Written by Jacob Cassidy

Operation Herculean Update – Week 1

Topic: Muscle Growth, Operation Herculean

Discuss: 3 Comments

Week 1’s end has already come. It’s amazing how fast time flies. I hit the weights every weekday and already feel dramatically better physically than I have in the last few months. And I only spent an average of 37 minutes a day working out. Most people don’t realize how little is needed to make a huge difference in their lives when done correctly.

The results for this week show I gained 1.2 pounds while decreasing the fat around my waist by a quarter inch. This is while doing nothing to improve my diet yet, except I’m actually eating more from an increase appetite the intense training is causing.

Of course, any significant visual change at just 1.2 pounds isn’t going to show up, so my comparison pictures look nearly identical. Each week I’ll compare my current pictures with my beginning pictures and over time there should be a dramatic transformation in how I look.

Here’s the current comparison. Statistics continue below…

The front top pictures are taken relaxed, while the bottom back pictures are taken flexed. I feel these two shots are the best for showing the transformation over time. However, I’m taking an additional 10 shots ever week in different poses and will show them all from beginning to end when I complete my transformation. I’ll probably set them up in a video showing the months long transformation morphed in a couple minute video. It would probably be pretty cool to see.

Measurements

Body Part	Beginning	Week 1	Total Gained	Since Last Week
Weight:	170.6 lbs	171.8 lbs	1.2 lbs	1.2 lbs
Chest (relaxed):	42"	> 42.5"*	> 0.5"	> 0.5"
Waist (relaxed):	33.25"	33"	-0.25"	-0.25"
Buttocks (relaxed):	39"	39.25"	0.25"	0.25"
R. Arm (flexed):	13.9375"	14.1875"	0.25"	0.25"
L. Arm (flexed):	13.75"	14.125"	0.375"	0.375"
R. Forearm (flexed):	11.75"	11.875"	0.125"	0.125"
L. Forearm (flexed):	11.5"	11.625"	0.125"	0.125"
R. Leg (flexed):	21.875"	> 22"*	> 0.125"	> 0.125"
L. Leg (flexed):	21.6875"	> 21.875"*	> 0.1875"	> 0.1875"
R. Calf (flexed):	14.3125"	14.375"	0.0625"	0.0625"
L. Calf (flexed):	14.375"	14.375"	0	0
Neck (relaxed):	14.5"	> 14.75"*	> 0.25"	> 0.25"

*Some of these measurements are tricky to take accurately. My chest measurement can increase or decrease by half an inch if I move the tape just slightly up or down. Same with my leg measurements. Fortunately, the rest are easy to get the exact measurement each time. Not a huge deal, the idea is to have a baseline to know if I’m growing, staying the same, or even shrinking.

Strength

My strength was pretty low this week. I’m squatting half the weight now as I did at my strongest. It’s not my legs that are causing the majority of this, but rather my core strength has deteriorated horribly. Something that’s very common in the modern world with the extreme inactivity we now live. This is what I’m going to focus most of this month on recovering.

I’m going to break my daily exercises into two sections this week. One for hitting the weights between 30-60 minutes a day each weekday to get my nervous system and muscle activation* up to par. And the other to focus on core stability, stretching, and foam rolling to work on my imbalances more. Combined, they shouldn’t take more than 1 1/2 hours a day.

*Muscle activation is how many muscle cells are being active. After a period of little use, the body stops using the muscles it doesn’t need and diminishes the neuro capacity to activate those muscles. Muscles work in an all-or-nothing fashion. For instance, lets say you have 100 muscles cells in your arm and it takes the strength of 10 muscles cells to lift a jug of milk at the grocery store. Your body will activate 10 muscle cells at full strength and the other 90 cells will do nothing. If you never lift anything heavier than that jug of milk, the other 90 cells will quickly shrink in size and lose their network of nerves needed to active them. So once you do exhaust your first 10 muscles cells, say from starting a weight lifting program, your strength disappears quite suddenly. This is happening to me right now. I’ll be bench pressing, for instance, and the reps will be fairly easy… 7, 8, 9, then suddenly 10 is a major struggle to get up, and after that I can barely budge the bar.

Science shows hypertrophy (building muscle size) doesn’t happen until all the muscles have been reactivated by the body rebuilding these neuro pathways to activate them. This generally takes around 4 weeks to do. My own experiences show people start gaining weight and muscle size right away, but it doesn’t stabilize until the overall activation has been achieved. This could because the early increase is not really muscle, but the neuro pathways themselves building up.

Workouts

My workouts this week were pretty simple. I did between 8-11 reps to failure (which feels more mental than physical currently) and 2 sets for each exercise, resting 2 minutes between sets. My workouts were broken down as:

Day 1:

1. Flat Bench Press
2. Incline Bench Press
3. Shoulder Press
4. Side Laterals
5. Abs Crunches

Total time to complete 34 minutes.

Day 2:

1. Wide Grip Pullups
2. Bent Over Row
3. Shrugs
4. Straight Leg Deadlift
5. Lying Triceps Press
6. Triceps Extension

Total time to complete 33minutes.

Day 3:

1. Squat
2. Leg Curl
3. EZ Barbell Curl
4. Concentration Curl
5. Palm Up Curl
6. Calf Raise

Total time to complete 55minutes.

Day 4:

• Repeat of Day 1

Total time to complete 30 minutes.

Day 5:

• Repeat of Day 2

Total time to complete 34 minutes.

Leg day took me almost twice as long to complete because I’m relearning squat form and had to setup a system for doing calf raise with minimum equipment. (I ended up using the back of my bench.)

This week I’m starting with Leg day (day 3 schedule) to continue the rotation and will be doing 3 sets for 4-7 reps with 1 1/2 minutes rest between sets on each exercise. I’m also adding ‘rear laterals’ on Day 1 to balance out the shoulder work. I generally do my workouts in the afternoon, but since I’ll be in Vegas in a couple days until the end of the month, I’ll be doing my weight training in the evening at the gym with my friends, and my stretching and core strengthening in the morning at home.

Sleep

Sleep is very important for muscle growth. I still can’t get over the fact that so many people think muscles grow when you’re working out. If that was true, you’d be stronger when your workout was over. The truth is workouts break down your muscles, even injuring them slightly with micro muscle tears. Sleep is when your body repairs and regenerates your muscles. And because your muscles were damage, your body builds them back bigger and stronger so they don’t get damaged doing the same work again.

My sleep this week has been spotty. I’ve be going to bed around 10pm and getting up at 6am for the past month, but this week I stayed up late several nights in a row researching different things I’m currently excited about and knocked my entire sleep schedule off. Not a good idea for trying to recover from training and I need to get it back on track.

However, since I’m heading to Las Vegas in a day and a half, a set schedule will have to wait until I’m back. I even have the crazy idea to try polyphasic sleep (taking 20 minute naps every 4 hours instead of sleeping 8 hours each night) when I get back and seeing how it affects bodybuilding. I’m going to track down Steve Pavlina when I’m in Vegas and talk with him about his experience doing it (he successfully adapted to living on a polyphasic sleep schedule and gain 30-40 hours of extra productive time each week). Another crazy experiment to try :)

Posted on February 7, 2010

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