r/workout

Personally I (23f) only ever use the machines at the gym but from my observation the hardcore folks are typically at the free weight section or using the cables (for chest flys and stuff). Is there a reason they don’t use the machines? Are machines less effective and building muscle? Like is bench pressing or doing a chest fly on the machine less effective than using a barbell or doing a cable fly?

This Sunday night (August 19, 2026) I (19M) decided to go hit legs at my local 24-hour fitness. I’m on a diet cutting weight right now, and I didn’t want to skip my gym day, so I went later at around 10-11pm. The plan for this workout was to be a less intensive leg day with an emphasis on avoiding anything that puts a load on my lower back. I recently injured my lower back due to an incident on hack squats, which I am going to start physical therapy for soon. In an effort to get a jump on chicken-leg syndrome, I decided to get back into hitting legs making sure to avoid anything that could hurt my back. This was the workout I devised:
- 6 sets Lying Hamstring Curls
- 4 sets Leg Extensions
- 2 sets Single Leg Extensions (each; in retrospect, don’t know why I decided to randomly switch to isolateral, but whatever)
- 2 sets Adductors
- 3 sets Abductors
- 4 sets Standing Calf Raises
At face value, it’s fairly basic. I have 6 sets for hamstrings, 6 sets for quads, hardly any volume for the adductors and abductors, and then 4 sets for calves at the end. I try not to prescribe myself specific rep ranges, but I was safely within the 6-15 rep range throughout all of the movements, and given that I was attempting to avoid my usual heavy compounds, I decided to compensate by going to failure on most sets. Now, to be clear, by failure, I mean “okay I can’t get another one” and then I stop. I was NOT pushing to drop sets or supersets or anything like that. It was an underwhelming workout, and I was pushing hard enough that my legs were wobbly walking around the gym, but I was happy I got myself in to do the much-needed reps after not working out legs for a few months.

Following this, my expectations were very set that I would be experiencing delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMs) due to being fresh to hitting legs. And, as I anticipated, my DOMs following the normal schedule: the next day is bad but not terrible, but the day AFTER is the worst. By Tuesday, my legs were absolutely obliterated. It didn’t ring any bells at first, but looking in retrospect, these are of course the worst DOMs I have ever experienced in my short little life. However, again, I was expecting it to be pretty bad, so I didn’t pay much mind to it from a medical perspective. But rest assured, it was bad enough that at first I couldn’t extend my legs all the way due to tightness from my calf and hamstrings, I could hardly get my legs up on my bed, or even move them around to find a comfortable position. Getting in and out of my car was a slow ordeal, and overall it sucked.

After coming home from dinner late at night, probably around midnight, I decided to begin my ritual of taking a piss and then laying in my bed to watch Attack on Titan. I went to the bathroom, and for some reason, my pee looked a little dark. A little too dark. But, I hadn’t really drank a lot of water that day, so I chalked it up to dehydration. It also didn’t look nearly as dark because it was diluted by the water in the toilet bowl. I went back to my room, finished watching my show for the night, and decided to play some calming YouTube piano music videos to go to sleep. But then something in my mind clicked. I don’t recall if something came up in my feed or if I came to it on my own, but something about the slightly darkened pee and my insane DOMs made me think twice about rhabdo.

I immediately got up, went into the kitchen, grabbed a glass, went to the bathroom, and pissed in the glass. Now, for some perspective, rhabdo pee can appear on a spectrum anywhere from iced tea to Coca Cola. My pee looked like a fresh Arnold Palmer on a hot summer’s day. No bueno. My stomach instantly dropped and I could feel the adrenaline everywhere. “Shit this is happening.”

I paced the living room, thought about it, and then went upstairs to tell my parents:
Parents: “What’s up?”
Me: “Can I turn the light on?”
Parents: “Sure”
Me [holding up piss]: “Does this look dark to you?”
Mom: “Yes.”
Me: “I need to go to the ER. I think I have rhabdo.”
Fast forward 30 minutes and now I’m in the hospital getting my urine and blood tested, keeping my fingers crossed that I’m just dehydrated. Well, they take me to a bed, and the doctor walks in:

> “So you seriously broke down a ton of muscle. Your creatine kinase (CK) are at 44,393 U/L. So you definitely have rhabdo. Luckily, it hasn’t hit your kidneys yet, but your liver enzymes are a little high.”

