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Slop posts go in c/slop. Don't post low-hanging fruit here.
You have access to barbells and want to get strong / muscular?
Just run Starting Strength for a while until your progress slows down. Ask others for help with technique/form/advice.
Once you've been doing compound lifts for a while you can explore intermediate programming that has a more specific focus. But generally you can make good progress on beginner programs for a while.
Make sure you're paying adequate attention to rest and nutrition as well.
Been going to the gym for months now Fire emoji go you
I just pick one exercise i really like and get super jacked in a highly specified way and then complain about my fucked up body 9 years later
Real shit
https://www.muscleandstrength.com/
Despite what it looks on the surface, I've found this website useful. The articles also seem to be good based on my knowledge of nutrition and what not.
Find a sport you like and do it weekly with a friend or friends, and/or make new friends doing it. If you have ADHD, pick a new sport every 3-6 months if you get bored.
Edit: my vote is for squash
Are you training for strength or for size?
If size and aesthetics focused: Bodybuilding splits emphasize higher reps per set, higher sets per week, lower weights. Think 6-12 repetitions per set per exercise, aiming for 10 sets per week per muscle group. Even just 2 sets to failure per week will induce hypertrophy, but there is a dose response to volume with diminishing returns; 10 sets is the sweet spot. Don't beat yourself up if that's too much volume though; adjust set count for your body and schedule. Use weights that get you to between 0 and 3 reps from failure within the 6-12 range, and when you can hit 12 reps on a weight, increase the weight and drop the reps back down. If you're maxing out the weight available, just add more reps. I train like this, and my split is upper day, lower day, rest, upper day, lower day.
If pure strength focused: Powerlifting approaches use higher weights with much lower volume. Think 2-6 reps per set per exercise, 2-5 sets per week per muscle group. Sets should still be taken right to the cusp of failure or all the way to failure if safe and tolerable. Recovery times are longer, and you want to space out heavy lifts to give yourself time to rest. I don't have tons of experience in this approach but those are the basics.
Note that there are infinite ways to approach your routine, exercise selection, etc. It all depends upon your goals, time you are willing and able to dedicate to training, and what you prefer. Experiment and build what works best for you. Also, a bodybuilding approach will build strength as well, just less than a powerlifting approach; the inverse applies for powerlifting and size development. Finally, nutrition is at least as important as training, no matter your goals, so I recommend trying out tracking your food. I do it religiously, but even if you just do it long enough to get an idea of where you are by default, that helps too so you can adjust your habits.
Shit Just Works has a weightroom comm, the main mod "shittydwarf" or similar seems to have great evidence-based fitness chops (AKA a gem in the sea of bro slop), and seems real eager to help folks figure stuff out.
Haven't been over there in a year or so but ought to be a much better than average resource.
Broader instance, if you're unfamiliar, is not great.
I dont know I just do cardio
You go to Anna's Archive and you illegally download Jeff Nippard's Essential program (there is are different ones depending on if you want to workout 2, 3, 4, or 5 days per week)
Anna's Archive my beloves
Last time i saw someone ask this question, this was one of the asnwers suggested: https://old.reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness/wiki/kb/recommended_routine Its stuff you can do at home without much equipment and hassle and works your entire body. Ive been doing it for some time now.
I’m in the gym once a week and hit 5x5 deadlift and front squat at 245lb and 155lb respectively. I’d like to be stronger and lift more but I’m pretty happy with the progress and baseline I have been able to maintain over the years. I have a few basic rules I live by, but I am no gym expert. My basic rules are as follows:
-You are only as strong as what you can show up and lift every week. A one rep max means jack if you give yourself a hernia and can’t lift for a year. Remove the ego and focus on form and muscle activation. Focus on mind body connection. Don’t be afraid to bring the weight down so you can bring the intensity and precision up.
-The most important thing you can accomplish when going back to the gym for the first time in a while is to get back in the habit of going to the gym. There’s really not much else you can accomplish and the WORST thing you can do is strain or injure yourself because you’re trying to play catch up. Do something you like! Take it easy! Have fun! Remind yourself why you go to the gym. Think about your fitness goals, and STRETCH! These things can be hard to make time for, but are critically important.
-every day is core and🦵day. The body is a complete dynamic system from the top of your head to the tip of your toe. I am no expert, but from what I have seen, 90% of physical therapy is some variation of: “do these exercises to strengthen your core” the core ESPECIALLY is so critically important to not overlook because it is so unrewarding to exercise unless you’re a pretty low body fat percentage. I am not very lean but I am still able to do those very strenuous, complex movements like squats and deadlifts, without injury, because of core strength. You can lay on a mat and torture yourself for an hour with a timer and Medicine ball and get an extremely good workout. It’s just very mentally difficult because, like many kinds of exercise, it just sucks. Very good for you, but psychologically torturous. I like exercises like dead bugs because they aren’t overly strenuous, they act as a stretch in some ways , and they just help prevent injury overall. The legs are worth working every time imo simply because you’re always bound to get better results and it’s much more practically useful.
