For all you guys wanting to gain muscle, size, etc.

[stewaat]

Re: For all you guys wanting to gain muscle, size, etc.

Is the general rule that the more protein the better when trying to put on mass? I know they say 1 gram for every pound of weight, but is more than that good? Is there a point where it's either too much protein, or just that it's a waste?

Here's what I've taken from everything...

1 - 1.5 gram of protein per lb of lean body mass

lean body mass = weight x (1-bf%)

Here's what mine would be:

200 x (.9) = 180

So 180-270 should be my protein intake range.

If I was eating 6 meals....

30-45g protein/meal


AND...you can eat too much protein.

[windseer90]

Re: For all you guys wanting to gain muscle, size, etc.

Alright... I feel I need to lose some weight and get some muscle before I go off to college... I haven't done much physical activity/working out recently and if I never get a set routine/plan I'll never do anything. So I'm hoping someone from OS will be able to help me.

I'm not looking to do something intense. I just want to lose a few lbs (the fat) and gain some muscle definition in the arms (and legs I guess). I don't have time to go to a gym or 24 Hour Fitness. At my house I have a treadmill and a weight machine, but its no Bowflex lol. Its got standard things but it isn't really all that good.

So basically I need someone to help me get a plan of how much running and lifting I need to do and what kind of lifts I need to do on certain days, how much running, days off, etc. I also know that what I eat/drink will be an important factor as well, so I have a couple of questions.

1. I have to get up pretty early for work, and I don't drink coffee. Is having one of the new Mountain Dews in the morning really bad for me?

2. How often can you eat chocolate/desert like items? I know they're bad but they just taste so good lol.

3. What kind of breakfast is filling but isn't bad for you?

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help me or answer these questions.

[stewaat]

Re: For all you guys wanting to gain muscle, size, etc.

Alright... I feel I need to lose some weight and get some muscle before I go off to college... I haven't done much physical activity/working out recently and if I never get a set routine/plan I'll never do anything. So I'm hoping someone from OS will be able to help me.

I'm not looking to do something intense. I just want to lose a few lbs (the fat) and gain some muscle definition in the arms (and legs I guess). I don't have time to go to a gym or 24 Hour Fitness. At my house I have a treadmill and a weight machine, but its no Bowflex lol. Its got standard things but it isn't really all that good.

So basically I need someone to help me get a plan of how much running and lifting I need to do and what kind of lifts I need to do on certain days, how much running, days off, etc. I also know that what I eat/drink will be an important factor as well, so I have a couple of questions.

1. I have to get up pretty early for work, and I don't drink coffee. Is having one of the new Mountain Dews in the morning really bad for me?

2. How often can you eat chocolate/desert like items? I know they're bad but they just taste so good lol.

3. What kind of breakfast is filling but isn't bad for you?

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help me or answer these questions.

1. Honestly, yes. It's filled with sugar. Drink diet soda if you need soda/caffeine.

2. Shoot for every other day and just have a small portion. This will kill your progress.

3. I like eggs. I think they are one of the most filling foods. They are a great breakfast. Oatmeal is another winner. Pastries are terrible and so are most cereals.

Stay away from processed sugar...even though it is extremely delicious.

[Double Eights]

Re: For all you guys wanting to gain muscle, size, etc.

Is it smart to take Whey even on off days?

[stewaat]

Re: For all you guys wanting to gain muscle, size, etc.

Is it smart to take Whey even on off days?

To me it seems like a waste. I would much rather get my protein from real foods as opposed to powders.

Whey is designed to be quickly absorbed so it's beneficial post workout.

If I were to take any protein supplement on an off day it would be casein protein at night to act as a dessert and to keep me full through the night.

Just my .02

[Double Eights]

Re: For all you guys wanting to gain muscle, size, etc.

Sounds good, thanks.

[Money99]

Re: For all you guys wanting to gain muscle, size, etc.

How the heck do you increase muscle mass in your legs?

Ever since my injury, I've been rehabbing with some machines... but I want to gain size in my legs.

I neglected my legs for many years and when I finally started working them out I did everything I could to avoid the squat rack.
But eventually I couldn't hold back any longer. The squat is to legs as benchpress is to the chest.

I wouldn't say my legs are huge by any stretch of the imagination but since doing adding squats to my routine 2 years ago, my legs have probably gained 3-4 inches around the thigh. And my starting weight has increased nearly 100 lbs.

