Documenting My Fitness Journey (Skinny-Fat → Aesthetic & Athletic)

[Nostalgia]

Recently I've been enthralled with this idea of purpose.

The one thing that anchors your soul to the ground, and the thing you can do that requires no motivation whatsoever, and you can complete so easily because it's the thing that's constantly on your mind.

For the longest time I thought that thing was business, which was why I was pursuing a youtube channel, but now i've realised that, that's not the thing.

The only reason I was doing youtube was money and I thought that I could build it into something. But I noticed that the process of working on the youtube channel was gruelling and I did not gain satisfaction and completion from it.

I'm still in my teen years and I have my whole life ahead of me to create a business, fulfilling a need in something that I truly believe in.

But now, I have a 100% clear vision on my purpose. Fitness & Health. Becoming lean, aesthetic and confident. I want to achieve this goal so, so badly, and i'm willing to work as hard as possible for it.

And yes, I can do both business and fitness coincidentally, but I'm a person that finds it easier to do stuff and excel in it when there's less clouding my mind. And for this period of my life, I want to be obsessed with fitness.

So here are my goals:

• Calisthenics workout everyday (pushups, pull-ups, dips, rows, ab raises & squats)
• ~3100 kcal per day (healthy, lean bulk.. NO JUNK FOOD/crap snacks whatsoever)
• Boxing 2x per week.
• 30 minutes skipping EVERY DAY.

To set myself a manageable timeframe, I'm giving myself 90 days and I'm eager to see my before and after transformation, I KNOW 90 days is a very small amount, and I'm expecting this process to take at least 2-3 years, but I want to have a clear end goal in sight so its easier to stay accountable.

I also have some other habits that I'm currently building up including reading, meditation, cold showers, but I want this thread to be focused around fitness, so I can also provide some value to others.


My first official post will be tomorrow, where I state the current amount of reps that I can do for each exercise & to give some context right now - i am a unfit, unathletic, skinny-fat teenager.. I will update this post weekly to avoid mindless dumps.

 

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[JimIsBack]

Best of luck mate, not that you'll need it. I recommend the Stronglifts 5x5 programme to start, and the Strong app. That combo gave me great early results when I was on the fitness road (I need to get back on!!)

Would be good to hear how you progress too.

 

[StrikingViper69]

Consider taking some time to ease into that program. Going from 0 to that intensity and you’ll likely injure yourself. You could work out twice a week for a month, then three times a week and take it from there.

 

[vladikcm]

My recommendations are:

- Starting Strength (all people agree on this one for newbies)
- 5/3/1 by Jim Wendler
- The muscle and strength pyramid by Eric Russell
- The nutrition pyramid (same author)
-Thinner Leaner Stronger by Mike Mathew (even tho he will try to upsell you stuff later on)
-Convict Conditioning

Choose one book, stick to the plan. Regarding nutrition, calculate how many calories per day you need to gain weight, buy a cooking robot to add variety to food.

Good luck! Update us here.

 

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[StrikingViper69]

My recommendations are:

- Starting Strength (all people agree on this one for newbies)
- 5/3/1 by Jim Wendler
- The muscle and strength pyramid by Eric Russell
- The nutrition pyramid (same author)
-Thinner Leaner Stronger by Mike Mathew (even tho he will try to upsell you stuff later on)
-Convict Conditioning

Choose one book, stick to the plan. Regarding nutrition, calculate how many calories per day you need to gain weight, buy a cooking robot to add variety to food.

Good luck! Update us here.

+1 for Convict Conditioning

 

[Nostalgia]

Wow. Thanks for all the reception - I'm definitely going to be looking at some of those books.

The main idea is to ease in to calisthenics as I'm sure I'm barely able to do 1 pull up, but the idea of these 90 days is to increase my strength and look leaner and fitter. I'm definitely not going to be pumping out 100 pullups xd, so I'm not going to really injure myself.

