Post fitness redpills
>reverse curls are a forearm compound
>super sets and giant sets are amazing timesavers and can replace part of your cardio
>most people egolift on RDLs, people should always go to the limit of their hamstring flexibility instead of just below the kneecap
>front lever pulls are free lat volume, throw them in on lower/leg days if lats are a focus for you
>pullovers, either bent arm and/or straight arm, are mandatory
>abs should be trained hard and frequently
>becoming flexible through resistance training is very easy
>calves, specifically gastroc, should be trained with an absurdly high intensity (10+ negatives after hitting concentric failure) to reduce the needed sets to a minimum so you don't skip
>adductor isolation is important so you don't get groin tweaks squatting
>deadlifts are good for strength but not necessary for hypertrophy, RDLs + lots of rowing can entirely replace them. doesn't mean they're bad for hypertrophy either though
>BTNP is safe if you know how to move your scapula correctly to avoid impingement
>pretty much anything on rings is amazing for hypertrophy, especially pushups and dips
>more people should isolate external rotation to prevent rotator cuff injuries
>lower traps and infraspinatus are very underrated muscles for back aesthetics
>pecmaxxers should train their pec minor for even more growth, most people entirely overlook this muscle
>myoreps are underrated
>leg machines are highly underrated, however there are also very obscure home gym alternatives for many of them that are just as good
>anyone can squat ATG given enough added heel elevation, but some people may not find this practical
>seated good mornings are to squats what RDLs are to deadlifts
>deep ring dips are one of if not the best chest exercise, as the rings accomodate for your build while allowing you to get an absurd stretch on your pecs
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>forearm training is very important for aesthetics, large upper arm but small lower arm looks very unaesthetic
>hammer curls are a hybrid lift
>the rectus femoris does not get adequatly stimulated by squatting, you need to isolate it
>hip thrusts are one of the only heavy lower body movements that you can effectively do myoreps on, highly recommended for assmaxxers
>most people should have some sort of unilateral squat in their program
>training is the most important variable for muscle gain besides steroids; sleep, diet, hydration, and meme supplements only exist to support the training, therefore they are less important
>hamstrings are highly overrated for squats
>dead hangs and back extensions will fix back pain for the vast majority of people, with a few other exercises needed for the exceptions
>most people can and should do more volume for their legs and upper back
>thoracic erectors are highly underrated; you can train them by rounding and extending your thoracic spine on chest supported rows
>the stretch is more stimulative than the squeeze, but the squeeze should not be avoided either, and typically it is also easier on the connective tissues
>powell raises are amazing for rear delts
>pause deficit pushups as your last horizontal press are very effective as you won't need any extra weight to work within a relevant rep range, go ham on this for big chest gains
>the muscles you're going to want to work to help deal with shoulder pain are: all heads of the deltoid with a focus on the rear delts, the traps and rhomboids as a whole with a focus on the lower traps, the infraspinatus, the teres minor, the serratus anterior, and in some cases the pec minor. besides these do dead hangs and shoulder mobility work.
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>movement is medicine, if you have pain in a tendon/joint you can't just let it rest, you need to get lots and lots of bloodflow to it. that being said don't put tons of load on it either as that will just make things worse
>more people should do piriformis work, everything involving the hip feels nicer after. weighted incline (flat once you progress enough) pigeon good mornings are my go-to
>everyone should have a squat-pattern exercise with maximal knee bend somewhere in their program for knee health and VMO development. doesn't necessarily have to be a barbell squat though
>larsen press is better than bench press for pec hypertrophy in most cases
>you should spend as much time as possible in a surplus, as you're playing offense in a surplus and defense in a deficit. therefore, bulks should be 1 year long at minimum, preferably 1.5-2 years, while cuts can be much faster.
