36 Pounds.com » Training

The Phoenix Challenge: Day 2

Adrian — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 11:00:16 +0000

Alright, day 2 is over and I was back at the gym with a friend today. We had a light workout, I showed him some exercises (he’s also gaining muscle to get bulkier). Looking forward to working out with him in the future, should be fun!

Now, today’s food:
Nuts (300 cals)
McDonald’s (670 cals)
6 cups of milk (around 960 cals plus some protein shake, about 200 cals)
Cheese Strings (400 cals)
Soup
Sweets and crisps (watched World Basketball Championship, can’t do without beer and crisps then :P) 300 cals

I am not posting this day’s workout because it was really light and really easy. Friday’s workout will be much harder, but still not 100 percent.

Cheers,
Adrian

The End of Body Transformation Challenge III

Adrian — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 17:51:12 +0000

The BTC III has finished. It was 3 month challenge to gain muscle.. There are some good news and some bad news for me…

Well, bad news is I finished the challenge at about the same weight I started. I was gaining muscle at the start but undereating for a week just recently caused a weight drop and I am back at ground zero. It is tough to follow strict diet every day… maybe I took a challenge too long. I don’t know. But what I do know is that I will do it again. I will start a new challenge for myself in August. I will go at it again and make even stricter rules of nutrition for it. More milk, more snacks and more determination from me.

Even though I failed in this challenge I have no excuses and will do better next time.. I am taking some time off to reset and start again.

You will see me succeed in it!
Adrian

1 Thing You Will Hate The Most About Gaining Muscle

Adrian — Thu, 27 May 2010 01:16:56 +0000

Short message today…There is one thing that you and every skinny guy will definitely face and hate a lot. It will be real frustrating and real demotivation…

I hate to break it to you, but you will inevitably fail to gain muscle for one month or for two, or you will gain a few pounds one month and then loose twice the amount of weight the next. That will be caused by poor nutrition most likely.

Now, the only thing is to keep doing it. Keep going to workouts, eating more and more and persisting.

I have gained and lost weight a lot. It’s frustrating as hell to be at your best weight one month and then go down the next one. But I made myself a promise that I would transform my body no matter what. Even if it took me 5 freakin’ years to do so! It can happen anyway and to everyone. Don’t expect to be perfect. It wont happenin’!

You have to do the same if you want to succeed. Give yourself a promise and a term and do it! Failure to gain will happen inevitably.. maybe you will start working out, gain 8lbs with newbie gains (first month of training) and then you wont gain any. Then you will eat more next month and add another 2 lbs…. Or maybe you will be successful in gaining for half a year and then stall for next two months..

If you are currently in this position, then remember that most likely cause of this is poor nutrition (you aren’t getting enough calories per day to cause gains). Up your calories (maybe even one milk cup will do) and keep training.

Cheers,
Adrian

6 Things You Will Dislike While Trying To Gain Muscle

Adrian — Mon, 10 May 2010 17:10:06 +0000

If you decide to start your journey of gaining muscle and going from skinny to buff then you will encounter things you will dislike or even hate! Gaining muscle is simple, but not easy. Every skinny guy in the world can come to this blog and find all he needs to gain muscle but only few of them will actually succeed. That’s the sad part! :( But I hope you and I will be exceptions.

Now, when you start training and gaining muscle you will (most likely) dislike these things:

1. Changing Your habits

This is probably THE hardest thing to do. We people are like robots, we do same things over and over again that we are used to do (wake up, shower, clean your teeth, eat, go to school/work, come back home, eat, do homework, watch TV, go out, eat again, shower and go to sleep – all of this is done automatically). And when you want to change your habits, it’s hard! To add a workout to your schedule (everyone loves to say “I just don’t have time for workouts” etc), to add a few meals per day (again, no time for making them and eating). Sometimes you will have to say no to going out and drinking, since it would be best to NOT drink any alcohol while gaining muscle (it hurts your gains if drinking excessively!). But I can tell you straight, you will have to change some of your habits if you want to change your body. You gotta pay your dues!

2. Eating more

Now I know most people like to eat, but we skinny guys just don’t eat a lot. 3 meals a day is normal, and sometimes even just 2 meals a day is usual for us (when I was in school, I was like: “Breakfast?!?!… whatever…I’m out…”. And the meal sizes during the day wouldn’t be big so no wonder we stay skinny.

Big problem is that all of us tend to overestimate how much we eat. “I eat a lot but just can’t gain weight” is the most often phrase I hear from skinny guys anywhere, whether talking to them on forums, answering their emails or blog comments etc. It’s almost always this way. I’ve been there, done that..so please open up your mind and let me tell you that if you are new to this, you will have to eat way more than you do now and you will have to be counting calories for some time to be able to see how much you eat, how much you should eat and what to change in your diet.

