How do I achieve a physique like pic rel? Still kind of skinny but with defined abdominal muscles and arms?
Every other day I've being doing squats, push ups, plank, stuff for lower and upper abs, obliques. I've started lifting weights. I've also been eating a bunch of lean proteins to promote muscle growth, as well as whole grain carbs. My cardio is basically me just walking to places instead of driving.
But I keep seeing online that "Everyone already has abdominals, and if you can't see them it's because you have too much fat covering them." If that's the case what's the point in doing resistance training at all??? I'd say my current physique is skinny fat because I'm a bit underweight yet still have some love handles. I used a body fat calculator and it came back with 4.2% but that doesn't seem right.
Sorry if this is basic/obvious stuff, I'm still kind of a newbie to fitness stuff. I'm male, 20, 176cm, 58.4kg if it helps.
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you're not lean enough
>why strength train then
so you can look like that and not pic rel
you gotta get like 12% body fat + a bit of muscle and basically that's the sweet spot that b***hes (and twinks) like the most.
The thing is, my result says I have an incredibly low amount of body fat for some reason. Surely my body fat isn't actually as low as this, right? I still have love handles and my body doesn't look lean.
I'm trying to go for a twink body. Skinny with some slight muscle definition, but not enough to look overly bulky or anything. What's the best way to go about this and get a twink body?
More muscles is what you need fren. Unfortunately everyone's physiology is unique, that's why you'll hear a lot of discordant advice, ultimately time will tell what works for you. Right now you can either bulk or cut. To bulk properly you need at least 3 months, 5 is even better usually. If you are trying to get ready for summer as you can see starting now is a very tough spot to be in. You can try to to cut now and put on some muscle on a very small surplus later(since as a beginner you grow like a weed) but I'm spitballing here. It's all related to your goals and how your body reacts to stimuli.
My advice is to set a goal based on what bothers you the most right now. If you are bothered by lacking muscle, bulk. If you are bothered by love handles, cut. Once you get one, you work towards the other. Seeing results you are interested in will keep you motivated. Whatever you do, as long as you increase your lifts you are bound to grow, as long as you don't gorge everything in sight or starve yourself you'll be fine. Consistency is 99% of this journey.
Also work abs if you want them.
I will add that you are dangerously close to being underweight in an actually unhealthy weight, so bulking is definitely something you should consider eventually.
Thanks for your reply, anon.
I just wanna get this straight. Bulking is eating surplus calories in order to gain the mass to develop muscle while resistance training. And Cutting is what you do after you've bulked and gained muscle, by eating calorie deficit to lose excess fat and highlight your muscles, all whilst still resistance training to maintain them. Right?
Also, would I just be able to eat at a calorie maintenance and carry on developing muscle through training that way?
Also, if I'm dangerously underweight, won't cutting now be a bad idea, because I would have to lose weight in order to cut?
I'm just surprised I'm close to being underweight, but I still have love handles. Is it because my muscle to fat ratio is out of balance, and if I had more muscle mass than fat mass yet was still my current weight, then I wouldn't have my love handles?
Do you go to a gym and how old are you? I was 58kg when I started lifting at 14 too and went immediately to 60+ kgs while losing bodyfat because I just had 0 muscle , so if you're untrained and young you can lose the fat and still not go further into underweight territory.
I don't, I've just been using weights I have at home. I'm 20.
You went up to 60kg+ from 58kg whilst losing fat? I'm guessing all the weight gain came from muscle you were putting on?
My muscles probably are at 0, my arms are like fricking twigs. For years I was just focused on fat loss and didn't care about muscle, so all my exercise consisted of cardio basically. I'm only now realising that probably wasn't the best decision.
Yea if you are serious about making a change i'd say start weight training. Being so underdevelopped (no offense meant) you dont even need to worry that much about the diet, bulking or cutting, you'll gain muscle just from training. Also would recommend watching some lifting content, you didnt seem sure about what cutting and bulking meant in a previous comment and those are very basic terms, Mike Israetel is a really good resource for learning about these things. We're all gonna make it OP
>Being so underdevelopped (no offense meant)
None taken. I know I am lol.
I'll be sure to check him out. Was just watching a muscle building journey video on youtube, and he said a similar thing to you. How when you're underdeveloped just starting out and lifting weight will see a change, even if you're not tracking calories.