I would hit the gym, but my parents are kinda against the idea of me going as they think it'll "stunt my growth" but it's not all too bad as I'm more fascinated by the idea of unlocking my body's full potential and becoming more flexible and lean.

For the meals, my diet is roughly as follows:

breakfast:

tea w/ sugar - this is my one treat daily to make sure i stick to healthy eating.
berry smoothie (pb + strawberries + blueberries + banana + milk + greek yogurt)
bran flakes + blueberries + milk
omlette/egg recipe -


snacks between meals:

kiwis
almonds
pistachios
blueberries
oranges

lunch:
whatever mum makes - usually rice + curry


dinner:

potatoes, sweetcorn, peas, broccoli, cheddar cheese, olive oil.


This all adds up to around 3k calories (I track on myfitnesspal), if I need to I pump on healthy snacks. The main idea is that I eat clean - no processed or junk food.

 

[Nostalgia]

Update 1: Day 7/90

I've been working out and bulking for a couple of weeks, but this challenge was started as a method of accountability.

There have been some ups and downs this week, some highs and lows.


Let's start of with the positive:
- I skipped for 30 minutes everyday, the feeling you get after skipping is something different. Whenever I finished skipping I have this high, this feeling of happiness, and that feels so good.

- I've developed a workout routine, based on my level so far, now I have something to do consistently.

- I've eaten 3000 + kcal for the last week.

Now the negatives..
- I failed to track my calories for the week, this was a combination of thinking i'm eating enough and going out to places. No matter what, I need to track my calorie intake, to make sure I do indeed get the right amount of calories and I'm just not fooling myself.

- I ate fast food twice. We went out and it was inevitable. The crazy thing is after eating it, I became physically sick for the next couple of hours. It felt good eating (subway), but there was no sense of fulfilment in the meal and the after effect was horrible.

- No boxing for this week, apparently their on holiday, going to start from today.


So overall, it has been good. I'm weighing myself and I seem to be going up 0.5kg per week (incremental progress ftw!!), I feel overall fitter, confident and happier, but nevertheless every time I see some family friends, call some relatives, their first comment seems to be "You look so skinny!!", I don't think they realise it, but this can be soul crushing, especially when your pushing your muscles to failure and eating to the point you feel sick.

Furthermore, I think the fact that I'm on a clean bulk, is the peak of delaying gratification, it'll be so much easier to just stuff my face with junk food and gain weight quickly like that, like everyone else around me. Like everyone is telling me too. But I'm not. I know my future self will reward me for it. I'm developing these habits for my future.

So, some final learnings:

I think it really helps just to be active throughout your whole day, and try your best to keep your body moving. Standing when you can. Walking when you can. You just have more energy throughout the day.

Music helps so freaking much.. Especially when skipping, it's just so satisfying.

My grip strength absolutely sucks lol.. I'm working on this with dead hangs.

Lastly, right now my goal is just to be able to do a set of pull-ups and pushups, I think this will be a good measurable goal.


THE ROUTINE:

• push-ups (proper, knee, negative) - to failure (x4)
• pike pushups (4 x 12)
• decline pushups (4 x 15)
• tricep extension (3 x 15) // bicep curls (3 x 10) // lateral delts (3 x 15)9
• pull ups - hang, knee (4x12)
• inverted rows (4 x 12)
• eventually negatives, and dead hangs — pull-ups
  
  
  This is the UPPER BODY routine, got a separate one for legs, but these are main focus right now, especially because I'm training legs with boxing and skipping
  
  Would love some feedback on this routine and overall : )
  
  That's it for this week, thank you for reading!

 

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[Nostalgia]

A little update:

So recently I've been feeling kind of down. Some nagging voice in my head telling my i'm not good enough. It might be seeing so many jacked people around me, or the feeling that I could be doing more. But today, I just finished skipping, and I'm speaking from the endorphin high afterwards but I feel so goddamn grateful.

