ok, just started in the gym again after dealing with an infection.
tested arnold press, replaced OHP – felt good.
question:
should I cut all mentioned supplements and only focus on nutrition and proteine intake? I’m currently having a bunch of them, in high hopes of fixing my problems, but guess what – no magic pill found yet. so I’ll probably take them until empty but won’t restock.
for now I’m taking: l-citrulline, l-glutamine, acetylcarnitine in the morning, whey with breakfast, creatine after breakfast, zinc before meal, vit-d3 with meal, b6 p5p after meal
I’m probably switching to: celery stalks in the morning, kiwi before bed and focus on 2g/kg proteine intake.
one main problem I see currently is that I don’t target the upper and mid chest - and by mid chest I literally mean the middle. I see no progress with the upper and mid part, only the lower part seems to grow.
so my questions is, will these develop over time once my body starts to build muscle in this so far underused areas? because my feeling is that I compensate weakness in said areas by using more triceps, shoulder and mainly the lower / adominal head when doing bench press. so I’m worried that my abdominal head is getting bigger and bigger while the upper part isn’t going to grow – or should I stop worrying as long as I can’t bench my bw and just keep going?
besides bench press I’m doing butterfly chest fly and incline chest press (machine) – should I go for incline bench press bc I only feel my arms working when on the chest press machine.
Sorry slow reply here, sounds like you answered your own question:
I’ve been in a similar boat, don’t think there are many supplements I haven’t tried, but my current supplement list: whey - that’s it.
I do see value in things where you might have a deficiency (D3 or zinc) or where modern food production is screwing us (omega 3) and where there’s a long-standing consensus about the benefits (creatine) but honestly I’m awful at remembering to take supplements - whey I use as actual food (mix with geek yogurt) so it’s not something I even think about (not exactly a supplement, just part of my diet).
Probably majoring in the minors, wherever possible big compound movements, preferably with a barbell (allows for maximum weight), progressing in weight, reps and sets over a long period of time, key being that you make progress in a meaningful way, constantly. Diet wise eat high protein and clean (there’s always some arguing over this term but most people with a pulse understand what this means at least to enough of a degree to get 90% of the way there).Do this for years in a row and you’ll be transformed everything else is window dressing.
I went from 151lb to 210lb at peak and looking back the only things that really mattered lifting big and eating to recover.
Everyone here has a lot to offer, but i was doing a much much less complicated workout, but not progressing and essentially beating my head against a wall. When you do this, you open yourself up to injury because your body is trying to give you a hint.
My problem was sleep apnea, when i started with therapy for that, it was night and day. A few months later, i started some optimization of testosterone and my strength jumped big.
When new guys start with these complicated workouts, it is a shame, because you dont build new muscles like that. You need to get as strong as you can first, and build muscle through compound.
If you think of your excercises selection as currency, and realize that your currency is low, using it in right spots becomes critical. Do the big five and progress with those til you hit a wall. Then if you want to do bodybuilding, you have something to work with.
If you don’t feel your upper chest on the Incline Chest Press, for sure dump it. Try the barbell or incline flies or whatever you think might work better.
Don’t be afraid to use the Smith Machine for incline. Its easier to focus on the upper pecs when you don’t need to balance the barbell.
Also, the Floor Press hits the upper chest Surprisingly well for a lot of dudes.
update: still feeling off, like my system isn’t able to produce energy - similar to how one feels after a night without sleep. last few sessions all felt like that. muscles bit sore, skin bad - probably silent inflammation going on resulting in low energy.
I just remembered that quote, but got tested for sleep apnea a while ago and didn’t have such during the night.
wondering whats missing for my body to produce energy.
todays breakfast, 90min later gym session:
100g oatmeal, 200g cottage cheese - after gym: 30g whey with milk and creatine + l-glutamine
Also remember. If you are still doing marathon workouts…stop that shit. It barely makes sense for a trained individual with tons of energy. Listen closely to this next part:
It makes zero sense for someone struggling with energy
thanks, so you suggest I should cut the amount of exercises for each session? I already implemented recommendations from this conversation and forum and my current plan looks like this:
A:
flat bench 2x8
chest fly machine 2x12
arnold press 2x12
cable bicep curls 2x12
cable tricep push down 2x12
forw./rev. lunges 2x12
squat to thruster 2x8
bear pull through 2x10
hanging knee raises 2x10
B:
trapbar deadlift 2x8
iso lat pull down 2x12
row machine horizontal 2x12
pull ups 2x5
kb kneeling upright rows 2x12
kb windmill 2x12
kb shin box lift to overhead 2x12
kb halo 2x12
each session is done in ~ 45min; when I feel good on rest days (rare) I’ll do another round of zone 2 cardio for about 30min on an elliptical crosstrainer
I’d probably look at it from the other direction: drop everything to a minimum dose and slowly add volume as you feel like you can handle it. Then you also have a “last good amount” metric when you go too far and feel like crap again.
