Some thoughts on my upcoming mass phase

So I will probably start my mass building phase in two weeks.  I have taken most of this week off and just done some steady state walking here and there.  I haven't been sleeping good still, and until I get several good nights sleep in a row I doubt I will feel worth a crap.

That's one area I am really going to be on top of during this mass phase.  Sleeping.  In bed each night by 9:30-10:00 at the latest.  Sleep, in my opinion, may be the most overlooked factor in mass gaining.  That is when most of your recovery is going on.  So when you cut yourself short on sleep, you're cutting your recovery short.

My diet is essentially going to be the one I have laid out here several times and in my manual.

Training wise I won't be barbell benching during this mass phase.  Mainly to give my elbow a bit of a break.  I will be doing flat db press, which doesn't place as much stress on my elbow.  I am hoping a few months away from barbell bench pressing will let my elbow heal even more.  I will try to work in dips, however we'll have to see how my elbow handles those.  I'd like to do +135x12 as a goal.

I am bringing back front squats and will be rotating in some speed skater db squats, lunges, and leg presses on some days.

You will see my reps go way up during this phase.  A lot of guys don't understand how to separate training for pure 1 rep max strength, and training for mass.  And they are not the same animals.

Second, getting fat is not quality mass gaining.  I've seen plenty of pics of guys flexing their before and after pics where they basically put on a lot of fat weight and then talk about how much mass they built.  I am not after this.  I am after quality gains at this point.  So calories should be just barely above maintenance level.  I am only looking to add 5 pounds of quality mass, if that's possible, over the next 3 months.

Some may scoff at that, but adding 5 pounds of lean mass is an incredibly difficult chore.  That really means that the scale is going to tell me it's more like a 12-14 pound gain.  5 pounds of lean mass, probably 5 pounds of fat gain (this is to be expected), then the extra glycogen and water that will come with that.

Bodyfat will be taken in the next week or so.  I expect it to be in the 9-10% range now that I'm down to 230.  My longtime goal has been to be at around 245 in that same bodyfat range.  My hope is that the added mass will raise my strength ceiling enough to let me hit some goals I have had for a raw total for a while now.

Time to quit cruising and get back to business gentlemen.