Things you wish you'd known earlier

Is there anything Veeky Forums-related you wish someone would tell you about earlier?

Other urls found in this thread:

businessinsider.com/body-fat-linked-to-male-attractiveness-and-immune-system-2012-11
youtube.com/watch?v=Q-KBZ579Mao
twitter.com/SFWRedditGifs

Quoting myself from yesterday's thread (and adding a few more I'm just coming up with now).

These are the things I'd say to my 17 year old self who was just getting started on the fitness journey:

1, Most supplements are bullshit and just make your urine more expensive.
2. Every model in every ad for every product in every fitness magazine is on steroids; most have never even used the supplement they're selling.
3. You don't need 1g of protein per lb of bodyweight. This is based on bro science and a con by the fitness industry dating back to the 60s.
4. Eat more carbs, you autistic dyel. Especially clean carbs like oatmeal, yams, etc.
5. The bro split of one body part per day 5 days a week will produce results but you're better off just doing full body workouts and alternating ABA, BAB, week by week.
6. Natties need to train HEAVY. Fuck your getting-a-pump rep range.
7. The six small meals meme is based on a misunderstanding of the thermogenic effect of food, most notably protein.
8. Although I've never trained solely for girls--or guys, for that matter--there are times when female attention is wanted and appreciated. With this in mind, it's advisable to hover around 12% bodyfat for maximal facial aesthetics. Studies have shown this is ideal for most men. It's also optimal for hormonal regulation in men.

businessinsider.com/body-fat-linked-to-male-attractiveness-and-immune-system-2012-11

9. People generally look nothing like they do in their magazine photos, or even the photos they upload to Instagram. Guys who take tons of pics of themselves and their physique are like girls who have dedicated their lives to being hot and taking selfies--they angle shamelessly, take 20 shots and use only the best one and then photoshop everything to the point where it's effectively no longer them in the pic. Don't compare yourself to them, ever.
10. Things don't happen overnight and a lot of times it looks nothing like you thought it would. Pic related.

Stop overthinking your routine, your problem is that you're inconsistent. Just lift 3x/week and stop making excuses.

Eat well, drink protein shakes.

Weight loss is 70% diet.
Also no soda and no juice.
I could have been a Stacy in high school of I had gotten my shit together food-wise

Can you explain the fifth point in more detail?
I've been doing that pretty much.

Eat big to get big.

Eat more food. Drink less alcohol.

Get good with bodyweight exercises.
Stretch more

Quit drinking.

Seriously.

It's a depressant, it makes you fat, it costs a shit load of money and it will fuck up your routine.
No one is going to judge you, If you're out at a pub, have a diet soda, nobody is going to give a shit.

>Visually disproportional muscles
>Postural deformity from improper functional development.

What i would suggest is to always hit your compounds and add in your bro exercises.

Learn to count calories. I think I used "my fitness pal" for about two months before I really had an understanding of how many calories I was getting per day.

Splits focus on certain muscles. These are associated with isolation exercises. Chest day. Arms day. Leg day. Back day. Thing about it is that while you might be making gains, you're better off developing a strength base with compound routines like SS or SL.
Once you plateau with the compound routine, then you will be in a better position to justify doing Splits.
Curling 60 lbs on arm day after developing a solid strength base with SS/SL is better than Curling 20 lbs on arm day on your 1st month of training.

The assholes in high school that went to the gym and couldn't stop touching their own pecs and biceps are the reason I thought gyms were for assholes with no mobility or actual power
I haven't even touched a weight before I was twenty three.
>I thought push ups would make me stronger even in the 60+ range

>Also no soda and no juice.
God damn this is hard for me.

i wish i had eaten more when i was 10-18.
it probably stunted my growth.

Give it up for 2 weeks and you won't even miss it.

Wish I knew how gyno worked when I was stuffing nothing but large extra cheese pizzas in my fucking face when i was 13

To my teenage self
>STOP FUCKING DRINKING SODA

You know, I'm glad people like you exist.

Never tell your true feelings to a woman.

To my 15 year old self:

Awww, you're in the friendzone again? Gee, you ever stop to think it's because you're fucking fat and ugly? Jesus. Ugly can be mitigated by personality. There's nothing that mitigates fat except money and you don't have any. So quit whining and get the fuck off your ass and do something about it now instead of 10 years from now and wonder why women who never gave you the time of day suddenly find you irresistible.

