Mens' Health Cover

rediguana

I've been going to the gym for the past 7 years, regularly, 2-5 times per week. I'm six-foot-zero, eleven-and-a-half stone. My weight doesn't fluctuate and I'm rarely sick.

I'm not very disciplined, in terms of my diet. I like to enjoy myself. I cook much of my food in graisse de canard (duck fat) and I drink about five bottles of wine a week. That said, I'm lucky in that I don't have much of a sweet tooth, occasional high quality chocolate and ice cream notwithstanding. I never touch, nor desire fast food. I'm 27.

Anyway, I'd like to take it to the next level. At present, despite my unscientific approach to things physical, I'm not carrying an ounce of extra fat, have discernible abs, and am quite muscley, despite not being of a particularly bulky build.

I don't want to get bigger, per se. I want to become as defined as the guys on the front of Mens' Health. They'd look great, but not too big, in a nice suit. That's what I'm aiming for.

I rarely, if ever, increase the weights I lift, or the calories I burn on cardio machines. So I've basically been on a maintenance reigime for the past 5 years! Brutal, I know.

What steps can I take to move things to the next level? Remember, I don't want to get (much) bigger, just more ripped. On an average day, I'll have (for breakfast) either shredded wheat (with nothing), fruit salad with seeds and honey, or porridge, with green tea. Lunch is often a smoothie and sandwich from a centra (I work). Dinner can be anything from a restaurant to M&S ready meals to something I make myself ranging from Thai curry or Tortillas or roast veg with meat or seafood or poultry.

I take Tribulus Terrestris. I'm not sure if it has any physical (body) effect on me, but it certainly gives me spots

Any advice welcome. In a nutshell, pimp my routine.

walt0r

...

AlphaMale 3OO

Increase the weight your lifting. up the protein. drop the duck fat for olive oil. kick the ready meals. tell us more about the sandwiches you eat. reduce your alcohol intake. Eat around 2500 to 3000 clean calories a day to increase muscle. buy a protein supplement. take creatine.

Kinetic^

rediguana wrote:

I'm not very disciplined, in terms of my diet.

I didn't read past that comment, that's your problem.

Esse85

You need to shock your body, your body has gotten used to the same workout over the years and is not responding any more.

Increase cardio for a more ripped effect, sort out your diet, be more specifc.

Tribulus is only good for increasing your libido, thats my opinion after trying it.

You dont really need it at 27, and im pretty sure you dont need the spots that go with it either.

Hanley

Kenny 5 wrote:

I didn't read past that comment, that's your problem.

I would have thought the problem was the 7+ hours of cardio a day and no increase in the weight used for the past 5 years....

Add to that a work out program that doesn't look like it has any specific goal and it's easy to see why no progress has been made before you even look at diet.

brianthebard

Assuming you are in good condition, you still won't look like the MH cover models until you start dehydrating yourself for the camera and have all the right lighting and make up! They had an article in the magazine about being a cover model, it was very interesting.

BrianD3

Mens Health photos are taken by professional photographers using lighting which brings out definition. These models are invariably tanned which helps too. And I would not be at all surprised if there is a little airbrushing done as well.

If they were pasty white (like your average Irish guy) and shown in less favourable light they would look signifcantly less defined and possibly a lot closer to how you already look that you might think.

edit: the other brian beat me to it

AlphaMale 3OO

Hanley wrote:

I would have thought the problem was the 7+ hours of cardio a day

Worlds fittest man?

MagicMarker

i would have thought 5 bottles of wine a week would be a good place to start.

ali.c

From the sounds of it, you are looking to drop body fat. I would suggest reading through the stickies and getting you diet somewhere along those lines.
Workout wise, 7 years is a long time to keep at it so fairplay, but i think it may be time to shake things up a little, keep your body on its toes so to speak. You could check out www.crossfit.com for high intensity circuit type work-outs that are fun. okay so at the time they may not seem like it but the sense of achievment from having finished them is great.

Hanley

ali.c wrote:

From the sounds of it, you are looking to drop body fat. I would suggest reading through the stickies and getting you diet somewhere along those lines.
Workout wise, 7 years is a long time to keep at it so fairplay, but i think it may be time to shake things up a little, keep your body on its toes so to speak. You could check out www.crossfit.com for high intensity circuit type work-outs that are fun. okay so at the time they may not seem like it but the sense of achievment from having finished them is great.

