I’ve been reading numerous articles/blogs and they say a lot of times to bust through your plateau is to eat different calorie amounts different days. Like one day eat 1500 and the other day eat 1750…but as long as you eat the same amount in your week’s total. You should be okay right?
So if I eat something high in calorie on Tuesday, I can make up for it by eating less on Wednesday? Anyone agree or???
Endless sets of curls and kickbacks will get you a nice pump, but it won’t do shit for permanent arm growth. Your body tries to maintain general proportions, and having grotesquely disproportional arms isn’t what it wants. To get bigger arms, you want to get bigger overall. To get bigger overall, you squat.
Charles Poliquin has stated that to gain 1" in your arms, you should gain 10lbs of muscle mass. Alwyn Cosgrove supports this by asserting that hypertrophy is systemic (whole body) and not localized (arms).
I wouldn’t know, I have a penis.
Are you talking about caloric cycling? Caloric cycling works decently well when it’s within a 10%-20% range. However, your 2nd paragraph makes me think you’re trying to make up for a cheat meal by skimping the next day. If you have a cheat meal, don’t fret. It happens, just make sure you stay on target for the long term and you’ll be fine. I’d say chalk up 10% of your meals in a week for cheat meals. If you eat 4 times a day, that’s 2-3 meals a week of cheats. Don’t go overboard and cram down 50 snickers and call it a cheat meal though.
^^ I got a little excited about happy hour and had a few vodka/soda water that totaled approx 600 calories.
I’ve been trying to eat 200 calories less each day for the next 3 days to make up for it. So should I not be?
I wouldn’t worry about it. Just make sure everything else is fine and you stay on point for the rest of the week and you’ll be fine. 1 or 2 bumps in the road shouldn’t hinder your progress.
Good article sir. :tup:
Yeah I know about the isolation exercises and the problems with concentrating on them, but the way you said squat for big arms was hard to understand the reasoning behind it.
How’d it go, man?
(Where’s the support, people?)
This quote is from:
“If you?re desperate to add a couple of inches to your upper arms you?ll need to add 30 pounds or more over your body, unless your arms are way behind the rest of you. Don?t start thinking about 17? arms, or even 16? arms so long as your bodyweight is 130, 140, 150, 160, or even 170 pounds. Few people can get big arms without having a big body. You?re unlikely to be one of the exceptions.”
The idea that your body will “try to balance” out is very interesting.
Anyone know anything about this?
HeaT?
MagusMadness?
Routine critique
Hey everyone, my toothpick arms are finally gone. I’m pretty happy with the growth I’ve gotten so far, but I want to keep going. This is my routine right now. If I could get some tips for improving it, I would really appreciate it.
Incline sit ups (actually, I’m not really seeing improvement in the ab dept. but now that I think about it, the intensity have been pretty low lately. I should increase the incline…)
Standing Bicep Curls (dumbbell) (I do these one arm at a time. Does that matter?)
Lying Tricep extensions
Deltoid Raises
Standing Rows (Barbell)
Shrugs
Pectoral Flys (machine)
Dead Lifts
My goal is upper body growth with back strength as well.
Do bench press, squats, push press, chin/pull ups (if you can’t, substitute lat pulldown machine). Change incline sit ups to swiss/exercise ball and use a plate if it’s too easy. I just mentioned those off the top of my head so there might be more advice to be suggested by others.
I nkow you don’t want to read all the old stuff. Here’s some things that shine.
MagnusMadness
Senior Citizen
Quote:
MagnusMadness:
Is there a reason for the order of the sets of day 1, day 2, day 3?
aka, why not do military press as a starter?
++endquote++
yes, there is a reason…Everyday starts with either a quad or hip dominant leg movement…and from there we start with either a push or pull on a horizontal or vertical plane…each day we will train the different types of movements in a different order (still in an organized fashion) to provide somewhat a different kind of stimulus or to train all the movements in a non fatigued state…example…one day we start with bench press…then later we will do military presses, well when we get to military presses the shoulders may be somewhat worked/fatigued as well as the triceps and chest…another day we do military pressing earlier in the workout so as to get to it fresh…and we will bench slightly fatigued. Still with me??
Quote:
How often to switch rep schemes? On a per body part set, is it too often to switch it every time I cycle back to the body part?
