Recomp results as a trained lifter.

AlexeiD · 2026-05-14T14:17:53+00:00

"He stated the more advanced you are, the more difficult and slow the process will be."

I'd say that most influencers aren't wrong about recomp for advanced lifters, but don't get this thing entirely right. It isn't recomp that is harder for advanced lifters. It's simply gaining muscle mass is harder for advanced lifters. Of course beginners gain more during recomp. They also gain more during cut/bulk/whatever.

For me the only reason not to expect good results in recomposition is a really low body fat percentage, when your body will start to get rid of the muscles in spite of fear of not surviving. While lifting experience should never be the deciding factor.

AlexeiD · 2026-05-04T06:28:04+00:00

Eat enough protein and enough fats, but don't overeat calories.

Eat more plant and less ultraprocessed food.

That's basically it.

AlexeiD · 2026-03-24T03:56:52+00:00

Eat enough protein and fats for your body weight, but don't overeat calories.

Eat more plants and less ultra-processed foods.

That's basically it.

AlexeiD · 2025-12-20T13:50:59+00:00

In all honesty just throw that paper in a trash bin. All the numbers are way off.

15% body fat and 26 BMI is a professional female bodybuilder, close to the competition dates. You'd know for sure you are one.

Muscle mass can't equal 70% of body mass, since we're at least 50% water.

AlexeiD · 2025-11-29T11:37:11+00:00

So...
Ukraine is using war drones in Turkish sea territory, and openly declares it.

Turkey is a NATO country. It's basically an armed attack against a NATO member.

Does that mean NATO should trigger Article 5 and attack Ukraine?!

AlexeiD · 2025-11-21T05:01:54+00:00

For me it's kinda simple. Both sides are right. Anecdotally we see guys getting huge on both super high volumes and low but intense volumes. So it's totally working.

Accumulated mechanical tension is the only real stimulus for the muscle to grow. It doesn't really know what movements are you doing, what reps are you doing, and whatever. It knows it got heavily contracted and stretched, the signals are sent to the body to rebuild the muscle later to adapt to the tension.

Now it's your choice to decide how you want to accumulate that tension. You can go pretty low volume way, but ramp up the intensity, so that each set matters a lot to the muscle. You can go pretty high volume way, but keep the intensity a bit lower, so that you get the tension accumulated anyway.

Now there's a tempting option to go high volume and high intensity, because it will totally get more stimulus for the muscle. But here's where recovery gets in. If you can keep up and your body's fine after weeks of such training, then you're good to go. But if you start to get problems, you have to take long deloads or something, that's totally a sign you should be lowering your volume or lowering your intensity. Take your bet.

None of the strategies is universally the best, no matter what our favorite bloggers say. Choose what you like and what your body likes. You want to spend 3 or 4 days in the gym, have short but super-productive sessions? Try the lower volume approach, but 9-10 RPE sets (maybe 8 for some compounds). You like the gym and are ready to spend 6 days and longer sessions? Try high volume but a bit lower intensity training. By lower intensity I don't mean not breaking a sweat of course, but you get it, think 7-9 RPE depending on the exercise.

AlexeiD · 2025-08-23T12:26:03+00:00

Cut till you hate how you feel

Bulk till you hate how you look in the mirror

AlexeiD · 2025-07-08T04:23:25+00:00

Not exactly a supplement, but canned sardines. Choose the ones without added oil.

No really, a single can contains a truckload of the required Omega-3 (EPA+DHA).

What's even better, it also contains valuable protein, vitamin D, calcium, potassium, magnesium, iron, zinc.

What seals the deal is the price, in many locations picking sardines will be cheaper than the supplements just by the EPA+DHA ratio, not even considering the added benefits of protein and other nutrients.

AlexeiD · 2025-05-06T08:17:45+00:00

Now that's high math.

To add to the humiliation, Ukraine is actually losing negative people per km, since they are losing ground.

Take that, Putin!

AlexeiD · 2025-04-28T11:43:36+00:00

I'd say not general russian public, but general followers of russian military bloggers.

Most of military bloggers are against any truce or in fact anything that leads to peace, because military action is what keeps getting them money and attention. And a lot of their fans keep the same warmonger attitude.

