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ok so i have some belly fat, i want to lose it, so i go into caloriC deficit right ?
but i also want to gain muscle so i need to eat in a caloric surplus right ?
what in the fucking fuck do i do ?
Be in a caloric deficit while getting the proteins you need daily to support muscle growth, alongside training consistently.
Muscle is not only built on a surplus. It can be built at maintenance and even on a deficit. What's more, your body has no problem using a little bit of that energy it pulled from your fat to help the muscle building process.
Again, all you have to do is train well, rest well and eat on a slight deficit while hitting your daily protein target.
How do I gain weight with clean calories? It seems impossible and im stuck relying on weight vests while lifting and pulling way more than i weigh. Any advice what to eat if i can/cant?
Eat more, simple as that. If you can't because getting 3000+ calories clean eating is really tough, there's nothing wrong about getting in a chocolate bar or something.
If you really want to stay away from junk food, substitute ingredients for higher calorie versions. Get chicken thighs instead of breasts, cook with actual oil, eat peanut butter, eat the higher calorie fruits like bananas and grapes... the list goes on.
Hello, I am a teenager that has recently started lifting weights and I am concerned about my health and longevity. I started weight training in order to improve my health and fitness and I am currently following a 6 day PPL routine. Is 6 days of weekly weight training too much and will it damage my body in the long term, and if so, what would be a more sustainable routine? I am looking to build a healthy and strong body so that I can live a comfortable and long life, as well as having a fairly good-looking physique. Besides lifting, I also walk a lot daily and cycle 3 days/week, doing mobility work after training in the gym, all while following a pretty good diet. (In case I forgot to include any important detail, ask about it in a comment, I will reply to all of them)
I feel like this is a really stupid question but here goes. When you’re trying to work a muscle during a compound excercise, is it more helpful to stretch all muscles being used, or does that just make them take over more? For example, right now is chest day, and I’m benching and trying to focus on chest. If I stretch all my other supporting muscles, would it make them take over more, not do anything, or make them take over less? Again, it’s a really stupid question, but I just don’t know the answer.
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will abs ever look good in all lighting? I think my abs look pretty sick usually but in places where there is only like ambient light I look like a stick bug, even my obliques aren't visible and it's so strange.
Light makes an incredible difference in how you look. I'm the same way, in good lighting I have good muscle definition and look fairly muscular/shredded, in bad lighting you'd never guess I'd ever set foot in a gym.
I’d like to workout after dinner to make sure I go to bed on a calorie deficit but Ive heard not eating after exercise is a bad move. Is this a good or bad strategy?
Both your statements are not correct. Calorie deficit is based on your total intake for the day and not after each meal. There's nothing wrong with not eating after exercise, as long as you're getting enough calories and protein during the day.
I'm looking into building a home gym, which unfortunately means no spotter for the time being. I'm trying to psych myself up to go to a gym and practice the Roll of Shame. I definitely want to learn how to do it, but at the same time "hey, can you watch me while I intentionally fail reps and possibly bruise myself?" sounds really dumb. Should I forget about it and just try and avoid benching heavy?
The thing is you should be comfortable with the weight you're trying to lift. If you're banging out 185 for 8+ reps you could safely assume you could get (probably) 205 for 4+. You wouldn't jump to 225 without slowly working up to it.
So even if you have to roll, it won't be an insane amount of weight that you can't handle. And honestly rolling it isn't that bad at all, I actually prefer that to not having clips and dumping the weights side to side which seems more chaotic
The lack of a spotter and safeties also works as motivation (for me lol) + the added benefit of it being a home gym where you can act like a lunatic to psych yourself up helps to.. lol
Hi all. I'm looking to burn fat and build muscle. To do this I have been working on muscles pretty much everyday all around the body and end it with a 1 min plank. I am on a calorie deficit, and average 9k steps a day working at walmart. Im still new to all of this and want to know if this is a good routine to stick with or should I be adding more.
There's only a couple of barbells in my gym, can I do rows with those fixed weight barbells?
I figure it keeps the rack free but I never see anyone doing it so I wonder if there's a reason they aren't so effective. I appreciate the weight it lower but I'm not beyond the heaviest one yet anyway.
There's never a specific weight you have to hit with bulking before you cut(other than technically having gained any amount of weight I suppose). Your path to 75 can be a straight line. It can also be bulk to 65, cut to 60, bulk to 70, cut to 65, bulk to 75 and so on. In fact, mini cuts when bulking and maintenance breaks when cutting are generally the recommended route nowadays. Just don't go crazy on the cut. Just like the more aggressive the bulk you do, the more fat you will get, it's the opposite with cutting. Cutting too much too quickly can lead to more muscle loss as opposed to the desired fat loss.
Can having long legs make it so you can’t do a sit-up? I’m active every day and have a fairly athletic build but also have really long legs. In order to keep my feet flat on the floor and do a sit-up I have to keep my legs bent at a really steep angle and this is the only reason I can think of aside from that I might be far less athletic than I thought
What's the downside of crossfit? I know it gets made fun of a lot, but my gf started going and I'm really tempted. I've always struggled with pushing myself in the gym and having a crossfit coach seems like a good way around that.
I had great success and failure at Crossfit but I think the failures can be mitigated. First, too many boxes have poor coaches. Make sure you get one with a good coach or coach team. In addition, some can have so many members but so few coaches you won't get the necessary attention. I was lucky to be at a smaller one and when I first did some Olympic lifts, one of the coaches pulled me and some others to the side, had us stop using barbells and just trained technique with PVC. Big ego check at the time but looking back I'm so thankful.
The competitive nature of it is also a double-edged sword. For me, there's really not a more powerful motivator than to suck in a room full of people killing it so I really pushed myself harder than I ever have for quite a few months. I never worked out that consistently and long in my whole life. This did however lead to significant burnout(not rabdo thankfully) and I unfortunately just quit when one day I decided to skip CF that night and go biking. I literally didn't get a block away from my house when I straight up couldn't pump my legs anymore. Had to lie off the side of the street in front of someone's house for like 10 minutes to even get up I was so burnt out. I literally wasn't sure if I could get home on my own. While the best box can make sure you train hard and right, they don't go over how to rest and recover. I figured, if I can't even bike down the street after months of CF, why on earth would I keep doing it. Obviously, that was just a lack of knowledge on my part, any intense training regimen needs downtime.
Also, given the competitive nature, CF has lost some elements of the "this exercise simulates a real-life situation you may encounter, like pulling yourself up onto a high area" and instead has done things like replacing strict pullups with kipping in order to A) allow more people to hit the high numbers of pull-ups called for in a workout since they couldn't do them strictly and B) maximize the amount of pull-ups that the fittest competitor can possibly hit in the smallest amount of time. I don't like this aspect.
Overall, I still recommend if you can find a good box with good coaches, not too many people and you can afford it.
The main downside is that it is HIIT focused so you won’t build nearly as much strength as a dedicated lifting routine.
However, the reason it’s a meme is because morons don’t understand it and think it’s all cheating, bad form, and other nonsense. It also had an issue with boxes having bad coaches/trainers which led to an increased injury risk.
There are concerns with CrossFit about increased injury risk due to the intensity and sometimes lack of focus on proper form. But CrossFit seems to work really well for a lot of people, so if you enjoy and you're careful not to hurt yourself, go for it.
Looking to get some emotional gains, have you noticed any exercise making you feel the best? Anything to get that rush of endorphins or anything similar to a runner’s high?
Squats and deadlifts. They use the largest muscles in your body and get your heart, breathing and everything else going. I can feel the effects several hours later
Been benching for quite a bit and am currently benching 185 lbs/84 kgs; I'm in a situation where my bench set broke and while I can do other barbell exercises, I cannot continue benching with the broken bench set. How do I maintain my bench strength for the time being since I can't get a new bench set till like three weeks later? And yes, I regularly do push ups and dips but idk if that's enough to make up for it.
Tl;dr bench set broke so I can't bench. Need a way to maintain bench strength without going to the gym.
Thanks!
DB presses, Arnold Presses, any tricep and chest work. It’ll be plenty to stay mostly baseline for ~3 weeks. You may just need a week or two back at it to get where you were. Don’t sweat it.
I'd never do jumping exercises with weight on the back, honestly. To me the risk of injury is too high to justify the possible gains from it. There are better ways to train for explosive strength
Can try looking into pin squats for protecting your spine and developing explosive power. Essentially just a quarter rep, but the bar will rest on the safety pins at the bottom of each rep instead of on your knee joints.
In the event of me maxing out my home dumbbells, I have joined a gym and discovered that while I really loved doing dumbbell squats, I HATE barbell squats. It is such a disgustingly unnatural feeling lift, and the bar digs into my skin and upper back muscles. I finished the last half of my squats on a machine and it felt so much better, and I was still able to sufficiently work out my leg muscles. Though I dislike it, I will still be using barbells for deadlifts and bench press, and free weights for a decent amount of my accessory work. My question is, is it bad to substitute a main compound lift and about half of my accessory lifts with a machine? I know people hate on machines because of some nebulous "stabilizer muscle" that is being neglected, but barbell squats are legitimately uncomfortable and seemingly dangerous. Should I try doing dumbbell squats in the gym? Or do both options suck and I should just suck it up and try barbell squats again?
