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How to Build Muscle

295 points by julianshapiro 10y ago

caub 10y ago
https://daks2k3a4ib2z.cloudfront.net/54a5a40be53a05f34703dd18/57b12ee3ec62b90517b8b4f1_My%20Transformation%202-p-800x593.jpeg https://daks2k3a4ib2z.cloudfront.net/54a5a40be53a05f34703dd1... on the left, it feels far enough muscles for a developer, why would you need more muscles? that consumes more calories :) and are pretty useless, except for our stupidly wrong society's standards
- dethstar 10y ago
  >why would you need more muscles? that consumes more calories :) That just means you get to eat more yummy food. >and are pretty useless, except for our stupidly wrong society's standards That depends on what you want/like to do.
- vemv 10y ago
  - You'll look like a developed man, rather than like a permateenager. This is nature, not artificial standards - Greater bone strength AND flexibility, preventing posture issues - You'll be perceived better in your development team when it comes to leadership, arguments, etc. It's hardwired in us Seems like a deal to me!
- GirlsCanCode 10y ago
  You sound like a fatty.
- toasterlovin 10y ago
  Stronger people are harder to kill. And more useful.
johnward 10y ago
Hackers Guide to gaining muscle: Trenbolone
- caub 10y ago
  not to confound with Toblerone
  - mschuetz 10y ago
    I do like toblerone, though.
wruza 10y ago
Though I'm not taking it as ultimate truth, I'm glad this article exists. Most foobar-advice sites just copy-paste some material without bothering to note readers that it is not backed by anything except similar googled bs. Btw, is anyone aware of "engineer's guide to xyz" aggregator?
- wruza 10y ago
  After reading it, all came down to "if you want to lose some fat, pay some bucks or share the link with 15 people" formula. Subtleties are always there at the end.
jacques_chester 10y ago
Unsurprisingly, there is what looks like a paywall / call-to-spam at the end of the 2nd page. For those who want a non-engineer's guide, I cannot recommend strengtheory.com enough. Greg Nuckols is legitimately strong and legitimately up to date with the research. I'm also struck the idiosyncratic exercise selection. For most beginners a boring group of barbell exercises and a flourish of bicep curls and pullups will get them started. Typically in less time, with less equipment. Take the dumbbell RDL, for example. Most people can't get the barbell variant even vaguely right and it has an entire bar to cue you about what path to follow. Hand grippers? Right out of the gate? The good ones aren't cheap. Or you could just wait until grip strength is a limiting factor.
- douche 10y ago
  I haven't found anything easier to get started with and stick with than the 5x5 program. Squats, deadlifts, bench, overhead press and rows to work the major muscle groups. Start light and build up slowly and steadily. Although my strength-building workout of choice has always been sawing, splitting and stacking firewood. Talk about building functional strength...
  - jodrellblank 10y ago
    That's the basis of the http://www.shovelglove.com/ http://www.shovelglove.com/ workout - take a sledgehammer as a weight, and do labor-equivalent motions with it. Shovelling, splitting wood, rowing, churning butter, harvesting food, etc.
- rawnlq 10y ago
  +1 to strengtheory.com. For example this is probably the absolute best resource on squatting on the internet: http://strengtheory.com/how-to-squat/ http://strengtheory.com/how-to-squat/. For noobs, do StrongLifts 5x5 or Starting Strength instead. Minimal viable workout over premature optimizations! Hand grippers and citrulline malate you'll probably not need for a long long time.
julianshapiro 10y ago
Author here. More than happy to spend the next few hours answering any questions if the admins find that appropriate. I will do my best to cite evidence/research for my responses.
- gaius 10y ago
  I expect dang will be along if it gets out if hand, but its quite normal here to do that :-)
- finkin1 10y ago
  I've seen some studies that say the number of reps you do doesn't matter. Can you comment on this? Here's a link to a study: http://jap.physiology.org/content/early/2016/05/09/japplphysiol.00154.2016 http://jap.physiology.org/content/early/2016/05/09/japplphys... Also, I've never heard of muscles shrinking due to being overworked. Can you elaborate on how this happens?
  - julianshapiro 10y ago
    #1: Reps. When working out for muscle size (as opposed to strength), it's optimal to use a weight that’s light enough to do a set of at least 8 reps with but heavy enough that you can't easily do more than 10 reps [1, 2]. This range of 8 to 10 reps means it's fine if you stop at 8, 9, or 10 reps in any set. Go as high as you can while stopping one rep short of the maximum you feel you could do. Stopping one rep short of exhaustion is an important technique: It doesn’t decrease your rate of gains and it increases your recovery time between sets so that you can complete all your reps (study, study, study) [3, 4]. #2: Shrinking from overworking is surprisingly a real thing. The science is unclear as to how exactly muscle mass responds to resistance exercise, so my answer would be made up if I gave you one. What I can tell you is that "being overworked" is the result of lifting too heavy for too many total reps. This might seem impossible since your body should be unable to continue lifting past a natural point of exhaustion, but if you use machine exercises (especially a pulley machine), it's easy to cause a disproportionate amount of stress to your muscle relative to the incrementing heaviness trajectory you were lifting for free weights. [1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/7873571_Muscular_adaptations_in_response_to_three_different_resistance-training_regimens_Specificity_of_repetition_maximum_training_zones https://www.researchgate.net/publication/7873571_Muscular_ad... [2] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/23252049_Changes_in_muscle_size_and_MHC_composition_in_response_to_resistance_exercise_with_heavy_and_light_loading_intensity https://www.researchgate.net/publication/23252049_Changes_in... [3] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4731492/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4731492/ [4] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21986694 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21986694
capkutay 10y ago
This is good advice but I would caution engineers who sit at their desk all day. Don't just lift heavy weight without spending almost an equal amount of time on core strength and flexibility.
- parthdesai 10y ago
  definitely focus on stretching before work out. I have seen so many of my friends screw up their shoulder because they didn't focus on stretching.
  - gaius 10y ago
    Stretching cold muscles will do nothing at best or injure you at worst - stretch after your workout. Warmup with light exercises first. E.g. if you are planning barbell squats, start with air squats.
    - parthdesai 10y ago
      i usually run for 15-20 mins before proceeding to stretching and then working out.
    - jmartinpetersen 10y ago
      "Another warmup type that provides no performance benefit is doing a light starting set before lifting your normal weights (study). " This advice worries me. You do not warm up to increase performance in each session, you warm up so that you can keep doing sessions (hint: you can't work out when you're injured).
      - gaius 10y ago
        Absolutely. Air squats before real squats get blood flowing into the muscle, you "rehearse" the move a few times to remind yourself of the form, etc. That's what reduces the possibility of injury. If you think about it from an evolutionary perspective, a warmup to increase performance makes no sense - you wouldn't have time to stretch first if you were about to be eaten by a hungry mammoth - the body would want to jump straight to peak power and if you get injured it's better than being dead...
yakster 10y ago
There is a lot of useful advice in that article. However, I am always made weary by people's use of term "muscle growth." What is typically perceived and dubbed as muscle growth is actually simply muscle cells retaining water and sugar as fuels to help accommodate the ongoing increase in physical activity. That is what anyone who begins training observes in the first few months. Think of this as a simple increase in the size of each muscle cell due to storage of extra fuel. This is completely analogous to our accumulation of fat. We barely ever grow the number of fat cells. Instead, we shrink or expand them like sacks. However, when it comes to the actual increase in the number of muscle cells, this process is much more difficult to launch. From my experience, this cannot be done without proper hormonal background. By this, I do not mean exogenous (injected) hormones. I mean that one has to have proper levels of testosterone and growth hormone. The former is regulated by the psyche and can be described as the hormone of successfully overcoming difficulties and becoming a winner. An interesting thing is that your brain does no care whether you successfully beat someone in a computer game or just finished a marathon. It will still reward you with testosterone. On the contrary, if you beat yourself over small things, you will fill yourself with cortisol, which is inversely related to testosterone. Needless to say, to me the muscle growth constitutes invoking the second scenario. That is a formidable but not at all impossible task. It requires knowing how to work with yourself and your mind.
- gaius 10y ago
  Right, this is the ol' sarcoplasma volume vs myofibril density debate. It's also that the modern perception of the appearance of fitness is not well correlated with functionality - hence the prizing of the former over the latter.
  - jacques_chester 10y ago
    > Right, this is the ol' sarcoplasma volume vs myofibril density debate. The evidence against there being any such difference is becoming more and more overwhelming. Studies based on either muscle biopsies or cross-sectional scans basically show no difference. The emerging consensus is training to approximately around failure is the main predictor of hypertrophic outcomes. Which is why both "train heavy!" and "train volume!" seem to work. The difference is that "train heavy!" also has nervous system adaptations.
pdog 10y ago
No offense, but Julian after three months isn't even as big as most guys you'd find at a local gym. Why would you take this guy's advice, "science-based" or not? Addendum: I understand if you're still making progress, but maybe give it more than a few months before you start publishing advice on how to gain 20 pounds of muscle?
- julianshapiro 10y ago
  This guide is about where you're starting from and how efficiently you can get bigger. Not about becoming massive (which is in large part a function of your genetics).
  - wruza 10y ago
    Can you please release "fat loss" program for free and inversely, charge for info on getting bigger? I mean, how would one notice an actual growth behind his varying fat levels?
    - ljk 10y ago
      isn't "fat loss" just: eat less, do more cardio?
      - szatkus 10y ago
        Like everything you can do it in good way, bad way or very bad way.
      - wruza 10y ago
        Why is it worth ten bucks then?
        ljk 10y ago
        why are snake oil so expensive then?
      - prostoalex 10y ago
dragandj 10y ago
The only thing worse than no knowledge is just a little knowledge. Although I've always been a "geek" I am into sports since high school - so it is now more than 20 years. Maybe I was just lucky, but I always had good results, even in the era when internet was not there for the information. Never had to take any supplements, and the results were just right. I won't bother you giving advice, because: 1. Everyone's body is different 2. It's simple once you get it, but it might be difficult to explain. I'll just say that skimming through this guide I've seen a lot of fluff, some good info and also lots of crap. I think that, for the people here who would like to start working out, the most important things are: 1. You have to build the habit of working out from now on for the rest of your life if you want the results to stay. 2. Find a professional guidance at first. An enterpreneur whose experience sums to (citing from the OP): "I wrote the first draft of this guide months ago. I meant to publish this then. But I unexpectedly lost half the muscle I had gained." is not the best source of knowledge in this area.
- julianshapiro 10y ago
  Author here. Happy to provide some thoughts on whatever you find to be crap.
  - usaphp 10y ago
    > "the myth that women have a harder time gaining beginner muscle" Do you have a study to prove that women can grow "beginner" muscles at the same speed as men? I mean common, testosterone levels are drastically different, it will surely affect the muscle growth.
    - julianshapiro 10y ago
      Studies: 1: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11890579?dopt=Abstract http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11890579?dopt=Abstract 2: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7558529 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7558529 3: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2991130/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2991130/ Article: http://bayesianbodybuilding.com/natural-muscular-potential-women/ http://bayesianbodybuilding.com/natural-muscular-potential-w... Yes, men have more testosterone, but testosterone is less important to the female muscle development process. In fact, women benefit from higher levels of IGF1 growth hormone, which is critical to muscle growth, as compared to men [1, 2]. [1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/49661582_Circulating_levels_of_IGF1_are_associated_with_muscle_strength_in_middle-aged-_and_oldest-old_women https://www.researchgate.net/publication/49661582_Circulatin... [2] http://press.endocrine.org/doi/abs/10.1210/jcem.81.7.8675561 http://press.endocrine.org/doi/abs/10.1210/jcem.81.7.8675561
