There's 87.5g of sugar in 1L orange juice, ~20-30 something in powerade, the dark chocolate, and all my fruit for the day probably puts me at a similar amount.

At some point a bber like me has to eat relatively clean not in order to not get fat, but because if it was pure junk in those amounts my digestion would be really bad. Somebody like me, if digestion didn't go to crap, could eat very dirtily and gain muscle without too much fat gain evne not dosing bigly. But androgens change the digestive system by varying degrees for different people and i just can't do that without major heartburn and taking a ton of PPIs.

WRT lemonade vs rice the answer is you're both it it depends on the person and everything else in their diet. Evidence for your viewpoint would be milos sarcev having people drink about 150-200g of carbs periworkout from highly branched cyclic dextrins. If you used lemonade instead it'd be basically the same idea but harder to digest. The advantage of the rice would be that it's less harsh on the digestive system + digests slightly slower with higher food volume which might be advantageous for more consistent energy. Maybe something something inflammation sugar blah blah blah too but wgaf. White rice is definitely just a "I need to get calories in and have them digest fast+easy and dgaf about micronutrients" food, so yeah lemonade could do the same thing as long as it isn't going to mess with somebody's gut.

The answer is "it probably doesn't matter as much as you think". Hypertrophy is a big target and it's really hard to miss with training.

My personal recommendation would be 4x/wk or 2 on 1 off. Nick Walker has grown muscles faster than probably any human being in history and has done it training largely 4 days a week. It's way more common to do too much training in bbing than too little. I think this goes for both natty and enhanced. John Meadows at his peak muscularity was also a 4x/wk dude, same with Dorian. Jordan Peters also 4.x/wk for the better part of his career. I think 5x/wk can be okay as long as you're more conscious about per session volume. A lot of 5 day spllits have a shoulder day which is just a bitch-ass day with almost no CNS fatigue or they have basically taken a typical 90-120 minute leg day and split it into 2 parts. These types of 5 day splits are basically the same as 4 day splits.

Damn, you truly are getting mogged over there, aren't you?

INdian guys all trenned out because they gotta MOG the Chinese to avert WWIII. Human life is just mog or be mogged, and a 500lb squat and 38 inch waist ain't mogging shiet.

4x full body or? 1 lower day a week seems suboptimal.

I agree, that's why I ultimately decided to keep training DL and put it on back day. It's still very much a lower body dominant movement. I'll probably hamstring curl on back day as well. Dorian did basically some sort of lower body dominant RDL on his back day for probably this reason. Quads 2x/wk is un-necessary for me but I realize I hams+glute are pretty far behind. 3-4x full body or Upper/Lower/Upper/Lower would also be great. Honestly don't overthink it, whatever you do will probably be fine. You've been programming for yourself for strength for years and you will find that programming for hypertrophy has a much larger margin for error.

KC

Your boy nippard has some nice programs. Pick the one you like and get swole.

But what the fack is going on bro? The wife likes rob riches, not Fred Flintstone? How can you be inspired to do aesthetics after going to India?

I think push/pull/legs is the most fun, but it is insulting to lowerbody. As a lower body specialist, I don't think you have many options besides upper/lower 4x a week. Or full body 3x a week, I think nippard might have full-body 4x and 5x a week.

You can probably find the nippard programs free but I would just pay the 40 bucks. Kid has done plenty to deserve 40 bucks. Him and Candito are my boys. Throw in athleanX and the natty life is complete.

Leg press: 2ppsx20x4 60-90 second rests
STatic lunge: 10kg dbsx10x4 right 10x2 left
Hamstring curls: 30kgx15, 9, 7, 6 failure
Paused SLDL: 60kgx10x3
Glute kickback machine 3 sets of 10

New leg day feels good. I've really tried my best to make squats work and it's certainly not because of a lack of mobility or technical skill. I'd say even not because of a lack of load management as that "3rm" with 180kg I posted earlier was like a 5-6rm. I just can't progress on the exercise without something breaking whether it's my right quad tendon or my left hip flexor. I suspect the ultimate culprit is just a big strength imbalance where my right side is so much weaker than the left.