I did my routine today. I boxed for the first time yesterday (absolutely fcked up, was so fcking hard), I skipped, I ate my calories. And I just thought, that a couple of months ago, this is what I envisoned doing. This is what I wanted. I wanted to train hard every single fcking day and chase after my goals. and eventually it would pay off.

I am so freaking grateful and happy that I am finally on the right path and I can't wait to see where I am in a few years.


(also going to be tracking and updating my weight every monday)

 

[the hawk of dawn]

@Nostalgia hey there man, quite coincidentally, i am also a skinny-fat teen who is currently on a fitness transformation! from reading this, you've made many points to which i can also relate and resonate with. i just wanted to say, im proud of you, keep pushing regardless of what those negative voices around you say, you are a king mah man!

 

[Nostalgia]

@Nostalgia hey there man, quite coincidentally, i am also a skinny-fat teen who is currently on a fitness transformation! from reading this, you've made many points to which i can also relate and resonate with. i just wanted to say, im proud of you, keep pushing regardless of what those negative voices around you say, you are a king mah man!

Thank you!! Appreciate it a lot - you got this

 

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[Nostalgia]

Update 2: Day 14/90

Mixed week with positive and negative feelings.

Workout:

The routine part of this challenge has been quite hard to figure out. I'm trying to improve my calisthenics skills, but also split my workout into push,pull, legs. But the problem is I'm too weak, so it's hard to dedicate a whole day just doing pull, because the exercises would be really limited (since i can't do pullups).

How I'm tackling this going forward is I'm going to introduce dumbells into my workouts, so I can fill out the workouts more. However, the main purpose of the dumbells is to get stronger to help me with my calisthenics exercises.

But my main focus right now is to work on the basic calisthenics movements (dips, pull-ups and pushups), and perfect myself in this area as much as possible.

Boxing:

My god. What a sport. Fcking love every single second of it. The gym is so nice and homely, the people and coaches push me and are extremely supportive. Every moment of the class feels so painful and gruelling but the feeling afterwards is indescribable. I'm going to train my a$$ off in this sport. I'm going to put my all into it. 3x per week grind.

Numerics:

Weight >> 71.8
(pull-up progression) >> dead hangs >> 25 seconds (adding 5 second every day to train my grip strength)

 

[john_paul1802]

Recently I've been enthralled with this idea of purpose.

The one thing that anchors your soul to the ground, and the thing you can do that requires no motivation whatsoever, and you can complete so easily because it's the thing that's constantly on your mind.

For the longest time I thought that thing was business, which was why I was pursuing a youtube channel, but now i've realised that, that's not the thing.

The only reason I was doing youtube was money and I thought that I could build it into something. But I noticed that the process of working on the youtube channel was gruelling and I did not gain satisfaction and completion from it.

I'm still in my teen years and I have my whole life ahead of me to create a business, fulfilling a need in something that I truly believe in.

But now, I have a 100% clear vision on my purpose. Fitness & Health. Becoming lean, aesthetic and confident. I want to achieve this goal so, so badly, and i'm willing to work as hard as possible for it.

And yes, I can do both business and fitness coincidentally, but I'm a person that finds it easier to do stuff and excel in it when there's less clouding my mind. And for this period of my life, I want to be obsessed with fitness.

So here are my goals:

• Calisthenics workout everyday (pushups, pull-ups, dips, rows, ab raises & squats)
• ~3100 kcal per day (healthy, lean bulk.. NO JUNK FOOD/crap snacks whatsoever)
• Boxing 2x per week.
• 30 minutes skipping EVERY DAY.

To set myself a manageable timeframe, I'm giving myself 90 days and I'm eager to see my before and after transformation, I KNOW 90 days is a very small amount, and I'm expecting this process to take at least 2-3 years, but I want to have a clear end goal in sight so its easier to stay accountable.

I also have some other habits that I'm currently building up including reading, meditation, cold showers, but I want this thread to be focused around fitness, so I can also provide some value to others.


My first official post will be tomorrow, where I state the current amount of reps that I can do for each exercise & to give some context right now - i am an unfit, unathletic, skinny-fat teenager. I will update this post weekly to avoid mindless dumps.

I believe you can do it. One year ago I was like you. Unfit and unathletic (skinny fat and chubby. A bit overweight). While my so-called "friends" were eating McDonald's and Snacks I wasn´t and it did its magic. No, I have six-pack abs. I want to gain more muscle because I´m still a bit skinny. But I think it´s already decent for one year coming from being a skinny fat ugly dude.

And yes I know you don´t want to hear this, but I think you should start with a more "Atomic Habits" approach. Because I don´t think you currently have the capacity to go after your fitness plan for any longer than 1-2 weeks because as soon as the motivation fades away you´ll have to be disciplined. And the discipline needed for that isn´t something that you just have. It´s something that builds up. So if you´re now at the start. Start a bit slowly. Because this way you will still be doing it in a year. And consistency matters more than anything else, right?

If you are skinny fat right now, I don´t see a reason why you should bulk. And not even 3100kcal. I´m not a Greg Doucette. Hear me out. Your body has a high body fat percentage and because of that, it will be more likely to store excess energy as fat. And not build muscle. I think you should cut but eat A TON of protein while doing so. Bulking right now will make you fatter and therefore demotivated. You need to cut down first. I know many people say you should bulk first (yes even Hamza - a guy I really look up to) but in my opinion, it´s complete Bullshit because you will just get fatter and demotivated and not build as much muscle as if you were leaner from the start and of course, you will have to spend even more time dieting afterwards.

So don´t bulk at first. Losing fat is about calories in and calories out. Track your macros because you won´t loose fat if you do 30mins of skipping a day (btw I think you underestimate how hard skipping for even 5mins is) when you´re at the same time eating 3100kcal per day. I like how ambitious you are but starting slower could insure that you will still be doing it in 3 years while sarting to fast will maybe even make you quit after just 3 weeks. But do what you think and maybe you will see what I mean.

I love your ambition and your willingness to improve. That´s the first step to achieving anything you want. And many people can´t even do that because they are afraid of failure and looking stupid even though what you want to achieve is super cool.

Have a wonderful day my friend.

John Paul

PS: Love your profile picture. I´m a big Iron Man fan too

 

[the hawk of dawn]

Update 2: Day 14/90

Mixed week with positive and negative feelings.

Workout:

The routine part of this challenge has been quite hard to figure out. I'm trying to improve my calisthenics skills, but also split my workout into push,pull, legs. But the problem is I'm too weak, so it's hard to dedicate a whole day just doing pull, because the exercises would be really limited (since i can't do pullups).

How I'm tackling this going forward is I'm going to introduce dumbells into my workouts, so I can fill out the workouts more. However, the main purpose of the dumbells is to get stronger to help me with my calisthenics exercises.

But my main focus right now is to work on the basic calisthenics movements (dips, pull-ups and pushups), and perfect myself in this area as much as possible.

Boxing:

My god. What a sport. Fcking love every single second of it. The gym is so nice and homely, the people and coaches push me and are extremely supportive. Every moment of the class feels so painful and gruelling but the feeling afterwards is indescribable. I'm going to train my a$$ off in this sport. I'm going to put my all into it. 3x per week grind.

