I got some confused emails as a result of my last article so I figured I should try and clear some things up a bit. Specifically, I got a question about how to “clean bulk”…

Lets talk about energy needs for building lean muscle mass. Besides protein, you also need an excess of energy to produce muscle. Read that again please. An excess of energy.

Many people seem to think all you need is protein. Because muscle is made up of protein right? Eat protein and your muscles will be happy and grow “hyuuge” right? Well, that is sort of half-right. What is missing from that picture is that muscle doesn’t consist entirely of protein. There is a bunch of other stuff you need to build up muscle tissue.

Imagine that you are building a house and all you have is a pile of bricks. But you don’t have any grouting (Swedish: murbruk). So you can’t really build the house with what you have, you are missing some vital building material. See where I’m getting?

But, ok, lets say you do have the absolute minimum of grouting (the vitamins, minerals, fat and whatever else is needed to build muscle) then you are set, right? Well, lets look at our building. There’s the pile of bricks and there’s your grout. But there is still one thing missing, because the house won’t just magically build itself up. You need a construction worker to come in and lay the bricks and the grouting in the shape of a building! It’s a silly example, but what I want you to realize is the keyword here, which is “work”, which is equivalent to “energy”. So looking at what happens in your body, besides the ingredients, the process that builds up muscle also requires an excess of energy. There’s that word again. Excess. So in order to grow muscle you need an excess of calories/energy.

But this is where you might think; wait a minute, don’t we have excess energy stored in the form of fat in our bodies already? Doesn’t the body use that stored energy as a fuel source for building muscle? So we can use the fat in our bodies as fuel for muscle growth and loose fat simultaneously! Right?

Well, it might work to some extent if you are an obese beginner, but for the rest of us advanced beginners or intermediate trainees, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but that is not how it works. When you restrict your calories, the hormonal state in your body will be very far from ideal for building muscle.

The hormonal state in a leaner individual is also a lot different from that in an individual with a higher amount of body fat. So while you may be able to build muscle in a deficit when you are still an overweight beginner, the leaner you become the harder it becomes as your hormones will signal the body to become more restrictive with what the stored energy (fat) is used for.

So this brings us to the interesting question, how much excess energy do you need for optimal muscle growth? Unfortunately it is a very difficult question to answer. Eat more and you’ll potentially gain more muscle but also very likely store more fat, eat less and you will make smaller gains of both muscle and fat. What is actually interesting is what the ratio might be. According to Lyle McDonald, for the average Joe, and the vast majority of the population, the ratio is roughly 1:1 of muscle to fat. If you are a genetic freak or assisted by drugs (steroids) you might have a better muscle to fat ratio, but if you don’t know, you can safely assume that you’ll gain one kg of fat for every kg of muscle.

The second question then is, how much muscle can you expect to gain in a given time period? And that is also a difficult question to answer. It depends on how advanced you are (as in how close you are to your genetic potential), how old you are, whether or not you are assisted by drugs, your genetics and gender and a lot of different things I’m not going to get my head wrapped around.

But let us not over complicate things, a surplus of about 500kcal above your maintenance (the amount of calories you need to eat in order to stay the same weight given your average amount of activity) is a good starting point for natural beginners and intermediate trainees. It’s a good starting point because 500kcal is a large enough chunk of energy so that after a couple of weeks you should see a result on your scale. 500kcal per day equates to roughly half a kg of weight gain per week, which should be about as accurate as you can measure your weight with a typical bathroom scale. Measuring your weight with a higher precision than that is pointless because the variation is already at least twice that as discussed in my previous article.

Do note that the above applies to beginners, it is not realistic to assume that you will keep adding 1kg of muscle every month for an eternity. 1kg might not sound like much, but keep doing it for a year and it equates to potentially 12kg of muscle. That is a lot of muscle. As you get stronger and bigger, the progress tapers down and an advanced lifter who is close to their genetic potential would be happy to add 1kg of muscle per year, if even that.

Women should expect about half the gains in the same amount of time so 0.5kg of muscle per month (a target of 1kg of total weight gain per month) is probably a good starting point. Again, that is for beginners.

Also, I should mention since it also came up, that there is no way to “over-consume” protein. Some people seem to believe that if you consume more than say 30g of protein in a meal, the excess protein is “lost” somehow. This is a myth which is likely constructed by the supplement industry in order to promote their “recommended portion sizes”. Does it make sense from an evolutionary perspective for our bodies to reject nutrition when we have passed some arbitrary threshold? I don’t think so.

Upper

Two presses, two rows and a few extra sets for the arms.

Lower

The focus is on the quads, glutes, hamstrings and the lower back with a few sets for the calfs and abs thrown in.

Next week I will get started on my second cycle of “Lyle´s Generic Bulk”. I’m not making any big changes as this setup seems to be working quite well for me. The exercise substitutions are primarily to adapt the routine to the equipment that is available at Sats Telefonplan. Substituting the regular weighted crunches with the cable version is a sort of experiment. Hopefully I can advance easier with cable crunches than with free weights.

