5'9, male, normally around 160-165lbs. Did non competitive gymnastics for 3 years and competitive gymnastics for an another 3 years, then moved to CrossFit (dont kill me) for 2 years before just going to a normal gym. During that time (so approximately from 10-19 years old) I have found it impossible to actually gain muscle in any meaningful way, and I genuinely dont understand what I am doing wrong.
I can normally keep decent looking biceps and defined abs, however I fully admit that I am significantly weaker than I look. I was always close to the weakest in gymnastics, and when I moved to CrossFit i generally struggled with anything besides calisthenics and one rep max type stuff. My endurance has always been dogshit, and no matter what I do (swimming, running, rowing etc) I can never seem to increase my cardio performance.
In regards to diet I normally keep a very low carb diet (50-100 grams daily) unless I have cheat meals or it is around the holidays (like right now), and I normally can keep my weight around 160-165 if I am off creatine on a high carb diet. I normally keep a low carb diet because of sports injuries that I acquired and the only thing that seems to help is a low carb diet. I have been off my diet for about 2-3 weeks now and my weight has shot up to 177, something I am not thrilled about.
I am currently off creatine because I am hoping to lose that water weight (I was taking 3 grams and then bumped it up to 5) but if you guys would like a breakdown of my supplement stack i'll gladly post it later in the thread.
TLDR:
> Extremely hard time gaining muscle
> Extremely had time improving cardio
> Joints are fricked and requires a diet not conductive to gaining muscle
> when I do gain weight I seem to only be able to gain fat/water weight, and when I lose weight, I seem to lose a proportional amount of muscle as well.
> in addition to all of the above I am almost always in some form of miscellaneous pain, normally joint pain, cramps, or headaches
I'll be back in a bit.
Are you hyper flexible?
in the wrong ways yes. I am a bit more flexible than the average person, however my flexibility comes from my bone structure and not tendons, which means there is no real way to take advantage of it, i just end up hurting myself.
gain weight you nerd
if i go above 180 i am in near constant joint pain, and as someone who currently survives off of manual labor that is something i cannot do. i need a way to properly do body recomp or actually gain more strength without gaining weight.
You genuinely need to take an entire month away from physical activity, preferably away from your job during this time too.
i'll try my best but that will be extremely hard to do. at best i could change what kind of labor i am doing, however that will take at least a month or so for me to accomplish.
that's tough, anon. how long have you been doing regular weightlifting, and what kind of program are you doing?
i stopped lifting regularly due to my extremely chaotic and demanding schedule, i do however do 40-50 hours of manual labor a week. what really worries me is that despite working in this field both part time and full time depending on school i have never been able to gain the same level of strength that my coworkers have, even the ones who dont exercise regularly who are both my age/weight or younger/lighter. This of course leaves me extremely drained as my body cannot seem to adapt as my strength hit a plateau junior year of highschool.
*i have been working the same kind of job for about 3 years now. if you would like to consider training, that would be around 4 years (training had a very similar level of physical demand)
Any chance you might be overtrained due to combining lots of manual labor with training?
as i mentioned, i am not in any routine training regime, when i was working part time as well as lifting i was getting extremely subpar results. it is going on a year and a half since i have actually lifted regularly. While i am working full time i am normally so physically exhausted that I normally dont do any kind of additional exercise besides hiking on the weekends.
Many tendies create strong fren few tendies create weak fren
What's your protein intake?
when I am on my low carb diet easily over 100 grams a day, depending on the day, i may even end up in "unhealthy" levels of protein intake, as i can easily sit down and eat a 20 oz steak in one sitting (but like once a day or every other day, sometimes I'll take it and ration it throughout the day)
Why are you eating low carb? My experience with it is that it made me very tired and sluggish, and by extension, weaker.
i lose weight but i do not feel sluggish at all, if anything my energy increases. i can go longer without food and there seems to be very little effect on my overall weight if i am eating replacement calories, I simply cant gain weight.
So reading all of this I think it's one of these 4 things
1)You are overtrained and need rest
2)Low carb diet and your over focus on keeping your weight low is keeping your strength back. Possibky a different nutritional issue
3)You have mentally internalized being weak and as such cannot 100% tap into your available strength. Fixing this is easier said than done
4)You drew the short straw in the gentic lottery and are focusing too much on stuff you are simply not goid at.
elaborate on your last point please. I should mention that i am naturally well built from the waist down, and i have very good abs, however due to leg injuries doing intense leg workouts are a no no. They look fine, and so do my abs (normally, stuck with a 4pack though). so my legs are wrecked due to injury and my upper body does not seem to be able to gain weight, and although i have decent ab strength, they already serve their purpose well enough. its as i mentioned earlier, i may look physically fit, but i am significantly weaker than i look.
>i may look physically fit, but i am significantly weaker than i look.
This can happen, I have the same problem, maybe not to that extent.
What's your bench/other lifts atm?
the last time i had the equipment to do PRs was when i was 15-16. the gym where i was going to for awhile didnt have free weights and the other crossfit gyms i was at did not strongly emphasize PRs. bench was low 200s and back squad was mid 200s, dead lift was low 300s.
Ok, different question, how many push ups can you do in a row?
i would need to check, probably between 30-40.
> normally keep a very low carb diet (50-100 grams daily)
Found the problem
i should mention that this was a recent thing within the last 2ish years. i cycle on and off so about 4-6 months on, and then take the rest of the year off. i need to get more consistent with it, but i was having all of these same issues (just with additional joint pain) when i was off this diet.
Why are you doing crossfit to gain muscle? Go back to gymnastics.
i quit crossfit about 2 years back. quit gymnastics due to cost and injuries. My doctor highly advised that i quit before i ended up with any more knee damage.
Just do static strength gynastics training.
fair enough, i am decent at (or was decent at) calisthenics, and i should do more, the issue is that when i am adding any additional weight or specifically lifting things it seems like my strength goes out the window.
Eat raw eggs blended with cocoa powder, milk, and a bit of sugar and ginger for taste. Cholesterol (and saturated fat) are prohormones for testosterone. Do not consume excess fats, rather replace existing PUFAs and MUFAs with SFAs.
You could also just cut 90% of fat and eat lots of starch, which metabolizes into saturated fat. That's what asians do, and it keeps them thin.
Go read the croissant diet blog if you have a chemistry background.
Also if you're on TRT you should be taking HCG and an aromatase inhibitor to preserve sperm production.
Other than that, you can always split your focus between strength, agility, and endurance. If you work a trade endurance is most important anyway.
I spend 3 hours a week on my assault bike and baling hay isn't too hard compared to when I was a lifter.
yea i was planning on going with a starch heavy diet in the near future. what is the difference between sfa's and monosaturated fats?
The degree to which they resist oxidation.
SFAs (saturated fatty acids) resist most, PUFAs least, MUFAs in middle.
MUFAs + PUFAs == yellow fat gain
SFAs == brown fat gain, if at all (higher body temp & metabolic rate, mild anabolic effect).
There's other stuff like obesogenic pesticides, so eat organic or grow your own & install a water filter.
You should consider dance and martial arts classes, to impress bawds so you can leech off them and cuck brown men. Back when I was a boxer I literally didn't pay rent because I could float between gfs apartments and I had a milf to live with.
If you're hot you do not pay for anything. Women are given money by simps, which they trade to you for sex.
This man doesn’t know how to eat, it’s not an interesting thread, you can safely ignore it