Skinny to Strong

Image via Wikipedia Last few weeks have not been very fruitful. Even as I was working out as hard as I used to, I kept losing weight. Adding insult to injury was my fat gain. In any case I decided to change my workouts yet again to "fix" the weight loss program that I got myself into. I intend to do only 2 whole body workouts per week. Each one consisting of 4 to 5 exercises depending on my motivation. I also decided to go with 3x8 for all exercises like I usually do every other 3 months. Here is my new routine Monday (back and biceps affinity) Incline Bench Press Squats Rows Bicep Curls Calf Raise Thursday (chest, shoulder and tricep affinity) Bench Press Deadlifts Shoulder Press Tricep Press Leg Raise I have been doing a lot of lower chest exercises in the last few months including decline bench press and dips. I have a feeling that my upper chest is holding me back. So I removed dips and decline bench press and added incline bench press. That should...

This is a very exciting day for me! I can finally bench press my body weight for 3 sets of 5 reps. I weigh just 120 lbs. And there are probably 99.99% people who can bench press as much weight very easily. But for an ectomorph at my weight, it is an awesome feat. By it self 120 lb seems a very light weight and 99.99% makes me feel like I am nobody. But think again. How many people can bench press their own weight? The percentage is not 99.99% any more now is it? Add to it the fact that I can do 35 push ups after a 3 set bench press. This is going well :). However I am still considered average. To become good I have to lift 1.5 times my body weight, which is 180 lbs if I stay at the same weight, even more if I gain weight! The progress has been very very slow, but at least I have come a long way. I am adding about 5 lbs every month or so to most of my exercises. So in about 3 months I should be able to bench 135 lbs, which has always been my dream. I have never used the 45 lb plates y...

I found this interesting article , that tries to form a relation between muscle gain and the gain in the lifts. In the article the author gives a very simple relation between the amount of muscle you gain and the increase in 1 rep max weights for deadlift, squat and bench press. While it may not be accurate and perhaps not applicable to everyone it gives us a chance to formulate and set good goals. According to the author if you gain x lbs of muscle then you should be able to lift 4.5 times x lbs more weight in your deadlift. So for every lb of muscle you gain you should life 4.5 lbs more than you did before the gain. All the calculations are based on 1 rep max. Similarly for every lb of muscle you gain you should be able to sqaut about 4 lb more and bench press about 3 lb more. So for my next muscle gaining phase I will use this information and come up with better goals for my deadlifts, squats and bench press.

In my previous post I wrote about my body weight, muscle weight and fat % goals. Today I will write about my weight training goals, in particular about my compound exercise goals. If I have to choose the 5 best exercises I would choose the following exercises and in that order Squats Deadlifts Bench Press Pull ups Overhead Press It is very easy to understand why I like them. These are the exercises where I can lift heavy. Heavy like lifting close to or more than your body weight. Lifting so much weight simply means one thing, those exercise require more number of muscles and also mostly bigger muscles. One cannot bicep curl one's body weight. The muscle is way too small and no other big muscles are involved. Also the distance these weights are moved is big. Work done is weight times the displacement. So you do more work moving the weights to a longer distance. Engaging more muscles means more hormone response, more repair and more muscles! Now back to my goals. On October ...

I hate squats but I love them. Every time I go to gym to do squats, a feeling of resentment and fear takes over me. I resist those feelings and put on a weight with which I can do warm ups (usually about 60% to 70% of my work weight). Once I rip through them I gain some confidence. But as soon as I do my first work set I know why I hated squats in the first place. It is not because every part of my body hurts. But because of the dizzy feeling of the aftermath. By the 6th or 7th rep I am breathing heavily, panting almost and the very strong urge to stop doing any more reps creeps in. I force my self to do a couple more if I can. Move slowly to rack the barbell and once the weight is off my back I feel my head reel as if I am going to faint. I just have to hold on to the squat rack and stay there without moving lest I blackout. But after the 3 work sets that I normally do, I feel great. Almost proud to have achieved my goal for the day. Squats are considered to be the best exercise i...