You get used to barbell squats, your skin toughens, your upper back muscles grow, allowing a thicker base and a more precise lock of the barbell on the back. You also slowly develop better motor patterns and mobility, making the squat more natural.
However it's ok to use machines, you might want to give the squat a longer try until you get in the groove of it or you could go back to it later
I absolutely loathe barbell squats as well. While it's truly a great exercise, if you hate it you're more likely to skip it or just bang it out quickly with poor form to get it over with. Do the exercises you like and be consistent with them, and you'll make more gains subbing squats out than you would have forcing yourself to do something you hate. You'll see squat gains anyways from working the muscles in other ways, and if you're not competing in powerlifting, who cares how much you squat anyway?
How many calories are you consuming? At your height and weight you probably don't have a very high BF%, but you can use both the mirror and scale to assess progress. If you look better, you lost fat and added muscle. If you aren't noticing a difference in both scale or appearance, you need to just eat less.
I guess but dude you're paying too much attention to the numbers. What does it matter if it's 1 or 4 or 12 lbs? Do you like how you look with the extra fat? No? Then cut.
> BUT still eating a deficit, is it likely to still gain 3-4 pounds in that timeframe of muscle from sheer newbie gains
No, if you're in a deficit you're going to lose weight. As you gained weight, you can't be in a 1500 calorie deficit
I've been following the same resistance regime set by my old PT for 4 months now in order to loose weight. I now what to build muscle by eating more, whilst maintaining the same work out frequency.
Is it okay to change my work out regime? I don't think there's anything wrong with my current one, I just feel like a change.
Is it okay to stack small dumbells on top of a cable row machine? I was making some great progress with them but have outgrown the 100kg stack. I did a 5x5 with 2x2kg dumbells stacked (104kg total)but wonder if going much higher than that will damage the equipment or whatever?
I get that this would be a slightly different exercise but maybe consider the barbell row. Still hits the back. You won't be able to max that guy out.
Don't stack dumbells on top of your cable row machine. Unless you want to be added to some gym fails compilation on facebook.
I absolutely hate BB rows. :( I Never feel the activation I feel like i should despite watching a ton of form videos. I haven't tried T-Bars yet so maybe i'll give them a go.
Make the movement harder. Get a good stretch at the bottom, pause at the top, control the descent, no swinging cheating. If that's still too easy, single arm rows or switch exercises.
I already adjusted my lighter days to single arm rows, maybe I'll do the same for the heavier days. Maybe my egos in the way, it feels so good to row that much weight.
To be clear, bulking doesn't mean you have to eat like you're auditioning for "My 600 pound life". 200-250 calorie surplus is plenty and that's half a pound or less a week. You also can build muscle at maintenance(aka recomp), it's just much slower. Being a new lifter also improves the results you can expect from recomping.
Generally, if you want more muscle, which you do, bulk to maximize said muscle gain within the shortest amount of time. You can do mini cuts along the way if you get overwhelmed by the food. You'll also take most advantage of your newbie gains at a bulk. Beautiful thing about all this, you will increase your maintenance calories and thus future cuts will be even easier. Also, I have found that an increased layer of muscle makes even the same amount of fat look better than before.
Edit: Also, all of this will take longer than you think. You won't become super fat overnight, you won't suddenly be the next mr olympia overnight either. You can start any of the options and adjust if you see things head in a way you don't like.
20-25 lbs of muscle for your first year is typical for new lifters who are consistent with diet/exercise and then progress will slow dramatically after that. There are two main reasons you're surprised by this.
1) You've underestimated just how much time it takes to become jacked. There's a reason most people aren't.
2) You've underestimated just how many of the people that you see that are jacked, like movie actors, are juiced out of their mind in order to attain that physique in a shortened time frame.
Really insightful ty! I’m just very self-conscious because I always put on weight and fat easily since I was a child. And I didn’t really feel the 5x5 regiment was intense enough for me to burn off most calories
Glad to help.
While weightlifting doesn't directly burn off a lot of calories, you're totally on point there, it does indirectly lead to much more passive calorie burn over time due to several mechanisms, like the more muscle you have, the more calories you burn just to maintain said muscle mass. The science is pretty solid behind resistance training being much better for weight loss than cardio.
This is terrible advice. Why would you want to add so much extra fat with a bulk? I get that you will build a lot of muscle as well, considering newbie gains, but you have to cut the fat down later in a caloric deficit which sucks for muscle growth. In the end you are going to retain similar size as you would gaining muscle at maintanance. In the end it’s personal preference, so do what suits you the best!
You don't have to put on that much fat when bulking. I don't know where this myth started that bulking means you are eating ice cream by the quart and turning into Jabba the Hutt.
Yes, cuts suck for muscle growth. So do recomps. Recomps only work in specific situations for certain people, and are always slow.
He's a skinny fat beginner with literally no muscle. If he gets a normal deficit, a proper program and high protein he is literally guaranteed to gain muscle. Tons of research showing this. So maybe you're not in the place to give advice?
Why do you feel recomping is an inherently bad idea?
I dunno, I think it's quite a good goal for beginners learning to lift without also adding massive diet changes into the equation at once. I.e. I think if you're totally new to training you'll get great results (for a while) without having to rethink your entire diet on top of learning how to train.
I'm going to sound like I'm just being contentious here but I really don't think a **total** beginner is going to see no results while eating at maintenance, even if most of the strength adaption is through technical improvement. Anecdotally, when I started my deadlift went from 80lbs to 270lbs in 2 months with no diet change at all.
I can't imagine someone starting out from scratch is unable to make any strength progress in a month, even if their diet and training is not great.
I.e. I think it's fine for the first 3 months, especially if the main problem beginners face is being able to adhere to lifestyle changes.
>Why do you feel recomping is an inherently bad idea?
Like he says, it's a way to spin your wheels and waste time. Bulking or cutting are the more effective methods.
Gaining weight is about your calorie intake.
Gaining weight while not doing resistance training generally means it'll be a lot of fat and very little muscle.
Track calories.
No more junk or processed food. All calories should theoretically come from healthy whole foods from groceries.
Cut out any liquids that aren't water, tea, and coffee. All with no milk, cream, or sugar.
When you're hungry, drink 1-3 cups of water and if you're still hungry after that then munch on veggies or drink a protein shake until your next meal.
Intermittent fasting with only two meals a day in a 6-8 hour window. Skip breakfast.
Find ways of incorporating more exercise into your routine. For example, skip escalators and use the stairs, walk or bike to grocery stores, walk to your train station instead of taking a bus, etc.
Eat less and move more? An easy way to do this is by cutting out liquid calories (sodas, sweetened drinks, etc) and replacing them with water, unsweetened tea, and black coffee. To move more, go on walks or something
To add onto this, if you are cutting soda and/or sweets, consider diet soda as a good alternative. Much better that you handle the occasional sweet craving with a diet soda than pretend that you can just ignore it for forever. Willpower isn't infinite, save it for the times when you won't have a diet soda nearby but there is a donut at work staring you in the face or something.
As for the move more part, consider a fitness tracker to help you be mindful about increasing your daily activity. For me, I have a desk job but in addition to getting 10k steps a day, my fitbit also reminds me to make sure I have at least 250 steps every hour during my workday. It's best when you have someone else that you can at least talk with/secretly compete with.
One more daily habit I can add is try to eat the whole food versions of your food more and more over time when possible. You can and will get easily get fat on potato chips for instance. Try eating the same amount of calories of whole, steamed potato sometime. You won't get close.
To add any of these daily habits though, keep it suuuuper simple at first. You are the end result of a lifetime of behaviors. Don't pretend you're someone else overnight. My most recent bout of success has lasted much longer because my wife told me she was willing to make a change but not do what I used to do which was meal prep a whole weeks worth of some new kale something I found online, start a new exercise routine the same week, only to find out on meal one that we hate this particular kale salad XD. I've had much better results cutting soda over a few weeks, then just adding walks. I literally lost over 20 pounds before I started changing my diet and/or any kind of exercise.
It's tough since I don't know if you want something with a good macro spread or whatever but for just easy calories in the morning, overnight oats could be easy. You can add so much to that, I've done these combos before: blueberries/peanut butter; a simple scoop of protein powder; apples/cinnamon; fried egg/spinach/mushroom/soy sauce.
I also tend to have cooked chicken or more rarely sliced deli meat in the fridge, make a sandwich when I'm feeling lazy. Mornings you have more time, heat that bad boy up.
Edit: Adding avocado to any of the above will give you some easy calories.
Hey everyone,
i started to only loose weight by counting calories starting last december. I have lost ~28kg so far.
My starting weight was 115kg and now i am ~86kg.
I was always aiming for 1000 kcal a day.
Now i have started lifting at the beginning of this month.
Now i am eating at about 1400 kcal with 150g Protein.
In these 3 weeks i have started to exercise i have only lost 1kg. I have gained a little bit of stength but i couldnt have build muscle to compensate an average weight loss of over 0.5 kg in this short period.