Since you’re trying to recover from fatigue as you reduce volume, you’re not going to know when it’s the right amount of volume vs it’s just been the right amount of time.
I also think you’ll probably find you’re able to push fewer movements harder and get a lot out of them.
Listen to what he is saying. And I dont claim to be an expert on bodybuilding, but I am an expert on being an old beat up bastard trying to get most out of working out.
I went from 272 to 230 and have gone up in strength in last ten months. The biggest thing i stopped doing was listening to influencers and started listening to real lifters and most importantly my body.
Your body is lazy and will try to lie to you with fake fatigue. Your body will tell you the truth with real fatigue. You have to learn the difference. The most important thing i clung to is looking at workouts as a shopping trip.
Everyone wants to fill up their cart with all kinds of cool shit. But you only have so much currency (energy). Think about the most important four things, and focus on them. Dont try to build everything. In a few months, change to four new things if you wish. But do four excercises a workout and dont think about the next exercise ahead of time. Dont think about the list of excercises. Dont try to save energy for the next exercise. Live in those exercises and get something out of them, and you will see better results than doing ten.
Obviously my goals are different from you, but four exercises tire me out because i am using weight and effort. Bump intensity and do less is my humble advice
thank you, that’s a helpful metaphor. gonna rethink my A/B routine and probably follow your advice and reduce the number of exercises. thank you for taking the time to answer!
thanks, that’s interesting. as I’m still kind of new to strength training and exercises, I have to ask what amount of minimum dose you consider here? like reducing compound exercises to a total of 3 and in case I keep some isolated exercises target them with 5? and if so, should I still go to the limit so that I only add weights when completed 2x3 for bench for example? thanks!
Alternatively, folks like @Andrewgen_Receptors are very successful with the high-effort JP programs.
It’s relatively individual and based on how hard you’re willing to push yourself. As an example, if I truly did a high-rep set of squats to absolute failure, that’s pretty much it… maybe for the week! I typically can’t bring that kind of mental game to the gym most days anymore, and I prefer to train more frequently just because it is a bit of an anchor in my day, so I’d rather do a bit more volume.
Anyway, to not be so esoteric, you’ll see the number 10-20 sets (per body part per week) bandied around. I think that’s probably on the high side, and you’d be fine at like 6-12. To figure out where you’re at, and assuming you’re not really at a point where you can milk a set for all it’s worth, I’d (personally, that doesn’t mean this is the way) do 3 exercises per body part per week right now:
Compound (say bench press). You get 3 sets. I’d probably try to do 2 heavy sets of 8ish, then one back off set of 12-20.
Assistance (maybe a DB incline in this example). 2-3 sets of 10ish
Isolation-ish (let’s say a machine press here). I wouldn’t waste a ton of time on true iso movements right now, but I do want to make sure I’m learning the muscle and how to fail in a joint-friendly way. Here you get one misery set where you can do whatever silliness you want: drop sets, rest-pause, etc.
Honestly, as I wrote that out, that’s not even the minimum dose - my 90s bodybuilder bias came out. For you, I’d probably legit do something like that Greyskull program that was popular for awhile: you get 9ish sets per big movement (push, pull, squat), but they’re spread over the week. That’s probably smarter.
I appreciate all of your help as well, thanks for that @trainforpain !!
yes I read about greyskull a while ago. the reason I didn’t went with it is bc it recommends to push the last set to failure. I was still (and probably am) limited when it comes to going to the limit. as I mentioned in my first posts, I’m coming from chronic inflammation/ auto-immune disease and have to get back on track slowly (but so far it’s working!).
I’m gonna check greyskull again and will rethink my routine and get back to you guys with updates. I tend to reduce the volume as suggested and might implement some more zone 2 cardio after the strength session to improve my cardio capabilities.