What are the best ways build muscle from home?

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peacefan

New member
Someone from r/advice told me to come try here so I will.

Basically long story short the gyms around me are filled with weird people that i'm not comfortable around and I want to get more built than my ex because he pissed me off and I'm a petty bitch lol.

If it's any use I'm F, 5'2, and around 50kg.

I also do have muscle especially on my legs but I'm mostly just looking to grow my arms and tone my abs a lot more, and then have strength aswell.

I know absolutely nothing about fitness and stuff like stuff to do with eating, protein, literally just working out to build muscle in general so literally anything would help. Any sort of routines or advice would be greatly appreciated.
 
@peacefan Growing up I was always naturally thin. I didn’t have to do a lot to have abs and muscle definition. Fast forward to my 30s and stomach fat became very difficult to get rid of. Luckily I had an hour of walking a day and worked a job that kept me squatting to pick things up constantly.

Had a kid and during the pandemic I really let myself go. Went to a doc’s appointment and my blood sugar and pressure were way up. I also found out I had an allergy to dairy that was making me feel tired all the time.

I decide I’m dropping all dairy and gluten from my diet. I pick up ring fit which was selling out at the time. I do ring fit 6 days a week until finishing my first round of the game (a few months). Now that I had a baseline of fitness I built a home gym:

Squat rack, free weights, rings, dumbbells

I started StrongLifts and joined a TKD club.

Schedule was m,w,f strong lifts t, thu tkd

After about a year I had good beginner lifts for my age and weight, my abs back, was impressing the black belts during sparring, and fantastic energy. Only down side was I had to buy a new wardrobe and gave myself a hernia.

Good luck on your journey
 
@weirdscience89 Okay, thank you! I was thinking that once i get a job i'll save up for either a car first or some stuff to work out with depending on how that goes i'll probably buy workout equipment. sorry to hear about the hernia though, i don't know what exactly it is but i feel it's not great. Hope all is well :)
 
@peacefan First of all, good on you for wanting to improve!

Secondly, the best way to start is to track your diet, eg. calories, macros (protein, fat, carbs). There are apps like MyFitnessPal who can help you with that.

For a start at training you can literally just look up fullbody routines on YouTube, they show you what exercises you should do and how they are done.
You can do a lot with just body weight exercise, especially if you’re a beginner. Train for 2-3 times a week until you get hang of it.

And the most important thing is that you stick to it! Good luck and have fun!
I hope I could help.
 
@murphyaik My problem with these apps is how do you handle stuff without barcodes? Like it's got entries for an apple or whatever but what about "a plate of grandma's tuna casserole"? That's always a huge stumbling block for me.
 
@kim75 You could ask your grandma for all the ingredients.
Jokes aside, I get what you mean. Just roughly estimate how much it could be, you don’t have to be precise every day. Or just don’t enter it at all on that day, it’s just a help and one or two days without reaching your goals don’t ruin the whole progress.
 
@peacefan I’m new as well (3 months) to working out and had a lot of questions. I did the YouTube rabbit hole research thing. What I started out with was a 28 day calisthenics challenge to help get me in a routine and habit of working out. I then added on weights as well. I wanted to see changes sooner so did a hypertrophy workout with them. I did start to see changes but didn’t see them till last couple weeks so don’t expect to see immediate change. The guy I watch online seems more about making sure you do it right than selling anything.


So once I got used to working out I started to add a second set on each day but specifically the workouts that hit the muscles I wanted to focus on. If you want more tone then bulk then focus more on the calisthenics but he has other videos about specific muscles if you have designs.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyqKj7LwU2Ru7jnbzj6Q9l08VoPX1lqoc&si=0ZCRbEzNtg50x5kx

This was my start to working out and I hope it helps you. Good luck and keep up the great effort.
 
@peacefan Start out by reading the wiki https://thefitness.wiki/

Unless you have worked out hard before (based on this question, I'm assuming no) you don't have near as much muscle as you think on your legs currently. Toning is also not a thing. You don't tone anything. You build muscle and then become lean enough to see it.

The wiki will cover everything in detail, but you need to get some kind of resistance training in and progressively overload (ie, make it harder). You can definitely start at home and you can build great physique with calisthenics, but honestly, the easiest way imo is to get in the gym because it just gives you access to all the weight you'd need. Surely not ALL gyms around you are filled with weird people, and honestly I'd place money on most of them are actually filled with normal people just doing their thing. If someone is being inappropriate, report them to staff.

Eating protein is absolutely an important part of building muscle. At your size, you should try and hit about 80g a day at minimum. And then long term, the most efficient way to build muscle is to bulk and cut. So build the lifting habit first and then start bulking.

Then also realize this is a SLOW process. Give it like 6 months to start noticing something. And really, measure progress in years. And unless your ex bf is just a weak, frail man, being realistic, it'll probably take you 2-3 years to get to his natural strength for some things. A trained woman absolutely can be stronger than an untrained man, but it's a LOT of work. From one woman to another though, it's absolutely fucking worth it. But just wanted to make sure you had an understanding of a realistic timeline of things.
 
@dinafrancis Okok thank you, I think the closest gym to me that I haven't tried out or heard only bad things about is around an hour away so if I ever find the time I could try it out there. Other than that thank you! i did have more muscle on my legs about 2 years ago when i first went gym I think I could do about 70kg on a leg press but ever since then it's DEFINITELY gone down lol
 
@peacefan An hour drive for a gym is not gonna be a habit you'll stick to. I'd personally say you should go get a tour of a gym closer to you and go see what you think for yourself. Creeps are gonna be everywhere, but if anyone actually tries to do anything with you, again, go to staff or even just make a really loud scene. One scream and all eyes will be on you and if someone is actually trying to do something, they'd best stop or now they have everyone watching them.

If you've not been working out for 2 years, assume that's gone. Now it may come back faster, but you shouldn't ignore your legs. Work out your full body
 
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