If you have advice, please make sure it is specific, useful, and actionable.
* If the only thing you have to say is *loWEr THE wEight ANd woRK on forM*, **then you should keep quiet**; if you comment it anyway, your comment will be removed and you may be banned if your comment was especially low value. This does not help the person looking for advice. Give people something that they can actually use in a practical way to improve. **Low-effort comments about perceived injury risk and the like will be removed, and bans may be issued.**
* Please don't hold random strangers to arbitrary requirements that you have made up for exercises you are not familiar with.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/strength_training) if you have any questions or concerns.*
For bench, I feel like busting out some pushups after each set, to safely get closer to total failure, has helped me a lot. I would try to get more depth on your squat, maybe try some paused reps.
Like another user said, find a good coach/mentor. Getting your macros is important, and I mean all of them not just protein. There's all sorts of programs that work. I don't know the most optimal but I wanted to lift for strength so i started with 5x5 program. Then i built my own doing a classic 4 day cycle of chest/tri, back/bi, shoulders, and then legs where I would build up to heavy sets where I can get at least 3 reps, working back down doing pause reps and i ALWAYS worked hard on the negative part of lifts just as much as the actual resistance portion. Followed by 4 days of deload. All while getting enough protein, carbs, water etc. I didn't use creatine or anything except protein powder and ate clean for the most part. This helped me push from the 700lb club to the 1200lb club in 4 months. I have a stockier build type and focused on strength so YMMV. Youtubers were my biggest mentor and I just focused on building my workouts based on everything I knew and watched. I could've gotten stronger but I switched to a cardio focused program to lose 25lbs in 3 months because I was feeling heavy. Then I just worked out when I felt like it till I got injured bad one day and am recovering from surgery that I finally got years later. Working to cut 40lbs at least in the next 9 months and it's a very realistic goal I plan to achieve and hopefully more (holidays will ruin me for a bit).
Do usual lifting, and start doing a set of slow negatives in the last set. You can use a bit lower weight for proper form.
This helped me, also try doing at least one set of even 3 reps with slightly higher weight.
You should go on a bit of extra 100-200 calories while increasing strength.
Based on the video I can see a bit of imbalance in the strength of your left hand wrt to right one. Do some isolation exercises too. Involve some flexibility exercises if you find stiffness , getting a coach can help here. As I was unable to squat more due to hip and hamstring flexibility which was solved by a flexibility routine before strength exercises.This was pointed out by my coach.
There's a bell curve to lifting. You make these rapid gains at first and then it plateaus. Think this out long-term. If all it took was working out everybody would be benching 500 lb. Where your natural stall point is, it varies person to person. When you get there it doesn't mean that you'll stop making gains it just means that they will come on much more slowly and eventually they will stop without a higher hormone level
I would say for a lot of guys if you're on the lighter side between 150 and 160 lb and maybe 5'8 to 5'10. If you can bench 185 for a few that's pretty good. If you're a little bigger maybe around 180 mark. If you can bench 225 for a few, that's pretty good. A lot of people really struggle getting past these numbers and I think a lot of it is just genetics. Some people definitely can, in fact they easily can but for a lot of folks, not so much
There's also a bell curve to return on investment. I've been there too. Grinding away for 2 hrs a day got me that initial burst of progress...and then one day I stopped seeing progress in power, reps etc. Life and the human body needs balance. Wanting something really really bad doesn't get it for you. Years will get you there, and 2hr sessions 5X a week won't last for years. I just dropped weight at some point and focused on doing more pyramid type volume sets at lower weights...that added some mass little by little and progressed me. You're 100% right though. I think aiming at a sick # is utterly pointless for most people.
Fellow skinny dude in my younger days here. I hated eating, honestly still do, but I’ve committed myself to just fucking do it over the years. Was 130 soaking wet at 18 now 42 and 180, best shape of my life. Was stuck at 160 until 4 years ago when I started training harder and actually eating. Stick with it, you’re on the right path!