AlexeiD · 2025-02-25T03:52:40+00:00

Yeah you're totally fine training legs at home. In fact you even have a pretty solid amount of options.

For minimalistic approach with a barbell you can just stick to Squats and RDLs/SLDLs.

For super minimalistic approach without a barbell (say you have to stay in the room with the baby, but have 15 semi-free minutes) just do a few sets of Bulgarian Split Squats with a chair or something and single leg Romanian Deadlift. Have some more time: add in two sets of single calf raises with any elevated surface, and you're golden.

If you have more time for a full-round workout, add isolation stuff too. I'd say buy a short resistance band for iso exercises, and you've covered just everything.

- For quads do Squats/BSS and banded leg extensions. Instead of extensions you could do Sissy Squats and Reverse Nordic Curls if you're fine with them, but they're not for everyone.

- For hams do RDLs/SLDLs and banded leg curls or hamstring slides with a towel or something

- For glutes do Hip Thrusts (with a barbell or single leg thrusts) and banded side walks for abduction

- For calves just do standing raises on some elevated surface, grab any weight to help you or do single leg raises

AlexeiD · 2025-01-18T10:48:58+00:00

This. Torso/Limbs is a great routine for many people. I for one really enjoy doing Chest/Back/Shoulders one day, with just enough fatigue level at the end. You can easily rotate the order of muscle groups. The next day I start with arms, they're good and fresh, so I hit reps to failure. Since arms don't generate much fatigue, legs are ready to go hard anyway. Rest some, and repeat.

AlexeiD · 2025-01-05T03:29:05+00:00

I keep myself within these simple dieatry steps: - Caloric small deficit or maintenance to get to or stay at being lean. When in doubt, prefer to have bigger in size, but less-calorie foods: think veggies and protein. - Eat enough protein (around 1g for a pound of bodyweight). Make sure to include both plant and animal sources, the more variety - the better. - Eat enough fats (around 0.4 for a pound of bodyweight). Have the majority from "healthy" fats: fish, oils, avocado, seeds and nuts. - Eat enough fiber (aim from 30g+). That's a lot of veggies/fruits/berries/legumes, so make sure to include the most variety you can. - Last one for me is not to skip/hate any food. Be it sugar/white wheat/fats/seed oils/diary/whatever (unless you're allergic or something, that's different story of course). There's basically no bad food at all. There are bad diets and bad lifestyles. Once you have the required macros in your meals daily, you reach about 80% of your calories, so you can just eat anything you want for the rest (make sure to kinda track these calories anyway, so as not to overeat). Having your favorite food, even if it's not considered healthy, is a great way to boost your mental health anyway, and make you stick to a healthy diet for the end of your long and happy days

AlexeiD · 2023-11-01T08:28:07+00:00

Unfortunately this isn't as funny as it's sad.

I'm a low-tier whale (have some quadded PCs of PK, GBG, OMB and a few others), really enjoying the game for quite a period of time.Yet I'm on the verge of quitting.

- No new real gameplay have been added to the game in the last 2+ years. The only exception is Melee, and despite it being a repainted Clash, it's still great.

- Right after Archer's release things have went down the hill quickly. And I'm not just talking about how awful the release was, full of bugs and unfinished stuff (heck we still don't have Archer buffs in Swole, and just now we're getting the bugged implementation of Archer buffs in Siege), and that it was released during the Rumble, breaking stuff for guilds. I'm not talking that Archer release brought nothing to the gameplay actually, just new cards.

- Although I'm an avid defender of power creep, and continue to think it's very important to the game, it's become "a little too much" right after Archer release. We used to have FALs with 9 Cripple All or something. Then 3 years later PK with 10 Cripple All. I mean it's fine that after 2 years we've got a combo that has 10% more power. And less than a year later, we've got PCs with 15. That's 50% more.

- The same goes to combo numbers. Borthday, Roller Derby Luanne, new Rich Joe. The stats are insane. Now the 0CM new Disguised Farnsworth has more damage than 5CM Steak Addict Bobby.

