//The Chronicles of BPH\\

[BPH]

I just clarified the obvious.

You obviously know that you very likely lost definition due to increased fat %. You dont have to eat more because you go less to the gym, so problem solved.

I'd like to point out the inverse relationship between volume and frequency in weightlifting.
There's a reason all the beginners programs are full-body routines. When you start out, you want high frequency and low volume. As you progress over the years, you want to shift more over to volume. However, I question the efficiency of moving onto heavy isolation early. I guess there's nothing wrong with it, but you could plateu easily?

I'd do some research on what backs up scooby's stuff. If there's any legit experiments it's based on. It's always nice to know.

Do not take anything anyone says personally. I know that it's natural to identify and invest ego in whatever we make a habit, but put that aside and be open to other viewpoints.

I don't think scooby backs up his exercises with experiments, but I'm sure you could find something. I follow him because he is a natural bodybuilder that isn't trying to sell me anything or get me injured. He just emphasizes good diet and a strong routine.

I do agree that it may be easy to plateau, but when that happens, you just increase weight and bust through it. At least that's what works for me, sacrificing a few reps in exchange for heavier weight, and slowly increasing my reps.

Now SS didn't REQUIRE me to eat more, but it's a routine designed to bulk up skinny guys. And when bulking up, it's very difficult to only gain that muscle weight without some fat. Therefore I gained fat in addition to muscle, not much, but enough to detract from my definition.

As far as statistics, I've been following this advanced routine every day that I can since October (around 2 weeks after I quit football). Going strictly by memory, I've regained my definition and have put on something like 10lbs. Pretty decent for me. So I would say the routine is quite successful.

But opinions vary.

 

[DanZy]

If you're not doing bodybuilding, why are you doing bodybuilding routines and rep ranges?
You've put on 10lbs over several months, I put more than that on just by going on creatine for a few weeks.
So what if you lose some definition? A bit of intermittent fasting and all the excess fat is gone.
Every trainer talks about a good diet and routine, doesn't make him special at all.
Weightliftings something you're very good at? Join the club. You're very knowledgeable about it? You didn't know what rep ranges were, that's confusing.
The gap between 4 and 8 reps is huge, it's like two numbers have just been chosen at random there
Like NDJ said don't take this **** personally, I'm just adding my highly educated opinion.

 

[NorwegianDJ]

You've put on 10lbs over several months, I put more than that on just by going on creatine for a few weeks.

It's quite common knowledge that you gain up to like 16lbs of water weight when you start taking creatine.

 

[BPH]

If you're not doing bodybuilding, why are you doing bodybuilding routines and rep ranges?
You've put on 10lbs over several months, I put more than that on just by going on creatine for a few weeks.
So what if you lose some definition? A bit of intermittent fasting and all the excess fat is gone.
Every trainer talks about a good diet and routine, doesn't make him special at all.
Weightliftings something you're very good at? Join the club. You're very knowledgeable about it? You didn't know what rep ranges were, that's confusing.
The gap between 4 and 8 reps is huge, it's like two numbers have just been chosen at random there
Like NDJ said don't take this **** personally, I'm just adding my highly educated opinion.

Are you finished?

EDIT: Visit scoobysworkshop.com and look around there for a bit. Even though you say that you're just offering your opinion, which you believe to be "highly educated", the malicious way in which you handled it doesn't impress me.

Change your attitude if you want my attention.

 

[DanZy]

Sorry bro, I was going through some major family **** yesterday and kinda used here to vent. Things are sorted now and I can how I was a douche of note. Though I still maintain things like the gaps between 4 and 8 reps being too large, intermittent fasting being brilliant etc; I was a ****. I apologize once again.

Looked at scooby, things look ok. The fact that he truly believes in 6 meals a day etc, without any source of scientific reasoning, prompts me to believe he's just recycling others crap. His nutrition advice is horrible! Stating how much protein one needs-bull****, one doesn't need that much. Less than 25% cals from fat-no research, no evidence, no clue what he's talking about. His advice on treating lower back pain is downright dangerous. There's only one exercise that he recommends there that will help at all. Looking at the rest of his stuff, he's knowledgeable but is simply recycling others' knowledge without any scientific research etc.

 

[Jack Wealthy]

I don't like scooby. He is nothing new and his programs are based on such a spread of theories that they end up with contradictions and don't actually support any one method enough to grow. It's weightlifting, not martial arts, trying for 8 goals at once means you get no where fast.

EDIT: I just read the last page.

Your gains are nothing impressive, they're what any average intermediate trainer can expect from a mediocre program. I gained 8 kilos in the same period of time, with the same amount of lifting experience because I design my programs based on actual research.

No offence BPH, but you're not that knowledgeable. You're recycling general anecdotal beliefs, mainly from Scooby, who himself is doing the same. Read into people who pioneered the craft and their theories, people like Chad Waterbury, Coach Somner, Mark Rippetoe and Bill Starr.

People like Scooby are just people with good bodies, not professionals. You shouldn't listen to the athlete, you should listen to their sources. The best example of this is bodybuilding. Just because Jay Cutler is bulk as, would you listen to him? Hell no, guy has no idea why his workout works. His elaborate team of training professionals does. Basically, he just makes the final pick on what he does. Like any athlete in any sport. They give him a few good choices and he does it.

Also, mix it up. You're been doing Scoobys workouts for months now. Even if by some miracle that was the perfect program for you, that would have lasted all of the first month. Your body wants diversity and the only reason to keep a program going for any period is so gains are easier to follow. Just keep the same main lifts (shoulder press, squat, dead, pullup- variations) and rotate everything else.

Finally, abandon the isolation lifts. You do more isolation lifts than compound. IMO the only reason to isolate at all is to work out imbalances.

 

[BPH]

How about this?

I'll do my workouts, improve my definition, and gain my muscle doing what I see as the best choice for me. It's obviously been working, why would I stop?

What kind of scientific proof do you need? Look at scooby's body! He's in his 50s and he looks like Arnold in his prime. The guy is not advertising any products and builds his workout routines so that one could do them without spending money on a gym membership.

Now I may not be the most knowledgeable weightlifter, I never claimed to be, but that's part of the reason that my major will probably end up being Athletic Training or Exercise Sciences. Jack it seems that you swear by Gymnastic Body, and Dan it seems that you think that because my rep counts are strange, therefore I must have a bad routine...and that is certainly not the case. Those of you that have a Facebook can take a good look at me and see that. I'm 177lbs and I gained more than 10lbs of muscle in about 4 months...that's not amazing but it's pretty damn good. If you guys think I should be gaining more than that in such a short window, you have unrealistic expectations.

Jay Cutler is a great bodybuiler with the backing of a multi-million dollar fitness team...and you're comparing Cutler to a man that has built his body to be what it is over the course of several decades with only essential lifting equipment and a proper diet.

On a side note, nothing is wrong with compound exercises. I just tend to avoid them, especially deadlift and jerk-type exercises, because they stress the scoliosis I have in my back.

Now if you're still not satisfied with what I'm telling you here I will be meeting a competitive bodybuilder this week to have him look at my workouts and diet. So if my word isn't good to you, maybe his will be. First name Bob, not sure his last name, but I'll tell you when I know so you can Google.

2/3/12

BUSY DAY!

Alright so first off, HB Cassidy got into a fight with this girl named Alexis and completely busted her up...expected that on account of HB Cassidy's military bootcamp training.

Still hating math class, just everything about it.

Girl on my bus, HB Kayana, is being a little odd, but I'll describe her later when I feel like it.

Almost as soon as I got home I had to go to the gym early so I would have time to eat before I went to the Sportsplex (will explain in a bit). So here's the workout:

2x8 1x7x25 Weighted Chair Dips
3x8x25 Dumbbell French Fry (a little sloppy on the last rep or 2)
3x8x60 "Scooby" Press
3x8x50 Forced Negative Curls
3x8x25 Hammer Curls (will watch form videos, sloppy on the last rep)
3x8x40 Reverse Barbell Curl (this exercise always kills me, and it looks like I have almost no weight on the bar...total ego killer haha)

So after that I had a small dinner, played chauffer for my sister, and picked up my friend John to go to the Sportsplex and play volleyball. We got there and practiced by ourselves for a little bit before we started playing against these 2 other guys.

We then all moved over to another court to play a full 6-on-6 game with the locals. They sucked. Neither team could get a 3-hit volley going and therefore I had no opportunity to practice hitting.

I tried to hint to John that I wanted to practice by ourselves or at least transfer to a better team...but he said that we were having fun so I just stuck with him.

Verdict: No real help for my skills...need to coordinate this with my actual teammates or I won't learn squat from playing these guys...

Went home and watched Spartacus, chilled on the couch and went to bed.

 

[LearningSlowly]

I'm by no means a weightlifting expert. The way I see it, both compound exercises and isolated exercises have value.

8 reps versus 3ish reps also both seem to have value.

I may be wrong, but it seems like the most effective routine would balance the two by cycling between them. BPH, maybe you need to incorporate a few weeks of low-rep, compound exercises dispersed into your normal work out weeks.

At rowing we definitely did compound exercises at around 8 reps each set. There was no focus on size building at all, it was all about strength. We had a lifting coach who set that up for us and we used to lift about 3 times a week alternating with rowing, which is a high intensity cardio workout itself.

 

[Jack Wealthy]

I'm saying don't listen to people because they have a good body. I weigh 80 kilos and put on 15 pounds in the same period you put on 10. That doesn't mean I'm a genius or anything, it means I design my programs well for me. I'd still call that an average gain, an exceptional gain would that in two months.

