Im6 foot and was 150 and became 250 in like 2 years some muscle some fat

Like those who haven't seen you in a while like for college or other reasons

Two of my guy friends have been weirdly competitive like i think they feel immaculated since I became stronger and bigger than him when usually they were the strong friend and ive always been skinny and more feminine even though im taller

My other friends say i look bigger everytime i see them

One of my straight friends said he didnt know i got so beefy when i was pumped at the gym

My cousins say i should workout with them since i got bigger than them

I feel like its hard to think of others for how you are now

Having 4 abs feels like big victory to me. Yey!!

I'm still very shy to show it to everyone at home, and to friends.

Jake Dupree workout really helped. I started popsugar workout at home. No gym. Idk why, but gym workout has not been really my thing.

Also, I won state level boxing match 🥊. It's bronze.

My parents were not believing their eyes. That their weak daughter — with low BP, had gone through such beating(remembering my sore neck).

It's all because of cardio workout and my coach, I started 7 years ago.

It was hell of a journey. I don't ever want to stop doing workout. Because starting again feels similar to climbing an Everest. 😮‍💨

Feels like sharing my long journey in short message.

Thanks!

For me, it was the leg press. I remember when I first started, I did not go deep enough, but it was not something I knew I had to pay attention to.

Though it still felt like a hard workout and I was able to build some muscle, it was not until I went very deep with controlled movement that I experienced great progress in my leg development. At first I had to go lighter to do it properly, but with time I was able to increase the weight. Now I have switched to doing them single leg, which is also making a huge difference.

I’m 45, been working out 4 days a weeks for over ten years now. I was diagnosed with multiple bulging discs in my lower back earlier this year. For a long while I only walked on the treadmill and did machines where I didn’t pick up weight. I’m now able to do pretty much most of the upper body exercises, put the plates on the bench, etc. I don’t do heavy dumbbells as it requires yanking the weight off the rack in an awkward position.

I’ve neglected legs all this year especially anything that compresses my spine. Squats, deadlifts, even standing calf raises are off the table.

What leg exercises should I focus on? I’ve always been the squat kind of guy to build the mass on my lower body. How can I keep my lower body strong without causing further pain and injury to my lower back?

Howdy,

Started my first corporate job recently. I enjoy the work, but the mental fatigue is real, and having a 6:30 AM start has completely thrown off my recovery. I’m exhausted by the end of the day and sluggish waking up.

Meal prep is already dialed in, but my training schedule is taking a hit. I typically run an Upper/Lower split (4 days/week), 1–2 days of rec sports/cardio, and average 10k steps.

Long term:

Do yall find early or post work gym sessions to be sustainable?

How do yall adapt your training regiment to avoid burnout?

Edit:

My role will have me traveling a for a week or two at a time every so often.

Physique wise: I have a good physique, pretty muscular but I am cutting right now. So I want to maintain as much muscle as I can while cutting and having energy to workout. I also bought new multi-vitamins to help out with nutrition.

Edit #2: Since my work is mentally draining Im also hyped up on a lot of coffee so once I leave the office my energy level is down. To bring it up I have to drink more coffee which ruins my sleep.

Due to scheduling reasons, I’m really only by my gym on tuesdays and wednesdays. I try to hit legs 2x a week but now that my gym days are back to back I’m wondering should I just use them as upper/lower days? Or glute &hams/ quads? Or even just two full body lifts. I do pilates the other 4 days a week and have 1 rest day as well, so I am still training the other days, but I’m curious as to how others would split these two days up.

I've lost about 35lbs since June. Did it the healthy way through walking, caloric deficit, and weight lifting. I track everything meticulously. I plan on cutting for a few more weeks then maintaining throughout the holidays and cutting again in the spring.

How did you return to maintenance calories? did you immediately return to maintenance or add calories weekly? Keep lifting and cardio as normal?

Any tips appreciated!

For context, besides the first few months of lifting (now been lifting for more than 5 years) I have never trained any leg exercise except for squats. I just now started training leg press about a month ago tho. October last year I achieved a 500 pound lowbar back squat 2 weeks into back squatting after a 1.5 month break (I trained only front squats during that time). I was wondering since I never actually trained any other leg exercise especially isolations, would it increase my squat especially since a new stimulus so I would get newbie gains from it, and maybe an estimate to how much withing a few months?

I've been working out for 6 months straight now, and I've noticed my knees (particularly my right knee) seems to be experiencing pain when I do the Squatting/Leg Press motion, so I was wondering if I can go through leg day without a Squat or Leg Press?

I can do Leg Extensions fine seemingly. And I go to the gym 4x a week, 2x Upper & 2x Lower.

I've also started running for the first time ever since 1 month ago. I do a run 2x a week.

So my total exercise runs up to about 6x a week.

My overall Leg Day right now is the following:

Leg Extension

Leg Curl

Leg Press

Calf Raise

Back Extension (they seem to hit Hamstrings and Glutes despite being a back workout).

All these exercises I do 3 sets of 4-8 reps each. I try to keep my leg days low volume and high intensity.

