My Get Big Routine

Bigger Stronger Leaner Competitive Bodybuilding
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Hey Guys,

About a year and a half ago I started weight training 3-4 times a week. I understood the whole eat to get big thing, but my eating habits were irregular, and unhealthy to say the least. I started at about 65kgs(143 lb) went up to about 73 kgs(163 lb) but most of my gains were due to Fat and water retention because of Creatine. I did gain some more strength overall though, so some of it was muscle, but not enough! About 5 months ago (Winter here in Australia), I wrote up a whole new diet and started doing a variation of Rippetoes program. First week was good but then I started to get sick almost every week . I think over the Winter period I caught the flu about 4 or 5 times. So obviously I didn’t gain anywhere in terms of size. Now it’s Summer, and I want to start putting some serious size on. I know it’s going to take time, but if I see some solid gains at the start, I know I wont want to stop. First some stats:

Age: 23
Height: 5’ 11
Weight: 70kg (155lb)
Target Weight (10 month goal): 80kgs (176lbs)
Target BF%: 10
Weaknesses: Chest, Shoulders (Really want to build some width)

My program:

Monday (Chest and Triceps)

Barbell Bench Press - 3x6-10 60kg(132 lbs)
Unassisted Dips 10kg(22lb) plate - 3x8
Incline Dumbell Press - 3x6-10 20kg(44lbs)
Behind the Head Dumbell Tricep Extensions - 3x8 35kgs(77lbs)

Tuesday (Back and biceps)

Deadlift - 3x10 70kg (155lb) - Weak I know, trying to nail my form before I start increasing the weight too much
Unassisted chin ups - 3x8
Bent Over Barbell Rows - 3x8-12 50kg (110lbs)
Wide Grip Chins - 3x4-6 (Need to work on these)

Wednesday Off

Thursday (Shoulders)
Standing Military Press 3x8 40kg (88lbs)
Seated Bent Over Dumbell Raise - 3x8-12 10kgs (22lbs)
Seated Lateral raise - 3 x8-12 10kgs (22lbs)
Standing Front Raises - 3 x 8-12 12.5 kgs (28lbs)

Friday (Legs)
Squats 3x8 80kgs (176lbs)
Seated Calf Raises not sure on weight yet
Leg Press 3x8 200kgs (440lbs)
Leg Curls not sure on weight or reps yet

So that’s my program, far from perfect I know. Really keen to find out what you guys think. I have a diet set out as well but that’s on my work computer so i’ll post it tomorrow.

Pics below were taken about 3-4 months ago right before I started getting sick, I weighed about 72kgs or so there. Since then i’ve dropped 2-3kgs, mostly fat I think.

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As you can see I have a mild sciolosis in my back which makes it hard to distribute load between both of my arms, particularly on exercises like the Bent Over Barbell row, and the bent over raises.

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The right side of my body dominates in pretty much every exercise, so I need to try and balance that out. I think it’s because of my Scioliosis.

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Right arm

EDIT: This one doesn’t seem to work :expressionless:

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Left Arm

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Back

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Two things

Eat More

Squat More

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Eat a lot, do Westside for Skinny Bastard’s 3 for the next 2 years. Oh and one side note, no one cares if you don’t get to see your abs for a while.

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im not sure which picture is supposed to illustrate your scoliosis to us, but if you say youve got it, what the hell do i care?

you said something about if you see some solid gains at the start, you wont want to stop.

you need to understand that at this point you dont have a lot of experience, so you dont really know what works for you yet. you shouldnt get your hopes up that youre going to come across your magic program that is going to just start stacking up the gains, nor should you ditch a program because it doesnt immediately produce visible results.

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[quote]dez6485 wrote:
im not sure which picture is supposed to illustrate your scoliosis to us, but if you say youve got it, what the hell do i care?

.[/quote]

Well it does matter. I have scoliosis as well and forces me to do a lot of unilateral work or my dominant side will take over every movement and cause me to lose a great amount of symmetry.

To the OP, Your program won’t really matter that much as long as you are progressive with it. What’s more important is your diet so I’ll reserve more comments until you post up what you actually eat, not what you think would sound good to post that you eat.

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I strongly suggest you keep doing Rippetoe’s workout or some variation of 5…or do the Westside for Skinny Bastards III.

You are not ready the routine you posted. You can gain tons of muscle at your stage.

If you where getting colds it was because of your nutrition and nothing else. Do a search for Berardi or Lowery and read everything that they have written on nutrition.

