ᕙ(⇀‸↼‶)ᕗ ||| The 2023/2024 Gym Rats Thread ||| ᕙ(⇀‸↼‶)ᕗ

mrthingyx said:
Lat pulldowns should not be considered a cheap option, either.

The "fun" option (I.e. very effective but unpleasant) is negative chinups: step/jump to the top position and slowly let yourself down to the extended/bottom position.

The assistance machine can be incredibly useful here, particularly if you reduce the amount of assistance by X% for your negatives (rather than just going cold turkey).
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That's a great idea, thanks
 
My Calisthenics hasn't been giving me the muscle growth I was looking for even though I have become a lot stronger and my arms etc are very vascular, so last week signed back up to the gym for a year and enlisted a PT for an 8-week goal to gain muscle mass. I used the gym's new body scanner and it put my body fat level at just above 11%, which is expected as my metabolism is super-fast and it's nearly impossible for me to put on body fat from anything I eat.

My goal is to be as close to 65KG as possible within 8-weeks of strength training with the PT. After the first session I am certainly feeling the fibres burn more than what i normally do when indoor rock climbing (twice a week normally).

The PT got me to do 30 mins warm-up with:
- Lat pulldown on the vertical rowing machine, 200 metres for the first 2 sets, then 300 metres for the final.
- 7.5KG dumbbell press whilst sat down legs forward, 10x reps, 3 sets
- Straight leg raises sat down legs forward and fingertips on floor, 10x reps, 3 sets
- Abs rollout roller, 10x reps, 3 sets
- Resistance band to chest pull, palms downwards, 10x reps, 3 sets, then repeat with palms facing up

Then moved onto:
- Dumbbell press on the bench incline with 12.5KG bells first, then drop to 10KG, reps to failure, 3 sets
- Slow full range pull-ups, reps to failure, 3 sets
- Short barbell curls with 5KG each side, 10x reps, 3 sets

My brain felt dizzy by the end of it and I was consuming way more fluid than I have done in the past lol for the rest of the day.

Week 1:

rAs1tD6.png


Be interesting to see what the scan is like in weeks 4 and then finally 8, if this plan doesn't show me big changes then I give in :cry:
 
mrk said:
My Calisthenics hasn't been giving me the muscle growth I was looking for even though I have become a lot stronger and my arms etc are very vascular, so last week signed back up to the gym for a year and enlisted a PT for an 8-week goal to gain muscle mass. I used the gym's new body scanner and it put my body fat level at just above 11%, which is expected as my metabolism is super-fast and it's nearly impossible for me to put on body fat from anything I eat.

My goal is to be as close to 65KG as possible within 8-weeks of strength training with the PT. After the first session I am certainly feeling the fibres burn more than what i normally do when indoor rock climbing (twice a week normally).

The PT got me to do 30 mins warm-up with:
- Lat pulldown on the vertical rowing machine, 200 metres for the first 2 sets, then 300 metres for the final.
- 7.5KG dumbbell press whilst sat down legs forward, 10x reps, 3 sets
- Straight leg raises sat down legs forward and fingertips on floor, 10x reps, 3 sets
- Abs rollout roller, 10x reps, 3 sets
- Resistance band to chest pull, palms downwards, 10x reps, 3 sets, then repeat with palms facing up

Then moved onto:
- Dumbbell press on the bench incline with 12.5KG bells first, then drop to 10KG, reps to failure, 3 sets
- Slow full range pull-ups, reps to failure, 3 sets
- Short barbell curls with 5KG each side, 10x reps, 3 sets

My brain felt dizzy by the end of it and I was consuming way more fluid than I have done in the past lol for the rest of the day.

Week 1:

rAs1tD6.png


Be interesting to see what the scan is like in weeks 4 and then finally 8, if this plan doesn't show me big changes then I give in :cry:
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That looks... interesting from a size perspective. What is the rest of the routine like?
 
My goal is to gain muscle mass on my arms which is the main objective, that's what the hour session s aim to get me into a routine for, he also does calisthenics so once I have reached a steady flow, will use the new gains to leverage more advanced callisthenics moves, planche being my ongoing objective).
 
That's a very strange routine, half an hour warm up for 6 working sets if I'm reading it correctly. If the goal is muscle growth you're wasting far too much energy on the warm up which could be used to push more weight in your actual workout in my opinion.
 
