Fitness + Lifting
On the whole, barring excessive weight loss first, you can get a pretty shredded body with the cheapest gym membership and 1-3 hours a week. I don't even sweat, because there's basically no cardio to it.
The assumption that you need to turn into this obsessive roid bro in order to get gains is silly. The assertion that superhero guys spend 8 hours a day in the gym to get ripped for movies is a) not even true or makes body-sense but b) they're doing these programs in a few months so accelerating everything. If you want Chris Hemsworth's rockin' bod, you can do it a few hours a week across a year or two instead of all at once in 60 days. Mostly, these things are excuses for people to say "if only I didn't have to work..." or whatever, as if that was the part truly holding them back.
Diet and Food
For me, lifting is about gaining weight, so my diet reflects that: caloric overflow of about 300 per day. You want to be getting good protein and macros but the sheer amount matters more than strict composition.
Specifically here's my diet and food and how I optimize for calories per dollar.
There's two strategies: - Bulk + cut, where you eat a huge overhead in order to pack on a huge amount of muscle and fat at once, and then cut to get the fat back off, revealing your big muscles again. - Lean bulk, what I'm doing, where you eat a smaller overhead and don't gain much if any fat, but also gain muscle at a slower rate because your body just doesn't have the excess to keep.
I am, on the whole, worse at diet than I am at lifting. I should treat food like reps and I'm bad at that / am often below calorie intakes for the day. It's hard to force yourself to eat more sometimes, I have cheat days where I don't have to eat so much.
All of the usual "abs are made in the kitchen" and such are generally true for those trying to lose weight: you will lose more weight with a just-diet program than a just-lifting program.
Particularly because a lot of lifting is about burning as few calories as possible on non-lifting distractions, like cardio, and if your goal is to lose weight you want to lose as many calories as possible.
If I burn more, I have to eat more, and that sucks.
The Routine
I started with a beginners program, of course, called Phraks Greyskull. I will copy-paste it here:
Day 1 (Monday)
3x5+ Chinups OR Barbell Rows (alternating)
3x5+ Overhead Press OR Bench Press (alternating)
3x5+ Squats
Day 2 (Wednesday)
3x5+ Chinups OR Barbell Rows (alternating)
3x5+ Overhead Press OR Bench Press (alternating)
1x5+ Deadlifts
Day 3 (Friday)
3x5+ Chinups OR Barbell Rows (alternating)
3x5+ Overhead Press OR Bench Press (alternating)
3x5+ Squats
The "+" denotes that last set for all lifts is AMRAP - As Many Reps As Possible. Note that this is should not be to true muscular failure, and you should leave 1-2 reps "in the tank" on these sets. A good way to gauge this is when the bar speed slows significantly compared to your previous reps.
Alternating Lifts
Alternate between Barbell Rows and Chin Ups between each workout.
Alternate between Bench Press and Overhead Press between each workout.
Pair Bench Press with Barbell Rows and Overhead Press with Chin Ups.
Rest
Rest 2-3 minutes between each set. [brennan note: I do 90 seconds]
Schedule
Three days a week.
Rest one day between each workout.
Ex: M-W-F workout, T-Th--Su.
The Accessories
Then you add other things you want, I do pec deck and am starting to experiment with dumbells for more specific shoulder / arm lifting and maybe some ab specific stuff for the shred. I am wicked good at legs, like squats, and pretty weak on arms so looking to a) balance out the routine and b) go for the more vanity "ripped guy" muscles since, well, no one cares about your buff legs.
Warm up / cool down is 2-5 mins on the treadmill at 4 miles per hour, whatever that is in real speed units. In the summer I was biking to the gym, so that's a few km for a nice warmup.
It takes me about 40-60 minutes per day, 3x a week for a typical max of 3 hours.
The Philosophy
We want to be trying for personal bests every single time we go: the way to build muscle is to increase volume, so we're either needing more reps or more weight, and the part that builds the muscle bulk is usually weight (doing 100 of something means it's too easy, you don't get ripped that way).
So, adding weight every time, and doing 10-20 reps total. Phraks has 5+5+AMRAP which typically puts you at 15 ish (a 5+ on the AMRAP is a 'pass' to advance to the next weight up, a 10 is 'too easy' and doubles the next weight up to get you into the useful weights faster.)
Phraks has a system built in where you progressively add more until you start failing sets and it'll reset you back a bit, you climb up again and past your old record, etc. And then you just do that until you claw your way up the numbers.
It's shockingly easy for a few reasons: there's something called 'noob gains' which just means that the first ~200 lbs of weight is fairly fast and easy to gain, your body really takes to it nicely, and also that lifting isn't actually that... hard? Like, I think when people think of the gym you imagine sweating red faced suffering as you dig deep and push through the pain, you see all those "motivational" posts about championing your fear and doubt and internal demons or whatever. But really you just go, do your set, are shocked that your progression is working out so well, and then you leave. I don't sweat, I don't cry, I don't hurt, I'm not sore (you shouldn't be sore - if you are, you did too much or it's the very first day or something). I mostly show up, do the hour, and then go get groceries or whatever. Honestly, I'm sort of surprised sometimes to look in the mirror and see real changes happening.
The App
I use Personal Training Coach - it was fairly cheap and not the most perfect app, but it's done what I need it to over the months: tracks what I do, what my next lift amounts will be, has a rest timer and shows fun graphs of my progression. It's a little bit dopey about adding / subtracting exercises or reps, so sometimes I just do things off grid and don't track those particular warmups or whatever. The data-collecting part of me hates that, but in the end my muscles don't know or care.
The Drugs
Haha, JK.
I eat 5mg of powder creatine a day, mixed into a chocolate pudding cup. I have a bag of BCAAs but haven't gotten around to trying them over / additionally to normal whey protein. Creatine is a mild nootropic too, so that's fun. It gave me bizarre dreams for the first week but seemed to go away after that. I think I notice when I'm off of it for a few weeks, but have no way to verify. It's bought from MyProtein because they seem to have the best prices per genuine quality, and everything is nearly always 30-70% off, so if you really want to be frugal, sign up for the emails and wait for the constant deals.
Youtube Links
Jeff Nippard because he's canadian and very science / study based, very pragmatic advice. Athlean-X because he's good on the physics of bodies moving and seems to like more variety than just "here's the one thing you should do because it's the best" - it can be boring to be pragmatic sometimes.
Selecting a Gym
I go to my local YMCA, it's $40 CAD per month. Things to look for: a squat rack / ideally multiple, a bench press, a chinup assist machine if you need the assistance, a pec deck maybe, and the rest is whatever gym stuff a gym has. Treadmill, cycle, nice. Things to avoid: those "fancy" gyms that will eat your heart out in fees if you ever try to cancel or leave. those "fancy" gyms that are like $150 a month for no discernible reason. those "fancy" gyms that are a front for a cult. Crossfit. Orangetheory or any similar gimmicky social-engineering motivation guilt method (it's all cardio anyway). Those trendy local gyms that focus more on their instagram presence than their machine quality. The truth is, you just don't need too much: we're here to pick up metal and put it down again. That's it. It should be pretty cheap to get into that.
Last updated