Hello there!

My name is Gabriel, i'm 22, i just joined this site and i'm happy i discovered Scott's youtube channel. It has helped me so much!

I have a couple of questions though, maybe you guys can help me out here.

I'm new at the gym, its been 3 weeks since i joined and i have seen some results, but i kinda get anxious about it, it's not like i want an Arnold Schwarzenegger body, all i want is a flat/muscular body.

I don't actually have a meal plan because i haven't weighted myself yet, thus i don't know my body fat % but i eat with control and my cheat days consist in eating bread, for example.

I go to the gym 4-5 days a week and train 2 muscular group for 1 hour tops, though i keep training those muscles 2 days after so i can take advantage of the anabolic window.

These are some questions that have been rounding my head since the beggining.

1)When will i see results? Like, actual results, where people asks you "are you hitting the gym?" or "Wow, this is new" some say i'd take 2 to 3 months if i hit the gym 4-5 days a week and eat well.

2)I'm on the 30 days abs challenge! today was my 1st day and it hurt so bad. Something i wanna ask here is how can you do the hands-to-knee crunch without your neck hurting like hell? i'ts the only thing that stops my from completing the challenge.

3)I'm uploading my pics here. What do you think? should i focus on losing weight? should i focus on an especific muscular group?

Thank you very much.

Congrats Gabriel on starting your fitness journey and finding this community. You found the best site to help you as you go along and the community here is very good at sharing tips and info.

As to your questions:

1) The time it takes to see results varies. Body tranformation is a marathon not a sprint. In general, you should see or others should see some results from your training in 6 months. It does require not only proper training and sufficient rest but also proper nutrition. You are stunting your progress by not developing a meal plan, tracking your macros, and controling your calorie intake. You can't eyeball it and you don't need to know your body fat to build one. I recommend you use the MEAL PLANNER tab on this site to help put this together. Without it, it is like flying blind. Also, the most important characteristic you must have to be successful on any type of fitness journey is PATIENCE. Results take time - sometimes a year or more - and require persistently following a training and meal plan.

2) If there are exercises or movements that cause you pain, stop doing them. Scott's challenges give you a framework but you don't have to follow them 100%. You can add-in or take out particular exercises if they either don't work for you or cause you pain. What you must do is follow the intensity and time parameters his challenges define so as to reap the benefits.

3) You are currently what is termed "skinny fat" - not overtly overweight but more body fat than muscle. You are around 20-22% body fat now if I had to take a rough guess. Your focus should be putting on lean muscle mass as the more muscle you have the more calories you burn even at rest. Again, this is where having a meal plan and tracking your macros become critical. Without this in place, you could potentially waste months of effort with little to no results.

John

I agree with John on all fronts. Make sure you go to the @mealplan page to do some calculations for what macros you should be following - like John said, you're probably around 20% body fat, so you can use that as a guideline for now, and then make your goal 'Muscle Gain' to be in a slight caloric surplus.

What kind of program are you following at the moment? Are you doing one of the programs on the site? Something like the PPL split would be good for you to have a solid muscle building routine, while the circutis (and diet of course) will help you keep things lean.

Also, for the hands-to-knee crunch, and any ab exercise in general, you just need to keep your neck neutral. Don't thrust your neck forward and crunch your knee when you're crunching up. That's probably what is causing the pain. Let your abs do the work.

Hey! thanks for the replies, guys.

Im currently following this routine

https://www.mipielsana.com/crea-musculo-en-12-semanas/ (Its in Spanish but the name of the exercises are in english)

It says 4 days, though i do a fifth day were i train my muscles in general.

Not doing cardio atm.

I'm gonna weight myself as soon as i can so i can use the Meal Planner.

The program looks OK. If you're seeing results with it that's great. But I would add in some cardio for sure. Diet will be key to keeping your gains lean, but adding in some type of cardio will help as well.

You should try to do unilateral movements (one side of the body at a time) if you can. For lats, that might mean single-arm pulldowns. And you should ALWAYS let the weaker side dictate how much weight you lift/how many reps you do if you want to balance things out.

All these comments and suggestions are great. Being consistent is key. It's easy to get impatient. I know when I looked like you do currently, I did resistance workouts consisting more with volume than intensity so you lessen the chance of injuries...meaning lower weights and higher reps. I would to 1-2 days of HIIT training to get the fat off.

Sleep, recovery and nutrition all play a big part for them gains!

80-90% of abs are made in the kitchen. Getting your meals dialed in with the proper macro distribution is key and the most important thing John suggested. Scott's video link below, "Building Your Meal Plan" is great and worked wonders for me. Good luck bro!

https://youtu.be/hZjxWqwoWTg

@andrija04 It's my pleasure bro! And yeah we have the best and most supportive community around!

Also.. just wait until version 2.0 of the app comes out soon.. you are going to love it man!! 😁 

Is this meal right?

-Breakfast-

Water or Milk

2 eggs

1 Regular bread or 1 fruit

-Lunch-

1 portion of regular rice

Meat

Salad

Water

-Night-

1 Fruit

1 Glass of water or Juice.

Hey guys,

I decided to incorporate pause reps in my workouts. Can you explain them a little bit more?

Should I do pauses on eccentric part or concentric? Or that depends on style of exercise?

Pause reps are designed to add a pause in the concentric portion of the motion. For instance with the barbell chest press, you lower the weight and then pause at the bottom (but do not rest the barbell) at your chest before you press the barbell back up again. Pause reps are best used to "fix" sticking points in an exercise - those portions of the concentric movement where you are weakest. Using the barbell bench press example again: most people are weakest in the pressing portion immediately above the chest and about 1/3 the way up until the triceps and anterior shoulder muscles pick up more of the slack.

What is your goal? If it is for size, pause reps are not an optimal choice. If it is to increase strength, then pause reps are an effective tool.

John

@Dideroth there is no right or wrong really.. the question is, does that give you enough calories daily, and allow you to hit your macro goals? Doesn't look like much food to be honest. Have you calculated this?

Hey John,

Thanks for answering me, but I am curios about why pause reps are not an optimal choice for hypertrophy?

@andrija04 you can achieve hypertrophy with pause reps, but as John explained their main purpose is to help you increase strength - pause rep training will more specifically train your fast twitch fibers, generally.

When doing pause reps there's a good chance you'll fatigue quicker than normal and this could mean you're not achieving the best amount of muscle breakdown possible compared to not training with pause reps.

But like I say.. you can still gain muscle doing pause reps, it's just that's not their main purpose.