Peg

I admire your dedication and consistency to bodybuilding and that you are natural and took the time.
Your arms are quite impressive.

What are 5 things you recommend for a beginner to ensure success in seeing gains in body building?

How did you approach Body Building when you first started.?

What was your routine and diet when you first started?

How has your routine and diet changed as you've progressed in your gains?

__________________
"21st century man is not conquered by guns, nor by oppression, but by seduction."

"Pride to the human heart is like lard to the pig." Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

"The best punch is the one that is both first, last, and ends the fight."

Majesticpower

Thanks for the kind words Peg.

I feel like im on Oprah lol, I’ll answer best i can.
This is really advice id give to the beginner who wants to try and be as big, and as powerful as they naturally can.

In no particular order:-

1. Diet & general health - Ensure that you have this in place, depending on your primary aim that you want from your training.

If you are a smoker, now is a great time to quit if you want the most from your training.
Your only affecting your peak performance by strangling your body to have to work harder due to the damage you are placing your body under.

2. LEARN correct Form and execution of exercise - Although it may seem boring, it really is worth learning exactly how to do exercises correctly before jumping straight ahead with doing what you saw Arnie doing in pumping iron.

Its very easy to injure your muscles in the early stages of training, due to bad form. You dont want to risk causing long term injury because you were too lazy to learn.
Concentration is key to learn in this area.

3. Routine and consistency - Lets face it, there’s so many we all advise you to do and its very easy to complicate things. Many of us cannot do a routine that we may like, due to time restraints or our lifestyle etc.

One of the best routines you can do as a beginner from my own experience is the ALL ROUND BODY ROUTINE.

As long as you are doing a routine, that enables you to train to a high level of intensity and out of the gym within an hour and a half then thats a good start.

Don’t fall into the idea that training every single day is the best way to gain BIG - Its not, its the quick way to overtraining and causing yourself possible injury.

If on a 4 day routine, i always found i gained best with a 2 consecutive days on training, 1 day off 2 day on and 2 days off before starting over.

With 3 day routine i liked- 1 day on, 2 days off, 1 day on, 2 days off, 1 day on.
2 day routine - All round body routine(High volume).

4. Intensity and focus - I wont lie, if your training to get as strong and as big as you can, you got to train hard.

Its not easy this game, and you may not even enjoy training.
Some say its important to enjoy your training- Well its not if you want to get huge and you don’t care for the pain that you will subject your body through.

Your not supposed to enjoy yourself in the gym if your training to get the most strength and size from your body, if it was enjoyable we would all be walking giants- you save enjoying yourself for when you leave the gym (with a big grin on your face).

When training, stay focused. Many people may choose the gym as a place to get to socialise- Well not YOU, your in to train and get out within the hour. Talk can be saved for when you are downing a protein shake pumped up and feeling proud from the session you have just put in.

Do not allow yourself to be sidetracked with chit chat. Chit chat not only takes you away from your primary goal, but it effects your concentration and you don’t need that to happen.

Having headphones one with music that motivates you will help keep you both focused, and deter people from trying to talk to you after every rep they perform on the smith machine.

Other then that, don’t use this as an excuse to walk around with a chip on your shoulder please.

5. Rest - What good is it putting ALL THAT EFFORT IN yesterday, and feeling like crap for the session after due to insufficient rest? Just to remind those beginners who don’t know, its during your rest that you are growing so take advantage of it.

With agression and extreme intensity.
Routine was the excellent ALL ROUND BODY ROUTINE which i used for 3 days a week.
Chest, back, shoulders, biceps and triceps would be trained for 2 sets each for 6-8 reps.
Then it would be repeated, then on the last day of the week i would train legs and shoulders.

Diet was poor, not structured too well it was a case of just eating when i was hungry as much meat as i could. This worked well though, as my aim was to increase my strength intially.

Well, with added size comes added food bills. My diet at the moment swings in roundabouts. Because of work its difficult to eat aswell as id like.

But generally i always eat high amounts of meat. I believe whey shakes are overrated personally. You cant touch lamb and pure beef for mass gains. Protein very high, fats moderate genrally and carbs lowish most of the time is the way im going generally.

My routine these days is more split, theres many things i have learnt through trial and error, and reading and experimenting with my training, and even buddies i used to train with.

