Should it just be as simple as increasing weight slightly every week?

In terms of getting bigger, is it as simple as just making sure I’m increasing the weight slightly every session overtime without the need of much else in terms of changing things up?

Current lifts
Squat 100x5
Bench 70x5
Deadlift 120x5

Replies

  • MikePTY
    MikePTY Posts: 3,814 Member
    There is no need to "change this up" if your program is working effectively for you, but why not just do Stroggman 5x5 instead, since it seems like you are doing your own modified scaled down version of it. Check it out stronglifts.com/5x5.
  • duteshredded
    duteshredded Posts: 32 Member
    MikePTY wrote: »
    There is no need to "change this up" if your program is working effectively for you, but why not just do Stroggman 5x5 instead, since it seems like you are doing your own modified scaled down version of it. Check it out stronglifts.com/5x5.

    I’m doing pplpplr with the second set of days slightly different to the first
  • billkansas
    billkansas Posts: 267 Member
    I'm a fan of Starting Strength and this is pretty much the routine at the start. Keep adding weight to your main compound lifts until you can't anymore- at which time you will have to get more serious about eating, resting, lifting, etc.
  • giancarlov1191
    giancarlov1191 Posts: 493 Member
    I agree with staying the course for a set period of the time. It's very tempting to get impatient and try to switch everything up much too often.

    What does your diet/calorie intake look like?
  • duteshredded
    duteshredded Posts: 32 Member
    I agree with staying the course for a set period of the time. It's very tempting to get impatient and try to switch everything up much too often.

    What does your diet/calorie intake look like?

    Done a massive cut from 89kg to 57 from obese to abs within like 7 months by feb last year and since then I’ve been in a yo-yo of cutting bulking, feeling too small then overbulking then feeling too fat it’s been a disaster since lol.

    No idea what my maintenance is tbh so find it hard bulking properly
  • giancarlov1191
    giancarlov1191 Posts: 493 Member
    We're similar there in a sense. I lost 40lbs in a cut last year (down to about 65kg). After a short transition I've been focused on bulking since August or so.

    Honestly, once you've got your workouts in place, monitor how your strength and weight increases over time. Add slowly if you think you need to but stay committed.
  • Mr_Healthy_Habits
    Mr_Healthy_Habits Posts: 12,588 Member
    When you're a beginner, It's usually that easy...

    However eventually you simply won't be able to increase the weight without extra energy or food...

    Soon your limiting factor is going to be your ability to recover...
  • duteshredded
    duteshredded Posts: 32 Member
    When you're a beginner, It's usually that easy...

    However eventually you simply won't be able to increase the weight without extra energy or food...

    Soon your limiting factor is going to be your ability to recover...

    Yeah was thinking of just worrying about hitting some strength standards like the 4/3/2/1 club or something and not be too concerned about leanness but it’s hard lol
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    I agree with staying the course for a set period of the time. It's very tempting to get impatient and try to switch everything up much too often.

    What does your diet/calorie intake look like?

    Done a massive cut from 89kg to 57 from obese to abs within like 7 months by feb last year and since then I’ve been in a yo-yo of cutting bulking, feeling too small then overbulking then feeling too fat it’s been a disaster since lol.

    No idea what my maintenance is tbh so find it hard bulking properly

    Maybe invest a month in finding out what your current maintenance calories are so that you can then bulk or cut (or maintain) more productively and not aimlessly yo-yo up and down?
    Current lifts
    Squat 100x5
    Bench 70x5
    Deadlift 120x5
    You haven't said if these are in kgs or lbs?
  • duteshredded
    duteshredded Posts: 32 Member
    sijomial wrote: »
    I agree with staying the course for a set period of the time. It's very tempting to get impatient and try to switch everything up much too often.

    What does your diet/calorie intake look like?

    Done a massive cut from 89kg to 57 from obese to abs within like 7 months by feb last year and since then I’ve been in a yo-yo of cutting bulking, feeling too small then overbulking then feeling too fat it’s been a disaster since lol.

    No idea what my maintenance is tbh so find it hard bulking properly

    Maybe invest a month in finding out what your current maintenance calories are so that you can then bulk or cut (or maintain) more productively and not aimlessly yo-yo up and down?
    Current lifts
    Squat 100x5
    Bench 70x5
    Deadlift 120x5
    You haven't said if these are in kgs or lbs?

