completely true
I agree with you and Adam. A muscular guy with a lot of bodyfat can look enormous in clothing. Take the clothes off (or "peel" as Schmoe Teper might demand), and holy shit: it's a case of, "Get this cat some T3 and clen, STAT!"
Your arms do still look good while that heavy, though, Ach, sho' 'nuff. I disagree with the esteemed Galeniko vis-a-vis the time it'll actually take you to get in shape, especially natural. From that starting point, I'd guess 20 weeks plus of severe deprivation might bring you within striking distance of starting a proper, slightly more forgiving, 16-week prep.
... unless, of course, you eschew all this "I want to be natural apart from some M1T years ago" stuff, in which case you could easily halve those estimates.
Just out of curiosity, how much strength have you gained in the past year or two? I know you're a volume dude, but the few clips I've seen of you training (e.g., the cable hammer curls) were so sloppy, it made some of Bertil Fox's shit look almost strict by comparison. Tighten up the form and lower the sets, man. Granted, I'm not natural, but I get a shitload more out of two sets of biceps than you might've out of 10 sloppy sets of cable hammers.
Consider this ...
In my last biceps workout, I did a set of incline DB bench curls, with the bench barely above parallel. I did a pair of 45's to failure at about 8 reps. Each rep was initiated from a dead stop at the bottom, and I lowered both bells with a solid three count (one-thousand-one, one-thousand, two, etc.). Then, boom, I accelerate through the positive as much as possible, stopping just short of the bells brushing my pecs.
I reached failure after 9 reps (the tenth was a no-go). I stood up and took 15 deep breaths. I grabbed the weights again and got 2 more reps -- 3 if you count the rep I cheated up with my delts. I stood up and did the same breathing routine, lay back on the bench and got two more. The second rep for each arm was a real fight.
Next, after 3-5 min. rest, I did a move I learned from Steve Nilsson, the three-stage reverse BB curl. I've worked up to 65 on these. On the first phase, you curl the weight up and then do rapid quarter reps in the top of the ROM. I think I got 54 with that. Then you set the bar down and shake your hands out for 10 seconds (I typically wait more like 20), pick the bar up again, then do top-half reps. I got maybe 9. Next, you set the thing down for a similar rest period, then do full reps with the same weight.
I managed maybe 4. I tried to cheat up another one or two but my arms were shot.
Do
that and 20 sets/bodypart will seem like a joke, bro.
