How big is "big"?

I stepped on the scale on Monday morning and was surprised at my weight, I am heavier than I can remember being in several years.


I weigh 131 pounds. The most I can recall being in the last 10 years or so was 132 and that was at Christmas time when I was training with SC, and I was pretty chubby. He wanted me to get up to 150...no way!


I don't think I look too bad at 131 but it is hard to be here, and I am really interested in seeing what will happen with my diet change.


I am trying to add as much lean mass as possible, and that means heavy lifting and a surplus of calories, unless I start taking steroids or Human Growth Hormone (which ain't gonna happen), I don't really see how I could get much bigger without getting just plain fat, but I will keep trying, it's sort of an interesting experiment.


I am enjoying it in part because all I ever hear women say is how they are trying to lose weight. I think they confuse it with losing fat, because in the grand scheme of things, your weight shouldn't matter- the fat should.


Being heavy indicates a lot of muscle mass, muscle weighs more than fat. 

Ok, well not always, but I mean, really, you can just look at someone and tell if they have a lot of fat or a lot of muscle right? 

I will keep up the training and the calories, and of course a bit of cardio but not much, the reason I would be doing cardio is to increase my enegry expenditure and that is just not the goal right now.

I am excited to see how the change in my diet will affect all of this. Will I still maintain the muscle mass, and grow the way I want, while reducing the bodyfat? Only time will tell. I haven't haven't had any starches now all week, it hasn't been difficult at all.

Training and Recovery

One of the biggest mistakes that athletes can make is not allowing their bodies time to recover. But...to even get to the recovery period- you have to train hard enough to warrant it!


If you haven't paid attention to what every expert in the world has been shouting yet, it is a well known fact that growth takes place after you leave the gym, you need to eat properly (another post) and allow the body time to recover and build tissue. Back to back heavy sessions or multiple sessions may make you feel like a beast but you are doing more harm to your physique than good. That's one reason why Bodybuilders use the body split method- they can train everyday but move from one body part to the next and still make gains.


Roy and I started German Volume Training (GVT) two weeks ago- this is a method used for only a short time span where the trainee will perform 10 sets of 10 reps with a very short rest in between.


Typically this is done with one body part and there may be several days- even up to 5 days between sessions. We are hitting quads and shoulders, these are two focus areas of mine.


I recently experienced for the very first time in my lifting career, something new, I had not recovered enough from the previous workout- in fact, it was so dramatic that I couldn't lift nearly what I typically would lift. It was an odd experience for me.


In the past I have felt fatigued, or just plain tired, those are very different and you should be able to discern the difference. This time my body was not physically capable of performing what it was expected, and it actually performed sub-par of the typical weight.


On Wednesday we did GVT squats- the weight was increased from the previous session (its two sessions a week at the same weight for one week, then moved up the next two sessions). I was squatting at 115 which is pretty beastly considering I am at 126 pounds bodyweight and am doing 100 reps with little rest in between. I sweat, a lot!


This was on Wednesday evening and I finished at about 6:45- I had to push the sled afterward, I think the weight added to the sled was 115 pounds? So I would do four sets of three runs, each run about 20 feet maybe.


Then on Thursday morning I woke up at 4:00 a.m. to get to Gold's Gym by 5:00 a.m. to train hamstrings. Usually this would not be an issue, this week it was.


Roy wanted me to add some deadlifts in now, we started this last week on Mondays, so I wanted to first do my standing leg curls then go into the deads. The leg curls were hard but I just figured I was tired, the workout the night before was fairly brutal. But then I moved to deadlifts and I could only lift 185 pounds, 3 sets of 5. I could not do more. On Monday I lifted more than that and I did 5 sets of 10, this was a huge drop off.


I went to the prone leg curl and found I was lifting the same weight for less reps as the week prior. I moved to the Glute Ham Raise and literally fell apart. I did two sets of 5 reps. Last Thursday I did three sets of 10 reps.


I talked to Roy about it on Friday- I immediately figured that I was not fully recovered but I was a bit concerned, I need to get my legs bigger and the only way is to hit them twice a week. Quads twice and Hams twice. If I was so exhausted from the GVT I couldn't do this, there are not enough days in the week. 


Roy agreed that it was the fact that I had not recovered fully and he was pleased. 

Odd? No- let me explain.

