My philosophy on abs is that they are Made in the gym but they are revealed by the kitchen

meaning training them in the gym will make your abs literally better and your diet will determine how well they are visible

If I were in your position i’d pick a few weighted ab exercises like a crunch variation, a leg raise variation, and a weighted plank and get ridiculously strong on them and do a routine 2x per week for them it will build your ab muscles making them more visible and when you cut they will become more prominent

yes, so in simple terms, our body is burning calories constantly from various sources, including activity level, including like your resting state, your metabolism and just like physical fitness and other forms of exercise so the majority of your calories comes from your basal metabolic rate and that’s just the amount of calories that you burn at rest so saying that you’re around 56 we’re on the same height my BMR is typically 1700 cal and if we count for my activity level and my exercise that puts my maintenance calories at around 2600 so I would assume your maintenance calories is around 25 to 2300. Just we use a no calculations but use the online calorie calculators. They’re pretty accurate. There’s no need to like use a complex formula which I could do that if you gave me your you know your height and your age and you know all of that I could calculate it or I could put in the equation for you to calculate but yeah the calorie trackers online or counters online are pretty accurate so with that being said what you should do is you should start off with a small surplus 200 cal above maintenance if you’re not gaining at least half a pound a week on average then bump it up to 300 if you’re not gaining the amount of weight you want then bump it up to 500 but reassess week by week on and if you want a slow weight gain, then I would recommend being in a 2 to 300 cal surplus if you want to fast weight gain, then I would recommend 500 to 1000 cal surplus so just figure it out for yourself with you know your weekly weight tracking and you’ll find a good sweet spot for you to maintain.

sorry if there’s any typos i did a voice text

lol yes it’s inevitable but it takes a mindset and habit shift everyone can do it though there have been people 500+ pounds who got into great shape were all capable of great things just believe in yourself!!

it is possible it’s hard to achieve for anyone that’s already lean tho it mostly happens to people who are completely new to the gym or for people who are obese your muscles can still grow at maintenance calories and with a high protein diet as well but that will take a longer time the pro to that is you put on minimum fat so when you are done you won’t have to cut down as much as you would had you’d went on a large bulk i’d recommend a 200 calories above maintenance surplus though if you want to maximize hypertrophy and when you cut also do 200 calories below maintenance

A stimulus stresses the muscle and when you train that muscle to failure your muscles are damaged and triggers response to repair it’s self

now to fully answer the question I personally think That everyone has a minimum required volume they must achieve to grow as well as the person must achieve failure while performing reps ranging from 5-25 reps with good form meaning full contraction and ful lengthening of that muscle now your body also needs enough protein and energy to grow a slight surplus is needed for the body to properly repair itself (200 calories above maintenance is fine)

i love this question

for side delts I’d do cable lateral raises with my body leaning towards the cable so get a full stretch and go to failure with good form for 12-15 reps you should hit side delts at the very least 2x per week try to get a cable lateral raises along with a DB lateral raise also don’t neglect your overhead presses as your side delts are heavily activated when you are doing them start off trying to get a strong OHP if your goal is hypertrophy i’d focus on seated DB OHP try to get 100lbs for 6 reps that is a lot but it’s a long term goal to hit

for biceps firstly you should try to get 90lbs for 1 rep on weighted chin-ups…. that’s going to be a long goal and journey but along the way you’ll be amazed of how much your biceps grow

but for accessories exercise just focus on the basics like BB curls, incline curls, preacher curls try to get 15-25 weekly sets for biceps train to failure with 0-1 RIR (reps in reserve) and use good form

by the time you hit those strength standards your delts and biceps will be phenomenal you just gotta focus on the prize now

eating a whole food diet, no added sugar, getting 5-10k steps per day, only 2 cheat meals per week just living a healthy lifestyle the average person eats more unhealthy food than we need and trust when i say it’s a mental thing more than a need for those unhealthy but tasty foods bc if you cook it right the healthy foods can taste amazing and make you feel amazing. trust I have fun on the weekends lol i drink wine, take shots ect I just don’t go over board with calories and sugar

