Intro

Starting with the new year, I've decided to try out something new. I'm a big fan of Ironman magazine, which to me falls somewhere between Flex and Men's Health and Fitness. They advocate a training program called Positions of Flexion, or POF for short, and come up with new POF routines in every issue. It peaked my interest, so for Christmas, I got the "Train, Eat, Grow" (http://store.yahoo.com/homegym/tegpofmanual.html) and "Size Surge" (http://store.yahoo.com/homegym/sizesurge.html) books, both of which teach the POF style of training. POF was created by Steve Holman, the editor in chief for Ironman, and a hardgainer by his own words. I am too, so I figured I'd give it a go for 20 weeks and see just how effective this program is. For the record, I am not only a hardgainer, but I'm also pretty low on the strength scale... the perfect candidate to put this thing to the test.

The main idea behind POF is that you work your muscles through a full range of motion. In a nutshell, this means that instead of doing 3-4 sets of the same excercise for a body part, you do 3-4 sets of different excercises for that body part. In doing so, you recruit more muscle fibers in that area and get a more complete workout. Excercises are broken out into three categories : Midrange, Stretch and Contraction.


The Midrange exercises are the compound excercises that are use to build mass. For quads, this would be a squat. Midrange exercises are typically done for two sets.
The Stretch exercises work the muscle in a stretched position and recruit more fast twitch fibers. For quads, this would be a sissy-squat. Stretch exercises are typically done for one set.
The Contracted exercises work the muscle in a contracted position. For quads, this would be a leg extension. Contracted exercises are typically done for one set.

The program is actually a 16 week program, broken up into four phases of four weeks. I'm going to extend the beginning phase to 8 weeks to build up slowly because I'm still fairly new to some of the bigger lifts involved like squats, deads and SLDLs. I'm looking forward to really getting a handle on them, I just don't want to rush anything and hurt myself. 20 weeks sounds like a nice even number, anyway, which will put me square into the middle of spring.

Phase 1 : Weeks 1 - 8

The workouts in this phase are based squarely on the routine used by Casey Viator, who was trained by Arthur Jones. Apparently, he was able to gain 60 pounds of muscle in 28 days during something called the Colorado experiment. Please don't be disappointed if I can't deliver on that :D . Despite the dubious circumstances of the "experiment", the program seems to be a solid one and keeps the workouts to 20 sets or under. Here is the program that I'll be following for the first 8 weeks :

Tuesday
Squats 2 x 7-10
Leg extensions 1 x 10-12
Stiff-legged deadlifts 1 x 7-10
Leg curls 1 x 10-12
Standing calf raises 2 x 12-18
Bench presses 2 x 7-10
Dumbell flyes 1 x 10-12
Dumbell incline press 2 x 7-10
Wide grip pulldowns 2 x 7-10
Bent-over barbell rows 2 x 7-10
Military press 2 x 7-10
Dumbell lateral raise 2 x 10-12

Thursday
Deadlifts 2 x 7-10
Standing calf raises 3 x 12-18
Barbell curls 3 x 7-10
Lying triceps extensions 3 x 7-10
Wrist curls 1 x 12-18
Hammer curls 1 x 10-12
Incline knee-ups 2 x 7-10
Crunches 2 x 10-15

Saturday
Squats 2 x 7-10
Leg extensions 1 x 10-12
Leg curls 1 x 10-12
Seated calf raises 2 x 12-18
One legged calf raises 2 x 12-18
Bench presses 2 x 7-10
Dumbell flyes 1 x 10-12
Incline bench press 2 x 7-10
Wide grip pulldowns 2 x 7-10
Bent-over barbell rows 2 x 7-10
Military press 2 x 7-10
Dumbell upright rows 2 x 10-12

It looks like an insane workout schedule, but like I said, all workouts are 20 sets or under. They shoot for full body workouts, with variations in each. Each is built on a foundation of compound exercises (Midrange), supplemented with isolation exercises (Stretch and Contracted). This phase is a primer for the more specific POF oriented phases that come next. To be honest, I've been doing 1 body part per workout for so long that doing a full body workout for a while will be a nice change of pace. I'm also planning on doing cardio three days a week, early morning, fasted state, 70% hr, blah, blah, blah... just to keep the *gulp* fat in check.

I've started increasing my calorie intake as well, and I figured that I'd post my diet with the workout routine. It differs some from the POF diet, but not that much, it just has more of what I like and more of what's convenient for me to prepare.

