Let me break it down into a couple of main things.
1. The first priority is to get those deads up to a respectable level...or if failing that then just to train the posterior chain up to a respectable level. All the while the other stuff that is going up now will continue to go up.
2. There is a lot of size built in to this program right now. However you do not fully take advantage of the size potential because you continually do less volume on certain things than you could.
Examples....face pulls will give you huge traps but you don't do enough of them. You could put in extra row movements and do more variety. Especially using pulleys at different angles, etc.
But what you don't realize yet is the size potential of the kind of thing I have you doing and just what is going to happen to your back, for instance when you get better at deads and use more variety in the deadlifting range.
You say you want bigger shoulders well they will come. More rowing, more pressing, and even the shoulder prehab stuff which can include scapular plane laterals and other stuff will help.
But the point is that what you are doing now already has tons of size potential but you could have more size potential except you simply keep your workouts too short. I think it has been drilled into your head that you can't work more than a certain time period...due to all the anabolic hormone reduction stuff with longer workouts. It's crapola.
3. You can always ustilize bodybuilder style stuff in your workouts as a sort of add on at the end. The trick is not to do stuff that will interfere with more important exercises. One of the main reasons I am down on do a lot of curls, for instance is that they tend to interfere with pullups/chinups if done in excess (which need a lot of arm).
On the other hand there are other things that can be done that don't intefere too much with the big movements.
The bottom line for focusing more on hypertrophy is either do a little more volume in general with your given frequency or do higher frequency with a given volume.
3. Of course there are better ways to focus on appearance but you really have to realize that the missing element is not the growth potential of your workouts but simple fat levels, added volume, or added frequency.
If your want to do strength plus fat loss in a fullbody workout scenario then you can design workouts with that in mind. PLUS keep the main workouts short but provide time in at the end for "bodybuilder style" stuff.
But let me focus more on the particular points you made:
[quote]but im beginning to think that perhaps it would be an ok idea to diversify slightly (only slightly) into training more for bodybuilding goals u know? in the sense: giving more emphasis to look better rather than lift heavier weights.
but then im thinking that even if i did change my goals slightly, it wouldnt change my training in any way would it? you would have me doing the same exercises and stuff in either case. its not like we'd change my program into a split and then hope it works.[quote]
I think the best approach in terms of divesifying what you are doing now is to make modest changes, gauge the effect, make more changes, gauge them, so on and so forth. That way you try to incorporate the new goals without disrupting the old ones. But of course you don't make the changes so modest to be worthless for the new goal.
The basic change I would make is to utilize supersets (some antagonistic for strength and some mixed up challenge and fat loss) while retaining the basic movements in the same type of strength realm as you are doing now.
So for instance I wouldn't start supersetting deads and hanging leg raises. But I might superset romanians and leg raises, or pullthroughts and leg raises (just as one example). It would be done either to retain a primarily strength training effect while keeping time down OR to get the heart rate up and also keep overall time down (while always keeping intensity fairly high)
And then tack on bodybuilding stuff at the end doing it "bodybuilding style" but also supersetting it or even tri-sets or whatever designed to also keep the heart rate up.
Like I said, given frequency, more volume, or more frequency at given volume, but never LESS frequency. I actually am very open minded to taking a page from bodybuilding (I used to DO bodybuilding, afterall) but NOT that one. Low frequency splits always come out behind higher frequency ones.
No. It's not wrong. But this is mostly about diet. You're going to get bigger if you train pretty much how you are now and eat enough. If you eat too much you'll get fatter too. The question is would you rather look big and pretty defined ALL the time with your shirt off or drive yourself silly trying to look "RIPPED" like a bodybuilder on stage only to not be able to maintain it, losing or not gaining any more muscle, and getting on the yo-yo diet train.
The first scenario is about patience and keeping your bf% somewhere between 10 and 12 all them time until most of your body composition changes come into being overtime...needing just a little tweaking here and there if the abs don't show good enough. The second scenario is basically stupid
If your looking great then I think your shoud keep looking in the mirror and forget about the scale for a while.
You simply HAVE to start consistently focuing on short term goals. You will drive yourself nutty thinking about what happens when your are 40.
Wrong question. You're in Texas. Forty is India. Get it? Start walking now with the goal of reaching India (ok so you can't walk there but hyprothetically) you may never make it. But if you start walking with the goal of reaching California or maybe just the next county in Texas....no problem.
You're lighter but most of your measurements went up. Sound good to me. I don't think in numbers like that so all I can say is you have to focus more on diet if you want to have less fat.
If I were you, me being me, then I would do what I already mentioned. You are having too much basic success for me to want to comtemplate changing the basics. We still have a lot of potential in your bench press and overhead press. We need to get your back healthy and get you back with the heavy deads. I'm much more interested in setting short term goals and reaching them. If something was broken it would be different...but it ain't.
However as I said, there is a lot of potential you fail to tap. I've actually mentioned a few things to you before.
You'd be surprised at how much bodybuilding stuff I allow myself to do. For instance, unlike you, my chest is not my strong suit. If I were to just work on bench press strength and all that comes with it...my chest would look small compared to the rest of me, especially my back.
