The Official Gym & Fitness Thread

New to this thread (and Taco life - got an '06 a little over a month ago). Thought I would chime in with my workout regiment/gains over the past few years.

Never really took fitness seriously up until 2011 after I graduated college. Got a cushy job at a company that had an onsite gym and met a co-worker who was a personal trainer on the side. He took me under his wing.

When I started working there (August of 2011) I weighed 153lbs and had 14.60% body fat. I know that some people strive for that, but I have a small frame. I am only 5' 10" (on a good day) so the muscle definition was never there, but I have never been 'fat' or 'overweight.' I don't have my lift maxes from that time but I had taken a fitness class my senior year where we had to rep out 5-8 times on the bench and I could barely get 155 at that time.

It was time to get serious.

He put me through the ringer of workouts. We would go 5 days a week while we are at work and I was on my own for the weekends where I would putz around in my neighborhood club house gym or attempt some outdoor cardio. We did this for a year, I was getting married that June of 2012 and wanted to be in peak physical condition (for the honeymoon obv).

One thing I have never been able to do is lose or gain weight very easily, I just shift from muscle to fat, even though muscle weighs more, I still stay around the same weight. By the time of my wedding, just shy of a year after starting serious weight lifting I still weighed 153lbs but dropped my body fat to 9.3%. At this point I was maxing around 200lbs on the bench. I think I remember trying to get 225 and couldn't get it off my chest. I was pretty happy with the definition I had achieved but my size still bothers me.

I kept up the same workout regiment over the next year and by the following June (we are in 2013 now) I was weighing 155lbs and my body fat was down to 7.7%. I wasn't tracking my lifting weight gains very well over my first couple years, but I knew when I started the bar was pretty low so anything would be a gain looking back.

Something happened to me in October/November of 2013. I don't know what, some sort of stomach bug, but I dropped from 155 to 142 in a couple weeks. People I never even talked to at the gym would come up and ask if I was shedding weight for some sort of competition or something. Bummed me out so hard. I went crazy and started eating anything I could. Donuts for days. Somehow I got my weight back up to 155, and even passed it to 163 and still managed to keep my body fat <10%. I was at 9.8% at Christmas 2013, which was the 'fattest' I had been in a while.

After that, I really started trying to bulk and had a pretty elaborate tracker of everything. I was eating 1500 calories a day and 191g of protein a day. Still, in doing that for 2 whole months, I gained less than a lb. I did manage to get my body fat back for to 8.3% while maintaining weight at 163.

I have gotten pretty slack on tracking my weight and body fat since my 'Bulk' last year. I am now focused on my workout gains and have been pretty happy with my physique. 160 is a hell of a lot better than 150. Oh - and my bench max is now 275 (at least the last I checked around Christmas 2014).

I have been pretty consistent over all this in doing the same variations of regiments
M- Chest/Tris
Tu- Back/Bis
Weds- Legs/Shoulder
Th- Chest/Tri
Fri- Back/Bis
Sat -Legs/Shoulders
Sun- Rest

During the summer that Saturday workout is few and far between. I spend most weekends at the beach working on my bulk with a case of beer.

For supplements, I keep it pretty simple. I do a True Athlete pre-workout powder and a Whey Tech Protein powder shake post workout. I have been on that for ~2 years and I cycle on and off the pre-workout quarterly (2 months on, 1 month off). Throughout this whole process I have tried a wide assortment of suppys. Jack3d, C4, yadda yadda yadda. True Athlete preworkout has been my favorite, and it is much cheaper than the others. I have also tried a test-booster once, but it felt a lot like a pre-workout powder. The only other thing I do 'somewhat regularly' is take Astravar but the True Athlete has some of that in it, so I don't do it often. It is Astragin which allows for better absorption post workout and heightens your awareness/focus. It is basically a non-prescript Ritalin on a much lower scale.

As far as diet, I do what I can but I by no means am ride or die 'eat clean.' I think this would be the difference between me being 160 and 185 but I like being 160 with a 8% body fat.

 

Thoes are from 2 years ago. This is recent same weight just leaner

 

I could run really fast tho haha

 

x2. I think in high school I weighed around 140 and could run a 7 min mile. Now I weigh 185-189 and I can barely do a 10 min mile lol...I can bench 315, dead 435, and squat 335 now though...tradeoffs lol

 

Bathroom pictures FTW...made gainz including the tatt lol

no tatt here...

 

Think i need to start adding the middle finger to mine

 

I did a lot of finger curls that day! It's common theme in the Live thread....

 

I just tried to go take a 'bird' pic in the work bathroom and someone walked in, so I had to play it off....looked like a fuckin idiot lol

 

X2 you can always pick your nose

 

I just kind of did a look-away off into the ceiling kinda like this:

 

Bro, do you even squat? Lol. Get that up there!!

 

Haha What movie is that from?

 

superbad

 

I know...my squat is slacking. I feel like it's probably higher than that now, but that was my last max around 5 months ago. I haven't been able to squat in the past 5-6 weeks due to my ankle though.

 

Holy shit YES hahahahaha

 

Really!? U gota get that back down haha i could run a 4:55 then at 145 now im about a 5:15 at 185lbs but can actualy lift weight also so not a bad trade off

 

Good grief! I would like to get to 7-8 mins just for heart health. I don't care about running at all. I actually started to some cardio before my damn ankle injury. It's still swollen, but doesn't hurt too bad anymore.

 

Some pics to accompany what I wrote...sort of... First one is a side by side from May 2013 (155lbs, 7.7% body fat) vs Aug 2014. (160 lbs, 9% body fat). The one on the right has some funky shadows, making it hard to compare. The bottom pic is from today, post back/bi workout(Big Man on Campus workout from bodybuilder.com). Weighed in at 158 today, haven't had my body fat checked in a while but i would assume I am still holding steady between 8-9%.

 

What are you using to take your body fat? That looks higher than 7-9% This is what 7-9% generally looks like:



I could be wrong, but I'd say you're around 10-12%...again, I could be wrong and it's lower than my current bf %, so I'm not knocking you or anything.

Also, I've done the Big Man on Campus workout and liked it a lot. Steve Cook is a badass