[Sensei Creation]

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This is what my body looks like after a couple of months of 5x5 Stronglifts . I'm currently sitting at 75 kilos having gained 5 kilos since last November .

However Stronglifts has only giving me results in my lower body so far . I don't think it is the best program to help me reach my goals ( V-Taper , larger Arms and Chest ) considering I've always struggled to add muscle to my upper body .

I recently decided to do ALL of the strong lift exercises in ONE workout with some additional exercises so that my workout now looks like this :

Squats 3 x5
Bench Press 3 x 5
Over head press 3 x 5
Deadlift 1 x 5
Barbell Rows 3 x 5
Cable Rows 3x 5
Dumbell Flies 3x 10
Lat Pull down 3 x 10
Chin ups 3 x 10

This is the workout I concocted and tried out yesterday .. Rest periods included it takes me about 2 hours to get through all of it . I left the gym with my upper body feeling strained in a good way . I don't think I need to go hard on my lower body , I've always had no trouble getting toned muscular legs coming from a soccer background and genetics .

I'm planning to do this workout 3/4 times a week . Will it be too much ?

Secondly , As you can see I'm skinny but I would like to be tighter around my abdominal area and yet at the same time I feel like I need to bulk up .

Is there any way to reduce body fat to get at least a four pack whilst growing muscle in the other areas of my body ?

I'm looking for advice from other members who have a had success whilst starting out with a body type similar to mine .

[H1N1]

(05-13-2015 04:37 AM)Sensei Creation Wrote:  


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This is what my body looks like after a couple of months of 5x5 Stronglifts . I'm currently sitting at 75 kilos having gained 5 kilos since last November .

However Stronglifts has only giving me results in my lower body so far . I don't think it is the best program to help me reach my goals ( V-Taper , larger Arms and Chest ) considering I've always struggled to add muscle to my upper body .

I recently decided to do ALL of the strong lift exercises in ONE workout with some additional exercises so that my workout now looks like this :

Squats 3 x5
Bench Press 3 x 5
Over head press 3 x 5
Deadlift 1 x 5
Barbell Rows 3 x 5
Cable Rows 3x 5
Dumbell Flies 3x 10
Lat Pull down 3 x 10
Chin ups 3 x 10

This is the workout I concocted and tried out yesterday .. Rest periods included it takes me about 2 hours to get through all of it . I left the gym with my upper body feeling strained in a good way . I don't think I need to go hard on my lower body , I've always had no trouble getting toned muscular legs coming from a soccer background and genetics .

I'm planning to do this workout 3/4 times a week . Will it be too much ?

Secondly , As you can see I'm skinny but I would like to be tighter around my abdominal area and yet at the same time I feel like I need to bulk up .

Is there any way to reduce body fat to get at least a four pack whilst growing muscle in the other areas of my body ?

I'm looking for advice from other members who have a had success whilst starting out with a body type similar to mine .

You are already very lean. Much leaner than you need to be for the 'four pack' you mention. The reality is you have no real abdominal muscle, so you have nothing to see despite your high level of leanness.

I would also say that your workout routine is terrible. If Stronglifts doesn't do what you want to get you towards your goals, why keep it and just tack a bunch of other stuff on? Why not just do something where everything you're doing is moving you closer to your goals?

Also your goals are too vague to really make progress. V-taper big chest is not a goal. You need to have some numbers in mind that you are working towards in the lifts that work your target muscles. For example, you might reasonably think that when you can bench 225 for reps, do weighted chins with +50%bw for 5 reps, OHP bodyweight, and row bw for 20 clean reps, that you will be much closer to the sort of figure you're talking about.

Then you can program accordingly.

You could do:

A:
Bench
Incline DB bench
Flys
Rope pulldowns
skull crushers
Weighted abs

B:
Weighted chins
BB rows
BW chins for high reps
DB rows for high reps
BB curls
Hammer curls
Preacher curls
Back raises

C:
OHP
Seated db OHP
Lateral raises
Front raises
Rear delt raises
Band pull aparts
Weighted abs


Doing something like that would get you much closer to your goals, even though it's in many ways a much worse program than stronglifts (pressing volume is high compared to pulling volume, totally neglects legs, no performance aspect etc).

[VolandoVengoVolandoVoy]

I'm a fan of a 3 day split run twice a week, with Sunday as the only rest day.

Day1: Chest/Tri/Shoulders

Day 2: Back/Biceps

Day 3: Legs.

I do 4-6 exercises per session, 3-5 sets per exercise.

