Hey guys! I recently just joined the gym to lose a little belly fat, tone my entire body, and grow my glutes. I’m doing the following workouts five days (& 10k steps) a week: Bulgarian split squats, RDLs, hip thrusts, cable kickbacks, and abductors to target glutes. Bicep curl, triceps push down, shoulder press, lateral raises, and triceps extensions to tone my arms. Dumbbell squats, leg press, leg curl, and leg extension to tone my legs. And cable woodchoppers, Russian twist, and cable crunchers to tone my core.

Is this workout good? Any recommendations or advice?

I know eating protein is very important but it’s really hard for me to hit that goal, so I’m still trying in that aspect. Also, should I be eating at a maintenance, deficit, or surplus? (For reference, I’m 5”5 female and weigh 52kg)

Hello

I tested my vitamin d3 and they say it is on value 16 so it’s low. Now I want to buy vitamin d3 + k2 drops and each drops has 1000 IE

Now I want to ask you how much drops would I take when I my value is 16 (not my age it is my vitamin d3 value )?

I have heard two different ways to go about it. What do you guys prefer? I was going to try and hit 3 sets of 5 the other day, but ended up getting 5,4,3,3. So I hit the 15 reps but it wasnt 3 sets of 5, and I wasnt going for 3s. Is that okay as the next thing to do in programming, or is there a "next" phase that would make more sense?

Doing too much overtime atm, so have to slow down and reduce length of exercise. Was making good progress with SS.

Does it matter much? Am doing deadlifts by themselves on day 1, then next day squats and pressing movements. Problem is I want to do cardio, so would do cardio alone on day 3, and repeat, will slow progress down sadly.

Thanks.

Anyone else get these often too? I look like I have some sort of disease from an outsiders perspective lol. Not really a big deal but wondering if that ever stops.

The grey book notes regarding the SRA cycle for intermediates:

"The actual time required may be shorter than a week at first - perhaps 5 days -- and may grow to 8-9 days at the end of the intermediate stages of training."

5 days makes sense. 8-9 days doesn't to me.

Hey team,

I have a question about chin ups and when to progress to weighted chins. For context, the blue book says: “A good rule of thumb is that when you can do 12-15 body weight reps, it is probably time to do some of the work weighted…”.

My understanding is that once introduced into the program you should do 3 sets of body weight chins for AMRAP until you can hit 15 per set. I’ve been consistently hitting reps of 15, 9, 7 plus or minus a rep here and there for the past month or so but can’t seem to get close to the 3 full sets.

I’ve experimented with weighted chins earlier this year and I’m comfortable adding up to 20kg for three sets of 5 and adding weight each chins session but I dropped this off as I realised I hadn’t ticked the box on the body weight rep requirement.

Is my understanding correct on when to proceed to weighted chins as per the program? Is there any benefit to continuing with body weight reps before moving on to weighted?

Stats and background:

Age: 33 Height: 183cm (6ft) Weight: 95.6 kg / 211 lbs Squat: 135 kg / 298 lbs Deadlift: 165 kg / 364 lbs Power clean: 60 kg / 132 lbs (work in progress) Press: 69 kg / 152 lbs Bench press: 105 kg / 231 lbs

I’ve been running NLP since September this year.

I had a gut feeling my workout was going to be a struggle today because I hadn't gotten the rest (sleep) I should have since my last workout. All 3 of my work sets on the squats were incredibly difficult.

When it came to my work set on the deadlift it was like the bar had been welded to the floor. I could tell my central nervous system just didn't have the gas to power through a single rep. I made a few attempts with no success.

At this point I was feeling pretty defeated, backed the weight off to my last warm up weight and then did a set of 10 reps.

Was this a bad idea? Would it have been better to just stop after my failed attempts? Am I overthinking this?

I've been having a rough week tbh, but Ive been most excited about this scheduled 30 lb PR.

It wasn't my prettiest deadlift, but I'm finding i do better with the more frequent low rep schemes of TM style programming. I'm thinking I go back to some of that next. Have a nice weekend!

This is not for me, but for a friend who got hurt squatting while doing the program.

He just came back from a recent back tweak/pull, and he was working his way up back to his previous numbers (280 deadlift, 210 squat) when he felt his back pop.

He can barely walk and he says it’s in excruciating pain. How would he rehab this? He’s only been doing the program for a month. He was wearing a belt (but still hasn’t gotten shoes yet). If you guys need more details let me know.

How would he rehab this?

Thanks!

Really cool reading about lifting/programming theory etc, is anything else interesting/useful?

A few weeks ago, I injured my shoulder benching. Doesnt hurt after squat, dead, press, ot chins only after bench.

I accidentally loaded 10 lbs extra and pushed too hard on a set at 260. Since then ive dropped all the way to 225x5x3 but that still hurts and is difficult.

Whats the best way to rehab while not losing a lot of ground? Should I skip bench for 2-3 weeks? What movement would you sub in?

Fwiw, i bench in a power rack with safeties and stupid j-hooks and i think a lot (or all) of my problem is unracking. Im looking into a monolift.

Mark says that ohp is the best remedy for torn rotator cuffs etc however is there a form test that must be done before? I’ve had a torn cuff for years and want to start strengthening the shoulder better and they seem to be well tolerated for me however I While I don’t have pain I feel like just lifting my hand over my head it’s stiff to get bicep next to the ear in terms of range of motion. While when I ohp there no issue Can this hurt me in the long run? Is there any way to improve that range of motion,