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Dynamic 'stretches' with a light band then 5 min incline walk - warmup done in 15 mins and ready to exert all your saved energy on the real stuff, which is the actual workout with the weights.
 
He said something about wanting to see for the first time where I am at the limit so I assume next session will be a shorter warmup and changing things around accordingly for the workout.

I'm only going to have a couple more PT sessions to see what he recommends and then continue on my own with gym visits being twice a week for weights based workout, day 1 being below my maximum so I'm not putting all energy in, then the next day going all out. Gives me several days to recover and can then just supplement with climbing during the week and regular callisthenics. I'm going a bit later on which will be the 2nd consecutive day for this week with climbing on Tuesdays/Thurdays.
 
Should have looked at this sooner, Athlean X has the perfect routine as always.

 
I don't take creatine or anything like but all my supplements are also organic and I have my own smoothies before/after workouts between meals anyway, each smoothie is around 1100 calories and on average my daily intake is around 2700-3000, my metabolism eats calories sitting still though so that much intake is just maintenance for me.

Each smoothie has spirulina, peanut butter, dried dates for sweetener, banana, chia seeds, berry granola, flax seeds, whole milk and any additional fruits etc I'm in the mood for. Peanut butter and spirulina being the protein sources there.

My meals are almost exclusively chicken as well.
 
mrk said:
I don't take creatine or anything like but all my supplements are also organic and I have my own smoothies before/after workouts between meals anyway, each smoothie is around 1100 calories and on average my daily intake is around 2700-3000, my metabolism eats calories sitting still though so that much intake is just maintenance for me.

Each smoothie has spirulina, peanut butter, dried dates for sweetener, banana, chia seeds, berry granola, flax seeds, whole milk and any additional fruits etc I'm in the mood for. Peanut butter and spirulina being the protein sources there.

My meals are almost exclusively chicken as well.
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Creatine is an effective supplement, but fair enough. If you aren't actually measuring your calories, it's worth trying. I think skinny people eat far less than they actually are. If I'm wrong, though, you could easily add something like 1,000 calories to put weight on, if you wanted.

That smoothie doesn't actually have that much protein in...the one I have every morning has 60 g.
 
I can't put on weight with food alone, it never happens and hasn't done for all my adult life and I eat a /lot/ of stuff

I have counted calories before but don't any more as I already know my intake numbers based on when I used to do it so there's no point in continuing counting after I got into my calisthenics.
 
mrk said:
I can't put on weight with food alone, it never happens and hasn't done for all my adult life and I eat a /lot/ of stuff

I have counted calories before but don't any more as I already know my intake numbers based on when I used to do it so there's no point in continuing counting after I got into my calisthenics.
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Sorry man, but I just don't believe you. There's a difference in the way that perpetually skinny, and fat people eat.
 
I don't need to convince anyone online, I'm just telling you like it is, I can't gain weight through eating alone and just get body fat, it never happens and likely won't given I'm 41 now.

Anyone that knows me knows this and anyone that follows my stories on socials will have an idea of this as well.
 
mrk said:
I don't need to convince anyone online, I'm just telling you like it is, I can't gain weight through eating alone and just get body fat, it never happens and likely won't given I'm 41 now.

Anyone that knows me knows this and anyone that follows my stories on socials will have an idea of this as well.
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If you ate 5,000 calories a day, do you really think you wouldn't lose weight? How are you burning energy that everyone else isn't?

It sounds like if your muscles aren't growing through calisthetics, you are either not getting enough stress or protein.

I have a friend who was super skinny the 20 years I've know him. He thought he was eating loads. He wasn't. He got diagnosed with Crohn's, got that under contorl, and now he eats a lot more and puts on weight.
 
I don't eat 5K cals a day, what gave that idea lol, and yes exactly as I said earlier, my body burns calories literally sitting down doing nothing, I can eat a full meal then have the same meal again 2-3 hours later no problems. I can't speak for others, only tell you what my body has been showing me the last 20+ years and the things I have been and am now trying to gain muscle mass. I have the strength and co-ordination of all my muscle groups, can easily do the dragon flag, for example, just not got the mass yet, and that's where I am working on now and it will be purely muscle mass not fat as body fat is not easy for my body to build with just bulk eating food.
 
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