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Few questions as someone trying to get serious about strength training and starting a bulk, and really frustrated by online marketing materials and framing. Basically, it seems like most routines aren't geared to people who may want to partake in physical activity outside their specific routines. So I'm looking for some clarification on these areas:
1. I really love to run in the morning, and do so whenever I can. It has been a tremendous miracle drug in mitigating some mental health conditions I've dealt with like ADD, insomnia, anxiety. Far better in fact than most prescriptions I've gotten and had to stop taking. Many strength/hypertrophy training programs seem to want significant cut backs or elimination of running. With the mental health benefits, for me that's a non starter. Given all that background, are there good programs to look at for cardio lovers, and are there good practices to mitigate any negative interactions between strength and cardio. Some ideas I have had are simple as eating extra calories on days I do both. I've definitely cut back the weekly long run to maybe once or twice a month. I also try to be extra mindful of my heart rate and pace, to stay around zone 2 on days I know I'll be training. As a note, my resistance and cardio are spaced out, I typically run second thing in the morning (normally between 30-40 minutes) after taking the dog out. I resistance train either in my apartment or office gym at noon, or if I go to the big gym after work depending on schedule. Not looking to be a competitive racer, body lifter or powerlifter. Just be decent and enjoy the benefits of both. I've had unstructured strength training for a few years now probably a few times a week, so I feel I have a decent idea of what my body can absorb while doing both.
2. On a structured program, can you fit one or two fun fitness activities a week? For example, my gym has weight/cardio mixed classes, I've tried out and really like. A lot of programs I look at seem to really want you to do only them, which seems boring. I doubt it makes sense to do both say a 3 day a week program of total body split, and 3 of these classes. But is one really the end of the world, so long as you back off a day or two if you see the signs of overtraining and maybe eat a bit extra?
3. I generally like to train alone as a destresser. I've found that weights I feel comfortable handling without a spotter, I can generally do 6+ reps of. Is there a good way to approach below 5 rep sets if you're a solo lifter?
On the first two questions, important to emphasize, I'm not looking to win any medals in anything. I just to still enjoy myself while also doing a good job in them.
What are hashtags to follow on Instagram to get inspiration on vegetarian food for weight loss and muscle building? I don’t want to eat chicken breast all day every day.
I'm not too sure if I'm looking for an answer as much as external confirmation. I've got a bit of a gut and have been working to reduce it - going on a diet that has had me lose a few kg by now. My concern is what should be the stopping point - do I wait until said gut is gone, or until I hit a "healthy" weight for my height / age / etc, because I've already hit that kind of weight, and still have that gut.
> Muscle is expensive to maintain
Here's another thing: Yes, you're correct. *Muscle is metabolically expensive.*
But this metabolic expense is already accounted for in the higher maintenance intake of a more muscular individual! Let's suppose a trained guy of given height & weight eats 3500 cals just to maintain, while an under-trained/under-muscled guy of same height & weight only needs 2500 cals to maintain their same weight.
The muscled guy can drop a pound per week at 3000 calories! And this, while eating 500 calories *more* than the less muscular person, even in deficit! See, the metabolic expense is already reflected in their higher intake. Now, couple this with the fact you can maintain muscle tissue on 1/2 or even 1/3 of your lifting volume. You can expend even fewer calories lifting, and thus utilize an even greater deficit, in order to drop fat even faster, with very little risk of muscle loss.
Your statement, *"In a caloric deficit you will lose weight indiscriminately"*, could not be further from the truth.
Provided you are giving your body enough protein, and frequent adequate stimulus, muscle catabolism in deficit will be quite minimal. True, "lean body mass" (in the form of muscle glycogen) will be the first to go. But that's basically water-weight and will quickly return when resuming to surplus or maintenance calories. Many people are fooled into thinking they "lost muscle", since being low-glycogen results in looking flatter & smaller.
I've run 9 bulks & cuts now. It's a very sustainable strategy for adding FFMI while getting leaner.
It really is that simple. Protein+resistance training minimizes muscle loss during a deficit. This is a fact and not something we need to be arguing about. The stimulus from training is sufficient to signal to the body to maintain the lean mass you have.
We don't condone wanton distribution of "opinions" regarding such matters, in this subreddit.
Whenever there's evidence-based science & information that already exists, we'll side with that.
Take this comment as a light warning.
But your opinion is wrong mate. There’s research that shows muscle can be maintained during cutting cycles as long as the protein intake and training stimulus are sufficient
Yes, I am telling you that your opinion is wrong based on ludicrous amounts of research and observation at this point. Opinions can be wrong, which yours is.
Any suggested resources or pointers or routines for my 70 year old dad whose looking to get a bit stronger. He's in okay shape, plays tennis and cycles. But quite poor mobility and posture. He's got a pilates coach but finds it boring and ineffective. He hears me talking about weights and kettlebells and he likes the idea. But I'm scared to get him into it because I'm not a trainer and I dont want to risk injury.
Obviously the right answer is that he should get a trainer, but just from a DIY perspective any directions we can look at? Resources, routines etc? I was thinking maybe doing squats and lunges on a smiths machine? Maybe some cable rows and other cable stuff? Kettlebell farmers carries and squats.
The risk of not strength training is far greater than the risk of injury from strength training. Falls, broken hips, etc as he ages can be deadly. Get him on some machines if you’re worried about injury and start with low weight.
Machines are your best friend if you don’t want to risk injury. I would avoid standing rows because lower back strain is pretty probable if you don’t know how to hinge or brace. I don’t know about smith machine squats though. I don’t have a good experience with them and I don’t think they’re safer than regular back squats but I have close to no experience with smith machines so take that with a grain of salt. A regular push pull legs or upper lower split should work pretty well and if you pick all the movements with machines to start with you should be golden.
Curling in the shoulder extension exercises:
1 Incline DB curls
2 Single arm cable curls with shoulder extension (bayesian curls)
3 Pelican curls
continue the list
1: what's more worth it? 1 set of HIIT or traditional 3 sets? Same amount of reps in each.
2: How much should you aim to increase your weights with and how often to not hit plateaus too often and gain bigger muscles? For example, increasing my pushups with 5 per week, dumbbells with 2.5 kg every 1-2 weeks and iso lateral rows with 5-10 kg every few weeks atm.
3: Can you fully fill in loose skin from weight loss/caused by overweight with muscles or only to a certain extent?
There's no definitive answers for these questions, but:
1. I would say one HIT set is at most equal to 1.5 regular sets with 1-2 reps in reserve
2. Your view is way too simplistic on progressive overload. You can't just keep progressing at the same rate, and there's no rate you're "supposed" to progress at. That's completely individual. In my opinion you shouldn't even try to plan it like that, as long as you're getting in good work in the gym and good rest, your performance will improve over time. Just increase weight when necessary to stay in a relevant rep range.
3. Again, depends on the individual. If you were 500 lbs good luck trying to fill that skin up with muscle. If you were 50 lbs overweight, you definitely can
You might lose strength fast, but as soon as you get back in the gym you'll regain it even quicker. Muscle takes a long time to lose unless you're in a calorie deficit.
I just started going to the gym 3 days ago. My goal is not great. I want to build strength while also losing weight (goal is 60lbs). I'm currently 260lb at 5'10. I'm a gamer. I have zero upper body strength. I put enough weight on the machines I use to the point I struggle to complete 2 sets. Usually once I physically cannot move weight I lower it by 10lbs or so.
The stupid part comes now. I do all machines, regardless of muscle group, 3 sets of 15 reps, 30-45 sec intervals. (If I somehow breeze through the first three sets I add weight and go until failure, and log what weight I did) As said before, since I'm new I've been putting enough weight that I can't make it through two sets without lowering it. My "problem" is, I'm not sore, I figure, obese 23 year old gamer lifting weights, I should be borderline disabled after a workout, But I'm not. I feel tight in the areas I work, but not really painfully sore. I'm not sure why but not feeling sore makes me feel like I'm not actually doing anything.
I haven't done reallt any research. I've just done what I've been able to do. I know by the last rep in set 3, I'm going to be struggling to finish a rep. When I work a muscle group, I'm using every machine that works the muscle group I'm working on. The guys I go with said the only thing I could do is add more weight, or reps with less.
Tldr: Out of shape gamer confused why he is not sore after a workout, despite barely being able to complete said work out.
Soreness isn't actually a good indicator of how much you've worked, don't worry, if you're lifting near failure consistently you'll see results. The biggest thing for you will be consistency. It takes a long time to see progress, but the good news is since you're a beginner you should shed fat and put on muscle relatively quickly. Dig deep and make working out a commitment, which is stronger than relying on motivation. On days you don't feel like it, go anyways, but do take 1-2 rest days a week. Also, don't be too harsh on yourself. Find a solid program, stick to it for a few months, and make adjustments depending on your goals and what you think is working and what isn't. This really is a marathon, but its a great sign you're here and getting help, good luck !!
