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Trying to optimize fitness is the worst mistake people make imo. Pick heavy stuff, consume some protein, no more thought. Worrying about what exercise is most effective or small differences doesn't matter as much people think.
This is why I like just doing sports. I'm getting fit, probably not in the most efficient way, but at least I'm having easy fun to get there.
Sports also give you more motivation to do general fitness stuff, because now you have a reason beyond just getting in better shape.
Any health related question will be fucked by a million different sites trying to sell you something.
Yep. ChatGPT churns out thousands of shitty articles on every conceivable subject and this is what we get.
I just fill a canvas bag with sausage links and strap it to my face so I can take protein before, during and after my ideal workout: 100 burpees with a 200 lb weight vest.
my HGH guy says puke is laziness leaving the body.
It can be very confusing when you think too hard for fitness. The best thing is to go simple because then you will see better results without damaging your mental health in the process.
So a few things:
All nutrition science is like 70 years old at most, most of it is garbage and we can basically conclude that you should probably eat things and if unsure of what just vary them.
Almost all studies on sports nutrition and athletic performance are either based on short term very unfit people in small groups, or high performance athletes. Neither group is very representative of average and following athlete focused advice may damage your body.
Only one in a million things you'll read online are even remotely based on scientific evidence, flawed as it is.
So yeah, just exercise ramping up slowly. Lingering pain is a warning sign, you should eat things especially if you find yourself ravenously hungry. If you want to look like a body builder you will need a steroids hookup and maybe a human growth hormone hookup.
Not into a beefy body builder type bod, maybe old school pre Arnold, but mainly a powerlifter physique, plus I'm relatively skinny rn so I don't mind a bit of chub as long as it sits right on my frame (gender is a fuck, idc if my obliques are worked and not gonna mind doing bench press variations that'll give me too much titty, after I research more about all the effects and such gonna boof estrogen anyways so I'm somewhere in between, no roids or hgh though, I can do it natty and live with those results)
I'm a trans fem arthritic cripple so I don't really know much about body sculpting stuff. My routines are all about trying to slow arthritis and support running without overstressing this silly floppy body.
My remark about PEDs is mostly tongue in cheek, I don't judge people experimenting with their own bodies with hormones (glass houses and stones haha, it's not the old men in labcoats that make my choices valid after all) but I don't exactly recommend it.
Just that as with all advertising the body types you see promoted are either artificial or the result of shitloads of work and very lucky genetics also presented in the best light possible. Masculine or feminine they're never particularly realistic goals so it's worth keeping in mind.
Weights sound right though, free weight stuff is great for joint health if you don't push it too hard (remember that muscles will grow much much faster than connective tissue or bone density, particularly if you have significant levels of T. If you go too hard you will snap a tendon). I'd aim for sets of like 5-8? that's on the safer side of hypertrophy iirc. I think isolation exercises are better for making particular muscles huge but you develop less strength and asymmetric strength is maybe implicated in injury.
Re food, if you log your exercises you'll notice if you do worse one day or the other and can correlate that. you'd probably benefit from something like some oats and a coffee before a workout. I think it's also generally recommended to have a slight caloric surplus to encourage muscle growth (you'll have to lose the chub later if you do that though) and eat a nutritious meal within a couple of hours after working out. I'm not a carnist so can't really comment on the usual meals people choose, I just eat something beany :p
You can also not have a caloric surplus if you don't want to have to deal with losing it later, results will be slower but still there. Just start shifting towards more protein heavy foods. There's this whole thing of protein quality and limiting amino acids but tbh I find it joyless as hell to think of food that way so don't bother personally. Just making sure I eat a variety of foods like lentils, beans, tofu, and whole grains.
My ex is a pole dancer and mad into this shit so I could ask if you like, but it's a spicy topic as we broke up over differences in food ethics.
Chubness is no issue here, I lose weight fairly easy have almost always been skinny except for like 5th n 6th grade, and like 5 months ago when I wasn't working and just laying in bed hoping I'd fall asleep and not wake up... Anyway. I do know that high weights come with higher risks which is why I've been doing lower weight but higher reps, prolly still doing slight damage to my ligaments though because of that and doing isolating exercises on the machines because I'm worried about moving wrong with a free weight or something. idk. I just have no spotter rn so not like I can do bench or squat at the moment, and deadlift would be fine but I'd want someone to help check form. They do have more options at pf for free weights besides barbells and plates. But like 9 out of 10 times there's an absolute unit in the mirror doing his thing and I'm not about to strut up beside him and start doing my piddly weights. I know it's not about comparisons and about being better than you were yesterday but idk lol I'm just weird about it.