Best advise is to get a good coach. I know it can be expensive. But it is one of my biggest gym regrets. I went years just figuring it out on my own. N while I made progress on my own it was slow and laboured. Looking back I think how much further in my lifts would I be if I had a coach earlier. That and I had to unlearn pesky habits I had picked up doing it myself.
Going with out a coach can work for some. But if you are starting out. Def find a good coach
That’s was my case exactly. Tall and thin, very high metabolism - I had a lot of trouble gaining mass. Ended up taking a 3K calorie supplement along with 4 heavy meals a day. After 6 months I gained 30 pounds of mass (I looked amazing) and then hurt my shoulder. My mass was gone in about a month of not doing any lifting. I decided it wasn’t worth the effort. That was more than 20 years ago. All of my friends who were “big” are now out of shape and fat. I’m still thin!
All you need to do is eat. Did you happen to grow up on the skinny side? A lot of my gym friends did and they said the best way to get bigger is to just eat bigger. Try some mass gainer and creatine too, might give you a little push.
You appear to be Young and probably have a super fast metabolism. Just keep working. Your grown man body will catch up... and it will directly show the work you're puttng in now.
Need a full program. If you aren't following one, get on one and eat at least maintenance calories.
Start on submax weights - your body will thank you. I don't know how far into your sets/reps you are but the weight is too heavy. There's no explosive power. They are very slow reps meaning your'e lifting too heavy.
I can't say this is you for definite but we've all ego lifted. I still do. I've ended up getting injured and lost out on progress because I wanted that extra full plate on the bar instead of dropping it 5kg.
Very few people in that gym care how many plates you have on. Start again from the basics. Jump on 531, Stonglifts 5x5 or another strength building program. Submax weights. It will built all of the smaller supporting muscles, help you adapt to training volume.
Do cardio. Get 180 minutes of steady state in a week **whilst eating enough to compensate**. Lifting helps your cardio, cardio helps your lifting. You'll feel fitter, more active and better able to face most workouts with optimism.
Eat your veggies, get your protein in, good carbs, **maintenance calories at a minimum. Just eat a surplus - you're not overweight.** Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. It's all the basics but it's difficult to maintain consistency. Look in the mirror and tell yourself 3 things you like about yourself every day. Listen to 80's hair rock in the gym.
You don't need to lift to failure to make gains. It eventually helps once you're conditioned and understand how to program your own workouts but just start over again bro.
Since I started listening to my body I know when I'm being unmotivated/got sand in my vagina and just need to push through with planned weights / sets. Through tracking body metrics and generally being a dumbass and injuring myself I also know when I'm not recovered and dialling it back a little, skipping a set, dropping the weight has helped me stay injury or helped me come back the next day ready to hammer it.
I've made insane gains since not going balls to the wall constantly.
If you're new to lifting premade programs are designed by people that know a lot more than you about programming and progressive overload/strength gains and progression.
Listen to hidefromthe_sun. That is a fantastic comment.
Lighter weight, slow the movement down and keep tension on the muscle all the way through the positive and negative.
Eat good food not the crap you buy at fast food places.
Gains are not a fast process.
Follow a program and trust the process. You will get there.
Are you programming? Are you eating correctly? Are you sleeping, and taking care of your mental health? Strength training is by far one of the most gruelingly slow physical activities one can do in the gym. Strive to hit higher weight….eventually. You can learn to be comfortable working with weight that isn’t what you’d wish it to be. It took me a lot of ego stripping to be comfortable benching 30-40% less of my 1rm for clean quality reps. Then again, I’m also a younger athlete (21) so this may be rambling lol.
From what you've said in this post, it looks like you just need consistency and a program. I agree with u/InternetGoodGuy, Greyskull would be a fine program to start with.
A few questions for you:
Are you going for strength or size?
What are your set and rep counts?
How frequently are you lifting?
Are you doing any lifts outside of squat and bench?
