_Bropollo_ Member

Maybe I was unlucky, but when I was a member there I got lunk alarmed 3 times. Once for dropping down the dumbbells after a particularly heavy set of chest presses (I had no juice left to let them down nicely), once breathing heavily trying to squeeze out a last rep of OHP, and once for the same reason on the leg press.…

<---- eats pizza almost daily. Deadlifts double his bodyweight multiple times per week. Clearly a fatty.

If your deficit is below 20% of your maintenance cals, you are likely going to start dropping muscle, just a warning. So if you are subjecting yourself to an aggressive cut, be prepared for the loss of gainz, and certainly a loss of energy in the gym. If you are in the clear and in the safe range of the deficit, but still…

Congrats! I picked up smoking pipe tobacco cigarillos for some reason a few years back. First it was a stress relief thing after work, but then, much like you, I couldn't calm myself down without them. Luckily, I didn't need any quit aids; when I got into lifting I realized how much the smoking was killing my ability to…

in for lulz

There used to be a sticky for beginning a bulk, not sure where it went. You need to have two key things down to build muscle: a calorie surplus, and a training program with progressive overload, where your muscles are forced to grow to keep up with the loads they are being forced to pick up. -For the calorie surplus, just…

Did Stronglifts, good program but you can't continue it forever; You will develop some interesting muscle imbalances and overuses injuries if you try. You eventually need to supplement with a few isolation movements every workout. I found my shoulder joint got very imbalanced and I was getting an impingement because my…

You only need a few hundred calorie surplus to bulk effectively. Anything over 300 what your maintenance cals are will go purely to fat storage. So definitely hit your surplus, but save yourself some work later and don't do the "dreamer bulk" eating everything in sight, you will get real frustrated. You might already know…

Back rounding is pretty pronounced, that will catch up to you at higher weights in the form of an injury, so I am glad you are looking for a form check. Try dropping the weight a bit, keeping your chest as high as possible when doing the lift, and your shoulders back. Allowing your shoulders to roll forward will tend to…

I do better with frequent meals. My energy/mood is more stable, which is particularly important when it's time to hit the gym.

Pretty much. Eat a surplus. Start doing lots of deadlifts and squats for the booty. Rows, pull-ups (machine assisted ones if needed), bench, overhead press for the upper body. You will gain a bit of fat doing this, its impossible not to, but if you keep your surplus under control, it will be minimal. +1 to finding a…

I just kept drinking water instead. Would get myself so full I couldn't drink the booze. It can be pretty hard to stop once you start using alcohol as the "after work stress reliever". Not sure if that is your case or not though. I still drink on the weekends sometimes, but I make it a point to not drink during the week.…

Be warned: strength training calories are going to be extremely subjective. Depends on so many variables. You are honestly better off not logging them, or if you do, using a conservative number (less than what MFP gives you) if your goal is weight loss so you are not disappointed.

I find it very odd you can squat more than you can dead. That right there might be pointing to some kind of muscle/training imbalance. I am just now finally squatting two plates (225lbs) for 5x5, but I can do the same sets/reps at 335lbs on deads. I have never found doing super high-weight, super low rep work very helpful.…

JEFIT & Bodyspace. I like the that the JEFIT workout timers tick away in the background and give you an audible "boop" when your rest time is up, even with music playing. Bodyspace tracking tool is a little better though, especially the weekly training summaries.

It sucks, but honestly they have to want to learn to do it the right way. Your good deed is unfortunately going to make you look like the jerk. Ego lifters get their reality check when they get hurt.

You are going real, real fast. Slow it down. There is no way you are inhaling and then "getting tight" before you start the eccentric part of the squat when you are moving that quick. Your core and back should be flexed. Your lats pull the bar down into your shoulder blades.You need to build tension in the glutes,…

Muscle is denser that fat. Weight is an objective relationship with gravity. It is also kind of useless to base your entire training regiment off unless you are tracking other metrics. If you truly want to figure out if you are progressing toward a leaner body, you need to start taking body composition measurements (body…

While this is true, detailed info about insulin and timing it for optimal growth, OP is underweight and isn't weight training consistently at this point. Some fat is actually optimal right now; his testosterone levels are likely out of whack based his BMI. OP, just to clarify, insulin drives gluclose, creatine, and a…

Body fat % dictates bulking/cutting efficiency via your body's calorie partitioning ratio (and genetics also, but you that is something you don't have control over). In general, higher bodyfat makes it harder to gain muscle and easier to lose fat. Low bodyfat makes it easier to gain muscle and harder to lose fat. So you…

You need to progressively overload your lifts. You will make progress with that weight for maybe a solid week before your strength progress is totally stalled. Here is how pretty much all (good) weight training programs work (this principle is called progressive overload): -You pick a lift (let's take dumbbell shoulder…

You lift on a deficit to retain muscle. If you try to drop weight strictly through calorie reduction, with no external stimulus telling your body you need muscle to "survive", your body will drop muscle in order to maintain peak caloric efficiency. The body doesn't really want to have added muscle mass; it requires…

OP, see #2. Common myth most females seem to buy into. Lactic acid buildup =/= gainz: acaloriecounter.com/weight-training-results.php The "toned" physiques you see on magazines, instragram, w/e. are combo of several years of weight training and a pretty low bodyfat %. +1 Issack's suggestions on finding a solid beginner's…

Normally I would caution anybody wanting to be in a surplus without weight training that it is a very poor choice because you will put on purely fat this way, but at your height/weight you are definitely underweight, so a bit of fat will actually help. Food source for those extra cals is irrelevant. Make sure you get a…

Well I will caution you right away that you can't build muscle and lose fat at the same time. Not possible. If you have never weight trained before, you can get away with this for a month or two, but your body will eventually make you pick one or the other. If you are increasing the amount of calories you expend per week,…

^ +1. Being competition lean all the time is not healthy, nor sustainable (unless you are on PEDs, which puts even more stress on the body). Women are especially sensitive to extra lean bodyfat levels, as it can really mess with your hormones. Nothing wrong with competing ( I plan to myself in a couple years), but you need…

Hamstring and flutes? Are you trying to workout while playing in a band? :p Jokes aside, I think you meant hamstrings and glutes. Deadlifts would actually be a better exercise for building strong hams and glutes (the whole posterior chain really). Squats actually are better for your quads, although they do work your butt…

Sounds like an electrical impedance test. Those are notoriously inaccurate, like in the range of +/- 10% depending on your hydration. That is pretty lousy accuracy. The only true methods for accurate measurement require a BodPod, DEXAscan, or hydrostatic weighting, and even those are only accurate to about 1%. BodPod is…

Not sure. Just wanted to make sure she was aware of the magic of deadlifts :)

Not sure how anybody hasn't mentioned deadlifts. Deadlifts are the king of glute exercises (and hammies too). Squats are actually better builders for your quads than your butt, but the media seems to have attached to the idea of squats = butt growth for some reason. They DO work your butt, just not nearly as much as deads.…