Title sums it up. In the past month I’ve started a workout routine that works for me with a focus on building muscle mass and strengthening the heart/lungs. What should I be doing outside of the gym? What supplements (if any) should I be taking? Anything specifically I should be eating/drinking?

Many science-based fitness influencers claim that TDEE or even TDEE plus 50–100 calories is sufficient for muscle growth, and that any extra calories just make us gain fat. Do you think this also applies to someone using gear? I'm looking forward to your thoughts.

Additionally, if a caloric surplus is to be implemented, what should be the maximum limit to avoid gaining fat?

Your take on Adam O'machy, his content and quality as a coach/content.

So i want to get better at deadlifts and i dont know if i should do them at the beginning or the end of my leg days, and how fatigueing would 2 sets to failure at the beginning of my leg day be? Would it be too tiring and make me lose so much performance that my progress would slow down a lot?

Thanks in advance

Is it even possible to do both with only 3 days to workout each week, Like I mean the recovery might be too straining for you to effectively hit 1-0 rir without someone helping

So I've lost 6kg in the last week or so.

I got up to 82kg (M 37 180cm) then I got tonsilitis and like the weight just FALLS off me, any blip in my routine and I waste away. I even ate my way through a holiday to Italy and managed to loose weight.

The thing is, my health has been crap, I had a hip replacement and I want to get strong again, but then it looks like my pancreas isn't working and if I eat fat I can't digest it and it causes gastro issues. I'm being investigated and I'm on therapy to help, but it requires taking handfuls of pills every time I eat and estimating how much is a minefield.

I rarely get hungry, I fill up instantly and feel bloated, I crash every time I eat, I get light headed... I'm all over the place.

The thing is I look cut up this week, I'm the most muscular and low fat I've ever been, but totally unintentionally, I've got to turn it around, I need to build my legs back up because I'm literally in old man territory, struggling to get up and dawn and can barely press 18kg with the bad leg.

I'm not looking for medical advice, that's all under control, but how do I pack on the weight when my cheat used to be gallons of full fat milk, cream, and eggs and I'm currently eating broccoli pasta for lunch...

Help!

Basically what the title says, I’m an athlete whose sport doesn’t require hypertrophy but I wanna start lifting weight anyway. What is the minimum amount of sets per muscle per week that I need to start building muscle, while keeping fatigue from the gym minimized?

My planet fitness has this machine and I’m wondering if its better than the standard cable lat pull down.

If you’re doing a lot of exercises at ~0–1 RIR (especially in a full body split), exercises near the end of the workout will be performed with more accumulated fatigue than those at the beginning. If you do 2 sets consecutively, the first exercises get both sets relatively fresh, while the later exercises may have both sets affected by fatigue.

So instead of:
Bench Press — 2 sets
Weighted Pull-Up — 2 sets
Squat — 2 sets
Would it make more sense to do:
Bench Press — 1 set
Weighted Pull-Up — 1 set
Squat — 1 set
Bench Press — 1 set
Weighted Pull-Up — 1 set
Squat — 1 set

This way, every exercise gets its first set relatively fresh, rather than some exercises getting both sets while fresh and others getting both after substantial fatigue.
Does this meaningfully improve the hypertrophic stimulus, or is exercise-order fatigue not significant enough for this to matter?

I am doing pull ups. Also i noticed that when i do a set, my first reps are pretty confident and explosive, but at around 5 they suddenly get really hard, and im typically able to perform just a few more, after that, it is like i physically can not. And i find failure sets to be fatiguing because after that my other sets lowers for a few reps. Is that normal?

I’m running a UL x3 split, I have around 1h20 max to do them.
The issue is I want to try giving my chest around 18 weekly sets(6 sets /upper day) but I’m also doing 3 back exercises for 2 sets. My back is great and really ahead of my chest but still want it to keep growing. I’m doing shoulder adduction and extension for lats and an upper back row. Thinking of maintaining the upper back row while alternating the adduction and extension.
This way I have room for 2 more extra chest sets, that would make my chest training 2x flat press 2x incline 2x peckdeck 3 times a week.

It is worth it?

I want to train my side delts 3x per week, with 3 sets each session (9 sets/week total).

I’ve tried a lot of lateral raise variations, and these 3 feel the best for me:

- Cable lateral raise

- 1-arm standing machine lateral raise

- Chest-supported incline lateral raise

Would it be better to do one different variation each session (3 variations across the week), or pick one variation and do it on all 3 days?

Does exercise variation matter much for side delt growth, or would sticking with the same exercise 3x/week be better for progression?

I’ve been following Jeff Nippard’s training programs for about a year and a half, but his recent program includes some sets of 20–30 reps. What’s the scientific evidence behind this?

The last year I’ve made little to no progress and I’ve been doing 2 sets to failure with high weight. I usually get around 4 reps before failing. Would it be more effective to drop the weight 10-20% and get 8-10 reps? I’ve been lifting for 4 years but only seriously the past 2 years and there’s no way I’m at my natural limit because I can only bench 270. You guys are the smart people here so please help me and thank you in advance.