Safe to say I made the right choice by going to the hospital instead of trying to sleep it off. Anyways I made this pretty cinematic so far but the rest is boring because now I’m definitely staying at the hospital for at least a few nights and they’re just flushing my system with fluids to get my CK levels down. Remarkably, all my other blood markers that they test for were completely fine. It’s just the CK levels that were off the charts.

What lesson did I learn?

I really have no idea. Somehow I got a mediocre leg day and now my body wants to kill me, so I’m quite uncertain where my baseline level of effort in the future is supposed to sit. Especially considering this isn’t nearly as hard as I’ve worked out my legs before. I used to throw 5 plates on each side of the hack squat with decent form and go ass to grass til failure. The doctors all think it could be due to dehydration that exacerbated it and brought me here, which is the most plausible thing I could think of. I don’t do a good job of keeping myself hydrated. However, I also don’t drink alcohol, I don’t do any drugs, I don’t have any diagnosed autoimmune disorders, etc. So I guess the real lesson is that I need to drink more water.

For anyone else that sees this, while this condition is relatively uncommon in general exertion-based contexts, CLEARLY anything is possible even if others tell you that there’s no chance for you to get this unless you’re doing an Iron Man-level workout for hours on end. Be safe out there.

Which exercises worked for you the most to grow your chest?

My current strategy when I’m at the gym is that I pick a weight where 8 reps is max and once i hit 12 in all sets I up the weight. But my question is as a beginner should I be taking all those sets to failure where I can’t do another rep with good form

I've never been a sporty person, like ever. But my doctor keeps telling me I need to exercise and lose some weight, and honestly every piece of health content I see online says the same thing, so I'm finally trying to take it seriously.

My problem is not knowing what a squat is. My problem is actually showing up consistently. I've downloaded a few fitness apps and they're all basically the same thing: a trainer or fit influencer giving you workout plans. "Beginner routine, 4 weeks, follow along." That's fine I guess, but that's not where I fail. I fail on week 2 when motivation dies and I just... stop.

What I'm looking for is something focused on the habit part. Something that helps a couch person like me actually stick with it long enough that it becomes normal, and ideally teaches me the basics along the way without assuming I already love the gym.

Does anything like that exist? Apps, methods, whatever worked for you. How did you people who were never athletic actually make exercise stick? Because right now the gap between "I know it's good for me" and "I actually do it" feels huge.

Hi! I feel super proud !
After 26 months of training and number of injuries I've done it.
6'2" 230 lbs. 32 y/o
https://www.instagram.com/p/DcMZXhIKkpD/

I tried working with a personal trainer for a while and just felt constantly pushed if I didn't hit every target. Might've just been the wrong trainer or the wrong style for me, but it made me realize I actually do better on my own.

There’s this guy at my gym who is ALWAYS on his phone between sets, even during like 10-second rest periods. At first I assumed he was texting his girlfriend or something, but today he walked past me and I accidentally saw his screen. It looked like a timer/stopwatch, and he was just tapping it repeatedly. Now I’m wondering if that’s literally what he’s been doing this whole time. Is there some gym thing I’m completely unaware of? What would you even use a timer for between every single set?

ETA: I wasn’t judging him, Im new to ghm and was genuinely wondering what the timer was for. Apparently it’s just tracking rest time.

I usually get canned Chicken Breast from Costco and they are tender and taste so good without being fishy like canned Tuna. The macros are insanely good too with each can is 45.5g protein for 210calories only.
I am just wondering why everyone only talk about canned Tuna while almost never mentioned canned Chicken Breast? Am I missing something? Is there a reason makes them not as healthy as Tuna?
Thank you

I’ve been using Jeff Nippard’s Workouts app but not that keen on paying for every month / year. What do people use?

18M, recently joined gym and wants to buy a protein in budget... confused between osoaa impact vs nakpro impact.... considering osoaa bcs it also has 3g creatine integrated in it

So honestly? I'm lonely as fuck. People did cut me off because I was that chubby loser in my teen years and people thought they "deserve better". No one loves me or is interested in me because of my look. Believe me, I lost almost 30 kg. Just through a different diet. I hate how different it is, how different people interact with me. That's how I felt.

