Jumping Off

[Alec Grooms]

Hey ya'll,

I've completed Fundamentals and really enjoyed the work there. Long story short, I'm now trying to determine the best plan of action moving forward. I'm a 26 year old guy, 6 ft tall and 145 lbs, 8% body fat. I'm also an actor. I've admittedly had some diet and exercise analysis paralysis coupled with a series of life events that has set me back to this low body weight and strength levels. Two years ago I was in my best shape for a show aesthetically and strength wise through 3 days of week of strength training with free weights. I was at 168 and again sub 10% body fat. Skills and flexibility weren't in that program at all. Since then I have gone through a period of rock climbing and bodyweight training along with an intense cycling phase and a vegan diet. The adrenal fatigue, being underfed (unbeknownst to me at the time) and over worked along with the stress of being an actor in the city has really wreaked havoc on me and I've been focusing on rest and recovery this summer as well as getting back to eating a wide range of healthy proteins, carbs, and fats in a regular amount from plants and animals. I now feel that this Fall I want to recommit to a balanced approach to gain back the strength, energy, and size I had before. Size is a real need for me as an actor and I'm really fed up with the comments about how thin I've gotten. That and honestly my health and vitality levels took a real blow, so I'm aiming to keep things as simple and effective as possible while obtaining my goals. 

So after combing through the forums, I've boiled it down to this:

1) Pick up with a 4-6 exercise/ day/ 3 days a week schedule with alternating free weights. Focus on the big four (squat, deadlift, bench, and overhead press) in a lower rep range to build up base strength and add in a couple of isolation moves for Hypertrophy at the end of work outs. Short sweet and simple, alternating between workout A and B with a day off in between each, good sleep, solid meditation, and lots of nutrient and caloricly dense food. However this time, warmup with the drills from Fundamentals and add in GST flexibility workouts on my days off to avoid injury from heavy loads or getting locked in my body. After a year or two of this (I like to think long term) transition over to GST Foundations and begin my journey there. 

2) Go full GST. The skills really appeal to me and that stuff would certainly set an actor apart. However (and I hate that this is true) an impressive LOOKING physique is needed in this business more often than an impressive performing one. So I do worry about the size gains being slower than what I'd like. Admittedly this is because I have only known size gains from doing weight work in the past and never from the bodyweight training that I've explored.

I know this topic has been bandied about and the general consensus I've gathered is that free weights will add more mass more quickly while GST will add mass at a slower rate as the focus is on skill training. Any further thoughts, references to other threads, or opinions on merging the stretching regimen with a strength and size gaining free weight program would be much appreciated. 

Thanks in advance, 

-Alec

[Alessandro Mainente]

Hi ALec, nice to hear your full transition to GST. well to be honest before being able to gain some size with GST you need multi joints exercise and a basic strenght on them . a simple example of basic strenght on GST is 20 dips and 15 pullup. when you have this type of basic strength you can consider to add a "size" schedule, if not it is a loss of time. my suggstion is begin with foundations 1 and build up your basic strength. then when it is the time consider to adjust your programming in function of your goals.

also consider that rings training has a very good impact of building size but it requres basic strength and joints conditioning.