Natural (No Juice) BodyBuilding Discussion

Thread for discussing quick/simple topics not needing an entire posts or beginner questions.

If you are a beginner/relatively new asking a routine question please check out this comment compiling useful routines or this google doc detailing some others to choose from instead of trying to make your own and asking here about it.

Please do not post asking:

• Should I bulk or cut?
• Can you estimate my body fat from this picture?

Please check this post for Frequently Asked Questions that community members have already contributed answers to (that post is not the place to ask your own questions but you may suggest topics).

For other posts make sure to included relevant information such as years of experience, what goal you are working towards, approximate age, weight, etc.

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I feel like my lats are very weak.

https://imgur.com/a/GAAzMVT

I sometimes get a runny nose after heavy deadlifts and hard exercise. Anyone else have experienced something similar? Is that normal?

I also sometimes get a headache from the amount of pressure I put on myself doing leg curls.

What do you do for leg exercises during a deficit? I front squat and leg press but lately the weight has been so taxing on my entire body, I don’t get a pump or burn from the reps I just become fatigued and sluggish the rest of my workout. Should I switch them for simpler exercises until I start adding calories back in?

(Full disclosure, my goal is upper body/abdominals for the beach the next month but I don’t want to neglect quads)

Anybody have several years (3+) of consistent training and seen actual results maintaining weight and growing? I feel like as a natural, “recomping” at a static weight is not useful but has anyone done so and have firsthand results to prove otherwise?

How often can you train neck, forearms and abs?

It makes no sense to me at all, visually when flexed, relaxed by my side, with a pump etc my left arm looks much smaller and less muscular than my right by a good bit. Even when flexing my left bicep and triceps look smaller than my right and i usually feel a better pump in my right but I try do most of my movements for arms unilaterally.

But when I measure them with a measuring tape with no pump and flexed they measure the exact same.

Been lifting for 3 years at this point.

For instance, let’s say for 2 sets of bench press at 200lbs with a rep range of 6-8.

I am wondering if on the backoff (second) set, I should drop the weight by a certain % and increase reps OR drop the weight by a certain % and stay within the same rep range? Also, what is the % that is recommended to drop from the top set for the back off set?

I do dumbbell wrist curls and the forearm burn when taken to failure gives my arms an outer body experience in a bad way. It's completely different to any other bodypart i take to failure. I legit get scared i damaged my arm but then after a few seconds the feeling subsides.

On a jeff nipard video abput sam sulek he mentioned that the only think Sam never takes to failure is his forearm work. It got me wondering, do you guys experience this too? Is this normal? The only other thing close to this feeling is after calf raises but even then it stil feels just like a good workout and not exactly painful to where i get nervous.

Hello! I want to buy a fitness watch and my budget is 500$. I usually train in a gym and sometimes run. I am obsessed with data and would like to wear my watch all the time. What do you recommend? Is apple watch 9 a good choice? What about Garmin and Polar? Thanks!

Hello. After 1.5 years of giving an actual effort with training and food while doing PPL, i finally decided to spice things up and try a specialization program.

Watched an according video of dr. Mike, and searched this this sub for a while.

So it seem pretty simple on the surface - do arm work first or early, and make more room for arms in terms of overall time and sets by keeping everything else on a maintenance volume.

However! - I can't really understand how i'm supposed to keep groups like chest and back on maintenance volume, if i won't be able to perform compound movements after tricep\bicep work.

So is it something like doing 2 working sets of dumbbell\barbell chest press (or even inclined) and then do triceps, with lateral raises in the end? And for back smth like 2-3 sets of pull ups/pulldowns, then bicep and a bit upper back in the end?

I do push\pull twice a week, with one leg day, so i was thinking just to scew ratio towards arms heavily, but i'm worried that i'll become significantly weaker on my main lifts after few months of specialization.

Thanks in advance

Whats this machine good for? Ive heard its great for traps but it feels so awkward for me. How do you guys set up the machine?

So yeah, this explains my weakness from the past year. I just woke up and I already want to sleep. Whenever I try to exert effort, I become sick. I might as well leave this community. Since I don't think i'll be able to continue my natural body building journey.

EDIT:

I just found out that one of the experiences of people that has hypothyroidism is brain fog and overall weakness.

Ever since I had a mind of my own, I am able to think quickly and precisely.

I got weak and had brain fog days after covid vaccination in 2021. I did not mind it, I thought I was just tired of work and stuff. Only now I realized that the covid vaccine might have affected my thyroid gland.

Then I saw this study:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8960081/

I can't believe I let this sit for 3 years. Now I will seek therapy. Hopefully I can still turn things around.

Damn it.

Flat vs Incline bench press

Back vs Front barbell squats

I havent been training abs for the past year. Is the saying "abs are grown in the kitchen true" accoring to ur experience?