GVT is designed to over load the Central Nervous System (CNS) and cause muscle hypertrophy, causing the athlete to gain lean muscle mass quickly. Here is an article about GVT from the National Strength and Conditioning Association, I found it quite interesting.

If you are really lifting at the recommended weight of about 60% to 70% of one rep max, for 100 reps, you should really take quite some time to recover. It should not be so easy that you bounce back in 24 or even 48 hours, I don't care how strong or young you are.

So the fact that I was explaining to Roy that I hadn't felt fatigued, I felt completely physically incapable of lifting my weights, showed that indeed I had overloaded my system, and my body was still trying to recover. Adaptation was occurring. My body was reacting to the overload and trying to adapt, I was gaining strength and mass (as long as I was eating enough too).

He said that if that occurred again, and I was not capable of increasing my weights or reps, then I should call it a day and go home, I was doing no good spending time in the gym. It would be like those people we all see who go in every single time, do the exact same workout with the exact same weight, and they look exactly the same forever, or fatter.

Friday as we trained shoulders, utilizing the GVT method again, I had recovered, and my weight went up as it should.

Saturday morning I went into Gold's Gym on my own, I had a very busy day and a very short time to lift, I did my GVT squats at 115 pounds, and it felt easy, I mean fairly easy. I was high as a kite, I was singing (as much as I could considering I was panting in between sets) and smiling, I knew I was getting stronger and adding mass, and on Wednesday my squats would go up yet again...

6 Weeks Out

It's Tuesday and how does your competition suit fit? Mine is sitting pretty right now, I like the way things are moving along. I am down another pound, so I am losing it slowly, and appear to actually be gaining lean mass, or I just  look pretty frigging ripped these days!


I am at 123 so I am guessing I will get down to 120 after all, and should look about right, but I never know till I get there.


I really owe the legs to Roy, I have never been able to get much shape, and although I want them even bigger, I think this is the best they have ever looked!  I am actually developing a sweep there! YAHOO!


After this competition, we just keep working on the legs, and since I won't be restricting calories as much, they should grow bigger!


The shoulders are popping out and getting nice caps. You can see the glutes looking better from the sides here, the "indent" of something I don't know the name of! But it's just where most women have saddlebags...I have saddle divots starting I guess!

The shape of the upper back is nice but I would like to see more definition in my spinal erectors, that should come in time and with more bodyfat loss. The glutes are now starting to tighten up and the glute-ham transition is becoming smoother.

This is for my friend Sakura, she wants to see the glutes from the side, I hope she is pleased! Riding high still! Take a look at the hamstring bulge that has developed! Rear delt looks nice and round.

I am happy all around, the waist is coming in, the quads are coming out, shoulders are getting rounder and I still have 6 weeks left!


My metabolism is right where it needs to be now, It takes a while to get there, but when it does, watch out. At this point I am still hungry immediately following eating, but it seems to dissipate after about 30 minutes, then I really am not hungry for a couple hours, then it hits me suddenly and I must eat immediately! Luckily that's right about the correct time.


As soon as I start eating, I start to sweat. I mean a lot! More than when I do cardio, it's kinda weird but seems to be my body just kicking into overdrive.


I will keep up with my after work sprints and stairs, it seems to be working well for me. I will try to move away from so many stairs and start more sprints.


I was at Home Depot as my husbands "helper" this morning, and we asked the fellow where the melamine boards were and he took one look at me and said "You look like you are hecka strong!"
And right he is!

8 Weeks Out

8 weeks until the San Francisco show, and I am feeling like I am on track. My weight has been as low as 124 for a few days last week, yet it moves up a bit according to the carbs and water and sodium in my diet.

I don't think I want to get down to 119 and maybe even not 120. I am beginning to think that I just may have added some nice lean mass and won't have too much more to worry about. 

The shoulders are looking rounder (thanks to Roy) and I can see my quads looking better each week as the fat slowly melts away.

Back looks great- but I have always had a good back, I love the shape that can be seen here.

Roy has plans to help me get rid of that fat on the lower glute area, in a few weeks you should see a vast improvement with overall tightening. And don't worry, when I glue the suit on it will fit straight and better!

Close up of the impressive back starting to develop....

The delts look nice and round here, which indicates good overall development in anterior and posterior, I am working on the lateral  delts for width on the side (from the front view). 


Even got some good horseshoe triceps going on!


On target, feeling good and making my list of places to eat afterwards...only two months to go.