>permabulking is also an option if you have a small appetite as the periods where you slack on your diet will work as a minicut, meaning that in some cases you can literally bulk for 5 years straight if you're comfortable being at a slightly higher bodyfat
>recomping does work, but the tradeoff is that it is much slower than bulk/cut cycles. it is only useful for novices who are not too skinny or too fat, and for advanced lifters that need a period of stability for whatever reason, as this is the main benefit of a recomp
>while tracking calories is fine, you can bulk and cut without tracking calories by closely monitoring your weight and altering your intention of how much food you need to consume depending on whether you're bulking/cutting too fast, too slowly, or at just the right rate. this won't work for everyone though
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>static rep ranges like 3x10 are not particularly good for hypertrophy because of sandbagging, rep ranges like 3x8-12 are much better. however, the fewer sets you do, the less flawed static rep ranges are, for example there is no sandbagging at all with 1x5, but 5x5 will result in a lot of sandbagging
>on exercises where adding reps is extremely hard but adding small amounts of weight is easy, static rep pyramids are also better than static rep ranges. instead of 3x8 for example, you would do 9/8/7 reps
>training the tibialis anterior and the soleus can help fix knee/shin pain from high impact activities; the soleus is also important for achilles tendon health
>once you're out of the novice stage, you should write your own program instead of continuing to use cookie-cutter programs as programming for yourself will account for your individual differences and preferences much better. though you could simply make changes to the novice program you were running over time, so that it evolves with you as your training progresses
>when training for strength, you want to get the most advantageous leverages to lift the most amount of weight possible. when training for hypertrophy, you want to get the most disadvantageous leverages to lift the least amount of weight possible
>the easiest way to get in grip work for deadlifts is to hold the last rep at the top until your grip gives out, or for a prescribed duration. if you have grip issues, try this before adding other exercises
>if you want free work for your upper traps, after finishing a set of any exercise that involves holding a barbell/dumbbells in your hands, do shrugs to failure. if the weight is too heavy (deadlifts, rackpulls), hold it at lockout instead. straps are necessary for this, obviously
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what is sandbagging
From an earlier post:
>Sandbagging is when you do not use your full effort, in this case you cannot go to failure (or even 1-2 RIR in some cases) on the first set because you wouldn't be able to hit the same amount of reps on the later sets due to fatigue, so you have to stop multiple reps from failure on the first set to prevent that from happening, which isn't what you want. Even if you don't intend on going to failure anyway this still causes the intensity on each set to be different as the later sets will be closer to failure than the earlier ones, while with a rep range you can keep the amount of reps in reserve about the same on each set.
>Now, sandbagging isn't inherently bad if you're doing it intentionally, but static rep ranges force you to unintentionally sandbag, which is obviously bad.
>thots who spam abductor work actually make their asses look worse; the glute medius and minimus sit near the top of the pelvis, so when they grow a lot you get inverted triangle ass, which looks really bad. this isn't to say that you shouldn't train your abductors, rather you should get your abductor work indirectly from unilateral leg exercises instead so you don't get this issue
>nordic curls are one of if not the best hamstring isolation exercise if you have a good setup for them, because they're the most difficult in the lengthened position unlike most leg curl machines which are typically more difficult in the contracted position
>because you should always do RDLs with a full range of motion, you will get more flexible hamstrings over time, which means that eventually you'll need to alter the exercise to accomodate for the greater ROM. for most people, bar to toes off of a deficit with a wide grip, knees behind ankles, and a neutral/arched back is fairly realistic after 1-2 years, 3 max
>pause reps and slow eccentrics are extremely good for hypertrophy
>adductors are very underrated for aesthetics, they're a larger muscle group than the hamstrings and contribute a lot to how wide your legs appear from the front
>if you get wrist pain/snapping sensations from traditional wrist curls, try doing behind the back barbell finger curls instead, as they tend to be much easier on the wrists while still providing a good stimulus to the forearms
>OHP is a good side delt builder, but this doesn't mean you should skip your lateral raises; do both
>inverted rows, especially on rings, are an extremely effective upper back exercise, especially at the end of a workout when you are already fatigued. you can also do them at the start of a workout, but this becomes problematic when you gain enough strength due to how much extra weight you'll need to add. highly recommended for home gym enjoyers
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>your cardio should be good enough to do high rep pause squat/deadlift variations without any problems; if this isn't the case, you can work on it by simply doing pause squat/deadlift variations for low reps, and slowly increase the reps over time. some standard cardio on the side will help with this too
>don't fear-monger over movements that hit the hip flexors, the hip flexors should still be trained like any other muscle as weak hip flexors can actually cause problems. ideally you want to have hip flexors that are both strong and flexible
>lu raises are highly underrated for side delts
>db flye-presses are extremely good for pec development since you can overload the pecs in a stretched position, but make sure to start light so that the pec tendons can adapt to the extreme positions
