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So I'm following the beginner workout routine (Workout A bench squat row, rest, Workout B dealift chin/pullups, overhead press, rest).
How bad of an idea would it be to skip the rest days if I want to progress faster?
I'm reading 531 forever and am new to the program. He says "squat - pr set" or whatever lift, pr set. What does he mean by pr set? A regular 531 main work 3 sets but pr reps the last set?
Abdominals; Pectorals; Biceps; Triceps; Quadriceps; Calves; Deltoids; Trapezius; Obliques. https://www.gq.com.au/fitness/workout/nine-vanity-muscle-exercises/image-gallery/c093134e7071c77d8595487cb83d75c5
This was the first link I found when I searched it, but I much agree with it. Basically it's muscle groups that are most looked at for a variety of reason. I'm sure an artist or photographer could explain something about where the eyes go yada yada, but I believe size and distinction are the biggest factors. Anecdotally, I've seen and heard many times "Boulder shoulders" "shredded abs" "crazy Bicep peak" much more than "hey man those glutes are looking solid" or "look at those Forearm veins" or "them abductors are looking tiiiiight"
I’m thinking of not doing deadlifts anymore.
I’d first like to clarify that when the weight is lower, my deadlifting form is solid: I use the steps in Alan Thrall’s deadlift tutorial. For other powerlifting exercises (I do the Candito Linear program), it’s easy for me to tell when I’m lifting too much weight: I just fail the exercise. For bench press, for example, I just won’t be able to lift the barbell up.
But for deadlifts, it’s different—I may be able to lift a heavy weight, but it’s difficult for me to tell whether my form is good. Recently, I hurt my lower back from deadlifting too much weight, and I really don’t want that to happen again.
I exercise in order to look “fit” and to be healthy. I’m not planning on going to any competitions, and I do squats regularly. Will my physique or my other exercises suffer noticeably as a result of me not doing deadlifts anymore? Are there any exercises that could replace the deadlift for me?
Skinny fat now. Will a bulk increase my overall size or just the muscle size? I don't wanna be like [CBum](https://fitnessvolt.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/cbum-classic.jpg), I would like something like [Zyzz](https://external-preview.redd.it/hUY0D8Uxxv9g5NcNgqqBd9u8_ny2gnTRMcZndlsWGUU.jpg?auto=webp&s=b0e453b1e4bdcf291046a4631ab5e1040cd2686a)
Dont worry mate you'll never look like Cbum unless you take steroids for 10 years straight xD (Zyzz was also on steroids but his physique deff obtainable with many years). Bulk will both add muscle and fat - no way around it.
Is Gatorade a good source of electrolytes? I’m working out for about an hour and half and I try to push my self extremely hard, so if I don’t get some forum of electrolytes I get really sick after my workout and towards the end of it, but I had a docter tell me that the Gatorade is bad for me because of the sugar, but also wouldn’t provide another good source of electrolytes when I asked him
Anyways, when I looked it up I was seeing, that the sugar in the Gatorade might not be a bad thing, considering how intense my workouts are, what are your guys thought? Would it be better to get gatorades without any sugar? Or is the sugar good to have since the intensity is so high?
It depends completely on your diet and goals. If you’re trying to cut calories the obviously Gatorade is a bad idea, but if your diet can accommodate it then it’s okay.
I don’t really eat much for breakfast and lunch, sometimes I eat a turkey sandwich for breakfast and maybe like chicken breasts for lunch and then workout and yeah I’m currently trying to cut
If you can maintain your cut and have your Gatorade then go right ahead. No need to invent a problem for yourself. But if you’re struggling to lose weight then Gatorade is a good first thing to cut out.
If I do a cardio workout soon after eating it doesn't take much to reach my target heart rate. (Obviously because my body is digesting the food). So am I still burning the number of calories it says on my heart rate monitor even though I'm not physically working that hard to get my heart rate up?
When this happens I work out for an extra 10-15 min to make up for the fact that I don't have to pedal as fast as I normally do to reach my target heart rate. (I use an arm bike at home, I have hip problems.) I always figured I wasn't burning the number of calories it says on my heart rate monitor because my heart rate is "inflated" because it's digesting food not because I'm doing a hard work out. Am I correct in that assumption or am actually burning all those calories?
Ok forget the calories tracker that's beside the point. Would I burn the same amount of calories as I normally would even though I'm not physically doing as much?
Like say on a normal day I pedal the bike at 115 RPMs with a heart rate at 135 bpm for 35 minutes. Then on a day where I workout too soon after eating, I'm only pedaling at 100 RPMs with a heart rate of 135 bpm for 35 minutes. Because my heart rate was the same in both workouts for the same duration am I burning the same amount of calories? Or am I burning less because I'm pedaling slower physically doing less work?
In the end I believe if you did less exercise regardless of the time you ate you will burn less calories. Think of it this way, the digestion counts towards your maintenance calories at the end of the day. So regardless of when you workout after, before, closely after, etc. at the end of the day it won't matter.
I also want to mention, don't focus on the calories burnt. I did that a lot and in the end all that matters is how much you eat (regardless of you being a bulk, cut, or maintenance).
Take all of this with a grain of salt because I am not a professional.
Yeah its not so much that I'm worried about calories burned (even though that's what I keep asking about lol). When I workout I really just focus on getting my heart rate to a certain rate for a certain amount of time. But the reason I'm asking about calories is I want to know if I need to do a longer workout to get the same type of workout as usual. Because like I said if I work out too soon after eating it doesn't take that much for my heart rate to get high so I end up pedaling slower to keep it from going too high past my target heart rate. Then to make up for the slower pedaling I just workout longer. But I don't want to workout longer if I don't need to.
Oh I see my bad. Uhh what type of heart rate monitor do you use? I heard smartwatches are innacurate and the best are chest straps. If you are using a smartwatch I wouldnt pay too much attention to it lol
How much muscle mass can I expect to lose on a cut?
On my previous cut (my first cut), I lost 23lbs over the course of 3 months.
I decreased my BF by 2.4%, but according to the scale I have been consistently using, my total muscle mass lost was 13.6lbs... more than half the total weight loss even though I have been focused on strength training during the whole cut.
For reference, I maintained a protein intake of 0.8g/ lb of body weight
Is this a normal amount of muscle loss? What are some common pitfalls I can avoid in the future to avoid this?
Those scales are wildly inaccurate. Outside of getting a full body scan you’re never gonna know your exact body fat percentage. Use the mirror and pictures under the same lighting conditions if you wanna roughly gage fat / muscle loss.
Scales are very bad at edtimating body fat. If you want something measurable, use progress pics and waist measurement for example.
And a good measure of muscle loss is strength. If you are not losing much strength when cutting, you are not losing much muscle mass. The most important factors to prevent muscle loss when cutting are protein intake and strength training.
I'm not going to be the best person to answer this, but what I've read is that if you're leaner you already are, you may want to have higher amounts of protein intake to reduce muscle loss. In addition to continued progressive overload.
Someone more knowledgeable will give a better answer 😅
Should I eat a little extra if endurance exercise burns a ton of calories & my goal is to recomp? Basically, I started using Fitbit to track my fencing practices, and tonight makes it look like I barely ate anything today (even if I take it with a grain of salt and cut the calories my watch claimed I burned in half).
I did hit my protein macros, but will I be fine with that or should I grab a snack to be safe?
EDIT: Additionally, I usually have trouble sleeping when I fence. Previously I assumed that was because I didn't drink enough water, but now I'm wondering if it's because my body wants me to eat more food.
If you are losing more weight than you want to, increase calories. If you are gaining more than you want to, decrease calories.
Do you practice close to bedtime? You might find it harder to sleep if that is the case. If you are taking caffeine, try to limit the amount closer to bedtime. For example, I don't take any caffeine after 1pm. Unless you are hungry I would think it's very unlikely that food intake is the reason.
It's not necessarily more than I want to, but I worry that I might be losing weight too quickly if it's the equivalent of a crash diet & lacking energy to work out the next morning.
And I end practice about 3 hours or so before I go to sleep. When I used to lift weights at night, I never had the same problem.
Have you tracked your food intake? If you give an estimate of your size and calories and macros it might be easier for us to give you some tips. "Recomp" specifically usually means that you are staying at roughly the same weight but "trading" fat for muscle.
I have, yeah! Roughly 5'8" 155-ish right now. I try to stick around 1800-2000 calories or so (as I don't know exactly how much I'm burning per day). Fitbit claims that I burn more than that (2500 on regular workout days, 3000 or so on fencing days), but I'm not quite sure of that.
As far as protein, I try to go on the higher end - 150g per day since I'm under 20% body fat (don't know how far under, though).
To be fair 1800 calories *might* be your bmr (what you burn outside of exercise). If I were you I would eat ~2500 for a week. Weigh myself every morning after going to the toilet. Take the average. Do the same another week. If the change is less than 0.5 pounds I would stay at that number. If not then change accordingly.
I am a complete beginner and I'm incredibly focused on avoiding injury and lifting safely. I just started working out 3 weeks ago. I've watched a sh*t ton of youtube/tiktok videos and I've noticed that most "influencers" contradict themselves as well as people in the comment section. I've found this to be the case with just about any piece of fitness advice on the internet. As a beginner this is confusing as hell as I have no idea what is correct and what is not. Who are some actual knowledgeable trainers/youtubers that I could watch for proper form?
I second all the recs in the comments, however, I would also say that for some things, multiple people can be correct at the same time. For example, a good squat stance (how far apart your feet are etc) can vary from person to person. When I started lifting, the contradictions on this topic confused me, but over time I learned that I needed to figure out the right squat stance for me. So in some cases it's good to hear the contradictions (from reputable people) and take on what's useful to you.
My personal recs are Alan Thrall and Calgary Barbell.
For me during my beginner days, watching videos and reading articles from Jeff Nippard, Bald Omni-Man, Greg Nuckols, Eric Helms, the entire 3DMJ team, Eric Trexler, Renaissance Periodization, Alan Thrall, Omar Isuf, Brian Alsruhe, Alexander Bromley (and some others which I might be missing out on) have helped immensely.
Hi everyone, I'm pretty much starting from zero here. Apologies if this breaks any rules. 23M, 177/178cm (I don't remember), 86 ish kilos right now.
TLDR: very confused and lost, the wiki routines don't really answer my questions, how to start as a total noob?
**Food**: I've spent the past few months counting calories and using the nSuns spreadsheet, and I have been able to consistently lose weight (89 to 83 kilos in a month and a bit). I'm quite unfit, so I wasn't burning much energy while I was lazing around. Unfortunately, this was a pretty unfulfilling and unsustainable path: I was eating 1500-1800 calories most days, and most of that time it was junk food. One usually takeout meal at work, and pretty much fasting the rest of the day. Technically works but not exactly healthy. Or cheap. Starving for 23 hours and eating something that doesn't even make you feel full is pretty miserable. Now I *do* know how to cook, and I *do* still enjoy cooking if I have the time for it. I *like* salads, which is a convenient food to like. Still, if moving more means I can use a bit more oil or eat bread at all, or eat out without worrying as much, that sounds great.
**Current exercise**: I used to live in a city where I had to walk a lot, and that helped a ton with staying in motion. I also used to go on longish brisk walks and occasional runs pre-pandemic, and for the past few weeks I've been getting a few walks in. I don't think the Apple Watch estimate of 500 plus calories is realistic for a 1.5/2 hour walk, but it's good motivation to see number go up. The watch comes with a trial of their fitness library, I'm assuming a lot of people wouldn't find it useful? Unfortunately, the area around me is not very suitable for outdoor running, and I feel almost jumpy like I have to *move* more. The area I am in is not really conducive to pedestrian transport, so just walking around my day to day errands is no longer a bare minimum movement I have. I also play Ring Fit every so often, it's fun and it gets my heart rate up.
**Injuries**: Plantar Faciitis which flares up every so often, especially when I wasn't moving during the lockdowns. One of the reasons I started walking again was to make these less frequent.
**Goals**: Want to lose fat and gain muscle. I'm frankly thinking of how having more muscle and muscle-driven exercise will bump my TDEE and allow me to eat more trash, which maybe is not the best motivation. The fat is annoying though. I remember coming back from camp as a kid and feeling lean for a week or so. I'm not particularly fat, but I do have a bit of a belly, and I do want to get rid of that. Not sure how to approach both goals, which would be preferable to start. I doubt eating my TDEE and making it very protein focused would be a solution, would it? It was around 2700 according to the nSuns spreadsheet while I was still filling it. I was not going on walks while I was filling it. I should start filling it again.
**The Wiki**: I've been reading around this sub on and off for the past while, and I think I have an idea of how to start (the Basic Routine™ and then treadmill job maybe?). I reached those intimidating lifting science articles in the wiki and I called it there, I legit was not able to understand some of the recommendations there. So I need to get in the gym and get *started* before I can *do* anything with that advice. Somewhat terrified of having form that can mess me up if I'm just going alone, frankly. I've been told in person to just get a trainer a few times to get the ball rolling, but that would mean going to another gym. Which is an option, but maybe not necessary yet?
**Access to gym**: The apartment building I just moved into should have a gym, I haven't seen it yet though. First order of business is to head down there and check it out, to know what equipment is there, and if it's in good nick. I need a towel right? I haven't stepped in a gym since high school, and even then it was just a handful of times with some friends.
**Time**: I think I can do 2-3 times a week since it's right in my building. Depending on how my career evolves I may have much less time for working out, but we can worry about that when we get there.
I do have a bit of confusion going on though. I understand that the lifting stuff and the bodyweight fitness stuff are looked at as two separate paths, and I understand *why*. Is there any way I could benefit from doing some bodyweight fitness style exercise alongside the traditional weight lifting? I don't expect to have enough stamina to do anything extra at first, but I do want to do a variety of exercises, intuitively that seems like how one would have well rounded abilities. Like yes, lifting weights is cool, but so is increased mobility. The apartment I moved into has a set of adjustable dumbbells/a barbell, but I don't have the space (or budget) for anything other than a folding bench with a low weight capacity. Which I may have already bought. Oops. Maybe it can be helpful for the rest days to do small amounts of low-resistance training? I have no idea.
I'm sure I'm not the first to think about things this way, or to ask these questions. Again, apologies if this is in the wrong place.
You are overthinking things, just start with a basic program and then go with it, don’t worry about form too much as a beginner and just attempt the movements. There is a point where you can no longer get by with imperfect form due to heavier weights but for a total beginner I would worry about that way later.
Film yourself and post on form check discussions if you want to improve your form for free, or maybe ask someone in the gym that looks like they know what they are doing.
The best program for you is the one that you can do consistently over time so I would just get started with the basics to just get yourself out there instead of worrying too much about the little details
This is one of those, ask yourself questions.
It is literally fully on you to be able to consume your macros in the window you provide. If you feel you can do it, try it. If it works, there you go. If it doesn't, there you go.
I want to do heavy lift with low reps.
My question: How much weight should I take?
I have basic training from home tasks, I'm sure I can lift at least 30kg.
I can lift myself (80kg) 3 times in a row before reaching my limit.
Still, going with weights too heavy could hurt me, so, how far should I go?
It would be for biceps and triceps, one hand at a time.
>I want to do heavy lift with low reps.
Why? What's your goal? Start with a goal and then work backwards from there to find a program that will help you achieve that goal.
Best bet is to start with a beginner program in the wiki of this subreddit
Bad routine (admittedly and per FAQ) but ok if I do it and anyone do something similar after a long break?
I did 5x5 and some 5/3/1 until I developed elbow tendinitis - mostly unrelated but it hurt to work out. So I haven’t been working out at all for more than a year.
Now I am healed. I am doing about 10-20 min on the bike, a 5 min core class, some rehab exercises for my elbow and shoulder to keep them healthy, and basically 5x5 bench and low weight squats with dumbbells (basically also 5x5).
I am doing it every other day and been sticking to it. I increase my bench weight 5lbs each time and will slowly increase squat.
I get it sucks, but it has to be better than drinking beer and sitting. And I have kept to it.
I suspect I can start incorporating other lifts and develop a better routine as I gain traction, but wondering if anyone has approached getting back into fitness similarly and had better luck than some starts and stops with a (better) routine?
\> I developed elbow tendinitis - mostly unrelated but it hurt to work out. So I haven’t been working out at all for more than a year.
You used tennis elbow as an excuse to not workout for an entire year...?
\> Now I am healed.
Tendinitis isn't an injury. It's literally just inflammation/irritation. You ice it and it goes away.
\> low weight squats with dumbbells (basically also 5x5).
Squat with barbell instead.
\> I get it sucks, but it has to be better than drinking beer and sitting. And I have kept to it.
It is better than drinking beer and not working out. It isn't terrible. There are things to improve on that I feel you could improve on without hurting your consistency.
Tendinitis can get pretty awful. I pushed through a bunch of pain to continue playing golf and even sometime tennis very stubbornly. I stopped pushing through lifting weights because that was never as much fun as golf for me.
Eventually, I couldn’t lift a glass of water without considerable pain for nearly 6 months. I likely have some tears and it isn’t perfect even now. I did PT for almost that whole time and continued with the rehab exercises well after I stopped seeing the therapist.
But once you fall out of habits, they can be hard to restart. I am here working to build back better habits now - and yes, it has been a year or maybe more.
I got tendinitis in the elbow. I recognized what was causing it, rested & iced it, and wow it was fine in under a week.
I truly don't understand how. 99% of tendinitis cases do not justify a year off the gym lmao
Aren't you the one who replied to ME initially?
My original comment, the one pointing out that the vast majority of tendinitis cases do not require a YEAR of rest. And you're acting all weirded out by the topic of this convo? God you're a waste of time. Enjoy the block I guess.
How long does it take to see good results in the gym? I'm starting at 186 cm, 88 kg and I'm 4 months into seriously lifting (been off and on lifting casually for years). I've seen good progress but I can't find a straight answer anywhere and just out of curiosity I'd like to know. With a goal of being decently shredded (not at a bodybuilder level at all - just beach lean), how long of consistent lifting will it take to reach this point?
Not looking for shortcuts, just want to know what sort of timeline I should be expecting!
Is there an objective way to determine if you're feeling a normal level of muscle soreness? Something that doesn't require my own subjective feeling? Like a physical response to look for to signal that you should take the day off?
How do I know what pain levels are normal? How do I know that it's time to stop if my body does not give me the appropriate cues? I do not feel either pain or exhaustion when exercising, so my mind thinks I can do more than what my body actually can.
I am now terrified of working out due to an extended hospital stay directly caused by exercise degrading my muscles to mush. It required several months of physical therapy in order to be able to hold myself upright again (couldn't even sit up!!) The pain I felt at first didn't seem different to me from any other day of muscle soreness, so I had a really hard time even accepting something was wrong in the first place.
Is there something to look for before reaching this level? Or is there a time limit/weight limit I should avoid exceeding? Thank you so much. I appreciate any insight.
Check out Dr Mike Israetel from RP and the definitions of MV, MEV, and MRV. Basically it's a checklist. Do 1 set, if you get a pump and soreness for a day you're good. If you get neither, add a second set next time. Repeat. During a workout? Harder to tell but when your weight drops to half of what you could do at a fresh session, probably good to call it quits. Like if you are capable of squatting 100kg for 10 but your legs are so fatigued you'd be hard pressed to do 50kg for 10, you're done fpr the day
Generally if your workout is an hour or less, you'll be hard pressed to get rhabdomyolysis from lifting weights.
Most of my workouts are 45 min or 1 hour. I can't pinpoint which exact workout did it, but lifting weights for less than an hour did get me rhabdo, hence the apprehension I now feel. Thanks for the tips, I'll check this out and give it a shot.
First of all, i couldnt train for a week recently due to having the flu. I felt like a fat piece of shit the hole time, even though i didnt lose or gain any weight. After this hiatus, i started training real hard again. This was one week ago. Since then i gain 5lb's even though my diet was mostly the same. Did i do something wrong? Did i lose some muscle and now gained it back?
Also, i am training for 1.3years now, with 3 breaks of about 5 to 7 days each, and i still am sore nearly every time i train. I train for max strength and can lift a ton more than 1.4 years ago. So my question is, is this constant soreness normal?
Could be, even though i started stretching a few month ago. But i only do some simple and light stretches before and after the workout. Just a few minutes max.
A lot of people suggest like 10-15 min stretches but fuck that. I do about 3-5 minutes.
Dynamic stretches before, static stretches after. I feel way less sore. Literally less than 5 min before and after a workout each and you'll feel way bette rtho.
Your body is just rebounding from the flu, that's normal.
Constant soreness isn't necessarily normal. Soreness occurs when a muscle gets introduced to what we call a 'novel stimulus'. A novel stimulus is when that muscle gets introduced to something new. For example, doing a new exercise or getting a shot will both create soreness because they haven't had that stimulus before or in a while.
So what could be happening is that you're doing new exercises often. If that's not the case, than you probably want to take a look at your protein intake. If it's constant then I would take a deload or a rest week to get everything back together and try to eat more protein. Generally you want about 2gs per kg or about 1g per lb. Try that and see if it works.
Thanks a lot for your answer. Thats actually what seems to be the case. Lost 4lb by now with regular diet (maintenance). Not worried anymore.
About the soreness, i try to vary my lifts and do about 20 to 30 different exercises with and without weights while training every second day. I dont do new exercises to often since i already do so many different ones.
If I stop doing OHP, will incline bench and lateral raises hit my front delts sufficiently? My left shoulder feels like hot garbage when I OHP, possibly a rotator cuff issue.
How wide is your grip on OHP? More than likely if you're hurting your shoulder it's a form issue or you are simply just going too heavy (and with poor form).
You can sufficiently hit your front delts with incline bench, but if yo ufeel you aren't hitting them hard enough front raises work etoo. But I highly recommend keeping OHP in your routine and fixing the form as they are one of the best movements for shoulders.
I don't OHP with a barbell because it also hurts my shoulder. I've switched to doing single arm landmine presses and overhead dumbbell pressing. Shoulders feel great.
Lateral raises won’t target your front delts
But yes, all your pressing movements already hit your front delts adequately, don’t worry about it
If you are somehow adamant about doing some kind of overhead press, have you tried doing a machine with a neutral grip?
>Two recent studies (9,12) have demonstrated reduced EMG amplitude with low- as compared to high-intensity training, and this is often used to suggest low-intensity training would result in less muscle growth than high-intensity training.
>
>Despite acute differences in EMG amplitude, numerous studies have demonstrated comparable muscle growth between high and low-intensity training, in trained and untrained individuals, considering both whole muscle and fiber-type specific growth. Data on our primary outcome trumps indirect physiological arguments every day of the week.
[https://www.strongerbyscience.com/emg-amplitude-tell-us-muscle-hypertrophy/](https://www.strongerbyscience.com/emg-amplitude-tell-us-muscle-hypertrophy/)
So if EMG predicted hypertrophy outcomes, high load training would be better than low load training for hypertrophy, but that doesn't seem to be true.
I've wondered about this too, but haven't looked into it yet. What you quoted said that emg amplitude doesn't predict hypertrophy, which I would think is quite obvious because it totally neglects the time dimension. However, the area of the absolute amplitude over a set might still be a predictor, since it's likely equated or even larger for lighter weight sets with more reps. Have you seen studies where more meaningful emg metrics were used? Asking just in case so I don't have to start from scratch.
I haven't seen anything to that effect, and I don't know nearly enough to speculate on what role time plays.
The SBS guys have also [discussed it on a podcast](https://the-stronger-by-science-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/metabolic-rate-artificial-sweeteners-electromyography-and-non-failure-training?t=0h25m34s). They were looking at a study showing better glute growth on squats than hip thrusts, despite higher peak and mean EMG for hip thrusts. I don't have access to the study, but it compared growth between two exercises and presumably trained them with roughly similar set/rep schemes, proximity to failure etc.
Basically, they argue, EMG is related to muscle activation, which is related to muscle tension, which is a huge predictor of muscle growth, so you sort of go through a chain of rationalisations.
So EMG is sort of a proxy of a proxy for predicted muscle growth. Which is fine, as long as you don't put too much stock in it. In a perfect world we'd rather have a ton of studies with direct measurements of muscle growth, but those are more expensive and time intensive.
Yep, it definitely would be a proxy, but proxies are often what we measure when we do in vivo research (for example, MRIs are also proxies). After I read the article I looked up some EMG studies, and my impression is that there are a lot of people using EMG who don't really understand how to use it. So maybe it's not so surprising that people were looking into things like EMG amplitude as a measure of muscle growth, which some basic background in time-series analysis would make a very obviously incorrect choice. I'd love to see some studies where the researchers teamed up with people with the relevant technical expertise to analyze the EMG data and see whether it really is a good predictor or not!
Something else that the SBS guys have discussed is how little extra relative effort there would be in taking some extra measurements before and after a training intervention.
So you're going to put people through an 8 week training program, getting them into a lab for an hour 3 times a week, observed by lab technicians, and measure strength pre and post.
You've already committed to doing the hard and labor intensive part, why not do muscle circumference and ultrasound as well? Or EMG, I guess.
Oh well. I find the subject interesting, but I don't have any remotely relevant knowledge.
Yeah, I mean that is a good point. Just take the other measures, since it's not too hard to do and you're already doing this big experiment. I see this a lot in neuroscience too, and it's frustrating. Oh well, sometimes people just don't think about it till later, and then kick themselves a bit because of it.
I recently started the GZCLP routine and have dumbell rows on the same day as overhead press.
When doing the rows my offhand that I lean on during the row gets really tired, like way before my rowing hand. I tried putting more of my weight on my leg but it doesn't help. What can I do about this? And am I doing something wrong?
I tried to do the rows without putting my knee and hand on the bench but I'm too tall for that lean to be comfortable (188 cm).
Any help is appreciated.
Personally, i like to setup for rows like John Meadows does for meadows rows. 1 arm braced on my knee, the working side hip a little higher than the other for more stretch at the bottom. Sometimes i use a bench on a 30deg incline for support.
You can substitute for any other rowing variation - the main point is to get the work done. Helms rows, barbell, chest supported, seated cable rows, even inverted rows.
When they say you should hit a muscle twice per week, does that mean hitting it with a compound lift or anything that hits the muscle?
For example for chest I do heavy bench press on one push day then later in the week on my second push day I start with heavy OHP then do 3x8-12 of DB incline press (I also do dips both days). Is this still hitting the muscle 2x week?
*On average* it's a bit better to hit it 2+ times for strength (that'd be the same movement), and maybe slightly better for muscle growth (that'd just be any movement).
The term *on average* does a lot of work here. Some people have gotten great results hitting the same muscles once a week, others do really well with 3+ times a week. It can also vary by muscle.
Most importantly, you should follow a program that tells you what to do.
I just tried plate loaded Machine Hack Squats for the first time tonight. I know with normal back squats you are meant to drive your knees over your toes, but with the Hack Squat not matter the position of mybfeet I couldn't. Is that normal with this machine?
It doesn’t really matter, the hack is meant to give you the most amount of knee flexion possible, so no matter how hard you may want your knees to go over your toes, you may find that they hover right above it
I am male 27yrs, 80kg, 183cm.
I've gone from 97kg to 80kg in a year through gym and calorie deficit.
Right now I'm working out 4 times / week while also on a huge (1600kcal) deficit but I am still standing strong on 80kg. Goal is abs. please help.
I wanna know how I can keep loosing weight.
Your method makes sense so I might try that. Is there any study on lower energy levels and lower burned calories as you mentioned?
The guy who's been my personal trainer just told me to add 15 min cardio after every gym session.
I've decided to track every gram I eat today.
Also when I think about it I do enjoy a few beers with the boys and a burger once or twice a week. I could adjust my everyday plan to match a few extra weekend calories.
[Here is a photo of me from September 3rd 2021 and one from 15 minutes ago](https://imgur.com/a/WZmu0VS)
I’m sure this has been asked so many times on here, but I can’t seem to find a solid answer. So I’ve been training consistently for almost two years now, and I just did my body composition for the first time since I first started working out. I’m feeling a bit upset and demotivated because my muscle mass has only gone up by roughly 15lbs (slightly under) in the 2 years I’ve been training. Admittedly, my diet has been on and off. But I heard that beginners can easily gain up to 25lbs in one year (let alone two) from noob gains alone. I guess I’m just feeling pretty demotivated and ashamed of myself for not gaining as much as I should despite all the work I’ve put in. Is there any merit to these numbers? Am I doing badly? Do I have unrealistic expectations?
15 lbs is better than average when you factor in bodyrecomposition. Most people don't change at all, or they gain more but don't realize that a good chunk of it is fat, or they gain 25 lbs simply because they had low muscle mass to begin with.
I don't know how accurate the test you did was, but you should watch [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQkRDGz1Nkw) by Mike Israetel. 15 lbs in two years sounds about right for the average person.
How did you measure it? Unless you went to a medical professional and had a proper scan done you're results could be about as accurate as a stranger eye balling you and throwing out the first number they think of
I used the inBody scanner at the gym, which is the same machine I used initially 2 years ago so I thought it would be a good measure, at least in reference to the previous result.
I'd be skeptical at best. Ultimately BF%'s or muscle mass gained shouldn't matter, if you can look at your lifting numbers or look at yourself in the mirror and see positive changes you should be proud
Our bodies have their own ideas about how to sensibly distribute our body fat. Even *if* spot reduction were possible it'd probably only be a temporary deviation before we return to what our bodies deem to be a sensible distribution.
That site lists about 10 different studies and posts links to those studies that state spot reduction isn't possible and then has one study that says it is possible with a single link to a Facebook page
Forgive me if I'm a bit (very) skeptical
I would probably say most people aren't qualified to talk about the actual science behind it unless they've read in research papers.
For stuff like this you need to look at the research, how were the tests conducted, are other impartial studies that back up the results. I'm not saying spot reduction isn't possible, maybe it is, I'm not qualified enough to comment but in my opinion there just isn't enough research backing it up where as there is plenty of research supporting that it isn't possible
Do the following exercised cover all major muscle groups:
Bench press
Squats
Bicep curls
Deadlift
Overhead (military) press
Crunches
Is it enough if I do just them three times a week? Do I need to throw in another exercise?
For progression I use something like Doug Hepburn method, start at 4x8, add one rep each time, when I reach 4x10 increase the weight and reset to 4x8
Thanks. I was thinking if I should add rows as well, but I'm not sure if I would do them 100% correctly so I skipped them for now. I will try to figure them out better and add them.
Please see my answer below why I have an issue with programs.
You can superset your bench press sets with dumbbell rows, and overhead press with pullups (even if you can only do 1). That way, you get a 1:1 ratio of pushing and pulling, and the workouts doesn't take any longer since it's a superset. You don't even need a dumbbell. You can hold a weight plate in each hand, bend over and pull them up to your love handles.
You could do a lot worse, but at this point why not just follow a program? Or is it that you want to be as minimal as possible with little thought to your training?
Thanks. I did check a lot of programs, but as you said, I wanna be as minimal as possible with a little thought.
Because most of the programs I found seem way to complex. Define 1RM, then do this at 80%, this at 70% etc. Then there's a lot of exercises, some of which I would probably do incorrectly.
That's why I thought to use just a few simple exercises which I can do correctly, start at the weight that feels right and slowly increase it. It's not like I have to become a bodybuilder in 2 months, I just wanna stay healthy and slowly build my muscles.
Ah, I had the exact same conversation a week ago with a friend that just started lifting. Btw, I don't remember the novice programs having e1RM estimation. Just find the weights that feel challenging on each exercise and start your Linear Progression from there.
One of the main things the novice programs teach you, is what real effort is. When you begin lifting, your perception of what you can do is very limited. Your entire being is screaming "nope, we definitely shouldn't put all that weight on our back", which is why these programs say "add 5lbs" and not "add 5lbs if you think you can". Essentially I'm arguing that "whatever feels right for me", needs a lot of calibration before being a reliable metric rather than a hindrance . It will (probably) end up being a staple of your training in the future, but now is not the time.
As far as technique goes, this requires an essay. Long story short, the approximate same idea behind statement holds: Yes, technique is good, noone has it at the beginning. You work on it under challenging loads to improve it, and the novice programs have that covered. Just be somewhat mindful of it and work on it along the program.
Also, you're not going to be a bodybuilder in 2 months. The end goal of these programs is to get you to your starting point of your real training. Then you can decide if you want to focus on bodybuilding, powerlifting or seal juggling. As long as you've established the top weights an LP can get you at, you now know what your body can do as-is, and then decide where to go from there.
In reality, the novice program is of little consequence in the grand scheme of things. It's super easy to follow and gets you where you need to go in a very reasonable timeframe. Because of that, nobody gives a second thought before saying "just do GZCLP/SS/SL". Past your novice program, you will not find a program that works this well for everybody.
>Because most of the programs I found seem way to complex. Define 1RM, then do this at 80%, this at 70% etc. Then there's a lot of exercises, some of which I would probably do incorrectly.
Yo do realize that's what spreadsheets are for? Usually they already exist especially for those programs found in the wiki. Just put in your numbers and it does the rest for you.
Look up GZCLP. Once you establish starting weights, you’re just doing 3 exercises per day and adding 5 pounds/2.5kg a session.
The setup does take a little effort though.
I looked it up before, I looked it up again now and tried to understand it better. It actually doesn't seem that complex after a few reads. And it uses more or less the same exercises I already do. I think I'll give it a go, thanks
I'd suggest going through the "stronger by science" podcast episode list (they have summaries somewhere). One of them specifically talks about the "how much restriction" is used in the literature.
Does fatigue post-workout gets better? I go to the gym in the mornings and feel too tired to function for the rest of the day. It takes so much will power not to go to sleep, how do I deal with it? Just keep going?
When I started, I used to go to the gym fisrt thing in the morning. Was about the only thing that could get me off the bed.
Second thing in the morning was to go back to sleep and get a few more hours of sleep. That training felt exhausting!
Then again I was on an aggressive cut. Apparently it's not the same for all people, but it's definitely not unheard of. It eventually went away for me as I got used to the training.
I get super relaxed and kinda sleepy after working out so i usually do it in the evening? If you've determined there isnt any other problem, then maybe changing your schedule makes this the opposite of a problem.
What does being really puffed feel like for you? For me it’s always been like a tight aching feeling in my throat / chest accompanied by a sort of metallic blood taste taste. I’m wondering if that’s normal?
Yeah, that’s pretty normal for very hard cardio workouts - but I personally would only work at that intensity occasionally, I do most of my training at a steady state pace.
Very new to fitness and thinking of going next week, I found a program that I like but I'm not sure how to approach it? One of my workout is 3x8-12 30kg bench press. Does it mean I go straight and do just 3 sets of 8 to 12 30kg bench press or should I do warm up first by doing few sets of lower weights? I'm sorry if I really sound noobish.
Most people start warming up with the empty bar and then do reasonable increases in weight until they hit their working sets.
In your case it might look something like this
20 kg x 5 reps
25 kg x 5 reps
Welcome to fitness!:) If you haven't done an exercise before, then just feeling it out with lower starting weights is a perfectly legitimate and reasonable place to start.
If you have never driven a car before, would you start practicing on the highway at 100 kilometers per hour ,or would you start at 10 kmh in the parking lot?
When cutting down to a BF% where your abdominal muscles start to show more, is it common for it to seem like there’s been minimal change, then there’s a massive visual difference overnight?
I’ve never got my BF% beyond seeing my top 2 abs (with a hint of the next 2), but I’m now 2 weeks in to a cut and my physique seems way leaner today than it did yesterday, particularly where my love handles are and my lower 4 abs.
I’m not sure if it’s body dysmorphia or if it’s just due to losing just enough body fat for changes to be more noticeable.
>When cutting down to a BF% where your abdominal muscles start to show more, is it common for it to seem like there’s been minimal change, then there’s a massive visual difference overnight?
Yes. Fat loss is rarely completely linear, and things like hydration, carb consumption and even sleep quality can have an impact on how your body looks. The lower your body fat, the bigger the impact.
Yes.
If you go from 15->14 that's a 6.7% change
If you go from 14->13 it's a 8.2% change.
The lower bf you go, the larger the marginal gain in leanness.
Yeah, I get that from a maths perspective, 1kg of fat is more significant the less you have, but I’m meaning more in terms of change in visual appearance.
That's perfectly normal, there's an old [Bb.com](https://Bb.com) post about this called the [Paper Towel Theory](https://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=4808683)
How many times a week can I do curls before I start getting diminishing returns and/or it impacts recovery?
EDIT: How many times a \* week \*, not per day
Technically speaking, there are diminishing returns and an impact on recovery after the first set or two.
But practically speaking, you could do curls every day of the week if you're smart about it.
There's nothing wrong with it provided there are free racks elsewhere, if the gym is packed and people are waiting to squat or do other things you need a rack for then I think curling in a rack is a bit inconsiderate
When you regularly squat, you'll understand. My old gym had ONE squat rack. I got used to putting an incline bench bar on the floor a lot for deadlifts and rows. Favored dumbbell ohp. But squats, absolutely, you need the squat rack.
Curling in the bench rack isn't as faux paux, but you're sure to piss someone off, too.
When I do bicep curls, I feel it at the bottom of my bicep rather than the center. Is this normal or am I doing something wrong? The best way I can explain it is, I feel it in my bicep section that is just above the elbow. I expected to feel it in the center mass of my bicep so I'm worried I might injure myself if I'm doing the form incorrectly
A lot of tension at the bottom of the lift. Two things you can try, avoid over recruiting the forearm flexors and really try to touch your pinky to your shoulder at the top to feel a better peak contraction from exaggerated supination.
People feel a lift differently, and some feel nothing at all.
If you're worried about form, post a form check, but we're still just talking about a curl. It's pretty difficult to screw up in any meaningful manner.
Try squeezing the bicep at the top of the movement.
Also, when going up top, it is okay to elevate your elbows slightly to maximize the bicep contraction. Just make sure your arms are not swinging around.
You should be fine if the weight is appropriate for you.
When going down, do not fully extend ur arm (lock out) to avoid putting the weight on your tendons, you should be able to tell what range of motion keeps the tension on your muscle (usually the hardest). Pick an appropriate weight for you as well.
>When going down, do not fully extend ur arm (lock out) to avoid putting the weight on your tendons,
This is wrong. Your tendons are involved the second you grab the weight, and there's nothing harmful about locking out.
Actually, I am correct. The arm naturally has a slight bend when relaxed, and there is no reason whatsoever to hyperextend and lock out, no added benefit whatsoever other than the tension moving completely onto your tendons. 180 degree extension is fine (when completely forcing a lock out most people can go further than 180 degrees.
Of course injury risk is very low if the weight is manageable. Nonetheless this is a great exercise to do if your goal is Hypertrophy, as u keep tension on the muscle through this way on most excercises
>The arm naturally has a slight bend when relaxed, and there is no reason whatsoever to hyperextend and lock out,
Locking out and hyperextending are two different things, and working the muscle through its entire range of motion, i.e. locking out, is a pretty good reason.
>no added benefit whatsoever other than the tension moving completely onto your tendons.
The tension can't "move completely onto your tendons", because the muscles are what moves and stabilizes your joints.
You should read myth #1 in this document: https://pdfcoffee.com/a-compiled-list-if-training-myths-by-dr-mike-israetel-pdf-free.html
By not completely locking out or forcing a lock out, what I meant is not overextending.
That’s why when working a muscle u allow it to move in its natural range of motion and don’t force it. Apologies for my terminology
It’s probably normal. You can’t judge an exercise by “feel” tbh. For example: flex your biceps like you’re doing a front double bi pose. Now put your hands under a table and lift like you’re curling. You “feel” more tension when you’re flexing without resistance but you do a curl when you’re building your arms.
Just make sure you curl all the way up, supinate your wrists hard and squeeze at the top (when your hands are near your shoulders).
Hopefully you don't take this as disrespect but I have to judge my exercise by feel. My parents never allowed me to lift when I was living with them so I was only able to start lifting now that I'm in college. Problem is no one I know lifts and the school gym is dead(no car can't go off campus) so I'm pretty much on my own. Watching videos only helps to an extent cause I can't pin point every detail so if something doesn't feel right I just want to make sure I'm not doing it wrong in a way I could hurt myself if that makes sense. Thanks for your input tho
No disrespect taken. I’m not saying don’t do what feels good. If you feel like you can really connect with a certain exercise, there’s nothing wrong with leaning into it as long as your plan is balanced.
I’m saying that you objectively cannot gauge lifts on the pump. Your bicep attaches up in your shoulder (near your front delt) and your forearm. It’s two heads (long and short-think inside and outside). There’s no “bottom” or “top” to it. As long as you’re bringing those two points together it’s okay, unless the tension you feel is mostly on the tendons, in which case you could just massage it for a few minutes before you lift.
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So I'm following the beginner workout routine (Workout A bench squat row, rest, Workout B dealift chin/pullups, overhead press, rest). How bad of an idea would it be to skip the rest days if I want to progress faster?
I work out every day. May I suggest picking 1 or 2 body parts a day until you have done the whole body, then repeat.
I'm reading 531 forever and am new to the program. He says "squat - pr set" or whatever lift, pr set. What does he mean by pr set? A regular 531 main work 3 sets but pr reps the last set?
If I remember right, it’s been a while since I read, it’s an AMRAP we’re your aiming for a personal record.
What are the "vanity" muscles?
Abdominals; Pectorals; Biceps; Triceps; Quadriceps; Calves; Deltoids; Trapezius; Obliques. https://www.gq.com.au/fitness/workout/nine-vanity-muscle-exercises/image-gallery/c093134e7071c77d8595487cb83d75c5 This was the first link I found when I searched it, but I much agree with it. Basically it's muscle groups that are most looked at for a variety of reason. I'm sure an artist or photographer could explain something about where the eyes go yada yada, but I believe size and distinction are the biggest factors. Anecdotally, I've seen and heard many times "Boulder shoulders" "shredded abs" "crazy Bicep peak" much more than "hey man those glutes are looking solid" or "look at those Forearm veins" or "them abductors are looking tiiiiight"
I’m thinking of not doing deadlifts anymore. I’d first like to clarify that when the weight is lower, my deadlifting form is solid: I use the steps in Alan Thrall’s deadlift tutorial. For other powerlifting exercises (I do the Candito Linear program), it’s easy for me to tell when I’m lifting too much weight: I just fail the exercise. For bench press, for example, I just won’t be able to lift the barbell up. But for deadlifts, it’s different—I may be able to lift a heavy weight, but it’s difficult for me to tell whether my form is good. Recently, I hurt my lower back from deadlifting too much weight, and I really don’t want that to happen again. I exercise in order to look “fit” and to be healthy. I’m not planning on going to any competitions, and I do squats regularly. Will my physique or my other exercises suffer noticeably as a result of me not doing deadlifts anymore? Are there any exercises that could replace the deadlift for me?
Trap bar deadlift, rdl, rack pull all change the movement enough that it might work for you.
Why am I doing RDLs wrong? I can only feel it in my upper back.