monort 10y ago
I don't like going to gym and the solution to this problem was bodyweight fitness. Growth is a little slower, than with lifting, but you are learning cool tricks like handstand. The program from reddit's /r/bodyweightfitness is a good start: https://www.reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness/wiki/kb/recommended_routine https://www.reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness/wiki/kb/recommend...
- pmoriarty 10y ago
  The program you link to advises stretching before exercise. As others have pointed out elsewhere in this thread, that is dangerous and can lead to injury.
  - monort 10y ago
    You are probably thinking about static stretches. Can you link to evidence against dynamic stretches like in this program?
- sridca 10y ago
  I never liked going to gym and doing the scripted set of weight lifting. For me, compound exercises are the best. Lately I have been "greasing the groove" by doing low-rep pull-ups (and push-ups). You do it every day and there is no "training to failure." See https://breakingmuscle.com/strength-conditioning/greasing-the-groove-how-to-make-it-work-for-you https://breakingmuscle.com/strength-conditioning/greasing-th... The cute thing about bodyweight fitness is that you can do it anywhere without any special equipment.
  - monort 10y ago
    I've got a tendonitis in my right elbow, when I tried greasing the groove for pull ups, and spent several months recovering. Be careful :) Any sign of pain in an elbow means your tendons need a rest.
    - sridca 10y ago
      Thanks. Do you know what caused your tendonitis when greasing the groove for pull ups? Improper form? Over-training?
amelius 10y ago
I'd like to hear some good advice on how to get rid of belly fat. Of course, I could eat less, but then I'd be in constant need of energy (as I do work out a lot, so I think I'd lose muscles if I ate less, which would be bad of course). So, how do I lose that belly fat while maintaining muscles?
- YooLi 10y ago
  don't eat less, change what you eat. Skip the sugars and simple carbs (starches, etc.).
- kyllo 10y ago
  If your goal is to lose fat and build or maintain muscle at the same time, you really need two things: 1. A workout regimen that includes strength training 2-3 times a week and ideally also some form of moderate aerobic exercise (lots of walking is fine). 2. A diet that is at or below your basal metabolic rate (if you're an adult male that usually means somewhere in the 2,000-2,500 calorie range) and is high in protein (for muscle growth/maintenance), medium in fat (for satiety and hormone production), and low in carbohydrates and alcohol (for limiting blood sugar spikes).
- rangibaby 10y ago
  The extreme version is doing what bodybuilders do while going on a cut. Train as normal while eating nothing but chicken and drinking nothing but water. Steroids help ;-). I was in my best shape when I added some HIIT skipping and sprints to my routine. But basically if you are training naturally it is very hard to lose fat without dropping muscle too.
- beachstartup 10y ago
  "i just want to lose a little bit of belly fat" is an internet fitness cliche second only to "i don't want to get all big and bulky". the startup equivalent is, "i don't want to be a billionaire, i just want to make a couple million bucks, that's all. where do i start?" luckily, losing fat is easier than startups, because it's deterministic. you can not spot-reduce fat. you need to lose fat all over your body. your genetics determine where it comes off first/last/etc. anyone telling you otherwise is selling you something. for fat loss, look into a ketogenic diet and high intensity interval training combined with strength training.
kazinator 10y ago
> I’m a startup founder and engineer. My work has been profiled in Forbes, I’ve written a book, I’ve built a popular open source library, and I’ve started and sold a company. http://www.txstate.edu/philosophy/resources/fallacy-definitions/Irrelevant-Authority.html http://www.txstate.edu/philosophy/resources/fallacy-definiti...
- vemv 10y ago
  Might be technically a fallacy, but: - General problem-solving is a skill, guy seems to have it and it does apply to fitness research - His success in various fields undoubtedly require perseverance, which also is a relevant trait.
usaphp 10y ago
> Have a hard time scheduling workouts? Wake up an hour earlier than normal and work out in the mornings before your day kicks off. Oh it's such a bad advise for beginners, lifting weights when you body wants to sleep is an easy way for beginners to lose interest in weightlifting and injure yourself. Also sleep is incredibly important for muscle growth.
- fredgrott 10y ago
  Yes, but are referring to just beginners which would be 5bls of weights as arm curls, leg lifts, etc..or are we imagining bigger weights?
  - usaphp 10y ago
    I doubt you can see a 20lbs of muscle growth in 3 months using just 5lbs weights in excersizes.
    - dragandj 10y ago
      Of course they can see that growth - in other people who do work out properly :)
    - atdrummond 10y ago
      You're not seeing 20 lbs of muscle growth in 3 months regardless of exercise choice. Even with AAS.
- raverbashing 10y ago
  Maaaaaybe for beginners it works But I'd much rather go to the gym around 9pm than 9am. Much, much easier
CalChris 10y ago
Start with BodyPump. You won't learn much if anything about proper form etc but you'll get a lot of low intensity reps in. After about 6 months +- you'll plateau. This is good. Switch over to a 5x5 program like StrongLifts. Read about proper form. Watch YouTube videos about proper form. Ask about proper form. Avoid personal trainers and do this yourself. I like the SL app since I can mentally check out and just think about form. Learn to love the squat. Never skip your warmups. Go from there.
- interrrested 10y ago
  Why avoid personal trainers ? While I do agree but how to get proper form ?
  - CalChris 10y ago
    IMHO, a lot of time spent studying proper form by watching YouTube videos (Scott Hermann, BuffDudes, Layne Norton, ...) will help you a lot more. A lot of this is mental; it's you figuring things out. I don't think PTs are good teachers. But I've learned a lot from watching these guys over and over again. All that and learn to love the squat. Paused ATG. Squats make everything better.
    - baytrailcat 10y ago
      Youtube is a great resource to find a general consensus of the common wisdom. You can also record yourself with a tripod and camera and watch later. Another way to learn is to watch other people (People who look like they know what they are doing) in the gym. If you are the outgoing type, you can spark a conversation with them and ask them to watch your form (or spot your lifts). You get lot of practical knowledge this way. Form is everything. If you cannot do the reps with proper form (and breathing), reduce the load till you can, then slowly progress. It is worth it.
reasonattlm 10y ago
Alternatively, find a contact with access to enough recent biotech equipment to generate myostatin antibodies [1] or otherwise blockade myostatin or increase follistatin via gene therapy or other strategy. I wager that this sort of thing is already taking place quietly on a small scale, given the large and growing number of people with access to the necessary tools and ability to do this. [1]: http://news.iupui.edu/releases/2015/12/myostatin-warden-muscle-growth.shtml http://news.iupui.edu/releases/2015/12/myostatin-warden-musc...
- jacques_chester 10y ago
  There's a lot of snake oil in this space. Nobody has conclusively developed any kind of myostatin inhibition in humans. There's basically a Nobel prize for anyone who does because it's the holy grail for muscle-wasting diseases. So the research is fiercely intensive.
ookblah 10y ago
lol the answer, like a lot of things in life... is simple, but not easy. how to build muscle: - nutrition. eat enough protein and calories. i don't think people have to overthink this. if you're getting fat and don't like what you see eat less. if you're constantly weak and tired eat more. if you're good at tracking cals/weight then do that. - get enough sleep. - pick a good beginners lifting plan: something like stronglifts or starting strength. these are help you build solid habits and good form, but in the end it's just picking up heavy stuff and putting it down until your muscles fatigue within a certain amount of reps. repeat the next week. - the most important factor: consistency. even 2 good spaced out workouts a week will do wonders, but you'd be surprised how many people can't manage that. a shitty program and diet/sleep will be overcome by just straight consistency. you will progress slower, have an off week or two or three, but by the end of each year you will have progressed. this is where i think people fail the hardest, and think of it as some like grueling journey to the "finish line" as fast as possible when it's really a long marathon for the rest of your life. nobody wins an award for getting leaned out in 3 months vs 6, you're building habits for life (sorry, just a rant) i'm obviously simplifying, but for most of the population and even for the "goal" pics in that article, you could train indefinitely on a basic program and achieve that. having jumped on this train at age 29 and going on year 5, i can tell you that it all these tricks and tips might help you in the short term, but in the end everyone is going to learn some things the hard way and make some of the same mistakes over and over. there are no shortcuts (edit: unless you use some "help").
fixxer 10y ago
So far, after 20 years of competitive rowing and an office job, I've found the best advice for me is simply don't get injured, remain active (get out!), and cook more. All these fads might work (IF, keto, crossfit), but I think they mostly answer other questions than fitness or health. People want to feel like they are getting results fast... That is rarely sustainable in my experience and observation.
- yoplait_ 10y ago
  keto is the best way to lose weight, period. You lose weight while not even trying ... it really is the miracle diet, for most people anyway. Gives great mental energy as well. (yeah, sounds like bullshit, but turns out to be true for lots of people)
  - yladiz 10y ago
    Anecdotally true or verifiably true?
    - yoplait_ 10y ago
      Both. For the former you can start with success stories on the keto subreddit. For the latter there is decades of research on the subject. You can start with this talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tC_qBC1EEvw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tC_qBC1EEvw
      - yladiz 10y ago
        Not necessarily talks by professors, but scientific papers published in respectable journals or on NCBI.
    - yoplait_ 10y ago
      > Not necessarily talks by professors, but scientific papers published in respectable journals or on NCBI well the professor in the talk has published dozens of papers so it's a good way to start. I'm not going to provide you with a literature review sorry :)
santa_boy 10y ago
Quite timely :-) .. Any training videos / program that anyone would recommend? There are ton out there and would like to get a few recommendations (paid ones too)
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
rawnlq 10y ago
You should include your actual lifting experience rather than irrelevant stuff like startup founder and engineer. By the end of the first page my impression is that you started lifting for 90 days and decided to nerd out and write a guide (which is probably not true, but I'm also not motivated to continue reading to find out). Tell me your stats and the timeframe you achieved them in. Can't really approach this topic abstractly and theoretically like engineering.
- gaius 10y ago
  If you read to the end, you need to spam 15 friends on FB to see the last page, or pay $8. I'm not in the market for such a guide right now, just curious to see what the deal was - and it's not reasonable IMHO for a guy who has been doing this for 3 months and is reproducing advice found for free elsewhere, to charge anything... I mean check this out: http://www.precisionnutrition.com/cost-of-getting-lean-infographic http://www.precisionnutrition.com/cost-of-getting-lean-infog... Or read t-nation.com
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
TurboHaskal 10y ago
I used to be a gym nerd too. My current approach: Screw common advice. Find what works for __you__. Take hints from algorithm design. Start small. Limit yourself to use variables you can influence, observe and measure. Come up with a system that embraces failure, try to make it anti-fragile. Experiment and enjoy the ride. I'm personally quite chaotic and hate planning. Some weeks I hit the gym five days, some seven, some none. As such my training routine involves an auto regulating method which adjusts volume as needed. Periodisation (or lack thereof) is done with a simple recursive algorithm. 3/4 goes for nutrition as well. Screw counting macros, calories and weighing myself. If I like what I see on the mirror, great. If I feel that I'm getting flabby, I drop a PSMF day here and there until I look better.
