Weightlifting for Kiwis - Discussion and support regarding the art of swole

[Diver Down]

Does anyone have an idiot proof timeline of the effects of fasting? I can't count calories for shit and love eating too much, so I'd rather eat at or slightly above maintenance and just fast a set amount of days per interval (e.g. 2 weeks). I'm thinking something like 11 days eating and lifting normally and 3 days of fasting.
Or is this just a really retarded idea?

All that shit

Self-flagellation only makes you hate yourself and in turn make you do even less of what you want to do. Stop that shit. Willpower & motivation are red herrings for faggots. Only habits carry you in the long run. Gains are too slow to intrinsically get you from workout to workout. Willpower will do jack shit when you've had a bad day but have to crank out another set of leg presses. It never gets easier. You only get better at dealing with the discomfort and boredom. Do you think I enjoy every, fuck, even most of the workouts I do? Fuck no. That cascading motivation you're looking for simply does not exist.

My honest suggestion is to do ONE pushup every day. That's it. Just a single one and you don't get to do more. Do it every day at the same time. Obviously one single pushup isn't the goal per se, but it's so fucking easy to do that you've got no excuse to skip. Your brain can't bitch out. The main idea is to get yourself to make it a habit to do one pushup every day. Eventually you'll have the daily part down and you can expand your real workout from there. I honestly think this approach would serve you more than "I'll do an exercise and the progress will push me to do more later"
Don't bother with supplements (only creatine is proven to work btw, everything else is marketing trash), buying any more equipment (that you'll outgrow way too fast anyway) or any serious workout plan (as a noob anything done consistently works. Just don't hop from exercise to exercise so you can measure progress)

But I don't want to be lambasted with lifestyle advice

Tough shit, that's what you're getting.

Read Atomic Habits. I will shill that book until my dying breath. Its even on audiobooksbay.

 

[dick brain]

Does anyone have an idiot proof timeline of the effects of fasting? I can't count calories for shit and love eating too much, so I'd rather eat at or slightly above maintenance and just fast a set amount of days per interval (e.g. 2 weeks). I'm thinking something like 11 days eating and lifting normally and 3 days of fasting.
Or is this just a really retarded idea?

A YouTube channel called What I've Learned just recently put out a good video on it, I highly recommend watching it in full but the tldw is
1) your body burns off its glucose stores. You will feel like shit while this happens. The more glucose you have, the longer it will take, and the longer you'll feel like shit, so you want to eat low carb for your last meal or two. The worst thing you can do is binge on carbs.
2) your body runs out of glucose and switches into ketosis, i.e. burning fat. You stop feeling like shit and actually stop feeling hungry, provided you're supplementing vitamins and electrolytes properly. If you sit still in a cell like David Blaine you'll also lose muscle, but as long as you keep exercising muscle loss is minimal to negligible. In general you feel pretty good in my experience.
3) you break your fast for whatever reason and refeed. There is actually an anabolic effect here, so be sure to refeed with plenty of protein and calories. Hit your macros. Unless you're doing keto, you'll switch back into glucose mode, and the cycle starts over.

Be sure to supplement electrolytes and a multivitamin, otherwise it's pretty straightforward.

I was doing a cycle of 96 hours fasting, 72 hours refeeding earlier this summer but I only did it for a couple weeks before my dad died and I decided eating too much is a healthier coping mechanism than drinking too much, so I didn't get much useful data out of it, but I'm planning on starting again soon. Will post findings if they're worth talking about.

One thing I did notice is that burning off your glucose stores ASAP with cardio reduces the time it takes to burn off your glucose stores, because duh. So basically, start your fast with a steak and a hard run, and end your fast with a steak and a hard lift session.

 

[overweight]

whats the reason i cant reply to slav power?
basically youre a bitch and dont deserve advice

 

[Metatron]

Anybody on MK-677? Care to share some anecdotes to a fella, please?

I'm thinking of taking 10mg before bed.

Thank you.

 

[The Saltening]

How do you know when to increase the weight? I feel like I get stuck at a weight. It never feels "easier" and the amount I can do per set maybe increases by 1 or 2 reps over time. I got pissed off and just increased weight by 5-10 pounds on everything this past week. Am I just being impatient or what am missing? Like I will be at the same weight for a solid 4-6 weeks. I currently lift 5 days a week with 2 consecutive rest days. consuming around 2000-2500 calories a day (I am gaining weight at this intake, with improved muscle definition so I know I am not just putting on fat. The amount of fat I have appears to be staying the same with just more muscle under it. I will cut later.) with 130+ grams of protein a day (no plant based protein).

edit:
I will add that my aim is 8-12 reps which I can achieve on the first set. Second set is slightly lower. I usually don't get in a 3rd set as I am finding it hard to even recover from 2 sets. I did try pushing 3 sets (it is doable) but man the next day I struggle to get half way through the second set so I dropped it down to 2 sets since I can consistently get 2. I recover just enough to always get 2 sets.