And and fuck feelings. You don't need them. They don't deserve it and neither do you.

thank you for the advice

Jesus thanx brah.

Too fucking true mate. Too fucking true.

we need actual advice not whiny dear diary fg8ry no offence

Deepthroat the barrel of a shotgun and squeeze the trigger mkay? Point was to start earlier you faggot.

...

>start earlier you faggot
much better

Don't fucking listen to fitizens e-stats and dont compare yourself to them

You're a skeleton and you will snap up your knees and now apparently shoulders too.

Fuck you young me dont cave in your knees on those front squats

I just wished I had fucking started sooner
If you recently started browsing Veeky Forums and have yet to start going to the gym start going now.

Squeeze your chest on DL

She likes you back you fucking aspie ass faggot. Ask her out or you'll be a sad cunt for a while.

But on a serious note..
getting big does take time and you're really not eating as much as you think you are.

Just do steroids

Lifting is fucking EASY

Gains are all about DIET
focus on the food brrrooooo

diet and proper sleep is 70-80% of your results..

took me years to finally realise this and eat/rest accordingly

ITS NOT ABOUT HOW MUCH YOU CAN LIFT ITS ABOUT FORM AND MUSCLE ACTIVATION

When it comes to workouts it isn't about getting the weight or your body from point A to points B. Pay attention to which muscles are doing the most of the work, and make sure it's the ones that are supposed to be doing it.

I know this one is kind of opposite of what I said, but if you ever need a little more of a boost on some exercises like a pullup, just clench your butt cheeks and keep the part of your body not working as stiff as a board.

this

what works for you works for you

>that filename
ALL CAPS when you spell the man name

I should have activated my almonds earlier

how much protein would be ideal then?

Protip for getting over soda/juice addiction: sweat, alot. Work out in the sun until you over heat. Have cold water available. I tell you nothing will give you a taste for cold water like a hot summer day
Water "flavoring" like milo can help the transition

mfw my favorite drink is wine

Probably around .8g per lb of lean body mass, if you want to be safe (or you are cutting) then just do .8g per lb of total body mass.

I used to drink quite a bit of soda and juice. Not as much as some people, it was like 1-2 glasses of soda/juice a day, but still a bad amount. Stopped cold turkey, still have juice once or twice a month but have only had soda once in the last year just because the water at the restaurant tasted like shit.

Man, water tastes so much better if you don't drink sugary drinks. Feels good.

You have to eat a meal early in the morning to "start your metabolism" is a myth

Lifting heavy guarantees better muscle activation.

Being autistic about form will just result in you spinning your wheels for ages as a beginner.

Thanks for sharing, friend

Should be stickied mate

Keep throwing yourself at life till it kills you.

Grinding for experience in a video game is the same as doing it in real life. It's just real life actually takes effort and a lot of trial and error.

Adapt or die. If you keep doing the same thing over and over out of routine you will stagnant.

Never stop learning. Never stop challenging.

Your body is your own personal slave. The only drawback is that you have bound your soul to it so you feel all its pain and suffering. Learn to enjoy the progression as much as the destination.

If you see a vision of what you want to be ask yourself how you are going to get there and when. If it sounds like too much effort then make small victories and adjustments to your strategy if you fail. Perfect practice makes perfect.

If you are unwilling to commit for the sake of commitment then how can you even commit for the sake of yourself? Never break a promise to yourself or you will lose faith in the only person you can really trust.

Don't expect anyone to do anything for you. You are your own autonomous being and so is everyone else. Be the person that everyone calls on. It's a lot of responsibility but it's not going to kill you unless you never take time for yourself.

Everything is within. Seek nothing outside yourself.

If you crave sweetness in your drink then put some lemon in ice cold water.

Slow, steady progress is actually twice as fast as trying to do too much weight and stalling for a month.

Your form is probably wrong. Don't assume it isn't, take the time to check.

Stop fucking around the gym with that pathetic exercise schedule the PT gave you and get on an actual program from Veeky Forums

You will get to show actual results instead of wasting money on the gym when all you're doing is the weights equivalent of cardio.

At my height, do not expect things to come to you as easily as it comes to others.

that progress, gains, the absolute core to all of this horseshit that routines and bullcrap meme programs are built on. is that you want to lift heaviest weight, over the longest range of motion, for the most amount of volume you can manage in your current condition.