I didn't compare Cutler to Scooby. Nowhere did I say listen to Cutler. I in fact did the opposite and said the reason he is what he is is because he listens to science, yet makes the final call himself. Scooby on the other hand has a good body because sometimes **** works. He doesn't listen to science, he has the most basic understanding of weightlifting a guru could get away with and his methods are outdated at best.

Scooby's **** might even be decent for you. But I highly doubt it's optimal. There are several main ways to grow (this is the really important part) including increasing weight, volume, speed... The one thing they always have in common are: They focus on gaining in one area, they focus on compound lifts. Scooby seems to think compounds can be replaced by enough isolation lifts. The randomness that is his rep schemes is just weird.

 

[DanZy]

You missed my point. I started out with the rep ranges because they were fairly ****ty for sport. And yea your routine is pretty kak.

Scooby looks nothing like Arnold in his prime! Arnold was massive, scooby is decently big but nothing amazing. The fact that you take a guys advice because he's big is worrying, I know guys who are huge but eat badly and train poorly.

You also did claim to be very knowledgeable but hey if you say you didn't, you didn't.

You could easily have gained more in that window, I have.

Jay cutler was bigger than scooby, all the way back in 1994 when Cutler was 18/19. He didn't have a massive support team then.

Finally if you're training for sport (as you are for volleyball) a bodybuilder isn't going to help you at all. If you want to weigh 100kgs and then attempt to jump high enough to hit a ball over the net, go ahead. Being heavy in volleyball is not needed at all.

And whatever jack said, I support.

 

[BPH]

2/4/12

Alright so today started early, around 7 in the morning. I went to the gym to get my ab workout done before I had to actually work. And here it is:

10x25 Weighted Crunches
15x15 Weighted Crunches
25x15 Weighted Bicycles (used better form and slowed down)
15 Crunches
25 Bicycles
45 sec Planks (each side)

Started doing my leg raises but stopped soon after because a pop I kept feeling in my right leg started becoming painful.

I did a single myotatic crunch, but at this point I just felt like going home, so that's all I did.

I brought it the attention of my mom, and she thinks it may be a hernia. It makes sense, dull pop, not particularly painful until today...so I worried a bit. But it seems that I can't really do anything about it without a bunch of strange herbs or surgery.

That's about it for now, there's more, but I need to get ready for work, so I'll update this again afterwards.

PS - With all due respect to Jack and DanZy, I don't really care about what you guys are saying in terms of criticizing my routine. It obviously works for me. I realize that volleyball is going to require a different approach, and I've taken that into considerationg. But as far as the routine I'm done talking about it.

Nothing has changed. I will not change my routine unless I see fit, and you will not change your beliefs.

 

[LearningSlowly]

I in fact did the opposite and said the reason he is what he is is because he listens to science, yet makes the final call himself.

Well, that's what you're doing, at least.

 

[BPH]

2/4/12 Cont.

Alright so after my workout and work shift I decided to go to the mall. During work I noticed something...we have a Pole Dancing Physiques class, and even though the girls that go to my gym aren't all that, the girls that go to these pole classes tend to be HOT.

One was HB Adrien, I only know her name because of her name on the sign up sheet. She was eyeing me a bit, and I probably should have said something sly, but I'll probably see her next week.

So I went to the mall, drove there by myself for the first time. Walked around and didn't see much for a while, so I started forcing myself to do approaches for the sake of the boot camp.

Nothing successful or worthy of mention, just that approaching groups is terrible. Couldn't find a single hot girl by herself. My friend Dom didn't come because he didn't know I was going till like 4 hours after I had gotten there...

...yes, I was there 4 hours looking for targets.

Went home, relaxed and watched TV. Went to bed early after a nice conversation with LearningSlowly on FB and that was that.

 

[BPH]

2/5/12

Today was quite boring, my alarm screwed up so I didn't wake up in time to do my cardio before work.

Work itself was nice, made friends with my co-worker Cecily. Really nice girl, much older than I would have guess...quite friendly.

No Pole Dancing classes today, so there was a lack of decent looking girls.

There is a lifeguard named HB Alex that's kinda cute. Got plenty of eye contact and she was interested in who I was. Asked me my name. Nothing big, but obvious interest. Red flags?

She's 22, and she works at my job.

So after work I really chilled to the max. Nowhere to go and nothing to do. I went back to the gym to do my cardio and brought my sister to work on some volleyball drills. But she isn't very skilled, and quite ditzy, so I didn't really get anything out of it.

Worked on my FAFSA, watched some of the Super Bowl, and trying to figure out how I'm going to change up my workout routine to ready me for volleyball.

I should be able to do your challenge Josh, assuming I make it out to the mall. Will also try to number close some random girl and school for the sake of nova's challenge.

