Hey guys, I've recently undergone a major shift in the way that I look at the way that I train. It's actually more of a shift in understanding myself and what I really want from my training in general. I have noticed quite a few threads come up here regarding guys asking adivice on gaining muscle, gaining weight, losing weight, cutting up etc. While every thread has yielded great feedback from guys on here who collectively have a lot of personal experience in the area, I think a lot of the time, guys often arn't aware of what it is they really want.
When I first decided I wanted to get into shape again (did no exersize since being extremely athletic in hichschool) This is what I looked like.
I immediatey got into aerobic excesize 3 days a week,working myself up to 12km jogs. This was accompanied by gym 3 days a week. My primary focus was the loss of fat and the definition of muscle. I did this for a year, and got pretty good results. This picture is exactly a year later on the same beach (near our holiday house in QLD).
After this point, I began to focus heavily on building up some more muscle while keeping my body fat low. I lowered my reps from 10-12x down to 4-6x, I changed my diet to incorporate more protein and more good fat and more good carbohydrate. I just wanted to get bigger, so I dropped my cardio to allow me to go to gym 5 days a week. Unfortunately, I didn't realise that I was by this time shooting for the wrong goal, and I ended up getting bulkier looking rather than ever sleeker and more athletic/muscly/cut which was what I was looking for.
Believe it or not, I actually have the same body fat (using calipers) or a touch lower.
I'm putting this up firstly to make guys think about what it is they actually want, and that simply aiming for more muscle and more muscle, may quite simply not result in what they are looking for at all.
Secondly, its asking if any guys on here know what the best route may be to take to get myself back into the shape I want to be in. I've been on holidays in Brazil and USA, so I've been away from gym for almost 3 months which has shrunk my frame. When I return in a few days, I'm going to go back to running 2-3 times a week, not worrying about having a high caloric intake, and increasing my reps back to 10-15. Would anyone do anything different there?
When I first decided I wanted to get into shape again (did no exersize since being extremely athletic in hichschool) This is what I looked like.
I immediatey got into aerobic excesize 3 days a week,working myself up to 12km jogs. This was accompanied by gym 3 days a week. My primary focus was the loss of fat and the definition of muscle. I did this for a year, and got pretty good results. This picture is exactly a year later on the same beach (near our holiday house in QLD).
After this point, I began to focus heavily on building up some more muscle while keeping my body fat low. I lowered my reps from 10-12x down to 4-6x, I changed my diet to incorporate more protein and more good fat and more good carbohydrate. I just wanted to get bigger, so I dropped my cardio to allow me to go to gym 5 days a week. Unfortunately, I didn't realise that I was by this time shooting for the wrong goal, and I ended up getting bulkier looking rather than ever sleeker and more athletic/muscly/cut which was what I was looking for.
Believe it or not, I actually have the same body fat (using calipers) or a touch lower.
I'm putting this up firstly to make guys think about what it is they actually want, and that simply aiming for more muscle and more muscle, may quite simply not result in what they are looking for at all.
Secondly, its asking if any guys on here know what the best route may be to take to get myself back into the shape I want to be in. I've been on holidays in Brazil and USA, so I've been away from gym for almost 3 months which has shrunk my frame. When I return in a few days, I'm going to go back to running 2-3 times a week, not worrying about having a high caloric intake, and increasing my reps back to 10-15. Would anyone do anything different there?
