Hi All,

I'm new here. Had been training for 8 months straight (3 to 5 times gym, with regular cardio 20 to 30 mins between rest days)

But the results not so encouraging for me, especially my upper body.
My shoulders, chests, arms & other parts seemed weak.

I'm also on Personal Training and not being given very good advice. Seeking help to understand why I'm not getting the results as intended.
Somehow I'm already starting to feel demotivated.

Below are the things I'm doing:-
- first 2 months (dropped 5kg on workout and clean diet)
1) good workout from PT (sore and pain like shiet), strength can't increase much
2) even push ups is hard for me to reach beyond 30, pull-ups is almost impossible for me to lift
3) Regular intake of isolate protein after workout and night time & morning supplement (Muscletech Multi-Vitamin)
4) Increased food intake especially protein & increasing back to my usual calories & carbs (not too good with macro nutrients)
5) Eating more crazy than ever (getting hungry very fast almost every 2 to 3 hours, others start thinking i'm food crazy & ridiculous)

How do I fix my weak upper body.

Anyone have experience with such problems like mine. Really appreciate some help.

Thanks & Regards.

What kind of training r u doing? List in details including sets, rep.

it sounds like u are doing more cardio instead of weights?
did u tell ur PT that u want to try and do 30 push-ups and also pull-up?
i think with proper training on right equipment u should be able to do those in 3 months.
so probably best to find a new PT

Hi,

He always varies my workout. But anyhow I'm pretty sure my trainer is also inexperienced. But I did try do pushups I can do roughly near 45 if on full energy.

Pull ups I tried doing couple of times but my body can't seemed to handle it and not enough strength to hold myself up. Somehow feeling weak on many body parts required to do pull ups.

Which is why I'm feeling somehow disappointed and not really being given good advices or consultation. I'm also thinking to switch trainer and place soon.

But meanwhile need some advices and help to get myself prepared without any external help and rely on myself.

Appreciate good advices.

Thanks.

just use the lateral pull down machine.

Lat pull down workout is not so good compared to pull ups and does not give much feel compared to pull ups.

Pull ups is just one of the issue. My question here is basically how do I help myself to improve my overall upper body strength ?

Does working out more frequent help ? I have also tried that in the past but the strength recovery got worse instead and even push ups when I do pass my usual points, the next day chest workout or shoulder workout becomes painful for me to continue.

Need some advice on my type of problems. Has diet got to do with my type of problem ?

Need help. Thanks.

This post has been edited by dennooze: Aug 27 2016, 10:45 AM

Lack of muscle mass, not enough volume, not enough macro nutrients, inconsistent, etc. Too many factors leading to weak upper body. How weak you say? Like unable to bench even on empty bar?

Pull up depends on ur bodyweight. Heavier = harder. Lats pull down workout is not so good but now u cant even do 1rep. So you gotta start there.

are you working out in a commercial gym? with a personal trainer from there as well? are you currently fat, or thin.

to be honest, lack of strength gain from my own experience is always down to the standard 3,

1) lacking intensity. personal trainer in commercial gyms tends to change workouts however they like. which is a problem if you want to gain strength.

2) not eating enough (if you're thin) or not eating correctly (if you're fat). how crazy we're talking about this eating 2-3 hours. a whole meal or just a standard snack like a packet of biscuit.

3) not having enough rest.

Dont be like me, train 1.5 years also zero gains. Hope u find a proper programme.

see that's where u go wrong / reading the wrong stuff / training wrong.
lat pull down machine allows u to quantify how much progress u are doing...who knows maybe say u start from doing 3x8 @ 50kg... still not enough to do a proper pull up... but maybe in 2 months u can progress to 3x8 @ 100kg...then should be able to do pull ups easily.
the point is not about the feel, but the final result isnt it.

8 months still struggle with pushup?
No offense, but kinda hard to believe.

What kind of pushups are you doing? What variation?


Try to stick to same routine for 1-2 weeks. Thats how you will know you make progress or not.
You do the same thing, it will get easier over time. Thats when you increase the intensity/weight/volume.
Keep switching around too much, you cant track your progress.

Your story is kinda hard to believe, OP.
If its true, ditch that trainer ASAP.

Hi, my push ups on average I can do about 30 to 40 depending on my current strength or energy.
Average is about 30+ to 40+. If I need to push beyond that, will need to rest more in between.
The push ups I do is normal wide push ups.
Now able to do diamond push ups about 20 to 30.
For knuckle push ups is about 10 to 20. (if I do more push ups, then this workout can only do 10 at most)

And unfortunately, the routing is not stick to the same. And he's quite disorganized.
Now i'm trying to learn how to workout at home, but don't have the right equipment, mostly can rely on body weight workout
(plank, push ups and body weight variant except pull ups - which I don't have a place to mount it - due to my stupid door hinge its slunting)

And yes, my strength increase is really bad and very very slow. Even some of my gym mates also find it hard to believe.
My recovery is also little slow depending on how intense the PT workout is. If it's really heavy for me, the recovery for me its even slower.

I'm quite bad at keeping track of my own workout, prolly starting to workout, I get easily tired after that and in the end I didn't record it.
Prolly I have to start learning to keep a book of my own workout.