I can't stress this enough. If you reorientate your perspective to this, thinking, hmm, do I want to follow the advice of a power lifter and memebench? If you want to look like a fat fuck who thinks he's god's gift for benching 200kg 1 inch from his chest, go for it. You will realise why compounds are key, and that practicality is probably the most important factor in getting strong and swole.

kek

taking progress picures is not bad, because simply tracking weight is not enough. its not an ego thing, its actually a good idea
bulk when you start, and get a strength foundation.
routine, sleep, and a caloric surplus is way more important than the training

Let's see.

1. Stop drinking all sugary beverages. (This is actually something I want to scream at my parents and grandparents about. They would put soda and juice in my baby bottles)
2. Start getting a taste for broccoli, spinach and avocados
3. Cut back on the bread pham. (This one might be impossible, bread is better than sex to me)
4. Instead of watching anime and playing gay videogames, do research on the internet instead. (I could have gotten out of so many situations if I learned about this at 15/16 instead of 22/23)

can't see any bait here, good post

You cannot complain about wide hips or bad muscle insertions,bad genetics etc until you've seen yourself lean with decent amount of muscle.

Somewhat relevant to this thread. I've been doing intermittent fasting for a couple of weeks now. It's so much easier to just skip breakfast and eat big on midday and a little bit at evening. Should I keep going or did I fall for a meme?

Intermittent fasting is something people do when their food cravings are too much to bear with when cutting.

If you have no difficulties eating your proper amount of daily calories there is no reason to do IF.

Use a foam roller

Run. It is an essential part of being Veeky Forums

Don't neglect your core

Include body weight exercises

If for some reason you are feeling weak at the gym... deload and bang out higher rep sets

don't wait until 25 to start lifting.

Thanks

Choose a routine and stick to it. Look at things long term and just because you have a bad day/ week doesn't mean you have to start over again from scratch

this. Well more so, forcing myself to not eat in a window of more than 5 hours. Then I found out I was doing a form of IF from a thread. So it's easy I wake up at 9, eat at 10, no food or a snack at 2, final meal by 5 or 6pm. Go to bed at 11-12. I'm out of work at the moment. I work at night so when I go back it'll be 2pm -> 9pm meals, work then sleep, repeat.

On Dave Asprey's podcast, who I am very aware a lot of people do not like him. He and his guest, Barry Sears(zone diet) talked about poor hormone imbalances, with a symptom of eating too frequently. Basically, if you can eat and not feel hungry after 4-5 hours, it means you are most likely eating right and your body is responding to food correctly.

I tried it, figured I'd do 3 meals, but feel I wouldn't get enough calories, so I ate MORE in a single meal. after 3 days, realized I was full by the second meal, "why do I need 3rd?" wake up "wow still not hungry..." Find out I didn't consume more than 1600. Been doing it for a month now.

you just said it works for you. if it is working why are you even asking if its a meme?

It's just a really really easy way to get your calories in and cut. I'm currently doing it.

Actually really great advice, user, well done

I'm actually about to start lifting. Turned 25 in March. Not trying to get massive. I just want to get down to a healthy weight. Am I fucked? Or does that only apply to 25 year old beginners trying to get real big?

Fell for the cardio is bad meme.

Nah, you're fine. I think what user means is that it's always better to start doing something earlier rather than later, but it's never too late to lift unless you're in your 60s or something

>Almost every one of your goal bodies isn't natty and you could get further in a year on gear than most natties will ever get before giving up
>use this to temper your goals at least your timeframe to reach them

the literature doesn't support 6 (natties need to lift heavy). Hypertrophy has an almost identical response to failure pretty much anywhere from 30% to 90% 1RM. The problem is people usually have a volitional failure before muscle failure with higher rep ranges, either due to mental fatigue or the burn

What natties DO need to do is fucking PUSH HARD. You need to learn to thrive in the pain and actually just goddamn push until your muscles literally can't any more .

FYI that's also what separates body builders on gear from amateurs on gear, and is why body builders can put on 3x as much LBM with the same cycle in the same timeframe

Running with 110kg hurts my knees, especially downhill. I prefer swimming, or yoga.

it doesn't matter what the literature supports, the results from lifting for a mixture of strength and hypertrophy (which is what most "for strength" lifters do anyway) and purely for hypertrophy is pretty insignificant as a natty anyway, this is clear by the fact that natural bodybuilders are a fucking joke and have the sort of physique Veeky Forums shits on daily.

agreed with pushing hard though, if you're never sweating and have the energy to chat with everyone in the weight room between sets then you're not going to be getting optimal gains.

