beginner gains?

[fawkes]

just thought i would post this up to see if anyone has had personal experience. everyone knows beginners gain strength and mass quicker than intermediate, but what if you have been weight lifting etc for a year or so before getting serious and have barely made any gains?
for example, i have been lifting weights (more body building style) on and off for a few years, last yr i hired a personal trainer leg pressing around 360kg bench pressing 85kg lat pull down 100kg, thats about all i remember i went from 72-82kg but i beleive a lot! of it was fat mainly gained around the stomach area as my biceps went up maybe 3/4 of an inch my quads only about an inch, so muscle gains were not huge and then i stopped going and i lost most of the fat and i went back down to about 75kg and i was only slightly bigger than when i started, so i guess my question is would doing that training (which i now consider a waste) have used up my beginner gains and now im stuck being the same size i originally was but being classed as intermediate and it being even harder to gain muscle? ive always found it difficult to gain muscle and yes when i went to the personal trainer i ate a lot! of food. so yea just wondering if its going to be even more difficult or if i might still experience some beginner gains. thanks

[jww38]

I was in a similar position to you before I started Stronglifts beginner. I was able to start the lifts a bit higher than the bar which you will no doubt be able to do.

Did you squat/deadlift/OHP/row before stronglifts? If no you will get good gains on these. What stronglifts will do is reinforce good technique and allow to progress linearly each workout for a while and you should easily get past your old PRs.

Having a high lat pulldown will let you get straight into pull-ups and you should be able to do weighted ones fairly quickly which will blast your back muscles more than the lat pulldown.

The answer to your question depends on what you call beginner gains, obviously you have lifted before so won't get the brand new to weightlifting gains you already have gotten but you will make good strength gains on stronglifts.

The constant progression you get with stronglifts will help you build muscle more so than bodybuilding style workouts until you can do the bodybuilding exercises with high weights, at least that is what I have found.

Hope that gives you some decent info

[fawkes]

i have done most of the exercises before yeah but mainly in a rehab fashion as ive been recovering from an injury. i was squatting 65kg but i dropped it down to 50 for SL. thats why i was wondering if i would be able to make size gains as i am still pretty mcuh the same size i was before i went to perosnal training. i guess not oh well strong lift away.