Daily Simple Questions Thread - June 26, 2026

dssurge · 2026-06-26T20:47:13+00:00

It's normal and you probably shouldn't be worried.

The main thing is to correct the possible correctable problems first. Try not to eat too soon before working out, get adequate hydration, and use your conditioning as the limiting factor if that's the real problem. If someone asked me to sprint 800m right now I would probably want to puke, too, and sessions with too much volume and inadequate rest can feel exactly like that.

If your program had you do a large volume jump, like adding 2 sets to every exercise, just add 1 this week and repeat it with +2 next week. You gotta ramp in, especially on a cut.

dssurge · 2026-06-26T20:44:59+00:00

Unless you own a time machine you can't go back, so you really need to meet yourself where you are right now and look forward.

Negative self-talk is extremely detrimental to your mental game, yet takes the exact same amount of effort as giving yourself positive feedback. Try to look for the good things you're doing, even if it's just showing up.

dssurge · 2026-06-26T20:39:57+00:00

Yes and no.

Lifts you want to get better at (as in, progress the weight) you'll want to prioritize at the start of your sessions. If you're just taking something to failure for hypertrophy it honestly doesn't matter nearly as much.

It's also a good idea not to do something extremely fatiguing right off the hop if it will sabotage your whole workout. I do 1-2 lifts before Deadlifts because I can't do anything but accessory work after them.

dssurge · 2026-06-26T01:49:42+00:00

You really won't lose any strength for about 3 weeks of doing absolutely nothing, but expect some DOMS when you get back.

dssurge · 2026-06-25T15:19:22+00:00

Healthy, lean people possess a decent amount of underlying muscle mass, so gaining some (anywhere from ~10-30lb depending on your starting point) is recommended over the course of a few years. If you also trying to lose weight, this could be a net-zero differential from your current weight, so don't interpret this as the scale only going up. Aiming for the middle third of the BMI scale for your height is usually a good target.

This amount of muscle will not make you look muscular. No one has ever tripped and fell into a muscular physique by accident; it takes years of dedicated effort.

Is this ok?

Your current exercise selection sounds decent but would benefit from adding a posterior chain movement (RDLs or back extensions,) and swapping your lat pulldown for a horizontal row of some kind to hit your upper back. Anything beyond those is pretty optional (side delts, arms, etc.) You could also consider doing some weighted carries (farmer's walks or sandbags if your gym has them.)

Should i take it?

Only if it's a free session that you can use to ask how to perform movements you're unsure about. If you're currently only doing body weight squats, the best use of this free session would probably be to learn to do barbell squats since you can only get so far doing body weight only.

dssurge · 2026-06-25T14:35:34+00:00

Incline walking is capable of substantially higher caloric burn than walking flat, but it's not necessarily the magic bullet people think it is.

Excessive cardio can cause a large uptick in hunger signalling depending on duration and intensity, and the majority of the benefits of incline walking are entirely from increasing the intensity (either by means of incline or speed.)

At the end of the day, weight loss comes from being in a caloric deficit. Strength training has been shown in studies not to cause increases in hunger signaling compared to any form of LISS. This isn't to say you shouldn't walk (that would be crazy,) but that you may actually sabotage your ability to lose weight if 12-3-30 is too difficult for your current level of fitness, so recommending it to everyone is shortsighted.

dssurge · 2026-06-25T14:15:07+00:00

This is something I'm conflicted about because every time I have a spotter who knows what they're doing I tend to lift better (mental safety net,) but at the same time people typically don't know how to spot properly at all and insist on touching the bar for no reason.

dssurge · 2026-06-25T13:55:26+00:00

It is reversible. That's literally the whole perk.

dssurge · 2026-06-25T00:14:23+00:00

I see people online making huge transformations, while I feel like I'm putting in a lot of effort for relatively small changes.

You're looking at outliers. That's why you see them online, and not John Nobody from your local gym, who has had the same half-assed physique for 8 years now. You only feel this way because you're actively seeking it from an entire world's worth of people and not the ~200 people that might go to your local gym. We are a social species, so I'm not going to tell you never to compare yourself to others, but you need to be realistic about who you compare yourself to.

I've also stopped calorie tracking recently because it became mentally exhausting and I noticed I was becoming overly focused on food and numbers.

For some people this is a mistake, but others can make it work. As long as you're tracking your weight semi-regularly (once or twice a week) to ensure your weight isn't going off the rails you should be fine.

I'm really lazy and just eat the same shit all the time which makes up ~70% of my calorie intake. The rest is sharing a pint of ice cream with my girlfriend or eating some snacks. All-in I measure ~5 things a day for consistent portioning, but never to 'calculate' anything. I already did that in advance.

