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My progress is so slow, 2years in and only can do 50 lbs db press both side (stagnating for 4 months now), and my squat is very very weak(50 kg) i had a problem where ill fall to the front when trying to squat, should i try using plate in my heels? im also changing my split from PPLRPPR to ULR repeat all my friends have a better progress, not sure what should i change *note= im in college, eat daily 100gr protein but not measuring the calories
Will your jawline get better as you workout? Feel like mine is almost there, just needs a bit more fat to be off
It will likely get more defined as you lose weight
Working out doesn't cause fat loss (at least not directly). So no, working out should have no effect on your jawline.
Want to see if my workout plan is good, want to loose belly, chest and hip fat, but i know you can’t target fat. Just want to know if these would help I use 8lb dumbells when working out bc i dont have easy access to other equipment. I also walk slowly after eacg workout as a cooldown and do breathing exercises. I also add more and more reps after each week, culminating after ten weeks, which is when my cut is over(cutting small, 2051 cals)
Day 1: lower body and chest
Goblet squat
Dumbell floor chest press
Dumbell romanian deadlift
Glute hridge with dumbell
Wall sit
1 min break between sets and repeat 2 more times
Day 2:back and core
Bent over rows
Deadbug(no weights)
Stabding dumbell reverse fly
Plank
Dumbell lateral raise
Russian twists
30 sec break between supersets(2 more times, superset is first two exercises)
Day 3-arms plus shoulders and burnout
Dumbell shoulder press
Bicep curls
Overhead tricep extensions
Squat to press
High knees
Jumping jacks 30 sec
Rest 1 minute between sets, repeat 2 more times
I also don’t workout for 2 days as recovery day, but i can shrink that to 1 day for results
Im an autistic girly who cannot be in a crowd of people.
Do the gyms actually get busy in January? How busy, like every machine/ area will be in use? Will the gym be loud?
How long does this last for? Im trying to work out if its worth me skipping the gym for a week or two.
It mainly gets busy/loud after 3 in the afternoon. From 06:00-14:00, there'll be a lot less people. Alternatively, you could do a deep dive into YouTube callisthenics. Weight is weight, so the body doesn't care if you use bodyweight or external weight.
This really depends on the gym and the time you go. I go early in the morning and it's never crowded. But I have been to gyms later in the day that were so busy after new years that essentially every dumbbell from the rack was taken and in use.
Is a 4x4 a good set/rep range? 4 sets of 4 different excercises, following 8-12 rep range on almost everything except heavy singles on bench but mixed with sets of 8-12.
8 sets of two different muscle groups per day doing PPL.
3x3 is good for peaking. The real question is: How long is this block of training?
Indeed, strength proficiency + basework is a very good combination. And it'll work until it doesn't. (That's not a bad thing at all, just an honest acknowledgement.)
The reason why you can't lift your max every week. Strength work is fickle like that. After however many weeks you can grind it for, ramp to a top single and run a 531 template.
a hard set of 4 will stimulate growth
the goal is just progression regardless of whether you go heavy or a bit lighter (ie if your 4 rep max goes up, thats progress, if your 12 rep max goes up, thats progress, if your 4 rep max becomes your 12 rep max that's also progress...)
if your joints can tolerate doing mostly low reps go for it
if you feel like you need to mix in more lighter sets go for it
i like 4x4 for some things sure
Simple question for anyone who balances lifting with team sports., how do you decide when adding more strength work actually helps performance versus just adding fatigue? I lift twice a week around football and feel good, but every time I try to add a third session my legs feel flat on match days.
If your performance is suffering because you're not sufficiently recovered, it sounds like you've already found your limit.
Yeah, that’s fair, the match-day feedback is probably the clearest signal. I guess the useful takeaway is that “optimal” isn’t the same as “maximum,” and for me two sessions seems to be the sweet spot where I get the strength benefits without paying for it on the pitch
Looking to get back into lifting after a 6 month break due to work/life stuff. Should I just jump back into my old routine or start lighter and work my way back up? Used to do 5/3/1 BBB before the break
Find your favourite stock upper/lower, and run it for 2-3 months. Then weight test.
