Protein

[Shambo]

You also have to keep in mind these are multi-millionaire athletes in bespoke made to measure clothing. A regular 165 lb gym goer buying off the rack clothing is going to look even less impressive. They also won’t have the benefit of the confidence you mention that goes with being a rich superstar athlete.

My point is, for most people, for the majority of the year they’re going to be fully clothed with only maybes a 2 week beach holiday sometime around August. And in between, no-one wants to see Facebook and Instagram selfies of someone with razor abs, trust me.

The difference then for the average person between being 165 lb at 6% body fat and being 200 lb is absolutely enormous. With a decent amount of muscle mass the latter looks far more impressive even at around 20% body fat. It’s always better to apply your energies towards being big and strong than worrying about how lean you are.

What is your actual goal? How often do you train? How active are you? What is your current body fat %? Etc.

Goal is to build muscle to a point of not being massive but quite big

train 5 days a week. I have done weight training for most of the past 3 years and technique wise I think I have that pretty good in terms of muscle group splits and actually performing the lifts correctly.

I sit at my desk for the day working as I am in IT, though I do enjoy walking and try to get in a 5 mile walk a day, with a longer one at weekends.

no idea on fat %, never had that checked.

 

[Thurston]

Goal is to build muscle to a point of not being massive but quite big

train 5 days a week. I have done weight training for most of the past 3 years and technique wise I think I have that pretty good in terms of muscle group splits and actually performing the lifts correctly.

I sit at my desk for the day working as I am in IT, though I do enjoy walking and try to get in a 5 mile walk a day, with a longer one at weekends.

no idea on fat %, never had that checked.

I’d actually reduce the number of days you train for a start. You’ll see more growth if you give your body more time to recover.

I’d do something like a four day split along the lines of:

Monday - legs.
Tuesday - chest and triceps.
Thursday - back and biceps.
Friday - shoulders and abs.

Keep it nice and simple with a focus on the big compound lifts. Set a timer for 30 minutes and once it gets to that point, get out of the gym, go home and recover. Seriously. This is actually surprisingly difficult for most people and goes against normal gym culture. In my experience, doing more is just a waste of resources which could be applied to muscle growth.

When I was younger I would go train every single day if I could but I found it was actually hindering my progress. The additional recovery days make ample difference in terms of growth.

You should be aiming for around 3000 calories a day. With around 200g protein, that gives you around 2300 calories a day to play with from carbs and fat. So you have plenty of room for things like: sweet potatoes, rice, wholemeal toast, oats, peanut butter, almonds etc and if you’re still falling a bit short, don’t be afraid to go a bit old school and have a couple of glasses of whole milk.

 

[Shambo]

I’d actually reduce the number of days you train for a start. You’ll see more growth if you give your body more time to recover.

I’d do something like a four day split along the lines of:

Monday - legs.
Tuesday - chest and triceps.
Thursday - back and biceps.
Friday - shoulders and abs.

Keep it nice and simple with a focus on the big compound lifts. Set a timer for 30 minutes and once it gets to that point, get out of the gym, go home and recover. Seriously. This is actually surprisingly difficult for most people and goes against normal gym culture. In my experience, doing more is just a waste of resources which could be applied to muscle growth.

When I was younger I would go train every single day if I could but I found it was actually hindering my progress. The additional recovery days make ample difference in terms of growth.

You should be aiming for around 3000 calories a day. With around 200g protein, that gives you around 2300 calories a day to play with from carbs and fat. So you have plenty of room for things like: sweet potatoes, rice, wholemeal toast, oats, peanut butter, almonds etc and if you’re still falling a bit short, don’t be afraid to go a bit old school and have a couple of glasses of whole milk.

Brilliant, thanks for that. Looks like I have been training a bit much while not taking on enough protein. Got to rethink my gym sessions if I am to try and tailor it more to that kind of schedule. Yesterday I had a back day and when I reached an hour I still had one thing left to do and had to cut that out so I could get back to the office.

This is the kind of thing I need though. More focus on maximising my gym time while also nailing the eating side of it and I should get better results than I currently am.

Already ate a 4 egg omelette this morning as my mid morning snack, which is quite an achievement for me!

Really appreciate your answers and guidance on this!

 

[Thurston]

Brilliant, thanks for that. Looks like I have been training a bit much while not taking on enough protein. Got to rethink my gym sessions if I am to try and tailor it more to that kind of schedule. Yesterday I had a back day and when I reached an hour I still had one thing left to do and had to cut that out so I could get back to the office.

This is the kind of thing I need though. More focus on maximising my gym time while also nailing the eating side of it and I should get better results than I currently am.

Already ate a 4 egg omelette this morning as my mid morning snack, which is quite an achievement for me!

Really appreciate your answers and guidance on this!

No problem. What works for me is I do four exercises per workout. So my back and biceps day for example is actually: 4 sets of bent over rows or T-bar row, 4 sets of deadlifts (I only lower the weight half way down my shin so it places more emphasis on my back rather than my hamstrings), 3 sets of lat pull downs, 3 sets of cable rows.

