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Bodybuilding Advice?

Discussion in 'Self Improvement' started by Deleted Account, Apr 10, 2018.

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  1. Hello! This is mainly aimed for bodybuilders here or for people that have the know-how and just don't care to actually do it.

    I'm a 181-182 pound guy that's been working out for about 2 years now. I'm not very muscular yet since I first started out at 130 pounds. ( Either that or I'm not working hard enough in it )

    But I've had times where my biceps and triceps, for example, had quite a bit of definition. However, my last couple of bulking cycles haven't produced many results since I messed up the sleeping and eating and I've been on a trip that made me lose about 8 pounds. I do not plan on messing up the cycle I started a few days ago, so I come seeking advice on mainly working out.

    What are some of the best chest, tricep, and bicep workouts that I can do at home? Recommended number of sets and reps? I really want to grow my upper body and core and I think I've found a good ab workout ( though if you have advice, please share it ), but I need some advice for the other parts of my body.

    At home, I have two mats, a bench, and some dumbbells. 5s, 10s, 12s, 15s, 20s, 35s, 60s.

    Last night, I did three sets up of push-ups until failure. That was about 36 in one set, 58 in two, and 75 in three. ( Record was 90 ) And I'm not even slightly sore today when in the past, I would be.

    The diet and sleeping, I'm fine in, but after every workout of my upperbody, I want to ensure it's sore.

    Thanks for reading!
     
  2. Noted, thanks, man.
     
  3. For chest, triceps and shoulders I would recommend volume work with push-ups.

    10 sets of 15-30 reps of push-ups, diamond push-ups, feet elevated push-ups, push-ups where one hand is on a block etc. The key is to rest only 60 seconds to 90 seconds between the sets. Eventually you can do upto 20 sets this way. You will have crazy triceps definition, decent mass and insane work capacity. You will get very athletic as well.

    Same can be done with chinups and neutral grip pull-ups. Try doing 50-200 total reps of these within one hour workout.

    Throw in handstand holds and handstand push-ups against the wall and your upper body workouts are done.

    Sounds easy, but is very hard to accomplish. But it will literally make you a beast.

    For legs, squats with weights... Nothing else comes close.

    Good luck. Eat at a slight surplus and don't bulk or cut too much. It's gonna be a slow and steady process. No magical shortcuts exist and not are they sustainable. Good luck once again.
     
    Deleted Account likes this.
  4. Hey, thanks! Didn't expect another reply on this thread, but I'll add your recommendations to my list.
     
  5. Barbell curls
    DB curls
    Concentration curls
    DB Tricep extensions
    Skull crushers with an Ez bar
    Single DB Tricep press (behind the head two hands)

    Chest
    Just presses man. DB and BB
    You could do flys to finish off but I think stick to presses
     
  6. I learned a long time ago that it doesn't matter what you do as long as you use progressive overload in your routine.

    For size, eat a lot of protein. It doesn't matter when (anabolic window is a bullshit notion concocted by the supplement industry) as long as you meet your macro quota for the day. I know a guy who is extremely muscular and outrageously cut and he swears on the intermittent fasting timing. His eating window is 22-2 and he's still large. Not Jay Cutler or Ronnie Coleman large, but definitely larger than someone who doesn't work out.
     
  7. It´s necessary to do that overload (add weight or reps) every workout or it´s okay to progress maybe for every 2-3 weeks? E.g. some exercises where the progress isn´t that fast like biceps dumbbells, triceps and chest pulley.
     
  8. Yea, of course. Smaller muscles require more time for recovery.

    What you can do is progressively overload your compound movements. You won't get your size from doing isolation movements, anyway. What people normally do is put the ancillary workouts at the end and do them if they feel like it. The large majority of your work should be done doing compounds, anyway.
     
  9. I'd say the exact opposite. You can train biceps and shoulders every day. Good luck doing that with quads.
     
  10. Actually, yea you're right. It's late and I didn't put enough thought into that statement. Smaller muscles require less rest than larger muscles.
     