- vemv 10y ago
  The only risk being that you could get similar results quicker and with less effort. Anyway I'm with you! Enjoy the ride, and don't let fitness suck the life out of you.
- zubat 10y ago
  I made one crucial change to my schedule which goes against a lot of the training advice I see online: only train once per week per muscle group. This usually means a split over two days and the rest is recovery. What I lose by doing this is some of the neurological component, so I don't have those zippy gains that you get from beginner training. But I'm always completely recovered or nearly so every time I go in, and that seems make the bigger difference long term as I'm never left feeling overtrained, I can go in every week and give it 100% pretty consistently and the progress is trickling in month by month. This is all to second: Definitely do your own experiments and focus on an all-factors outcome of building a lifestyle you are OK with. It took me something like 15 years of training to get to a point where I felt in full control of how I was going about it.
- dmitriid 10y ago
  Oh how I hate such advices. "Fin what works for you, start small, limit, come up, experiment". How exactly would a beginner do all that?
acconrad 10y ago
How you can tell someone is lying to you / full of crap rule #10233: They sell you something as a pre-requisite to the thing that needs to be done. These priorities are seriously out of whack. If you simply ate healthy (in a caloric excess) and did a basic strength training program at a gym (5x5 or Starting Strength), you would get superior results to citrulline malate and hand gripper exercises. Check out these pyramids[1][2] to understand how to prioritize your nutrition and exercise. [1] http://muscleandstrengthpyramids.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Eric-Helms-Muscle-Strength-Nutrition-Pyramid.jpg http://muscleandstrengthpyramids.com/wp-content/uploads/2015... [2] http://www.kinetix.bz/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/TrainingPyramid.jpg http://www.kinetix.bz/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/TrainingPyr... Notice for nutrition, supplements are the smallest part, whereas calories (energy balance) are the most important. Funny how this article focuses on the least important part. Or for training, notice that the most important section is specificity - if you're training for strength and size, you need to train the exercises that maximize the strength and size of as many muscles as possible. So therefore would you choose big movements that work lots of muscles with lots of weight to build lots of muscle simultaneously (i.e. squat, deadlift) or small movements that work few muscles and therefore influence a small amount of mass (i.e. hand gripping and crushing strength). You don't need to pay for anything to get in shape (other than a gym membership). I'm a competitive powerlifter who graduated high school at 6'1" 140 lbs and I routinely walk around over 200 lbs now at 30, without ever having to pay for hand grippers or someone's workout plans to make it work.
yladiz 10y ago
It's a bit disingenuous that the guide states that it's free, but then the second half of it is paid only, and that while there are a lot of citations, especially in the second part of the guide, the author isn't really in a place to explain to someone how to gain muscle except for some personal experience (1 year of research, and some time weight lifting) and instead must make an appeal on the basis of accomplishments, which basically just makes this like "another blogger's personal journey to weightlifting and so can you", albeit with some scientific research to back it up. The thing I would worry about the most is that the guide is made to seem better than others because it has some cited studies, but who's to say that those studies are statistically valid (which is somewhat hard to come by in the field of nutrition and fitness) or that the author didn't pick certain articles to back certain points and pick others to back others?
presidentender 10y ago
This is not wrong, but it's also not any more right than stronglifts.
nicholas73 10y ago
It's true that gains can be had quickly. I've seen athletes go from Charles on the left, to bodybuilder on the right, in a 3-6 month timeframe. These are athletes who would get drug tested, so I'm pretty sure it's all natural. Although I think it's yet to be proven Julian can make you look like Charles though. Achieving gains is a bit different than building a well rounded athletic body - the kind that is recognizable and aesthetically pleasing. My physique was like Charles' but I got it from playing sports over years, not from doing isolated exercises in the gym. It's easy to spot who got big in the gym, as certain muscles are overemphasized. So it's quite easy to be healthy and strong. Just pick an activity you like, and eat well. IMO, gym work should be on top of that, to get you competitive in the sport you choose. It's not a complete development unless you really know what you are doing and are extremely disciplined. That is, doing things the hard way.
hogrammer 10y ago
He's wrong about one thing: this girl prefers the bigger "jacked" guy. As a woman who's into fitness, the real key is: don't be fat. If you are slender, a small amount of muscle goes a big way. And fat guys rarely get the pretty girls.
vannevar 10y ago
The 2.5lb increments/week seems unrealistic. If you can increase weight by 2.5lb/week over any sustained period, it most likely means that you started with too low a weight. A 2-3 week increment cycle seems intuitively more likely to match actual strength gains. I'd be curious to hear others' experience, or any references on the subject.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- toasterlovin 10y ago
  I will grant that I was severely underweight when I started lifting at 6'6", 205lbs (well, underweight by the standards of strong people; most people would probably say I was a better weight when I started), but I have gained weight at around that rate for sustained periods multiple times in my lifting career. 10/10/13 - 12/11/13, 205lbs - 235lbs, 3.75lbs per week 4/24/14 - 9/12/14, 235lbs - 275lbs, 2.2lbs per week 4/29/16 - 8/22/16, 385lbs - 315lbs, 2lbs per week I don't know exactly what my body fat % is, but I do have the healthy layer of fat that you would expect of somebody who is "bulking". My gut feeling is that my body fat % is similar now at 320 to what it was at 245. I followed Starting Strength's gallon of milk per day recommendation and generally ate as much food as possible. Lots of carbs, didn't really pay much attention to my protein intake, though I eat a "normal" amount of meat. I should say, though, that my gut feeling is that I could have grown faster in the last two spurts. Gaining has, so far, never felt difficult and, as a father of two small children , my lifestyle is not really compatible with optimizing recovery. I've been super stressed through a lot of my training and I'm a notorious insomniac even on nights where kids don't keep me up.
  - vannevar 10y ago
    That sounds reasonable for bulking. I was actually referring to the increments on the weights you're lifting. If curling 25 lbs is on the edge of your ability to finish 4 sets when you start, say, is it reasonable to expect you'll be curling 35 lbs one month later? And 45 lbs a month after that? In my experience, real strength gains come more slowly.
jakejnichols 10y ago
This isn't a bad guide, but for those new and interested in the topic, the Reddit r/fitness subreddit ( https://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness https://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness ) has a wiki which is probably the best all around guide out there to getting fit, muscular, and strong: https://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness/wiki/index https://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness/wiki/index It is both entirely free and substantially better than this guide. It is based on the combined experience of people who are much further along in their fitness journey than Julian. There are good answers to all common questions and there are solid programs that match various personal preferences.
- rawnlq 10y ago
  Reddit thinks it's a bad guide: https://www.reddit.com/r/fitnesscirclejerk/comments/556489/a_nerd_makes_a_very_bad_fitness_guide/ https://www.reddit.com/r/fitnesscirclejerk/comments/556489/a... (ignoring the ad hominems there are still a few valid criticisms there)
- projektir 10y ago
  The main issue with /r/fitness is that it's not a focused guide so you run into decision paralysis almost immediately. It's great if you already know what you want, and it's very open ended. And, generally, I think people who are really far along in their business journey are not who beginners should be listening to.
  - tome 10y ago
    The wiki does seem to be a focused guide, unless I'm missing something.
    - projektir 10y ago
      Am I missing something? The Getting Started area splits into 4 exercise sections immediately and you're left to your own devices. My first attempt at serious exercise was from this very page and I ended up doing stronglights for a while, which was OK...
anjc 10y ago
First sentence: "Most bodybuilding advice is wrong", proceeds to list the most common bodybuilding advice. The best thing you could do to learn how to build muscle is to go to a big bodybuilding forum and just do whatever bro-science they spout. I've been following bodybuilding forums and casually looking at research for many years, and invariably the bro-scientists are way ahead of scientific proof, in terms of methods and techniques, all the way down to finicky details. You'll also get the truth about what you can and can't do with/without anabolics. Edit: I see that the author is here. It's not a bad guide, good design etc, but frankly it rubbed me the wrong way to basically read "I'm right and everyone else is wrong, because I researched", without having a highly impressive build to back it up. Even professional body builders don't prescribe certain techniques/methods as gospel.
- joeyspn 10y ago
  I've been on bodybuilding.com for many years... yes, there are thousands of bro-science meatheads there, but also valid people, with valid advice. For instance Jim Stopanni is a research fellow at Yale University School of Medicine... (although lately he's been overusing his credentials for selling his line of supplements) http://www.bodybuilding.com/author/jim-stoppani-phd http://www.bodybuilding.com/author/jim-stoppani-phd
jsonmez 10y ago
LOL. Just LOL. I hate to be negative. But look at author. Look at his pictures. He's got no clue what it really takes or what he is taking about. Not bad advice, but not great. I've spent 20 years building my physique (http://YouTube.com/simpleprogrammer http://YouTube.com/simpleprogrammer) and I can tell you that no one has it "figured out." I have learned one thing for sure though. Never trust someone who doesn't look much better than you do.
- laichzeit0 10y ago
  The biggest problem is when people using anabolic steroids give advise without disclaiming that they're not natural. The two simply do not go together. Naturals do not train the same as steroid users. They cannot recover as fast. They cannot do such high volume work. They need to get stronger to get bigger. Most of the bro science revolves around some brosplit that hits 1 body part once a week and at some ridiculous volume.
  - raverbashing 10y ago
    "Let me try this same training routine as someone on steroids and wonder why I can't make progress because the only thing increasing is my cortisone levels"
  - jsonmez 10y ago
    Completely agree. My volume is high but I do upper body x 2 per week and lower x 1. And that works just fine. I run 40 miles a week though as well.
- lobo_tuerto 10y ago
  You look like the guy in the Inbetweeners xD
- usaphp 10y ago
  Make sure to work on your neck muscles, it looks very weak compared to the rest of your body.
  - 10y ago
z3t4 10y ago
on your first day at the gym, do the exersises without any weigt on, then on second day do them with half the weigt, or you will be so sore you dont want to go back. Your body will adapt quickly thoug, after ten sessions it will start to feel nice.
- tome 10y ago
  I think this is really important. Nothing can destroy the excitement of starting a new life regime than feeling broken and sore after your first day.
flippyhead 10y ago
The only thing more consistent than the simplicity of basic weight training is the consistency that people are duped into thinking there are tricks.
- camillomiller 10y ago
  Or that building muscle necessarily means "being fit" and that it's the go-to thing to do if you want to "exercise". Looking fit ≠≠≠ being fit.
- tome 10y ago
  A key observation that applies to most things in life.
jkraker 10y ago
I used to obsess over muscle mass back in college and that being "all natural." Creatine and citrulline malate? I black listed them in my quest, and my personal experience is that these are not needed for the goals stated in the article. I also did not use protein supplements, but then again I had access to an all you can eat cafeteria with sufficient variety to support a (mostly) healthy protein rich diet. A disciplined training program and diet got me what the article promises (over 20 lbs of muscle mass and significant strength gains) without buying any supplements. I can't remember how long it took, but it wasn't that much longer than 3 months. As long as you're not going for the unusually bulked up look, a disciplined training program and diet will get you where you want to be.
