From Geek to Freak: How I Gained 34 lbs. of Muscle in 4 Weeks

Some people have talked about Pete Sisco’s Static Contraction training method. I actually used it for 60 days last year and had decent results. However, they were not that much better than what I would get from normal weight training (actually about the same). The difference was that the workouts were really short and infrequent. I stopped using the technique because it just wasn’t that enjoyable. I never got that pumped feeling from working out. It was also pretty tough to find enough weight in the gym to use…and tough to find a spotter all the time to get the machine or weights in the right position. Power-racks helped but even with them, these problems remained.

That said, I am going to give the program Time used a try (as per The Colorado Experiment) for the next 30 days. I did my first workout using the one-set-to-failure technique and it was one of the hardest (and shortest) workouts I’ve done in a long time. It really felt good. I’ll be blogging about my progress.

I really don’t need to gain 34lbs in 4 weeks…but I would surely love to gain about 20lbs 😉

we’ll see how it goes…..now time to go drink a protein shake!

Hey Tim,

Have you tried this diet on someone that is overweight?? not obese but overweight? Becasue 5000-8000 cals per day might end up making people fat. You seemed to be a slim guy are you prone to gaining fat?

Thanks for this great post,

Saga

Its not impossible to achieve his success. The problem is that 85% of the gym population sticks with the same basic exercise; which consist primarily of upper body exercise.

I was a Super Slow trainer for a few years and I’ve seen first hand want a truly motivated and genetically gifted individual can accomplish. I no longer involved with Super Slow, but I incorporate some of their methods in my work out. I combine fuctional movement exercises e.g. Squats, Dead Lifts, Shoulder Press, Dips, CORE training, and cardio.

It’s 80% diet 20% exercise so his diet had a lot to do with it as well.

I’m also going to be doing the one-set-to-failure training. I did my first workout yesterday (Wednesday) and it was freaking intense and very short. The Bent-over Rows were hard for me, but I do them reverse, my forearms and grip was giving out way before my back was. I couldn’t hold the weight up, even though I still got around 8-9 reps. But, I’m also going to be doing 8-12 reps, then up weight once 11-12 reps are possible. Do you have to rest 3 minutes between each exercise? I rested only about 1 min or a 1 min and half. I’m going to be doing 5 sessions every 2 weeks, 3 the first week Mon/Wed/Fri and 2 the next week Mon/Thurs. But the 2 sessions a week, I’m prob. going to drop 2-3 exercises of the regular workout and focus only on 4 mass exercises (Deadlifts, Flat Bench or Incline, Yates Rows, and Overhead Press).

To Bjorn:

This may sound like an advert, but some time back I bought 2 pairs (1 for me, 1 for my wife) of “1-ton lifting hooks” (easy to find on Google). The main reason is my hands tend more towards the surgeon’s hand (or piano player’s hand) of the spectrum, and I’ve certainly experienced the premature forearm/hand grip failure you’re talking about. The hooks make a HUGE difference, and I’ve got nothing bad to say about them. Prepare to put them on *really* tight for those heavier weights, though. (In the past I’ve seen… how do I describe it… the blood pooling in my hands combined with the downward motion of the wrist constriction combined with the intense lift of heavy weights, I ended up with tiny spots on my hands, presumably the result of capillaries bursting under the strain. A curious look, but not painful. Although I’m sure it would alarm a physician. They look like tiny freckles until they fade.)

To Ravi: Yes I’m the one who mentioned using Pete Sisco’s Static Contraction Training method, but I sort of ‘hybridized’ it with his Power Factor Training method, the latter of which sounds a LOT like what Tim was doing. But Sisco better explains the increasing need to take more and more time off, rather than sticking with a fixed period between workouts.

My ‘hybrid’ approach worked something like this: One set to failure (two if I felt like I needed to, which perhaps in retrospect was the wrong approach), but I would hold the last contraction as long as possible (eg, shrugs) if I suspected I wasn’t going to be able to get the bar back up again.

This approach may not have managed to bulk me up beyond 179 lbs, but my strength increases were huge. I don’t recall exact numbers, but memory is telling me that my shrugs were on the order of 320 (or 360) lbs, dead lifts were 360 lbs, dumbbell preacher curls were 70 lbs (per arm), one-legged leg press (because the machine simply couldn’t hold enough weight of 450 lbs, etc. And I’ve yet to break 180 lbs of body weight.

One reason for the progress then the sudden stop was that we had a decent gym in the last apartment complex we lived in, but the Smith machine where we live now has a couple of design issues which make it exceptionally difficult to get the weight safely into position (and put it back). We’ve since joined a decent gym, but distance and trying to co-ordinate the family makes for greater challenges. I’d picked up a book by Charles Staley and had tried his “as many reps as possible for a 5 (10) min period” approach, but have had limited gains that way.

Time for me to switch back to the one set/rep to failure approach.

Good job. I’d say you’ve already learned more than the other 99% of meathead-bodybuilders out there blindly following any and every training protocol there is. Intensity is what matters the most, with an adequate rest period between workouts. Also, don’t be afraid to eventually add an additional rest day or two as you get stronger.

I agree with what Jim says. There is so much crap out there.

Another thing to look into is HST (Hypertrophy Specific Training). It works pretty well.

(Changed my name to “Jim (PFT/SCT)” because it seems there’s another Jim posting comments.)

To Bjorn:

I don’t think I really timed the rest between my exercises. One issue I have (and it hit me again last night, details below) is that it doesn’t take much for me to overdo it. And when I overdo it, I get warning signals, such as a sense that if I continue doing this, I’ll hurl my biscuits, or I get lightheaded, or my hearing gets a bit quieter (or gets a sort of slow-ish ‘buffeting’ effect, like the effect helicopter blades make, only much much slower). So while I push myself like mad during the set, I make sure my body is damn ready for the next exercise, otherwise I could end up faceplanting.

Right or wrong, last night I warmed up with a 5 min run on the treadmill, followed by a 5 min walk on the treadmill. Then, off to the Smith machine to do the hack squat. I’d recently read about drop sets, so I did 140×16 followed by 90×12. The one difference in how I’m doing these now compared to a while back, is that I’m not doing “strongest range” training (big focus of PFT/SCT). And it might be worth noting that I’m just getting “back on the horse” so to speak. At any rate, after I’d finished these up, I had to take a LONG rest, and during that rest I pondered whether I was going to do any more exercises at all. I ended up getting off a set of Yates rows, then 2 sets of dips before calling it a night (the gym was closing, so I had to get my butt out of there). Feeling decent today though, no soreness in my legs/butt (already went through that a couple weeks back). From what I recall from many similar past experiences, this could just be my body getting used to intense exercises again. Over time, I expect I’ll be able to do more during a workout; I’ll just need to play it smart and not try to do too many exercises during a workout. Last night I had plans to do hack squats, shrugs, Yates rows, pullovers, dead lifts and dips. That seems to cover everything, or…?

So while I’m sure others can do their next set after 3 mins, and yet others can do it after 1 min, I personally let common sense be my guide. If I thought I could knock off another set after 1 min without making myself feel like crap, I’d do it.

And to those who recognize that the rest period between workout days is crucial, this is exactly what I’ve got from reading Sisco’s stuff. If anything, it seems the stronger one gets, the longer one needs to rest between workouts. If you haven’t read his stuff, then you might not be familiar with how he could work out once a month and *still* make gains. Seems counterintuitive, but he makes a strong case for taking that rest.

The following is from Tim Ferriss….hope he doesn’t mind me reposting:

“here’s what I recommend:

“Check out the most recent books by Ellington Darden, and also check out any writing by Ken Hutchins of “Super Slow”.

“For exercise sequence, I recommend doing one or two exercises upper body to prep the nervous system, then go legs. If you are really serious, and you haven’t trained much before, I recommend splitting the week into three workouts: pushing movements, pulling movements, and legs. Take one day between workouts for the first two weeks, then two days between them. It works like gangbusters. My favorite movements for pure mass, in the order I recommend, are below. Don’t forget about 3-5 minutes between exercises (just one set for each exercise):

“Push: Incline bench, weighted dips, close-grip shoulder press (never behind neck)

Pull: Machine pull-over, Yates bent row (google it), close grip supinated (palms facing you) pulldowns, SLOW shrugs with dumbbells (pause for 2 seconds at the top)

Legs: Leg press with feet shoulder width (do higher reps on this; at least 120 seconds before failure), adduction maching (bringing legs together like Suzanne Sommers – sp?), hamstring curl, leg extension, seated calf raises

“Those are your three workouts. Simple and very effective.

“To minimize leg soreness, so about 5 minutes of light stationary biking after finishing the “legs” workout.

“Most people fail because they work out too often and eat too little, usually due to skipping breakfast. Never skip breakfast, as you’ve already been fasting for 6-12 hours. Take 2 scoops of NOXplode upon getting to work or 30 minutes after breakfast, and again before workouts. Drink one of those disgusting post-workout drinks they sell at the gyms within 20 minutes of working out (I actually mix one with water and sip about 50% of the bottle between sets, polishing off the rest after the workout).

“Check out Ken Hutchins’ and Darden’s stuff — they give other sample routines. I like my routine above. You’ll gain at least 10 pounds in 4 weeks if you eat and sleep enough. For gaining, I’ll eat at: 9am (breakfast), 12pm, 4pm, 8 or 9pm, then again before bed.

Take some before and after pics or you’ll be kicking yourself later!

Train HARD & eat often”

That’s awesome. Great work! Can you send your program and protein/carb intake via email?

Cheers

I just need to eat more. I think thats my main problem, I’m getting the workout down, I hope. It’s just eating so much clean food is hard to do. It’s easier to eat junk food to get calories in. I’m trying to eat canned tuna alot more and instant oatmeal mixed with some brown sugar, honey, and raisens. And a 700-800 protein type shake which includes whey, peanut butter, milk, oatmeal, and a banana.

Hi Tim – you really ought to do a whole book about this. I actually found this by googling a comment you made in your talk with Marci Alboher at Google, about cutting your weight dramatically. Between cutting your weight dramatically, increasing your muscle dramatically, and lowering your cholesterol dramatically, you have a whole book there. Also – you have a whole book there which could seriously improve my personal life expectancy. I want my life expectancy to improve! I personally will be massively indebted to you if you document the methods and theory behind these astonishing transformations. I need to make similar transformations, both for superficial reasons and for important ones.

Can you say about the everday food to eat? How many meals per day?

Thanks.

Tim – you have GOT to make this a book!

Look at this guy carefully. For one…he is a short guy and in particular with stubby little legs. To start with nothing and end up gaining that kind of mass over time is no surprise really. And I would know because I have done the same thing.

Before I started lifting I was five eight and 165-170. All I had done was run and some pushups before. Now at 225 I had the same kind of gains.

In fact this guy’s arms are rather long so he isn’t getting the development on top he could. Most people with muscle lust don’t realise much of it comes down to limb length, bone size, and stature. The one place guys who are average or short height can flourish is in the gym. Its that simple.

Eat a clean diet, rest, and simply be consistent over a long scale than a few months and even four hours will yield significant results if you have the right bone structure and symmetry.

If you are tall, long limbed and or small boned well…there is always crew, steroids, or cycling. Look at it this way in almost every other way sportswise height , limblength and being lighter are a positive. Only in the gym do guys like this guy and I excell.

What he has done is simply maximising genetic potential.

The iron snail

Where’s the video diary of the workout events?

Hey Ravi.

I’m following the workout. Except I don’t do the 5/5 cadence, I only do around 3 seconds up and 3 seconds down. A litter faster, but still to failure and writing down my weight/reps, etc. I do 7 exercises all compound mulit-joint exercises except barbell curls. I’m done in around 20 minutes give or take. I don’t really rest much inbetween exercises either. Only about a min and a half, just enough time to get the barbell ready with the weight and a little breather.

Is working out only 2 times a week better then 3? I know recovery is the best thing for your muscles, just wandering. All my friends follow the pro bodybuilding trend (5-6 workouts a week, one body-part per day, 14-16 sets per bodypart).

All about diet.

So everyone is mentioning how important the diet is, but I would love some more specific advice. I started on this workout plan a few days ago and its going well.

I’m a fishitarian (I eat fish, eggs, dairy products, but no other meats). Here’s my diet:

Morning

1 whole egg, 2 egg whites, 1 can of tuna or sardines. Some refried beans. Water

Lunch

Brown rice, heaps of beans, mixed veggies, 1 egg. Water.

Snack

Nothing yet.

Dinner

Grilled fish, rice and beans

or pasta and tuna with mayo and an egg

or tuna pizza

Also drink 4 whey protein shakes throughout the day. 1 extra on training days.

I am on the right track? I have no idea how many calories I am getting, but I surely hope there are enough proteins in my diet.

Any other food suggestions are very welcome!

How’s it going Tim?

Let me just first congratulate you on successfully completing this incredible gain in muscle mass. I’m surprised you didn’t sustain any injury from such intense workouts.

Now, like everyone else, I’d love to try this out and I happen to have a couple questions for you. Hope you don’t mind.

1. I’d like to know more about the types of exercises you performed each workout period that would include negative work, full range, rotary form, auto variable, direct resistance. Figured I could adapt to your workout regime.

2. I suppose through full range motion exercises, the need to stretch prior or afterwards is negligible?

3. I was wondering about “protein uptake downregulation.” I’m not in favour of dropping my calories for a day.

Anyway, your post was wonderful and I hope to reap the benefits of this little program. Thanks for the great insight Tim!

Andrew

Bjorn said: “I’m following the workout. Except I don’t do the 5/5 cadence, I only do around 3 seconds up and 3 seconds down. A litter faster, but still to failure and writing down my weight/reps, etc. I do 7 exercises all compound mulit-joint exercises except barbell curls. I’m done in around 20 minutes give or take. I don’t really rest much inbetween exercises either. Only about a min and a half, just enough time to get the barbell ready with the weight and a little breather.”

Sounds pretty good to me! I wouldn’t worry *too* much about it being a 3/3 cadence, but if you are, and you’re finding the 5/5 cadence to be too much, clearly you’ve got too much weight on there. Try knocking off 5-10% of the weight and seeing if that makes a difference. And above all else, don’t compromise your form just to add more weight and stroke the ego; really focus the mind on crisp form even at the expense of lesser weight. If you find you can do 15 reps, you should have done more weight, and if you can’t even do 5, you’ve got too much on there. While you *could* do another set, theoretically you’ve already exhausted your muscles. Save it for another day, there will be plenty more of them to come!

That said, I had an absolutely brilliant workout this past Tuesday, which was 6 days after my previous workout. To recap, I’d had a workout on May 6th where I felt like I was going to hurl, most likely because I had the braniac idea of doing a short run first. I’ll get into the details of this past Tuesday May 15 in a bit.

Bjorn said: “Is working out only 2 times a week better then 3? I know recovery is the best thing for your muscles, just wandering. All my friends follow the pro bodybuilding trend (5-6 workouts a week, one body-part per day, 14-16 sets per bodypart).

