Breaking through plataues and other questions

PARooolller

PARooolller

Bluelighter
Joined
Mar 28, 2005
Messages
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What's up all you ripped browsers and happily-juiced heads alike,

This really doesn't pertain to anything AAS, but I find it to be the most suitable forum....

In the past 2 months I have been hitting the weights and the kitchen extra hard...I'm up a few pounds and am weighing in just under 200 lbs with a significant amount of bodyfat...My conditioning is also the best it has ever been and lately I've been running a minimum of 12 miles a week which is good for me.....I've been consuming the protein like clockwork and I feel really fucking strong in the gym, however I seem to have hit a nasty plataue that has lasted for a month or so and it is getting really frustrating..If I wasn't undergoing all of this legal shit, I would no doubt be injecting some test as I had my first cycle all planned out....

I'm a man of routine..obcessive routine..I go to the gym everyday and have been following the same split for a while (Chest, Back, Arms, Delts/traps, legs) and I have even tried adding in a few compound exercises such as Clean Snatches, Hang Cleans, Standing military press, etc...yet I'm putting up the same weight on some exercises such as bench and squat then I did 3 months ago!!!!

How should I go about this? Completely change my split and do all different exercises to get the muscles guessing? Help me out....

Also, I have a court date Monday, where I'm facing 2 Possession w/intent to deliver charges and I will without a doubt experience at least 90 days of jail time....I know I posted a thread a while back about maintaining my physique when I was court-ordered to go to rehab, but what do you guys suggest considering I have no weights to work with? My main concern is the food and the fact that jails and rehabs have 0 protein...How much do you expect I'll lose? I know this isn't the best thing to do but I plan on only eating breakfast in incarceration and trying to melt all the fat off of my body as my weight is relatively high as of now....

I just really wish I could get a cycle in my veins to blast through these exercises :(

Does anyone on this board have experince with taking a significant time off of ANY exercise and bad dieting? How much muscle and strength did you lose? I plan on doing a lot of pushups which I fell in love with at rehab...pushups really seem to blow you up...
 
You gotta do what you gotta do, I dont know what they feed you guys in america, but in australian jails they feed you well. A person i know just out after a few years came out an absolute tank and went in skinny as.

Seriously though, consider it a periodic layoff. Whenever i take a considerable amount of time off training and diet- i come back a alot weaker. The thing is you have muscle memory which helps you build back what you lost real fast. I always come back a bit stronger and bigger than where i left off... after about a month of training.
 
julzbro said:
You gotta do what you gotta do, I dont know what they feed you guys in america, but in australian jails they feed you well. A person i know just out after a few years came out an absolute tank and went in skinny as.

Seriously though, consider it a periodic layoff. Whenever i take a considerable amount of time off training and diet- i come back a alot weaker. The thing is you have muscle memory which helps you build back what you lost real fast. I always come back a bit stronger and bigger than where i left off... after about a month of training.
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Thanks for the reply...it gave me somewhat of a feeling of comfort but I'm also an avid runner and the whole sitting around all day in rehab/jail exacerbates all of my mental problems, which obviously subside when I'm exercising...

Like I said, I'm going to have to get creative..I honestly think push ups can help me maintain pretty much all of my mass..
 
yes it will take you some time to gain back your strength but a lot of it comes back REALLY quickly. This is because the first thing to go (ime) is your glycogen stores...they deplete and your muscles literally shrink (less sugar being held). This can be alarming if you don't know whats going on...it looks like your muscles are disappearing (they aren't). The fibers are just getting smaller. This change comes quickly and goes away very quickly once you start back to training (carb up those first few days back).

Check out a program up your bench 30lbs in 30 days. Kinda catchy sounding name but don't let that fool u into thinking its marketing crap. Its made by powerlifters for people who desperately want to increase their bench. The program is focused around bench (obviously) and also deadlift/squat.

My bro tried this program and it seemed like he REALLY liked it (increased his bench max by 35lbs). It starts off easier than u think it is but at the end it is BRUTAL.
 
Gaian Planes said:
yes it will take you some time to gain back your strength but a lot of it comes back REALLY quickly. This is because the first thing to go (ime) is your glycogen stores...they deplete and your muscles literally shrink (less sugar being held). This can be alarming if you don't know whats going on...it looks like your muscles are disappearing (they aren't). The fibers are just getting smaller. This change comes quickly and goes away very quickly once you start back to training (carb up those first few days back).

Check out a program up your bench 30lbs in 30 days. Kinda catchy sounding name but don't let that fool u into thinking its marketing crap. Its made by powerlifters for people who desperately want to increase their bench. The program is focused around bench (obviously) and also deadlift/squat.

My bro tried this program and it seemed like he REALLY liked it (increased his bench max by 35lbs). It starts off easier than u think it is but at the end it is BRUTAL.
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Appreciate the post...I agree with your experience with the glycogen stores...after a month in rehab my entire physique looked like it was withering, but after about 3 weeks in the gym upon my return, I was back to where I wanted to be...I've just been hitting it really hard the past month or so...
 
What's up roooller? I'm sorry to hear about the 90 days, but glad you've come to appreciate the pushup!! I know I've gone on and on about pushups, but I believe they're way underrated and appreciated.

I was once unable to lift weights for almost a year because of a job, and I did at least 200 pushups a day(along with any other body resistance exercises I could) and lost literally no strength in the weight room once I returned.