I'd suggest doing the 7th week PR test using the last TMs you were using, and then adjust the TMs accordingly.
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is there any issue doing Zercher squats the day before back? want to give them a try but I heard they tire your back out
see if you can still row and pullup with high quality the next day, you don't need to ask for permission
if you cant, then make some adjustments, swap zerchers for something with similar anterior loading benefits (ie. front squats or ssb) and see if it makes a difference, separate your pull and leg day a bit more or suck it up until you adapt to being able to row and pullup with high quality again
You'll be fine. If you have to adjust your back work, then just adjust your back work.
What is the ideal intensity and frequency for shoulder extension and rotator cuff exercises? Rep/Sets/Days per week. I'm a relative beginner.
depends on your reason for them
if you are really good at getting the right muscles active you could literally just do anything from 4-30 reps and try to +1 rep or +load over time because that is generic hypertrophy guideline
if you are really bad at getting the right muscles active and are doing them because getting said muscles active will make your pressing or pulling feel better, you will probably start as light as you need to feel the muscle work and go to the point of some sort of extremely mild fatigue or burn in said muscles because absolutely cooking them is going to be silly if you need to use said muscles right after to press
Ive had best results with low intensity and high frequency. I do them every workout day (3-4x per week) for about 6 or 7 sets and 20-30 reps per set
I prefer to do them as a warm up on my pressing days.
Since it sounds like this is a prevention or treatment question, it's probably better left to a physical therapist.
Hard to say, but generally start easier than you think you need to, and progress from there
Like vitamins,
I am 19M, 76kg, 6'1 Hey, i just wanna gauge how good is my progress, Like how good is 45kg barbell bench press for 3sets of 8 reps after 5months of gym considering when i began i struggled with even 5kg dumbbells
Max on bench is 50kg as i could push 2 reps with it
Squats i can do for 55kg, at start i just used like one 10kg dumbbells
Deadlift i never tried but i can rdl with 65kg
The thing i am most proud of is being able to do unassisted pullups now, altho its on 2reps for now still that feels like my biggest achievement as at the start i literally required 88lbs assistance on the assisted pullup machine to manage reps
Now my main goal is to lose the my lower belly fat i lost weight before but it was only making me more skinny fat so just bulked up a bit to build a base for properly loosing fat later, will start to eat in a 200-300 calorie deficit now
Thanks for any suggestion!
you got a million times stronger for reps
keep chipping at your lifts as you lose weight since as a relative novice you should be able to do so
gg congrats
Good? Bad? Who knows? Seriously, no-one here can asses your progress. All we can say is that you’ve made progress, which is good.
As for suggestions - if you’re not following a well defined program you should probably grab one of the ones from the wiki. Also, with your height and weight I probably wouldn’t cut as it will leave you looking skinny fat again. Just maintain and keep on lifting.
Hi all, hoping to get a sanity check on my programming for the new year.
I’ve been lifting for about a year now, running a standard 5x5 linear progression on my compound lifts and 3x10 on most accessory lifts. I’m really happy with the strength gains. I went from 95lb flat bench to 225 since last January. I started lifting 3 days a week (PPL) from Jan-Apr, then I switched to upper/lower 4 days a week. I did this so I could hit each muscle group twice a week and I think it was the right move.
Tbh, I’m discouraged by my physique. While the numbers on the bar are going up, I don't feel like I look like I lift weights. My gf says I do (lol) but I've been waiting for literally anyone to ask if I've been lifting and it hasn't happened yet. I'm 5'8 and weigh 175. I eat slightly over maintenance and I'm currently at about 20%bf. I feel I just look skinny fat. On top of that, grinding heavy 5-rep sets near my max is starting to beat up my joints (got a little nagging shoulder pain, nothing crazy). I'm currently on a deload week after 10 weeks of 5x5, which I think will help.
