Fantastic. Thanks for taking the time to review my post and the subsequent replies and taking the time to respond accordingly.
I didnât see a reply to this, sorry if I missed it ?
I donât remember if I specifically responded 
. In case I did not, no, I have not started a training log yet. Hope to soon.
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Everyone seems to have had great advice and commentary so far. Only thing I would add is if you have considered adding in dips to your training. These have always been helpful to me to build pressing strength. Furthermore, they are easy to scale by using a band (or most gyms have an assisting weight stack) if you canât do many on your own yet, doing them without any assistance or added weight (regular dips), or even progressing to weighted or ring dips as you get better.
@Andrewgen_Receptors @flipcollar @Frank_C @simo74 @mechinos
All the advice here inspired me to get back under the bar andâŠâŠ
135 x 3.5
145 x 1
Was pleasantly surprised.
The last half rep at 135 my form was shot and I barely got the bar up . So based on what some of you have said I should have stopped at 3?
This was on a bench, not Smith and I did not ask for a spotter. 
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Iâm not sure I understand⊠you wrote 3.5, but youâre saying you did not use a spotter. Which means you got all 4 reps by yourself, right? Thatâs 4, not 3.5. You donât lose points for less than perfect form, lol.
But yes, I have said that I do not believe in going to absolute failure very often. And if you were in danger of missing that last rep, it was REALLY a bad idea. Never, ever hit an absolute failure rep on bench press without either a spotter, or spotter arms on the bench. Itâs not worth the risk.
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Ditto what @flipcollar said. On barbell lifts, I always stop on the last âcrispâ one. The bar speed will slow down, but thereâs no question the rep will happen and I donât have to get in a weird position to do it.
Then Iâll go over to dips or machine presses or whatever and go until my last half dozen reps are half reps. I just see no risk there and I do think high-effort volume drives hypertrophy.
Great job on outperforming your own expectations!
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Nice job on hitting a 1+ plate bench! Thereâs no need to max again for awhile. Work smart, train for strength with good, safe reps, and donât get pinned!
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Love this. Thanks!
Have you ever run 5/3/1? It sounds like you test 1RMâs kind of at random (like many people do) and it ends up getting in the way of progress on occasion. If this sounds accurate (no judgment), you may want to look into 5/3/1 for your big lift progression.
It looks something like this:
with your progression looking like this:
Congrats on the PR!
P.S sorry for being the person whoâs always throwing program recommendations your way; you donât log your training so none of us know what you do =)
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You just know Iâve got to comment when someone recommends 5/3/1, so here we go:
I second this recommendation whole-heartedly. If youâre interested, do yourself a favor, pick up a copy of 5/3/1 Forever, read itâand I do mean READ itâand youâll be set, well, foreverâor at least quite a while, anyway!
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No worries on throwing anything at me, lol. I appreciate you even taking the time and I enjoy the reading. This was only the second post I have made on these forums. I will see if I can post my program soon. Generally speaking I have tried to adhere to a push, pull, legs schedule. 135 bench was a goal from the beginning and I was so happy to be able to do that today, without a spotter. Also recently got my first pull up (a bit sloppy) but nonetheless a pull up. I literally almost cried at the gym but I held it back.
Maybe I am the person that tests their 1RM kind of random (no judgment taken). What I have done is add weight once I feel comfortable at 8-10 rep ranges for most exercises to see how many reps I can get at the higher weight and have progressed accordingly. I have not really tested most exercises for one rep, except maybe deadlifts. Does that make sense? I have been in the weight room for 2 years and this was all I knew what to do just to get started, but now as my training is getting more nuanced and I am more comfortable, I have had these questions come up.
Honestly, my goal now is to stop growing muscle and lose fat, that is my absolute number one priority. Or maybe it is better to say, stop getting big and lose fat? Can you continue to grow muscle without growing in size? I genuinely do not know the answer to that (please donât judge me to hard). The second priority would be to not lose my progress. Not sure if these two priorities conflict or not. This is one of the rare times I wish I was a guy lol and could keep increasing and building (I see a 225 bench on the horizon) but I feel waaaayyyyy too big right now, my clothes donât fit (I need help getting them off - the PG version) and too many people keep telling me âYou look different. You look big but not fat."
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Yeah, completely. Guys are dumb and we like to brag about how much we can curl - paying no mind to form or how little this means to anyone. Finding out and testing your 1RM for big lifts, like Bench, OHP, Squats and Deads is pretty important when it comes to strength training though, because you need to know your 1RM for setting your progression %'s (at least for 5/3/1).
This tells me you are getting beyond the point of being a âbeginnerâ and are ready to start taking your nutrition and training to a new level - because more progress requires these changes. You were smart enough to start asking when you noticed this; many werenât and are still doing their bro splits after 7-8 years in the gym (they look the same as they did 7-8 years ago).
Ehh loaded question, but loaded answer: Yes⊠to an extent, but let me explain.
- To build muscle, you need excess calories and stimulus (weights). Often this comes with the byproduct of some extra fluff too.
- To lose fat, you need to be in a caloric deficit. To keep the muscle and lose fat, you need to be in a deficit with plenty of protein while training.
