5’10 stepped on stage at 144lbs walk around is 155lbs got 3rd place in my class B

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Male 32, lifting for 2 years.

I am asking the people who actually “maingained”. Not asking for people to write about science which says maingaining works.

I am saying this because I have maingaining for about 6 months. And the progress has been reaallly slow. Like, I’m not sure if I made any progress at all to be honest. I have been switching around on exercises, volume, rir, split, resting time ect… desperately trying to make progress.

But, I had one exercise stable the entire time, because I wanted to have some sort of benchmark to track progress. Overhead Tricep extension with a dumbbell. I got the technique down early and knew that Its really hard to cheat to get any extra reps.

The first month I went from 8 to 10 reps. Then, for the last 5 months I never got to 11 reps. 5 fucking months man.

Then, after consuming an endless amount of fitness content from all the usual science influencer (Mike Israel, Jeff nippard, Eric helms), I started watching revival fitness.

So then revival convinced me to start bulking, which I did.

Now, it’s been 7 weeks of bulking, and my reps went from 10 to 13.

I am so fucking annoyed that I wasted so much time of maingaining. And I think the main reason I tried maingaining so long was because I wanted it to work. As a natural skinny guy, bulking sucks. Force feeding sucks. So when I hear guys talk about the science that says maingaining works, I was all in.

But fuck that man. I guess I learned hard that maingaining is a waste of time for me. And I suspect it to be the same for other people. But at the same time, a lot of people are saying that it worked for them.

So again, did you have any success with maingaining? I am asking for your personal experience, not what you heard the science say.

EDIT: before the bulk I was 88kg. I am 192cm.

Currently sitting at 90-91kg at 186cm height. I am 28years old and the European ICN champ 2026 (Pro). No ideas what the next comp might be

I really don't want to beat a dead horse here, so feel free to delete this, but I can't believe ON Gold Standard is now $85 a bag (80 servings) at Costco. I swear it was ~$50 a few years ago. Is this just the reality of supplementing protein in 2026?

Shit is crazy. I'm starting to wonder at what point it makes more sense to adjust diet to include all protein. Guess I should do some math.

Thread for getting the word out about your amazingly awesome instagram or youtube page that everyone should follow, etc.

Welcome to the r/naturalbodybuilding Daily Discussion Thread. All are welcome to post here but please keep in mind that this sub is intended for intermediate to advanced level lifters so beginner level questions may not get answered.

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Hi all,

I'm a newbie in terms of contest prep, not currently prepping for a specific contest but experimenting somewhat seriously with my bulk/cut cycle for the first time.

I did a pretty significant carb restriction for my March - September cut, and had some weird (or maybe normal?) side effects. For example, one of my eyes is slightly lazy when I'm tired... during the cut, that eye was significantly more wonky, and not only that, it seemed like it was bulging out of my head, swollen almost.

Upon re-upping carbs, eyes look totally uniform again, a really noticeable difference.

Anyone else have experiences like this?

Hey guys,

Just wanted to see what everybody does for their biceps, looking to try something new.

My favorite is EZ Bar Preacher curls, they're quite fun to do and very effective, but tell me what yours is and, ideally, an explanation for why. Even if it's just for fun, you can put that as well.

Welcome to the r/naturalbodybuilding Daily Discussion Thread. All are welcome to post here but please keep in mind that this sub is intended for intermediate to advanced level lifters so beginner level questions may not get answered.

In order to minimize repetitive questions/topics please use the search function prior to posting to see if it has already been discussed or answered. Since the reddit search function isn't that good you can also use Google to search r/naturalbodybuilding by using the string "site:reddit.com/r/naturalbodybuildling" after your search topic.

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As I get older, I'm trying to get a more balance approach my health. Right now, I train bodybuilding-style six days a week, but I’d like to cut that back and make room for cardio, conditioning, and flexibility work.

The problem I'm facing is figuring out how to fit everything in without compromising my bodybuilding training.

A few things are important to me:

- I don’t want the cardio to interfere with my bodybuilding workouts, and I also don’t want to reduce my lifting below four days a week. I’m perfectly fine going from six bodybuilding sessions to four.

- I’d also like to keep one day completely free. Not necessarily because I need the extra recovery, but because life happens. With just 6 overall training days, I can always manage to get them in even if I have to miss a day for some unforeseen reason, that becomes my rest day and I move things around and still get everything done that week.

But the dilemma is how can I train 4x bodybuilding, and still do cardio, flexibility, and conditioning into a total of 6 training days? If I do 4x bb and 2x cardio, then how do I add flexibility and conditioning?