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I see all these kids that have absolutely no muscle mass doing set after set of inclines, flyes and dips. While they have problems in their squat form, deadlift form and bench press form.

Here is the deal
The Golden 5

Squats
Overhead Presses
Deadlifts
Dips
Chins

Grab the top 3 and do them 3 times per week. You need practice with these movements until you can do them whith your eyes shut!

The last 2 take every friday and do them or do 1 friday 1 additional exercise and next friday do the other one.

Sets and reps … don’t matter! here is the kicker for your starting weight can’t be more than 12 reps and your last weight set can’t be less than 3 reps.

This means that you will warm up with a weight that you can do 12 reps and keep adding weight until you can’t do a set of 3. You are done for that day.

For eating go home and say that you are becoming a mountain man and will only eat meat, fish and fowl. Go to the grocery and get cream and mix it with raw eggs. Have that for snack whenever you have time.

Be fucking consistent and you will gain 30lbs in the first year. It may not be all muscle, but at your stage there is no way you can gain muscle without some fat.

Why are you afraid of gaining fat?? Are you insecure of your willpower to loose the weight later???

I have said it before and will say it again…if you are afraid of fat either inside of you or on you this lifting game is not for you. Do you think you can grow on chicken breasts and boiled rice???

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With all of the “harcore” sounding advice you hear from people like sawadeekrob, you would expect them to have a lot to show for their advice. Do you have a big, symmetrical phsyique? Have you made gains in the way the OP is looking to make?

If not, why are you giving that kind of advice?

The OP isn’t looking to be a powerlifter, so I wish people would stop recommending powerlifting programs in the bodybuilding section of this website.

The program he is using is perfectly acceptable, and honestly at his stage it is impressive that he would create a program as complete as that one with his focus seemingly in the right places.

To the OP:

As was mentioned above by Scott, one of your big concerns will be eating enough calories, so laying out your diet would be the thing to do. It is also good that you were able to gain weight previously, but you may have neglected a key aspect to gaining muscle.

If you are gaining weight, but not forcing your muscles to get stronger (lift more weight), all those extra calories will be used for recovery and not supply for muscle growth. Many people lay out a diet plan, but few take the time to devise an actual PLAN to get stronger.

And I would echo the suggestion for more unilateral work.

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You’d be surprised how much faster people would progress for their bodybuilding gains if they follow what you deem to be a powerlifting program.

Building a base with heavy squats, benches, deads, oh press, rows, pullups etc is the quickest way to get big and strong.

I agree with what sawadekrob said, but would probably just be less restrictive on diet for someone so small.

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[quote]scottiscool wrote:
dez6485 wrote:
im not sure which picture is supposed to illustrate your scoliosis to us, but if you say youve got it, what the hell do i care?

.

Well it does matter. I have scoliosis as well and forces me to do a lot of unilateral work or my dominant side will take over every movement and cause me to lose a great amount of symmetry.

To the OP, Your program won’t really matter that much as long as you are progressive with it. What’s more important is your diet so I’ll reserve more comments until you post up what you actually eat, not what you think would sound good to post that you eat. [/quote]

i certainly never said his scoliosis, however mild it may be, didnt matter. when placing pressure (aka, lifting) onto the frame of one’s body, having a body that doesnt line up quite right certainly would matter.

my point was that he said he had mild scoliosis, which we could see from the picture…and i couldnt see it from the front of his body, which he posted with that comment, or any of the others. but, like i said, if he says he has it, what the hell do i care? im certainly not going to tell him he doesnt have it. maybe he posted the wrong picture when he was telling us we could see it in the picture. who knows?

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[quote]scottiscool wrote:
dez6485 wrote:
im not sure which picture is supposed to illustrate your scoliosis to us, but if you say youve got it, what the hell do i care?

.

Well it does matter. I have scoliosis as well and forces me to do a lot of unilateral work or my dominant side will take over every movement and cause me to lose a great amount of symmetry.

To the OP, Your program won’t really matter that much as long as you are progressive with it. What’s more important is your diet so I’ll reserve more comments until you post up what you actually eat, not what you think would sound good to post that you eat. [/quote]

i certainly never said his scoliosis, however mild it may be, didnt matter. when placing pressure (aka, lifting) onto the frame of one’s body, having a body that doesnt line up quite right certainly would matter. my point was that he said he had mild scoliosis, which we could see from the picture…and i couldnt see it from the front of his body, which he posted with that comment, or any of the others.

but, like i said, if he says he has it, what the hell do i care? im certainly not going to tell him he doesnt have it. maybe he posted the wrong picture when he was telling us we could see it in the picture. who knows?