So I do some bodybuilding style bench press. Light weight and high slow reps (but heavier than db's). Elbows and 90 degree angles not going all the way down (to protect the shoulders and keep the emphasis on the chest) and not fully locking out. I'll bet that surprises the hell out of you doesn't it? But I can do it in a safe way and without interfering with benching in general and it simply "finishes out" my chest so that it looks generally the same as the rest of me.
Actually what I would express is that it is frustrating simply because I actually do have a longer term plan loosely in mind. But then you get injured and whatnot so it thows a wrench in the works. So when we should be focused on recovery and getting back on the progress train you want to discuss this other stuff. I think you are pulling yourself in too many different directions.
You keep throwing these three day programs at me. It's kind of funny since you could actually increase the frequency of what your are doing now if you wanted. At the same time it seems like you end up doing 3 exercise workouts a lot even at the lower frequency. So now you tell me you wan't to do bigger workouts more often? How about doing the fundamental thing of actually doing more in your given workouts?
I recognize that you have skipped a lot of stuff lately because of your back but the fact is there were things you could have done instead (you could have asked if you needed ideas). I would like to see you get back on track and start ramping up your effort in the gym so that we can see what changes we can make. It’s kind of hard to be constantly asked about routine changes when the fact is we haven’t been able to make the ongoing changes we normally would.
So in other words let’s try to build a stable footing upon which to proceed instead of hopping from one lose rock to another.
1. The first priority is to get those deads up to a respectable level...or if failing that then just to train the posterior chain up to a respectable level. All the while the other stuff that is going up now will continue to go up.
2. There is a lot of size built in to this program right now. However you do not fully take advantage of the size potential because you continually do less volume on certain things than you could.
Examples....face pulls will give you huge traps but you don't do enough of them. You could put in extra row movements and do more variety. Especially using pulleys at different angles, etc.
But what you don't realize yet is the size potential of the kind of thing I have you doing and just what is going to happen to your back, for instance when you get better at deads and use more variety in the deadlifting range.
You say you want bigger shoulders well they will come. More rowing, more pressing, and even the shoulder prehab stuff which can include scapular plane laterals and other stuff will help.
But the point is that what you are doing now already has tons of size potential but you could have more size potential except you simply keep your workouts too short. I think it has been drilled into your head that you can't work more than a certain time period...due to all the anabolic hormone reduction stuff with longer workouts. It's crapola.
3. You can always ustilize bodybuilder style stuff in your workouts as a sort of add on at the end. The trick is not to do stuff that will interfere with more important exercises. One of the main reasons I am down on do a lot of curls, for instance is that they tend to interfere with pullups/chinups if done in excess (which need a lot of arm).
On the other hand there are other things that can be done that don't intefere too much with the big movements.
The bottom line for focusing more on hypertrophy is either do a little more volume in general with your given frequency or do higher frequency with a given volume.
3. Of course there are better ways to focus on appearance but you really have to realize that the missing element is not the growth potential of your workouts but simple fat levels, added volume, or added frequency.
If your want to do strength plus fat loss in a fullbody workout scenario then you can design workouts with that in mind. PLUS keep the main workouts short but provide time in at the end for "bodybuilder style" stuff.
But let me focus more on the particular points you made:
[quote]but im beginning to think that perhaps it would be an ok idea to diversify slightly (only slightly) into training more for bodybuilding goals u know? in the sense: giving more emphasis to look better rather than lift heavier weights.
but then im thinking that even if i did change my goals slightly, it wouldnt change my training in any way would it? you would have me doing the same exercises and stuff in either case. its not like we'd change my program into a split and then hope it works.[quote]
I think the best approach in terms of divesifying what you are doing now is to make modest changes, gauge the effect, make more changes, gauge them, so on and so forth. That way you try to incorporate the new goals without disrupting the old ones. But of course you don't make the changes so modest to be worthless for the new goal.
The basic change I would make is to utilize supersets (some antagonistic for strength and some mixed up challenge and fat loss) while retaining the basic movements in the same type of strength realm as you are doing now.
So for instance I wouldn't start supersetting deads and hanging leg raises. But I might superset romanians and leg raises, or pullthroughts and leg raises (just as one example). It would be done either to retain a primarily strength training effect while keeping time down OR to get the heart rate up and also keep overall time down (while always keeping intensity fairly high)
And then tack on bodybuilding stuff at the end doing it "bodybuilding style" but also supersetting it or even tri-sets or whatever designed to also keep the heart rate up.
Quote:
| back and biceps |
Quote:
shoulders and chest legs and triceps |
Like I said, given frequency, more volume, or more frequency at given volume, but never LESS frequency. I actually am very open minded to taking a page from bodybuilding (I used to DO bodybuilding, afterall) but NOT that one. Low frequency splits always come out behind higher frequency ones.
