If you care about aesthetics you're going to need to do a ****load more pressing/rowing/curling than anything rippetoe would recommend.

I have some slight bruising on the inner part of my forearms that I've never had before. It doesn't hurt at all, but is slightly tender when touched. A quick google search told me nothing substantiate. Can anybody provide info on what this could mean? Thanks for help.

Can someone please critique my current plan which im gonna implement within a few days (still doing a little bit more coaching to get my form in the right place next week)

5'9, 160, ~16% BF, ~23 BMI

target macros: 2160 calories, 60f/130p/275c, ~50fiber (close to maintenance)

M/W/F, ABA BAB basically a minor variation of ICF with a little less volume across the board

A: Squat 3x5, Bench 3x5, Barbell Row 3x5, Barbell Shrug 3x8, Tricep Extension 3x8, Straight Bar Curl 3x8, Hyperextensions w/ plate 2x10, Ab work

B: Squat 3x5, Deadlift 2x5, Overhead Press 3x5, Barbell Row (10% lighter than A) 3x5, Close Grip Bench Press 3x8, Straight Bar Curl 3x8, Ab work

Add 5 lbs each training day for successful stronglifts.

Current planned starting point for workset of 3x5:
Squat ~125
Bench ~105
OHP ~65
Row ~65
Deadlift ~135
(some of these might be off by a little bit, sorta guessing from training coaching this last week)

Goal is to lift until I stall (should take a long time) then re-evaluate as to whether or not I want to cut immediately or bulk until the next winter and then cut.

Those workouts might take over two hours if done properly. You can drop the shrugs, tricep extension, cgbp, and ab work until your core lifts start to stall. Those are mostly meant to assist the core lifts, which shouldn't need much assistance for the first few months.

I'd do the workout B barbell rows at workset intensity and replace the workout A rows with chin-ups or lat pulldowns.

Also, this is just from my own experience, but if I were you I'd spend the first week or two benching and deadlifting every day so you can really get form right before doing the ABA deal. OHP and row form are much easier to learn IMO. For me at least, I found that I had a lot more trouble learning form when it was two workouts since I practiced last.

Thanks, I'll look into that.

I think I tend to overcompensate when I try a routine like this because I feel like such a lazypants if I'm only focusing on the stronglifts to start with rest days in between. My trainer has been suggesting I do 3x8 which I'm sorta averse to.

Trainer is correcting all my leaks with the main lifts, and I feel like my bench/deadlift/squat/OHP are in a good place. Row is tough for me to maintain proper back angle while having shoulders in the right place, so I've made a habit of starting with a deadlift "rep" and then doing row reps from there.

I'm sure once I'm posting form checks there will be other leaks people spot.

Why so much fiber.

Poopin' ain't easy.

Wasn't really a conscientious decision to put in a lot of fiber, just sorta happened once I built a diet plan. My target was 27 but once I built it there was 52. Followed it for a few days and drank more water and didn't feel any discomfort. Adding a quest bar once a day really boosts that total.

I'd love to have a diet that just focuses more on chicken and rice and less beans and oats (i'm not great at putting down vegetables), but invariably after a week or two of that I feel like death.

I think practically the entire field of nutrition is bro-science, but that said it seems like you're doing a ton of carbs for a relatively small amount of volume. It will probably be more practical and palatable to you if you allow more fats, and I doubt it will make any difference at all in your performance.

I'm shocked that a diet of nothing but the world's blandest protein + the world's blandest starch would get horribly boring after a couple weeks.

Why do you think any of this?

this made me giggle more than it should have.

yeah it does seem rather carb heavy, I went off of the IIFYM calculator which just tries to get me to hit protein and fat intake limits and then just stuff the rest with carbs. i actually found it quite difficult to reach that level of carbs when building a meal plan. I could in theory go a little higher in protein, a little higher in fats, and less carbs to hit the same caloric intake. i'll obv tweak it based on however i'm feeling. i tend to get tired whenever i jump quickly to something low carb, haven't really mastered the noob keto thing and don't have plans on trying it until i stall in my lifts. gonna try this macro distribution for first month and see how i feel.

i'm actually good at eating the same stuff, obv gotta tryhard to make it taste good adding the right spice mixes. i was more referring to the lack of fiber that comes with a diet thats a lot of omelets, chicken and rice.