I have managed to increase my body weight by 6kg since the summer, which means I have reached the target I set for myself at least a month ahead of time. Hopefully I can add another 2kg in the next month to follow. I also set some new PR’s, most notably 8x100kg with the Romanian Deadlift.

I’ve been thinking about changing the reps but I don’t see any need to make this type of changes yet. If it works, don’t change it, as they say.

I might go down to a 3 times per week approach ABA/BAB style on occasion to account for “real life”. I noticed very quickly in my previous cycle that while it is possible to get a good upper body workout in after a cycling/spinning session, it is not very comfortable as it means doing the routine soaking wet and freezing from sweating so much.

Starting next week I will be transitioning into an upper/lower body split routine.

Upper

Two presses, two rows and a few extra sets for the arms and the shoulders.

Lower

The focus is on the quads, glutes, hamstrings and the lower back with a few sets for the calfs and abs thrown in.

This is essentially “Lyle’s Generic Bulk”. It is an intermediate routine that hits every body part twice per week (similar to a 2x/week full body routine but with a considerably higher volume). When it comes to exercise selection, I am not including anything new this time. These are the exercises I feel the most comfortable with and the once I feel that I can progress with safely and with good form.

The chins are supposed to be my “high rep row” (ideally every body part is hit with both high and low reps in this routine) but I need to gain more strength in my lats before that is possible. Until I can comfortably do 10 chins I will simply do as many as I can. My PR so far is 6 chins in one set but depending on my weight fluctuations my daily performance in this exercise varies quite a bit.

I’m not sure how this will work out with “real life” getting in the way of things but I’ll start out with the schedule outlined below. Alternatively I might try the less optimal Mon/Tue+Thu/Fri setup.

Since I’ll be doubling the number of strength training sessions I obviously need to reduce the amount of time devoted to cardio and endurance. I’ve already reduced the amount of cardio from five to three sessions per week in the past year and I will now drop another hour of cardio.

If my previous cycle was all about barbell exercises, then you could say the theme this time around is a focus on dumbbell exercises. I know from experience that it is a lot harder to make linear progress with dumbbells but I think I need to change things up a bit to make progress in my “problem areas”, namely my chest and shoulders. For this reason I am actually cutting back on the pressing and including some isolation exercises which target the pecs and lateral deltoids directly. Since I am still working with a full body workout twice per week I will alternate the two presses and the two isolation exercises which target these muscles. That way I will be hitting everything twice per week with roughly the same volume I have used previously. But with less focus on the triceps.

Workout A

3x Chinup (BW to Failure)
3x Squat (5-10)
3x DB Bent Over Row (5-10)
3x DB Bench (5-10)
3x DB Lat.Raise (10-15)
2x RDL (3-7)
2x Superset: Triceps Dips (BW to failure) + Barbell Curls (10-15)
2x Superset: Back Extension (10-15) + Bosu Ball Crunch (10-15)

Workout B

3x Chinup/Pullup (BW to Failure)
3x Split Squat (5-10)
3x Barbell Bent Over Row (5-10)
3x Seated DB Press (5-10)
3x DB Fly (10-15)
2x Deadlift (3-7)
2x Superset: Triceps Dips (BW to failure) + Barbell Curls (10-15)
2x Superset: Back Extension (10-15) + Bosu Ball Crunch (10-15)

Even though I have two different workouts, this isn’t a body part split routine. It’s a 2x/week full body routine which I will start out as alternating A/B every week and move towards alternating it A/B one week and B/A next week. I do this because I know that I will need to vary the intensity over the week (weekly periodization) after about 2-3 weeks in order to progress another 2-3 weeks into the cycle before I need to deload. Two workouts per week has worked out pretty well for me so far so I’m sticking to that for now. 3x1h cardio per week and a 300 kcal daily surplus should be a good starting point.

I’m putting chinups first in my program because I find it to be the most rewarding and thus most fun exercise and by placing it first I should be able to put more focus on it. I can currently perform five chinups and my plan is to work myself up to 15 chinups and then alternate it with pullups, which put more emphasis on the lats and less on the biceps. Once I can do 15 pullups it will be time to add weight to the exercise.

My “other row” is the Bent Over Row and I will alternate between the dumbbell and barbell version just to figure out which one I like the most.

For some reason I have not been able to improve my Split Squat and Lunge performance in Body Pump and Cross Training class even though my back squat has improved, so I will be alternating the squat with the split squat in order to address this weakness.

I learned from my last cycle that putting deadlifts directly after squats was not such a good idea, so I’m placing the deadlifts further down in the workout. I’ll be alternating clean style deadlifts with the Romanian deadlifts for some variety.

