A lil background. I'm a 29 years old male. Started lifting seriously at around 3 years ago.

When I started I was really weak (still is but better now). I mean, I hurt my rotator cuff by benching an empty bar. My physique is ****. I have narrow shoulders and my wrist is tiny. I was definitely overweight, like 20%+ of bodyfat with very little LBM. Most of my fat is accumulated on my mid section.

I'm a person who will go near OCD when it comes to counting calories. I get around 300g carbs, 75g fat, 160g protein. Carbs from variety sources (brown rice, pasta, fruits, oats, muesli, veges). Fat from meat, fish oil, olive oil, milk. Protein from meat, whey, milk. I've tried multiple approaches when it comes to diet : -

1. Dreamer bulk, from 67kg > 77kg = ended badly, got very fat. BF increased to over 25%. I then cut down to around 15% before starting my next bulk attempt.

2. Slow bulk (around 250 calories surplus), from 65kg > 75kg = progress was slow but I did gain weight. My strength increased at a decent pace. I started cutting again when I can no longer stand the flab on my mid section. I cut all the way to 65kg and the result is devastating. I look identical to my previous state before slowbulking.

3. Another slow bulk = ongoing at the moment but as I checked on the mirror, it seems like my body is giving me the same response.

I've also tried multiple good programs. Fierce 5 3x5, Allpros and also P/P/L. I change program when things didn't work out during my bulking phase (so around.....6-7 months at least). All of them have good weight progression and deload phase. I bust my ass in the gym every session.

I have worked out some possible reasons for my lack of gains.

1. lack of sleep?
2. low test?
3. Possibly related to #2, terrible genetics??

While I haven't get a proper free testosterone test, but I did get a generic testosterone (which did not include free test result), the test pointed that I have average value. Though if I'm not wrong, free testosterone is the main factor.

Current Lifts : -
Deads - 135kg x 5, Squats - 90kg x 4, Bench - 67.5kg x 5
These lifts are recorded at BW 72kg

So what do you guys think could be the cause? Sorry for the wall of text.

Dude, I can see that you're quite good at nutrition part so no comment.

3 years of serious training and you can't even bench your bodyweight? No offense bro but you gotta look into your program. Stick with it.

Assuming that I did follow them (weight progression + deload) and still not progressing much. What other factors could be the cause?

I think if you followed the program correctly, you should at least able to bench at your bodyweight within 1 year.

There's a lot of factors and there's no way I can point that out by just reading these. It could be stress, genetics, programs, consistency, mentality, physically, etc..

That's what I thought too. Okay let's put all these aside. Let's say that I might have issue recovering due to my lifestyle (work etc) that I can't change, would you think that I'll do better by training all muscle groups once per week rather than twice per week?

Someone suggested that my body could react better by actually training 'less' often.

If you want to bulk and put on muscle then I recommend at least 3 times a week. All muscle groups covered.

By looking back at your first post, you've made 10kg increase each time you bulk. It's either you bulk too fast (mostly fats) or not working hard enough for muscle growth.

For #2 how long did it take you to gain that 10 kg?

Your gains suck big-time. Took me only 3 months to bench my body-weight. I am a true ecto small boned.

Train 3 years should almost reach genetic limit. Usually 75kg 12% bf.

Your nutrition looks solid. Then your workout program surely suck. How long did you do the PPL? Were you recovering well while running the PPL?

I'm 100% confident anyone who even run a basic PPL for 3 years should minimum able to bench 1.5x his bw at 12% bf. Provided he sleep atleast 6 hours everyday and perfect nutrition.

This post has been edited by Armesh: Oct 12 2015, 05:27 PM

I believe it was over a span of 7 months +/-


If I was building my own program and such then I would of agreed that the program sucks but I did not. I've adopted those routines from well known lifters with vast experience on progressive overloading and periodization. I would follow them closely. Honestly, I always felt burnt off after my mainlifts or half way through the session. I'm a person who will do trial and error until I find the root cause of a problem. The reason I switched programs and have taken different dieting approach led me to this thread.

I've tried different bulking approaches.
I've tried different programs.
I then try to sleep more than I could. I previously slept <6 hours.

I understand that you're just trying to help but you really don't have to remind me what I already know (that my gains suck, that I'm a failure that couldn't bench my BW). These phrases doesn't really add much and I only see those as a way for you to put someone down.

