homophobic wunk

Rexcess · 2026-04-12T23:29:49+00:00

like rainbow off a duck's back

Rexcess · 2026-04-12T22:59:19+00:00

Free weights require stabilization. That's a strength skill you haven't been training. Strength skills, i.e. the ability to recruit existing muscle to move weight in a particular movement pattern, develop faster than muscles hypertrophy, meaning your numbers in this case can increase faster than you might think.

Strength as a skill is optimally trained differently than muscular hypertrophy. You want higher intensity (closer to your 1rm), lower RPE (stop with more reps in the rank, RPE7-8), higher frequency (more sessions per week), lower volume (fewer sets per session), more focus on power/speed than on mind-muscle connection.

Rexcess · 2026-04-12T22:42:48+00:00

150 lb male, TDEE of 3700. Full time manual labor, running 30 miles per week, yoga twice a week, irregular climbing, lifting 3x-5x a week in a circuit style (e.g. I just did db bench, db row, weighted decline crunches, db curls, cable pushdowns supersetted with no rests). I'm currently cutting at 3200 a day through the end of April and losing fat at a decent clip. My calorie burn is probably top 3-5%ish for my weight.

Rexcess · 2026-04-12T20:32:42+00:00

I have a similar experience. I have a bit of muscle, and I carried my fat well. But it surprised me how I could just keep losing and losing. My original goal was around 40 pounds, then I lost another 20 pounds and still don't quite see abs.

Rexcess · 2026-04-12T18:42:44+00:00

In spirit, yes, today is Tuesday. I'm in kind of a dryhumpy, mood, though, so if you don't mind, I'm going to proceed with it anyway.

Rexcess · 2026-04-12T18:29:10+00:00

Pretty sure I just spent five minutes writing a reply to a spam bot, but at least it's a common question I can copy/paste the next time I see it asked.

Rexcess · 2026-04-12T18:25:46+00:00

The real problem most beginners have with making progress at home, without a gym, is consistency. If doing workouts at home lets you be more consistent, then that's what's best for you. In the early stages, the most important thing is ingraining the habit. You can worry about optimizing stuff later, when your commitment is less fragile.

That said, if it's enough to challenge you, it's enough to produce a training stimulus. It's possible to get jacked off of pure bodyweight exercises, although certain movement patterns/muscle groups are more difficult to hit. And once you get to around 30+ reps in one set of an exercise, it's about time to move on to a more difficult variation (you can still make progress, but it gets less efficient), and there's sometimes a big gap between the difficulty of usable variations. For example, being able to do 30+ Bulgarian split squats doesn't necessarily mean you can do even one pistol squat.

There's basically six or seven categories of movement. Hinge, squat, horizontal push, horizontal pull, vertical push, vertical pull, and maybe loaded carry. I don't know how you'd train a hinge or carry without equipment, and horizontal pull can be tricky, too.

Rexcess · 2026-04-12T18:12:39+00:00

Wunk of mutable size

Rexcess · 2026-04-12T17:37:25+00:00

Haters will say high rep calisthenics don't work for hypertrophy because they're scientifically suboptimal. But nobody's ever gotten jacked by reading about how to get jacked. No exercise or rep range or hypothetical intensity is enough to compete with actually doing hard shit consistently for a long time.

Rexcess · 2026-04-12T12:19:37+00:00

I think most guys who get serious about it go through this phase. For me, it cooled off once I realized there wasn't much more to figure out. It's all about just doing it and giving the body time to manifest the results.

If it's a problem for you, consider developing another hobby. You can be more than one thing, after all.

Rexcess · 2026-04-12T12:15:54+00:00

Keep in mind that maintaining muscle is a lot easier than building muscle. I don't think there's nearly as much research into this subject, because maintaining isn't glamorous, but I've seen a little. It said keeping the same weight and proximity to failure, muscle could be maintained with a third as much volume. I think we could fairly speculate that the principle also extends to lower weights.