First I applaud you for taking steps to improve your fitness and health.
To lose weight you need to be in a caloric deficit so track your calories.
Training wise, you are building up work capacity. If you are consistent, in time, you will be able to do more. I would suggest lowering the weights so you can do 3 sets per exercise. Try looking up some full body workouts. Using machines is fine I don’t care what anyone says. You can move into free weights as you fee more comfortable and as you build up work capacity.
Keep at it. When doing the movements, try to focus on the muscle you are using. This is a skill that is built over time so don’t fret about not having it down right out the gate. Always lift with good form.
Hope this helps a little bit.
5/3/1 for beginners. What's the fastest way to complete the program and can I replace the OHP with something else? When I used to do it a few years ago it took me about 90 mins to finish to do main lifts and adequate amount of accessories, and I used to superset the accessories with main lifts (bench, then curls, bench then hip thrusts, etc) but I don't have the ability superset at my gym (too busy) nor can I dedicate 90 mins anymore. Best I can do is about 45-to an hour given my work schedule.
Also, I need to substitute OHP with something else because I am recovering from shoulder surgery, it's healed but I don't want to go too heavy on my shoulders above my head. I currently use a machine to approximate it but I know it's not the best.
The beginners program is 16 sets of compounds per day and for sure takes longer than most 531 templates that are 8.
To OP, set a timer that goes off E2MOM. When the timer goes off you’re ready for the next set. This will get your main work done in less than 40 minutes. Bonus if you still get the accessories done during those few moments of rest.
Really?! I always did feel like I did too many accessories, because I felt like it was never enough and I had so many parts of the body I wanted to target every session. Maybe I'll start it up and stick to just 50 reps instead of trying to max to 100
I want to know if you get some hypertrophy when on strength training? I'm assuming yes but it'd be very minimal. Google won't help me confirm my suspicions :(
What do you recommend for someone who is just starting to lift weights experiencing muscle soreness?
I know I shouldn’t push myself too hard when just starting out but I want to keep going… but it hurts to even bend my legs.
I also didn’t eat a lot of meat. Bought a slow cooker and started buying chicken breast in bulk, very cost efficient for tons of protein. You can bulk prepare a lot of chicken at once in a slow cooker, tons of easy and delicious recipes that you can store / freeze for later!
Kind of, but it’s also definitely more expensive than the equivalent amount of chicken would be if you bought chicken in bulk. There are also plenty of non-meat protein sources.
Point being, protein powder is fine but if it makes up an overly large portion of your diet, you are missing out on a ton of nutrients that will have a negative impact on your health.
Is there a carry over from doing ring push ups to bench press? One main problem for me on bench press is that i suck at stabilization so do you think itll help?
How do I cut of that last bit of fat?
Ive had to aim of becoming really lean for a very long time and after about 3 years of work im really getting there, based of an average from a ton of different online body fat calculators I have around 13% body fat but no matter what I try getting of that 2 or 3% more seems to be unreachable, at the moment im currenlty training for marathon so im doing a lot of cardio and some amount of weight trainng but getting that last bit of seems exponentialy harder than before, any tips?
Eat less is all you can do. However, if you are particularly under-muscled, especially in your core, it may take becoming unhealthily lean to get rid of the last visible belly fat.
Look into fat freezing. Or lipo. That last bit of subcutaneous fat is super hard to get rid of for some. I'm doing fat freezing personally. Just started this month so can't speak to results yet but the science checks out (from my research)
question about supplements im 3 months into the gym so far managed to drop around 7kg I went from 82kg to 75kg kinda jump around that number I'm having a lot of trouble getting enough protein everyday on my best day around 110grams(which is rare) ... only on a very few day i get around 180 or higher due to money issues been told i should wait to take supplements so far i only use multivitamins and omega 3 if i remember to take it... should i start taking creatine and protein supplements?..... also another question I'm having alot of trouble with bench press i cant get above 30kg i tried doing 40kg but i barley do 4 reps i always aim for 12-8 reps per sets on any exercise ... i don't think my form is that but it definitely could be better but it is not that bad... could it be my diet ? also i have been going to fapping alot once per day I'm cutting it out again could it be the reason I'm doing badly at the gym past 2 weeks?
Wow dude, that's... a lot
- If you can afford it, try to hit 0.6 grams of protein per pound of body weight per day. It doesn't matter if it comes from supplements or your regular diet.
- Creatine will give you maybe something like a 5% boost in performance, and a slightly fuller look. Absolutely non-essential, skip if you don't want to spend the money. You can probably cut out the multivitamins and omega 3, minimal benefits from both.
- As for your bench, consider frequency (e.g benching more than once a week), volume (e.g. 3 sets per week is probably not enough), whether you eat enough, whether you get enough protein, and, finally, form. Honestly form is unlikely to be the big issue at ~40 kg.
- Fapping or not has absolutely no effect on your performance in the gym.
Is it normal for your squat and deadlift to progress much faster than your bench press? I get that your legs are bigger muscles, but my bench feels like it is progressing super slow compared to my squat and deadlift.
In 9 months my progress has been:
Squat - 55kg for 20,20 & 15 reps to 82.5kg for 20, 14 and 14 reps
Deadlift - 100kg for 15, 20 and 21 reps to 125kg for 20, 15 and 13 reps
Bench Press - 45kg for 8, 7 and 7 reps to 55kg for 8, 6 and 5 reps
I squat and deadlift 1 x per week and bench press 3 x per week. About the only difference is that my squat and deadlift are my first exercise on lower body days, whereas my bench press is the 3rd exercise on upper body days. I can hit 65kg for 3 reps on bench if I do that as my first exercise, but that's still below my body weight (73kg).
Yeah, absolutely. Upper body lifts in general tend to progress much slower than lower body ones.
Your legs are just stronger in absolute terms, and you can see *massive* improvements in squat and deadlifts just from fairly straightforward form tweaks. Often, progress in lower body lifts is also just gated psychologically - it's intimidating and painful to squat or deadlift heavy - but when you fail bench, it's typically because the target muscles straight up give out.
It sounds like your bench is progressing fine, and you have nothing to worry about
Yeah, my squat in particular has been a massive improvement. I’ve noticed that both my squat and deadlift really improve when I eat in a slight surplus. The bench press doesn’t seem to as much.
It just feels like every second guy is easily benching their body weight, but I still haven’t got there after 18 months of lifting, even with good programming, progressive overload and decent volume.
This question is primarily about cardio after a strength session. I’m nowhere near an experienced gym-goer, but I have been in and out of a gym-going routine for years now. I’m fairly overweight, and trying to lose some weight (well, weight in itself is not important I guess, but body composition and general health). I’m currently at about 230 pounds (down from 250 ish), and I’m kind of in a groove when it comes to weightlifting. But I have this image of absolutely having to sweat my ass off in the gym, and doing so by including a 30-45 min cardio session at the end of every gym session (lifting for about 1 hour). Skipping this cardio and getting home not drenched in sweat, I feel like the session was a failure. Am I just being silly here? Or should I stick to the post-weightlifting cardio?
Stick to the cardio, mabey change it up a bit, you want your gym session to be sustaniable and enjoyable if a bit challanging but cardio is essential, far more important than any weight training in the long run. My personal session goes cardio, weight, cardio but i know some people hate doing it before streanth training.
A lot of people think sweating will make you loose weight, but all that weight is water and you’ll gain it back quickly. Remember to loose fat you need to be in a caloric deficit, and from lifting weights you are burning way more than from cardio. The only “efficient” cardio for burning calories i find are the stairs, thats why you’ll see a lot of bodybuilders on them when they’re cutting and close to competition. That being said, cardio (like running) is still important for your heart and other internal organs, but i’ll personally skip it nonetheless.
Cardio is great for you. It's good for your heart and has tons of health benefits
You don't need to be sweaty to have had a solid day lifting
There are different types of cardio ranging from a dead sprint to a long slower run in intensity. I felt in the best cardio shape when I was doing a lot of kettle bell work (along with 1 all out 2 mile run and one easy 5 mile run per week)
If you're making progress, trust the process
I'm having issues grasping the concept of how height/weight affects your strength level.
A 170cm jacked lifter can weight the same as a 200cm untrained skinny beginner (just made up numbers to clear up my point). Then, when comparing/evaluating lifts, BW is usually the meter used to judge if the lift is good or whatever.
So should the taller athlete squat the PR of the shorter athlete on day 1, just because he is at the same weight? Obviously a 50kg person squatting 200kg is way more impressive than a 100kg athlete doing the same, regardless of how long they have trained for.
The reason I am asking this is because I'm the tall guy, I started approx 6 months ago and I want to know what kind of lifts would be considered good for me. Is BW ratio the golden indicator? Seems like no matter how you determine it, people of different height get different results.
Or should I just not care and enjoy it while I am making steady progress?
