Didn't get results even after 1 year of working out, what am I doing wrong?

[angelanb]

Hey folks, I really need some help from y'all.

I'm 18M and used to go to the gym until 2 months ago when my membership ended and I couldnt renew it due to reasons. I went to the gym for about an year. Now, I did have some slight progress but I am still a similar looking skinny fat guy. There's definitely not as much as progress that there should've been.

Now, I am gonna renew my membership. I still have my old workout plan, can you gives gimme some insight over what should be changed? And can I know what should be my progression?

- Day 1 and 4:

1. Decline Machine press

2. Incline DB press

3. Bench Press

4. Pec Fly

5. Overhead Tricep extensions (I couldn't properly do these no matter how I tried).

6. Cable Pushdown

7. Cable Tricep Extensions

- Day 2 and 5:

1. Squats

2. Leg Press

3. Leg Extensions

4. Leg Curl

5. Calf Raises

6. Overhead Shoulder Press

7. Side Lateral Raise

8. Front raise

9. Rear Delt Fly

- Day 3 and 6:

1. Lat Pulldown

2. Bent Over Curls (Another one I coudnt manage properly)

3. Reverse Lat Pull

4. Seated Row

5. Shrugs

6. DB curl

7. Cable curl

8. Hammer Curl

Near the end of what time I used to go, I started deadlifting as well until I quit.

Please help me guys, what should I change and improve to get results this time?

Thanks in advance and have a nice day!

 

[lifesharer]

@angelanb You say you had 'slight progress' - what kind? Was it strength increase or you looked better or both?

Honestly it's a lot of variation for someone new to the gym - and I would be willing to bet there isn't much of a programmed progressive overload to it all. Lots of isolation movements so I'm guessing the compounds didn't get the attention they deserve.

But...I'd be willing to wager it was your nutrition and rest that most negatively impacted your progress - tell us about how you eat (and were eating) and your rest/sleep situation. Be honest about it, too.

 

[angelanb]

@lifesharer

You say you had 'slight progress' - what kind? Was it strength increase or you looked better or both?

Looks, my strength kinda increased as well, but I was weak asf before the gym. Avg skinny fat nerd, except nerds are smart. Now I look regular, but not what I feel I should look after even 4-5 months in the gym.

But...I'd be willing to wager it was your nutrition and rest that most negatively impacted your progress - tell us about how you eat (and were eating) and your rest/sleep situation. Be honest about it, too.

My diet was fairly mid. I ate what my mum makes, and for protein, I ate 2 whole boiled eggs everyday. Other than that, my diet was fairly the average Indian diet, with 2 roti (flatbread), some veg or chicken/fish/mutton depending on the days, and some rice. My breakfasts were a cup of tea and two rotis as well. Bad, I know, but I didn't know what else to do. This is something I think I need the most help with.

BTW I'm not exactly "new" new, since I did workout for like an year. I just didn't get any major results.

 

[danielle85]

@angelanb Since you said Indian diet I'll tell you something. We have a lof of carb focused diet in India. If you wanna start seeing visible results start eating a lot of protein focused diet. Eat everyday 10 - 15 egg whites, 2 scoops of whey protein with 200 ml skimmed milk(one right after workout and one whenever you want), take 50 grams of rolled oats with 100 ml of milk with some seeds and nuts (Soak it overnight and eat for breakfast), chicken every other day or once in 3 days, or if you can eat it eat daily (200 - 300 gms). This is just a diet focused on protein. You should eat some good carbs and fats as well. If you can eat like this in less than 2 months you'll see visible results.

I use muscle blaze biozyme whey and creatine monohyderate.

 

[dawn16]

@angelanb You need to eat a lot more and follow an actual training program and not whatever split you’re doing in this post

 

[angelanb]

@dawn16 Any split recommendations?

 

[pakicetus]

@angelanb I'm just a beginner like you as I started my journey around year ago. After first 5-6 months of fast progress I started struggle to add extra weight to exercises. Answer for me was diet and supplementation to some degree. Once I started bulking my lifts improved almost immediately.

 

[angelanb]

@pakicetus Ooh. Any tips? Also what's your split?

Do you use protein powder or any other supplements?

 

[danielle85]

@angelanb You should tell us your deit man. If you're skinny, you have to eat a lot of food especially protein to get visible muscle development. Diet is the most important part of workout.

 

[mommajulesberry]

@angelanb - be realistic about what the gains you can expect should look like 4-5 months in the gym i would expect 4-8lbs of muscle mass if you started undermuscled at a normal bmi.

- how often can you add 5lbs to your big lifts like your heavy rows, squats, and machine presses? every week? every 2 weeks? keep a logbook and test your limits enough to get these progressions.

- anyways follow jeff nippard, renaissance periodization and geoffrey verity schofield. excellent resources for nutrition and hypertrophy sort of information so you can "troubleshoot" what you're doing

 

[angelanb]

@mommajulesberry >be realistic about what the gains you can expect should look like 4-5 months in the gym i would expect 4-8lbs of muscle mass if you started undermuscled at a normal bmi

Yeah but I recieved minimal change in over an year. Something was wrong, ngl.

>how often can you add 5lbs to your big lifts like your heavy rows, squats, and machine presses? every week? every 2 weeks? keep a logbook and test your limits enough to get these progressions.

I will try that, thanks!

 

[mommajulesberry]

@angelanb to be completely honest without testing your limits to ensure you are training appropriately hard, learning a bit about programming for your goals (e.g. hypertrophy) and measuring medium term progression metrics and progress pictures you are doing yourself a disservice because the quality of help that you can get by providing very limited information to a bunch of redditors in their mums basement is much worse than the quality of troubleshooting you can provide to your own program and outside the gym variables

 

[angelanb]

@mommajulesberry That makes sense I guess. So should I go into the gym, find my personal max, and then work on weekly or 2-weekly adding 5 kilos as a start?

Thanks for the reply btw.

 

[mommajulesberry]

@angelanb any reasonable program will be built around ultimately increasing weight on the bar.

for example 5/3/1 programs will take your max, make you do slightly different percentages each week and add 5lbs to your max every 3 weeks. high intensity low volume programs are just like "train really hard and be willing to bleed for a PR on these 2 sets per muscle group or else". RP/dr mike israetel style of programming will have you start a 1-2 month block a few reps from failure, adding reps/weight/sets each week until you are training to failure, deload, and restart the block of training a few reps from failure but with more reps or weight as you will have progressed.

anyways boostcamp or the fitness wiki have good programs on them. if you don't know how to train properly, no shame in training wheels

 

[angelanb]

@mommajulesberry Thanks mate! So should I just pick out a routine from the resources?

Or should I reduce the volume of my program?

 

[mommajulesberry]

@angelanb a pre existing routine will work as well as you can train hard and eat well.

your own routine you have to be accountable to your own progress in strength and in the mirror but you get to tweak it more which for me is more fun. but you would have to take your own notes of whether you are getting stronger week to week or not, how your muscles are recovering/getting sore etc so that you can make educated decisions about whether to train closer to failure, more or less volume etc.