Thanks for your reply, anon. It's helped a lot. You're right, we're all going to make it.
Your neck is too small. There's no way you have 4 % body fat.
the "twink" body has an inherent softness to it that suggests some bodyfat % but not too much. if you dont have much muscle definition/mass and are too fat, the answer is obvious right? lose fat gain muscle until you reach the body composition you want. you can do lots of high rep low intensity low weight exercise to tone your body, you wont gain much muscle but itll help burn fat and give you a little bit of definition. unless you have a genetic defect that allows you to gain and hold moronic amounts of muscle(you would know if you did, you would be swole without even lifting) then you aint got shit to worry about
Thank you, anon.
This is also incredibly helpful. I'm definitely not looking to get overly swole, just some slight muscle definition. I'll carry on experimenting with weights and try doing some high rep low intensity low weight exercises too.
"Toning" with high rep low weight does not exist, all you can do is gain/lose muscle and gain/lose fat. So when you're training to gain muscle you just wanna make sure you train with whatever weights and reps make you go close to failure, above 4 and below 20 ideally.
The "toning" just comes after from losing fat
i never meant toning in the context that people have traditionally used it, i just used it as a stand in for "light muscle gain" as thats what ive always assumed people mean correlate the term with.
yes you can only build muscle or lose muscle, and that happens in a few steps ie sarcoplasmic growth followed by cell proliferation and finally myofibrillar growth
In that case, why would he want light muscle gain? Escaping skinny fat mode takes a while on its own, doing it with a training program designed for less muscle gain than normal sounds just worse
i love how people just think they have defined abs by default lol. if thats the case why work out? you already have big define biceps by default right? and quads? strange how that logic doesnt carry over
and if you dont believe me then point me to one picture of a starved corpse from a concentration camp or prisoner of war with defined abs.
Well, I don't think people have defined abs by default. That's why I was so confused that every source online kept saying you only need to loose weight to see your abs and that "everyone has them already".
believe nothing of what you hear, and only half of what you see
people are moronic, its literally that simple. people lie, people cope, people overexaggerate, this and that and the other. morons with 30% bf cope "OH YEAH I WOULD HAVE ABS IF I JUST DIETED".
Is it POSSIBLE to have abs without training them? Does everyone have abs? Yeah you have abs as in the muscles exist sure. If you deadlift 500kg and squat 300kg and OHP 120kg yeah your core is probably fricking absurdly strong that you dont need to isolate them. But fi you dont, and you dont do crazy calisthenics and all kinds of gimmicks then you probably wont have visible abs. So in that case you do need to train them. Like there isnt one blueprint that fits literally 6 billion people's goal.
If you can curl 5kg dumbbells you probably need to have pretty fricking low bodyfat to have good arm definition. If you can curl 30kg dumbbells you dont need to have low bodyfat you will have pretty fricking great definition even at like 20% bodyfat. Its all relative.
Lift, eat protein, train your muscles, cut if you have too much bodyfat. Bulk if you are not gaining muscles and want size.
I've been lifting 7.5kg dumbbells, doing 5x10 with each arm, and russian twists with a 10kg weight. I can do them alright, but by the time each are over I'm definitely ready to stop.
If I keep training with weights and keep at a slight calorie deficit and a low weight, will I eventually get what I'm going for?
>How do I achieve a physique like pic rel?
Don't eat, and don't lift. EZ
Lift but don’t eat is the correct answer
Having more muscle makes it a lot easier to lose fat.
Take a moderate amount of roids and don’t eat.
The only correct answer is , just train and wait. And yes you need to train your abs directly if you're that light and still dont have abs.
post body for better advice
>eat like auschwitz survivor
>spam moronic ABS in 2 weeks programs one by one
>occasionally do some push ups and pull ups (make sure to keep it as limited as possible so your chest and back doesn't grow accidently)
>do that for year or two
there you go
>occasionally do some push ups and pull ups (make sure to keep it as limited as possible so your chest and back doesn't grow accidently)
You know its a dyel when they think you can accidentally get HUGE with pullups and pushups, you do not need to train sub-optimally, train to gain the most amount of muscle in the areas that you want it, cause it'll take you years to get your goal physique, and if by some miracle you're a muscle building freak, then it'll just mean you'll get there faster and you can just go into maintenance