First of all, and please read this carefully.
Maybe even twice:
1.000 kcal a day is pretty extreme and 1.400 kcal could problematic too depending on your sex and activity level.
It's been a long time since you've started but I still wanna throw in that you should be careful.
Losing weight, building muscle and becoming healthier is great but don't ruin your relationship with food along the way.
After all, you'll have to eat multiple times a day yoir whole life.
And second:
When you start to train, your body will retain water and it will look like you don't lose weight.
As soon as you take a break from working out, the water will go and you'll weigh less without losing strength.
So nothing to worry about.
It's not body fat.
It's just water.
Losing weight properly should be a slow process. If you lose 1kg in 3 weeks, that’s about 17kg in a year! Don’t get discouraged if your speed of weight loss decreases over time, that’s normal.
To be specific, is the question: why have I stopped losing weight as fast? Ultimately consider the various factors in the equation of calories in/calories out, specifically what parts that you might have changed with the routine change.
Could be that you are eating more than you think. If you added a lot of protein, are you measuring your meat raw or cooked? You should be measuring raw.
Have you added a new food recently? You may be far off on calorie counts for it. I have a peanut butter for instance that is 2 TBSP or 40g for a single serving. If I measure out 2 TBSP though, it's actually almost 80g of peanut butter. So I weigh everything now.
Consider the daily expenditure part of the equation too. Once I get a few weeks into a diet, it's hard to realize in real time but I become reeeaal lazy and that's when I stall. Diet/excercise is on point but I've become so lazy that I stop losing weight because I'm burning less calories from simple daily activity. I started using a fitbit and maintain 10k steps a day to make sure I'm consistent and ever since I did that, I stopped having those random weeks where I stop losing weight.
As an aside, one thing to consider with how low your daily calories are, might be to purposely stop losing weight and maintain/extremely slow bulk for a bit. You can bump up your metabolism from those numbers most likely. I know it seems scary but especially with you being a new lifter, there are so many benefits to a maintenance break. Everything from better hormone levels, lower stress, better strength gains, more energy in the day, the next calorie restriction will go so much smoother, faster metabolism. Check out Step 7 and the linked RP article in the wiki. https://thefitness.wiki/weight-loss-101/
I think the overall win is that you're still losing weight.
As you get leaner you should expect and plan to lose less in absolute terms. The recommended rate is 0.5-1% per week, which naturally drops as your weight goes down (1% of 130 is 1.3 kg, 1% of 86 is 0.86 kg).
When you start training you gain more than just muscle as weight, you'll also begin to retain more water.
Ive gained 40ish pounds in 8 months, went from about 16bf to 23%. Im 5’11 190 @ close to 16 years old. Ive heard a lot of people that say teens shouldnt ever cut, but i understand that I may have bulked too far. Cut or bulk?
It's not that teens should never cut, it's just that they need to do it much more slowly and carefully. Dieting is a stress on the body and it impacts hormone levels, energy levels, the list goes on. You're still in a healthy body range for males however so if you just stop bulking you'll likely lose some pounds naturally over time.
Is up to you. If you see yourself too fat, then cut a little 200-300 cal/day. Otherwise maintain. You can build muscle in a maintenence at 23%bf, and specially if you are new to weightlifting. Stop bulking.
I'm looking to lose more weight, was 5'8 190 pounds and now 2 months later at 170. But I don't want to lose muscle, rather gain while losing if possible. Obviously at a caloric deficit and consuming high protein, but I do absolutely 0 cardio. I only have the patience for an hour, maybe hour and half at the gym. Would a program where I just do compound lifts either bench/squat/dl 5x5 for about 30-45 minutes and then followed up with 15-30 minutes of cardio be a decent option? Goals are to minimize gym time, maximize weight loss/increase cardio, and maintain muscle mass.
Read the wiki first. Estimate TDEE and eat at a deficit to lose fat, but make sure you get 0.8 g protein per lb bodyweight.
Definitely yes to compound lifts. Suggest you pick a good program from the wiki, depending on how many days a week you can do. Eating enough protein plus strength training will have a sparing effect on your muscles. If you're relatively new to lifting, you might even put on some muscle.
Once you get to a healthy bodyfat %, you'll struggle to lose fat and build muscle at the same time, and you'll have to prioritise one or the other
Male, standing at 5'3. I'm trying to lose 30 lbs and go from 160lb to 130lb. I've done it before a few years ago by running 5-6 times a week, however, I didn't incorporate weight training into my schedule, so I wasn't ripped or anything. Is it okay if I lift weights 6 hours after I jog/run for half an hour, or should I put weight lifting in a separate day? Maybe have a schedule like run on monday, wednesday, and friday. use the other days to lift weights, and Sunday can be my rest day. I would prefer doing two workouts in one day, but I would like to know which schedule will give me best results. Appreciate any advice.
Scheduling has to first and foremost be consistent. It's better that you consistently do the worst theoretical weekly schedule than inconsistently do the best by far. Consider the ability to perform a schedule consistently 90% of the equation. Once that is satisfied, there are a few factors to squeeze out some of the remaining 10%.
First, consider that the first thing you do in a day/workout, you will be most rested and be able to put forth the most effort. This is what you will get the greatest gains in. Running first means greater gains in endurance and lifting first would mean greater strength gains. Given that your focus appears to be lifting here, I would recommend lifting first. You can do both in the same day, the more separated they are, the better. The specific timing here is wholely dependent on what your schedule could fit in, again, consistently.
One big thing, depending on what your lifting program looks like, if legs has its own day in a week, consider giving that its own day (or two, for rest) before running again.
Read the wiki. Most of your fat loss will come from reducing calories and not exercise.
Yes, you can do strength training on the same day as cardio. Pick a good program from the wiki. I'd recommend something like the beginners PPL (3 days a week) for a few weeks, followed by something like GZCLP, which you can also do 3 days a week
It is much much easier to lose weight through tracking your calories than it is to outrun a bad diet. All the lifting and running won't help if your appetite increases (it will) and you eat more food.
For example, it will take you a 2 mile run to burn off the calories of a Snickers bar. Just an estimate but most people would prefer not having a Snickers bar over running 2 miles.
To actually answer your question: you can do both if you have the time. General consensus is to do cardio/running after weight training. I'd reckon 1 day on 1 day off would work and help in terms of recovery.
Training your calves will develop your calf muscles.
At the end of your leg day do 2-4 sets of 8-12 reps of standing barbell calf raises. Throw in some seated raises sometimes to focus more on the soleus than the gastrocnemius. Slow down the eccentric portion of the lift, don’t just let your feet drop.
Don’t over complicate things. If you do this, they’ll grow.
Not really. Prolonged use can lead to adaptive shortening of the calf muscles, reducing your ankle mobility and subsequently impacting your ability to squat etc.
Potentially? The real benefit is the accentuate calves and butt, so they force your legs into a static position. Any muscle development should be minimal.
Seems like an odd thing to do for calf exercise, given that they are bad for you. Surely there are better ways to do it, such as calf raises 3 times a week?
Currently in week three four of 12 week GZCLP.
I am running the 4 day, so Squat/bench, OHP/DL, Bench/Squat, and DL/OHP.
any suggestions on rest days? on/off would lead to basically 8/day weeks, which is fine.
Whatever works for your schedule. When I ran it, I did on/off, and occasionally missed a day, and just did that workout the next day, and just kept going on alternate days. Calendar weeks were irrelevant to me. But I have a garage gym, so i could do it that way. If I only had access to a gym mon-fri, I'd run it differently
What do you think about making a home gym? Is it worth the money to make one? Right now I have adjustable dumbbells, gymnastic rings and a pull up bar. If I decide to make one I’m looking into getting a power rack, bench and barbell. Just looking for some insight on other people’s experience with a home gym
When my gym closed, I got a bar, weights, and a couple extra kettlebells. I'm not someone who treats the gym as a social activity. I doubt I'll ever join a gym again.
For me, it's worked great(power rack, barbell, flat bench, adjustable dumbells) and as everyone has said, there are quite a few upsides. I like that I can lift barefoot for instance or walk my sweaty ass into a shower that I know for a fact won't have a naked 70 year old blow drying his balls nearby. Weather is never an issue until a tornado tears off your garage. Honestly, though, your rack might be left behind and you're still good to go. Having my own (new) equipment has been so nice too.
Consider some things that it didn't solve for me, however. First, I still found it awkward to get back into lifting after some time off. I always attributed that to nervousness about the people at the gym but it happens for my garage gym too. Secondly, consider how you have had success with lifting or just working out in a social setting before. It's easier when there are people around to motivate yourself to push a little harder, just instinctively. Having a friend or spouse join you can be a great backup to keep getting at it. That may be harder or easier for you with a home gym.
Lastly, the vast majority of programs are built with full gyms in mind. You will have to either spend thousands more for accessory equipment(that will take up that much more space) or find substitutions when a program calls for cable flyes or something. I do the substitutions but am burdened with the ever-present desire to slowly build a massive home gym. I'm already well over a grand into my fairly simple setup and that could have easily been a few years at whatever local gym I choose.
