Deca Blast - How did you add inches to thighs and arms?

[illmortalized]

Looking for any and all advice that will help me achieve my goal.

I’m soon to start a Sustanon/Deca/DBol blast, the primary goal is to increase size in limbs - hams, quads, biceps and triceps in addition to increasing strength. I feel all body parts have slightly outgrown symmetry.

I follow a powerlifting/bodybuilding routine (powerbuilding), specifically 5/3/1 with BBB (Boring But Big) exclusively for my quads - on Deadlift days I do 5x10 squats @ 60% of TM (Training Max).

My goal is to add at least three inches, preferably more of lean mass to thighs and at least two inches to arms. Current measurements, thighs @ 27” and arms @ 18”. With rate of weight increase @ 1-1.5lbs per week.

I’d like to stay as close to 15% BF as possible, so prefer not to dirty bulk. 10-15% range feels the healthiest to me regarding sleep, mobility, strength gains, aesthetics, physical stamina, endurance and just overall health.

I’m 6’0 with long limbs sitting at 230-235lbs roughly between 10-12% BF.

Maintenance cals currently (carb cycle 100g on/off)
Training cals: 2,565
Non-training cals: 2,165

Starting tomorrow cals will go up
Training cals: 2,765
Non-Training cals: 2,205

Cals will go up when body weight plateaus or hunger is unimaginable, between 200-300 cals (50-75g of carbs added)

Also as an option for carb cycling I might push carbs to 1g x 2 body weight on training days and then drop it back to a maximum of 200g on non-training days. Just depends what mirror, measuring tape and scale tells me.

I will increase cals so long as I stay within 15% BF. So if I can push it to 3500-4000 cals, so be it. If cals start to spill over into fat gain, I’ll lower cals as necessary.

Training days:

Mon: Squats + accessories

Tue: Bench + accessories

Thursday: Deadlift + BBB squats + accessories

Friday: Overhead Press + accessories

3 weeks of grinding, every 4th week is a deload, so I train @ 60% of TM.

Last week’s total sets and volume for just quads (a sample of my training):

Squats
3 warm up @ 2398
3 Main @ 4543
3 Joker @ 5170

Leg press
3 sets @ 17200

Leg extension
5 sets @ 6500

Squats BBB
5 sets @ 9350

Blast layout (daily pin - I hate peaks and valleys and after switching to daily pins I felt far better, especially with sleep and energy)

(Preface)
I’m phasing Tren out of my system and phasing in Deca, Tren has been great for maintenance and lowering weight while keeping as much of my lean mass and strength gains as possible but I’d like to let my body recover from Tren and will hop back on sometime early next year.

Let’s not focus on this detail, been doing this for nearly a decade (very conservative dosages), I know my body, I get blood work done, and take good care of supplying myself with appropriate nutrition, micronutrients and hard to come by nutrients only found in certain supplements (CoQ10 and K2 / MK-7, to name a couple).

3 IU of GH EOD

Week 1-2 (2 weeks)
Deca @ 1 IU (280mg/wk)

Tren @ 2 IU (280mg/wk)

Test @ 2 IU (350mg/wk)

Week 3-4 (2 weeks)
Deca @ 2 IU (560mg/wk)

Tren @ 1 IU (140mg/wk)

Test @ 2 IU (350mg/wk)

Week 5-12 (8 weeks)
Deca @ 2 IU (560mg/wk)

Test @ 3 IU (525mg/wk) - This may stay @ 350mg max, instead of increasing.

Week 5-8 (4 weeks)
DBol @ 25mg 1 hour preworkout

Week 9-12 (4 weeks)
DBol @ 50mg 1 hour preworkout - This may stay @ 25mg max, instead of increasing.

Week 13-20 (8 weeks)
Deca @ 3 IU (840mg/wk) - This may stay @ 560mg max, instead of increasing.

Test @ 3 IU (525mg/wk) - This may stay @ 350mg max, instead of increasing.

I don’t plan to make 20 weeks a hard stop, I’m willing to push it further along without increasing dosages if I’m still increasing weight week after week. 20 weeks is a minimum. Additionally, I may dose DBol @ 4 weeks on, 4 weeks off, rinse and repeat.

With all this information, I should be able to grow a significant amount of lean mass, right?