I don't think crossfit would be a good way to go because his conditioning levels are already so high. It generally seems to work better for out of shape people.

I know I say this almost every time something liek this comes up, but I think it applies particularly well here since his conditioning levels are up to scratch but his muscles aren't, heavy lifting and focusing on getting stronger would be the way I go.

It's just inconcievale that a relatively lean person would try to get stronger and somehow NOT notice any positive phsiycal appreances muscularity wise from it...

rediguana

Thanks, everyone. Some fair points there.

I always mentally abuse the people who ask simple questions on these forums, but I'm guilty of the same offence myself this time.

Eat better, train harder, seems to be the sensible consensus. In partial defence, though, the duck fat is a new thing and five bottles of wine in a week would be a bad week's drinking. My diet also consists of lots of good stuff like manuka honey, natural yoghurt, garlic.

From tomorrow, I'm going to incrementally strip the unnecessary and nutritionally empty calories from my diet. Gym-wise, I guess I just need to push myself more. It speaks volumes that I rarely sweat at the gym and am never sore after it.

Thanks again, guys.

ps. Yeah, that Tribulus does increase horniness. I thought, though, that if you're jam-packed with testosterone, your body will be less inclined to store fat and will be more likely to add muscle?

tribulus

rediguana wrote:

ps. Yeah, that Tribulus does increase horniness. I thought, though, that if you're jam-packed with testosterone, your body will be less inclined to store fat and will be more likely to add muscle?

High T levels certainly can help with muscle growth but Trib won't have any huge effects on it. Indeed, I'm not sure there are any studies that showed trib increased free T levels significantly or even at all (please post them if someone can find them).

Colm_OReilly

I don't think crossfit would be a good way to go because his conditioning levels are already so high. It generally seems to work better for out of shape people.

What exactly are you basing this on? As part of crossfit (as an organization as a whole) we've had highly in shape people walk in and get smoked by our workouts.

Added to that, we don't know this posters levels of ability, as he hasn't posted any benchmarks that we can judge off. E.g. What's his time on a 5K run, a 2K row, his max bench/deadlift, etc?

Rediguana,

To look super ripped unfortunately you need a degree of dehydration. Your abs showing are largely a result of diet, you need very low bodyfat. Add a nice tan which will show the contouring (my friend is in TV and a dancer so she has told me about shading in around the muscle.

But, that all been said, I would recommend upping your routine in terms of intensity. You might want to check out this vid of Crossfit coach Rob Miller, he's pretty atheletic and as close to a MH model as you can find. Pasty white though! It's a min or two in before he takes off his shirt.
http://media.crossfit.com/cf-video/CrossFit_3TypesPullupWOD.wmv

Best of luck,
Colm
-Crossfit Ireland

Hanley

Colm_OReilly wrote:

What exactly are you basing this on? As part of crossfit (as an organization as a whole) we've had highly in shape people walk in and get smoked by our workouts.

Added to that, we don't know this posters levels of ability, as he hasn't posted any benchmarks that we can judge off. E.g. What's his time on a 5K run, a 2K row, his max bench/deadlift, etc?

I'm basing it on the fact that the majority of people who I've seen attempt crossfit don't have a clue what they're doing. THey read about it and then attempt to put their own twist on it and turn it into one big long cardio session with loads of bodyweight exercises and not really heavy (and what I'd consider to be) muscle building movements.

It's the same with Westside in powerlifting. People read all about it and then try to implement it themselves and 9 times out of 10 will fcuk it up. And then proclaim "Westside doesn't work and injures people" simply because they don't know what they're doing. It's an often said thing that "unless you train in Westside Barbell in Ohio, you're NOT doing Westside".

I would imagine it's similar to what happens with Crossfit. Any of the videos I've seen out of the actual Crossfit clubs looks like very good stuff with some undoubtedly capable members but it seems like as a "genera" public thing people don't do a great job with it.

I know there's WOD's but I still think unless your actually training with someone who knows what they're doing or in close correspondance with them you're always gonna be short changing yourself.

My problem isn't with Crossfit per se, it's with how people try to implement it and put their own twist on it. Make sense?

I think a simple weights program, that can be worked hard and heavy would just be "easier" to make progress with at this stage.

Hope I explained all that well...

justsomebloke

I am going with hanley on this one, I think the OP would be better of getting all the basics right and getting his base level lifts up with good form and having a fair idea of how his body reacts to different stimuli before doing crossfit especially as he is purely looking at it from an aesthetic point of view.

