Today is the last day of my second six week cycle of ostarine (mk-2866) and ibutamoren (mk-677). The goal, as with the first cycle, was to get swole as fuck.
Here is a picture of me one week after I started the cycle.
Pictures of me today here, here and here.
At the beginning of the cycle I weighed 162.4 lb. My body fat estimates started to get inaccurate (realized I was doing it wrong) but I think at the time my body fat was around 12%. So starting stats are:
Lean Mass: 142.6 lb
Fat Mass: 19.4 lb
Today, I weigh about 180 lb, and I recently got a hydrostatic body fat test which put me at 16%. So ending stats are:
Lean Mass: 151.2 lb
Fat Mass: 28.8 lb
So the results are:
Lean Mass: +8.6 lb
Fat Mass: +9.4 lb
Pretty solid for six weeks, though not as good as the first cycle. I'll talk about why that probably is.
This time I really made sure to eat a shitload, and for the last half of the cycle the quality of my diet suffered. I ate a lot of carbs and didn't eat enough protein. This is likely why I didn't gain as much muscle as last time (~12 lb), and gained quite a bit of fat. So important lesson learned there: these enhancing drugs don't make you superman. You still gotta stay on point with your food.
Training-wise, I stuck with the StrongLifts program for the first two weeks (3x a week), then for the last four I started doing a variation I came up with to bring it up to 6x a week. My idea was that StrongLifts focuses on strength gains with 5 sets of 5. I wanted to keep that, but add volume training to help increase hypertrophy. So what I did was:
Monday/Thursday: Bench Press 5x5 (heavy weight), Chest Fly 6x12, Bench Press 6x12 (moderate weight)
Tuesday/Friday: Overhead Press 5x5 (heavy weight), Lateral Raise 6x12, Overhead Press 6x12 (moderate weight)
Wednesday/Sunday: Squat 5x5, Row 5x5, Deadlift 5x1
On non-leg days I would usually (but not always) finish off with weighted inclined sit-ups (5x5).
Here are my stats when starting the cycle (what I could finish 5x5):
Squat: 115 kg (254 lb)
Bench: 72.5 kg (160 lb)
Overhead: 47.5 kg (105 lb)
Row: 62.5 kg (138 lb)
Deadlift: 110kg (243 lb)
Here are my stats today:
Squat: 130 kg (287 lb)
Bench: 82.5 kg (182 lb)
Overhead: 57.5 kg (127 lb)
Row: 70 kg (154 lb)
Deadlift: 125 kg (276 lb)
So strength gains are:
Squat: +15 kg (33 lb)
Bench: +10 kg (22 lb)
Overhead: +10 kg (22 lb)
Row: +7.5 kg (17 lb)
Deadlift: +15kg (33 lb)
Last cycle, I had a lot of issues with insomnia, which really compromised my training near the end and eventually pushed me to end it prematurely (originally I wanted to do 12 weeks straight). This, time I only had insomnia the two or three nights where I ate much less and low carb. So I confirmed the hypothesis I had at the end of the last cycle: hunger was keeping me up. Probably mostly the ibutamoren, but my appetite was huge and when I wasn't satisfying it my body wouldn't let me sleep. With better sleep, my training didn't suffer this time and I missed very few gym sessions. I got into the habit of getting up every morning at 5am so I would have enough time to get to the gym and get through everything.
I am pretty happy with the results, though I'm somewhat disappointed I have 20 lb of fat to lose to get back to 8%. But that is kind of good as it taught me an important lesson: letting your diet get sloppy is a bad idea even on bulking, so take good care of yourself and eat right even if you're not cutting.
I am now going to do a two-week PCT phase eating at maintenance. Then I am going to use ostarine (only) to do a 12 week cutting cycle to return to 8% body fat. After that, I am going to do a 12 week bulking cycle with ligandrol (LGD-4033) and ibutamoren. I want to get to 180+ lb of lean mass and will probably need to do another bulking cycle after that. By that point I should be looking pretty damn good.