Meal 1 : 6:15 AM
6 oz chicken breast
1 tbsp flax seed oil

Meal 2 : 7:30 AM
3/4 cups (dry) Quaker Oats
1 scoop whey protein

Snack 1 : 9:30 AM
2 tbsp smuckers PB

Meal 3 : 11:30 AM
4 oz chicken breast
1/2 cup (dry) pasta
2 cups spinach

Snack 2 : 1:00 PM
2 tbsp smuckers PB

Meal 3 : 2:30 PM
4 oz sirloin steak
1/2 cup (dry) pasta
2 cups spinach

Snack 3 : 5:00 PM
2 slices Arnold Healthnut bread

Meal 4 : 7:30 PM
3/4 cups (dry) Quaker Oats

Snack 4 : 9:00 PM
1 1/2 cups Breakstones cottage cheese

Total calories : 2,927
Carbs : 239g
Protein : 206g
Fat : 86g

On workout days, I follow this up with a PWO shake 2:1 carbs : protein with dextrose, All-The-Whey, Kent Nutrition's glutamine and 2g arginine. This is followed up an hour later with an additional bowl of oatmeal (1 cup dry).

At some point, I'll up it into the mid 3,000 range, but for now, I'm happy with it. If anyone has any suggestions on the diet, please feel free to comment.

I'll also try to put up pics every two weeks. Here's my latest pics as a point of reference (these were taken in mid December). I weigh 152 in these pics with a body fat of 10%, as reported by my Tanita scale.

http://hacketts.20megsfree.com/jsf/front_week_9.jpg http://hacketts.20megsfree.com/jsf/side_week_9.jpg

Hpoefully this new workout will give me a great tan, too. ;)

Well, I had my first real workout tonight and, as expected, it was grueling to say the least. It is a great change of pace, though. At the end of the workout, I was completely drained... the same exhausted feeling you get when you attempt your first workout ever. I recorded the amounts that I lifted, and while I'm not brave enough to post them publicly, what I'll do is report the percentage that they go up at the end of this phase. I'm on my way, wish me luck!

Is this diet and workour routine a bulking program, if so, how much weight are u hoping to put on?

Is this diet and workour routine a bulking program, if so, how much weight are u hoping to put on?
Yeah, it is. I did a bulking cycle starting in March 2004 that lasted about 8 weeks. I wound up putting on about 20 pounds, probably more than half of which was fat because I really didn't have a good diet in place. I wasn't even working out my legs back then. :o So I don't think it's a good indicator of what I can do now.

Honestly, I don't have any idea of how much I can expect to gain. I guess this is going to be a benchmark for future bulks. Mostly, I've spent so long cutting that I really want/need to gain strength and more muscle. We'll see what happens!

Good luck !! I will keep an eye on this journal so you dont slack of :tu:

If I've found out one thing in the past week or so, it's that carbs are good. I've been cutting for so long now that I can't even remember the last time that I went into a workout completely fueled up. However, following my diet for the last two and a half weeks, it's amazing the difference I could feel in my last workout. It's like the carbs kicked in and I was able to really power through lifts that left me shriveled on the bench a month ago. I've also noticed that I've been thinking a lot more clearly. Sounds strange, but I feel a lot sharper with a good steady stream of low GI carbs throughout the day. Anyway, I like it.

I'm also having a hard time adjusting to working out three days a week. I've been doing four days a week for so long that I feel like I'm slacking off when I have that two day break. So I put the heaviest day on the day before the two day break and give myself that extra day to recover form it. The workouts themselves are a lot more intense than what I was doing before on a four day split... we'll see how that goes.

I've also been sleeping a lot better. This is due to harder workouts and no cardio. I've been skipping cardio for a full two weeks now. I figure that the extra sleep can only do me good at this point and it's nice to take a break from it. I'll probably incorporate more in a while, but for now, no cardio is nice.

At my last measurement, my body weight is 162 pounds (up from 152) with a body fat measurement hovering around 11.5-12% bf. That's about 6 pounds lean and 4 pounds fat gain. I have started taking creatine, so I expect that a good bit of the lean measurement is water as well. The bf% rose pretty quickly once I started eating more and has levelled off in the last week or so, so I'm going to try to hold it to 12-13%, and adjust the diet if I go over that.

2 Week Progress

So far so good. I'm still having a bit of a hard time adjusting to the full body workout. Despite that, I'm definitely seeing progress in my lifts, some bigger than others, but all of the reps are going up on a workout by workout basis. Even if I only squeeze out 1 more rep than last time, I'm happy.