languagehacker 10y ago
I'm very much looking forward to this guy's next posts: * 20 Things You Can Do To Drive Your Man Wild Tonight! * We Ask Ten Women What They Really Think of Dudes With A Six Pack * "It took all day" -- Jonathan Taylor Thomas with an exclusive on his recent visit to the DMV The last one won't be a rambling blog post, either. It will be science.
milkdilk 10y ago
Nice amazon affiliate link get rich quick scheme.
intrasight 10y ago
There was a time in the distant past when my goal was to get "big". For the last 10+ years, my goal was to get "fit". After multiple orthopedic surgeries in 2014 (don't ask), I pretty much have no choice but to focus on "fit". Is just my personal opinion, but I think "fit" men and women look better than "big" men and women. Here's my two bullet point guide to fitness: 1. go to the gym for 2 hours every day 2. don't eat junk food, drink beer, or drink soda #2 actually comes as a side benefit from #1, for me anyway, because my body now keeps my mind in check when it comes to food. I do fitness classes. No heavy weights. Mostly women - some of whom could kick my butt. There might be one other guy besides myself in a class of 40. I don't care - they've let me in on their fitness secret - let me join the tribe.
- stickhandle 10y ago
  But beer is proof that God loves us
ChemicalWarfare 10y ago
My 2c on this is while the "looking good for da ladies" part is definitely valid motivation, working out just for the looks gets old fast for a variety of reasons. Having an athletic performance goal (squat/bench/pull/clean more, sprint faster, close a harder gripper, do more pullups etc) is not only more "motivational", it also sets a measurable and objective goal to work towards.
projektir 10y ago
The impression I got is that men like the thin type more than the fit type. And, even then, they care about the face more than they care about the body. The motivation to exercise for that kind of reason is just not there for women, in my opinion. Agreed with his thoughts on male physique attractiveness, though, as well as the section about steroids. Overall, seems like a nice guide, and I appreciate someone, for one, remembering that women exist. Very detailed and comprehensive, even if it's not necessarily super accurate (doesn't have to be, does it?). I may add it to my schedule in addition to the kickboxing if I can justify a 2nd gym. I find it interesting that he stats with grip, grip and basic hand strength is my #1 problem for so many situations. I spent about 2 hours preparing a bike rack because I simply didn't have enough strength to move the metal rods in place. I think his arguments for how little time it takes vs. how easy it is to get to a decent baseline (rather than chasing the popular ideal) are good enough. And having your own home equipment is probably a much better predictor of consistency than any amount of motivation. The other motivation stuff I would say is decidedly not useful. Exercise at this level is indeed available to almost everyone and doesn't require you to be a hyper-motivated super hard working person, you just need to decide that it's something you want to do and fit in your schedule.
- ZenoArrow 10y ago
  > "The impression I got is that men like the thin type more than the fit type." I know it's a cliché, but it's also true... men have different preferences, just like women have different preferences. However, if we're looking at average preferences across the world, I'd say men overall do prefer fitness over thinness (assuming it's toned fitness instead of a bodybuilder physique). I suspect the idea that men value thinness above fitness may in part come from the fashion industry, where height and thinness are definitely prized highly, but in my opinion that's mostly because they make it easier on fashion designers (long flowing lines, less need to tailor the clothes to the body shape of the model). > "And, even then, they care about the face more than they care about the body." I would say this is true, but again I can only speak for myself. In my personal opinion a woman with an attractive face is attractive almost regardless of their body shape. > "The motivation to exercise for that kind of reason is just not there for women, in my opinion." Sure, the motives are different. From what you've said, it sounds like you're already committed to working out, so this isn't something that applies to you, but what I want to make it clear to anyone reading this is... do it for yourself. None of what I've just said about body preferences matters, feeling healthy is better than just looking good. If it gives you a confidence boost too, great. I guess what I'm saying is don't let a feeling of 'not being good enough' drive you, instead enjoy the results you get out of what you put in.
dahart 10y ago
Best article I've ever read on muscle building based on reviews of scientific literature: Matt Might's Hacking Strength http://matt.might.net/articles/hacking-strength/ http://matt.might.net/articles/hacking-strength/ From a high level, it looks like this article aligns and agrees with Might's.
brandonmenc 10y ago
> Workouts: First 2 months [...] 2 months to infinity [...] A recipe for unlimited plateauing. Don't tell this guy about mesocycles. He's still in the "newbie gains" phase - where nearly anything you do results in gains - so take everything he says with a huge grain of salt.
huntermonk 10y ago
> "In other words, the majority of women prefer the left side to the right side" These sort of statements are misleading - women who are more physically attractive (unfortunately, what most males prefer) tend to prefer the model on the right (in my experience).
- jazzyk 10y ago
  Most of females are into the types of Brad Pitt and David Beckham, who are definitely fit, but thin (Beckham is outright scrawny, Pitt used to be "cut" when he was young, not so much now) So definitely the "left" type. A lot of women say they are intimidated by too much muscle.
snicky 10y ago
Sorry for a shameless plug, but since we are in an exercise-related thread it might be a good place to... yeah, you guessed it - present our app and ask for some advise. It contains serious training plans (think weightlifting, not 5-minute abs workouts) and helps you to follow them. It's called Fortitudo and its first scratch is available on Android here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=pl.com.fortitudo https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=pl.com.fortitu... We're also building iOS and web versions now and all of us developers working on the app are weightlifters with 3-10 years of experience :) Please take a look at it and tell me what you liked and what you didn't. Thanks [Edit] Website (an oldish version): https://42.do/ https://42.do/
bitL 10y ago
Make sure you don't destroy your immunity/adrenal glands by overtraining. Lifting is a major source of stress and can overload your stress-coping mechanism; if you go through a phase of increased stress from work/family, tone it down or do just maintenance cardio, or else you might break down and become seriously sick.
BigJeffeRonaldo 10y ago
It's not obvious to me that you need to research this stuff. Just start going to a gym and do whatever the bug guys do, then ask advice when appropriate.
robomartin 10y ago
My biggest source of frustration is fat loss vs. strength/muscle gain. I started strength training a year ago. Didn't really get serious about it until march of this year. I'm 50+ and had to devote several months to work on flexibility and what I call "injury proofing" myself. This meant mostly working with machines to slowly get things ready for free weights. In March I quit machines and switched 100% to free weights under the Rippetoe program. I've seen visible improvements in shape, for example, my t-shirs are now tighter around my biceps. And, yes, I am significantly stronger than a year ago. What's the problem, then? Well, I probably have 30 lbs of fat, with a good chunk of it around my belly, that just makes me miserable. My lifting coach tells me I need to accept it and eat more. I hate it and want my "you look pregnant" fat belly gone. Not sure what to do other than to stop lifting and going on a low calore diet. I am afraid I would lose all the gains of the last year of work. I am approaching a 300 lbs deadlift at this point. When I go to a regular gym I am often stronger than most guys there. I am grabbing hundred+ pound dumbells when everyone else is working with 75-pounders. Yet, I am the one who looks fat. It's frustrating.
- mter 10y ago
  Keep lifting, but your workouts will suffer. I just went from ~274 to ~258. I'm weak as hell. You won't lose the strength permanently. I took off years while doing my degree + my first 2 years and in the past 12 months I regained 20 years of lifting strength.
thehooplehead 10y ago
What worked for me was removing barriers to exercise. It's been an odd, decade-long progression, but here's how it went: ------------- I. Initial Annoyance with Gym a) The biggest barrier is building the willpower to get to the gym. I live in a snowy city, so I knew that heading to the gym would be torture in the winter. b) Working full-time meant that the only times to head to the gym were before work (6-8) or after work. I wanted to match my exercise time to when I had the motivation. c) Heading to the gym is a huge cost. If you do 4 sets, it might only be 20 minutes of actual lifting, an hour round trip to/from the gym, 20 minutes showering. I think mentally, you know that heading to the gym is a a huge time-sink, cluster of obligations that goes far beyond the actual lifting. -------------- II. the Home Gym - It was the obvious solution to the issues above. In addition, it's been a massive cost saving over the years. It's not a massive setup, here's what I have: a) Bowflex Selecttech dumbbells - they adjust weights from 12.5 pounds to 52.5 pounds (there's a version that goes up to 90lbs too). You can do a lot of different exercises with them b) Jump rope - a heavy leather rope, not a speed rope. It's incredible how fit you'll get from jumping for 15 straight minutes every other day. Plus it beats running because you can watch TV while you do it. c) Two kettlebells d) Resistance bands - these have been marginally useful, but they're also cheap and really portable. I bring them with me when I travel e) interlocking floor mats - these protect the floor, but I've never dropped anything in nearly 8 years f) a yoga mat - for situps g) an Xbox - I'm not kidding. I would play Pro Evolution Soccer and Fallout 3 while doing situps. h) Medicine ball - Don't get one. It's no fun unless you have someone to throw it to. I researched different lifts using ExRx primarily using these two links: * http://www.exrx.net/Lists/Directory.html http://www.exrx.net/Lists/Directory.html * http://www.exrx.net/Lists/WtMale.html http://www.exrx.net/Lists/WtMale.html All of those items can be tucked away into a closet or under the bed. I stuck with that for the first four years of my home gym. Ultimately, I added two large pieces that increased the space taken up, but still don't dominate the room they're in: * An adjustable bench that folds flat * the Power Tower (that's really what it's called) - a station for chin-ups/pull-ups and Roman chair lifts You won't be Instagram-huge, but you can get large muscles. It's a little underpowered for chest since it lacks a bench press, but you'll still have chest gains doing isometric dumbbell presses. ----------- Finally, this summer, I've lately found a ridiculously effective way to motivate myself to consistent exercise -- I only play video games while exercising. It's essentially a Pomodoro-style alternation between 8 minutes of playing, then lifting 10-15 reps of each exerise. It's incredible to realize that it only takes about 4 minutes to run through your exercises. I think people often spend the interval between sets agonizing about how tired they are and dreading the next set. Now, once I'm done lifting, I go straight to another mental task (video games) which feels like a reward for lifting. Once cycled through my exercises 4-6 times, I drink a protein shake, maybe play videogames for another hour, then continue with the rest of my day. It sounds bizarre, but it's been a ten year progression to fit exercise as painless as possible. I wouldn't recommend this for beginners though. Exercise equipment isn't the sort of thing you want to buy lightly. Also, I had lifted a bit in high school, and consistently in college before starting the home gym. It's likely best to learn the basics first.
drakonka 10y ago
This was largely a decent intro, but I would hesitate to trust this one article's statements without doing other research and reading other guides. One thing that stood out to me was the author's idea that creatine is not beneficial for women to the point where we may as well skip it. There is research showing the opposite of what the author has stated. Example: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9390981 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9390981 Creatine, as he says, is among the most widely researched supplements. Aside from providing potential cognitive benefits it has been shown to be effective for both men and women working toward strength gains. And as another user commented, creatine supplementation could very well explain part of the great weight gain the author claims to have experienced as it causes muscles to retain water and appear bigger (in both genders).

