Well, for starters, growing up I was always skinny. I didn't like being skinny. I was also born with a concave chest so I always felt like I looked weird or something. Women I found myself attracted to always seemed to ignore me and I thought that if I gained weight it might help to get their attention. My senior year of high school I finally took action and joined the weightlifting team (139lb weight class) at my highschool and took a weightlifting class so I could learn how to go about accomplishing such a task. After high school I still worked out, but after some time I kind of gave up on it. No matter what I did I couldn't gain the muscle mass I was after. Then in 2005 some events took place that gave me the motivation to return to my orignal muscle building goals. Below I will detail what worked for me.
In 2006 I began my journey from 130lbs by doing more research on muscle building and what I would have to do to gain weight. The weightlifting class I took and being on the weightlifting team served as my starting point but I needed more information to help me. I started by buying a copy of Arnold Schwarzenegger's Encycopedia of Bodybuilding, and referencing the magazine Muscular Development. Both gave me additional information I could use to reach my goals. I also purchased the weight rack I still use today at The Sports Authority for $300 dollars. It is a Golds Gym XR37 adjustable rack with a low pulley and a high pulley attached. It came with a 300 lb set of olympic weights. I also had a hand me down set of dumbbells up to 40 lbs that my older brother had given me in the past. That was what I started with, and when I started the 40 lb dumbbells were heavy to me - lol. You gotta start somewhere I guess.
From my high school weightlifting experience and the references cited above I knew that for building mass and slow twitch muscle development it is best to use 3 sets of 8 reps for each weightlifting exercise you perform. For definition and fast twitch development higher rep ranges are best, typically 10-12 reps per set or more. This served as the basis for my development but something was missing. It was my diet plan, I was not eating enough to sustain any significant muscular development. My older brother pointed me to the site T-Nation which is where I found the article massive eating. It also included a formula to determine the optimal caloric intake you need to consume to reach your target weight. For me it was 4,000 calories a day spread over 6 meals (mass building protein shakes are counted as meals).
Over the summer of 2006 I went about pursuing these goals as I took classes at HCC. I was very motivated after what I had been through in 2005 and with the information I had and such motivation my goals began to be realized. As my strength increased I had to acquire heavier dumbbells. I purchased a set of 45 and 50 lb dumbbells from The Sports Authority, when I maxed those out I had to look elsewhere since those were the heaviest ones they sold. I turned to The Gym Source in Tampa and as time progressed and my strength increased further I purchased heavier and heavier dumbbells. At the time they cost 50 cents per lb, a steal compared to the current price. It was convient for me that the times when I needed new dumbbells occurred near Christmas and my birthday, and that is where a lot of them came from as gifts from my parents (that would be all I got, but that's what I asked for). Now, you are probably wondering where I found the time to do all of this taking classes, working out twice a day, and eating six times a day. Well, to be honest I didn't have much of a life aside from working out and school. Ok, I didn't have a life at all, lol. After the events that took place in 2005 I felt it was best if I distanced myself from the people I associated with at the time. To be completely honest I still don't have much of a life to this day, lol. I was so dedicated to my scholastic and workout goals I developed tunnel vision or something. The events of 2005 also left me hesitant to trust people, so making new friends was not a priority. All I have done since then is go to school and work out. I worked at WalMart for a while, but chose to focus on school after some time and to this day all I do is work out, go to school, and study.
Anyway, the specific workouts I used varied at times, depending on what my specific goals were. At times if there were specific areas I wanted additional mass I focused my workouts on those areas with exercises that targeted such muscles. I found the key to be that the more you change your workouts over time, the more you will grow. If you only do the same exercises every time your body will get used to them and you will no longer continue to add muscle at any significant pace. At this point in time I have a ton of different ways memorized that I can change up my workouts for specific targeting puruposes and just to change it up. My current training split is chest on Monday, back on Tuesday, shoulders and traps (trapezius muscles) on Wednesday, biceps/triceps/forearms on Thursday, legs on Friday, and abs/obliques on Saturday. I do three exercises for each muscle group, and three sets of eight reps for each exercise. The only days that are different are my chest and back day, where I do three sets of five different exercises for 6-8 reps. Below you will find links to pdf files of each days workout, feel free to download them and use them for yourself. I will also include photos of each of my most recent workout logs filled in as I worked out. I am not trying to boast, or anything of that sort. I am not the biggest or strongest person around, there are a ton of people that can lift much more than I do. That is not my goal in any of this. I am simply trying to keep myself in good health at this point, and I have found a good diet and exercise program is a very good way to do just that.
A few more things I wanted to add are some key points relating to my workouts that I think has made a difference in the gains that I have made. I push myself to the limit, every workout. Some workouts more than others, but I constantly push myself to do better than the last workout. The only time I workout any differently is if I start to see my form get too sloppy. That means it is time to cut back the weight and focus on quality reps and good form. Also, when I say I push myself that means every workout I am putting more weight on the bar or lifting heavier dumbbells than the last workout. I want to lift the most I can in each workout for the desired rep range I am trying to reach. Sometimes all I am adding is 3 lbs to the amount I lifted the week prior using two 1.5 lb bar collars. But still more than the week before. Sometimes if I don't like the way the previous weeks workout went I will not increase the weight. When I plateau, and don't find myself gaining in strength at any reasonable pace I use chains to train my muscles to push harder. What I mean by that is I put two heavy guage 10 foot chains that are linked together so they form a loop around both sides of the bar. The chains weigh about 12.5 lbs each. The effect that has is like a rubber band, the further you pull it the harder it gets to make it go further. For example, on the bench press with the bar at the bottom part of my reps (where I position the bar rests on my adjustable weight rack) there is only about half the chain off the ground. So for that set, it starts out like I added about 12 lbs. But when I start to lift it it gets heavier and heavier the further it gets off the rack. I have found that to be an excellent way to break a plateau and push the previous amounts of weight you were lifting to a new level. One thing to keep in mind however is when you are working out you should always have a spotter. Especially when you are pushing yourself to lift heavier weights. That's kind of a do as I say and not as I do kind of thing, I workout alone and have for the last 17 years. Any questions or comments feel free to contact me via the links I have on my contact page.
Now here in recent times I no longer have my home gym, I sold that years ago after I started my first job after college and moved out of my parents place. Here recently my workout routines are still done at home, just minus all the heavy metal. I stumbled across a company called Rubber Banditz, they make resistance bands for training. Heavy resistance bands. I've been using those for a while now and I have found that I can still get a pretty good workout using them. Below you will find my workout routines using the rubber bands:
Rubber Band PDF's:
Here's a shot of my current home gym:
