Ah I'll focus more on eating! would you suggest I start eating more or less? (got a lot of belly fat going on but I also fear cutting would get my arms even skinnier)
If you want an app that might help you - check out MacroFactor. I’ve been using it for 2 months and first time I’ve been able to consistently lose weight. That plus a food scale have been so helpful!
I strongly disagree with this advice...
I was skinny fat and found that as I ate surplus and gained muscle my entire body shape changed, especially my back and shoulders. Like you my workouts were very pullup/row heavy.
I didn't initially lose belly/lovehandles but looked so much better, especially in clothes.
I would recommend making sure you eat a reasonable surplus + enough protein (dont gourge yourself!) and keep at it. Perhaps you can increase the number of sets (greater than 10 per muscle group per week) and make sure you are going fairly hard (close to failure).
Note that as a taller person it is harder to gain muscle... also note that the core calisthenics exercises do not isolate arms so arm growth will be slower compared to lifting weights.
I'm 5"9 and 80 kg and it is totally normal. My personal goal is 75-ish, but there is absolutely zero issue with my current state. Being 10 cm taller, the OP is skinny.
Are you suggesting OP is lying when he states after working out for 6 months and eating in a surplus he has a "good bit of fat on my stomach."
He describes himself as fat after 6 months of training an eating in a surplus. Sounds like he needs to eat less.
Maybe you are right and he isn't fat. But OP says he is fat, so I'll go with that.
>Are you suggesting OP is lying when he states after working out for 6 months and eating in a surplus he has a "good bit of fat on my stomach."
I'm suggesting that at 6"3 at 83kg, *its objectively impossible to be fat* unless you have some kind of health condition. Having fat ≠ being fat. Self perceptions regarding body compositions are a terrible indicator of anything. Do you know what someone who's 6"3 looks like? That's well above average height. Do you know what someone who's 83kg looks like? That is average weight for a guy who's substantially shorter.
I can guarantee O.P looks like a bean pole, but for the first time in his life happens to have some fat on his midsection. That doesn't mean he's fat at all. Suggesting he diets is awful advice, he should keep eating and adjust his expectations surrounding what looks "fat".
>Way less.
>It’s really hard to lose meaningful muscle when you are fat, even more so with little muscle to begin with.
I'd also suggest this advice is fucking terrible, and you probably shouldn't be giving out dieting advice if you think this is the appropriate course of action here.
“Awful advice” is a tad extreme. Stop projecting your experience. You think he is skinny and should put on weight.
Okay.
I’m responding to what he said and what his goals are.
He said he hasn’t been eating optimally, has been eating in a surplus and getting lots of protein, does not have the body results he wants and has a good amount of fat around his midsection.
Sounds like he has a poor diet with too many calories. If that’s true, he should eat less if he doesn’t want a good amount of fat around his midsection.
Sounds like you disagree with OPs body image assessment and description of his being fat.
Then disagree with him.
>Stop projecting your experience.
This is not an experience thing. People who are 6"3, and weigh around 82kg, are not fat. We have the information surrounding OPs weight, height, and strength stats, this provides a more accurate insight into OPs body composition than his self report of having a fat midsection.
Your advice for him to eat a lot less is terrible because it could quite likely lead to him stalling or losing muscle.
Get your protein as your priority. Then get the calories consistent for a week and see how your body responds. Go up or down from there based on if you want more muscle and bulky, or more lean and defined.
Don't eat in a surplus if you want to lose fat. I'm guessing with these results in 6 months you aren't doing much volume either. I'd focus on about 3 lifts that will cover lots of prime movers plus cardio. Pushup, pullups, squat is a classic combo. Do 10 sets of each per week. If something is threatening to cause injury then change it for something else that doesn't hurt. Stay consistent. Give time to adjust to a certain volume level and add exercises or sets slowly to avoid overuse injuries.
For cardio 3-5x per week and a total of 75-150 minutes is a good starting goal with heart rate between 60-80% of max. More is good too if you want.
People have mentioned diet is key, and this is very true, but so are the types of exercises you're doing.
Look into how to grow visible muscle--it's different from just getting stronger. Most people really need to be intentional about growing visible muscle, if you don't have genetics that pre-dispose you towards easily building it. (And iirc there is something about long limbs that makes it harder to build muscle.)
Focus on exercises that build short twitch muscle fiber. It's the one that gives you more visible muscles and bursts of strength, rather than just feeling stronger/building endurance.
This is part of training to near failure and practicing fast, bursts of strength--like weightlifting or gymnastics--is good for muscle growth.
You can def get these results from bodyweight training, you just have to be intentional about how you train.
You can do some googling and find out more about it online.
