBM, and 36.6kg muscle. Same numbers as in November, almost the same as after only three months of consistent training. My strength has been increasing, albeit really really slowly even during CNS.So the question is basically, well I don't know. Wtf? What am I doing wrong? I was not a complete newbie a year ago but I was not training consistently either nor was I in good shape. According to some reserch, newbies gain on average about 0.5kg LBM per month with very basic training and no changes in nutrition. I did that in 9 months with apparently decent workout routine and good diet. I turned 30 this March, maybe I'm too old for this s*#t? Or am I just a hardgainer with bad genetics for gaining muscle? Have I reached my genetic limit with such a short training? Any ideas are welcome to get through this plateau!
First and foremost – if you are not gaining weight, then you need a higher baseline caloric intake. How much are you eating? Reminder……. You grow when your OUT of the gym – you go in there to STIMULATE the muscles. So don't get too caught up on your training routine until you can be sure you are even eating enough.I was also a 150 pounder (and not good genetics) when i first started and literally BLEW UP to 200+ my first year - Wasn't moving big weight either... but i ate like it was my f@!King JOB. Pre and Post-workout protein meals are super essential for damage control and you should be supplementing heavily during these time periods.... what's your peri-workout nutrition look like?
i as well have very hard time putting on any weight whether it be fat or muscle my body seems to enjoy 150-155lbs. For me to put on anything i have to do like Big_R says eat likes its my job.. start slow though.. i started by adding some extra protein every meal and then i have mini meals every couple hours in the evenings. For example if my normal meal was 1/3 pound of beef with couple strips of bacon and a cup of broccoli, i would take on some more beef up to 1/2 pound then do that for a few weeks and keep increasing. Now a basic meal is about 3/4 lb of beef with 4-5 strips of bacon, cup of mushrooms, very large helping of broccoli.. Then two hours later ill have a 3-4 egg omelet with maybe another strip or two of bacon. Closer to bed ill have a protein shake with maybe some almond butter and some of my homemade chicken salad and some coconut oil. I'm allergic to dairy but if i wasn't id throw in some cheese on those omelets and maybe some cottage cheese with my before bed meal.
here's an example of my dinner tonight(its a ulc day).. i finished my workout had my pwo shake with a large banana. About an hour later my dinner which took about 10 min to prepare. Took a package of precut romaine lettuce(usually use spinach but was out) put that in a bowl. Fired up a skillet and threw in 3 pieces of extra thick cut bacon. When that was almost done i threw in 4oz of perdue pre-cooked chicken breast strips and warmed those up using the bacon grease. Took out the bacon and cooked the chicken for about a minute in the grease. Then threw the chicken on top of the lettuce. Emptied out the excess bacon grease then threw on 3 large eggs with a 1/2 cup of mushrooms for an omelet. Squirted some Italian dressing over the chicken/lettuce for a salad and crumbled up one of the strips of bacon over the salad.That's a basic meal then two hours later ill have something else like a decent helping of my homemade chicken salad with some nuts or something like that... then before bed ill have a shake with some almond butter and sometimes some more bacon.For 155lb guy its a pretty decent amount of food but its what i need to grow.. its also all i can afford lol my grocery bills are already crazy high and I don't even buy grass fed beef or anything like that
Are you on CN now? You need to smash lots of carbs. And you are lean enough to stay on CBL SA. CN won't help with that. What's yr exercise routine like? And focus on compound movements to increase yr base strength. Like I got told. Avoid fluff work. No point if you don't have muscle/base yet.
IMO you are in the same place as you were earlier because you havent actually done anything. Not trying to sound like a prick but youve made like no major progress at all before you started cutting weight again. You've essentially gone from 72kgs to 74kgs back to 72kgs and expected miracles to occur. 2kgs! thats nothing. I can put that on in a week if I really wanted to and youd barely tell the difference. Try going from 72kgs to at least 82kgs, or better yet 92kgs before doing any sort of weight cut. And even when you get to that new weight you are going to need to hold it for a considerable amount of time before you can cut weight and expect all that new muscle to stick. I speak from nearly a decade of spinning my wheels and doing everything wrong almost the entire time! (; Im also 31 now and yes it is harder to put on muscle when you get older and have been training awhile. But its still doable if you approach things smart and with a long term outlook.
