TOPIC: Quest for B-Cups

Greetings!

I've been on a bulk since the summer, and managed to put on some weight, but I'm starting to take it more seriously as it gets harder. I've decided to start this log to keep myself accountable.

Starting

Height - 6'1", Weight - 72kg (up from around 65kg at the start of the summer)

Routine

I'm following this routine from Bold and Determined (work out six times a week, lots of reps with lowish weights).

boldanddetermined.com/serge-nubrets-old-school-workout-routine/

I'm also doing the 100 press ups/100 squats/100 crunches bodyweight routine from the 30 Days of Discipline programme. I've been doing that since the summer and I've got to the point where I can just about do 100 press ups in a row and can fairly easily do 100 of each of the other two.

Diet
My diet is as follows:

Breakfast - 6 eggs, 3 scoops oat shake, greens supplement
Morning snack - 125g raisin/nut mix, 1 apple
Lunch - 1 chicken breast, brown rice
Supper - free choice; I usually cook something like chili con carne, liver+onions or piri piri chicken. It's always a meat-based dish with a side of brown rice, mashed potato or another starchy food. Definitely at least 500 kcal.

In addition, I have:

Pre-workout - Whole tub of plain yoghurt, 2 bananas
Post-workout - 2 scoops whey protein with 500ml milk, 1tbsp peanut butter

I tend to work out first thing in the morning, so breakfast is often my third meal of the day. On those days, I tend to have lunch later and move my morning snack to the afternoon.

It works out at 3500-4000kcal a day.

Supplements

In addition to my protein, oats and greens supplements, I'm taking the Hackleech special - 75mg zinc, 500mg magnesium, 200µg selenium - plus the calcium from the milk I use for my protein shake.

Additional

I'm also following a jelq-only PE routine to try and get some girth without too much length gain. I won't give updates on that unless I hit a major milestone.

OK, here goes.

I woke up today feeling a bit weird. I had trouble keeping my balance or paying attention to things, and I felt weak. I started getting worried that it was zinc poisoning from taking 75mg of zinc every day for the past week or so. I tried to flush out as much zinc from my system as I could by drinking milk and water, and jerking off. Hope it worked; I'm going to leave the zinc for a few days and then take it at a lower dose in the future. It's a pity, because it was great for sleep, sex drive etc.

I got to the gym fairly late today. I did my 30DOD excercises on on of the ab mats (100 each of press ups, body weight squats and ab crunches) and then did the following:

Squats - 8x12 reps - 40kg - hard
Leg extension machine - 6x12 reps - 30kg - easy
Leg press machine - 6x12 reps - 30kg - easy

Bench press - 8x12 reps - 30kg - hard
Dumbbell flies - 6x12 reps - 5kg - hard
Incline bench press - 6x12 reps - 25kg - hard
Incline dumbbell flies - 6x12 reps - 5kg - hard
Dumbbell pullovers - 6x12 reps - 12kg - easy

Low weights, high reps, right? I've put down the weights and difficulties primarily for my own benefit: if something is hard, I do it until it becomes easy. If something is easy, I switch the weight up. Here 'hard' means that I was resting for a minute between sets, and 'easy' means I was resting for 30 seconds.

Dinner tonight - liver and onions with a creamy mash and onion gravy.

Pictures posted (members only):

www.goodlookingloser.com/forums/members-only/134739-body-pics

I don't think your workout routine is the best thing for you right now.
For starters, Serge Nubret was a professional competitive bodybuilder and therefore was probs on roids, don't know for sure, but it is very likely he was. Normal people who are not on roids cannot get that level of definition and volume if not on roids no matter how much time they spend at the gym and how many different supps they take. In consequence, you shouldn't follow his routine.
Second, I remembered Victor from b&d saying the complete opposite in his book and took the time to look it up:
"30 minutes to an hour is fine. No reason to be in the gym for hours a day unless you are taking the required drugs to help with that much volume. A natural trainer can develop a tremendous physique and strength with 30 minutes a day."
"If you can lift a weight for more than 5 repetitions it is not heavy enough"
Those among others statements contradict the benefits of that routine, at least for begginers.
Leg extensions and leg presses are useless exercises. In fact, if you have the energy to do them, it's only because you are not pushing yourself hard enough with the squats. If you are doing the squats with the right amount of weight, you shouldn't be able to move them very well right after, they should feel numb, particularly because you are just starting out. I suggest you use the Leg press machine to train your calves.
Dumbbell flies
Incline dumbbell flies
Dumbbell pullovers
These are all useless exercises for you, you should replace them with pullups, chinups, and deadlifts. I also suggest you replace the Incline bench press with dips, if you can handle that.

