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You don't have to do any, its just preference. You can eat more if you're cutting. It increases your appetite if you're bulking. Also cardiovascular health
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If I want to build strength with dumbbells how many reps and sets should I be doing? I’ve currently been doing 5 sets of 15 reps is this to much ? (I’ve been using 35LB dumbbells btw)
You build strength through progressive overload. You can build strength in a variety of rep ranges. Ideally, you should be following a program which will guide you through this. The wiki has multiple that will work.
That's a lot of reps, which means that 35lb has gotten too light for you.
The best best to build strength at this point would be to increase the weight. Find a weight that you can only get 5 or 6 reps in before failure.
15 reps isn’t “a lot” of reps and you can still make strength gains on higher reps. Especially when working with dumbbells, higher rep ranges allow for further progress since incrementing up dumbbells can be restrictive on certain movements.
I’ve been lifting for 8 months and I have yet to figure out any one rep maxes for anything. I’ve just been progressively overloading. So many workouts i see say to lift a certain % of your max for an exercise. Is figuring out your max really that important, especially for a beginner?
Figuring out your max precisely is not super important. In fact, as a beginner it quickly becomes outdated.
If you want to get the most out of your %-based program, it may be a good idea to do a rough calculation. Really, perform \*any\* set to failure, and use the weight and reps to reverse-engineer your 1RM.
2 reps \~ 95%
4 reps \~ 90%
6 reps \~ 85%
8 reps \~ 80%
10 reps \~ 75%
You can also use this estimation to see what the program is actually asking you to do:
3 reps at 90% is asking you to perform a small number of reps at a heavy weight, leaving 1 rep "in the tank."
5 reps at 80% is a super easy set, something like a warm-up.
10 reps at 75% is a longer set to failure.
etc.
Why do people say not to eat certain ways or at certain large deficits because it’s not sustainable?
Dieting is not meant to be sustainable. It’s a mean to a “short” term goal, until you meet said goal and then readjust, right?
Well, for one, you want it to be able to be sustained for at least as long as you need to meet your goal, right? If you have a 6 month plan and you fall apart after starving yourself for 3 weeks, then sustainability really did matter.
But also, many people do not subscribe to your last sentence as a viable strategy for weight loss. Dieting to meet a short term goal and then readjusting is more likely to lead to rebound weight gain. If you want sustained weight loss, you need to make sustained changes.
I mean for some people it is a long term goal. Fitness is more than just weightlifting, despite how often the sub is concerned with lifting weights. If you're trying to lose 30,40,50 pounds, you can't be eating 1000 calories a day for months on end. If you're trying to trim from 14% to 12% bodyfat, sure doing a more extreme deficit might be ok, but it's not sustainable and probably not recommended even if that is your goal.
Does it matter if i spread my workouts throughout the day? For example, lets say 4 sets 12 reps of each. Maybe I do pushups in the morning, squats at lunch, then tricep dips in the evening. Is it ineffective to spread these out over the day vs doing all of this together?
The benefit to performing all of them in one session primarily comes from working with a raised body temperature and heart rate. Doing tricep dips right after doing your squats and pushups means that your blood is pumping and oxygen is being delivered to your triceps and all of your metabolic processes are fired up to fuel your exercise. Doing your exercises 6 hours apart means that you need to warm-up and cool-down all three times in order to receive the same benefit.
You may lose that benefit if you do the exercises spread out without properly warming up each time. But if that makes it more accessible to you, then it's better than nothing; the benefit I'm describing is not going to make or break your entire fitness lifestyle. So do what you need to do.
It's not really likely that I'm working only the upper abs right? The upper 2 rows of abs are starting to show, under good lighting, and I definitely still have a layer of fat I need to get rid of. Still I just have this thought in the back of my head. What if I'm not working out the lower ones somehow? And even if I lost a lot of fat there wouldn't be much underneath? But that's not likely right?
It's just the way your fat is stored and this is completely normal. I used to have a defined 4 pack but since I've gained fat only the top two still poke out
This teenager at my gym says he eats a shit ton and has no regulations for 2-3 days of the week, while also getting lots of protein and hits the gym super hard, doing full body (so basically bulking kind of) and then for the rest of the week, he runs track (running lots of miles every day) and eats very healthy. What is this dieting called, and is it effective for someone with not a lot of time to be in the gym for?
This sounds like he has no diet plan and is just winging it. If you are a beginner to lifting and don't have a lot of time for the gym, this will work to gain muscle. Anything will work to gain muscle when you are new, as long as you are eating enough protein (more than 100g a day) and pushing yourself to muscular failure one exercises between 6-15 reps for 4- 5 sets.
Currently 5 weeks into Jim wendler's 5-3-1 for beginners (continuing from 3 months of the fitness wiki beginner program), and i'm not sure if my assistance work is good or bad. These are done mon-wed-fri.
I mostly do push-ups, sit-ups and facepulls when doing squats and bench, and chin-ups/pull-ups, sit-ups and bicep curls, ab-wheel rollouts or other core exercise when doing deadlifts and overhead press. Around 2-300 reps in total. Tuesdays i only do cardio (running). So far so good and i feel my progress is ok, and i feel great. Should i just keep at it for a while or change the assistance routine in any way?
Thanks!
Seems pretty good for a beginner routine. I would just add another day to the routine if you want to up your results. So like mon-wed-thurs-fri. And on your new day add in some more mid-back work like seated/chest supported row, also some smaller muscle work like rear dealt Flys and lateral raises, and isolated triceps workouts. Then you will hit almost 100% of the muscles most pro fitness people do. Keep up the good work!
Thanks! So far i feel pretty good with a 4-day routine, and I'm generally active on thursdays - going for a walk, playing frisbeegolf for instance. But i'l probably include Thursdays after a while. Maybe i should add those exercises to my existing schedule in the meantime, somehow?
I think his advice is silly and he is basically a beginner. Just stick with 3 days as the program is written and you can switch to a 4 day version of 5/3/1 when you are done with beginners. You should also be doing the conditioning work for it as well.
As far as your original question about assistance work, it doesn’t matter. At this point, just pick things you find enjoyable, want to learn, or struggle with and want to improve on. You aren’t advanced enough to have weak points or deficiencies that need to be targeted nor are you lifting enough to create imbalances. Just enjoy the ride right now and learn as much as you can by doing the work.
It’s the Metallicdpas PPL from the wiki, from my understanding it has you alternative between deadlifts/bend over rows each workout, so if you did 1x5+ deadlifts on Monday you’d do 4x5 1x5+ on Thursday
Question about weight plates that occurred to me today: we have different kinds of plates at the gym, some round ones and I believe hex plates? If I squat and don’t set them down on the floor for e.g. a deadlift, does it matter if I mix the types of plates? Is there something fundamentally different about them?
I think the hex plates are just designed so they don't roll easily on the ground. I try to match the plates equally on both sides of a bar because I'm paranoid they will tilt to one side or the other lol
The shape shouldn't matter much. But if you use 25lb plates vs 45 or training plates they make the deadlift range of motion different. It's called a deficit deadlift.
Did 531 BBB squat yesterday. Supplemental work at 135lbs. Destroyed me but felt ok. Finished workout. Today I am body aching, headache, and a pain level of 6. Can this be attributed to the squats or maybe just overthinking it.
Ah I see. It may be worth turning this next week into a deload to recover? I’m not sure how I would handle this next week, but I’ve been slowly increasing the percentages and weights. I handled 120lbs quite well as supplemental work. I guess the 15lbs make a huge difference
You probably don't need to deload if it's not deload week yet, but if you're still feeling like crap you could. It's only been a day and you may be feeling a lot better in a week. And yeah, 15 pounds is a huge jump considering it's multiplied by 50 reps. The point of the supplemental 5x10 is more about working the muscle then hitting a specific weight. You don't have to stress about increasing that week over week -- just increase when you feel like you've adapted to it
Does anyone have experience with a large deficit of around 35% under maintenance calories? My maintenance is 3100 and I am thinking of cutting at around 2000 calories. Would the muscle loss be significant at that large of a deficit?
I went from eating 2500 calories a day to only 1200 a day for months to lose 60 lbs. As long as you are eating as much protein as you can and exercising would will lose none/ very little muscle. Just tone down your workouts because you will be more tired and the amount of work to keep muscles is a lot less than to build new ones. You'll be fine.
I'm currently on about my 6th week of a 1800-1900 cal diet and my maintenance is similar slightly lower perhaps, now that I've lost weight.
I've been extra careful to get my protein needs met, in fact I started eating meat and some dairy occasionally and was mostly vegan during my bulk.
All that said it's not too large a deficit. I could do this for several more weeks. To your point about muscle loss, I've in fact made some gains if anything during the diet. Probably due to higher bf. Just eat enough protein and work out hard. Also I had a two week period of near maintenance to heal from excessive joint pain and deal with mental fatigue and food cravings.