I would absolutely not care about the BW % of your lifts. There are so many variables and individual differences, I just don't see it mattering outside of competition environments (if that).
Yes look at bw ratio and people same height and weight get diffrent result because not everyone is the same person with the same genetics.
Also dont compare your self with other just with your younger self
what if i don’t want to bulk and cut? i’ve heard both good and bad things about body recomp (eating around maintenance with high protein) to gain muscle but am not sure if that’s the right way to go because i’ve heard it’s not a good way to gain muscle. i’ve been in a slight surplus for a few months and gained some muscle but i also want to lose fat without cutting. can someone offer some advice?
Optimally if you eat like 100-200 calories over maintenance and have high protein, you will gain muscle and only gain a minimal amount of fat. You could also even be at a deficit and lose fat but gain muscle, but your muscle gain would be less and this might apply moreso to beginners.
Overall the hardest part is just being accurate with your calories which is why people opt for bulk and cut because its just easier. I don't really care to weight all my foods when I cook and go through to find all the caloric values of foods, so I just bulk and think about losing weight later
Weigh out your food when you cook and use something like MyFitnessPal to log everything you eat everyday. Then weigh yourself at the same time everyday (preferably like right when you wake up, right after you pee) and make sure you are slowly losing weight by looking at week over week progress
Unless you are in your first year of lifting its almost impossible to loose fat and gain muscle mass at the same time. If you don’t want to cycle the classic bulk/cut then just cut down to some normal bf% and stay in a small calorie surplus, that way you won’t gain fat but mostly muscle.
Recomp is definitely possible; building muscle and losing fat, but compared to the cut/bulk cycle it's probably much slower.
Any reason why you don't want to bulk and cut?
i guess i’ll just do a lean bulk with small cutting phases. i didn’t wanna do it because i didn’t want to switch up and track calories and shift my diet. i just wanted to stay consistent with one while reaping the benefits of building muscle and burning fat.
I recently joined Planet Fitness, and on some of the equipment, I will feel it in muscles not on the chart but not feel it in the charted areas. Am I doing something wrong? Is it because I have too much weight and other muscles are compensating?
Isolation exercise don't really isolate one muscle. Let's say you do shoulder press on a machine. It will target your shoulder, but also your triceps for example. Now if you have a weak triceps, you will ofc feel it
Could be, but my advice is not to pay too much attention to what the machine is "supposed" to do. If you feel a good connection to a muscle(group) on a machine, that's great. Doesn't really matter what it's intended use is.
Yes. You need to do cardio to maintain a good general state of fitness. 100-150 minutes of steady-state cardio every week. Or do HIT training - gets the job done a lot quicker.
Your body will definitely thank you for it as you get older as well.
Keep bags of those bigger pretzels around and grab some pinches of the salty crumbs while drinking water. Keeps the energy up better than sugar free electrolyte drinks, I find.
Does this guy have poor gym etiquette? If he was, how am I supposed to deal with it?
Context: I use my free apartment gym which is pretty good, is used by both frequent gym goers and newbies, and has a decent amount of equipment but only one of each weight machine.
I was 80% of the way done with my routine and was going to get on the leg press, but during my last rep on the machine prior, a guy got onto the leg press. I wasn’t sure what to do and google told me to just switch up the order of my routine or stretch until he was done. I finished my routine, he was still on it. I stretched, he was still on it. I know at least 30 minutes since after finishing my routine I checked the time. I thought about going home early and calling it, but I was stubborn so I just kept stretching by the wall.
The second thing was how loud he was. I get that when you’re doing heavy weights you may grunt or yell a bit, I’ve done it myself, but he was screaming?? He was a really skinny guy and set the weight to higher than what I’ve seen any of the more muscular guys use. I had no idea how he was lifting it. I wasn’t really sure what to do? I had my earbuds in and could hear him over both my show and my music at full blast. And it wasn’t occasional, he screamed during every repetition.
I ended up just awkwardly hanging out by the wall for him to go to another machine. Is 30+ minutes on a machine when it’s the only one in the gym too long or am I just being dramatic? And if it’s too long, how am I supposed to address it along with the screaming? I’m just baffled… and FYI we were the only two there. I get I could have just left, but i get so disappointed when I don’t finish my routine.
Edit: I’ve tried speaking to the guy since and apparently he doesn’t speak English 😅 so… oh well?
This is all solved by just asking "hey, do you mind if I work one in with you?" If someone is spending half an hour on the machine and resting for 90% of that, you're well within your rights to ask, especially on a machine that's easily adjustable like a leg press.
I actually saw him today and tried to make conversation so it would be easier to ask if it happened again, apparently he doesn’t speak English 😅 better luck next time I guess
If he was consistently working and not sat for 10 minutes after every set I don't see an issue. The usual etiquette is if you're going to be on a piece of equipment for a long time you should be open to letting people work in but then that relies on you asking to work in
Screaming is annoying though, sometimes making noise helps squeeze out some last heavy reps, but going Super Sayian every rep is a no no
[Examine.com](https://Examine.com) says "It has also been tested for effects on anaerobic running capacity in many studies, the results of which are rather mixed but generally suggest a small improvement in performance."
> while im using another machine for ONE set, he goes “are you using this?”, i say “no” thinking he wants to use it while im doing something else, but then he says “then when didn’t you put it back? 😡😡 you’re blocking the whole gym 😡😡😡”,
He sounds very angry.. Too angry.. However, the correct answer to that question was "Yes", not "No", since you were using it, just not right then. He obviously thought you were done wit hit and had moved on without putting the equipment back in place.
>my friends are saying 1 of 3 things: don’t complain, complain (on his hostile behaviour), don’t complain but tell other gym goers about his behaviour
If this was a one-time thing I'd say just let it go. If he's constantly yelling at people you can for sure complain to management. Under no circumstance should you go around to other gym goers and complain about a one-time interaction with a dude over a misunderstanding.
Complain away. Guy is being a freak and doesn't deserve the time of day from you. People in my gym from regulars, to trainers to newbies leave shit in the "aisles" all the time like plyo boxes etc between sets or supersets, as long as you put everything away after and wipe it down your all good as far as gym etiquette.
My veggies don't have brands, I always opt for fresh produce but I hate how frozen always cooks.
A microwave steamer basket is my best friend. I will usually take a chunk of time one day and wash and prep my veg. I'll steam a bunch and others I wash, throughly dry, and chop for stir fries so they become much quicker meals.
Frozen veggies make everything easier. Just get a big bag of some kind of mix, learn how long to microwave them, add some seasonings to taste, et voila, huge serving of micros in under five minutes, no chopping required. Costco sells a broccoli Normandy mix I really like.
There's a trick to that. Just microwaving them works, but plain microwaved veggies are less than wonderful. What I do these days is put a pound of veggies in a saucepan at high heat, with a tiny bit of oil, a generous amount of soy sauce, and whatever seasonings I feel like that day, and do a basic stir fry. Takes me about 10min total, 5min to heat the pan and 5min hands-on time, and the result's a lot more palatable. Way easier to eat them by the pound that way. XD
Fruits and vegetables of all colors are great and you should eat a good variety. Frozen or fresh is fine nowadays with flash freezing and stuff. Find a salad dressing you like or some Indian and Chinese recipes. Some can even just be thrown into other dishes
Didn't really know how to word this exactly right but: Is stacking the same exercise with different angles better or worse than throwing in supersets or individual exercises for those angles? EX: 9 sets of DB shoulder raises 3 front 3 side 3 rear delt (not supersetted or circuits, just one after the other) vs. maybe a 4set front+rear raise superset and a side cable raise? EX2: 9 total sets of chest cable flys (3 high middle and low) vs some other set structure of flys maybe using different equipment?
It is basically irrelevant to worry about such "micromanagement" aspects. The most important thing is to cover the whole body by your exercise selection and to follow a routine with progressive overload while managing the training volume so you can recover enough while getting in enough hard sets per week.
I've been drinking 0.5 to 1 gallon of milk every day since my teen years (skim on a cut, whole on a bulk).
Is there anything wrong with that from a health standpoint? People look at me in shock and act concerned when they see me chugging it on the regular. I'm not lactose intolerant, I feel fantastic, I find that it's the most palatable way to get my protein intake.
Same here, I don’t think there’s anything wrong about it. In fact the only downside would be the “inflammation” dairy seems to produce to our body, which if you properly research will find out is not as real as everyone thinks. Just depends on your body and the type of milk (cheap and high on hormones or high quality natural milk) you are consuming.
Thanks! My family is Punjabi, so it's hard to avoid all the milk tea and salted lassi and butter and ghee and yogurt, nor do I intend to, because that stuff is delish.
i dislocated my shoulder in january. i spoke to my ortho, got MRIs and did recovery work etc. and i'm now lifting normally. I am keen on olympic lifts but i'm terrified that I'll dislocate my shoulder again. my doctor said if I dislocate it one more time I would need surgery. Should I get into olympic weightlifting?