Everyday I do 3 sets of ab exercises at the end of the workout - a machine with weight added, crunches with flat palm on thighs going up to knee height, and a couple minutes of plank to finish it off.

I mix up which exercises depending on how I feel.

I always make sure I feel real hypertrophy in the target muscle, i.e. make it burn while also focusing on form....a bunch of half assed reps are worse than a few quality slow ones that work the targeted muscle properly.

Including a ten minute pre lift warmup on elliptical, I never take more than 1.5 hours.

[Jetlagged]

First off, good work! To me it looks like you did a pretty good job. I can see a six pack hiding in there, it's just not being squeezed right to show. You def have abs. This is a good start man.

Dude that workout you created is way too much. You can't do every lift every workout in the same order for the same reps. You'll still end up with a really strong squat and everything after will suffer more and more.

Stuck with strong lifts, add pullups and dips to the end of every workout. Weight them when they become easy. Fastest way to a V taper is to get wide lats, best way to work lats is pull ups, then rows and deadlifts. Lat pulldowns are not as effective.

Throw in some assistance excercises at the end as well, maybe sets of 3. Romanians DLs for DL, close grip pause bench or close grip incline bench for bench, push press for OHP (I actually switch between push press and OHP after a few weeks), there's so many different styles of rows. Don't go too crazy with them, keep them moderate in weight, it's an assure nice after all.

As far as working on your chest, try to do bench twice a week every week, and start your workouts with bench instead of squat. Basically you're going to do an A B A, A B A, workout every week. I do this as well as since I have a weak bench. I also vary my reps between Monday and Friday workout, usually I go heavy on Monday, lighter on friday. Depends how I feel. I would also recommend doing different styles of bench on those two days. Decline Monday, incline Friday. Keep it like this for a few weeks, then switch it to flat Monday, decline Friday. Use dips (weighted and unweighted), close grip bench (with or without pause), pause presses, floor presses, etc as assistance work.

Also it seems like you have an anterior pelvic tilt going on. Look it up on line. Squeeze your glutes and abs at the same time and try the pic again, I bet you'll see your abs better.

Eat everything you can get your hands on. Do heavy compounds as often as you feel up for it, make it lighter and more reps days you can't. As a fellow hardgainer I got my absolute best results doing the above workouts and eatin and sleeping like crazy. I was TRYING my ass off (really focus on all your lifts, I don't use preworkout or music. Concentrate on FEELING all your target muscles and squeezing them). Look up proper form for EVERYTHING you drom reputable lifters on YouTube, you can learn so many small things.

Long post is long. I wish someone told me all this stuff when I was skinnier and new and didn't wtf to do.

[not_dead_yet]

How many calories are you eating on rest days and how many calories are you eating on work days?

[Jetlagged]

I was just about to throw in another post about this ^

Eat without abandon. It looks like your youn with a fast metabo. Eat like you want to get super fat on days you work out, when you're not working out eat like you just want to get fat.

If you start to get fat (if you're truly a hardgainer like me, you will seriously need to eat a lot to get truly fat) cut back a little.

It took me 6 months of eating wings ice cream snickers pizza burgers etc eating for taste to gain 10lbs. Eaaaat!

[Saweeep]

Yet another, and this isn't personal OP, just a bug bear of mine:

"Why aren't I reaching my aesthetic goals with SL" post?

To be honest, you have a good physique and a great starting point.

What you need is a bodybuilding programme to get the V-taper.




Notice how reeves' chest isn't too large and his traps are very small compared to what you see on most serious lifters and bodybuilders.

His lats are very well developed and his waist is tiny.

Note also the inside of the calf and outside of the thigh are more developed than the rest of his legs.

This is all about creating a sculpture of aesthetic ideal.

[Jetlagged]

I would beg to differ.

Not so much on the calf and leg argument, but a SL "style" program can create a V taper. Probably nobody on this board has a body like that dude, it's more than just a body building routine, this dude went the extra mile that most aren't willing to take.

A decent v taper can be achieved through pull ups variations added to SL. Weighted and different grips. BB style programmer isn't necessary, but will also work.

I suggest SL style and pullups because as a hardgainer it's a more effective use of time, at least it was for me as the same body type. BB style routines didn't work very well.

[Saweeep]

SL and other hybrid strength programmes always create blocky physiques.

It's what they do.

I don't think a true V can ever be created without lateral raises forming a large part of the programme. Many bodybuilders train them first, along with rear lateral work, before shoulder press for this very reason.