Another thing I learned was that while arm strength has stayed roughly the same, endurance has decreased as a result of not doing much direct arm work. So I’m including a few sets for that purpose. I may have to increase the number of sets at a later stage, but lets see where this leads me. I could just as simply add an extra arm workout before/after a spinning class if the weekly volume isn’t high enough.

I use the supersets simply to save time, I don’t like spending more than 1.5h at the gym each session.

Bosu Ball

I see many people using Swiss Balls for various different crunches, and it seems like a good way to add a few extra inches to the range of motion for the exercise. What I don’t really care for is the whole “instability” aspect, so I’m thinking that a Bosu Ball should work out better for this purpose. I tried this out a few days ago and while it was a bit difficult to find that “sweet spot” on the ball, once I did get it right, I felt the crunch very nicely in the target muscle. I didn’t try it with a weight, as I think I may have to find a way to lock my feet down if I am to attempt that.

Another six week period of Strength Training comes to a close. In total I have been Strength Training regularly for six months now.

As I mentioned before, I’ve never been able to perform even a single chinup or pullup and three months back I noted that the assisted pullup machine was not the right tool for bringing up my chinup/pullup strength as I had a very difficult time achieving any kind of progress with it.

So I switched to underhand pulldowns on a single pulley and have been progressing steadily on those for the past twelve weeks. I started with only managing 8x32kg and yesterday I pulled 8x68kg on my final set.

However, since machines and pulleys don’t translate very easily to body weight or free weight exercises, it is not possible to predict the functional strength transfer from one seemingly similar exercise to the next. So in order to put this into a meaningful context I tried doing some body weight chinups yesterday.

And guess what? I did it! I performed a body weight chinup. In fact, I did three of them. :) (with a body weight of 72.5kg)

Plugging the values above into the Brzycki formula (a formula for predicting your one rep maximum) tells me that my 1RM for the pulldown is 84kg. My body weight is roughly 86% of the predicted 1RM, which according to Brzycki means I should be able to pull that weight 3-5 times, which indeed is pretty much what I did with the chinup. So the functional strength transfer from the Underhand Pulldown (on this particular single pulley) to the body weight chinup seems to be close to a one-to-one match. For me, anyway.

With the exception of the Bench Press I have made good progress with all of my primary exercises. Before this six week period my heaviest squat was 40kg (in Power Step class). Yesterday I did 8x85kg. I feel stronger even on the endurance side of the equation. And this simply because the 30-35kg I take on during the squat track for Body Pump class is now a typical warm-up weight for me.

My heaviest Romanian Deadlift was similarly 40kg in Power Step class and in six weeks I’ve managed to build up to 9x85kg in the weight room. If it wasn’t for grip strength becoming a limiting factor for the deadlift, I might have been able to push it up another 10-15kg.

Paradoxically, even though I have decreased the number of exercises, the amount of time it takes to finish the workout has increased. This is partly due to the fact that with barbell exercises you need to run around and hunt for plates and collars and after you are done you need to carry them back to the racks. But mostly it is because I feel that I need more rest in between sets now than I did before.

Since my workouts now take longer to complete I have very seldom had any time nor strength left in me for any auxiliary exercises. I’ve done two sets of curls in the past six weeks. Given the chance to get some extra sets in I have often opted for the Weighted Back Extension and the Weighted Crunch, both excellent exercises, although a bit cumbersome to perform when holding heavier plates.

But it’s not just the recovery time between sets which has increased. I often find myself so fatigued from the first session of the week that I regress on the following workout. I can’t push for a new PR for every exercise every single workout as I did before. This marks my transition from the beginner to the intermediate level, when strength gains are no longer linear. This means I may have to progress into a training program with some kind of weekly periodization.

I just finished reading Practical Programming for Strength Training by Rippetoe & Kilgore (2006) and about half way thru the book it struck me that this book had pretty much summed up every meaningful piece of knowledge I had managed to distill from the abyss known as the Internet in the past six months.

Half of the literature and articles you find on the net are full of re-iterated training myths and macho bullshit boosted to absurd proportions by the authors bloated egos. Much of the other half of the literature is devoted to articles promoting expensive and useless supplements. On top of this, very few of these so called “training gurus” of the Internet have any resemblance of teaching or writing skills and often look at isolated training issues and fail to see the bigger picture which only confuses the readers more than it helps.

So it is very refreshing to find a book which manages to be the complete opposite of this. The structure of Practical Programming for Strength Training is excellent, and the argumentation and conclusions are sound and logical. The book is truly a training “text-book” as it teaches you not only the methods for programming your training but also the underlying principles and physiology which is important for understanding the “why” for the recommendations given in the book. However it is in it’s application where the book truly shines, the book doesn’t give you a specific training template and doesn’t teach you any of the exercises it discusses but instead teaches you how to program your training to fit your own fitness level. Most trainees could use the methods discussed in this book to drive progress in the weight room for several years.

So if you are the least bit interested in strength training this is the book to read.