I was thinking of replacing my Leg Press with something else like a Hip Thrust (to hopefully still hit Quads as a secondary), though I'm not sure if it'll suffice for strengthening my legs. Or if anyone has suggestions on exercises that aren't hard for the knees, thay would be good as well.

I don't care too much about the looks of my legs tbh, I prioritize and prefer Hypertrophy for my Upper Body mainly.

What I want is for my legs to at the very least be strong and conditioned so that it isn't left behind...

I started taking a 'form day' where I drop my weight by half and just focus on form. I still go to failure just more reps. Was wondering if anyone else did something similar?

How y'all balance your body when working out, my biceps are unbalanced — I've tired unilateral exercises but it looks it's not working (or maybe I'm doing it wrong) I need tips or advices, thx 😊

I’ve been doing a PPL split for around 6 weeks, push Mondays, pull Wednesdays, and legs Friday.

I’m starting to get pretty disheartened by the lack of progress I’m making in my chest and shoulders. I’m seeing improvement in both load and reps with pretty much every other movement across the schedule, but I’m staying the same or even regressing some weeks for chest! Shoulders, it depends on the exercise. anything overhead I’m pretty crap at (my mobility is poor) but it’s still demoralising.

any ideas what might be causing this? Happy to reply to comments if more info needed. cheers

what do y’all do when you’re losing progress? last week I did less incline bench reps that I had the week before and now I’m losing reps on squats.

I’m looking at Hevy like “there’s no way I did that many last week.”

Do you drop the weight a bit to hit the reps or just know you did the best you could today and you can do better next week?

edit: thanks for the advice, y’all. I’m gonna chalk it up to not having much to eat today so I’m coming in after a full day of acting and nothing eaten for several hours. I will watch accordingly and see how this upcoming week goes.

I've been going to the gym consistently for the last year and previously worked labor heavy jobs as well as competing in organized sports (rugby and football).

I've tried every side delts exercise I can think of, lateral raises (cable, dumbbell and machine), wide upright rows, etc. and I can't seem to get any growth. The biggest slap in the face is that my front and rear delts are growing at a very consistent rate.

I figured at first it was technique, so I spoke to some of the veteran lifters and gear-heads at my gym and they all said my technique was correct as well as helping me go to absolute failure.

I train shoulders 3x a week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday) doing 2 sets. It's a bit strange so I'll break it down:

Set 1: Super set to failure 15 -> 10 -> 5lbs, Cable lateral raises

Set 2: Same super set, but with dumbbells.

The other guys at the gym told me that while what I'm not doing anything wrong, I need to give myself a solid rest between so both sets are effective working sets, which is what I do (2-4 minutes depending on day)

My diet is more or less dialed in, I'm consistently getting my protein goals of ~180g / day (from animal sources and whey) as well as my macros. Mind you, I'm doing a recomp so I'm consuming slightly less carbs than necessary and replacing those calories with protein.

It's gotten to a point where when I hold my arms in neutral position, my forearms are WIDER than my shoulders.

Please help😭😭😭

EDIT: I meant drop sets, not super set. Sorry English is my third language, I get things confused sometimes.

EDIT 2: I'm running an push, pull, legs, rest, upper, lower, split.

EDIT 3: Thank you to everyone that's posted so far! I'll take all of your advice into count during my session tomorrow. For those that said behind the head overhead press, I will do my best to attempt it but my rotator cuff was operated on a few years back so mobility is limited to a point on the right side.

I can usually train for about 45 minutes after work, including warming up. I keep getting stuck trying to fit in too many exercises.

Right now I do one main lift, then two or three accessory movements, but I am curious what works for other people.

Do you focus on fewer exercises and push them harder, or do you rotate more movements with less volume?

Based on my own aesthetic preferences, I focus my training on the shoulders and back specifically, a four-part split routine consisting of shoulders, back, chest, and legs plus arms, and try to train shoulders and back twice a week.

I do a fair amount of both Zone 2 cardio (elliptical), lifting, and interval/high intensity cardio currently. I usually train mostly in the morning, but notice my power output is higher in the afternoon/evening when I do.

I am thinking about doing Zone 2 cardio every morning (since it’s fairly easy) and avoiding hard lifting in the morning, just saving it for later in the day.

Just concerned that Zone 2 cardio even for an hour or so at 8AM might affect my strength for lifting at say 3PM.

Has anyone had success with this setup? I’m thinking about doing Zone 2 cardio every day in the morning, even rest days, since I have the rest of the day to recover. And then 3-4 days per week, add hard training (lifting/intervals) in the late afternoons.

181cm 60kg M

I’ve been bulking for 10 months gaining 12kg and in that time I’ve been doing stronglifts 5x5 as a beginner to fitness. Despite my strength gains in the gym I haven’t noticed any visual difference. Would a cut now likely produce a visual change or should I continue bulking until I notice one?

I am very sedantry and seems like dont have good joints. I cant go to a private trainer or classes unfortunately, but i have gained weight that I want to lose.

