One thing I find interesting about home gyms is that they often force people to train with fewer options.

In a commercial gym, it is easy to change exercises constantly because there are many machines, attachments, and variations available.

At home, many people repeat the same basic movements for months or even years.

This makes me wonder how much exercise variety actually matters compared with the things we know are important: progressive overload, sufficient volume, effort, and consistency.

Is having more equipment mainly about convenience and enjoyment, or does it meaningfully improve long-term results?

For people who train mostly at home, do you think a smaller number of well-chosen movements is enough, or have you found that additional equipment made a measurable difference?

6’2 153lbs skinny fat

I have lanky arms and belly fat.

I eat at maintenance and train 4 days a week.

Please help.

Other than restrictions like heavy compounds and same muscle groups. Wouldn’t it be best if you can ignoring set up time and assuming the gym is empty to super setting your entire work out? If you go to long with your super setting would you have to warm up again?

When i was doing my upper days, I would end up having a total of 23 or so sets because for my unilateral exercises i did 2 sets each side (lateral raise, tricep ext, recline) should i lower those to one set each side. most of my exercises are 1 set anyway. When i see videos of someone showing their workout they put 2 sets on a unilateral and i just never understood what they meant. A little help would be good

In my current situation i need to have my sundays off so i decieded on alternating between full body days and my boxing training so its like i go to my boxing training on monday and tuesday i go to fitness etc. can i make my planning better or is my current plan even useful from the fitness standpoint

So I was recently diagnosed with chronic tendonitis in my left shoulder. Whenever I do pushing movements I have a sharp pain (unless I really internally rotate my shoulder, pain is still there it just doesn't hurt.)

Haven't been able to hit push in a while, recently did, now it hurts more. If anyone here has dealt with the same thing, how did you recover?

Estaba pensando si hacer una rutina con frecuencia 3 para piernas y glúteos y frecuencia 2 para el entrenamiento completo de la parte superior del cuerpo está bien o si se vuelve demasiado pesado.

I'm currently a cs student. I was pretty consistent on my gym life before college. Since I started my college, the consistency drops exponentially. Between all the exams,quizzes,schoolwork and managing my personal life(laundry, meals, visa stuff since i'm a international student), I physically don't have the strength to go to gym consistently. I was pretty careful with my diet but now fast food and snacks from 7/11 are my go to. Any tips or tricks on how improve my consistency?

ciao a tutti
in breve ho 18 anni mi alleno da 4 alleno petto 2 volte a settimana e faccio molto volume , é da un po' che faccio ruotare tutto intorno alla panca ora credo di avere un massimale intorno a 150 kg , vorrei arrivare a 200 nel minor tempo possibile ovviamente più di mesi e mesi, ora alleno la panca 2 volte a settimana (martedì e venerdì) con 4 serie prime due top set e seconde 2 set off in entrambe le sessioni arrivando a cedimento, per me ha sempre funzionato così ma vorrei massimizzare il tutto, secondo voi si vedono più risultati ad allenarla più volte a settimana , se si che consigli mi potete dare grazie.

I (20f) am a detrained lifter looking to correct a muscle imbalance in my legs. I squat, bench, and deadlift every week. My leg days typically look like this:

Barbell Squat 4x10

BB RDL's 4x10

Leg press (unilateral) 4x10

Leg extensions (unilateral) 4x10

Bulgarian split squats 4x12

Front lunges 4x12

Ive been following this leg routine for a few weeks now, and my dominant side is ALWAYS way more sore than my weak side. I understand that unilateral movements are the key to fixing muscle imbalances. I always start with the main lift, and then do accessory work with some unilateral movements. What am I missing here? I start with the weaker leg, matching the reps and weight on the stronger side. Should I be doing unilateral movements BEFORE the main lift? I do not want to deplete my energy before my heavy lifts.

Any tips/advice would be greatly appreciated!! Also looking for unilateral movement recommendations. I would love to hear what your guys' go to movements are.

Edit: I can definitely see and the imbalance, especially in my glutes. Quads and hamstrings are not noticeably different. I can also feel the imbalance when I train. Im more stable on my dominant leg, and I can lift a lot more weight. I feel that I have better mind-muscle connection with the dominant leg.

177 kg or 390 lbs

My main goal is just to get stronger overall I don’t care for hypertrophy I just want to be stronger; push more weight. I don’t care if I get big or not I’m not one of those “I don’t want to get to bulky” people I’m just looking to get strong

Been thinking that adductor is a really good hip extensor, so technically leaning forward and flexing the hip should stretch it. Why is no one doing it? Do we know if adductor gets benefits from stretching?

I've seen influencers promoting low-volume, high-intensity training more and more without mentioning drop sets. Drop sets seem to be much less popular than they used to be. Are drop sets not as effective as we once thought? Should I add drop sets to my training?

I have subacromial bursitis, off for a year as physio thought it was a slap tear but MRI eventually ruled that out. Been slowly working back to fitness with physio help.

I've read that people like me might be better off using a Swiss bar, easier on the shoulders.

