Your Favorite Program?

[quote]David98 wrote:

[quote]kd13 wrote:
Best routine i have done for gaining size is the one I was doing while I fixed my poor diet with insufficient calories.

The routine itself was a push pull, although I feel the change in routine helped it was undoubtedly down to the diet. How’s your intake? Also what has your training been like so far?[/quote]

My training, in my opinion, is pretty good. Training 5 days a week hitting everything once (except for arms) but getting back twice. I think nutrition is my issue. Every meal i have, except breakfast, is either chicken and rice or chicken and pasta. so it gets old. I know when its ‘time’ to eat (3 hours) but i’m just sick of it. I’m in college, but on my own so i buy my food and prepare it. I have plenty of time too cook, money and the will to eat the same thing all of the time are the issues. Its mainly eating the same thing. Any suggestions to fixing that?[/quote]

Diet will be holding you back, I had many years of training like a body builder and not fueling myself sufficiently. For me I made sure breakfast was better, I went through a stage of having oats, ground almonds and whole milk blended up, add what you like for flavour. Pretty cheap and quick, if you have the cash add whey.

Swap to brown pasta, bread and rice, eat more whole foods.

Shoot for 100g of quality nuts, this is pretty easy and with some nuts can take you over 1000 cal. I know expense may be an issue here.

You will need to force feed yourself the first few weeks. What you think is a lot of food really is not, admit this to yourself now so you can progress!

I can right more about the routine i had great success with, believe me you will be training much less and gaining much more.

[quote]kd13 wrote:

[quote]David98 wrote:

[quote]kd13 wrote:
Best routine i have done for gaining size is the one I was doing while I fixed my poor diet with insufficient calories.

The routine itself was a push pull, although I feel the change in routine helped it was undoubtedly down to the diet. How’s your intake? Also what has your training been like so far?[/quote]

My training, in my opinion, is pretty good. Training 5 days a week hitting everything once (except for arms) but getting back twice. I think nutrition is my issue. Every meal i have, except breakfast, is either chicken and rice or chicken and pasta. so it gets old. I know when its ‘time’ to eat (3 hours) but i’m just sick of it. I’m in college, but on my own so i buy my food and prepare it. I have plenty of time too cook, money and the will to eat the same thing all of the time are the issues. Its mainly eating the same thing. Any suggestions to fixing that?[/quote]

Diet will be holding you back, I had many years of training like a body builder and not fueling myself sufficiently. For me I made sure breakfast was better, I went through a stage of having oats, ground almonds and whole milk blended up, add what you like for flavour. Pretty cheap and quick, if you have the cash add whey.

Swap to brown pasta, bread and rice, eat more whole foods.

Shoot for 100g of quality nuts, this is pretty easy and with some nuts can take you over 1000 cal. I know expense may be an issue here.

You will need to force feed yourself the first few weeks. What you think is a lot of food really is not, admit this to yourself now so you can progress!

I can right more about the routine i had great success with, believe me you will be training much less and gaining much more. [/quote]

I think it’s odd to advise him to add calories without knowing what he’s currently eating or how much weight he’s currently gaining.

[quote]dagill2 wrote:

[quote]kd13 wrote:

[quote]David98 wrote:

[quote]kd13 wrote:
Best routine i have done for gaining size is the one I was doing while I fixed my poor diet with insufficient calories.

The routine itself was a push pull, although I feel the change in routine helped it was undoubtedly down to the diet. How’s your intake? Also what has your training been like so far?[/quote]

My training, in my opinion, is pretty good. Training 5 days a week hitting everything once (except for arms) but getting back twice. I think nutrition is my issue. Every meal i have, except breakfast, is either chicken and rice or chicken and pasta. so it gets old. I know when its ‘time’ to eat (3 hours) but i’m just sick of it. I’m in college, but on my own so i buy my food and prepare it. I have plenty of time too cook, money and the will to eat the same thing all of the time are the issues. Its mainly eating the same thing. Any suggestions to fixing that?[/quote]

Diet will be holding you back, I had many years of training like a body builder and not fueling myself sufficiently. For me I made sure breakfast was better, I went through a stage of having oats, ground almonds and whole milk blended up, add what you like for flavour. Pretty cheap and quick, if you have the cash add whey.

Swap to brown pasta, bread and rice, eat more whole foods.

Shoot for 100g of quality nuts, this is pretty easy and with some nuts can take you over 1000 cal. I know expense may be an issue here.

You will need to force feed yourself the first few weeks. What you think is a lot of food really is not, admit this to yourself now so you can progress!

I can right more about the routine i had great success with, believe me you will be training much less and gaining much more. [/quote]

I think it’s odd to advise him to add calories without knowing what he’s currently eating or how much weight he’s currently gaining.[/quote]

It’s an assumption, if some one is looking for a new routine to gain size, it’s an assumption that what they are currently doing is not working or why would they change? His next post mentioned that diet is the issue. If some one is trying to gain weight and it’s not working, it’s food. If he is seeing great success, why hunt for a new mass gain routine

If he did gvt and only just hit maintenance would he gain?