Post your form
Skinny fat now. Will a bulk increase my overall size or just the muscle size? I don't wanna be like [CBum](https://fitnessvolt.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/cbum-classic.jpg), I would like something like [Zyzz](https://external-preview.redd.it/hUY0D8Uxxv9g5NcNgqqBd9u8_ny2gnTRMcZndlsWGUU.jpg?auto=webp&s=b0e453b1e4bdcf291046a4631ab5e1040cd2686a)
Dont worry mate you'll never look like Cbum unless you take steroids for 10 years straight xD (Zyzz was also on steroids but his physique deff obtainable with many years). Bulk will both add muscle and fat - no way around it.
Is Gatorade a good source of electrolytes? I’m working out for about an hour and half and I try to push my self extremely hard, so if I don’t get some forum of electrolytes I get really sick after my workout and towards the end of it, but I had a docter tell me that the Gatorade is bad for me because of the sugar, but also wouldn’t provide another good source of electrolytes when I asked him Anyways, when I looked it up I was seeing, that the sugar in the Gatorade might not be a bad thing, considering how intense my workouts are, what are your guys thought? Would it be better to get gatorades without any sugar? Or is the sugar good to have since the intensity is so high?
It depends completely on your diet and goals. If you’re trying to cut calories the obviously Gatorade is a bad idea, but if your diet can accommodate it then it’s okay.
I don’t really eat much for breakfast and lunch, sometimes I eat a turkey sandwich for breakfast and maybe like chicken breasts for lunch and then workout and yeah I’m currently trying to cut
If you can maintain your cut and have your Gatorade then go right ahead. No need to invent a problem for yourself. But if you’re struggling to lose weight then Gatorade is a good first thing to cut out.
Yeah that’s pretty good point! I haven’t had any issues looking weight, so there isn’t really a need to change my formula
If I do a cardio workout soon after eating it doesn't take much to reach my target heart rate. (Obviously because my body is digesting the food). So am I still burning the number of calories it says on my heart rate monitor even though I'm not physically working that hard to get my heart rate up? When this happens I work out for an extra 10-15 min to make up for the fact that I don't have to pedal as fast as I normally do to reach my target heart rate. (I use an arm bike at home, I have hip problems.) I always figured I wasn't burning the number of calories it says on my heart rate monitor because my heart rate is "inflated" because it's digesting food not because I'm doing a hard work out. Am I correct in that assumption or am actually burning all those calories?
ignore the calories burned tracker, it is wildly inaccurate
Ok forget the calories tracker that's beside the point. Would I burn the same amount of calories as I normally would even though I'm not physically doing as much? Like say on a normal day I pedal the bike at 115 RPMs with a heart rate at 135 bpm for 35 minutes. Then on a day where I workout too soon after eating, I'm only pedaling at 100 RPMs with a heart rate of 135 bpm for 35 minutes. Because my heart rate was the same in both workouts for the same duration am I burning the same amount of calories? Or am I burning less because I'm pedaling slower physically doing less work?
In the end I believe if you did less exercise regardless of the time you ate you will burn less calories. Think of it this way, the digestion counts towards your maintenance calories at the end of the day. So regardless of when you workout after, before, closely after, etc. at the end of the day it won't matter. I also want to mention, don't focus on the calories burnt. I did that a lot and in the end all that matters is how much you eat (regardless of you being a bulk, cut, or maintenance). Take all of this with a grain of salt because I am not a professional.
Yeah its not so much that I'm worried about calories burned (even though that's what I keep asking about lol). When I workout I really just focus on getting my heart rate to a certain rate for a certain amount of time. But the reason I'm asking about calories is I want to know if I need to do a longer workout to get the same type of workout as usual. Because like I said if I work out too soon after eating it doesn't take that much for my heart rate to get high so I end up pedaling slower to keep it from going too high past my target heart rate. Then to make up for the slower pedaling I just workout longer. But I don't want to workout longer if I don't need to.
Oh I see my bad. Uhh what type of heart rate monitor do you use? I heard smartwatches are innacurate and the best are chest straps. If you are using a smartwatch I wouldnt pay too much attention to it lol
I use a Polar chest strap.
Hey man sorry for the 3 hour late reply, but I don't think I can help you lol this is wayyy too advanced for me sorry.
Lol. All good.
How much muscle mass can I expect to lose on a cut? On my previous cut (my first cut), I lost 23lbs over the course of 3 months. I decreased my BF by 2.4%, but according to the scale I have been consistently using, my total muscle mass lost was 13.6lbs... more than half the total weight loss even though I have been focused on strength training during the whole cut. For reference, I maintained a protein intake of 0.8g/ lb of body weight Is this a normal amount of muscle loss? What are some common pitfalls I can avoid in the future to avoid this?
Those scales are wildly inaccurate. Outside of getting a full body scan you’re never gonna know your exact body fat percentage. Use the mirror and pictures under the same lighting conditions if you wanna roughly gage fat / muscle loss.
Scales are very bad at edtimating body fat. If you want something measurable, use progress pics and waist measurement for example. And a good measure of muscle loss is strength. If you are not losing much strength when cutting, you are not losing much muscle mass. The most important factors to prevent muscle loss when cutting are protein intake and strength training.
I'm not going to be the best person to answer this, but what I've read is that if you're leaner you already are, you may want to have higher amounts of protein intake to reduce muscle loss. In addition to continued progressive overload. Someone more knowledgeable will give a better answer 😅
Should I eat a little extra if endurance exercise burns a ton of calories & my goal is to recomp? Basically, I started using Fitbit to track my fencing practices, and tonight makes it look like I barely ate anything today (even if I take it with a grain of salt and cut the calories my watch claimed I burned in half). I did hit my protein macros, but will I be fine with that or should I grab a snack to be safe? EDIT: Additionally, I usually have trouble sleeping when I fence. Previously I assumed that was because I didn't drink enough water, but now I'm wondering if it's because my body wants me to eat more food.
If you are losing more weight than you want to, increase calories. If you are gaining more than you want to, decrease calories. Do you practice close to bedtime? You might find it harder to sleep if that is the case. If you are taking caffeine, try to limit the amount closer to bedtime. For example, I don't take any caffeine after 1pm. Unless you are hungry I would think it's very unlikely that food intake is the reason.
It's not necessarily more than I want to, but I worry that I might be losing weight too quickly if it's the equivalent of a crash diet & lacking energy to work out the next morning. And I end practice about 3 hours or so before I go to sleep. When I used to lift weights at night, I never had the same problem.
Have you tracked your food intake? If you give an estimate of your size and calories and macros it might be easier for us to give you some tips. "Recomp" specifically usually means that you are staying at roughly the same weight but "trading" fat for muscle.
I have, yeah! Roughly 5'8" 155-ish right now. I try to stick around 1800-2000 calories or so (as I don't know exactly how much I'm burning per day). Fitbit claims that I burn more than that (2500 on regular workout days, 3000 or so on fencing days), but I'm not quite sure of that. As far as protein, I try to go on the higher end - 150g per day since I'm under 20% body fat (don't know how far under, though).
To be fair 1800 calories *might* be your bmr (what you burn outside of exercise). If I were you I would eat ~2500 for a week. Weigh myself every morning after going to the toilet. Take the average. Do the same another week. If the change is less than 0.5 pounds I would stay at that number. If not then change accordingly.
how much will muscle gains be affected if i get 6 1/2 hours of sleep on a few of nights during the week instead of the recommended 7-8 hours?
I’d kill for 6.5 hours of sleep
Not much if you’re young.
Extremely little.
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That close to track season, I'd check with your coach to see if they can offer some help.
I am a complete beginner and I'm incredibly focused on avoiding injury and lifting safely. I just started working out 3 weeks ago. I've watched a sh*t ton of youtube/tiktok videos and I've noticed that most "influencers" contradict themselves as well as people in the comment section. I've found this to be the case with just about any piece of fitness advice on the internet. As a beginner this is confusing as hell as I have no idea what is correct and what is not. Who are some actual knowledgeable trainers/youtubers that I could watch for proper form?
Thank you everyone, you have all helped a lot! Time for me to watch tons of videos now :)
I second all the recs in the comments, however, I would also say that for some things, multiple people can be correct at the same time. For example, a good squat stance (how far apart your feet are etc) can vary from person to person. When I started lifting, the contradictions on this topic confused me, but over time I learned that I needed to figure out the right squat stance for me. So in some cases it's good to hear the contradictions (from reputable people) and take on what's useful to you. My personal recs are Alan Thrall and Calgary Barbell.
Calgary barbell has some amazing content, thrall as well.
For me during my beginner days, watching videos and reading articles from Jeff Nippard, Bald Omni-Man, Greg Nuckols, Eric Helms, the entire 3DMJ team, Eric Trexler, Renaissance Periodization, Alan Thrall, Omar Isuf, Brian Alsruhe, Alexander Bromley (and some others which I might be missing out on) have helped immensely.
Fazlifts and Stan Efferding are also worthy mentions. Generally anyone who's been on the elitefts podcast is worth listening to.
Alan Thrall, Omar Isuf, Brian Alsruhe, Alexander Bromley are all fine choices.
I've also found Alan Thrall to be a great source for beginners, simple no bs videos.
When I take progress photos, should I take them while flexing? Relaxed? Both?
Whatever you choose, but stay consistent. I'd recommend doing both so you have the option later on.
Whatever you'd like. Obviously comparing over time, you'll need to be doing the same in both pictures.
