u/PsychologicalBike

Yes, the lighting does a lot of work and I did some pushups before the photos, but I think my BF% is 12 to 13%? I think I have plenty of gains left in my chest, back and my legs are very underdeveloped. I've never really taken bodybuilding seriously until recently, so I'm curious where I could take it.

I'm done with cutting for now, and I'm just upping my calories to 3,000 per day to start a (hopefully) lean gain stage.

I've followed the high intensity low volume training philosophy, lifting 3 or 4 times a week, but aiming to hit each muscle group twice a week, with about 10 sets per muscle group per week, but each set to absolute failure.

I got back into bodybuilding 6 months ago after a ten year hiatus, so my recent gains are mostly muscle memory. But I've managed to lose about 10kgs of fat in six months and gained about 8kgs of muscle.

Most of the fat loss was from a 1,000 calorie daily deficit for around the last 3 months.

No peptides and no steroids, I recently got back into fitness for longevity to ensure I'm around for my 4 year old son. Steroids are something I'd never do.

Yes, my legs aren't being shown because they suck, I'm trying to work on them, but my upper body seems to react far better to bodybuilding than my legs do.

I am 44 and I've been out of the gym for almost ten years and after getting to a very unfit 85 kgs (at 183cm) I decided to go all out and started a new gym routine on March 20. Muscle memory definitely played a part and I'm very happy with the progress at 12 weeks. And yes, lighting and flexing helped a bit.

For the first 5 weeks I was bulking at around 3,500 calories per day, while doing 3 full body workouts a week and I got to 90kgs. Then the last 7 weeks I did recomp at around 2,500 calories and started doing a push/pull & legs split and 4 sessions a week. I made decent gains but remained at 90kgs.

Next week I'm going for a holiday, but when I return I'm aiming to do proper calorie counting and go down to around 2,000 calories a day and do more cardio/walking in the hope I can lose close to 1kg a week and see how lean and ripped I can get. Although cutting isn't something I've don't before so I have no idea how I'll go

I've used whey protein, creatine, magnesium and fish oil as my supplements. I'm all natural with no TRT etc.