That's about it, considered calling HB Kaitlin, but decided against it. Still NC both ways.

Anyways peace.

 

[Jack Wealthy]

... I'm not saying you're not making gains, I'm saying both DanZy and I have similar beliefs and make significantly faster gains than you do.

Anyway, approaching groups takes more energy/a harder hook, in gay ass terms. It's a range, for one girl you can come in anywhere (in day game) from stoned-outgoing and get good success. For two girls, stoned is going to fail a lot more and you want more range. By the time you get to four girls you have to have massive range, be loud and expressive and be super sincere. That's the only way you'll isolate besides chance. Which is actually decent, sometimes girls just set they're friends up with cool guys who come up. So long as they're sincere and confident.

 

[Amo]

Groups is just being ridiculous. Pick people up, talk loudly, make people laugh. I can honestly say the only reason I suck at groups is that I'm not strong enough to make it really fun - picking people up and throwing them over my shoulder and the like.

 

[BPH]

Groups is just being ridiculous. Pick people up, talk loudly, make people laugh. I can honestly say the only reason I suck at groups is that I'm not strong enough to make it really fun - picking people up and throwing them over my shoulder and the like.

That's how you win over the group, but that's not how you isolate a target from the group to go home and f***. This is something I will either have to master with practice or just avoid in favor of a lone chick.

2/6/12

Pretty easy day. I had a test that hit me by surprise but I think I only had 2 answers wrong...seeing as he went over the test afterwards.

School was pretty lame and routine, coulda number closed HB Bria, but she's black and I find it hard to be attracted to girls that aren't white, or occasionally latina. I decided that if I'm going to close a girl for the bootcamp, it's going to be one I'm interested in.

Also have a physics report on the Manhattan Project due in about a week. Picked it because I have a fancy for weapons.

Got home and did some bodybuilding research, posted a topic about Scooby's routine on bodybuilding.com and got a good reply from this one guy. Referred me to a bodybuilder on Scooby's forum that developed several very strong workout routines. Here's the link for those interested:

http://www.askscooby.com/excellent-postings/21-workout-routines-37958/

And here's the workout that I tried to do to the best of my ability. It is 3 times a week and I will try to do 3 sets each time, so I will simply list the reps I was able to do for each set of an exercise. I am supposed to add weight if I can do more than 20 reps of any exercise. They are all bodyweight exercises and even though they look easy on paper, I promise you this was on of the most difficult workouts I've done:

7 7 6 Pistol Squats (each leg, these are the most difficult f***ing things in the world)
14 12 11 Dips
12 10 8 Chinups
20 15 13 Pushups
15 14 13 Inverted Rows (barbell)
13 10 10 Hanging Leg Raises
15 15 15 Back Extensions

I was totally dead at the end of this. I also ran my regular cardio before doing these.

Came home, had a great meal, talking with Josh on Facebook. Good raps bro, good raps.

Last night, against my better judgement, I texted HB Kaitlin a simple "Night babe" to which I received no reply. Maybe she wants me to call her but I really need to move the f*** on.

I think that's about it. Peace guys.

 

[NorwegianDJ]

What's your rep cadence? Go hard on time under pressure and negatives. It will hurt your numbers, but you'll gain more.

 

[Jack Wealthy]

I don't agree with that.

Isolating from a group is the same except you talk to more people and have two sentences instead of one. It's common sense. "Hey, you wanna check this out? Yo, we're gonna go check that out yeah."

Either text HB Kaitlin or don't; commit.

 

[BPH]

What's your rep cadence? Go hard on time under pressure and negatives. It will hurt your numbers, but you'll gain more.

There is no specified cadence. The routine simply says to be explosive in my reps and go slow on the negative.

@Jack Yeah but I would have to entertain the whole group then isolate the girl I want for a close. Thinking back, with the exception of maybe 1 or 2 girls...my closes have all been on solitary girls. So I think there's something to be had with gaming lone girls as opposed to grouped chicks.

2/7/12

Today wasn't much special. I'll skip the stupid school day, you guys should already know how tired I am of this place.

Had a nice day to chill after school. Didn't work on Thursday's homework, didn't do any work on my project, just chilled out and relaxed...at least until I went to the gym.

No workout today, but I practiced some volleyball...specifically I did 100 good hits, 100 sets, and 100 bumps again the wall. They would not count unless they were GOOD. Also did 20something serves before a baseball team needed the gym.

Really didn't do much when I went home aside from playing Battlefield 3. I think I'll hit up Main St. with Dom on the weekend.

Pretty sure that's about it, might add box jumps to my workout to help with my vertical. People keep recommended the Vertical Jump Bible, but I'd rather not have to spend $10 on an eBook that may not even prove its worth.

Alright that's all folks, peace.