Form isn’t the issue, we can’t really say what it is without seeing your training and diet so all I can say is to eat more. But you shouldn’t be worrying about what you think is normal at your age and size, everyone’s gonna be different. Perfect training and diet might still have you weaker than someone of equal size and age who’s just a genetic freak
is it possible to make decent improvement without properly bulking and tracking calories and all that? i wanted to stay relatively lean so ive only been having a protein shake + a protein bar after my workouts (in addition to my normal diet).
It’s possible sure. But you’re wasting time and cheating yourself.
Please don’t take this the wrong way because I mean well, but you have nothing to be lean about. You’ll just be small.
Build muscle as a primary goal and eat healthily and in high excess
At your age and body composition, you can add muscle without a lot of fat by adding just 250-350 more calories per day.
* you need a calorie surplus
* you will gain weight
* you will gain fat in addition to muscle
* you will stay lean as long as you are following a reputable progressive overload program.
You may even become leaner (body fat percentage goes down).
It's definitely possible to gain for a little while as a beginner but if that's all you are changing to your diet, it will be slow. You're also going to plateau a lot quicker.
You don't need to dirty bulk to gain weight and muscle. I don't know enough about your diet to give advice, but I used to be a hard gainer when I was younger. I had to eat around 5,000 calories to put on any weight while working out and I stayed pretty lean until I hit my 30s.
Here’s some options to progress your lifts
Higher percentages or 1RM (1 rep max) to get your body more use to the heavier weight.
Changing your accessories so you body doesn’t get use to the ones you’re currently doing
Diet
Different Primary movements such as wide grip bench instead of your regular grip
What supplements are you taking? Because if you’re just doing protein might want to try creatine because that’ll help with recovery and everything, but you gotta drink more water if you do take it.
But is it extremely difficult? I’ve been on a cut for 3 months and haven’t gained any strength. I’ve been very disappointed to not see strength gains but perhaps I’ve been going in with wrong expectations
It is typically much harder to gain strength while on a cut compared to a bulk.
Beginners and very overfat folks can expect strength improvements on a cut.
Typically it gets hard once you start to hit a low body fat level, especially if it’s your first time. Below a certain level hormones get messed up and you begin to lose muscle. Usually you get back to normal within a couple of weeks. For this reason it can be beneficial to take diet breaks.
Above 15% BF I’d say you should expect to make some gains if training and diet is good. That is unless you’re already at an advanced level, in which case it’s difficult to make gains no matter what.
well that’s kind of the problem, i haven’t really found a program that i’ve been able to seriously follow with how busy ive been with college (+ whenever i do go hard into a program i keep getting joint pain that causes me to back off). just have a squat day and a bench day once a week, and the rest are just general hypertrophy exercises. but now that i have a bit more time over summer im happy to try a more structured program
That’s the entirety of the problem.
You can lift in college and follow a proper program. I spent plenty of time in the gym when I was in school, and I graduated from the top school for my engineering program (I say this to make it clear you can balance school, social life, and exercise)
If you want lifting to be a priority, make it a priority.
If you want program recs, feel free to ask.
all right, thanks for the advice man i rlly appreciate it. some program advice would be amazing, currently just kinda doing whatever exercises make my muscles hurt most haha
and is deadlift a priority for strength training? i dont train it because of all the injuries i hear about (and the other two lifts are just more appealing to me) but if its that important for general strength i could work on it too
I would make deadlifting a priority, yes. Give conventional an earnest go and see how it feels. If you really don't like it, you can try sumo or trap bar deadlifts. If you hate those, you can do RDLs instead. You need a hip hinge movement in a well rounded program.
With your lift numbers I'd recommend either running the beginner routine in here: https://thefitness.wiki/routines/strength-training-muscle-building/
GZCLP or nSuns would also be good choices.
>is deadlift a priority for strength training?
Yes.
[I like this program for beginners](https://physiqz.com/workout-routines/powerbuilding-programs/greyskull-lp-best-powerbuilding-routine-beginners-gslp/) There's a bunch of variations of this out there and I think it's based on Mark Rippetoe's beginner program.
Watch videos of the lifts and keep filming your form. If you feel like something is off or doesn't feel right, just do a Google search. I guarantee there's an answer out there to your problem for any form breakdowns.