  11. Thank you. Right, I´m focusing on the compounds like Squat, Front Squat, Deadlift, Bench, Pull-Ups and OHP.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 27, 2018
  12. Ibnmorales

    Ibnmorales Fapstronaut

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    compound movements. bench squat deadlifts and try to go as heavy as you can it also depends on your genetics ( you said you don't see progress on your upper body ). and to grow you have to eat a calorie surplus meaning you got to eat more then you burn so I would suggest buying a weight gainer it packs tons of calories . hope this helps.
     
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  13. Jack of Clubs

    Jack of Clubs Fapstronaut

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    How tall are you? The weight stats don't mean much without that.
    You said you wanted to focus on your upper body but mentioned that you also do pretty extensive leg work (front squats, back squats and deadlifts). You can't have everything as a natural lifter. If you want an impressive upper body then do more upper body and less lower body.
    If your legs already overdeveloped then put them on the back burner for a bit, they won't wither away over night.
    If your legs are still tooth pick status then just do lower body stuff once a week. In that case I'd drop back squats in favour of front squats, which is basically choosing the more quad dominant movement over the more glute dominant movement.

    Also your expectations may be too high, especially if you are comparing your body to basically anyone online. Anyone even remotely popular on youtube is almost certainly not natural.
    Ultimately I think its better for natural lifters to focus on strength or athleticism rather than muscle growth as a goal as it stops you from spinning in circles chasing something that may never come.
    Training to increase your bench press weight for example is a reasonable goal, any muscle growth that comes along for the ride is a bonus.
     
  14. Last time I measured, I was at 5'11.

    Where did I mention I do extensive leg work? Up until recently, I don't do much leg work at home at all. However, now that it's cooling, I plan to start biking around my neighborhood. Last time I did that, I had to waddle into my house. :p I also do calf stuff at home since I found some good at-home workouts for those muscles.

    Mmm... I usually don't compare myself to YouTubers as I did suspect they were using steroids. However, I did gain quite a bit of muscle size and definition during my first year of working out. It's just I tend to plateau, so I'm looking for upper-body workout regimes, as recommended by others above, that I can stick with at home and push myself. Gym is fine, it's just home stuff I'm looking for.

    I'm not looking to naturally gain like 5 pounds of muscle by December, that's pretty much impossible, right? (and I have zero interest in steroids) But just something that I know can help me grow, even if it is slowly. Better to go slowly than nowhere at all, eh?
     
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  15. Jack of Clubs

    Jack of Clubs Fapstronaut

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    My bad, I muddled someone else's post with yours regarding legs. You can ignore all that.

    The post from BestVersionToday basically has all the exercises you'd want to choose from.
    The post from beastmodesoon about the importance of progressive overload is all you need in terms of planning your workouts.

    Dumbed down version of progressive overload: Each week try and improve the weight you did last week, if you can't improve the weight, try and increase the reps. After 8-10 weeks or so when you are around the point where you are struggling to make improvements, lower the weight back down to what you did on week 2-3, start the process again. Rinse repeat.
    Don't fuss over numbers, pick standard rep ranges between 5-15. Lower numbers for big movements, higher numbers for smaller movements.
    There is no magic combination of exercises/rep ranges/diet/sleep that suddenly leads to amazing growth so don't waste too much of your time searching for it.

    You may also already have gained most of the muscle there is to gain. In my experience all natural lifters basically cap out by the 2nd year or so of lifting, then to solve the plateau problem they desperately search for answers that leads them vulnerable to all sorts of scams and fantasy-peddling.
    I know this is a pretty pessimistic outlook but I've just seen so many guys reach the same point (the plateau) and go no further.
    That's why I say you should focus on either strength or athletics/sport because if you really have no room left for growth, at least you are guaranteed to accomplish something with your training rather than hoping for muscle growth that may never come.
     
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