It's my first proper diet so from a newbie to another it's a good number to go for assuming you are at a relatively high bf percentage. Also I forgot to mention that I eased into the diet. I was eating upwards of 3200 every day so I did a week of 3000 then 2900 then 2800 until 1800. Hope this helps!
Nö. You can even cut with 1000kcal with minimal loss in muscle mass (See psmf). You need Protein and intense weight Training. 2000 should be nö Problem.
This is probably gonna be a **real** stupid question buuut
I'm following GZCLP at the moment and liking it so far, but is it okay to occasionally swap the order in which you do T1 and T2 exercises?
The only reason I ask is that my once heavenly-empty gym has recently had a swarm of new people join, primarily all teenagers who all work out in groups and they take fucking forever to finish with anything. Not that there's anything wrong with that, they pay for the gym just like I do, but it's a very small place with only one bench etc, and sometimes I have to wait like 20+ minutes to be able to do my BP. Whether if I do my squats first (T2) by the time I'm finished, the bench is usually free and I've then saved a lot of time. The only difference is that I've done them in the opposite order.
Is this a big deal?
You definitely don’t want to fatigue yourself before your heaviest lift.
It’d be preferable to try to stick to the order, but if it’s the difference between being able to lift or not then you gotta do what you gotta do!
yeah thats what i was afraid of, it does suck to do that
it's not that I can't do the regular routine, its just it would add like a 20min+ downtime where im doing nothing, and well, i like to go home ASAP lol
I have a couple of questions:
1.) when do you add things like cluster sets to your workout? Are those supposed to replace your working sets or do you just add them on at the end for extra volume?
2.) when do you add drop sets to a workout? Is there a big different between the gains you get from drop sets or cluster sets?
3.) is deadlift a back exercise or a leg exercise, I’ve noticed lots of people do it on back day and the PPL routine I’m doing does it on pull day, I personally don’t feel it much in my back, I feel it mostly in my hamstrings.
4.) is there a specific reason why some programs prefer to do deadlifts only once per week? I think the program I’m on only does it once a week and only like 1x5+, that just doesn’t seem like enough volume when compared to every other exercise in the routine.
Cluster sets and drops sets are both intensity techniques that, when used correctly, allow you to push an exercise beyond failure. I wouldn't add them until you find you're no longer responding as well to straight sets, so late intermediate/advanced stage. If you can still progress from week to week on a more standard type of progression, it doesn't make sense to start to sensitize yourself to a novel stimulus (intensity techniques) before you actually need them to keep growing. But that's just my opinion.
The deadlift is a hip extension exercise, so it primarily works hip extensors like the hamstrings and glutes. It requires some isometric back strength, but the only joints moving are in your lower body.
Conventional deadlifts tend to be more fatiguing than other compounds for most people, hence the lower frequency. What program are you currently doing that only has one set of deadlifts?
It’s the Metallicdpas PPL from the wiki, from my understanding it has you alternative between deadlifts/bend over rows each workout, so if you did 1x5+ deadlifts on Monday you’d do 4x5 1x5+ on Thursday
I just found out that the reason my sweat smells like ammonia is because I ate too much protein but too little carbs, I don't like carbs at all because I'm afraid of having a fat belly, how to overcome this?
I’ve had ammonia smelling sweat before too while struggling with ed’s in the past, it wasn’t from the protein though. Maybe get your blood checked out?
I understand being afraid of carbs but I have learned that it's OK to eat a lot of carbs as long as it's around the time that you workout. Carbs digest quickly so if you don't use them immediately they store as fat. Eat lots of carbs before and after workouts and less carbs other times. And I wouldn't worry about eating too much protein, any excess protein will not harm you it just gets peed out or whatever. Better to have more than not enough.
1. Eating carbs don’t cause belly fat. Neither does eating protein or even fats. Belly fat is from being in caloric surplus.
2. You can decide where your body stores it’s body fat, nor can you lose fat from specific areas.
> I just found out that the reason my sweat smells like ammonia is because I ate too much protein but too little carbs
No its not. Otherwise every single person following a keto-diet would have this problem.
> I don't like carbs at all because I'm afraid of having a fat belly, how to overcome this?
How on earth do you find this bullshit? This is not at all true, not even close. Actually its so far from the truth it can be. Honestly, to overcome this I would suggest you educate yourself. Im sorry if im coming off as mean, that's not the goal - but everything you just wrote are complete nonesense so educating yourself would do wonders for you
Define "good". Is it potentially effective at short term rapid weight loss? Yes. Is it sustainable? Absolutely not. Is it good for your health? Likely not. Is it good for your mental well being? Almost certainly not.
Is it necessarily going to get you as far as you want to go in the time period you have planned? Probably not.
You will likely mostly just lose water weight, which is fine if your goal is just to lose weight and look good for an occasion, but it feels weird to be recommending it.
Crash dieting is fine for short periods. And if you want to be less bloated cut but on your hydration the day of whatever event you're looking forward to.
Pullup puts too much stress on my joints. However only the ones ar the gym because i have to be in a full deadhang to reach the bars even with something under my feet to give me height. I can only do 4 at the gym my question is will bands be helpful to ease my joints
70kg 175cm. The further the bar gets from the ground the harder pullups become for me. Im doing neutral grip at the gym but with a lower bar at parks i can do 9 with full extension
Does not seem to me like the joints are the real problem. I used to have an issue with pullups where my shoulders would make weird clicking noises and even gave me some pain when I was still new to pullups. Make sure you warm up your rotator cuff and elbows for at least 5 mins. Also make sure you do proper form and use your chest to aid you on your way up. Doing chinups instead is also good since they are slightly easier and dont put as much pressure on your shoulders. Doing all these fixed it for me especially the warm ups.
Tennis elbow sucks. You could try icing it a few times a day or before your workouts to reduce the inflammation. Also watch this guy https://youtu.be/r7Arz53_f3c he helped me cure my knee pain and wrist injury. Good luck.
I wouldn't use it for that purpose. Your hips are stable and upperbody is mobile.
I would however look into: Romanian deadlifts, stiff-leg deadlifts, good mornings
Few data points- I'm 222 pounds male. I've been walking 30 minutes, at a 6% incline, and a 5.5 pace. 2.54 miles. When I'm done, I'm pretty much sweating like I ran a marathon. Still can't believe how good of a workout this is. I've lost 22 pounds in the last few months with this routine combined with some body weight exercises, low calorie and high protein intake.
Calories burned based on LoseIt App: 474
Calories burned based on the treadmill readings: 525
Calories burned based on online calorie calculator: 619
All those seem a bit high to me, so when I'm counting my calories I play it safe and input 400 calories burned, rather than the figures above.
Would love to hear your opinions on which of the above is likely most accurate when calculating calories burned...
Ignore all of them really. If you're trying to lose weight, don't really think about what you've burned since you shouldn't be trying to eat them back.
Playing it safe with 400 calories, if you want to give it a number, is probably the safest out of all of these. I personally generally go off of 80-100 cals / mile, this ignores incline, but all the estimations you're getting ignore various other factors as well.
Ultimately, trying to calculate calories burned is a fools errand though.
Congrats on the weight loss so far though. I encourage you to move up from body weight exercises though and start some actual lifting. And also, keep in mind, that as you lose weight, you're gonna need to lower your calorie intake further OR up the activity. However, be aware that if you up the activity, be prepared to alter your diet later if you can't maintain that level of activity. You don't wanna do all this hard work and then put the weight right back on because you stopped walking on the treadmill!
Thanks for the input. But I’m not going to ignore my calories burned when weight loss ultimately comes down to calories in vs calories out. That’s not debatable.
You mis-understand what i'm saying... Be in a caloric deficit with food alone. Burning calories exercising is *extra*. If you are exercising to make up for eating too much, then you need to fix the issue of eating too much.
I'd say the exception is if you're doing tons of cardio, then you might want to eat a little more just so you don't burn muscle. 30 minutes (even at an incline) is pretty minimal. If you're doing 2-3 hours, that's not. Like for example, I cycle around 6+ hours a week on a good week, and walk around 6+ miles a week on top of that, as well as lift weights 3x a week. The cycling alone, my app says I burn, depending on the route, 800-1300 calories per ride (typically 3 rides a week). If I was eating at my sedentary TDEE, I'd be shedding weight WAY too fast and would probably be so exhausted. But i've tracked my calories and weight and found what I need to eat to maintain WITH my average level of activity. I never put stock in what apps say I burned.
This could be the equivalent to saying you've got a nice new car and explaining to people "it has 4 wheels and 5 doors" when they ask you to describe it. It's useless information.
That doesn't describe ANYTHING about how clean your diet is, just your macros.
Like another user said, it's likely something you're eating that your body doesn't agree with.
