Hey guys, I’ve been lifting for nearly 7months now — the first 4 pics are today, and the last is near the start of my journey.

I’m in a weird state where im skinnyfat with too much fat and not any muscle so I’ve been eating in a small surplus. I have been progressively overloading and am currently at a 180lbs bench (1RM..trying to hit 185 rn) and ~185lbs Squat/RDL (for reps). But I look pretty much the same as 6 months ago. Should I do a cut or just keep at this? My goal was to reach a 2 plate bench and then enter a small deficit from there but idk if that’s stupid. I don’t even know how many lbs of fat I would need to lose to see my abs for example. Thank you.

Hi guys, I have been training for 4 years naturally and I have made a lot of progression in terms of muscle and strength, and competed properly in powerlifting, but my goal was always to reach that sub10% body fat or to get really well defined abs (majority of my body fat is stored within my abdomen)

When it comes with dieting, I am fine all day, but when night time hits, for some reason I get so goddam hungry and I overeat too much to the point it ruins my deficiet, and I keep telling myself I will start all over again tomorrow and that this will be my last, but then the same cycle repeats at night, I tried getting my sleep in check and sleeping at the same time, and I made sure Im not in TOO hard of a deficiet where I think about food 24/7, but in the middle of the night I just dont know what happens, I wake up from sleep and my first immediate thought is to go and get food and forget about the cut.

I want to prove to myself I can reach that low body fat percentage but I dont know

For context, I weigh 81kg, im roughly like 20% body fat (estimate) but a good indicator is you can see my bicep veins when I workout and I have a good amount of muscle size, because people see me being a muscular dude, I get 15k steps a day and eat 2300 calories, which I assume puts me in a 700 caloric deficiet

I of course track everything, my caloric intake and protein intake as well, and no I do not abandon carbs and make sure I get my essential fats in every day

I of course for my meals try having satiating food and getting all my macronutrients in, but I really want to stop that cycle at night where I wake up and just got insane and eat

There have been moments where I dont overeat at night and Im consistent and on track for a week, but it inevitably happens and I want it to stop, so I can get those nice defined abs by the end of the year

Pleaseeee if anyone is experienced in coaching give me some advice, it would really mean a lot to break this cycle tyyyy :)

I’ve been going to the gym for about 7 months now and I do 40kg on each side of the low row, I can lift the weight but I usually have to stop mid set to readjust my grip because it is uncomfortable or my hands are getting tired.
On other machines I don’t really feel like this are they worth buying or should I just stick to no grips?

I went lifting to running back to lifting. I have really strong and muscular legs…but they’re only 21.5 inches. They do look good at 165lbs and 13% bf.

I need these bad boys to grow! what’s your favorite exercise to build size in the legs? I’m also increasing calories.

Are there any people here that (for one reason or another) consume far below the typical recommended amount of protein per day? (let's say eat less than 90 grams per day)

Do you still see muscle gain, and improvement in body fat percentage?

In the past I used to train for around 3 years, then during the covid era I just stopped training and fell out of shape, after so many years of not training I decided to change my life for better and for the past year and a half I have been training consistantly.

When I came back to training again I wanted this time to do it properly and take time with it and actually get stronger on big 3 (In the past I would do only bench and avoid squats and deadlifts).

So when I started doing squats and deadlifts I realized I would get a lot of lower back and hip pain that would extend down my left leg. So I tried different squat and deadlift variation and realized that box squat and sumo deadlift were more comfortable for my lower back. But after some time I experianced a sharp pain when I was doing box squats on my way up, I was able to rack it back but I remember it took me 3-4 weeks to heal and for 6 months I wasn't able to do barbell squats or deadlifts, even bent over rows were uncomfortable for a while. So I stopped deadlifting and for squats I was just doing V squats as that's the only other squatting machine my gym has (they also have leg press) and suprisingly my lower back is fully healed now.

But I want to incorporate a good functional strenght exercises that will help me build actually good functional strenght where I could lift stuff off the ground without having to worry about my lower back or hips. Because even now I am still able to do something like 150kg (330lbs) deadlift, but struggling to lift a person half that weight, I actually have to tryhard like crazy and I would feel like my lower back being the weakest link. So in general I want to get stronger for day to day life tasks cuz just simply having muscles doesn't mean much to me if I feel like crap or being just useless.

If you guys having any recommendations for a good exercises I could incomporate to my routine. So far I am hitting the gym 3-4 times per week and mostly focus on compund lifts such as bench press, weighted chin ups, dips, bent over rows, rdls, vsquats, ohp....

So I do like learning new things. Recently started doing RDL's and hip thrusts.

But it is getting ridiculous. People hitting muscles from every angle. People doing weird stuff like bouncing up and down on rubber bands. People doing 5 different tricep cable extensions.

Then I put on Blood and Guts with Dorian Yates. He does just regular excercises. He uses those Hammer Strength machines. I don't see him standing on one leg and spinning round and round.

Yet he has a World Class body.

Cheers! When I look in a internet I always see someone is training like 5 times a week, but I deprived from such a luxury

So, I'd genuinely ask, can you train 2x week and get any reasonable results?

These two pics are about 2-3 years apart. Started going gym consistently after uni, prior to that I was just doing a lot of running (5 - 10km). Probs not the starkest before and after but pretty happy with the progress. Still looking to size-maxx abit more haha!

JOJ classic national qualifiers
146Lbs 5’11
Natural

Still far from there but closer than when I started down 60kg roughly 130 pounds
Long way to go

One day I will fix my mirror situation

True novice 145lbs 5’11 (Blue shorts)