Improving gains

by Bojan
(Macedonia)

Well, I know that by eating properly you will gain weight. But my problem is I am gaining weight, but not improving my gains.

It's very hard for me, I have trained around 4 months till now,and increased my gains for just 4 kilos (bi), 3 kilos(flat bench) and no progress on triceps.

Could you give me any tips on how much protein intake I should I have?

Thanks

Bojan

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Feb 01, 2009
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Improving gains/how much protein is needed...
by: Anonymous

Hi Bojan,

To me it sounds like your bodyweight is increasing but your training weights are not progressing as fast as you would like.

Rate of progress is an individual thing, and many factors affect it such as:

1)hormone levels
2)caloric intake
3)level of cardiovascular fitness
4)lifestyle (do you do hard manual labor?)
5)possible overtraining

A 3 kilo gain in the flat bench press is not bad progress. The bench press involves muscles of the arms and thus you will not progress as fast as you would in the squat or deadlift.

Progress in strength is not steady over time. The body is not like a machine that makes exactly the same incriment of progress daily or weekly.

You will find that you may not make progress on a particular exercise for weeks or even months, and then suddenly your strength will increase and you will be able to lift more. Part of the reason this happens is that you may be overtraining or perhaps not doing enough variety in your training.

You need to "cycle" your training so as to avoid overtraining or lack of progress. This is called "linear periodization," and I will give you and example.

Suppose you are training the bench press. Your current best is 200 lbs, and you want to do 225 lbs. You would take 10 weeks to do this. If you use 10 lb weekly increments, that would mean you would start with 125 lbs your first week and by the 10th week, you would be doing 225 lbs.

week 1 - 125 x 8
week 2 - 135 x 8
week 3 - 145 x 8
week 4 - 155 x 5
week 5 - 165 x 5
week 6 - 175 x 5
week 7 - 185 x 3
week 8 - 195 x 3
week 9 - 205 x 2
week 10 - 225 x 1 * (new maximum)

There are other approaches to cycling that are much more advanced. You will learn about these in time from reading and personal experience.

The information on how to do this can be found in the books in my antiaging bookstore. I would particularly reccomend a book called "Keys To The Inner Universe" by Bil Pearl.

Charles Poliquin's books are also very good as well! You cannot go wrong with the advice of these two authors. They are the best!

Check out the site: www.t-mag.com for tips and information as well.

As far as protein requirements, this also varies with the person. Experts reccomend 1 gram of protein for every kilo of bodyweight, although some bodybuilders take much more.

I feel that it should be closer to 1 gram per pound of boydweight, but again, that is a very individual thing.

Make sure most of your protein comes from food sources rather than protein powder. However if you DO use a protein powder, avoid whey concentrate and stick with casein or a casein/whey isolate blend.

Check out the nutritional advice of Dr. John Berardi PhD. www.johnberardi.com

Hope this advice helps you. However remember that you must learn what works best for YOU, and that takes time and experience.

Best of luck in your training!

George

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