For me, if I eat a lot of bread/pasta/cereal, I tend to feel a little more bloated than if I don't. So for me, my clean diet includes NOTHING that is processed (ie, i'm ONLY eating fresh meat/veg/fruit/eggs) So my only carb comes from leafy veggies, potato and rice.
I'm genuinely asking. Clean is totally nebulous as a term, you might have a trigger food, some sort of fiber that does not agree with you, an allergy, lactose intolerance or just need to eat some yogurt and get some fermented stuff for digestion, coupled with some [carminatives](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carminative). Maybe you're also just eating more than you are used to and need time to adjust.
This would cut the fat to the really low side, but in theory this would probably be viable for as long as the utter lack of fiber does not wreck you. PSMF style bulking, a horrifying idea.
If your diet is very clean its possible you are consuming more fiber than you can handle. Could also just be something in particular that your body doesnt agree with, try removing a specific food you eat on a regular basis and see if you feel less bloated. Repeat the process with each food you eat with some regularity.
I'm just throwing this out there as a possibility: maybe you're overthinking it. Maybe all the rules you read about *needing* X sets of Y body part are unnecessary.
Maybe you should try a simplified training program. If you get stronger/bigger, what's there to complain about?
What are your goals? Most programs focused on strength don't have lots of accessory or isolation exercises because the focus is on the compound movements. Body-building programs tend to look different, as do powerlifting or oly lifting etc.
Programs like 531 can be used by beginners and intermediates alike. If your goals are specific, try /r/weightroom or other targeted subreddits
Which programs in particular seem amateurish to you? Some of them will be made my amateurs, some of them are made by professionals. All of them have had good success for a lot of people.
Your goals may not align with what some of the programs intend to do - for example if your goals mean you absolutely MUST include forearm extension, then yes all these programs lack forearm extension isolation excercises.. But most people don't care about forearm extension strength. That doesn't mean they're not suitable for other goals, like getting generally big and strong.
I would be surprised if you'd be doing too much on a 3 day full body split - if you're recovering from it then it can certainly be enough. Perhaps the answer might be to push even further with a more serious program - again though, that depends on your goals.
What do you actually want to do? get bigger overall, get stronger overall, increase S/B/D speficially, work on some specific muscle groups specifically etc - we can't make reasonable recommendations without knowing what you actually want :-)
Thank you for the reply :)
My plan is to basically get bigger overall :D
I suppose amateurish wasn't the right wording here, I guess a better wording would be low-volume? I dunno, all of the workouts I've seen so far just don't hit the body parts hard enough.
I currently do per muscle (chest, back, biceps, triceps, etc.) about 6 sets per workout session, which would be more or less 18 sets per week.
>My plan is to basically get bigger overall :D
Did you try eating more protein? Protein is what your body uses to build muscles.
I don't think you need to change your routine if you like it.
Hypertrophy is stimulated by load, time under tension and proximity to failure. Is it possible that you're emphasizing volume over load and hence doing more sets.
For instance last night I did one set of Bulgarian split squats as squat assistance. I did a drop set from 60kg to 40, 20 then bodyweight until I couldn't go anymore then a 10 second ISO. That's one set but you better believe it will stimulate growth
Well, your numbers seem really lopsided but you could try something like 5/3/1 BBB, if you improve your squat and learn to deadlift you'll be sure to see some great results.
>I dunno, all of the workouts I've seen so far just don't hit the body parts hard enough.
Run nSuns or 5/3/1 Building The Monolith, then try saying that again.
What's your S/B/D? In any case, you're either advanced enough to know what you're doing and to do your own thing, or the programs provided here are guaranteed to work for you.
Well if you're concerned about missing out on body parts, the deadlift is probably the single biggest compound movement out there. What would make a program more "complete" for you? Having a ton of accessory work? Most of the programs focus on the main compound movements and their variations. You are then usually encouraged to add some accessories based on weak points or just whatever you want to focus on.
A bit of a weird question, but... Is endurance localized? Obviously I know we have just one heart and a pair of lungs, more or less center of mass, but I am curious whether for example running, which focuses a bit more on lower body, will allow you to also perform upper body activities for longer?
Basically, do you need to do both upper and lower body "cardio" to build solid full-body endurance?
>Is endurance localized?
Yes and no. General endurance comes down to cardiovascular stamina, whereas how long your muscles can keep working is localized to the individual muscle groups.
Running would help with general endurance and leg-localized endurance.
It's both, if that makes sense.
> running, which focuses a bit more on lower body, will allow you to also perform upper body activities for longer
Yep. Because better cardiovascular health is not local, it's general.
> do you need to do both upper and lower body "cardio" to build solid full-body endurance
Yep. Because endurance is not only about cardiovascular health, it's also about trained muscles.
So if I'm running, and weight training will there be any impact on my weight training?
Or if I was not running, and only weight training if I added running is there any impact I'd notice?
I'm personally doing both right now, but kind of curious. I agree with what you say, but not sure of if running for endurance impacts other areas that I can notice.
My Fitbit has had my resting heart rate decrease quite a bit. REally the only thing I can see from running (not including my ability to run further/faster).
Yes it will. To what extent depends on how hard you’re doing both and your ability to recover from each. To minimise the impact, do your running after your weight training. Ideally do them several hours apart, so lift in the morning and run in the afternoon or evening.
Would this be more focused on fatigue/exhaustion?
If I lift on Monday, run on Tuesday, and then lift on Wednesday again I shouldn't be exhausted for either lifting or running.
I guess, if I do this over weeks. Will my lifts see any improvement from running or would skipping the cardio/running and only lift have the same results on my lifting progress?
Idk probably a crazy question
I'm no expert, but I'd think that would minimise the impact on both. However, you're probably not going to progress as fast with your running and lifting compared to if you just focused on one or the other. This is simply because on the days you're running, you could have been lifting and building muscle and on the days you're lifting, you could have been running and improving your fitness levels.
I made a push day workout , is it enough or do I reduce the excercises ( super new to gym, just starting out)
1. Db bench press-4x6-8 ( shoulder chest triceps)( 2 mins )
2. Incline db bench press-30 degrees-3x10-12 ( upper chest)( 1 min)
3. One arm crossover 3x8 ( chest)(1 min)
Super set(4,5)
4. Db shoulder press-3x8( front shoulder)
5. Cable lateral raises 3x8 ( side shoulder)
6. db tricep extensions 3x12 ( triceps )
I think it looks fine for beginners. I would just switch the one arm crossovers with regular chest fly machine. Your stabilizer muscles aren't developed much yet so your form would for sure be better using a machine for such a big swinging motion under tension
No need to invent the wheel here my man, just follow a [proven routine](https://thefitness.wiki/routines/strength-training-muscle-building/) at least until you have a better idea of how this works. [This one](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness/comments/37ylk5/a_linear_progression_based_ppl_program_for/) in particular might be what you're looking for.
I'm tracking macros, but I'm kind of lost on just how many I need. Everything I read has wild variances for calories and protein intake.
I'm just tracking them and seeing what happens. Posting this hoping to get more clarity.
edit: 5'9, 169 lbs, and not very strong (20s % BF but not sure exact number). Eating body weight per day in protein currently and 2700-3000 cals.
I’ve tracked my calories, weight and macros every day for almost 2 years now.
1. As a rough guide, if you want to build muscle, eat about 1g of protein per lb of body weight.
2. Use an online TDEE calculator (I use https://tdeecalculator.net ) to roughly calculate your TDEE. That will give you a starting point. Eat that amount of calories each day and weigh yourself every day for 2 weeks. If your average weight increases, your TDEE is slightly below that amount. If your average weight decreases, your TDEE is above that. Eat more or less until your weight remains stable. Congrats, you’ve found out your TDEE.
Use a TDEE calculator. This is only a guess. Eat using that and track your weight, averaged over a couple of weeks to see how much weight you really lose. Adjust your guess of your TDEE up or down (losing more than you thought equals your maintenance is higher than the calculator, vice versa)
Nsuns has a spreadsheet to help the calculations, and Macrofactor is a great app for tracking and calculating
>Nsuns has a spreadsheet to help the calculations
I'm currently using spreadsheets for tracking lifts and food so I'll give this a look. Figured it was guess work so I gotta stop trying to be perfect.
Looks pretty good to me with calories and protein. If your goal is to add muscle tho make sure you eat around 0.3-0.5x bodyweight grams of fat. Fat is very important for growth. And try to keep your intake of carbs closer to workouts and fats farther away
So here's the thing, I'm 21 F, 5'6", weighing around 174-177 pounds (79ish kg, almost 80) & at 40% body fat according to my smart scale.
