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Thread: Absolutely Heinous Bulk

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jul 2022
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    Default Absolutely Heinous Bulk

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    6'3, 20 years old, 230 BW

    All-time NLP PRs are as follows:
    Squat: 380 x 3 x 5
    Bench: 195 x 3 x 5
    Deadlift: 415 x 1 x 5
    Press: 137.5 x 3 x 5

    Some training background. I started in November 2021 with the empty bar at a body weight of about 175. I was doing that StrongLifts 5x5 bullshit and was quickly burnt out until I discovered Starting Strength and switched to 3x5. After many other programming/recovery mistakes, I eventually got to the above numbers at ~230 body weight by the end of February 2023.

    After that, I seemed to hit a wall. I couldn't progress anymore on the NLP, especially in the upper body lifts. Looking back, my recovery was absolutely lacking. I was getting 250+ grams of protein per day but not enough carbs and was probably not in a nearly big enough caloric surplus. Most of my calories consisted of milk, as I was a broke college student.

    So, I switched to a Texas Method style split and made some meh progress while staying around the same body weight at 230.
    Squat: 385 x 2 x 3
    Bench: 215 x 2 x 3
    Deadlift: 425 x 2 x 2
    Press: 135 x 5 x 5

    This progress obviously slowed very quickly, and I hit yet another wall. This got even worse when I had a nearly 3-week layoff due to some personal endeavors and a pretty shitty case of food poisoning. I dropped down to about 219.

    Which brings me to where I am now. For the past 2 weeks I've been running the basic NLP split using bigger jumps in weight to get back up to where I was previously. My plan is to run the NLP again and keep adding weight to the bar, this time in a huge caloric surplus upwards of 4500+ calories a day. My goal is to weigh ~250 by the end of August and see where my numbers get to by then.

    As of writing this, I weigh about 228 with a 36-inch waist. Probably 16-18% body fat if I had to guess. No visible abs or striations unless I'm under some crazy lighting.

    So, is this a good goal to have? And if it is, is there a better way to go about it than just stuffing my face with food and running the NLP into the ground? I know Rip would say yes, but he's Rip after all.

  2. #2
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    Reasonable plan as long as you eat all the carbs in that 4500. What were your volume day squats? Why two heavy pulling sets for deadlift? What was your intensity day press? Something tells me you went with too much stress somewhere on TM.

  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by Robert Santana View Post
    Reasonable plan as long as you eat all the carbs in that 4500. What were your volume day squats? Why two heavy pulling sets for deadlift? What was your intensity day press? Something tells me you went with too much stress somewhere on TM.
    Squat volume was 85% of that week's planned intensity day. For deadlift, I was cycling rep schemes as described in PPST3 (1x5, then 3x2, 2x2, 5x1, 3x1). I never got past 2x2, obviously.

    For my press intensity, the most I did was 145 for 7 singles. I now know that my 5x5 @ 135 was probably too stressful, especially considering that it was a strict press (which I probably should've mentioned).

  4. #4
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    How many sets and reps on squat?

    On press that is definitely too close.

  5. #5
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    Volume day was 5x5. I did the same rep cycling for squat intensity as I did on deadlift.

  6. #6
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    Try 4 x 5 and see how you recover on that.

  7. #7
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    Jul 2007
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    starting strength coach development program
    Rest between sets?

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