About my PT, yes, I'm gonna make a decision to ditch him once I finished the session.
I'll prolly switch to another gym which I already had a good PT i'm keeping in touch with.
Will meet up with him soon, but will need to terminate my gym membership and end up paying higher gym fees

1st Question Answer
- he does change workout frequently these days
- intensity (it's there, but normally when he leave me alone, I'll try to push the highest possible weights I can go, when my body can't handle it, will drop to the weight I can handle and push on)
- can't comment much on this since I don't understand my body well and nor experts in workouts

2nd Question Answer
- for my height not really fat (but my fat is covering my tummy) finding it very hard to get rid
- no fixed meal sometimes whole meal sometimes light (depending on food availability around me), travelling outstation sometimes can be an issue for me to find food
- good fix for food still not ready, but trying to fix it
- mostly eating outside, if at outside, will try to find best possible food with protein, eating as clean as possible (less oil, high protein, if there's eggs, will sure take at least one to two and mix with other protein food)
- these 3 days, starting to incorporate protein shake in between my main meals (breakfast & lunch), to see if there's any difference (is this good ?)

3rd Question Answer
- rest I believed I have plenty
- are you referring to sleep ? (my sleep nowadays are more energized compared to old days, prolly because of the workout)
- I can't sleep exceed 6 to 7 hours (otherwise when I wake up, will have spinning headaches, sign of oversleeping)
- I don't exactly sleep early roughly 12am to 1am (sometimes earlier depends on my schedule or personal stuffs on the day)
- come back home mostly relax and don't do other stuffs (fearing of stress)
- so this one should not be an issue for me

Appreciate some help based on my previous feedbacks and see if there's anyone here can help out.

And btw, I'm from Penang, someone nearby my place would be great to catch up and meet.

like they say...once u can do 3x20 sets for pushups, there is nothing to gain already...u need more weight.

Penang mainland or island? Im from bm. If ur nearby we can meet up to workout.

I'm from penang island btw, bm is kinda too far for me but we can catch up. tomorrow I'm available.

Unfortunately, I can only do max 2 sets, 3rd sets is pretty much inconsistent depending on my energy on that day.

But if possible. normally will try push past 3rd sets.
The 3rd set normally will drain my strength to further push to further sets.

Since I'm starting to mix in diamond push ups, so the 3rd set has become near impossible for me to complete 15 reps each set.

This post has been edited by dennooze: Aug 27 2016, 10:13 PM

so there's your answer i guess.

i'd suggest for you to suggest to the trainer to focus more on strength oriented workout. weight training, free weights, reduce the machines or even don't use it altogether. i hope he doesn't ask you to do all those kettlebell swings etc (basically crossfit shit).

standard strength oriented workout
1) lower down the rep range (from 8-12 to 6 - 8)

2) sets, depends either from 3 sets to 5 sets

3) workouts should center around big 4 lifts, OHP, Bench press, Deadlift, squats (basically the bosses of the compound movements). you can add dips (weighted if bodyweight is too easy) and pull ups (weighted as well if bw is to lmao easy). these workouts, i'd suggest you to go for the lower rep range as mentioned above. once done you can add isolation workouts as accessories if you with for hyperthrophy.

4)lets say if you can rep 3 sets of 5 with the same weight, increase it on the next workout.

again i'm saying this based on my own experience. unlike some dude who thinks he knows it all, i'm not gonna say that i know best. but happy to say that i actually gained some strength even during my cut following this hybrid strength and hyperthrophy workout.

make sure to work on your form as well. hopefully your trainer is good enough to help you on this. i've seen PTs in personal gyms letting their clients work with half rep benchpresses and squats, which is abit sad.

For the meal, i can't comment much to be honest. you said you're not fat for your height but can't see any abs, so you're in the skinny fat range. since you are more aware of what you're eating, you can try continue doing what you're doing now and see how's the progress on your strength training goes. of course the best way is to track your calories and macros. this need a little bit of effort to start at first, but gets pretty easy once you get used to it.

goodluck

1st & 2nd point - noted

3rd point - the rest I can do but not dips & pull ups (these 2 workouts are insanely tough for me and tried couple of times and cant even lift my own bodyweight at all), so how do I fix this ? keep training same thing ? or use other methods ?

So the above 3 points, how do I monitor myself I'm doing well and what kind of results should I be expecting from myself ? any benchmarks or measurements ?

4th point - yes, my PT sometimes will train me and halfway my forms sometimes go little off (when my body can't handle the weight), especially doing the biceps (my left hand - weaker hand tend to twist the dumbbell when I move it up and down), but I still try my best to do it on my own without PT monitoring (but sometimes I feel pissed off as I'm paying to get attention and knowing the correct forms but instead I'm left alone sometimes, this is a similar issues with many commercial gyms I guessed)

For the food, I'll try my best to slowly fix it and incorporate more clean food, fried, oily food I can cut off easily, only thing is the protein intake may not be sufficient

Comes to supplement, any recommendations of tweaking I need to do ? Currently I'm relying quite heavily on isolate protein & multi-vitamin.
Should I try put in BCAA ? pre or post workout ? any other etc ?

Need some advices on the above.

Thanks & Regards.

When I was stuck in a plateau years ago, what I did was instead of adding more reps, I go really slow on each rep. Focus on form and motion. Try adding 4 or 5 secs to each rep.