this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2024
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Physical Education
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Yeah I do that in around 1h30m. I started around June 2023. My new gym doesnt mark the weights which is annoying, it just marks them like level 1-13, I assume one weight is 5kg. I'm unsure about my body fat ratio, how can I calculate it?
Less "annoying" and more "downright terrible". I would tell you to ask what weight they are exactly to your gym's receptionist, but I assume those are dumbbells which I think are not right for you to use now. More on that later.
https://www.calculator.net/body-fat-calculator.html
You started lifting a little bit more half a year ago and you are already doing skull crushers and incline presses and attempting to target your chest by sections despite the fact that you only have a chest press of 25 kg: where I am from we call this "building the house from the roof": just because your favourite gym influencer or that high school friend of yours that has been hitting the gym for 6 years does it it doesn't mean that it is the right thing for you.
Instead of doing a lot of exercises that target specifically small muscle groups you should be doing what a beginner should be aiming for: a general development of your musculature through a few compound movements following a strength program, which should mainly include squats, deadlifts, bench presses and overhead presses. Eat a calorie surplus and 1 g of protein per lb of body weight, keep adding weight to your lifts often, sleep 8 h a day and once you've gotten big and strong and you see that there are small bits of muscle here and there that are lacking behind, you can then start thinking about isolation exercises. For now, consider sticking to a beginner program of the many ones you can find on the web. I personally recommend Starting Strength or StrongLifts 5x5 (both of which use barbells only, thus why what I said of dumbbells above) for more or less a year before considering moving on.
Also, avoid the Smith machine like the plague.
I did overall good progress though, I have way more visible muscle and bulked around 13kg. I'm not following any social media persons, I started working out using Critical's prolewiki guide. I'm not yet doing squats and deadlifts because I want to go through some checkups first and I have flat feet. I know and apply the rest of the tips you've mentioned.
The thing with being a beginner is that pretty much everything you do will work to an extent, but I still maintain my advice if what you want is to maximize your noob gains and keep progressing afterwards.
Okay, thank you for your detailed writeup, much appreciated, I'm making notes from all the comments lol