Beginner cycle - would appreciate any advice

[CoolRick]

All fair points. Maybe I’m just impatient.

I travel for work - so some weeks it’s 3 but mostly it’s 4.

A standard week would be (all to failure )

Session 1: 10 sets quads
Session 2: 8 sets back, 8 sets biceps
Session 3: 8 sets chest , 8 sets shoulders

Usually take a 2 days rest then repeat. I train bjj in between. Maybe I need to lower the weight slightly and increase rest to get more sets in .

Under zero stress in work and no issues with sleep thankfully.

Again - I really appreciate the input. I’ll stay the course and try and increase the carbs / over all calories.

How are you doing 8-10 sets all to failure?

Also if you're not seeing an improvement with your strength and physique but gaining weight with your current diet, why would you add even more food?

I don't say this to be rude but there are some things I notice in your posts that show you really ought to go back to the drawing board. Save the cycling for when you have a better foundation.

 

[Goldenrod]

I will go against the grain - 5'6 170 lbs is not a small man, if you are in good shape. If on testosterone expect some water weight which is why most don't keep everything they gained. BF % will make a difference and unless you had it done properly, it isn't worth much.

3000-3200 cals could be great or terrible. What is your maintenance caloric intake. Most people can bulk and cut on the same cals / just adjust the macros. Food is one of the most important factors, but even guys who don't change their diet and add 500 mg of test a week are going to gain 10-20 lbs (maybe not quality) weight in a few months.

If this is your second cycle, 350 mg of test a week if planning on a 3-4 week months is more than enough to grow on and you are. but you feel bloated with water by the sounds of it. When you get your hormones done, will be interesting to see where your estrogen is sitting. We can all say you aren't training hard enough, other parts are missing but if you have been training for 10 years and legit even train 3-4 times a week P/P/L, repeat you should put on strength and size.

Training more frequently is not really what is needed for most, it is what you do when you are there to get the mind/muscle connection and nervous system working. Few low rep sets or high rep sets to get warmed up and prevent injuries. You should see progress every week / workout in reps or weight. If you aren't I would drop the exercises I was doing and pick others. If you can't feel your muscles working and you are doing them correct - throw in the garbage can. If you do 3-4 exercises per body part except legs usually take more quads, glutes, hams, and calves. Keep in mind you could be doing 6 sets but 3 - 4 of those are working up to a weight that you want for what most refer to as working sets. On those 2-3 sets I mix them up, sometimes a little heavier with a spotter, sometimes rest/pause if the machine is safe to do so with, or a machine and do drop sets or supersets. Goal is to exhaust the muscle and do more than you did the week before. Progressive overload on your second cycle should be easy but we are all different. I am not saying you aren't doing everything right as we all are different in how we respond to stimulus and PED's.
I would be mixing it up and trying something else before I increased by dosage but I would drop the Var and increase the test to 500 mg per week vs. 350 mg of test and var.

So many different things to consider, before you spend more money on gear - take some of that money and hire @Funnyman to help you. He is coach/competitor and can get you on the right path.
Good luck.

 

[Negan]

I'm with the guys saying not to increase dosage. If you can only train 3 days a week that's ok I guess but I think hitting anything you want to grow 2-3 times a week is better, more effective volume that way. Also if you're gaining weight you don't need more food.

 

[Negan]

I should elaborate. If you did chest 2x per week you could do 4 sets day one 4 sets day 2 same volume weekly but each set provides more stimulus.

 

[Sorbate]

Most of this has already been said by the fellas, I'll add that you usually won't get slammed here with this type of post as long as you don't come out at any lab with a rude accusation
Trying to get big and strong is the assumed goal yes,?
Not to be a dick but have you been training hard for those 10 years or at least most of them? If so then being 170 at 0ver 16% leads me to suspect some issues. How much have you gained in that time? Hardgainer? Maybe. Less than optimum diet and training? Maybe.

Where did you get those BF numbers? Most things we have access to have at least a 2-5% sloppyness factor, even dexa scans aren't without issues up to 3% and that's the second best thing on the planet.

What happened with cycle #1? and what was it?
And yep poor responders are a thing too, IMO most of the top pro's are great responders and that's a large part of why they are there. That doesn't mean you ned to increase your dose though.

Consider posting up a meticulous diet review and a training log.

The biggest I ever got in my youth (since I’m the same height) naturally was 165lbs but I was no more than10% bodyfat (high metabolism). I ate 3500-4000 cal a day to get to there and couldn’t for the life of me put on any more muscle, that was my natural max. At 16% body fat I’m around 200 lbs now on gear.

