…
I’m a trans fem arthritic cripple so I don’t really know much about body sculpting stuff. My routines are all about trying to slow arthritis and support running without overstressing this silly floppy body.
My remark about PEDs is mostly tongue in cheek, I don’t judge people experimenting with their own bodies with hormones (glass houses and stones haha, it’s not the old men in labcoats that make my choices valid after all) but I don’t exactly recommend it.
Just that as with all advertising the body types you see promoted are either artificial or the result of shitloads of work and very lucky genetics also presented in the best light possible. Masculine or feminine they’re never particularly realistic goals so it’s worth keeping in mind.
Weights sound right though, free weight stuff is great for joint health if you don’t push it too hard (remember that muscles will grow much much faster than connective tissue or bone density, particularly if you have significant levels of T. If you go too hard you will snap a tendon). I’d aim for sets of like 5-8? that’s on the safer side of hypertrophy iirc. I think isolation exercises are better for making particular muscles huge but you develop less strength and asymmetric strength is maybe implicated in injury.
Re food, if you log your exercises you’ll notice if you do worse one day or the other and can correlate that. you’d probably benefit from something like some oats and a coffee before a workout. I think it’s also generally recommended to have a slight caloric surplus to encourage muscle growth (you’ll have to lose the chub later if you do that though) and eat a nutritious meal within a couple of hours after working out. I’m not a carnist so can’t really comment on the usual meals people choose, I just eat something beany :p
You can also not have a caloric surplus if you don’t want to have to deal with losing it later, results will be slower but still there. Just start shifting towards more protein heavy foods. There’s this whole thing of protein quality and limiting amino acids but tbh I find it joyless as hell to think of food that way so don’t bother personally. Just making sure I eat a variety of foods like lentils, beans, tofu, and whole grains.
My ex is a pole dancer and mad into this shit so I could ask if you like, but it’s a spicy topic as we broke up over differences in food ethics.
Chubness is no issue here, I lose weight fairly easy have almost always been skinny except for like 5th n 6th grade, and like 5 months ago when I wasn’t working and just laying in bed hoping I’d fall asleep and not wake up… Anyway. I do know that high weights come with higher risks which is why I’ve been doing lower weight but higher reps, prolly still doing slight damage to my ligaments though because of that and doing isolating exercises on the machines because I’m worried about moving wrong with a free weight or something. idk. I just have no spotter rn so not like I can do bench or squat at the moment, and deadlift would be fine but I’d want someone to help check form. They do have more options at pf for free weights besides barbells and plates. But like 9 out of 10 times there’s an absolute unit in the mirror doing his thing and I’m not about to strut up beside him and start doing my piddly weights. I know it’s not about comparisons and about being better than you were yesterday but idk lol I’m just weird about it.
Also I’m a vegan/vegetarian conscious (I make sure my vegan vegetarian comrades I serve know there’s animal products in whatever they might potentially get.) carnist (I feel like animal protein is easier to do hands down and as a society we aren’t ready to switch anyways, but I have made a few delish vegan/vegetarian meals and if I had a better paying job so I could take cooking classes to hone in on technique instead of just doing “random bullshit go!” I’d prolly be vegan) so not really limited to what I can eat so that’s no issue here. Is there a way to help ensure my tendons, ligaments,(whatever else) develop at a better rate, like any certain proteins or training regiment? Oh and if you make beans again soon, try adding a small amount of baking soda to the water while cooking them, having a basic environment helps break down the plant proteins making them soft af(incredible, delicious), whereas more acidic will make them harder and cronchy (bad, disgostang).
Check out the strong lifts 5x5 program. I’ve found it’s a really good intro to weightlifting for health. The guy that devised the program has a bunch of advice on correct form, and more importantly, mountains of advice on spotting bad form. And it’s nice to see his own photos on form because it’s just like Some Dude, not a beef pillar, and he’s out here squatting 300lbs easy.
If you can, try to find a place with a squat or power rack - removes the need for a spotter entirely for bench and squats.
If you want to crank up protein, add nutritional yeast to a meal. It’s about 50% protein by weight, which is more than any meat. Or check out protein shakes, they make vegan powders.
There’s not really anything specifically to improve connective tissue except make sure you have nutrient and you rest. We don’t even really know why muscles strengthen. The explanation you hear of “micro tears something something doms grow back thicker” is demonstrably false, as far as I can tell it’s like “umm hormone bullshit inflammatory markers go?”. Part of strength is also neuronal signalling improvements hence “greasing the groove” stuff so it’s not even entirely clear how strength specifically builds. Bodies are fun!
Tendons and ligaments are poorly vascularised, like if you’ve ever seen the insides of a living animal (like watching surgery videos or witnessing a significant injury whatever) you’ll notice they’re kinda pale and don’t bleed much. Consequently they’re not very active metabolically and just take ages to grow. Snapping them is so bad because it takes months to heal and slow healing = bad healing.
So loading up too fast, or skipping rest (something I would know nothing about having flawless mental health and not holding my life together with running) will accumulate damage until they fail.
I get the self consciousness at gyms but honestly giant gym bros are usually really nice and helpful. Think of it like they’re muscle hobbiests. It takes so much work and focus to get there that they have to be pretty passionate and most people genuinely enjoy others being interested in their hobbies and want to help beginners.