I'm a bit introverted but It's still easy to make friends once people know me. I honestly would assume my personality is just extremely shitty because I don't think at all I'm bad looking (well my face at least) but I'm actually a good friend, at least multiple people told me I am "their best friend". I bet I'm not, honestly.

I'm maybe chubby and could lose some more. I know this sounds like a really horrible thing to look for motivation but I have no idea what else I should do.

All the go "out" join clubs etc never lead to anything. I'm just (as mentioned) the bff of everybody and If you know this feeling, you know it fucking sucks. (not that I'm looking into every friendship to something romantic but you might get what I'm saying).

So how to actually lose more weight? Which training is effective? How often should I go in a week? Etc. I'm currently walking somewhat a lot so I'm always around 13k steps.

Hello, I am an 18yr old m, coming onto 19 years of age. I used to be slightly overweight (around 155 pounds at 5,7) and ended up cutting a lot of weight at the very beginning of my weight-lifting journey (to around 128 pounds). Once I got consistent, I fluctuated in weight from 128-135 while going through a bit of body recomp and putting on some muscle. I am now a little over 1.5 years into consistency in the gym and in tracking calories and have notice my strength starting to stagnate. To accomodate, I began to eat in a slight surplus (around 2700 calories based off my maintenance) but have also begun to notice that my weight is starting to stagnate and I havent experieced the strength gains that people preach about when it comes to eating more. I am happy with my physique from a leaness standpoint, but when I put on a shirt it looks like I havent touched a weight in my life. Is the next step really just as simple as eating more and pushing harder in training??

For reference, I run a pplxul split with about 2 exercises per muscle group and 2-3 sets per exercise. There have also been a couple of circumstances like begging college and traveling that have stopped me from being able to track progression as standardized as a could when sticking in one spot.

If anyone has any advice or guidance from being in the same position please let me know! Just reaching out and trying to see if theres anything about my changes that resonates with anyone.

low rows, lat pulldowns; my forearms tend to give out before i even feel it in my back. How to shift focus away from forearm and concentrate it more into back?

I always have trouble knowing when a bad session is just a bad session and when it's actually telling me something.

One rough workout is easy to ignore. Maybe I slept badly, ate weird, had a stressful day, whatever.

But if the same lifts feel awful three or four sessions in a row, I start wondering whether I should reduce volume, change the exercise, take an easier week, or just stop overthinking it and keep going.

The annoying part is that sometimes session five suddenly feels great again and all the panic was for nothing.

Do you have any kind of rule for this? Like a certain number of bad workouts before you adjust the program, or do you mostly judge it by feel and whether your numbers are actually moving backwards?

20M 5'9 ~160lbs. So I started bulking and lifting in January. lt hasn't exactly been on and off, but there were some bumps in the road. Eating is a struggle because I'm at a healthy weight for body and I eat the same things everyday.

Last time I was doing Jeff Nippards 3-Day a week full body program with some modifications, I was able to hit:

180 3x5 - bench

235 3x3 - deadlift

100 3x5 - overhead press

175 3x5 - squat (although out of nowhere squat started sucking and i couldn't even do 150 for 3x5)

That was after maybe 4-5 months and afterwards i didn't know what to do so i started 5/3/1 upper lower. My idea was to do the main lifts with the 5/3/1 template, but keep accessories sets and reps pretty much the same. first two cycles, weight was too high. This cycle, while the reps moved ok (6 reps on 1+ set bench 95% 175 & 6 reps on 1+ set deadlift 95% 200).

Now i see it's supposed to be 85% of TM. So if I continue with the 5/3/1 template on my main lifts, my bench would be 150, deadlift 170, ohp 85, and squat 135. These weights I'm pretty sure are too low for 5/3/1, and I don't think my body has completely gone from novice to intermediate, but I don't know what to do other than this without spinning my wheels like I already am. The only thing that's progressing well is my accessories which are for hypertrophy. All I care about is looking decently fit and having a 1 plate ohp, 2 plate bench, 3 plate squat, and 4 plate deadlift (just to know I'm healthy enough).

I’m pretty sure I’m ready integrate more workouts to my at-home routine besides body-weight stuff like pushups, situps etc. Trying to get some weights (quality doesn’t really matter I guess) but my budget is only $100, any suggestions?

What habit should I add to my workout routine, and what common habit should I avoid?