Male 20. Have been lifting as a casual lifter for 3 years, somewhat serious for one year then had medical issues and long hours at work that for about another year in which I lost most of my progress.
I’ve been watching my diet closely, hitting protein intake, training daily and have a (atleast IMO) a good program that I’ve been running. Yet don’t see any progress or changes. Want to ask you guys to see what I could be potentially missing or needs to be changed.
Throwing up a quick reply. Doesn’t sound like you’ve been training hard for a significant period of time, this is a slow process, you’ll need to adjust your expectations.
The photos aren’t massively helpful, try taking a set of photos in relaxed poses from back side and maybe flexed as well, use normal lighting and when you want to retake, take them at the same time of day (preferably morning before food) in the same light and poses.
You’ll want to give maximum details to get a good reply, what’s your diet look like (standard question here what did you eat yesterday) what’s your protein target. What’s your weight/height, what’s your training routine? What weights do you lift.
Throw back as many details as you can and the food people here will give you great advice - it’ll probably look something like - diet: more protein, better quality food, training: go harder, push strength gains in the big lifts and give it time.
You didn’t mention what you’re trying to achieve, is it fat loss right now, or muscle gain, or something else entirely?
Start lifting actually serious and see where that gets you.
Have been lifting serious for about 4 months hence why I’m asking.
How much progress do you really think you’re going to get in 4 months?
What does “serious lifting” mean to you?
I am not fond on looking at my shape even while flexing. But here-
Carbs:
Oatmeal
Bread
Raman
Pasta
Rice
Vitamins:
I supplement with multi vitamin but mostly each day have some sort of fruit or vegetable. It’s a lot cheaper to eat what I have at home than to buy everything myself for the sake of micromanaging.
Goal: Am standing right now at 23% BF and want to drop down to 16-18% while recomp
Exercise program is split
Front Delt, Chest and Tricep
Lats, Side Delt, Traps and Back Delt
Bicep and forearm
Abs
I would be lying if I said I went 100% every time as it ranges but I always try to get as close as I can to 100% on any given day.
“watching my diet closely, hitting protein intake, training daily and have a (atleast IMO) a good program that I’ve been running.”
Paying close attention to doing everything right and going as hard as you can consistently daily.
Get rid of these.
Your training routine… you came up with this yourself?
What are your bench, squat and deadlift PRs?
What’s wrong with the three you mentioned? Don’t disagree but am curious.
Incline Bench- Starting 105 and currently 150
Bench- Starting 135 and currently 165
Skip leg day so I wouldn’t know squat and dropped deadlift.
Starting deadlift would be around 245 if I remember correctly.
So you don’t do leg day and you’re wondering why you’re not seeing much results? Huh.
Low quality carbs and they’re usually going to have too much fat - for a carb source.
“Fat tends to be more satiating than carbohydrates and protein, meaning it can help you feel full and satisfied. This might result in reduced overall calorie intake and potentially support weight loss.”
Am not worried about micromanaging carbs or fat. More complex or high quality carbs may on paper release steadier release of glucose into the bloodstream having reduce apatite but in my own personal experience it’s negligible difference to justify the restriction as it makes me tempted to stray from my diet.
If you know all the answers, why are you here and why aren’t you seeing results?
Good luck buddy, I’m gonna see myself out.
Sounds like it’s time to put some weights in your library bro!
Bahahaha
And a deep freezer too
Why? Injury or just because leg days can suck?
If you’re really serious about dramatic changes, I’d recommend something like Tactical Barbell. It removes all the fluff, and is simply getting stronger on the lifts that matter most and doing hard conditioning. These two things will dramatically change your body’s composition.
An example of this is:
Monday: Back squats, bench press, weighted pull ups (or just pull ups if you can’t do weighted)
Tuesday: 6 x 600m runs. Aim on getting faster at these.
Wednesday: Back squats, bench press, weighted pull ups (or just pull ups if you can’t do weighted). yes, again.