According to Lyle McDonald one of the primary goals of beginning strength/weight training is to “determine optimal exercise selection for targeting individual muscle groups”. And that can only be achieved with hands-on experience.

With that said I think that when it comes to machine and cable exercises I have come a long way in finding out which exercises work out well for me. However, when it comes to barbell exercises, my experience is rather limited. While I have been benching, deadifting and squatting for the past couple of years in Body Pump and Power Step class, it is not quite comparable to when you are working with heavier weights. For one thing, the Body Pump bars don’t even allow for a wide enough grip to properly target the pecs. So my summer project will be to relearn these exercises with the “big boys” equipment.

So for the next six week cycle I’ll be doing a full body workout twice per week with a focus on the heavy compound barbell exercises. Also, I’m reducing the number of exercises so as to keep the volume down a bit. However, to add some flexibility and familiarity I’m including quite a few extra auxiliary exercises which I will include in my workout whenever I feel that I have the extra time or when I feel after completing my main exercises that I still have plenty of strength left in me for a few more sets. Deadlifts and Squats put a lot of pressure on the core and the central nervous system so it may turn out that I won’t need any Crunches or Back Extensions, but as I will eventually progress into some form of split routine I feel that I should at least include them so that I can try them out a few times in advance as they make more sense in a split routine. In fact, the twelve exercises which I have included in this cycle may go completely unchanged into the next cycle in some form of upper/lower body split.

I’ll be aiming for 3 sets of 5 on my main exercises and 2×8-12 on my auxiliary exercises.

1. Barbell Squat	2. Romanian Deadlift
3. Bench Press	4. Cable Underhand Pulldown
5. Barbell Military Press	6. Barbell Upright Row

Pictures from the exercise database at ExRx.net.

Some of you may notice that the exercise selection above is quite similar to Mark Rippetoes Starting Strength Program with the exception that I’ve replaced the Bent Over Row with two vertical rowing motions, the Pulldown and the Upright Row. A more optimal selection would include some form of horizontal row as well, but I feel that my back might not be able to handle it. So I choose the Upright Row as my secondary Rowing exercise as I like to give my Lateral Delts a bit more work.

What worries me is that Sats Jakobsberg doesn’t have a proper Squat Rack. Putting on too heavy and not getting out of the “hole” is not something I want to experience. The same applies for the Bench Press as well, there are no safety racks/bars in the Bench racks at my gym. So for this reason I’m placing these two exercises early in the routine so that at least I’m not fatigued when I do them. When it comes to the dangers associated with Deadlifting, I’m not too worried as I feel that I’m quite good at keeping my back straight so as long as I get the bar of the ground I shouldn’t be hurting myself with that exercise. Another unknown is whether or not I’ll be able to handle both Squats and Deadlifts in the same workout, but as Rip would say:

“Those who argue against squatting and deadlifting on the same day may just be pussies.” Mark Rippetoe

Auxiliary Exercises

The following are my auxiliary exercises. A little extra for the arms, legs and core.

Cable Pushdown	Cable Curl
Weighted Calf Raise	Lever Lying Leg Curl
Weighted Back Extension	Weighted Crunch

Pictures from the exercise database at ExRx.net.

Another six week period has passed and so it is time to summarize what I have learned in the weight room.

I have steadily been increasing the volume of my workouts during the past couple of months from 1-2 sets per exercise to 3 sets per exercise and I even stepped up to two full body workouts per week. The increase in volume has been taxing and I feel that it is soon time to take a short break and a de-load to restart the progress but seeing how I’m still making beginner gains I will keep going with my current routine and volume for a couple more weeks until I stall on the majority of my current exercises.

Since I had a mix of both new and old exercises in my third routine, it doesn’t make sense to talk about gains in “total weights lifted” anymore as some of them started off scratch and some from a level close to my previous best. Also, as the weights go up the reps start to vary from one workout to the next so that also makes it harder to talk about progress in these terms. So starting with my next routine I will be logging reps/sets as well as weights lifted. I will also get started on free weights based exercises, which are easier to benchmark against.

That said, I did increase the weights (for 8RM) for the new exercises by a bit more than 60% in six weeks, which is in line with previous gains on new exercises. As percentages work in mysterious ways this obviously doesn’t mean much, but I’m happy with the progress I’ve done with the Underhand Pulldown at the very least. I can really feel that exercise in my lats so it stays for another round. The Lying Leg Curl is also a lot better at targeting the hamstrings than the seated version, so it too qualifies for a second round. I’m not a big fan of the Calf Press machine as it has some of the same issues as the Seated Leg Curl machine. If I choose to target the calfs in the future I think some kind of Calf Raise exercise might be a better option.

What I can say with certainty is that I have been steadily increasing my weights and hitting new personal bests every week with the majority of my lifts. Both the Chest and Shoulder Presses have progressed very nicely but are now coming to a stall. The Seated Row however has been progressing slower which is a bit of a disappointment. Deadlifts or Back Extensions may be a better choice for me for targeting the lower back.