[Jetlagged]

http://www.simplyshredded.com/mega-featu...-2011.html

Layne Norton is a pretty successful power bodybuilder.

I see where you're coming from though... If he's looking strictly for shape maybe a BB program is best, they just never put on size for me as a hardgainer.

I'm just saying a combo of the two isn't a bad compromise, notice i wasn't suggesting a strictly SL routine with respect to assistance work and reps/sets/weight for him either. A workout like what's in the link could work well, albeit toned way down for him.

All these classic BB guys still squatted/DL/Bench/Shoulder presses as well.

Will concede though for the most part you're right.

[Kieran]

Starting strength, stronglifts, and similar programs are horrible for physiques - great big legs that can hardly fit in jeans, fat (if you follow the nutritional advice), small arms, not much of an upper body. Here is one of the success stories lol:



http://startingstrength.com/resources/fo...pdate.html

[H1N1]

I think it's also important to bear in mind that to a beginner, things we say on the internet can sound absolutist, without actually being intended that way by the person making the statement.

For example, CBW has suggested you get on a bodybuilding program and ditch a strength training program because it'll make you blocky. Without putting words in his mouth, I suspect in his own mind a perfectly reasonable bodybuilding template may still include a 2 month (for example) period within a year of training where strength becomes the primary goal.

Just as all of my own training is focused on performance, and the ability to move effectively through major movement patterns under load, it doesn't mean there aren't times where I'll put strength gains on maintenance and spend a month or two doing some body building stuff to build bigger muscles, and *shock horror* attempting to enhance the visual effect of my physique.

The point fundamentally is that THE MAJORITY of your training should be directed towards specific goals, and if strength is less important to you than appearance, it is bordering on the absurd to do a strength template to try to look better.

[Jetlagged]

Ricky bobby "I don't know what to do with my hands".

At the risk of being ridiculed, I will throw up a faceless shot of me. Trying to get my BF lower since I'm on the road anyways gymless so I can get some ab action. Lucky me I carry all my all fat on my abs. Currently at about 31" waist by a guess, (my size 33s are super loose and unwearable without a belt) if I get a sixer I'll probably sit at 29-30".

However, I don't think I look very blocky. I DL and squat without a belt and at a decent weight, nothing crazy but with respect to BW I'm at 1.75 squat and 1.97 DL, 1.25 bench (fuckin bench).

I do the exact program I described above and in similar posts. I haven't done a curl, lateral raise, rear delt, triceps extension or general isolation movement in probably 1 year. My forearms sure show it lol.

I have two issues with BB focused programs:
1. If programmed incorrectly, you can start to look out of proportion. There's a BB guy at my gym and he looks Good for a BBer, he's got great wide lats, but something about his physique just looks off. I can't put my finger on exactly what it is, but something about this guy physique I just don't desire. You can never over isolate one muscle with compound lifts.

2. For a hardgainer, the programs are just too long. I don't have the muscular stamina a lot of bigger guys do. My boy can go in and lift relatively heavy for 10 reps on incline, decline, flat, and then dumbbell. By the time I'm done with incline my chest/tris are gassed. It starts to be more like cardio after I lower the weights to a point where I can continue, and then I'm burning precious calories that I need to bulk up.
For me I focus on quality reps with good weight. My works puts are 45 min to 1.5 hrs tops. Get in work hard get out and eat.

Hardgainer is a different life, but only if you really, truly are a hardgainer.

CBW provides an excellent counterpoint and if you choose a well programmed routine you will also experience good results. You will also probably avoid injury associated with heavy lifts.
I did make gains on a BB style program/split but I found with my body type after trying both frequent heavy compounds got me faster results, but only after I ate like a horse.

What will really yield results is sheer willpower. Bringing it every time you walk in the door is necessary.

All that being said OP is bigger than me, I'm at 70kg at time of photo.

[viajero]

(05-13-2015 05:18 AM)H1N1 Wrote:  

You are already very lean. Much leaner than you need to be for the 'four pack' you mention. The reality is you have no real abdominal muscle, so you have nothing to see despite your high level of leanness.

H1N1, what kind of exercises do you suggest for weighted abdominal work? I've been doing all the normal boxing gym bodyweight shit but definitely need to move on to something new as my results have plateaued. Goal is to be able to laugh off body shots.

[H1N1]

(05-13-2015 10:01 AM)viajero Wrote:  

(05-13-2015 05:18 AM)H1N1 Wrote:  

You are already very lean. Much leaner than you need to be for the 'four pack' you mention. The reality is you have no real abdominal muscle, so you have nothing to see despite your high level of leanness.