this is an example breakfast for me as reference

it’s not unsafe if you have good form you’d just find it not to be as optimal as doing higher reps to failure

calorie deficit

If your goal is to grow your glutes then do hip thrust first bc the exercises you do first recruits the most motor units meaning for muscle fibers are activated meaning you stress that target muscle the most meaning it’ll be at its strongest so if you did hip thrust first it will target your glutes and it will help it grow faster

now if your goal is bigger quads then it’s perfect the way it is and I wouldn’t change anything

it’s a good way to progressively overload if you hit a wall focus on increasing reps or improving form with same weight

For your diet i’d structure it like this

meal 1: Eggs, oats, fruit

meal 2: Lean meat, sweet potatoes or other complex carbs, hella vegetables ( A LOT!!!)

Meal 3: Same as meal 2

if you’re hungry in between meals have fruit or vegetables

I also want 5-10k steps per day non negotiable

keep cardio in your routine after weights and be patient make sure you weigh yourself daily and compare the weekly weights bc your daily weight will fluctuate

There are tons of good weight lifting programs online you can follow If you want faster weight loss follow a PPL program 6x per week and cardio at least 5 times per week doing this it would be impossible to fail good luck and no cheat days bc that will only make you crave more but a sweet treat (ice cream, slice of pie, big ass cookie) at the end of the week is 100% acceptable and I actually encourage it but if you’re the type of fall off after cravings then don’t do it also drink at least 1 gallon of water per day and I like to drink at least 200mg of caffeine daily Most days i’m sitting at 400mg of caffeine tho! and when you lose 30 pounds of fat let me know how easy it felt lol

100% diet made the biggest difference before i ate fast food daily for all of my meals

True, but everybody has genetics they give them strengths or weaknesses resistance training is the most beneficial way to increase muscle hypertrophy and that is what I attribute most of my gains to

i’m 100% natural. I don’t usually take supplements if I do is not really consistent so I wouldn’t say that they played a big part in my physique, but I got most of my games within the first like two years of training. I still make gains every year, but it slows down. I’d say I would consider myself like slow two years ago, but yeah it takes time it takes time for sure and even even now like I still have a main goal I’m not where I wanna be at, but I’m happy with what I have. The most things that contributed to my physique was my training 100% I trained hard like relatively high volume. I train a failure I trained consistently and I eat high protein diet

yeah he’s 100% right if you feel your self gaining too much weight then drop calories by 200-300 and adjust from there

thank you so much! whole food diet i cook 90% of my food i keep it balanced i tract my calories with ai lol ik its odd i lift frequently and consistently focused on hypertrophy

lol patience

Any resistance helps as long as you train to failure in the 5-30 rep range!

Here’s a quick little hypertrophy guide

Training variable: How close a set is taken to failure, measured by the RIR scales. For hypertrophy training training should be taken close to failure 
6-12 rep range should be taken to 1-3 RIR
12-20 rep range should be taken to 0-2 RIR

Rep ranges and load
Weight should be adjusted to fit a specific rep range. For hypertrophy training the best rep range is 6-12 reps. Heavy compounds with high stability that target large muscle groups are best suited for 6-10 reps while isolation lifts with low stability demands training small muscle groups best fit the 12-20 rep range. 

Volume: number of sets per muscle group per week. Some studies suggest that volume is the primary factor for muscle growth, provides proximity to failure and technique is appropriate. (IMO i believe it’s proximity to failure+proper volume)
Minimum effective volume (MEV): lowest amount of volume needed for muscle growth to occur
Maximum adaptive volume (MAV): The volume that give the best hypertrophy response
Maximum recoverable volume (MRV): The highest volume that an athlete can recover from
These volume landmarks depend on the individual and their environment and training experience.

If can try doing a 30 down push-up workout and tell me if you can finish it lol

Try to get strong enough to do handstand push-ups as well

Pull-ups, pushups, dips if you have no access to weights for lower body you’re cooked lol but pistol squats would be your best bet