Yeah, I think you’re being a bit hard on yourself to say the least… you said you’re 30? I honestly thought you were younger.
what does this mean? I Googled this and encountered hot sauce…
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I agree with @kleinhound.
You look amazing, and yet you feel you have kilos to lose. Not like, a couple of hundred grams of fat, but several kilos. That’s disconnected from how your body actually looks. Those are photos posted outdoors, in the dark, and you still have good muscle separation. Something a lot of guys only get in the changing room when there are bright spotlights shining down on them from up-top creating shadows everywhere giving the illusion of jacked.
You are jacked.
I’d argue that you should not allow yourself, your subjective opinion of how you look, guide your weight because you are out of touch with how you look objectively.
Some people don’t know how to regulate their training, despite their body telling them they’ve done too much and need to take the foot of the gas for a while so recovery can catch up. These people benefit from scheduled deloads, as they couldn’t subjectively arrive at when/if they should deload before it is too late.
While a strained example, as the “too late” aspect doesn’t really apply, I’d argue it’d be better for you to schedule hypertrophy/mass gaining/weight gaining phases with scheduled mini-cuts. Why do I suggest this? Because it is my impression that you wouldn’t be able to abstain from cutting anyway, so it’s better to plan it in so it doesn’t do too much damage to your long-term progression. 6-8 weeks of gaining, 2 weeks mini-cut. Repeat.
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Alright yeah I’m probably exagerating. But still I posted the most flattering pics of tonight. I guess we are always our own worst critics. Like with my friends, who looks great to me, but was finding himself terrible ahah
Probably the fact that I’m completely hairless… But you can spot my crown of grey hair on second pic ahah
Thank you but I like 87-88 right now. I know I have gained weight, and I have some fluff. not much though!
Currently I’m deloading for 2 weeks, only bodyweight stuff, and not crazy either! (I mean it was at most a 30 min session tonight). Ate very clean, but still ate some pie afterwards. And it’s not like my previous training was the craziest either.
I just want to “maingain” honestly. No problem with that plan, but very, very slight surplus then. I tend to spiral very quick with them.
I think it’s just that I saw one quote by @Frank_C the other day on the T-ransformation challenge. In the end, I pretty much don’t change year after year. My strength levels haven’t changed much in years. Only improved on o-lifts this years (which is great!). Physique-wise, well still the same as last year, not leaner, can’t say I’m bigger (perhaps a little bit more legs?). Certainly technique on the lifts has improved…
But this still hits hard. In years I haven’t changed or so. I’m extra hard on myself because I want to improve this time. Because I know I can and I should!
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I know I’m arguably even more delusional with my weight and how I look, so take this with a grain of salt. At 185 cm, and 87-88 kilos you look very good. I’m going to guess that you’d still look really jacked at 96 kilos. Not saying that you should rush there, but maybe add 200g of bodyweight per week?
I’m going to tag @The_Mighty_Stu because I know from his previous post history and his experiences he has a way better understanding than I do of what certain bodies (height) can look at certain weights and levels of leanness.
I’m going to tag @EyeDentist because of his experience with self-proclaimed Former Fat Boys and strategies revolving adding muscle without packing on the fat into already created adipose cells that are just empty.
Please go and find me pictures of you from 1 year ago and 2 years ago 
I think you’ve been looking better and better, especially during the stints where you actually trained for looks (Meadows).
When you train mostly for o-lifts, it’s not unreasonable that your physique changes take longer.
I keep trying telling myself that I’m ~185 cm, and from everything I’ve gathered about other people’s weights at different heights one can look lean and ripped at Weight - 100 cm, but tank top or shirtless is mandatory. At Weight - 90 cm, one can start looking more tankish and swole.
I further keep trying to tell myself that I’m young, as are you @aldebaran, and that now is the easiest time to add muscle but fat can be lost essentially at any age (maintaining muscle mass, I don’t know how much harder that becomes with age).
So with regards to,
Rather than focusing on losing those kilos now, how about adding a few more kilos, hover at that weight, become stronger at that weight, and then chip off fat there? Kind of like how a strength progression goes, you start at some percentage say
Week 1: 60, 70, 80%
Week 2: 65, 75, 85%
Week 3: 70, 80, 90%
Increase max, repeat week 1. And then with weight gain, it’d be, gain some weight, gain some weight, gain some weight, lose a little weight, repeat. But over time, you are projecting onto a bigger bodyweight. I write the above because,
Because, maybe you are holding around as much muscle as you will/can at your current bodyweight?
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Well because I don’t have a gym/weights available, and I probably won’t have one for a few months still. So Can’t really do much in terms of size of strength, but I can work on getting leaner, cardio and speed.
Well you can compare the backshot with the one from april 2019 (edit: yeah I failed it was 2019 not 2018). And no I wasn’t that ripped either back then
Yeah I can only agree there…
I think i still can gain a bit. And ming you this year, 80% of the time I wasn’t super lean, I was approximately like right now. I was leaner for 2 months around the first lockdown in april-may, that’s it! So that’s why i’m saying this ahah.
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Not sure why I was tagged, but am happy to say @aldebaran looks great!
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No: that is stupid. Be your biggest fan. There are plenty of people that will criticize you: you don’t need to add to it. Hell, look at how passive this language is. “I guess”, “always”.
You aren’t powerless. The opposite.
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My hypothesis is that gaining weight and then cutting kills strength gains. I’ve done it for over a decade. The yo yo effect is losing strength and then regaining it. By the time you get it back or make progress, you’re ready for a break because your joints are telling you to chill out. You listen and decide it’s a good time to focus on your physique and start the cycle again.
The strongest people I know pursue strength for long periods of time. Years, not months.
