Any workout advice?
 

I'm trying to get my arms bigger and my gym recently replace all of the old equipment with new multiple muscle workout machines and I'm not getting that rip after a workout any more. They used to use isolation machines so you could focus on one muscle at a time and now they only have group muscle workouts.

Anyone a gym rat? Have any idea how to get back to getting the pumps i was on isolation machines without finding a new gym all together.

Also any advice on preworkouts? Right now I'm on "Beyond Raw : Lit" two scoops so 600mg of caffeine before a workout. Anything that works as well without the face flushing?

Personally i find MMA training MUCH better that working out.

Obviously different results, but the gym just is too boring for me lol

Water weight bro. eat or drink at least 50Gs of protein then do curls with water bags every other day. And do squats before and after every work out it builds your testosterone up.

Eat some skittles bruh... get that pump lol

I’ll respond back in detail later tonight. I’m at work so don’t have time for a full breakdown. I’m a strength & conditioning coach and a personal trainer. You can also PM me if you’d like.

In the meanwhile...I need to know a bit more info.

Current goals:
Current weight:
Age:
Years of training experience:

ur gym doesn't have free weights?, just machines?

I'm not a gym rat or a fitness coach. But I do hit the gym, & when I feel myself gaining weight I zone in and go hard for a few months

Make sure you get a good amount of sleep. Eat clean. Some people use all types of supplements and pre workouts...but I'm fine with just protein. Creatine HCL is good if you dont want bloating, but creatine is meh. I've been trying to keep it as natural as possible. Talk to Manhattan though, seems to be his area of expertise

I heard creatine got some shitty side effects. I’ve always just ate foods with high protein such as meats, eggs, etc.

But Lift heavier, less reps, more water, don’t workout on an empty stomach.

Best way to get any results on certain muscle groups is to work them twice a weak as opposed to once a week. Be sure to do compound movements. Do movements with free weights were you have a larger range of motion so that there is more tension. There is a multitude of bicep workouts to do. The key is to mix them up and keeo the body guessing. If you repeat the same workouts over and over, you'll start to see less and less gains as time goes on due to the body "being used to these movements".

Try leaning back on a bench that's on a 45 degree angle.Arms down with knuckles facing towards the floor and lift them all the way up together slowly. 4 seconds up & 4 seconds down. This range of motion is far greater than standing and lifting by your sides, thus creating more tensions on the forearms and biceps.

Secondly. Try doing this in a reverse position where the bench is slightly higher up but still at an angle (not fully up). Lay on the bench with your neck over the top of the bench head. Again, arms down by your sides and lift upwards towards yourself. Again for 4 seconds up & 4 seconds down.

Another point. It's not so much about how heavy you can lift, rather the focus you put into the motion/movements you are doing.

The first muscle group you train at the start of any gym session will garnish the most benefit as later on lactic acid goes into the muscles and you'll end up with a lesser workout/lesser gains on other muscle groups later on in the session. Time & focus is key to improving gains.

Personally, when i train (especially if i've done a serious back workout) i swim afterwards. If it was mainly an arm/leg dominant workout i'll do the front crawl, if back workout, breast stroke.

Dang u recover fast,
Already in the gym lifting,
Superhuman

What? Lol

Fish & steak are the best proteins you can get in meat. Shit, I had that prison creatine. That shit will make you fat as fuck if you ain't careful lol

The thing that had the biggest effect on me, was eating +500-800 calories than I burn per day. You can find the general amount of calories you burn with some online calculators and applying some common sense, when you counting calories, i don't sit there and break it down like long division, just keep it general, and always round down, so it force you into the thought process of, i need that extra snack, or i need that extra meal. Ensure you working out like 4 times a week, (if you asking for advice on a forum, im assuming you are serious enough to go 3-4 times a week). That's if you want bulk obviously, i just eat whatever the fuck, i got a high metabolism so I don't gotta worry about getting too many carbs or fat, maybe later on, but at the moment this is how i'm doing it. +20lbs in 4 months, as you notice yourself weighing more, increase your calorie intake slightly, 100 cal's give or take, don't gotta get extreme. If you force yourslf to eat a lot one day, work out, generally the next day your body will be dying for food, so you'll have a big appetite, at that point, its just consistency. Hope this helped. Ez.