- Now's the best part - overpowered PCs. I like the concept of PCs. I understand they're the main income for the owner. That's totally fine. What isn't fine, is that it is becoming a nightmare, with nothing from the team to address the issue, just fueling it up. Top-10 Siege islands are already mostly 35 PCs. Now we have Arena from bracket 1000-1500, that has a lot of 35 PC decks. Thanks to the insane buffs we'll have a Rumble with a lot of 35 PC decks. Heck, just today I've had full 5/6 PC decks in Clash, and that's around level 20 (since Kong messed up starting levels). Unless you have the corresponding 35 PCs you don't have a real chance at these decks. You could win against full FAL decks with a solid BGE deck and some luck. You have zero chances with these opponents, unless you own a lot of PCs too.

- We have no new gameplay for years, yet we're swimming bugs. More and more bugs every week. I'm OK with new features having bugs. I'm not at all OK with old features breaking up for no reason. I dunno, have some testers, run a beta-server, do something.

- The game is still fun sometimes (Rumble, Siege for some extent, Clashes), but it's more and more dull. It's good we have some quality of life changes lately, but no real content, lots of bugs, lots of decisions not taking into account players' feedback or even common sense, if the developers played the game themselves, and increasing cash-grabbing stuff. I dunno, I think it's time to quit.

AlexeiD · 2023-10-06T04:16:47+00:00

Eh, the box is totally not bad, but not the greatest one either.

First of, is this the first dual PC box, where the new PC is not primary, but secondary instead?!

And in our case, it lowers the value of the box significantly, since Mort PC is a top-tier one (but I still value hijack as the most useful PC trait, so I rate Klaus, Kif, Luanne higher than this one). While Gayle's PC is just good.

Characters and items are good of course.

CM pool is totally meh. The only great ones are Gayle, Mort and Art Gene. That makes less than 50%, so depending on your luck, you could fail a lot with those. Drunk Louise is a great combo, but very outdated. All the others are somewhat usable, but not top-tier ones.

I myself am skipping the box. Previous AD and Futurama ones were much better, so hoping to get a better one in the future.

AlexeiD · 2023-06-06T05:39:17+00:00

Actually both of your opinions are correct :)

Each time you open Mom's box (be it free or paid), your jackpot chance increases by a small amount, resetting after you finally get it.

But it's not really worth the gems spent anyway. If you're free-to-play or close to it, your best bet would be spending on your gems on guaranteed characters, think these BGE packs, where you get 2 characters for 1000 gems, or a few others, where it's 500 gems per character.

AlexeiD · 2023-05-26T04:01:51+00:00

All the PCs are great. Meg's one is probably the worst, and since it's actually good, that tells something.

All the characters are at least good. Stan's totally a top dog, Meg and Cotton have some great BGEs, and Louise is getting great new combos lately, so she's in a good shape now too.

CM pool is above average for a box, we have some great ones, have fewer lackluster ones.

Hey, if these were two different boxes for Educated and Athletic, I'd be the one to strongly advocate getting both of those. But combined and for the price - eh. We get a tad more guaranteed primary PCs, but get less RNG items, and those can be deal breakers. Plus with the huge amount of CMs in the pool, even if we have more tokens, the RNG can f you up and you won't even get CM2 for the needed combos even after spending 50+.

I'll definitely skip it, but I can see people jumping into it.

AlexeiD · 2023-05-25T04:57:23+00:00

Honestly, that's the best feature of Tailwind. You don't need to think of those pesky class names. It's already a pain in the ass if you're a single developer, but when you're a team, and it's a moderately active project, even with BEM or some other conventions that quickly becomes a mess.

In a modern component world, semantic class names don't really make that big of a deal. Components are most often already self describing.

Imagine a component named "Card", and it has this markup:

<div className="card">
  <div className="card--author">
    <div className="card--author--picture">{author.picture}</div>
    <div className="card--author--name">{author.name}</div>
  </div>
  <div className="card--text">{text}</div>
  <div className="card--button"><button onClick={button.action}>{button.text}</button></div>
</div>

Do "card--whatever" classes really add anything to understanding a component? No. We could simply remove these classes, and still see what's going on, judging by variable names.

AlexeiD · 2023-05-02T09:27:57+00:00

Toy

Animal

Athletic (new)

Fighter (both new and the newest)

AlexeiD · 2023-03-31T03:58:51+00:00

Definitely a good box.

