Yeah I will try one of the sessions. I am going parallel to ground (not ATG).
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Film the next time you squat and deadlift please, thank you.
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It’s not uncommon for certain lifts to make progress and others not. I routinely will see certain lifts going up and other not, and then they’ll change. It’s all just part of it. Gotta think long term here
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A 135lb strict press was my goal in… 2011 or 12. I hit it in 2021 haha!!
In fairness it shouldn’t have taken that long but… I used to think I’d need to do lateral raises and rear delt flies lol. Turns out I needed to strict press.
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Hi everyone,
I booked an appointment with the doc to discuss this just so I can have a peace of mind because right now I know I will still keep thinking about it and I guess in general its best to have a baseline.
I’m going to be explaining that my fitness goals and what my training, diet history and current efforts are like and getting some tests done to clear all.
I’m wondering from the experienced folks here, what sorts of tests would you think would be worth getting done just to have a complete peace of mind that there isn’t anything wrong in the body? I take it @mnben87 @throwawayfitness you guys have a lot of experience in this matter?
I’m already thinking vitamins, testosterone (free, total, etc.), anything else useful? And in general worth having a baseline for?
Having read the last 60 posts I get the impression you are too much into a quick fix.
Hell, you even talked about gear as a desperate solution - when you in previous posts wouldn’t touch creatine because of a belief it would cause hair loss.
Now you are questioning your direction based on one excercise that didn’t turn out as great as you expected - during one workout.
Fortunately it all came to a good conclusion after several forum members motivated you. I have yet to see the kind of support you are given here.
I associate your reflections with people going to the gym after new years eve, blasting their asses off with too much training. Soon they catch a cold, or get overtrained. After 3 months not too many left at the gym. What I want to say with all this is:
Give the current program a trial for 6-12 weeks. If it doesn’t work out you should try a different strategy. I did high volume training with body splits a too long effort for several years, with a decent result that was not worth it. Heading into High Intensity Training 3 years ago (full body training 2-3 times a week, low volume) I was amazed at my results at 47 y.o. It worked very well for me.
The other day a young aspiring trainee came up to me at the gym and said he wanted to look like me (it does not happen that often). We had a friendly conversation where I told him what worked for me, but that he needed to do his own experimentation in order to know what is the best strategy for him.
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Well, it’s been 7 years. 
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No man, not at all. If they say I can take gear safely but have to do 2x gym but I will guaranteed get results I will do it; what you may be misunderstanding is that I was kind of lost and depressed with the lack of results.
I mean after all, this is what I am looking like right now (with normal lighting):
So I hope you can see the frustration, and I didn’t see any visual change in the last 4 months either.
People consistently get me wrong in that I am looking for a quick fix, if I was looking for a quick fix I would have quit gym long ago, not dragged myself 7 years and still even now trying so hard.
Again, I havent’ quit in 7 years, not quitting now either.
Yes, this program lasts what 6 weeks-ish, Im halfway through in any case.
Again, not looking for a quick fix really, I’m just looking for progress even if its small.
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Since you actually are losing weight with this strategy, and also are able to withstand this high volume program of yours - I would not recommend seeking a physician just now.
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I just wanted to do it to have a peace of mind, and now I’m switching into maintenance/surplus calories mode, I don’t see anything wrong with having any baseline measurements.
Again, I am not looking for a quick fix. If you legit tell me now it will take 2 years and I will have to work 4x as hard but I will get guaranteed results, I will take it; I am just frustrated again because fuck man, Im just worried I’ll keep spinning wheels again.
It’s not really even the lack of results at the moment, its more I always fear history will repeat itself again.
Take a look at my pic, I’m 23 and look like a clown right now, thats why I’m thinking about this 24x7, no other reason really.
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The funny thing about time is that it really does fly.
I remember back in September 2016, the first time I hit 135 bench, I was dreaming, thinking wow in just 3 months I’ll be doing 185, in just under 6 months I’ll be doing 225.
I was dreaming always, failing of course but then thinking, “its fine, next week I’ll get it,” the next week never came. That’s the reason why “peace of mind;” it just that 7 years flew, if I rewatch the CCTV footage of the gym it would be funny to see.
The same guy came in every day (or every other day), consistently worked out, but somehow looked the same in 2015 as 2019 and 2021.
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Visualize yourself trying out different routines/programs until you find your holy grail in training. It could be a fun learning experience for several months.
