The Susquehanna Experiment

What?! A scrawny cyclist building upper body muscle? Now that’s just stupid!

Some people may think so. But I don’t really care. So if you’re with me and want to build some big muscles without spending too much time in the gym, read on…

How it started…

I decided to get ripped. Having big legs and a tiny upper-body is just a bit weird.

I was inspired by Tim Ferriss and his crazy guide to gaining 34 pounds of muscle in 4 weeks, so I decided to take up the challenge.

Now, I hadn’t been lifting much at all in the past years, so I spent a few weeks doing lots of Cyclo-Core bodyweight workouts and lifting some light weights in my home gym. You know, just to let my arms remember what it’s like to pump some iron.

But still, I was quite small and weak. So I formulated my plan…

The Workout Plan

All these weight lifting guides are “experiments” so this is The Susquehanna Experiment. (Training is taking place on the banks of the Susquehanna River.)

The experiment is to take a skinny cyclist with big legs but no upper body and turn him into a muscular bodybuilder. The test subject is myself. Based on the guidelines I posted about before, here’s the outline of my plan:

Workout Basics

  • One set to failure
  • Aiming for 8-10 reps and then reaching muscular failure
  • Slow cadence. 4-5 seconds up and then 4-5 seconds down (ensures constant load on muscle and damn does it hurt!)
  • Low frequency. Max 2 times per week, perhaps once every 4 days.
  • 3-5 minutes rest between exercises. Get that rest!
  • Each workout will be 4-7 multi-joint exercises (no more than that!)
  • Each workout will be for the entire body. Working arms and then legs is supposed to cause the greatest hormonal response
  • Workout only a little, eat a lot, sleep a lot (need lots of rest for body to rebuild.)

The Exercises

Here are some exercises I will do:

  • Trap bar deadlift
  • Overhead press (aka shoulder press) with dumbbells
  • Yates bent row
  • Dips (preferably weighted)
  • Pull-ups (a bodyweight exercise, also could be weighted)
  • Incline bench press
  • Close-grip shoulder press (never behind the neck)
  • Machine pull-over
  • Close grip supinated (palms facing you) pulldowns
  • SLOW shrugs with dumbbells (pause for 2 seconds at the top)
  • Leg extension (Not necessary, but I did it a few times.)
  • Hamstring curl
  • Seated calf raises
  • Leg press (feet shoulder width apart; do higher reps on this; at least 120 seconds before failure)

Plus some jogging or stationary biking before and after, and of course I’ll still do some cycling and yoga and stuff during the week.

Note that we’re going for multi-joint exercises. A few reasons for this. First, calling multiple large muscle groups at once will release more hormones to build muscles. Second, it makes for very little time spent in the gym (besides warmup and cooldown, 30-40 minutes is plenty.) Third, it’s realistic. In real life you don’t do any movements that isolate a specific muscle, so why train for that?

The Diet

Lots of protein. Lots of food, too, but go for lots of protein, unlike a typical cycling season diet. Avoid anything white. Only high-quality carbs. (Whole wheat pasta is surprisingly high in protein by the way.)

Homemade bread is good; mine has lots of protein from whole grains, flax seeds, etc.

Had some cereal and stuff though. I’ll try to make sure I only do that right after a cardio workout though, when my body is ready to refuel. (I’m a cyclist, I can’t always cut out sugary stuff.)

One day each week, cut calories by 50%. (For some reason Tim Ferriss says. Basically you don’t want your metabolism accustomed to a specific caloric intake.)

Other Details

Very important: record each workout in detail!

This is good for tracking progress and comparing results to other workout routines.

Oh No!

Unfortunately I had to cut this experiment short – it ended in 5 workouts instead of 8. I dislocated my shoulder during the ordeal, so it really wasn’t practical to continue. Stay tuned for a better experiment in the 2008-2009 winter season!

The Results

The big thing I did was take before and after pictures to see my progress. Well, looking at them, you wouldn’t know which was which! I actually didn’t look any bigger at the end of the experiment.

However, I also took measurements, and I saw some progress here.

My legs grew a tiny bit, like 1/4 inch. That’s to be expected as they are already disproportionately large.

My arms and chest though, that was what I was going for. I gained 1 1/2″ on my bicep, and 2 1/2″ on my chest!

Not bad for 2.5 weeks!

Extended Results

I knew it was too good to be true! As soon as I started cycling for the spring (and also quit weight lifting,) the muscle vanished. I think I’m still a little bigger, but my measurements have dropped back down to normal levels.

Oh well, it was fun!

References

All my related blog posts:

Other useful articles: