[pain4pleasure]

It is official, I have stopped growing.... For the longest time I have trained all the large muscle groups at about 20 sets each, different days for the majors groups, and it worked. Now my body has called a mutiny. should I go up sets because my body has gotten used to it or go down sets. I have thrown in a week long break to see if that would help and I did not see that much of a difference.

Help please,

P4P

[cable626]

how old are you? experience? do u have exercise/nutrition in order?
if yes then u might want to try a new workout routine...Personally I like max-ot.
It's much less than 20 sets and everything is planned out for you. plus the reading has a lot of logical info that you might not know that can maybe help you get over this hump. (a lot of info on warming up correctly that I liked)

if you leave me ur email address i'll email you the pdf file of max-ot.
(and anyone else too, leave ur email address and i'll send the pdf file to you and then you can edit out your email address)

[pain4pleasure]

Originally Posted by cable626

how old are you? experience? do u have exercise/nutrition in order?
if yes then u might want to try a new workout routine...Personally I like max-ot.
It's much less than 20 sets and everything is planned out for you. plus the reading has a lot of logical info that you might not know that can maybe help you get over this hump. (a lot of info on warming up correctly that I liked)

if you leave me ur email address i'll email you the pdf file of max-ot.
(and anyone else too, leave ur email address and i'll send the pdf file to you and then you can edit out your email address)

22 y/o, 2 years serious lifting, excercise and lifting are fine, except for the fact that what I was doing stopped working, my diet is extremely bland and clean. I eat almost 3600 cals a day and I usually end up vommitting from so much food. That was the first thing I took a look at, diet is the most important part. But that doesn't seem to be the problem. So I started to look at the training.

[Beowulf]

Originally Posted by pain4pleasure

I usually end up vommitting from so much food.

I don't know if you are joking here, but if not, this might be your problem.

[dego]

Originally Posted by pain4pleasure

It is official, I have stopped growing.... For the longest time I have trained all the large muscle groups at about 20 sets each, different days for the majors groups, and it worked. Now my body has called a mutiny. should I go up sets because my body has gotten used to it or go down sets. I have thrown in a week long break to see if that would help and I did not see that much of a difference.

Help please,

P4P

First off a week’s break is a good idea.

Second, if you are working out with any kind of serious intensity then yes 20 is WAY too much. For the VAST MAJORITY of people less is more in so many ways.

Third, The fact that you were growing on 20 sets per muscle group! is a testament to the fact that you are either relatively inexperience (doesn't sound like it from your post), are!getting back into shape that you previously lost (muscle memory), or have genetics that most would kill for.

My advice is back WAY WAY down off the volume and focus on pure strength only. When I train this way I only use 1-2 'work sets' (yup 1-2). I usually do 3-4 warm up sets (I start out with bar only and go up to 50% of one rep max @ 5 reps) IMHO this doesn't count as a set but if you wanna argue like a lot a guys then sure its actually a 6"set work out per muscle group, that is still a far cry from 20. When I get to the point were I'm not able to add weight to the bar and switching lifts didn't help I started lowering the weight and adding reps and maybe one more set. After a couple weeks of that I start 'stalling' again and the start adding weight and doing fewer reps.

I have never seen someone that followed this waved volume strategy (intelligently adapting it to their body!) stop making progress, but I have seen guy after guy stall out and spend years in the gym adding little if any weight all the while cranking out 10+ working sets per muscle group. day after day after day.

Morale of the story is:

if it stops working ...change it.
or
less is more (unless its actually less )

[pain4pleasure]

Originally Posted by dego

First off a week’s break is a good idea.

Second, if you are working out with any kind of serious intensity then yes 20 is WAY too much. For the VAST MAJORITY of people less is more in so many ways.

Third, The fact that you were growing on 20 sets per muscle group! is a testament to the fact that you are either relatively inexperience (doesn't sound like it from your post), are getting back into shape that you previously lost (muscle memory), or have genetics that most would kill for.