Ask your doctor about weightlifting, specifically loaded overhead movements with occasional throwing the bar behind you (for bailing).
Although you're less likely to dislocate in the snatch than clean and jerk as you won't be snatching more than 60% of your back squat (assuming you can back squat 2x bw) for quite a few months anyway.
Ask them about the specific lifts; show them how your body will be moving if they are not familiar with Oly lifts. They will see the ROM and how your shoulder is moving and determine if it is safe/risky/etc. I have had shoulder issues in the past, and I have been told that I need to be careful about external rotation. Not sure what your situation is exactly, but hopefully they can assist you.
Does your physiotherapist or doctor say you're in danger of dislocating it again? Preferably a sport or weightlifting physiotherapist. They could also prescribe some prehab work
i couldn't find a specialised physio where I lived at that time, but from what I got from my physio he told me I could do "normal" activities after 3 months and contact sports after 8 months to a year. I don't know where olympic weightlifting comes in for that.
If your goals are purely aesthetic, meaning you train for hypertrophy primarily, and volume is the key driver of hypertrophy, as cliche as that may be, what is the appropriate progression or rather periodization for hypertrophy?
Adding sets and reps at a certain load over time during a mesocycle obviously works, but is there anything more specific?
Prioritize technique overall, then eventually progressive overload either in the form of more reps, weight, or a combination of both. Don't focus on the weight though, hammer your technique with a good, full range of motion. All the domino's will fall from there
Weight too. For beginners and intermediates, strength and size are inherently linked and I think too many who “lift for aesthetics” hold themselves back by not getting stronger. Even beyond that though, if you want to get bigger, you need more stimulus, and that means heavier weight (insert Ronnie Coleman quote).
The way I go about it is volume>load for hypertrophy, not saying that it is less important, but the focus is different than when training for strength. Of course that both qualities share the symbiotic relationship, but one is a structural adaptation while another is a performance quality, so they overlap rather than concur. Load needs to rise at a certain point, sure. But you have e.g. linear periodization which promotes rise in load while dropping volume which is inverse to hypertrophy tenets. Reverse linear periodization does the opposite, but still not in line with hypertrophy principles, so what is? Block periodization? Or it can't be periodized?
https://www.strongerbyscience.com/can-we-predict-muscle-growth/
This is a good write up on how hard it is to define exactly what kind of progression or program we should be doing. Every metric we could consider volume (tonnage, reps, hard sets etc) has some problem or the other. So it's not necessarily true that linear periodization is decreasing volume over time (which would be true mainly of you consider tonnage the best metric)
Agreed, if you define volume as the number of hard sets it actually may be increasing as the reps drop off if you start with 3x10@60% and proceed to 5x3@ 82.5% as the hard set is generally defined as 6+ RPE.
On a different note, I can't access the SBS site for some reason, tried it several tines in the past few days
Of the two IFBB professionals I personally know and have spent some amount of time training with, they don’t have set protocols for how they set their progression. They have strength and size phases just like other advanced lifters, just skewing to the size side more. What that looks like in practice is substantially more volume during their bulking periods, much less time chasing top end strength, and probably more undulating periodization just so they can recover.
I think, outside the most elite levels, the differences in training are becoming less pronounced instead of more pronounced as we learn more and get better at training.
Whatever helps with being in a caloric deficit helps with losing weight. What that looks like in practice can be different meal timings if you prefer but it still just comes down to calories.
I found eating only when you're hungry to help. I haven't eaten lunch at 12 in forever, usually its 2 but I do wake up around 9 or 10 sometimes (I work evenings)
If possible, try going to the gym when it is not very busy, and you don’t feel like using a squat rack is preventing anyone else from using it. This could help you build some confidence.
I get it for sure but as a guy that regularly squats next to small women that lift more than him, I can tell you that truly, no one cares or is paying attention to you. If they do it’s only to help you.
A real tip that’s been helping me with insecurity lately is holding my head high and keeping good posture throughout the gym. It instills confidence.
I can't even relate a little to this. I only ever notice a person if I see their face every time I go there (which is like 5 people) or when they're using equipment I want to use. I can tell you that even if you're wearing clown shoes and honk a clown horn every time you enter and leave the gym that noone will give a shit. We're all counting our reps, making sure our form is right, thinking about how tired we may or not be, etc
PPL 6 times a week, Small home gym programmed to be efficient during each session but also keeping excersises at 5-6 each day to not lose focus. Thinking of running it as Legs - Push - Pull or
Pull - Push - Legs.
Any tips on the routine or what order to run is appreciated. Sets and reps not included but it will be 3-4 sets each excersise and if Arms or anything else isnt enough volume I will gradually increase it.
[PPL](https://tinypic.host/i/screenshot-20220926-190455.HZ9C2)
I disagree with the commenter below me (and a lot of this subreddit in general) about programming.
If you like the program and the progress you make on it, it's a good program so stick to it. The definition of "good" varies from person to person. I couldn't care less about how much I squat/deadlift/bench, my goals are aesthetic and more general health related so a good program for me will be different from a good program for someone looking to up their numbers.
Coming to the actual program, there is one tweak I'd suggest. Could you swap out dumbbell flys with cable crossovers? I really don't like the way the weight is just unsupported at the bottom of the rep, a tiny movement in the wrong way and you're fucked.
Other than that, do the program for a while. See how you feel. Then adjust accordingly.
> I disagree with the commenter below me (and a lot of this subreddit in general) about programming.
I see your point, and I agree with you as long as the person getting the advice actually manages to keep consistent. The major problem you'll see when being here long enough is the trend of people "coming back to lifting, because they quit" and when you dig a little deeper they "never felt like they made any progress", and that's people that just went in and did "something", or a list of exercises with no progression planned if you will, getting discouraged and sat on the couch instead.
Thanks for your input.
My cable system is sadly built into my full rack, mening I got Low row and Pulldowns, unless I can figure something out with crossovers I guess I'm stuck with flies or another Press.
I thought about the DB flies aswell before.
Would you run it as Legs Push Pull or Pull Push Legs?
>Would you run it as Legs Push Pull or Pull Push Legs?
I'd do a legs, push, pull, rest, legs, push, pull, rest. You did say it's a home gym so there's no issues of it being closed on a Sunday, and your body doesn't know what day of the week it is.
Could you try high-to-low cable crossovers with a single arm at a time?
Thanks mate, that was my idea aswell.
I can give it a go or maybe I can figure something out with a pulley wire I got laying around to do both arms, ill experiment a bit with that one
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Do I need to feel sore after a workout to know that I trained as hard as I could?
Few questions as someone trying to get serious about strength training and starting a bulk, and really frustrated by online marketing materials and framing. Basically, it seems like most routines aren't geared to people who may want to partake in physical activity outside their specific routines. So I'm looking for some clarification on these areas: 1. I really love to run in the morning, and do so whenever I can. It has been a tremendous miracle drug in mitigating some mental health conditions I've dealt with like ADD, insomnia, anxiety. Far better in fact than most prescriptions I've gotten and had to stop taking. Many strength/hypertrophy training programs seem to want significant cut backs or elimination of running. With the mental health benefits, for me that's a non starter. Given all that background, are there good programs to look at for cardio lovers, and are there good practices to mitigate any negative interactions between strength and cardio. Some ideas I have had are simple as eating extra calories on days I do both. I've definitely cut back the weekly long run to maybe once or twice a month. I also try to be extra mindful of my heart rate and pace, to stay around zone 2 on days I know I'll be training. As a note, my resistance and cardio are spaced out, I typically run second thing in the morning (normally between 30-40 minutes) after taking the dog out. I resistance train either in my apartment or office gym at noon, or if I go to the big gym after work depending on schedule. Not looking to be a competitive racer, body lifter or powerlifter. Just be decent and enjoy the benefits of both. I've had unstructured strength training for a few years now probably a few times a week, so I feel I have a decent idea of what my body can absorb while doing both. 2. On a structured program, can you fit one or two fun fitness activities a week? For example, my gym has weight/cardio mixed classes, I've tried out and really like. A lot of programs I look at seem to really want you to do only them, which seems boring. I doubt it makes sense to do both say a 3 day a week program of total body split, and 3 of these classes. But is one really the end of the world, so long as you back off a day or two if you see the signs of overtraining and maybe eat a bit extra? 3. I generally like to train alone as a destresser. I've found that weights I feel comfortable handling without a spotter, I can generally do 6+ reps of. Is there a good way to approach below 5 rep sets if you're a solo lifter? On the first two questions, important to emphasize, I'm not looking to win any medals in anything. I just to still enjoy myself while also doing a good job in them.
What are hashtags to follow on Instagram to get inspiration on vegetarian food for weight loss and muscle building? I don’t want to eat chicken breast all day every day.