I’ll re-reference the PFT/SCT approach, and harp on recovery being your limiting factor. Simply put, if your muscles haven’t had time to recover, you won’t be able to add more weight to the bar. So your friends are working out like their lives depended on it. So how’s that working out for them thus far? 14-16 sets per bodypart just seems excessive to me. So what does this mean? Did they not succeed in exhausting the bodypart within the first 2-3 sets? If not, are they just spending all that time with lighter weights just because they love living in the gym? Personally, I’ve got better things to do. Yeah, I love seeing the eye candy there too, and have in the past been approached and chatted up by a couple of cute thangs who were either genuinely interested in the exercise I was doing (ie, dips) or were just looking for an excuse to chat me up. (My cluefulness when it comes to chatting up women is close to zero, so it may have been the latter case.) So if you’re there just for the eye candy opportunities, feel free to stretch out your workout as long as you like.

Andrew said: “I suppose through full range motion exercises, the need to stretch prior or afterwards is negligible?”

Form should always be your priority. If you have to sacrifice form just to get that extra bit of weight aloft, you risk injury.

That said, let common sense be your guide. In my case, I like to do a quick stretch (if you can call it that) of my knees and ankles before doing squats, get them to crack first so they don’t do an amplified crack in the middle of the lift.

If you feel the need to stretch first, by all means do it. But then there’s the question of warming up the muscles first. Ultimately it turns into a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem: warm up first or stretch first? If you warm up first, should you just do the set, or do you do the same exercise but at a greatly reduced weight?

Yeah, I’m probably getting off on a wild tangent here. 🙂

So, my workout this past week:

– hack squats – 180 x 10

– Yates rows – 160 x 8

– bench press – 90 x 15

– deadlift – 230 x 20

– barbell shrugs – 180 x 20

– T-bar rows – 45 x 15

– dips (unweighted) – 12 x 2 sets

– bicep (dumbbell) curls – 25 x 11

As you can see, it wasn’t exactly optimal. I didn’t have enough weight on the deadlift, so I’ll add at least 10% to that next time out. I did the T-bar rows because the Yates rows just didn’t feel right to me. I felt I could have done quite a bit more on the T-bar, but was mainly interested in how it felt; easily could have done 90 lbs, and theoretically those muscles were already exhausted.

As much as possible, I focused on putting my all into the contractions, and did 3-5 secs on the relaxing movement. And while everyone always says to breathe in on the contraction, I feel there is one exception: if the exercise means that your elbows are moving up (towards your head/shoulders) or back/rearwards, it’s far more natural to be breathing in with that move. And while I do try to breathe with every exercise, the one thing I’ve read (think it was entitled something like Bodybuilding Anatomy 101 — no time to look it up at the moment) is the concept of creating a ‘block’ by taking a deep breath and making your chest/back rigid, which usually means holding one’s breath, albeit briefly.

After re-reading about the similarities and differences of the hack squat vs. regular squat, I think I’ll be focusing more on the regular squat.

Anyway, no time to go any further with this. Need to head out for a couple hours.

Thanks for helping me out with all of this Jim. Are you a personal trainer? Just wandering.

Also, is it better to follow the 5/5 cadence? It just sucks that my weight will have to be dropped alot, but if that doesn’t matter for my muscles, I want my muscles to work as hard as they can. I workout at home so I don’t have no ego about weight haha. Would 5/5 cadence be better than my 3/3 cadence. Sometimes I only do 2 seconds on raising the weight and 3 on the way down(the negative part) since that is the most beneficial part of the exercise.

Thanks for the help. Tim needs to get up on here more often haha, but I know he’s busy.

Excellent gains, but this is nothing new……

As you’ve stated, as well as many others who’ve visited this site, this is simply H.I.T. advocated by Arthur Jones and Ellington Darden.

Darden has written many books on the subject including “The New High-Intensity Training” and “The new Bodybuilding for old-school results”, both of which outline many routines in a step-by-step fashion as well as nutritional guidelines for an increase in mass.