I can't say I'll never come back to squatting regularly; in fact I'm quite sure I inevitably will. But in the meantime gonna focus on fixing that big strength+mobility imbalance, keep doing my mobs pre leg trainig, and try again with much stronger legs and a much stronger deadlift some time in mid 2023.

I decided I will actually go ahead and DL every week given the absence of heavy squats. My previous opposition to this was wanting to progress my pullups, but I think with how engaged my biceps get on them it's not unreasonable to put pulllups on arm day instead. Additionally, taking out the OHP and adding a cg spoto press because I had good results from this exercise and it's a way to add some "cheap" back and chest frequency to my program without overtraining since there are 2 days off after the arm day before back day and I reckon 5 sets of pullups to failure followed by 2 days of rest won't interfere with DL at all.

I'm really excited to be back to training regularly with no fear of gym closures or interruptions. I'm not excited to be back to eating like a bodybuilder. This is definitely a chore. I'm remembering back to my mega-bulk on starting strength where I went from 165 to 195 in the span of about 6 months and just the ungodly amount of food I was eating. I definitely don't need to push as hard as 30lbs of bw in 6 months, but maybe 10-12lbs of bw by April/may followed by a 4-8 week "bulk break" where I minicut and up the cardio sounds like a reasonable goal. That'd put me at around 105kg before I start a summer minicut.

I remember 2010 going to my school's cafeteria and ordering like 2x double cheeseburgers on toast + some french fries, eating that, and then crushing a bunch of softserve ice cream and slices of pie and sitting in there for like 70 minutes trying to get it all down after my starting strength training. Then i'd go home and drink the 2nd half of a gallon of milk for the day loool. And because I started so lean/underweight and was still a noob to training, I wasn't that fat at the end. I need to bring back just a fraction of that grit with regard to eating enough food if I want to progress as a bodybuild.

Checked out some nippard stuff. His 5 day full body powerbuilding seems reasonable (5th day is just pump work).

What strikes me is its all relatively low volume on the big exercises, though he hits the upper body pretty hard with lots of BBer movements for big volume. But the volume I was putting in on barbell medicine stuff dwarfs this sorta thing.

We'll see. I think I'll try my hand at setting up my own powerbuilding sorta thing.

Any program that isn't like "herp derp 4 sets of 3 squat then sets of 8 leg press" is fine. Volume=hypertrophy. I personally think you should scrap all the familiar barbell competition exercises save maybe one and do more conventional bodybuilding variations, way more machines+bw exercises, and exclusively for sets of 10+. MAybe keep in squats or movements you really agree with. And cardiotard your ass off. Cardio is just super underrated overall but especially underrated for body composition. Loco will agree i'm sure. Bodybuilders should cardiotardd even when it weight gaining phases; ideally I'd be doing 5x30minutes AM fasted 150HR but I can't really do that with my schedule.


Arms
Pullups: bwx8,9,8,6 lats still very sore from monday
Straight pushdowns: 4 sets failure

Hammer curls: 15kgx12,12,11, 8
CG flat spoto: 60kgx12x4 might try incline instead, kinda bugged my shoulder. or smith machine is fine too.

Dual rope psudhwons: 4 sets of 8-15
ez curls: 20kgx12,12,12,8

DB seated hammer curls: 7.5kgx12x4
DB skullcrushers: 7.5kgx12x4

All supersets except the pullups.

Finished one whole training week without missing meals or pins or having my gym being suddenly closed or having to adjust for xyz. Now hopefully we can do that for very many weeks straight. Might as well do chins instead of pullups; I tested a while ago and was amazed to see my overhand pullups are still stronger than my chinups just from doing so many thousands of more reps on pujllups than chins. Chins definitely I do feel broceps a lot more.

That's why I love the home gym. Can't get mogged.

Arguably, getting mogged is probably beneficial to some extent. Maybe I'd be less fat and weak if I experienced more of that.

Most certainly getting mogged is beneficial. That's why I love having the pling crew here; they all mog the **** out of me. Natty 90kg plers pulling just under my DL pr. We had a Mongolian friend fly in from Shanghai and pull 310kg in comp sumo with hook grip weighing 75kg. I mean sumo is fake but he still conventional dls 250kg which is more than me and he's facking 75kg. They look like a bag of dog dicks but still drives me to do the hard stuff I probably *could* get away with not doing but I should sitll do it.

