i mean maybe it’s just that i’m a 20 year old dude but i don’t do regular long and sweaty workouts and yet i’m gaining muscle slowly, i just do some calisthenics exercises whenever i get the mood and do reps until the target muscle tells me to fuck off
Maybe you’re a mesomorph? That’s usually not enough for most people. Plus, depending on your goals and how long it’ll take to hit, you might want to train more intensely to gain progress faster.
i mean it’s not like i’m swole or anything, i can do about 7 pullups before i start to conk out.
But from what i know about how muscle building works, intense workouts are not at all necessary, unless you’re specifically doing cardio.
What matters for building muscle is basically just doing sufficient amount of exercise that you feel delayed onset muscle soreness afterward, because that’s the part that actually creates muscle mass. Then ontop of that you’ll want to train the mind-muscle connection to make the most use of what muscle mass you have, which afaik is mostly done by doing reps really slowly and intentionally.
Basically my point is that much like you hear about how all it takes is 20 minutes of biking per day to stay healthy, you also don’t need to feel miserable from huge exercise sessions to build muscle.
It’s absolutely sufficient to do some calisthenics every day if you just want to be sensibly proportioned.
And as for weight loss, that’s almost entirely down to diet anyways: diet is like at least 80% of what decides your weight and exercise is another 10% along with deciding where that weight goes.
Edit: Also the term “mesomorph” seems to come from a theory that is generally discredited so idk about that one chief.
Yeah it’s pretty easy to knock out a workout in 20 minutes flat when you first start out. But if you’re doing a linear progression program, they start getting much longer within a few months. If you just stick with the 20 minutes then you won’t see any real gains beyond a very early point, it’s more of a maintenance schedule.
You’re right that diet has everything to do with your fat percentage, but it’s a reciprocal relationship. The more exercise you engage in, the more you need to eat to maintain or gain muscle. It’s important to calculate your caloric needs based on your goals and exercise levels, and then monitor them. After monitoring for a few months you get a pretty good idea of what you need and can back off the logging.
Someone as large as the dude in that picture has had an unhealthy relationship with food for a very long time. It’s unlikely he can actually stick to a deficit diet and not eat more than he needs. That’s where the cardio and weight training comes in. He can burn calories and then eat enough to actually feel full, without consuming more calories than he needs for an optimal weight. Mad props to people who get that big and then recognize a problem and make steps in the right direction. It’s fucking hard, dude. It’s way harder to get healthy than it is to stay healthy. It hurts more, it’s more exhausting, and the rewards are slow to arrive. It takes a ton of discipline, and they have my respect.
Depends what you’re training. Most strength programs I’ve done are pretty close to a static duration throughout with the progression being primarily weight and minimal rep increase.
Cardio could be close to linear if you’re training for speed instead of endurance.
i mean maybe it’s just that i’m a 20 year old dude but i don’t do regular long and sweaty workouts and yet i’m gaining muscle slowly, i just do some calisthenics exercises whenever i get the mood and do reps until the target muscle tells me to fuck off
Maybe you’re a mesomorph? That’s usually not enough for most people. Plus, depending on your goals and how long it’ll take to hit, you might want to train more intensely to gain progress faster.
i mean it’s not like i’m swole or anything, i can do about 7 pullups before i start to conk out.
But from what i know about how muscle building works, intense workouts are not at all necessary, unless you’re specifically doing cardio.
What matters for building muscle is basically just doing sufficient amount of exercise that you feel delayed onset muscle soreness afterward, because that’s the part that actually creates muscle mass. Then ontop of that you’ll want to train the mind-muscle connection to make the most use of what muscle mass you have, which afaik is mostly done by doing reps really slowly and intentionally.
Basically my point is that much like you hear about how all it takes is 20 minutes of biking per day to stay healthy, you also don’t need to feel miserable from huge exercise sessions to build muscle.
It’s absolutely sufficient to do some calisthenics every day if you just want to be sensibly proportioned.
And as for weight loss, that’s almost entirely down to diet anyways: diet is like at least 80% of what decides your weight and exercise is another 10% along with deciding where that weight goes.
Edit: Also the term “mesomorph” seems to come from a theory that is generally discredited so idk about that one chief.
Yeah it’s pretty easy to knock out a workout in 20 minutes flat when you first start out. But if you’re doing a linear progression program, they start getting much longer within a few months. If you just stick with the 20 minutes then you won’t see any real gains beyond a very early point, it’s more of a maintenance schedule.
You’re right that diet has everything to do with your fat percentage, but it’s a reciprocal relationship. The more exercise you engage in, the more you need to eat to maintain or gain muscle. It’s important to calculate your caloric needs based on your goals and exercise levels, and then monitor them. After monitoring for a few months you get a pretty good idea of what you need and can back off the logging.
Someone as large as the dude in that picture has had an unhealthy relationship with food for a very long time. It’s unlikely he can actually stick to a deficit diet and not eat more than he needs. That’s where the cardio and weight training comes in. He can burn calories and then eat enough to actually feel full, without consuming more calories than he needs for an optimal weight. Mad props to people who get that big and then recognize a problem and make steps in the right direction. It’s fucking hard, dude. It’s way harder to get healthy than it is to stay healthy. It hurts more, it’s more exhausting, and the rewards are slow to arrive. It takes a ton of discipline, and they have my respect.
Depends what you’re training. Most strength programs I’ve done are pretty close to a static duration throughout with the progression being primarily weight and minimal rep increase.
Cardio could be close to linear if you’re training for speed instead of endurance.