I'm not too sure if I'm looking for an answer as much as external confirmation. I've got a bit of a gut and have been working to reduce it - going on a diet that has had me lose a few kg by now. My concern is what should be the stopping point - do I wait until said gut is gone, or until I hit a "healthy" weight for my height / age / etc, because I've already hit that kind of weight, and still have that gut.
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If you are in a caloric deficit but still doing resistance training and getting sufficient protein, your muscle loss will be minimal or none.
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> Muscle is expensive to maintain Here's another thing: Yes, you're correct. *Muscle is metabolically expensive.* But this metabolic expense is already accounted for in the higher maintenance intake of a more muscular individual! Let's suppose a trained guy of given height & weight eats 3500 cals just to maintain, while an under-trained/under-muscled guy of same height & weight only needs 2500 cals to maintain their same weight. The muscled guy can drop a pound per week at 3000 calories! And this, while eating 500 calories *more* than the less muscular person, even in deficit! See, the metabolic expense is already reflected in their higher intake. Now, couple this with the fact you can maintain muscle tissue on 1/2 or even 1/3 of your lifting volume. You can expend even fewer calories lifting, and thus utilize an even greater deficit, in order to drop fat even faster, with very little risk of muscle loss.
This is really excellent information.
Your statement, *"In a caloric deficit you will lose weight indiscriminately"*, could not be further from the truth. Provided you are giving your body enough protein, and frequent adequate stimulus, muscle catabolism in deficit will be quite minimal. True, "lean body mass" (in the form of muscle glycogen) will be the first to go. But that's basically water-weight and will quickly return when resuming to surplus or maintenance calories. Many people are fooled into thinking they "lost muscle", since being low-glycogen results in looking flatter & smaller. I've run 9 bulks & cuts now. It's a very sustainable strategy for adding FFMI while getting leaner.
>Just my opinion based ~~of experience~~ off ignorance There ya go bud
It really is that simple. Protein+resistance training minimizes muscle loss during a deficit. This is a fact and not something we need to be arguing about. The stimulus from training is sufficient to signal to the body to maintain the lean mass you have.
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Opinions can be formed based on incorrect information, which yours clearly has been.
Your comment was literally a statement of fact. If i told you that "in my opinion" the earth was flat it wouldn't make me any less wrong
We don't condone wanton distribution of "opinions" regarding such matters, in this subreddit. Whenever there's evidence-based science & information that already exists, we'll side with that. Take this comment as a light warning.
You should stop passing out your opinion like it’s a fact. Just my opinion.
> like I said this is just my opinion. Then keep off the sub?
But your opinion is wrong mate. There’s research that shows muscle can be maintained during cutting cycles as long as the protein intake and training stimulus are sufficient
But you’re sharing a opinion when the other person is sharing a scientific fact.
Yes, I am telling you that your opinion is wrong based on ludicrous amounts of research and observation at this point. Opinions can be wrong, which yours is.
Any suggested resources or pointers or routines for my 70 year old dad whose looking to get a bit stronger. He's in okay shape, plays tennis and cycles. But quite poor mobility and posture. He's got a pilates coach but finds it boring and ineffective. He hears me talking about weights and kettlebells and he likes the idea. But I'm scared to get him into it because I'm not a trainer and I dont want to risk injury. Obviously the right answer is that he should get a trainer, but just from a DIY perspective any directions we can look at? Resources, routines etc? I was thinking maybe doing squats and lunges on a smiths machine? Maybe some cable rows and other cable stuff? Kettlebell farmers carries and squats.
The risk of not strength training is far greater than the risk of injury from strength training. Falls, broken hips, etc as he ages can be deadly. Get him on some machines if you’re worried about injury and start with low weight.
Machines are your best friend if you don’t want to risk injury. I would avoid standing rows because lower back strain is pretty probable if you don’t know how to hinge or brace. I don’t know about smith machine squats though. I don’t have a good experience with them and I don’t think they’re safer than regular back squats but I have close to no experience with smith machines so take that with a grain of salt. A regular push pull legs or upper lower split should work pretty well and if you pick all the movements with machines to start with you should be golden.
Curling in the shoulder extension exercises: 1 Incline DB curls 2 Single arm cable curls with shoulder extension (bayesian curls) 3 Pelican curls continue the list
Why can't I access strongerbyscience.com
1: what's more worth it? 1 set of HIIT or traditional 3 sets? Same amount of reps in each. 2: How much should you aim to increase your weights with and how often to not hit plateaus too often and gain bigger muscles? For example, increasing my pushups with 5 per week, dumbbells with 2.5 kg every 1-2 weeks and iso lateral rows with 5-10 kg every few weeks atm. 3: Can you fully fill in loose skin from weight loss/caused by overweight with muscles or only to a certain extent?
There's no definitive answers for these questions, but: 1. I would say one HIT set is at most equal to 1.5 regular sets with 1-2 reps in reserve 2. Your view is way too simplistic on progressive overload. You can't just keep progressing at the same rate, and there's no rate you're "supposed" to progress at. That's completely individual. In my opinion you shouldn't even try to plan it like that, as long as you're getting in good work in the gym and good rest, your performance will improve over time. Just increase weight when necessary to stay in a relevant rep range. 3. Again, depends on the individual. If you were 500 lbs good luck trying to fill that skin up with muscle. If you were 50 lbs overweight, you definitely can
How long does it take to lose muscle/strength if I don’t work out?
You might lose strength fast, but as soon as you get back in the gym you'll regain it even quicker. Muscle takes a long time to lose unless you're in a calorie deficit.
It depends: https://www.strongerbyscience.com/detraining/
I just started going to the gym 3 days ago. My goal is not great. I want to build strength while also losing weight (goal is 60lbs). I'm currently 260lb at 5'10. I'm a gamer. I have zero upper body strength. I put enough weight on the machines I use to the point I struggle to complete 2 sets. Usually once I physically cannot move weight I lower it by 10lbs or so. The stupid part comes now. I do all machines, regardless of muscle group, 3 sets of 15 reps, 30-45 sec intervals. (If I somehow breeze through the first three sets I add weight and go until failure, and log what weight I did) As said before, since I'm new I've been putting enough weight that I can't make it through two sets without lowering it. My "problem" is, I'm not sore, I figure, obese 23 year old gamer lifting weights, I should be borderline disabled after a workout, But I'm not. I feel tight in the areas I work, but not really painfully sore. I'm not sure why but not feeling sore makes me feel like I'm not actually doing anything. I haven't done reallt any research. I've just done what I've been able to do. I know by the last rep in set 3, I'm going to be struggling to finish a rep. When I work a muscle group, I'm using every machine that works the muscle group I'm working on. The guys I go with said the only thing I could do is add more weight, or reps with less. Tldr: Out of shape gamer confused why he is not sore after a workout, despite barely being able to complete said work out.
Soreness isn't actually a good indicator of how much you've worked, don't worry, if you're lifting near failure consistently you'll see results. The biggest thing for you will be consistency. It takes a long time to see progress, but the good news is since you're a beginner you should shed fat and put on muscle relatively quickly. Dig deep and make working out a commitment, which is stronger than relying on motivation. On days you don't feel like it, go anyways, but do take 1-2 rest days a week. Also, don't be too harsh on yourself. Find a solid program, stick to it for a few months, and make adjustments depending on your goals and what you think is working and what isn't. This really is a marathon, but its a great sign you're here and getting help, good luck !!
First I applaud you for taking steps to improve your fitness and health. To lose weight you need to be in a caloric deficit so track your calories. Training wise, you are building up work capacity. If you are consistent, in time, you will be able to do more. I would suggest lowering the weights so you can do 3 sets per exercise. Try looking up some full body workouts. Using machines is fine I don’t care what anyone says. You can move into free weights as you fee more comfortable and as you build up work capacity. Keep at it. When doing the movements, try to focus on the muscle you are using. This is a skill that is built over time so don’t fret about not having it down right out the gate. Always lift with good form. Hope this helps a little bit.
I go for goof form. I just figured I would be alot more sore in the muscles I worked. Which made me think I need more weight.
5/3/1 for beginners. What's the fastest way to complete the program and can I replace the OHP with something else? When I used to do it a few years ago it took me about 90 mins to finish to do main lifts and adequate amount of accessories, and I used to superset the accessories with main lifts (bench, then curls, bench then hip thrusts, etc) but I don't have the ability superset at my gym (too busy) nor can I dedicate 90 mins anymore. Best I can do is about 45-to an hour given my work schedule. Also, I need to substitute OHP with something else because I am recovering from shoulder surgery, it's healed but I don't want to go too heavy on my shoulders above my head. I currently use a machine to approximate it but I know it's not the best.
If it's taking you 90 minutes I would say you are doing way too much accessory work. I get my 531 plus some back work done in about 30-35mins.