-Mental toughness. It’s very different from ignoring pain from injury. Finding that line is part of the practice of lifting or any kind of athletic endeavor. I like running for this, even though it’s definitely not for everyone. It’s easy to just pick up and do as long as you pace yourself. It’s an incredibly shitty experience, especially at first, but if you keep at it, you start to find something exciting about going a little faster and further each time. This is where it becomes critical to pace yourself. But once you are able to find something enjoyable about going for a damn jog, I think every other form of exercise becomes that much more enjoyable. Swimming is a great alternative. Any torturous cardio will do.
I think the mental toughness is especially important, even if it sounds like some meat head shit. Lifting and exercising generally can be very mentally difficult and there’s never a good time for it. It’s easy to plateau and get frustrated. It’s easy to give up because of some small discomfort or inconvenience. I’m always surprised by the excuses I hear myself making in my head when it’s that time of the week again to go pick up the weight. even after all these years.
Depending on the kinda base you’re working with and what you have access to, the cardio might be a good place to start. Hope to hear updates! Best of luck and don’t forget to stretch!
Other good exercises: hollow man, leg lifts, assisted pull ups.
I especially love assisted pull ups because pull ups are great but my wrists and elbows are shot from years of manual labor. You don’t need a fancy machine either, you can stretch a resistance band between two handles on a cable machine and use that to support your feet. I love that set up because you have to engage your core and legs just get any “assist”
Also if you can’t do a pull up, static holds are apparently very good although I always forget about them lol.
No matter what anyone says, the answer is this: it's way harder than you think it is.
The reality is that even if your body was the perfect normal bell curve bullshit majority that doesn't actually exist, even those imaginary people don't have solid stable fitness routines.
The reason is that you basically have to keep changing things up in order to continually induce adaptation. That alone means that whatever you do is going to require you to have enough functional knowledge of the both biomechanics and fitness in order to adapt your workout rather continuously.
If you're like me and you have idiosyncratic limitations on your body, then it gets even harder.
So, here's what you do. You personally have to start a little notebook or journal and answer the following questions:
What are the categories of exercising that I need to be aware of to build a fitness routine? I'll start you off with stretching, calisthenics, aerobics, weightlifting, and Pilates.
What are the major muscle groups that need to be worked?
For each muscle I can identify, what is its antagonist?
What are the conditions under which my body will actually adapt to the stress I apply to it instead of being a waste of energy and time?
What changes do I need to make to my diet when I start exercising as fully as I imagine I would like to? What will it cost me and how will I change my eating habits to accommodate these needs?
For each muscle I intend to work, what are 3 exercises I can do?
For each of the 3 exercises I identified for each muscle, what are the differences between them?
How many exercises do I need to do before I have worked every muscle group? How will I sequence these exercises so that I touch each muscle group at least once per week?
What is the effect of exercise sequencing on a workout? Given that, which exercises should I do in which order?
What makes sense as my warm up for any given workout day? What makes sense for my cool down?
I don't want to discourage you. You absolutely can go find routines online and just follow them, but most of them are relatively static and it's just not enough to do the same thing over and over again without understanding how it all works and when you need to change things.
It took me about 3 false starts and 2 solid months of figuring out my routine. I got it down and it's great. About 6 months in I had to change it up my overarching plan a bit, but it wasn't too bad given that I had been adapting my plan every week over those 6 months.
This is achievavle for you, but treat it with the respect you would treat a college course. Take notes, do research, ask questions, find mentors, experiment, document, revise, plan, measure.
You can do this. It's hella worth it
To push back gently on this,
Unless you're trying to get really jacked, achieve a specific body style or whatever it's not that complex.
Going to the gym 3 times a week because I wanted to get a bigger upper body and then doing large muscle group exercises for everything else made significant progress for me without ever really knowing too much.
I'm not Adonis by any means, but a high protein calorie deficit brought me down 25 kg of fat and put on 7kg of muscle. The hardest part is just doing everyday or every other day.
Yeah. Finding the perfect routine is hard, but doing a generic all-rounder routine regularly is more than enough to get you into solid shape.
Again, this assumes that there's a "normal" range of human bodies and that OP is in that range. I have a major deformity (though you would never know it with my shirt on) and it's almost impossible to find information on how to work with it.
But even for within the "normal" range there are people with old injuries, people with genetic joint stability issues for specific joints, and all sorts of other hidden complications that require adaptation of routines.
And even if you do find a "generic" routine, how does one know it's a "good one" as OP said? What is the definition of well-rounded? What are some frameworks one can use to evaluate a routine they find online?
And then even after you find a routine that is good - how much time does it take? What equipment does it use? How much weight is too little / too much? What can OP fit into their schedule and their budget? What are the impacts of changing the routine if the routine doesn't fit into your constraints?