 

[dick brain]

How do you know when to increase the weight? I feel like I get stuck at a weight. It never feels "easier" and the amount I can do per set maybe increases by 1 or 2 reps over time. I got pissed off and just increased weight by 5-10 pounds on everything this past week. Am I just being impatient or what am missing? Like I will be at the same weight for a solid 4-6 weeks. I currently lift 5 days a week with 2 consecutive rest days. consuming around 2000-2500 calories a day (I am gaining weight at this intake, with improved muscle definition so I know I am not just putting on fat. The amount of fat I have appears to be staying the same with just more muscle under it. I will cut later.) with 130+ grams of protein a day (no plant based protein).

edit:
I will add that my aim is 8-12 reps which I can achieve on the first set. Second set is slightly lower. I usually don't get in a 3rd set as I am finding it hard to even recover from 2 sets. I did try pushing 3 sets (it is doable) but man the next day I struggle to get half way through the second set so I dropped it down to 2 sets since I can consistently get 2. I recover just enough to always get 2 sets.

For almost everything I do five sets of 3-5 reps. When I hit five reps on all five sets, I add weight.

Sounds like you're training for hypertrophy and getting the results you want in that regard so idk what to tell you, if you want to get stronger do more sets of less reps and take more time to recover. You'll still get big.

Also use the guard rails or a spotter, a lot of it is mental, and the last rep is where it counts. Just don't sacrifice your form for it and snap your shit up.

 

[Irish Turtle]

I looked at myself in the mirror today and I liked what my body is turning into, the best motivation for me is to just look at myself in the mirror it works much better than anything else.

 

[ducktales4gameboy]

How do you know when to increase the weight?

My strategy for this is just doing bodyweight stuff immediately when I get to the gym as a warmup, and then for everything that's not bar-related setting the weight to the smallest increment possible above last time (assuming you can keep proper form at that weight; don't screw around with safety). If you can't make your full rep count, just move down to what you were at before.

Re: Slav Power

It never gets easier. You only get better at dealing with the discomfort and boredom.

This is the big thing I'd suggest getting over if you're going to get into it seriously. I highly suggest just finding a couple podcasts you like and getting a good, non-shitty pair of earbuds that hold more than a couple hours charge in the earbuds themselves (these can usually be had for 10-15 somewhere and get 8 hours) and even if you're not going to a gym, just put em on and clean your house, do dishes, cook, whatever. Any activity for any period of time is better than no activity. Once you've got the routine of getting up and Doing Shit while listening to a podcast, shift it over to a gym and deal with the first 2-3 boring days of setting up a routine until you can do it by rote without thinking about it. You don't have to go for long sessions, just start small and add stuff over time. Once you've gone a couple times you'll notice you actually feel good afterwards and start having more energy, which becomes more motivation to go.

 

[Hyper Vigilant Dumbass]

I looked at myself in the mirror today and I liked what my body is turning into, the best motivation for me is to just look at myself in the mirror it works much better than anything else.

Good job

 

[John.Doe]

Once you've got the routine of getting up and Doing Shit while listening to a podcast, shift it over to a gym and deal with the first 2-3 boring days of setting up a routine until you can do it by rote without thinking about it.

Getting in the routine of going to the gym is sometimes the hardest part, but if you can get yourself on a steady schedule of actually going there its half the battle won. Even if you're just powerwalking on a treadmill for an hour while watching a Breaking Bad rerun, or doing light weight, you're building the habit.

Some tips for making that a habit are: laying out your gym set-up ahead of time (putting your gym bag in an obvious place, mixing your pre/post workout supps the night before), setting up alarms/calendar alerts, signing up for a class if your gym offers them*, getting a gym buddy, etc.

*A lot of gyms will have free classes, spin classes, aerobics, sometimes beginner classes for intro to weights, kettlebells, etc. Often free. The imposed schedule of a class and its structure can be a huge help and give you a lot of information and skills to use on your own.


