UPDATE: I’m having almost no luck building muscle. VIDEOS ADDED

[augustbug]

Day 2

Ex 1. BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG.Less weight, slow down, control it, flog the ego.3 - 4 second eccentric. Optional 1 second hold once 3 second eccentric becomes easier, same for 4.

Ex 2. I'm getting tired of this.Sloooooooooooowwwww doooooooowwn. Control the movement.

Ex 3. Right, this is one that people don't get.3 SECOND ECCENTRIC. 2 SECOND HOLD AND STRETCH. CONTROLLED 1 SECOND CONCENTRIC. REPEAT. Calves grow with good stretch with good load.

I've had enough now. I've watched enough. Here is my advice:

1. Refine your technique.
2. Reduce the weight - lose the ego.
3. Slow everything the fuck down. Minimum 3 second eccentric, 1 second hold where applicable.
4. Control. From the squeeze to the stretch, to the constant speed of movement between point A and point B.
5. None of the above is any good if you have a shit starting base and no stability.
6. Do all of the above, and actually, stick with the Renaissance Periodisation programme. If you want to get big, 5x5 strong lifts or "power building" is not what you need. You need a hypertrophy programme which revolved around periodisation and RIR, which you are on. Stick with it.
7. Once you're consistently hitting the top of your target rep range in each set with good form, increase the weight. Rinse and repeat.
8. Now, put the work in. Because the work is more than just getting sweaty and going to failure. It's temporarily sacrificing your ego and lifting less than grandma to set a great foundation of form. It's ruthlessly holding yourself to account. It's standardising every single exercise, so that you recognise that as soon as one rep feels like you're "cheating" and you lose form, you've technically reached failure. Don't misunderstand me, you have to work fucking hard, but the point of standardisation is that your prime movers are fatiguing first and getting the most stimulus, not your secondary or tertiary movers.If you want to learn how to train properly, please watch Jordan Peters in YouTube. I have had the pleasure of going to the same gym and talking to him for a couple of years. He is known across the world in the bodybuilding industry.The chaps at Renaissance Periodisation, and Revive Stronger (who coach me), have done a podcast with Jordan Peters who is one of the most respected bodybuilders in the industry.This is only the training variable I have talked about. I haven't seen your diet, but I hope you've nailed that.

 

[hellokitty]

@augustbug Thank you for taking the time to to write out this long and detailed response. A lot of good advice. I think I added to much weight because on my last post people told me my weight was too low and that I wasn’t training intense enough, so I added weight and tried my hardest on the sets but I might have went overboard with the weight. I didn’t really even think about the base so I will definitely pay attention to that. And I will pay attention to controlling the weight on the way down way more, and not hearing any clinking is a good barometer for that.

I’m going to reduce the weight by 5-10% and focus on good form and on maintaining that form even when I’m reaching failure. I’ll post some form check videos in a week or two. I don’t think I’m going to do the 3RIR parts of the program because what the past two weeks have shown me is that I’m not good at judging RIR. On some exercises what I thought was my 3RIR was my 6RIR.

I think before I was too hyper-focused on perfect form and now I swung the other way because I switched my mindset to training as intense as possible. I need to find the balance between the two where I train intensely but with good form.

Thanks!

 

[dawn16]

@hellokitty Bro took it to heart and went and filmed every little thing

 

[starburst3316]

@hellokitty After reading a lot here and your last post, to me you are insanely over training. Your last program you are doing 24 sets in total. That is what people on juice are doing. If you're natural, which I believe you are, then you should be doing 12-16 sets roughly, where you take the last set or two of your exercises to failure. Failure every set is also something a natty body builder cannot sustain. You can choose to be natty, low volume, high intensity, or high volume and lower intensity. You can't do both, you will see basically no gains because your body can't recover with the frequency you're doing.

My advice is to take a huge step back in volume and intensity, focus on form and FEELING the contractions. Go to failure one or two times an exercise at most! Mind muscle connection is not bro science, it's been studied many times now to show that the quality of the contraction is more important than the numbers and your hyper focus on the numbers is detrimental to your gains.

 

[gogomariachiband]

@hellokitty Do PPLPPL

Minimum of 3 exercises of chest and back per workout.

6 reps on side delts ridiculous, 15 reps for isolation movements, 10 for compound movements. Don't go lower. You need to learn to control the weight, now it's controlling you. Strict slow controlled movements with the muscle you want to target activated all times. Focus on contracting and squeezing the muscle.

 

[hnr1203]

@hellokitty Echoing what’s been said before, sometimes less is more. I don’t want this to come off as rude because it’s not my intention but you don’t need to send videos of yourself doing calf raises or using a machine - you’re over complicating things.

I did notice on your benching that your elbows are flared out a bit too much so be cognizant to avoid shoulder issues.

Two things I’d recommend - first, find a YouTuber who seems to make sense to you after watching their content and look for their content on form specifically. AthleanX is really good just for getting basic form and understanding why you need to perform the exercises in a certain way.

Secondly, once you’ve got a feel for correct form, look up 5x5 Stronglifts. I think you’d be much better served doing a 5x5 bench/squat program than than the various machines you’re opting for.