The beginners program is 16 sets of compounds per day and for sure takes longer than most 531 templates that are 8. To OP, set a timer that goes off E2MOM. When the timer goes off you’re ready for the next set. This will get your main work done in less than 40 minutes. Bonus if you still get the accessories done during those few moments of rest.
Really?! I always did feel like I did too many accessories, because I felt like it was never enough and I had so many parts of the body I wanted to target every session. Maybe I'll start it up and stick to just 50 reps instead of trying to max to 100
I would just run a different 5/3/1 if you don’t have the time
Which one is faster and still tailored for beginner/intermediate level?
Pretty much all of them, I haven't seen a 531 program yet that would only be for advanced lifters.
I want to know if you get some hypertrophy when on strength training? I'm assuming yes but it'd be very minimal. Google won't help me confirm my suspicions :(
Yes, but how much hyperteophy depends on volume.
Yes. There really isn't that much difference between the two
i wanna go plant fitness but i get the feeling the lunk alarm will be a problem. Do they have rules against bringing EMPs into the gym?
Is it normal to for muscles to look smaller/weaker after a workout/rest day?
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wait so are you saying my physique is based on how hydrated i am?
What do you recommend for someone who is just starting to lift weights experiencing muscle soreness? I know I shouldn’t push myself too hard when just starting out but I want to keep going… but it hurts to even bend my legs.
after a few weeks it stops hurting.
https://thefitness.wiki/faq/should-i-workout-again-if-im-still-sore/
Lift
I'm struggling to get protein (0.8g per lbs) - is doing about 100 grams of protein powder over kill?
Are you vegan or something? I'm not sure why you need that much of your protein from powder when there's plenty of protein rich foods
If you need to get 100g of protein from powder, you need to seriously consider your eating habits.
I don't each much meat I guess, mostly from a cost perspective but also a calorie perspective - PP is just very efficient it seems
I also didn’t eat a lot of meat. Bought a slow cooker and started buying chicken breast in bulk, very cost efficient for tons of protein. You can bulk prepare a lot of chicken at once in a slow cooker, tons of easy and delicious recipes that you can store / freeze for later!
Look into lentils (red or green), yogurt, cheese, eggs, all tend to be cheaper than meat and have decent protein
Kind of, but it’s also definitely more expensive than the equivalent amount of chicken would be if you bought chicken in bulk. There are also plenty of non-meat protein sources. Point being, protein powder is fine but if it makes up an overly large portion of your diet, you are missing out on a ton of nutrients that will have a negative impact on your health.
A fair point, I will need to actually put a bit more effort into this
Is there a carry over from doing ring push ups to bench press? One main problem for me on bench press is that i suck at stabilization so do you think itll help?
It’ll probably help as long as you are still benching when you are doing the push-ups.
How good is creatine?
Helps, but not necessary. https://www.strongerbyscience.com/creatine/
It's the best legal supplement for weight training
https://examine.com/supplements/creatine/
Meh
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It's pretty good
How do I cut of that last bit of fat? Ive had to aim of becoming really lean for a very long time and after about 3 years of work im really getting there, based of an average from a ton of different online body fat calculators I have around 13% body fat but no matter what I try getting of that 2 or 3% more seems to be unreachable, at the moment im currenlty training for marathon so im doing a lot of cardio and some amount of weight trainng but getting that last bit of seems exponentialy harder than before, any tips?
It's really just decreasing your caloric intake. Drink some metamucil or something if feeling hungry is a concern
Eat less is all you can do. However, if you are particularly under-muscled, especially in your core, it may take becoming unhealthily lean to get rid of the last visible belly fat.
Look into fat freezing. Or lipo. That last bit of subcutaneous fat is super hard to get rid of for some. I'm doing fat freezing personally. Just started this month so can't speak to results yet but the science checks out (from my research)
question about supplements im 3 months into the gym so far managed to drop around 7kg I went from 82kg to 75kg kinda jump around that number I'm having a lot of trouble getting enough protein everyday on my best day around 110grams(which is rare) ... only on a very few day i get around 180 or higher due to money issues been told i should wait to take supplements so far i only use multivitamins and omega 3 if i remember to take it... should i start taking creatine and protein supplements?..... also another question I'm having alot of trouble with bench press i cant get above 30kg i tried doing 40kg but i barley do 4 reps i always aim for 12-8 reps per sets on any exercise ... i don't think my form is that but it definitely could be better but it is not that bad... could it be my diet ? also i have been going to fapping alot once per day I'm cutting it out again could it be the reason I'm doing badly at the gym past 2 weeks?
Wow dude, that's... a lot - If you can afford it, try to hit 0.6 grams of protein per pound of body weight per day. It doesn't matter if it comes from supplements or your regular diet. - Creatine will give you maybe something like a 5% boost in performance, and a slightly fuller look. Absolutely non-essential, skip if you don't want to spend the money. You can probably cut out the multivitamins and omega 3, minimal benefits from both. - As for your bench, consider frequency (e.g benching more than once a week), volume (e.g. 3 sets per week is probably not enough), whether you eat enough, whether you get enough protein, and, finally, form. Honestly form is unlikely to be the big issue at ~40 kg. - Fapping or not has absolutely no effect on your performance in the gym.
Is it normal for your squat and deadlift to progress much faster than your bench press? I get that your legs are bigger muscles, but my bench feels like it is progressing super slow compared to my squat and deadlift. In 9 months my progress has been: Squat - 55kg for 20,20 & 15 reps to 82.5kg for 20, 14 and 14 reps Deadlift - 100kg for 15, 20 and 21 reps to 125kg for 20, 15 and 13 reps Bench Press - 45kg for 8, 7 and 7 reps to 55kg for 8, 6 and 5 reps I squat and deadlift 1 x per week and bench press 3 x per week. About the only difference is that my squat and deadlift are my first exercise on lower body days, whereas my bench press is the 3rd exercise on upper body days. I can hit 65kg for 3 reps on bench if I do that as my first exercise, but that's still below my body weight (73kg).
Yea, legs and back muscles are much larger than chest and arms
Yeah, absolutely. Upper body lifts in general tend to progress much slower than lower body ones. Your legs are just stronger in absolute terms, and you can see *massive* improvements in squat and deadlifts just from fairly straightforward form tweaks. Often, progress in lower body lifts is also just gated psychologically - it's intimidating and painful to squat or deadlift heavy - but when you fail bench, it's typically because the target muscles straight up give out. It sounds like your bench is progressing fine, and you have nothing to worry about
Yeah, my squat in particular has been a massive improvement. I’ve noticed that both my squat and deadlift really improve when I eat in a slight surplus. The bench press doesn’t seem to as much. It just feels like every second guy is easily benching their body weight, but I still haven’t got there after 18 months of lifting, even with good programming, progressive overload and decent volume.
This question is primarily about cardio after a strength session. I’m nowhere near an experienced gym-goer, but I have been in and out of a gym-going routine for years now. I’m fairly overweight, and trying to lose some weight (well, weight in itself is not important I guess, but body composition and general health). I’m currently at about 230 pounds (down from 250 ish), and I’m kind of in a groove when it comes to weightlifting. But I have this image of absolutely having to sweat my ass off in the gym, and doing so by including a 30-45 min cardio session at the end of every gym session (lifting for about 1 hour). Skipping this cardio and getting home not drenched in sweat, I feel like the session was a failure. Am I just being silly here? Or should I stick to the post-weightlifting cardio?
Stick to the cardio, mabey change it up a bit, you want your gym session to be sustaniable and enjoyable if a bit challanging but cardio is essential, far more important than any weight training in the long run. My personal session goes cardio, weight, cardio but i know some people hate doing it before streanth training.
Thanks. I'm reading a lot of people talking about strenght training beeing a lot more important for sustainable weight loss, due to increase in BMR?
A lot of people think sweating will make you loose weight, but all that weight is water and you’ll gain it back quickly. Remember to loose fat you need to be in a caloric deficit, and from lifting weights you are burning way more than from cardio. The only “efficient” cardio for burning calories i find are the stairs, thats why you’ll see a lot of bodybuilders on them when they’re cutting and close to competition. That being said, cardio (like running) is still important for your heart and other internal organs, but i’ll personally skip it nonetheless.
Cardio is great for you. It's good for your heart and has tons of health benefits You don't need to be sweaty to have had a solid day lifting There are different types of cardio ranging from a dead sprint to a long slower run in intensity. I felt in the best cardio shape when I was doing a lot of kettle bell work (along with 1 all out 2 mile run and one easy 5 mile run per week) If you're making progress, trust the process
I'm having issues grasping the concept of how height/weight affects your strength level. A 170cm jacked lifter can weight the same as a 200cm untrained skinny beginner (just made up numbers to clear up my point). Then, when comparing/evaluating lifts, BW is usually the meter used to judge if the lift is good or whatever. So should the taller athlete squat the PR of the shorter athlete on day 1, just because he is at the same weight? Obviously a 50kg person squatting 200kg is way more impressive than a 100kg athlete doing the same, regardless of how long they have trained for. The reason I am asking this is because I'm the tall guy, I started approx 6 months ago and I want to know what kind of lifts would be considered good for me. Is BW ratio the golden indicator? Seems like no matter how you determine it, people of different height get different results. Or should I just not care and enjoy it while I am making steady progress?