Numerics:

Weight >> 71.8
(pull-up progression) >> dead hangs >> 25 seconds (adding 5 second every day to train my grip strength)

hey bro, glad to see you making some progress!
I do agree with some of the points stated by john paul above, going in tooo hard and overwhelming yourself will make it quite tough to maintain a consistent routine. my fitness journey started about 1.5 months ago, where tbh i was doing less than half of the work you're doing only in your first two weeks! yes, all i did was a 2-day routine with some push-up variations for 2 sets each, and then some pull-ups, ab exercises, etc. not much, compared to your routine!

to be frank, this routine was only effective for about 1 or 2 weeks, mostly because i failed to progressively overload. however, one positive of having this mostly-low intensity routine was that, even though i didn't build much MUSCLE, what i did build was CONSISTENCY... which has now enabled me to actually execute a push-pull-legs routine with 1 rest day / week consistently, and actually make progress by progressively overloading on a weekly basis. even though right now, my routine is quite intense and leaves me sweating (and sometimes shaking! haha) it wouldn't be viable and long-term without having first established consistency.

but nonetheless, it's great that you're so ambitious and enthusiastic, combined with a willingness to take action! it's great to see your passion for boxing, i share that passion too, even tried joining a boxing gym near me area, but sadly it was quite expensive, so i've switched over to daily swimming for 1hr / day, along with daily walks, cycles and morning skipping for what is currently 7 mins (i'm increasing the skipping duration roughly every 5 days, by 1 minute - started out doing 5 mins, now edging towards 8mins). btw HOW ARE YOU MANAGING 30 MINS OF SKIPPING !!! lol

also when it comes to using dumbbells, i don't really see anything wrong with that; really, there's no need to fret about that, i think considering your muscles aren't full capable of doing pull-ups yet, perhaps focus more on improving your muscles, regardless of the exercise, body weight or weight training. once you build up overall strength, you will find it easier to do those specific movements (i.e. pullups) and then you can focus on specifically doing pull ups. my initial routine started out with doing a bunch of push-up VARIATIONS, because my ability to do normal push-ups wasn't great, but in doing different variations or different exercises altogether (for the same muscle group) i can now do almost double my push-up count with good form.

but anyways, keep at it bro, just remember when you feel like you are making little-to-no progress (you will fo sho have this feeling at some points in your journey), that you are still making progress, and in fact, making more progress than all the people around you, and maybe, idk, 70% of this world full of lazy morons.
just keep pushing, grinding, never give up... you got it!!

 

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[Matt Sun]

I've been reading a bodybuilder who says you should first go to 10% body fat before bulking. And that if you are more than 15% body fat when the novelty effect of the gym wears off (around 3 months in) you will be gaining more fat than muscle.

Also he says more than 15%BF has estrogenic effects, it's inflammatory and more bad stuff. So doing a cut might be a good idea also. Best of luck.

 

[Nostalgia]

I believe you can do it. One year ago I was like you. Unfit and unathletic (skinny fat and chubby. A bit overweight). While my so-called "friends" were eating McDonald's and Snacks I wasn´t and it did its magic. No, I have six-pack abs. I want to gain more muscle because I´m still a bit skinny. But I think it´s already decent for one year coming from being a skinny fat ugly dude.

And yes I know you don´t want to hear this, but I think you should start with a more "Atomic Habits" approach. Because I don´t think you currently have the capacity to go after your fitness plan for any longer than 1-2 weeks because as soon as the motivation fades away you´ll have to be disciplined. And the discipline needed for that isn´t something that you just have. It´s something that builds up. So if you´re now at the start. Start a bit slowly. Because this way you will still be doing it in a year. And consistency matters more than anything else, right?

If you are skinny fat right now, I don´t see a reason why you should bulk. And not even 3100kcal. I´m not a Greg Doucette. Hear me out. Your body has a high body fat percentage and because of that, it will be more likely to store excess energy as fat. And not build muscle. I think you should cut but eat A TON of protein while doing so. Bulking right now will make you fatter and therefore demotivated. You need to cut down first. I know many people say you should bulk first (yes even Hamza - a guy I really look up to) but in my opinion, it´s complete Bullshit because you will just get fatter and demotivated and not build as much muscle as if you were leaner from the start and of course, you will have to spend even more time dieting afterwards.