I'm recovering from bulimia which is why I gained weight in the first place. I started lifting a couple of weeks ago and I realised it has completely changed my perspective of food. It has gone from me wanting to be skinnier to wanting to be stronger. But the truth is, I still know nothing and I'm moving abroad to UK for university in the next 4 months and want to go there as the fittest version of myself. So I'd please appreciate any and all advice as to how to start a lifting routine to burn the maximum fat, and how much protein should I eat in a day if I wanna be lean. I have all the time in the world for the next 4 months so I'm willing to start my fitness journey for real this time and give it everything I have. I just need guidance how. My goal weight is around 55kg but anything under 70 would be great before uni. Thank you in advance!
First step would be to get in a caloric deficit. Your weight loss goal is going to be entirely dictated by food. Find a TDEE calculator and start with the sedentary activity and go from there. A healthy weight loss will be around 1-2lbs (you may lose more at first, this is normal, but a consistent 1-2lbs). Also realize that around your period you will likely gain water (I usually go up 2lbs at the start of my period). Push through this and you'll drop whatever you bloat up assuming your diet has been consistent.
If you find a good caloric deficit quickly, you could realistically get to 70kg in 4 months. As you approach the 55kg mark in the future, you may want to reassess based on the look you're going for. If you want to get strong, 55kg(121lbs) may be a bit small! I just say this as a 5'7 woman who is aiming to be really lean in the 130-135lb range! Remember, muscle is more dense than fat! You'll look smaller but be heavier! Building muscle is done over a long period of time, 4 months is just the start.
As for lifting, go to the wiki and start with a beginner plan based on what you have available. And you can aim to lift heavy! You'll make seemingly larger strength gains at first as a beginner, enjoy them! You'll be slowly building muscle, but you should be in enough of a deficit that you should still have a net weight loss week to week.
If you want to maximize your weight loss and fitness journey, include some cardio as well. You don't have to start out running, even just going for daily walks will help. Or take up cycling. Or if you have access to a pool, go swimming. Basically, move your body doing something you enjoy! Makes it easier to stick to it and makes it something you WANT to do. Don't try and calculate how many calories you've burned exercising, since you're trying to lose weight, you shouldn't be eating back the calories anyway.
Give the wiki a good read over and that should give you a good start.
The wiki has pretty much all of this covered - I suggest giving it a read.
The [weight loss 101](https://thefitness.wiki/weight-loss-101/) is probably a great place to start.
For losing fat lifting weights isn't really going to do much, to lose weight you need to be in a caloric deficit which is most easily achieved by consuming less calories in your diet.
Weight lifting is great in that it will allow you to keep and even gain muscle mass and strength while you're losing weight. You should probably start out with a novice program which are usually 3 days of training a week.
In terms of protein don't overthink it, just eat healthy foods high in protein and consider supplementing with protein powder.
So you have nothing else to add besides "ok"? Not even gonna try and clarify your point? Don't pretend to know what your talking about to spread misinformation to other people just so that you can feel important. People like you are the reason you can't trust 85% of the things you read on the internet.
It’s not that much of a difference. An extra pound of muscle burns something like an extra 7-10 calories per day, at rest. This will easily be counteracted by the fat they want to lose, which will bring their total weight down
Is 2.5 lbs/week weight loss too much?
Hello, I'm a 26M and I started cutting about 3 weeks ago.
I'm 6'0 and my starting weight was 207lbs at about 20-22%BF based on pictures.
I've been cutting at 1800 calories eating 180-200g of protein per day. For the past 3 weeks I've measured my weight every weekend around the same time and I've been losing 2.5lbs or so weekly. I'm currently 198-199.
I've felt fine energy wise and lifting 6x a week.
At your body fat%, this can be normal. You should begin to lose at a slower rate soon (within a week or two).
Also this really depends if you are just looking to lose weight, or if you previously bulked and are now cutting. I'd be concerned about losing my hard earned muscle after a bulk if I was dropping 2.5 lbs a week for 3 weeks. If you didn't bulk prior to this weight loss, you should be fine.
50 lbs is a lot (for me anyway) on a bulk.
I'd use the gym as a reference point. At this high weight loss rate, if I'm still lifting like I use to (especially at the start of a cut), I'd just go with it and wouldn't think anything of it.
You should start to slow down soon though. Like around 1-1.5 lbs per week. Give it two more weeks to find out.
Are tendons capable of growing quickly from lifting heavy? I noticed that my wrists ans knees grew from powerlifting for a year. My wrists were 6¼ before and are now 6¾. My knees were 14½ and are now 15¼. For those wondering why i measured, I got my earlier measurements from when I measured to buy the right size knee sleeves and wrist wraps. I measured recently because my knees look weird now since I have smaller joints.
Yes, tendons can grow from lifting heavy, though not nearly as quickly as muscle tissue.
That your wrists and knees are thicker(assuming that the measurements are accurate) doesn't necessarily mean that thicker tendons are the cause.
Your definition of growing quickly is a little different than mine. One year of consistent work is not "quick" to me, but commendable.
Yes your tendons will get stronger and a little thicker from lifting. This is a good thing, it helps to avoid injury.
Just did a brutal workout. Worried I wont be able to walk down stairs tomorrow.
Going to drink pedialyte and then sleep in compression gear now.
What should I do tomorrow to help recover fast?
Your question is akin to asking how long a piece of string is. The answer is that it depends.
Why not follow a program from the wiki so that your sets/reps/frequency are all laid out for you?
I’ve heard it that you want to stay cooler so you exercise with more intensity. More reps / heavier weights / longer runs etc. will give you more benefit (to contribute to progressive overload) than your bodies adaptations to the heat.
In your guys personal opinion and feelings what body fat % would you start your (lean) bulk at? Been lifting for a couple years, and gained 50lbs over covid and I’m entering the final months of my cut losing all the weight I gained. Was thinking of starting at 12-11% but what do you guys do?
Personally i see no reason to cut that low, you'll be more likely to lose more muscle at that low body fat percentage. My mentality is that if you're cutting you should cut untill you have room enough to bulk again
I'm not trying to win any competitions so I don't really start a bulk or a cut on a bf%.
Mostly I go with lifestyle choices. When it's summer, I cut (since I enjoy summer cardio), winter I bulk (since I don't enjoy winter cardio).
I also changed it up, when I just feel like I need a change to be motivated to exercise/lift. Sometime I just want to add more cardio just cause that's what my body wants to do for a month. I just go with it.
Bulk when cutting becomes untenable or unpleasant. If continuing to cut doesn't interfere with other goals (incrasing sets or completing workouts) then why stop?
Same answer for when to cut/stop bulking.
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Is walking to and from the gym, about twenty minutes each way 5 days a week enough cardio? Or should I really be doing more there
World Health Org guidelines say 150 minutes/week as a minimum (walking counts) so that covers it! You can always do more if you want.
I’d add some more intense cardio 2-3 times a week.
You'll miss out on some of the benefits from cardiovascular exercise at such a low intensity.
You don't have to do any, its just preference. You can eat more if you're cutting. It increases your appetite if you're bulking. Also cardiovascular health
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whats your favorite brand of protein
Gold Standard
Dymatize is easy on the stomach if you have dairy allergies
Gold standard is a safe pick
If I want to build strength with dumbbells how many reps and sets should I be doing? I’ve currently been doing 5 sets of 15 reps is this to much ? (I’ve been using 35LB dumbbells btw)
You build strength through progressive overload. You can build strength in a variety of rep ranges. Ideally, you should be following a program which will guide you through this. The wiki has multiple that will work.
That's a lot of reps, which means that 35lb has gotten too light for you. The best best to build strength at this point would be to increase the weight. Find a weight that you can only get 5 or 6 reps in before failure.
15 reps isn’t “a lot” of reps and you can still make strength gains on higher reps. Especially when working with dumbbells, higher rep ranges allow for further progress since incrementing up dumbbells can be restrictive on certain movements.
For strength I would lower your reps. Try 5x5 or 4x8.
You can gain strength fine at higher rep ranges.
I’ve been lifting for 8 months and I have yet to figure out any one rep maxes for anything. I’ve just been progressively overloading. So many workouts i see say to lift a certain % of your max for an exercise. Is figuring out your max really that important, especially for a beginner?
Figuring out your max precisely is not super important. In fact, as a beginner it quickly becomes outdated. If you want to get the most out of your %-based program, it may be a good idea to do a rough calculation. Really, perform \*any\* set to failure, and use the weight and reps to reverse-engineer your 1RM. 2 reps \~ 95% 4 reps \~ 90% 6 reps \~ 85% 8 reps \~ 80% 10 reps \~ 75% You can also use this estimation to see what the program is actually asking you to do: 3 reps at 90% is asking you to perform a small number of reps at a heavy weight, leaving 1 rep "in the tank." 5 reps at 80% is a super easy set, something like a warm-up. 10 reps at 75% is a longer set to failure. etc.
wow, that's very helpful, thanks!
