The Quest to getting 21 inch guns: My Fitness Story so far.

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Since information about me is quite obscure on here and people assume I've taken tons of steroids for years, I'm going to give an honest account regarding my current workout progress. I want to make very clear, I am not a sales person, representative or third party for any profitable organization or program.

Workout History
So a little bit about my background in working out, I have always done a bit of working out, played a bit of soccer, did boxing training and did the odd workout, cardio or hitting the weights but my weight always stayed around 160-180lbs but last year I decided to take it to a whole new level in my quest to achieve a muscular physique.

March-July 2012
I achieved this physique naturally last year naturally from P90X in my house with only dumbells but I was only 160lbs at the time but I found I wasn't putting on much bulk from circuit training and doing so much cardio so I decided to write my own routine which focused more on weightlifting. My muscles look defined from 90 days of intense working, I had a great six pack and really defined muscles out but I wasn't gaining on the scales.

July 2012 - Me at 160lbs 6'0 after completing P90X. My body was a great advert for P90X but it wasn't where I wanted to be.



July 2012-November 2012 - I spent another 4 months altering my routine, doing circuit training and training with dumbells that weighed between 20-30kg in my house . I was making progress steadily and surely, I reached around 180 lbs in October.

I hit my biceps, traps, chest and back hard twice a week with dumbell exercises as such as upright row, bent overall lateral raises, dumbell curls, hammer curls, concentration curls and I also did the P90X chest and back workout every week which consists of tons of variations of push ups and chin ups. A great program if you are in your house and you don't have a gym subscription. I finally hit my goal of 200lbs naturally.



November 2012-February 2013, - I decided I needed a quick boost, I was 200lbs when I decided to take illegal steroids, I started injecting 500mg of testosterone for 4 weeks before boosting it to 900mg of test before taking extremely high dosages of up to a 1300mg a week of equipose, trenobolone and testosterone. My steroid duration in total has been for 3 months and in that time I have experienced the positives and negatives of steroid use.

It boosted my weight up to 220lbs and my biceps are now 18 inches after a good workout, my arms and shoulders and tons of stretch of marks on them from rapid growth.

I decided to join the local gym at the start of 2013 since I figured I'm not going to get any heavier than 220lbs training with a pair of dumbells and my body weight in my house. I started to experience side effects as such as agitation, mood swings, bloating in the face and stomach, back acne, vivid dreams and depression.

January-February 2013 at 220lbs and 18 inch biceps pictures, I don't think my biceps grew much from when I was 200lbs but my back and traps certainly grew and widened out, stretch marks on my back.





So I have decided to go back to being natural, I know it's going to take work and it's not going to be an easy feat by any means to reach a goal but it's a challenge I'm ready to take. To be honest my steroid use has only been for 3 months in which my weight got to 220lbs. I have also decided to eat more organic and healthy foods as part of a new balanced diet which will focus on packing on muscle without adding fat and eventually reaching my goal of getting to 240-250 lbs and getting 21 inch biceps.

Current Workout Routine

After some experimenting in the gym and talking to different people from different areas as such as bodybuilding, strength training and Olympic lifting about putting together a program that would combine explosiveness, Olympic lifting, compound and lifts that target specific muscle, I have formed a workout that I feel that will help me reach this goal.

Day A - Monday, Friday.
Bench Press - 5x5
Incline Bench Press - 5x5
Squat - 5x8
Snatch - 4x30 second hold
Standing Military Press - 5x8
Hammer Curl - 4x8
Concentration Curl - 5x8
Bent Over Lateral Raise - 4x8
Upright row - 4x8
Trap Fly - 4x8
Pull Down - 5x8
Pull Up - 5x8
Seated Concentration Curl - 5x6
Chest Flies - 4x8
Dumbell Flies - 4x8