The 4 Hour Body

I love reading, I read ever single night, I don't watch TV. I have read most of this, and probably won't finish it. This book is great! 

How can I say that this is a great book if I don't even plan on reading the entire thing? Well, let's take a look at the whole title:

The 4-Hour Body, An Uncommon Guide To Rapid Fat-Loss, Incredible Sex, And Becoming Superhuman by Timothy Ferriss.

Timothy Ferriss is a young, very fit and attractive local (my local) male. He is a tango world record holder, former national kickboxing champion (Sanshou), guest lecturer at Princeton University, and faculty member at Singularity University, based at NASA Ames Research Center. He has compiled over 10 years of experiments involving the human body- his body and others, all packed into this one blue book. 

The author even says that he doesn't expect people to read every single section, I mean, I have no interest in "How to Hold Your Breath Longer Than Houdini" (page 453), but I immediately turned to "The Slow Carb Diet I: How to Lose 20 pounds in 30 Days Without Exercise" (page 70) and then to "From Geek to Freak: How to Gain 34 Pounds in 28 Days (page 181) and I will be using my son as a Guinea Pig for this one!

I have yet to read "Hacking the NFL Combine I and II", but I will, I have an interest in that.

Not only does this book have great information, it's loaded with entertaining stories and tests. Ferriss uses himself as a test subject in all matters- whether its drugs or food, equipment or sleep deprivation, he does it first hand and reports back. I haven't finished the sex sections, but if it is anything like the rest of the book, we will learn quite a bit about his personal life. 

I actually tried his supplementation called "The Four Horsemen of Fat-Loss PAGG (page 114). I started the supplement regime just two days before I broke my rib, and I have stayed on it, maybe that's why I didn't gain a lot of weight while I was injured? That, and the fact that I still maintained a great, clean diet most of the time.

I have tried some of his exercises, and I like them! There is so much in here- get the book.

Below is a video trailer of the book, same one you will find on the website in the link above. 

Email subscribers will need to navigate directly to the blog to see this video.

New Trainer

I have been without a trainer for a year now. Previously I worked with two at once! One for strength, one for Figure. They were often at odds as to what they believed I should be doing. 


I worked with SC (Strength Coach) for about three years, maybe longer, I enjoyed that more than anything. Every Friday I would leave work early and would hit weights so heavy, sometimes my whole body would shake.


I would work with FP (Figure Pro) leading up to competitions, and since I was doing three a year, that pretty much covered the year! I would see her on an evening after work, we did mindless weights (even she said that), but she was great at assessing what needed work. 


I stopped training last year and was on my own. I have decided it is time to find a new trainer, one who meets all my criteria.


I went to meet a new trainer after work on Monday, so we could talk and decide if we might work well together. I already sent him my list of requirements, down to the only day and time that I could train, none of this silly "jumping around stuff", just pure heavy weights, muscle building only, I am looking to add mass, as much as naturally possible, and he was in agreement.


I told him "I don't need to lose weight, I don't need to lose fat, I need to build mass, get big and ripped!"  He said that training a figure competitor would make it very interesting.


He doesn't train at my club, he has his own facility and has completed courses through the Poliquin International Certification Program (P.I.C.P.) and the BioSignature Modulation Program. That's how I found him, browsing through the list of PICP trainers listed on the Charles Poliquin website.


I showed up Monday evening at about 7:30, the facility is located in one of those small industrial type areas, where you will find lots of auto body shops, and small manufacturing shops, the kind that is a long driveway, with roll up garage doors, all in a row.


I drove down the end of the drive, not much open at this hour, so I looked for an open garage door, and there it was, with a nice Ducati parked right in front.


There were two trainers, and two clients, nice! The place has just about everything I could want, a dual cable, one power rack, glute ham raise, lat pull down, dip bars, back extension, kettlebells, lots of free weights, med balls, some benches, a huge trampoline, mats, a heavy bag, a sled and big, thick ropes. In other words, not a bunch of sissy machines, my club has plenty of those (and I do use some of them depending on my training at the time).


I sat on one of the big thick mats, occasionally talking but not much. Roy said I didn't look like I had been off training for 4 weeks, I told him that he should have seen me 4 weeks ago! ha!


