Another workout Q thread for TJ: I'm happy with my physique

[swiggidy]

Hey TJ,
I've never been a fatty and I started working out ~5 years ago because I was tired of being skinny. So I have a good physique. I'm going to work on my legs a lot, with the ultimate goal being more athletic. Hence, I don't want to put on another 5-10lbs of upper body muscle, but I still want/need to do some upper body workouts.

I have been mostly doing 5-7 reps. I've decided to change to 10-12 reps, is this the right idea? What side effects should I expect? I would guess moderate muscle mass gain, more definition/tone, more strength? FWIW, I can't do 10 reps on some exercises after dropping 20% of the weight that I can do 7 reps.

Much Thanks.

[Lukie]

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/index.html

http://forum.bodybuilding.com/

[swiggidy]

Thanks Lukie.

Some Qs for you:
Do you ever measure or care about your bf%?
What are any goals you have while you're working out?

[jyms]

Sorry swig, i missed this. We talked about it on IM though. Those lnks Lukie gave are great, I was a regular reader there for years.

[swiggidy]

Sorry swig, i missed this. We talked about it on IM though. Those lnks Lukie gave are great, I was a regular reader there for years.

yeah no prob.

I bought a bf scale. I think the reading was fucked up, but I'm still way higher than I thought. At least partially a hydration problem, which is easily remediable and something I should fix anyway. Not sure how far I can get with my current diet (which is decent) and alcohol consumption (which is poor). Not sure I feel like changing this.

I'm going to focus on increasing reps. For example, I dropped 30 lbs from where I was comfortable doing 7 reps of skullcrushers and I struggle to do more than 8.

[wufwugy]

lol bb.com. just lol.

There have been and are a handful of posters on bb.com that don't have their heads up their asses, but, as a newb, they're difficult to spot. They all also often post elsewhere.

Look for smaller communities, usually ones that don't hype products much. In these communities you'll find more clearheadedness, more results, and less bullshit, for the most part.

As for your question: Generally speaking, lower volume = lower mass gains, but not necessarily lower strength gains. Also, generally speaking, the closer to or below caloric maintenance the harder it is to get bigger, but not stronger.

I wouldn't recommend this without proper program structure and form guidance, but you can optimize intermuscular coordination, intramuscular coordination, rate coding, and other forms of non-hypertrophy/neuromuscular strength gains by performing high intensity, low volume exercises. This is either high weight and low reps or medium/low weight and high speed (essentially plyometrics). The latter is probably the best at warding off hypertrophy. Olympic lifts and power lifts are gonna be the best altogether.

Here's an excellent example of a guy who is small relative to strength. He has gotten so by the type of high intensity low volume/time under tension approach I mentioned as well as by keeping calories too low to get huge. He's definitely very buff, but I am similar lean mass proportions as him, yet can only snatch and clean n jerk about half what he can. Which is good for a non-elite non-juiced lifter. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOWcrqOSevs

Yea he's still pretty big, just not as big as he could be if he ate more. Tons of intensity and volume over a lifetime without a severe deficit in nutrition will make anybody buff. Also note that he's on roids. Obviously the information provided is that he's not, but that's just not true.