My Quickest Ever Muscle Gains - 14 pounds in 4 weeks!
After 10 years or so of averaging 3-4 sessions per week, lifting weights in the gym and following a strict, but healthy diet and supplementing with
protein shakes, I have had about 3 years of not training properly, or at all. In fact, I hadn't been to the gym for about 4 months and I finally stopped telling people 'I'm getting back into it', cos I wasn't.
Anyway, for the last 4 weeks, I have been training again, high intensity. My first session lasted 15 minutes and I was feeling sickly, so I went home. I went again 3 days later and lasted 40 minutes and subsequent sessions have been the optimum 50 minutes of hardcore training. I have already increased my bench press, rows and deadlifts by 50% in four weeks, gained 14 pounds and look much better. I therefore thought I should tell people how I trained and what supplements I used. By the way, I am aware that the 14 pounds gained will be muscle, some fat, better hydration, etc., but either way, I am much stronger and look more toned and bigger.
Basically, I followed a high intensity training routine, using about 6 multiple joint compound movements per session, for a total of about 12 working sets, starting with a whole body routine for the first two weeks, then doing an upper body, lower body split. Reps were in the 6-8 range, using constant tensions and slow rep cadence, making sets last about 30-40 seconds, emphasising the negative part of the movement.
My diet was as follows:
Calories: 20 x bodyweight in pounds per day
Protein: 1.5g for every pound of bodyweight per day, split over 8 meals
Macronutrient Split: 50/30/20 (protein, carbs, fat)
Protein Shakes:
AST VP2 Whey Protein Isolate - 4 times per day
Post workout shake: 1 pint of skimmed milk + banana
Breakfast: 75g oats in 500ml water, with 1 scoop of VP2 and 1 banana
Before Bed: VP2, 2 slice wholemeal toast with peanut butter
Maybe because I am nowhere near the shape I was in 5 years ago, it has been easier than normal to make such big gains in 4 weeks, who knows? All I know is that my diet was absolutely perfect, I drank lots more water, less caffeine, slept more and trained harder than ever, using drop sets, supersets, pre-exhaustions and other tricks and I made the best gains of my life. By the way, I think
VP2 is an awesome
protein shake.