What Should I Do In My Current State

I posted before to ask for some guide, but I didnt put enough information about myself there. So let me post it again.

My goal is to have strength, not look thin, better fit for my cloathing(basically I want bigger body, not huge but bigger than now).

About 2 years ago I was 65kg and 182m(skinny fat). I started doing weight lifting since then(not professional). Gradually gained weight but mostly fat…(I still look thin, but my belly…And even if eat a lot my weight increases very slowly)
Since 2015 January, with a help of my friend, I changed my exercise style to push myself with heavier weights and I also stuffed myself with a lot of food(tried to eat good food most of the time).

In about three months, my lifts went up:
bench press: 20kg to 45kg
deadlift:40kg to 70kg
squat:30kg to 50kg(machine)
military press:20kg to 30kg
At that time my weight was about 74kg
I exercised in a 4day cycle(back, chest, legs, shoulder) without cardio. i exercised about 30minutes and focused on the big exercises like deadlifts, squat, etc. I had 3 warm up sets. and 3~4 sets of 4~5 with max weight.

But since March up to now, I dont have any progress. My current weight is 75kg and I checked body fat ratio with In-Body and it says I have 19% body fat ratio. My muscle mass has stayed the same as 34kg. I can still see my upper abs split, except my lower and side part of belly my body doesnt look fat. In fact it looks much better than last year. But I want to get stronger and a little bigger.

Currently I am eating 4 meals(3normal meals and an extra meal at about 9pm. I go to sleep at 12pm~1am. But i do get at least 8hours of sleep) and my calorie intake is between 3~4000

Because I dont have any improvement, I changed my exercise style. Please check if I doing the right thing.

Instead of doing max weight with small repetitions. I reduced my lifts so that I can just do 4sets of 10repetitions. (low weight high repetition). Every week, I will try to increase the number of repetitions or number of sets.

So after a cycle of 4days(monday~thursday, back, chest, legs, shoulder), I included 2 days of intense cardio with cycling(10min cycling : 30sec intense, 30sec light ->repeated 10times) and just core work out. And Sunday I take a rest. With calorie intake, I reduced it slightly to 3000~3500

Now with this style, I exercise almost up to 1hour during the 4day cycle.

When I am not exercising, I am studying and doing research.(Im a college student). I dont drink alcohol.(few times a year)
Occasionally I play soccer. Used to be in track and field, soccer team in high school.

Hope I have put enough information about myself.

Im looking forward for your help!

You’re pretty much doing everything wrong.

a) Diet: Get at least 160g of good protein a day. Add carbs from oatmeal, rice and potatoes so you get about 250 grams of carbs. Get 90 grams from fats. This is a lot less than you’re currently eating but it’s enough. You should know by now that just stuffing yourself for no reason just makes you fat.

b) You need to train each muscle more often to get stronger. You also need to drop the reps. You’ll get very little out of squatting 40kg for sets of 10. So you’ll train three times a week and alternate between two workouts:

A)
Squat - 3x5-8
Bench - 3x5-8
Row - 3x5-8

B)
Deadlifts - 3x5-8
Overhead Press - 3x5-8
Pull ups/Pulldowns - 3x5-8

Rest two minutes between sets. Whenever you get to 3x8, add five pounds. On off days, do a few sprints or rope skipping for 10-20 minutes; no more.

Get really strong on these six exercises and you WILL look different.

By the way - where do you live?

I can’t really help with your diet since I don’t know jack beyond the basics and tend to just try to avoid too much processed stuff and simple sugars as that’s what works for me.

In terms of the training, nighthawkz has some good ideas; or, you could just do Starting Strength and then when that stops working for you, do 5/3/1. I’m recommending them based on their track record as working for almost everyone who’s tried them. I haven’t tried them myself but if I was starting out and wasn’t going to go straight in to powerlifting that is pretty much what I’d do.

I used to do that. And as I said I did have some significant improvements for first few months. But since last 2~3months it didnt give me any more muscle gains. I couldnt go to the next step. Every week my lifting weight and even the number of repetition stayed the same.

Basically last few months my muscle gain stopped, whereas my fat gain didnt…

So I tried to change my style recently. I guess its not the right thing then

I eat pretty healthy foods. low fat, high protein(eggs, tofu, chicken breast, some pork and beef). and for carbs mostly rice. I also have a low calorie whey protein drink before I go to sleep. I live in Korea by the way.

Hmm, I guess I should stick with my old style, including the sprints you mentioned in between. That seems to be the biggest difference. Before I didnt have rest days or cardio.

Thanks for your advice!

I have to echo what markko and nighthawkz said regarding programming. Get stronger, a lot stronger, at some basic lifts and eat reasonably and you should see some positive changes in your appearance. SS and 531 are both very good training systems. put in the time and get stronger. Good luck man.

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