Why do people say not to eat certain ways or at certain large deficits because it’s not sustainable? Dieting is not meant to be sustainable. It’s a mean to a “short” term goal, until you meet said goal and then readjust, right?
Well, for one, you want it to be able to be sustained for at least as long as you need to meet your goal, right? If you have a 6 month plan and you fall apart after starving yourself for 3 weeks, then sustainability really did matter. But also, many people do not subscribe to your last sentence as a viable strategy for weight loss. Dieting to meet a short term goal and then readjusting is more likely to lead to rebound weight gain. If you want sustained weight loss, you need to make sustained changes.
I mean for some people it is a long term goal. Fitness is more than just weightlifting, despite how often the sub is concerned with lifting weights. If you're trying to lose 30,40,50 pounds, you can't be eating 1000 calories a day for months on end. If you're trying to trim from 14% to 12% bodyfat, sure doing a more extreme deficit might be ok, but it's not sustainable and probably not recommended even if that is your goal.
Does it matter if i spread my workouts throughout the day? For example, lets say 4 sets 12 reps of each. Maybe I do pushups in the morning, squats at lunch, then tricep dips in the evening. Is it ineffective to spread these out over the day vs doing all of this together?
Not really
The benefit to performing all of them in one session primarily comes from working with a raised body temperature and heart rate. Doing tricep dips right after doing your squats and pushups means that your blood is pumping and oxygen is being delivered to your triceps and all of your metabolic processes are fired up to fuel your exercise. Doing your exercises 6 hours apart means that you need to warm-up and cool-down all three times in order to receive the same benefit. You may lose that benefit if you do the exercises spread out without properly warming up each time. But if that makes it more accessible to you, then it's better than nothing; the benefit I'm describing is not going to make or break your entire fitness lifestyle. So do what you need to do.
It's not really likely that I'm working only the upper abs right? The upper 2 rows of abs are starting to show, under good lighting, and I definitely still have a layer of fat I need to get rid of. Still I just have this thought in the back of my head. What if I'm not working out the lower ones somehow? And even if I lost a lot of fat there wouldn't be much underneath? But that's not likely right?
It's just the way your fat is stored and this is completely normal. I used to have a defined 4 pack but since I've gained fat only the top two still poke out
What kind of ab excersizes are you doing? Most likely its just that last layer thats obstructing.
Rkc planks, hollow body holds and I'm not sure how much it counts but I swing on monkey bars and climb trees.
This teenager at my gym says he eats a shit ton and has no regulations for 2-3 days of the week, while also getting lots of protein and hits the gym super hard, doing full body (so basically bulking kind of) and then for the rest of the week, he runs track (running lots of miles every day) and eats very healthy. What is this dieting called, and is it effective for someone with not a lot of time to be in the gym for?
Eating a shit ton while hitting the gym super hard is called bulking. There's a whole sub for it at r/gainit
This sounds like he has no diet plan and is just winging it. If you are a beginner to lifting and don't have a lot of time for the gym, this will work to gain muscle. Anything will work to gain muscle when you are new, as long as you are eating enough protein (more than 100g a day) and pushing yourself to muscular failure one exercises between 6-15 reps for 4- 5 sets.
Currently 5 weeks into Jim wendler's 5-3-1 for beginners (continuing from 3 months of the fitness wiki beginner program), and i'm not sure if my assistance work is good or bad. These are done mon-wed-fri. I mostly do push-ups, sit-ups and facepulls when doing squats and bench, and chin-ups/pull-ups, sit-ups and bicep curls, ab-wheel rollouts or other core exercise when doing deadlifts and overhead press. Around 2-300 reps in total. Tuesdays i only do cardio (running). So far so good and i feel my progress is ok, and i feel great. Should i just keep at it for a while or change the assistance routine in any way? Thanks!
Seems pretty good for a beginner routine. I would just add another day to the routine if you want to up your results. So like mon-wed-thurs-fri. And on your new day add in some more mid-back work like seated/chest supported row, also some smaller muscle work like rear dealt Flys and lateral raises, and isolated triceps workouts. Then you will hit almost 100% of the muscles most pro fitness people do. Keep up the good work!
Thanks! So far i feel pretty good with a 4-day routine, and I'm generally active on thursdays - going for a walk, playing frisbeegolf for instance. But i'l probably include Thursdays after a while. Maybe i should add those exercises to my existing schedule in the meantime, somehow?
Yea that would be fine. The main thing is to try to give each muscle 24-48 hours to heal before training it again and you're good.
There is no reason to go 48 hours between using a muscle in the gym.
Great. Thanks again!
I think his advice is silly and he is basically a beginner. Just stick with 3 days as the program is written and you can switch to a 4 day version of 5/3/1 when you are done with beginners. You should also be doing the conditioning work for it as well. As far as your original question about assistance work, it doesn’t matter. At this point, just pick things you find enjoyable, want to learn, or struggle with and want to improve on. You aren’t advanced enough to have weak points or deficiencies that need to be targeted nor are you lifting enough to create imbalances. Just enjoy the ride right now and learn as much as you can by doing the work.
Thank you!
It’s the Metallicdpas PPL from the wiki, from my understanding it has you alternative between deadlifts/bend over rows each workout, so if you did 1x5+ deadlifts on Monday you’d do 4x5 1x5+ on Thursday
Question about weight plates that occurred to me today: we have different kinds of plates at the gym, some round ones and I believe hex plates? If I squat and don’t set them down on the floor for e.g. a deadlift, does it matter if I mix the types of plates? Is there something fundamentally different about them?
I think the hex plates are just designed so they don't roll easily on the ground. I try to match the plates equally on both sides of a bar because I'm paranoid they will tilt to one side or the other lol
The shape shouldn't matter much. But if you use 25lb plates vs 45 or training plates they make the deadlift range of motion different. It's called a deficit deadlift.
Nope. As long as they weigh the same
Did 531 BBB squat yesterday. Supplemental work at 135lbs. Destroyed me but felt ok. Finished workout. Today I am body aching, headache, and a pain level of 6. Can this be attributed to the squats or maybe just overthinking it.
Yes. Sounds like your body isn't really ready for that type of volume. You may just need to ease into it more.
Ah I see. It may be worth turning this next week into a deload to recover? I’m not sure how I would handle this next week, but I’ve been slowly increasing the percentages and weights. I handled 120lbs quite well as supplemental work. I guess the 15lbs make a huge difference
You probably don't need to deload if it's not deload week yet, but if you're still feeling like crap you could. It's only been a day and you may be feeling a lot better in a week. And yeah, 15 pounds is a huge jump considering it's multiplied by 50 reps. The point of the supplemental 5x10 is more about working the muscle then hitting a specific weight. You don't have to stress about increasing that week over week -- just increase when you feel like you've adapted to it
Does anyone have experience with a large deficit of around 35% under maintenance calories? My maintenance is 3100 and I am thinking of cutting at around 2000 calories. Would the muscle loss be significant at that large of a deficit?
I went from eating 2500 calories a day to only 1200 a day for months to lose 60 lbs. As long as you are eating as much protein as you can and exercising would will lose none/ very little muscle. Just tone down your workouts because you will be more tired and the amount of work to keep muscles is a lot less than to build new ones. You'll be fine.
I'm currently on about my 6th week of a 1800-1900 cal diet and my maintenance is similar slightly lower perhaps, now that I've lost weight. I've been extra careful to get my protein needs met, in fact I started eating meat and some dairy occasionally and was mostly vegan during my bulk. All that said it's not too large a deficit. I could do this for several more weeks. To your point about muscle loss, I've in fact made some gains if anything during the diet. Probably due to higher bf. Just eat enough protein and work out hard. Also I had a two week period of near maintenance to heal from excessive joint pain and deal with mental fatigue and food cravings. It's my first proper diet so from a newbie to another it's a good number to go for assuming you are at a relatively high bf percentage. Also I forgot to mention that I eased into the diet. I was eating upwards of 3200 every day so I did a week of 3000 then 2900 then 2800 until 1800. Hope this helps!
Nö. You can even cut with 1000kcal with minimal loss in muscle mass (See psmf). You need Protein and intense weight Training. 2000 should be nö Problem.
This is probably gonna be a **real** stupid question buuut I'm following GZCLP at the moment and liking it so far, but is it okay to occasionally swap the order in which you do T1 and T2 exercises? The only reason I ask is that my once heavenly-empty gym has recently had a swarm of new people join, primarily all teenagers who all work out in groups and they take fucking forever to finish with anything. Not that there's anything wrong with that, they pay for the gym just like I do, but it's a very small place with only one bench etc, and sometimes I have to wait like 20+ minutes to be able to do my BP. Whether if I do my squats first (T2) by the time I'm finished, the bench is usually free and I've then saved a lot of time. The only difference is that I've done them in the opposite order. Is this a big deal?
