What's next?

[Jeremy Minton]

I have been working out for 5 months now. And have gained 25 pounds. Been taking CREE along with ON 100% Whey Gold Standard.
I am getting off the CREE.
And I think I will stay on the On. I love that stuff.
Now, I still want to gain a good 25 pounds before cutting starts. So what else do I need to take with the ON? I have been hearing about BCAAs, and that it helps building protein or something along those lines. Would you reccomend this... and if so, which brand? I would prefer pills if they have them. Any info would be great.

6'1
175 pounds
20 years

[Jeremy Minton]

Bu bump bu bump bump

[Jeremy Minton]

Any info from anyone?

[Richard]

Creatine? You should gain some weight with that along with a proper diet..

you haven't considered 'Roids right?

[Jeremy Minton]

CREE was the creatine I stopped taking. And I don't think steroids is worth it. I would much rather do it all natural and be proud of myself, than cheat.

[pliny_2001]

So you want to put on 50 lbs b/f cutting down? I'm impressed - I wish I'da been lifting like that when I was 20. Most people I talk to say that BCAA's are best to take when you're cutting down your calories, arguing that it helps to prevent catabolism - they may also be good when just gaining, but it would be alot more expensive than just staying protein-positive.

[1dman]

Well, a lot pf people speak highly of BCAAs and say they promote anabolism, help maintain muscle, etc... but then again others claim that this is not true and it is actually all 10 EAAs (Essential Amino Acids) that do what BCAAs are supposed to do.
Now I tried both (Optimum BCAA 5000 and Universal Amino 1900), and honestly, I do not know which one really works, if at all, however I am still using BCAAs (5g during workout aside from the 10 grams I get with the pre and post workout shake).
In any case, ON's whey has 5g of BCAAs in each serving and a whole lot of EAAs, so that should have you covered.
If you decide to get BCAAs which are not cheap btw, get the powder form, cuz it's much cheaper and gives you a lot more per serving. If you get caps or tabs, you'll have to down about 5-10 just to get 5g (which would be considered 1 serving).
If you want products that seem to give results for everyone, you should try bsn's products (NO-Xplode, Nitrix, Cellmass).
I'm considering getting the first two later this month since they seem to work with a lot of people.
In the end, it's how hard you work out and how much you eat that will determine your gains. So lift heavy (and smart), eat big, and you'll see results.

[Jeremy Minton]

Thanks for the input guys.
I added an extra snack along with a 30g protein Detour bar.
And the gains are still maintaining, even up a little. I'm already up to 180, which is faster than I expected. I was hoping on reaching the 180 for the end of the month. So just 20 more pounds until the cutting.

Also, I do plan on trying that Nitrix...
anyone have more info on the product?

[copenhagenbd]

Well if your 100% natural they say you can put on 5-10 lbs per year of quality muscle. You say you've already put on 25lbs in 5 months and hope to add another 25. Do you check your bodyfat? If so how much has that gone up? A guy on steroids will be hard pressed to add 50 lbs of muscle in 1 year, in fact it would take a hell of alot of hard work, steroids and food. So I dont think your goals are realistic. Its great that your gaining and you wish to continue doing so, but there is no supplement that is going to acheave this. If you want to know what I consider essential supplements, BCAA's, EFA's, Glutamine, and a good multi vitamin. When you say "start cutting" are you preparing for a contest because if your not competeing I wouldn't recomend bulking and then cutting. Your better off to have a quality diet all the time and stay lean at all times. Anyway thats just my advice .

[gymSocks]

When i was 19 i hit a growth spurt and was eating right...i gained 40lbs in a few months. But that was after a long sports season, I was over trained and under fed. I went from 152 to 190 and staid their for quite some time. I was just lifting with light cardio. I gained great weight but got a little chunky as well. However, have never gained weight like I do on AS though. I think you need to try to educate yourself further on AS before you are so hard on it. For starters i think you would be surprised at how many "Naturals" are not so. That said it still takes discipline and hard work to gain on AS. My personal opinion, their is no way that you could ever carry as much weight natural as you could using AS. Who knows maybe you are a genetic anomaly.


I love MRM BCAA+g.