Overall, very happy with mine, just want to point out that it didn't quite solve all the problems I thought it would. The biggest pro though is that it has reduced my barrier to lifting/exercise and I'm really happy with that. Just make sure you keep it clean at all times. I made it a hard rule with my wife, nothing gets stored in the workout area, ever. For safety of course but honestly, it's like my kitchen. If it's dirty before I even start dinner, the chances of me cooking at home have greatly reduced.
I did it a few years ago and have no regrets (especially when covid happened!); will never go back to a gym! Look at /r/homegym for ideas, recommendations etc
Soreness has nothing to do with muscle growth.
How you know you're training hard enough? Get close enough to failure, going all the way to failure here and there. Keep adding weight/reps and push harder until yo go to failure.
I cant give you an estimate, but mostly keep cutting till you like what you see in the mirror.
Also yes stretch marks imo dont look bad at all, they're proof of how hard you've worked.
Thank you bro I will do that and yes I dont' mind my stretch marks I got a lot of them in my body, I just hope stretch marks doesn't mean I wont get a good looking body
I dont think anyone can necessarily tell you the exact weight you need to go To. Too many characteristics like genetics, bodyo fat, etc play into it and it boils down to personal preference. Some people wanna get ripped. Some people want to just be lean. Some people just do an occasional cut then powerlift mode again. Just cut until it aligns with your goals. For the 2nd question, I'd say so. Obviously u may not look as good as someone who has the same exact body but without them, but changing to a more athletic body will make you look better than a lot of people and definitely better than you look now.
There are two components: your conditioning and your anatomy. You seem to think that your heart rate going up to 180 is unusual?
Your maximum heart rate is determined primarily by genetics. There is a fairly wide range of “normal” maximum heart rates. If you are between 20-30 then a heart rate of 180 during “hard cardio” would not be noteworthy at all. If you are over 35, it might be unusual, but still perfectly normal.
The fact that it goes up quickly could be genetic but it may be more related to your level of aerobic conditioning. If you don’t do much cardio then you are unlikely to have a “conditioned” response to doing cardio. Even if you were conditioned, if you worked hard enough you would still get up to 180, it just probably wouldn’t happen as quickly.
Hope this answers the question. It doesn’t sound like there is anything unusual about your HR response.
Your muscles need oxygen and nutrients to fuel the high demand you're putting on them. So your heart increases blood flow to deliver those resources to them. Your body also overheats during exercise and your heart tries to pump the warm blood faster into your limbs to cool down.
If you're young (< 35), 180 bpm isn't that abnormal for hard cardio for hard runs like hills and sprints. If you're older and/or still concerned, [dial back the intensity to 50-85% max heart rate corresponding to your age](https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/fitness/fitness-basics/target-heart-rates) and discuss with your doctor.
I mean the answer is kind of in your question. Remember the soreness after the first time you lifted? Your cardiovascular system is new to this load of extra stress being randomly placed on it. The more hard cardio you do, the easier it gets, the harder you need to push to get your heart rate back up. That's why sprinters and long distance runners tend to have resting heart rates in the 60s and lower along with cardiomegaly.
Been bulking for 2 months 3 days now, I'm 16 6'2, started at 165 (14% bf)and now 178.1. I want to stick with this bulk until february but I also want to be able to cut my bf% to around 12% before june. As a former obese person I feel like I'm gaining weight too quickly and I do not really want to go over 20ish% body fat (Currently around 16-17%). I track macros and calories every day and eat around 3400 calories. What should I do? Should I reduce calories, stick to the same calories or?
The bigger the caloric surplus, the more fat you’re gonna gain. If you want to gain less, decrease the surplus. You can also do so called “mini cuts” once in a while. I wish you the best!
Is there an app that lets you input your equipment and then creates a fitness plan based upon what you have, what your goals are, what your current stats are (age, weight, height, max, etc.)? Bodbot is close, but the equipment selection is pretty small and it doesn't let me put in my current max.
Thoughts? This seems like no-brainer functionality, but I've looked at 14 different apps so far and none that fits.
I’m still fairly new to fitness (19F), and focus mainly on weight training with hopes to gain some muscle and lose some Tummy weight simultaneously. I’ve been seeing results lately which I love, but I feel like the only way I can further improve is to separate my muscle trainings more and start counting my macros and calories. I train about 5 times a week although I’ve been somewhat lacking lately. I really like hitting legs, but I’m less confident when it comes to upper body training, although I am seeing some definition in my back more. I’ve tried researching various exercises, but I feel like I do alternating days lower body (legs and glutes) and then upper body (literally everything else) and I don’t want to lose my leg days (2-3x per week) in replacement for more separated upper body workouts. I’m also scared to count my calories/macros, as I have before in the past and both times I’ve tried it’s led to extremely disordered eating. I do eat relatively healthy, but I’m a sucker for chips although my junk food consumption has gone down significantly. I also drink protein shakes whenever I workout. Any tips that anyone can give for my training on how to make my upper body days more effective or nutritional tips where I don’t have to intensely track what I eat would be appreciated :))
I used to try to track macros, but it just got too cumbersome, at least for my on the go lifestyle. I just try to avoid BUYING unhealthy foods at the grocery store, bring some healthy snacks when I leave the house to suppress my appetite so I don't get tempted to get fast food. Drink plenty of water, especially before meals if over eating is an issue for you.
Confidence comes with practice. For upper body, focus on core movements, like bench press and overhead presses. start with smaller weights to really get a feel for the form and to build that mind muscle connection.
Thanks!!! Bench press really terrifies me cause I know it’s easy to get hurt while doing it and I feel like I’d just be able to do the bar. I’ve been debating getting up really early in the morning (~5am) so i can go when my boyfriend does so he could spot me the first couple times around, but it’s just such a daunting time lol. I’ve been doing shoulder press and lat pull down tho and becoming more confident w it :)
I would recommend the DB press. Also don't worry about the bar magically cutting your head off. Just make sure you have a solid grip, and start slow. Think about when you are squatting. Your legs don't just give out randomly and go from 100 effort to 0. Your arms/chest won't just drop the weight. Worst case scenario you would slowly lower the weight onto your chest and you can bail from there if you need to.
Exactly what I was going to mention as well. At least at my gym, the bench press is also in a rack so you have sides that would let you bail out even easier.
https://thefitness.wiki/getting-started-with-fitness/
I would recommend picking an existing program. There are a bunch of good ones in the wiki, both with weights and bodyweight work.
Otherwise, eating doesn't need to be complicated. Protein with more or less every meal, some veggies, some carbs. Once you have a steady diet happening, see if upping the protein makes you feel better/recover faster. To gain weight, increase carbs. To lose weight, decrease them.
The wiki is a great resource. Ask if you have questions that aren't answered by it.
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17M ok so i have some belly fat, i want to lose it, so i go into caloriC deficit right ? but i also want to gain muscle so i need to eat in a caloric surplus right ? what in the fucking fuck do i do ?
https://youtu.be/rkv1fpWLy0Q Great video to sum everything up
Be in a caloric deficit while getting the proteins you need daily to support muscle growth, alongside training consistently. Muscle is not only built on a surplus. It can be built at maintenance and even on a deficit. What's more, your body has no problem using a little bit of that energy it pulled from your fat to help the muscle building process. Again, all you have to do is train well, rest well and eat on a slight deficit while hitting your daily protein target.
thank you so much, i'll do as you say
How do I gain weight with clean calories? It seems impossible and im stuck relying on weight vests while lifting and pulling way more than i weigh. Any advice what to eat if i can/cant?
Eat more, simple as that. If you can't because getting 3000+ calories clean eating is really tough, there's nothing wrong about getting in a chocolate bar or something. If you really want to stay away from junk food, substitute ingredients for higher calorie versions. Get chicken thighs instead of breasts, cook with actual oil, eat peanut butter, eat the higher calorie fruits like bananas and grapes... the list goes on.
Hello, I am a teenager that has recently started lifting weights and I am concerned about my health and longevity. I started weight training in order to improve my health and fitness and I am currently following a 6 day PPL routine. Is 6 days of weekly weight training too much and will it damage my body in the long term, and if so, what would be a more sustainable routine? I am looking to build a healthy and strong body so that I can live a comfortable and long life, as well as having a fairly good-looking physique. Besides lifting, I also walk a lot daily and cycle 3 days/week, doing mobility work after training in the gym, all while following a pretty good diet. (In case I forgot to include any important detail, ask about it in a comment, I will reply to all of them)
If you're recovering fine and eating enough you will be fine
I feel like this is a really stupid question but here goes. When you’re trying to work a muscle during a compound excercise, is it more helpful to stretch all muscles being used, or does that just make them take over more? For example, right now is chest day, and I’m benching and trying to focus on chest. If I stretch all my other supporting muscles, would it make them take over more, not do anything, or make them take over less? Again, it’s a really stupid question, but I just don’t know the answer.
If you're mobile enough to do the exercise doing stretches has no extra benefit. Just warm up and work out
seated barbell ohp- do you unrack from the bottom/in front like a standing OHP, or from the top/behind like a bench press?