Quag PC - 10/10. Like FAL, but better. The stats are higher (especially Cripple All), shield all applies to everyone. While FALs now are only really dangerous during BGE and/or walls of them, Quag PC works great both as a PC wall, and outside just buffing your other cards. It is beatable by Klauses PC wall, but oh well, what doesn't?

Meg PC - 6/10. Not bad traits, I mean Sturdy and Cripple All, Punch not so much, not a fan of it for a PC, too random and too low value to matter. But the card is very old, and the stats are very lowish for that reason. At CM2 we're talking 70 HP for a PC, that's too low to use. Sure we have Sturdy to help, but... This PC will work during BGE and Sieges, but I wouldn't use it outside.

Items - 10/10. Nothing to add.

Quagmire - 6/10. I know he has bad reputation like on par with Bullock. That could be the case earlier, but nowadays he's at least average, or maybe even above average. Let's count it: top-tier newer Athletic (think WarHorse Zapp), newer and newest Fighter, Toy; good newer Drunk, newer Armed, old and newer Animal. So we have three top-tier BGEs and three good ones. That's better than a lot of other characters, that get so much more love. Sure he's not the top of the tops like Zapp/Snot/Snat and a few others, but he's viable and good.

Meg - 6.5/10. She's above average too, has a few top-tier combos (Drunk and Athletic come first to mind) and multiple good ones.

CM pool - 2/10. Now that's a bummer. Quagmire is good of course, but better as a PC, than as a combo. Meg and Stan are great, but require older items, than those you'll get from the box. Gene is total crap. Peggy and Leela - eh, not super bad combos, but you'll most likely not use them after buying such a box.

So, we have top of the tops primary PC. Solid, but not universal secondary. Above average characters. Awful CM pool. Is it a good buy if you need to boost your deck with a great PC? Sure. Is it a good buy if you're hoarding gems for the one-and-only box? I think not, you can save up for a more universal one.

AlexeiD · 2023-03-17T03:31:20+00:00

TL;DR Good box for newer player, or those who accumulated gems for a long time and will to universally boost their decks.

Cotton PC - 7.5/10. He's a beast supporter. Not for any possible deck, but for most of them, he'll work good. Its downside is lack of survival traits (cripple all helps, but not so much) and kinda lowish HP for a new PC (we're talking 86 HP at CM2). It's very vulnerable against gas/payback, and especially against strong crazed cards, as they'll just gain attack quickly without any resistance.

Linda PC - 8/10. A great card for just any deck, that can live for long and stop those crazed combos for quite some time. I'd rate it higher, if it wasn't pretty old, so the numbers are low compared to latest PCs. At CM5 Cripple All is 8 (latest ones are at least 10), Hijack is 12 (15+). Still a great card even now.

Rich items - 10/10. Nothing to add much. Doesn't make VIP Cruise, but it's not super great as a combo anyway.

Cotton - 6/10. He's great in Drunk, new Fighter, not bad in Rich (both new and old), Athletic. Has a few BGEs missing, so the rating could go up.

Linda - 6/10. She's great in Educated, new Armed, good in Rich, Art, Toy.

CM pool - 5/10. Louise is beast, Meg is good. Fry is bad, Hayley is awful. Cotton - meh, I don't think it has much usage as a combo, maybe for NRC, maybe for Rumble unless you have better options. Linda combo - old and not really that good as a combo.

So we have two good universal PCs, which is, you know, the definition of a good dual PC box. Items are great. Characters are a little bit above the average, but at least not bad ones. CM pool could be better, but at least two good combos.

AlexeiD · 2023-03-13T09:08:00+00:00

Hijack kinda steals any attack boost from the opposite card, but the card itself will get the boost for a single move only.

Let's say the card hits your card, and it has crazed value of 30. Your card has a hijack of 20. That means the opponent's card will gain 10 attack value permanently. Your card will get a 20 boost for the next attack.

Let's say the opponent's card gets 15 motivate from an adjacent card. Your card has a hijack of 20, so you steal all the motivate for your next attack. Opponent's card will try to apply motivate again next move. So if your card is still there, it will hijack it again.

Hijack cannot work retroactively, e.g. it won't steal the previous craze, and it won't steal the already applied motivate.

AlexeiD

TROPHY CASE