So don´t bulk at first. Losing fat is about calories in and calories out. Track your macros because you won´t loose fat if you do 30mins of skipping a day (btw I think you underestimate how hard skipping for even 5mins is) when you´re at the same time eating 3100kcal per day. I like how ambitious you are but starting slower could insure that you will still be doing it in 3 years while sarting to fast will maybe even make you quit after just 3 weeks. But do what you think and maybe you will see what I mean.

I love your ambition and your willingness to improve. That´s the first step to achieving anything you want. And many people can´t even do that because they are afraid of failure and looking stupid even though what you want to achieve is super cool.

Have a wonderful day my friend.

John Paul

PS: Love your profile picture. I´m a big Iron Man fan too

Hey John! Thank you for your long and detailed response. I really appreciate that I'm not just talking into a void.

I understand your points about not bulking but I respectfully disagree. The problem right now is that I'm weak, I possess a lack of muscle. If I were to go on a cut, I'm at risk of losing that muscle. I think for me right now, a bulk is the best option. A key point to understand is that I'm lean bulking which means I am only consuming healthy food, and cutting out all junk and processed food from my diet.

This means I'm putting on lean mass, therefore I won't turn out "chubby", i've taken progress pics and I've noticed I look bigger, yes that does mean I'm putting on fat, but I'm all good with that, because I know that this is a process and it'll will take a while, because even if I am putting on a little bit of fat, I'm putting on muscle and becoming stronger and that's what's important.

I love Iron Man haha, probably my favourite MCU hero. : )

 

[Nostalgia]

hey bro, glad to see you making some progress!
I do agree with some of the points stated by john paul above, going in tooo hard and overwhelming yourself will make it quite tough to maintain a consistent routine. my fitness journey started about 1.5 months ago, where tbh i was doing less than half of the work you're doing only in your first two weeks! yes, all i did was a 2-day routine with some push-up variations for 2 sets each, and then some pull-ups, ab exercises, etc. not much, compared to your routine!

to be frank, this routine was only effective for about 1 or 2 weeks, mostly because i failed to progressively overload. however, one positive of having this mostly-low intensity routine was that, even though i didn't build much MUSCLE, what i did build was CONSISTENCY... which has now enabled me to actually execute a push-pull-legs routine with 1 rest day / week consistently, and actually make progress by progressively overloading on a weekly basis. even though right now, my routine is quite intense and leaves me sweating (and sometimes shaking! haha) it wouldn't be viable and long-term without having first established consistency.

but nonetheless, it's great that you're so ambitious and enthusiastic, combined with a willingness to take action! it's great to see your passion for boxing, i share that passion too, even tried joining a boxing gym near me area, but sadly it was quite expensive, so i've switched over to daily swimming for 1hr / day, along with daily walks, cycles and morning skipping for what is currently 7 mins (i'm increasing the skipping duration roughly every 5 days, by 1 minute - started out doing 5 mins, now edging towards 8mins). btw HOW ARE YOU MANAGING 30 MINS OF SKIPPING !!! lol

also when it comes to using dumbbells, i don't really see anything wrong with that; really, there's no need to fret about that, i think considering your muscles aren't full capable of doing pull-ups yet, perhaps focus more on improving your muscles, regardless of the exercise, body weight or weight training. once you build up overall strength, you will find it easier to do those specific movements (i.e. pullups) and then you can focus on specifically doing pull ups. my initial routine started out with doing a bunch of push-up VARIATIONS, because my ability to do normal push-ups wasn't great, but in doing different variations or different exercises altogether (for the same muscle group) i can now do almost double my push-up count with good form.

but anyways, keep at it bro, just remember when you feel like you are making little-to-no progress (you will fo sho have this feeling at some points in your journey), that you are still making progress, and in fact, making more progress than all the people around you, and maybe, idk, 70% of this world full of lazy morons.
just keep pushing, grinding, never give up... you got it!!

hey : )

i think the post i made above answers some of your questions.. and I'm not skipping for 30 min straight haha, I'm doing intervals of 5min. 5min skipping, 1min rest.

it also sucks that your boxing gym is expensive, i really think i struck gold with mine it's only £5 per class.

