@silsophi Dude I feel you. The dysmorphia gets to me as well. I have troubles cutting below 15% bf and when I do, im tiny. If you’re staying natural, I’d suggest doing a 2 year lean and smart bulk. Then cut down. Grow as much muscle as possible.
My brother in law was a natural powerlifter. He was up to 275lbs at 6’3” and his big 3 total was over 1500. He decided he didn’t like being that heavy and started training for bodybuilding. Kids down to 210 and looks absolutely insane now.
@silsophi Anyone that can Bench 100kg while at a really low bodyfat will look pretty good. Maybe not in clothes, but without a shirt I bet you look great.
My Bench is around the same with 5 years of hard work. I'm also a similar height/weight. (5'11 and 185lb).
Keep grinding man. Maybe focus on other lifts at the moment to give yourself a break from the bench. I'm currently focusing on OHP and will go back to hammering away at the bench in a few months
@lfwise What is your OHP at? My strict standing press (with no drive) maxes out at only about 75kg (during bulks) although I haven't done much OHP in the past.
@silsophi My strict standing press is only about 155lb, or 70kg. Nothing crazy but it was always a really weak point for me in comparison to my Bench so that's why I've been focusing on it. I bet you could almost hit a bodyweight OHP if you focused on it, and that would be pretty impressive
@silsophi Sounds like either intensity is too low for good stimuli or you’re close to your genetic max. Too many variables. Most important is that you need to clean your IG feed. It has absolute priority for your mental health first.
@joyjoy66 4 years is not enough to reach genetic max. even 10 years is not enough. in fact, no human has reached their actual absolute genetic max. people train their whole lives and barely scratch that. the limit is higher than you think.
@joyjoy66 I like looking up bodybuilding related stuff and the algorithm just naturally sets it to some influencer kid on tren and I'm just like holy fucking shit man.
It's really insane. Literally NOT working out while on tren will cause 150%-250% more muscle growth than working out PERFECTLY as a natty. It is absolutely insane.
Dude, You look better than 98% of the population. You have body dysmorphia. Either get help or suck it up and enjoy the small victories. Get the fuck off instagram. You aint Derek, Ronnie in his prime, Breone, Dino, etc. You are a natty who tries his best. If you wanna take a go at that shit, go ahead, get a coach, get a boatload of Test and give it a whirl. Good luck...otherwise keep working, keep improving in small but measurable ways and get over the dysmorphia that is nothing but mental poison.
@len1973 Amen. Social media is the poison of our society. Guarantee MC wouldn’t be feeling the way he’s feeling if he lived 30 years ago before the advent of ShitTok and Insta. Wean yourself off that shit and you’ll feel a little better in no time.
@silsophi Probably just up the intensity man. I don’t know your drive or your training style but all I can say is if you push your self to the limit day in and day out with intelligence and are sustaining your body properly based on your goals progress is inevitable. I like 8-12 sets per muscle group, 2-3 exercises. After warmup go for a set where you fail at 8, maximum intensity (drop set if needed to feel a burn) and then drop the weight, go real slow and controlled and focus on muscle contraction and eccentrics and get a crazy burn and intentionally command your muscles to use everything they have in them for that set. Repeat 2 more times, switch exercise. Repeat again with another exercise (or not even) and you should be where you want to be fatigue and pump wise.
@silsophi How are your hormones? Test count? Have you checked for nutrient deficiencies in your blood? Are you eating nutritiously, not just getting macros? Enough healthy fats? Avoiding processed foods? Getting CONSISTENTLY 8+ hours of high-quality sleep?
Lifting for 4 years vs lifting for 4 years with your body and mind in its best shape makes a HUGE difference. Some people like to downplay the effects, but it becomes important when you add up all the little things.
@silsophi Just giving another perspective from other comments. You might also be training too much. An option is to do one or two deload weeks or experiment with less volume keeping high intensity. Another general tip is to track your progress and make sure you’re lifting more or adding more reps every week or so.
@silsophi I’m in the same boat, always considered a cycle of gear to give a boost but I know that there’s no such thing and I’m in it for life.
I feel while others on roids have bigger muscle, in many cases is disproportional and girls can pick this up. For now I’m staying natty as I feel there’s more advantages, we don’t get emotional swings
@rod54ban Well I've read up on it a TON and even one proper cycle will pretty much give you life-long muscle building benefits. The actual fiber and structure of the muscle changes in such a way that you pretty much perma have an increased amount of strength and your max "natty limit" is increased. Yes you will lose most muscle gained off cycle, but the muscle structure is still there.
I think one thing that really made me question everything is a 17 year old kid that started going to my gym. At the time my max bench was about 2 plates, keep in mind I've been working towards that relentlessly for YEARS and barely making progress, even some weeks getting setbacks. He was even asking me questions and advice, since he was benching 30kg max. Within 3 months he was doing my max for REPS. I know because we had the same exact schedule and I could literally see the kid grow day to day. I could also see that his routine was all over the place, he was being lazy and wasn't even training properly. Despite all that, he was able to literally create more muscle mass than I have in years within actual weeks. Really crazy shit and at the time it just made me feel awful - as if my hard work isn't worth anything at all. The boy started acting all cocky and shit too.
A year later I ran into him and he looked defeated and tiny again, but he will learn from his mistakes