Also I'm a vegan/vegetarian conscious (I make sure my vegan vegetarian comrades I serve know there's animal products in whatever they might potentially get.) carnist (I feel like animal protein is easier to do hands down and as a society we aren't ready to switch anyways, but I have made a few delish vegan/vegetarian meals and if I had a better paying job so I could take cooking classes to hone in on technique instead of just doing "random bullshit go!" I'd prolly be vegan) so not really limited to what I can eat so that's no issue here. Is there a way to help ensure my tendons, ligaments,(whatever else) develop at a better rate, like any certain proteins or training regiment? Oh and if you make beans again soon, try adding a small amount of baking soda to the water while cooking them, having a basic environment helps break down the plant proteins making them soft af(incredible, delicious), whereas more acidic will make them harder and cronchy (bad, disgostang).
Check out the strong lifts 5x5 program. I've found it's a really good intro to weightlifting for health. The guy that devised the program has a bunch of advice on correct form, and more importantly, mountains of advice on spotting bad form. And it's nice to see his own photos on form because it's just like Some Dude, not a beef pillar, and he's out here squatting 300lbs easy.
If you can, try to find a place with a squat or power rack - removes the need for a spotter entirely for bench and squats.
If you want to crank up protein, add nutritional yeast to a meal. It's about 50% protein by weight, which is more than any meat. Or check out protein shakes, they make vegan powders.
There's not really anything specifically to improve connective tissue except make sure you have nutrient and you rest. We don't even really know why muscles strengthen. The explanation you hear of "micro tears something something doms grow back thicker" is demonstrably false, as far as I can tell it's like "umm hormone bullshit inflammatory markers go?". Part of strength is also neuronal signalling improvements hence "greasing the groove" stuff so it's not even entirely clear how strength specifically builds. Bodies are fun!
Tendons and ligaments are poorly vascularised, like if you've ever seen the insides of a living animal (like watching surgery videos or witnessing a significant injury whatever) you'll notice they're kinda pale and don't bleed much. Consequently they're not very active metabolically and just take ages to grow. Snapping them is so bad because it takes months to heal and slow healing = bad healing.
So loading up too fast, or skipping rest (something I would know nothing about having flawless mental health and not holding my life together with running) will accumulate damage until they fail.
I get the self consciousness at gyms but honestly giant gym bros are usually really nice and helpful. Think of it like they're muscle hobbiests. It takes so much work and focus to get there that they have to be pretty passionate and most people genuinely enjoy others being interested in their hobbies and want to help beginners.
At least the third result is correct I guess. That's mostly the case with eating, anyway. It doesn't really matter when you eat, or what specifically you eat. As long as you're getting the nutrients required for whatever task you're trying to accomplish over like a weekly period, you'll be fine.
Like I guess it doesn't matter... But could I not get whiplash every time I ask a fitness question to Google
Yeah it really sucks. I've been lifting consistently for about 15 months and there's SO much junk content out there. Unless you are going to be a bodybuilder, just eat clean, progressively overload your weights and sleeeeep.
Yessir. What do you think about the 1g of protein per lb of bodyweight? Do about 75% of that or? Not going to be body building per se but I do want to get strong for my size. But for now some muscle is welcome. Like enough to look like the pump I get atm would be nice
I think the general purpose advice is to eat lots of food, get lots of sleep, and leave further changes for when you can't make linear progress on your lifts anymore. 1 g/lb is the standard rule of thumb but hard to hit, 0.75 seems reasonable to me.
For getting good physique:
- Have the right genetic makeup (try not to be sad if not / temper expectations)
- Eat more/eat less (can be difficult)
- Work out (for general health reasons, not to lose/gain weight)
So it builds suspense when you click it. :3 that's it. or it could be interpreted as not safe for workouts
I think the healthiest thing to eat is w/e the fuck you're really craving, unless of course you're in some unhealthy dysbiotic loop where your cravings are compromised
hasn't failed me yet, but doing the opposite has
I like to eat something light before working out just because I don’t wanna risk passing out from hunger or whatever. I don’t know if that has any scientific basis, but I do it because I feel like it.
Then I try to eat some protein within an hour of working out because I heard some guy say it a long time ago
I don't like to eat before working out, I just feel weaker that way. And generally a little less focused. Just from personal experience.
Yeah, I like to go without feeling like I NEED to eat and don't gorge myself before I go ( did it once before p.e. class with some cereal and phrew up ...) I've heard plenty, that you should eat carbs before protein after or vice versa. Imo as long as I get enough protein in a day it should be fine, and carbs are so easy to ingest because they're in almost everything that it's not a huge problem checking to see if I've gotten any. But yeah I do try to do an after workout protein shake after, right before bed.
