I have been extremely consistent for about 11 months, however no ever looks at me and says ‘Oh he probably goes to the gym’
Several reasons
1)Poor starting point
Had a lot of fat and almost no muscle, overweight
2)Trash program
The coach in the gym directly put me on machines without squat bench etc, 20sets per muscle group
- (Probably) poor genetics
Barely saw any ‘rapid’ progression on my lifts in the start, took me weeks to increase weight
4)Obsessed with losing fat/fatigue from cut
Ended up cutting way too long, I wanted to get ‘lean’, but since I had no muscle, never lost my gut, just looked even worse ‘skinny fat’
However I seem to have fixed all the issues on my end, and am seeing slow but steady increase in reps and weights, it’s still kinda demotivating when my friends say that they can’t see progress but ofc they don’t know how bad I fucked up and ngl I am actually getting a little excited with everything coming together, and was wondering how long did it take y’all to start looking good
What?
You “cut” after you “bulk”…
If you start out and immediately “cut” you’re just trying to lose weight.
“Bulk” is where you just build muscles. It’s hard to do because muscles are ridiculously inefficient which is why we need to lift weights to get a lot. We have to trick our body into thinking it needs huge inefficient muscles.
Once you have them, losing fat is easier because every small movement wastes a shit ton of fuel. And fat is fuel.
Like, it sounds like you picked up some buzzwords, but don’t understand them.
What/who is your “coach”? Like, are you in a CrossFit gym? Are you a kid doing school weightlifting? Is it an employee at a gym you go to?
Either way, your best advice is probably whatever you coach says, start listening to them.
You didn’t even give people your age. No one is going to give as good and relevant advice as the coach who’s already helping. You say you’re really out of shape, which is why the coach put you on machines rather than stuff like bench/squat. You need to build support muscles and get technique down on machines before you hurt yourself on weights.
If it was fast and/or easy, everyone would be jacked. It’s going to take a while and be difficult
Good Intel here but a super negative vibe. Dude is just asking some questions and he doesn’t need this heat.
Sry, yeah I was trying to lose weight, but tbh I have always heard people use the term ‘cut’ when giving advice to people who are starting fat
That being said, if I get literally close to 0 results in 8 months despite working hard and eating well, then I can be sure something is wrong with my training
Also I had to start on ground zero anyway when I started those compound movements, my form was shit, I might have had the strength (spoiler alert I didn’t) but it didn’t transfer over
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IMHO stick with the compound movements. Read mark riptoes book, pretty much the standard on terms of beginning weightlifting. 5x5 strong lifts is a watered down version and easy to understand and stick to. Take progress pictures for yourself.
Sounds like you haven’t been very clear with your goals.
What results are you going for? What have you been tracking? What’s your diet look like? What’s your workout routine like? What’s your base caloric needs?
Honestly my goal is to just get in better shape, yeah getting ripped might be cool but its just too far off, I atleast wanna look fit, the reason I use my strength as an example is because you can be sure that someone who cant bench 60lbs (about 5 months in iirc) confidently isn’t gonna be very good looking, and I am a male