>wide grip pullovers are one of the best ways to develop your teres major and outer-lat region. the position does feel fairly awkward at first so work into them slowly
>performing front squats after high-bar squats, or any other quad dominant compound movement, makes them even better for hypertrophy since your legs will give out before your thoracic extension does due to pre-fatiguing the legs
>if you have figure 8 straps, you can use them when doing pullups to allow yourself to do neutral grip pullups on a normal pullup bar as well as supinating pullups by locking your hands into the straps by flexing your wrists instead of grabbing onto the bar so that your hands are suspended slightly beneath the bar via the straps. this also means you will never be limited by your grip, which is a great benefit. doing weighted dead hangs somewhere else in your program is highly recommended if you do this since you want to ensure that your grip strength keeps progressing. you could also superset the dead hangs with the pullups since with this modification they will no longer interfere with each other
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>you can also use figure 8 straps on lateral raises to suspend the dumbbells from your wrists so that you don't have to hold on to them, which can allow you to push each set a bit harder while getting a better mind muscle connection. pretty minor modification but it could help for lateral delt hypertrophy
>if forearm hypertrophy is a priority for you, you can do pronator curls to develop your pronator teres, which is highly underdeveloped in most people. when trained however, you can grow it significantly to the point where it becomes a very prominent muscle. highly recommend since the movement is very fun and easy to fit into your training since it isn't very taxing at all
>if you're at your desk a lot, consider keeping a loaded wrist roller at your desk so that you can train your wrist flexors/extensors very frequently throughout the day. very simple hack to feed tons of volume to your forearms if forearm hypertrophy is a priority for you. just remember to alternate the direction you roll on each set so that you can train both the flexors and the extensors evenly. you can also apply this method with hand grippers, however they tend to be more for grip strength so keep that in mind
I'll elaborate on any of these when asked. Discuss.
>abs should be trained hard and frequently
How often is enough? And do you have any recs for workouts? I do weighted crunches 2x a week since they're the only exercise that brings me to failure within 10 min
>How often is enough?
3-5x a week is good, but if you really want to make them a priority it's possible to train them 7x a week (though I would recommend using an isometric exercise such as a plank variation or ab wheel rollouts for 2-4 of those sessions to avoid getting too much muscle damage)
>And do you have any recs for workouts?
Sure
>weighted situps (hold the weight behind your head, and if you have one of those ab mat thingies I HIGHLY recommend you use it, since it allows you to stretch your abs a lot more. Alternatively you can do them off of a decline bench instead, I've heard very good things about those. Use slow eccentrics and controlled reps on these, don't be the guy that bounces his back off of the floor constantly and later wonders why his back hurts. 8-20 reps is a good range for these)
>hanging leg raises (Use ankle weights or go toes to bar if they're too easy.)
>lying leg raises (Do these on a bench and load them by holding a dumbbell between your feet. Works pretty well from my experience, but I dropped them from the program simply because the other options were more convenient to setup. They work really well though)
>ab wheel rollouts (Just make sure that you do these properly, stay in spinal flexion by flexing your abs as hard as you can.)
>L-sit progression
>dragon flags (Haven't done these personally but from what I've heard they're really good)
Any of these will work well. Progress them over time like any other exercise, add reps or weight whenever you can without sacrificing technique. Abs are not a super strong muscle group so it will take time but it's definitely worth it.
Completely forgot to mention, you probably want to do 1 ab exercise per session (I would only go to two exercises if you're doing oblique stuff as well, but no more than that) and 2-4 sets per exercise. It shouldn't take up a lot of time, just focus on putting in high-quality sets every session and they will grow.
OP is it you making all the posts thus far? I can only assume so because they're all so detailed. My contribution
>Equally important to how much you do in the gym is how much recovery you give yourself before you train again. If you're doing a lot of work relative to your recovery but giving yourself enough time to recover, you'll be ok. If you're doing only just enough work for an adaptation to occur but training again frequently, you'll be ok. If you train with a lot of work but don't give yourself sufficient recovery time, you won't make gains. If you do barely enough work to grow & train with a low frequency, you probably won't make gains.
>OP is it you making all the posts thus far?
Yup
important to how much you do in the gym is how much recovery you give yourself before you train again. If you're doing a lot of work relative to your recovery but giving yourself enough time to recover, you'll be ok. If you're doing only just enough work for an adaptation to occur but training again frequently, you'll be ok. If you train with a lot of work but don't give yourself sufficient recovery time, you won't make gains. If you do barely enough work to grow & train with a low frequency, you probably won't make gains.
Completely agree, only thing I'll add to this is that if you're underrecovering, before you reduce your training volume/intensity/frequency you should look into your recovery variables instead, since if you can improve on those you'll recovery faster between each session which will allow you to make progress without reducing your workload.
I would shorten this to “rest and recovery are just as important as working out. If you don’t recover from your workout, you won’t make gains. You should also maximize sleep and nutrition quality to recover as quickly as possible.”