As I’ve been progressing with smaller increments (5-10 pounds instead of 15-20 pounds per week) I have been able to maintain form with all of my exercises, which was one of the primary goals of this cycle.

I also note that it feels like I’ve outgrown the Core class so I probably need to change my strategy, drop the Core class and include some heavy lifting work if I want my abs to grow past this point. And before anyone says anything, I’m fully aware that a six pack is a result of more things than a large Rectus Abdominis, it also involves getting your total body fat down, something which is better accomplished by dieting than by trying to “spot reduce”. Which is not what I am trying to do. But I digress. When it comes down to core endurance and balance Core Pulse class is sufficient I believe.

While the weights have been going up the reading on the scale has not been going anywhere. But this is no mystery. It’s as simple as Calories in = Calories out. Even though I try to eat 7-8 meals per day I somehow end up screwing up one or two days of the week so that the average calories over the whole week ends up at roughly maintenance levels.

I also realize that I do too much cardio, which is why I have stepped up to 2 strength training sessions and gone down to 3 group training sessions per week. Eventually, I may have to progress to a 3:2 split of strength:cardio.

However, for the first time in my life I can actually see a faint definition of upper abs and I think I can see a slight increase in size and definition in my “beach muscles”. If the weights go up in the weight room, at some point the muscles have to grow larger as well. I realize I won’t be able to make “lean gains” forever, but progress against the odds is what being a beginning weight lifter is all about so I’m quite happy with these results.

For my third Strength Training routine I am sticking to what I know works from my previous routines and I am adding an exercise for the calves.

1. Lever Chest Press	2. Cable Seated Row
3. Lever Shoulder Press	4. Cable Underhand Pulldown
5. Cable Pushdown	6. Cable Curl
7. Lever Seated Leg Press	8. Lever Lying Leg Curl
9. Lever Seated Calf Press

Pictures from the exercise database at ExRx.net.

The Assisted Pullup was the one exercise where I struggled the most to improve so I am replacing it with the pulldown for now to give my ego a little break.

Increasing my weights on the cable pulleys became a lot easier when I discovered the add-on 2.3 kg (5 lb) blocks you can attach to the pulleys for a smaller increment. For this reason I am going to give the Cable Curl and Pushdown another chance.

The Leg Press, which I mistakenly labeled as a squat last time, stays for now. I want to eventually move on to squats but I want to make sure my technique is in order before I go down that road. The Leg Press is still a great exercise.

As I increased the weights on the Leg Curl it became very difficult for me to keep my butt from lifting off the seat so I am going to try the Lying Leg Curl next to see if that works out better for me.

The Seated Calf Press machine at Sats Jakobsberg is slightly different than what is illustrated in the image, but the motion is essentially the same.

I continue as before with a mix of Group Training classes, four times per week, but I’ll switch them around a bit to maybe help alleviate some of the problems I experienced with lower-back fatigue. My priority is to avoid having a Body Pump or Power Step class the day after my Strength Training session.

It’s time again to summarize my experiences from another six week period of Strength Training.

I managed to increase the total amount of weights for my eight exercises by 52% in the past six weeks. So I am definitely getting stronger. What remains a mystery is whether or not I am gaining lean mass. I’ve been stuck on pretty much the same body weight for the past six months so if I have gained any muscle mass I must have lost fat as well in the process. I am a bit skeptical though as I still don’t see much of a difference in the mirror. It’s likely that the changes in my muscles are still very much on the neurological side.

I havn’t been very strict with my diet, or rather, I haven’t really thought about my diet at all for a long time. However, I suspect I need to eat more, lots more, if I am to gain weight. So what I am doing now is that I am counting my calories to see where I land. In about a weeks time I should have some solid data to work with.

Another, maybe even more likely, issue is the amount of cardio I do. The thing is, cutting down on cardio and increasing the time spent in the weight room to maybe twice per week is a compromise I would like to avoid as much as possible.

I have been doing my strength sessions in combination with a 30 minute Sats Core class and this has worked out quite well. Not only has my core strength increased during the past six weeks, but having a class after the weight training is a very good way to limit the time spent in the weight room as well. In one hour I manage around 20-25 sets (which includes warm-up sets and a 10-15 minute warm-up on an ellipse-machine). I could probably squeeze out a few more sets if it wasn’t for the fact that the gym is always very crowded and I am thus always forced to spend a few minutes standing in queue.

But even with this amount of efficiency I note that I am now spending 10% more time on training than I did before (5.5 hours per week compared to 5 hours per week previously). While a ten percent increase may sound insignificant, in terms of what effect it has on fatigue and over-training over-reaching is something that worries me. I know from experience that when I have gone up to six hours per week I have suffered symptoms of over-training over-reaching. Obviously I am talking about six hours of intervals based training at near maximum intensity, so whether or not the half-hour long Core session has much of an impact or not remains to be seen. In fact, the Strength Training session itself might have a larger impact than the added amount of time spent in the gym.

