Yeah, loads. I'm in the best shape I've ever been in. Strength and muscle endurance continue to go up though I've been stalling on the military press lately.

3 days a week sounds like too little.

Nah, 3 days is fine so long as you work out each of the major muscles. 3 days of lifting, 2 days of cardio, 2 rest days. Perfect.

improvement

I've noticed a significant increase in IOIs especially when I dress appropriately to show off my body such as in a close fitting sleeveless top. I also feel more confident due to the greatly increased strength, knowing that one is stronger than the vast majority of men is a real boost.

jacked

I've only been lifting for about a year, I've been in relationships for the last 4 years now so nothing has really changed in that regard.


Well my primary goal is strength which has increased greatly, see the strength standards I linked to on the first page.

jacked

Yes I've always wanted to perfect my body, but until last year I had no idea how to train. For example I had no idea you had to lift high weight low rep for optimal results or what exercises to do. The information in the first post is useful to beginners, 99% of whom are training wrong and wondering why their bodies aren't changing.

I'm not a big fan of Rippetoe myself. Look at the way he squats, with his over exaggerated hip drive. It causes him to travel forward on the lift phase. This would destroy my lower back.



I prefer high bar Olympic squats.

Just got back in the gym after nearly a year. I started with weights that were a bit lighter but I was pleased to see I haven't lost too much strength, apart from on my lats and triceps, I could barely do a few pullups, even chins were hard, I barely managed over 10 dips on the first set. The gym was the same big guys lifting mediocre weights with poor form, the same old curls and bench pressing on the Smith machine(!). As usual I was the only one doing squats, deadlifts and standing overhead press. I'll be joining a serious gym soon which has some real lifters and bodybuilders. I'll update when I start there.

Like workout? try http://www.bodyrock.tv/
I can only recommend it.^^
It may be a bit hard at first to find workout for starters, but then it will went very smooth.

Ok, so I've bulked to 80 kg at around 15% body fat. Which is way better when I speed bulked real dirtily last spring to 80 kg at 20%, which made me have to cut to 77 kg at 13% fat. For me 15% means I have a flat stomach and a blurry set of abs. This is the best shape and the strongest I've ever been. Creatine helped, as well as the new gym I'm at which is a hardcore gym with all the equipment one would ever need.

Yeah and Muay Thai... is bloody tough. The conditioning part of it was real hell. We were led into a room with various "stations". One was a pair of thick,heavy, 6 metre ropes which you had hold in each hand and make big waves with. The next was a pair of gymnastic rings suspended from the ceiling from which you had to do inverted rows with your feet propped up on a ball. Next was push ups with your hands on a basketball, followed by pull ups on a pair of rings hanging above a large tire. Then there was a T bar which we had to power clean and press/push press over our heads, finally there was a huge warhammer type implement we had to bang on a huge tire, alternating with each hand. Oh and there were kettlebell swings which I did wrong and hurt my lower back in the process. We had to stay at each station until we were told to change, doing as many reps as possible, the whole thing took around 20-30 minutes. It was VERY high intensity.

Jumping rope is pretty hard as well, since I've never done it before. The actual Muay Thay techniques are fun though, they came to me easily and quickly. One fighter already asked me if I wanted to fight as a pro. Getting kneed in the face over and again sounds like fun!

my current goal is 110kg at 13% fat. got a lot of cardio to do

luckily, I realised today that the american take-over of dairy milk chocolate has made it taste crappy, as though they've put too much caramel in it. so less chocolate consumption
badminton shall be my main form of cardio. I enjoy it, it's much more intense than anything you can do on gym machines, and it's burst activity so i'll maintain decent muscle mass.

I worked out my maximum potential size with this:

http://www.weightrainer.net/bodypred.html

Putting my data in gives 93 kg at 10% so I'll be content with 90% of that.