>eat your boogers
my front delts are giving out before my chest
What lift? Assuming you're talking about bench, you should probably spend more time in the bottom position (pause bench vs normal bench) since the bottom position is where the pecs are most active, and you should probably look at your technique to see if you're benching in such a way that biases the front delts too much. If strength is your goal you can try to arch more since that will reduce the involvement of the front delts, but if hypertrophy is your goal you should probably avoid doing that since that reduces the range of motion. Also look at your grip and the amount of flare/tuck your elbows have, if you're using a close grip and you're tucking your elbows a ton you're biasing your front delts more by increasing the amount of shoulder flexion during the lift. And of course this could be due to an imbalance, in that case you should probably do a lot of direct chest work to bring your chest up to resolve that problem.
You don't ACTUALLY need 1g/lb of protein. You'll be fine with getting 0.64g/lb of protein. People just do 0.8-1g/lb of protein just to be safe
True, from what we know 1g/lb isn't necessary, especially for novices, however AFAIK we don't have any data on advanced lifters so they could potentially need 1g/lb of bodyweight or more. But by that point studies don't matter that much anyway since when you're advanced enough you'll know what works for you and what doesn't, so if you reach that point you'll know if your training benefits from higher protein intakes or not. And of course there will be individual variance as well.
>how do you isolate it?
Any single-joint quad exercise. Leg extensions, sissy squats, and reverse nordics will be the main options in this case. Straight-leg hip flexion movements will also heavily involve the rec fem, however because they're very biased towards the contracted position I don't think you'll get a ton of growth from them, but it's something to keep in mind.
>the rectus femoris does not get adequatly stimulated by squatting, you need to isolate it
how do you isolate it?
Lunges with your back foot on a higher plane.
If I have a shoulders and arms day whats the best routine/exercise order to emphasize rear delt and tricep hypertrophy. would this involve ohp at all?
>would this involve ohp at all?
If you're doing shoulders+arms you probably should be doing a vertical press yeah
>whats the best routine/exercise order to emphasize rear delt and tricep hypertrophy.
Well if rear delts and triceps are your priority, you should do them first in the session since whatever you do first will be prioritized. This means that you'll probably end up putting OHP later in the session which is a little unorthodox if it's the only compound in the session, however there's nothing inherently wrong with that IMO. For the first tricep exercise I highly recommend doing a long-head biased exercise since it won't impact your OHP performance as much, however if lateral head is more important to you, you can do a more lateral head biased exercise if you want.
As for rear delt exercises, there's plenty of options to choose from, however powell raises are my personal favorite since they're one of the few rear delt exercises that actually loads the rear delts in a stretched position. As for how to perform them, refer to the bottom of this post
. As for any other rear delt exercises, just do what you like. Facepulls, rear delt flyes, rear delt swings, skiiers, reverse pec dec, etc etc.
For triceps, as I said earlier you should probably aim for a more long-head biased variation. Any overhead tricep extension variation is good, just pick one that agrees with your elbows (barbell/ez bar/dumbbell etc). Incline overhead tricep extensions are also great, I find that they bias the long head even more, and they're also more stable which is a great benefit.
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The only problem with these is that they tend to be fairly hard on the elbows, so if you still experience elbow discomfort even after going through every variation available, you'll probably want to move them to later in the session so that your elbows are more warmed up by then. You can do dual-rope pushdowns instead of the other options if this is the case, since they still bias the long head (in the shortened position as opposed to the lengthened position) while being extremely easy on the elbows. Then you can do a stretch-based long head movement later in the session.
For lateral/medial head, there's plenty of options. Close grip bench and dips with your legs in front of the body for an upright torso are good compounds for them, and for isolation JM presses, skullcrushers, straight bar pushdowns, inverted skullcrushers, and other movements are all great options. Just pick the ones you like and push them hard
Two final notes: firstly, if you want a compound lift for rear delts, rear delt biased rows are your best option. Any row with 45 degrees of elbow tuck will hit the rear delts pretty well, so keep that in mind. That being said, rows will obviously hit the rest of your back so if you don't want that then avoid this option. I've heard that snatch grip deadlifts also hit the rear delts pretty well, but obviously this is a very lower body dominant movement despite the upper back involvement so it's probably not the best idea here either.