But you have trained guys so you likely know where the weights hit on shorter guys.

 

[Sorbate]

All fair points. Maybe I’m just impatient.

I travel for work - so some weeks it’s 3 but mostly it’s 4.

A standard week would be (all to failure )

Session 1: 10 sets quads
Session 2: 8 sets back, 8 sets biceps
Session 3: 8 sets chest , 8 sets shoulders

Usually take a 2 days rest then repeat. I train bjj in between. Maybe I need to lower the weight slightly and increase rest to get more sets in .

Under zero stress in work and no issues with sleep thankfully.

Again - I really appreciate the input. I’ll stay the course and try and increase the carbs / over all calories.

No cycle you do after your first will compare. The first cycle is great, then after that you don’t gain huge amounts each cycle, unless you really start to throw the book at it, like insulin, hgh and higher doses, which I do not recommend unless you plan on competing.

 

[Sorbate]

I still think if you dropped the var either completely or just down to like 10-20 mg and upped the test to 500 , also not to sound like a broken record but eat more beef instead of just chicken and eggs it could be helpful. Training until failure on most of your working sets can’t be understated. I can go to the gym 4 days a week and work harder than I would 6 days per week and make better gains. Easier on the joints and tendons too.

These guys all chiming in most of em know their stuff pretty good probably more so than I do. I aim to be sore for the next day after training and that happens 90% of the time. On my downtime I eat like it’s a chore. All been showing progress and I’m easy over 10 cycles deep probably more like 15.

My thought is if you want to look like a chicken, eat lots of chicken, you want to get big like a cow, eat beef.

Interesting tidbit. When I make sausage, you use the protein in the meat to bind the smoked sausage together, other than wild game, beef protien will hold more water, fat and other meat items that don’t bind like hearts about 3 times better than chicken protein. The quality of the protien makes a difference in the bind.

So from best to worst
Deer/moose
Beef
Lamb
Pork
Turkey
Chicken

Now I know protien is protien, but I notice a huge difference between the different types.

If I am cutting and not worried about gaining mass, chicken, bulking beef.

Btw, egg protein to bind is better than pork but less than beef.

It’s the strength (maybe density could be a better word) of the protein that surrounds water and fat molecules that holds it together.

And I find that I can pound out a workout only training one body part a week and grow better than multiple times a week on the same bodypart. Not sure if it’s easier on the tendons, kinda based on my last ultrasound, lol. Maybe 2 times a week and a bit less intensity would be nicer on my tendons, lol. Or I’m just getting old and falling apart, lol.

 

[Sorbate]

How are you doing 8-10 sets all to failure?

Also if you're not seeing an improvement with your strength and physique but gaining weight with your current diet, why would you add even more food?

I don't say this to be rude but there are some things I notice in your posts that show you really ought to go back to the drawing board. Save the cycling for when you have a better foundation.

I have always done every set till failure after my warm up. But I also only do 6-8 sets for small body parts, 10-12 for big, only once a week for each bodypart. Found I grew best at that. Mind you I take so much time off training every year, so I bet I’d burn out doing that year round, or hurt myself from overdoing it.

Last year I was doing 4 sets of flies to failure, then 4 strip sets on the bench machine, each strip set to failure and that was my chest workout. Worked great, but hard on the tendons. That was my chest routine the whole year.

 

[CoolRick]

I have always done every set till failure after my warm up. But I also only do 6-8 sets for small body parts, 10-12 for big, only once a week for each bodypart. Found I grew best at that. Mind you I take so much time off training every year, so I bet I’d burn out doing that year round, or hurt myself from overdoing it.

Last year I was doing 4 sets of flies to failure, then 4 strip sets on the bench machine, each strip set to failure and that was my chest workout. Worked great, but hard on the tendons. That was my chest routine the whole year.

I'm not sure how you define failure. In my mind If you can do another set after hitting failure, you didn't truly hit failure.

Each exercise I did would usually consist of 1 "feeler set" where I just get into the groove then 1 all out set to complete failure. I might do a drop set as part of that all out set if I need to. Still, no way after that would I be able to do another set properly even with half the weight.

 

[Strava]

A few comments:

350 test plus 40mg of var should make you super physiological. So I would not recommend increasing the dosage. You’re only nine weeks in and it took six weeks for your body to reach homeostasis at the new hormone level. So in reality, what are you expecting from three weeks of being super physiological? Muscle comes on slowly I would stay the course and reassess for your next cycle assuming you’re going to continue this one for at least four or five more weeks.