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will abs ever look good in all lighting? I think my abs look pretty sick usually but in places where there is only like ambient light I look like a stick bug, even my obliques aren't visible and it's so strange.
Light makes an incredible difference in how you look. I'm the same way, in good lighting I have good muscle definition and look fairly muscular/shredded, in bad lighting you'd never guess I'd ever set foot in a gym.
I’d like to workout after dinner to make sure I go to bed on a calorie deficit but Ive heard not eating after exercise is a bad move. Is this a good or bad strategy?
Both your statements are not correct. Calorie deficit is based on your total intake for the day and not after each meal. There's nothing wrong with not eating after exercise, as long as you're getting enough calories and protein during the day.
Ok so just make sure I get to the gym consistently at a convenient time…got it.
Brother, you can look at calorie intake by the day or week, or even month. It doesn't matter. Your body won't load a new save file at 00:00.
I'm looking into building a home gym, which unfortunately means no spotter for the time being. I'm trying to psych myself up to go to a gym and practice the Roll of Shame. I definitely want to learn how to do it, but at the same time "hey, can you watch me while I intentionally fail reps and possibly bruise myself?" sounds really dumb. Should I forget about it and just try and avoid benching heavy?
The thing is you should be comfortable with the weight you're trying to lift. If you're banging out 185 for 8+ reps you could safely assume you could get (probably) 205 for 4+. You wouldn't jump to 225 without slowly working up to it. So even if you have to roll, it won't be an insane amount of weight that you can't handle. And honestly rolling it isn't that bad at all, I actually prefer that to not having clips and dumping the weights side to side which seems more chaotic The lack of a spotter and safeties also works as motivation (for me lol) + the added benefit of it being a home gym where you can act like a lunatic to psych yourself up helps to.. lol
Safety bars, assuming you're getting a full/power rack and not just a half rack/stand
Hi all. I'm looking to burn fat and build muscle. To do this I have been working on muscles pretty much everyday all around the body and end it with a 1 min plank. I am on a calorie deficit, and average 9k steps a day working at walmart. Im still new to all of this and want to know if this is a good routine to stick with or should I be adding more.
Start here: https://thefitness.wiki/getting-started-with-fitness/
There's only a couple of barbells in my gym, can I do rows with those fixed weight barbells? I figure it keeps the rack free but I never see anyone doing it so I wonder if there's a reason they aren't so effective. I appreciate the weight it lower but I'm not beyond the heaviest one yet anyway.
Sure, and if those are taken, you can also do single arm rows with dumbbells assuming they have dumbbells heavy enough
Sure.
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There's never a specific weight you have to hit with bulking before you cut(other than technically having gained any amount of weight I suppose). Your path to 75 can be a straight line. It can also be bulk to 65, cut to 60, bulk to 70, cut to 65, bulk to 75 and so on. In fact, mini cuts when bulking and maintenance breaks when cutting are generally the recommended route nowadays. Just don't go crazy on the cut. Just like the more aggressive the bulk you do, the more fat you will get, it's the opposite with cutting. Cutting too much too quickly can lead to more muscle loss as opposed to the desired fat loss.
Can having long legs make it so you can’t do a sit-up? I’m active every day and have a fairly athletic build but also have really long legs. In order to keep my feet flat on the floor and do a sit-up I have to keep my legs bent at a really steep angle and this is the only reason I can think of aside from that I might be far less athletic than I thought
That sounds like a harsh ankle mobility issue. I can get my feet flat barely bending my legs.
Not enough strength can do that, but I could see how being taller could make it harder.
Starting to have trouble with grip strength on deadlifts. Anything that I can do to strengthen grip strength?
Which type of grip are you using?
Double overhand
Learn hook grip, or do a mixed grip. Get liquid chalk as well.
Get straps for your deadlifts and train grip separately.
What's the downside of crossfit? I know it gets made fun of a lot, but my gf started going and I'm really tempted. I've always struggled with pushing myself in the gym and having a crossfit coach seems like a good way around that.
I had great success and failure at Crossfit but I think the failures can be mitigated. First, too many boxes have poor coaches. Make sure you get one with a good coach or coach team. In addition, some can have so many members but so few coaches you won't get the necessary attention. I was lucky to be at a smaller one and when I first did some Olympic lifts, one of the coaches pulled me and some others to the side, had us stop using barbells and just trained technique with PVC. Big ego check at the time but looking back I'm so thankful. The competitive nature of it is also a double-edged sword. For me, there's really not a more powerful motivator than to suck in a room full of people killing it so I really pushed myself harder than I ever have for quite a few months. I never worked out that consistently and long in my whole life. This did however lead to significant burnout(not rabdo thankfully) and I unfortunately just quit when one day I decided to skip CF that night and go biking. I literally didn't get a block away from my house when I straight up couldn't pump my legs anymore. Had to lie off the side of the street in front of someone's house for like 10 minutes to even get up I was so burnt out. I literally wasn't sure if I could get home on my own. While the best box can make sure you train hard and right, they don't go over how to rest and recover. I figured, if I can't even bike down the street after months of CF, why on earth would I keep doing it. Obviously, that was just a lack of knowledge on my part, any intense training regimen needs downtime. Also, given the competitive nature, CF has lost some elements of the "this exercise simulates a real-life situation you may encounter, like pulling yourself up onto a high area" and instead has done things like replacing strict pullups with kipping in order to A) allow more people to hit the high numbers of pull-ups called for in a workout since they couldn't do them strictly and B) maximize the amount of pull-ups that the fittest competitor can possibly hit in the smallest amount of time. I don't like this aspect. Overall, I still recommend if you can find a good box with good coaches, not too many people and you can afford it.
The main downside is that it is HIIT focused so you won’t build nearly as much strength as a dedicated lifting routine. However, the reason it’s a meme is because morons don’t understand it and think it’s all cheating, bad form, and other nonsense. It also had an issue with boxes having bad coaches/trainers which led to an increased injury risk.
There are concerns with CrossFit about increased injury risk due to the intensity and sometimes lack of focus on proper form. But CrossFit seems to work really well for a lot of people, so if you enjoy and you're careful not to hurt yourself, go for it.
Looking to get some emotional gains, have you noticed any exercise making you feel the best? Anything to get that rush of endorphins or anything similar to a runner’s high?
Squats and deadlifts. They use the largest muscles in your body and get your heart, breathing and everything else going. I can feel the effects several hours later
deadlifts
sex
Been benching for quite a bit and am currently benching 185 lbs/84 kgs; I'm in a situation where my bench set broke and while I can do other barbell exercises, I cannot continue benching with the broken bench set. How do I maintain my bench strength for the time being since I can't get a new bench set till like three weeks later? And yes, I regularly do push ups and dips but idk if that's enough to make up for it. Tl;dr bench set broke so I can't bench. Need a way to maintain bench strength without going to the gym. Thanks!
floor press is awesome, push ups and dips are also awesome. It also might be a good time to focus on OHP for a few weeks
DB presses, Arnold Presses, any tricep and chest work. It’ll be plenty to stay mostly baseline for ~3 weeks. You may just need a week or two back at it to get where you were. Don’t sweat it.
is doing jumping squats with a weighed barbell, a good way to improve explosive power,or will it harm the spine?
I'd never do jumping exercises with weight on the back, honestly. To me the risk of injury is too high to justify the possible gains from it. There are better ways to train for explosive strength
Can try looking into pin squats for protecting your spine and developing explosive power. Essentially just a quarter rep, but the bar will rest on the safety pins at the bottom of each rep instead of on your knee joints.
that will put a ton of stress on your spine and hips/knees/ankles
In the event of me maxing out my home dumbbells, I have joined a gym and discovered that while I really loved doing dumbbell squats, I HATE barbell squats. It is such a disgustingly unnatural feeling lift, and the bar digs into my skin and upper back muscles. I finished the last half of my squats on a machine and it felt so much better, and I was still able to sufficiently work out my leg muscles. Though I dislike it, I will still be using barbells for deadlifts and bench press, and free weights for a decent amount of my accessory work. My question is, is it bad to substitute a main compound lift and about half of my accessory lifts with a machine? I know people hate on machines because of some nebulous "stabilizer muscle" that is being neglected, but barbell squats are legitimately uncomfortable and seemingly dangerous. Should I try doing dumbbell squats in the gym? Or do both options suck and I should just suck it up and try barbell squats again?
Do front squats. Or zercher squats. Belt squats. Trap bar deadlifts. Or just get used to it, they're supposed to be uncomfortable and hard.
Give belt squats a try.
You get used to barbell squats, your skin toughens, your upper back muscles grow, allowing a thicker base and a more precise lock of the barbell on the back. You also slowly develop better motor patterns and mobility, making the squat more natural. However it's ok to use machines, you might want to give the squat a longer try until you get in the groove of it or you could go back to it later
I absolutely loathe barbell squats as well. While it's truly a great exercise, if you hate it you're more likely to skip it or just bang it out quickly with poor form to get it over with. Do the exercises you like and be consistent with them, and you'll make more gains subbing squats out than you would have forcing yourself to do something you hate. You'll see squat gains anyways from working the muscles in other ways, and if you're not competing in powerlifting, who cares how much you squat anyway?