That and the bloke in the link really looks like he needs to work on his legs as they look unportionaly small compared to his upper body

Colm_OReilly

Hanley,

That makes a lot more sense, thank you. Personally I haven't had the experience with people fcuking up Xfit. I have seen people use the rational that longer is always better (I think humans have an obsession with longevity) so I get where you're coming from.

I can see the benefits of doing a strength program (provided of course, it's based on the big lifts) and also of doing a scaled WoD. My preference is for people to start wods (modified as much as they need) because I've noticed a tendency to be intimidated by crossfit and always think you need to get fit to do it first.

Dragan

OP -

by the sounds of it you may have certain "natural" advantages when it comes to you goal, such as a tendancy to remain lean etc. Please note that this is highly assumptive on my part, you have not stated how many calories a day that you eat but the average "instinctive eater" does not have a six pack.

Now then, you already go to the gym etc, so why not simply increase the effort you are putting in. Up the weights you lift, use heavy compound movements, increase the effort during cardio.

It really may be as simply as that, if you are lean now, and don't want to get any bigger then just up your workrate and you should get leaner.

The mistress of size is calorific intake, as my Resistance Training lecturer would say. It's not my usual advice, nor is it a scientific approach but hey, the simplistic has worked for you so far mate!

If the extra workload is not bringing you the results you want then reign in the diet a bit more.

Off topic -

With regards to Crossfit vs "Heavy lifting" i fail to see why the two should be mutual exclusive, and discussed as if they are. Crossfit is an excellent tool for improving conditioning, body composition, co-ordination etc.

My love of heaving lifting has been long documented. I feel that both of them have helped me acheive my goals and that "heavy lifting" as an ideal can be just as bastardised and misinterpreted as "Crossfit" can be , as Hanley has already pointed out.

But, the simple fact of the matter is that , in my opinion, Crossfit can bring more people more beneficial physical improvements that heavy lifting can.

I don't think it will be of massive benefit to the OP though, from a purely pshychological point of view. The true results of Crossfit come more with the learning of discipline which the OP may lack and may not even NEED to acheive his goals.

But thats just my interpretation.

brianthebard

BrianD3 wrote:

Mens Health photos are taken by professional photographers using lighting which brings out definition. These models are invariably tanned which helps too. And I would not be at all surprised if there is a little airbrushing done as well.

If they were pasty white (like your average Irish guy) and shown in less favourable light they would look signifcantly less defined and possibly a lot closer to how you already look that you might think.

edit: the other brian beat me to it

*Brian high fives Brian*

Khannie

Hanley wrote:

My problem isn't with Crossfit per se, it's with how people try to implement

Well.....If you don't follow the prescribed training (or substitute sensibly) you're gonna get out what you put in. I suppose that's the case with any exercise program.

If you check the post workout comments you can really see that there are a bunch of elite athletes who use crossfit as their staple. It is a top notch program IMO.

Hanley

Khannie wrote:

Well.....If you don't follow the prescribed training (or substitute sensibly) you're gonna get out what you put in. I suppose that's the case with any exercise program.

If you check the post workout comments you can really see that there are a bunch of elite athletes who use crossfit as their staple. It is a top notch program IMO.

I don't disagree. My problem is how people THINK it should be done doesn't actually parrallel with how it should be done and they end up messing it up and supersets with cardio get called Crossfit when in fact it's a superse with cardio!

Dragan

Hanley wrote:

I don't disagree. My problem is how people THINK it should be done doesn't actually parrallel with how it should be done and they end up messing it up and supersets with cardio get called Crossfit when in fact it's a superse with cardio!

That’s a very valid point. I have done a month to two months of the perscribed Crossfit WOD's and really enjoyed them. I saw great results across a broad range of physical variables. I also combined what I could only term "Crossfit style" or "circuit training" workouts with a routine aimed mostly at heavy lifting and big ( for me ) numbers to keep my conditioning up and this worked.

Was I doing Crossfit during this time? Nope, not all. The Crossfit workouts all flow into each and need to be done on the days required because they are looking at having you undergo very specific movements, normally when fatigued, normally when the target muscle have undergone a certain workload or rest period before hand. It would be like doing "Sheiko" but only doing it one day a week. End result? Your not actually doing it at all.