As for food on a bulk 200 g of carbs is not very much. I’d increase it by at least 100-200 and reduce fat to 80g. PS the macros of 260 protein, 200 carbohydrates and 120 fat does not equal the numbers you put up of 300-3200. that is under 3000 cal.

You’re saying your training 3 to 4 days a week, which is it, 3 or 4? You can get away with three for maintenance but to grow you probably need at least four. What is your workout split and more importantly how many sets to failure per muscle group are you doing per week? If you’re not doing at least 10 to 12 for quads, back, chest and 8 to 10 for shoulders, hams, bis and tris then you need to increase your volume.

How much sleep are you getting? How much work stress are you under?

@Oldguyjiujitsu well said.

 

[Sorbate]

I'm not sure how you define failure. In my mind If you can do another set after hitting failure, you didn't truly hit failure.

Each exercise I did would usually consist of 1 "feeler set" where I just get into the groove then 1 all out set to complete failure. I might do a drop set as part of that all out set if I need to. Still, no way after that would I be able to do another set properly even with half the weight.

I consider failure when I get to the point where doing another rep would cause injury or loss of control. Or things like laterals or curls, you cannot do another complete reps even with some body english. So usually then I’ll pull a half rep.

I dig deep to get extra reps out before it happens, but I am more careful on things like chest, becasue I have hurt myself before pushing it past the point of failure. Dropped a 90lb dumbell on my chest once, another time hit failure doing decline presses with 95’s and I was losing it so let the weights fall backwards to hit the ground and crushed a finger between the handle and the end of another dumbell that was too close.

I train like this 90% of the time. But if I am not feeling it, then I’ll do more reps until it burns so bad I cannot take the pain anymore, then 2 more reps, lol.

I like to do drop sets, or super sets.

I do rest at least 2 minutes between sets.

Maybe after 30+ years of lifting on and off, I can force myself to push farther.
An example, a guy from work wanted to see what I meant about intensity, we got some free passes from the gym across the street so I took him over. I was pushing hard but not going nuts, 2/3rds of the way thru doing arms, he felt like he was going to get sick and went home. So my level of pushing it is far more than untrained, likely how we all are on this board.

 

[Jabroni]

I consider failure when I get to the point where doing another rep would cause injury or loss of control. Or things like laterals or curls, you cannot do another complete reps even with some body english. So usually then I’ll pull a half rep.

I dig deep to get extra reps out before it happens, but I am more careful on things like chest, becasue I have hurt myself before pushing it past the point of failure. Dropped a 90lb dumbell on my chest once, another time hit failure doing decline presses with 95’s and I was losing it so let the weights fall backwards to hit the ground and crushed a finger between the handle and the end of another dumbell that was too close.

I train like this 90% of the time. But if I am not feeling it, then I’ll do more reps until it burns so bad I cannot take the pain anymore, then 2 more reps, lol.

I like to do drop sets, or super sets.

I do rest at least 2 minutes between sets.

Maybe after 30+ years of lifting on and off, I can force myself to push farther.
An example, a guy from work wanted to see what I meant about intensity, we got some free passes from the gym across the street so I took him over. I was pushing hard but not going nuts, 2/3rds of the way thru doing arms, he felt like he was going to get sick and went home. So my level of pushing it is far more than untrained, likely how we all are on this board.

Yes same thing happened when I took my little brother to do some chest. He did actually get sick right on the gym floor. Last time he trained with me

 

[CoolRick]

I consider failure when I get to the point where doing another rep would cause injury or loss of control. Or things like laterals or curls, you cannot do another complete reps even with some body english. So usually then I’ll pull a half rep.

I dig deep to get extra reps out before it happens, but I am more careful on things like chest, becasue I have hurt myself before pushing it past the point of failure. Dropped a 90lb dumbell on my chest once, another time hit failure doing decline presses with 95’s and I was losing it so let the weights fall backwards to hit the ground and crushed a finger between the handle and the end of another dumbell that was too close.

I train like this 90% of the time. But if I am not feeling it, then I’ll do more reps until it burns so bad I cannot take the pain anymore, then 2 more reps, lol.

I like to do drop sets, or super sets.

I do rest at least 2 minutes between sets.

Maybe after 30+ years of lifting on and off, I can force myself to push farther.
An example, a guy from work wanted to see what I meant about intensity, we got some free passes from the gym across the street so I took him over. I was pushing hard but not going nuts, 2/3rds of the way thru doing arms, he felt like he was going to get sick and went home. So my level of pushing it is far more than untrained, likely how we all are on this board.