Thanks Jim. This type of training is just what Don Lemmon says. You can read all about him and get his books, I have 3 of them and they are exactly what Tim says. http://www.DonLemmon.com

He says all about the 1 set til failure, training 2-3 days a week and as you get stronger you need more rest days,always full body workouts, 15-20 minute workouts, etc. He gained 90lbs drug free in less than a year doing this approach.

Ok so I just max out my work out right?

using cadesnes and till msucle failure set?

Ok Im 6″3(and 75kg!) me and my friend gonna try this whole thing.

One month from now I’ll give you my weight gain!

I’m actually ecstatic with my results, though they were nothing near our hero’s.

I’m 33 and live a sedentary lifestyle. I started out 5’10” and about 168 lbs, yet flabby abdomen, undefined, small arms, chest and shoulders. Previously, I only ate 1 meal a day (dinner) and occassionally 2 if work necessitated having lunch with a client. I was out of shape and felt like crap most of the time.

I extended the ‘experiment’ idea and eliminated one more variable: I didn’t change my diet during the 28-day experiment, except for eating more beef for dinner than I normally did.

Though I missed a couple workouts, as I approach the end, I definitely notice a difference. After the 2nd workout, I noticed an increase in energy and an increased attention span (during those long, boring meetings). Throughout, I’ve been able to increase the resistance (I use a BowFlex) to keep my able-reps in the 8-12 range. I came home from a business trip today and put on some jeans that fit a month ago to find I can’t keep them up without a belt. Though I still weigh 168-170 lbs, I’ve lost 2 inches off my waist! My shirts definitely bit better too (noticeable chest, arm and shoulder improvements).

So, now that the experiment is almost done, I think I’ll reduce doing a “HIT” to once a week and introduce more cardio and toning exercises. I think the most valuable thing I’ve gained from this experience is momentum. I mean, it was so hard before to exercise at all. But this program has shown me what a little exercise can do for my own physical and mental well-being. Now, I’m hooked.

What about warm up sets? Do you need to do them? If so, how do you do the warm ups?

Thanks!

John

Hey ho, I haven’t posted in a while, so I thought I’d share an update.

First, I haven’t really gained much in the way of weight. So far, my best weight (these past few weeks) has been 170 lbs. Which is actually the best it’s been in a while. Thing is, I’ve slipped back down to around 166. I blame my lack of disciplined protein consumption for that.

That said, I *have* made steady strength increases. Here’s the latest (from May 29/07):

– Description – weight (lbs) x reps – Previous week’s results

– regular squat – 200 x 12 – 200 x 7

– dead lift – 270 x 17 – 250 x 14

– shrugs – 230 x 12 – 200 x 18

– T-bar row – 110 x 8 – 100 x 10

– bench press – 130 x 12 – 110 x 12

– bicep curls (machine) – 100 x 13 – 95 x 13

– dips (unweighted) – 15/15/10 – 15/12/7

I should point out the following:

1. A gain is a gain. So if the weight was the same as the prior workout, but the # of reps was greater, then it’s a gain. Assuming one works out to failure in ALL cases, of course.

2. I did try the Yates rows in the beginning. Didn’t think they were for me, so I switched to the T-bar row. I don’t think that’s my thing either (ie, I’m only getting a partial flex in all cases… perhaps I need to drop the weight down to a lower point and focus on form through to full movements). I was considering switching to the seated cable row, as I’ve always been a fan of that one. Perhaps the lat pull-down. Undecided at this point.

3. If you noticed that some of my reps are on the high side, you would be right. But I still aimed to doing the set to failure. “One set to failure”, remember? So instead of trying a second set and skewing the results, better to kick up the weight next trip to the gym.

4. My wife is also working out with me. She’s presently unable to do all the exercises, because of a problem with her right knee. So for now, she avoids squats and dead lifts. She does like the T-bar row, though. And yes, she’s making slow but steady gains each time. (She’s also elected to do the thigh adductor/abductor exercises, which isn’t in my plan.)

Tonight is another night, unless we get derailed! 🙂