I have to be smarter with my training. I learnt to train instinctively(which is a powerful tool to learn), and i also learnt that didnt always mean the best way to get the most out of my body.

Theres many ways to 'trick' our bodies with supersets, drop setting etc, but its also just as much to do with timing of when to use these techniques to make them best work for you.

Although it may sound contradicting its not, but what im saying is i knew when the time to train when i wanted to would work for me, then i knew when i needed somthing more structured it was what was best at the time(hence the 'instinct').

Long winded, but as you asked you got my thoughts - If you dont like them, i have others..;)

MP.

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Peg

Very thorough and straight to the point of my questions.
Thank you very much for that.

My genetics probably say I could become massive if I wanted it, but right now, I don't want massive. I don't think I will ever want massive. I just don't see massive as a feminine thing.
I do want strength. I do want to challenge my body.


Do you eat every 3 hours?
Do you subscribe to the 1 gram of protein for every pound of weight?
Is there anything special you eat before or after your training sessions?


I do not think you were contradictory at all. I also believe in learning instinctively.
It is quite the challenge, to stay one step ahead of the body.
The human body is a most amazing profound thing of beauty and design to me.

Thanks so much for taking the time to answer the questions. I appreciate your thoughtfulness.

I do like your thoughts. Does this mean I don't get to hear the others? ;)

Peg

__________________
"21st century man is not conquered by guns, nor by oppression, but by seduction."

"Pride to the human heart is like lard to the pig." Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

"The best punch is the one that is both first, last, and ends the fight."

Majesticpower

To be honest, i eat whenever i feel hungry. Surely your body knows best, and as long as you are in tune with your body then you shouldnt worry when people tell you you should be eating.

To be fair, im hungry every 2-3 hours anyway. So i do often eat every 3 hours anyway.

Thing is, if you over feed yourself on a meal(which we have all done) then we wont be hungry for hours sometimes. Now what is the point in giving your body more food(even if protein) if its not asking for it? - Its not likely to uptake half of the protein you feed yourself.

No i do not subscribe to 1 gram per bodyweight, my opinion on the matter is people consume too much protein as it is, just because science may advise you need this and that much. Rubbish- I'll consume what my body tells me to thanks.

By that i dont mean if your hungry say, you fancy a big mac so go get as many as you feel.

I mean if you fancy a big mac, your hungry yes? Then consume a protein shake or whatever fits your diet depending on your goal. So i dont say consume a protein shake for the sake of it because 2 hours has passed and im still not hungry.

Theres a reason your not hungry. In a perfect world where you would consume protein every 2-3 hours. But in a perfect world you would have the food appear infront of your very eyes, and your body would process it all exactly on time and there wouldnt be a thing called 'work'.

I completely agree with this - From the female body side of things anyway. I dont mean that in a cheap way either.

Dont be silly, your making me feel humbled now and i dont like feeling like that. I should probably be thanking you if anything for even taking an intrest in me.

Lol.. Thank you, and no thats not that case. I will happily tell you my thoughts on whatever you want.. Although i dont promise to post them onboard..;)

MP.

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Peg

Quote:

Originally Posted by Majesticpower To be honest, i eat whenever i feel hungry. Surely your body knows best, and as long as you are in tune with your body then you shouldnt worry when people tell you you should be eating.

I've always thought that way as well, but with all the advice for 6 meals a day, I was wondering if maybe I should rethink my strategy.
I will admit that listening to my body has always taken the flab off, but if I want to add some lean muscle I was not sure if I had to eat more than what my body was telling me to eat.

However, your down to earth thoughts do make me realize that if my muscles are being worked hard, they are going to want the protein to make them bigger to meet the demand and so when I am hungry, I will want that needed protein.

It may be that the body is hungry, as you say, every 2-3 hours.

Our lifestyles make it difficult to listen to the body, I think.
How do you overcome any difficulty in relationship to work schedules and eating if you are hungry?

Quote:

Originally Posted by majesticpower I mean if you fancy a big mac, your hungry yes? Then consume a protein shake or whatever fits your diet depending on your goal. So i dont say consume a protein shake for the sake of it because 2 hours has passed and im still not hungry.

Agreed.
Part of my success in losing over 75 pounds was to rethink what I ate when I was hungry and how much I ate.

Do you think you can gain muscle and lose flab at the same time?
That is my thought on my training. I am just trying to find the optimum diet and training routine to accomplish that.

