Terry's 12 Week Bulk
Last year I did a 6 week bulk and saw great gains. Then, I got a new job, moved to a new city, re-entered grad school (and completed it finally) and took another certificate program. Oh, I got lazy too.. so nearly all of my gains from last year disappeared. But, I'm back at it finally and eager to move forward again. This is the beginning of Week 2 for me. Since I'm very much a numbers guy, I keep pretty detailed records of my results. I'll use this post to keep track of those results both for myself and anyone else that is interested. I'm following a program by Jim Stoppani - Shortcut to Size.
Week 1
I have my macro goals set at 3,500, the same as last year, though that may be too high as I'm a bit older and not as physically active as I was last year. This week, I only averaged 2,910 calories a day and I saw a 3.4lb gain from baseline, but some of that may be attributed to my creatine loading phase. I will monitor for another week or two before deciding. At any rate, my protein intake needs to increase to get to the 200g+ that I'm wanting.
Week 1 saw some gains in most areas, though these numbers will be more meaningful after a few weeks of tracking to help smooth out any differences in measuring. All measurements are unflexed and my dear wife has been faithfully doing them for a few years now so hopefully the variances are small. Of note is the lower body fat, from 10.5 to 9.6%. I certainly don't feel less fat, but I did gain 3.5lbs in the first week, likely water weight from the creatine. That would cause the BF% to drop (I use an Omron body fat analyzer to test)
In addition to losing most of the size I gained last year, I also lost most of the strength. In fact, my deadlift 1RM dropped by 80lbs! This weeks results shows a mixed bag. I saw increases on bench press, and Dumbell Row, but decreases in pretty much everything else. Since I wasn't able to get in the gym last week, I ended up doing 2 workouts both on Saturday and Sunday. For that reason, the cumulative fatigue is likely the reason for the lower lifts on on Squat, Deadlift, and triceps, all of which were on Sunday.
Plan for this week.. rest and recover from my weekend workouts. I'll hit the gym again on Wednesday and try to break my current records in all lifts this week while increasing my protein intake and overall calorie intake. Happy lifting!
Week 1
I have my macro goals set at 3,500, the same as last year, though that may be too high as I'm a bit older and not as physically active as I was last year. This week, I only averaged 2,910 calories a day and I saw a 3.4lb gain from baseline, but some of that may be attributed to my creatine loading phase. I will monitor for another week or two before deciding. At any rate, my protein intake needs to increase to get to the 200g+ that I'm wanting.
Week 1 saw some gains in most areas, though these numbers will be more meaningful after a few weeks of tracking to help smooth out any differences in measuring. All measurements are unflexed and my dear wife has been faithfully doing them for a few years now so hopefully the variances are small. Of note is the lower body fat, from 10.5 to 9.6%. I certainly don't feel less fat, but I did gain 3.5lbs in the first week, likely water weight from the creatine. That would cause the BF% to drop (I use an Omron body fat analyzer to test)
In addition to losing most of the size I gained last year, I also lost most of the strength. In fact, my deadlift 1RM dropped by 80lbs! This weeks results shows a mixed bag. I saw increases on bench press, and Dumbell Row, but decreases in pretty much everything else. Since I wasn't able to get in the gym last week, I ended up doing 2 workouts both on Saturday and Sunday. For that reason, the cumulative fatigue is likely the reason for the lower lifts on on Squat, Deadlift, and triceps, all of which were on Sunday.
Plan for this week.. rest and recover from my weekend workouts. I'll hit the gym again on Wednesday and try to break my current records in all lifts this week while increasing my protein intake and overall calorie intake. Happy lifting!
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Amazing posts!0
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Thanks everyone!0
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Week 8 Update: This past week was an utter disaster in terms of bulking. I had to travel out of town on business during the first half of the week, putting in 12 hours + days, so I had no gym time. I was also so busy that I didn't really eat enough either. When I got back to town, I had a ton of work to do on a new website that I created ( www.realbodiesrealresults.com ), so I didn't do any tracking/gym then either.
Ultimately, I lost 1.8 pounds, gained 0.15" in the waist, increased body fat by 0.9% and didn't track anything else. So, we are going to just pretend that week 8 doesn't really exist and give it another go this week
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Week 8 Update: This past week was an utter disaster in terms of bulking. I had to travel out of town on business during the first half of the week, putting in 12 hours + days, so I had no gym time. I was also so busy that I didn't really eat enough either. When I got back to town, I had a ton of work to do on a new website that I created ( www.realbodiesrealresults.com ), so I didn't do any tracking/gym then either.
Ultimately, I lost 1.8 pounds, gained 0.15" in the waist, increased body fat by 0.9% and didn't track anything else. So, we are going to just pretend that week 8 doesn't really exist and give it another go this week
It is alright man, I lost like 1.5 pounds too so kind of sucks. You will push through and make week 9 better I know it
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