A few teaser pics of what foundation creates

Last measured stats (inches) and target/ ideals (tabulated and calculated using various online indexes/ calculators): 

BodyPart  Current  TARGET

Neck   16.5   16.985

Shoulder   46   48.5-51.7

Chest   43   42.3-47.3

Arms   13   15.2-16.4

Forearm   10.75   12.3

Wrist   6.5    

Pelvis   32   32

Waist   36.5   29.6-27.5

Hips   38   35.9-35.3

Thigh   22/21.5  24.5

Knee   14    

Calf   13   14.4-16.3 Ankle   8.5    

I'd like to accelerate the growth in this direction and specifically certain ones faster. Other than that, I'd just like to use Body weight training and continue improving skill and maintain/ improve body. 

I don't think you're eating enough man. It was pretty easy for me to put on 20 lbs of muscle just by eating more and eating clean

More food.  Take a couple weeks to actually write down everything you eat, and get at least 4000 calories a day.  If you're not putting on weight, bump it up to 6000......

crashnburn said:

Last measured stats (inches) and target/ ideals (tabulated and calculated using various online indexes/ calculators): 

 

BodyPart  Current  TARGET

Neck   16.5   16.985

Shoulder   46   48.5-51.7

Chest   43   42.3-47.3

Arms   13   15.2-16.4

Forearm   10.75   12.3

Wrist   6.5    

Pelvis   32   32

Waist   36.5   29.6-27.5

Hips   38   35.9-35.3

Thigh   22/21.5  24.5

Knee   14    

Calf   13   14.4-16.3 Ankle   8.5    

 

I'd like to accelerate the growth in this direction and specifically certain ones faster. Other than that, I'd just like to use Body weight training and continue improving skill and maintain/ improve body. 

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with anyone's advice here, especially since those who've offered it seem to have been successful themselves, but with a waist measurement of 36.5 inches, would you still recommended that he up the amount of calories that he's eating?

-MR said:

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with anyone's advice here, especially since those who've offered it seem to have been successful themselves, but with a waist measurement of 36.5 inches, would you still recommended that he up the amount of calories that he's eating?

Hey, if you want to gain muscle, you gotta eat more.  Or, if you just want to look good, get stronger and keep the body fat % down, everything else will take care of itself.

4000-6000 calories seems a bit crazy.... Joshua natter man from what I have read didn't eat that much and he is huge. Even me at about 85 kilos ( admittedly not super lean but not overweight) only needed as much as 3000 calories to gain mass pretty well.

ausswe said:

4000-6000 calories seems a bit crazy.... Joshua natter man from what I have read didn't eat that much and he is huge. Even me at about 85 kilos ( admittedly not super lean but not overweight) only needed as much as 3000 calories to gain mass pretty well.

Yes that is quite alot but remember it's not just dependant on how much you weigh. A really active lifestyle or demanding job takes up a lot of calories.

Aadil Siddiqi said:

I don't think you're eating enough man. It was pretty easy for me to put on 20 lbs of muscle just by eating more and eating clean

Bipocni said:

More food.  Take a couple weeks to actually write down everything you eat, and get at least 4000 calories a day.  If you're not putting on weight, bump it up to 6000......

-MR said:

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with anyone's advice here, especially since those who've offered it seem to have been successful themselves, but with a waist measurement of 36.5 inches, would you still recommended that he up the amount of calories that he's eating?

Sorry I should've posted more specifics on that. In the above post I was more focused on how I grow back up to fit a bunch of my Suits, Shirts etc. Esp arms, shoulders, chest.  

I've got a decently strong core due to a lot of yoga - boats and supermans over last few years. I actually wear pants from 32/33/34. I can even very tightly breathe in and squeeze into a 30/32. I am pretty lanky over all, and at first look you might call me thin. 

But there's this little tyre belly in front of the waist and bit in the back.  dont think its 36.5 - That is the expanded belly when I fill up and let the belly go. 

BTW - How should one measure that - breath in/ out/ relaxed - spine erect/ relaxed? 

I'll post some pics and BodyFat measurements to give more clarity. 

Aadil Siddiqi said:

I don't think you're eating enough man. It was pretty easy for me to put on 20 lbs of muscle just by eating more and eating clean

Do share some of the details/ specs on this? 20 lbs muscle in how much time? What amount of work/ effort and over what time. Age? 

Bipocni said:

More food.  Take a couple weeks to actually write down everything you eat, and get at least 4000 calories a day.  If you're not putting on weight, bump it up to 6000......

Hmm.. I will do that and log it for feedback. 

-MR said:

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with anyone's advice here, especially since those who've offered it seem to have been successful themselves, but with a waist measurement of 36.5 inches, would you still recommended that he up the amount of calories that he's eating?

Sorry I should've posted more specifics on that. In the above post I was more focused on how I grow back up to fit a bunch of my Suits, Shirts etc. Esp arms, shoulders, chest.  

I've got a decently strong core due to a lot of yoga - boats and supermans over last few years. I actually wear pants from 32/33/34. I can even very tightly breathe in and squeeze into a 30/32. I am pretty lanky over all, and at first look you might call me thin. 

But there's this little tyre belly in front of the waist and bit in the back.  dont think its 36.5 - That is the expanded belly when I fill up and let the belly go. 

BTW - How should one measure that - breath in/ out/ relaxed - spine erect/ relaxed? 

I'll post some pics and BodyFat measurements to give more clarity. 

The first things you can do is take some reference to see if your measures can be realistic. How much your growth depending of some physiological factor. First of all insertion on the bones of the muscles and bones length. For example if you have to longer clavicula probably you can't develop a massive chest. Another example is where you bicep is on your humerus. Squezee your bicep  and hold the elbow at 90° of flexion. if the distance between bicep ball and the skin of forearm is more then 3,5-5 cm you have low potential of growth, if is 2-3.5 cm you have  medium potential, under 2 cm you have high potential. Same things can be done for lats, triceps etc.

i think that if you want to growth you have to specialize and isolate muscles as i said in another post. Everyone can build up at the beginning some muscles is he works specifically in hypertrophy regimen with multiarticulars exercises like the F1-2-3-4 . But at certain level you need to isolate the muscles or in a more general way resistance training must let the muscle to work on failure.

The strength is for a great part a neural adaptation in therm of different things as more frequency of spatial potential, more frequency of temporal potential, powerful and syncrhonized / desincrhonized circuits...strength is usually followed by a little gain of mass. but this is not be comparable with specific Hypertrophy training. The reason again is that with weight you can manage and adjust the stimuli, the joints angles for your physique. Is the same reason of why some people are good in benchpress wiith 80cm grip and other prefer less grip and closed elbows. GYmnastic is a powerful progression, but you adjust the body to correct the movement and feel the correct muscles work, you don't adjust the body to feel YOUR muscles work.

Eg. the planche you need protraction to feel the scapulas holded over the ribcage, this is the goal you don't need to adjust the level of protraction where you feel the scapulas better.

ausswe said:

4000-6000 calories seems a bit crazy.... Joshua natter man from what I have read didn't eat that much and he is huge. Even me at about 85 kilos ( admittedly not super lean but not overweight) only needed as much as 3000 calories to gain mass pretty well.

Yeah, pretty much no-one (except world class athletes during twice-a-day training) really needs that many calories.  But crashnburn said he's having trouble putting on weight, and almost every hardgainer is vastly underestimating how many calories they're eating.  4-6000 calories is just to start with.  First you eat enough to get growth, and only after that should you worry about overeating.  Just taper it down over time until you find the specific amount you need.  But you gotta start big.

Bipocni said:

Yeah, pretty much no-one (except world class athletes during twice-a-day training) really needs that many calories.  But crashnburn said he's having trouble putting on weight, and almost every hardgainer is vastly underestimating how many calories they're eating.  4-6000 calories is just to start with.  First you eat enough to get growth, and only after that should you worry about overeating.  Just taper it down over time until you find the specific amount you need.  But you gotta start big.

No reason to start big.  Just eat what you need.  Overshooting is just a good way to put on fat...

Read an article that Hilary Swank needed to pack on 10 lbs. for the movie Million Dollar Baby. She ended up gaining 19 lbs. of muscle in 3 months by lifiting weights 6 days a week and eating every 1.5 hrs- including setting an alarm clock to consume protein in the middle of the night. She ate almost twice her body weight in grams of protein. Consider that women have a harder time gaining muscle, I think that's an impressive transformation in a very short time frame.

Personally, I have no interest in eating that much to gain muscle/weight that fast. I think it's healthier and probably feels more natural to develop strength over a wider range of motion, gradually.

curtisfer said:

(...) gaining 19 lbs. of muscle in 3 months (...)

Imagine if you just kept at it for 3 years?

FredInChina said:

Imagine if you just kept at it for 3 years?

Hilary Swankzeneger? 

A lot of people dramatically underestimate what they are burning at "rest."

Your BMR times 1.2 is not a good estimate of rest time, because that basically assumes you are just lying a recliner watching tv while your body recovers from a workout. You aren't thinking about the additional 50% increase in energy cost that comes with simply sitting at a computer and doing work, much less walking around or even just standing. Your daytime energy expenditure is larger than you think.

Aside from something like an hour of aerobic training, the workout is a relatively small chunk of your overall caloric expenditure, and one or two extra meals will cover it. The real problem, particularly with "hardgainers", is that they have underestimated their true real-world baseline.

I have "fixed" an absolutely huge number of hardgainers, particularly for it not being my focus, easily between 70 and 100 people. Not one has failed to make immense progress. Go ahead, think about that.

Daniel can tell you whether my methods work or not, he was never one for putting on mass easily. It is basically impossible to fail when you start with a good foundation in fundamental human physiology.

