No Crust Racing

I've had dry needling twice and it helped. I went to my physio on Friday (not the myo) and he agreed that it's nerve pain, likely from lower back impingement. I'm back into the nerve glide movements and stretching.

You'll get there

I know that feel bro, but rest assured, it does get better. As metabolism slows a bit and you gain the weight you're after it's easier to maintain it. I took 2 years off gym and took up running and dropped back to high 70s which was still 10-15kg more than when I started, plus I gained the size/weight back easier this time around.

Sounds good mate, when I started gyming I weighed 65kg so I know what it's like For reference I was mid 90s at my heaviest and am now around 87-88 and I'm only really in it for general strength, fitness, and looks. You will get there, but eating should take up as much of your mental dedication as the weights, it did for me as a hard gainer.

Well done dude, I weigh a lot more than you and have not been able to squat more than 110 or DL around the same before injury grabbed me again You're doing well!

My nigga! Well done.

If you wanna break that, just do a 3x5 routine on bench for a while and pile weight on it. That's how I've broken plateaus in the past. Keep at it.

That's the sort of thing I'd be doing before squatting when it was first up.

No worries, keep working hard then It's mega work to get that sort of magazine physique, and quite a lot of airbrushing also.

As I said, don't overlook the genetic make up differences between genders. I'd definitely have more bf than you, eat more or less what i like, and do no ab work anymore and still have some abs. Abs is not the only measure of a good body for a woman, you're in shape, and looking good by most peoples judgement, don't be too hard on yourself.

f**k that, add tempo, eat cheese. Win.

No need, I'm not about to agree or disagree with anything, there's no harm in trying new things. I'm just suggesting that if I was a year down the track on trying something and was getting further away from where I wanted to be I'd be looking more favorably at what I was doing before that was working for me or at least had me closer to the goal.

Fair enough. I always thought that as long as you were doing enough exercise, your bf was more about diet and your genetics, that is, some people are going to find it easier to drop a certain amount of BF than others. If you were closer to your look before hand, I'd just be basing my revisions on that, that is, doing the exercise I was doing and adjusting my diet accordingly or adding more exercise to burn more calories, whichever worked best for me. Discuss with your trainer.adviser though, not my call to make, but seems pretty logical to me.

Well you guys can discuss that further. For me, I know my body and I know what works for me to make it look a certain way. I may not know how to make it stronger or break plateaus properly and on those topics I take advice and try things, but I do have tried and tested methods to change the look. I'm curious, if your main goal is looks (and there's nothing wrong with that, most of us are in it for the vanity) why did you change your routine if you already had the look you wanted?

Birds is not going to agree with me, but if you liked the way you looked when you worked out a certain way. Then that's what you should be doing. Your goals are the most important reason for you to be training, nobody else's goals or thoughts matter. Not saying ditch gym, just saying that if you know how to achieve the look you want, why would you do anything other than that, unless the look is only one of many goals, then it gets complicated.

I think many would agree that a lot of girls have a skewed self image, usually rating themselves a solid 2 points lower than a group of 10 guys would so to speak. The last pic you showed revealed you do not have a lot of BF (didn't look likt it anyway) and abs seem to be a lot harder for a girl to get despite having a good BF % and doing core work, where as for guys you can be fairly round in the guy and still have good ab definition, it's just the way we're built. Abs on a girl aren't that flash anyway imo, a slender lean trim mid section is great though and I'm sure you're fine in that catagory, if there's been any size increase it'll be muscle, I doubt many if any of your friends your size are as strong.

I used to always do 3x10s and my strength loss after time was the same then, I'd say doing 3x 10 with 1min breaks is harder than doing a set of 7 then 2s and 1's to 30. I would say I was stronger back then, as I could do 3x10 at 100 with 60 sec breaks and was doing pretty much only upper body work 3 times a week. I can't see me being able to throw up 3x 10 at 100 with 60 sec breaks at the moment. I was also 25 then, not 31. I do think my 1RM if ever tested would be higher now, but I still maintain that 3x10s continuous with 60sec breaks was better than what I'm doing now in terms of endurance and ability to repeat it. lol yeah no elite performances here, not offended at all Recovering OK. Thought I'd be very tender today as normally the second day is my sore day but I'm actually about the same if not a little better in some spots but I ate a lot of protein yesterday and will do the same today. Thanks again for your time and comments, always appreciated.

I'm an officer worker so I do a lot of mobility stretching first.

Haven't ever really bothered for anything beyond the first exercise, really good stretch first then some light reps of whatever the first exercise is then by the time I'm done on that I'm usually already warmed up or things get warm from racking weights etc.

Appreciate the advice

Fair enough. Hips are good, Myo checked that.

Yeah I know, just looking for any general guidance. When it gets worked on, (it's the bicep femoris area) I'm told my calf is tight as is that glute and lower back on that side. I know specific stretches for all those things but it doesn't seem to help.

Any tips on what I should be doing daily at home to help? Ice/heat? Foam roll everything around it etc?

I guess we see it differently, I don't see it as an excuse, but a statement of what I've found the facts to be in the time I've lifted anything. If you don't use it you lose it. As I said, it comes back, and usually pretty quick, but it does drop off. When I stopped lifting last time I was doing 3x10 @ 100kg for bench. When I started back up years later, I certainly was nowhere near that. If nothing else, this has given me a different view on when/how to train a muscle in that a week between sessions on a muscle group is actually OK and means you can push harder than I would normally if I was doing full bodies 3x weekly. I did feel a sense of accomplishment after getting the 30 out, especially after having to attempt the final rep a few times, the few failures in there, whilst not counting as reps, certainly counted as effort. I did not give up on them as easily as I would've previously. The successful 30th rep was like that, I went up and it was a struggle but I pushed through it.

In my head, reps on the first set dropped as I'd had a good 10 days off benching, traditionally I start to lose strength after a week or so, it comes back quick, but the "peak" is knocked off so to speak. In comparison, yes much harder benching than any benching I've done in a long while, but also more reps so naturally going to feel it more the next day. In terms of what thoughts, initially I was looking forward to going above 8 continuous reps as that was the goal, get the rep count up, but my endurance is not improving. That said, I was always terrible at any endurance type event and better at speed/burst activities. After that it was methodical in terms of getting the reps out, towards the end I always thought I had it until I failed 30 and I was genuinely expecting to get that, after failing it repeatedly I got a bit angry, but realised I just needed to lengthen the break enough to get that last rep so I wanted enough time to get it but not enough to have it be any easier than it should be. I'll do some stretching etc through the day and tonight, I definitely won't be benching Friday and I'll wait and see if I do anything besides have a good stretch. The real thing I want working is my hammy but I'm having no luck on that front. I also think I'm starting to "settle" in that I've achieved enough weight on a few things that I could drop a few kg's off most things, and stick to a 3x8 routine and just maintain general strength and physique.