[pliny_2001]

Don't worry about our snuff-loving friend up there - he seems pretty knowledgeable about AAS from what I've seen. And he's right about gains being tough to come by for a natural, but maybe a little conservative - a natural trainer is limited to about 2 lbs of muscle a month of gains, and even that's pretty impossible to maintain over the course of an entire year. If you can put on ten pounds in a year, you're doing pretty well.

I was assuming that Mr. Minton started off on the skinny side, so he could add a decent amount of tissue w/o appearing to gain any appreciable fat. If this is also the first time he started working out, my personal theory is that the resulting surge of test would be similar to the AAS adage of 'your first cycle is always your best' - I think that his receptors (?) would have an outsize response to test, so initial growth would probably be a bit about the 2 lb. number.

Just my theory, though.

[copenhagenbd]

Originally Posted by pliny_2001

Don't worry about our snuff-loving friend up there - he seems pretty knowledgeable about AAS from what I've seen. And he's right about gains being tough to come by for a natural, but maybe a little conservative - a natural trainer is limited to about 2 lbs of muscle a month of gains, and even that's pretty impossible to maintain over the course of an entire year. If you can put on ten pounds in a year, you're doing pretty well.

I was assuming that Mr. Minton started off on the skinny side, so he could add a decent amount of tissue w/o appearing to gain any appreciable fat. If this is also the first time he started working out, my personal theory is that the resulting surge of test would be similar to the AAS adage of 'your first cycle is always your best' - I think that his receptors (?) would have an outsize response to test, so initial growth would probably be a bit about the 2 lb. number.

Just my theory, though.

I totally agree with you. Hope I didnt come off like I was trying to discourage. I was merely trying to say that to add 50lbs of muscle is quite a feat. Any way Pliny is probably right about you making big gains because of the surge of test (not sure it thats the exact cause or not but the theory sounds right). Anyway work hard and you can acheave yopur goals, just know its going to take some time.

[Jeremy Minton]

I was a skinny dude when I started out months back. Like I said I was 6 1, 150 pounds. Right now I am at 15% body fat.

I thought that it was easier to gain muscle if you bulk up and then cut. Because fat is easier to convert to muscle.

About the not taking steriods, I actually fear them. It could possibly be because I am uneducated about them. I don't want to have liver damage down the road, or any side effects ever, if I did take steriods.

When I 1st started, I was really considered steriods, mainly d-bol. Then I read some of the side effects, and it just didn't seem worth it.

But yes, I am pretty positive most of my gains are from fat. I think I can acheieve 200 without appearing fat. Right now I would say I am on the verge of being chunky. Mainly because of my stomach. I lost my 6-pack completely once I started eating more. And I never worried about working out my abs.
But 2 weeks ago I started to through them in my workouts for about 10 minutes.

[pliny_2001]

It's a common enough misconception, but the only thing that fat converts to is energy, and then only because you're restricting calories in your diet. Muscle is comprised of proteins, fat is comprised of fat: working out won't turn fat to muscle, and sitting on the couch for a year won't turn muscle to fat - they're just different tissues.

The reason that it's easier (an imprecise word, 'cuz it's never easy) to gain muscle while "bulking" (a grossly over-used, and mis-used, word) is that most bodies don't want to put on muscle mass in a calorie-restricted environment, instead preferring to convert excess calories to fat, as a ward against future starvation. To get around that mechanism, you simply eat significantly more than you need to: the body isn't worried about starvation, and responds to the physical stresses by using the excess calories to both convert proteins into muscle, and stores the remainder as fat (the "bulk" part of the cycle).

Meanwhile, when "cutting" time comes about, you restrict your total calorie intake to something below what you need, workout sparingly, and time your protein accordingly. Should everything work properly, your body will use the readily available fat stores in order to make up for the calorie deficit, while your well-structured diet and exercise schedule attempts to preserve the maximum amount of muscle.

For comparison's sake, I recently did a 3.5 month lifting cycle, gaining around 15 lbs (and pretty much losing my abs, which is a side-effect I hated). So I then changed the diet around, and modified the workouts. My abs are (almost completely) back, and I'm up 7 lbs. on my starting weight. The entire process lasted about 6 months. The reason I said that I wished I had lifted heavier when I was 20 was b/c you have so much more natural testosterone at that age - you can gain less fat and more muscle, with comparatively less work.

And no AAS here: not because of liver damage (you can always get a new one), but I'm afraid of baldness like girls are afraid of spiders.

