Workout questions? Ask a Bodybuilder/Personal Trainer

oh nice! that would be really good to train yourself to not move your body! thanks!

 

Hockey and lacrosse. I'm in lacrosse season right now. practice most days after school for 2 hours with a bit of running.

 

i think this is alot of great information without having to read 802 posts ya know?

 

Oh yes I know. I don't want to EVER have to go back to the hospital for being dehydrated again! Before hockey games I would do a complete hydration, not as easy to do before a lacrosse game.

 

Awesome thread man!

I haven't read every post, so sorry if you covered some of this question already, but I am a typical ectomorphic hardgainer. I've been lifting for years, doing pretty much the same ol' routine the whole time. Somebody told me way back when that for a hardgainer to gain bulk, he has to lift HEAVY, low reps, and do low duration workouts (not many sets), so that's what I've been doing. I've mainly been doing basic mass building exercises with heavy weight. Usually one quick warmup set for each muscle group then straight to the heavy iron (6-8 sets per body part, 4-6 reps per set).

I've had great gains in strength (I'm 150 lbs and my bench press one rep max was up to 240 at one point last year) but I'm not where I want to be with size. Any tips on bulking up, especially upper chest? Of course, I know the classic recommendation is that hardgainer ectomorphs should eat a ton of calories, but when I start eating more than usual, I just start to get soft around the middle and don't gain any muscle. And I also start feeling sluggish/lethargic when I start to eat more than usual. Any tips for the skinny hardgainer??

 

How do I go about cracking a walnut between my buttcheeks?

 

there's a LOT of different ways to do curls, so there isn't really a "best" ONE exercise to do, I think it's better to do a variety to make sure the muscle is hit from every angle possible, which is the best way to force it to grow, to completely exhaust it, and doing just one exercise can't do this, but aside from standing curls, I do a lot of preacher curls, with dumbbells, straight bar and bent bar, which isolate much better than standing curls because it doesn't allow you to cheat, and these are very similar to the lying down cable curls that memario suggested because it completely isolates the bicep and it's even better to do isolation exercises on the cables because you get constant tension throughout the range of motion on cables that you don't get on free weights

yes sir! any kind of isolation exercise on the cables is great & should definitely always be incorporated with free weights

I'm pretty sure a lot of that is just water weight though, I'm sure he's burning some body fat too but he's also working out so it's hard to say exactly how much the sauna is helping, and like you said all it does is make you sweat and as soon as you rehydrate you replace all that water you lost, so I just stick with diet & cardio

never stay away from machines, free weights are the bread & butter but machines are great for isolation because it takes out the need for stabilizer muscles, sometimes I'll use machines to warm-up before I hit my big compound free weight movements, and most of the time I'll use cables or machines to burn-out at the very end and sometimes I'll throw in some machine sets in the middle of my workout as well

thanks bro!

yeah I saw that but I didn't see any trainers or competitors in there anywhere so I figured I'd make this more of a Q&A type deal to help out everybody with any kind of questions they may have that they might not be asking in the other thread

you just described me bro I started out weighing 150 like you, actually a little less than that, benching 175 lol and I found that what worked best for me, was not the heavy heavy weight all the time, but heavy AND light and a variety of exercises for every muscle group to fully exhaust that muscle completely, once a week, which gave it plenty of rest to recover and grow, and the reason you're seeing more strength than size is for two reasons, one, you always see strength first before size anyway because as the strength & endurance comes, the workouts become longer/more intense and the heavier and harder you're able to train, the more muscle you'll ultimately build as long as your diet (mainly protein) is where it should be, and two, lifting heavy all the time, 4-6 reps like you're doing is ONLY good for strength, not size, size is the 8-12 rep range, so for almost every exercise I do, I start with 12-15 reps with light weight, increase the weight and do around 10, increase again and do around 8, increase again and do around 6, and that's usually the heaviest I go, I might hit another heavy set of 6 or so, but then I'll start decreasing the weight and go back to 10, and then 12, and then 15, and doing this works every muscle fiber in the muscle, the fast-twitch for explosive strength and the slow twitch for endurance and when you work one muscle group a day, you have more time to spend on that muscle and that means more exercises for that muscle, which means you break that muscle down completely, by doing a combination of heavy AND light, this is called the pyramid style, high reps to low reps and then back to high reps and this fully breaks the muscle down, which forces it to grow even more than just the heavy weight

I've always done this kind of routine, pyramid style, even though I may switch up the order of my exercises, or switch up the exercises all together, or switch up the order of muscle groups, or switch up the intensity or volume, but I always do pyramid but that's what I've found works best for me, and if you read and watch how the pros train, you'll find that nearly all of them train the same way

So this helped me go from 150ish pounds benching 175 to 200ish pounds benching 350, but that was over a period of 7 years lol which goes back to what you said about us, HARD gainers

SQUATS!!!!!!!

 

okay so we have talked a little on the other thread but here is my issue.

When i was on prohormones i was 207 lbs and was freaknasty huge. I loved it! mind you im 6'4.

Now i am 192 (i hurt my shoulder and i got very sick. I havent been able to go to the gym for about a month now and i am going on vacation until the 17th)

Should i utilize this time as rest and come back hard with a cycle of prohormones to kickstart my workout again or should i workout doing pushups/pullups while recovering.

my most recent lifting stretch was an 8 month period and it sucks that this happened as i was in my peak.

my ultimate goal is to compete but i am only 20 so i know i face the challenge of height and premature muscles.

what do you suggest if you will speak on the subject.

i do not frequently take PH's but i plan on cycling in the next 3 months.

 

also can you please provide a good diet for both bulking and cutting. i got stuck on the bulking diet and i cant seem to cut the negative foods out

 

i think i got this one....

5 smaller meals a day, try to stick with chicken, brown rice, and veggies. and steer away from breads and pasta? please let me know if this is right haha

 

You should not be taking PH yet your to young. I wouldn't start them till your at least 21.

 

ive already taken 3 cycles and shut myself down twice.

no more working peepee for me!

 

i lift about 1-2 hours a day for about 5 days a week. would it be okay for me to drink a protien shake in the morning, then i work out about 7pm and drink one after? or should i only drink one after?