Hello Sifu,

I'm a skinny guy trying to bulk up & have been training for 4 months.

At first, it was going fine until my muscle able to handle more weight.

On my 3rd or 4th set of deadlift & squat, I am so winded, out of breath, the heart is pumping too fast for my comfort, body felt light & cant feel my feet (same feeling if having low blood sugar or low blood pressure). No case of fainting yet as I immediately sit down (bracing myself, afraid I faint standing up).

On top of that, squat makes me want to puke too urghh.

Question:

1) What is it that I am lacking? Body endurance? VO2 max? Or low glucose/carb in the system?
2) How to alleviate this or improve this?
3) In the case where my heart pumped too fast and out of breath, what should I do? Move around? sit down? My body instinctively wants to sit, but I am not sure if that is the right thing to do.
3) Is creatine easy on the stomach?

My health background & other info:

Means each portion is small (acceptable size example: 3 boiled egg + 2 loaf bread & STRICTLY NO WATER/DRINKS) and it may digest slowly before feeling can eat again.

Right now I eat 5-6 meals a day. 2 major meal, 2 x homemade shake, 1 in-between cheat snack. Highest ever get 3000 calories per day, lowest 1800; averaging at 2356 calories per day this month. Right now the surplus is still okay & gained weight....for now lah

I took some of your advice. Took pre-workout meal a little bit nearer before workout session & took sweet candy during the workout, breathing properly + immediately sit/rest longer after each set. Starting to look better, but only can tell with confidence on my next leg day.

Oh talking about water, I do drink 600ml of water when I wake up. But during the day, I would only drink water according to my 'schedule' as to not 'compromise' my stomach volume. I noticed that drinking a lot of water throughout the day too much will make my stomach even more 'not hungry' longer. Needless to say, my daily water consumption is obviously sub-par at the moment. Maybe 1.5l daily right now I think. So, by right, I can't take creatine right? Since my water consumption is subpar

Oh My gosh, it's a relief to know that someone else (not to mentions people with more exp in bodybuilding) drink less water than me hahaha.

I always 'beat myself up' around the fact that I did not drink enough; because of the last urine+blood test, doc said my hydration level is a few 'degree' away from optimal.

Maybe I'll try creatine next week + lil bit more water & see. Maybe that also ramp-up my motivation

1) Oh yes, holding the breath for proper bracing do exaggerate my out of breath condition. Probably one of the reasons today was a bit easier as I hold my breath less.

2) Height: 170, current weight 55 (was 46 before my 'diet' on May, started training on July), Bf%: I think 15-18% now as I see faint abs & rib cage, but don't know accurately really

3) Still learning & correcting my compound form along the way.

4) The weight on the compound movement increased a bit, but still lame in comparison to a typical male (yeah I sedar diri ). Below is the starting weight and where I am now (for 12 reps):

Squat 20kg ----> 30kg (scared to increase more weight for now as squat makes me reflux)
Deadlift 30kg ----> 45kg
Bench 18kg ----> 35kg
OHP 18kg ----> 26kg
bend over row 14kg ----> 30kg
pull-up 3 reps ----> 10 reps
Push up 3 reps ---> 20 reps ; now doing weighted push up 10KG 12reps

I do the workout at home, with barbell, dumbbells & resistance band.

5) Consistency, I'd say so-so. In these 4 months, I only have 35 workout sessions. Improving my body is kinda a 'reward' to myself after a certain successful project. So I seldom force myself on days that I really don't want to do it. Oh yeah, I did pause my workout for a month after getting sick for stomach problem (August)

Happy to report that my workout has improved significantly. No more light-headed. I focused more on lifting heavier weight at 8 reps. I also had the courage to increase my squat weight little by little without inducing the feeling of puking.

It has been 19 days since I took creatine. Happy to tell you that my stomach is okay yay!

Some of my workouts like bench, ohp , pushup and some isolation work do have extra 2 rep with creatine, but not all movement. Weird. I can also do more workout at one go (previously I had to separate some movement in the morning & night for certain session because muscle just won't 'fire' any longer).

Recovery --> It's really hard to get as much DOMS as before now with creatine. I know its a good thing, but I felt unaccomplished? hahaha

Water retention? ---> Initially I wanna take creatine so that maybe I'll look fuller when the muscle retains the water (tricking my mind to be even more motivated hahaha). But I think I don't notice any muscle gets significantly bigger after creatine hahaha.

Pic of progress from July to now:



Not a huge result, but I think I can be happy with this considering I am doing it for fun (make it fun, and I can do it forever yooo). Also no more visible rib cage & other bones. But I can only imagine if I took this a little bit more seriously like many gym go-er , fuhhh probably even more significant result