This January I'm considering a pivot to a hypertrophy focused program to put on some size. I'd drop weight by 20% and go from 5x5 to 3x10 on all compounds, and maybe 3x12-20 on accessories. I'd still run a linear progression by adding 5lbs each week to all lifts. I'd aim to cut daily calories on April 1 to get ready for summer.
For those who have made this switch, is a 20% drop too drastic? I also considered less of a drop and gradually increasing reps weekly for a hybrid approach, but I thought a clean break to hypertrophy made more sense. Will this actually help me look bigger by June, or am I just going to lose my strength base? I know I don't really lift that much weight, do I maybe just need to reset my expectations and keep grinding on my current program?
If you're in it for aesthetics, you need to be hitting the best "looking" muscles hard - like biceps, chest, and shoulders.
You probably also need to drop weight too and are underestimating your body fat %. My numbers are similar (same height but am at 155 lb). My abs and vascularity on arms (visible bicep veins) didn't come in until mid 160s.
Honestly, I think you'd be best served moving on from an LP and onto a real program.
Going from 5x5 to 3x10 is actually less volume, since you'll be doing two less working sets per lift. The difference in hypertrophy between sets of 5 and sets of 10 is negligible.
If you really want to kick your own ass, check out the stronger by science hypertrophy program. I'm in week 14, it's fun but it's a real challenge.
It sounds like you are making the jump somewhat arbitrarily. It is not the case that doing 3x10 rather than 5x5 lp itself is what’s gonna give you better hypertrophy. Rather, the driver of hypertrophy is in the biomechanics of how you perform the bench press (or any other movement) and that, as you intuited, a 3x10 will make that easier and beat up the joints less. You’ve been chasing progressive overload, but in the time that you’ve gone from 95 to 225, has your form stayed the exact same? Do you feel tension on the target muscle of the pec? Or have you adopted more of a powerlifter style bench press where you arch your back to distribute the load to more muscles such as the shoulders and triceps? If you are, then returning to a standard of form that emphasizes primarily tension on the pecs will necessitate a precipitous weight drop but in the long run it would maximize for hypertrophy
The jump is arbitrary in that it isn’t following a programmed change in rep range, but more so timing based with the new year and also how I’ve been feeling about my strength and body image. I just wanted to get to 225 - and now don’t feel as much of a desire to increase weight as I do to look more fit.
With 5x5, the last reps of the 4th and 5th set usually feel difficult systemically. I don’t feel the same “pump” after 5x5 when compared to my accessory lifts in higher rep ranges, it’s more of an overall exhaustion. There is a pump, for sure, but it’s maybe not as localized.
I also don’t arch my back on bench like a bodybuilder. My lower back is maybe 1” off the bench, but I haven’t measured. I’d say my form is the same or better than when I started, but I’m not a trainer or anything.
Everything you’re saying makes total sense, and I’m not saying arbitrary in a negative way by any means also. If you wanna hit 225 and that’s what gets you in the gym then yeah absolutely go for that. Most of my comment I meant in a “if you’re curious about what mechanisms will optimize for hypertrophy for future programming, here they are” sort of way. For now I’d recommend just playing around with your bench form to see where you can feel the most tension on your pecs and get the biggest pump as that’s most likely the form you’ll want to use to train for hypertrophy
I didn’t read it as negative at all, I get where you’re coming from. Do you think the same level of size can be put on with 5x5 compared to 3x10, if the form is improved?
I just always figured 5x5 would be for strength. Size was my goal from the beginning but I could barely lift 1 plate, so I started with 5x5 with the plan to reassess when I got to a respectable weight. I feel like I’m more or less there now.
we have a lot of studies showing that people can grow similarly with low reps and high reps
we have mechanistic ideas like effective reps that will explain why low reps can grow you and why high reps will also grow you
i dont think the specific rep ranges are magic because when you think about it, with the same technique/leverages etc, someone who benches 405x5 might be able to press 365x10 and vice versa and probably took similar number of years to get to that point, so i think they'd look pretty similar
if you discover a technique that makes your pecs work harder but you cant use as much weight on it, call it bodybuilder bench and train it as a variation and try to improve on it too. maybe this variation is literally just dumbbells or weighted dips or incline dumbbell lol.