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Addendum to this post: the best bench variation for biasing the triceps as much as possible would probably be a paused close grip incline larsen press. The incline allows you to get a bit more elbow bend in the bottom position than a regular bench press, performing it larsen-style (you could also keep your feet down but refrain from using leg drive) makes the bottom proportionally harder when compared to using leg drive which is what you want since you want to tax the triceps as much as possible in the lengthened position, and the pause is just so that you spend more time in that lengthened position. Additionally if you have a football bar you could use that as well since from what I've heard they bias the triceps even more than with a straight bar, so you could use that to bias the triceps even more.
And secondly, any exercise that involves pure shoulder extension (pullovers/straight arm pulldowns/front lever pulls) are great for the triceps long head, since shoulder extension is one of its functions. They're great options since you can accumulate more long head volume without taxing your elbows further since your elbows are locked the entire time. Additionally, bent-arm pullovers also hit the other heads of the tricep since you're extending the elbow as well. All of these movements hit the lats though, so they may not be well-suited on this session either, but it's still something to keep in mind.
Very longwinded post, just wanted to dump all this since I've been thinking and experimenting a decent bit with these muscles, so I have a lot to say lol
Same guy from here
You seem to know a lot, my tricep longhead is genetically inferior compared to my short head, what would be a good split/routine that focuses on destroying this, it sounds like you think should I hit it with back?
>You seem to know a lot, my tricep longhead is genetically inferior compared to my short head, what would be a good split/routine that focuses on destroying this, it sounds like you think should I hit it with back?
My personal approach is to demolish the long head on upper body days with typical tricep isolation (barbell overhead tricep extensions and ez bar incline overhead tricep extensions), and I do pullovers and front lever pulls on lower body days to get some extra stimulus. The idea is that I don't want to do the pullovers/front lever pulls at the end of an upper body session because I'm really tired (I do wide grip pullovers tho but those are more for outer lats/teres major), so instead I do them on the lower body days when I'm fresher. This works really well since I don't get any more elbow stress on the lower body day and I don't get a ton of muscle damage either since the long head doesn't get stretched a ton. With this method you're essentially hitting it 4x a week, with 2 heavy sessions on upper body days and 2 "light" sessions on lower body days, on which you're not going to get any more joint stress, and muscle damage is kept to a minimum as well.
You've probably caught on by now but I'm essentially hitting back 4x a week as well. I think this is fine since the back can tolerate a ton of volume no problem, and from my experience this works pretty well. Of course I vary how much I do for each region between the sessions: I bias the upper back more on upper body sessions while only doing a bit for the lats/teres major, and on the lower body day it's flipped: I do more for lats and less for upper back.
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As for how to implement this into other splits, I don't think it's particularly difficult. On a PPL for example you would do the direct tricep work on the push day and all the straight arm work on the pull day (I would actually recommend doing legs push pull instead just to keep the leg and pull days separate. Pull push legs is also good but in this case I want push to come before pull so legs push pull is the move here). On a full body it isn't too complicated, just arrange the exercises the way I previously described and you're good, should be easy to do since you can do whatever you want with a full body (Not that you shouldn't break the rules with other splits, by definition me doing back work on a lower body day is breaking the rules lmao). If you're doing a more obscure split you'll have to figure it out yourself, but that shouldn't be too complicated.
Mogging only counts if the mogger isn't intentionally thinking about it.
true
>reverse curls are a forearm compound
Still not a compound.
>becoming flexible through resistance training is very easy
This could be changed to “becoming flexible through resistance training is very easy. Use full ROM to hit the stretched position, without pain, then progressively overload ROM over time.”
>deadlifts are good for strength but not necessary for hypertrophy, RDLs + lots of rowing can entirely replace them. doesn't mean they're bad for hypertrophy either though
I would shorten this even further, to “deadlifts are good for strength and hypertrophy, but not necessary. RDLs + lots of rowing can entirely replace them”
>hip thrusts are one of the only heavy lower body movements that you can effectively do myoreps on…
There is literally an entire program called “super squats” which is basically squats with myoreps
>hamstrings are highly overrated for squats
Can we replace this with “compound exercises are effective at building prime movers, but stabilizers need to be built using other exercises to maximize potential” I feel like this redpill is more general and useful.
>static rep ranges like 3x10 are not particularly good for hypertrophy because of sandbagging…
I disagree. I find that leaving a few reps in reserve works better on major compounds, so I like to do straight sets for my compound movements and only have a rep drop off on my isolation movements.
>once you're out of the novice stage, you should write your own program instead of continuing to use cookie-cutter programs…
This is terrible advice. They should at least run an intermediate program before trying to write their own program. They don’t know anything about programming other than linear progression, which only works for beginners.
Thanks
OP can you post body pls? Not trying to hate just curious