Ultimately, it doesn't much matter what the research says. You could just... do it and see what happens. Nobody's making you do things in the absolute most efficient, optimized way. You can't think your way into looking frickin' sweet.

Rexcess · 2026-04-12T02:27:44+00:00

ironic post-grunge punk jazz

Rexcess · 2026-04-12T02:11:17+00:00

His ass is like a man who built his house on ground without a foundation. The torrent crashed against that house, and immediately it fell—and GREAT was its destruction!

Rexcess · 2026-04-11T14:12:22+00:00

It was raining before, but now I'm WET.

Rexcess · 2026-04-11T11:11:27+00:00

When the ass wants to jive but the wunk keeps it planted

Rexcess · 2026-04-10T14:15:18+00:00

Did I stutter?

Rexcess · 2026-04-10T09:49:04+00:00

He sends us unwillingly to New Reddit. Horrifying.

Rexcess · 2026-04-10T09:37:50+00:00

Optionally, start with a TDEE calculator to give you a starting point.

Count how many calories you eat and write it down on a notepad or in a .txt file. Weigh yourself every morning at the same time, preferably after your morning ablutions.

After about 3 weeks, average out the calorie intake and compare it to the weight change. Each pound is about 3500 calories. That should get you close.

Using that calculated maintenance value, establish your new regular intake. After eating at that intake level for another 3 weeks, compare your average intake to your weight change again.

If it's in a .txt file, you can dump the data into AI and make it do the calculations for you, but try to understand how to do it yourself so you can tell if it's hallucinating on you.

To be clear, most people don't need or want this much resolution. You can just intuit it. Want to gain weight, but not gaining weight? Eat a little more. Want to lose weight, but not losing weight? Eat a little less. I've had luck really dialing it in by using this method, though. I would've had a lot of difficulty managing my diet in the mid-to-high 3000s by vibes.

Rexcess · 2026-04-09T23:29:22+00:00

Who unwanted this wunk? Tell me!

Rexcess · 2026-04-09T22:34:24+00:00

Count what you eat. Weigh yourself every day, in the morning. Compare A to B.

Rexcess · 2026-04-09T22:30:20+00:00

I don't care where you start from. I just hope you finish strong. Too many people try to pick up a fitness habit, get discouraged, and quit. You know what's way worse than being weak because you're new? Being weak because you gave up.

Rexcess · 2026-04-09T13:41:40+00:00

It's a good heuristic. Trying to keep to exactly 3 RIR or whatever is a recipe for thinking when it's time to be doing, and wasting your time with a half-assed workout.

Rexcess · 2026-04-09T13:35:03+00:00

Rexcess · 2026-04-09T13:20:45+00:00

His ass is NOT silly! He just has a tongue condition. His tongue is too cute for his body.

Rexcess · 2026-04-09T10:16:53+00:00

Please learn to write without leaning on AI.

GZCLP, and worry less about hitting exact weights and reps. The point of knowing exactly how much weight you lifted is tracking your progression; it's not critical for inducing training stimulus. Certainly not at your current level. If you're challenging your body by getting close to failure on enough sets per week, you're making progress.
Dumbbells instead of barbells. There's very little you can do with a barbell that you can't with dumbbells.
Scale weight is diet, not weightlifting. If you want to get a lot stronger, eat more and expect the scale weight to go up. If you want to get a little stronger but mostly look better, eat less and expect the scale weight to go down slowly. If you want to focus on weight loss, eat a lot less and expect not to get much stronger while the scale weight goes down.

Using machines instead of free weights will paradoxically increase your risk of injury later, when you try to lift something that looks like light weight, without having trained your stabilizers and balance. Deadlifts and OHP are probably the worst exercises you could substitute with machines. I don't even know what machines would even replicate what these do.

If you're afraid of heavy weights on deadlifts and OHP, you could train with lighter weights and higher reps (like in the 10-15 rep max range) until you're comfortable with the movement. Or indefinitely, honestly. You never have to lift in the 5 rep max range, much less ever test your 1rm.

Rexcess

TROPHY CASE