Try to use anything like a basketball, stool, bench, etc to mix up different pushup types. Rotate hands on the ball to start, then keep it right under your chest, in the middle with a narrow grip.

Get to where you can bounce back in forth from one hand to the other, doin one-armed pushups.

I think you'll lose nothing at all, and reading how serious you've been lately, the muscle memory will have you back to where you want to be in no time. Good luck man
 
KStoner6tb said:
What's up roooller? I'm sorry to hear about the 90 days, but glad you've come to appreciate the pushup!! I know I've gone on and on about pushups, but I believe they're way underrated and appreciated.

I was once unable to lift weights for almost a year because of a job, and I did at least 200 pushups a day(along with any other body resistance exercises I could) and lost literally no strength in the weight room once I returned.

Try to use anything like a basketball, stool, bench, etc to mix up different pushup types. Rotate hands on the ball to start, then keep it right under your chest, in the middle with a narrow grip.

Get to where you can bounce back in forth from one hand to the other, doin one-armed pushups.

I think you'll lose nothing at all, and reading how serious you've been lately, the muscle memory will have you back to where you want to be in no time. Good luck man
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Yeah I think one of your threads is what really sparked my motivation into doing pushups....There's a book out written by the infamous Dave Palumbo called Jailhouse Physique or something of that nature and I might order it...I know Palumbo did 5 months in a Federal Prison for HGH or some shit.....either way, he looked fucking ripped when he came out, but for some reason, I seem to lose a lot of my figure really fast and easily.
 
i say move to an upper/lower split, honestly i've done it for about 7 years now and it's flexible enough that i've never found a need to change it up that much. And another thing is try to start focusing more on compound exercises, granted with your split now you cant really do a compound exercise for every muscle group, but with an upper/lower split you definitely can. Every Monday/Thursday do some form of barbell bench and dumbell bench (flat, incline, military, whatever), and then do like 2 forms of rows or pullups. Since you seem to be more into bodybuilding, opposed to powerlifting, you could do most of your bicep work on wednesdays if you want to lift 5x a week. On Tuesday/Friday do some kind of compound lower body exercise; back squat, front squat, deadlift. Throw in hang cleans/power cleans if you do a full range front squat in the lift. Then I usually just find a leg press and do a few sets, move to a couple isolation things for quads/hams/calves.

upper/lower is really flexible, you can substitute stuff in for whatever depending on what "mood" you're in that day, and you can really do any range of sets and reps. I definitely suggest using this though, last summer I had 10 weeks between spring ball and fall camp (played college football) and I gained about 25 pounds (granted I was nailing my diet and breaking 6000 calories every day), set PR's on all my lifts (fell like 2 weeks short of hitting 405 on bench damn it), and hit 241 lbs and still had abs. That's just my "backing" of the upper/lower haha, so definitely consider it.
 
Gaian Planes said:
^ out of curiosity have you ever had your T-levels checked?
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No I haven't had my test levels checked......I'm pretty sure they're fine if not higher than normal...Of course I'm just the harshest critic of my physique and when I say that it changes a lot, other people in my life are like 'what the fuck are you talking about?'


As far as the lower/upper split, I'm sure it's effective but I like going to the gym and doing something everyday....humans weren't meant to be sedentary.....as far as compounds, I incorporate them into prettyh much alll of my workout cept for arm day.....

As of right now, my diet has been terrible...don't know if it's depression or the fact that I know I'm only going to be eating once or twice a day for a few months in jail and rehab or a combo of both...

How does everyone stay so motivated on their diets?
 
how? for me all it takes is knowing if i dont the scale aint gonna budge. that and some good gange always help when I'm tryin to bulk
 
RNS said:
how? for me all it takes is knowing if i dont the scale aint gonna budge. that and some good gange always help when I'm tryin to bulk
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Well I'm around the 188-194lb range currently and I like to usually be around the 178-183lb range...Even though I do 3 hours of cardio/week I just cant seem to lose that fat around my stomach
 
PARooolller said:
Even though I do 3 hours of cardio/week I just cant seem to lose that fat around my stomach
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Have you tried using some different abdominal techniques? There are dozens and dozens of them, you just have to find what works best for you...and in that area where you want to loose.

I know some who have resorted to using Helios and have had success with it, but that's not the best option, IMHO.

HGH works wonders on burning stubborn fat (pending on your age, stats, etc).

/V
 
VictorZ06 said:
Have you tried using some different abdominal techniques? There are dozens and dozens of them, you just have to find what works best for you...and in that area where you want to loose.

I know some who have resorted to using Helios and have had success with it, but that's not the best option, IMHO.

HGH works wonders on burning stubborn fat (pending on your age, stats, etc).

/V
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Yeah lately I've been incorporating and alternating with planks, heavy cable crunchs, and weighted decline crunches......I'm in a legal bind so I can't be fucking around with gh or anything anabolic even though I really want to....

It's really all about my diet...come nighttime I just cannot resist eating massive amounts of food....I guess being drug free has really allowed me to enjoy the narcotic like feelings from good foods!=D
 
^^you just said it right there brother. Abs are made in the kitchen. I really don't do any direct ab work and I still almost have a 6 pack and I'm currently trying to bulk to about 240. You can do all the ab work you want but if your body fat isn't low enough they won't show. Either you decide to eat less food, and pick cleaner calorie choices, or you don't and the abs don't come in. Pretty simple to be honest.
 
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