I actually just taught a short class on this, and in 30 minutes I was able to teach people who knew absolutely no science exactly how their bodies responded to exercise, what the differences in anabolic response are between age groups, WHY that happens, and what to do to get excellent results regardless of age. It is stupidly easy. I managed to get our registered dietitian basically bouncing up and down because she was so happy about the presentation, and our nurses and program director were similarly impressed.

Short answer is to spread your protein out evenly, eat frequently, and work out regularly. Keep protein pulses constant at 20-30g and modulate calories according to activity level. Seriously. 

Now go eat right, follow Coach's progressions, get strong and be like Daniel.

Joshua Naterman said:

(...) I actually just taught a short class on this, and in 30 minutes I was able to teach people who knew absolutely no science exactly how their bodies responded to exercise, what the differences in anabolic response are between age groups, WHY that happens, and what to do to get excellent results regardless of age. It is stupidly easy. I managed to get our registered dietitian basically bouncing up and down because she was so happy about the presentation, and our nurses and program director were similarly impressed. (...)

Argh, where is the video Josh?

Joshua Naterman said:

A lot of people dramatically underestimate what they are burning at "rest."

 

Your BMR times 1.2 is not a good estimate of rest time, because that basically assumes you are just lying a recliner watching tv while your body recovers from a workout. You aren't thinking about the additional 50% increase in energy cost that comes with simply sitting at a computer and doing work, much less walking around or even just standing. Your daytime energy expenditure is larger than you think.

 

Aside from something like an hour of aerobic training, the workout is a relatively small chunk of your overall caloric expenditure, and one or two extra meals will cover it. The real problem, particularly with "hardgainers", is that they have underestimated their true real-world baseline.

 

I have "fixed" an absolutely huge number of hardgainers, particularly for it not being my focus, easily between 70 and 100 people. Not one has failed to make immense progress. Go ahead, think about that.

 

Daniel can tell you whether my methods work or not, he was never one for putting on mass easily. It is basically impossible to fail when you start with a good foundation in fundamental human physiology.

 

I actually just taught a short class on this, and in 30 minutes I was able to teach people who knew absolutely no science exactly how their bodies responded to exercise, what the differences in anabolic response are between age groups, WHY that happens, and what to do to get excellent results regardless of age. It is stupidly easy. I managed to get our registered dietitian basically bouncing up and down because she was so happy about the presentation, and our nurses and program director were similarly impressed.

 

Short answer is to spread your protein out evenly, eat frequently, and work out regularly. Keep protein pulses constant at 20-30g and modulate calories according to activity level. Seriously. 

 

Now go eat right, follow Coach's progressions, get strong and be like Daniel.

The nutrition girls seemed to like you, regardless the presentation. )))

Joshua Naterman said:

I actually just taught a short class on this, and in 30 minutes I was able to teach people who knew absolutely no science exactly how their bodies responded to exercise, what the differences in anabolic response are between age groups, WHY that happens, and what to do to get excellent results regardless of age. It is stupidly easy. I managed to get our registered dietitian basically bouncing up and down because she was so happy about the presentation, and our nurses and program director were similarly impressed.

Really wish I could have been there for this...

I'd chime in about this nutrition bit but I'm afraid that some people will not see eye to eye as the past posts has had some rather interesting turnouts.

I too am studying nutrition so if you are curious, you can just message me @crashnburn.  And I'll leave it at that aha.

Joshua Naterman said:

I will be starting to produce some educational materials for sale in this area soon, so that people can learn what they really need to know. First thing's first: MCAT. September 11th is the date for that.

 

The class was taught in person at the Emory Heartwise Risk Reduction Program.

good luck to you!  That was the hardest I ever studied for anything.  The night after finishing it, I could hardly form coherent sentences my brain was so overloaded.

Joshua Naterman said:

I will be starting to produce some educational materials for sale in this area soon, so that people can learn what they really need to know. First thing's first: MCAT. September 11th is the date for that.

 

The class was taught in person at the Emory Heartwise Risk Reduction Program.

 

 

I will happily buy whatever you release here, especially after the great service you have done to this community over the years by sharing your knowledge for free. Keep up the good work and good luck for the exams!

Gentlemen,

Let's keep the posts here relevant to the original discussion and keep the nutrition discussions confined to the nutrition section of the forum.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Daniel,

What was your level of strength when you first started GB (be that the killroy stuff or foundations or whatever you were first introduced to)...could you already do a stack of pullups/pushups/dips/ "normal" strength exercises?

Cheers,
Craig

I remember having a difficult time getting 12 pull-ups. I had been doing weighted pull-ups as part of the strength villain program I was following at the time. I could not hold a frog stand or lsit. I also had a hard time doing tucked FL and BL.

According to my journal I had a 175 bench, a 95 pound press and my squat was actually quite good at ~315 though I rarely maxed on this due to pain that would shoot through the leg (strength without mobility). I weighed 158 at my peak of weightlifting. I now weigh 150. I have lost fat and some leg muscle due to not squatting as often my chest and arms and core are noticeably more muscular.