On a full body set, is it too often to switch it per week?
I am trying to eat about every 2-3 hours nowadays. I think that’s great for my metabolism.
You can periodize almost in a crazy frequent manner or just weekly, or monthly…however, weekly is popular…
If you are on a body part split then by all means change rep schemes every time you hit it…Just plan ahead as to how you are going to do it…and pick only 3 or so rep schemes to cycle through. Maybe every 3 cycles or so, change up the form of periodization or change exercises.
With full body routines you can do several things…you can change it weekly, or every day if you want to…which is pretty fun sometimes…Example…Full body routines 3x a week. Day1: 3x10, Day2: 5x5, Day3: 2x15
Yes, eating every 2-3 hours is awesome…not only will your metabolism be very healthy, but your body will remain in an anabolic (growth) state non-stop…just be sure to be eating from the time you wake to when you go to bed.
Your second question should always be answered in calories…and that can only be answered by yourself. The calories you are trying to take in on a daily basis should be divivded up evenly among the 5-6 meals a day you are consuming. If I’m shooting for 5000 cals a day, then each meal needs to be 1000 cals, feel me?? Breakfast is going to be rough if I’m eating eggs and oatmeal…cuz I’m going to have to down a cup of oatmeal (that’s alot) and like 6+ eggs, maybe some bread, and 2 glasses of milk…I will be shitting in 2 hours easy…but for one of my lunches I might down a couple peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, put peanut butter on both sides of the bread and drink a huge glass of milk and that’s almost a thousand calories and I got room to spare…got it??
I hate to sound like a pest, but “why?” I’m guessing the presses are eliminate the pectoral machine work, but what are the squats and pull ups for?
Thanks for the tips, esp. the diet ones. I love your sig. :tup:
The presses will work your delts, triceps, and chest. Pull/chin ups will get your biceps and lats. Squats because of the article Toxy linked and what erco said; read them if you want more upper body growth.
why WOULDN’T you want to work out your legs anyway?
What up guys. I haven’t posted in this thread in a while, but I will give yall the heads up on my progress. I started early January (after my back felt better), weighed 155, and was maxing 195 on bench. As of today, I’m up to 165 pounds and maxed out at 260 (first time I have maxed since I started back in January). Plus, being in the gym has made my back feel 10 times better. Btw, good shit longshot…keep it up!
first of all 16 inch arms are hella easy if you weigh 170…
and i dont know if this…topic…is trying to say that the body will try to balance itself out more than you should balance it out to obtain maxium muscle growth…
i think the theory that is being thrown around is ya you can get big doing certain things and your biceps for instance would probably grow if you just did bicep exercises but it will reach a stopping point…
to prevent this you should concentrate on increasing the overall strength of your body because if you increase the overall strength of your body you can lift more for any particular exercise…
so its like saying ya right now i max out dumbbell curls at 30lbs…but lets say you concentrate on overall body strength, you body will grow more than it will just from concentrating on bicep curls and you will havemore muscle and more strength to lift more so now essentially you could be doing 40lbs dumbbell curls = bigger biceps…
nawmean??? i dont know how accurate this is or if it has been scientifically proven, but i tend to agree…
also im am almost certain that there has research been done on squats increasing some sort of hormones in your body that allow for more muscular growth and strength overall and not just in your legs, so essentially could increase chest strength or whatever from squatting because of the release of hormones…
im outi
Roberth
good stuff!
anybody know really good flexibility exercises and workouts? im not talking about bending over and touching your toes either.
YOGA…that shit is hardcore man…especially “power” yoga…thats not shit is no joke…
im outi
Roberth
whens the best time to have a post work out meal? about 20 mins after the WO i take my creatine with 2 servings of protein. should i eat right after? or wait a lil bit then eat? and if so, how long?
after my creatine and protein, i usually take a shower, get ready, and eat which is probably about a 30-45 minute gap.
I haven’t worked out since shortly after I started this thread heh. I’ve lost whatever I had gained and have popped in here from time to time with the intention of getting back on a routine.
I’ve started the crossfit routine. Well, what I can manage with my very limited equipment. Any of you do that?
last i heard it is best to intake food no longer than 45 min after you work out…
im outi
Roberth