295 points by julianshapiro 10y ago

caub 10y ago

https://daks2k3a4ib2z.cloudfront.net/54a5a40be53a05f34703dd18/57b12ee3ec62b90517b8b4f1_My%20Transformation%202-p-800x593.jpeg https://daks2k3a4ib2z.cloudfront.net/54a5a40be53a05f34703dd1... on the left, it feels far enough muscles for a developer, why would you need more muscles? that consumes more calories :) and are pretty useless, except for our stupidly wrong society's standards

dethstar 10y ago
>why would you need more muscles? that consumes more calories :) That just means you get to eat more yummy food. >and are pretty useless, except for our stupidly wrong society's standards That depends on what you want/like to do.
vemv 10y ago
- You'll look like a developed man, rather than like a permateenager. This is nature, not artificial standards - Greater bone strength AND flexibility, preventing posture issues - You'll be perceived better in your development team when it comes to leadership, arguments, etc. It's hardwired in us Seems like a deal to me!
GirlsCanCode 10y ago
You sound like a fatty.
toasterlovin 10y ago
Stronger people are harder to kill. And more useful.

johnward 10y ago

Hackers Guide to gaining muscle: Trenbolone

caub 10y ago
not to confound with Toblerone
- mschuetz 10y ago
  I do like toblerone, though.

wruza 10y ago

Though I'm not taking it as ultimate truth, I'm glad this article exists. Most foobar-advice sites just copy-paste some material without bothering to note readers that it is not backed by anything except similar googled bs. Btw, is anyone aware of "engineer's guide to xyz" aggregator?

wruza 10y ago
After reading it, all came down to "if you want to lose some fat, pay some bucks or share the link with 15 people" formula. Subtleties are always there at the end.

jacques_chester 10y ago

Unsurprisingly, there is what looks like a paywall / call-to-spam at the end of the 2nd page. For those who want a non-engineer's guide, I cannot recommend strengtheory.com enough. Greg Nuckols is legitimately strong and legitimately up to date with the research. I'm also struck the idiosyncratic exercise selection. For most beginners a boring group of barbell exercises and a flourish of bicep curls and pullups will get them started. Typically in less time, with less equipment. Take the dumbbell RDL, for example. Most people can't get the barbell variant even vaguely right and it has an entire bar to cue you about what path to follow. Hand grippers? Right out of the gate? The good ones aren't cheap. Or you could just wait until grip strength is a limiting factor.

douche 10y ago
I haven't found anything easier to get started with and stick with than the 5x5 program. Squats, deadlifts, bench, overhead press and rows to work the major muscle groups. Start light and build up slowly and steadily. Although my strength-building workout of choice has always been sawing, splitting and stacking firewood. Talk about building functional strength...
- jodrellblank 10y ago
  That's the basis of the http://www.shovelglove.com/ http://www.shovelglove.com/ workout - take a sledgehammer as a weight, and do labor-equivalent motions with it. Shovelling, splitting wood, rowing, churning butter, harvesting food, etc.
rawnlq 10y ago
+1 to strengtheory.com. For example this is probably the absolute best resource on squatting on the internet: http://strengtheory.com/how-to-squat/ http://strengtheory.com/how-to-squat/. For noobs, do StrongLifts 5x5 or Starting Strength instead. Minimal viable workout over premature optimizations! Hand grippers and citrulline malate you'll probably not need for a long long time.

julianshapiro 10y ago

Author here. More than happy to spend the next few hours answering any questions if the admins find that appropriate. I will do my best to cite evidence/research for my responses.

gaius 10y ago
I expect dang will be along if it gets out if hand, but its quite normal here to do that :-)
finkin1 10y ago
I've seen some studies that say the number of reps you do doesn't matter. Can you comment on this? Here's a link to a study: http://jap.physiology.org/content/early/2016/05/09/japplphysiol.00154.2016 http://jap.physiology.org/content/early/2016/05/09/japplphys... Also, I've never heard of muscles shrinking due to being overworked. Can you elaborate on how this happens?
- julianshapiro 10y ago
  #1: Reps. When working out for muscle size (as opposed to strength), it's optimal to use a weight that’s light enough to do a set of at least 8 reps with but heavy enough that you can't easily do more than 10 reps [1, 2]. This range of 8 to 10 reps means it's fine if you stop at 8, 9, or 10 reps in any set. Go as high as you can while stopping one rep short of the maximum you feel you could do. Stopping one rep short of exhaustion is an important technique: It doesn’t decrease your rate of gains and it increases your recovery time between sets so that you can complete all your reps (study, study, study) [3, 4]. #2: Shrinking from overworking is surprisingly a real thing. The science is unclear as to how exactly muscle mass responds to resistance exercise, so my answer would be made up if I gave you one. What I can tell you is that "being overworked" is the result of lifting too heavy for too many total reps. This might seem impossible since your body should be unable to continue lifting past a natural point of exhaustion, but if you use machine exercises (especially a pulley machine), it's easy to cause a disproportionate amount of stress to your muscle relative to the incrementing heaviness trajectory you were lifting for free weights. [1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/7873571_Muscular_adaptations_in_response_to_three_different_resistance-training_regimens_Specificity_of_repetition_maximum_training_zones https://www.researchgate.net/publication/7873571_Muscular_ad... [2] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/23252049_Changes_in_muscle_size_and_MHC_composition_in_response_to_resistance_exercise_with_heavy_and_light_loading_intensity https://www.researchgate.net/publication/23252049_Changes_in... [3] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4731492/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4731492/ [4] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21986694 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21986694

capkutay 10y ago

This is good advice but I would caution engineers who sit at their desk all day. Don't just lift heavy weight without spending almost an equal amount of time on core strength and flexibility.

parthdesai 10y ago
definitely focus on stretching before work out. I have seen so many of my friends screw up their shoulder because they didn't focus on stretching.
- gaius 10y ago
  Stretching cold muscles will do nothing at best or injure you at worst - stretch after your workout. Warmup with light exercises first. E.g. if you are planning barbell squats, start with air squats.
  - parthdesai 10y ago
    i usually run for 15-20 mins before proceeding to stretching and then working out.
  - jmartinpetersen 10y ago
    "Another warmup type that provides no performance benefit is doing a light starting set before lifting your normal weights (study). " This advice worries me. You do not warm up to increase performance in each session, you warm up so that you can keep doing sessions (hint: you can't work out when you're injured).
    - gaius 10y ago
      Absolutely. Air squats before real squats get blood flowing into the muscle, you "rehearse" the move a few times to remind yourself of the form, etc. That's what reduces the possibility of injury. If you think about it from an evolutionary perspective, a warmup to increase performance makes no sense - you wouldn't have time to stretch first if you were about to be eaten by a hungry mammoth - the body would want to jump straight to peak power and if you get injured it's better than being dead...

yakster 10y ago

There is a lot of useful advice in that article. However, I am always made weary by people's use of term "muscle growth." What is typically perceived and dubbed as muscle growth is actually simply muscle cells retaining water and sugar as fuels to help accommodate the ongoing increase in physical activity. That is what anyone who begins training observes in the first few months. Think of this as a simple increase in the size of each muscle cell due to storage of extra fuel. This is completely analogous to our accumulation of fat. We barely ever grow the number of fat cells. Instead, we shrink or expand them like sacks. However, when it comes to the actual increase in the number of muscle cells, this process is much more difficult to launch. From my experience, this cannot be done without proper hormonal background. By this, I do not mean exogenous (injected) hormones. I mean that one has to have proper levels of testosterone and growth hormone. The former is regulated by the psyche and can be described as the hormone of successfully overcoming difficulties and becoming a winner. An interesting thing is that your brain does no care whether you successfully beat someone in a computer game or just finished a marathon. It will still reward you with testosterone. On the contrary, if you beat yourself over small things, you will fill yourself with cortisol, which is inversely related to testosterone. Needless to say, to me the muscle growth constitutes invoking the second scenario. That is a formidable but not at all impossible task. It requires knowing how to work with yourself and your mind.

gaius 10y ago
Right, this is the ol' sarcoplasma volume vs myofibril density debate. It's also that the modern perception of the appearance of fitness is not well correlated with functionality - hence the prizing of the former over the latter.
- jacques_chester 10y ago
  > Right, this is the ol' sarcoplasma volume vs myofibril density debate. The evidence against there being any such difference is becoming more and more overwhelming. Studies based on either muscle biopsies or cross-sectional scans basically show no difference. The emerging consensus is training to approximately around failure is the main predictor of hypertrophic outcomes. Which is why both "train heavy!" and "train volume!" seem to work. The difference is that "train heavy!" also has nervous system adaptations.

pdog 10y ago

No offense, but Julian after three months isn't even as big as most guys you'd find at a local gym. Why would you take this guy's advice, "science-based" or not? Addendum: I understand if you're still making progress, but maybe give it more than a few months before you start publishing advice on how to gain 20 pounds of muscle?

julianshapiro 10y ago
This guide is about where you're starting from and how efficiently you can get bigger. Not about becoming massive (which is in large part a function of your genetics).
- wruza 10y ago
  Can you please release "fat loss" program for free and inversely, charge for info on getting bigger? I mean, how would one notice an actual growth behind his varying fat levels?
  - ljk 10y ago
    isn't "fat loss" just: eat less, do more cardio?
    - szatkus 10y ago
      Like everything you can do it in good way, bad way or very bad way.
    - wruza 10y ago
      Why is it worth ten bucks then?
      - ljk 10y ago
        why are snake oil so expensive then?
    - prostoalex 10y ago

dragandj 10y ago

The only thing worse than no knowledge is just a little knowledge. Although I've always been a "geek" I am into sports since high school - so it is now more than 20 years. Maybe I was just lucky, but I always had good results, even in the era when internet was not there for the information. Never had to take any supplements, and the results were just right. I won't bother you giving advice, because: 1. Everyone's body is different 2. It's simple once you get it, but it might be difficult to explain. I'll just say that skimming through this guide I've seen a lot of fluff, some good info and also lots of crap. I think that, for the people here who would like to start working out, the most important things are: 1. You have to build the habit of working out from now on for the rest of your life if you want the results to stay. 2. Find a professional guidance at first. An enterpreneur whose experience sums to (citing from the OP): "I wrote the first draft of this guide months ago. I meant to publish this then. But I unexpectedly lost half the muscle I had gained." is not the best source of knowledge in this area.