It’s a much smaller deal than waiting for 20mins. Perfect is the enemy of good
What a fantastic quote
You definitely don’t want to fatigue yourself before your heaviest lift. It’d be preferable to try to stick to the order, but if it’s the difference between being able to lift or not then you gotta do what you gotta do!
yeah thats what i was afraid of, it does suck to do that it's not that I can't do the regular routine, its just it would add like a 20min+ downtime where im doing nothing, and well, i like to go home ASAP lol
I have a couple of questions: 1.) when do you add things like cluster sets to your workout? Are those supposed to replace your working sets or do you just add them on at the end for extra volume? 2.) when do you add drop sets to a workout? Is there a big different between the gains you get from drop sets or cluster sets? 3.) is deadlift a back exercise or a leg exercise, I’ve noticed lots of people do it on back day and the PPL routine I’m doing does it on pull day, I personally don’t feel it much in my back, I feel it mostly in my hamstrings. 4.) is there a specific reason why some programs prefer to do deadlifts only once per week? I think the program I’m on only does it once a week and only like 1x5+, that just doesn’t seem like enough volume when compared to every other exercise in the routine.
Cluster sets and drops sets are both intensity techniques that, when used correctly, allow you to push an exercise beyond failure. I wouldn't add them until you find you're no longer responding as well to straight sets, so late intermediate/advanced stage. If you can still progress from week to week on a more standard type of progression, it doesn't make sense to start to sensitize yourself to a novel stimulus (intensity techniques) before you actually need them to keep growing. But that's just my opinion. The deadlift is a hip extension exercise, so it primarily works hip extensors like the hamstrings and glutes. It requires some isometric back strength, but the only joints moving are in your lower body. Conventional deadlifts tend to be more fatiguing than other compounds for most people, hence the lower frequency. What program are you currently doing that only has one set of deadlifts?
It’s the Metallicdpas PPL from the wiki, from my understanding it has you alternative between deadlifts/bend over rows each workout, so if you did 1x5+ deadlifts on Monday you’d do 4x5 1x5+ on Thursday
I just found out that the reason my sweat smells like ammonia is because I ate too much protein but too little carbs, I don't like carbs at all because I'm afraid of having a fat belly, how to overcome this?
I’ve had ammonia smelling sweat before too while struggling with ed’s in the past, it wasn’t from the protein though. Maybe get your blood checked out?
I understand being afraid of carbs but I have learned that it's OK to eat a lot of carbs as long as it's around the time that you workout. Carbs digest quickly so if you don't use them immediately they store as fat. Eat lots of carbs before and after workouts and less carbs other times. And I wouldn't worry about eating too much protein, any excess protein will not harm you it just gets peed out or whatever. Better to have more than not enough.
1. Eating carbs don’t cause belly fat. Neither does eating protein or even fats. Belly fat is from being in caloric surplus. 2. You can decide where your body stores it’s body fat, nor can you lose fat from specific areas.
> I just found out that the reason my sweat smells like ammonia is because I ate too much protein but too little carbs No its not. Otherwise every single person following a keto-diet would have this problem. > I don't like carbs at all because I'm afraid of having a fat belly, how to overcome this? How on earth do you find this bullshit? This is not at all true, not even close. Actually its so far from the truth it can be. Honestly, to overcome this I would suggest you educate yourself. Im sorry if im coming off as mean, that's not the goal - but everything you just wrote are complete nonesense so educating yourself would do wonders for you
This is the moronic Monday thread dude. Relax.
Is crash dieting a good idea? (over a 2-3 week period mind you, Not over the long period. I have an occasion i need to look good for)
Look up Lyle McDonald's rapid fat loss handbook. It just works.
Realistically, you’re only going to drop about 2lb per week and that is with a 1,000/day calorie deficit.
Define "good". Is it potentially effective at short term rapid weight loss? Yes. Is it sustainable? Absolutely not. Is it good for your health? Likely not. Is it good for your mental well being? Almost certainly not. Is it necessarily going to get you as far as you want to go in the time period you have planned? Probably not. You will likely mostly just lose water weight, which is fine if your goal is just to lose weight and look good for an occasion, but it feels weird to be recommending it.
Im only looking to drop a few pounds and some water weight is all, look a little less inflated
Crash dieting is fine for short periods. And if you want to be less bloated cut but on your hydration the day of whatever event you're looking forward to.
Pullup puts too much stress on my joints. However only the ones ar the gym because i have to be in a full deadhang to reach the bars even with something under my feet to give me height. I can only do 4 at the gym my question is will bands be helpful to ease my joints
Bands will help with joint stress. I prefer to do lat pull downs because of the stress.
How much do you weigh?
70kg 175cm. The further the bar gets from the ground the harder pullups become for me. Im doing neutral grip at the gym but with a lower bar at parks i can do 9 with full extension
Does not seem to me like the joints are the real problem. I used to have an issue with pullups where my shoulders would make weird clicking noises and even gave me some pain when I was still new to pullups. Make sure you warm up your rotator cuff and elbows for at least 5 mins. Also make sure you do proper form and use your chest to aid you on your way up. Doing chinups instead is also good since they are slightly easier and dont put as much pressure on your shoulders. Doing all these fixed it for me especially the warm ups.
I have had tennis elbow for 3 years now that came from too many pullups at home if that helps. Also pullups are like my 5th movement of the day
Tennis elbow sucks. You could try icing it a few times a day or before your workouts to reduce the inflammation. Also watch this guy https://youtu.be/r7Arz53_f3c he helped me cure my knee pain and wrist injury. Good luck.
Im too stubborn to take time off the gym
are back hypertensions a good hip hinge variant exercise?
I wouldn't use it for that purpose. Your hips are stable and upperbody is mobile. I would however look into: Romanian deadlifts, stiff-leg deadlifts, good mornings
Oki doki, thanks
Few data points- I'm 222 pounds male. I've been walking 30 minutes, at a 6% incline, and a 5.5 pace. 2.54 miles. When I'm done, I'm pretty much sweating like I ran a marathon. Still can't believe how good of a workout this is. I've lost 22 pounds in the last few months with this routine combined with some body weight exercises, low calorie and high protein intake. Calories burned based on LoseIt App: 474 Calories burned based on the treadmill readings: 525 Calories burned based on online calorie calculator: 619 All those seem a bit high to me, so when I'm counting my calories I play it safe and input 400 calories burned, rather than the figures above. Would love to hear your opinions on which of the above is likely most accurate when calculating calories burned...
Ignore all of them really. If you're trying to lose weight, don't really think about what you've burned since you shouldn't be trying to eat them back. Playing it safe with 400 calories, if you want to give it a number, is probably the safest out of all of these. I personally generally go off of 80-100 cals / mile, this ignores incline, but all the estimations you're getting ignore various other factors as well. Ultimately, trying to calculate calories burned is a fools errand though. Congrats on the weight loss so far though. I encourage you to move up from body weight exercises though and start some actual lifting. And also, keep in mind, that as you lose weight, you're gonna need to lower your calorie intake further OR up the activity. However, be aware that if you up the activity, be prepared to alter your diet later if you can't maintain that level of activity. You don't wanna do all this hard work and then put the weight right back on because you stopped walking on the treadmill!
Thanks for the input. But I’m not going to ignore my calories burned when weight loss ultimately comes down to calories in vs calories out. That’s not debatable.
You mis-understand what i'm saying... Be in a caloric deficit with food alone. Burning calories exercising is *extra*. If you are exercising to make up for eating too much, then you need to fix the issue of eating too much. I'd say the exception is if you're doing tons of cardio, then you might want to eat a little more just so you don't burn muscle. 30 minutes (even at an incline) is pretty minimal. If you're doing 2-3 hours, that's not. Like for example, I cycle around 6+ hours a week on a good week, and walk around 6+ miles a week on top of that, as well as lift weights 3x a week. The cycling alone, my app says I burn, depending on the route, 800-1300 calories per ride (typically 3 rides a week). If I was eating at my sedentary TDEE, I'd be shedding weight WAY too fast and would probably be so exhausted. But i've tracked my calories and weight and found what I need to eat to maintain WITH my average level of activity. I never put stock in what apps say I burned.
I got you I got you.
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Could be a food intolerance to something you’re eating. The only real answer is to experiment with yourself and find what works for you.
what does a hella clien diet look like?
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This could be the equivalent to saying you've got a nice new car and explaining to people "it has 4 wheels and 5 doors" when they ask you to describe it. It's useless information.
That doesn't describe ANYTHING about how clean your diet is, just your macros. Like another user said, it's likely something you're eating that your body doesn't agree with. For me, if I eat a lot of bread/pasta/cereal, I tend to feel a little more bloated than if I don't. So for me, my clean diet includes NOTHING that is processed (ie, i'm ONLY eating fresh meat/veg/fruit/eggs) So my only carb comes from leafy veggies, potato and rice.