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Yeah he did put it under a picture where you obviously couldn’t tell so that didn’t help haha. I took your post as something else, thanks for clarifying.

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[quote]mattwray wrote:
You’d be surprised how much faster people would progress for their bodybuilding gains if they follow what you deem to be a powerlifting program.

Building a base with heavy squats, benches, deads, oh press, rows, pullups etc is the quickest way to get big and strong.

I agree with what sawadekrob said, but would probably just be less restrictive on diet for someone so small.[/quote]

No one is saying that getting stronger in the basics is a bad thing, but I don’t consider that list to encompass the basics of bodybuilding.

Your goals and idea of “big and strong” seem to be very different from the OP’s, and I doubt he is looking to create for himself the body you have now.

Which is why I don’t understand how you think the advice you’re giving is applicable.

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Breakfast

3 Eggs Fried Cal: 315 P: 16.6g C: 1g F: 26g
2 Pieces of Wholemeal Bread Cal: 210 P: 9.5g C: 32.5g F: 2.6g
Oats (75g) Cal: 286 P: 9g C: 42g F: 6g
Total: Cal: 611 P: 35.1 g C: 75.5g F:34.6

Recess:

1 Piece of Bread Cal: 105 P: 4.5g C: 16g F: 1.8g
100g Honey Mustard Chicken Cal: 110 P: 23 g C: 0 F: 1.2g
1 Slice of Cheese Cal: 80 P: 5g C: 0 F: 6 g
Total: Cal: 295 P: 32.5g C: 16g F: 9g

Post Workout Meal:

Brown rice 250g Cal: 472 P: 5g C: 86g F: 4g
100g Tuna Cal: 131 P: 15.2g C: 0g F: 7.6
Scoop of Whey with Water Cal: 120 P: 24g C: 0g F: 1g
Total: Cal: 723 P: 44.2 g C: 86 g F: 12.6

Afternoon Meal:

185g Tuna Cal: 201 P: 48.1 g C: 0 g F: 1g
2 Pieces of Wholemeal Bread Cal: 210 P: 9.5g C: 32.5g F: 2.6g
Total: Cal: 411 P: 57.6 g C: 32.5g F: 3.6g

Dinner:(TBA)

200g Steak Cal: 364 P: 58.5 g C: 0g F: 12g
Total: Cal: 364 P: 58.5 g C: 0g F: 12g

Before Bed Shake:

500 ml milk Cal: 240 P: 20 g C: 29g F: 5g
Scoop of Whey Cal: 120 P: 24g C: 0g F: 1g
Total: Cal: 360 P: 44g C: 29g F: 6g

Grand Total: (+500ml Milk) Cal: 3004 P: 291.9 C: 268.3 F: 82.8

Ok so this is the diet I was on when I started getting sick, the one i’m writing up now is very similar with a few changes like:

Breakfast will be a Shake including:

2 Scoops of Whey
Cup of Milk
Teaspoon of PB
Tablespoon of Cottage Cheese
2 Eggs
Cup of Oats

Obviously my Dinner will be bigger than just a Steak, i’ll add another 300 or so calories of Carbs like Sweet Potato and Veggies. I’ll also be consuming a lot of almonds during the day to get my healthy fats, and to boost the Calorie count. Before bed i’ll also have some more cottage cheese for the casein. So my Daily Intake will be approximately 3500 calories.

Regarding my Sciolisis, yeah i chose the wrong picture to demonstrate it. In the last one of my back you can clearly see my spine isn’t straight, and my left shoulder is above my right. It’s actually a bit worse that that photo portrays, i’ve gotten used to straightening it up for photos.

With exercises like Chins, Lat Pull Downs, Military Press I find it really hard to distribute the weight evenly across both sides of my body. So when you guys say Unilateral do you mean exercises that require only one side of my body, e.g Curls?

In reply to sawadeekrob, I never said I was afraid of gaining fat. I understand that putting on size will entail putting on some fat. But obviously, I want to keep that fat gain to a minimum. My muscles can only grow at a certain rate, (0.25-0.5lbs per week i’ve read) and if that only requires a 300-400 calorie surplus, why would I bother increasing my calorie count with shitty foods like Cream.

Really helpful replies guys, thanks a lot. Keep them coming!

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just curious, at what age did the doctor tell you that you have mild scoliosis?