Was about to tag you and here you are.

To begin with its typical the blind leading the blind scenario. I can just imagine what kind of abuse he'll get if he post this kind of shit, looking like how he is now at an actual roid forum.

20 pounds of solid muscle in 3 months. That alone is already a joke.

Nope. He is stupid. Anyone can do quick Google search and learn the kinks of it. I myself can lay out 20 different cycles with different stacks, taken from various sites and forum.

The thead below literally sums it up.
https://forum.lowyat.net/topic/3875902

This post has been edited by axtray: Mar 9 2016, 11:21 PM

how's your diet? cutting or bulking?

Could be technique, nutrition etc. I managed to improved my pressing by fine tuning the technique and form. Prolly you can record your workout and post it here for the rest to see.

1) know what you want to do/achieve. lifting blindly will get you nowhere. you want to improve your aesthetics, then focus more on hypertrophy workouts. you want to become stronger. focus more on strength workout. There are plenty of programs scattered on the net. go find one that suits you.

Though to be honest, if you are really benching 30kg (2x 5kg plates + 20kg bar) for a mere 5 reps, i'd suggest you focus on getting stronger first.

Nutrition is another thing. you'll find yourself stalling pretty fast if you don't take care of the diet.

2) once decided, stick with it.

so you're basically benching 80kg total. if the goal is to gain strength, lots of ways to do it. but the general idea is to stick to the same weight for the compound movements for a few sets at low rep count.

if you're stalling, i'd say your diet is the one holding you back.

That will depend on 1) where you're at now 2) what's your priority. For my case I wanted to see the abs first. So I started focusing on reducing bodyfat. Gained some strength along the process (noob gains) but of course wasn't as much as if I were to bulk.

Nutrition is the most important key at the end of the day regardless if you want to reduce bf % or to gain strength. So no matter how you train, make sure you work around your way around that.

This post has been edited by axtray: Sep 28 2016, 10:29 PM

Just Google the calorie count for raw stuffs and based it on that. Cooked ingredients are harder to track.

What are your macros like?

Hm 1400 is kinda too low even if you are cycling your calories weekly. From the looks of it 5 days low and 2 days high (and not that high even). What's your height btw? judging from your weight, probably around 170cm+ ish?

From my own experience,

1) going that low on calories and still making progress usually involves noob gains. and damn i'm surprised that you are able to get up to those numbers (especially the squat) while being on a cut, and on very low calories as well

2) bear in mind that there is a limit on how much muscle you can grow while on a cut. Eventhough people kept saying that you can't cut and gain muscle, but for people who had alot of at, this is kinda possible when the body is still happily burning it as energy when you're on deficit. Only when i started to se the abs, the lift started to stall. There are sitll some improvements here and there but it won't be as linear progress anymore.

I personally think that your focus now should be more towards maintaining the numbers on the lifts that you're doing right now while adjusting your calories/macros to further lose the fat. There's a reason why they say most bodybuilders are at their weakest during shows. You should then focus back on getting the numbers up when you're ready to do a clean bulk.

Lastly, since on top of the caloric cycling you are also doing carb cycling, why not go totally off the carbs on off days and the include the carbs on either weekends or major lifting days? You're gonna feel like shit on off carbs day though. but these are what the pros are doing at least (including the natty ones)

my 2 cents.

Since you decided to focus on improving your lifts, then you're on right track by increasing the calories. goodluck.

This post has been edited by axtray: Dec 6 2016, 04:47 PM

Simply because it's against him. Lmao. Typical skinny guy with abs. No big deal.

dedicated arm day

and you pair up shoulders and back on the same day too. unless you training time is long, i kinda doubt you can put enough volume on those 2. i'd rather separate them and include arm as part of a superset or something. hell coming from a dude that hardly does any bicep curls or tricep workout, take my advice with grain of salt.

but i can still safely say my arms are still bigger than most of the curlbros in the gym.

and no, training harder doesn't necessarily guarantee a faster result. unless you have a solid workout and nutrition plan. that also depends on the individual.

This post has been edited by axtray: Jun 9 2017, 12:10 PM

true. most people will suggest slow and steady wins the race.

still, i wish the me 6 years ago would've been doing what i'm doing now (which actually just take a little bit more effort and time to track the macros and calories).

been doing chest + back since last year. so far so good though.

looking to change to PPL. but don't really fancy on going 6 times a week again (for complete cycle).

Or maybe PPL + UL for 5 days split.

only problem is push day means working 2 major muscle groups on the same day, chest and shoulders. unless the Push day focus on chest, the upper day focus on shoulders.

Designing a program sucks

are you eating at a surplus? what are your rep/set range?

those 3 sets of 5 for the bench, the workout is at what percentage of your 1RM? how long have you been on the routine (as in how many weeks have you been doing the same weight at 3x5)?

lol for the curls, well personally, if you goal is total body strength, they do help i guess, for instance for your bent over or pendlay rows. but the rows work out the biceps just fine. so it ultimately depends on your priorities at the end. If it were me I'd remove them and add more major bodypart compounds or accessories. Strengthening them helps more than having a big biceps and triceps for your bench and rows.

So from what you mentioned, i'm assuming the deloads you had = dropping the weight by 10% of your 5RM and maintaining the 3x5?

if yes, what i can suggest to you is to drop the weight again (90% of your 5RM) but instead of 3x5, try increase the volume to about for example 4x8 or even 4x10. Keep this up for at least 2-3 bench session (yea gonna have to lower your ego for abit).

Another alternative, is to lower your rep range even further to about 3 reps and increase the sets.

Both method works for me. previously i was struggling to even get 5 reps for 90kg bench. So decided to experiment on set and rep count

10x3 at 92.5 kg for about 5-6 weeks if im not mistaken (problem with this is it takes too damn long)
8x6 - 8x8 at 80kg for 2 weeks
Then all of a sudden managed to easily get 6x5 at 90 kg

my bench 1RM increased as well (though the last time i tried 1RM was 4-5 months ago).

So basically you should try a different workout pattern to reset the body since your body will definitely hit plateau if you keep doing the same routine (1 deload session is not enough for my case). Take your time and experiment. or hire a competent trainer to assess your training

Lol basically to reset your body again. Do something totally different for 2 or 3 weeks. Arnold's principle of shocking the muscle is true to some extent. The reason why newbies can easily gain strength initially is because of this as well. You're just trying to recreate the same condition by doing something totally different.

Of course not to drag it to the point where youre actually losing the strength. So 2 or 3 weeks should be more than enough.