Yea that's a quite a bit different than what I know. I pretty much adopted the Dorian Yates way of training so it's basically all that you're doing in those sets into one.

I'm not downplaying how hard anyone trains, as any serious training is not easy but unless they dedicate some serious time to doing 1 set to complete failure like Yates and Mentzer did, they won't really understand that level of intensity.

Everything else seems horribly inefficient once I experienced failure like that. I can't imagine going to the gym more than say 4 times per week let alone training the same body part twice with lots of volume. My best results actually came from training each muscle just twice a month.

 

[gondar1]

The biggest I ever got in my youth (since I’m the same height) naturally was 165lbs but I was no more than10% bodyfat (high metabolism). I ate 3500-4000 cal a day to get to there and couldn’t for the life of me put on any more muscle, that was my natural max. At 16% body fat I’m around 200 lbs now on gear.

But you have trained guys so you likely know where the weights hit on shorter guys.

yeah I probably am biased from my experiences, but I do take age into consideration. Pretty cool that you said 165, I have been involved with turning a pile of 140lb younger guys, *14-19ish into 170lb guys in a year or year and a half natty but then they stall. Some of them are able to pack on more if they keep at it and get to be 200, 16-18 %, if they keep grinding until mid 30's. So your numbers track well with what I've seen but what a fucking grind, feeling like their is no progress for years at a time. AAS is a whole nother matter of course.

My wish for our friend here would be that he keeps digging regardless of juice because he might be just about to reach that tipping point where the mass comes easier for a while. Mass I say, could be beef, could be a belly if yer not careful.

*I'll be the first to tell you that working with that age group is almost a cheat code, very few non responders. An older untrained guy even mid 20's who is natty would do really well to gain 20 solid pounds. I believe if you build a base real early it will help you hold and build mass much easier when you are old(er).

Ramblin again lol, it's the chocolate, I don't eat candy so when I do... lookout!

 

[Sorbate]

Yea that's a quite a bit different than what I know. I pretty much adopted the Dorian Yates way of training so it's basically all that you're doing in those sets into one.

I'm not downplaying how hard anyone trains, as any serious training is not easy but unless they dedicate some serious time to doing 1 set to complete failure like Yates and Mentzer did, they won't really understand that level of intensity.

Everything else seems horribly inefficient once I experienced failure like that. I can't imagine going to the gym more than say 4 times per week let alone training the same body part twice with lots of volume. My best results actually came from training each muscle just twice a month.

I would likely be injured or not recover on one set, doing it the way you mention. Maybe when I was younger and tnedons were in better shape.

By my last ultrasound it is obvious my shoulders don't even like the way I am training now. Next up is doing more like Lee Priest, Jay Cutler or Dexter.

They got more than big enough, lol.

It seems as though the pros who incorporate the all in balls to the walls, heavy weight low sets all tear something. Then you have guys like Dexter and Cutler that took the volume approach and are far bigger than I ever will be and they seem to have done fine joint wise.

Thing is I like the balls out training. But I need to do what will work for longevity, I don't want to have shoulder surgery.

Either way, I do what works for me, I lift like maybe 3 full months a year (if you added all the days up), and I seem to be doing fine. I have figured out what worked the best for me to gain as fast as possible in the shortest time because I do not have time to train year round. Bodybuilding is a hobby to me, it is far down the list of things that are important.

 

[Quap555]

Yea that's a quite a bit different than what I know. I pretty much adopted the Dorian Yates way of training so it's basically all that you're doing in those sets into one.

I'm not downplaying how hard anyone trains, as any serious training is not easy but unless they dedicate some serious time to doing 1 set to complete failure like Yates and Mentzer did, they won't really understand that level of intensity.

Everything else seems horribly inefficient once I experienced failure like that. I can't imagine going to the gym more than say 4 times per week let alone training the same body part twice with lots of volume. My best results actually came from training each muscle just twice a month.

IMO this is outlandish.
Mike and Dorian (although I was not in attendance obviously) are known to have trained the complete opposite of what they pushed in the later times, when they were actually building the body.

To me this is the biggest amount of nonsense I’ve ever heard when it comes to training, I don’t mean to offend and to each his own what ever works but I’m just stating my opinion

 

[CoolRick]

I would likely be injured or not recover on one set, doing it the way you mention. Maybe when I was younger and tnedons were in better shape.

By my last ultrasound it is obvious my shoulders don't even like the way I am training now. Next up is doing more like Lee Priest, Jay Cutler or Dexter.

