Just wanted to recommend this free program from Stronger by Science if you're looking for a powerlifting based program. It's a little wonky, the 28 "programs" are basically modules for the press (bench or overhead), deadlift and squat divided up by frequency, intensity and/or volume. You then combine them together for a program.

I have an incredibly hard time building upper body strength and size. My legs have always been good to me, I hit a 440 lbs squat during this for example. But I have never seen my arms peak above 16 inches around until after two months on this program where I went from about 15.75 to about 16.25 inches or so.

My legs also blew up over 27 inches around now, and that's fine and all. But it's summer. Suns out, guns out and all that.

Just wanted to pass it on if anyone is looking to for a change up in their lifting.

I was on track for a good while, I got stuck at 238lbs and now I'm 261 from 2 months of falling off the wagon

I'm gonna add swimming to original workout

Would anyone here know how to recommend I swim?

Imagery would help if is possible

I wish for all of you to get as swole as I'm getting 😌

Why gain muscle?

• "total mortality was significantly lower in the fourth quartile of muscle mass index compared with the first quartile"

How much muscle will I gain?

For men:

• Year one: 20-25lb, 9-11⅓kg
• Year two: 10-12lb, 4½-5½kg
• Year three: 5-6lb, 2½kg
• All subsequent years: minimal amounts

So overall about 14-16kg above baseline

For women: Half the above.

How to gain muscle?

Do three things and you'll gain muscle:

• Eat a caloric surplus
• Eat a protein surplus
• Expose your muscles to high levels of tension (i.e. lift)

How much caloric surplus?

14-16 kcal per pound of bodyweight is your baseline

• Year one: 175 calories/dayover baseline
• Year two: 120 calories/day over baseline
• Year three: 60 calories/day over baseline

Sources: https://bodyrecomposition.com/muscle-gain/calories-for-muscle-gain

How much protein?

2.5-3.0 g per kilogram of bodyweight

Source: https://bodyrecomposition.com/nutrition/protein-requirements-growth

How much/what kind of muscle tension?

You need high tension but also the right volume. High tension means 70-85% 1RM. No need to lift more than 85% of 1RM.

doi:10.1249/00005768-197500740-00003 and doi:10.2165/00007256-200737030-00004 are the classic papers on this.

30-60 reps per session: 3 sets of 10, and sometimes two different exercises per bodypart

5×5 is fine too; things like the Madcow or Stronglifts 5×5 give about the same muscle-tension as 3×10, and muscle tension is the whole point.

Train twice per week. The research is clear on this. Three times is not better than twice.

More complicated ways of getting that muscle tension

Heavy negatives (130% of 1RM) work but volume should be very low: 14-16 seconds of tension per session

Isometrics: A study doing 10 seconds of isometrics, three times a day (30s/day), six days a week, had the best gains in bicep size

I said three workouts a week is not better than two, but there might be an exception in the first week of a mesocycle. So a mesocycle would be: train four times a week for one week, train twice a week for five weeks, rest a week, repeat.

Since I was like 12 I was blessed with the genetics of an 80 yo. Having muscle spasms, hernias, and all sorts of bizarre crap. The two times in my life I got into a workout regime things would get progressively better until months down the line, when I'd have to do surgery of some kind, likely because I 'worked out too much'. Doctors tell me to start lifting weights, but they don't seem to believe me and simply tell me I'm a male and young and shouldn't be as frail as I am. No tests in 20+ years have shown anything out of the ordinary, except for whatever problem I developed all of a sudden, so it's no wonder. I'm afraid that trainers in a gym wouldn't be any better. Got no idea where to start. Pool workouts with the elderly maybe?

Had to take a physical for a job I was accepted for, I haven't been to a doc in a while cuz my last employer had shitty healthcare and made it a fucking pain to take time off. Anyway, they hooked me up to an EKG machine and told me it looks like one side of my heart is enlarged. Also my blood pressure is pretty high. This apparently disqualifies me for the job, thought the manager claimed if I could badger another doctor into writing me a note I could still get it. Thing is I don't have insurance right now, ironically the health insurance was the primary reason I wanted this job.

