heh, Kaze.
I wanted to ask you about your diet, now I don’t need too. That was the only thing I was doing wrong.
Otherwise, mostly been there, done that.
Although I still cannot squat without railings that keep the pole stable.
Need to return to my local gym, but my current job at the construction site keeps me back.
P.S. LOL, I remember my first day at gym, we were doing leg press. Next day, I tried to catch a bus, started running and… I guess you know what happened.
@Kaze: Nice thread.
Gonna do some reading up, I’d put myself partly in the Imonfire/Navman club.
I did some Taekwondo a few years ago so I’m not a toothpick (protip: TKD is great for getting awesome balance).
I’ve been reasonably good at staying active despite not being able to get to an actual gym (Single father who works long hours. Little extra time. Can’t spend money to pay babysitters even more of my money,combined with a gym membership fee too). I’ve tried to slowly develop a bit of a home gym with a barbell, a pair of dumb ells, and a basic bench. It’s far from ideal, but it’s about all I can fit in the extra room, and money is tight right now so new better equipment is out.
My problem has always been getting bigger. It’s hard for me to do. I admit I don’t know a lot of the formal information about the subject, but it’s something I really have meant to look more into. I’ve read the posts above and taken some info out of that already. So thanks for that Kaze.
I’ve got a couple questions, which are pretty general. I have trouble eating the volume of food I’m told is required to get bigger, I just can’t seem to stomach eating that much. This is probably my biggest problem is I’m betting (obviously, don’t eat, don’t get bigger). I’ve been trying lately to swap out the red meats I was eating with tuna because I seem to be able to eat more of it. I’m not a big fan of chicken, but I’ve been eating turkey as much as I can stomach.
I do still eat a good amount of red meat, but I was wondering if this sort of substitution is okay? Is there anything I should know about diet when eating the volume of food required is a problem? Someone also told me my problems with insomnia are a problem, though they’ve never explained why. In one of the videos you posted he mentioned not getting enough sleep is a problem. Are you able to clarify that? It’s not something I can change, but I wouldn’t mind understanding how that is going to be a problem.
Through some dedication I’ve managed to gain a little bit ( I’ve cut down the beer intake quite a lot ), and I’ve actually noticed a bit of what may be a little bit of fat. It’s not much but if I can keep going is this a good thing? Can I use this fat? It’s a ways off before it’s going to be an amount noticeable to anyone but me, but is this fat a good sign?
I think I can help there, my metablosism is like instant and is one of the reasons I contibute to me still being thin after years of eating crap.
Try eating foods with a super low GI, pasta, almonds stuff like that, but mix it up with fatty stuff, cheese is your friend here, recently I got rather under weight (living out of home and not caring about diet), I spent a week eating spag bol and loads of cheese added and I put on 5 kilo’s in a week.
I eat lotsa almonds, and pasta and potatoes. Tons of cheese. I think the problem is the amount of these food I can manage to eat. I can’t really eat large meals. It’s really hard on my stomach for some reason. I’ve tried to work around this by basically eating all the time. I never eat all that much, but I’m always eating. Hell right now I’m eating a bagel club sandwich. Once I’m done with that I’ve got a small container of rice with pork stir fry(leftovers), then I’ll probably have another sandwich this afternoon. Tonight I’m eating spaghetti with ground beef in tomato sauce. Then I will probably have a small snack meal before bed. Probably a tuna pasta salad.
The servings are small though, which I’m trying to increase.
Yeah, I wouldn’t recommend doubling your intake instantly, work your way up, I’m fortunate enough to be able to buy a full bowl of italian pasta and down it in one sitting, but the trick is working it up, slowly though the week bulk up each meal a bit more, a trick I used to use was added more ingredients each time, one day add carrots to the meal, then the next add beans as well, then the next add corn and work from there.
Just don’t go too nuts.
Another protip: spag bol with peas, corn and carrots is like god food.
I’m about 5.9" - 6ft
Weight: 10 Stone
I just run. I love long distance running and have done for years. I’m thin as a rake because i don’t build. I’m not really intrested in body building, but i do like to keep fit. I ruin my body by smoking a drinking, so in my mental head, i like to think that keeping fit balences it out 
It dosn’t, but i still like to think it. I just find weight lifting and such really boring for me, others enjoy it, but its not for me. I prefer to swim, run cylce ( but only on machines). Hell, with my lifestyle if i didn’t so something i’d be dead in 10 years hahaha.
Stupid body, can’t it do that while I lay on my couch reading instead of sleeping?
@coll: I would double my intake, but literally can’t eat more than I have been. It just doesn’t fit.
I’m pretty sure that while resting like that your body does repair itself, its just not as productive as it could be when your asleep. Like when i’ve run huge distances, my legs can ache so much, i’ll lie down and they still ache like hell, i can they have a few hours sleep during the day and they feel so much better when i wake up.
So i suppose it depends on the extenet of the damage.
It’s the brain state you enter while sleeping that helps your body heal, while your awake your brain is still in a normal function.
Also, I said don’t double the intake, just slowly increase the size of each meal each day/week/fortnight, what ever suits, like kaze said, everyone is different.
I feel very much intimidated by this thread and its overflowing Testosterone but it seems the best place for advice nonetheless. Really good topic
Few years back I got into a chain of incidents which left my left wrist pretty much totalled - since then its had little strength, which is obviously taking its toll on my upper body strength as a whole.
Bearing in mind that I’m lacking balls, could you recommend any light activities that would improve its condition before I can move on to more intense things? I’m not interested in bulking up so to speak, but hm.
Wanking could increase your wrist strength. Try that.
While playing hockey I strengthened my wrists by filling a pint can with hockey pucks, tying skate laces to the bucket and a through a hole drilled in a small stick. I would slowly wind up the bucket onto the stick while holding it straight out in front of me.