Or you can cement yourself stuck with your current mindset.
You have probably accomplished a greater change in training during the past 3 weeks - than you have for the past 7 years. That is something to build upon!
Don’t agree with this advice for this person in particular.
He has proven in 7 years that left to his own decisions he will make no progress.
He needs to do a program he is told to do while eating what and how much he is told to eat while being held accountable daily and not question or doubt just work for 8 consecutive weeks.
The challenge here is the right person has not said “do this, trust me” “I was like you at first, I did this and it worked this way” maybe this someone needs to be from his culture for him to totally buy in.
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Then he is not motivated enough (though he seems to be). He is a mathematician - no lack of brain capacity. You simply can’t build the roof first, as most of us know. But, you may just as well be right.
What intrigues me is that he never changed strategy for 7 years? I wouldn’t in my wildest dreams stick with any strategy long term that didn’t give some kind of development.
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Trust me man, I am motivated but my results don’t show the effort I’m putting; maybe that’s why I keep fucking stuff up. I don’t even do anything outside work and gym these days, shot down my social life, don’t go to restaurants, cancelled trips, I just really want this before I’m 25 at any cost really.
What exactly do you mean by strategy? I changed my strategy (as in routine) several times. I’ve tried every free program on the face of this earth except 5/3/1 (although I tried something similar). I have tried 5x5, ice-cream-fitness, PHAT, PHUL, PPL, brosplit, full body split, every thing you can imagine. I have also tried various things like low volume, high volume, even fkin nucleus overload, occulsion training (where you restrict bloodflow or something) as stupid as that sounds.
To be honest, my diet wasn’t on point, and I keep IIFYM, thinking I’m actually eating right but I probably wasn’t; this was when I had a lot of outside food. That’s why this time I’ve tightened up, but my starting point is terribly weak as you saw in that pic.
Still, that doesn’t explain the terrible lack of results, I’m not sure what I can attribute that to? Using genetics is a coward-excuse, but I’m sure that has some impact in this doesn’t it?
Anyway, as I said, the last 3 months I’ve kind of just shut myself off from the ROW, I don’t do any entertainment stuff outside gym and work (except cars but that’s not really working against goals). Basically, I’ve shut off anything that wasn’t helping my fitness (I guess anything that was negatively impacting it).
I’m putting a lot of focus into this, but again the results don’t show it.
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Thanks for informing me on your previous training program attempts. Apart from a bad diet, how was your concistency?
You haven’t tried HIT - yet… To train with higher intensity may fire up your metabolism.
HIT? I did do High intensity interval training (cardio, where I would do say 1 min walk, 1 min fast run, total time 15-20 mins) to drop fat, but I haven’t done proper cardio in a long time yeah (consistently).
Consistency was generally good I would say, but there were periods of like say 2-4 weeks where I would quit, esp if I had some schoolwork or something.
I think my best “stretch” was probably 2018, apart from that I’d say the most consistent I have ever been in the last 4 months.
One of the biggest problems I had which you don’t see in a lot of white kids is that I was never lean, I have always been high body fat %, always, always. Even when I cut down to 145 I was high bf. A lot of white kids I knew my age were super lean and ready to become Greek Gods (and a lot of them did, some who didn’t workout for a while quit), but they all seemed to take over me in strength almost immediately, it was just a matter of weeks.
Because I was in this shape (where I kind of was always fat/chubby and also no muscle), I kept continuously cutting and bulking, doing crash diets sometimes (yep, very bad) and doing dirty bulks (also retarded). Trying to bulk when I think I got too skinny, and then of course try to cut down after gaining too much weight. Unfortunately, never gained weight on my bench at the same pace as bodyweight, but definitely lost weight on bench faster than I dropped bodyweight lol.
I think basically a combination of not being lean from the get-go and always being high body fat with low muscle + either 4000 calories or 1200 calories diet + let’s face it, South Indian genetics (which are arguably one of the worst) is kind of the reason why I’m stuck like this.
Genetics can’t be changed, but I’m trying hard to really focus on this diet now and really following a structure program (even after this one ends, I’ll try to find another good 5-day one). So I’m still not given up yet, I’m still going hard and hoping something comes out of it one day or another in this year.
Prostate exam
This was the most pathetic thing I have read today, stop this nonsense thinking. Obesity is pretty rampant in America btw.
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