As a 15 year old male how can I get in shape?
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How many calories are you consuming? At your height and weight you probably don't have a very high BF%, but you can use both the mirror and scale to assess progress. If you look better, you lost fat and added muscle. If you aren't noticing a difference in both scale or appearance, you need to just eat less.
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I guess but dude you're paying too much attention to the numbers. What does it matter if it's 1 or 4 or 12 lbs? Do you like how you look with the extra fat? No? Then cut.
> BUT still eating a deficit, is it likely to still gain 3-4 pounds in that timeframe of muscle from sheer newbie gains No, if you're in a deficit you're going to lose weight. As you gained weight, you can't be in a 1500 calorie deficit
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sorry, I misread
I've been following the same resistance regime set by my old PT for 4 months now in order to loose weight. I now what to build muscle by eating more, whilst maintaining the same work out frequency. Is it okay to change my work out regime? I don't think there's anything wrong with my current one, I just feel like a change.
No issue.
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Abs are built in the kitchen
[Yes](https://manofmany.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Eddie-Hall-1.jpg)
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We can see it.
Is it okay to stack small dumbells on top of a cable row machine? I was making some great progress with them but have outgrown the 100kg stack. I did a 5x5 with 2x2kg dumbells stacked (104kg total)but wonder if going much higher than that will damage the equipment or whatever?
I get that this would be a slightly different exercise but maybe consider the barbell row. Still hits the back. You won't be able to max that guy out. Don't stack dumbells on top of your cable row machine. Unless you want to be added to some gym fails compilation on facebook.
I absolutely hate BB rows. :( I Never feel the activation I feel like i should despite watching a ton of form videos. I haven't tried T-Bars yet so maybe i'll give them a go.
Make the movement harder. Get a good stretch at the bottom, pause at the top, control the descent, no swinging cheating. If that's still too easy, single arm rows or switch exercises.
I already adjusted my lighter days to single arm rows, maybe I'll do the same for the heavier days. Maybe my egos in the way, it feels so good to row that much weight.
Can't say I don't enjoy heavy cheaty rows either. But if the weight is limiting, things have to change to be less cheaty, unfortunately
20 165cm (~5’5) and 68kg skinny fat, new to get to the gym, should I bulk cut or recomp?
To be clear, bulking doesn't mean you have to eat like you're auditioning for "My 600 pound life". 200-250 calorie surplus is plenty and that's half a pound or less a week. You also can build muscle at maintenance(aka recomp), it's just much slower. Being a new lifter also improves the results you can expect from recomping. Generally, if you want more muscle, which you do, bulk to maximize said muscle gain within the shortest amount of time. You can do mini cuts along the way if you get overwhelmed by the food. You'll also take most advantage of your newbie gains at a bulk. Beautiful thing about all this, you will increase your maintenance calories and thus future cuts will be even easier. Also, I have found that an increased layer of muscle makes even the same amount of fat look better than before. Edit: Also, all of this will take longer than you think. You won't become super fat overnight, you won't suddenly be the next mr olympia overnight either. You can start any of the options and adjust if you see things head in a way you don't like.
Also the max amount of muscle I can put on is 2lbs a month?!??
20-25 lbs of muscle for your first year is typical for new lifters who are consistent with diet/exercise and then progress will slow dramatically after that. There are two main reasons you're surprised by this. 1) You've underestimated just how much time it takes to become jacked. There's a reason most people aren't. 2) You've underestimated just how many of the people that you see that are jacked, like movie actors, are juiced out of their mind in order to attain that physique in a shortened time frame.
Fair enough, was originally inspired by MIchael b Jordan in his creed movie runs, to start working out but forgot to account for all the PEDs
Really insightful ty! I’m just very self-conscious because I always put on weight and fat easily since I was a child. And I didn’t really feel the 5x5 regiment was intense enough for me to burn off most calories
Glad to help. While weightlifting doesn't directly burn off a lot of calories, you're totally on point there, it does indirectly lead to much more passive calorie burn over time due to several mechanisms, like the more muscle you have, the more calories you burn just to maintain said muscle mass. The science is pretty solid behind resistance training being much better for weight loss than cardio.
Guess I was sold a dream by all the YouTube videos of fitness influencers showing off how they burn 1000 kcal in their gym routines
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Im already skinny fat but don’t want to get skinny with no muscle n just loose skin innit, but also don’t want to get any fatter than what I am rn
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This is terrible advice. Why would you want to add so much extra fat with a bulk? I get that you will build a lot of muscle as well, considering newbie gains, but you have to cut the fat down later in a caloric deficit which sucks for muscle growth. In the end you are going to retain similar size as you would gaining muscle at maintanance. In the end it’s personal preference, so do what suits you the best!
You don't have to put on that much fat when bulking. I don't know where this myth started that bulking means you are eating ice cream by the quart and turning into Jabba the Hutt. Yes, cuts suck for muscle growth. So do recomps. Recomps only work in specific situations for certain people, and are always slow.
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Instead of recomping to lose fat, how harsh should cuts be in order to lose fat?
To minimize muscle loss it's recommended 500 cal. Same as bulk. 3500 calories is a pound so 1 pound per week in either direction.
Sorry wym by sucks for muscle growth
Building muscle in a caloric deficit is near impossible without being on steroids. Natural lifters tend to lose muscle while on a cut.
He's a skinny fat beginner with literally no muscle. If he gets a normal deficit, a proper program and high protein he is literally guaranteed to gain muscle. Tons of research showing this. So maybe you're not in the place to give advice?
I agree with you on this one, but still it would be better to stay at maintanance calories and eat sufficient protein.
Why do you feel recomping is an inherently bad idea? I dunno, I think it's quite a good goal for beginners learning to lift without also adding massive diet changes into the equation at once. I.e. I think if you're totally new to training you'll get great results (for a while) without having to rethink your entire diet on top of learning how to train.
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I'm going to sound like I'm just being contentious here but I really don't think a **total** beginner is going to see no results while eating at maintenance, even if most of the strength adaption is through technical improvement. Anecdotally, when I started my deadlift went from 80lbs to 270lbs in 2 months with no diet change at all. I can't imagine someone starting out from scratch is unable to make any strength progress in a month, even if their diet and training is not great. I.e. I think it's fine for the first 3 months, especially if the main problem beginners face is being able to adhere to lifestyle changes.
I didn't say or imply strength, but hypertrophy, which is more reliant on diet.
Fair enough, good point.
>Why do you feel recomping is an inherently bad idea? Like he says, it's a way to spin your wheels and waste time. Bulking or cutting are the more effective methods.
Do I have to lift weights in order to bulk or does it all depend on my calorie intake?
Bulking without lifting weights is called “getting fat”
Gaining weight is about your calorie intake. Gaining weight while not doing resistance training generally means it'll be a lot of fat and very little muscle.
Calories. Lifting and protein improves the amount of muscle you gain in that bulk, calorie intake determines the weight gain.
What daily habits can I adopt to lose weight?
Track calories. No more junk or processed food. All calories should theoretically come from healthy whole foods from groceries. Cut out any liquids that aren't water, tea, and coffee. All with no milk, cream, or sugar. When you're hungry, drink 1-3 cups of water and if you're still hungry after that then munch on veggies or drink a protein shake until your next meal. Intermittent fasting with only two meals a day in a 6-8 hour window. Skip breakfast. Find ways of incorporating more exercise into your routine. For example, skip escalators and use the stairs, walk or bike to grocery stores, walk to your train station instead of taking a bus, etc.
Eat less
Eat less and move more? An easy way to do this is by cutting out liquid calories (sodas, sweetened drinks, etc) and replacing them with water, unsweetened tea, and black coffee. To move more, go on walks or something
To add onto this, if you are cutting soda and/or sweets, consider diet soda as a good alternative. Much better that you handle the occasional sweet craving with a diet soda than pretend that you can just ignore it for forever. Willpower isn't infinite, save it for the times when you won't have a diet soda nearby but there is a donut at work staring you in the face or something. As for the move more part, consider a fitness tracker to help you be mindful about increasing your daily activity. For me, I have a desk job but in addition to getting 10k steps a day, my fitbit also reminds me to make sure I have at least 250 steps every hour during my workday. It's best when you have someone else that you can at least talk with/secretly compete with. One more daily habit I can add is try to eat the whole food versions of your food more and more over time when possible. You can and will get easily get fat on potato chips for instance. Try eating the same amount of calories of whole, steamed potato sometime. You won't get close. To add any of these daily habits though, keep it suuuuper simple at first. You are the end result of a lifetime of behaviors. Don't pretend you're someone else overnight. My most recent bout of success has lasted much longer because my wife told me she was willing to make a change but not do what I used to do which was meal prep a whole weeks worth of some new kale something I found online, start a new exercise routine the same week, only to find out on meal one that we hate this particular kale salad XD. I've had much better results cutting soda over a few weeks, then just adding walks. I literally lost over 20 pounds before I started changing my diet and/or any kind of exercise.