I like lunges too, but I found that my legs responded a lot better to squats, leg presses, deadlifts and straight-leg lifts for my hamstrings.

[Money99]

Re: For all you guys wanting to gain muscle, size, etc.

Has anyone performed the MAX-OT program?
Here's the website. It's free and has some good information.

http://www.ast-ss.com

I've been doing it for the past 10 weeks and so far I've liked it.
The priniciples are very simple and direct. Sets should always range from 4-6 reps (for 90% of the movements) and rest 2-3 minutes between sets.
They also tell you to stay away from restrictive movements that prevent you from using the most weight possible. So things like preacher curls, flys, cable crossovers, leg extentions, etc are frowned upon.
They harp on the meat and potatoes type excericses for each muscle group - squat, benchpress, barbell curl, deadlifts, etc.
They also insist on intensity. That's the key. But how do you know how intense you're being. They give tips, but really, I would say a great majority of us think we're being as intense as possible. I do my best to concentrate before every set and to really, really push myself for one more rep. But how do I know that I'm really giving 100%? I might think I am, but who knows?

And you rarely do more than 8 sets for each body part.
In some routines, where you work out 3 body parts, you're only doing 4 sets for a particular muscle group.

A regular arm routine for MAX-OT consists of doing:
2 sets barbell curls
2 sets alternating dumbell curls
1 set cable curl
2 sets lying tricep extentions
2 sets cable pushdowns
1 set kickback
2 sets sitting, barbell forearm curls
1 set wrist curls

The routine I'm doing now, since I'm hitting chest, shoulders and tri's all in one workout, I'll only get 4 sets of triceps in. I know that bench will work the triceps as a secondary group, but is performing 6 sets for bench followed by 4 sets for tri's going to stunt my growth?

Before starting MAX-OT I was doing 15 sets for tris and 12 sets for bis. Granted, I was only resting 45-60 seconds.
I like the idea of resting a full 2 minutes and I feel it has helped. But I still get paranoid that dropping anywhere between 10 - 12 sets for triceps might be hurting my progress.
Especially if I'm not doing it with the utmost intensity.

Has anyone tried this routine? And if so, how did you like it?

[USF11]

Re: For all you guys wanting to gain muscle, size, etc.

I know that bench will work the triceps as a secondary group, but is performing 6 sets for bench followed by 4 sets for tri's going to stunt my growth?

Growth comes from eating and sleep. Only train large muscle groups once a week.

[TMagic]

Re: For all you guys wanting to gain muscle, size, etc.

Has anyone performed the MAX-OT program?
Here's the website. It's free and has some good information.

http://www.ast-ss.com

I've been doing it for the past 10 weeks and so far I've liked it.
The priniciples are very simple and direct. Sets should always range from 4-6 reps (for 90% of the movements) and rest 2-3 minutes between sets.

Is this program designed for muscle mass or more for strength?

I'm not saying I'm all knowing. I'm just in school studying exercise physiology. I've probably getting on my professors nerves with all the damn questions I have for them.

But, from what I've learned, studies show that it's best to keep your repititions between 8-10 reps. There are a few reasons.

The major one's being hormone secretion. With low reptitions, hormone levels are not going to be as high compared to a higher reptition set. Testerone levels, growth hormone, and insulin like growth factor are all much higher when done with more repititions. "The greater the amount of circulating anabolic hormones, the greater the increases in muscle hypertrophy.".... Now keep this in your head.

Lactic acid plays a central role in exercise-related hormone excitation. Many think of lactic acid as a bad thing. But, it's not when resistance training. It is an anabolic facilitator.

So when you do low reps, you do not build much lactic acid. Especially when you compare that it to a higher repitition set. So you don't end up with as high of a level of the anabolic hormones that greatly increase muscle growth. That being the aforementioned testosterone, growth hormone, and IGF.

There's a few things other than what I mentioned that go along with the benefit of training this way. But I don't want to bore anyone...lol

[Money99]

Re: For all you guys wanting to gain muscle, size, etc.

Is this program designed for muscle mass or more for strength?

I'm not saying I'm all knowing. I'm just in school studying exercise physiology. I've probably getting on my professors nerves with all the damn questions I have for them.

But, from what I've learned, studies show that it's best to keep your repititions between 8-10 reps. There are a few reasons.

The major one's being hormone secretion. With low reptitions, hormone levels are not going to be as high compared to a higher reptition set. Testerone levels, growth hormone, and insulin like growth factor are all much higher when done with more repititions. "The greater the amount of circulating anabolic hormones, the greater the increases in muscle hypertrophy.".... Now keep this in your head.