Work on your form, and increase your reps and the weights each set. Remember to not lift too heavy coz bodybuilding and powerlifting are two different things.

---------- Post added at 12:52 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:50 AM ----------



He lifts MA DICK.

Like RULE said, I personally find martial arts much more interesting and the gym is difficult for me to get motivated.

Now I'm going to start pre-workout for the first time and I'm going to exclusively focus on cardio. I fought in September at 216lbs and by about August I want to be around 170lbs. I'll do interval training on the treadnill for about 20 minutes, followed by about 20 mins on the rowing machine. If I'm bothered, I'll chuck in some weights at the end of it. Squatting is one of your best but I've had a left knee injury for a while but my right knee took a bad knock during my training so squatting is too scary.

Being Glaswegian, I'm rarely interested in vegetables so my diet will consist mostly of steak, mince, eggs, chicken, pork chops etc.

@EtH only 20 mins of running? Fuck that, get some 10k’s into ya, preferably a route that has you going up hill.

---------- Post added at 12:23 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:22 PM ----------

Sorry, dude not my thing at all, plus, I don’t use tweezers.

Aye I'll chuck some 100kg dumbels on too. Can I fuck run 10k. I've got a weird balance in that I can soar 15 rounds easy, but struggle to run 3 minutes.

Haha... well get a few in, you’ll be miles fitter due to it. Or swimming.

Wait, I know why ya run fuck all. All the beer drinking lol 😂

If the offie closes in 10 mins I turn into Usain Bolt.

Nah I'm gyming this month. Probably be running about 1//2k every two days to start. Trying to lose 4 stone to fight next year so need to proper cut down the beers and stay training.

Also I canny swim haha

Yeah I feel ya, have to cut that drink out. It’s a cunt. Yeah some cardio mixed with a good weights regime is always good.

4 stone or like 50lbs im 8 months seems steep but its only 1.5lbs per week. Seems doable.

hoe cuss poke us

It is doable if your determined to do it. Eat right. Train enough. If you eat slightly less than what you burn off, you’ll see the weight fall off.

Plus side for me is I've got like got tier metabolism haha. Should be lime 25 stone at this stage. Should be easy.

It takes nothing but dedication, brother.

And maybe some steroids...

Why 50 grams? lol.

You're right that squats do increase test but it's unnecessary to do squats before and after a workout. If you're already hitting legs once or twice a week...it provides little to no benefit to do them before every workout.

---------- Post added at 05:37 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:20 PM ----------

A lot of good info here. Clearly you've spent your time in the gym. I agree w/ everything you said except the highlighted part.

You're right that it's important to change up your routine or exercise selection. However, you don't want to do that too often. It's not really actual muscle mass development from switching exercise selection or routine. The majority of those gains are mainly from neural adaptations. That doesn't mean that you should do the same routine or exercises for years on end. It means you need to be smart about variation. Changing up your reps/sets, use chains, add intensity, decrease or increase rest time etc. Far too many people are program hopping and not focusing on what really drives hypertrophy...progressive overload.


The key is to keep improving on your compound lifts. Your main goal should be progressive overload. It's hard to progressively overload if you're constantly changing your routine. Increase load (sets or reps...or both) or decrease interval/rest time. That way you do more work each and every week.

If @Manhattan say do it...... do it

Don’t ask questions

You're right that the most important thing is to master form. Increasing reps, weight, sets or decreasing rest time. That's how you continue to progress.

Don't lift too heavy? Couldn't be further from the truth. One of your main goals...if not just better body composition should be to get stronger. You do need to make sure your form is impeccable before moving on to heavier weights. Bodybuilders need to lift heavy weights in order to progressively overload. Same w/ anyone who's looking for hypertrophy.

---------- Post added at 05:54 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:43 PM ----------

As a trainer who works w/ clients for sport specific training...please don't just do cardio. I totally understand that you're an MMA fighter and stamina is huge. Being fast and powerful is also important.