I am assuming because of your 'instinctive' training methods that perhaps you do not subscribe to the bulking and then cutting phases of bodybuilding that many say is the only way to acheive results.

Is there anything special you eat before or after your training sessions when you are hungry to help faciliate the replenishing of nutrients the body needs?
Do you subscribe to the carbs before training and the protein after training?
What has your body told you that gives you the best gains?

What do you eat for breakfast?
Will you eat breakfast if your body is not hungry?
Are you always hungry for breakfast?

Quote:

Originally Posted by majesticpower Theres a reason your not hungry. In a perfect world where you would consume protein every 2-3 hours. But in a perfect world you would have the food appear infront of your very eyes, and your body would process it all exactly on time and there wouldnt be a thing called 'work'.

There is a great sense of accomplishment in 'work' don't you find?

__________________
"21st century man is not conquered by guns, nor by oppression, but by seduction."

"Pride to the human heart is like lard to the pig." Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

"The best punch is the one that is both first, last, and ends the fight."

hackskii

There perfectly good reasons to have smaller meals with protein included.

Blood sugar regulation for one.
Meals too high in carbs will raise insulin, insulin is a transport hormone and can make one store fat.

Even if you lower the amount of carbs, eating a big meal regardless of the macro's will spike insulin.
This is another reason to have smaller meals.

__________________
"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away." - George Carlin


Scott


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Peg

Hackskii:

I do agree with you...
The body already knows this.
It is all a part of listening to your body.
It is a matter of retraining your thoughts about food and its function and purpose for the body.

__________________
"21st century man is not conquered by guns, nor by oppression, but by seduction."

"Pride to the human heart is like lard to the pig." Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

"The best punch is the one that is both first, last, and ends the fight."

Majesticpower

I dont always, i just deal with it.

Even if say your hungry and you cant fulfill your appetite you can just keep your body ticking over by eating Almonds or peanuts for example(if u like them) which is so easy and simple to carry around.

A protein shake prepared already in a shaker? Another option, but not always the most convinient.

You just have to use your imagination, and im sure you have no problem in that area..

I would love to say yes, but the simple answer is no you cannot.

I do train instinctively alot of the time, but unfortuantely it still means i need what others need from my diet depending on my goal.

To put it briefly, for bulking you need a high calorie diet, for cutting a lower calorie so two opposites.

Special? No. Simple yes, a banana and a protein shake before training and a protein shake after training. I dont down it like many in one go, because i know my body wont uptake most of it if i did. So i take a modest mouthful every 10 minutes.
Yep.. Pretty much, unless im cutting so then no carbs before training.
It's told me intense hard training, good diet, and rest is what i need for best gains. Sometimes though, my rest can go from 2 wekks to 1 month. Many i believe are afraid of resting for this long a period.
Well if hungry i eat strips of pastrami or chickin strips. Sometimes a protein shake with milk.
No i will not, and no im not always hungry for breakfast. However i often know that shortly after waking(say 30 mins to an 1 hour) i will be slightly hungry so i will have somthing small to eat.

I just dont believe in doing what my body does NOT want me to do. Others will disagree, but thats just my opinion.
Well, surely that depends on the work you do? ;)

MP.

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Peg

Why?

It seems to me that if I would listen to my body that as I started a more intense regime of training that the body would say feed me more. If I fed the body the extra protein but monitored the carbohydrate intake wouldn't I be able to cut at the same time as bulk??

Is it just easier to add calories and not worry about the excess when you are bulking?
Does that mean then when you bulk you are eating when the body is not hungry?

I have such an adversion to gaining flab having been so fat for a while in my past.

Can I not just gain muscle and bulk slowly by finding a right combination of nutrients to bulk and not gain flab at the same time?

What is the reasoning for bulking phase and then cutting phase other than increasing calories and decreasing calories?
Does the bulking phase have a more intense work-out than the cutting phase or is the work-out the same or more intense during cutting?
How do you know if you are overtraining your body when you want to push it with intensity to make it respond by adding muscle to adapt to the new demand on the body?
Is there a general guideline to follow to keep from overtraining?

I would hope the work would be something enjoyed.


Peg

__________________
"21st century man is not conquered by guns, nor by oppression, but by seduction."

"Pride to the human heart is like lard to the pig." Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

"The best punch is the one that is both first, last, and ends the fight."