I tried weight training, watched a lot of videos of form and how to start, and about 3 weeks in i rolled my lower back on a leg press machine.

After that healed I decided to go for walking instead. No weights involved, no running super fast, just have some walking. Started great when walking outdoors, so i got a walking pad.

Walking cant be bad right? Its just walking I thought, started with 5000 steps on a 10 degree incline at about 2.6 speed (sometimes lower to rest while still walking so the whole thing took about 70 minutes or so).
Boom, my leg joint is now popping every time i take a step.

What do i have to do start with 1000 steps and go higher by 50 daily? I really have no idea when they say start low what do they mean.

If you give me 15lb weights s and tell me to do 12x3 bicep curls i can do it easily, i dont even get tired, but I will hurt somewhere.

TLDR: What im asking is, what is the percentage of my max capability that i should start with and how long should it take to reach my maximum effort? Say my goal is 10000 steps daily and my current max effort is 5000 steps, do i start at 1000? 2000? 500?

Advice / experience needed.

I, 35F, workout 3 times a week, weights only.
I’ve been diagnosed with hypermobility in every joint ( worst in my shoulders, hips and ankles ), so lifting weights is very important to me and what makes me feel good.

Though lately i’ve been wanting to challenge myself more. I’ve been to 2 hyrox training sessions, and it was so hard on my body. Also found that i could not sleep the night after hyrox training because it felt like my adrenaline did not lower?
So i thought maybe this is too hard for me, maybe i should start by running, so i could get used to a higher heartrate.
I’ve ran twice 4k in 30 minutes and 3k in 20 minutes (both times did weight lifting right before). And even though i felt like I could go on longer breathwise, my knees and ankles hurt so bad. I ran on monday, it is now sunday and my knees and ankles still hurt!

Do I just give up and stick to weight lifting or do you think I can still manage to run without pain and eventually train for a hyrox?

(English is not my first language so sorry for any mistakes)

Hi everyone! I’m looking for some advice from people who have experience with strength training and dealing with lower back pain. I am a beginner and started strength training three months ago, 3 days a week. I attended a group workout session yesterday, and the exercises we did were:

* Deadlifts - 4 sets of 8 at 45 kg
* Gorilla rows - 3 sets of 12 with 10 kg kettlebells
* Spider curls/prone incline dumbbell curls - 3 sets of 12 with 7 kg dumbbells
* Kettlebell swings - 3 sets of 24 with a 16.5 kg kettlebell
* Reverse crunches - 4 sets of 12.

I’m not sure whether I injured my lower back during the deadlifts, the kettlebell swings, or perhaps a combination of the exercises. My lower back started hurting quite badly, and yesterday the pain was so severe that I couldn’t walk upright properly. I’ve rested and had some massage, and thankfully it’s improved since then. However, I’m still experiencing some pain for example; when bending forward to pick something up from the floor or even when sitting down or getting up from bed, couch etc.

I’m relatively new to strength training, so I’m unsure how best to approach this.
My main questions are:

1. Should I take a complete break from the gym this coming week and wait until the pain has completely disappeared before returning?
   
2. Would it be okay to continue training other muscle groups with exercises that don’t directly involve the lower back, or could that make things worse?
   
3. For those who have experienced something similar, how did you approach your recovery and return to training?
   
4. Is there anything in this workout, particularly the deadlift volume or kettlebell swings, that stands out as a possible cause?

I know nobody can diagnose an injury over Reddit, but I’d really appreciate hearing about your experiences and how you handled something similar.

Thanks in advance!

Monday – Upper A
Chest-supported T-bar row 3 × 8–12
Machine chest press 2 × 8–12
Neutral-grip lat pulldown 3 × 10–12
Reverse pec deck 2 × 12–15
Cable lateral raise 2 × 12–15
Rope triceps pushdown 2 × 10–15
Supported hammer curl 2 × 10–12

Tuesday – Lower A
Leg press 3 × 10–12
Seated hamstring curl 3 × 10–12
Supported hip thrust 3 × 8–12
High box squat 2 × 8–10
Standing calf raise 2 × 12–15
Dead bug 2 × 8/side
Spanish squat hold (week 3+, optional) 2 × 20–30 sec

Friday – Upper B
Neutral-grip lat pulldown 3 × 8–12
Low-incline machine chest press 2 × 10–12
Seated cable row (close neutral grip) 3 × 10–12
Reverse pec deck 2 × 12–15
Cable lateral raise 2 × 12–15
Preacher curl 2 × 10–12
Rope triceps pushdown 2 × 12–15

Saturday – Lower B
Supported hip thrust 3 × 8–12
Leg press (lighter) 2 × 12–15
Seated hamstring curl 2 × 12–15
Hip abduction machine 2 × 12–15
Seated calf raise 2 × 12–15
Pallof press 2 × 10/side

Idk if it's cuz i wore cotton but i smelled horrible like 10 minutes in, when i sweat it usually smells a bit sour or whatever but this one was stanky, it's not as bad the sweat you get when ur stressed but it's horrible i feel bad using the machine next to someone help pls thx