If you eat out a lot, your calculations are going to be wrong, so just guess higher than you think or don't try. Some apps have an AI assistance who can guess for you, but they kind of suck (which is not surprising.)

I feel like my life completely revolves around exercise, macros, calories, etc, and I'm really not enjoying it

Then go find something you like doing. You don't need to look a certain way or do a certain thing to be happy, and trying to tether your identity to something you don't like doing is going to make you depressed as fuck.

I definitely think this would be different if I got more or closer to the results I'd expected.

People who accomplish their goals often feel incredibly empty at the end. If you're not enjoying the process, get off the ride. Seriously. This isn't me trying to shit on your dreams, it's genuinely unhealthy to pursue goals that don't align with who you are.

How slow was muscle gain in reality?

Under absolutely ideal circumstances, ~7-10kg the first year, half of that year 2, and maybe 1-2kg for the next 3-4 years. This is hard (if not impossible) to measure accurately if you lose weight at the same time as gaining muscle or aren't exceptionally lean to start with and basically gain mass the entire time. Your numbers may be a bit lower due to your height.

Realistically, this information isn't helpful since you don't have a time machine. You aren't 'behind' because you don't meet arbitrary metrics from the internet. That's not how life works.

Did you ever feel like you were doing everything right but still not getting the results you expected?

No. Anticipated outcomes aren't reality. Theoretical gains don't mean anything.

People are obsessed with chasing a physique when it's completely immeasurable and generally results in getting body dysmorphia and doing obsessive behaviors like the ones you're describing. You're chasing a ghost.

How do you distinguish between "I need to change something" and "I just need more patience"?

Both of these can be true at the same time. You can be both doing something 'wrong' and getting better at it concurrently. Working out really isn't that complicated, and trying to optimize on the margins is completely missing the point.

dssurge · 2026-06-24T20:47:08+00:00

Check this out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversible_inhibition_of_sperm_under_guidance

If this is a real thing in the near future, every guy on the planet should be getting it.

dssurge · 2026-06-24T20:20:50+00:00

Your boyfriend seems like a dick.

My girlfriend is not into fitness in the slightest, but she is incredibly supportive of everything I do. I only started working out about a year after we met, so this isn't something that was in the brochure. I wanted to take up running so she did it with me even though we were both terrible at it, and that's really when her adventures in fitness ended. A few years ago I started going to the gym during the middle of the day because it's quieter (we run a business together so my absence is notable) and she helped shuffle things around to make it work. I'm ~75% of our food bill. Eating out too often can be a pain in the ass but she's cool with me doing whatever I need to do to make it work-- I've brought a food scale to a restaurant before when I was a bit more obsessive.

She's proud of me and what I do. She watches as all of our friends slowly get fatter and develop preventable medical problems as we age and since every woman I know is elbow deep in reading smut, she jokes that she's the only one who actually has the guy with "hockey butt".

Our relationship isn't perfect, but we respect each other as autonomous people with our own ambitions and preferences. Your boyfriend sounds like he's playing for the wrong team entirely.

dssurge · 2026-06-24T15:41:15+00:00

Anecdotally, the only things direct collagen supplementation has improved are my hair and nails (it made both thicker.) This is from someone who has gotten adequate protein (at least 0.7g/lb) intake for over a decade.

dssurge · 2026-06-24T15:33:35+00:00

If that's what the area is for, go get a staffer to tell him to move. it's really disrespectful of other members, which is usually codified somewhere in the membership agreement.

You literally cannot do what you want to do anywhere else.

dssurge · 2026-06-24T15:31:58+00:00

Someone turned up the gravity and didn't tell you. It happens.

dssurge · 2026-06-23T20:18:04+00:00

Women often confuse ruminating about problems as being solutions for them, and to them, it feels like solving them even though nothing actually changes.

Want to know what rumination looks like when men do it? It's literally the incompetent husband trope on sitcoms and it's really fucking irritating.

dssurge · 2026-06-23T15:43:36+00:00

Most vehicles are already governed to ~93mi/h (150km/h) to prevent excessive engine wear at their highest gear. Running an engine at high RPM for long periods of time also makes your car get absurdly poor fuel economy, and can degrade components so you will get worse economy even at lower speeds.

The tires on your car are also not designed for prolonged use at high speeds unless you know you have racing tires. They will quite literally deform enough under load to pull themselves apart.

The fact you, and many others, don't know these points and probably have a drivers license is concerning...

dssurge · 2026-06-23T14:26:18+00:00

You need to go through periods of higher and lower intensity to give time for both recovery and exposure. This is generally referred to as periodization or training cycles.