[Hans_Rachid]

I think you shouldn't be so obsessed with the amount of weight you gain, but rather to the amount of quality mass you're adding to your frame. There's no point in reaching the 200 pounds mark in a few months if for that you have to get to 20% body fat. Then you'll want to cut down to 10% bf, and if you make the math : 10% * 200 = 20 which means if everything worked perfectly and you didn't lose any muscle and only the 20 pounds of fat, you'd be back to 180 pounds... Losing that much fat would take a lot of time, time where you won't be able to gain muscle. And if it didn't take a lot of time, it would mean you went on a hardcore diet and would most likely lose a lot of muscle allong with the fat, which is worse.

There was an article on this very matter, I think it was on T-Nation but I can't find it. The point was that eating clean and in reasonable amount all year long, to maintain a steady body fat percentage was the best approach. It stated that as a natural trainee you couldn't gain much more than 1/2 pound of muscle per week or 2 pounds per month, so consuming 2000 calories more than you spend per day would only lead to fat gains and time wasted trying to lose it afterwards. I think they suggested you limit yourself to an excess of 500 calories per day.

[copenhagenbd]

Originally Posted by Hans_Rachid

I think you shouldn't be so obsessed with the amount of weight you gain, but rather to the amount of quality mass you're adding to your frame.

Great point, just because your adding weight doesnt mean your adding muscle. And just because your not adding weight doesnt mean your not gaining muscle.

[JoeBAR]

Originally Posted by Hans_Rachid

I think you shouldn't be so obsessed with the amount of weight you gain, but rather to the amount of quality mass you're adding to your frame. There's no point in reaching the 200 pounds mark in a few months if for that you have to get to 20% body fat. Then you'll want to cut down to 10% bf, and if you make the math : 10% * 200 = 20 which means if everything worked perfectly and you didn't lose any muscle and only the 20 pounds of fat, you'd be back to 180 pounds... Losing that much fat would take a lot of time, time where you won't be able to gain muscle. And if it didn't take a lot of time, it would mean you went on a hardcore diet and would most likely lose a lot of muscle allong with the fat, which is worse.

Not necessarily... See the results of The Velocity Diet or the Get Shredded Diet...

Note: I've lost 8lbs in 4 weeks without any siginificant loss of muscle (bi size constant) nor loss of strength (busted my deadlift 1RM twice in 2 weeks). I follow the principles of the 'get shredded diet' though not the diet itself to the letter and I workout as per the program highlighted in the velocity diet. I have a job, so the get shredded diet would be a little too drastic here

Originally Posted by Hans_Rachid

There was an article on this very matter, I think it was on T-Nation but I can't find it. The point was that eating clean and in reasonable amount all year long, to maintain a steady body fat percentage was the best approach. It stated that as a natural trainee you couldn't gain much more than 1/2 pound of muscle per week or 2 pounds per month, so consuming 2000 calories more than you spend per day would only lead to fat gains and time wasted trying to lose it afterwards. I think they suggested you limit yourself to an excess of 500 calories per day.

Maybe this one... There are many

[Hans_Rachid]

Originally Posted by JoeBAR

Maybe this one... There are many

Yes it was this one !

[1dman]

Originally Posted by pliny_2001

And no AAS here: not because of liver damage (you can always get a new one), but I'm afraid of baldness like girls are afraid of spiders.

Actually the liver is the second most important organ in the body after the heart, and once your liver is busted, getting a new one (if you even have a chance to get one) most certainly will not be easy or cheap for that matter.
And even if you do get a transplant, you cannot be 100% sure that your body won't reject it, which if it does, you will die.
And from a statistical point of view: 1-year survival (in Finland) is 83% (17% don't survive past the first year after transplantation), 5-year survival is 76% (24% die) and 10-year survival is 66% (34% die).

Baldness on the other hand won't kill you (you can always get a wig ).

[copenhagenbd]

Just so everyone realizes the actual livier toxicity of steroids, 1 Anadrol-50 (considered one of the most, if not the most liver toxic oral that is still manufactured) is equivelent to 1 vodka martini. So for any of you that has a few drinks most days of the week your probably doing more damage to your liver than a person on any steroid. Remember anadrol is considered extremely liver toxic so something more mild such as anavar or winstrol would basically have no liver toxicity, and injectable compounds would have even less ass they miss the first pass through. Just some food for thought