Here is a picture of me one week after I started the cycle.
Pictures of me today here, here and here.
At the beginning of the cycle I weighed 162.4 lb. My body fat estimates started to get inaccurate (realized I was doing it wrong) but I think at the time my body fat was around 12%. So starting stats are:
Lean Mass: 142.6 lb
Fat Mass: 19.4 lb
Today, I weigh about 180 lb, and I recently got a hydrostatic body fat test which put me at 16%. So ending stats are:
Lean Mass: 151.2 lb
Fat Mass: 28.8 lb
So the results are:
Lean Mass: +8.6 lb
Fat Mass: +9.4 lb
Pretty solid for six weeks, though not as good as the first cycle. I'll talk about why that probably is.
This time I really made sure to eat a shitload, and for the last half of the cycle the quality of my diet suffered. I ate a lot of carbs and didn't eat enough protein. This is likely why I didn't gain as much muscle as last time (~12 lb), and gained quite a bit of fat. So important lesson learned there: these enhancing drugs don't make you superman. You still gotta stay on point with your food.
Training-wise, I stuck with the StrongLifts program for the first two weeks (3x a week), then for the last four I started doing a variation I came up with to bring it up to 6x a week. My idea was that StrongLifts focuses on strength gains with 5 sets of 5. I wanted to keep that, but add volume training to help increase hypertrophy. So what I did was:
Monday/Thursday: Bench Press 5x5 (heavy weight), Chest Fly 6x12, Bench Press 6x12 (moderate weight)
Tuesday/Friday: Overhead Press 5x5 (heavy weight), Lateral Raise 6x12, Overhead Press 6x12 (moderate weight)
Wednesday/Sunday: Squat 5x5, Row 5x5, Deadlift 5x1
On non-leg days I would usually (but not always) finish off with weighted inclined sit-ups (5x5).
Here are my stats when starting the cycle (what I could finish 5x5):
Squat: 115 kg (254 lb)
Bench: 72.5 kg (160 lb)
Overhead: 47.5 kg (105 lb)
Row: 62.5 kg (138 lb)
Deadlift: 110kg (243 lb)
Here are my stats today:
Squat: 130 kg (287 lb)
Bench: 82.5 kg (182 lb)
Overhead: 57.5 kg (127 lb)
Row: 70 kg (154 lb)
Deadlift: 125 kg (276 lb)
So strength gains are:
Squat: +15 kg (33 lb)
Bench: +10 kg (22 lb)
Overhead: +10 kg (22 lb)
Row: +7.5 kg (17 lb)
Deadlift: +15kg (33 lb)
Last cycle, I had a lot of issues with insomnia, which really compromised my training near the end and eventually pushed me to end it prematurely (originally I wanted to do 12 weeks straight). This, time I only had insomnia the two or three nights where I ate much less and low carb. So I confirmed the hypothesis I had at the end of the last cycle: hunger was keeping me up. Probably mostly the ibutamoren, but my appetite was huge and when I wasn't satisfying it my body wouldn't let me sleep. With better sleep, my training didn't suffer this time and I missed very few gym sessions. I got into the habit of getting up every morning at 5am so I would have enough time to get to the gym and get through everything.
I am pretty happy with the results, though I'm somewhat disappointed I have 20 lb of fat to lose to get back to 8%. But that is kind of good as it taught me an important lesson: letting your diet get sloppy is a bad idea even on bulking, so take good care of yourself and eat right even if you're not cutting.
I am now going to do a two-week PCT phase eating at maintenance. Then I am going to use ostarine (only) to do a 12 week cutting cycle to return to 8% body fat. After that, I am going to do a 12 week bulking cycle with ligandrol (LGD-4033) and ibutamoren. I want to get to 180+ lb of lean mass and will probably need to do another bulking cycle after that. By that point I should be looking pretty damn good.