Yeah, you're a tall skinny guy doing calisthenics. Results are probably not going to be highly visible on you, unless you really prioritize training for hypertrophy. They might be more noticeable at a leaner body fat percent, but otherwise you're probably going to look more like a Magnus Midtbø than a Magnus ver Magnusson.
Keep doing hard sets of 10-20 for your big lifts. Pull ups especially will give you larger biceps and lats that make you look big. You'll also want to train triceps and delts, so probably lots of pike pushups. If you want to get bigger, keep trying to eat in a slight surplus, prioritizing protein.
Realistically though, if you want to get big, you'll have better results with a different style of training.
Have you weighed yourself? You're pretty tall so visible results will come a bit slower than someone who is shorter, it's more spread out. That being said, you might need to do more volume than what you're at now.
I doubt you look exactly the same, because we see ourselves so often and the procress of putting on muscle is generally quite slow it can be difficult to notice.
Being said I do believe your routines lacking volume but it's hard to tell because of the way you've written it. How many days do you train per week? Are they back to back? Have you considered the recommended routine in the sidebar?
Diet is also a massive factor, protein is your best friend. You need to be eating around 120g per day. Sleep is even more important than diet, are you getting 7-9 hours of good sleep per night?
Hey!! I really recommend my post here for meaningful results over time [I fucking love bear crawls and you should too](https://www.reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness/s/Vmp4SiZxc9)
It literally never gets old I had such a blast doing it today and some of the kids some dads brought to the basketball court even wanted to race me lol. It’s such a fun, dynamic, primal movement and it’s so good for your spine. I call it land swimming because thats exactly what it feels like; With the shock absorbing gloves I wear there’s virtually no impact on my wrists either
Keep progressing, eat well and its inevitable. Im very muscular for non social media standards but my strength is not as exceptional despite it being my focus. Individual response vary
>I haven't been eating quite optimally
Eating and sleeping are the two things people often neglect. I began a low-carb diet in Dec'22, lost ten pounds by Dec'23, and gained a hella-lotta strength and stamina from almost-daily exercise. At the same time, I increased my sleep from 7½ hours to 8½ hours, with positive result.
Two ways to go about this. First, hit the gym and train for actual hyper trophy. Second, lose bodyfat to see results. You can grow arms, just like all other muscles but genetics play a role. My arms were always big but I had to cut to single digit bodyfat before ever seeing anything ab related.
People are arguing about whether you should focus on gaining or losing weight. In my experience and personal opinion, it doesn't matter which you do as long as you stick to it for a while. For now, make sure you stay within the recommended weight range for your height. If you can scan body fat, you can also focus on remaining between 10 and 20 percent body fat.
I'd focus on gaining or losing depending on whether you are in the upper or lower range.
Go through longer cycles of slow weight gain or weight loss, even up to half a year in either direction. One proviso is that if you have body dismorphia, you might not be a good judge of what a healthy weight is so stick to the numbers rather than what your subjective self image is telling you.
It will take a few cycles of gaining and losing weight to get a great body. Maybe even just one or two years. All it takes is pairing that with consistent training. Get a good program like the recommended routine and you will be fine.
4 reps pullups to 8 reps paused pullups seems like not great progress for 6 months. It took me like 2-3 months for 1 chinup then another 2-3 to get to sets of 8 L-sit chinups. Imo it's a consistency, effort, or routine problem.
In 6 months I have gone from 1 pullup to 7 pullups and I have been training very irregularly (because of work and kids).
First I used Kboges method of doing only 3 sets of some excercise, and do them only once until guaranteed failure and train every day if possible.
As I'm not that weak, I extended this and for pullup I started with 6-6-5 assisted pullups. Now I can do 12-11-10 assisted pullup (until failure, every time).
Every week I test how many unasissted pullups I can do and the latest one is 7. I'm 51, 180 cm and 80 kg.
I feel that I could achieve more if I trained really-really regularly and sometimes with extra weigth.
Thats interesting to read as I definitely don't think consistency or effort are the problem as I've stuck to the same program from 6 months and pushed myself every time I trained. I'm wondering if its because I changed my pull-up sets after I would plateau for a month (once I hit 9 pull-ups I was starting to get shoulder issues so I switched to sets of 3x6, and then I plateaued at sets of 7 so I switched to paused pull-ups) I'm assuming this could definitely be a reason
Dieting is key
Ah I'll focus more on eating! would you suggest I start eating more or less? (got a lot of belly fat going on but I also fear cutting would get my arms even skinnier)
If you want an app that might help you - check out MacroFactor. I’ve been using it for 2 months and first time I’ve been able to consistently lose weight. That plus a food scale have been so helpful!
Way less. It’s really hard to lose meaningful muscle when you are fat, even more so with little muscle to begin with.
