Brolympus Member

OP, just to clarify, when people say "lift heavy", they mean you need to be following a progressive overload program, where you are increasing either the weight (adding 2.5lbs-5lbs, depending on which lift you are doing) or number of reps every time you workout. If you aren't challenging your muscles, they won't grow.…

Shakes should be strictly a convenience thing. Real food is best for muscle growth & overall health, plus supps are expensive. I try to keep it to just 1 per day to make sure I am eating actual food, but occasionally 2 or even 3 shakes is the only way to get my cals in for the day with my schedule. Guess it depends on your…

Pretty much this. I usually cook it first. Raw chicken skeeves me out, I don't want it anywhere near the scale I measure my other foods on.

Very true about medical conditions/mobility problems. But then I hope somebody with these problems would realize they shouldn't be performing things that could aggravate their conditions either...that won't stop them, but I like my bubble of ignorance where people make intelligent decisions and not poor ones :p

Breh I squat like 300lbs and I'm just so tired of being so huge. #aesthetics4lyfe #everydayisupperbodyday :p

As pointed out by Izzy here (about 4mins in), people really DO have slightly different hip shapes. Squatting deep is going to be different for different people. Basically, just make sure you get to the bottom of your mechanical range when squatting; Don't try to physically go any farther than your joints allow, that would…

Somatypes are broscience, you can get just as big as anybody else with the right nutrition and lifting plan. That mindset of "ectomorph" is putting an unnecessary mental burden on yourself. Being skinny is just a result of your past eating and activity choices, plain and simple. I also used to be extremely skinny (6' 4"…

Very similar story to myself. Lifetime skinny, tall dude. Feel free to add. Good place to start is the gaining weight sticky or this: http://www.aworkoutroutine.com/the-ultimate-weight-training-workout-routine/

Wishful thinking won't do anything OP. Your genetics and your current bodyfat% are going to determine your current calorie partitioning ratio (p-ratio). It is not physically possible to gain muscle without some fat. That is why you see all these people going through the trouble of bulk/cut cycles.

Except you won't. Machines provide a linear path and no challenge to achieve stability. You will get the big muscles involved, but the rectus abdominis, external and internal obliques, the transverse abdominis, the spinal erectors, and all the muscles in your hip girdle are going untrained. You are going to build big major…

SHOO SHOO GAINZ GOBLIN! SHOO!

This is also my takeaway. OP, depends on your goals. Recomps (muscle gain with little to no fat gain) are effective and you can build muscle doing them, but terribly slow. Bulk/cut cycles will get you to your end goal faster, but have their own challenges as well. You can get overfat if you don't count your cals right…

Agreed, it is basically just protein powder + a lot of added sugar and carbs.

Really hard to say without knowing your workout plan. Can you detail what exactly you are doing, or have done, and for how long you worked at both?

How long have you been bulking OP? Make sure your expectations are realistic. You really only want to gain about 2-3 lbs per month anyway. Any more is guaranteed to be mostly fat. Also: yes. You gun' poop. A lot. Metamucil is your friend.

You can't gain muscle without a some fat, nobody has a 100% p-ratio. However, if you stay at a moderate calorie surplus your fat gains will be minimal. You can always cut later, and it takes way less time to burn a pound of fat than it does to build a pound of muscle.

Agreed. Good video, but this doesn't apply in any way to a newbie lifter. You genetic limits shouldn't really be a concern until year 3 or later of your lifting career.

It seemed a bit too far over. She seems to bounce the weight off the balls of her feet at the beginning of the concentric part of the lift (a bit too far over) and then gets the load centered after that. But the video is squished so it is indeed kind of hard to tell.

My best advice is to get into a program that focuses on compound movements. When I started out, I was following a lifting schedule similar to this, and I got nowhere fast. Your muscles need higher frequency being trained per week, with some kind of progressive overload built into your program. You should be hitting the…

Possibly. When you say one body part per day, what do you mean?

Sounds like you are both having the same issue I did. You might require a slightly wider stance. Also, you MUST make sure your knees track along the same path as your foot points. If you have your feet closer, your toes are pointing mostly forward. If you have a wider stance, your toes are going to end up pointing out…

If you can handle the fact that your weight is going to fluctuate wildly on a day to day basis, it is very useful to log every day. You can plot the data points in a spreadsheet and have it produce a "fit" line to see if you are gaining/losing at the correct rate.

I will direct you to a thread I actually made yesterday where @nakedraygun posted an excellent video that details every portion of the squat and how to execute. About 2/3 of the way down. 20 mins long and worth every second:…

My favorite color is blue. Friends?

Do not bother with fad diet programs. If you are training for an athletic competition, the LAST thing you want is to lose all the muscle you have worked building cutting too aggressively. Cutting is a delicate balance. Find your TDEE, then set the calculator to 10-15% calorie reduction (not 20%, you can start to lose…

OP is anxious about eating fat thinking it will make her gain weight. A calorie surplus is required to gain weight. Don't add to her anxiety, she is fine eating some fats. As long as she is in a deficit, she will continue to lose weight.

Timing is not really important OP. If you make your workouts last over an hour, a light snack that is more carb heavy and some caffeine might improve your workout a bit and help reduce the "drop" feeling you get after you glycogen stores start to deplete from intense exercise. But as far as results go, it is irrelevant…

Fat content does not matter. Only calories.

What does your lifting program look like? As far as the cals go, you could be just burning a lot more during the day than you are allowing for in your food intake (you said you had a physical job). You could be also overestimating what you eat. Are you actually measuring food? If your weight is stuck, and you haven't been…