I watched Roy train, watched how he treated the client, and liked what I saw. He was calm, thinking, watching, paying attention, taking notes, speaking when necessary, but not much. He was working on a full body workout, not what I want but his client was training for fat loss, he said his plans for me are very, very different. That is good, you really can't gain a lot of mass by doing full body, dynamic workouts, and he agreed, it would be heavy weights, body part splits just as I am used to. He understands I want to gain muscle mass, I don't like group training and circuits, that's not real training in my eye. He understood completely.

We talked for about a half hour afterward, about my goals, my needs, and diet.  We talked about supplements and sleep, he seems to know quite a bit but at the same time was very interested in how I maintain such a low body fat percentage all the time!  He asked if I do a lot of cardio? (NO!), do I take fat burners  (NO!) ....hmm, how do I stay so lean? I started just rattling off how and I forgot how completely natural my diet has become in my everyday life.


What I liked was he considers the whole person when training, it's not just the weights or the diet, but your sleep, supplements, energy levels. 


He told me about the fat measurement of the subscapular, if it is at 8mm or less, then I am probably naturally lean and can eat carbs till the cows come home, and not gain a lot of fat. If it measures at 10 or higher, I would be insulin sensitive and starchy carbs would not be a good thing for my body.


I told him that I have my 9 site bodyfat measurements on a spreadsheet for over the past year, I would check it out as soon as I got home. Yes, I have it from March of 2009 to September of 2010, last time I think I saw SC and he checked it. My subscap? Went up to 8 twice, and the rest of the time low as can be.


Want to see the measurements?


Kristy Body Fat


He said he was a little scared when I explained how I broke my rib, I am not sure if that was because he thought I might injure myself again, or I was just a bit too aggressive. I assured him I am fine, I had a DEXA scan not too long ago, I have the bone density of a 27 year old!


We agreed to start with a month. I will show up at noon on Fridays (today, first day!) and he will start by testing my max in lifts, lower body today, upper next week. He will write a program, increasing weights weekly.


Last piece was to change my work hours, once again to fit my training. Thank goodness I have a very supportive supervisor! Fridays, now I work 7:30 to 11:30 so I can get there on time. We will see how it goes, I am looking forward to it.


Watch out world!

Big Enough?

I have been on a "Get Big" plan since October 10, that's six weeks now. I am wondering if I should stop or keep going?

 

I have to gain weight to gain lean mass, and I have been doing a good job keeping the fat at bay, but when you gain, it's not 100% muscle, there is always some fat in the mix.

Don't get me wrong, no one would say I am fat in any way, shape or form, but I am not the mean, lean machine I used to be and it's hard to get used to it.

My stomach certainly isn't tight and flat any longer, in fact it looks similar to many mid sections I see on bikini competitors- and that's not a look I particularly care for, soft and smooth.

I was grocery shopping on Wednesday and the clerk said "your arms are really getting big!"....hmm, that's the plan but when do I stop?

My back is looking fairly wide too, and with a good taper.

I guess I am a bit afraid that I will just get so big, that it will be hard to drop down again when I want to, although I have actually plateaued at 127 pounds, which is only 7 pounds over competition weight, so I really could gain a bit more and be OK.

I am eating more, incorporating fruit, beef, some low fat cheese and bread on occasion, even some pasta now and again.

You see,  to gain weight, you must have a caloric surplus (eat more calories than you expend in a day), and to lose weight, you must have a caloric deficit (eat less calories than you expend in a day).

It's not as simple as either eating more or eating less though, that is where the novice fails. When gaining, most people don't want to gain fat, they want to gain lean mass. This means that you increase calories a slight amount, it can be as little as 300 calories more a day, or in the case of a very large male, it could be a couple thousand. Those calories cannot be any calories, if you ingest a bunch of saturated fats and alcohol and empty calories (junk), it will be fat you gain and not lean muscle mass.

So I have been eating more of the same foods I regularly eat, but I have also been enjoying life and eating some regular foods, foods I will probably have to start cutting back soon.

To make sure I am gaining, I have increased  my carbohydrate immediately after lifting, and the two meals following. I have incorporated more healthy fats, and then relaxed on the proteins (meaning I am eating more beef and not so much fish).

I am lifting really heavy, and sticking to the basics like squats, lunges, pull ups, chin ups, t-bar rows and some kettlebells. I am still running those 300 stairs everyday at work too, rain or shine.

I guess a few more weeks won't hurt, then I can pull back a bit and see how things are looking.