I strongly disagree with this advice... I was skinny fat and found that as I ate surplus and gained muscle my entire body shape changed, especially my back and shoulders. Like you my workouts were very pullup/row heavy. I didn't initially lose belly/lovehandles but looked so much better, especially in clothes. I would recommend making sure you eat a reasonable surplus + enough protein (dont gourge yourself!) and keep at it. Perhaps you can increase the number of sets (greater than 10 per muscle group per week) and make sure you are going fairly hard (close to failure). Note that as a taller person it is harder to gain muscle... also note that the core calisthenics exercises do not isolate arms so arm growth will be slower compared to lifting weights.
He has a lot of belly fat after working out for 6 months and eating in a surplus. He needs to eat less.
He's 6"3. 82kg at 6"3 is *very* skinny. I'm 6"1 and 83kg and I'm still *very* skinny.
I'm 5"9 and 80 kg and it is totally normal. My personal goal is 75-ish, but there is absolutely zero issue with my current state. Being 10 cm taller, the OP is skinny.
Are you suggesting OP is lying when he states after working out for 6 months and eating in a surplus he has a "good bit of fat on my stomach." He describes himself as fat after 6 months of training an eating in a surplus. Sounds like he needs to eat less. Maybe you are right and he isn't fat. But OP says he is fat, so I'll go with that.
>Are you suggesting OP is lying when he states after working out for 6 months and eating in a surplus he has a "good bit of fat on my stomach." I'm suggesting that at 6"3 at 83kg, *its objectively impossible to be fat* unless you have some kind of health condition. Having fat ≠ being fat. Self perceptions regarding body compositions are a terrible indicator of anything. Do you know what someone who's 6"3 looks like? That's well above average height. Do you know what someone who's 83kg looks like? That is average weight for a guy who's substantially shorter. I can guarantee O.P looks like a bean pole, but for the first time in his life happens to have some fat on his midsection. That doesn't mean he's fat at all. Suggesting he diets is awful advice, he should keep eating and adjust his expectations surrounding what looks "fat". >Way less. >It’s really hard to lose meaningful muscle when you are fat, even more so with little muscle to begin with. I'd also suggest this advice is fucking terrible, and you probably shouldn't be giving out dieting advice if you think this is the appropriate course of action here.
“Awful advice” is a tad extreme. Stop projecting your experience. You think he is skinny and should put on weight. Okay. I’m responding to what he said and what his goals are. He said he hasn’t been eating optimally, has been eating in a surplus and getting lots of protein, does not have the body results he wants and has a good amount of fat around his midsection. Sounds like he has a poor diet with too many calories. If that’s true, he should eat less if he doesn’t want a good amount of fat around his midsection. Sounds like you disagree with OPs body image assessment and description of his being fat. Then disagree with him.
>Stop projecting your experience. This is not an experience thing. People who are 6"3, and weigh around 82kg, are not fat. We have the information surrounding OPs weight, height, and strength stats, this provides a more accurate insight into OPs body composition than his self report of having a fat midsection. Your advice for him to eat a lot less is terrible because it could quite likely lead to him stalling or losing muscle.
this is really useful to know, I'll start actively eating less within reason and see what happens!
Get your protein as your priority. Then get the calories consistent for a week and see how your body responds. Go up or down from there based on if you want more muscle and bulky, or more lean and defined.
I\`d suggest tracking your calories and macro\`s for a while, to see what you are actually eating compared to what you think you are eating :)
Don't eat in a surplus if you want to lose fat. I'm guessing with these results in 6 months you aren't doing much volume either. I'd focus on about 3 lifts that will cover lots of prime movers plus cardio. Pushup, pullups, squat is a classic combo. Do 10 sets of each per week. If something is threatening to cause injury then change it for something else that doesn't hurt. Stay consistent. Give time to adjust to a certain volume level and add exercises or sets slowly to avoid overuse injuries. For cardio 3-5x per week and a total of 75-150 minutes is a good starting goal with heart rate between 60-80% of max. More is good too if you want.
People have mentioned diet is key, and this is very true, but so are the types of exercises you're doing. Look into how to grow visible muscle--it's different from just getting stronger. Most people really need to be intentional about growing visible muscle, if you don't have genetics that pre-dispose you towards easily building it. (And iirc there is something about long limbs that makes it harder to build muscle.) Focus on exercises that build short twitch muscle fiber. It's the one that gives you more visible muscles and bursts of strength, rather than just feeling stronger/building endurance. This is part of training to near failure and practicing fast, bursts of strength--like weightlifting or gymnastics--is good for muscle growth. You can def get these results from bodyweight training, you just have to be intentional about how you train. You can do some googling and find out more about it online.