It also puts things into perspective on bf%. I've historically had a hard time bulking psychologically and wanting to stay lean. Even at my absolute fattest I'm nowhere near most of them in bf% and nobody would consider most of them "fat", so I have a ton of room to grow without getting into bf% too high territory. even if I stopped lifting and started eating 100g protein the rest fats and carbs for a year, my bf % would still be in a range where I could get into contest shape within 6 months.


I hate hate hate mogging everyone in my regular gym all the time and the guy who got 2nd in classic physique nationals opened his own gym and doesn't train there anymore.

Deadlifts: 160kgx5x5
Overhand rows: 70kgx21, 15 undershot weight here, go up
Pullups: 5,5,4
Unilateral pulldowns: 10x4
Machine rows: 10x4

Curls: 20kgx24, 4 more sets failure


Very hard workout. It's gonna take some time to get adapted to this training style. This is what I was doing for most of my back workouts a year ago and I stopped because I was being a fgt. Even when your 1rm is considerably harder, something about high volume deads just wrecks you. But in a good way. Had a crazy lat pump just from deads. Did sum hamstring curls in between pullups sets.

China is really going from zero COVID to YOLO pretty fast. No more quarantines for international arrivals? Gotta hand it to them. Looks like they're fully committed. What's left?

still need 48 hr pcr test before coming back in. But yeah that U-turn was unexpected and appreciated. Pretty lol country when it comes to gov't and law. But then again so is America. Basically everywhere that isn't a sub 10 million people mono-ethnic and monocultural insular snowy place is pretty lol government no hitler.

INcline db: 30kgx22 +7 reps lol, 25kgx10x3
flat db: 25kgx10x2, 20kgx10x2
machine incline flies: 4 sets of 10-15
Machine press: 7 sets of 12 35 second rests
rear+side delt combo raises: 5 sets
Pushdowns: stackx15, 4 more sets to failure

'bout to go to 30 minutes stairs cardio. BW 101.3kg morning. Highest (and fattest) I've been in a while but like I've alluded to before, I think overeating in bodybuilding is incredibly rare and usually it's more eating bullshit food that won't store as muscle easily that's the problem. I'm planning to get to around 110-112ish and hold on/recomp around there until I start contest prep January 2024 a little over a year from now. So basically 11kg of weight gain in maybe 9 months or so then hold onto it for maybe 3 months.

I wasn't sore from yesterday's back workout at all. Just bad conditioning from having done all that low volume training and then my cardio getting erased by covid. I'm gettin in back tho. Realizing that good bodybuilders take cardio seriously in the offseason not necessarily for body comp but to be actually able to train hard enough without lungs being limiting. And for health but wgaf about health besides scared middle aged men not to pick on one such poster too much. WE'RE HERE TO GET JACKED NOT WORRY ABOUT DYING AT 79 instead of 83.

About 40 minutes of cardio outdoors bicycling lower HR maybe 115-120. Wasn't feeling stairs today with legs tomorrow.

It's getting hard already and I'm litearlly only in week 2 of my bulk f'kn lol. I'm thinking a full on 16 week reset is probably going to happen in the spring, but it'll be a much smaller deficit fueled mostly by cardio. Basically still eat clean bodybuilding meals but eat when hungry until you feel full and work up to about 60 minutes of stairs 5 days per week taking sum clen+yohimbine+caffeine. No trenbolone/winstrol/t3/t4 or contest drugs though and again, "eating until full" rather than walking around being hungry all day. Prob 2 higher calorie/higher carb days with a reasonable sub 1000 calorie cheat meal every week. More like a recomp/slo-cut and not like a full on contest diet. We'll start that around the middle of march.

