r/askfitness

Can you grow your chest without doing pushups? If u only do bench press incline dumbbell and pec deck?

Anyone here actually grew biceps by curling book bags filled with something or curling water bottles or something? Does this actually work

Curious to hear what people regret spending money on.

It's hard to even explain this question properly. I guess I'm wondering... Hypothetically if you weren't concerned about specifically building muscle, or increasing any type of performance. Is there still some benefit on a cellular level or internally of making sure your workouts require "more effort" through progressive overload or increasing the difficulty or intensity in general over time? So you are always making sure your workouts require a good amount of effort or intensity...either going close to failure on lifts by upping weights or reps, or running further or faster, etc... So your not just doing a workout your body has "adapted to" and has now become "easier" or became a "maintenance workout"

You could just say "screw it" ..EX: "I can lift 150 lbs for 10 reps and 3 sets I'm going to maintain this and do this forever". Or "I can run 2 miles at a steady medium pace. I'm just gonna do this forever." "I'm not concerned about increasing my muscle mass or performance" ...

But you wouldn't be pushing yourself then. Your workouts would not require you to have "higher intensity" or require "more effort" to the point of you know.. going to closer to failure lifting or running further or faster so that it took more effort... Where you know at the end of the workout - "man I'm more tired, that took more effort, I had to exert myself more" etc.... You just be maintaining that level of strength and not have had to used a "ton of effort"

Does that make sense? Basically are there benefits to making sure you are consistently pushing yourself and making sure your workouts aren't "maintenance workouts" besides just building muscle or improving performance? Or i guess what are the other benefits of making sure you workouts are high intensity or harder?

And then at what point is it actually better to just be doing "maintenance workouts" or lifts or runs or whatever?

Hi all, I recently donated blood for the first time and I was curious about experience with how my performance could change few days/weeks following the donation. The doctor suggested about 2 days complete rest and light activity for around 7 days. If anyone has an experience, how was your performance after the donation? I assume it influences mostly aerobic capacity due to lower level of red blood cells, but power exercises should not be influenced so much. Thanks!

What are some of the macro tracking apps everyone uses?

I feel like the go to is MyFitnessPal but the best features are locked behind $20/mo so curious what else is out there

Hi, just started working out, is this a good routine/split? I work out throughout the weekday, rest weekends.
Mon: Push
Tue: Pull
Wed: Legs
Thurs: Chest/back
Friday: Shoulders/Arms
SAT-SUNDAY REST

Feed back would be appreciated. Would also love to hear thoughts on how many sets/reps per set i do for each day. Been doing like 3x8 for every day, but always aiming for failure on my 3rd set.

Anyone here who doesn’t hit gym only calisthenics but can go to gym and lift heavy weight and max out any machine?

What body weight exercise for upper body strength

My question is kind of in the title, but basically I'm reaching my early 30s and realising that things tend to injure me more easily now. Even small things, like catching myself when I lose my balance or sudden movements to catch a falling item, can leave me feeling sore.

I already go to the gym three times a week, doing some light cardio and a push/pull/legs split, but are there any good exercises I can mix in to try to minimise those kinds of injuries?

Hi everyone,

I’m a beginner female and I only have about 2–3 days a week to go to the gym, so I’ve been trying to do a full body routine each session.

So far I’ve been doing an alternate of these workouts:
Lunges
Leg press
Shoulder press
Lat pulldown
Cable rows
Chest press

I’m still learning my RDL (Romanian deadlift) form so I’m not including that yet.

I’m honestly struggling to structure everything properly (like what to pair together, what to prioritize, and how to balance upper/lower body). I’m not sure if I’m missing key movement patterns or repeating too much of the same work.

If anyone has suggestions for a simple full body A/B routine or how to structure these exercises better, I’d really appreciate it.

I’m 24 male, I have been trying to increase my running by watching my heart rate. Maybe 4-5 months ago I was able to run 10 miles 5 mph with an avg heart rate in the high 160’s and low 170’s. I got an injury, recovered, and started to run again (maybe a month ago only on the treadmill) and this time I was actually looking at my heart rate and learned about 2-3 weeks ago I can run 3.8 mph for an hour staying in heart rate zone 1-2 but recently my heart is going higher and higher (though still a gradual increase) until today I could only run 25 minutes before approaching zone 3. I have pictures from about the last two weeks (I donated platelets plasma a bit more than two weeks ago) of my Apple Watch heart rate monitor of the runs if needed.

Does doing body weights squats workout upper body too not just lower?

So I recently switched from working in an office to working from home. My work keeps me busy M-F from ~9:00am to 6pm. However, I often have several short breaks of about 10-15 min spread throughout the day. Ideally I'd love to utilize those breaks to work out in my backyard fitness area, instead of having to tack on a full hour or so workout before or after work. Would you expect someone to get at least similar strength gains from splitting up sets throughout the day vs. doing the same exercises in one time block?

For more context, my goals right now are centered on making improvements to my strength (I also do some sprint-work on the weekends or some mornings). On weight lifting days I usually start with 1-2 compound movements (maybe pull ups or squat) then hit 3-4 sets of accessory/isolated exercises. Sometimes I'll do a 3 day-a-week full body split. Sometimes I do a 4 day-a-week upper/lower split. For example, yesterday I did 4 sets of weighted pull ups, 4 sets of military press, then 3 sets each of curls, tricep push downs, and delt raises.

I usually masturbate 0-3 times a week..

Yesterday was my back and biceps today. It was a lazy Sunday where I actually went to the gym twice: once in the morning for a 40-min session and then once again in the afternoon for another 40-min session

In the morning, I did back exercises like lat-pulldown and seated row. But I didn't do isolation bicep exercises. So in the afternoon, I went to a different gym and did some barbell curls and some dumbbell preacher curls.

However, this morning, I didn't feel sore in my biceps and I was wondering if I hit my biceps thoroughly enough. So today, I went to the gym for chest and triceps day, but I decided to also do some assisted chin-ups in order to try and fatigue my biceps some more.

Is this a good strategy? If you fail to fatigue a muscle group on a specific day, should you hit the same muscle again on the next day?

I’ve been having some issues with my left knee, it feels loose, there is no pain, but it’s a bit uncomfortable, especially when doing leg related exercises. Does anyone know what some good routines/exercises I can do to tighten my knee up a bit. My knee often feels like it needs to pop or crack and if I flick my leg fast enough it’ll pop and bring some relief to it.

Been seeing this app pop up in my feed. From what i can tell it offers a personal bodyweight plan, all home workouts, and a meal plan. What im actually wondering is whether its real weight loss help or more dressed up wellness advice. Has anyone here actually dropped weight with it, or is it more of a habits and routine thing?

Trying to figure out before i pay. Appreciate any honest review.

What the consensus? I’ve heard it’s best to take 30 minutes after weight training. AI says it really doesn’t matter. What say ye? Thanks.

At which point did you come to the realization that you’re not going to be able to lift as heavy, run as fast or do as much as you once did and how did you deal with that?