On topic, I'm now exploring the possibility of trying out less training frequency but higher intensity. Since the beginning, I've been training every bodypart twice per week and got me undesirable results. I've read that some people react better with bro splits. So I think I'm gonna try out a 5 days split. Also I'll still get my blood tested...

OP please do yourself a favor and ignore this guy. Im pretty sure I'm not the only one cringing to this "he thinks he knows it all" post but looks like sh*t himself with sh*t lifting stats.

Back on the topic, 7 month seems to be pretty decent for slow bulking. When you decided to cut down, how long did it take you to go back to 65? Macros and calories? Were you lifting as hard during cutting as when you were bulking?

This post has been edited by axtray: Oct 12 2015, 07:28 PM

Basically when it comes down to routine design.
There are 2 instances you'll make 0 progress:

1. Too much "volume". Whereby you are always sore and can't recover. I made 0 gains running ICF 5x5 because of this.
2. Too little "volume". Whereby you are never ever sore and the workouts are too easy. I made 0 gains running All Pro because of this.

I define volume as number of sets to failure for a body-part/week. The best program FOR YOU will have the max volume you can do and recover from. Thus I self make all my programs.
After you discover your max volume tolerance AKA work capacity then you can begin tweaking rep ranges/frequency.

P/S: I am brutal. Very.

This post has been edited by Armesh: Oct 12 2015, 07:32 PM

The weight gain is okay considering it was a slowbulk. I believe it took me around 3-4 months or so if I'm not mistaken. There's not a single day that I leave without feeling like shit or half dead. I absolutely bust my ass on my every session.

I did my cut with a simple approach, I only lower 150-200 calories if I'm not losing weight every 1.5 week. When I hit 65kg, I stalled even with refeed. I don't have much LBM and people commented that I should start my bulk. I then slowly work my way up to bulking calories by reverse dieting.

It seems like I now have 3 possible causes for my terrible gains.

1. Low T
2. Bad recovery/over training
3. I don't react well to high frequency

Here's what I think for now.

1) for your workout, you might've threw in the towel abit too early? Since you mentioned that you'll change the program if things don't work out. You should stick to a 1 program during bulk or cut since progress is not always linear. Be patient.

2) your cutting macros seems abit rushed. the mistake that i see here is that you're basing your cut based on how much weight you lose. The primary goal of cutting is fat loss not weight loss. You want to retain as much of those hard earned muscles you've gained during your bulk. if you're like what you said above, being OCD with your macros, have faith, cut down 500 cals from your TDEE and keep it up for a month. then check your weight, recalculate TDEE and repeat. you should base your progress more on visually (physcial appearance). you'll be surprised that that you might lose only 2-3 kg over a period of 2-3 months, but looking much2 more leaner. <---this one came from personal experience since I was doing the exact same thing you're doing now lol..

3) how is your rest. Are you getting enough sleep. This could affect your t levels as well.


To give you a piece of mind , go ahead and do your blood test to find out your t levels. If theyre average, then you might want to tweak your diet and training regime.

Goodluck man. Don't give up

This post has been edited by axtray: Oct 12 2015, 11:50 PM

I only change program after constantly hitting the wall despite multiple deloads and that should be around 7 months. I'm aware that it's not good to keep changing program so soon/frequently.

I agree that I might be too impatient on my cut and another thing that people mentioned to me is that if I bulked from 65kg > 75kg. I should actually cut to 70kg instead of 65kg. That's assuming that I gained 5kg of fat and 5kg of muscles, I should work on cutting just that 5kg of fat. If I cut to 65kg, I'm back to square one.

My rest is definitely not very consistent. This is not something that I can change, work etc. Yeah, I'll get my blood tested for sure heh. It's part of my problem finding steps.

Thanks man

Maybe you don't train hard enough?

Intensity is always there.. I don't like to fail any lift. I'd grind my way up if I can

You over complicated stuff

Just eat clen, tren hard, anavar give up.

Every beginner always say they eat alot and train like mad but how much is exactly their "alot"?

Last week i corrected one guy (nearly 2 times my size). His deadlift leverage is bad and he can barely lift 120kg. He looked half dead after that.

Maybe you're training it as hard as you can but did u have your form checked?