    My maintenance seemed to be about 1300 when I was at my lightest lol but I’ve no idea now with how much it fluctuates with water and carbs etc

    They’re in kg.
  • giancarlov1191
    giancarlov1191 Posts: 493 Member
    I suggest weighing daily and averaging it weekly and then seeing if those weekly averages go up or down. I think that's helps take away the confusion of the daily fluctuations
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    sijomial wrote: »
    I agree with staying the course for a set period of the time. It's very tempting to get impatient and try to switch everything up much too often.

    What does your diet/calorie intake look like?

    Done a massive cut from 89kg to 57 from obese to abs within like 7 months by feb last year and since then I’ve been in a yo-yo of cutting bulking, feeling too small then overbulking then feeling too fat it’s been a disaster since lol.

    No idea what my maintenance is tbh so find it hard bulking properly

    Maybe invest a month in finding out what your current maintenance calories are so that you can then bulk or cut (or maintain) more productively and not aimlessly yo-yo up and down?
    Current lifts
    Squat 100x5
    Bench 70x5
    Deadlift 120x5
    You haven't said if these are in kgs or lbs?

    My maintenance seemed to be about 1300 when I was at my lightest lol but I’ve no idea now with how much it fluctuates with water and carbs etc

    They’re in kg.

    1300 seems very, very, very unlikely!
    That might be your BMR (total rest, fasted state, zero activity or exercise.....) at 57kg but can't be your maintenance calories.

    Learning about your natural fluctuations takes time and consistency (reasonable accuracy also helps...) - but it's worth it to nail down your calorie needs.
  • How long have you been running your current programme for? Once you can’t add weight each session it’s usually time to move on to an intermediate type of programme
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 14,242 Member
    I'm not going to address your programming.

    I will definitely address your wild weight swings.

    You're not going to achieve or maintain the body you want if you don't get a grip on your weight.

    Forget semi deliberate bulking and wild desperate starvation to lose weight rapidly to compensate!

    Yo-yoing means you're one injury away from being obese.

    Get. A. Grip.

    Your goal should not be bulking in the near future.

    In the near future you should get a grip on seriously dampening down your weight perturbations and transitioning to changing your weight at such a glacial pace that you're not even sure that the scale is moving.

    Bulks and cuts can not support your exercise goals if they're out of control
  • duteshredded
    duteshredded Posts: 32 Member
    sijomial wrote: »
    sijomial wrote: »
    I agree with staying the course for a set period of the time. It's very tempting to get impatient and try to switch everything up much too often.

    What does your diet/calorie intake look like?

    Done a massive cut from 89kg to 57 from obese to abs within like 7 months by feb last year and since then I’ve been in a yo-yo of cutting bulking, feeling too small then overbulking then feeling too fat it’s been a disaster since lol.

    No idea what my maintenance is tbh so find it hard bulking properly

    Maybe invest a month in finding out what your current maintenance calories are so that you can then bulk or cut (or maintain) more productively and not aimlessly yo-yo up and down?
    Current lifts
    Squat 100x5
    Bench 70x5
    Deadlift 120x5
    You haven't said if these are in kgs or lbs?

    My maintenance seemed to be about 1300 when I was at my lightest lol but I’ve no idea now with how much it fluctuates with water and carbs etc

    They’re in kg.

    1300 seems very, very, very unlikely!
    That might be your BMR (total rest, fasted state, zero activity or exercise.....) at 57kg but can't be your maintenance calories.

    Learning about your natural fluctuations takes time and consistency (reasonable accuracy also helps...) - but it's worth it to nail down your calorie needs.

    Iol I swear bro, 450g chicken and 2 scoops protein a day with whatever the sauces etc added up to as well and I couldn’t drop anymore past it for a few weeks so that’s when I first decided to bulk.
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 14,242 Member
    Not being able to cut more doesn't mean your next step is a bulk.

    You don't need to only eat chicken and protein powder to control your weight...
  • duteshredded
    duteshredded Posts: 32 Member
    PAV8888 wrote: »
    Not being able to cut more doesn't mean your next step is a bulk.

    You don't need to only eat chicken and protein powder to control your weight...