And to continue bad news, you will sometimes don’t want to eat. Plain and simple. You are either depressed or overly excited or in love and you don’t have the appetite. But if you want to gain muscle, you have to shove that chicken down, or protein shake or pasta or baked beans. You just have to…

3. You will love reading new stuff about training and eating but not doing it

A lot of people when start gaining muscle or loosing fat go on a reading spree and read insane amounts of stuff. They think they learned new stuff but they don’t do anything with it, sometimes it even gets them confused since advice given is often different from one another. Pro bodybuilders do this, powerlifters do this, Arnold did this, Stallone did this, my friend did that and he’s huge..what to do??.. I have been there (again! :D ) So until following ONE way and doing stuff you read from one source (like this blog) you wont get any results. And you will forget a lot of stuff your read in time if you don’t do it…

Now I would love to see all the skinny guys in the world to follow my advice since I know it works. I know a lot, but I don’t know everything, so sometimes if I get asked something I don’t know I will refer people to someone else who knows it (like if someone asks how to lose weight etc… I can help with that too, but I know people that are better than me at that). I hope you reading this post, will follow my advice to the Z but if you take away anything from this post then please, don’t be reading robot only and select one source of info for you, even if this blog isn’t it, and DO it. Like Nike slogan says: Just Do It! ;)

4. Drinking milk

Strangely a lot of skinny guys don’t like milk, and don’t drink a lot of it. This wont be applied to everyone but if you don’t like milk, welcome to the club! :) Even though I disliked milk all of my childhood I have started drinking more of it (1 liter a day) and can’t say it sucks. Not that hard when you try!
Milk is great for your thirst, good source of calories, calcium and some proteins ;) Drink it!

5. You will dislike the fact that doing bunch of bicep curls or ab exercises ain’t worth it for you

All the guys love doing curls, bench press and want hard rock abs. But as for skinny guys, doing only curls and bench press gives not much results. You will be real skinny even if you have good chest muscles and biceps. Your shoulders will be narrow, legs look like matches, back will be small and weak. And guess what, back and legs and wayyyy bigger muscle than your biceps or even pecs. You loose ton of possible gains if you don’t train legs and back and train only those muscles you see in the mirror.

And no one will pay attention to your abs if you are skinny everywhere else….

6. You will hate squats

If you work hard on your squats (and leg exercises in general) you will hate it tomorrow. Legs will be sore as hell and you wont be able to walk. You will not want to do it again. No way. Even thought of squats on the next workout will piss you off (” oh fu.ck that… I don’t wanna do them” will be your thought when approaching squat rack or leg press machine probably). But you will have to train your legs! And over time you will start kinda liking it… it will still be pain in the butt, but after some time you will be proud of every leg workout done, knowing that you did your best and defeated the fear and laziness. ;)

These are some things that most of people will dislike probably. Others will also dislike going to actual workout and lifting, it’s normal, we all have things we dislike and we all will be forced to face them. Don’t give up and do them! Doing so will give you great results!!!

Cheers,
Adrian

BTC III Update

Adrian — Sun, 09 May 2010 21:43:37 +0000

Body Transformation Challenge continues. I love the training and it’s time for an update on routine I do. I am rereading great book “Practical Programming” by Mark Rippetoes and I’m loving it.

Eating is fine, I keep eating at least 5 times a day and drinking milk. Body looks improved in the mirror and I’m enjoying it too. With two months left of challenge I’m confident I will be at my heaviest weight ever after it finishes! ;)

BTC III: Day 22

Adrian — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 10:26:41 +0000

Haven’t updated but been working out yesterday (lifting and incorporating new stuff, cardio – boxing and jumping rope). Will go to gym to do some cardio after every workout, since my stamina sucks now. And believe me, jumping rope is great for that, just look at the boxers, like Floyd Mayewhether and others, even M. Ali was “dancing” with it.

Day 22:

1 litre of milk + protein shake 840 cals
Chicken and salad
Can of beans 300 cals
Pistachios
Baked pudding (loads of it)
Ice cream 280 cals
4 Muesli bars 250 cals

Now I’m off to eat breakfast, then off to work later on!

Cheers,
Adrian

BTC III: Day 18

Adrian — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 13:20:44 +0000

Chicken soup
2 peanut butter sandwiches (about) 400cals
Soup 200 cals
Protein shake 550 cals
2 sandwiches with chicken and ham 400cals
Pistachios 200 cals

Don’t know why but failed to get 3000 cals yesterday. Hmm…

Also had a light workout (4th already in total). Now taking weekend off from workout and back in the gym on Monday! :)

Cheers

BTC III: Days 16&17

Adrian — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 09:33:12 +0000

A nice workout on day 16 and this is what I ate:

Pizza 750 cals
Can of baked beans and loaf of bread 400 cals
4 cups of milk (including protein shake which adds 200 cals to the total) 840 cals
Peanuts 300 cals

Day 17

Fish
2 apples
Soup 300 cals
4 cups of milk and protein shake 840 cals
Can of Baked beans 300
Pizza 750 cals
Pistachios 300-350 cals

I forgot something else I ate on day 16 :P Off to workout today again, training legs, shoulders, chest, then some boxing and jumping the rope :)

Cheers

BTC III: Days 14&15

Adrian — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 07:37:44 +0000

Day 14

Pizza 750 cals
Can of baked beans 300 cals
Meat and potatoes
4 cups of milk 640 cals
Nuts
Soup
Sweets

Should be around 2500+ cals that day

Day 15

Crisps
Apple
2 eggs
2 cups of milk
70g of peanuts
5 peanut butter sandwiches

I noticed I am more hungry on workout days and can eat more then and eat less on off days. Same happened yesterday, no workout, less food.

Back to workout today, yay! ;)

Cheers,
Adrian

BTC III: Day 14th

Adrian — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 22:10:42 +0000

Day off from workout.

50g peanuts
Tuna sandwich
Ice cream
3 cups of milk
Can of baked beans
Meat with potatoes and salad