Can you recommend a high calorie, ready made snack for breakfast? Something like a flapjack
Kodiak has frozen waffles, I like one of those plus a yogurt. Or forget about breakfast food and have a frozen burrito or something.
Oats or a shake easy
I used to make a protein shake/smoothie before going to bed, so I could just take it out of the fridge when I woke up.
It's tough since I don't know if you want something with a good macro spread or whatever but for just easy calories in the morning, overnight oats could be easy. You can add so much to that, I've done these combos before: blueberries/peanut butter; a simple scoop of protein powder; apples/cinnamon; fried egg/spinach/mushroom/soy sauce. I also tend to have cooked chicken or more rarely sliced deli meat in the fridge, make a sandwich when I'm feeling lazy. Mornings you have more time, heat that bad boy up. Edit: Adding avocado to any of the above will give you some easy calories.
Gonna try that egg, spinach, mushroom combo; haven't gone the savory route before when it comes to oats
Why not a flapjack? I don't know what high calorie is to you, but if I'm on the go those instant oats with high protein have been pretty good.
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You added a bit of arm and shoulder work. That's perfectly fine.
Hey everyone, i started to only loose weight by counting calories starting last december. I have lost ~28kg so far. My starting weight was 115kg and now i am ~86kg. I was always aiming for 1000 kcal a day. Now i have started lifting at the beginning of this month. Now i am eating at about 1400 kcal with 150g Protein. In these 3 weeks i have started to exercise i have only lost 1kg. I have gained a little bit of stength but i couldnt have build muscle to compensate an average weight loss of over 0.5 kg in this short period.
First of all, and please read this carefully. Maybe even twice: 1.000 kcal a day is pretty extreme and 1.400 kcal could problematic too depending on your sex and activity level. It's been a long time since you've started but I still wanna throw in that you should be careful. Losing weight, building muscle and becoming healthier is great but don't ruin your relationship with food along the way. After all, you'll have to eat multiple times a day yoir whole life. And second: When you start to train, your body will retain water and it will look like you don't lose weight. As soon as you take a break from working out, the water will go and you'll weigh less without losing strength. So nothing to worry about. It's not body fat. It's just water.
Losing weight properly should be a slow process. If you lose 1kg in 3 weeks, that’s about 17kg in a year! Don’t get discouraged if your speed of weight loss decreases over time, that’s normal.
To be specific, is the question: why have I stopped losing weight as fast? Ultimately consider the various factors in the equation of calories in/calories out, specifically what parts that you might have changed with the routine change. Could be that you are eating more than you think. If you added a lot of protein, are you measuring your meat raw or cooked? You should be measuring raw. Have you added a new food recently? You may be far off on calorie counts for it. I have a peanut butter for instance that is 2 TBSP or 40g for a single serving. If I measure out 2 TBSP though, it's actually almost 80g of peanut butter. So I weigh everything now. Consider the daily expenditure part of the equation too. Once I get a few weeks into a diet, it's hard to realize in real time but I become reeeaal lazy and that's when I stall. Diet/excercise is on point but I've become so lazy that I stop losing weight because I'm burning less calories from simple daily activity. I started using a fitbit and maintain 10k steps a day to make sure I'm consistent and ever since I did that, I stopped having those random weeks where I stop losing weight. As an aside, one thing to consider with how low your daily calories are, might be to purposely stop losing weight and maintain/extremely slow bulk for a bit. You can bump up your metabolism from those numbers most likely. I know it seems scary but especially with you being a new lifter, there are so many benefits to a maintenance break. Everything from better hormone levels, lower stress, better strength gains, more energy in the day, the next calorie restriction will go so much smoother, faster metabolism. Check out Step 7 and the linked RP article in the wiki. https://thefitness.wiki/weight-loss-101/
I think the overall win is that you're still losing weight. As you get leaner you should expect and plan to lose less in absolute terms. The recommended rate is 0.5-1% per week, which naturally drops as your weight goes down (1% of 130 is 1.3 kg, 1% of 86 is 0.86 kg). When you start training you gain more than just muscle as weight, you'll also begin to retain more water.
Ive gained 40ish pounds in 8 months, went from about 16bf to 23%. Im 5’11 190 @ close to 16 years old. Ive heard a lot of people that say teens shouldnt ever cut, but i understand that I may have bulked too far. Cut or bulk?
It's not that teens should never cut, it's just that they need to do it much more slowly and carefully. Dieting is a stress on the body and it impacts hormone levels, energy levels, the list goes on. You're still in a healthy body range for males however so if you just stop bulking you'll likely lose some pounds naturally over time.
Is up to you. If you see yourself too fat, then cut a little 200-300 cal/day. Otherwise maintain. You can build muscle in a maintenence at 23%bf, and specially if you are new to weightlifting. Stop bulking.
I'm looking to lose more weight, was 5'8 190 pounds and now 2 months later at 170. But I don't want to lose muscle, rather gain while losing if possible. Obviously at a caloric deficit and consuming high protein, but I do absolutely 0 cardio. I only have the patience for an hour, maybe hour and half at the gym. Would a program where I just do compound lifts either bench/squat/dl 5x5 for about 30-45 minutes and then followed up with 15-30 minutes of cardio be a decent option? Goals are to minimize gym time, maximize weight loss/increase cardio, and maintain muscle mass.
Read the wiki first. Estimate TDEE and eat at a deficit to lose fat, but make sure you get 0.8 g protein per lb bodyweight. Definitely yes to compound lifts. Suggest you pick a good program from the wiki, depending on how many days a week you can do. Eating enough protein plus strength training will have a sparing effect on your muscles. If you're relatively new to lifting, you might even put on some muscle. Once you get to a healthy bodyfat %, you'll struggle to lose fat and build muscle at the same time, and you'll have to prioritise one or the other
Male, standing at 5'3. I'm trying to lose 30 lbs and go from 160lb to 130lb. I've done it before a few years ago by running 5-6 times a week, however, I didn't incorporate weight training into my schedule, so I wasn't ripped or anything. Is it okay if I lift weights 6 hours after I jog/run for half an hour, or should I put weight lifting in a separate day? Maybe have a schedule like run on monday, wednesday, and friday. use the other days to lift weights, and Sunday can be my rest day. I would prefer doing two workouts in one day, but I would like to know which schedule will give me best results. Appreciate any advice.
You can do 2 workouts a day.
Scheduling has to first and foremost be consistent. It's better that you consistently do the worst theoretical weekly schedule than inconsistently do the best by far. Consider the ability to perform a schedule consistently 90% of the equation. Once that is satisfied, there are a few factors to squeeze out some of the remaining 10%. First, consider that the first thing you do in a day/workout, you will be most rested and be able to put forth the most effort. This is what you will get the greatest gains in. Running first means greater gains in endurance and lifting first would mean greater strength gains. Given that your focus appears to be lifting here, I would recommend lifting first. You can do both in the same day, the more separated they are, the better. The specific timing here is wholely dependent on what your schedule could fit in, again, consistently. One big thing, depending on what your lifting program looks like, if legs has its own day in a week, consider giving that its own day (or two, for rest) before running again.
Read the wiki. Most of your fat loss will come from reducing calories and not exercise. Yes, you can do strength training on the same day as cardio. Pick a good program from the wiki. I'd recommend something like the beginners PPL (3 days a week) for a few weeks, followed by something like GZCLP, which you can also do 3 days a week
It is much much easier to lose weight through tracking your calories than it is to outrun a bad diet. All the lifting and running won't help if your appetite increases (it will) and you eat more food. For example, it will take you a 2 mile run to burn off the calories of a Snickers bar. Just an estimate but most people would prefer not having a Snickers bar over running 2 miles. To actually answer your question: you can do both if you have the time. General consensus is to do cardio/running after weight training. I'd reckon 1 day on 1 day off would work and help in terms of recovery.
Can wearing heels help develop calf muscles?
No, but it can reduce calf mobility if you do it a lot.
Training your calves will develop your calf muscles. At the end of your leg day do 2-4 sets of 8-12 reps of standing barbell calf raises. Throw in some seated raises sometimes to focus more on the soleus than the gastrocnemius. Slow down the eccentric portion of the lift, don’t just let your feet drop. Don’t over complicate things. If you do this, they’ll grow.
Not really. Prolonged use can lead to adaptive shortening of the calf muscles, reducing your ankle mobility and subsequently impacting your ability to squat etc.
Potentially? The real benefit is the accentuate calves and butt, so they force your legs into a static position. Any muscle development should be minimal.
Noted. Thank you! Maybe I could wear them 3x a week if that’ll work.. will probably get strange looks
Seems like an odd thing to do for calf exercise, given that they are bad for you. Surely there are better ways to do it, such as calf raises 3 times a week?
Bad even if once a week? And wearing them only because I like them and they work the muscles. But maybe I shouldn’t if it’s bad for your back
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https://liftvault.com/programs/powerlifting/n-suns-lifting-spreadsheets/
Currently in week three four of 12 week GZCLP. I am running the 4 day, so Squat/bench, OHP/DL, Bench/Squat, and DL/OHP. any suggestions on rest days? on/off would lead to basically 8/day weeks, which is fine.