If you're trying to lose about 50 pounds. You should be incorporating some kind of resistance training. I'm not talking about bodybuilding. KB Swings, squats, bench, deads etc. Lifting weights will get you to your goal faster and help you hold onto any muscle you do have. Resistance training will help you increase your metabolic rate and thus help you decrease body fat.

Yeowwww

If you're new to the gym keep it up with compound movements (exercises that workout multiple muscles at once) this could be squats, bench press, deadlift (get the technique down first), push ups, pull ups etc... if you want to gain MUSCLE keep the rep scheme between 8-12 reps, with a rest of 90 seconds between each set. 3-4 sets should be fine. If your doing pulling (back work) end the workout with bicep curls, if your doing pressing (chest/shoulder work) then end the workout with pressdpwns. Food will also be important. Get in lean meats like chicken and get tons of veggies. Creatine will get you strong and buff but it retains water. Whey protein is good to take after a workout since it diffuses fast in the blood stream. If you need any more advice feel free to DM me

This ^^^... I will add that there are a few key differences with muscle fiber recruitment if you are looking to either just look good or really work on athletic performance...

If you have any interest in improving sports performance, in addition to the good information provided by others I would suggest incorporating some powerful movements into your routine... the goal would be to quickly recruit the fast twitch muscle fibers needed to accelerate the weight through the movement... ideally this would be accomplished during a strength routine (something like 5 x 5 sets with plenty of rest in between) .. A good strength program should last 6-8 weeks...

I will say that many errors made by people who are just getting going is they try to do everything at once... focus on one thing at a time.. if you are going to cut, then be calorie deficient.. if you are going to try to gain strength, the focus on low rep - high weight... if you are going to bulk and strictly try to gain muscle mass through hypertrophy then you need to consume excess calories and lift with progressive overload and allow ample time for recovery...

Watch some youtube.. plenty of people with extensive knowledge on the subject that offer all of this information for free... what a great time to be alive.

I love the sentence "If you're new to the gym work on compound lifts"

Eth. Youd suggest teaching a bicep curl over a functional movement like a squat? Lol we sit errrrday b

Do I?

If you want muuufff ukin gains then chea. Swallow protein, shit muscles (kinky)

Masturbation is key though... FAX BITCHES !!

---------- Post added at 03:17 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:58 PM ----------

Since he said he was struggling to get them bigger, i assumed that he was at a beginner intermediate level (that too with more focus towards bodybuilding rather than powerlifting for now) hence i only pointed out form, reps and range of motions so i skipped it, but you're bang on about the strength bit though.

I've been a gym rat for the last 12 years and I used to be a personal trainer. If your gym still has free weights and spots where you can hook up straps for TRX style body weight exercises, those are better than cable machines anyways in my experience. To answer your specific question about getting arms bigger, hypertrophy (muscle growth) of any muscle can be achieved by first figuring out your one rep max (that's the most weight you can lift with that muscle just one time). Once you figure that out, use around 70 to 80% of that figure which you should only be able to do 8 to 10 reps of until failure. I advise working to failure every time rather than having a specific number of reps in mind to complete your set. If you can do more than 10, it's too light, and if you can't do at least seven or eight, it may be too heavy and you would be doing maximum strength training more so than hypertrophy. Your rest interval shouldn't be more than 90 seconds. Do some of your workouts in such a way that you are doing both concentric and eccentric muscle contractions. For example, when doing the bicep curl, release it slowly (for about five breaths) rather than a regular release so that you are working it out on the way down and not just only on the way up. On the way down while maintaining tension is your eccentric muscle contraction. This will increase vascularity which will swell up the muscle fibers faster.

@NOBLE .....Preach!!

Side note: good to see you back.

I'm just passing through, but thanks mate!

Any of yous ever had shin splints? Back when I was 20 and did karate I got it terrible and last few times Ive hit the treadmill it's coming back. Tonight I was in agony running so need to find a solution.

Toe taps Before working out usually work. However, if it's chronic shin splints then there's nothing that can really get rid of them, just have to run through it. Had to do that myself on 10K mountain runs (full gear)... was a fucking nightmare.