I'm still getting comfortable with the bigger compound excercises. I'm still not hitting failure on squats in the 10-12 range, but I'm really hesitant to go up in weight too quickly. I've been slowly finding the right amount. I've really learned to love squats and SLDLs.

It's the deadlifts that I really don't care for. I still haven't gotten the hang of getting the bar up over my knees and maintain good form. It seems like either
a) I'm lifting way too light and my form is good or...
b) I'm lifting what seems like a more suitable weight, but I just can keep my back straight enough.
Anyway, I'll have to work on it some, but I like the results I'm seeing so far.

I've also started eating beef. Red meat now makes up half of my meat intake. I read some posts about it being good for gaining muscle and thought I'd give it a go. If nothing else, it's a great diversion from chicken.

Here's my progress pics so far, 2 weeks into training. Not a very significant difference, but I'm feeling a lot more strong and dolid than I did when I was cutting over the last few months.

http://hacketts.20megsfree.com/jsf/front_week_11.jpg http://hacketts.20megsfree.com/jsf/side_week_11.jpg

Looking great Slush!

I have a question. When you listed your diet on 12-28. You came up with almost 3000 cal. Are you using fitday or some other calorie counting guide? Just for curiosity's sake, (yeah I need to get a life, right?) I entered your meals into fitday and only came up with less than 1800 calories. :confused: It makes me wonder if fitday has been underestimating my intake all along or am I missing something?

[IMG]

Looking great Slush!Thanks!

Are you using fitday or some other calorie counting guide? Just for curiosity's sake, (yeah I need to get a life, right?) I entered your meals into fitday and only came up with less than 1800 calories. :confused: Yikes! Well, at a first glance I see that you missed these...

Snack 2 : 1:00 PM
2 tbsp smuckers PB

Meal 3 : 2:30 PM
4 oz chicken breast
1/2 cup (dry) pasta
2 cups spinach

which adds another 269 calories according to your picture. But, what the heck? That still only comes out to a little over 2,000! I use the fitday computer program (not the website). Let me do a screen shot and we'll compare notes, that's bugging me!

Alright, here's a screen shot from my fitday program. I do all of my foods as "Customs" and get the values right off the box, because I don't trust fitday's food database ;) . Anyway, here's the food log (as calculated on Dec. 18)...

http://hacketts.20megsfree.com/jsf/menu.jpg

There's some real differences, but the pasta was the most confusing. I double checked the box and sure enough, the values I have in there are correct. The only error in my list is that the first chicken in my list is 6 oz instead of 4 oz. The bread was a big difference, too.

You had me really nervous there!!!! Anyway, thanks for the double check on the numbers and the heads up. I'm going to be upping the calories by about 500 in the next few days or so, so I'll be recalculating all of this again... :whistle:

Keep up the good work and keep those updates coming !

:tu:

Keep up the good work and keep those updates coming !
Thanks rainbow!! I'm really excited about building some musle... I spent so much of 2004 cutting that it's a nice change of pace to be eating a lot more carbs and having some real power during my workouts. Keep your fingers crossed for me, I'm a hardgainer in every sense of the word.

I don't trust fitday's food database

Oh great now I'm screwed! :lol:

It just didn't seem to be that many calories when I first looked at your menu (of course me leaving out a couple of things didn't help either). Everything looks great but now I'm wondering if my numbers have been right for the past few months. I may need to start using the actual numbers off the boxes as you do rather than relying on the database. Uh oh...I sense some hungry days coming up. Good luck with the bulk!

6 Week Progress

Ugh, it's been way too long since I updated this. I'm sort of backdating this post and I'll be posting the most current pics over the weekend. Anyway...

Everything's going great so far with the bulking, but I think for a while I was eating a bit too high over maintenance and my bf went up higher than I wanted it to. No problem, just going to re-adjust a bit until that levels off, then work on that when I'm done.

I ran into problems at week 5 with the workouts. I had originally planned on doing the full body workout for the first eight weeks. When I started, I was also beginning to use the barbell since I had just gotten the rack. Until starting this bulk I had been doing dumbells only. So it took me several workouts to really find the right weights to use for all of the exercises. By week 5, I was dialed in to those numbers and was hitting failure at just the right reps. But because the initial lifts were so demanding (squat, deadlift) and honestly, the workouts are on the long side, I was getting sick about 3/4 of the way through them and was having a hard time completing them. So at week 6 I decided to shift gears and move onto the next phase.

