That being said, your body was in a state of over-training when you changed programs and your 5 months of gains probably could be attributed to allowing you body to recover. You have the body of a healthy 20 year old. Period. If we could go back to a time before fast food and 100 hour a week couch potato marathons, most 20 year old men looked like you. Also you must remember that heart and lung health, flexibility, and general fitness are important too and I do not believe those are possible only working out 10 minutes per week. No one wants to look good but end up winded from walking up a flight of stairs!
I am not willing to change my proven fitness program from 5 months of progress from a 20 year old. A newbie to fitness going from 0 to 10 minutes per week may see results.

But if you have a few more years of results I’ll come knocking! Good luck.

I sure wish I did =(. I can provide detailed records of my progress if you’re interested- concerning my chest and overhead presses- but beyond that I didn’t measure much. I do recommend to anyone starting out though to take measurements- bi-weekly or monthly. Biceps are another one I wish I would have taken measurements for.

As for your own results- there are way too many variables involved to give an accurate prediction. I’ll say this though- get started, apply yourself, stay disciplined (have patience), and eat/sleep right.

Do those things, and I guarantee you will see results you never thought possible, especially with such a minimum investment of time.

-Anthony

“each time after I noticed that the results lessened to a point where I honestly questioned what was the point of me doing this every day.”

That was my experience as well performing copious amounts of “cardio”. Eventually I started getting in WORSE shape, and I began to question just what the hell I was doing. Found BBS, read it almost straight through =).

“Currently I’m on my 3rd week of doing the “big 5″ once a week and I was wondering if you do any kind of warm up or stretching prior to lifting. Can’t remember this being discussed in the book or blog and was curious.”

It is discussed, I want to say in the last third of the book or so. The basic premise is that performing the exercises slowly is enough of a warm up. Stretching has not been proven to do much of anything- at best, post workout, it MAY have a minimal positive effect on DOMS (soreness).

So, no, I don’t do any type of warm up or stretching- although if I’m at home (say, I wake up) and have an urge to stretch, I do =). I also have been tinkering lately with doing my compound leg movement first, which involves the largest muscle group in our bodies (and as a result, gets our hearts pumping the most). This essentially “warms me up” quicker, than performing a chest or back exercise. But, a minor detail.

As for your bowflex machine, it’s hard to say without seeing it personally. However if you have access to free weights you can get an AWESOME workout applying the concepts in Moment Arm Exercise

http://www.thedreamlounge.net/2009/07/11/review-moment-arm-exercise-by-bill-de-simmone/

Which I also spoke about in my recent presentation here

http://www.thedreamlounge.net/2009/09/07/proper-exercise-and-nutrition/

rock on

-Anthony

I have gone through the p90x program 4 times now. Worked great the first time around…each time after I noticed that the results lessened to a point where I honestly questioned what was the point of me doing this every day.

I ran across your page and it peaked my interest. I have since read Body by Science and have a quick question about your workouts. Currently I’m on my 3rd week of doing the “big 5″ once a week and I was wondering if you do any kind of warm up or stretching prior to lifting. Can’t remember this being discussed in the book or blog and was curious.

Also, I am using an old school bowflex for my workouts. They aren’t nearly as good as nautilus machines but in your opinion will this be ok to continue my workouts on?

Thanks for your time and keep up the good work,

Patrick

Noted, thanks again, will keep you posted.

By the way, I was on a business trip the other day and was staying in a hotel with a decent gym. I decided to do a higher volume workout (typically what I had been doing before BBS) as an experiment in order to see if I could see my gains ‘on paper’. I was pleased to see that I hit a few personal bests yesterday and it was clear that the program was working.

It also gave me a ‘pain’ fix ha ha. I’m aching today but am looking forward to my next BBS workout all the more!

Thanks again

Joby

Your workout looks great, but continue to shorten your TULs. Whenever I hit about 80 seconds I consider increasing the weight. Think of it this way, increasing the weight is increasing the *intensity*- increasing the time (or, allowing it to increase) is increasing the *duration*.

We want to increase the intensity- within limits and to a practical degree- not duration.

So yeah, don’t sweat shorter TULs. Im willing to bet your best gains will come from TULs between 50-80 seconds. You may not feel as “sore”, but the increases tension on your muscles will help stimulate growth.

rock on, keep us posted

-Anthony

Thanks for the advice, great post. A lot of it rang true for me. I made the decision to cut my recovery down to 5 days a few weeks ago, big mistake! I won’t be doing that again in a hurry. Here’s my workouts thus far. As you can see the weights are definitely increasing but the TUL’s are reducing at the same time so its not as easy to gauge whether they’re actually ‘genuine’ gains. I think for my next routine I’ll maintain all my weights (no increases) and see what happens to the TUL’s.

Chest – Press Machine (flat)40kg/110sec—>45kg/102sec—>55kg/97sec—>60kg/80sec

Back – Lat Pulldowns (sup. grip)40kg/170sec—>55kg/120sec—>65kg/89sec—>70kg/65sec

Shoulder – Overhead Press 25kg/94sec—>35kg/100sec—>40kg/75sec—>40kg/79sec

Back – Seated Low Rows 40kg/61sec—>40kg/105sec—>45kg/94sec—>50kg/90sec

Legs – Curls 30kg/211sec—>40kg/130sec—>45kg/102sec—>50kg/87sec

Legs – Extensions 40kg/148sec—>50kg/130sec—>60kg/83sec—>65kg/95sec

Biceps – Cable Curls 20kg/102sec—>30kg/94sec—>25kg/87sec—>25kg/80sec

I don’t have the luxury of using Nautilus or Med-x equipment as I’m in a pretty remote place. Just trying to do the best with what I’ve got.
Thanks again.
Joby

Check out this post

http://www.thedreamlounge.net/2009/07/06/high-intensity-training-common-newbie-mistakes/

And post up your current routine- would help a lot.

thanks

-Anthony

Well done on the results. You seem to be pretty knowledgeable on the BBS workouts so I thought you may know the answer to the following:
I’ve been working out the BBS way for 3 weeks now. Unfortunately I’m in a remote part of the world with limited training facilities. I have however managed to design myself a BBS’esque workout. It follows the principles of the book, I work to complete failure and it burns like hell!

My only issue is I do not seem to get any muscle soreness throughout any of my recovery time. Does this mean that I am not doing it correctly? Muscle soreness is often what motivates me and reminds me to up my protein, get a good nights sleep and also to stay away from working out until its gone.

I’m finding it hard keeping myself out the gym all week without seeing/feeling the results.

Any advice greatly appreciated