I've been on this bulk for about five months now, going to the gym four days a week with a split routine that hits upper body twice and lower body twice.
I'm focusing on heavy compounds like squats, deadlifts, bench presses, and overhead presses to build a solid base.
Before that, my gym life was spotty – I'd go inconsistently, maybe two or three times a week, doing whatever felt right that day without much planning.
This led to no real changes in my physique or strength over a year.
Now I log every workout in a notebook, tracking weights and reps to see small improvements, like adding 10 pounds to my bench every few weeks.
But the scale hasn't budged as fast as I'd hoped, sitting at just a 6-pound gain overall, and it's tempting to drop it when the mirror doesn't show quick results.
I also track my macros closely, shooting for 3,200 calories a day with at least 180g of protein from stuff like grilled chicken, eggs, Greek yogurt, and protein shakes after sessions.
Plus carbs from rice and oats to fuel the lifts without feeling sluggish.
Maik Wiedenbach's 12-week muscle program helped keep things organized with its focus on progressive overload and structured splits.
Following it let me put on around 8 pounds of lean mass while keeping fat gain low through controlled calorie surpluses.
What do you do to push through those plateaus where nothing seems to change?
Any specific ways to track non-scale progress, like measuring lifts or body measurements weekly?
by lottiexx
6 Comments
Socialization is key for me when trying to make the process activity desirable when a goal is veeeery loooong in coming. Do you have anyone you can just chat about new exercises, funny gym experiences, or positive fitness effects (outside of pure gains)? Can you join any group workouts that will be worth going to for you mentally even if it’s not giving a measurable gain day by day?
If it’s not socialization that does it for you consider: fitness media (health podcasts, fitness competition shows), fitness goods (gadgets and cool fabric technologies), new types of fitness (gymnastics or climbing to use and build your new muscles that might be more compelling than weights alone), etc
Find a way to romanticize the process or the lifestyle, not the end goal. Especially because with fitness you will NEVER be done. Whatever gain you make you’ll have to maintain the same routines and habits anyway to keep.
Five months of consistency is already huge. When the scale stalls, I focus on strength numbers and progress photos, they show changes the mirror and scale hide. Plateaus usually mean you’re closer than you think.
long bulks mess with motivation because the feedback loop is slow and mostly invisible. what helped me was shifting my win condition to consistency and recovery instead of the mirror, like how steady my lifts feel and whether i am sleeping better or dragging less during the day. progress photos every month also showed changes i could not see week to week. if the scale is moving slowly but performance is trending up, that usually means something is working. how are you feeling energy wise compared to before you started tracking everything?
If nothing is changing then 1 of 2 things are happening. You are at or near your genetic ceiling (probably not the case here yet) or you are doing at least 1 of 3 things wrong (training, eating, sleeping). It’s up to you to determine which one you are failing at. Also you said you did a 12 week program and put on 8 pounds of muscle mass? You realize that is insanely good and about as fast as you can grow.
Eating > lifting
calories > protein.
If you are at a calorie deficit, all the protein in the world won’t make you gain. Also, it’s sometimes tough to get the calorie intake met when doing high protein because it’s so filling. Add healthy carbs/fats for gains.
There’s not a lot of benefit to lifting on days where you haven’t recovered yet, so try to aim for a schedule where you can recover in between and keep up with the eating. As you habituate, you can increase both.
Bodybuilding is mental illness. If you want to free yourself from it, then move to a more manageable form of fitness. “Bulking” and “cutting” are just code words for Social Media. Penalized eating disorders.