So your 31, 6ft and 180lbs and your goal is bodybuilding. Your not very old so you should be able to train with significant intensity and increase the loads you lift quite quickly over time. Where you are 6 ft and a 180lbs I would definitely say you would want to put some slabs of muscle on and get your weight up, as I am 6 ft and at 210lb I was pretty shredded for my first BB show. I like the '7 sacred rules' on page 14-15 of
@animal-inside posted link of '10 week size surge booklet' however I would modify them to meet my objectives and what works for me. So below are the 7 sacred rules that I developed that work well for me. If you don't like them then change them to suit your needs ... maybe use the ones in the article. Anyway have fun
7 Sacred Rules for Packing On Muscle Weight
1) Eat when your hungry until you are full then stop, when I was training hard I was always hungry so I constantly snacked. (Eat low glycemic foods with adequate protein, best for muscular gains and fat burning)
2)
Centre your bodybuilding program around big compound movements, such as squats and presses. You should strive for maximum efficiency of effort, or to work as many muscle groups as possible with as few sets as possible. Always strive to increase your poundages for a certain exercise within a certain rep range. My rep range was always 3 -5. So If I was doing a certain weight and my reps popped up say to 7 -10 I would add weight to bring it back down. Increased strength equates to increased size
3) Don't do to many sets at any workout-and less is usually better. Train with high intensity until you are very sore in the areas that you are focusing on and then stop. No need to continue when you have already destroyed your muscles.
4) Don't train when everything is real sore. Take a day to recover. My moto is train what isn't real sore and when everything is sore take a day or 2 to grow. Its the eating, resting and recovering that assists in growth.
5) Have a preworkout drink or a carb booster prior to working out as it raises the level of intensity of your workout. Have a protein drink immediately after every training session to feed the muscles after they have been depleted.
6) See number 4
7) Rest and relax as much as you can when your not training. Going for a five mile run or playing touch football with the boys for 2 hours will not help your bodybuilding goals. I would not give up all of this though ... gotta have some fun
Using gear that is a personal choice. You have done some training so I would not call you a novice.
Educate yourself on the use and effects of gear, read some of the threads on this forums and make your decision. What I did when I started was to start on a small amount of test e (250mg a week) for a 4 week period to see if my strength went up and it did, so I went to 500mg and I found I got a further boost but not as much as the first 250mg a week. I was just trying to increase strength and power... was not trying to stay dry or anything like that. I stayed on that for the last 12 weeks of a 16 week cycle then came off. It wasn't until I started training for competitions that I started adding in a lot of other stuff.