I’ve been unconsciously transitioning from using dumbells in my training in the past year, particullarly due to how much I hate holding them, how akward they are (my gym has those hexagonal ones that just bump into everything at higher weights) and I just didn’t find the “tension” there while going theough full ROM on arm exercises. I just noticed my complete lack of dumbell usage this week and have been wondering how much I’m really leaving on the table by not using them. My progress has improved drastically for my back, chest, triceps, and delts, but my biceps havent’t really grown as much, although I do feel a much better contraction using cables or doing preacher curls.

Cheers!

And what do you do about it? I fight with my biceps all the time,other muscles grow ok but to bis I have to give double training or they will lag. Also always trying to find a new way to hit it with different exercises and angles

Started the cut at 204 around 18-20% body fat still with visible abs. Currently at 186lbs on day 20. I’m losing a pound every 1-2 days at 2600 calories. My lifts haven’t suffered much except for squat, my bench has gotten stronger but I’m still kind of worried I’m losing too fast. Should I bump it up to 3000-3500? For reference I ended the bulk eating 5800 a day for the last two weeks. No im not making up numbers, I just burn an insane amount of calories due to lifestyle.

Let’s say i lift monday through Thursday and eat 100-200kcal above maintenance, and Friday through Sunday i eat 200-300kcal below maintenance.

Wouldn’t i be giving everything my muscles need to recover, while they need it, and still be able to get leaner while doing so?

I’m thinking this because there’s people who lift and gain mass while maintaining a lean physique, and they don’t count calories, so i assume their intuitive eating on the end of the week, looks around something this, eating more on their workout days and less on at least some rest days.

Research suggests that the last 5 reps of an exercise contributes to the majority of muscle growth from mechanical tension due to slowing involuntary contraction velocity. At the same time, 5-30 reps is considered the hypertrophy rep range.

Given this information, wouldn't it make sense to employ a rep range of 5-7 reps for the majority, if not, the entire workout since the stimulus to fatigue ratio would be higher as a result of more effective reps in comparison to low stimulus reps which generate more fatigue?

I’m currently 4 months on a calorie deficit and planning on going into my 5th month where I will stop the calorie deficit and go on maintenance for July and August before my bulk September

Calorie deficit trying to be 500 calorie deficit with margin error of +/-200 calories some days

Went from 187 to 172 within the 4 months with a goal weight of 168 by the end of June

It was very long never had a calorie deficit going for this long but I’d like to see everyone’s thoughts.

Weirdly enough last year I tried to stay 500 calorie surplus for my bulk but it seems it takes about the same time to reach the body fat I want. Maybe this time ima go even lower on baseline @ 168 and only gain 10 lbs over the next bulk so I don’t have to waste a month burning 7 pounds from 187. Guess my body fat wasn’t low enough last year to let me recomp on the bulk

I can’t understand why I have so many joint issues. My first year of lifting all I did was light weights and focused on form. I did all the rotator cuff stuff, warm up, controlled eccentric, facepulls.

Now the second year I have started to really focus on upping the weights and dialing back down the volume. I worked up my bench to 165lb for 4-8 reps and that led to right shoulder pain. When I finally hit 95lb on OHP I got shoulder impingement. When I upped my intensity for curls I got golfers elbow. Don’t even get me started on squats. Every time I worked up to 165lb on the RDL I get a sore lower back, that stiff feeling. Any rows hurt my shoulders as well.

I have been doing dead hangs, and scapula rotations. I suspect my scapula is the root of my problems. Also mid and lower back mobility.

I feel super demotivated. I plan on going to a physical therapist very soon. The multitude of youtube videos aren’t cutting it anymore. It makes me wonder if it was the accutane I took for my acne when I was younger which made my joints weaker.

Thread for posting less detailed progress/humble brag pics, etc.

All I need is the ability to track sessions with relatively accurate HR monitoring. Resting Heart Rate logging is needed as well and Sleep tracking to help track recovery is nice to have.. I am an apple phone user but have a bit of a hatred for Apple Watches.

Most of my running cardio is treadmill so onboard gps is nice but not vital.

What are people using these days (sensible budget, if we get into multiple hundreds I will get sidetracked and buy another proper mechanical watch)

(My Fitbit versa3 is doing the Fitbit thing and starting to fail at 19 months old….. third one in five years)

Hello everyone! Does anyone have tips to get stronger at the hack squat?

My reps are usually very slow for hypertrophy. I take about 4 seconds for the eccentric portion. I've been stuck at 140 for 7 reps. Are there any other exercises I should do that will help with my hack squat strength?

Would love any any tip please!

Stats: 6' 0", 170lb, fit

I come from a family of large-footed bird-legged men.

Despite being relatively muscular and fit on my quads and upper body, my lower legs have always stayed very thin. I can touch my thumb and forefinger together when I wrap my hand around the area of my leg just above my ankle. Having size 12 feet makes for a rather noticeable feature when people look at my legs.

I'm not insecure about my legs persay, I was born with what I have, and that's ok with me. But I'd like to know if there's a possibility of thickening my lower legs that doesn't involve getting fat or getting calf impants.

So, friends, I come asking for any of you who have not only grown your calves, but have also gained girth in the lower part of your legs as well. What was your training approach like?