Overall my second Strength Training routine has been an interesting learning experience. I note that dumbbells, besides having mass, are also quite bulky and cumbersome to handle which means that handling them requires the utilization of more stabilizer muscles. This is a fancy way of saying that dumbbells are harder to use than cables and machines. Which, in a nerdy kind of way, is pretty cool. I knew this in theory already of course, but actually feeling it, gives this piece of knowledge a whole other dimension.

I also note that when I work out my lower back with the Cable Seated Row one day and do squats the next day (in Body Pump class for instance) my back just can’t handle the load even though the squat is mainly for targeting the glutes and quadriceps. This means that it may be wiser for me to opt for a Core Pulse or Spinning class the day after I have worked my lower back as compared to Body Pump or Power Step. Core Pulse still has quite a lot of squatting, but I can handle the body weight squat a lot easier. It is interesting and paradoxical how this doesn’t seem to have nearly the same effect on the dead-lifts, which in fact target the Erector Spinae (lower back) directly. That said, I’m very happy with how well the full range version of the Cable Seated Row has strengthened my back during the past six weeks.

Finally I realize that I too can fall into the “macho mentality” in the gym and put on too much weights, too soon, and completely loose track of what is “good form”. So for the next six week period I will start out by cutting off 10% on my current weights and work on my form a bit before I start increasing again. And when I do I will do it in smaller increments as well. Intuitively I think it doesn’t really matter how much or little you increase the weights in order to stimulate the muscles to grow stronger. What is important is that you keep increasing the resistances over time.

Speaking of “good form”. I feel confident with the motions one does with the lever-based machines and to some extent also with some of the cable-based exercises. However I think it may be wise for me to get the help of an experienced instructor before I start doing proper bar-bell squats and dead-lifts. While I have been doing these exercises in Body Pump class for nearly two years now, there is some variation in how these exercises are performed and instructed by different instructors and “good form” in Body Pump terms may not be defined as tightly as it may be for lifting very heavy weights. So I feel that there is some amount of uncertainty here in regards to how well I perform these motions. For this reason I am not going to include any more free-weights based exercises in my coming exercise routines until I have made sure I know I am doing these properly.

My second ever strength training routine works out the chest, back, lats, delts, biceps, triceps, quads and hamstrings. I will proceed with this set of exercises once per week for the next six to eight weeks. The lack of exercises for the core muscles is compensated by the fact that I finish the strength session with a Core class. Obviously I continue to attend Group Training classes four times per week, which means that I get various degrees of cardio and strength/endurance training in between each strength session. I think this is a good mix for me.

1. Lever Seated Fly	2. Cable Seated Row
3. Assisted Pullup	4. Cable Upright Row
5. Lever Triceps Dip	6. Dumbbell Curl
7. Lever Seated Leg Press	8. Lever Seated Leg Curl

Pictures from the exercise database at ExRx.net.

The images are self-explanatory, but I figure I should make a few comments on why I have chosen some of these exercises.

Note that my chest exercise is actually the Seated Fly and not the Lying Fly as depicted above simply because that is how the Fly-machine at Sats Jakobsberg works and the gif-animation above was the closest match I could find.

My previous back exercise was the Straight Back Seated Row and I am now expanding this into the full range version of the Seated Row. I believe it is wise to opt for exercises with a wider range of motion than more isolated once.

The Assisted Pullup machine quickly became my favorite in Kista because you can work your chest, your triceps and your lats all on the same machine just by varying your grip. Also, I find that there is something inherently masculine about being able to pull your own body weight into a pullup or chin-up. This has stuck with me ever since my days in the army as sort of a benchmark on raw physical fitness (besides Cooper’s test). The Assisted Pullup machine is great because it allows me to gradually work myself up to the point when I will be able to do the unassisted version of the exercise. Something I was unable to do in the army ten years ago, but which I feel much closer to achieving today. The problem I have here is that the machine they have at Sats Jakobsberg is different from the one at my previous gym. The one at Sats is of a type where you stand on your knees, which means more tension is put on the core muscles to keep your back straight compared to the machine at Kista where you stand on your feet.

I’m not sure if I will be able to do the Assisted Triceps Dip on the Pullup/Dip machine they have at Sats since I don’t know if it is possible to adjust the grip width. With a wider grip the Triceps Dip essentially becomes the Chest Dip instead, which is really not what I want. I don’t think they have a dedicated dip-machine either so I may be forced to use one, of, the, many body weight alternatives. I would rather not though, since it’s obviously harder to keep track of weight gains when only using your body weight.

EDIT [2010-03-01] I now know that the dip-handles are not adjustable so that means I won’t be able to do the triceps dip with the Assisted Dip/Pullup machine. However, it seems they do have a Dedicated Dip-machine so I’m going with that instead.