i do think that its entirely possible that you have a completely expected amount of muscle in the pecs for a 225 bencher and "giving up chasing strength" is not really the magic bullet and aesthetics would follow just getting sub20% bf via diet, and improving your curls/vertical presses/delt and tricep isolation/lat work
I think certainly you could get similar size gains from 5x5 vs 3x10 up to a point - of course there are joint health considerations, but all else equal in theory there would be no difference. Fazlifts on YouTube is a great example of a natural who has tried both high and low volumes and actually prefers lower volumes. Much of recent scientific literature (though you should take it with a grain of salt, as always) seems to agree with the idea that any reps from 4 to 30 are roughly equal in hypertrophic response, given that the set is taken to a close proximity to failure. And of course, form is just one of those things that you'll never understand perfectly. Half of being in this game is always being open to trying new cues, different variations, different joint angles, testing them for weeks or months, seeing if they can eek out some new results, etc.
For your second point, 5x5 is more relevant to the conventional understanding of strength, as in that it can be more easily and directly compared to a 1RM and it's easier to put up big numbers. That being said, someone who's strong at doing 3x10 is gonna be strong, full stop. Your intuition about starting with the 5x5 to get up to reasonable numbers makes sense, yet many people who get into this game start with that and let it lead them down the path of only caring about weight on the bar, but it seems like you've kept a level head about it. I recommend also checking out Basement Bodybuilding if you're curious about how different volumes play into hypertrophy training
I recently switched from a strength-focus to a hypertrophy-focus and I dropped my training max by 20%. But that is specific to my program (Stronger by Science) and my previous experience making that switch.
However, zooming out, I think the more important thing to consider here is to ditch the linear progression. It's not a long term approach and it's even harder to sustain on higher rep set ups. I would suggest you find an established program oriented toward hypertrophy and follow it.
As for getting bigger by June, I'm sure you will.
Right now, my program has quad extensions on my hamstring focused leg day and lying leg curls on my quad focused leg day. I’ve found that this setup lets me push those isolations much harder, because the target muscle isn’t already fatigued from compounds earlier in the session.
For example, doing quad extensions on hamstring day means my quads are relatively fresh, so I can really focus on load, reps, and effort. When I’ve tried doing quad extensions at the end of a quad day, my quads are already fried and I can’t give the exercise the same intensity. Same thing applies to lying leg curls on quad day, hamstrings are fresher, so performance is better.
So my question is, would I be better off putting quad extension/leg curl as my first exercise so I can really put all my effort in then move onto compounds after? Instead of putting quad ext/leg curl last, move it to the very start of my workout?
I think this is a case of majoring in the minors. It’s unlikely to be significantly different. You may have more energy for that exercise, but then the final exercise of your day will be one exercise more fatigued than usual, so it kind of all evens out in the wash. I’d say try it both ways and do whichever you like better.
Exercise order matters - you have a finite amount of energy and you can't prioritise everything equally. I suspect people tend to do their compounds first because that's when they feel most fresh and compounds are very taxing. Imagine doing a squat workout as your last exercise. Most people wouldn't want to do it.
In short, do whatever things you want to prioritise and grow the most first.
Probably stupid question but I watch alot of bodybuilder youtube videos and they always do isolations first like hip abduction, adductors, quad extensions, leg curls then they move onto their compounds. Is there any reasons behind doing these exercises at the beginning of the program other than priorities first? For me, I've always done quad extensions last as my final workout on my quad days but I found my quads were fried by the end so I wasn't able to push as hard or get as many reps, so that's why I now do quad extensions on hamstring days.
It's called pre-fatigueing. If you look at the literature, it's a pretty neutral approach to gains. Meaning, it doesn't make a difference one way or the other on average. It's just a different way of doing the same thing.
However, it may suit individuals and be a positive even if it's placebo. The idea is, if you do leg extension first and then move on to squats, you are setting yourself up to make your quads the limiting factor in squats so they are getting the most stimulus possible. Instead of doing squats first and having your back or glutes are something else limiting the motion before your quads can get full stimulus.
