Want your opinions on my progress

Now that I've done the slimming down part, I've been doing the building up part for a while.

As of now, I seem to have a bit more definition than when I officially ended my slimming down. But not much more bulk. Well, maybe just a little bit more.

I have uploaded some pictures, (And just to let you know, before anyone complains, I'm not wearing much. Unfortunately (or fortunately to actually see any of my progress) I decided to not wear much when I took my "before" picture. So just to be consistent, I take the "progress" pictures in the same manner)

Unfortunately I still have to work on the lighting. I think a perfect picture of yourself is made of: 5% your body, 10% the location, 25% your expression, and rest is the lighting. And when it comes to revealing muscle definition lighting is very important. Wrong lighting angles (straight on flash) = flat muscles. Well..., at least that's what I think.

Ok, back to my progress.

I think I'm not eating enough because I'm not growing much, but I'm a little (just a little bit) worried about ending up with fat instead of muscle. Well, now that I know how to slim down, I know I should worry, but it would feel like I wasted my previous efforts, if that did happen.

When I look at my picture, it seems like my arms are kind of out of proportion compared to my legs. Just a bit a thinner than they should be, or am I be picky?

Since I guess grade 5 or 6 until now, I've always had, a, "softer" chest. As of now, it's not as much. I've always thought that I had that kind of a body (it is a medical issue for some people), but I guess I just didn't keep fit.

My abs, well honestly I don't really know how six packs really look like (on me), cause I never had them. There is still a layer of maybe 1/4 inch of fat right on top of it. I do work on the abs, but not much growth there.

My belly area has gotten smaller (and it's very slowly getting even smaller). There was just a bit of a loose skin in the beginning, but it seems to be slowly tighten as well.

My legs, well, I'm a cyclist. I ride my one only mountain bike over long distances, the odometer reads over 5000 km since I got computer. Which was I think spring of last year.

And unfortunately for me, (fair weathered) biking season is over.

Hey, nice legs :-P

 You're not doing badly there - and your own arm size is hard to judge correctly when you're looking at'em from above. Besides, size isn't as much of a determinant of how muscular you look - Charles Bronson used to impress the heck out of people and his arms were 13.5"-14" at the time. That said, yeah, if visual impact is your main goal right now, you could probably stand to pack on a few more pounds of mass.

 Try going on The 30 Day Mass Plan by Chad Waterbury - it's a brief enough period of time that you should be able to keep the mental aspects of eating enough to fuel your muscle growth under control, and not undereat for your goals. While in a mass phase you will need to eat at least 300-500 calories over maintenance to reap the full benefits - once you're done with those 30 days you can look at how you're doing and decide which fitness goal you want to pursue next.

 Because on the other hand, if sports performance is your goal then adding muscle mass to your upper body is pretty much counterproductive for you. Larger biceps and a bigger set of pecs is just dead weight you'll have to lug up and downhill without it adding one iota to your performance on a bike. So if you want to improve your biking performance, you probably shouldn't look to gain any significant muscle mass above the waistline :)

 So you need to think a bit about your goal - bigger mirror muscles, or win the next uphill race?

 (Oh, yeah. You're also somewhat inwardly rotated with a tendency towards kyphotic spine. No matter what your goals are, you should train your back and shoulders a bit more than you're doing right now!)

I don't know about the kyphotic spine. Maybe my posture is not that great. By looking pictures from the internet and feeling my spine, it seems to be normal.

There's a couple of exercises in my routine that works my back.

Handstand push ups: according to some information I found on the internet, this works the upper back, shoulders, the arms, and few other areas.

Dead lift(think that's what it called): works my lower back.

My routine has gone through some change since I started building up. I actually kind of restarted with a some what new routine a few weeks ago. Starting with 1 lb, then adding 1 lb each new session.

I always believe that if I can lift 1 lb (with a number of reps and set) this session, I can lift 1 lb heavier next session (with same reps and sets), after 1 day of rest, and so on, without too much trouble. I believe the same is true for bodyweighted (or unchangeable weight) exercises, in this case increase the reps by 1. I guess that would apply when I finally reach the maximum amount of weight I can work with.

I'm at 12 lbs and I'm actually a bit doubting what I believe. I may be increasing too gradually, since a pound is just a number invented to measure weight and has nothing to do with how fast our muscles strengthen.

I mean what if I decided to go by kg? I think I'd run in to problems really quickly.

Now I'm thinking, gradually increasing by the grams, yes grams.

Let's do a bit of calculations.

If I start with 1 lb and increase by 1 lb each session, 3 sessions a week, within a year I'd be working with (52 weeks X 3 days) = about 156 lbs. Of course that amount may not be practical for all types of exercise or muscle groups.

By the kg: 156 kg = 343 lb. Need I say that's a lot of weight.

By the grams: 156 g = not even a lb. Not practical for training anything.

By the 100 grams: 15.6 kg = 34 lb.

I think it really depends on the muscle group, for my legs I can probably increase by 1 lb. For weaker muscle groups like my arms, increasing by half or quarter of a pound may be more suitable. But I have never seen half pound weights.

Well, my goal is not really to build too much mass. Strength and speed is what I'm aiming for, with overall better proportions in size. But I'm still in better shape than before, so not much for me to complain about.

Speaking of biking up hill, reminds me of one of the social (recreational) rides I went on with a local bike club. Even though social rides are not really the competitive kind, sometimes we just do it for fun, or to prove to ourselves that we can.

Anyways, it was a Sunday ride, and like usual, there was a pretty big crowd. And the type of bikes vary from $5000+ to $150-. Well, near the end of that ride, there was this some what short but steep hill (45+ degress???), everyone else took it easy, except me on my CCM mountain bike, this guy on his carbon fiber, and this other younger guy on his light bike (it's probably carbon fiber, don't know). In the end, the younger guy was first, the guy with the carbon fiber was second, and I came in third. But they started up the hill before me though. But like I said, it's all for fun.

Can't wait until next season.

Yeh, it's just a preventive thing, really - it's easy to focus on the mirror muscles and neglect the back, even when you're trying to develop everything equally.

 It's just something I've become very aware of lately after discovering that I'm guilty of under-training my back compared to the chest muscles - and reading about how letting that imbalance develop further once it exists is setting me up for future back trouble. I'm working on correcting it in myself, but it would have been easier to catch it earlier or not undertrain the back in the first place. Your imbalances are very slight and mostly just requires awareness to correct at this point - much easier to prevent trouble developing if you catch it early :)

 Those two are both very good exercises for building a strong back, especially the deadlift; if you want to try a little variety you could look at this set of back exercises - but the ones you're already doing should do the trick.

 Increasing weights is usually done in percentages - you should be able to add 2.5%-5% to the bar each training session for at least a while before you hit strength plateus :)

 'course, when you increase the weight and fail to lift it, it's time to back off, lift less intensely for a few weeks and let your body adjust, before trying to add more weight again.

 Anyway - you seem to have a good handle on your overall goals; and yeah - you're defintely in better shape :)