Day B - Wednesday
Bench Press - 5x5
Squat - 5x8
Snatch - 4x30 second hold
Standing Military Press - 4x8
Upright Row - 4x8
Bent Over Lateral Raise - 4x8
Tricep Kickback - 4x8
Tricep Extension - 4x8
Hammer Curl - 4x8
Concentration Curl - 5x8
Pull Down - 5x8
Pull Up - 5x10
Seated Concentration Curl - 5x6
Chest Flies - 4x8
Dumbell Flies - 4x8

Diet
Morning - 5 pieces of toast and 4 egg whites. - 40grams of protein
Mid Morning - 1500 calorie weight gain shake and banana. - 50grams of protein.
Lunch - 200 grams of whole wheat pasta and 100 grams of lentils. - 50 grams of protein.
Mid Lunch - A tin of Sardines, 3 carrots. - 30 grams of protein.
Dinner - 3 pieces of fish, 3 jacket potatoes. 75 grams of protein.
After Dinner - 4 pieces of chicken. - 100 grams of protein.
Late night snack - 100 grams of organic brown rice. - 10 grams of protein.

This is only a rough estimate but my protein intake is approximately 350 grams per day with my calories at 4000+, I will add an extra tin of sardines and more lentils to make it 400grams of protein if necessary. Any tips or advice regarding the diet would be helpful, I am mainly looking to stick to fish type foods, organic food and fruit.

Quitting the roids for now (at least unti you´re more prepared for them and can find someone to dose them for you) was a good decission. You´re doing a hellish amount of sets per day; read into what Martin Berkhan has written, and for God´s sake, start deadlifting.

Furthermore, your diet is a little low in unsaturated fats. A lot of the reason why I managed to go from 190 lbs to 300 lbs in bench pressing in a year was that zink, magnesium, GOOD cholesterol, vitamins and fats boosted my testosterone levels naturally.

Without steroids, that workout plan will absolutely, without a doubt, lead to overtraining. It looks like it'd take three hours to finish 'em. The diet, protein intake and calorie intake look legitimate and you'll definitely pack on the lean mass but I'd HUGELY simplify that workout. If you're doing a low rep scheme, your muscles are going to be sore but your joints and tendons are going to be absolutely fried after using weights that are heavy enough to prevent a sixth rep on every set...and eight sets of five rep squats after ten sets of bench? Guaranteed throw-up workout, right there haha. Everything I've read and done myself, suggests that natural bodybuilders limit their workouts to one major muscle group per-day. Something like, chest and biceps on Monday, shoulders and legs on Wednesday (two major groups but shoulders aren't so bad as to kill you with legs) and back and triceps on Friday and to use 4-6 reps for three sets, on every exercise for each muscle group except for calves, which most people seem to agree, should be 10-12 reps. Now, I'm not a workout god; I weigh 160lbs @5' 10", bench 240lbs and squat 325lbs and I've only been into it for a year, so take everything I say with a grain of salt, but it looks like you've made incredible progress with the equipment you've been limited to, so far. If you do try your workout plan, you've absolutely got to update this thread and tell us how it went.

I just feel the number of sets is necessary, although doing so many sets could risk an injury, I don't think there's any need to keep a workout at under 45 minutes to an hour. If someone has a fast metabolism, they simply aren't eating enough after the workout to make up for the calories burned. I will definitely let you know how my recovery is without the steroids.

The workout takes me around 1 hour and 45 minutes to complete which is a long time but I read that Arnold Schwarzenegger used to train for 6 hours a day. Some people respond quicker than others, some people recover quicker than others and some people can simply work at a higher capacity than others.

Well it's now Thursday and I am feeling sore all over but mainly in the triceps and shoulders, I'll definitely update this to let you know if there is any pre workout soreness tomorrow.

Reg Park worked out for 5 hours a week when not cutting. He benched 500 lbs before he ever touched steroids.

http://stronglifts.com/stronglifts-5x5- ... g-program/

Add a few isolation exercises of your choice + narrow grip bench press and pull-ups to this. Good isolation exercises that can be combined with this are lateral raises, flies, bicep curls and cable crunches, but bear in mind that these are supplements to the base lifts and not replacements for them. Good luck!

So I have been doing some research on steroids on my quest to be natural and found balding, face bloat, water retention seem to be some very common side effects on why not to take steroids. I looked at natural competitors in comparison to ones that had used steroids heavily and I found these interesting results.

Greg Valentino - When he was natural, tanned, full head of hair, chiselled face, in proportion body.


Greg Valentino - After using steroids, common side effects such as face bloat, water retention and balding.


I did some more research and came across a natural bodybuilding competitor Mike O'Hearn who has won the Natural Mr Universe and found he had none of the negative side effects caused by steroids.

Greg Valentino used synthol as well (he only started denying this after he injured his biceps). He could have been one helluva bodybuilder if he hadn't touched that nasty synthol stuff, though. Here's a picture of Bill Pearl aged 55, 24 years after he stopped juicing:

I say you definitely got to add Deadlifts. . but that's just because I think their amazing fun to do.

If you want to raise your Testosterone levels naturally Art of Manliness did a article about it. -Click me-

Also if there was ever an Natural athlete to inspire to look like it has to be the Russian lion / George Hackenschmidt I'd link a photo but my browser is seriously messed up. If you ever needed a reason to Deadlift he's your idol.

Georg Hackenschmidt, 1897:

Stronglifts 5x5 or Mark Rippetoe's SS is a good starting point. Your current program I see some redundancy in. Like, there's no need imo, to do incline bench right after flat, and then do standing military presses later. Incline will mostly hit the same muscles as the standing press. So you're basically being redundant. Also, you have the opposite problem as me in the way you do things, it seems. My problem is, I'll walk into the gym, not wanna warm up, and just will throw like 90% of my max on the bar and wanna do like 3 reps, go for a max after, and then go home. That's how I'd train if I was left to my own devices. You should try finding out what your maxes are on your lifts, and then go do things based on a percentage of your maxes, say, 60% for 8 reps, etc. Personally, Mikhail Mikhail Koklyaev's advice in an interview he gave has helped me a lot, he just said 5x5 at 60-70%. My previously stalled overhead press is moving now. 5x5 at 60-70% of your max is working well for me. I would say keep things simple, and do your compounds with a program like that, and just do squat, press, deadlift, one variant per day of them all. But I do think it's important to periodically max, and increase the weight you're working with.

This is my current programming:
Monday
Front squat 70% of max, 5x5.
OHP 70% of max 5x5
Then plyos, or plyos first.

Tuesday:
Back squat 60% of max, 5x5.
Bench 60% of max with feet on bench, 5x5.
Plyos again.

Repeats through all weekdays, weekends off. OT, but I found out curls are a good accessory exercise to keep my elbows from hurting from pressing, so I'm probably gonna throw 5x5 70% of max standing back to the wall curls with an EZ bar in, too, since biceps+elbows not hurting is a win win. But you should definitely be trying to increase the weight. When you feel up to it, go for a max. Then readjust your numbers based on your max, ie, I did 120lbs on the OHP yesterday, so now my sets go to 85lbs instead of 80, etc. If you don't go 5x5, it's the same thing, just with a lower percentage. But if you're able to handle that volume, I don't know if you're actually being honest with yourself regarding the amount of weight you can lift, if that makes sense. You did cut your volume down from when you were on, though.

Congrats for getting off, too. You know my opinions already, but yeah. And yes, natty people/people who don't juice themselves to oblivion do look better.

mike o hearn has claimed to be natural, but he was really on halotestin...lying prick.
btw you said you were 6'5 220 in that first pic lol....you look a lot biggger than 160 i thought you were about 185.

proof?

just to make sure, when you say "4x8" you mean 4 sets of 8 right?

Cause I know 1000 Knives usually means like 8 sets of 4.

It's kind of a moot point but its confusing

Arnold has admitted that he took both dianabol, winstrol and T3. He used much smaller doses than modern bodybuilders, though.