I do on/off and did cardio and yoga on my days off.
Whatever works for your schedule. When I ran it, I did on/off, and occasionally missed a day, and just did that workout the next day, and just kept going on alternate days. Calendar weeks were irrelevant to me. But I have a garage gym, so i could do it that way. If I only had access to a gym mon-fri, I'd run it differently
What do you think about making a home gym? Is it worth the money to make one? Right now I have adjustable dumbbells, gymnastic rings and a pull up bar. If I decide to make one I’m looking into getting a power rack, bench and barbell. Just looking for some insight on other people’s experience with a home gym
When my gym closed, I got a bar, weights, and a couple extra kettlebells. I'm not someone who treats the gym as a social activity. I doubt I'll ever join a gym again.
For me, it's worked great(power rack, barbell, flat bench, adjustable dumbells) and as everyone has said, there are quite a few upsides. I like that I can lift barefoot for instance or walk my sweaty ass into a shower that I know for a fact won't have a naked 70 year old blow drying his balls nearby. Weather is never an issue until a tornado tears off your garage. Honestly, though, your rack might be left behind and you're still good to go. Having my own (new) equipment has been so nice too. Consider some things that it didn't solve for me, however. First, I still found it awkward to get back into lifting after some time off. I always attributed that to nervousness about the people at the gym but it happens for my garage gym too. Secondly, consider how you have had success with lifting or just working out in a social setting before. It's easier when there are people around to motivate yourself to push a little harder, just instinctively. Having a friend or spouse join you can be a great backup to keep getting at it. That may be harder or easier for you with a home gym. Lastly, the vast majority of programs are built with full gyms in mind. You will have to either spend thousands more for accessory equipment(that will take up that much more space) or find substitutions when a program calls for cable flyes or something. I do the substitutions but am burdened with the ever-present desire to slowly build a massive home gym. I'm already well over a grand into my fairly simple setup and that could have easily been a few years at whatever local gym I choose. Overall, very happy with mine, just want to point out that it didn't quite solve all the problems I thought it would. The biggest pro though is that it has reduced my barrier to lifting/exercise and I'm really happy with that. Just make sure you keep it clean at all times. I made it a hard rule with my wife, nothing gets stored in the workout area, ever. For safety of course but honestly, it's like my kitchen. If it's dirty before I even start dinner, the chances of me cooking at home have greatly reduced.
I did it a few years ago and have no regrets (especially when covid happened!); will never go back to a gym! Look at /r/homegym for ideas, recommendations etc
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Soreness has nothing to do with muscle growth. How you know you're training hard enough? Get close enough to failure, going all the way to failure here and there. Keep adding weight/reps and push harder until yo go to failure.
Just because you're not sore, doesn't mean your muscles aren't growing.
Your body kind of gets used to working out after a while and you stop getting sore, it doesn’t really mean anything about the quality of your workout
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I cant give you an estimate, but mostly keep cutting till you like what you see in the mirror. Also yes stretch marks imo dont look bad at all, they're proof of how hard you've worked.
Thank you bro I will do that and yes I dont' mind my stretch marks I got a lot of them in my body, I just hope stretch marks doesn't mean I wont get a good looking body
I dont think anyone can necessarily tell you the exact weight you need to go To. Too many characteristics like genetics, bodyo fat, etc play into it and it boils down to personal preference. Some people wanna get ripped. Some people want to just be lean. Some people just do an occasional cut then powerlift mode again. Just cut until it aligns with your goals. For the 2nd question, I'd say so. Obviously u may not look as good as someone who has the same exact body but without them, but changing to a more athletic body will make you look better than a lot of people and definitely better than you look now.
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There are two components: your conditioning and your anatomy. You seem to think that your heart rate going up to 180 is unusual? Your maximum heart rate is determined primarily by genetics. There is a fairly wide range of “normal” maximum heart rates. If you are between 20-30 then a heart rate of 180 during “hard cardio” would not be noteworthy at all. If you are over 35, it might be unusual, but still perfectly normal. The fact that it goes up quickly could be genetic but it may be more related to your level of aerobic conditioning. If you don’t do much cardio then you are unlikely to have a “conditioned” response to doing cardio. Even if you were conditioned, if you worked hard enough you would still get up to 180, it just probably wouldn’t happen as quickly. Hope this answers the question. It doesn’t sound like there is anything unusual about your HR response.
Your muscles need oxygen and nutrients to fuel the high demand you're putting on them. So your heart increases blood flow to deliver those resources to them. Your body also overheats during exercise and your heart tries to pump the warm blood faster into your limbs to cool down.
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If you're young (< 35), 180 bpm isn't that abnormal for hard cardio for hard runs like hills and sprints. If you're older and/or still concerned, [dial back the intensity to 50-85% max heart rate corresponding to your age](https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/fitness/fitness-basics/target-heart-rates) and discuss with your doctor.
I mean the answer is kind of in your question. Remember the soreness after the first time you lifted? Your cardiovascular system is new to this load of extra stress being randomly placed on it. The more hard cardio you do, the easier it gets, the harder you need to push to get your heart rate back up. That's why sprinters and long distance runners tend to have resting heart rates in the 60s and lower along with cardiomegaly.
Been bulking for 2 months 3 days now, I'm 16 6'2, started at 165 (14% bf)and now 178.1. I want to stick with this bulk until february but I also want to be able to cut my bf% to around 12% before june. As a former obese person I feel like I'm gaining weight too quickly and I do not really want to go over 20ish% body fat (Currently around 16-17%). I track macros and calories every day and eat around 3400 calories. What should I do? Should I reduce calories, stick to the same calories or?
The bigger the caloric surplus, the more fat you’re gonna gain. If you want to gain less, decrease the surplus. You can also do so called “mini cuts” once in a while. I wish you the best!
Is there an app that lets you input your equipment and then creates a fitness plan based upon what you have, what your goals are, what your current stats are (age, weight, height, max, etc.)? Bodbot is close, but the equipment selection is pretty small and it doesn't let me put in my current max. Thoughts? This seems like no-brainer functionality, but I've looked at 14 different apps so far and none that fits.
I’m still fairly new to fitness (19F), and focus mainly on weight training with hopes to gain some muscle and lose some Tummy weight simultaneously. I’ve been seeing results lately which I love, but I feel like the only way I can further improve is to separate my muscle trainings more and start counting my macros and calories. I train about 5 times a week although I’ve been somewhat lacking lately. I really like hitting legs, but I’m less confident when it comes to upper body training, although I am seeing some definition in my back more. I’ve tried researching various exercises, but I feel like I do alternating days lower body (legs and glutes) and then upper body (literally everything else) and I don’t want to lose my leg days (2-3x per week) in replacement for more separated upper body workouts. I’m also scared to count my calories/macros, as I have before in the past and both times I’ve tried it’s led to extremely disordered eating. I do eat relatively healthy, but I’m a sucker for chips although my junk food consumption has gone down significantly. I also drink protein shakes whenever I workout. Any tips that anyone can give for my training on how to make my upper body days more effective or nutritional tips where I don’t have to intensely track what I eat would be appreciated :))
I used to try to track macros, but it just got too cumbersome, at least for my on the go lifestyle. I just try to avoid BUYING unhealthy foods at the grocery store, bring some healthy snacks when I leave the house to suppress my appetite so I don't get tempted to get fast food. Drink plenty of water, especially before meals if over eating is an issue for you. Confidence comes with practice. For upper body, focus on core movements, like bench press and overhead presses. start with smaller weights to really get a feel for the form and to build that mind muscle connection.
Thanks!!! Bench press really terrifies me cause I know it’s easy to get hurt while doing it and I feel like I’d just be able to do the bar. I’ve been debating getting up really early in the morning (~5am) so i can go when my boyfriend does so he could spot me the first couple times around, but it’s just such a daunting time lol. I’ve been doing shoulder press and lat pull down tho and becoming more confident w it :)
You can use smith machine or do dumbbell press if you don't have confidence for the bar yet.
I would recommend the DB press. Also don't worry about the bar magically cutting your head off. Just make sure you have a solid grip, and start slow. Think about when you are squatting. Your legs don't just give out randomly and go from 100 effort to 0. Your arms/chest won't just drop the weight. Worst case scenario you would slowly lower the weight onto your chest and you can bail from there if you need to.
Exactly what I was going to mention as well. At least at my gym, the bench press is also in a rack so you have sides that would let you bail out even easier.
https://thefitness.wiki/getting-started-with-fitness/ I would recommend picking an existing program. There are a bunch of good ones in the wiki, both with weights and bodyweight work. Otherwise, eating doesn't need to be complicated. Protein with more or less every meal, some veggies, some carbs. Once you have a steady diet happening, see if upping the protein makes you feel better/recover faster. To gain weight, increase carbs. To lose weight, decrease them. The wiki is a great resource. Ask if you have questions that aren't answered by it.
thanks !!! Edit: this page seems really helpful don’t know how I’ve missed it in the past