Once you're in the gym, another thing to consider are one of the dozens of gym/fitness apps available on your smartphone. Either free or paid, they should have the ability to make custom exercise routines OR pre-made/community routines. They often have a lot of beginner friendly routines that are simple to follow, often come with video/picture guides to form, and very importantly lots of tracking.

You can cue up Spotify, turn your brain off and just do what the app tells you, (sometimes with audio cues), as it walks you through "do x reps of exercise y". Enter the weight, and repeat until done with that exercise and move on to the next. At the end the app can summarize things for you, make nice charts of your progress, and give you the extra dopamine rush of gamification to supplement your own willpower. Eventually you can move on to more advanced preset routines, or build your own.

 

[deermeat]

I need your opinion on my gym schedule. No, I do not care about leg day that much. If you seen my legs, you'd know why. I just wanna build upper body muscle. I also really like working out my upper body but I was told I have to give sections rest. Is this ideal or do I need more rest?
Monday: Chest Press, Shoulder Press, Rear/Row, Sit Ups
Tuesday: Bicep Curls, Tricep Pushdown, Pulldown, 15-30 min Isometric bicep curl (haven't tried this at the gym yet, only at home),
Wednesday: Leg day, idk the machines names. Theres three, one is for the glutes and then Wall Sit.
Thursday: Same as Monday
Friday: Same as Tuesday

I didn't list the workouts in order of use, it's out of order. I just listed the workouts itself. I'm not interested in how I should work out, I already know my reps and such. But I'm moreso wondering the optimal schedule for when I should do it so that I'm not simply tearing up muscle mass recklessly, never actually gaining anything. That's what I was told will happen if I don't let my muscles rest poperly.

 

[Hyper Vigilant Dumbass]

Dr Stuart McGill Pull up Method
I thought it'd be beneficial to post here. Have a good weekend everyone.

 

[FatMebius]

make sure to look up self defense training where 90% is just kicking somebody in the balls
dont abuse it tho, maybe ranjid really had feelings for you

Good advice. I also think any woman should carry a weapon. A gun, preferably, but whatever you feel most comfortable with. Don't be like Bechdel who thought she was hot shit for going to a McDojo for a few weeks, only to get #REKT in a mugging.

I looked at myself in the mirror today and I liked what my body is turning into, the best motivation for me is to just look at myself in the mirror it works much better than anything else.

I feel the same way. It's crazy to look at old photos of myself and see how round my face looked or how chubby my gut was. Not that I was morbidly obese or anything, but it's crazy what a year and a half of running and lifting will do.

 

[Irish Turtle]

Good advice. I also think any woman should carry a weapon. A gun, preferably, but whatever you feel most comfortable with. Don't be like Bechdel who thought she was hot shit for going to a McDojo for a few weeks, only to get #REKT in a mugging.

I feel the same way. It's crazy to look at old photos of myself and see how round my face looked or how chubby my gut was. Not that I was morbidly obese or anything, but it's crazy what a year and a half of running and lifting will do.

dude I am only weightlifting for 3 months but I went from skinny fat to muscles under a layer of fat that fast, I am only excited for what my potential is after a year

 

[Lords Greatsword]

Physique comparisons over time can also be a good way of determining the efficacy of your training, highlighting the areas that are improving and areas that might be lagging behind - e.g, spamming the fuck out of arm-movements and seeing the arm growth that follows, or spamming situps for each session and looking at the development there versus slacking off on them and seeing the work fade away
If you're extremely particular, you can additionally go the extra mile of taking measurements at an interval and track improvement there as well.

 

[ducktales4gameboy]

dude I am only weightlifting for 3 months but I went from skinny fat to muscles under a layer of fat that fast, I am only excited for what my potential is after a year

Right on. That's a big thing I've seen throw a bunch of people I've tried to get into lifting who didn't follow through with it. I've seen a couple fall off thinking they're not making progress because they're not in perfect aesthetic shape a few months after they start, completely overlooking that the stamina gain and ability to manipulate heavy things irl is incredibly useful. Have fun the first time you do a cut and go from being visibly fat to having a sixpack in like a week, the difference between the two can be as little as two or three pounds of fat.

 

[Irish Turtle]

Right on. That's a big thing I've seen throw a bunch of people I've tried to get into lifting who didn't follow through with it. I've seen a couple fall off thinking they're not making progress because they're not in perfect aesthetic shape a few months after they start, completely overlooking that the stamina gain and ability to manipulate heavy things irl is incredibly useful. Have fun the first time you do a cut and go from being visibly fat to having a sixpack in like a week, the difference between the two can be as little as two or three pounds of fat.

thanks for the advice man when I move into my new apartment I will gain acess to a new gym that is even more accessible to use I will keep my growth going.