"disappointing" workout mostly because it was too easy and I probably coulda pushed harder but went too conservative

Leg press: 2ppsx20, 2.5ppsx20x3
Static lunge: 10kg dbsx11x4 right 10x2 left
hamstring curls: 4 sets faillure first set 22 reps up from 15 last week
Paused SLDL: 60kgx10, 70kgx10x2
Hip thrust machine: 3 sets

Wanted to do glute kickbacks but there was some old woman camped out ont he machine for a good 40 minutes doing RPE 0 work and i didn't want to disturb her b/c she's probably too embarassed and awkward and doesn't feel confident she'll know how to use other machines.

My work approved a 2nd economics teacher so I won't have to have class sizes over 30 next year assuming we can actually have them show up. That will also promote me to head of business+economics which is a small raise in addition to the raise I get from finishing my education master's degree. So yeah running pretty hot these days tbh ngl your boy is gonna do less work for more money next year gyms not closing no lockdowns life is good how ya doin

Arms with light back and chest

Chinups: bwx13,8,7,6,5
Pushdowns: 25kgx18, 4 more sets to failure
HAmmer curls: 15kg: 12,10,8,8,
incline pause cgbp: 50kgx12x4
Single arm pushdown: 4 sets failure
EZ curls: 20kgx10x3, x15

Wanted to do this yesterday but I had a work dinner to go to and gym was closed by the time I was done. This is probably going to disrupt my back and chest training. I'm not sure how to handle my lifting schedule this coming week because we've got final exams and work the weekends as well and then I fly out a week from monday. I will at least get my deadlift+leg press training in guaranteed; this are the two most important rn.

BW down to 100.5 in the morning from less bloat and eating a bit less the past few days because my appetite just couldn't handle that much food.

Back+Biceps

Amazed the arm workout didn't interfere but recovery is good right now even despite drinking more than one drink for the first time in about 12 months on NYE. I think that might be the last imbibement of more than 1 drink tbh ngl.

Deadlift: 165kgx5x5 much easier than last time, last set rpe 6 maybe
Barbell rows: 75kgx22, 19 (last set cheated a lot of reps, first set all strict)
Pullups: bwx4,5,5
Single arm pulldonws: 1.5ppsx10x4
MAchine rows: 4 sets
EZ curls: 20kgx26, 4 more sets failure

I read something somewhere maybe it was instagram idk. Basically the message was "Don't try to lift the most every single week, rather lift such that you can get a meaningful stimulus while beating reps or weight each weight for as long as possible". I wish I'd heard that from day. Continuing from the LC thread, even just a few years ago I woulda been like "wellp, 165 too easy time to get up to 185x5x5" which gun to my head I'm sure I coulda done but then I'd have added 2.5kg each week and gotten stuck after 2 weeks of progression and my workouts would be two hours long. Let's see what happens if I try the strategy of keeping weekly increases going for as long as possible but ideally not really reaching an RPE 8 kind of bar speed until I'm at least 6-7 weeks in. Also learning from the past I'm gonna do 3 heavy 1 light for DLs. I'm gonna do the opposite of what a lot of the pl bros suggest and lower weight but keep volume highish. So maybe my deload week instead of doing 160x5, do something like 125-130x5x5.


Also I'll do at least one AMRAP for 5-10 reps at some point while I'm in Thailand.

oh I did 3 sets of hamstring curls between pullups

dead srs. Easier to govern a few million 3 digit IQ white people who have similar goals/values, languages, and desires. As I ranted about earlier, the generational and regional gaps in culture, lifestyle, values, language, and beliefs in China is just enormous compared to the US. People fail to appreciate this bc they all look the same (no hitler no racist). These people are basically ****ed whatever form of government they use because of this.

Hard to disagree. Remember reading a book (or long-form article, can't remember) 15-20 years ago that argued countries should never be as big (in area + population) as the US, China etc because it makes them unpossible to manage. Good luck putting that tooth paste back in the tube though.

Not sure I buy that, there are plenty of terribly run tiny countries. And tiny countries lend themselves to be dominated by a shithead. NK probably is the best example.

As mentioned above, what about NK. Checks all the boxes, except for population. Somehow, I doubt if we subtracted 15 million people out of NK, the government suddenly turns into soulbro-land.

Good point. I guess we could say that when a governance structure gets that ******ed then no amount of demographic favorability can save them either.