If he did 5x5 and only just hit maintenance would he gain?Â

5/3/1 - I have been using a modified version of 531 for a couple years now. Modification has been to turn upper body days into push/pull, so that bench is always supersetted with some form of horizontal row, and military press is supersetted with weighted pullups. For rows I just choose a weight and stay at the same rep count for each set. Pullups are done using 531 protocol. Twice weekly back training (in two different planes) has done wonders for my shoulder health, as well as (obviously) my lats. Squats just kept climbing, until I stalled out around 500 (got 500, but could not go above). Also, deads and squats in the same week were killing my lower back. Even tried an alternating arrangement, where each week only had one lower body day alternating deads one week and squats the next.

Juggernaut - Tried this one a couple years ago, and it crushed me. I tried to come straight off 531 and use the same training maxes, which was way too much. Had to adjust downward due to the increased volume and rep ranges (8s and 10s). Still used the push/pull arrangement. I just completed the full cycle again, though, and had much better results. It helped that I was on cycle, but I had also dropped squats (hips were just getting tighter and tighter and lower back wouldn’t shut up) and replaced them with front squats (which I had already been doing as assistance on squat day anyway (if you can call it assistance - I was using 531 loading and was moving some weight). I was also slightly detrained, due to life issues (nothing serious, just heavy schedule with a timeline attached so I had to drop the gym for a few weeks a couple different times). I actually enjoyed the volume this time, and I plan to continue running this for a while. Having just finished this one, I am going to do one round of 531 and then come back to it. I think that may be my new and future plan, do a full cycle of Juggernaut (about three months depending on whether you do the deload weeks or not - I didn’t) followed by a round of 531, a deload (maybe) and then back into Juggernaut.

EDIT: To clarify, my lower body days are front squat and deadlift. I will probably throw squats back in at some point, I just don’t plan on doing them all the time like I used to. In the time I’ve been doing this, I’ve seen better leg development than when I was squatting 2X BW. While I loved hoisting some serious weight (for me) on my back, I don’t compete so at my age it becomes more of a benefit analysis.

If you are looking for size and strength, I really have to recommend Juggernaut. There are no 1RM tests, everything is higher rep ranges. Lowest rep range it goes is 3, at (IIRC) 85% of training max. So you are still moving some challenging weights, just not maxing out. What I wouldn’t give to have had this (and 531) years ago, when I was first starting out, rather than following M&F bullshit for years.

Count me in as another guy who loves smolovs. I typically do 5/3/1 most of the year because its a cycle that’s easy to repeat. Smolovs however is by far my favorite routine, by the time you reach the end of it you feel like a runaway freight train. Powerful, explosive, massive legs. You lose some of the gains but I’d still recommend it to anyone. The additional mental toughness you gain from it might be even greater than the actual size and strength gains.

I came in here to say 20 Rep Squats and wasn’t surprised at all to see I wasn’t the first. I would also recommend adding a half gallon of milk a day unless your calories are already pretty high.

[quote]Aopocetx wrote:
I came in here to say 20 Rep Squats and wasn’t surprised at all to see I wasn’t the first. I would also recommend adding a half gallon of milk a day unless your calories are already pretty high.[/quote]

…Or unless you have lactose intolerance. Very uncomfortable.

[quote]T3hPwnisher wrote:

[quote]erik_carlson wrote:

[quote]T3hPwnisher wrote:
Oh god, how could I forget 20 rep squats?

20 rep squats is a program that everyone should run, regardless of goals. Do the full 6 weeks and you’ll emerge “changed”. Yes, it can add some mass to your body (I put on 12lbs in the 6 weeks in college eating at the cafeteria, but it was a very sloppy 12lbs haha), but it’s really more about just learning some mental and physical fortitude. Right around rep 14 is when things start to change.

There is nothing more satisfying AND crushing than getting the 20th rep. You celebrate your victory for like a nanosecond before you realize that, in 2 days, you’re going to have to do the whole thing over again with 5 more pounds on the bar.

However, that’s far better than failing at rep 19. You will spend the next 2 days thinking about nothing except how weak you are for missing the final rep and how you TOTALLY would’ve had it if you just rested for another second. You become obsessive, haha.[/quote]

Your post just convinced me to give the 20 rep squat routine a shot sometime down the road. I’m not sure if I should thank you or curse you, haha.
[/quote]

If you want to be a real Kool-Aid drinker, buy and read the book “Super Squats”. I got it for Christmas one year just because I was curious what all the fuss was about. Read the entire book in one sitting, and by the time I was done I had changed my entire training such that I was going to start the programming 2 days later. Great read, explains everything.
[/quote]
Have you done Dan John’s 50 reps with 225?

I did it at weighing 205 and I was crippled walking for a week.

Never did. I did a 40 rep set of 225 once after a bad day of work and wanting to blow off some steam, but never followed Dan John’s program.