julianshapiro 10y ago
Author here. Happy to provide some thoughts on whatever you find to be crap.
- usaphp 10y ago
  > "the myth that women have a harder time gaining beginner muscle" Do you have a study to prove that women can grow "beginner" muscles at the same speed as men? I mean common, testosterone levels are drastically different, it will surely affect the muscle growth.
  - julianshapiro 10y ago
    Studies: 1: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11890579?dopt=Abstract http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11890579?dopt=Abstract 2: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7558529 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7558529 3: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2991130/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2991130/ Article: http://bayesianbodybuilding.com/natural-muscular-potential-women/ http://bayesianbodybuilding.com/natural-muscular-potential-w... Yes, men have more testosterone, but testosterone is less important to the female muscle development process. In fact, women benefit from higher levels of IGF1 growth hormone, which is critical to muscle growth, as compared to men [1, 2]. [1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/49661582_Circulating_levels_of_IGF1_are_associated_with_muscle_strength_in_middle-aged-_and_oldest-old_women https://www.researchgate.net/publication/49661582_Circulatin... [2] http://press.endocrine.org/doi/abs/10.1210/jcem.81.7.8675561 http://press.endocrine.org/doi/abs/10.1210/jcem.81.7.8675561

monort 10y ago

I don't like going to gym and the solution to this problem was bodyweight fitness. Growth is a little slower, than with lifting, but you are learning cool tricks like handstand. The program from reddit's /r/bodyweightfitness is a good start: https://www.reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness/wiki/kb/recommended_routine https://www.reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness/wiki/kb/recommend...

pmoriarty 10y ago
The program you link to advises stretching before exercise. As others have pointed out elsewhere in this thread, that is dangerous and can lead to injury.
- monort 10y ago
  You are probably thinking about static stretches. Can you link to evidence against dynamic stretches like in this program?
sridca 10y ago
I never liked going to gym and doing the scripted set of weight lifting. For me, compound exercises are the best. Lately I have been "greasing the groove" by doing low-rep pull-ups (and push-ups). You do it every day and there is no "training to failure." See https://breakingmuscle.com/strength-conditioning/greasing-the-groove-how-to-make-it-work-for-you https://breakingmuscle.com/strength-conditioning/greasing-th... The cute thing about bodyweight fitness is that you can do it anywhere without any special equipment.
- monort 10y ago
  I've got a tendonitis in my right elbow, when I tried greasing the groove for pull ups, and spent several months recovering. Be careful :) Any sign of pain in an elbow means your tendons need a rest.
  - sridca 10y ago
    Thanks. Do you know what caused your tendonitis when greasing the groove for pull ups? Improper form? Over-training?

amelius 10y ago

I'd like to hear some good advice on how to get rid of belly fat. Of course, I could eat less, but then I'd be in constant need of energy (as I do work out a lot, so I think I'd lose muscles if I ate less, which would be bad of course). So, how do I lose that belly fat while maintaining muscles?

YooLi 10y ago
don't eat less, change what you eat. Skip the sugars and simple carbs (starches, etc.).
kyllo 10y ago
If your goal is to lose fat and build or maintain muscle at the same time, you really need two things: 1. A workout regimen that includes strength training 2-3 times a week and ideally also some form of moderate aerobic exercise (lots of walking is fine). 2. A diet that is at or below your basal metabolic rate (if you're an adult male that usually means somewhere in the 2,000-2,500 calorie range) and is high in protein (for muscle growth/maintenance), medium in fat (for satiety and hormone production), and low in carbohydrates and alcohol (for limiting blood sugar spikes).
rangibaby 10y ago
The extreme version is doing what bodybuilders do while going on a cut. Train as normal while eating nothing but chicken and drinking nothing but water. Steroids help ;-). I was in my best shape when I added some HIIT skipping and sprints to my routine. But basically if you are training naturally it is very hard to lose fat without dropping muscle too.
beachstartup 10y ago
"i just want to lose a little bit of belly fat" is an internet fitness cliche second only to "i don't want to get all big and bulky". the startup equivalent is, "i don't want to be a billionaire, i just want to make a couple million bucks, that's all. where do i start?" luckily, losing fat is easier than startups, because it's deterministic. you can not spot-reduce fat. you need to lose fat all over your body. your genetics determine where it comes off first/last/etc. anyone telling you otherwise is selling you something. for fat loss, look into a ketogenic diet and high intensity interval training combined with strength training.

kazinator 10y ago

> I’m a startup founder and engineer. My work has been profiled in Forbes, I’ve written a book, I’ve built a popular open source library, and I’ve started and sold a company. http://www.txstate.edu/philosophy/resources/fallacy-definitions/Irrelevant-Authority.html http://www.txstate.edu/philosophy/resources/fallacy-definiti...

vemv 10y ago
Might be technically a fallacy, but: - General problem-solving is a skill, guy seems to have it and it does apply to fitness research - His success in various fields undoubtedly require perseverance, which also is a relevant trait.

usaphp 10y ago

> Have a hard time scheduling workouts? Wake up an hour earlier than normal and work out in the mornings before your day kicks off. Oh it's such a bad advise for beginners, lifting weights when you body wants to sleep is an easy way for beginners to lose interest in weightlifting and injure yourself. Also sleep is incredibly important for muscle growth.

fredgrott 10y ago
Yes, but are referring to just beginners which would be 5bls of weights as arm curls, leg lifts, etc..or are we imagining bigger weights?
- usaphp 10y ago
  I doubt you can see a 20lbs of muscle growth in 3 months using just 5lbs weights in excersizes.
  - dragandj 10y ago
    Of course they can see that growth - in other people who do work out properly :)
  - atdrummond 10y ago
    You're not seeing 20 lbs of muscle growth in 3 months regardless of exercise choice. Even with AAS.
raverbashing 10y ago
Maaaaaybe for beginners it works But I'd much rather go to the gym around 9pm than 9am. Much, much easier

CalChris 10y ago

Start with BodyPump. You won't learn much if anything about proper form etc but you'll get a lot of low intensity reps in. After about 6 months +- you'll plateau. This is good. Switch over to a 5x5 program like StrongLifts. Read about proper form. Watch YouTube videos about proper form. Ask about proper form. Avoid personal trainers and do this yourself. I like the SL app since I can mentally check out and just think about form. Learn to love the squat. Never skip your warmups. Go from there.

interrrested 10y ago
Why avoid personal trainers ? While I do agree but how to get proper form ?
- CalChris 10y ago
  IMHO, a lot of time spent studying proper form by watching YouTube videos (Scott Hermann, BuffDudes, Layne Norton, ...) will help you a lot more. A lot of this is mental; it's you figuring things out. I don't think PTs are good teachers. But I've learned a lot from watching these guys over and over again. All that and learn to love the squat. Paused ATG. Squats make everything better.
  - baytrailcat 10y ago
    Youtube is a great resource to find a general consensus of the common wisdom. You can also record yourself with a tripod and camera and watch later. Another way to learn is to watch other people (People who look like they know what they are doing) in the gym. If you are the outgoing type, you can spark a conversation with them and ask them to watch your form (or spot your lifts). You get lot of practical knowledge this way. Form is everything. If you cannot do the reps with proper form (and breathing), reduce the load till you can, then slowly progress. It is worth it.

reasonattlm 10y ago

Alternatively, find a contact with access to enough recent biotech equipment to generate myostatin antibodies [1] or otherwise blockade myostatin or increase follistatin via gene therapy or other strategy. I wager that this sort of thing is already taking place quietly on a small scale, given the large and growing number of people with access to the necessary tools and ability to do this. [1]: http://news.iupui.edu/releases/2015/12/myostatin-warden-muscle-growth.shtml http://news.iupui.edu/releases/2015/12/myostatin-warden-musc...

jacques_chester 10y ago
There's a lot of snake oil in this space. Nobody has conclusively developed any kind of myostatin inhibition in humans. There's basically a Nobel prize for anyone who does because it's the holy grail for muscle-wasting diseases. So the research is fiercely intensive.

ookblah 10y ago

lol the answer, like a lot of things in life... is simple, but not easy. how to build muscle: - nutrition. eat enough protein and calories. i don't think people have to overthink this. if you're getting fat and don't like what you see eat less. if you're constantly weak and tired eat more. if you're good at tracking cals/weight then do that. - get enough sleep. - pick a good beginners lifting plan: something like stronglifts or starting strength. these are help you build solid habits and good form, but in the end it's just picking up heavy stuff and putting it down until your muscles fatigue within a certain amount of reps. repeat the next week. - the most important factor: consistency. even 2 good spaced out workouts a week will do wonders, but you'd be surprised how many people can't manage that. a shitty program and diet/sleep will be overcome by just straight consistency. you will progress slower, have an off week or two or three, but by the end of each year you will have progressed. this is where i think people fail the hardest, and think of it as some like grueling journey to the "finish line" as fast as possible when it's really a long marathon for the rest of your life. nobody wins an award for getting leaned out in 3 months vs 6, you're building habits for life (sorry, just a rant) i'm obviously simplifying, but for most of the population and even for the "goal" pics in that article, you could train indefinitely on a basic program and achieve that. having jumped on this train at age 29 and going on year 5, i can tell you that it all these tricks and tips might help you in the short term, but in the end everyone is going to learn some things the hard way and make some of the same mistakes over and over. there are no shortcuts (edit: unless you use some "help").

fixxer 10y ago

So far, after 20 years of competitive rowing and an office job, I've found the best advice for me is simply don't get injured, remain active (get out!), and cook more. All these fads might work (IF, keto, crossfit), but I think they mostly answer other questions than fitness or health. People want to feel like they are getting results fast... That is rarely sustainable in my experience and observation.

yoplait_ 10y ago
keto is the best way to lose weight, period. You lose weight while not even trying ... it really is the miracle diet, for most people anyway. Gives great mental energy as well. (yeah, sounds like bullshit, but turns out to be true for lots of people)
- yladiz 10y ago
  Anecdotally true or verifiably true?
  - yoplait_ 10y ago
    Both. For the former you can start with success stories on the keto subreddit. For the latter there is decades of research on the subject. You can start with this talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tC_qBC1EEvw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tC_qBC1EEvw
    - yladiz 10y ago
      Not necessarily talks by professors, but scientific papers published in respectable journals or on NCBI.
  - yoplait_ 10y ago
    > Not necessarily talks by professors, but scientific papers published in respectable journals or on NCBI well the professor in the talk has published dozens of papers so it's a good way to start. I'm not going to provide you with a literature review sorry :)

santa_boy 10y ago

Quite timely :-) .. Any training videos / program that anyone would recommend? There are ton out there and would like to get a few recommendations (paid ones too)

deleted 10y ago
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rawnlq 10y ago

You should include your actual lifting experience rather than irrelevant stuff like startup founder and engineer. By the end of the first page my impression is that you started lifting for 90 days and decided to nerd out and write a guide (which is probably not true, but I'm also not motivated to continue reading to find out). Tell me your stats and the timeframe you achieved them in. Can't really approach this topic abstractly and theoretically like engineering.

gaius 10y ago
If you read to the end, you need to spam 15 friends on FB to see the last page, or pay $8. I'm not in the market for such a guide right now, just curious to see what the deal was - and it's not reasonable IMHO for a guy who has been doing this for 3 months and is reproducing advice found for free elsewhere, to charge anything... I mean check this out: http://www.precisionnutrition.com/cost-of-getting-lean-infographic http://www.precisionnutrition.com/cost-of-getting-lean-infog... Or read t-nation.com
- deleted 10y ago
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TurboHaskal 10y ago