Doing tons of reps is just gonna make you tired of moving your arm up and down, I doubt you're truly taking your muscles to failure if you can do 6 sets of 12 reps. Man, that's 72 reps, you should do at most 2 sets to failure. With those many reps, I wonder how long you stay at the gym.

Thanks for your reply.

I'm in the gym for over an hour each day. Yesterday, because of crowding and since it was a long workout, I was there for around two hours. I'd love to be doing a programme that took up less of my time, but here's why I'm doing this one.

I'm not just starting out; I've been working out - on and off - for three to four years. I've done countless leg workouts where I took my legs to failure and was unable to walk properly afterwards. I know I can squat way more than what I was doing yesterday. In fact, up until very recently, that's exactly how I was working out.

At first it was great, and I was putting on a whole load of weight. But at some point, I hit a plateau - try as I might, I couldn't get my weight past 75kg or so. So I turned to this routine.

It goes against everything I've learned about gaining muscle mass. Low weight, high reps is meant to give you strength, not muscle. The thing is, I'm making gains faster now than I ever have in my life. I feel I've broken through this first plateau and am starting to pack on some serious weight again. it shouldn't work, but it does. I've come to realize that when it comes to working out, my body responds best to working harder, not smarter.

I may not be taking my muscles to failure any more, but that never worked out that well for me anyway. The benefit of this workout plan is the ridiculous pump I get afterwards - forcing nutrients into my muscles, as Victor says. This gives me motivation to continue - seeing how good I could look with more muscle.

Victor Pride isn't afraid to contradict himself. Here's another quote from him:

There’s a ridiculous notion that natural, non drug-enhanced, trainers need to do less work to get better results. Only in some sort of Sci-Fi Bizarro world can a natural trainer do less work and get better results.
[...]
The nasty truth is that a natural trainer has to do a lot more work to get inferior results to a drug trainer.

Anyway, regardless of what Victor or Chris or you or anyone else says, this plan is working for me at the moment. When it stops working, I'll change to something different.

Went to the gym again today.

Assisted pull ups - setting 8 - 6x12 reps - easy
Lying rows (on special bench) - 10kg+bar - 6x12 reps - hard
Behind the neck lat pull downs - 23kg - 8x12 reps - hard
In front of body lat pull downs - 23kg - 6x12 reps - hard

Leg curl machine - 25kg - 8x15 reps - hard

Was only in there for 40 minutes or so today. Tuesdays/Fridays aren't such a bad day.

About to go and eat some chili con carne I had in the freezer.

Just monitor your progress, whatever works for you keep it pushing.

The hypertrophy phase is one of my favorites. Im not a fan of the leg curl machine or the leg extension machine either. Open chain (body static and feet moving) exercises aren't something i like to do as far as working my legs out. I prefer Squat/front squat/bulgarian split squat.

The reason i dont like the leg ext and leg curl aside from being open chain is the weight being so far away from the knee and all of the added stress to it. It can cause nagging pans later on.

Congrats on finding something that works for you! Keep us posted

Small disaster yesterday - my gym membership only lets me enter before 3pm; my meeting with my PhD supervisor went on longer than I was expecting, and I wasn't able to get in. I went home and did the 30DOD exercises, plus some pull ups on my home pull up bar. At least I saved some precious calories.

Back to work today:

Squats - 8x12 reps - 40kg - 60s rest
Leg press - 6x12 reps - 53kg (i.e., no extra weights) - 50s rest
Leg extensions - 6x12 reps - 35kg - 60s rest

Bench press - 8x12 rest - 30kg - 60+s rest
Dumbbell files - 6x12 reps - 2x5kg - 30s rest
Incline bench press - 6x12 reps - 25kg - 60s rest
Incline dumbbell flies - 6x12 reps - 2x5kg - 30s rest
Dumbbell pullovers - 6x12 reps - 15kg - 60s rest

All in all, I can feel the squats getting easier, so I'm ready to start ratcheting down the rest times. Had a great pump, as usual.

Hey Thikron,

I would say a 5x5 routine or 3 x 5 , for squat, bench/OH press / row etc . Then some hypertrophy 3/4 x 8-12 for arms , DB flies etc. You can grow very quickly on that , progress each month . Google it . I done it myself back in the day, grew well, Your diet looks good dude.
Peace

Oh yes , as said earlier , dips and pulls ups/chins too

AK_Carlos

Go check out my training log (its in my signature)

I do a Daily Undulating Periodization regiment. Its absolutely brilliant and efficient (so far)

It requires Strength/hypertrophy/power all in 1 day, and then you rotate them daily (3 days a week) with day 4 being an accessory day.

I absolutely love it

Thanks for the suggestions guys.

I want to stick this routine out for at least a couple of months or so, but I'll be up for switching to something a bit different after that..