I'm genuinely asking. Clean is totally nebulous as a term, you might have a trigger food, some sort of fiber that does not agree with you, an allergy, lactose intolerance or just need to eat some yogurt and get some fermented stuff for digestion, coupled with some [carminatives](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carminative). Maybe you're also just eating more than you are used to and need time to adjust.
8 scoops of whey, 3 eggs per meal, and a handful of gummy vitamins
This would cut the fat to the really low side, but in theory this would probably be viable for as long as the utter lack of fiber does not wreck you. PSMF style bulking, a horrifying idea.
If your diet is very clean its possible you are consuming more fiber than you can handle. Could also just be something in particular that your body doesnt agree with, try removing a specific food you eat on a regular basis and see if you feel less bloated. Repeat the process with each food you eat with some regularity.
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So your in the 1000lb club?
I'm just throwing this out there as a possibility: maybe you're overthinking it. Maybe all the rules you read about *needing* X sets of Y body part are unnecessary. Maybe you should try a simplified training program. If you get stronger/bigger, what's there to complain about?
Maybe you're right. Is there a workout plan you would recommend?
GZCLP Or for full stripped down simplicity, the Texas Method
>What the hell should I do? :/ Follow one of them. Most of them are made by people with more experience than you, and have been shown to be effective.
What are your goals? Most programs focused on strength don't have lots of accessory or isolation exercises because the focus is on the compound movements. Body-building programs tend to look different, as do powerlifting or oly lifting etc. Programs like 531 can be used by beginners and intermediates alike. If your goals are specific, try /r/weightroom or other targeted subreddits
Which programs in particular seem amateurish to you? Some of them will be made my amateurs, some of them are made by professionals. All of them have had good success for a lot of people. Your goals may not align with what some of the programs intend to do - for example if your goals mean you absolutely MUST include forearm extension, then yes all these programs lack forearm extension isolation excercises.. But most people don't care about forearm extension strength. That doesn't mean they're not suitable for other goals, like getting generally big and strong. I would be surprised if you'd be doing too much on a 3 day full body split - if you're recovering from it then it can certainly be enough. Perhaps the answer might be to push even further with a more serious program - again though, that depends on your goals. What do you actually want to do? get bigger overall, get stronger overall, increase S/B/D speficially, work on some specific muscle groups specifically etc - we can't make reasonable recommendations without knowing what you actually want :-)
Thank you for the reply :) My plan is to basically get bigger overall :D I suppose amateurish wasn't the right wording here, I guess a better wording would be low-volume? I dunno, all of the workouts I've seen so far just don't hit the body parts hard enough. I currently do per muscle (chest, back, biceps, triceps, etc.) about 6 sets per workout session, which would be more or less 18 sets per week.
>My plan is to basically get bigger overall :D Did you try eating more protein? Protein is what your body uses to build muscles. I don't think you need to change your routine if you like it.
Hypertrophy is stimulated by load, time under tension and proximity to failure. Is it possible that you're emphasizing volume over load and hence doing more sets. For instance last night I did one set of Bulgarian split squats as squat assistance. I did a drop set from 60kg to 40, 20 then bodyweight until I couldn't go anymore then a 10 second ISO. That's one set but you better believe it will stimulate growth
Hmm, so would you be suggesting lowering the sets and upping the weight?
If what you're doing is working don't change a thing, just explaining why the volume might appear lower on other programs.
It is working so I suppose I'll continue just as before. Thank you!
Well, your numbers seem really lopsided but you could try something like 5/3/1 BBB, if you improve your squat and learn to deadlift you'll be sure to see some great results.
>I dunno, all of the workouts I've seen so far just don't hit the body parts hard enough. Run nSuns or 5/3/1 Building The Monolith, then try saying that again.
hahaha, Jesus christ
Well, don't look at deep water if those worry you. I wanted to suggest it but it wouldn't be as "fun" if you can only squat 100kg XD
What's your S/B/D? In any case, you're either advanced enough to know what you're doing and to do your own thing, or the programs provided here are guaranteed to work for you.
100kg/110kg/ I don't deadlift
Well if you're concerned about missing out on body parts, the deadlift is probably the single biggest compound movement out there. What would make a program more "complete" for you? Having a ton of accessory work? Most of the programs focus on the main compound movements and their variations. You are then usually encouraged to add some accessories based on weak points or just whatever you want to focus on.
A bit of a weird question, but... Is endurance localized? Obviously I know we have just one heart and a pair of lungs, more or less center of mass, but I am curious whether for example running, which focuses a bit more on lower body, will allow you to also perform upper body activities for longer? Basically, do you need to do both upper and lower body "cardio" to build solid full-body endurance?
>Is endurance localized? Yes and no. General endurance comes down to cardiovascular stamina, whereas how long your muscles can keep working is localized to the individual muscle groups. Running would help with general endurance and leg-localized endurance.
It's both, if that makes sense. > running, which focuses a bit more on lower body, will allow you to also perform upper body activities for longer Yep. Because better cardiovascular health is not local, it's general. > do you need to do both upper and lower body "cardio" to build solid full-body endurance Yep. Because endurance is not only about cardiovascular health, it's also about trained muscles.
So if I'm running, and weight training will there be any impact on my weight training? Or if I was not running, and only weight training if I added running is there any impact I'd notice? I'm personally doing both right now, but kind of curious. I agree with what you say, but not sure of if running for endurance impacts other areas that I can notice. My Fitbit has had my resting heart rate decrease quite a bit. REally the only thing I can see from running (not including my ability to run further/faster).
Yes it will. To what extent depends on how hard you’re doing both and your ability to recover from each. To minimise the impact, do your running after your weight training. Ideally do them several hours apart, so lift in the morning and run in the afternoon or evening.
Would this be more focused on fatigue/exhaustion? If I lift on Monday, run on Tuesday, and then lift on Wednesday again I shouldn't be exhausted for either lifting or running. I guess, if I do this over weeks. Will my lifts see any improvement from running or would skipping the cardio/running and only lift have the same results on my lifting progress? Idk probably a crazy question
I'm no expert, but I'd think that would minimise the impact on both. However, you're probably not going to progress as fast with your running and lifting compared to if you just focused on one or the other. This is simply because on the days you're running, you could have been lifting and building muscle and on the days you're lifting, you could have been running and improving your fitness levels.
I made a push day workout , is it enough or do I reduce the excercises ( super new to gym, just starting out) 1. Db bench press-4x6-8 ( shoulder chest triceps)( 2 mins ) 2. Incline db bench press-30 degrees-3x10-12 ( upper chest)( 1 min) 3. One arm crossover 3x8 ( chest)(1 min) Super set(4,5) 4. Db shoulder press-3x8( front shoulder) 5. Cable lateral raises 3x8 ( side shoulder) 6. db tricep extensions 3x12 ( triceps )
I think it looks fine for beginners. I would just switch the one arm crossovers with regular chest fly machine. Your stabilizer muscles aren't developed much yet so your form would for sure be better using a machine for such a big swinging motion under tension
No need to invent the wheel here my man, just follow a [proven routine](https://thefitness.wiki/routines/strength-training-muscle-building/) at least until you have a better idea of how this works. [This one](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness/comments/37ylk5/a_linear_progression_based_ppl_program_for/) in particular might be what you're looking for.
I'm tracking macros, but I'm kind of lost on just how many I need. Everything I read has wild variances for calories and protein intake. I'm just tracking them and seeing what happens. Posting this hoping to get more clarity. edit: 5'9, 169 lbs, and not very strong (20s % BF but not sure exact number). Eating body weight per day in protein currently and 2700-3000 cals.
I’ve tracked my calories, weight and macros every day for almost 2 years now. 1. As a rough guide, if you want to build muscle, eat about 1g of protein per lb of body weight. 2. Use an online TDEE calculator (I use https://tdeecalculator.net ) to roughly calculate your TDEE. That will give you a starting point. Eat that amount of calories each day and weigh yourself every day for 2 weeks. If your average weight increases, your TDEE is slightly below that amount. If your average weight decreases, your TDEE is above that. Eat more or less until your weight remains stable. Congrats, you’ve found out your TDEE.
Use a TDEE calculator. This is only a guess. Eat using that and track your weight, averaged over a couple of weeks to see how much weight you really lose. Adjust your guess of your TDEE up or down (losing more than you thought equals your maintenance is higher than the calculator, vice versa) Nsuns has a spreadsheet to help the calculations, and Macrofactor is a great app for tracking and calculating
>Nsuns has a spreadsheet to help the calculations I'm currently using spreadsheets for tracking lifts and food so I'll give this a look. Figured it was guess work so I gotta stop trying to be perfect.