As I get older, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with maintenance. I’m finding myself less interested in training and more interested in other stuff. If you give your training less attention and maintain what you have then I’d say that’s a win.
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I tend to agree with Dr Maier muscle MD
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I had not realized my lack of confidence would express in my speech. You’re giving me a lot to ponder guys.
True. In a way I am but I think the concurrent approach I’ve been always using is far from optimal on someone like me, and that has been training for a long time.
When I did pure hypertrophy last year with CT or this year with the first lockdown then Meadows stuff, I experienced a lot of progress. Despite other variables.
So I think going true strength will yield results as well. I needed to accept the fact that I won’t atrophy and that I didn’t need to do a little set of every body part or I would crumble. Also, less training like an idiot too hard beyond technical failure on the big basics.
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Good view of life, i will do the same even before to be old, i will find a Harmony for myself and stop it just make a maintenance and train hard somethime if i need to decompress. Exemple maybe i will stop to 100 kilo bench press/squat/ and so on.
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You’re about 5 years ahead of me in realizing this. I’ve always approached my training with a “focus” and then everything I thought I needed to do for balance. If I did bench then I had to do at least the same volume on a row. I’d do the same for OHP and most of the time I’d do more pulling than pushing. My current phase has me barely doing any pulling just to see how it goes. I’m doing deadlifts and power cleans twice a week. I’m trying to do two other back exercises in the week, but that’s less than pressing volume. I used to not count deads and cleans as back work but I’m tired of doing endless sets just for balance.
We learn as we go and I’ve had a rough year. There’s nothing quite like having your wife say “You look dead inside.” I had some bad work experiences and it seems to have been the final straw and sent me into depression. I’ve had a lot of time to think about my priorities and life balance.
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If I recall, you came to this realization a few week ago, the same day or so a teacher was telling me the same thing: most usually, a good training will be umbalanced.
I think you’ll be fine. I was doing zero pulling other than clean, snatches and deadlifts work last winter, and my back didn’t regress at all. Look at o-lifters back… I know Paul Carter would disapprove, but to me they are amazing back exercises.
I wish you the best. It would be really nice if you’d end up a teacher, I think you’d be great at this! And I can only imagine having a towering hulk as a teacher ahahah
I agree, but I see no reason to do this right now, I should be doing the opposite and be harder on myself. My job is practically training. I have no wife, house or kids to take care of. It’s now or never!
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You should and probably are doing this. If you have few responsibilities and stressors then you can focus on training more. The trick is realizing when to take from training and give to another area of life.
It’s simple math. You have 100% to give to everything. Perhaps you can give 50% of yourself to training right now and the other 50% to the rest of your life. For the sake of the example, let’s say that half is split 15% work, 25% friends and social life, and the remaining 10% to family.
Add a more demanding job and suddenly you need to give 30% to work. Something has to give. If you want to keep training with the same focus then you’ll have to decrease what you give family and friends. Eventually you’ll reach a point in your life where you can’t take away from family. You’ll have a wife and then maybe some kids. As the family grows, you need to give more of yourself to it.
The smart thing to do is see how things are changing and maintain the balance. You can keep trying to add effort but eventually you’ll fail at something.
Work hard while you can. It’ll be easier to maintain your results than to achieve them later in life.
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Loving the analogy (like the “training money”) and I completely agree. Let’s do this then.
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Also u can save the time. I don’t if get a family take u everything is a bit sad. Depend ur wife, but if u get a home gym, i hope we can find one hours for training even when we get a family.
I don’t know we need to ask peoples here, iam really interesting by this question.
Personally I don’t want a work who take my whole life, i want to have the time, but if i make a family i really have this problems to lose what a like time.
Even u can be happy but if u loose your pleasure like sport and so on, whatever is a bit sad, and a family u really don’t know if u will stay together and so on.
After travel is a good dope, family hard work, stop travel or training just because i like i will feel sad, even if in the fact body is ephemera, i just like the feeling
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I’ve recently started to consciously decide not to talk negatively about myself, in jest or otherwise. I have nothing bad to say about my experiences so far, its coincided with a great increase in my happiness and productivity. May be a coincidence, may not be, but I recommend it.
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I applaud this choice
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Been listening to a good deal of things about sports and also life tonight. Stuff came by about the stoicists ahah, so of course I thought about @T3hPwnisher. You are right guys. I think the vast majority of things that happen in our life are the results of our actions. Like the lockdown, I could choose not to train because well I prefer the gym much more.
But I chose to do stupid hard WODs by 0°, in a t-shirt under the rain or a crazy wind. And then, to do them hard as fuck. I have control over this. And my actions have determined what I made of what life presented me with, and what benefits I will reap or not. Things are as good as we make them to be.
I Liked this quote tonight “I think therefore I can change what I am”. We can do pretty much anything. Let’s do it. It’s time I put as much faith in me as other are doing.
I will do this and see if this is more than a coincidence!
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Gonna ramble off your post here.
This is so huge. And I get that it’s tough: we’re taught SO much about the value of humility, but that shouldn’t be interpreted as an invitation to be meek. Humility should be more a means of self-preservation: don’t buy your own hype so much that you bite off more than you can chew, choke and die. BUT, be aware of your own greatness and appreciate it.
Same thing with vanity: you don’t want it to be a weakness that can be played against you, BUT you SHOULD be able to appreciate your appearance.
I fully admit I spend time looking at myself in the mirror and admiring my physique. I worked hard and I’m proud of it. I’ll even tell myself “Holy sh*t: I look like a superhero” and other things. I also acknowledge that there are things I’d like to improve, but instead of fixating on them and going “I look like garbage: my arms are too small”, it’s “I look amazing: I should make my arms bigger”
Positive thinking is self perpetuating, and negative thinking is poison.
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