My advice is back WAY WAY down off the volume and focus on pure strength only. When I train this way I only use 1-2 'work sets' (yup 1-2). I usually do 3-4 warm up sets (I start out with bar only and go up to 50% of one rep max @ 5 reps) IMHO this doesn't count as a set but if you wanna argue like a lot a guys then sure its actually a 6 set work out per muscle group, that is still a far cry from 20. When I get to the point were I'm not able to add weight to the bar and switching lifts didn't help I started lowering the weight and adding reps and maybe one more set. After a couple weeks of that I start 'stalling' again and the start adding weight and doing fewer reps.

I have never seen someone that followed this waved volume strategy (intelligently adapting it to their body!) stop making progress, but I have seen guy after guy stall out and spend years in the gym adding little if any weight all the while cranking out 10+ working sets per muscle group. day after day after day.

Morale of the story is:

if it stops working ...change it.
or
less is more (unless its actually less )

Thank you for the input, I will give it a try, what a huge change that will be, I only train one body part a day, so my workouts will now be cut from almost an hour to about 20 mins, lol. Let me get this straight, first four sets are warm up sets going from allmost nothing to 50% then two sets of the absolute most you can lift for......I'm guessing 6-8 reps. My only other questions are, how slow do you do each rep there has to be some sort of counting scheme. how many times a week do you train each muscle group?

Thanks,
P4P

[pain4pleasure]

Originally Posted by Beowulf

I don't know if you are joking here, but if not, this might be your problem.

I have a stomach condition, where I pretty much randomly vomit, I asked doctors about it and everyone seems to have a different opinion, some think that is to much lactic acid build-up all at once from a very hard workout(maybe) but it doesn't always happen during a workout, sometimes it happens during the day even when I don't work out, and since most doctors have no Idea about anything when it comes to bb'ing they say "cut back on the food". I have a monster metabolism and If I cut back on the food, give me three weeks and I will wiegh 110lbs again....hahahaha.

[lifted]

Originally Posted by pain4pleasure

I have a stomach condition, where I pretty much randomly vomit, I asked doctors about it and everyone seems to have a different opinion, some think that is to much lactic acid build-up all at once from a very hard workout(maybe) but it doesn't always happen during a workout, sometimes it happens during the day even when I don't work out, and since most doctors have no Idea about anything when it comes to bb'ing they say "cut back on the food". I have a monster metabolism and If I cut back on the food, give me three weeks and I will wiegh 110lbs again....hahahaha.

Yo p4p, I have that same problem. When trying to gain, I eat over 5000 cals easily..well...not easily...I usually have to dry heave at least 3 times/day due to teh constant food in my stomach. And sometimes the stufff finds it's way back out!!

[Bean]

eating yogurt helps me digest a lot of my food better

[pain4pleasure]

Originally Posted by Bean

eating yogurt helps me digest a lot of my food better

Yogurt, eh?

[pain4pleasure]

Originally Posted by dego

My advice is back WAY WAY down off the volume and focus on pure strength only. When I train this way I only use 1-2 'work sets' (yup 1-2). I usually do 3-4 warm up sets (I start out with bar only and go up to 50% of one rep max @ 5 reps) IMHO this doesn't count as a set but if you wanna argue like a lot a guys then sure its actually a 6 set work out per muscle group, that is still a far cry from 20. When I get to the point were I'm not able to add weight to the bar and switching lifts didn't help I started lowering the weight and adding reps and maybe one more set. After a couple weeks of that I start 'stalling' again and the start adding weight and doing fewer reps.

dego,
if you could expand on this training style that would be greatly appreciated, I tried it out tonight (well I tried what I thought you meant) and I am quite a bit more interested. Here is what I did.
Flat dumbell press: Four warm up sets of 25, 35, 45, 50, and then two working sets of 100, 105
And I couldn't help myself I wasn't feeling like that would make any difference so I did fly's too.
Flat dumbell fly's: four warm up sets of 15, 25, 35, 35, and then two working sets of 70lbs after that I still felt like I could do a whole lot more, but I did find it quite a bit more challenging than I thought, so I dragged my ass home, and had a shake.