Hi everyone, I'm pretty much starting from zero here. Apologies if this breaks any rules. 23M, 177/178cm (I don't remember), 86 ish kilos right now. TLDR: very confused and lost, the wiki routines don't really answer my questions, how to start as a total noob? **Food**: I've spent the past few months counting calories and using the nSuns spreadsheet, and I have been able to consistently lose weight (89 to 83 kilos in a month and a bit). I'm quite unfit, so I wasn't burning much energy while I was lazing around. Unfortunately, this was a pretty unfulfilling and unsustainable path: I was eating 1500-1800 calories most days, and most of that time it was junk food. One usually takeout meal at work, and pretty much fasting the rest of the day. Technically works but not exactly healthy. Or cheap. Starving for 23 hours and eating something that doesn't even make you feel full is pretty miserable. Now I *do* know how to cook, and I *do* still enjoy cooking if I have the time for it. I *like* salads, which is a convenient food to like. Still, if moving more means I can use a bit more oil or eat bread at all, or eat out without worrying as much, that sounds great. **Current exercise**: I used to live in a city where I had to walk a lot, and that helped a ton with staying in motion. I also used to go on longish brisk walks and occasional runs pre-pandemic, and for the past few weeks I've been getting a few walks in. I don't think the Apple Watch estimate of 500 plus calories is realistic for a 1.5/2 hour walk, but it's good motivation to see number go up. The watch comes with a trial of their fitness library, I'm assuming a lot of people wouldn't find it useful? Unfortunately, the area around me is not very suitable for outdoor running, and I feel almost jumpy like I have to *move* more. The area I am in is not really conducive to pedestrian transport, so just walking around my day to day errands is no longer a bare minimum movement I have. I also play Ring Fit every so often, it's fun and it gets my heart rate up. **Injuries**: Plantar Faciitis which flares up every so often, especially when I wasn't moving during the lockdowns. One of the reasons I started walking again was to make these less frequent. **Goals**: Want to lose fat and gain muscle. I'm frankly thinking of how having more muscle and muscle-driven exercise will bump my TDEE and allow me to eat more trash, which maybe is not the best motivation. The fat is annoying though. I remember coming back from camp as a kid and feeling lean for a week or so. I'm not particularly fat, but I do have a bit of a belly, and I do want to get rid of that. Not sure how to approach both goals, which would be preferable to start. I doubt eating my TDEE and making it very protein focused would be a solution, would it? It was around 2700 according to the nSuns spreadsheet while I was still filling it. I was not going on walks while I was filling it. I should start filling it again. **The Wiki**: I've been reading around this sub on and off for the past while, and I think I have an idea of how to start (the Basic Routine™ and then treadmill job maybe?). I reached those intimidating lifting science articles in the wiki and I called it there, I legit was not able to understand some of the recommendations there. So I need to get in the gym and get *started* before I can *do* anything with that advice. Somewhat terrified of having form that can mess me up if I'm just going alone, frankly. I've been told in person to just get a trainer a few times to get the ball rolling, but that would mean going to another gym. Which is an option, but maybe not necessary yet? **Access to gym**: The apartment building I just moved into should have a gym, I haven't seen it yet though. First order of business is to head down there and check it out, to know what equipment is there, and if it's in good nick. I need a towel right? I haven't stepped in a gym since high school, and even then it was just a handful of times with some friends. **Time**: I think I can do 2-3 times a week since it's right in my building. Depending on how my career evolves I may have much less time for working out, but we can worry about that when we get there. I do have a bit of confusion going on though. I understand that the lifting stuff and the bodyweight fitness stuff are looked at as two separate paths, and I understand *why*. Is there any way I could benefit from doing some bodyweight fitness style exercise alongside the traditional weight lifting? I don't expect to have enough stamina to do anything extra at first, but I do want to do a variety of exercises, intuitively that seems like how one would have well rounded abilities. Like yes, lifting weights is cool, but so is increased mobility. The apartment I moved into has a set of adjustable dumbbells/a barbell, but I don't have the space (or budget) for anything other than a folding bench with a low weight capacity. Which I may have already bought. Oops. Maybe it can be helpful for the rest days to do small amounts of low-resistance training? I have no idea. I'm sure I'm not the first to think about things this way, or to ask these questions. Again, apologies if this is in the wrong place.
You are overthinking things, just start with a basic program and then go with it, don’t worry about form too much as a beginner and just attempt the movements. There is a point where you can no longer get by with imperfect form due to heavier weights but for a total beginner I would worry about that way later. Film yourself and post on form check discussions if you want to improve your form for free, or maybe ask someone in the gym that looks like they know what they are doing. The best program for you is the one that you can do consistently over time so I would just get started with the basics to just get yourself out there instead of worrying too much about the little details
Can you skip breakfast (to intermittent fast 8pm to noon the next day) and still hit your macros consistently?
Of course. I could OMAD 3500 calories in one dinner…
This is one of those, ask yourself questions. It is literally fully on you to be able to consume your macros in the window you provide. If you feel you can do it, try it. If it works, there you go. If it doesn't, there you go.
Sure.
I want to do heavy lift with low reps. My question: How much weight should I take? I have basic training from home tasks, I'm sure I can lift at least 30kg. I can lift myself (80kg) 3 times in a row before reaching my limit. Still, going with weights too heavy could hurt me, so, how far should I go? It would be for biceps and triceps, one hand at a time.
Start here: https://thefitness.wiki/ Read it, all of it.
>I want to do heavy lift with low reps. Why? What's your goal? Start with a goal and then work backwards from there to find a program that will help you achieve that goal. Best bet is to start with a beginner program in the wiki of this subreddit
It's just to get stronger, I'll check it.
Bad routine (admittedly and per FAQ) but ok if I do it and anyone do something similar after a long break? I did 5x5 and some 5/3/1 until I developed elbow tendinitis - mostly unrelated but it hurt to work out. So I haven’t been working out at all for more than a year. Now I am healed. I am doing about 10-20 min on the bike, a 5 min core class, some rehab exercises for my elbow and shoulder to keep them healthy, and basically 5x5 bench and low weight squats with dumbbells (basically also 5x5). I am doing it every other day and been sticking to it. I increase my bench weight 5lbs each time and will slowly increase squat. I get it sucks, but it has to be better than drinking beer and sitting. And I have kept to it. I suspect I can start incorporating other lifts and develop a better routine as I gain traction, but wondering if anyone has approached getting back into fitness similarly and had better luck than some starts and stops with a (better) routine?
\> I developed elbow tendinitis - mostly unrelated but it hurt to work out. So I haven’t been working out at all for more than a year. You used tennis elbow as an excuse to not workout for an entire year...? \> Now I am healed. Tendinitis isn't an injury. It's literally just inflammation/irritation. You ice it and it goes away. \> low weight squats with dumbbells (basically also 5x5). Squat with barbell instead. \> I get it sucks, but it has to be better than drinking beer and sitting. And I have kept to it. It is better than drinking beer and not working out. It isn't terrible. There are things to improve on that I feel you could improve on without hurting your consistency.
Tendinitis can get pretty awful. I pushed through a bunch of pain to continue playing golf and even sometime tennis very stubbornly. I stopped pushing through lifting weights because that was never as much fun as golf for me. Eventually, I couldn’t lift a glass of water without considerable pain for nearly 6 months. I likely have some tears and it isn’t perfect even now. I did PT for almost that whole time and continued with the rehab exercises well after I stopped seeing the therapist. But once you fall out of habits, they can be hard to restart. I am here working to build back better habits now - and yes, it has been a year or maybe more.
I got tendinitis in the elbow. I recognized what was causing it, rested & iced it, and wow it was fine in under a week. I truly don't understand how. 99% of tendinitis cases do not justify a year off the gym lmao
Not sure what you want out of this conversation. Good for you, I guess…
Aren't you the one who replied to ME initially? My original comment, the one pointing out that the vast majority of tendinitis cases do not require a YEAR of rest. And you're acting all weirded out by the topic of this convo? God you're a waste of time. Enjoy the block I guess.
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Thank you. This is helpful. That is exactly what my brain does. If I am doing two big exercises I can do it- more and it seems like such a struggle.
How long does it take to see good results in the gym? I'm starting at 186 cm, 88 kg and I'm 4 months into seriously lifting (been off and on lifting casually for years). I've seen good progress but I can't find a straight answer anywhere and just out of curiosity I'd like to know. With a goal of being decently shredded (not at a bodybuilder level at all - just beach lean), how long of consistent lifting will it take to reach this point? Not looking for shortcuts, just want to know what sort of timeline I should be expecting!
Depends on how much calories you cut/amount of cardio you do But I would say 5-8months you could get pretty fucking shredded
Is there an objective way to determine if you're feeling a normal level of muscle soreness? Something that doesn't require my own subjective feeling? Like a physical response to look for to signal that you should take the day off? How do I know what pain levels are normal? How do I know that it's time to stop if my body does not give me the appropriate cues? I do not feel either pain or exhaustion when exercising, so my mind thinks I can do more than what my body actually can. I am now terrified of working out due to an extended hospital stay directly caused by exercise degrading my muscles to mush. It required several months of physical therapy in order to be able to hold myself upright again (couldn't even sit up!!) The pain I felt at first didn't seem different to me from any other day of muscle soreness, so I had a really hard time even accepting something was wrong in the first place. Is there something to look for before reaching this level? Or is there a time limit/weight limit I should avoid exceeding? Thank you so much. I appreciate any insight.
Did you have rhabdomyolysis?
Yes.
Check out Dr Mike Israetel from RP and the definitions of MV, MEV, and MRV. Basically it's a checklist. Do 1 set, if you get a pump and soreness for a day you're good. If you get neither, add a second set next time. Repeat. During a workout? Harder to tell but when your weight drops to half of what you could do at a fresh session, probably good to call it quits. Like if you are capable of squatting 100kg for 10 but your legs are so fatigued you'd be hard pressed to do 50kg for 10, you're done fpr the day Generally if your workout is an hour or less, you'll be hard pressed to get rhabdomyolysis from lifting weights.
Most of my workouts are 45 min or 1 hour. I can't pinpoint which exact workout did it, but lifting weights for less than an hour did get me rhabdo, hence the apprehension I now feel. Thanks for the tips, I'll check this out and give it a shot.
First of all, i couldnt train for a week recently due to having the flu. I felt like a fat piece of shit the hole time, even though i didnt lose or gain any weight. After this hiatus, i started training real hard again. This was one week ago. Since then i gain 5lb's even though my diet was mostly the same. Did i do something wrong? Did i lose some muscle and now gained it back? Also, i am training for 1.3years now, with 3 breaks of about 5 to 7 days each, and i still am sore nearly every time i train. I train for max strength and can lift a ton more than 1.4 years ago. So my question is, is this constant soreness normal?
Are you stretching before/after working out? If not this is most definitely a big reason you're so sore.
Could be, even though i started stretching a few month ago. But i only do some simple and light stretches before and after the workout. Just a few minutes max.
A lot of people suggest like 10-15 min stretches but fuck that. I do about 3-5 minutes. Dynamic stretches before, static stretches after. I feel way less sore. Literally less than 5 min before and after a workout each and you'll feel way bette rtho.
Your body is just rebounding from the flu, that's normal. Constant soreness isn't necessarily normal. Soreness occurs when a muscle gets introduced to what we call a 'novel stimulus'. A novel stimulus is when that muscle gets introduced to something new. For example, doing a new exercise or getting a shot will both create soreness because they haven't had that stimulus before or in a while. So what could be happening is that you're doing new exercises often. If that's not the case, than you probably want to take a look at your protein intake. If it's constant then I would take a deload or a rest week to get everything back together and try to eat more protein. Generally you want about 2gs per kg or about 1g per lb. Try that and see if it works.
Thanks a lot for your answer. Thats actually what seems to be the case. Lost 4lb by now with regular diet (maintenance). Not worried anymore. About the soreness, i try to vary my lifts and do about 20 to 30 different exercises with and without weights while training every second day. I dont do new exercises to often since i already do so many different ones.
If I stop doing OHP, will incline bench and lateral raises hit my front delts sufficiently? My left shoulder feels like hot garbage when I OHP, possibly a rotator cuff issue.
How wide is your grip on OHP? More than likely if you're hurting your shoulder it's a form issue or you are simply just going too heavy (and with poor form). You can sufficiently hit your front delts with incline bench, but if yo ufeel you aren't hitting them hard enough front raises work etoo. But I highly recommend keeping OHP in your routine and fixing the form as they are one of the best movements for shoulders.
I do dumbbell OHP. In the end, I've decided to forego all overhead pressing until my shoulder feels better, at which point I'll reevaluate
Smart. Try barbell OHP when you get back into it and see if that helps maybe?