I will say kudos for your commitment to trying to find answers instead of just giving up or doing the same things that haven’t worked before

 

[hellokitty]

@hnr1203 Thank you for your advice. I will be more cognizant of my elbows on the bench press. I have seen some AthleanX stuff, I’ll watch some of his videos on form.

I will look into that program. I’m going to stick with this for at least a few more weeks as I have made some strength gains in a lot of my lifts when I compare my second week of going to failure to my first, so I want to see if that continues. Then I will reassess.

 

[emilsabry]

@hellokitty Echoing the sentiment of everyone else in saying that your selected program is crazy complicated. Considering you've mentioned your goal isn't to be a body builder it has far too much emphasis on isolation movements.

Not an expert by any means so my recommendations are based off anecdotal experience and some PT training. Definitely take them with a grain of salt and remember fitness has no one size fits all solution.

As weird as it might sound I'd relax the amount of progress tracking you're doing. What helped me was building a program around the golden five (bench, deadlifts, squats, pulls ups and OHP) and adding accessories based on missing movement patterns (e.g horizontal pull, lateral shoulders, propriocetively challenging exercises) and what you enjoy. Then mainly worry about tracking the numbers for those big five lifts. Reason been is that this will give you a better reflection of your progress. Tracking every isolation movement you do can be disheartening as you'll see some wild variations based on a myriad of factors such as: how much sleep you had the night before, if you ate right, if you busted your gut extra hard on an exercise beforehand that targets the same muscle group. Obviously, this applies to all lifts but I've always noticed more variation in my performance for isolations. There are a million and one programs out there that incorporate these lifts and I've never followed one strictly enough to recommend. I've always ended up bastardizing them with various calisthenic and plyometric exercises as that's what I enjoy.

Secondly don't stress so much about going to failure or hitting exact reps for every set of every exercise. Going to failure for everything can lead to overtraining and decreased performance if you don't have your recovery down, which is difficult to do when you have a life to live outside the gym. Not to mention the increased risk of injury. Sounds like you already understand RIR which is great. I'd recommend aiming for rep ranges rather than exact numbers and then take the final set to form failure, meaning you can no longer perform the exercise with adequate form. Looking at your machine chess press video by the last few reps you're butt is way off the bench, back is crazy arched and legs are akimbo. At this point you're not doing much for your chest and are increasing the risk of injury.

To provide an example of what I mean let's say I want to increase my pull ups. Say I've programmed in doing 4 sets of this exercise. I'd find my working rep range (number of reps you can do with 1-2 RIR), let's say it's 6-8. For the first 3 sets I'd hit anywhere in this range, keeping those 1-2 reps in reserve, on the final set is when you bust out as many as you can. Once you're hitting 8 reps for every set you'd up the reps. Rinse and repeat until you've hit your goals. The advantage of this is that you'll have an easier time progressively overloading rather than having to drop the weight/reps for each subsequent set. As for rest times the simple answer is as long as it takes to feel fully recovered, I find 90-120 seconds is usually good but you'll want to rest longer for bigger compounds or if you're training primarily for strength (e.g 5x5, 5-3-1 or something similar).

Nutrition is a whole other ballgame but it sounds like you're reasonably on to it. Although, again I wouldn't stress too much about the numbers as long as you're roughly hitting your protein and calorie goals and eating healthy you'll be fine.

Generic as all hell but I definitely recommend AthleanX and Jeff Nippard as good YouTubers to follow. But be aware the former can get a bit wild with exercise variations and the latter can be quite technical for beginners. Also don't take everything they say as gospel, the science of health and fitness is constantly changing and at the end of the day they're both just making social media content.

You've already done the hard part which is getting into the gym so be proud of yourself for that! Main thing is to be sure you enjoy whatever program you're doing and be consistent, the rest will follow. Good luck and happy lifting.

 

[mikeintrouble]

@hellokitty This is a good start.
Couple of tips. Something about your incline dumbbell lifts kind of stuck with me. I think it’s the same sentiment I got from watching all of your other videos.

It’s almost looks like you’re acting like you’re going to failure vs actually going to failure. I know it’s hard to translate that on a post but man it just looks like you’re kind of trying. All the random leg movements on the incline dumbbell press.

I like the program. If you eat and make sure each session you’re adding 2-3 reps you’ll make gains. Give it time. The program auto adjusts the weights if you’re giving it the right input.

Good luck!

 

[confusedgirl98]

@mikeintrouble Yeah, I thought the same, on his second last rep I thought "okay, probably has like 5 more in the tank... oh, he failed?"

 

[hellokitty]

@mikeintrouble No I am definitely going to failure. I’m not sure what the point of acting like I’m going to failure would be. Others have pointed out that I have a bad base on a lot of the workouts, so that’s why my legs flail around because I didn’t really know I had to have them firmly planted.

 

[mpho17]

@hellokitty I’m not an expert by any means, but would you say that you just do the reps to reach that set number you have (whether it be 7 reps or 9 reps) or do you actually focus on each set (going slow), while having a strong mind to muscle connection?