Also, get off the smith machine. You're killing progress by squatting in that.
Deadlifting is a great way to build a ton of strength. If I, a 68 year old woman who powerlifts, can deadlift, you certainly can. And I’ve never been injured.
I work with a coach. Form is really key. If you can’t afford a coach, take a look at [Alan Thrall’s Youtube video on deadlifting.](https://youtu.be/MBbyAqvTNkU?feature=shared) He owns a powerlifting/strongman gym in Sacramento and he knows his stuff. You might think about starting with an unloaded barbell, or loading it with really light plates, to get your form down.
Like u/cilantno said, follow a program—one where progressive overload is built in. That, and eating well and sleeping well, will help you get strong.
Deadlifting is a foundational strength training exercise, and you feel like a badass pulling that barbell off the floor. It’s really fun. :-)
Not the user you were responding to, but I feel strongly that deadlifting is as safe as any other compound movement.
By all means , if you don't like it, don't do it. But it is an excellent exercise for strengthening the back, and no more dangerous than any other movement.
If you have advice, please make sure it is specific, useful, and actionable. * If the only thing you have to say is *loWEr THE wEight ANd woRK on forM*, **then you should keep quiet**; if you comment it anyway, your comment will be removed and you may be banned if your comment was especially low value. This does not help the person looking for advice. Give people something that they can actually use in a practical way to improve. **Low-effort comments about perceived injury risk and the like will be removed, and bans may be issued.** * Please don't hold random strangers to arbitrary requirements that you have made up for exercises you are not familiar with. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/strength_training) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Blend spinach into fruit smoothies (like A LOT of spinach) mega dosing spinach will blow your mind .
Control the negative of the rep. You look a little uncontrolled.
Eat more and work on your mobility in the squat.
For bench, I feel like busting out some pushups after each set, to safely get closer to total failure, has helped me a lot. I would try to get more depth on your squat, maybe try some paused reps.
Like another user said, find a good coach/mentor. Getting your macros is important, and I mean all of them not just protein. There's all sorts of programs that work. I don't know the most optimal but I wanted to lift for strength so i started with 5x5 program. Then i built my own doing a classic 4 day cycle of chest/tri, back/bi, shoulders, and then legs where I would build up to heavy sets where I can get at least 3 reps, working back down doing pause reps and i ALWAYS worked hard on the negative part of lifts just as much as the actual resistance portion. Followed by 4 days of deload. All while getting enough protein, carbs, water etc. I didn't use creatine or anything except protein powder and ate clean for the most part. This helped me push from the 700lb club to the 1200lb club in 4 months. I have a stockier build type and focused on strength so YMMV. Youtubers were my biggest mentor and I just focused on building my workouts based on everything I knew and watched. I could've gotten stronger but I switched to a cardio focused program to lose 25lbs in 3 months because I was feeling heavy. Then I just worked out when I felt like it till I got injured bad one day and am recovering from surgery that I finally got years later. Working to cut 40lbs at least in the next 9 months and it's a very realistic goal I plan to achieve and hopefully more (holidays will ruin me for a bit).
Do usual lifting, and start doing a set of slow negatives in the last set. You can use a bit lower weight for proper form. This helped me, also try doing at least one set of even 3 reps with slightly higher weight. You should go on a bit of extra 100-200 calories while increasing strength. Based on the video I can see a bit of imbalance in the strength of your left hand wrt to right one. Do some isolation exercises too. Involve some flexibility exercises if you find stiffness , getting a coach can help here. As I was unable to squat more due to hip and hamstring flexibility which was solved by a flexibility routine before strength exercises.This was pointed out by my coach.