I used to be a gym nerd too. My current approach: Screw common advice. Find what works for __you__. Take hints from algorithm design. Start small. Limit yourself to use variables you can influence, observe and measure. Come up with a system that embraces failure, try to make it anti-fragile. Experiment and enjoy the ride. I'm personally quite chaotic and hate planning. Some weeks I hit the gym five days, some seven, some none. As such my training routine involves an auto regulating method which adjusts volume as needed. Periodisation (or lack thereof) is done with a simple recursive algorithm. 3/4 goes for nutrition as well. Screw counting macros, calories and weighing myself. If I like what I see on the mirror, great. If I feel that I'm getting flabby, I drop a PSMF day here and there until I look better.

vemv 10y ago
The only risk being that you could get similar results quicker and with less effort. Anyway I'm with you! Enjoy the ride, and don't let fitness suck the life out of you.
zubat 10y ago
I made one crucial change to my schedule which goes against a lot of the training advice I see online: only train once per week per muscle group. This usually means a split over two days and the rest is recovery. What I lose by doing this is some of the neurological component, so I don't have those zippy gains that you get from beginner training. But I'm always completely recovered or nearly so every time I go in, and that seems make the bigger difference long term as I'm never left feeling overtrained, I can go in every week and give it 100% pretty consistently and the progress is trickling in month by month. This is all to second: Definitely do your own experiments and focus on an all-factors outcome of building a lifestyle you are OK with. It took me something like 15 years of training to get to a point where I felt in full control of how I was going about it.
dmitriid 10y ago
Oh how I hate such advices. "Fin what works for you, start small, limit, come up, experiment". How exactly would a beginner do all that?

acconrad 10y ago

How you can tell someone is lying to you / full of crap rule #10233: They sell you something as a pre-requisite to the thing that needs to be done. These priorities are seriously out of whack. If you simply ate healthy (in a caloric excess) and did a basic strength training program at a gym (5x5 or Starting Strength), you would get superior results to citrulline malate and hand gripper exercises. Check out these pyramids[1][2] to understand how to prioritize your nutrition and exercise. [1] http://muscleandstrengthpyramids.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Eric-Helms-Muscle-Strength-Nutrition-Pyramid.jpg http://muscleandstrengthpyramids.com/wp-content/uploads/2015... [2] http://www.kinetix.bz/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/TrainingPyramid.jpg http://www.kinetix.bz/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/TrainingPyr... Notice for nutrition, supplements are the smallest part, whereas calories (energy balance) are the most important. Funny how this article focuses on the least important part. Or for training, notice that the most important section is specificity - if you're training for strength and size, you need to train the exercises that maximize the strength and size of as many muscles as possible. So therefore would you choose big movements that work lots of muscles with lots of weight to build lots of muscle simultaneously (i.e. squat, deadlift) or small movements that work few muscles and therefore influence a small amount of mass (i.e. hand gripping and crushing strength). You don't need to pay for anything to get in shape (other than a gym membership). I'm a competitive powerlifter who graduated high school at 6'1" 140 lbs and I routinely walk around over 200 lbs now at 30, without ever having to pay for hand grippers or someone's workout plans to make it work.

yladiz 10y ago

It's a bit disingenuous that the guide states that it's free, but then the second half of it is paid only, and that while there are a lot of citations, especially in the second part of the guide, the author isn't really in a place to explain to someone how to gain muscle except for some personal experience (1 year of research, and some time weight lifting) and instead must make an appeal on the basis of accomplishments, which basically just makes this like "another blogger's personal journey to weightlifting and so can you", albeit with some scientific research to back it up. The thing I would worry about the most is that the guide is made to seem better than others because it has some cited studies, but who's to say that those studies are statistically valid (which is somewhat hard to come by in the field of nutrition and fitness) or that the author didn't pick certain articles to back certain points and pick others to back others?

presidentender 10y ago

This is not wrong, but it's also not any more right than stronglifts.

nicholas73 10y ago

It's true that gains can be had quickly. I've seen athletes go from Charles on the left, to bodybuilder on the right, in a 3-6 month timeframe. These are athletes who would get drug tested, so I'm pretty sure it's all natural. Although I think it's yet to be proven Julian can make you look like Charles though. Achieving gains is a bit different than building a well rounded athletic body - the kind that is recognizable and aesthetically pleasing. My physique was like Charles' but I got it from playing sports over years, not from doing isolated exercises in the gym. It's easy to spot who got big in the gym, as certain muscles are overemphasized. So it's quite easy to be healthy and strong. Just pick an activity you like, and eat well. IMO, gym work should be on top of that, to get you competitive in the sport you choose. It's not a complete development unless you really know what you are doing and are extremely disciplined. That is, doing things the hard way.

hogrammer 10y ago

He's wrong about one thing: this girl prefers the bigger "jacked" guy. As a woman who's into fitness, the real key is: don't be fat. If you are slender, a small amount of muscle goes a big way. And fat guys rarely get the pretty girls.

vannevar 10y ago

The 2.5lb increments/week seems unrealistic. If you can increase weight by 2.5lb/week over any sustained period, it most likely means that you started with too low a weight. A 2-3 week increment cycle seems intuitively more likely to match actual strength gains. I'd be curious to hear others' experience, or any references on the subject.

deleted 10y ago
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toasterlovin 10y ago
I will grant that I was severely underweight when I started lifting at 6'6", 205lbs (well, underweight by the standards of strong people; most people would probably say I was a better weight when I started), but I have gained weight at around that rate for sustained periods multiple times in my lifting career. 10/10/13 - 12/11/13, 205lbs - 235lbs, 3.75lbs per week 4/24/14 - 9/12/14, 235lbs - 275lbs, 2.2lbs per week 4/29/16 - 8/22/16, 385lbs - 315lbs, 2lbs per week I don't know exactly what my body fat % is, but I do have the healthy layer of fat that you would expect of somebody who is "bulking". My gut feeling is that my body fat % is similar now at 320 to what it was at 245. I followed Starting Strength's gallon of milk per day recommendation and generally ate as much food as possible. Lots of carbs, didn't really pay much attention to my protein intake, though I eat a "normal" amount of meat. I should say, though, that my gut feeling is that I could have grown faster in the last two spurts. Gaining has, so far, never felt difficult and, as a father of two small children , my lifestyle is not really compatible with optimizing recovery. I've been super stressed through a lot of my training and I'm a notorious insomniac even on nights where kids don't keep me up.
- vannevar 10y ago
  That sounds reasonable for bulking. I was actually referring to the increments on the weights you're lifting. If curling 25 lbs is on the edge of your ability to finish 4 sets when you start, say, is it reasonable to expect you'll be curling 35 lbs one month later? And 45 lbs a month after that? In my experience, real strength gains come more slowly.

jakejnichols 10y ago

This isn't a bad guide, but for those new and interested in the topic, the Reddit r/fitness subreddit ( https://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness https://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness ) has a wiki which is probably the best all around guide out there to getting fit, muscular, and strong: https://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness/wiki/index https://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness/wiki/index It is both entirely free and substantially better than this guide. It is based on the combined experience of people who are much further along in their fitness journey than Julian. There are good answers to all common questions and there are solid programs that match various personal preferences.

rawnlq 10y ago
Reddit thinks it's a bad guide: https://www.reddit.com/r/fitnesscirclejerk/comments/556489/a_nerd_makes_a_very_bad_fitness_guide/ https://www.reddit.com/r/fitnesscirclejerk/comments/556489/a... (ignoring the ad hominems there are still a few valid criticisms there)
projektir 10y ago
The main issue with /r/fitness is that it's not a focused guide so you run into decision paralysis almost immediately. It's great if you already know what you want, and it's very open ended. And, generally, I think people who are really far along in their business journey are not who beginners should be listening to.
- tome 10y ago
  The wiki does seem to be a focused guide, unless I'm missing something.
  - projektir 10y ago
    Am I missing something? The Getting Started area splits into 4 exercise sections immediately and you're left to your own devices. My first attempt at serious exercise was from this very page and I ended up doing stronglights for a while, which was OK...

anjc 10y ago

First sentence: "Most bodybuilding advice is wrong", proceeds to list the most common bodybuilding advice. The best thing you could do to learn how to build muscle is to go to a big bodybuilding forum and just do whatever bro-science they spout. I've been following bodybuilding forums and casually looking at research for many years, and invariably the bro-scientists are way ahead of scientific proof, in terms of methods and techniques, all the way down to finicky details. You'll also get the truth about what you can and can't do with/without anabolics. Edit: I see that the author is here. It's not a bad guide, good design etc, but frankly it rubbed me the wrong way to basically read "I'm right and everyone else is wrong, because I researched", without having a highly impressive build to back it up. Even professional body builders don't prescribe certain techniques/methods as gospel.

joeyspn 10y ago
I've been on bodybuilding.com for many years... yes, there are thousands of bro-science meatheads there, but also valid people, with valid advice. For instance Jim Stopanni is a research fellow at Yale University School of Medicine... (although lately he's been overusing his credentials for selling his line of supplements) http://www.bodybuilding.com/author/jim-stoppani-phd http://www.bodybuilding.com/author/jim-stoppani-phd

jsonmez 10y ago

LOL. Just LOL. I hate to be negative. But look at author. Look at his pictures. He's got no clue what it really takes or what he is taking about. Not bad advice, but not great. I've spent 20 years building my physique (http://YouTube.com/simpleprogrammer http://YouTube.com/simpleprogrammer) and I can tell you that no one has it "figured out." I have learned one thing for sure though. Never trust someone who doesn't look much better than you do.

laichzeit0 10y ago
The biggest problem is when people using anabolic steroids give advise without disclaiming that they're not natural. The two simply do not go together. Naturals do not train the same as steroid users. They cannot recover as fast. They cannot do such high volume work. They need to get stronger to get bigger. Most of the bro science revolves around some brosplit that hits 1 body part once a week and at some ridiculous volume.
- raverbashing 10y ago
  "Let me try this same training routine as someone on steroids and wonder why I can't make progress because the only thing increasing is my cortisone levels"
- jsonmez 10y ago
  Completely agree. My volume is high but I do upper body x 2 per week and lower x 1. And that works just fine. I run 40 miles a week though as well.
lobo_tuerto 10y ago
You look like the guy in the Inbetweeners xD
usaphp 10y ago
Make sure to work on your neck muscles, it looks very weak compared to the rest of your body.
- 10y ago

z3t4 10y ago

on your first day at the gym, do the exersises without any weigt on, then on second day do them with half the weigt, or you will be so sore you dont want to go back. Your body will adapt quickly thoug, after ten sessions it will start to feel nice.

tome 10y ago
I think this is really important. Nothing can destroy the excitement of starting a new life regime than feeling broken and sore after your first day.

flippyhead 10y ago

The only thing more consistent than the simplicity of basic weight training is the consistency that people are duped into thinking there are tricks.

camillomiller 10y ago
Or that building muscle necessarily means "being fit" and that it's the go-to thing to do if you want to "exercise". Looking fit ≠≠≠ being fit.
tome 10y ago
A key observation that applies to most things in life.

jkraker 10y ago

I used to obsess over muscle mass back in college and that being "all natural." Creatine and citrulline malate? I black listed them in my quest, and my personal experience is that these are not needed for the goals stated in the article. I also did not use protein supplements, but then again I had access to an all you can eat cafeteria with sufficient variety to support a (mostly) healthy protein rich diet. A disciplined training program and diet got me what the article promises (over 20 lbs of muscle mass and significant strength gains) without buying any supplements. I can't remember how long it took, but it wasn't that much longer than 3 months. As long as you're not going for the unusually bulked up look, a disciplined training program and diet will get you where you want to be.