Quote:
| but then i keep thinking to myself that this is all useless thought processing because: |
Quote:
1.) it wouldnt work out in the long run 2.) ur not going to be too happy about this. and then several months from now ill realize exactly why u dont agree with me and then ill regret this (assuming i do it) 3.) this is just some passing fantasy of mine to get more ripped, larger and generally just thicker. i want to look good with my shirt off. is this wrong? |
No. It's not wrong. But this is mostly about diet. You're going to get bigger if you train pretty much how you are now and eat enough. If you eat too much you'll get fatter too. The question is would you rather look big and pretty defined ALL the time with your shirt off or drive yourself silly trying to look "RIPPED" like a bodybuilder on stage only to not be able to maintain it, losing or not gaining any more muscle, and getting on the yo-yo diet train.
The first scenario is about patience and keeping your bf% somewhere between 10 and 12 all them time until most of your body composition changes come into being overtime...needing just a little tweaking here and there if the abs don't show good enough. The second scenario is basically stupid
Quote:
| see, Eric: they way i see it: ive just gone from 185 to 177 lbs. fuck. i should be depressed. but im far from it. im far from it because im looking great (well great meaning better than before) but im not looking like how i really want to, u know? i want to have bigger shoulders, a larger back. not so much emphasis on my chest though. i think my chest is ok. i want to increase my arm size. u said that doing arm work early in the game reduces potential. |
If your looking great then I think your shoud keep looking in the mirror and forget about the scale for a while.
Quote:
| so far this is how my mentality has been: i will lift for strength right now in my life when most kids my age lift to look good. and i will be stronger than most kids but i wont look better than them. thats fine. but then when im 40, ill look better than 99% of the guys who's sons will be my kids friends. and when i walk into a room at 45 ill look a billion times better than the rest of the old guys out there. |
You simply HAVE to start consistently focuing on short term goals. You will drive yourself nutty thinking about what happens when your are 40.
Quote:
| BUT, now im thinking: i can keep increasing strength very gradually and slowly and i can focus on looking good too so that hopefully at 40, i will still be strong but at the same time i will look waay better because i started building the foundation pretty early. am i wrong in this? |
Wrong question. You're in Texas. Forty is India. Get it? Start walking now with the goal of reaching India (ok so you can't walk there but hyprothetically) you may never make it. But if you start walking with the goal of reaching California or maybe just the next county in Texas....no problem.
Quote:
| its not like im expecting immediate results but i feel like i want to look so much better with my shirt off than what i look like right now. ok how about if i put it for u like this Eric: u know ive been a fat kid right? alright. so think about it. ive gone from 160 to 185 to 177 now. my arms are pretty good. they look nice with my shirts and stuff. i look good. lets say i get a rating (from anyone) of 8, alright? ok. if i had to walk into a pool in my trunks, id get rated (by the same person) as an 5 or 6. u see the problem? |
You're lighter but most of your measurements went up. Sound good to me. I don't think in numbers like that so all I can say is you have to focus more on diet if you want to have less fat.
Quote:
| am i just thinking too much, eric? what do u think? if u were me right now what would u do? |
If I were you, me being me, then I would do what I already mentioned. You are having too much basic success for me to want to comtemplate changing the basics. We still have a lot of potential in your bench press and overhead press. We need to get your back healthy and get you back with the heavy deads. I'm much more interested in setting short term goals and reaching them. If something was broken it would be different...but it ain't.
However as I said, there is a lot of potential you fail to tap. I've actually mentioned a few things to you before.
Quote:
| also, i know ur going to say either one of the two options: |
Quote:
1.) its fine to think more like a bodybuilder for a while as long as i try to get ronger |
You'd be surprised at how much bodybuilding stuff I allow myself to do. For instance, unlike you, my chest is not my strong suit. If I were to just work on bench press strength and all that comes with it...my chest would look small compared to the rest of me, especially my back.
So I do some bodybuilding style bench press. Light weight and high slow reps (but heavier than db's). Elbows and 90 degree angles not going all the way down (to protect the shoulders and keep the emphasis on the chest) and not fully locking out. I'll bet that surprises the hell out of you doesn't it? But I can do it in a safe way and without interfering with benching in general and it simply "finishes out" my chest so that it looks generally the same as the rest of me.
Quote:
| 2.) i should shut up and just keep doing what im doing (which is what i think ur going to say) |
Actually what I would express is that it is frustrating simply because I actually do have a longer term plan loosely in mind. But then you get injured and whatnot so it thows a wrench in the works. So when we should be focused on recovery and getting back on the progress train you want to discuss this other stuff. I think you are pulling yourself in too many different directions.
You keep throwing these three day programs at me. It's kind of funny since you could actually increase the frequency of what your are doing now if you wanted. At the same time it seems like you end up doing 3 exercise workouts a lot even at the lower frequency. So now you tell me you wan't to do bigger workouts more often? How about doing the fundamental thing of actually doing more in your given workouts?
I recognize that you have skipped a lot of stuff lately because of your back but the fact is there were things you could have done instead (you could have asked if you needed ideas). I would like to see you get back on track and start ramping up your effort in the gym so that we can see what changes we can make. It’s kind of hard to be constantly asked about routine changes when the fact is we haven’t been able to make the ongoing changes we normally would.
So in other words let’s try to build a stable footing upon which to proceed instead of hopping from one lose rock to another.