Majesticpower

Ok, as far as gaining lean muscle mass and losing fat goes, it is just not possible. Its like you trying to walk forwards and backwards at the same time.

Simply- gaining muscle you need a high calorie diet, for losing fat you need a low calorie diet.

Ok, Why bulk then cut? - Lets take a 150 lbs man. Now that man wants to bulk, the reason he wants to bulk is do get bigger(more muscular), so he gets his plan together and trains away for a good two month bulking phase.

Two months later that man is now 175 lbs. Now some of that will be fat. So now he wants to loose some of that fat and get back to the bodyfat level he was at before. He wants to start CUTTING. So again, his diet in place he goes ahead with the CUTTING phase.

So now he is back at the same bodyfat as before, but whats the point in this after all that bulking? Well now he weighs 160 lbs. So even though he gained fat during his bulk, and had to loose the fat he gained, in that he gained a good 10 lbs of lean muscle.

We then repeat the process. Its not easy, no one said it was. Thats why i take my hat off(if i wore one) to those who compete on stage. The dieting is incredible, and somthing i could personally could not do as they do.

That would depend on the individual.
These two questions come hand in hand really for me.

Me personally i listen to my body as you know from symptoms related to possible overtraining.

The most obvious symptom is fatigue.

Insufficient rest will cause the body to not recover sufficiently, untill our body gets to the point where the rest we are giving it is not sufficient enough at all, and that is often referred to as a 'burnout'.

Some symptoms of overtraining are loss of motivation, loss of appetite, depression, catching colds(infections) are just some.

Sorry for the lack of detail, im shattered tonight.

MP.

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hackskii

When bulking you will gain muscle and fat.
When cutting you will lose fat and muscle.

There is a way when dieting to maximise fat loss and minimise muscle loss.

Calorie restriction diets will lose more lean muscle than non calorie restricted diets.

There are many hormones involved when dieting and bulking.
The most anabolic is insulin but it stores the most fat.
The most catabolic is cortisol.
Another great fat burning hormone is glucagon, but it is also catabolic.
When GH production is highest insulin is lowest.
GH is a great fat burner.

There is a way to burn the most amount of fat while maintaining the most amount of muscle, I will post this in a few days.

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Scott


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pookie69

Wow - this thread has been a really interesting read. I never knew MP was all natural! Now im even more in awe of him

>>> you rule brother!

Peg

I do have an aversion to gaining fat because of my history of being overweight.
I look forward to reading your post.

Even if it takes longer to gain the muscle and/or lose the fat, I would much rather accomplish the gain and loss, respectively, at the same time.

I want to say I have seen in myself muscle gain and fat loss at the same time over the last 2 months.
I'm increasing my weight load so I am looking forward to seeing what shapes up in the next month or two.

__________________
"21st century man is not conquered by guns, nor by oppression, but by seduction."

"Pride to the human heart is like lard to the pig." Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

"The best punch is the one that is both first, last, and ends the fight."

pookie69

I've seen the same for the past 18 months since i started training

>>> i've managed to drop my weight from 285lbs to 235lbs whilst adding quite a bit of muscle (im pretty sure it wasnt just hiding under all that fat!), but i think as of late the muscle strength and mass gain have both come to pretty much a halt - i fear my 'newbie period of grace' has all but run its course and it's time i started paying attention to this whole bulking up/dieting down business

>>> admittedly, the very thought of bulking up and gaining fat as i do so scares the hell outta me - i do not want to look anything like the fatty fat fat i was before :(...

... so i can totally understand where you're coming from - i feel the same although it's not perhaps the smartest thing to do

Peg

You may have a point there; however, I also know that the body adapts and it may be that you just need to change your training routine to create a greater demand for the muscle, keep the protein level up and the carb level at basal metabolism level to get the muscle gains and decrease the fat.

Having read many different boards, it seems that each person will be different in how they gain muscle and lose fat in their routines.

Of course I'm not bulking to be massive huge either so that may have a big difference in how I train compared to MP or you or any man who wants to be massive.

Wishing you all the best in your training Pookie69!

__________________
"21st century man is not conquered by guns, nor by oppression, but by seduction."

"Pride to the human heart is like lard to the pig." Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

"The best punch is the one that is both first, last, and ends the fight."