Lactic acid plays a central role in exercise-related hormone excitation. Many think of lactic acid as a bad thing. But, it's not when resistance training. It is an anabolic facilitator.

So when you do low reps, you do not build much lactic acid. Especially when you compare that it to a higher repitition set. So you don't end up with as high of a level of the anabolic hormones that greatly increase muscle growth. That being the aforementioned testosterone, growth hormone, and IGF.

There's a few things other than what I mentioned that go along with the benefit of training this way. But I don't want to bore anyone...lol

That's interesting. He talks about lactic-acid on his site and give scientific results as to why Lactic-acid is terrible for muscle growth.

I'll have to do more reading on that.

I have to say though, since moving to lower reps (I was doing 6-8 reps before), I've gained 20 lbs in my starting bench press in the first 8 weeks.
I've been working out for nearly 14 years so gaining that much in such a short time it felt good. I haven't seen gains like that since I was a beginner.

[Money99]

Re: For all you guys wanting to gain muscle, size, etc.

Growth comes from eating and sleep. Only train large muscle groups once a week.

Yeah, I've been only training one muscle group once per week for a while now and I make sure to take every 8th week off completely for maximum rest.

So essentially, it's better to do 5 sets with 2 minutes rest in between, than 15 sets with 60 seconds in between?

[TMagic]

Re: For all you guys wanting to gain muscle, size, etc.

That's interesting. He talks about lactic-acid on his site and give scientific results as to why Lactic-acid is terrible for muscle growth.

I'll have to do more reading on that.

I have to say though, since moving to lower reps (I was doing 6-8 reps before), I've gained 20 lbs in my starting bench press in the first 8 weeks.
I've been working out for nearly 14 years so gaining that much in such a short time it felt good. I haven't seen gains like that since I was a beginner.

Hmmm...That is interesting.

It depends on when and where the guy is getting his information from. The information I'm presenting is from professors who study muscle and growth. That's a lot of what the exercise physiologist do outside of class is experiment and study the body's development under stress.

University professors have to do studies and publish an article every year to teach. It's a requirement by universities to make sure that they are up to date on any new information thats out there. The journals they publish are sent to some comitteee (cant remember the name) that reviews the professors findings and sends it out to several other universities for a follow up and repeat of the experiment to test it's validity.

If it's found to be wrong, then it gets rejected and the professor is told to "fix" it. If everything turns out well, it gets published in a scientific journal and can be presented in conferences that professors nation wide can attend.

So I'm not saying dude is wrong. Just presenting information that I've learned.

So you got to check and see how up-to-date he is.

A lot of people still go by the "no pain, no gain" way of training. The more sore you are, the better. This was believed for a LONG time. But recent advances in technology have allowed those who study muscle to find that to be wrong.

So its all about being current.

[Pared]

Re: For all you guys wanting to gain muscle, size, etc.

I neglected my legs for many years and when I finally started working them out I did everything I could to avoid the squat rack.
But eventually I couldn't hold back any longer. The squat is to legs as benchpress is to the chest.

I wouldn't say my legs are huge by any stretch of the imagination but since doing adding squats to my routine 2 years ago, my legs have probably gained 3-4 inches around the thigh. And my starting weight has increased nearly 100 lbs.

I like lunges too, but I found that my legs responded a lot better to squats, leg presses, deadlifts and straight-leg lifts for my hamstrings.

Good stuff. I have been avoiding squat thrusts as well but I guess it's time to add them to the repertoire.

Appreciate the info.

I thought deadlifts mostly worked the back and arms though...

Oh, and I'm thinking of picking up this book:



Looks pretty good and may give it a try.

[Money99]

Re: For all you guys wanting to gain muscle, size, etc.

Good stuff. I have been avoiding squat thrusts as well but I guess it's time to add them to the repertoire.

Appreciate the info.

I thought deadlifts mostly worked the back and arms though...

Oh, and I'm thinking of picking up this book:



Looks pretty good and may give it a try.

Deadlifts are considered a great all-around workout - mostly core. But they'll hit all of that. I like doing it on leg days as it totally exhausts my quads.

tmagic_01, I don't doubt what you're saying. It's funny sometimes how things can contradict themselves from one 'expert' to the next.

I've always enjoyed getting that 'burn' but the guy from Max-OT says there's a difference between a burn and a pump.
I'll keep reading.

Thanks for the advice though!