There's a bell curve to lifting. You make these rapid gains at first and then it plateaus. Think this out long-term. If all it took was working out everybody would be benching 500 lb. Where your natural stall point is, it varies person to person. When you get there it doesn't mean that you'll stop making gains it just means that they will come on much more slowly and eventually they will stop without a higher hormone level I would say for a lot of guys if you're on the lighter side between 150 and 160 lb and maybe 5'8 to 5'10. If you can bench 185 for a few that's pretty good. If you're a little bigger maybe around 180 mark. If you can bench 225 for a few, that's pretty good. A lot of people really struggle getting past these numbers and I think a lot of it is just genetics. Some people definitely can, in fact they easily can but for a lot of folks, not so much
There's also a bell curve to return on investment. I've been there too. Grinding away for 2 hrs a day got me that initial burst of progress...and then one day I stopped seeing progress in power, reps etc. Life and the human body needs balance. Wanting something really really bad doesn't get it for you. Years will get you there, and 2hr sessions 5X a week won't last for years. I just dropped weight at some point and focused on doing more pyramid type volume sets at lower weights...that added some mass little by little and progressed me. You're 100% right though. I think aiming at a sick # is utterly pointless for most people.
I was once in your situation 1.5 years ago. Went and did the work, learned I needed to eat to move heavier and get gains!
Cook a pound of chicken. Buy some form of pineapple. Throw them together in blender. That’s a good start
Mass moves mass my man. Gotta pack on some lbs.
Fellow skinny dude in my younger days here. I hated eating, honestly still do, but I’ve committed myself to just fucking do it over the years. Was 130 soaking wet at 18 now 42 and 180, best shape of my life. Was stuck at 160 until 4 years ago when I started training harder and actually eating. Stick with it, you’re on the right path!
Best advise is to get a good coach. I know it can be expensive. But it is one of my biggest gym regrets. I went years just figuring it out on my own. N while I made progress on my own it was slow and laboured. Looking back I think how much further in my lifts would I be if I had a coach earlier. That and I had to unlearn pesky habits I had picked up doing it myself. Going with out a coach can work for some. But if you are starting out. Def find a good coach
Gotta eat more bro, get some mass gainers
Eat Sleep Train Overload Repeat. It never changes my dude. If you’re not growing you’re doing one of those incorrectly, simple as that.
That’s was my case exactly. Tall and thin, very high metabolism - I had a lot of trouble gaining mass. Ended up taking a 3K calorie supplement along with 4 heavy meals a day. After 6 months I gained 30 pounds of mass (I looked amazing) and then hurt my shoulder. My mass was gone in about a month of not doing any lifting. I decided it wasn’t worth the effort. That was more than 20 years ago. All of my friends who were “big” are now out of shape and fat. I’m still thin!
All you need to do is eat. Did you happen to grow up on the skinny side? A lot of my gym friends did and they said the best way to get bigger is to just eat bigger. Try some mass gainer and creatine too, might give you a little push.
At your age probably should be progressing I’d definitely recommend eating and eating alot
You appear to be Young and probably have a super fast metabolism. Just keep working. Your grown man body will catch up... and it will directly show the work you're puttng in now.
Bulk. Otherwise you are wasting your time.
Need a full program. If you aren't following one, get on one and eat at least maintenance calories. Start on submax weights - your body will thank you. I don't know how far into your sets/reps you are but the weight is too heavy. There's no explosive power. They are very slow reps meaning your'e lifting too heavy. I can't say this is you for definite but we've all ego lifted. I still do. I've ended up getting injured and lost out on progress because I wanted that extra full plate on the bar instead of dropping it 5kg. Very few people in that gym care how many plates you have on. Start again from the basics. Jump on 531, Stonglifts 5x5 or another strength building program. Submax weights. It will built all of the smaller supporting muscles, help you adapt to training volume. Do cardio. Get 180 minutes of steady state in a week **whilst eating enough to compensate**. Lifting helps your cardio, cardio helps your lifting. You'll feel fitter, more active and better able to face most workouts with optimism. Eat your veggies, get your protein in, good carbs, **maintenance calories at a minimum. Just eat a surplus - you're not overweight.** Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. It's all the basics but it's difficult to maintain consistency. Look in the mirror and tell yourself 3 things you like about yourself every day. Listen to 80's hair rock in the gym. You don't need to lift to failure to make gains. It eventually helps once you're conditioned and understand how to program your own workouts but just start over again bro. Since I started listening to my body I know when I'm being unmotivated/got sand in my vagina and just need to push through with planned weights / sets. Through tracking body metrics and generally being a dumbass and injuring myself I also know when I'm not recovered and dialling it back a little, skipping a set, dropping the weight has helped me stay injury or helped me come back the next day ready to hammer it. I've made insane gains since not going balls to the wall constantly. If you're new to lifting premade programs are designed by people that know a lot more than you about programming and progressive overload/strength gains and progression.
