Hopefully someone can help me with this problem that I have been having. I can not seem to get past these problems, and it has severely hindered gains.
I am a 215 pound football player, looking to bulk back up. However I am having some problems.
I started off at 350 pounds. I began dieting with a moderate carb, high protein, low fat strategy. At around 270 I began a high protein, low carb, low fat diet. I saw my weight drop all the way down to around 240. Surprisingly during this entire period I had very little loss in strength what so ever.
So once I hit 240 I decided to go on the Anabolic Diet. I continued to drop down to around 220, and thus decided to bulk back up using the AD as well. Now I was consuming around 5,000-6,000 calories a day on the AD however my weight and strength dropped significantly. My weight had dropped 10 pounds during this time, and my strength on lifts such as the box squat had dropped from 515 down to around 415 .
I decided to move into a more traditional 40/40/20 bulk in which my cals were around the 4,000 range. In a matter of 6-7 weeks, my squat had risen to 550, and all of my strength numbers had incredibly risen. The problem however is that during this time mt weight had gone from the 210’s, and shot up to the 250’s in a matter of 12 weeks, with a high rise in BF%. This is with very low carb days (<30g), during the non-workout days. Even carb cycling in the later weeks didn’t help.
Now you see my dilemma. I am looking to bulk up before the season, but I have no idea how to do so. On one hand strength greatly increased, but the high rise in BF%, significantly hindered my speed. I have fairly intense training sessions, with speed, and or agility work in the A.M. followed by a lift 4 days a week. Then I will start conditioning more intensely once my GPP has caught up later in my phase.
SO does anyone have any ideas because I am completely confused on what to do here.