Newbie Gains

Hi all,

I have weights trained on and off for a couple of years. I recently bought some home gym equipment for convenience sake and am trying to fit weights into my lifestyle permanently. I'd like to share my journey so far. For those interested, the graphs are from my training log at GymRecord.com (http://www.gymrecord.com).

All these graphs are over 26 March 2005 to the 23 April 2005 inclusive, and all units are in kilograms, centimeters. I'm 191 centimeters tall (about 6 foot 3 inches).

Here's how my weight looks so far:



I think my weight tailed off because that week I took a bit of a rest from the gym, worked overtime at work, and started using water with my protein shakes rather than milk.

Here's my chest:



I can't explain the dip in the chest measurements. I may have been sick around that time.

My legs:



I have been working my legs primarily with overhead squats and dead lifts.

My waist:



I don't think my waist is growing because I'm getting fatter (i'll buy calipers some day). Rather, I think doing overhead squats has really helped me 'fill out'.

So far I have been pretty encouraged by my gains. I have been eating much more than usual and with multiple meals at work I'm getting a bit of a reputation. I have been training regularly with rougly 5 days on, 2 days off. With the gym at home now I occassionally work out when I didn't plan too, and sometimes I don't work out if I couldn't get to bed early enough.

Everything else has been pretty much flat. I will keep working the compound movements and see where my other measurements end up. Will keep you all posted.

Wow. That's a good bit of data to hold on to. Good luck with it!

Haha I like that quote in your signature:
"This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time." -T. Durbin

Pardon my ignorance but who is T. Durbin?

Hey all,

Here's my latest weight gains to date. You will notice that this graph looks just like the graph in my very first post. The graph postings from my first post were accidental and they will always show my entire progress. Successive updates will only show my progress to date

The first graph below is my weight in kilograms. You will notice a little hump in the graph below. Prior to the hump I was consuming bacon and eggs every morning, and using full cream/skim milk with my protein shakes. I switched to water with my shakes, and cereal for breakfast and noticed an immediate weight loss as seen in the graph. Fortunately I have still been able to gain weight despite the large loss sustained by improving my diet. Though I don't have calipers, my fat levels have visibly improved.



My waist measurements in centimeters backup my suspicions that I have lost fat. My waist is now better defined, but I have still managed to retain the muscle gain around the waist area (oblique's, lower back) which I attribute to the overhead squatting.



Here's my upper arm (bicep/tricep) graph in centimeters. I haven't really done many bicep specific exercises. The closest I would get to a bicep work out is when I do chin ups.



It's a similar story for my calves. The most workout I do for my calves is when I do overhead squats, or play basketball. Suprisingly I have still managed to gain some size in my calves. I think this is from overhead squats. As a side note, I noticed a while ago when I did lots of sprinting for athletics that my calves grew. Sadly I didn't keep measurements.



I focus on compound movements and it shows with my chest progress. I essentially focus on the classic bench press movement, but also try to perform just as many military press workouts. I will start flies soon as I have noticed the outside of my chest is relatively under developed. I have managed to break the 1 meter chest range which is a nice psychological victory. The rate of chest growth has been quite suprising. During the first 5 weeks or so of the graph I was doing pyramid style weights. Recently I have been doing a basic 8 rep, 5 set workout, increasing the weight on each workout. I noticed the best "post-workout-buffness" when I switched the workout routine. I would think this is indicative of the true gain acquired from the session.



Despite the constant chest improvement, I am not a bench press monkey and have managed to realise similar gains in my thighs. I attribute my thigh gains to my intense overhead squat sessions. Typicall 8 reps, 5 sets, with an increasing weight. I realised large gains in strength and size by using pyramid style workouts with decreasing reps, and increasing weight on each set. I have shifted to 5 sets of 8 reps to try to consolidate my strength and mix it up a little.



I guess the most important thing I have learned in the last few weeks is that I can actually get fat if I want too. I am the type of person that has never been able to put on significant weight - including fat. Typically I could drink and eat whatever I wanted and not notice any significant difference in appearance.

The graphs above suggest that I can gain weight and fat by consistantly consuming large amounts of food - while the one off pig outs don't seem to matter (think friday night pizza and beer). Since the weight hump I have decreased the number of meals I consume each week. This is largely due to being lazy and disorganised.

I have always wondered if I could actually get fat and I have proven to myself that it is possible. I believe the emphasis should be on forming good habits and the occasional indulgence wont matter.

I hope to report back shortly with an 80kg+ lean weight!

Ps. These are all relaxed measurements as opposed to flexing the muscle while measuring.