Any body builder in here?

exalted512

BIZILL wrote: »

damn you mac. you big guys with your genetics. i'm that skinny guy that had to train super-hard to gain one damn pound.

Actually, me and Aaron have discussed this before...and he was a small guy when he started out. He said in his post he was 160 when he started.
-Cody

BIZILL

yeah, but i seen pics of that dude. sorry, that's genetics. he was destined to be a bigger dude as he aged.

that, or mac spent some time with dbol. but i've heard him state numerous times that he hasn't. thus, genetics.

MacLeod

I started lifting when I was 18. I was 6' tall, weighed 160, had 13" arms, 38" chest and a 34" waist. At my biggest I was 255, 19.5" arms, 50" chest and 37" waist. Im still 255 but my waist is up to 39 and my arms and chest are down a half inch......not that I measure myself or anything.

The reason I got as big as I did was the way I lifted and where I lifted. For the first 2 years I lifted in a small gym with virtually no machines! Then I bought a bench, squat rack, barbell and 400 lbs of weights and did nothing but barbell exercises for the next 4 years at home. All I did were squats, bench, incline bench, bent over rows, military, t-bar rows, front squats, barbell curls, close grip bench, tricep press and dead lifts. Thats pretty much it. Since I wasnt around a bunch of juice heads at a big gym, I had nobody to tell me to only do 4 sets of 12 or whatever. I was grinding it out on my own in a very primitive way reading books from the 70's from Arnold and Mike Mentzer.

The other thing I did different is that I picked one exercise for each group (bench for shoulder girdle, squats for legs and bent over rows for back) and concentrated solely on increasing the amount of reps I could do with a certain weight and then increasing the weight once the reps got above a certain range. For example, Id start with bench say 300 for 4 reps. When I could get it for 8 reps Id move up to 325 for 4, then 350 and so on. Eventually youll hit your "natural max" which everybody has - mine was 405 for 3 reps. Did that in July of 02 and havent hit it since.

I believe that if you can lift 100 pounds 5 times and build up to where you can lift it 8 times, youve gotten bigger. So my philosophy was always to focus 100% on increasing the reps at a given weight from 4 to 8 then increasing the weight. I figured as long as I did that, the size will take care of itself.

Granted it wont be pretty - I have never had cuts or abs or even shape! It was always about being as big as possible.

Cant do it so much now. I still lift and relatively heavy but being 37 and being that Ive been delivering 200 pound beer kegs for a living for the last 10 years, my body cant handle 500 pound squats anymore so Im just in there now trying to hold on to as much as I can for as long as I can. I still firmly believe that weightlifting is the fountain of youth while my hay day may be behind me, Ill always be a gym rat.

This was me in 1989 a year before I started lifting.



And this is the only pic I have of me without a shirt and it was taken against my will 5 minutes after Id woke up on vacation. This was in 2002 after 12 years of lifting when I was at my biggest and strongest. And you can tell Im natural. My neck isnt overly thick, there are no veins the size of your finger in my arms, I dont have a bloated roid belly (just a pizza and beer belly) no acne and my shoulders arent all blocky looking.



I was tall and had broad shoulders so I had a decent albeit thin frame to build on but the size came from countless hours and gonad busting lifting in the gym.

Airplay355

Your body breaks them down just fine, it's called a stomach, sherlock. Calm down and eat some food instead of a powder.

BigMac

I train in the gym 4 times a week and 2 outside. Inside the gym you can grow and get stronger for sure but outside is where the real workout begins for me. Sure I can bench and squat alot (who cares really except the ego maniacs) but that's not what it's all about for me. Hulking strength to me is no good at all. I prefer functional strength. At one point I got so big (naturally) I could not scratch my back and it was almost impossible to take my shirt off. Was really hard to find pants that would fit. I had a tiny waist but legs so big I could not fit in jeans except ones that were like 5 sizes to big for me in the waist. I thought that is what I wanted but once I attained it, it was the biggest pain in the ****.

Now I do Navy Seal training,strongman type training,and almost all old school meat and potatoes exercises. Imo it's harder than any workout in the gym. Heck, most guys could not even get through a basic pilates workout let alone this type of training. Great for overall conditioning,cardio, and you build tons of functional strength. Guys see me and a select few doing strongman type training on the side of the gym and they come out to see what it's all about. They want to get in on the training but just like real Seal training the majority of the guys puss out and are never to be seen again. They figure since they can bench upwards of 400-500 lbs.,squat over 600 lbs. that they will have no problems with the workout. Once they start with the big tire by flipping it 10 times down and 10 times back and up the number flips for each additional set, most of the guys are so out of breath that cannot even talk and have to lay down for a few. What good is all that muscle if you cannot use it for more than 20 seconds at a time? Next up after the tire is the farmers walk with 130s or 150s (other use more or less weight) for 50 yards down and 50 yards back. If you have to stop or you drop the weight when you do get back it's 50 push ups for pussing out. Next up is the car pull. This exercise to me is just frickin' crazy hard. I have a special vest that we hook up to a car/truck with chains and then we drag it as far as we can go. Everything you have is required for this and when you are finished you are completely spent. Our group does this type of training 1 day a week and the Seal training the other day.

The Seal training we do is even more intense imo because it is about endurance and breaking through that wall you face a few times every workout. I think I would rather get kicked in the nads 20 times than do this workout sometimes. I swear, if it were not for the motivation we give each other this program would have ended long ago.....but man is it worth it in the long run. I am close to 40 years old and can keep up with guys 20 years younger than me plus I am in better shape than when I was in the military by far. And last but not least is a saying our group kinda lives by, "Pain is weakness leaving the body so go hard or go home"!!

BIZILL

i will say i have been neglecting cardio for over ten years now. i lift all my bags of groceries in one shot vs. multiple trips to the truck. after one set of groceries, i'm all outta breath. lol. but on a positive note, them groceries get HEAVY! LOL.

dragon1952

MacLeod wrote: »

And this is the only pic I have of me without a shirt and it was taken against my will 5 minutes after Id woke up on vacation.

Looks like your dog took that picture

MacLeod

LOL! Nah, me and the missus (gf at the time) rented a cabin up in Kentucky one year. We slept on the floor the first night in front of the fire. Id just woke up like 2 minutes before this pic and had just got up to fix something to eat and she thought it would be funny to snap a picture. Im ugly enough as is but first thing in the morning - yikes!

organ

Whoa! I missed a lot of responses. Thanks to everyone who replied. The amount of info here is excellent.

MacLeod,
Holy crap! You sir, are an effin monster! Congrats on achieving such a great size. About the cuts, I have never seen a body builder's cuts and rips showing during their 'regular' day. They just look very buffed. It shows only on competitions because these guys start de-hydrating themselves 4 days before the show so the skin would shrink into the muscles more. Then, 5 mins before going on stage, they eat a crap load of sweets to make the veins enlarge and pop out.

I started watching some Mr. Olympia competitions on the net and I cannot believe how much juice these guys are on. I know a lot of hard work is involved including diet, sleep, etc, but I'm sure the amount of juice have been increasing since Arnold became Mr. Olympia. Check out 8x champion Ronnie Coleman, wtf? His Mr. Olympia performance on youtube is insane. The guy's got a huge back.

I never really liked body building chicks, but I found some pics of Denise Masino and this woman is just BEAUTIFUL!