Just got back from my first real hard training since I stopped staying slim to make middleweight.

Damn.

I'm about 225 lbs now, and I feel like a chunk of smoked meat after what used to be an average workout. But I have to admit, it's nice being big and strong. The light-heavyweight I was helping to prep for a fight was having trouble when he tried to muscle me around. I would never take a fight at this weight, but it was cool shoving around a guy who would have outweighed me six months ago.

Ahhh, I remember how good that felt. One time in college I got up to about 183 which is HYYUUUGGGEEEE for myself. My submission defense for EVERYTHING was "or option, b...we slam him repeatedly." Granted I had maybe a good 1min of cardio in me LOL but i was a BEAST for all 60 of those seconds lol. You'll get acclimated to that weight soon. As you stay consistent your body will figure out how to be efficient with the bodyweight if you keep it moving! Myself, when I bulked up the most cardio I did was chasing pussy. Huge mistake bit me in the ass later on lol. I just went to wrestling club practice a couple times a week and I'd still skip the warmup lol. I could squat the room though! So did you stay pretty lean or are you building a Fedor? As long as you didn't go full tank abbot (NEVER go FULL tank abbot) that's a pretty impressive size gain.

I went from about 9%bf to about 11%, so I figure 6-7 lbs of that was fat gain. Not bad, considering I went up almost 30 lbs. I already pack on weight easily, but I upped my eating and replaced some of my roadwork with more PL-style weight training.

I'm not taking any more fights, so I can just focus on what feels and looks good instead of what is most effective in the ring. I haven't had to run a PFT in a while either, so my run times are probably in the toilet, but my strength is way up. I'm going for about 240 by year's end, then a cut back down to whatever weight gets my abs visible with that much muscle (probably 230ish). At that weight, I would hope to have raw PL totals near 1500 lbs.

I might get my ass handed to me if I ever try to fight at HW, but it's great for training the LHW's and MW's to not rely on out-muscling their opponents.

I wish I could put on that kind of weight without getting fat...

Anyway, I'd be curious to see what your training log looked like.

I'm terrible about logging what I'm doing, but here's a basic outline:

I eat a lot and lift a lot (or at least a lot more than I used to). I'm not doing anything horribly complex for my diet; there's no math involved. I eat lots of staples like eggs and beef. I'll put avocado or peanut butter on almost anything. Add some simple carbs at wakeup and around my workout, but most of my carbs come from whole fruits (usually at breakfast) and fresh veggies. I'm not rich right now, so my recovery beverage of choice is chocolate milk made with whole milk.

Lifting is 4 days a week, 2 major lifts a day. I'll work on bench and squat one day, then overhead and deadlift the next. Take a day off, repeat. Then take two off. For each major lift I'm doing an explosive plyometric movement, a high-load lift (3-5 reps), and an isometric hold. A little support work (pullups, flys, hamstrings, abs, and obliques mostly) and that's it. I think Thibaudeau's program (http://www.T-Nation.com/free_online_article/most_recent/6_weeks_to_superhero_how_i_build_muscle_and_strip_off_fat_fast) takes what I'm doing further, but the concept is the same, you want to force every muscle fiber in your body to fire.


Throw in some sprint sets on the rowing machine, hill sprints with a weight vest, or 10 X 50m-25m-25m descending pace freestyle sets in the pool (with fins) to mix it up and keep me trim. This is likely the first place I'll back off since I'm getting back in the ring, but the pool especially helps me loosen back up after lifting so that I can go back at it.

I know it's cliche, but I go until I'm about to fall over, then I get up and do it again. If I don't need to sit in the car with the AC blasting on me for a good 10 minutes before I drive home then it wasn't a good workout. So far I've only had 3-4 really bad days where I just wasn't feeling it, and they came near the end of long weeks where I had done loaded hill sprints, so I've put those on days going into a 2-day break. I've always been one of those guys who can gain 5 lbs just walking past a snickers bar, whether it's fat or muscle is determined by how much iron I threw around beforehand.

I've always wanted to move up a weight class. I hate be sub-optimal because it makes me more competitive within a class.

I want height classes... or reach classes.