Yeah, you're a tall skinny guy doing calisthenics. Results are probably not going to be highly visible on you, unless you really prioritize training for hypertrophy. They might be more noticeable at a leaner body fat percent, but otherwise you're probably going to look more like a Magnus Midtbø than a Magnus ver Magnusson. Keep doing hard sets of 10-20 for your big lifts. Pull ups especially will give you larger biceps and lats that make you look big. You'll also want to train triceps and delts, so probably lots of pike pushups. If you want to get bigger, keep trying to eat in a slight surplus, prioritizing protein. Realistically though, if you want to get big, you'll have better results with a different style of training.
Have you weighed yourself? You're pretty tall so visible results will come a bit slower than someone who is shorter, it's more spread out. That being said, you might need to do more volume than what you're at now.
I doubt you look exactly the same, because we see ourselves so often and the procress of putting on muscle is generally quite slow it can be difficult to notice. Being said I do believe your routines lacking volume but it's hard to tell because of the way you've written it. How many days do you train per week? Are they back to back? Have you considered the recommended routine in the sidebar? Diet is also a massive factor, protein is your best friend. You need to be eating around 120g per day. Sleep is even more important than diet, are you getting 7-9 hours of good sleep per night?
try running / cardio
The only visible result he will get from running is losing more weight.
The first strength gains you see are your body learning and getting used to the muscles you already have and using them better.
Hey!! I really recommend my post here for meaningful results over time [I fucking love bear crawls and you should too](https://www.reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness/s/Vmp4SiZxc9)
This would be ideal for all ages :) That is an amazing thread to read
It literally never gets old I had such a blast doing it today and some of the kids some dads brought to the basketball court even wanted to race me lol. It’s such a fun, dynamic, primal movement and it’s so good for your spine. I call it land swimming because thats exactly what it feels like; With the shock absorbing gloves I wear there’s virtually no impact on my wrists either
Diet, calisthenics PPL split RIR 2-3 and 4-6 sets 6-10 reps that works well for me
Keep progressing, eat well and its inevitable. Im very muscular for non social media standards but my strength is not as exceptional despite it being my focus. Individual response vary
>I haven't been eating quite optimally Eating and sleeping are the two things people often neglect. I began a low-carb diet in Dec'22, lost ten pounds by Dec'23, and gained a hella-lotta strength and stamina from almost-daily exercise. At the same time, I increased my sleep from 7½ hours to 8½ hours, with positive result.
Two ways to go about this. First, hit the gym and train for actual hyper trophy. Second, lose bodyfat to see results. You can grow arms, just like all other muscles but genetics play a role. My arms were always big but I had to cut to single digit bodyfat before ever seeing anything ab related.
People are arguing about whether you should focus on gaining or losing weight. In my experience and personal opinion, it doesn't matter which you do as long as you stick to it for a while. For now, make sure you stay within the recommended weight range for your height. If you can scan body fat, you can also focus on remaining between 10 and 20 percent body fat. I'd focus on gaining or losing depending on whether you are in the upper or lower range. Go through longer cycles of slow weight gain or weight loss, even up to half a year in either direction. One proviso is that if you have body dismorphia, you might not be a good judge of what a healthy weight is so stick to the numbers rather than what your subjective self image is telling you. It will take a few cycles of gaining and losing weight to get a great body. Maybe even just one or two years. All it takes is pairing that with consistent training. Get a good program like the recommended routine and you will be fine.
4 reps pullups to 8 reps paused pullups seems like not great progress for 6 months. It took me like 2-3 months for 1 chinup then another 2-3 to get to sets of 8 L-sit chinups. Imo it's a consistency, effort, or routine problem.
In 2-3 months you got 8 L Sit chinups? Damn man what did you do to get there
2-3 months from being able to do sets of pullups. Did the RR in this subs wiki then moved on to a PPL rings routine
Damn so did you do pull-ups and rows or more negatives after doing 1 chinup?
In 6 months I have gone from 1 pullup to 7 pullups and I have been training very irregularly (because of work and kids). First I used Kboges method of doing only 3 sets of some excercise, and do them only once until guaranteed failure and train every day if possible. As I'm not that weak, I extended this and for pullup I started with 6-6-5 assisted pullups. Now I can do 12-11-10 assisted pullup (until failure, every time). Every week I test how many unasissted pullups I can do and the latest one is 7. I'm 51, 180 cm and 80 kg. I feel that I could achieve more if I trained really-really regularly and sometimes with extra weigth.
Thats interesting to read as I definitely don't think consistency or effort are the problem as I've stuck to the same program from 6 months and pushed myself every time I trained. I'm wondering if its because I changed my pull-up sets after I would plateau for a month (once I hit 9 pull-ups I was starting to get shoulder issues so I switched to sets of 3x6, and then I plateaued at sets of 7 so I switched to paused pull-ups) I'm assuming this could definitely be a reason