That and I did 500 wrists shots off a plank of wood into another plank of wood.
My wrists were strong in no time.
Swimming would probably help with that, it’s generally good for building up strength (and, more importantly, stamina) without overly exerting yourself. If you want to concentrate on the left wrist, you could adapt your stroke so that you do most of the work with the left arm (although I admit this may look silly).
Failing that, I daresay I can think of something fun you could do with your left hand/wrist. Well, fun for me, anyway 
Edit: bah, ninjaed on the second suggestion 
Legs and lower body in general is a paramount part of any training regime, you need to do them. Far too many guys go to the gym and do bench press and curls for two hours and wonder why they aren’t seeing anything productive happen.
It’s hard to suggest anything without you first giving me goals you wish to reach.
If you truly believe you have a decent bit of muscle on your frame, but you’re a bit fat, a cut could be in order. Cutting is simple, but requires a close monitoring of calories day by day. Use the BMR calculator I used in the first post. As a rule of thumb, you need to eat 500 less calories than whatever that number comes out to be to lose weight. Now, take into consideration all of the points I mentioned to Imonfire about your activity and how it affects your daily calorie needs, they apply to cutting also. If you don’t replenish your body with an adequate amount of calories, you will suffer and not have a proper recovery.
Generally, foods you can eat on a cut aren’t terribly strict, but avoid the obvious things. Anything full of carbs and fat (such as pastries or snack cakes) are things you certainly want to reserve as a cheat meal. Your macronutrient ratios should be around 20-30-50 (20% fat, 30% carbs, 50% protein). Always ensure you are getting your bodyweight in protein every day. Your carbs should be healthy, complex carbs such as whole wheat bread, baked potatoes, oatmeal, vegetables, etc. Any carbs that are made primarily of sugar are simple carbs, and they break down into fat and do your body much less use.
To encourage the fat loss, you are obviously going to need to start lifting (preferably on the 5x5 program I’ve posted a couple times before, it is excellent for anyone), and doing cardio on your off-days. Preferably HIIT (high-intensity interval training) cardio. You can read about HIIT here:
https://www.davedraper.com/hiit-cardio-training.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-intensity_interval_training
If you have any more questions, let me know. I just woke up so some of this might not be written out too well.
Without railings? You mean you squat in the smith machine?
Do not do that.
If you cannot do a proper free-weight squat, your form is shit and you need to work on it. The smith machine is a waste of time for anyone looking to get serious about adding muscle and strength to their body. As I said, squats are a man’s lift, and if you aren’t willing to do them, well, you know where that puts you.
Concerning your problem about eating ‘too much’ food, try aiming for foods that are not very filling, but very high in calories. Peanut butter (natural peanut butter, mind you, regular processed shit is the devil with hydrogenated oils) is a classic example of this. 2 tablespoons of natty peanut butter is usually anywhere from 190-210 calories, and you can eat a couple of jars of that shit before you’re full (granted, you shouldn’t and don’t need to). Don’t be afraid to eat a bit of junk food to meet your calories as long as you can fit it into your macros. Junk food almost always has high calories and is not very filling. You don’t have to eat clean when you bulk, but I and many others prefer to. You can do just as fine by not restricting yourself, although you may be at risk for getting fatter, sooner. Also, try to avoid eating too many breads and wheat products. The complex carbs are good, but they will bloat you like no other.
Concerning sleep, you need sleep. If you cannot get at the very minimum 8 hours of sleep every night, you should look into a prescription for a sleep aid if you absolutely cannot do it. Sleep is your body’s way of recovering from the beating you put it through in the gym and on the treadmill/track. Nearly all of your physical growing and replenishment takes place during sleep, and 8 hours is the magical number. More than 8 is even better if you can manage it. But, to be short and sweet, you need 8 hours of sleep or your gains are going to suffer. Noticeably.
And yes, you will gain fat while bulking, it happens to everyone (except the faggy exctomorphs who got lucky in the gene pool). You do not need to be worrying about your beach body physique when bulking, but rather how massive you are getting. You worry about how lean you are once you’ve gotten some mass packed on your body. You can cut after you bulk, don’t worry about the fat. If it really bothers you for some reason, start doing some HIIT cardio on your off days. You are going to have to eat more to keep up with the calories you burn, but it helps keep fat gains to a minimum.
If it’s actually still in an injury phase, using ice packs and heating pads to both reduce any swelling and increase bloodflow to the muscle will help alleviate pain and promote recovery.
If you’re just now starting to recover from injuries, give it light work to handle. Do wrist curls to both increase forearm strength and to promote wrist flexion. Pushups and chin ups/pull ups will both promote healthy strain on your wrist to help get it back into proper working order. There aren’t really too many conventional methods designed around “wrist strength”, so just utilize it as much as possible in every day activities and see where that takes you.
Mentioned this earlier: I’m completely lacking in balls, as in I have no balls, balls are not present here and neither is any of that other stuff. Saying that, seems like you and Lamsey ninja’ed me on the smart-arse comment front (swines) :3
Swimming does seem nifty idea though - I’ll have to look into it. Cheers!
And thank you Kaze as well :]
I’ve seen you say that before, and I really can’t believe it means what it looks like it means. I weigh around 84 Kg, which is 185 lbs. It looks like you’re suggesting I eat 185 lbs of protein every day, which equates to eating well over a thousand eggs a day, for example. :what:
Could you clarify this phrase?
Founded in 2004, Leakfree.org became one of the first online communities dedicated to Valve’s Source engine development. It is more famously known for the formation of Black Mesa: Source under the 'Leakfree Modification Team' handle in September 2004.