Ok thanks guys it has been a struggle my whole life. Grew up poor and was raised on soda and shit. Fucking sucks.


I quit smoking, drugs, sleeping with sluts, driving fast and stupid, etc... but damn if I can't get the soda monkey off my fucking back.

I do drink about a gallon of water a day and sweat a lot so I just need willpower at this point.

what do you mean by research?

The best lifting routine and diet is the one you can stick to and enjoy. Consistency is everything.

also this

I've found scientific evidence that 1g of protein per pound of (lean) body mass is pretty accurate, maybe a bit less but not a lot.

What would you say it's a good number if you say 1g is too much? (and based on what?)

source: this video sums it up pretty much
youtube.com/watch?v=Q-KBZ579Mao

Be religious about form. Do everything possible to avoid injuries. Snapping your shit up and having to take month or even year long breaks from the gym can and does happen.

Do intermittent fasting. Makes cutting easier and improves nutrient partitioning.

"Strength base", "strength equals mass", are locker room half-truths. High volume, high frequency, low intensity is the way to go if you're training for hypertrophy.

Cut down to a respectable bodyfat (circa 10%) then bulk using IF. Repeat when you're at 14/15%

Nobody cares how much you lift. Nobody.

like what we're doing now

reading about a subject of interest to learn more about it

.8-1g of LEAN body mass is in the ballpark. People actually eat 1g/lb of fucking BODY WEIGHT, there's fatasses right now eating 250g of protein.

Best post

And I'd like to add that having to go to failure always is a meme.

Recovery=\=Adaptation

Yeah i thought it would be something like that from personal experience also, thanks man!

To my 13-22 year old self -
>stop fapping, get rid of sluts and focus on yourself
>quit vidya, social media and mindless surfing
>sleep more

How fucking many wasted big career shots because I decided to fuck some slut instead of going to the practice or study instead of chopping some fucking TREES in runescape.

I was gonna go pro in basketball, but fucked it up. I could've become a lawyer, but xp was clearly more important.

Best post, keep copy-pasting for future threads to help newbies, you would have saved me entire weeks if i had read your post when i started lifting instead of all the shitposting of this board.

and now to add a couple of mine:

>If you want to go to failure, do it only on your last set of the last exercise of any muscle group, if not you will just fuck up the entire workout.
>While you figure out the best diet/sleep hours for you, it's better to wait on the progression of the lifts and pay special attention to form rather than putting on weight to the bar while grinding reps badly. Don't be scared to stay on the same weight on a lift for 2 or 3 workouts in a row if you are not eating/sleeping correctly, GOOD FORM BRUH

Bulk before summer

It's better than extended fasting. I have found a light and high protein meal before bed and after waking up works best.

...

Good post except that
>6. Natties need to train HEAVY. Fuck your getting-a-pump rep range.
is bullshit, if hypertrophy is your goal
High volume, high frequency, low intensity. This is what physiologists recommend, and is how oly lifters train when they want to move up a weight class

It's better to worry about form. You can get a more effective and healthier workout with lighter weights if your form is proper. Improper form can lead to injuries or muscle asymmetry.

Going slow with proper form is better than sloppily tossing around weights that are too much for you.

well a 3 plate squat is low intensity for oly lifters no?

Started at 28. Achieved best shape of my life 6 months later. Still long way to go

Oly lifters are also not natty..

Deep shit user

It's never too late to start anything.
What's that quote about don't not do something because of the time it will take to accomplish it because time will pass anyways... Or something like that
I'm 30 and just got serious about lifting in March. people are telling me I look great. I get down sometimes but several of my friends are telling me about to peak in life. It will take about 3 months for people to notice... Just force yourself to stick with it. It's all about consistency and then eventually seeping results will feed you even more motivation.
That being said I started with a split, noticed it was a waste of time and moved onto upper body, lower body, then cardio. 6 days a week. FOCUS ON COMPOUNDS. I also just started doing core EVERYDAY. And add weight when you can, can't stress that enough.

When i think about how many hours ive thrown at videogames for a false sense of achievement, substituting whats easy for whats worthwhile, it fucking kills me

you're probably not sleeping enough. 8 hours a night is the absolute minimum.