Or is there something that seems lacking? Cals? Sets/Volume? Blast dosage?

Please critique! I need it if anything seems off.

Thank you!

 

[freetopin]

I don’t think a 200 calorie increase in your diet is going to cut it.

 

[HeftyLefty]

Less drugs. More food.
500 test 300 deca
10 weeks. Then titrate up to
750 and 500. Ride it out until your done, maybe increasing Dbol from 25 to 50 at the end.

 

[HeftyLefty]

If you want to stay 15% bf and grow, use 400 test and 1g primo.

 

[illmortalized]

@freetopin - yeah the goal is to increase cals in increments of 200-300 cals. I imagine every other week, I will increase cals. Time will tell.

@HeftyLefty - in my experience if test is higher than another compound, I get negative sides. I don’t try to go above 1:1 ratio. But then again this would be my first time running Deca and DBol. I could dabble and see how it goes.

Also isn’t 300mg of Deca too low for size/strength?

 

[system]

1. Increase cals when you’re weight stops moving
2. 300 deca is not too low.
3. You’re right on regarding bf. If you get too much higher, aromatizarion will increase etc.

Training: I have a good bit of experience running 5/3/1 templates.
You may not be getting enough frequency or variation to achieve your goal.
Squats are great, however I would switch some of the Joker sets for widowmakers, and add adductor and seated ham curls to your accessories. The adductors are an oft neglected movement but make a dramatic difference.

 

[HeftyLefty]

@illmortalized
300 isn’t that low. Maybe go 400 then up to 600

 

[illmortalized]

@empireannie - @ what percentage of TM do you do a windowmaker? My personal best all out set was 225lbs x 24, 8 months ago.

 

[system]

That would depend on what template you’re running.
I would usually run these with a FSL in the beginning of a block (65,70%) but your template may be designed differently. Obviously I wouldn’t jump right into trying a widowmaker at 90% of your TM.
In fact if that’s possible, your TM is probably a bit too low.

Nonetheless, I think you’re going to get to your stated goals by getting really good at the ham curls and adductors. Crush those bitches, recover, and watch your legs grow.

 

[Gettingolder]

So how may grams of protein carbs and fat are in those calories? What are you eating per meal? how many meals per day?
What do you eat before you go to bed?
You for sure need more food I would be looking at getting up to the 3500 to 4000 range in clean food.
Eating to do what you want to do or for serious bodybuilding is a job and the better you do that job the faster you advance up the ladder.
You already have enough info on the drugs and you should not need buckets of gear.
a 500 horsepower V8 needs and burns more gas than a 200 horsepower 4 cylinder.
Don’t forget you have genetics to contend with also and once you get to that point of maxed out you can inject liquid plutonium and your not going to get 2" of gains.
IGF-1 Myostatin etc also come into play when your going for ultimate size.

 

[JDLift]

Caloric surplus + volume. Mostly triceps work to the arm size, mostly quads work for the leg size. If you’re not sure how to add mass at this point you shouldn’t even be touching anabolics.

 

[illmortalized]

@Gettingolder

For example today:

Breakfast - 236g Egg whites, 100g whole eggs, 50g turkey sausage + 1 cup of 100% cranberry juice

Preworkout - 90g of quick oats, 40g (weight) whey protein, 30g pb2

Intra carbs - rice krispy treats @ 44g

Post - Met-RX protein bar, 8oz of chicken breast, 1 cup white rice with baby carrots and green beans

6pm meal will be one 6oz sirloin steak, one cup white rice, with carrots and green beans.

9pm a 1:1 ratio of whey and casein protein (50g in weight total) shake with about 140g of banana and 1 cup of 2% milk.

I eat 5 meals on non-training days, 6 meals (intra carbs) on training days.

I’m going to increase cals in increments. I don’t think I’d do myself any good going from 2700 cals straight to 3500-4k cals over night. I don’t mind gaining a little fat, sure as fk not trying to look like a slob, however.

I’ll eventually reach a peak number of cals if and when my body demands it. Biggest indicator is waking up in the middle of the night with hunger pangs. I’ll know then to bump up my cals.