H1N1, what kind of exercises do you suggest for weighted abdominal work? I've been doing all the normal boxing gym bodyweight shit but definitely need to move on to something new as my results have plateaued. Goal is to be able to laugh off body shots.

Mmm, to be honest, I have limited faith in ab work for resilience to body shots. In my own opinion, the best thing for learning to take body shots is several years of sparring with a range of sparring partners until you become desensitised. Chris Eubank, for example, used to do 60 situps or something laughable like that a session. I think strong abs are an important part of being a good boxer, but of limited value in taking body shots. I always did ab work, like I always did neck work, because if it does have an effect, you want to benefit from it, but I'm still not convinced.

My opinion is that if your goal is to laugh off body shots, you should spend the time shadow boxing and working on your defence, as well as sparring, or conceivably doing de-sensitising drills, like having your coach hit you likely with some rebar.

If your goal is pretty abdominals then I would do things like crunches with weight plates on my chest, weighted planks, and the ab machines in the gym, all in the 12-20 rep range. Like any other muscle group, you're going purely for some hypertrophy here.

If your goal is strong, powerful abs, I would do the big lifts, do a lot of odd object work, and work up to standing rollouts, in addition to the stuff I mentioned above for pretty abs, except with lower rep ranges.

Edited because for some reason I thought you were the OP. Apologies.

[viajero]

(05-13-2015 10:10 AM)H1N1 Wrote:  

Mmm, to be honest, I have limited faith in ab work for resilience to body shots. In my own opinion, the best thing for learning to take body shots is several years of sparring with a range of sparring partners until you become desensitised. Chris Eubank, for example, used to do 60 situps or something laughable like that a session. I think strong abs are an important part of being a good boxer, but of limited value in taking body shots. I always did ab work, like I always did neck work, because if it does have an effect, you want to benefit from it, but I'm still not convinced.

My opinion is that if your goal is to laugh off body shots, you should spend the time shadow boxing and working on your defence, as well as sparring, or conceivably doing de-sensitising drills, like having your coach hit you likely with some rebar.

If your goal is pretty abdominals then I would do things like crunches with weight plates on my chest, weighted planks, and the ab machines in the gym, all in the 12-20 rep range. Like any other muscle group, you're going purely for some hypertrophy here.

If your goal is strong, powerful abs, I would do the big lifts, do a lot of odd object work, and work up to standing rollouts, in addition to the stuff I mentioned above for pretty abs, except with lower rep ranges.

Edited because for some reason I thought you were the OP. Apologies.

Thanks mate. I do a decent bit of lighter sparring as 'touch the head, body is open' to help condition. When you say 'strong abs are important to being a boxer,' you mean the kind of strength you gain from deadlifts, squats, ab wheel roll-outs, etc, correct?

I may add some weighted crunches because everyone loves pretty abs, but that's not my first goal. Thanks for the perspective, I've heard those opinions on neck training before but never on abs. Although come to think of it I never see one of my tougher sparring partners doing ab work and I'd need a knife to hurt him to the body.

[Saweeep]

I agree with that re taking shots.

The Thais will do about a million sit-ups each session a couple of times per day, I'm sure thinking that they help but in reality it's the round after round after round of kneeing each other in the abdomen during clinch training that toughens them up.

[heavy]

I always just did these without weights until I saw a respected older guy on RVF say something about not getting good abs until using weights (couldn't find the reference). Now I do these.
   

[Fortis]

Op, what sort of weight are you working with if you're able to do all of that in one work out.

[H1N1]

(05-13-2015 10:25 AM)viajero Wrote:  

(05-13-2015 10:10 AM)H1N1 Wrote:  

Mmm, to be honest, I have limited faith in ab work for resilience to body shots. In my own opinion, the best thing for learning to take body shots is several years of sparring with a range of sparring partners until you become desensitised. Chris Eubank, for example, used to do 60 situps or something laughable like that a session. I think strong abs are an important part of being a good boxer, but of limited value in taking body shots. I always did ab work, like I always did neck work, because if it does have an effect, you want to benefit from it, but I'm still not convinced.

My opinion is that if your goal is to laugh off body shots, you should spend the time shadow boxing and working on your defence, as well as sparring, or conceivably doing de-sensitising drills, like having your coach hit you likely with some rebar.

If your goal is pretty abdominals then I would do things like crunches with weight plates on my chest, weighted planks, and the ab machines in the gym, all in the 12-20 rep range. Like any other muscle group, you're going purely for some hypertrophy here.

If your goal is strong, powerful abs, I would do the big lifts, do a lot of odd object work, and work up to standing rollouts, in addition to the stuff I mentioned above for pretty abs, except with lower rep ranges.

Edited because for some reason I thought you were the OP. Apologies.

Thanks mate. I do a decent bit of lighter sparring as 'touch the head, body is open' to help condition. When you say 'strong abs are important to being a boxer,' you mean the kind of strength you gain from deadlifts, squats, ab wheel roll-outs, etc, correct?

I may add some weighted crunches because everyone loves pretty abs, but that's not my first goal. Thanks for the perspective, I've heard those opinions on neck training before but never on abs. Although come to think of it I never see one of my tougher sparring partners doing ab work and I'd need a knife to hurt him to the body.

I really mean the kind of strength that allows you to transfer as much power as you are able to generate in your legs, through to your torso and upper body as possible. It's like a chain in a whip, if one link is weak or broken, the force with which the tip can land is greatly reduced. For that reason, things like odd object training, and big lifts that force you to be stable in the midsection, have their place in my view.

[Repo]

Lets also not forget that legs always grow faster than upper body. 2 months of lifting is just not enough to see a big difference in upper body.

[Saweeep]

(05-13-2015 04:17 PM)Repo Wrote:  

Lets also not forget that legs always grow faster than upper body. 2 months of lifting is just not enough to see a big difference in upper body.

That's just not true mate.

2 months is enough time to see plenty of difference if training and diet is focussed on that goal.

[Kieran]

Yeah I would bet that if he'd done a higher volume of upper body lifts he'd have seen more progress in that time. Even something as simple as high volume dips and chins three times per week, adding weight when necessary, would have brought more results. Stronglifts and Starting Strength are very low volume for the upper body even for a beginner, and in my personal experience volume is the key to growth.

I also don't believe in the whole squats and deadlifts raise your testosterone and build your arms thing that they peddle - if so, where are all the shredded 16 inch arms as a result of all the squatting? Same with all that you can't get a big upper body without training your legs thing. During the times in my life when I wasn't able to train legs due to injury, my upper body lifts progressed far more than usual and I saw more growth. My guess is that the body only has so much capacity for recovery and growth to go around or something.

[H1N1]

(05-14-2015 04:11 AM)Kieran Wrote:  

Yeah I would bet that if he'd done a higher volume of upper body lifts he'd have seen more progress in that time. Even something as simple as high volume dips and chins three times per week, adding weight when necessary, would have brought more results. Stronglifts and Starting Strength are very low volume for the upper body even for a beginner, and in my personal experience volume is the key to growth.

I also don't believe in the whole squats and deadlifts raise your testosterone and build your arms thing that they peddle - if so, where are all the shredded 16 inch arms as a result of all the squatting? Same with all that you can't get a big upper body without training your legs thing. During the times in my life when I wasn't able to train legs due to injury, my upper body lifts progressed far more than usual and I saw more growth. My guess is that the body only has so much capacity for recovery and growth to go around or something.

Completely agree. You only have to look at all those funny memes of oiled up dude's with ripped upper bodies and chicken legs saying 'friends don't let friends skip leg day', to see that it is completely possible to build a huge and impressive upper body without building any leg muscle at all.

[Sensei Creation]

Thanks for all the responses , It is clear to me now that starting strength is not going to give me the results I desire . I decided to follow Volando's advice and go for a 3 day split routine twice a week with sunday as a day off .

I started the following program in the gym this morning :

Chest / Back

Bench Press
Cable Rows
Lat Pull Downs
Barbell Rows
Incline Bench Press
Machine Pec Fly
Pull ups

Triceps / Biceps

Barbell Curl
Hammer Curls
Chin ups
Dips
Seated Triceps Press
Kneeling Cable Triceps Extension


Legs / Shoulders

Squats
Narrow Stance Leg Press
Deadlifts
Side Lateral Raise
Seated Dumbbell Press
Overhead Press

Added to that is one of Brandon Lamars Ab workouts .

I think that this workout is putting lot of emphasis on the upper body , but I just wanted to run through to the guys on here for a second opinion .

As for my goals , I do have number goals so to speak ( I'm not too far from repping BW on my bench press and that was my original goal when I first started but to be honest i'm not really obsessed about numbers as much as I am about actually seeing results .

I'd rather look stronger than I am than the other way around . Hence the reason why i'm getting off the stronglift program .