The biggest addition is of course the two exercises for the legs. The Squat is really a no-brainer exercise. The Leg Curl is there to balance things out on the push/pull side of things. I suppose an exercise for the calves would round this out even more, but I figure I get plenty of exercise for my calves from Power Step and Core Pulse class as it is and eight exercises is almost too many exercises for one session anyway.

As the title suggests it has been 6 weeks since I started with my first strength training routine and started eating protein after my workouts. I have completed six sessions of no more than 30 minutes each (including warm-up). That means I have spent less than 3 hours in the gym on the upper floor of Sats Jakobsberg. During this time I have managed to increase the total amount of weights for my six exercises by 48%! While a good chunk of this can be attributed to an initial adjustment of my nervous system to this new form of exercise, I think it is safe to conclude that my first strength training routine has been successful.

As I mentioned earlier on my blog, it seems to be a good strategy to change training routine every 6 to 8 weeks, so starting next week I will start up a new one. The prudent course of action would be to go a longer time with my first routine seeing that I haven’t really hit any kind of plateau yet, but seeing that the new group training classes are released next week I figured the timing was quite nice. I guess I am also itching to design a new routine as well. Half the fun in strength training comes from the planning phase I think. Kinda like engineering.

So what have I learned during this short “experiment”? First of all I have gotten accustomed to the exercise equipment and the “ways of working”. But more importantly I have learned about how to motivate myself to keep up with what is essentially one of the most boring forms of exercise ever conceived. The planning phase, which I mentioned above, is truly at the root of this. The plan gives me a framework towards which I can benchmark and keep track of my progress and it makes my workout more efficient and structured. Seeing that it usually takes months, if not years of work for a person to see any kind of visible results from any form of fitness training, many people will quit their training routine before they even have a chance to reap a single reward for their hard work. But being able to visualize (for instance in a spreadsheet application) the gains in weights lifted gives me a tangible result already after the second session. While I can’t say I have noticed any visible change in muscle mass on my body, I know thanks to the fact that I have disciplined myself to do the same exercises for six weeks in a row that I have gotten stronger. 48% stronger, to be precise.

It’s been two weeks since I added one strength session to my weekly training schedule and today I did my third strength session. I have been able to increase my weights on all exercises by 10 to 20% each session. This doesn’t necessarily mean I have gotten any stronger, instead I believe my nervous system is still adapting to the exercises and movements involved. I try to really focus on my form but this can be difficult at times when the machines are placed at an odd angle toward the mirrors. I suppose I have become quite addicted to the mirrors from all that group training. I find that the triceps push-downs and biceps curls are especially hard to do with good form when I increase the weights.

It’s interesting how my problem with the overly flexible shoulders, doesn’t seem to cause any problems for me when I do exercises which target the shoulders directly, but does seem to have an indirect effect on other parts of my body. I’ve noticed that due to this extra flexibility I am unable to stretch my triceps properly. I haven’t really thought about that as a problem before but during the last two sessions I seem to have injured myself on the triceps push-down. It pains at the point where the triceps connects to the elbow.

I realized that using the spinning shoes when I do my spinning & strength training combo would not work out too well since walking with the spinning shoes is next to impossible. So I figured I might switch the spinning session for a 30 minute Core class. I tried this today and it worked out quite nicely. Since the core muscles are involved in many (if not all) of the exercises I do during my strength session, I figured it might be wise to finish with the Core session.

I keep loosing weight even though I added a whey protein shake to my diet. It’s probably too early to judge but I haven’t really noticed any change (good or bad) since I started eating whey. Maybe I should add one more shake before the workout as well?

The spinning room was exceptionally hot today so I was sweating like a pig after just a couple minutes of cycling. At least I got a thorough warm-up for the “main event”.

Guessing what weights to put on was a bit of hit-and-miss. If only I could remember what weights I used at my previous gym. At least I could see how much weaker I’ve gotten. :P To make matters even more complicated the weight plates they use at Sats Jakobsberg are not metric-based. They do have the metric weight displayed alongside, but the increments are not a logical 2.5 or 5 kg as I am used to. This annoys me quite a bit.

Some smart-ass had left an extra pin on the back side of the weight rack for the cable pulley so that I ended up lifting almost twice as much as I had intended. At first I didn’t realize what was wrong and I did manage two curls before I had to yield. No wonder the guy before looked like he was about to pop a vein. He just didn’t realize to look behind the weight rack like I was fortunate enough to do.

It was kinda crowded, so I had to do my exercises in a sub-optimal order since the machines were sometimes occupied. But I still managed to be in and out in just under 30 minutes.

To my surprise they didn’t have a machine for the Lever Seated Row. So I switched that exercise into a Cable Straight Back Seated Row which puts some additional tension on the stomach, hamstrings and glutes. Other than that I was able to do my exercises as I had planned it. Even the shoulder exercises went smoothly, I didn’t feel any pain or discomfort this time.