peace,
P4P

[UHCougar05]

Originally Posted by pain4pleasure

dego,
if you could expand on this training style that would be greatly appreciated, I tried it out tonight (well I tried what I thought you meant) and I am quite a bit more interested. Here is what I did.
Flat dumbell press: Four warm up sets of 25, 35, 45, 50, and then two working sets of 100, 105
And I couldn't help myself I wasn't feeling like that would make any difference so I did fly's too.
Flat dumbell fly's: four warm up sets of 15, 25, 35, 35, and then two working sets of 70lbs after that I still felt like I could do a whole lot more, but I did find it quite a bit more challenging than I thought, so I dragged my ass home, and had a shake.

peace,
P4P

I'm not dego, but on that chest workout if you did 4 warm up sets for regular DB presses and then jumped into the work sets, there's not really a reason to warm up your chest again, you're already warm. I would just do one or two weight acclimation sets, say 2 sets one for 35, the other for 50, and then jump into your work sets with 70. It's the extra warm ups that are killing your energy. If it's not necessary, save that energy for another workset at 70 or a higher one with less reps at 80.

Just do what you feel is best, everyone is different and you might have to tweak the workout a bit until it's just right for you.

[cable626]

yogurt is important- it contains probiotics (live bacterial cultures) that aid in digestion. stonyfield farms has more cultures than most, and their chocolate underground mixes well with chocolate whey protein.
or u can just take a pill if ur lazy.

[Bean]

walmart brand vanilla is da bomb!
sometimes i mix that or the strawberry (two or 3 cups) in with my weight gainer shake

been getting IBS lately and looking for ways to combat it... its annoying as **** to look almost pregnant when you normally have a 28" waist

[dego]

Originally Posted by pain4pleasure

dego,
if you could expand on this training style that would be greatly appreciated, I tried it out tonight (well I tried what I thought you meant) and I am quite a bit more intdrested. Here is what I did.
Flat dumbell press: Four warm up sets of 25, 35, 45, 50, and then two working sets of 100, 105
And I couldn't help myself I wasn't feeling like that would make any difference so I did fly's too.
Flat dumbell fly's: four warm up sets of 15, 25, 35, 35, and then two working sets of 70lbs after that I still felt like I could do a whole lot more, but I did find it quite a bit more challenging than I thought, so I dragged my ass home, and had a shake.

peace,
P4P

Check out www.ironaddicts.com and read up on irona's warm up routine and low volume routines... Strength first growth later. My routines are strongly influenced by ironaddict and DC. The key is to find what works for your body so don't just randomly make huge changes unless you've been stuck for a long time. If you decide to try the low volume routine try to really focus on increasing strenght only if you feel your body can handle a little more start rest-pausing a set or 2. And with any new routine you have to give yourself at least 6 weeks to evaluate what it does to your body. Something as simple as changing the volume of your routine can really effect the amount of glycogen your muscle store and make a big difference on the scale. Give it time and see for yourself, the scale isn't what you need to watch... its the bar- keep adding weight and the scale will follow right behind assuming proper rest and nutrition.

It sounds like you have been plodding along for awhile now and have seen some good gains but don't know how to keep that going. I'd recommend you hire a personal trainer like Bobo or IronA. Objective feed back and direction can work wonders.

[Bean]

some people would seriously disagree with 'strength first growth later'...

try being my size and then saying that... I'm just fine in the strength department for my weight... now give me 30lbs of mass dammit!

[exnihilo]

Originally Posted by pain4pleasure

22 y/o, 2 years serious lifting, excercise and lifting are fine, except for the fact that what I was doing stopped working, my diet is extremely bland and clean. I eat almost 3600 cals a day and I usually end up vommitting from so much food. That was the first thing I took a look at, diet is the most important part. But that doesn't seem to be the problem. So I started to look at the training.

I 3600 cals (even TOTALLY clean and whole) is like a snack for me - it's been easier since I added more fiber to my diet though, I feel fuller longer

Just keep at it, you'll get there.