 

[Gettingolder]

illmortalized said:

@Gettingolder

For example today:

Breakfast - 236g Egg whites, 100g whole eggs, 50g turkey sausage + 1 cup of 100% cranberry juice

Preworkout - 90g of quick oats, 40g (weight) whey protein, 30g pb2

Intra carbs - rice krispy treats @ 44g

Post - Met-RX protein bar, 8oz of chicken breast, 1 cup white rice with baby carrots and green beans

6pm meal will be one 6oz sirloin steak, one cup white rice, with carrots and green beans.

9pm a 1:1 ratio of whey and casein protein (50g in weight total) shake with about 140g of banana and 1 cup of 2% milk.

I eat 5 meals on non-training days, 6 meals (intra carbs) on training days.

I’m going to increase cals in increments. I don’t think I’d do myself any good going from 2700 cals straight to 3500-4k cals over night. I don’t mind gaining a little fat, sure as fk not trying to look like a slob, however.

I’ll eventually reach a peak number of cals if and when my body demands it. Biggest indicator is waking up in the middle of the night with hunger pangs. I’ll know then to bump up my cals.

Add some carbs to your morning meal that’s charging you up for your work out

I would do a meal pre work out real food not a shake
protein and carbs that easy to digest like fish and white rice with a green vegetable.

Post I would do a whey iso shake right away then my solid food meal an hour after

steak meal is fine but I would up the rice over a cup

Last meal I would be eating full fat Greek yogurt with blueberries.

I am not seeing enough fats in this and that’s healthy fats like avacado olive oil coconut oil and so forth.
There are no nuts like almonds or walnuts etc which have lots of Phyto nutrients vits minerals in them and are calorie dense and good fats.
a few nuts here and there is a good thing.

Ease you way up obviously and adjust if you start getting fluffy.
pretty soon you will be up in calories and growing

 

[system]

@Gettingolder
I’d agree with much of this especially adding the fats.

Keep the fats away from your training as they will slow digestion.

Would reccomend swapping the intra Rice Krispies for EAA’s and some HBCD, Gatorade G2 (if it doesn’t bloat you) the packets work great and are cheap, waxy maize, or Karbolyn.

Lastly, aside from absolute necessity, protein powders digest way too fast to really amount to anything but conversion to essentially simple sugars. So as long as you’re having meals around your training - say hour and a half or so, rushing to a protein shake is not necessary.
I’ll prob get some pushback on this but that’s fine. I stand by it.

 

[illmortalized]

@Gettingolder & @empireannie - thanks for your input!

I’ll make a few changes. Almonds and Greek yogurt is definitely on my grocery list for tomorrow.

The protein bar I normally treat like it’s no different than a whey protein shake. I hate smelly shaker cups and normally end up tossing them after a month or two. So I’ve switched to protein bars for the last two years to have soon as I get into my car and head home.

 

[system]

@illmortalized
All things equal, that one bar isn’t going to make or break anything at this point.

I am just a firm believer that the “30 anabolic window gotta have my protein shake” (that’s not me quoting you) is a complete farce.
But again, I’m not going to shit talk someone for eating a damn protein bar. I like to think that I’m well matured beyond that.

Lastly, this is a game of thermodynamics and while there are some tried and true rules of thumb no one way is the only way. Find what you will adhere to, test it, refine it. Consistency is king, after all. So track your macros, track your training, adjust all of the above when necessary, and let us know how it goes.

 

[Gettingolder]

@empireannie

I used to use BCAA’s during my work outs up until about 3 years ago now its just plain water can’t do any kind of solid food.
If your having a whey iso shake after training add a tablespoon or two of almond butter to it and there is your remedy for too rapid digestion.

I am trying to do the exact opposite of you I am working to get smaller.

Have a so called cheat meal once per week the last meal on a Sunday night before bed. Mixes things up for you and makes your body go what the fuck? I need to adjust a bit for this. Nothing crazy and try to keep it reasonable obviously.

Keep your workouts short and intense an hour at most. If your not wiped in an hour your not pushing to your max. Be smart warm up properly.

Don’t be scared to take a couple of days off in a row if you are burnt out or really sore. My best gains always came from consistent one day on one day off training.

Look at it this way if you gained 1/2 a pound of solid body mass per week where would you be in a year from now?
Yup 8 ounces a week… 26 pounds that’s a lot of size on your frame. It is also easier to keep if added gradually allowing your body to adjust to the new mass.