 

[Comfyman]

How do you know when to increase the weight? I feel like I get stuck at a weight. It never feels "easier" and the amount I can do per set maybe increases by 1 or 2 reps over time. I got pissed off and just increased weight by 5-10 pounds on everything this past week. Am I just being impatient or what am missing? Like I will be at the same weight for a solid 4-6 weeks. I currently lift 5 days a week with 2 consecutive rest days. consuming around 2000-2500 calories a day (I am gaining weight at this intake, with improved muscle definition so I know I am not just putting on fat. The amount of fat I have appears to be staying the same with just more muscle under it. I will cut later.) with 130+ grams of protein a day (no plant based protein).

edit:
I will add that my aim is 8-12 reps which I can achieve on the first set. Second set is slightly lower. I usually don't get in a 3rd set as I am finding it hard to even recover from 2 sets. I did try pushing 3 sets (it is doable) but man the next day I struggle to get half way through the second set so I dropped it down to 2 sets since I can consistently get 2. I recover just enough to always get 2 sets.

Try making a spreadsheet in which you document the weight and reps of each exercise in every workout, then once you've completed all sets (for example 3x10) of one exercise sufficiently without overly forced reps you move on to the next weight level in the next workout. You can define the levels however you like. For squats I increase the weight by 10kg, for the bench press by 5kg and for lateral raises by 2.5kg etc. If you can't finish the second set at your current level, try reducing the weight and work your way up again.
If your strength does not increase, try increasing your caloric intake (500 calories over your maintenance level). If you want to build up strength and muscle, you shouldn't be overly concerened about gaining weight and fat which you can easily cut in a couple of months later.

 

[postfeetpls]

Is this skinny fat?

Yes. This is the typical "spent whole life sitting on a chair doing nothing" body and it is disgusting, especially on women.

Would it be helped by lifting?

Very much so. Bear in mind you're a woman and it will take time to build muscle, so make sure not to chicken out when you barely see any progress in a month or two. BUT, being a woman is also a good thing. Your glutes and quads are genetically predisposed to build muscle much easier(relative to your upper body, not compared to men) and your muscles recover almost twice as fast as men. Make sure to train legs and glutes regularly.

I am in a shit mental state. For all the free advice online about how to exercise at home I could never push myself to do any of it, every fitness advice like you recommended just wants you to dedciate yourself to some massive super exercise plan.

You need no more than 40-50 minutes per week, not multiple heavy workouts. If you only want to train at home and have this single dumbbell, it's more than enough to help you a lot. Check this guy out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOkCJ57IvNg
You need very little to improve your mental state and you can make solid progress with home workouts. The dopamine flush will definitely make you feel better and it takes like 15 minutes 2 or 3 times a week.

the chicks literally said to the tiny girl they feel bad for her for having a short bf

Normal happy people don't say things like this. Comments like this always come from spiteful bitches, angry incels or limp-wristed attention seeking faggots.
>inb4 manlet
I'm above average height

stopped making fun of short guys

Why would you make fun of things people have no control over? Height, saggy tits, small dick, bad skin etc are low hanging fruit and not fun. Maybe small dick is a bit fun, but the rest isn't.

edit so I don't doublepost
After my last post in this thread I made some solid progress regarding shoulder pain. Thanks to @latinlover for encouraging me to go see a doctor. Turns out I did have lightly fucked shoulder but a month of light weight, proper warm-ups, proper exercises so I don't rustle it and it glides smoothly.
No pain in pull ups, no pain on bench, no pain on anything. Never doing lateral raises ever again my life. OHP, behind neck press, arnold press etc. Still afraid to push myself on the bench and I feel like I'm losing tons of gains but maybe it's all in my head. I stay in the 12-15 reps range with 95 and 90kg trying to keep ~3 reps away from failure because that would mean pushing myself.
Maybe I'm losing gains but it's better than taking a month off if my shoulder decides it's over.

 

[Michael_Jordan_Peterson]

whats the reason i cant reply to slav power?
basically youre a bitch and dont deserve advice

its frustrating when someone asks for advice to do a specific goal but then says they dont want to do exactly what the most obvious advice to achieve that is and even mock it.
Like a fat woman asking how to lose weight then mocking the idea of eating less. How do you help that?
I also think deadlifts, squats and bench are the only exercises you need and incredibly easy to learn after a little bit of time so maybe im a bit biased.