We're talking small percentages is differences, though, if the differences even exist. But when you're going up against a line up of elite bodybuilders, every little bit counts. For normal people doing normal things, I would put good money and there being either 1) no measurable difference, or 2) so many other aspects of life and training going on to completely wash out any real difference to make the whole thing moot. Even still, you may prefer training that way and that will be conducive to long term sustainability and compliance which will create better gains in its own way.
Agree with everything here. I will say I’ve run programs where I start with compounds and ones where I start with an antagonist muscle and psychologically, it feels nice to get a pump in that antagonist muscle first before jumping into the compounds. It gets the blood flowing and hamstring curls are obviously less taxing than high bar squats, so it gets me in the mood faster than if I had to spend 5-10-15 minutes warming up for some heavy squats
Couple of reasons I could guess at:
I would be cautious about trying to emulate a bodybuilder unless your goals are exactly the same and it makes sense in terms of how long you've been training.
I suppose for bodybuilders, compounds are less important to them .
(which says a lot about the sorry state of modern bodybuilding, but I digress...)
They believe in pre-fatiguing the muscle before doing their compounds. And they will go lighter weight for huge volume for the compounds then. They believe that this promotes muscle growth.
How good is one arm deadlift for real world? I was thinking of doing them once a week besides conventional deadlifts
&
Thoughts on eugene teos recent free hybrid training 5 days split ?
i have seen people in his comment section rejecting his plan i kinda agree with them but it looks like a solid plan if modified a bit
One arm DLs have pretty specific demands that aren't encountered a lot outside the gym. If you want to train functional movement patterns, i'd do things like sandbag lifts and carries or zercher squat + lunge combo, step-ups or stair climbs, and suitcase walking lunges.
Oh i get it thanks Basically its a low reward high risk movement if i am correct
But one arm ohp is a pretty functional movement right?
It is, but the physical demands aren't a whole lot different than the 2 arm version, especially if you use 2 dumbbells. That's not the case with lower body exercises like suitcase walking lunges, which require massive lumbar/hip stabilization in the sideways plane, which is lacking in squats & deadlifts.
Got it ty ty
I doubt you’ll have to pick up a heavy 7 foot object that you have to balance perfectly in the middle very often in real life.
You'd be amazed at how 1) basically any training at all makes you overall more capable 'in the real world', and also how at the same time 2) basically no training except training the exact movement you're trying to improve is specific enough.
If this seems paradoxical, think about it. In your day to day life is there any scenario where being overall fitter and stronger isn't helpful, but also is there any thing you're doing in your daily life that is as taxing picking up several hundred pounds of dead weight like you do in the gym?
If you want an analogy for this: if you want to get better at piano, playing any other instrument will probably make you a better musician, but only playing piano will make you better at playing piano.
It makes you really good at picking things up with one hand.
Would you recommend one to do that if one is not interested in muscle building or powerlifting?
If you want to get better at picking things up with one hand, then yes
Do it if you want. It's a circus trick. And that's perfectly fine, old-timey Strongman lifts are cool! It's just not particularly useful from a training standpoint, other than grip--and grip is better trained other ways.
No different than when we press a Circus Dumbbell. It serves no purpose other than to look cool pressing a big goofy dumbbell over my head.
If you're interested in lifts like this, check out IAWA or USAWA, they're based entirely around old-time strongman lifts, including one-arm deadlifts.
Depends. Are you expecting to be forced to pick things up with a hand tied behind your back?
What do you mean for the real world?
Dudes gotta make a single trip with all the groceries in one hand and his kid in the other
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You would be better off using one of the routines in the FAQ. If you have access to a barbell you should start there
I only have access to dumbbells and a bench at the moment
A 4 day plan just means you go to the gym 4 days. It can have the same 2 workouts done alternating. I have no comment on whether it's a good program or not
Ohhh ok, I assume it should have 4 different workouts for each day
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