And finally, importantly, if someone doesn't know what they're doing, and they just try to follow a routine they understand with their body which they don't understand and move their body in ways without understanding, injury is the consequence. Sometimes direct injury that happens while doing the exercise, sometimes injury over time that compounds, sometimes I jury through joint instability caused by over working one side of a joint and underworking another side of a joint.
Yes, it's entirely possible that a small subset of people can just pick up and go and everything will be fine. But most of the ones that don't get injured have an unconscious approach of learning, planning, solid self-monitoring.
The biggest morons you know are working out at the gym right now, following the advice of even bigger morons they watch on Youtube, and making steady progress. Working out is not rocket science. You're making it sound like you need to do 50+ hours of research before going anywhere near a leg press.
And many of those morons will or have suffered self-caused injury and are primarily focusing on aesthetics and not fitness and getting appropriate results for that. Yes it's possible to just be a meathead. That's not what OP was asking. OP asked for how to find a good routine. Having asked that question myself, I found that were their tons of workout routines out there but that most of them have criticism that makes it very hard to determine what "good" is and a bunch of them are literally injury factories (looking sidelong at shitty CrossFit routines).
You don't have to do 50+ hours of research just to get near a leg press. But if you want to find a good routine it's going to be through a process of self-education, not asking for a YouTube video. If it was that easy, there'd be a very simple pedagogical approach out there that nearly every beginner would use and there isn't such a thing.
It's not that you are wrong per se, but you're definitely over complicating this to the point where no action seems possible. You are making a point that things need to change to drive adaptation, which is true, but reads like the old muscle confusion myth instead of progressive overload. It's really not that much to add weight, a rep, a few seconds on a hold or a set or whatever. And the same kind of approach is broadly true.
I don't know anything about muscle confusion, but you are correct that progressive overload is mostly all that's required. However, it is also important to change exercises for other reasons that develop strength - range of motion, joint stability, strength curve problems (like in lateral raises), etc. Yes you can just do bicep curls forever but I wouldn't consider that a "good routine" like what OP is asking for. Besides, how would OP know, even for bicep curls, whether to do preacher curls, standing curls, sitting curls, cable curls, barbell curls, dumbbell curls, incline curls, or something else? How does OP deal with the information overload, the constant YouTube fitness influencer take downs of various exercises, etc?
I agree it's ultimately not "hard", unless you have biomechanical issues, like so many of us do, but it's far from obvious and the work to be done is to stop looking for "good routines" and start looking for an understanding of what makes a routine good. That's why question number 1 is about what major muscles need to be addressed. One definition of a good routine is going to be that it hits every major muscle at least once. Most people who haven't done fitness seriously don't know what those muscles are and therefore cannot evaluate workout routines on this dimension.
It's a ton of information to process, and not being aware of it causes people to get frustrated and drop out (why can't you just give me a routine that works!?) or cause them to get injured (I heard I should be dead lifting my body weight, or, I can just wail on this heavy bag right?)
Muscle confusion was this myth that your body got used to exercises and couldn't improve so you should change them frequently to "confuse" your muscles and prevent this. It's basically a misunderstand of what you're talking about where different exercises can bias different muscles or different portions of the same muscle mixed with not necessarily knowing what is currently limiting you on a lift.
Your post is well written and reasonable but (I think) for most people ultimately unanswerable. Not to be too pithy but this brings me back to the "the best routine is the one you'll do" stance.
I mostly fit in to the normal range as far as bodies go. Funny enough it cost me $0 to go to the gym. My apartment 3 years ago had a gym and I told them I lost my keycard so I could rock up and use the gym sometimes, it's great and the gym is relatively kitted out.
I have experience at the gym, my best friend does pro body building and another friend of mine had been lifting since 15. Both are very scientifically minded when it comes to their lifting and they have taught me proper form for most of the basic movements. I have asked them for help building a routine but I thought asking here would be good too.
My goals are mostly functional but the aesthetic is good too. I want to feel good and be healthy first and foremost. I want my body to not crumble by 40
This is my 4th start at the gym. Lost my first to motivation, second to injury (unrelated to the gym), and third to relationship and school stress. This time fr
Hells yeah, shark fucker. You got this, and you have a good foundation as well. If your body is basically normal and you have good mentors that can train with you, you can probably start with a program like StrongLifts, P90X, Madcow, or Greyskull.
go to reddit /r/fitness find the basic workout routine do that until you get consistent and familiar with the barbell movements (or just read what the wiki of /r/fitness says they chart your whole path)
squat bench and deadlift are what get you big and strong so dont sleep on them
this is assuming youre an average joe with no physical or health variables that would impede you from doing certain exercises
also if youve ran into the deadlifting is bad myth forget about it its a myth deadlifting makes your back stronger and more resistant to injury so do them theyre good for you
I just followed an AB rest AB rest rest dumbell only routine. Takes ~30-45 minutes each morning, but works well!