Frustrated about size

[brad34]

Hey guys..I am 6'4" 210. I have been running Madcows 5x5 inter on and off for approx a year. The last 2 months I have stayed consistent and really worked hard..anyways here are some of my current 5 rep maxes:

Bench: 225
Squat: 240
Deadlift:300

I know those are not huge numbers but decent considering where I started.

The frustrating part is, if you were to look at me you probably wouldn't think I lift weights at all. I have long muscles I suppose.

Strength does relate to size, however at this point I want more size. My body type is just cursed maybe?

Are there different rep and set ranges I should try which would increase size? Or am I just f-ed? lol

 

[SPEKTOR-AAA]

Key words for me are ON and OFF for the last year. You need to be ON consistently, write all your weight down every week on all workouts. Make goals and slowly add weight weekly. At your size you need a surprisingly large amount of calories to sustain let alone see growth. Lastly its only been a year you obviously have improved, give it time it will come but you have to keep progressing

Ill let the other bros answer your specific questions, goodluck and keep it up you will get there

 

[ghettostudmuffin]

You're really tall. At 6'4" you require a significantly greater amount of muscle mass to look like a built 5'8" guy that weighs 200lbs.

My guess is you need to hit 250 at least in decent shape to look fairly impressive and even then you probably won't necessarily look huge because you are so tall.

That's one of the few problems being tall. Your bodyweight/overall mass has to be pretty high to fill it out compared to a medium build short guy.

Keep training hard man. Check out the training vault here. There are alot of good programs in it you can try out. Maybe give the HST program in there a try as it's designed with muscle growth in mind.

Make sure you are eating enough calories to grow. If you aren't gaining weight every week or haven't gained any in awhile then you are not eating enough. Building big muscles requires more calories than normal. Fat gain often comes as a result of this as well and it's just something you have to deal with unless you want to try to gain size slowly while staying lean. The only problem with that is it takes alot longer because you aren't in a solid caloric surplus to constantly allow for adding more muscle.

Stick around, peruse this forum and you'll learn.

 

[brad34]

Thanks for the responses!

Ghetto...thanks for the feedback! Everything your saying makes sense and deep down I knew but I needed to hear it from someone else to accept reality. I am 37, so the metabolism is not like it used to be so for me gaining a little slower and staying lean is probably best. As long as I am able to make weekly gains I feel I am eating enough. Again, thanks for your response!

The 5x5 is working well and fits my schedule perfect, but after a few more months I may look to a new routine. I have several goals with this progam, some I have met (benching my weight) some I am still working on(squat 1.5X my weight, which is coming soon).

 

[mohdgame]

I think food is the problem.

 

[musketeer]

Right now it seems you're more worried about how you look than how strong you are - which is fine, but a more effive approach for just mass (bodybuilding) is probably 8-12 reps and a few more exercises.

SO for legs:
SQUATS 4 x 8-12
LEG EXT 3 x 8-12
LEG CURL 3 x 8-12

or chest:
BENCH 4 x 8-10
INC FLYE 3 x 10

or back:
CHINS 2 X max
BENT ROW 3 x 8-10
DEADLIFT 2 x 8
PULLOVER 2 x 10-12

Do this for 2-3 months and then you can go back to 5x5.

 

[bblazer]

First, let me correct a misconception. Size has absolutely nothing to do with strength. If it did Ronnie Coleman would be the strongest guy walking around. But on my good days, I can out deadlift him, and I am 6' 1", 270 lbs and can remember where I was when JFK was shot. Then on the other side, you take a guy like Jason Bergmann who is 5'10" @ 260 lbs, and he can nearly deadlift 1000 lbs, load a 520 lb stone to 54" for reps, and OHP 400 lbs.

Now, if I may quote Mark Rippetoe...

"The bulk/cut approach holds that you can either add muscle or lose bodyfat, and that all training should be concerned with one or the other. This assumes that aesthetics is the criterion by which progress is measured, that pictures therefore tell the story, and that picture magazines can be the arbiters of success. This type of thinking completely ignores the performance aspects of training, and performance is much more easily and rapidly influenced. Rapid, quantifiable progress keeps motivation high, much higher than waiting for a six-pack that may or may not show up."