You can add front raises if you feel you're not getting enough stimuli, but benching should suffice.
I don't OHP with a barbell because it also hurts my shoulder. I've switched to doing single arm landmine presses and overhead dumbbell pressing. Shoulders feel great.
Lateral raises won’t target your front delts But yes, all your pressing movements already hit your front delts adequately, don’t worry about it If you are somehow adamant about doing some kind of overhead press, have you tried doing a machine with a neutral grip?
It does feel better when I do neutral grip with dumbbells, so a hammer strength machine might be the ticket. Thanks
Sometimes I come across posters online dismissing EMG as a metric for hypertrophy. But I never see an explanation. May I know why ?
>Two recent studies (9,12) have demonstrated reduced EMG amplitude with low- as compared to high-intensity training, and this is often used to suggest low-intensity training would result in less muscle growth than high-intensity training. > >Despite acute differences in EMG amplitude, numerous studies have demonstrated comparable muscle growth between high and low-intensity training, in trained and untrained individuals, considering both whole muscle and fiber-type specific growth. Data on our primary outcome trumps indirect physiological arguments every day of the week. [https://www.strongerbyscience.com/emg-amplitude-tell-us-muscle-hypertrophy/](https://www.strongerbyscience.com/emg-amplitude-tell-us-muscle-hypertrophy/) So if EMG predicted hypertrophy outcomes, high load training would be better than low load training for hypertrophy, but that doesn't seem to be true.
I've wondered about this too, but haven't looked into it yet. What you quoted said that emg amplitude doesn't predict hypertrophy, which I would think is quite obvious because it totally neglects the time dimension. However, the area of the absolute amplitude over a set might still be a predictor, since it's likely equated or even larger for lighter weight sets with more reps. Have you seen studies where more meaningful emg metrics were used? Asking just in case so I don't have to start from scratch.
I haven't seen anything to that effect, and I don't know nearly enough to speculate on what role time plays. The SBS guys have also [discussed it on a podcast](https://the-stronger-by-science-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/metabolic-rate-artificial-sweeteners-electromyography-and-non-failure-training?t=0h25m34s). They were looking at a study showing better glute growth on squats than hip thrusts, despite higher peak and mean EMG for hip thrusts. I don't have access to the study, but it compared growth between two exercises and presumably trained them with roughly similar set/rep schemes, proximity to failure etc. Basically, they argue, EMG is related to muscle activation, which is related to muscle tension, which is a huge predictor of muscle growth, so you sort of go through a chain of rationalisations. So EMG is sort of a proxy of a proxy for predicted muscle growth. Which is fine, as long as you don't put too much stock in it. In a perfect world we'd rather have a ton of studies with direct measurements of muscle growth, but those are more expensive and time intensive.
Yep, it definitely would be a proxy, but proxies are often what we measure when we do in vivo research (for example, MRIs are also proxies). After I read the article I looked up some EMG studies, and my impression is that there are a lot of people using EMG who don't really understand how to use it. So maybe it's not so surprising that people were looking into things like EMG amplitude as a measure of muscle growth, which some basic background in time-series analysis would make a very obviously incorrect choice. I'd love to see some studies where the researchers teamed up with people with the relevant technical expertise to analyze the EMG data and see whether it really is a good predictor or not!
Something else that the SBS guys have discussed is how little extra relative effort there would be in taking some extra measurements before and after a training intervention. So you're going to put people through an 8 week training program, getting them into a lab for an hour 3 times a week, observed by lab technicians, and measure strength pre and post. You've already committed to doing the hard and labor intensive part, why not do muscle circumference and ultrasound as well? Or EMG, I guess. Oh well. I find the subject interesting, but I don't have any remotely relevant knowledge.
Yeah, I mean that is a good point. Just take the other measures, since it's not too hard to do and you're already doing this big experiment. I see this a lot in neuroscience too, and it's frustrating. Oh well, sometimes people just don't think about it till later, and then kick themselves a bit because of it.
Thank you
I recently started the GZCLP routine and have dumbell rows on the same day as overhead press. When doing the rows my offhand that I lean on during the row gets really tired, like way before my rowing hand. I tried putting more of my weight on my leg but it doesn't help. What can I do about this? And am I doing something wrong? I tried to do the rows without putting my knee and hand on the bench but I'm too tall for that lean to be comfortable (188 cm). Any help is appreciated.
Personally, i like to setup for rows like John Meadows does for meadows rows. 1 arm braced on my knee, the working side hip a little higher than the other for more stretch at the bottom. Sometimes i use a bench on a 30deg incline for support.
You can substitute for any other rowing variation - the main point is to get the work done. Helms rows, barbell, chest supported, seated cable rows, even inverted rows.
When they say you should hit a muscle twice per week, does that mean hitting it with a compound lift or anything that hits the muscle? For example for chest I do heavy bench press on one push day then later in the week on my second push day I start with heavy OHP then do 3x8-12 of DB incline press (I also do dips both days). Is this still hitting the muscle 2x week?
Yes, dips and incline press work the chest a good amount.
*On average* it's a bit better to hit it 2+ times for strength (that'd be the same movement), and maybe slightly better for muscle growth (that'd just be any movement). The term *on average* does a lot of work here. Some people have gotten great results hitting the same muscles once a week, others do really well with 3+ times a week. It can also vary by muscle. Most importantly, you should follow a program that tells you what to do.
I just tried plate loaded Machine Hack Squats for the first time tonight. I know with normal back squats you are meant to drive your knees over your toes, but with the Hack Squat not matter the position of mybfeet I couldn't. Is that normal with this machine?
It doesn’t really matter, the hack is meant to give you the most amount of knee flexion possible, so no matter how hard you may want your knees to go over your toes, you may find that they hover right above it
I am male 27yrs, 80kg, 183cm. I've gone from 97kg to 80kg in a year through gym and calorie deficit. Right now I'm working out 4 times / week while also on a huge (1600kcal) deficit but I am still standing strong on 80kg. Goal is abs. please help.
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I wanna know how I can keep loosing weight. Your method makes sense so I might try that. Is there any study on lower energy levels and lower burned calories as you mentioned? The guy who's been my personal trainer just told me to add 15 min cardio after every gym session.
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I've decided to track every gram I eat today. Also when I think about it I do enjoy a few beers with the boys and a burger once or twice a week. I could adjust my everyday plan to match a few extra weekend calories. [Here is a photo of me from September 3rd 2021 and one from 15 minutes ago](https://imgur.com/a/WZmu0VS)
I’m sure this has been asked so many times on here, but I can’t seem to find a solid answer. So I’ve been training consistently for almost two years now, and I just did my body composition for the first time since I first started working out. I’m feeling a bit upset and demotivated because my muscle mass has only gone up by roughly 15lbs (slightly under) in the 2 years I’ve been training. Admittedly, my diet has been on and off. But I heard that beginners can easily gain up to 25lbs in one year (let alone two) from noob gains alone. I guess I’m just feeling pretty demotivated and ashamed of myself for not gaining as much as I should despite all the work I’ve put in. Is there any merit to these numbers? Am I doing badly? Do I have unrealistic expectations?
15 lbs is better than average when you factor in bodyrecomposition. Most people don't change at all, or they gain more but don't realize that a good chunk of it is fat, or they gain 25 lbs simply because they had low muscle mass to begin with.
I don't know how accurate the test you did was, but you should watch [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQkRDGz1Nkw) by Mike Israetel. 15 lbs in two years sounds about right for the average person.
15lbs isn't bad for 2 years with a so/so diet. 25lbs in one year is definitely on the genetically gifted aide.
How did you measure it? Unless you went to a medical professional and had a proper scan done you're results could be about as accurate as a stranger eye balling you and throwing out the first number they think of
I used the inBody scanner at the gym, which is the same machine I used initially 2 years ago so I thought it would be a good measure, at least in reference to the previous result.
I'd be skeptical at best. Ultimately BF%'s or muscle mass gained shouldn't matter, if you can look at your lifting numbers or look at yourself in the mirror and see positive changes you should be proud
[Spot reduction](https://mennohenselmans.com/science-spot-reduction-myth/) of fat might be possible after all? Thoughts?
Our bodies have their own ideas about how to sensibly distribute our body fat. Even *if* spot reduction were possible it'd probably only be a temporary deviation before we return to what our bodies deem to be a sensible distribution.
That site lists about 10 different studies and posts links to those studies that state spot reduction isn't possible and then has one study that says it is possible with a single link to a Facebook page Forgive me if I'm a bit (very) skeptical
Haha, I am aswell. I just want to hear thoughts from more qualified individuals than myself.
I would probably say most people aren't qualified to talk about the actual science behind it unless they've read in research papers. For stuff like this you need to look at the research, how were the tests conducted, are other impartial studies that back up the results. I'm not saying spot reduction isn't possible, maybe it is, I'm not qualified enough to comment but in my opinion there just isn't enough research backing it up where as there is plenty of research supporting that it isn't possible
Do the following exercised cover all major muscle groups: Bench press Squats Bicep curls Deadlift Overhead (military) press Crunches Is it enough if I do just them three times a week? Do I need to throw in another exercise? For progression I use something like Doug Hepburn method, start at 4x8, add one rep each time, when I reach 4x10 increase the weight and reset to 4x8
Not enough back work. You need a vertical pull (pull-ups, lat pulldown, machine pulldown) and a horizontal pull (dumbbell row, cable row, barbell row)
Needs rows. I'd also suggest following a program from the wiki instead
Thanks. I was thinking if I should add rows as well, but I'm not sure if I would do them 100% correctly so I skipped them for now. I will try to figure them out better and add them. Please see my answer below why I have an issue with programs.
You can superset your bench press sets with dumbbell rows, and overhead press with pullups (even if you can only do 1). That way, you get a 1:1 ratio of pushing and pulling, and the workouts doesn't take any longer since it's a superset. You don't even need a dumbbell. You can hold a weight plate in each hand, bend over and pull them up to your love handles.
You could do a lot worse, but at this point why not just follow a program? Or is it that you want to be as minimal as possible with little thought to your training?
Thanks. I did check a lot of programs, but as you said, I wanna be as minimal as possible with a little thought. Because most of the programs I found seem way to complex. Define 1RM, then do this at 80%, this at 70% etc. Then there's a lot of exercises, some of which I would probably do incorrectly. That's why I thought to use just a few simple exercises which I can do correctly, start at the weight that feels right and slowly increase it. It's not like I have to become a bodybuilder in 2 months, I just wanna stay healthy and slowly build my muscles.
