@jerrykit I was always seeing progress throughout the first year (nooby gains) and this was when I was doing straight bodybuilding. Second year I saw some progress and this was when I combined calisthenics and bodybuilding but I was doing them on two separate workout regimens so not together. Third year I plateaud for MONTHS and couldn’t figure out why until I started manipulating my grip and studying very specifically what exercises work what muscle groups. Tweaked my workout plan and continued seeing steady progress. I am now combining weightlifting with calisthenics and focused on continually increasing the weight. Some days I do pyramids and each set is to failure and other days I’ll do high reps, medium reps, and low reps (learned this from Arnold getting the best of all worlds). I’ve finally learned mind to muscle connection and I can just feel if I’m doing something right. I only started this last week and am already seeing progress like crazy.
I will add. I was also trying so many different workout plans (high volume, high intensity) and exercise techniques (low rep, medium rep, high rep, rest pause, slow negatives, fast negatives, slow positive, fast positives) all that stuff. Just trying to see see what my body responds too best. Training 7 days a week to training 4 days a week to give my body adequate time to recover.
My diet I was always tweaking, first year I just ate whatever didn’t really understand the science behind calories and all that other stuff, second year I started watching olympians and eating like them so all lean food but eating super lean doesn’t go well with my body type. I tweaked and now I eat hard gain food, PB&J’s, top ramen, chicken and rice, potatoes, eggs.
I still don’t know everything, obviously. But it’s easier to track what I was doing wrong as a natural vs if I was enhanced I would’ve grown no matter what type of exercises I did making it hard to assess if I’m working out at optimal intensity for muscle growth.