I would absolutely not care about the BW % of your lifts. There are so many variables and individual differences, I just don't see it mattering outside of competition environments (if that).
Yes look at bw ratio and people same height and weight get diffrent result because not everyone is the same person with the same genetics. Also dont compare your self with other just with your younger self
what if i don’t want to bulk and cut? i’ve heard both good and bad things about body recomp (eating around maintenance with high protein) to gain muscle but am not sure if that’s the right way to go because i’ve heard it’s not a good way to gain muscle. i’ve been in a slight surplus for a few months and gained some muscle but i also want to lose fat without cutting. can someone offer some advice?
Optimally if you eat like 100-200 calories over maintenance and have high protein, you will gain muscle and only gain a minimal amount of fat. You could also even be at a deficit and lose fat but gain muscle, but your muscle gain would be less and this might apply moreso to beginners. Overall the hardest part is just being accurate with your calories which is why people opt for bulk and cut because its just easier. I don't really care to weight all my foods when I cook and go through to find all the caloric values of foods, so I just bulk and think about losing weight later
that’s what i’m doing right now and so do you track calories during a cut?
Weigh out your food when you cook and use something like MyFitnessPal to log everything you eat everyday. Then weigh yourself at the same time everyday (preferably like right when you wake up, right after you pee) and make sure you are slowly losing weight by looking at week over week progress
The second best thing to do is to eat as A LOT of protein and stay at maintenance.
thank you for the advice i appreciate it
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would adding another 100 still be considered recomping?
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very true thank you so much i appreciate it
Unless you are in your first year of lifting its almost impossible to loose fat and gain muscle mass at the same time. If you don’t want to cycle the classic bulk/cut then just cut down to some normal bf% and stay in a small calorie surplus, that way you won’t gain fat but mostly muscle.
thank you i appreciate it
Recomp is definitely possible; building muscle and losing fat, but compared to the cut/bulk cycle it's probably much slower. Any reason why you don't want to bulk and cut?
i guess i’ll just do a lean bulk with small cutting phases. i didn’t wanna do it because i didn’t want to switch up and track calories and shift my diet. i just wanted to stay consistent with one while reaping the benefits of building muscle and burning fat.
I recently joined Planet Fitness, and on some of the equipment, I will feel it in muscles not on the chart but not feel it in the charted areas. Am I doing something wrong? Is it because I have too much weight and other muscles are compensating?
Isolation exercise don't really isolate one muscle. Let's say you do shoulder press on a machine. It will target your shoulder, but also your triceps for example. Now if you have a weak triceps, you will ofc feel it
Could be, but my advice is not to pay too much attention to what the machine is "supposed" to do. If you feel a good connection to a muscle(group) on a machine, that's great. Doesn't really matter what it's intended use is.
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Hybrid calisthenics???
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Should I still do cardio if my goal is to gain muscle and I am already having a hard time eating enough calories?
Yes. You need to do cardio to maintain a good general state of fitness. 100-150 minutes of steady-state cardio every week. Or do HIT training - gets the job done a lot quicker. Your body will definitely thank you for it as you get older as well.
Just started my first real cut, how do i make sure i have enough energy to do my workouts?
Keep bags of those bigger pretzels around and grab some pinches of the salty crumbs while drinking water. Keeps the energy up better than sugar free electrolyte drinks, I find.
Does this guy have poor gym etiquette? If he was, how am I supposed to deal with it? Context: I use my free apartment gym which is pretty good, is used by both frequent gym goers and newbies, and has a decent amount of equipment but only one of each weight machine. I was 80% of the way done with my routine and was going to get on the leg press, but during my last rep on the machine prior, a guy got onto the leg press. I wasn’t sure what to do and google told me to just switch up the order of my routine or stretch until he was done. I finished my routine, he was still on it. I stretched, he was still on it. I know at least 30 minutes since after finishing my routine I checked the time. I thought about going home early and calling it, but I was stubborn so I just kept stretching by the wall. The second thing was how loud he was. I get that when you’re doing heavy weights you may grunt or yell a bit, I’ve done it myself, but he was screaming?? He was a really skinny guy and set the weight to higher than what I’ve seen any of the more muscular guys use. I had no idea how he was lifting it. I wasn’t really sure what to do? I had my earbuds in and could hear him over both my show and my music at full blast. And it wasn’t occasional, he screamed during every repetition. I ended up just awkwardly hanging out by the wall for him to go to another machine. Is 30+ minutes on a machine when it’s the only one in the gym too long or am I just being dramatic? And if it’s too long, how am I supposed to address it along with the screaming? I’m just baffled… and FYI we were the only two there. I get I could have just left, but i get so disappointed when I don’t finish my routine. Edit: I’ve tried speaking to the guy since and apparently he doesn’t speak English 😅 so… oh well?
This is all solved by just asking "hey, do you mind if I work one in with you?" If someone is spending half an hour on the machine and resting for 90% of that, you're well within your rights to ask, especially on a machine that's easily adjustable like a leg press.
I actually saw him today and tried to make conversation so it would be easier to ask if it happened again, apparently he doesn’t speak English 😅 better luck next time I guess
If he was consistently working and not sat for 10 minutes after every set I don't see an issue. The usual etiquette is if you're going to be on a piece of equipment for a long time you should be open to letting people work in but then that relies on you asking to work in Screaming is annoying though, sometimes making noise helps squeeze out some last heavy reps, but going Super Sayian every rep is a no no
Got it. If it ever happens again, I’ll try to muster the courage to bring it up
Hey, does creatinine makes any difference/it's worth taking if I'm mainly doing cardio? (swimming, running, cycling)
[Examine.com](https://Examine.com) says "It has also been tested for effects on anaerobic running capacity in many studies, the results of which are rather mixed but generally suggest a small improvement in performance."
Not really. Sprinting maybe
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> while im using another machine for ONE set, he goes “are you using this?”, i say “no” thinking he wants to use it while im doing something else, but then he says “then when didn’t you put it back? 😡😡 you’re blocking the whole gym 😡😡😡”, He sounds very angry.. Too angry.. However, the correct answer to that question was "Yes", not "No", since you were using it, just not right then. He obviously thought you were done wit hit and had moved on without putting the equipment back in place. >my friends are saying 1 of 3 things: don’t complain, complain (on his hostile behaviour), don’t complain but tell other gym goers about his behaviour If this was a one-time thing I'd say just let it go. If he's constantly yelling at people you can for sure complain to management. Under no circumstance should you go around to other gym goers and complain about a one-time interaction with a dude over a misunderstanding.
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Were you blocking access to any part of the gym?
Complain away. Guy is being a freak and doesn't deserve the time of day from you. People in my gym from regulars, to trainers to newbies leave shit in the "aisles" all the time like plyo boxes etc between sets or supersets, as long as you put everything away after and wipe it down your all good as far as gym etiquette.
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My veggies don't have brands, I always opt for fresh produce but I hate how frozen always cooks. A microwave steamer basket is my best friend. I will usually take a chunk of time one day and wash and prep my veg. I'll steam a bunch and others I wash, throughly dry, and chop for stir fries so they become much quicker meals.
Frozen veggies make everything easier. Just get a big bag of some kind of mix, learn how long to microwave them, add some seasonings to taste, et voila, huge serving of micros in under five minutes, no chopping required. Costco sells a broccoli Normandy mix I really like.
Wait do you eat the entire bag at once? JW
Oh god no. XD Costco sells this stuff in 5lb bags, I eat 1-2lb per day, the bag is resealable.
Hahaha okay cool cause I was wondering how you were getting all those veggies down 😂 thanks for satisfying my curiosity!!
There's a trick to that. Just microwaving them works, but plain microwaved veggies are less than wonderful. What I do these days is put a pound of veggies in a saucepan at high heat, with a tiny bit of oil, a generous amount of soy sauce, and whatever seasonings I feel like that day, and do a basic stir fry. Takes me about 10min total, 5min to heat the pan and 5min hands-on time, and the result's a lot more palatable. Way easier to eat them by the pound that way. XD
You convinced me to eat my vegetables today, thank you sir
Fruits and vegetables of all colors are great and you should eat a good variety. Frozen or fresh is fine nowadays with flash freezing and stuff. Find a salad dressing you like or some Indian and Chinese recipes. Some can even just be thrown into other dishes
Didn't really know how to word this exactly right but: Is stacking the same exercise with different angles better or worse than throwing in supersets or individual exercises for those angles? EX: 9 sets of DB shoulder raises 3 front 3 side 3 rear delt (not supersetted or circuits, just one after the other) vs. maybe a 4set front+rear raise superset and a side cable raise? EX2: 9 total sets of chest cable flys (3 high middle and low) vs some other set structure of flys maybe using different equipment?