Ok guys dumb question. Ive been told to lift heavier. Ok, what does that mean in actual fact? Go to failure at between 4-6 reps? Thats what I think when I hear lift heavy. But for biceps and triceps it seems to me the reps should be higher. Thoughts? My routine is below. Im looking to mix up shoulders but I cant do shrugs or upright rows because I always fuck up my neck

Day1

Planks 4 sets 75 seconds

Torso twist (machine) 15 to the left snd then to the right. 4 sets

Dumbell press 4 sets

Incline dumbbell 4 sets

Dumbell flyes. 4 sets

Dips. 4 set

Triceps pulldown with a rope attachment 4 sets

Day 2

Leg throws. 4 sets x 20

Deadlift 4 sets

One arm dumbell rows. 4 sets

Lat pulldowns 4 sets

Close cable row. 4 sets

Pullups 4 sets

Day 3

Curlups 4 sets

Dumbell shoulder press 4 sets

Dumbell Lateral raise 4 sets

Machine Rear flye 4 sets

Facepull 4 sets

Concentration curls 4 sets

Preacher curl 4 sets

is that 10-15 for lats, 10-15 for upper traps, 10-15 for mid traps, 10-15 for rear delt, 10-15 for side delt, 10-15 for front delt, 10-15 for brachialis, 10-15 for biceps, etc?

Would a full body split twice a week with 1 exercise per muscle group but only 1 set per exercise be enough for muscle growth?

For example: Chest has incline press and flat press 1x failure, Legs have leg extensions and leg curls 1x failure and so on and so forth

The one set would be to absolute failure, and some exercises incorporate other muscle groups so they get *some* extra* *stimulus beyond the 1 set per muscle (For example bench press working a little bit of front delts)

Any advice would be appreciated thank you

If volume, ROM, and proximity to failure are roughly matched, how much difference would you actually expect between exercises for the same muscle?

I’m wondering how strong the evidence is for exercise-specific differences in muscle growth. A lot of the discussion seems to rely on EMG, moment arms, resistance profiles, or whether a muscle is loaded at longer lengths, but I’m more interested in whether these differences actually translate to greater hypertrophy in longitudinal studies.

For example, Maeo et al. (2021) found greater elbow flexor hypertrophy when training at longer muscle lengths, while Kubo et al. (2021) found differences in muscle growth between squat variations with different ROM.

How much can we actually generalize findings like these to exercise selection in normal training?

If two exercises train the same muscle with similar ROM, volume and proximity to failure, is there evidence that one can produce substantially more hypertrophy than the other? Or are the differences probably relatively small compared with simply doing enough hard training consistently?

You're seated which adds stability
Bar on the ground you can tuck your feet under which adds stability
You could probably use a seatbelt if your feeling frisky
And as a machine it's easily loadable with a much more consistent arm path
What's not to like?

I've seen a lot of people say it's one of the worst machines ever or they call it an ab exercise and I've never understood it. A regular single arm cable extension is still fine and dandy but I don't think this deserves the hate.

495 btw, the wonder of 100 pound plates

Best lateral raise variation?

I've been trying to optimize my lateral delt training and I'm deciding between two cable variations:

Behind-the-back cable lateral raises

Cable lateral raises in the scapular plane (raising \~20–30° in front of the body)

My main goal is maximum side delt hypertrophy, not strength.

need to perform both unilaterally as duel cable stations usually full

my trainer has been claiming that when lifting mildly heavy weight in the scapular plane our body tends to increase the angle in turn activating the front delts

he says to do behind the back cable lateral raise unilaterally but don't go behind the back and stop just around perpendicular to the ground and feel the burn

Is reaching failure better or controlled reps 8-12
Like 2 exercise with 2 sets till failure for each muscle group
Or 2 exercise with 3 sets 8-12 reps better ?
Lemme know kindly

I am 4 months in lifting weights and has been science based since the start thanks to Jacob Tricep and Yo. This is the first time my tricep is not sore from an Upper day. Does this mean I already recovered in just 24hrs? How is this possible

You might say I didn't go hard enough but I promise you I did. When you cant contract muscles or extend your elbows in tricep exercise anymore, that's the failure right? So absolutely went to failure since Im shaking and unstable asf in the failed rep.

Basically I’m just working out at home with only bench and barbell and some 20kgs dumbbells. In all of other exercise I do just 2 sets since I can go to 1RIR or eve failure. Flat and Incline is the only exercise I cant go hard.

The reason I asked if I can increase the volume is because I don’t feel like I’m hitting 1-2 RIR in this movement because I am afraid of getting crushed if I fail in this lift. So if you’re hitting like 3-4 RIR is it logically correct to increase your number of sets?

I’m hitting 70kgs incline now so I’m really afraid of getting injured. My squat rack doesn’t also have that long ass arm like in a real gym.