Thankfully my family is relatively well off and said they'll support me in this shit. Still a little freak out though. FYI I'm a rather big, muscular dude who's worked a lot of manual labor jobs. During COVID lockdown I put on a lot of weight, the main culprit there was drinking. Since then I've managed to get some of that weight off, and cut back on the drinking, but I guess not enough. Also while my diet isn't terrible, I do love me salt and fat. Plus both my dad and grandpa have a history of hypertension, so even if I was fit as a horse I'd still be at risk.

I'm gonna go teetotaler for a bit, maybe forever, quit weight lifting for a bit and eat nothing but kale for now, but I do need to get on some insurance and see a doctor about this.

Every little counts, especially if you make it a routine part of your day.

Even on days that I can't get a workout in, I'll throw a few pull-ups in on my bar just for good measure. Sometimes I'll do half a workout. Sometimes I'll just do a quick set before I leave the house.

Every little bit helps. No excuses not to move your body for a minute per day. You'd be surprised how far it goes.

dancing. absolutely throwing ass. maxing the volume out on twerking that shit out. I have a lot of ptsd around exercise and gyms and dance never triggers it. I do it alone and look like a moron but I feel amazing and some weeks its the only way in getting my heart rate up. its half thrashing my body around. ive literally been losing weight (not a goal, im just trying not to be sedentary lately, I used to be in shape :( ) and my butt looks awesome!

if I see a single so called "communist" out there whose lats are not just poppin, whose torso is not just fearsome, shaped like motherfucking bruce lee, with biceps strong enough to rip apart the police by hand, I'll know they're actually a fucking LIBERAL

I hadn’t before before because they looked scary. I guess they make sense to use when the 30s get easy.

He could have stopped, but his gains would wither away

im unstoppable. use me to power communism

I've started working out again, been going at it for a few months now. Not lifting super heavy weights yet, trying to gain weight. Is creatine a good idea? Anything to watch it for, as far as brands, side effects, etc? I've been trying to read up on it, it sounds pretty safe but I'm new to all this stuff.

Been making a lot of progress but my ligaments are still messed up from being skinny + sedentary during school and smoking cigs a lot. I can't slav squat.

I'm kind of just doing bad incomplete squats and at home, and subbing lower body machines for standing lifts I can't really complete due to my heels being CIA.

How do I like heelmaxxxx specifically. How do I beat the CIA

Has modern day bodybuilding gone too far?

It's actually more than that because the rower sometimes counts two days as two different sets on the same day. But anyway, allegedly I've burnt 17994 calories, and jfc i have grown powerful. 342 miles motherfuckers

That's all that's the post

I would have posted this yesterday, but

As i'm going up in deadlifting weight, i find my grip gives way earlier than any other part of my body, making me lose reps because the bar feels like it's slipping off my fingers. I tried incorporating hook grip into the exercise, and while the bar felt a bit more secure, I felt my middle finger was rubbing against my thumb nail and making it feel like it was pulling it out, and causing a bunch of pain, and no matter what I tried it always came down to that when the bar left the ground.

Any advice?

For those of you who told me to not use max resistance, fuck you

To those who told me to use max resistance, fuck you

To the rest of you, get rowing dawg your arms will be able to pop off fascist heads like soda tabs

A lot has changed for me this past month, the biggest change would be working again so now I have a wage. Work is boring and sometimes stressful due to being around too many people so I think to combat that stress I’ve been going to the store at a certain time and buying nutrigrains and heating them in the microwave, I eat about four of them at work and the remainder at home. I have an obvious eating disorder I don’t want to gain any weight so I’ve been on a strict diet of rice and bean every day for the past year. The diet didn’t come about because of my ED it came about because it was the cheapest option for me but now even though I can cook other things I don’t really want to change anything, except now after adding nutrigrain to my diet.

I don’t feel that great, I’m very tired now when I used to have a lot of energy, I want to sleep more and stay in bed and not get out, I feel really down, I keep pinching my tummy and don’t like how I look even though there is probably no change visually I just feel like there is. I don’t know if this is depression from work or depression from adding bad sugars to my diet, the stress from the job makes me eat more and want to just dump my diet or whatever it is and just start eating whatever I want, that’s what a lot of my coworkers have done because I guess they’re depressed too, my supervisor told me he used to be active then he just started eating more once he started working here, I feel like that has stuck and I’m now just going off on a binge of nutrigrains.

How do I stop eating sugar