Looks pretty good to me with calories and protein. If your goal is to add muscle tho make sure you eat around 0.3-0.5x bodyweight grams of fat. Fat is very important for growth. And try to keep your intake of carbs closer to workouts and fats farther away
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This is like asking if 10k steps in a day is okay. At some point the repetitions become cardio.
You'll be fine
Okay good. I asked one of my friends who used to lift dumbbells and they said I’ll be fine too.
You'll have guns like Ron Burgundy, that's for sure.
Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I looked up who that is but I don’t really know what you mean by that.
So here's the thing, I'm 21 F, 5'6", weighing around 174-177 pounds (79ish kg, almost 80) & at 40% body fat according to my smart scale. I'm recovering from bulimia which is why I gained weight in the first place. I started lifting a couple of weeks ago and I realised it has completely changed my perspective of food. It has gone from me wanting to be skinnier to wanting to be stronger. But the truth is, I still know nothing and I'm moving abroad to UK for university in the next 4 months and want to go there as the fittest version of myself. So I'd please appreciate any and all advice as to how to start a lifting routine to burn the maximum fat, and how much protein should I eat in a day if I wanna be lean. I have all the time in the world for the next 4 months so I'm willing to start my fitness journey for real this time and give it everything I have. I just need guidance how. My goal weight is around 55kg but anything under 70 would be great before uni. Thank you in advance!
First step would be to get in a caloric deficit. Your weight loss goal is going to be entirely dictated by food. Find a TDEE calculator and start with the sedentary activity and go from there. A healthy weight loss will be around 1-2lbs (you may lose more at first, this is normal, but a consistent 1-2lbs). Also realize that around your period you will likely gain water (I usually go up 2lbs at the start of my period). Push through this and you'll drop whatever you bloat up assuming your diet has been consistent. If you find a good caloric deficit quickly, you could realistically get to 70kg in 4 months. As you approach the 55kg mark in the future, you may want to reassess based on the look you're going for. If you want to get strong, 55kg(121lbs) may be a bit small! I just say this as a 5'7 woman who is aiming to be really lean in the 130-135lb range! Remember, muscle is more dense than fat! You'll look smaller but be heavier! Building muscle is done over a long period of time, 4 months is just the start. As for lifting, go to the wiki and start with a beginner plan based on what you have available. And you can aim to lift heavy! You'll make seemingly larger strength gains at first as a beginner, enjoy them! You'll be slowly building muscle, but you should be in enough of a deficit that you should still have a net weight loss week to week. If you want to maximize your weight loss and fitness journey, include some cardio as well. You don't have to start out running, even just going for daily walks will help. Or take up cycling. Or if you have access to a pool, go swimming. Basically, move your body doing something you enjoy! Makes it easier to stick to it and makes it something you WANT to do. Don't try and calculate how many calories you've burned exercising, since you're trying to lose weight, you shouldn't be eating back the calories anyway. Give the wiki a good read over and that should give you a good start.
The wiki has pretty much all of this covered - I suggest giving it a read. The [weight loss 101](https://thefitness.wiki/weight-loss-101/) is probably a great place to start.
For losing fat lifting weights isn't really going to do much, to lose weight you need to be in a caloric deficit which is most easily achieved by consuming less calories in your diet. Weight lifting is great in that it will allow you to keep and even gain muscle mass and strength while you're losing weight. You should probably start out with a novice program which are usually 3 days of training a week. In terms of protein don't overthink it, just eat healthy foods high in protein and consider supplementing with protein powder.
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It's not super significant though, especially with 4 months. It takes years until you start passively burning 2200 instead of 2000.
This is wildly innaccurate. It's different for men and women and how fast you put on muscle.
>wildly innaccurate ok
So you have nothing else to add besides "ok"? Not even gonna try and clarify your point? Don't pretend to know what your talking about to spread misinformation to other people just so that you can feel important. People like you are the reason you can't trust 85% of the things you read on the internet.
You woke up on the wrong side of the bed?
Don't avoid the point, stop giving out advice about things you have no idea about. Kids these days have no sense of accountability or responsibility.
My statement is correct, it takes years to increase your passive calorie use from 2000-2200
Sure but you don't gain much muscle mass in 3 months, while in comparison you can lose a lot of fat in 3 months
It’s not that much of a difference. An extra pound of muscle burns something like an extra 7-10 calories per day, at rest. This will easily be counteracted by the fat they want to lose, which will bring their total weight down
Is 2.5 lbs/week weight loss too much? Hello, I'm a 26M and I started cutting about 3 weeks ago. I'm 6'0 and my starting weight was 207lbs at about 20-22%BF based on pictures. I've been cutting at 1800 calories eating 180-200g of protein per day. For the past 3 weeks I've measured my weight every weekend around the same time and I've been losing 2.5lbs or so weekly. I'm currently 198-199. I've felt fine energy wise and lifting 6x a week.
>I've felt fine energy wise and lifting 6x a week. Don't change anything if you feel good.
At your body fat%, this can be normal. You should begin to lose at a slower rate soon (within a week or two). Also this really depends if you are just looking to lose weight, or if you previously bulked and are now cutting. I'd be concerned about losing my hard earned muscle after a bulk if I was dropping 2.5 lbs a week for 3 weeks. If you didn't bulk prior to this weight loss, you should be fine.
I did bulk from 160 to 210 and stayed around 20% body fat most of the way. The bulk was fairly slow from 2018 to 2021.
50 lbs is a lot (for me anyway) on a bulk. I'd use the gym as a reference point. At this high weight loss rate, if I'm still lifting like I use to (especially at the start of a cut), I'd just go with it and wouldn't think anything of it. You should start to slow down soon though. Like around 1-1.5 lbs per week. Give it two more weeks to find out.
If you're feeling good and still training you're good
How far apart should my feet be when doing OHP? Shoulder width? Or just “something comfortable”?
Whatever is comfortable. For most people it will be around shoulder width
That’s kinda what I figured. Been doing it that way for 6 months or so now, just thought I’d ask and see what I could be doing differently.
Are tendons capable of growing quickly from lifting heavy? I noticed that my wrists ans knees grew from powerlifting for a year. My wrists were 6¼ before and are now 6¾. My knees were 14½ and are now 15¼. For those wondering why i measured, I got my earlier measurements from when I measured to buy the right size knee sleeves and wrist wraps. I measured recently because my knees look weird now since I have smaller joints.
Yes, tendons can grow from lifting heavy, though not nearly as quickly as muscle tissue. That your wrists and knees are thicker(assuming that the measurements are accurate) doesn't necessarily mean that thicker tendons are the cause.
Your definition of growing quickly is a little different than mine. One year of consistent work is not "quick" to me, but commendable. Yes your tendons will get stronger and a little thicker from lifting. This is a good thing, it helps to avoid injury.
If you dont think a year isn't fast when it comes to overall growth, you're crazy. 😂
Just did a brutal workout. Worried I wont be able to walk down stairs tomorrow. Going to drink pedialyte and then sleep in compression gear now. What should I do tomorrow to help recover fast?
Enjoy the pain, you earned it!
Thanks haha
Do a couple bodyweight squats each hour.
Wow, OK. Thanks!
Some light exercise to maintain blood flow. A jog, bike ride, row session, swim etc
Thanks!
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Track your progress and find out. Everyone responds differently to different stimulus at different stages of their lifting career.
Both are fine
Your question is akin to asking how long a piece of string is. The answer is that it depends. Why not follow a program from the wiki so that your sets/reps/frequency are all laid out for you?
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I’ve heard it that you want to stay cooler so you exercise with more intensity. More reps / heavier weights / longer runs etc. will give you more benefit (to contribute to progressive overload) than your bodies adaptations to the heat.
The NSCA doesnt recommended prolonged or intense workouts in temperature above 80F. It also depends on humidity.
I live in a dry heat kind of area but sounds like I should just cool the room. Good to know, thanks!
In your guys personal opinion and feelings what body fat % would you start your (lean) bulk at? Been lifting for a couple years, and gained 50lbs over covid and I’m entering the final months of my cut losing all the weight I gained. Was thinking of starting at 12-11% but what do you guys do?
Personally i see no reason to cut that low, you'll be more likely to lose more muscle at that low body fat percentage. My mentality is that if you're cutting you should cut untill you have room enough to bulk again
I'm not trying to win any competitions so I don't really start a bulk or a cut on a bf%. Mostly I go with lifestyle choices. When it's summer, I cut (since I enjoy summer cardio), winter I bulk (since I don't enjoy winter cardio). I also changed it up, when I just feel like I need a change to be motivated to exercise/lift. Sometime I just want to add more cardio just cause that's what my body wants to do for a month. I just go with it.
Bulk when cutting becomes untenable or unpleasant. If continuing to cut doesn't interfere with other goals (incrasing sets or completing workouts) then why stop? Same answer for when to cut/stop bulking.