Thursday: Burpees plus 100m sprints. Something like 10 sets of 10 burpees followed by the spring.
Friday: Wednesday: Back squats, bench press, deaflifts
Saturday: Easy conditioning. A 45 minute jog, assault bike, or weight vest walk.
Sunday: off
Yes, this is hard. But it forces you to put all your efforts into what will really change your physique and performance. Your program split is too focused on small, easy body part work (triceps, biceps, lats, forearms, etc…). Once your strong and fit, you can try to isolate these if you want to but not now.
“assault bike, weight vest walk, box jumps, weighted pull ups, burpees, 100m sprints,etc” are not my cup of tea personally. It’s more set on athleticism than my goals. (I did something very similar with less of the gear but same principles for my first two years of highschool so I have tried it! It worked for a lot of people but I personally didn’t find much success in it). Long time ago I went to the two biggest bodybuilder’s I knew at the time and they texted me what they ran and used it as the base for my own program. Which has been tweaked more times than I can count (researching studies, Youtube, forums,asking around, seeing what works, etc.) . I’ve found quite a bit of success with it. As a general rule I feel as if I need to put more in to get less out as my peers but compared to other things I’ve done exercise wise it’s been most effective. I don’t workout legs because I don’t really care about how my legs look (most of my bodyfat is stored in upper body anyways) and as far as strength to help me at work. I’ve never had any issues. So it’s just time and energy taken away that could be used on upperbody.
You sure won’t like what I have to say. Just this week T-Nation posted an old article about the best predictor of success. It was concerning pain. Most skip leg day because they shy from pain. Legs demand a large percentage of muscle to train effective. It is just not easy, and if done correctly, it is painful. You striving to venture into the pain zone, and staying there when it isn’t at all comfortable, will be your best course to adding muscle.
If you shy from pain, muscle will shy from you.
Heavy leg training has a systemic anabolic affect on growth of all skeletal muscles.
If you prefer to neglect hard leg work, I would recommend taking up golf or bowling. Weight training is not an endeavor that you will find much satisfaction.
(Of course you need to sufficiently address training, diet, and rest to maximize your progress.)
In my experience, this is not true in lifting or life in general. It is used as an excuse. “I work just as hard as Johnny, but he’s just lucky that he has better genetics.” When, in truth, Johnny busts his ass and certainly doesn’t skip leg day.
Good man for throwing up the photos, it sucks but it’ll be useful for you to assess real progress.
In regards to your goal:
A few comments, body fat %s are largely useless and inaccurate. Recomping will be fine for you as a newbie, but won’t last forever.
Training wise, @antiquity has made a great suggestion, I’m a big fan of getting people at your point doing something like 5/3/1, but it’s been a few years since I’ve run any @T3hPwnisher any 5/3/1 templates you’d recommend for a beginner?
OP almost any good program will work for you due to where you are.
Diet wise, it’d be great to get an answer to this question:
And definitely don’t skip leg day, you’re literally neglecting half you body, even if you have injuries there are ways to work around it, you need to be forcing your body to be efficient with the fuel you give it and give it a threat to it’s survival so that it does what it doesn’t want to do, lose fat and grow muscle.
I typed this out a while back and didn’t finish it, now I see there’s been some more replies, one thing stands out:
I’ll be harsh here, no you haven’t.
Everyone here says train legs they say it for a reason and if fat loss and recomp are your goals, burn cals through growing some decent legs (growth is pretty systemic as well, you won’t get a huge upper body without getting good legs…in general), doing some HIIT and LISS, these things are pretty straightforward, you have to sweat hard on the big stuff not worry about your body fat %, you have to put 100% in to squats, deads , bench and ohp before you put 100% into cable machines.
Your not happy with your results and people are offering advice, that you asked for, don’t come back with a quote trying to disprove it, if necessary come back in 6 months time with a log book and if it really hasn’t worked then at least we’ll know you tried and were genuinely looking for advice.