Because I only have 30 minutes it means I have to reduce the time resting between sets which leads to a far more intense workout. And because psychologically I know I’ve only got to do four exercises, I’m putting maximum effort into the sets rather than holding back as you would if you have a list of eight of nine different exercises to get through.

If there’s time left on the clock, I’ll throw in some bicep curls, hammer curls, preacher curls, cable curls whatever, but the crux of it is, I’m making sure that I’m putting the most effort into the exercises which are going to yield the most overall benefit anyway (and for what it’s worth I know if you’re working your back properly your biceps will be getting worked anyway, so there’s no need to get overly hung up on a smaller muscle group at the expense of giving your all to a much bigger one).

 

[Shambo]

Do you stick to the same protein intake 7 days a week?

 

[Super Ted]

No problem. What works for me is I do four exercises per workout. So my back and biceps day for example is actually: 4 sets of bent over rows or T-bar row, 4 sets of deadlifts (I only lower the weight half way down my shin so it places more emphasis on my back rather than my hamstrings), 3 sets of lat pull downs, 3 sets of cable rows.

Because I only have 30 minutes it means I have to reduce the time resting between sets which leads to a far more intense workout. And because psychologically I know I’ve only got to do four exercises, I’m putting maximum effort into the sets rather than holding back as you would if you have a list of eight of nine different exercises to get through.

If there’s time left on the clock, I’ll throw in some bicep curls, hammer curls, preacher curls, cable curls whatever, but the crux of it is, I’m making sure that I’m putting the most effort into the exercises which are going to yield the most overall benefit anyway (and for what it’s worth I know if you’re working your back properly your biceps will be getting worked anyway, so there’s no need to get overly hung up on a smaller muscle group at the expense of giving your all to a much bigger one).

Quite a logical way of looking at it really, i might try and cut my sessions down and focus on more recovery days.

One thing i have never been sure on, say you want to eat in a surplus for a gaining phase, Do you add the additional calories you have burnt from a gym session? i.e. if you were trying to eat 3000cals as a surplus, but burnt 600 in a session, would you eat those calories back on training days? (3600 cals for example), or would you just try and maintain 3000 cals on both training and non-training days?

 

[Thurston]

Do you stick to the same protein intake 7 days a week?

Yeah. You can reduce your carb and fat intake a little on none training days depending on how active or not you’re being, but keep the protein intake consistent.

Quite a logical way of looking at it really, i might try and cut my sessions down and focus on more recovery days.

One thing i have never been sure on, say you want to eat in a surplus for a gaining phase, Do you add the additional calories you have burnt from a gym session? i.e. if you were trying to eat 3000cals as a surplus, but burnt 600 in a session, would you eat those calories back on training days? (3600 cals for example), or would you just try and maintain 3000 cals on both training and non-training days?

Recovering from a workout is as important as the workout itself - few people talk about this because the emphasis is always on training and diet - your muscles don’t “grow” in the gym, you go to the gym to break the muscle fibres down. Muscle growth happens when you’re *not* at the gym.

If you’re looking to gain, I presume you’re not going to be doing cardio in the gym, and a 30 minute weight workout on its own won’t burn 600 calories, maybes a few hundred at most, so I wouldn’t overthink it too much and I’d just keep the calories consistently around 3000 on both training and non-training days for the duration of the phase. You can add a few more if you have a job - or just one of those days - where you’re fairly proactive, but that should be enough to steadily gain. And I wouldn’t worry about it too much. I’d highly recommend keeping a track of your weight and body fat etc in a spreadsheet or one of those body tracker apps, and if you’re not gaining enough or you’re gaining more than you want, you can adjust your intake accordingly.

 

[Super Ted]

Yeah. You can reduce your carb and fat intake a little on none training days depending on how active or not you’re being, but keep the protein intake consistent.

Recovering from a workout is as important as the workout itself - few people talk about this because the emphasis is always on training and diet - your muscles don’t “grow” in the gym, you go to the gym to break the muscle fibres down. Muscle growth happens when you’re *not* at the gym.

If you’re looking to gain, I presume you’re not going to be doing cardio in the gym, and a 30 minute weight workout on its own won’t burn 600 calories, maybes a few hundred at most, so I wouldn’t overthink it too much and I’d just keep the calories consistently around 3000 on both training and non-training days for the duration of the phase. You can add a few more if you have a job - or just one of those days - where you’re fairly proactive, but that should be enough to steadily gain. And I wouldn’t worry about it too much. I’d highly recommend keeping a track of your weight and body fat etc in a spreadsheet or one of those body tracker apps, and if you’re not gaining enough or you’re gaining more than you want, you can adjust your intake accordingly.

Cheers mate, one thing i have never tracked consistenly is calories in, I have always just tended to have protein with every meal and a shake.

 

[Thurston]

Cheers mate, one thing i have never tracked consistenly is calories in, I have always just tended to have protein with every meal and a shake.

