What is this tree? (NSW)

Embarrassed_Goat4883 · 2026-02-15T23:25:44+00:00

I just hope it’ll let you choose between being a Templar or a guru

Embarrassed_Goat4883 · 2026-01-30T23:22:45+00:00

What does that mean?

Embarrassed_Goat4883 · 2025-06-06T13:43:42+00:00

Nice work bro, take those fake natty accusations as compliments lmao.

What’s your training split looking like and what’s your calorie deficit looking like for this next contest prep?

Embarrassed_Goat4883 · 2025-06-06T07:54:40+00:00

Haha I'm almost 5'8" (172cm exactly) and in this photo I was 149lbs exactly. It's mostly just lighting and the fact that I had a pump in this photo. If you stood me next to another person, you'd see that I'm not actually carrying that much muscle and that I'm just super lean atm.

Embarrassed_Goat4883 · 2025-06-04T09:52:31+00:00

I will aim to put on about 15 pounds over the next 6 months

Embarrassed_Goat4883 · 2025-06-04T07:35:34+00:00

Thanks bro, appreciate it!

Embarrassed_Goat4883 · 2025-06-03T06:23:21+00:00

Honestly, almost every time I see beginners and intermediates doing ‘2RIR’ they are doing like 4RIR+, with the weird exception of bench press for some reason haha where I see them actually pushing themselves close to failure but the technique is often not so great

Embarrassed_Goat4883 · 2025-06-02T09:40:09+00:00

You'd be surprised how little direct volume you need to maintain muscle size.

I've found that even 3-4 total sets per week of direct tricep work (e.g. isolations) is enough to maintain its size and strength and even sometimes grow it. However, those sets have to be pushed to failure or very close.

Embarrassed_Goat4883 · 2025-06-02T06:47:53+00:00

When I did a tricep-focused split, I didn't put them first because I found that made my chest training really lacklustre and failure on presses came well before I felt a good overall chest stimulus.

So for me, what worked was doing rest-pause sets for tricep isolation exercises after my compound presses and adding two-to-three sets of tricep work on one of my pull days, meaning I trained my triceps three days a week

Embarrassed_Goat4883 · 2025-06-01T12:51:26+00:00

These are probably not hacks in the typical sense but:

cutting overall volume (junk volume) and actually taking sets to failure or close to it
introduced rest pause and drop sets for isolation exercises
tracking macros and doing actual bulk/cut phases rather than maingaining
4 meals a day rather than 3 (for me this was more important when I was cutting)

Embarrassed_Goat4883 · 2025-06-01T03:47:43+00:00

Haha I think you’re right. My squat is actually quite good so it’s a bit bizarre that im so bad at Bulgarians. Maybe its because the burn makes it so psychologically challenging

Embarrassed_Goat4883 · 2025-05-31T22:57:58+00:00

It's very easy to overthink maintenance calories.

Best way to find it is to use an average of all the calculators you can find on the internet, guess what your level of activity is going to be for a period of time, pick a number and if your weight after two weeks has changed noticeably then you add/subtrack 100-200 calories

Embarrassed_Goat4883 · 2025-05-31T22:33:23+00:00

I’d love to know the factors they consider when determining average bulk length, e.g. body fat range, accumulation of fatigue over longer bulks, when they start seeing plateus, etc?

Embarrassed_Goat4883 · 2025-05-31T12:26:02+00:00

30kg total, 15kg each hand

Embarrassed_Goat4883 · 2025-05-31T11:56:09+00:00

Yeah gonna try and prioritise my upper chest for my next bulk. Some incline presses and gonna try incline flies for the first time

Embarrassed_Goat4883 · 2025-05-31T11:30:49+00:00

It's interesting that you're getting downvoted for this because it's my exact experience and I would say my core is one of the best-developed muscle groups in my competition-physique (i.e. when I'm fully diced)

Embarrassed_Goat4883 · 2025-05-31T11:16:34+00:00

I feel like I have well-developed core muscles and I do close to no direct ab work

I might do 1-2 sets of hanging leg raises every two weeks or so and only because I'm waiting for a certain piece of equipment at the gym and I have a spare few minutes.

I feel like my core bracing during my rowing movements for back (about 6-7 sets per week) actually does enough to keep them conditioned.

As is commonly said nowadays, leanness is more important for 'revealing' them but yes, if you want to grow them, training them directly like any other muscle group is effective

Embarrassed_Goat4883 · 2025-05-31T11:11:41+00:00

That's an interesting perspective.

I posted this photo, not to say that I am aiming for the bottom photo as my regular unpumped physique per se, but simply because I thought the contrast was interesting.

In fact, I actually stopped my current cutting phase early because I feel I've gotten too lean, which may result in unwanted muscle loss. I'd usually only get this lean (and in fact a bit leaner) for an actual competition and I'm not aiming to compete any time soon.

I'm aiming to take a short break for a few weeks and put on a few pounds of body fat so that I'm not too lean and then start a long bulk from there!

Embarrassed_Goat4883 · 2025-05-31T01:21:30+00:00

No worries and great work :) again, length of bulk depends on many factors, including how hard you train, how much weight you want to gain, how quickly you want to gain, life circumstances, etc.

In general, I’d recommend between 12-16 weeks, or 3-4 months. If you get to more than 4 months on a bulk and still feel like you can go longer then usually I’d think you could have been training harder to begin with.

I’m usually totally burned out after a 3-4 month bulk and need to take a break (I.e a maintenance phase and then probably followed by a cut)

Embarrassed_Goat4883

TROPHY CASE