 

[everlastinggift]

@hellokitty One thing I think you should consider is adding more calories. I know in your last post you mentioned you noticed some gain with a high-calorie diet, though you attributed most of it to fat. That said, you don't have to go as crazy as 4500 calories like you did then. Try for 300-500 more calories (in your case I would aim for the 500, considering the thyroid thing) than you currently are eating. You can't build muscle with maintenance calories. Rather, you can, but it will take a very, very long time. If you want to see muscle gains, you have to eat in a surplus. Eating in a moderate surplus will see some fat increase, but mostly, you will be increasing muscle because now your body has the energy to not only do the work, but to repair itself while resting.

Also consider cutting the volume more. I see that at least for some of these exercises, you went from 5 sets to 4 sets. Now, make it 3 sets. People, especially beginners and novices, tend to vastly overestimate how many sets/reps are actually needed. For example, you have 15 sets total for chest exercises for the week. Now, that's not excessive per se, but 12 sets total may work better for you. Usually 9-12 sets per muscle group are all that is really needed for muscle growth and for strength, as long as you are doing proper intensity. That doesn't necessarily mean going to failure, especially if you're lifting heavy.

For legs you have a whopping 27 sets. I know you split them posterior (glutes/hams) and anterior (quads), but doing a couple compound movements would combine those two things and cut down a lot on that volume (which is what you want, in this case). Barbell squats, front squats, lunges, RDLs, and perhaps a regular deadlift are all you need to get you started.

Implement those changes and give it a couple of months to see if that works for you. Hopefully it does, best of luck!

 

[bk20257]

@hellokitty Form looks good! Watch the bounce on the bottom of presses. During inclines you tend to control all the way down to the last second then kind of quick drop and bounce up. I only watched the upper body videos so not sure if that applies to your lower lifts or not.

Keep the process going and move to heavier weight and/or another set once you hit all reps in your target range. Make sure you are eating in a caloric surplus everyday and give it time!

 

[yetzer]

@hellokitty Bro just lift, eat protein, get enough sleep.

 

[lme]

@hellokitty damn you are meticulous I’m jealous honestly. best advice dude take a step back. I would trash whatever this program is because honestly it seems a bit heavy on the machine work. I personally don’t count my weight or reps that closely I go to the gym so I can feel good so I go based upon how my body is reacting. Keep it difficult but don’t leave not able to walk. go back to basics do more specific free weight compounds and base everything around your big lifts (deadlifts, squats, bench press, ohp) consider one day for each and fill in the gaps. theres potential you could be overtraining this is a pretty high volume program. back to taking a step back, look at the bigger picture of your life as a whole. are you eating plenty? prefferably whole natural foods? getting good sleep? no stressful situations like new job, family issues, anything thats been weighing on your mind? If all that has been consistent there is a chance you could have health issues and I’d reccomend seeing a gastro or hormone specialist.

 

[coplongford]

@hellokitty Rant:

I really felt the need to repeat the basics of lifting these days so:

Hey bro, i know it doesnt make sense right now, but i will die on this hill of "train hard and progressively and consistancy + bulk + 6+ hrs of sleep, to make progress" any secomd of the day everyday forever. Do the exercises that taget muscles and that YOU ENJOY in the 5-20 rep range and going ,(probably mostly the basics, flat bench, ohp, db press, flyes, squats, hack squats lunges, u get the gist) with enough volume SO U CAN PROGRESS in a resonable time in weights(1-3 weeks between adding weight, and probably 3-18 sets for any given muscle [more is not better always btw]) for compounds AND NOT SACRIFICING TECHNIQUE mostly EVER unless its safe to do(after u reach form degredation, like pushdowns, pulldowns, curls blah blah blah. )

Eat in surplus and weight yourself after taking a dump in the morning and

Diet critically and self reflect on most food choices. (Unless its a meal for pure enjoyment). Eat mostly nutritious food and feel free to take it easy on diets, no ones forcing you.

Pick a split that YOU and ONLY YOU enjoy and BLOODY STICK TO IT ))))

Sleep 6+ hrs. Yep

And dont forget the obvious

Keep doing this for many years / decades and even if are an impoverished unicef kid, you WILL see results amd will look better than most people in a 100 km radius.

Watch and listen natty youtubers like Alphadestiny, Geoffrey verity schoefield, Natural Hypertrophy and etc u will find after.

Feel like i said my piece
Also feel free to keep in touch aaaanytime bro

With this, you WILL make progress. There is no way out of these instructions.

Semi-rant over.

 

[mormarw]

@hellokitty More calories and more weight on the bar

 

[wyattwrd]

@hellokitty 1 month is basically nothing and I'm not surprised you aren't seeing instant results. This routine is also way too complicated for someone just starting.

Highly recommend throwing that away and just doing stronglifts for maybe 3-6 months and reevaluate: https://stronglifts.com/5x5/

Don't obsess over everything and have patience. Nothing really matters at this point besides making sure you're recovered between workouts.

 

[romanmediterranean]

@hellokitty you train too much and too often for a natural, also you have very little volume in the lower body patte and too much in the upper body