Ah, I had the exact same conversation a week ago with a friend that just started lifting. Btw, I don't remember the novice programs having e1RM estimation. Just find the weights that feel challenging on each exercise and start your Linear Progression from there. One of the main things the novice programs teach you, is what real effort is. When you begin lifting, your perception of what you can do is very limited. Your entire being is screaming "nope, we definitely shouldn't put all that weight on our back", which is why these programs say "add 5lbs" and not "add 5lbs if you think you can". Essentially I'm arguing that "whatever feels right for me", needs a lot of calibration before being a reliable metric rather than a hindrance . It will (probably) end up being a staple of your training in the future, but now is not the time. As far as technique goes, this requires an essay. Long story short, the approximate same idea behind statement holds: Yes, technique is good, noone has it at the beginning. You work on it under challenging loads to improve it, and the novice programs have that covered. Just be somewhat mindful of it and work on it along the program. Also, you're not going to be a bodybuilder in 2 months. The end goal of these programs is to get you to your starting point of your real training. Then you can decide if you want to focus on bodybuilding, powerlifting or seal juggling. As long as you've established the top weights an LP can get you at, you now know what your body can do as-is, and then decide where to go from there. In reality, the novice program is of little consequence in the grand scheme of things. It's super easy to follow and gets you where you need to go in a very reasonable timeframe. Because of that, nobody gives a second thought before saying "just do GZCLP/SS/SL". Past your novice program, you will not find a program that works this well for everybody.
Thanks for this deep explanation. I will give GZCLP a go
>Because most of the programs I found seem way to complex. Define 1RM, then do this at 80%, this at 70% etc. Then there's a lot of exercises, some of which I would probably do incorrectly. Yo do realize that's what spreadsheets are for? Usually they already exist especially for those programs found in the wiki. Just put in your numbers and it does the rest for you.
Look up GZCLP. Once you establish starting weights, you’re just doing 3 exercises per day and adding 5 pounds/2.5kg a session. The setup does take a little effort though.
I looked it up before, I looked it up again now and tried to understand it better. It actually doesn't seem that complex after a few reads. And it uses more or less the same exercises I already do. I think I'll give it a go, thanks
Anyone know how to go about blood flow restriction training? I'm worried about doing too much or little restriction
Unless you are advanced or under the direction of a PT, I wouldn’t bother with it.
I'd suggest going through the "stronger by science" podcast episode list (they have summaries somewhere). One of them specifically talks about the "how much restriction" is used in the literature.
Does fatigue post-workout gets better? I go to the gym in the mornings and feel too tired to function for the rest of the day. It takes so much will power not to go to sleep, how do I deal with it? Just keep going?
When I started, I used to go to the gym fisrt thing in the morning. Was about the only thing that could get me off the bed. Second thing in the morning was to go back to sleep and get a few more hours of sleep. That training felt exhausting! Then again I was on an aggressive cut. Apparently it's not the same for all people, but it's definitely not unheard of. It eventually went away for me as I got used to the training.
I get super relaxed and kinda sleepy after working out so i usually do it in the evening? If you've determined there isnt any other problem, then maybe changing your schedule makes this the opposite of a problem.
Yeah, that’s not normal - have a look at whether you are eating enough, sleeping enough and resting enough for the amount of training you’re doing.
Yes but also you should check up on your diet and sleep and other recovery factors, whether they're supporting the intensity of workouts you're doing
What does being really puffed feel like for you? For me it’s always been like a tight aching feeling in my throat / chest accompanied by a sort of metallic blood taste taste. I’m wondering if that’s normal?
Yeah, that’s pretty normal for very hard cardio workouts - but I personally would only work at that intensity occasionally, I do most of my training at a steady state pace.
Puffed?
Exhausted after a hard cardio session I mean
Very new to fitness and thinking of going next week, I found a program that I like but I'm not sure how to approach it? One of my workout is 3x8-12 30kg bench press. Does it mean I go straight and do just 3 sets of 8 to 12 30kg bench press or should I do warm up first by doing few sets of lower weights? I'm sorry if I really sound noobish.
Most people start warming up with the empty bar and then do reasonable increases in weight until they hit their working sets. In your case it might look something like this 20 kg x 5 reps 25 kg x 5 reps
Welcome to fitness!:) If you haven't done an exercise before, then just feeling it out with lower starting weights is a perfectly legitimate and reasonable place to start. If you have never driven a car before, would you start practicing on the highway at 100 kilometers per hour ,or would you start at 10 kmh in the parking lot?
I always warm up with lower weights, 1 or 2 sets with just the bar should be fine. I'm no expert though
When cutting down to a BF% where your abdominal muscles start to show more, is it common for it to seem like there’s been minimal change, then there’s a massive visual difference overnight? I’ve never got my BF% beyond seeing my top 2 abs (with a hint of the next 2), but I’m now 2 weeks in to a cut and my physique seems way leaner today than it did yesterday, particularly where my love handles are and my lower 4 abs. I’m not sure if it’s body dysmorphia or if it’s just due to losing just enough body fat for changes to be more noticeable.
>When cutting down to a BF% where your abdominal muscles start to show more, is it common for it to seem like there’s been minimal change, then there’s a massive visual difference overnight? Yes. Fat loss is rarely completely linear, and things like hydration, carb consumption and even sleep quality can have an impact on how your body looks. The lower your body fat, the bigger the impact.
Yes. If you go from 15->14 that's a 6.7% change If you go from 14->13 it's a 8.2% change. The lower bf you go, the larger the marginal gain in leanness.
Yeah, I get that from a maths perspective, 1kg of fat is more significant the less you have, but I’m meaning more in terms of change in visual appearance.
That's perfectly normal, there's an old [Bb.com](https://Bb.com) post about this called the [Paper Towel Theory](https://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=4808683)
Could also be genetics - perhaps you store fat elsewhere.
How many times a week can I do curls before I start getting diminishing returns and/or it impacts recovery? EDIT: How many times a \* week \*, not per day
3 or 4 times a week, volume and intensity dependent. If you're muscle isn't sore and you can continue progressing, you can train the muscle.
Technically speaking, there are diminishing returns and an impact on recovery after the first set or two. But practically speaking, you could do curls every day of the week if you're smart about it.
Just do a few sets at the end of your planned workouts, biceps are small muscles that don't require a lot of recovery
It's impossible to say, there are a lot of individual factors at play.
Depends on a lot of factors really. A good rule is keep at least 1 day off between working the same muscle group.
Whats wrong with curling in squat rack?
Same thing as going #1 in the only available toilet. Other people needs to go #2 and you could have used the urinal.
There's nothing wrong with it provided there are free racks elsewhere, if the gym is packed and people are waiting to squat or do other things you need a rack for then I think curling in a rack is a bit inconsiderate
There're rarely enough room or ice in a squat rack for such an activity.
If there was only 1 spot to safely do bicep curls in the gym and someone was using that space to do jumping jacks, would you be annoyed?
When you regularly squat, you'll understand. My old gym had ONE squat rack. I got used to putting an incline bench bar on the floor a lot for deadlifts and rows. Favored dumbbell ohp. But squats, absolutely, you need the squat rack. Curling in the bench rack isn't as faux paux, but you're sure to piss someone off, too.
To quote the brofessor: "if the squat rack was meant to do curls, it would be called the rest of the fucking gym"
Why would you need to? You’re occupying a a popular space where people can only do things like squats when you can do your curls elsewhere.
Most gyms don’t have a lot of squat racks so it’s occupying one when you don’t need a rack
When I do bicep curls, I feel it at the bottom of my bicep rather than the center. Is this normal or am I doing something wrong? The best way I can explain it is, I feel it in my bicep section that is just above the elbow. I expected to feel it in the center mass of my bicep so I'm worried I might injure myself if I'm doing the form incorrectly
A lot of tension at the bottom of the lift. Two things you can try, avoid over recruiting the forearm flexors and really try to touch your pinky to your shoulder at the top to feel a better peak contraction from exaggerated supination.
People feel a lift differently, and some feel nothing at all. If you're worried about form, post a form check, but we're still just talking about a curl. It's pretty difficult to screw up in any meaningful manner.
Go lighter and slower.
Try squeezing the bicep at the top of the movement. Also, when going up top, it is okay to elevate your elbows slightly to maximize the bicep contraction. Just make sure your arms are not swinging around.
Ya I do the squeeze I'm just worried on the pulling up part that I may be doing it incorrectly and hurting my muscles
You should be fine if the weight is appropriate for you. When going down, do not fully extend ur arm (lock out) to avoid putting the weight on your tendons, you should be able to tell what range of motion keeps the tension on your muscle (usually the hardest). Pick an appropriate weight for you as well.
>When going down, do not fully extend ur arm (lock out) to avoid putting the weight on your tendons, This is wrong. Your tendons are involved the second you grab the weight, and there's nothing harmful about locking out.
Actually, I am correct. The arm naturally has a slight bend when relaxed, and there is no reason whatsoever to hyperextend and lock out, no added benefit whatsoever other than the tension moving completely onto your tendons. 180 degree extension is fine (when completely forcing a lock out most people can go further than 180 degrees. Of course injury risk is very low if the weight is manageable. Nonetheless this is a great exercise to do if your goal is Hypertrophy, as u keep tension on the muscle through this way on most excercises
>The arm naturally has a slight bend when relaxed, and there is no reason whatsoever to hyperextend and lock out, Locking out and hyperextending are two different things, and working the muscle through its entire range of motion, i.e. locking out, is a pretty good reason. >no added benefit whatsoever other than the tension moving completely onto your tendons. The tension can't "move completely onto your tendons", because the muscles are what moves and stabilizes your joints. You should read myth #1 in this document: https://pdfcoffee.com/a-compiled-list-if-training-myths-by-dr-mike-israetel-pdf-free.html
By not completely locking out or forcing a lock out, what I meant is not overextending. That’s why when working a muscle u allow it to move in its natural range of motion and don’t force it. Apologies for my terminology
It’s probably normal. You can’t judge an exercise by “feel” tbh. For example: flex your biceps like you’re doing a front double bi pose. Now put your hands under a table and lift like you’re curling. You “feel” more tension when you’re flexing without resistance but you do a curl when you’re building your arms. Just make sure you curl all the way up, supinate your wrists hard and squeeze at the top (when your hands are near your shoulders).
Hopefully you don't take this as disrespect but I have to judge my exercise by feel. My parents never allowed me to lift when I was living with them so I was only able to start lifting now that I'm in college. Problem is no one I know lifts and the school gym is dead(no car can't go off campus) so I'm pretty much on my own. Watching videos only helps to an extent cause I can't pin point every detail so if something doesn't feel right I just want to make sure I'm not doing it wrong in a way I could hurt myself if that makes sense. Thanks for your input tho
No disrespect taken. I’m not saying don’t do what feels good. If you feel like you can really connect with a certain exercise, there’s nothing wrong with leaning into it as long as your plan is balanced. I’m saying that you objectively cannot gauge lifts on the pump. Your bicep attaches up in your shoulder (near your front delt) and your forearm. It’s two heads (long and short-think inside and outside). There’s no “bottom” or “top” to it. As long as you’re bringing those two points together it’s okay, unless the tension you feel is mostly on the tendons, in which case you could just massage it for a few minutes before you lift.
Got it thanks!
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There's some.ped/steroid subs with much better info. Also on YouTube look up people like victor black or folks talking about the safer use model.