Yes I understand that I need to be able to gain weight and I have had no problem gaining weight, it's just that too little of that weight is muscle when I do gain. Like I said, I was doing CBL DB earlier this year and gained 2.5kg of mass of which only 0.5kg was lean mass. If I remember correctly that's a lower ratio than a sedentary person will gain when stuffing his face with all the crap in the world (around one third of the gained weight by a fat person is lean mass to support the gained fat mass).So apparently I need to increase my calories but slower (I did go from CBL SA straight into DB earlier so the jump in calories was quite high in an instant) and when I get to a level of lean mass I'm happy with, maintain it for a while, and only then start shedding the fat, right? I'll need to be on CNS for a little longer now though as I'll have a mole removed on Tuesday and I'm not allowed to workout in at least a week after that.And for those who asked about my training. I have used a push/pull split and about 4 sessions per week. No cardio. Push workouts based on ass-to-grass squats (3RM ~1.7xBW), bench press (1RM ~1.5xBW), dips with added weight, military presses. Pull workouts based on deadlifts for heavy singles occassionally (1RM ~2.2xBW) but usually romanian deadlifts for higher reps, weighted pull-ups and chin-ups, bent over rows etc.
Yes I understand that I need to be able to gain weight and I have had no problem gaining weight, it's just that too little of that weight is muscle when I do gain. Like I said, I was doing CBL DB earlier this year and gained 2.5kg of mass of which only 0.5kg was lean mass. If I remember correctly that's a lower ratio than a sedentary person will gain when stuffing his face with all the crap in the world (around one third of the gained weight by a fat person is lean mass to support the gained fat mass).
Dont blame the diet. There a plenty of other factors that influence your results. How are your stress levels for instance? Also using those bioimpedience methods as a method of tracking the quality of your results is only going to mess with your head. 0.5kg of lean mass (dry weight) when accounting for water weight (muscle is apparently 73% water) is closer to 2kgs.
So apparently I need to increase my calories but slower (I did go from CBL SA straight into DB earlier so the jump in calories was quite high in an instant) and when I get to a level of lean mass I'm happy with, maintain it for a while, and only then start shedding the fat, right? I'll need to be on CNS for a little longer now though as I'll have a mole removed on Tuesday and I'm not allowed to workout in at least a week after that.
Yes you definately want to increase calories slowly, especially if youve been on a fatloss phase. Layne Norton calls it reverse dieting. Adding a ton of calories quickly when youve only just recently lost a bunch of fat is a good way to put it back on. I dont see any need to have to go on CNS just because you cant exercise. Your body is still going to chew through your glycogen. Maybe just have smaller backloads for the period you cant train.
And for those who asked about my training. I have used a push/pull split and about 4 sessions per week. No cardio. Push workouts based on ass-to-grass squats (3RM ~1.7xBW), bench press (1RM ~1.5xBW), dips with added weight, military presses. Pull workouts based on deadlifts for heavy singles occassionally (1RM ~2.2xBW) but usually romanian deadlifts for higher reps, weighted pull-ups and chin-ups, bent over rows etc.
What sort of rep schemes are you using? I only see 1-3RM listed. If you are primarily training at those intensities you might not be doing enough reps (volume) in order to illicit the necessary hypertrophy signals.
Dont blame the diet. There a plenty of other factors that influence your results. How are your stress levels for instance? Also using those bioimpedience methods as a method of tracking the quality of your results is only going to mess with your head. 0.5kg of lean mass (dry weight) when accounting for water weight (muscle is apparently 73% water) is closer to 2kgs.What sort of rep schemes are you using? I only see 1-3RM listed. If you are primarily training at those intensities you might not be doing enough reps (volume) in order to illicit the necessary hypertrophy signals.
It's not dry weight. Otherwise I had 135.5kg of muscle which I think is pretty unlikely 🙂 Anyway, I think I raised calories too fast back then.I don't feel I am stressed: flexible desk job, not much demanding commitments. I have tried to get 8h of sleep every night (well, rack time at least). I'm quite slow to fall asleep but I recently got some melatonin and it seems to make it easier.Those numbers were my maxes. When I was doing density bulking I did german volume training (10x10's). Lately I have used a push/pull split (4-5 workouts per week) and rotated through three rep schemes: in one workout ~3-5 reps per set, in one ~8 reps per set, and in one ~15 reps per set. I did 4-6 sets per muscle per workout.What do you think would be a good rate for gaining weight (kgs/pounds per month)? Unfortunately I have incomplete records from the previous density bulking period but I think the rate was ~2kg in a month. Maybe half of that would do?
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