Natty Advice to Add Size?

thanks flipcollar. would you find it worthwhile to tighten the slightest as I proceed as opposed to cutting full blown? or should i just keep going in your opinion.

I really appreciate it your thoughts.

Thanks man. I have been consistently working out for a few years and eating this way for just as long.

My activity throughout the day isn’t nearly as difficult as the workouts. Non exercise physical activity is low to moderate at the most.

I have recently moved away from training with maxes in mind. I used to do that when I was training with powerlifting but my grip situation doesn’t let me go all out. Deadlift used to be 400, Squat could get a double with 315, bench suffered a lot but used to be 300.

I mean, that’s really entirely up to you. And it sort of depends on how you respond to a caloric surplus. So for me, I can gain muscle and not really get any fatter, even when I up my calories significantly. But not everyone is like this. My personal opinion is that if you can maintain the level of leanness you have now, and still grow, I wouldn’t cut at all first. If, on the other hand, you’re predisposed to putting on a little bit of fat when you’re trying to get bigger, then maybe cutting a little first isn’t such a bad idea. It’s really just about what’s important to you though, and where you ultimately want to be long-term. If your long term goals are to be 250 lbs and ripped, then cutting or not right now is fairly inconsequential, because you have such a long road ahead. But if your ideal physique is like 10 lbs heavier and maybe just a little leaner, then you’re rather close to your goal and you can start thinking about reaching the bodyfat you would prefer to be at. Just as a general rule, unless a person is significantly overweight, I advocate putting on the muscle first, because it’s harder and takes longer, and then work on really cutting.

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I would still do both but, put focus on one.

Another option to consider, keep the calories high/the same and get on a high volume program off this site like below


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You’re not that soft! Many top bodybuilders are even as “soft” as you are now throughout their entire offseason. There appears to be a trend in which young men have a skewed view on what’s fairly lean and what’s actually overly fat. Who knows to what this is due.

You can of course slightly decrease calories, or being you’re not headed into a contest, simply stop eating so much by decreasing your portion sizes.

The Get Shredded Diet is a HIGHLY restrictive diet and I think that it’s not worth even doing unless someone is already very lean, and who truly wants to get shredded, not just slightly re-compose to get on track a bit.

What cervical issues?

I suggest simply thinking of revamping your back training rather than specializing at this point.

Your total dietary and training plan is not back, but obviously if you feel you are gaining too much fat, then slightly lower calories, and do modest amounts of cardio as you’ve stated. Cardio can be done year round and the duration, intensity, and type depends on what you want to do and your personal physical situation.

I’d say it’s the Men’s Health or Muscle & Fitness type publications that show supposedly natural people on their covers and talk about the workouts that they do. The guys are slightly bigger than average and shredded. They are just close enough to a natural size to fool us. The reality is they’re on just a little bit of gear and lying to us.

I must admit that I was fooled for a long time. The eye-opener for me was the Netflix documentary Bigger, Stronger, Faster.

All we ever see is people who have spent time prepping for a photoshoot or show but they’re portrayed as if that’s an everyday appearance.

It’s quite misleading.

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What JMaier31 said holds true. Also where I am there are very few natural trainees. Very hard to tell what is possible naturally. Very common for me to see someone pack on size and get cut.

I will take this into account. Thank you. I won’t do anything restrictive in that case.

DDD/Nerve impingement/Disc Bulges

Thanks for your response man.

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Thanks for the suggestions. I will consider it. I have backed off from volume since a few of CT’s articles. I will look over those. I remember when that Zombie one was originally posted.

Honestly, you can accomplish a LOT naturally, it just takes more time. Just keep pushing it and eating really.

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Something I did when I was first considering competing was find as many natural guys as I could who were close to my height. Seeing what they weighed onstage, and what they weighed just every day walking around, really opened my eyes a lot.

What’s your height?

S

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Thanks for taking a look Stu.

I’m 5’9".

Well, I’m 5’8, but the figures I can give you might not be the best in terms of being relevant to where you currently are due to how many years of experience I have or even my contest stage weight (which is pretty extreme and most people never need to go that far)

Hopefully some other folks on here can chime in too if they are of similar heights (I’ll give mine if you want, but I don’t wanna affect your own thinking by comparing yourself either good or bad)

S

Thanks for the heads up and honesty.

I don’t mind you sharing and am genuinely interested in your figures. It will be helpful for my understanding. There are a lot of non-natty’s around me. Most people who work out here are not natty.

After training for 15 years (keep that in mind), I was around 210 lbs. I honestly thought I needed to weigh this much to be huge. In hindsight I didn’t, I just needed to be smarter about diet and training and keep my bf lower.

My first contest I weighed 170 lbs.
My heaviest stage weight (after a few years of the most intense and intelligent training I could manage) was 178 lbs. that’s 178 lbs in seriously stupid condition.

This was Much much more than anyone needs if they’re not competing. When I went away on vacation before I got married i kept myself under 190 so I could fit into my tux and I had people, even fairly fit individuals approaching me the whole time because of how ripped I looked to average (non competing) people. This is the difference between carrying normal levels of fat and what even most natural off-season bodybuilder do (my “small”, under 200 lbs self was wearing a size 50 jacket and size 32 pants. Think about that for a second -lol)

Keep that in mind looking at stats of contest bodybuilders. They’re not their stage weight 11 months out of the year.

S

those guys are average height, well North of two hundo and single digit bodyfat


Amen


I would argue it ‘should be done’ year round in some form by most lifters.

Most serious committed natural lifters can reach a point where they carry close to 3lbs. per inch of height in very lean condition. Not stage ready, but certainly beach ready.

Note: That is 18" between jacket and pants size!!! The standard off the shelf ‘drop’ is 6".

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This is me at 207# at 5’10", close to 3 pounds per inch. I think I was too fat here, but my training prior to this was too inconsistent throughout the years; I think I could have definitely reached that standard while lean had I been training seriously for more years than I did. As you likely know, bodybuilding is quite unforgiving. Don’t remain consistent, don’t expect stellar results.

How many years of training is that work there?