- To do both at the same time is called ârecompingâ and itâs okay. You canât actually turn fat into muscle, but neurological adaptations can allow for someone to put on some muscle while also losing fat (a lot of people will disagree with me here). Take newbie lifters for example: They just started training and after a month, with the same shitty diet they were always on - have managed to put on like 5lbs of muscle, while also looking a bit leaner. This defies logic (and science), to a bit. The reason why this works, albeit for a very short time, is because of the new neurological stressors introduced to their system via weight lifting. The body adapts quickly and gains slow down rapdily while leaning out seems to stall too⊠why? because theyâre eating at maintenance. This means theyâre only putting on maybe half the muscle the could if they were in a surplus, and it means they arenât losing fat (canât lose fat without a deficit). These very people then proclaim to be âhardgainersâ whilst eating the same diet as a 5 year old.
Anyways, you may be able to ârecompâ for a month or two, but itâs like trying being in a car and trying to turn left and right at the same time⊠doesnât work very well.
You could lean out in a month or two, or however long you need to reach your goals - and you probably wonât have lost too much strength (if any). Moreover, any strength that you did lose, will probably come back relatively quickly once you start eating normal again. FWIW, I recently lost about 20lbs and my strength didnât drop.
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Size is all about food and nutrition. Eat more calories than you burn and youâll gain weight. Weight training helps that new weight be mostly muscle. If youâre content with type muscle mass, then you could cut weight. Unfortunately thatâs going to interfere with strength goals. You typically go into maintenance mode when you lose weight.
You can get stronger without getting bigger (nutrition choices again).
I suggest you eat your maintenance calories (whatever youâve been doing) and keep training for strength. You could eat just below maintenence and slowly cut weight. And I mean like 1 pound a month kind of slow.
Another option is to commit to a short term cut and then maintain the new weight while getting stronger.
Whatever you decide, think big picture. Think about your progress one year from now. Two years. Five years. If you bounce back and forth from getting stronger and gaining weight to cutting, then youâll basically spend a whole lot of time and effort to stay the same.
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I agree with everything @Andrewgen_Receptors posted.
Iâll just add: you can still train for hypertrophy while cutting fat. Itâs the best way to keep all that lean muscle anyway.
Edit: Saw @Frank_C posted basically exactly that.
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It is worth a lot to hear you lost those 20 pounds and your strength did not drop.
If you donât mind sharing, how quickly did you lose it? What changes did you implement to trigger the loss?
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About 2lbs per week at first, then it tapered off rapidly as my comittment started faltering lol. I let life get in the way (work, school, family, finances - the biz). BUT it went well when I was keeping on it the way I needed to.
Before I started cutting:
I was always high protein but I never really paid attention to my diet. I âlimitedâ carbs but it was hardly low-carb. I just ate how I felt I needed to, which meant I was in a slight surplus for a while⊠started getting kinda fluffy (probs >25%BF). I also lifted like all the time 5-6x per week PPL with Bench, Deadlift and Squats on their respective day. I got pretty big and pretty strong like this, but also got too fluffy.
When I started cutting:
I knew I wanted to lose about 20lbs at first (really should have been more like 30-40, but whatevs) and I was breaking out in hives at the thought of reducing food intake⊠So I wanted to lean out and do it fast. At 235lbs, I took 4 or 5 different Basal Metabolic Rate calculations, averaged them, and adjusted for activity - this lead me to believe my maintenance was 3,000-3,200 cal per day (it was, by chance). To cut, I set myself up to have a 2,000cal daily intake, which is about 1k cal deficit daily - and about 2lbs per week⊠This worked for me, until it didnât. Still, I made it down from 235 to 215lbs in like 2-3 months.
I ended up giving up the cut because I was just too stressed with everything else, but Iâve kept on eating about 90% properly since then and done alright. Scale went from 215 up to 225lb current, but in total I got bigger and leaner.
Day 1 (picture says 229.5 - I found out the scale I was using was busted. When I stepped on one that worked, it showed I was like 5lbs heavier than I thought. This is why I say I started at 235lb)
Most recent: (a couple days ago)
Bit of a long story, and a few too many variables to be able to tell it easily, but long story short: reduce calories, eat at least 1g/lb BW protein daily, at least .3g/lb BW fats daily, and the rest can be either fats or carbs to reach your daily calorie goal.
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To add to the above, I had a fun stretch where I went from 217 > 250 > 207. I spent about six or seven months gaining and then about six cutting. In hindsight, it might have been good to stay at 250 longer, but I was uncomfortable and being heavier resulted in a shoulder injury while playing basketball (I dunked the ball and my increased weight helped sublux my biceps tendon).
Cutting sucks if itâs more than 5-10 lbs. 1 to 2 lbs per week is a healthy rate of loss. Iâm not a believer in specific food ratios (fats, carbs, protein). The are some guidelines but people have succeeded with wildly different ratios. One constant for lifters is protein. Make sure that one is a priority and the rest is personal preference. I love carbs and I get this insatiable hunger if I donât eat them. I can eat a 16oz steak and veggies and be starving 30 minutes later. If I add some carbs, that goes away. There are other big, strong people who thrive on high fat and low carb diets. I like to eat a lot and carbs allow me to eat more food (4 calories per gram vs 9 calories per gram). More food in my stomach makes me feel better.
One tip Iâll add is to change one variable at a time. Change your food first, but keep training the same. If weight loss stalls, keep your food intake the same and add more movement like walking. You can increase the intensity of your cardio as you go. If you throw everything in your training tool kit at weight loss from the start, you end up with nothing left when you hit a wall. Itâs nice to save some things so youâre not faced with cutting calories as the only option to make progress.
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