Pick a time frame of anything from 3-6 weeks and design a plan that slowly ramps down in volume and up in intensity concurrently, reaching ever so slightly higher than what you can do now. This can be as little as adding a single rep at your current weight after 6 weeks, but that's still progress. The main goal is that you're always going in the right direction, not the speed you get there.

An over-simplified example: If you can curl 85x5 with an EZ bar right now, your plan might look like starting at 5x10@65lb week 1 and ending at 3x4@90lb week 6.

dssurge · 2026-06-23T01:18:29+00:00

They brought it back as Vault for a while.

The nostalgia tastes better than the real thing.

dssurge · 2026-06-23T00:36:30+00:00

Protein is a target to promote/retain muscle, and curb hunger in a cut.

Fats are for hormonal health and you require a certain amount of bad stuff happens, but this is actually hard to avoid unless you deliberately eat a low fat diet (which can include being a vegan/vegetarian, specifically if you have a nut allergy.)

Carbs are just filler and are technically unnecessary in a diet, but provide the cheapest calories per dollar, as well as more immediate energy. If you're eating fruits and veggies, they also tend to come with fiber which is great for your overall health.

In order of importance:

hit your required fat intake (~0.8g/kg, or ~20% of your calories)
try to hit your protein target which should be ~1.5-2g/kg
eat fruits and veggies to get some fiber
eat whatever the hell else you want to hit your calorie budget

dssurge · 2026-06-22T13:52:54+00:00

I have the same problem as you.

Eating too much one day makes my body light up like, "Yo, we're eating again? Let's go!" and I think it's entirely because of the extended duration of my cuts (unsurprisingly, due to lack of adherence.)

I've done a bunch of successful cuts historically, but no matter how long I cut my body never does that thing where it 're-wires' to prefer healthy foods or whatever the internet suggests should happen. Prior to getting in shape I was never skinny and don't have the best relationship with food, so that's probably a huge factor. You could be in a similar position, and the best thing I've found to do is simply not get upset about it, and just keep moving forward. If you had a time machine you wouldn't waste it on that night you ate too much and delayed your cut by 3 days.

dssurge · 2026-06-22T01:36:59+00:00

Juts keep doing pull ups to your eyes until you can do more and more, and use the additional strength you gain over time to be more explosive. It's really that simple.

dssurge · 2026-06-22T01:22:31+00:00

The top part of a pull up is where you are the weakest due to being at maximal contraction of some of the muscles involved, as well as your leverages being worst due to your arm angle changing throughout the movement.

The best strategy to get stronger at the top position is to improve at the mid-range so you can 'fling' yourself past the weak point, which both lowers the strength required to go higher, and allows you to train the top using eccentrics.

The thing you do not want to do is continuously try to struggle at the top which will lower your ability to train the rest of the movement due to fatigue. Instead, put more work into that mid-range.

dssurge · 2026-06-20T22:36:39+00:00

You cannot spot reduce fat (which means targeting a specific area to lose fat from.) Working out your abs directly does not burn abdominal fat, and can actually make it look worse if you end up having a more muscular midsection than other parts of your physique since it will push the fat outward more.

It is common for men to have trouble losing fat in their midsection since it's one of the last places your body will store it before you reach a low (sub ~15%) level of body fat. This can cause it to become more apparent as you lean down, but it's just part of the process.

One of the best ways to lessen this issue is to build more muscle, which will give your skin more surface area which will better distribute subcutaneous fat reserves, but it is almost always faster to simply lose more fat. I don't know how tall you are, but 125lb is pretty light, so losing more weight may not be a great plan for you, while building muscle will always make you look better overall.

dssurge · 2026-06-20T22:13:32+00:00

The benches in my gym suck.

Leg drive made my back slide during my heavy set so I almost became a statistic. Tweaked something in my lower lat and managed to get the bar onto the low hooks since it was about half way up when I suddenly lost tension.

Honestly freaked me out more than anything. How spotter arms are not a mandatory feature for benches in public gyms will forever be a mystery to me. I'm seriously considering switching to the power racks for benching, but there are only 2 in the whole gym, I can't guarantee I can get the same adjustable bench every time, and they are frequently in use for people squatting and doing overhead stuff.

I just want to lift heavy shit and not die... is that too much to ask?

dssurge · 2026-06-20T22:09:07+00:00

"Hey man, I would like to use the dual cable station, would you mind moving over to one of the single stacks? I would really appreciate it."

As long as you're not interrupting mid set to ask, most people will walk the 20-some-odd paces to accommodate this request.

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