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The past year I have not been focusing on nutrition very much. I eat very clean but the amounts are around maintenance. Thus, in the past year I have seen very little improvement in strength and body composition. Have I wasted essentially a year since I neglected the calorie aspect of my diet?

I do Strength training + 30 minutes of stairmaster (100 floors) 5x a week. Have been doing it for the past 2.5 years.

More details on the strength training.

4 day split, try to train till failure. I usually do 3 sets of each exercise, if I can do 12 reps for each set I raise the weight.

Chest + shoulders: Dumbbell press, Chest press machine, pec fly machine, Lateral and horizonal shoulder raises, 3 sets each

Back + forarms: Assisted pull ups (4 sets), lat pulldowns (3 sets), seated rows (3 set)

Legs: Bulgarian Squats, Leg extension, Leg curls (3 sets each)

Arms: Hammer curls on preacher, biceps curls on preacher, bayesian curls, Triceps kickbacks, French press (3 sets each).

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  • Some concrete details about what your training looks like would really help us give you a better answer. “Strength training” could mean anything.
    – Thomas Markov ♦
    Commented Sep 12 at 22:23
  • @ThomasMarkov I added more detail.
    – Sorfosh
    Commented Sep 12 at 22:34

2 Answers 2

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I am genuinely confused how training 5x/week for a year with multiple sets to failure and 30 minutes of challenging cardio has left you with no strength or body composition gains, regardless of what you're eating. Honestly something doesn't add up.

try to train till failure

How often do you actually hit failure? Are you being honest with yourself about how hard you're pushing each set?

I usually do 3 sets of each exercise, if I can do 12 reps for each set I raise the weight.

How often have you raised the weights? How often do you really do 3 sets, versus 0 or 1 or 5?

How consistent has your training been? How many workouts skipped, how many weeks off? How old are you? Are you super-stressed, injured, sleeping enough?

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  • Thanks! I agree with you that perhaps I do not train to real failure. If the weight does not move at all after about 10 seconds of me trying I consider the set finished. In the first year I raised weights quite frequently, now in the past year I have not increased much since I never reach 12 reps on the third set anymore. I always do the sets I noted. In the past year I skipped maybe a week or two worths, other than that I am very consistent. I am 27. I am not stressed or injured but I do have sleep apnea so my sleep is only ok and I am hypogonadic pending treatment.
    – Sorfosh
    Commented Sep 13 at 14:39
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    @Sorfosh You should do every single set to or near failure, not just the last one and your last sentence explains a lot since both conditions mean that hormonal growth factors are severely limited. Makes me think that would you not have trained, you'd probably see quite a lot of negative developments instead, ie. you are actually doing very good and important work for maintaining the status quo atm. Maybe try a higher rep, lower weight approach for some weeks (not more than 30 per set) for new stimulus.
    – Philip Klöcking
    Commented Sep 13 at 19:29
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    @PhilipKlöcking To add more confusion to what’s going on here, I very rarely train to failure and have had great success in both strength and lean mass gains in the last four year, and this is reflected pretty well in the research as well, with short-of-failure training working out just fine assuming volumes are high enough.
    – Thomas Markov ♦
    Commented Sep 13 at 23:44
  • @ThomasMarkov Yes, although as far as I am aware the literature also says that with up to (but no more than) 3 reps in reserve the gains are higher.
    – Philip Klöcking
    Commented Sep 14 at 5:05
  • "10 seconds of trying" for a rep reads like a typo. That's an eternity! Regardless, hypogonadism and sleep anea sound sufficient to explain your results. I agree with Philip that training is better than not training, though I suspect some tweaks to your approach might help.
    – Dave Liepmann
    Commented Sep 15 at 14:23
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I've been training for 2 months(almost 2 months actually), gained 0, lost 0 weight.

But all my measurements got better, bigger chest, bigger neck, bigger arms, bigger legs, even my calves grew.... but got a smaller belly, waist and upper abs.

I did not measure my shoulders, I can't get the measurement tape around my shoulders by myself, and I don't care cause I don't even train shoulders....I like the physique of greek statues, big backs, big chests and big arms but small shoulders, gives less of an T-shape to the body and more of an arrow shape.

Also got a visible 4 pack.

Try harder.

My routine is:

Priority muscle groups = 35-40 sets per week

Secondary priority muscle groups = 8 sets per week

Maintenance muscle groups = 4 sets per week

Clarificiation : I do not count compound exercises like push ups/dips and pull ups as enough stimulus for the arms... the same reason no sane person would count squats for the hamstrings... because the muscles are double and triple jointed, therefore contract and lengthen at the same time during those compound movements resulting in almost 0 movement in the muscle tissue. I train my arms separately, fresh, on another day.

All my sets are myo-reps, which means the first set is to failure and then beyond failure using half reps.

I don't even count sets that don't go beyond failure, and I mean muscular failure not form-failure.

all the following sets are me trying my hardest to replicate the first set, i will usually fail before hitting the same ammount of reps so i just rest 2-10 seconds and go again at it and repeat that until the set is complete.

Went from barely being able to do 20 push ups per set to doing 8 sets of 62 repetitions (first set is 62 in a row, between dumbbells for extra stretch, and the other sets are myo-reps)

from being barely able to do tricep extensions with 5 kg to using 13kg with good form for sets of 8 reps. (i literally put on 2 cm on my left arm and 2.5 on my right arm) and then obiously I use my calves to launch the weight up and and do negatives or half reps.

You might be one of those guys who thinks failure is when you can't move the weight with a proper speed-form and you call that a set.... I call that warming up.

try harder

Also screw that idea of having so many exercises for the same muscle group.... pick one an give it your soul. If you lack the mental energy just put on a song, hype up for 5 minutes and train that exercise like you've got a gun to your head.

I mean, I might just have god-like genetics.... but I've was never in shape as a kid... so chances are you just really need to try harder.

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  • Sorry but that doesn't address the question at all
    – Luciano
    Commented Sep 23 at 10:00

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