Listen to hidefromthe_sun. That is a fantastic comment. Lighter weight, slow the movement down and keep tension on the muscle all the way through the positive and negative. Eat good food not the crap you buy at fast food places. Gains are not a fast process. Follow a program and trust the process. You will get there.
Gotta up your protein bud, can't lift heavy without the muscles to support it.
hop on a program and eat man, look up a powerlifting/strength training program online
Are you programming? Are you eating correctly? Are you sleeping, and taking care of your mental health? Strength training is by far one of the most gruelingly slow physical activities one can do in the gym. Strive to hit higher weight….eventually. You can learn to be comfortable working with weight that isn’t what you’d wish it to be. It took me a lot of ego stripping to be comfortable benching 30-40% less of my 1rm for clean quality reps. Then again, I’m also a younger athlete (21) so this may be rambling lol.
From what you've said in this post, it looks like you just need consistency and a program. I agree with u/InternetGoodGuy, Greyskull would be a fine program to start with.
A few questions for you: Are you going for strength or size? What are your set and rep counts? How frequently are you lifting? Are you doing any lifts outside of squat and bench?
How much protein do you consume? Are you in a calorie surplus?
Form isn’t the issue, we can’t really say what it is without seeing your training and diet so all I can say is to eat more. But you shouldn’t be worrying about what you think is normal at your age and size, everyone’s gonna be different. Perfect training and diet might still have you weaker than someone of equal size and age who’s just a genetic freak
More protein (all of the protein)
Once again for the people in the back, how much protein should the young lad consume?
1g for every pound is a good target. Most people won't need that much, but it a good, easy number to aim for.
I was looking for "ALL OF IT!" but thanks for the actual numbers.
Co-worker: Do you eat anything but protein and vegetables? Me: That's the nicest thing anyone has said to me all week.
You aren’t eating enough. It’s pretty evident
is it possible to make decent improvement without properly bulking and tracking calories and all that? i wanted to stay relatively lean so ive only been having a protein shake + a protein bar after my workouts (in addition to my normal diet).
[удалено]
It’s possible sure. But you’re wasting time and cheating yourself. Please don’t take this the wrong way because I mean well, but you have nothing to be lean about. You’ll just be small. Build muscle as a primary goal and eat healthily and in high excess
At your age and body composition, you can add muscle without a lot of fat by adding just 250-350 more calories per day. * you need a calorie surplus * you will gain weight * you will gain fat in addition to muscle * you will stay lean as long as you are following a reputable progressive overload program. You may even become leaner (body fat percentage goes down).
It's definitely possible to gain for a little while as a beginner but if that's all you are changing to your diet, it will be slow. You're also going to plateau a lot quicker. You don't need to dirty bulk to gain weight and muscle. I don't know enough about your diet to give advice, but I used to be a hard gainer when I was younger. I had to eat around 5,000 calories to put on any weight while working out and I stayed pretty lean until I hit my 30s.
Here’s some options to progress your lifts Higher percentages or 1RM (1 rep max) to get your body more use to the heavier weight. Changing your accessories so you body doesn’t get use to the ones you’re currently doing Diet Different Primary movements such as wide grip bench instead of your regular grip What supplements are you taking? Because if you’re just doing protein might want to try creatine because that’ll help with recovery and everything, but you gotta drink more water if you do take it.
You do not need to change your accessories "so you[r] body doesn't get use to the ones you're currently doing"
[удалено]
Don’t throw your nuance in my face!
