February 18, 2013

Thoughts on 2012 Bulk

I'm nearing the end of this bulk of 2012 (I always use the year it starts in) and thought I'd take a moment to comment on it.  

This is the 4th major bulking cycle I've done, and it was a bit different.  First I wasn't chasing some bench mark.  I felt a bit listless going into it, because I did not know what I was going after really.  That changed part way in when I decided I was burning out a bit on the 1-3 rep sets and decided to go for 10 rep records.  Still, I was not chasing a 300 lbs. bench, a 500 lbs. deadlift, or a 300 lbs. barbell row or anything like that.  I've hit records on dumbbell movements for chest & back with the 120s which is as high as my gym goes.  I just started really doing shoulder presses within the last few months so any PR I get there isn't going to be anywhere near to what I'm capable of.  This was the first bulk that I didn't have a real set plan for going into.  I knew I wanted to get bigger & stronger as always.  But my goals were more subjective this time; "keep rowing", "keep conditioning up", "add in unilateral stuff for legs", etc.   None of this is bad, it's just different from ones I've done in the past.  I don't know if I'll do it again, we'll have to see.  This cut I have very specific ideas in mind that I'll be posting soon.  

Also I didn't gain very much weight this bulk; I keep vacillating between 206 and 208; after having started around 193.  About 7 lbs. of that came from water weight after I started taking creatine again.  The low weight gain vexed me for the last month or so, I couldn't figure out why.  Then I realized today; my volume is so much higher now.  I was doing 1-3 rep sets for a vast majority of the exercises I was doing.  Let's say I deadlift 410, 455, and 475 for 2-1-1.  That's about 1700 lbs. I move.  Now let's say I do 355*10, 365*10, and 385*10. That's 11050 lbs I'll have moved.  Now apply that to every single exercise I did this bulk, and the amount of calories I must have been burning is astronomical.  I'm at about 3850 per day, and I'm maintaining at 207.   Last year I was around 3300 per day and peaked around 212 lbs.   Another factor is that through the years I've added more and more muscle, which takes calories to maintain.  So each year my baseline of what I need just to break even keeps getting higher. Which is good.  It just goes into planning for future bulks/cuts when considering volume and rep schemes, so I learned something. Which is what I hope to do with every bulk/cut/maintenance/workout/set/rep. I hope to learn something new I can apply to help myself in the  future and to help others.   

I also have started thinking recently about when I'll start experiencing age-related decline in lifts, but I'll write about pondering when my peak will come at another date.  

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