Muscle Build Experiment Results

Well people, the month is over, the workouts are done, and the results are in!  Let’s see what happened.

During my month of high intensity training coupled with a high protein diet, I’ve seen some significant gains in strength.  Check out some of my advances:

(Bench press weights include bar weight of 45 lbs)

Regular Bench Press

First workout: 175 lbs x 6 reps

Final workout: 195 lbs x 4 reps  – (note: my lifting goal for the whole Summer was to bench my body weight, around 190 lbs.  I guess I need a new goal now!)

Decline Bench Press

First workout: 195 lbs x 4 reps

Final workout: 215 lbs x 5 reps

Leg press

First workout: 300 lbs x 7 reps

Final workout: 480 lbs x 6 reps

I went to my buddy Michael at Clark’s Tuxedos again to get my final measurements:

Bicep: 13.5″ (.5 inch gain)

Chest: 37″ (.5 inch gain)

Abs: 31″ (1 inch gain)

Thigh: 21″ (1 inch gain)

Shoulder: 43.5″ (1.5 inch gain)

Looking back at our workouts this month, the results make sense.  The exercise my buddy and I did most regularly was the leg press, and we clearly saw large gains in our leg strength and size.  We also focused more on shoulders than we ever had before, and when combined with our chest exercises this made for a significant overall gain to my shoulder breadth.

I suppose a picture is worth 1,000 words, so here’s a couple before and afters:

Note – I told you I’d be tanner by the time this was over! 

Now, is this even close to the results posted on Tim Ferriss’ blog?  Nope!  But that’s coo with me.  I learned a ton throughout this month, and I’ve seen some concrete gains.  I plan to take this month to rest up and focus on muscle tone and maintenance, and then I’ll give HIT (high-intensity training) another shot in July.  Now that I actually know what I’m doing, I believe the results will be even better.  I’ll focus more on upper-body development next time around as well (but I’ll still make sure to do full-body workouts each time).