I wish you the best of luck on your journey : )

 

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[Nostalgia]

Update: Routine

Alright! I've done my research, and now I have a pretty solid idea of my routine going forward.

• I'm going to be following a dumbell PPL workout.
• My plan is to use the dumbells to get stronger and fitter. As my end goal is aesthetics, when I'm stronger, I'm going to sub out dumbells for body weight advanced exercises because the control over the body and flexibility is so much more fascinating to me, but that’s for the future.
• I'm also going to be keeping a new notebook for all my routines, sets, reps etc. So I can progressively overload easily and make sure i'm always improving

THE PLAN:

• Every day warmup.
• Every day practise basic calisthenic exercises.
• pushup sets (pushups, knee, negative) (x4)
  dead hangs / inverted rows- progress to pullups
  dips, practise hanging and negatives.

PUSH

• incline bench press (3x12)
• seated dumbell press (3x12)
• chest flies (3x12)
• lateral raises (3x12)
• skull crushers (3x12)

PULL

• dumbell rows (3x12)
• pullups
• rear delt flies (3x12)
• shoulder shrugs (3x12)
• bicep curls (3x12)
• forearm curls (3x12)

LEGS

• goblet squats (3x12)
• romanian deadlifts (3x12)
• bulgarian splitsquats (3x12)
• reverse lunges (3x12)
• calf raises (3x20)

 

[Under The Stairs]

Update: Routine

Alright! I've done my research, and now I have a pretty solid idea of my routine going forward.

• I'm going to be following a dumbell PPL workout.
• My plan is to use the dumbells to get stronger and fitter. As my end goal is aesthetics, when I'm stronger, I'm going to sub out dumbells for body weight advanced exercises because the control over the body and flexibility is so much more fascinating to me, but that’s for the future.
• I'm also going to be keeping a new notebook for all my routines, sets, reps etc. So I can progressively overload easily and make sure i'm always improving

THE PLAN:

• Every day warmup.
• Every day practise basic calisthenic exercises.
• pushup sets (pushups, knee, negative) (x4)
  dead hangs / inverted rows- progress to pullups
  dips, practise hanging and negatives.

PUSH

• incline bench press (3x12)
• seated dumbell press (3x12)
• chest flies (3x12)
• lateral raises (3x12)
• skull crushers (3x12)

PULL

• dumbell rows (3x12)
• pullups
• rear delt flies (3x12)
• shoulder shrugs (3x12)
• bicep curls (3x12)
• forearm curls (3x12)

LEGS

• goblet squats (3x12)
• romanian deadlifts (3x12)
• bulgarian splitsquats (3x12)
• reverse lunges (3x12)
• calf raises (3x20)

Hello,

Before I'll comment on your schedule, may I commend you for starting this journey. The start is always the hardest as techniques are difficult to master/understand while also having to comprehend your own body.

May I suggest the following:
1) Do a variation of rep ranges, always doing 3x12 will target more of the fast twitch fibers in your muscles (Tier 2) they are mostly used for endurance purposes and will add less in size then the bigger tier 1 fibers. Such high rep ranges will also limit your strenght progression. In the beginning of your journey getting to reasonable strenght is of vital importance in both calisthenics as fitness.
2) Try to get a balanced diet that allows you to eat both glucose/fructose before training (both found in carbs). Fruits are amazing for fructose while any carbsource will provide you the glucose. When I shifted doing that, I felt more energetic, was able to lift more and have been progressing better than ever before.
3) Get your form checked especially when it comes to squats/or deadlifts/rows etc any big compound exercise. Feel free to send any video private to me as I will check it for you or to use any true bodybuilding forum (even reddit) to make sure your form is pin-point perfect. While calisthenics has a relative low chance on injury, such exercises that use a majority of big muscles have an increased chance of injury.
4) While dumbells are great (I use them often as well) Cables + machines are often better to start understanding the anatomy of your body, if you are unsure of any exercise, I advice you to do the machine variation of this exercise to understand if there is a different feeling/tension/stretch on your muscles.