Phase 2 : Weeks 6 - 10

The idea in this phase is to use light and heavy days, and I'm not talking tampons here :D . It's a middle ground between a full body plan and a 1 part per day of the week plan. I divided my wourkouts into three categories :

a) Legs
b) Chest/triceps
c) Back/biceps/delts

The split goes like this:
Heavy a, light b
Heavy b, light c
Heavy c, light a

In this way, you're always doing a light set of an area for one workout and then a heavy set for that same area in the workout directly following it. Interesting concept.

So here's my current workout based on that description:

Day 1
Heavy Legs
Squats (2 x 10-12)
Leg extensions (2 x 10-12)
Hip raise (2 x 10-12) (laying on back, feet on floor, weigh on hips, pushing up with hams/glutes)
Stiff-legged deadlifts (2 x 10-12)
Standing calf raises (2 x 12-18)
Light chest/tricep
Flat barbell presses (2 x 7-10)
Flat dumbell flyes (2 x 10-12)
Incline barbell press (2 x 7-10)
Lying triceps extensions (3 x 7-10)
Incline knee-ups (2 x 7-10)

Day 3
Heavy chest/tricep
Flat barbell presses (2 x 7-10)
Flat dumbell flyes (2 x 10-12)
Incline barbell press (2 x 7-10)
Incline dumbell flyes (2 x 7-10)
Light Back/bicep/delt
Bent-over barbell rows (2 x 7-10)
Wide grip pulldowns (2 x 7-10)
EZ curls (2 x 7-10)
Hammer curls (2 x 7-10)
Barbell upright rows (2 x 10-12)
Dumbell lateral raise (2 x 10-12)
Bicycle crunches

Day 5
Heavy Back/bicep/delt
Deadlifts (2 x 12-15)
Bent-over barbell rows (2 x 7-10)
Underhand pulldowns (2 x 7-10)
EZ curls (2 x 7-10)
Shrugs (2 x 7-10)
Military press (2 x 7-10)
Barbell upright rows (2 x 7-10)
Light legs
Squats (2 x 10-12)
Leg extensions (2 x 10-12)
Leg curls (2 x 10-12)
Incline knee-ups

So far this is really working well and I seem to have made good progress. And I'm not getting sick during my workouts anymore. :D Right now, I'm lifting a lot more than I've ever been able to, so that's got me pretty excited. My goal for this whole thing right now is to get my bench up to my bodyweight. If I could do that, I'd be happy.

Here's my progress pics so far, 6 weeks into training. Still nothing ground breaking, but I'm definitely making progress. I'm not too worried about the extra fat, hopefully I can head that off at the pass and take care of any extra when I get back to doing a real slow cut.

http://hacketts.20megsfree.com/jsf/bulk_front_week_6.jpg http://hacketts.20megsfree.com/jsf/bulk_side_week_6.jpg

8 Week Progress

Alright, now I'm completely up to date. Progress is still going strong and I'm making pretty decent gains every single workout. I really wasn't expecting to be increasing in strength quite so much, but I'm not complaining! :D

Despite that, I've come to the conclusion that I will never try to do a bulk again. Honestly, I'm pretty fed up with the whole bulk/cut thing. I've added some nice strength and size, but I'm back to 14% bf, which is really my own fault. I was dumb enough to have listened to advice to not do cardio when bulking because it hinders progress. As of this week, I'm back doing cardio 3-4x per week. It actually feels really good to be doing it again, I missed it. I take full responsibility for taking that piece of advice seriously. I was just lazy. No more of that.

So at this point, I'm going to be reducing my calories SO, SO slowly until I start to see my bf going down, and I'm going to hold there and do probably the world's slowest cut ever. Once I get back to 10%, I'm never going above it again. Seriously, I hate having lost the definition I had in December and I don't know if the gains I've made are worth it. So once I've hit 10%, I'm on permanent maintenance for the rest of my life. Never, never, never, never again going to bulk.

Unfortunately, these pictures just don't seem to capture the size I've put on (isn't that always the case???). Not like I'm hulking big now or anything, but I've noticed a big difference since december. I've also grown A LOT in my legs which I don't have pics of here yet, maybe next post. My leg size has increased nicely over the last two months.

http://hacketts.20megsfree.com/jsf/pof_front_week_8.jpg http://hacketts.20megsfree.com/jsf/pof_side_week_8.jpg