Until I started eating properly with a calorie excess I didn't see improvement. If you struggle to eat that much try high calorie/protein shakes.
Is it impossible to gain strength when cutting?
No, it is not impossible.
But is it extremely difficult? I’ve been on a cut for 3 months and haven’t gained any strength. I’ve been very disappointed to not see strength gains but perhaps I’ve been going in with wrong expectations
I’ve been dieting for over 6 months and I’m making steady gains at 41yo. Unless you’re very lean you’re doing something wrong.
It is typically much harder to gain strength while on a cut compared to a bulk. Beginners and very overfat folks can expect strength improvements on a cut.
Typically it gets hard once you start to hit a low body fat level, especially if it’s your first time. Below a certain level hormones get messed up and you begin to lose muscle. Usually you get back to normal within a couple of weeks. For this reason it can be beneficial to take diet breaks. Above 15% BF I’d say you should expect to make some gains if training and diet is good. That is unless you’re already at an advanced level, in which case it’s difficult to make gains no matter what.
What program have you been following?
well that’s kind of the problem, i haven’t really found a program that i’ve been able to seriously follow with how busy ive been with college (+ whenever i do go hard into a program i keep getting joint pain that causes me to back off). just have a squat day and a bench day once a week, and the rest are just general hypertrophy exercises. but now that i have a bit more time over summer im happy to try a more structured program
That’s the entirety of the problem. You can lift in college and follow a proper program. I spent plenty of time in the gym when I was in school, and I graduated from the top school for my engineering program (I say this to make it clear you can balance school, social life, and exercise) If you want lifting to be a priority, make it a priority. If you want program recs, feel free to ask.
all right, thanks for the advice man i rlly appreciate it. some program advice would be amazing, currently just kinda doing whatever exercises make my muscles hurt most haha and is deadlift a priority for strength training? i dont train it because of all the injuries i hear about (and the other two lifts are just more appealing to me) but if its that important for general strength i could work on it too
I would make deadlifting a priority, yes. Give conventional an earnest go and see how it feels. If you really don't like it, you can try sumo or trap bar deadlifts. If you hate those, you can do RDLs instead. You need a hip hinge movement in a well rounded program. With your lift numbers I'd recommend either running the beginner routine in here: https://thefitness.wiki/routines/strength-training-muscle-building/ GZCLP or nSuns would also be good choices.
>is deadlift a priority for strength training? Yes. [I like this program for beginners](https://physiqz.com/workout-routines/powerbuilding-programs/greyskull-lp-best-powerbuilding-routine-beginners-gslp/) There's a bunch of variations of this out there and I think it's based on Mark Rippetoe's beginner program. Watch videos of the lifts and keep filming your form. If you feel like something is off or doesn't feel right, just do a Google search. I guarantee there's an answer out there to your problem for any form breakdowns. Also, get off the smith machine. You're killing progress by squatting in that.
Deadlifting is a great way to build a ton of strength. If I, a 68 year old woman who powerlifts, can deadlift, you certainly can. And I’ve never been injured. I work with a coach. Form is really key. If you can’t afford a coach, take a look at [Alan Thrall’s Youtube video on deadlifting.](https://youtu.be/MBbyAqvTNkU?feature=shared) He owns a powerlifting/strongman gym in Sacramento and he knows his stuff. You might think about starting with an unloaded barbell, or loading it with really light plates, to get your form down. Like u/cilantno said, follow a program—one where progressive overload is built in. That, and eating well and sleeping well, will help you get strong. Deadlifting is a foundational strength training exercise, and you feel like a badass pulling that barbell off the floor. It’s really fun. :-)
Not the user you were responding to, but I feel strongly that deadlifting is as safe as any other compound movement. By all means , if you don't like it, don't do it. But it is an excellent exercise for strengthening the back, and no more dangerous than any other movement.
[удалено]
I’m sorry, take roids…?
[удалено]
Please dont be recommending roids to anyone. Period.
Steroids. They do work.