B-

 

[miked8c]

First, let me correct a misconception. Size has absolutely nothing to do with strength. If it did Ronnie Coleman would be the strongest guy walking around. But on my good days, I can out deadlift him, and I am 6' 1", 270 lbs and can remember where I was when JFK was shot. Then on the other side, you take a guy like Jason Bergmann who is 5'10" @ 260 lbs, and he can nearly deadlift 1000 lbs, load a 520 lb stone to 54" for reps, and OHP 400 lbs.

Now, if I may quote Mark Rippetoe...

"The bulk/cut approach holds that you can either add muscle or lose bodyfat, and that all training should be concerned with one or the other. This assumes that aesthetics is the criterion by which progress is measured, that pictures therefore tell the story, and that picture magazines can be the arbiters of success. This type of thinking completely ignores the performance aspects of training, and performance is much more easily and rapidly influenced. Rapid, quantifiable progress keeps motivation high, much higher than waiting for a six-pack that may or may not show up."

B-

Uhhh, yeah I'm going to have to clarify some of this.

1. Size and strength correlate to a degree, I would not go nearly as far as saying that size has nothing to do with strength. You need both to make gains, you can only be so strong before you have to add mass to keep increasing your strength. Just as you need to have low rep strength training to allow you to up the weight so that you can continue to stimulate your muscles for mass.

2. Ronnie Coleman is a muscle bound meathead, I don't think anyone disagrees with that. I also agree that he may not be as strong as many people would think he is based on his appearance. However he is still damn strong, saying that you could out deadlift him is false. Here he is repping 800 lbs
.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwfqMMnDArUMost

Most of what you said is right, strength and size are two very different things. Both require different methods for training. However, to say that they are unrelated is inaccurate.

 

[bblazer]

Uhhh, yeah I'm going to have to clarify some of this.

1. Size and strength correlate to a degree, I would not go nearly as far as saying that size has nothing to do with strength. You need both to make gains, you can only be so strong before you have to add mass to keep increasing your strength. Just as you need to have low rep strength training to allow you to up the weight so that you can continue to stimulate your muscles for mass.

2. Ronnie Coleman is a muscle bound meathead, I don't think anyone disagrees with that. I also agree that he may not be as strong as many people would think he is based on his appearance. However he is still damn strong, saying that you could out deadlift him is false. Here he is repping 800 lbs
.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwfqMMnDArUMost

Most of what you said is right, strength and size are two very different things. Both require different methods for training. However, to say that they are unrelated is inaccurate.

1) OK, you're right, I can't do 800 like in the video of Ronnie. But my statement wasn't too far off. I stand corrected. I thought his wasn't that high.

2) As far as size and strength goes, I will offer a few more examples. Dimas, Coan and Pudzianowski. All little guys that blew away the bigger competition.

Vladimir Zatsiorsky has proven in three separate studies that there is no correlation between size and strength. Perdue University did a study in 1997 that proved that a larger muscle fiber (diameter) did not contract with more force than those that were smaller when given the same stimulus.

What you may be thinking of is mass and its relationship to power. For example by his sheer size Brian Shaw can arguably, pull a truck better than anyone. His mass allows him to move a heavier object. But could he out squat Scott Cartwright who is nearly 100 lbs lighter? No.

B-

 

[ExtraMile]

I would say this; Size is not directly correlated with strength, and gaining strength doesnt mean you will automatically gain an equal ratio of size. Like you said if this was the case the biggest bodybuilders would be the strongest people in the world. And you wouldnt see video's of them curling 50lb dumbells lol.

HOWEVER, gaining size while providing the body with the right nutrition seems to be an effective route to take for certain/some people in order to add muscle mass. This is just from what Iv read about and talked about with people.

There are certain bodybuilders like Ronnie, Yates etc who ARE strong (ronnie's 800x2 deadlift, yates bent over rowing 450 for reps and incline pressing 415 for reps etc) and may have used the method or thinking that if your gaining strength through your training then the size will come with food and drugs.

But then some bodybuilders really arnt very strong at all, meaning size through strength isnt the only route to take.

The other thing is it seems that (especially for beginners) there are more factors that can effect size gains than can effect strength gains. In my first 6 months or so of lifting I didnt pay attention to what I ate or how much I slept and I still made progress.

And to the original post, I read "for the last two months Iv worked really hard and been really consistent" ... does this mean for the rest of the year you havnt worked really hard or been consistent? Because that could be your problem.

I agree with musketeer that adding some volume may help.