    Considering I was 62kg for almost two months and couldn’t seem to lose weight, decided to do psmf and got abs quickly from having no visibility at all, it was just a challenge for me and I was 100% dedicated to get there at the time.
  • Unknown
    edited January 2020
    This content has been removed.
  • giancarlov1191
    giancarlov1191 Posts: 493 Member
    I think short-term thinking will yield short term results. You've achieve your first goal of cutting down and you got your abs to show which is great, but I think it's time to transition to the long-game. Take things very slow and deliberate and achieve goals in a healthy way that will be long lasting.
  • sgt1372
    sgt1372 Posts: 3,997 Member
    You will get stronger but not necessarily bigger doing a linear progression program.

    To get bigger, you'll need 2 eat more and lift even heavier (typically heavy wts/low reps) after you've plateaued doing linear progression. Lot of info on the Net about this.
  • Chieflrg
    Chieflrg Posts: 9,097 Member
    edited January 2020
    Simply adding weight is a option if you are novel to training or you've been on hiatus for a extended period.

    I highly recommend training with more advanced training for a hypertrophy response than simply adding weight.

    You current lifts do not show the volume you are dosing during training assuming you are doing more the one set of five for a working set.

    It also is reasonable to think that you would lean heavily at a strength response and not hypertrophy as a goal of getting "bigger".



  • Chieflrg
    Chieflrg Posts: 9,097 Member
    sijomial wrote: »
    Current lifts
    Squat 100x5
    Bench 70x5
    Deadlift 120x5
    You haven't said if these are in kgs or lbs?
    It makes zero difference if it's lbs or kgs.

  • magnusthenerd
    magnusthenerd Posts: 1,207 Member
    Chieflrg wrote: »
    sijomial wrote: »
    Current lifts
    Squat 100x5
    Bench 70x5
    Deadlift 120x5
    You haven't said if these are in kgs or lbs?
    It makes zero difference if it's lbs or kgs.

    At 57 kg bodyweight, a 70x5 lb bench is around untrained, while a 70x5 kg bench is into intermediate, and close to advanced. There is a ton of difference in programming between the two. Someone coming from untrained doesn't really need to be doing any bulking to make strength or even muscle gains.
  • wiigelec
    wiigelec Posts: 503 Member
    edited January 2020
    Absolute weight on the bar is not overly indicative of training advancement, it’s more about appropriate stress application and recovery.

    A “beginner” could potentially lift more weight than an “intermediate” and the two could require vastly different programming to progress...
  • magnusthenerd
    magnusthenerd Posts: 1,207 Member
    wiigelec wrote: »
    Absolute weight on the bar is not overly indicative of training advancement, it’s more about appropriate stress application and recovery.

    A “beginner” could potentially lift more weight than an “intermediate” and the two could require vastly different programming to progress...

    They could, but be serious about normal curves - they will describe most people. Saying they make zero difference - even in the case someone's an insanely strong beginner - towards programming is too absolute. There's also almost no chance someone is 70x5 in lb and not a beginner. If they actually have been training for a while and only at that level, there is something going on that no amount programming is going to account for.
  • wiigelec
    wiigelec Posts: 503 Member
    There's also almost no chance someone is 70x5 in lb and not a beginner. If they actually have been training for a while and only at that level, there is something going on that no amount programming is going to account for.
    True ... unless they are 90 years old 😉...

  • Chieflrg
    Chieflrg Posts: 9,097 Member
    edited January 2020
    Chieflrg wrote: »
    sijomial wrote: »
    Current lifts
    Squat 100x5
    Bench 70x5
    Deadlift 120x5
    You haven't said if these are in kgs or lbs?
    It makes zero difference if it's lbs or kgs.

    At 57 kg bodyweight, a 70x5 lb bench is around untrained, while a 70x5 kg bench is into intermediate, and close to advanced. There is a ton of difference in programming between the two. Someone coming from untrained doesn't really need to be doing any bulking to make strength or even muscle gains.

    Nope. There isn't any established evidence who is beginner, intermediate, or advanced by whatever weight measurement one can perform.

    I've literally had people untrained who on their very first day squatted 50kg(110lbs) for reps of five and another who squatted 120kg(265lbs). Both were same height, gender, weight, etc...Both continued to progress at a reasonable rate for a untrained individual.

    Why would we label individuals differently just by a arbitrary number they can lift? The vast majority of untrained lifters will respond to the same amount of volume regardless of tonnage.

    As individuals we will have a wide range of starting points. I certainly wouldn't tell the individual who can squat 120kg for sets of five their first day that they are a intermediate lifter and linear progression will not work the same as for the lifters who lift much less.