A Full Year of Fitness

So as of today, I've been seriously concentrating on fitness for a year. This includes the persute of my ideal physique and improvement of my health.

I thought it might be a good idea to sum up how I have found it and what I have done in my first year.

Firstly, I'd like to go through the numerous different training methods I've tried through out this year and what results I've found.

The first method I used was the traditional one, which every one knows about when they first start the gym. It's the one the trainers in the gym give you on your first day. I was doing 3-4 exercises per body part 3 times a week, typically aiming for 10-12 reps and trying to better my technique and understanding of each exercise.
Typically I'd train a few different body parts per session, such as chest back and legs or something, depending on what the trainer told me.

The results I saw from this type of training were quite good, however this was expected because I'd never actually done anything like it before, so results were bound to be seen.

A good tip though, if listening to a trainer: try to avoid picking up their bad habits. For example, my trainer used to bend their knees while performing lateral raises, which, of course, I picked up from him. And I cannot warn you enough, once you pick these habits up, they aren't that easy to get rid of unless you're consciously thinking about it all the time.

After doing this for maybe 2 months, I started to see other people who were only training one body part per day, and they seemed to be a lot bigger and stronger than me. So I thought it might be an idea to train like them.

I started using a body part split, so chest on Sunday, back on Monday, shoulders Tuesday, etc. This was a key move in my training as I actually started to see significant gains in strength when I made this transition. I stuck to the 10-12 rep range and trained 5 times a week rather than 3 in order to fit everything in.

This was when I started to actually enjoy training. I started joining in with the group of lads at the gym and taking in tips they were sharing with me. This was when I discovered the supplement world.
I remember I saw this lad I with a shaker and a small tub of protein in the changing rooms, and I thought it was the strangest thing ever.
I started googling stuff like "supplements to get big" and "how to build a massive chest" looking for any way to further progress my training. This was when I found out about mass gainers.

Now my diet was poor when I started to train because I had a really fast metabolism and didn't seem to put any fat on, so I started using Optimum Nutrition's Serious Mass shakes.
I just wanted to gain weight and be bigger. To start with I only weighed about 54kg with around 10% body fat. Yeah, I was small and skinny.

After using these shakes for about a month I'd managed to put on some weight, nudging myself up to around 58kg, but I'd noticed the abs I'd had before had gone and I didn't have half of the veins when working out that I used to get. I'd increased my body fat quite substantially. And if that wasn't bad enough, my metabolism started to slow down as well, making it harder to lose the fat I'd gained.

At this point I was stronger than ever though, I could squat 80kg, bench press 60kg and deadlift 60kg. So I stopped it with the mass gainers, and moved on to a normal protein shake and increased my cardiovascular exercise levels.

A few months went by and I seemed to hit a plateau. I wasn't progressing with my training, the weight seemed to stay continuously heavy and I wasn't gaining or losing any weight.

I started reading up on different methods of training and diet plans, anything I could to gain information on how to beat the plateau. I tried to change my diet to lose fat, but was constantly tired, so thought maybe I should change my training.

I moved to a different gym with different people and lost my training partner for a short while, as we were both members of different gyms so far away from each other. It was getting harder to fit the gym in with everything else and I was always on my own when I was there.

After training with 10-12 reps for round about 7 months, I started training with different rep ranges. My first idea was to train really heavy, aiming for 4-6 reps each set, for 4 sets on 4 exercises per body part. I'd managed to make friends with people at the gym so I could always ask for a spotter if I needed one.

My training hit a new level. Obviously my body wasn't used to training like this, so it had to adapt to the constant heavy weight on top of it. I was lifting more weight than ever and was seeing a steady increase in both the weight I was moving and my body weight. I was up to 64kg.

I trained like this until the increase in weight began to slow and I changed it up again. This time, I was aiming for high intensity. I was doing 6 sets rather than 4 and 8 reps rather than 4-6.

My cardiovascular system was fitter than ever, I was performing 15 second bursts on the battle ropes for 15 sets and my training was going well. My body fat was decreasing and I felt generally healthier with it, this lead to the 8x8 method of training.

For the last few weeks, I've trained as heavy as I can. I've managed to hit new PB's on everything. Bench press has increased to around 85-90kg for sets of 6 depending on how strong I'm feeling on that particular day. I can leg press 320kg for sets of 8 with a full range of motion, and can deadlift around 130kg for sets of 6.

The Diet.

To start with, this had no effect on me. I didn't change my diet in any way. But after training for probably 8 months I realised I needed to eat the right stuff! I cut down on takeaways, all the snacks like crisps and chocolate and just tried to eat healthier, and to be honest, I feel a lot better from it.

I started experimenting with supplements and that's when I thought it might be a good idea to share my opinions and findings from the different types I've tried.

So here we are at todays date. I weigh around 70 kg at present with around 11% body fat. I train 5 days a week including cardio and am loving every minute of it.

I hope you enjoyed reading!