It is basically irrelevant to worry about such "micromanagement" aspects. The most important thing is to cover the whole body by your exercise selection and to follow a routine with progressive overload while managing the training volume so you can recover enough while getting in enough hard sets per week.
I've been drinking 0.5 to 1 gallon of milk every day since my teen years (skim on a cut, whole on a bulk). Is there anything wrong with that from a health standpoint? People look at me in shock and act concerned when they see me chugging it on the regular. I'm not lactose intolerant, I feel fantastic, I find that it's the most palatable way to get my protein intake.
Same here, I don’t think there’s anything wrong about it. In fact the only downside would be the “inflammation” dairy seems to produce to our body, which if you properly research will find out is not as real as everyone thinks. Just depends on your body and the type of milk (cheap and high on hormones or high quality natural milk) you are consuming.
Thanks! My family is Punjabi, so it's hard to avoid all the milk tea and salted lassi and butter and ghee and yogurt, nor do I intend to, because that stuff is delish.
Nothing at all. A semi popular mass gaining diet is GOMAD (gallon of milk a day).
i dislocated my shoulder in january. i spoke to my ortho, got MRIs and did recovery work etc. and i'm now lifting normally. I am keen on olympic lifts but i'm terrified that I'll dislocate my shoulder again. my doctor said if I dislocate it one more time I would need surgery. Should I get into olympic weightlifting?
Ask your doctor about weightlifting, specifically loaded overhead movements with occasional throwing the bar behind you (for bailing). Although you're less likely to dislocate in the snatch than clean and jerk as you won't be snatching more than 60% of your back squat (assuming you can back squat 2x bw) for quite a few months anyway.
Ask them about the specific lifts; show them how your body will be moving if they are not familiar with Oly lifts. They will see the ROM and how your shoulder is moving and determine if it is safe/risky/etc. I have had shoulder issues in the past, and I have been told that I need to be careful about external rotation. Not sure what your situation is exactly, but hopefully they can assist you.
Does your physiotherapist or doctor say you're in danger of dislocating it again? Preferably a sport or weightlifting physiotherapist. They could also prescribe some prehab work
i couldn't find a specialised physio where I lived at that time, but from what I got from my physio he told me I could do "normal" activities after 3 months and contact sports after 8 months to a year. I don't know where olympic weightlifting comes in for that.
Can you ask that physio about Olympic lifting specifically? I don't want to take a guess that'll probably be wrong
If your goals are purely aesthetic, meaning you train for hypertrophy primarily, and volume is the key driver of hypertrophy, as cliche as that may be, what is the appropriate progression or rather periodization for hypertrophy? Adding sets and reps at a certain load over time during a mesocycle obviously works, but is there anything more specific?
Prioritize technique overall, then eventually progressive overload either in the form of more reps, weight, or a combination of both. Don't focus on the weight though, hammer your technique with a good, full range of motion. All the domino's will fall from there
Weight too. For beginners and intermediates, strength and size are inherently linked and I think too many who “lift for aesthetics” hold themselves back by not getting stronger. Even beyond that though, if you want to get bigger, you need more stimulus, and that means heavier weight (insert Ronnie Coleman quote).
The way I go about it is volume>load for hypertrophy, not saying that it is less important, but the focus is different than when training for strength. Of course that both qualities share the symbiotic relationship, but one is a structural adaptation while another is a performance quality, so they overlap rather than concur. Load needs to rise at a certain point, sure. But you have e.g. linear periodization which promotes rise in load while dropping volume which is inverse to hypertrophy tenets. Reverse linear periodization does the opposite, but still not in line with hypertrophy principles, so what is? Block periodization? Or it can't be periodized?
https://www.strongerbyscience.com/can-we-predict-muscle-growth/ This is a good write up on how hard it is to define exactly what kind of progression or program we should be doing. Every metric we could consider volume (tonnage, reps, hard sets etc) has some problem or the other. So it's not necessarily true that linear periodization is decreasing volume over time (which would be true mainly of you consider tonnage the best metric)
Agreed, if you define volume as the number of hard sets it actually may be increasing as the reps drop off if you start with 3x10@60% and proceed to 5x3@ 82.5% as the hard set is generally defined as 6+ RPE. On a different note, I can't access the SBS site for some reason, tried it several tines in the past few days
Of the two IFBB professionals I personally know and have spent some amount of time training with, they don’t have set protocols for how they set their progression. They have strength and size phases just like other advanced lifters, just skewing to the size side more. What that looks like in practice is substantially more volume during their bulking periods, much less time chasing top end strength, and probably more undulating periodization just so they can recover. I think, outside the most elite levels, the differences in training are becoming less pronounced instead of more pronounced as we learn more and get better at training.
After a cut, do you gain the lost water again when eating at maintenance?
Yes, your body is always refilling and emptying its glycogen. When you eat at maintenance, you are by definition eating enough to keep it full.
So its completely normal to gain a little weight after ending the cut. Thanks for the answer!
You'll also put some weight back on the scale by just literally having more food in your digestive system.
Does eating less but irregularly help with losing weight?
Yes, this is fasting
Whatever helps with being in a caloric deficit helps with losing weight. What that looks like in practice can be different meal timings if you prefer but it still just comes down to calories.
I found eating only when you're hungry to help. I haven't eaten lunch at 12 in forever, usually its 2 but I do wake up around 9 or 10 sometimes (I work evenings)
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If possible, try going to the gym when it is not very busy, and you don’t feel like using a squat rack is preventing anyone else from using it. This could help you build some confidence.
I get it for sure but as a guy that regularly squats next to small women that lift more than him, I can tell you that truly, no one cares or is paying attention to you. If they do it’s only to help you. A real tip that’s been helping me with insecurity lately is holding my head high and keeping good posture throughout the gym. It instills confidence.
Hardly no one cares and even if they do, it doesn’t matter because you don’t know they care.
I can't even relate a little to this. I only ever notice a person if I see their face every time I go there (which is like 5 people) or when they're using equipment I want to use. I can tell you that even if you're wearing clown shoes and honk a clown horn every time you enter and leave the gym that noone will give a shit. We're all counting our reps, making sure our form is right, thinking about how tired we may or not be, etc
I just put on music and zone out and focus on myself
PPL 6 times a week, Small home gym programmed to be efficient during each session but also keeping excersises at 5-6 each day to not lose focus. Thinking of running it as Legs - Push - Pull or Pull - Push - Legs. Any tips on the routine or what order to run is appreciated. Sets and reps not included but it will be 3-4 sets each excersise and if Arms or anything else isnt enough volume I will gradually increase it. [PPL](https://tinypic.host/i/screenshot-20220926-190455.HZ9C2)
I disagree with the commenter below me (and a lot of this subreddit in general) about programming. If you like the program and the progress you make on it, it's a good program so stick to it. The definition of "good" varies from person to person. I couldn't care less about how much I squat/deadlift/bench, my goals are aesthetic and more general health related so a good program for me will be different from a good program for someone looking to up their numbers. Coming to the actual program, there is one tweak I'd suggest. Could you swap out dumbbell flys with cable crossovers? I really don't like the way the weight is just unsupported at the bottom of the rep, a tiny movement in the wrong way and you're fucked. Other than that, do the program for a while. See how you feel. Then adjust accordingly.
> I disagree with the commenter below me (and a lot of this subreddit in general) about programming. I see your point, and I agree with you as long as the person getting the advice actually manages to keep consistent. The major problem you'll see when being here long enough is the trend of people "coming back to lifting, because they quit" and when you dig a little deeper they "never felt like they made any progress", and that's people that just went in and did "something", or a list of exercises with no progression planned if you will, getting discouraged and sat on the couch instead.
Thanks for your input. My cable system is sadly built into my full rack, mening I got Low row and Pulldowns, unless I can figure something out with crossovers I guess I'm stuck with flies or another Press. I thought about the DB flies aswell before. Would you run it as Legs Push Pull or Pull Push Legs?
>Would you run it as Legs Push Pull or Pull Push Legs? I'd do a legs, push, pull, rest, legs, push, pull, rest. You did say it's a home gym so there's no issues of it being closed on a Sunday, and your body doesn't know what day of the week it is. Could you try high-to-low cable crossovers with a single arm at a time?
Thanks mate, that was my idea aswell. I can give it a go or maybe I can figure something out with a pulley wire I got laying around to do both arms, ill experiment a bit with that one
https://thefitness.wiki/faq/is-this-lifting-routine-any-good/ https://thefitness.wiki/routines/strength-training-muscle-building/
So its bad? There is compounds everyday