While I’m not a complete newbie to strength training I have not done it with any serious motivation, commitment or focus before so I figured that the best way to make strength training more fun was to create a similar type of journal as I did when I started running. This log will be used to keep track of strength gains and to build a sort of personalized catalog of exercises.

As always when I commit to a project I have started out with doing some quite extensive research and come to several conclusions:

Research suggest that no matter what I do, as a beginner, I should be able to increase my strength rapidly at first. So I should not have to worry about setting up a really fancy program as it simply won’t matter what exercises I do. Then it also makes sense to opt for the safest and simplest exercises I can think of. This is not only prudent but leaves room for future experimentation. This is important since it is considered beneficial to change exercise schedule roughly every 2 months. If you start out trying the fanciest most efficient exercises you have nothing left once you hit that infamous plateau. So keeping it to regular curls before switching to hammer curls would seem logical.

Research also suggest that the old saying of “less is more” also holds for the number of sets one should do. After the first set, you start getting diminished returns on every set that follows. I will obviously need more sets initially to find my starting weights, but I will eventually limit my exercise to a maximum of two sets of 8-12 repetitions per muscle.

When it comes to the choice between free weights and machines, I opt for starting out with machines since the motions are more isolated and thus safer. However since there are benefits to using free weights, I will move more towards that in the future.

At first when I started searching for good exercises to start out with I was quite overwhelmed by the huge amount of alternative exercises that you can potentially do for each muscle group. But one has to realize that it would be impractical to do all of those exercises all at once so one has to make a choice to narrow it down. So I figured, why not make this choice as limited as possible, choosing exactly one exercise per muscle. While this may mean that I might not be targeting all of my supporting muscles, I doubt anyone ever manages to target all muscles every week anyway. Also, it will certainly save me some time.

Another overwhelming factor is the amount of muscles that you need to work out. Even when you lump them together into “muscle groups” you end up with having to do eight or nine different exercises to target all of them. So to start out with I will do only chest, back, shoulders and arms, and then I can add the lower body workout to the routine once I start feeling a bit more comfortable with what I have.

With all of that said, I remind myself that “rules are meant to be broken” and set out to brake a few of the once I just set up. For instance, I will do two shoulder exercises instead of one and I do this simply because it feels like “the right thing to do” in my case considering my overly flexible shoulder joints. When I had picked my five exercises for my chest, back, shoulders, biceps and triceps, it felt sorta asymmetrical, so I added one more shoulder exercise to bring the number of exercises up to an even six, and so that there would be a symmetry between pushing and pulling type exercises.

Below you see the six exercises I have chosen to start out with.

1. Lever Chest Press	2. Straight Back Seated Row
3. Lever Shoulder Press	4. Lever Lateral Raise
5. Cable Pushdown	6. Cable Curl

Pictures taken from the exercise database at ExRx.net.

A complete workout would then sum up to a total of 12 sets, which I should be able to execute in as little as 20-25 minutes. With a 30 minute spinning session or alternatively a 15 minute warm-up on a treadmill and a post workout stretch this should feel about as efficient as any group training session. Once I add the leg-part to this it will obviously grow a bit, but probably not by a whole lot.

Finally, I should talk a little about goals. What exactly do I want to achieve? Well, first of all, I don’t want to build myself into a hulking monstrosity, neither do I believe that I have the genes for it. However, I’d be lying if I said I am not doing this based on a little bit of vanity. But then we have of course the health benefits. While I generally don’t do any kind of heavy lifting in my daily life to put that maximum strength to any practical use, the kind of strength you build at the gym is said to “last longer” compared to the endurance based strength you build in for instance Body Pump class. Increasing your muscle mass increases your metabolism as well, which I need to do in order to loose that last bit of fat that I have on my belly.

It will be interesting to see whether or not increasing maximum strength can help me increase the amount of weights I can take in Body Pump class. My hypotheses is that any cross over gains will be marginal at best.

One of the recommendations I was given during the PT consultation was that I should get some extra protein into my system directly after my workouts. It doesn’t come as news to me that the body needs protein to build muscle and that the body has an extra hunger for protein directly after a workout. However my real post workout meal usually comes one to two hours after my workouts, which is maybe a bit too late. Seeing that I am having trouble gaining weight, I figured I’d try out this protein powder stuff.

I ordered 5 kg of Whey-80 from Gymgrossisten and I received it in the mail today. It’s funny how when you specifically order 5 kg of something, and once you receive the parcel and you go to pick it up, you think to yourself: “Wow this weighs a ton, this must be like… five kilograms!” followed by my inner voice replying: “Well, duh! What did you expect?”. Happens to me every time.

It tastes horrible, but who cares what it tastes like. Anyway, I better get used to it, I’m stuck with this now for the next 4-5 months at the very least. :P

She also recommended Creatine, but I noticed somewhere on the product pages a warning that Creatine should be avoided when drinking coffee, so that’s an instant no-buy for me.