Skinny to Strong

For the longest time I have been looking forward to the day when I will be able to squat 1.5 times my body weight for 8 reps. And that dream has been realized last week :). I am not really sure where I read this, but to be called an advanced body builder one should be able to Squat 1.5 times body weight x 8 reps Deadlift 2.0 times body weight x 8 reps Bench press 1.2 times body weight x 8 reps Shoulder press 0.9 times body weight x 8 reps So I set those as my goals. Finally I am able to squat 1.5 times my body weight. However I still have a long way to go for the rest of the exercises. I am unable to find out where I read about those proportions, but a quick Google search provides me with this alternate proportions that I will use in the future. My weight is 118 lbs (about 53.5 kgs) and I did a 80 kgs squat (20 kg + 10 kg plates on either side + 20 kg bar). so that comes out to be 1.5 times my weight. Here is a video of me doing the squats taken with my phone. ...

It is now 2 months into 2013 and wanted to give a little update on the fat %. Just like the weight gain phase that ended with me unable to add any more weight after touching 138 lbs, the fat cutting phase is similarly causing problems. I was able to lose a bit more fat since the end of 2012, but not by much. The 3 site Jackson/Pollock method puts me at 7.02% about 0.5% less than my previous best at the end of 2012. Even so, I feel like I am somewhere between 9-10% by looking myself in the mirror. And here are some pictures to prove it (sorry about the grainy pictures, they were taken in low light). Since I was stuck at 7.02% for a while now, I decided to start the bulking phase again. This time with a twist. I will try and keep my body fat to less than 10% and see how much weight I can gain and how long it is going to take. More updates towards the end of the year :).

If you have missed my previous post , you might want to read that first . As promised here are the graphs for 2012. My weight stubbornly stayed at about 138 lbs for the longest time. No matter how much I tried to eat, I could not gain any more weight. Around June I decided to go for cutting phase and that worked fine except I lost a lot of lean mass too. But I was at least closing the gap between weight and lean mass, indicating a reduction of fat. The gap after end of June is when I could not go to gym or check my weight. Now for the fat % graph. The fat came down really quickly as is normally the case with my body type. By the end of the year I was at 7.5% body fat and weighed in at 119 lbs. Although it seems like I am at 7.5% body fat using the 3 site Jackson/Pollock method, looking myself in the mirror, I would say I am at around 9-10%. What next? I am not really sure. At the end of the year in 2012, I was thinking I should continue to cut down the fat until I am real...

If you missed my previous post , you might want to read that first . Like I mentioned in my previous post, the goal for the year 2012 suddenly took a U-turn. Instead of continuing on with weight gain phase to reach 154 lbs, I decided to start a fat cutting phase, just for the simple reason that I am unable to gain any more weight no matter how much I eat. It is now June 2012 and I have decided to lose fat. I cut down on my forceful over feeding and went back to good old 3 square meals a day with a snack in the evening. All the meals were regular sized ones, i.e. when I felt full, I stopped. Unlike before when I had to force feed. I felt way better with the normal diet. No more feeling of full all the time. My stomach was also feeling great. No more ahem, flatulence. I was gradually losing weight and fat. As is always the case with cutting down phase for me, I was losing a healthy dose of muscle as well. Come July, I had to do another US trip for 4 weeks this time. And again I to...

It seems like I am only finding enough time to post updates every year now :). So what happened over the last 1 year since my previous update.Well lets see, last year when I wrote my earlier post, I was at 138.6 lbs and I voiced my intents on gaining more weight until I reach 154 lbs. How did that go? Not so well actually and I ended up losing 20 lbs instead. Whoa! Yeah I know. What happened was, I was a bit busy (moved to a new house) most of January, 2012 and then in February I had to travel to the US for a couple of weeks and then the jet lag and everything put together, I could not workout for the first 2 months in 2012. The good news is, I did not lose any of my weight. I still weighed in at about 138 lbs through out that period. How did I do it? Just ate a lot of food although I was not working out. I was happy to see how I could keep my weight. The hope was that I am keeping all my muscle during that time. Little did I know, how wrong I was. I started working out again in Ma...

It has been more than a year since I updated this blog. But the good news is, I am not as irregular with my gym though. Having moved to India early last year, I had a lot of catching up to do, not to mention all the re-learning that I had to do since it has been almost 9 years in the US. Anyway back to the topic of weight training, I have switched to a new program and this time it is called the Scrawny to Brawny program. Another program for the skinny folks and another attempt to become huge in no time. Meh, it does not work that way. Boring stuff aside, I did really like the organization of the book and the exercise program as well. Basically you start off with a form and body posture correction in Phase I, then move on to some heavy lifting to build up some of those primary muscles in Phase II, and concentrate on lifting very heavy with high intensity low reps in Phase III and finally in Phase IV an attempt to get rid of the huge amount of fat you might have gained in the previ...