languagehacker 10y ago

I'm very much looking forward to this guy's next posts: * 20 Things You Can Do To Drive Your Man Wild Tonight! * We Ask Ten Women What They Really Think of Dudes With A Six Pack * "It took all day" -- Jonathan Taylor Thomas with an exclusive on his recent visit to the DMV The last one won't be a rambling blog post, either. It will be science.

milkdilk 10y ago

Nice amazon affiliate link get rich quick scheme.

intrasight 10y ago

There was a time in the distant past when my goal was to get "big". For the last 10+ years, my goal was to get "fit". After multiple orthopedic surgeries in 2014 (don't ask), I pretty much have no choice but to focus on "fit". Is just my personal opinion, but I think "fit" men and women look better than "big" men and women. Here's my two bullet point guide to fitness: 1. go to the gym for 2 hours every day 2. don't eat junk food, drink beer, or drink soda #2 actually comes as a side benefit from #1, for me anyway, because my body now keeps my mind in check when it comes to food. I do fitness classes. No heavy weights. Mostly women - some of whom could kick my butt. There might be one other guy besides myself in a class of 40. I don't care - they've let me in on their fitness secret - let me join the tribe.

stickhandle 10y ago
But beer is proof that God loves us

ChemicalWarfare 10y ago

My 2c on this is while the "looking good for da ladies" part is definitely valid motivation, working out just for the looks gets old fast for a variety of reasons. Having an athletic performance goal (squat/bench/pull/clean more, sprint faster, close a harder gripper, do more pullups etc) is not only more "motivational", it also sets a measurable and objective goal to work towards.

projektir 10y ago

The impression I got is that men like the thin type more than the fit type. And, even then, they care about the face more than they care about the body. The motivation to exercise for that kind of reason is just not there for women, in my opinion. Agreed with his thoughts on male physique attractiveness, though, as well as the section about steroids. Overall, seems like a nice guide, and I appreciate someone, for one, remembering that women exist. Very detailed and comprehensive, even if it's not necessarily super accurate (doesn't have to be, does it?). I may add it to my schedule in addition to the kickboxing if I can justify a 2nd gym. I find it interesting that he stats with grip, grip and basic hand strength is my #1 problem for so many situations. I spent about 2 hours preparing a bike rack because I simply didn't have enough strength to move the metal rods in place. I think his arguments for how little time it takes vs. how easy it is to get to a decent baseline (rather than chasing the popular ideal) are good enough. And having your own home equipment is probably a much better predictor of consistency than any amount of motivation. The other motivation stuff I would say is decidedly not useful. Exercise at this level is indeed available to almost everyone and doesn't require you to be a hyper-motivated super hard working person, you just need to decide that it's something you want to do and fit in your schedule.

ZenoArrow 10y ago
> "The impression I got is that men like the thin type more than the fit type." I know it's a cliché, but it's also true... men have different preferences, just like women have different preferences. However, if we're looking at average preferences across the world, I'd say men overall do prefer fitness over thinness (assuming it's toned fitness instead of a bodybuilder physique). I suspect the idea that men value thinness above fitness may in part come from the fashion industry, where height and thinness are definitely prized highly, but in my opinion that's mostly because they make it easier on fashion designers (long flowing lines, less need to tailor the clothes to the body shape of the model). > "And, even then, they care about the face more than they care about the body." I would say this is true, but again I can only speak for myself. In my personal opinion a woman with an attractive face is attractive almost regardless of their body shape. > "The motivation to exercise for that kind of reason is just not there for women, in my opinion." Sure, the motives are different. From what you've said, it sounds like you're already committed to working out, so this isn't something that applies to you, but what I want to make it clear to anyone reading this is... do it for yourself. None of what I've just said about body preferences matters, feeling healthy is better than just looking good. If it gives you a confidence boost too, great. I guess what I'm saying is don't let a feeling of 'not being good enough' drive you, instead enjoy the results you get out of what you put in.

dahart 10y ago

Best article I've ever read on muscle building based on reviews of scientific literature: Matt Might's Hacking Strength http://matt.might.net/articles/hacking-strength/ http://matt.might.net/articles/hacking-strength/ From a high level, it looks like this article aligns and agrees with Might's.

brandonmenc 10y ago

> Workouts: First 2 months [...] 2 months to infinity [...] A recipe for unlimited plateauing. Don't tell this guy about mesocycles. He's still in the "newbie gains" phase - where nearly anything you do results in gains - so take everything he says with a huge grain of salt.

huntermonk 10y ago

> "In other words, the majority of women prefer the left side to the right side" These sort of statements are misleading - women who are more physically attractive (unfortunately, what most males prefer) tend to prefer the model on the right (in my experience).

jazzyk 10y ago
Most of females are into the types of Brad Pitt and David Beckham, who are definitely fit, but thin (Beckham is outright scrawny, Pitt used to be "cut" when he was young, not so much now) So definitely the "left" type. A lot of women say they are intimidated by too much muscle.

snicky 10y ago

Sorry for a shameless plug, but since we are in an exercise-related thread it might be a good place to... yeah, you guessed it - present our app and ask for some advise. It contains serious training plans (think weightlifting, not 5-minute abs workouts) and helps you to follow them. It's called Fortitudo and its first scratch is available on Android here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=pl.com.fortitudo https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=pl.com.fortitu... We're also building iOS and web versions now and all of us developers working on the app are weightlifters with 3-10 years of experience :) Please take a look at it and tell me what you liked and what you didn't. Thanks [Edit] Website (an oldish version): https://42.do/ https://42.do/

bitL 10y ago

Make sure you don't destroy your immunity/adrenal glands by overtraining. Lifting is a major source of stress and can overload your stress-coping mechanism; if you go through a phase of increased stress from work/family, tone it down or do just maintenance cardio, or else you might break down and become seriously sick.

BigJeffeRonaldo 10y ago

It's not obvious to me that you need to research this stuff. Just start going to a gym and do whatever the bug guys do, then ask advice when appropriate.

robomartin 10y ago

My biggest source of frustration is fat loss vs. strength/muscle gain. I started strength training a year ago. Didn't really get serious about it until march of this year. I'm 50+ and had to devote several months to work on flexibility and what I call "injury proofing" myself. This meant mostly working with machines to slowly get things ready for free weights. In March I quit machines and switched 100% to free weights under the Rippetoe program. I've seen visible improvements in shape, for example, my t-shirs are now tighter around my biceps. And, yes, I am significantly stronger than a year ago. What's the problem, then? Well, I probably have 30 lbs of fat, with a good chunk of it around my belly, that just makes me miserable. My lifting coach tells me I need to accept it and eat more. I hate it and want my "you look pregnant" fat belly gone. Not sure what to do other than to stop lifting and going on a low calore diet. I am afraid I would lose all the gains of the last year of work. I am approaching a 300 lbs deadlift at this point. When I go to a regular gym I am often stronger than most guys there. I am grabbing hundred+ pound dumbells when everyone else is working with 75-pounders. Yet, I am the one who looks fat. It's frustrating.

mter 10y ago
Keep lifting, but your workouts will suffer. I just went from ~274 to ~258. I'm weak as hell. You won't lose the strength permanently. I took off years while doing my degree + my first 2 years and in the past 12 months I regained 20 years of lifting strength.

thehooplehead 10y ago

What worked for me was removing barriers to exercise. It's been an odd, decade-long progression, but here's how it went: ------------- I. Initial Annoyance with Gym a) The biggest barrier is building the willpower to get to the gym. I live in a snowy city, so I knew that heading to the gym would be torture in the winter. b) Working full-time meant that the only times to head to the gym were before work (6-8) or after work. I wanted to match my exercise time to when I had the motivation. c) Heading to the gym is a huge cost. If you do 4 sets, it might only be 20 minutes of actual lifting, an hour round trip to/from the gym, 20 minutes showering. I think mentally, you know that heading to the gym is a a huge time-sink, cluster of obligations that goes far beyond the actual lifting. -------------- II. the Home Gym - It was the obvious solution to the issues above. In addition, it's been a massive cost saving over the years. It's not a massive setup, here's what I have: a) Bowflex Selecttech dumbbells - they adjust weights from 12.5 pounds to 52.5 pounds (there's a version that goes up to 90lbs too). You can do a lot of different exercises with them b) Jump rope - a heavy leather rope, not a speed rope. It's incredible how fit you'll get from jumping for 15 straight minutes every other day. Plus it beats running because you can watch TV while you do it. c) Two kettlebells d) Resistance bands - these have been marginally useful, but they're also cheap and really portable. I bring them with me when I travel e) interlocking floor mats - these protect the floor, but I've never dropped anything in nearly 8 years f) a yoga mat - for situps g) an Xbox - I'm not kidding. I would play Pro Evolution Soccer and Fallout 3 while doing situps. h) Medicine ball - Don't get one. It's no fun unless you have someone to throw it to. I researched different lifts using ExRx primarily using these two links: * http://www.exrx.net/Lists/Directory.html http://www.exrx.net/Lists/Directory.html * http://www.exrx.net/Lists/WtMale.html http://www.exrx.net/Lists/WtMale.html All of those items can be tucked away into a closet or under the bed. I stuck with that for the first four years of my home gym. Ultimately, I added two large pieces that increased the space taken up, but still don't dominate the room they're in: * An adjustable bench that folds flat * the Power Tower (that's really what it's called) - a station for chin-ups/pull-ups and Roman chair lifts You won't be Instagram-huge, but you can get large muscles. It's a little underpowered for chest since it lacks a bench press, but you'll still have chest gains doing isometric dumbbell presses. ----------- Finally, this summer, I've lately found a ridiculously effective way to motivate myself to consistent exercise -- I only play video games while exercising. It's essentially a Pomodoro-style alternation between 8 minutes of playing, then lifting 10-15 reps of each exerise. It's incredible to realize that it only takes about 4 minutes to run through your exercises. I think people often spend the interval between sets agonizing about how tired they are and dreading the next set. Now, once I'm done lifting, I go straight to another mental task (video games) which feels like a reward for lifting. Once cycled through my exercises 4-6 times, I drink a protein shake, maybe play videogames for another hour, then continue with the rest of my day. It sounds bizarre, but it's been a ten year progression to fit exercise as painless as possible. I wouldn't recommend this for beginners though. Exercise equipment isn't the sort of thing you want to buy lightly. Also, I had lifted a bit in high school, and consistently in college before starting the home gym. It's likely best to learn the basics first.

drakonka 10y ago

This was largely a decent intro, but I would hesitate to trust this one article's statements without doing other research and reading other guides. One thing that stood out to me was the author's idea that creatine is not beneficial for women to the point where we may as well skip it. There is research showing the opposite of what the author has stated. Example: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9390981 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9390981 Creatine, as he says, is among the most widely researched supplements. Aside from providing potential cognitive benefits it has been shown to be effective for both men and women working toward strength gains. And as another user commented, creatine supplementation could very well explain part of the great weight gain the author claims to have experienced as it causes muscles to retain water and appear bigger (in both genders).