A general tip regarding diet:
Don't force yourself into skipping certain foods - I've dieted for most my life for various different sports and I can promise you that forcing to skip certain foods will not last forever, better balance them in a well-oiled diet.

I understand that you don't just want to listen to advice from strangers, so if you want to be sure i'm not just "waffling BS", i'm happy to provide you credentials privately.

 

[Nostalgia]

Hello,

Before I'll comment on your schedule, may I commend you for starting this journey. The start is always the hardest as techniques are difficult to master/understand while also having to comprehend your own body.

May I suggest the following:
1) Do a variation of rep ranges, always doing 3x12 will target more of the fast twitch fibers in your muscles (Tier 2) they are mostly used for endurance purposes and will add less in size then the bigger tier 1 fibers. Such high rep ranges will also limit your strenght progression. In the beginning of your journey getting to reasonable strenght is of vital importance in both calisthenics as fitness.
2) Try to get a balanced diet that allows you to eat both glucose/fructose before training (both found in carbs). Fruits are amazing for fructose while any carbsource will provide you the glucose. When I shifted doing that, I felt more energetic, was able to lift more and have been progressing better than ever before.
3) Get your form checked especially when it comes to squats/or deadlifts/rows etc any big compound exercise. Feel free to send any video private to me as I will check it for you or to use any true bodybuilding forum (even reddit) to make sure your form is pin-point perfect. While calisthenics has a relative low chance on injury, such exercises that use a majority of big muscles have an increased chance of injury.
4) While dumbells are great (I use them often as well) Cables + machines are often better to start understanding the anatomy of your body, if you are unsure of any exercise, I advice you to do the machine variation of this exercise to understand if there is a different feeling/tension/stretch on your muscles.

A general tip regarding diet:
Don't force yourself into skipping certain foods - I've dieted for most my life for various different sports and I can promise you that forcing to skip certain foods will not last forever, better balance them in a well-oiled diet.

I understand that you don't just want to listen to advice from strangers, so if you want to be sure i'm not just "waffling BS", i'm happy to provide you credentials privately.

Thank you for your advice!

Just to note, I don't have access to a gym, which is why I'm doing dumbell and calisthenic exercises.

This is really helpful to me, and I really appreciate you taking time to write this message : )

 

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[the hawk of dawn]

Update: Routine

Alright! I've done my research, and now I have a pretty solid idea of my routine going forward.

• I'm going to be following a dumbbell PPL workout.
• My plan is to use the dumbells to get stronger and fitter. As my end goal is aesthetics, when I'm stronger, I'm going to sub out dumbells for body weight advanced exercises because the control over the body and flexibility is so much more fascinating to me, but that’s for the future.
• I'm also going to be keeping a new notebook for all my routines, sets, reps etc. So I can progressively overload easily and make sure i'm always improving

THE PLAN:

• Every day warmup.
• Every day practise basic calisthenic exercises.
• pushup sets (pushups, knee, negative) (x4)
  dead hangs / inverted rows- progress to pullups
  dips, practise hanging and negatives.

PUSH

• incline bench press (3x12)
• seated dumbell press (3x12)
• chest flies (3x12)
• lateral raises (3x12)
• skull crushers (3x12)

PULL

• dumbell rows (3x12)
• pullups
• rear delt flies (3x12)
• shoulder shrugs (3x12)
• bicep curls (3x12)
• forearm curls (3x12)

LEGS

• goblet squats (3x12)
• romanian deadlifts (3x12)
• bulgarian splitsquats (3x12)
• reverse lunges (3x12)
• calf raises (3x20)

nice, but where are the abs?

 

[Nostalgia]

nice, but where are the abs?

i do ab exercises here and there, and a lot of the calisthenic movements utilises the abs - just not as much of a priority atm