/end clayton noob sidetrack, ty all

srsly tho its easy to make/eat lots of veggies. Stuff your freezer full of spinach, broccoli, peas, carrots, etc. Put some veg in a pot with a little water or soy sauce or whatever liquid an a pinch of salt. Cover it and simmer for 5-10 minutes. Add a chunk of butter. Dump it on your plate of chicken boob and rice.

Can you take too much protein from supps? As in if you want to get to 200 grams a day and of that 200 72gs are from supps is that too much, too little, just right?

Is it better to keep the supp amount down and just eat higher protein things?

I would almost always prefer to get as little protein as possible from supps and just eat the food

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Ideally you'd get all of your protein from real food. When you eat real food you get a variety of other nutrients along with the protein. But you probly don't want to eat so much meat/fish/etc to get 200g of protein every day, which is why supplements exist.

The goal is to eat as much real food as possible, and SUPPLEMENT your diet with supplements in order to reach your goal. That's why they're called supplements.

It's pure bro science. Just hit the protein numbers however you can. It doesn't matter whether they come from whey or not.

Re: nutrition being bro-science, it's just that there doesn't seem to be any real consensus on anything other than the most basic concepts. Calories in, calories out. Eat enough protein. Be not deficient in micronutrients. Everything else seems to be guesswork. It's just an opinion.

As for the rest of it, the conventional wisdom is that a high carbohydrate diet is ideal for high volume training or a high activity lifestyle, neither of which seems to apply to Clayton's case. Restricting fat intake hits the palatability of a diet harder than eating a reasonable ratio of fats to carbs, so it just seems easier to do the latter unless you have a specific reason for doing otherwise. But IMO it all doesn't matter particularly much because the body can convert it all to energy somehow, and he should just do what feels the best. I just don't think the science is there to take a hard line either way.

Nutrition isn't all bro science, its that there's a wide range of diets that will work for some people. The only way to find out what works for you is trial and error. Eat what makes you feel and perform well, don't eat what makes you feel and perform worse.

The problem is that most brohards think that whatever works for them must be what works for everyone else.

Then you have a ton of studies where thousands of people eat certain ways and then all kinds of claims are made about this or that diet worked best for the majority of the people in that study so it must be what works for everyone. Unfortunately it tells you nothing about what will work for you. Nutrition research is only useful to get ideas about different things you can experiment with for yourself.

I think I share this for the most part. Throw in companies funding positive studies for them too. Its a frustrating field to read about.

So take more supps or no?

I really am tired of being my current size and want to put on muscle, putting in the work is not the issue at all, I'm convinced that it has been my nutrition holding me back for however long.

I get about 149 grams of protein a day in currently and that is me eating a ton compared to what I used to eat, in terms of protein and 149 includes supps fwiw, I weigh 185 which feels great as I was 175 for the longest there. From what I've read you basically need 1 to 1.5 grams of protein per lb of mass you want to have... so I'm ****ing 30+ grams short on the daily.

As a note I take a shake when I wake up, and one right after I work out. Adding a third one in would add 32 grams of protein in, 24 for a scoop and 8 from milk which would get my rly close to where I need to be but seems to be overkill from a supps stand point, maybe?

Really doesn't matter where you get your macros from. Just do what is comfortable. I think the 1-1.5 is typically per pound of lean mass, so for you 149 should be enough. IMO you should adjust your caloric intake based on your gym results. If you're making strength gains at your current calories, probably stick with that until you stall and re-evaluate from there.

Hey guys, what are your suggestions for delt (and somewhat pec) hypertrophy?

Several years of Rippetoenian work (peak work sets at 240/160 lbs) seem to have mostly done stuff for the triceps and traps, so a friend suggested switching to a mix of front, standing lateral, and bent over lateral raises plus Arnold presses. Have been working decently, but was wondering if you've had success with something else?

ok, it seems like all my lifts have reached competency except deadlift. i have a bad habit of not maintaining my back angle; end up slouching over way too often on the way down. have trouble sitting down with it and bad hip flexibility.

this isn't much of a question but I guess I should do romanian deadlift in this situation, yeah? and then experiment with deadlift whenever i've gotten enough experience in RDL and have improved my hip/back flexibility.