They got more than big enough, lol.

It seems as though the pros who incorporate the all in balls to the walls, heavy weight low sets all tear something. Then you have guys like Dexter and Cutler that took the volume approach and are far bigger than I ever will be and they seem to have done fine joint wise.

Thing is I like the balls out training. But I need to do what will work for longevity, I don't want to have shoulder surgery.

Either way, I do what works for me, I lift like maybe 3 full months a year (if you added all the days up), and I seem to be doing fine. I have figured out what worked the best for me to gain as fast as possible in the shortest time because I do not have time to train year round. Bodybuilding is a hobby to me, it is far down the list of things that are important.

That's interesting you mention tendon health. I found the opposite to be true where high volume causes tendonitis due to the repetitive strain, whereas with 1 set it's a weight I can handle done with maximum intensity.

The guys who are tearing something are usually people lifting too heavy of a weight in the stretch position. This can happen regardless of their volume. I can see the time under tension people possibly getting into a lot of trouble with this.

IMO this is outlandish.
Mike and Dorian (although I was not in attendance obviously) are known to have trained the complete opposite of what they pushed in the later times, when they were actually building the body.

To me this is the biggest amount of nonsense I’ve ever heard when it comes to training, I don’t mean to offend and to each his own what ever works but I’m just stating my opinion

What exactly is outlandish about my own personal accounts?

Dorian continues to train people the way he trained, there's plenty of YouTube videos of him doing that. Recent videos as well. The only person you mentioned that changed a few things down the road was Mentzer where the volume got even less. Still his principals remained the same.

 

[Quap555]

That's interesting you mention tendon health. I found the opposite to be true where high volume causes tendonitis due to the repetitive strain, whereas with 1 set it's a weight I can handle done with maximum intensity.

The guys who are tearing something are usually people lifting too heavy of a weight in the stretch position. This can happen regardless of their volume. I can see the time under tension people possibly getting into a lot of trouble with this.

What exactly is outlandish about my own personal accounts?

Dorian continues to train people the way he trained, there's plenty of YouTube videos of him doing that. Recent videos as well. The only person you mentioned that changed a few things down the road was Mentzer where the volume got even less. Still his principals remained the same.

There’s nothing outlandish about your personal accounts, that’s why I said if it works for you it works for you, obviously.
What’s outlandish to me is someone preaching low volume when they literally built there bodies on the complete opposite. If we look at all the biggest best body builders how many trained like Mike mentzer to build the physique, hell not even Mike himself lol
But that’s just my opinion, like I said

 

[CoolRick]

There’s nothing outlandish about your personal accounts, that’s why I said if it works for you it works for you, obviously.
What’s outlandish to me is someone preaching low volume when they literally built there bodies on the complete opposite. If we look at all the biggest best body builders how many trained like Mike mentzer to build the physique, hell not even Mike himself lol
But that’s just my opinion, like I said

The post you've quoted was entirely my personal experience... But ok, thanks for the clarification.

Many people that trained with Mike and his brother back in the 80s did low volume HIT or some kind of variation of going to failure. Tom Platz for example did higher volume but went to failure. You are correct Mentzer changed his stance later on to go even lower with the volume.This does not make him a hypocrite or a liar. I don't agree with this change but I still learned a lot from it.

Actually, I used to go to a gym where Mentzer came to do seminars for the original nautilus chain driven machines. So I got the full experience. They had autographed pictures of him and his brother Ray on the walls. Pretty cool.

I, like Dorian, found Menzter's later material to kind of lose the plot and our programs feature more exercises than his later material. Many today use HIT principals, Jordan Peters for instance. Even Chris Bumstead towards the end of his career started to talk about going to true failure.

Tl;dr Menzter's contributions have inspired many training methodologies still being used successfully by people today.

 

[Sorbate]

That's interesting you mention tendon health. I found the opposite to be true where high volume causes tendonitis due to the repetitive strain, whereas with 1 set it's a weight I can handle done with maximum intensity.

The guys who are tearing something are usually people lifting too heavy of a weight in the stretch position. This can happen regardless of their volume. I can see the time under tension people possibly getting into a lot of trouble with this.

What exactly is outlandish about my own personal accounts?

Dorian continues to train people the way he trained, there's plenty of YouTube videos of him doing that. Recent videos as well. The only person you mentioned that changed a few things down the road was Mentzer where the volume got even less. Still his principals remained the same.

Each of us are designed a bit different and have outside influences that are different that can effect our training.

Glad you found something that works for you.