Thx guys. Thanks to one of my best friends I didn't waste a single day in the gym. He explained to me that progressive overload and training volume are the key factors. I learned what IIFYM is, how to adjust my diet for my goals, how to bulk without gaining too much fat and how to keep progressing in compound exercises without stalling. In the last 12 months I've read 100+ articles and studies from guys like Eric Helms, Brad Schoenfeld, Layne Norton, Lyle McDonald, Andy Morgan, Menno Henselmans, Greg Nuckols and other guys. My training is based on bench press, pull ups, incline bench press or overhead press, rowing in my upper body workout and squats and deadlifts in my lower body workout. I added some isolation/assistance work to keep training volume high without stressing my CNS too much. I just kept doing the same thing every week without changing any major parts of my training. Here and there I switched an isolation exercise because it felt better. But I did some mistakes like not listening to body signals causing me to get injured a couple of times. Nothing really bad, just things like pain in front delts, wrists, lower back and tights. Now I'm more intelligent and less ego-driven, something really important that I learned in this time.
To summarize what I think was they key:
- High frequncy training. Upper/Lower body split routine with 4-5 workouts/week.
- Focus on progressing in compound lifts, especially bench press, squat and deadlift.
- Always strive for good form. Leave your ego at home.
- Do as much volume as you can recover from and use different rep ranges for different exercises. 3-8 reps for the big 4 lifts (bench, OHP, squat, deadlift) and 8-15 for everything else.
- 2g of protein/kg of bodyweight, 1g of fat/kg of bodyweight and rest carbs. Forget clean eating and meal timing, just hit your macros at the end of a day or week.
- Stay in the body fat range of 10-18%.
- Don't listen to guys that are obviously on steroids. Just do your own thing. What works for them (long time and tension, 5 body part split with low frequency, "destroying" the muscle, training only for the pump, excessive protein consumption) won't work for you.