I would appreciate that. Thanks for reading so far!
I thought about it some more and would like to make a few additional points:
Fat / muscle gain:
I have only taken measurements once a year or something at the start and end of a bulking / cutting phase. My arms and legs have pretty much stayed the same in the last 4 years. Chest / shoulder circumferences are kinda hard to track, so they’re almost useless in my opinion.
One thing that I noticed a few years ago though is the relationship between my bodyweight and my waist circumference. In the metric system the numbers are almost identical most of the time. So, weighing 80,1 kg I would have a 80,9 cm waist. And since bodyfat is most readily stored in the gut I figured dividing the bodyweight by the waist circumference would be a neat little way to track bodyfat at home - which is hard to do anyway. I call this my “quality factor” and it hovers between ~0.9 - 1.0 (0,975 to 1.0 most of the time).
The thing is, I figured if I would gain lean mass over the years, the quality factor should slowly rise to like 1.0+… seeing that my weight would increase, but my waist shouldn’t get much bigger than it is now. That number didn’t change at all though, it’s been hovering between 0.9 - 1.0 for four years now. Go figure.
Success with 5/3/1 / being a non-responder:
I have often thought about why I was so successful with 5/3/1 four years ago. Why I suddenly was able to build visible muscle over a few months. The answer is pretty simple though: After 1,5 years of low volume training with Starting Strength it must have been quite a shock to my body to finally get bombarded with high(er) volumes and direct isolation exercises as well. That must have unleashed some untapped potential.
It clearly shows that I’m NOT some kind of “non-responder” to training.
I just can’t understand why I haven’t been able to build any muscle at all since then…
Strength:
You know the drill, there are people who are absolutely convinced that for naturals strength and appearance are directly correlated… and then there are those who think the weight on the bar doesn’t matter.
I always figured since it seems to be hard enough for me to build muscle anyway it at least couldn’t hurt, if I got stronger. That said, my lifts have barely increased in the last year, either.
I’ve been squatting ~225 to 265 lbs for reps for 4+ years now. After my 3-day split I hit a 315 1RM with a belt and during my HFT phase I hit a 315 1RM beltless and a shaky 330.
I’ve been deadlifting 315-330 for 4+ years. Last year I hit a new 1RM of 355 during HFT.
I’ve been benching 200-225 lbs for 4+ years. 225 x 3 paused reps at my best. During HFT and while being fatter I could obviously bench a bit more. Like 225 for 10 singles.
Other exercises like dumbbell ones haven’t really increased at all.
Overall I have made the odd little rep record here and there, but much of it was temporary due to being fatter and eating more and the (very) little progress I made is nothing like what you would expect in 4 years…