Unless you’re a weight class athlete and planning on competing as a bodybuilder or something, you don’t need to get overly fixated or hung up on the number of calories. It’s still good to have a general idea as a baseline though.

E.g if you know that you’re eating in the ball park of 3000 calories (or have 500 calories 6 times a day), and working off a baseline BMR of 1800 (this can of course differ from person to person), then factoring in an extra few hundred calories per day for daily chores, gym etc that should give you a weekly weight gain of 1 to 2 lbs per week. Which doesn’t actually sound a lot but if you do that consistently over 12 weeks, a gain of between 12-24 pounds will absolutely transform your appearance.

 

[Super Ted]

Unless you’re a weight class athlete and planning on competing as a bodybuilder or something, you don’t need to get overly fixated or hung up on the number of calories. It’s still good to have a general idea as a baseline though.

E.g if you know that you’re eating in the ball park of 3000 calories (or have 500 calories 6 times a day), and working off a baseline BMR of 1800 (this can of course differ from person to person), then factoring in an extra few hundred calories per day for daily chores, gym etc that should give you a weekly weight gain of 1 to 2 lbs per week. Which doesn’t actually sound a lot but if you do that consistently over 12 weeks, a gain of between 12-24 pounds will absolutely transform your appearance.

Yeah thats good info mate, thanks.

 

[Shambo]

New regime is go!

Just did 25 minute arms and 30 minute legs, and I am at 97.5g of protein so far today

will sort my session out properly next week, only had arms and legs left for the week so did them together leaving me a rest day tomorrow

 

[Deleted User 11453]

New regime is go!

Just did 25 minute arms and 30 minute legs, and I am at 97.5g of protein so far today

will sort my session out properly next week, only had arms and legs left for the week so did them together leaving me a rest day tomorrow

There’s some good advice on this thread.

Another routine to try is something like the stronglifts 5x5 compound lift routines, I have been doing:

Tues: push, pull, legs.
Friday: push, pull legs.
Sunday: push, pull, legs.

Very simple, doable in 45 mins, plenty of rest.

Push: bench, overhead press.
Pull: I have been doing 4 sets of alternate pull ups and chin-ups.
Legs: deadlift, single leg lunges, squats on different days.

 

[Deleted member 43869]

I've only just discovered that working out your macros is not as simple as counting grams of fat / protein / cars but rather the use of calories from each.

I've been wolfing down peanut butter for months. No wonder I'm getting a belly! Fucks sake.

 

[Deleted User 11453]

I've only just discovered that working out your macros is not as simple as counting grams of fat / protein / cars but rather the use of calories from each.

I've been wolfing down peanut butter for months. No wonder I'm getting a belly! Fucks sake.

More grams of fat = more calories?

Peanut butter has about 10g total fat in a 20g portion, 1.5g saturated fat.

 

[Ciro_DiMarzio]

I'd agree with most of your post apart from this bit. You can be a 165lb gym rat but look completely different from a 165lb couch potato who is the same height even when fully clothed. The shape and dimensions give it away even if you can't see the belly or upper body you can tell by the gait and the proportions, even if a little subliminal. A featherweight boxer would still look 'cut' even when completely covered up.

Yep. I am skinny fat at 13ish stone and clothes look shit on me. Baggy round the arms and tight on the belly. My mate is a similar height and weight but just looks so much better than me in a t-shirt.

Dear me this post is gay.

 

[Deleted member 43869]

Yep. I am skinny fat at 13ish stone and clothes look shit on me. Baggy round the arms and tight on the belly. My mate is a similar height and weight but just looks so much better than me in a t-shirt.

Dear me this post is gay.

Aye me too mate. Even a thin jumper gives your figure away. Id like my clothes to stretch side to side rather than front and back. Back view is shocking. Baggy shoulders and then two tight areas above my jeans backside pockets.

 

[Ciro_DiMarzio]

Aye me too mate. Even a thin jumper gives your figure away. Id like my clothes to stretch side to side rather than front and back. Back view is shocking. Baggy shoulders and then two tight areas above my jeans backside pockets.

Haha. It's crap mate but being lazy and boozing too much is to blame so it's my own fault.

 

[Deleted member 43869]

Haha. It's crap mate but being lazy and boozing too much is to blame so it's my own fault.

Good news is you can look however you want. I'm gonna try to get there before I'm 40.

 

[Ciro_DiMarzio]

Good news is you can look however you want. I'm gonna try to get there before I'm 40.

I'm 36 like. I'll never look great but can hopefully get to the looking OK level.

 

[Deleted User 11453]

I'm 36 like. I'll never look great but can hopefully get to the looking OK level.

I am 47, my main motivation is that I don’t want to feel embarrassed when I take the kids to water parks and to the beach. Basically at any time I want to be able to rip off my T-shirt and not want to be ashamed.

I have a slim frame, and I want to be mobile and relatively fast.

Other people want to be as big and strong as possible. They might only be topless for 1 week in 52.

When you have decided then you can tailor your diet, exercise regime and lifestyle accordingly.