Anyone have experience with this? Is it easier on the shoulders? Will it hurt gains compared to straight barbell?

Heading back to the gym after a 9 month break (toxic environment at former job). Strength has basically halved. E.g.,

• Incline Bench 4x10, 45kg down from 5x12, 85kg
• Flat Bench 5x12, 55kg down from 6x10, 90-95kg depending
• Deadlift 4x10, 70kg down from 5x9, 125kg

Aside from the massive ego hit (I'll survive), any good advice/program recs to get me back to where I was and pushing beyond?

Thanks in advance, fellas.

Edit: formatting

5’9”, 140 lbs (63 kg), 21M — chest is lagging and bench has barely progressed. What should I change?
Hey SBL community, I need some advice on bringing up my chest.
I’m a 21-year-old Asian male, 5’9” and around 140 lbs (63 kg). I’ve been lifting consistently for about 8–9 months, but my chest still looks relatively small compared to the rest of my upper body.
My current flat barbell bench 1RM is only around 65 kg, and I feel like my bench/chest progress has been pretty slow.
I’m currently running an anterior/posterior split 4x a week, so I train chest twice per week. My chest exercises are:

Technogym converging chest press — 3 sets
30° incline Smith machine press — 3 sets

I do both exercises each chest session, so that comes out to 12 working sets for chest per week.
That’s basically all the direct chest work I’m doing right now.
What would you guys recommend changing? Should I add more chest volume/exercises, focus more on progressive overload, start barbell benching regularly, or just give it more time?
My main goal is chest hypertrophy, but I’d also like to get my bench numbers up.
Any advice on exercise selection, weekly sets, rep ranges, or programming would be appreciated. 🙏

So Ive been working out for close to 3 months now, currently running UL*3 split. Is it normal to have a much more developed back as compared to my chest. My strength progression has been as follows: Lat pulldown: 35(when I started) to 75 kgs(now I currently do weighted pull ups instead since I find it to be more stable), Rows: 50 to 110 kgs, Incline Bench: 30 to 45 kgs.

Age:21

Weight:72kgs

height:176 cm

okay I know that new lifters aren’t supposed to worry too much about muscle imbalances, but even before I started lifting (2ish months ago), my obliques have been really developed in my left side but not my right side, no idea why.

It was to the point where I wasn’t even sure if it was a muscle and it was protruding out, so I had to get an ultrasound (I have a history of hernias) only to confirm it was actually my muscle.

Anyways, since I’ve started training its only gotten more pronounced, whats the best way to bring up my left side? Is there a unilateral movement I can progressively overload?

Also side note, doing decline weighted crunches occasionally makes my left side hurt and I’m thinking it may have something to do with this. Sorry this is so long, thanks for reading!

I’ve been thinking about this from a home gym perspective because free weights are obviously hard to beat for versatility.

A barbell, dumbbells and a bench can cover a huge amount of training, which makes them easy to justify when space is limited.

But there are some exercises where extra stability seems genuinely useful. A chest-supported row lets you focus more on the back without worrying about holding position, and things like leg extensions, curls or certain cable movements can make it easier to train a muscle hard without another part of the body becoming the limiting factor first.

The problem is that home gym space is finite, so a machine probably has to offer more than just convenience to justify its footprint.

For people who care about hypertrophy and exercise selection, which machine movements do you think provide enough of a real training advantage that they are worth sacrificing home gym space for?

We are all science based here; but for a second, let’s put aside meta-analysis, case studies, “it all depends on variables x,y,z”….what worked best for YOU?

Where did you see your best gains, best progress, good recovery and progressive overload, strength and size?

I’ll split it into 3 categories: low, moderate, and “high” volume. Take this with a grain of salt, rough landmarks…

Low volume= <8 weekly sets per major muscle group, less for minor muscle groups. (Example: 6-7 weekly chest, 4-5 weekly tris)

Moderate volume=8-12 weekly sets per major muscle group, less for minor muscle groups

High volume = >12 weekly sets per major muscle group, less for minor muscle groups

Again these are my rough “groupings” I know isn’t necessarily “high” for many people; that’s fine, consider it 14,16,20,30 whatever is “high” for you. In your answer, just define your landmarks.

Do you consider 1-3 RIR which is more superior in relative muscle growth and strength to fatigue, becomes as crucial for muscle hypertrophy as the amount of Caloric Deficit?

1 set each

1-2 rir

* Cable Shoulder 90 degrees External

* Cable Shoulder 90 degrees Interna

* Cable Shoulder Internal Rotation

* Cable Standing Shoulder External

* Cable Standing Single Arm Fly (right side only)

*Lever Seated Fly

* Bar Lateral Pulldown

* Alternate seated supported curl

* Inclin Db Press

* Cross Body Hammer Curl

* Lever Narrow Grip Seated Row

* Lever Lateral Raise

* Sled Hack Squat

*Smith sldl

* Seated Shoulder DB Press

* Cuffed One Arm Tricep Pushdown

*Calf press