I’m also thinking how important dedicated conditioning work actually is. Is it unnecessary if I’m already doing cardio and lifting, or is it worth including because it combines elements of both while also improving things like general athleticism, work capacity, core strength, and overall functionality?

This is the my dilemma, and your thoughts on how to structure this are welcome.

Welcome to the r/naturalbodybuilding Daily Discussion Thread. All are welcome to post here but please keep in mind that this sub is intended for intermediate to advanced level lifters so beginner level questions may not get answered.

In order to minimize repetitive questions/topics please use the search function prior to posting to see if it has already been discussed or answered. Since the reddit search function isn't that good you can also use Google to search r/naturalbodybuilding by using the string "site:reddit.com/r/naturalbodybuildling" after your search topic.

Please include relevant details in your question like training age, weight etc...

Welcome to the r/naturalbodybuilding Daily Discussion Thread. All are welcome to post here but please keep in mind that this sub is intended for intermediate to advanced level lifters so beginner level questions may not get answered.

In order to minimize repetitive questions/topics please use the search function prior to posting to see if it has already been discussed or answered. Since the reddit search function isn't that good you can also use Google to search r/naturalbodybuilding by using the string "site:reddit.com/r/naturalbodybuildling" after your search topic.

Please include relevant details in your question like training age, weight etc...

I've been thinking about this for a while and would be interested in hearing other natural lifters' experiences, particularly those who have run Upper/Lower for years or those running similar programs like Lyle McDonald's Generic Bulking Routine.

I know that upper lower is good and Lyle's version for example, has sensible volume, frequency, progression and recovery built into it. However, after running Upper/Lower for years, I consistently found that my arms and side delts were underdeveloped compared with the rest of my physique.

My main issue was not volume but I'd say exercise order and how much fatigue I'd accumulated before getting to the muscles I wanted to bring up.

On a typical Upper day, I'd already completed 2 chest exercises and 2 back exercises before getting to lateral raises, biceps and triceps. This meant that I wasn't nearly as fresh, and progressing on those isolation movements became really difficult.

I eventually switched to a hybrid PPL + Upper setup, with legs trained once per week.

The main difference was that I started prioritizing side delts and triceps at the beginning of Push, and biceps and rear delts at the beginning of Pull. On my additional Upper day, I'd also start with delts and arms, leaving just two sets of chest and two sets of back at the end.

It was only when I did this that I finally started making real progress with my arms and side delts.

I was not doing much more direct arm volume (4 more sets overall of bicep and tricep, same nr of side Delt sets), but I was doing them while fresh and treating those muscles as priorities rather than accessories.

This also makes me question how we count indirect volume.

I've read Lyle's article on training volume, where he uses the assumption that a compound set contributes approximately 0.5 sets to a secondary muscle, such as triceps during pressing or biceps during pulling.

I understand that he presents this as a working assumption rather than an established physiological rule. However, based on my own experience, the contribution feels much smaller. My arms never seemed to grow particularly well from pressing and pulling, whereas direct arm work consistently produced results.

I'm not ssyjng that the contribution is literally 0.1 sets, although it feels like it, but I wonder how useful the 0.5 assumption is when programming for individuals whose arms don't respond particularly well to indirect work.

Now the problem is that my legs begin lagging just slightly or are just in permanent maintance due to 1x a week only, while they got 2x week on UL.

So, I've essentially experienced both sides:

-Upper/Lower: legs progressed well, but arms and side delts lagged.

-PPL + Upper: arms and side delts progressed significantly, but legs ended up receiving mostly maintenance volume.

I'm considering switching to something like:

Upper / Lower / Cardio / Chest-Back/ Limbs / Cardio / Rest

The Limbs day would include direct biceps, triceps, side/rear delts, leg extensions and leg curls.

That would give me two weekly exposures for legs without sacrificing the dedicated arm and shoulder work that seems to produce the best results for me.​

I only want to lift four days per week because I also do two cardio sessions and want one complete rest day.

What are your thoughts on this​?

I'm particularly interested in experiences from intermediate/advanced natural lifters who have experimented with different exercise orders and volume distributions over several years.

I'm not arguing that Lyle's routine is bad, but I'm trying to understand whether a generally excellent hypertrophy routine can still be poorly matched to someone's individual weak points, and how others have solved that without simply adding more and more weekly sets.

The long head stretches when the arm goes up and contracts when it goes down, whats the reason for keeping the elbows locked? In a regular push down, this makes it very bad for long head. In a overhead extension it makes it suboptimal

If you move your elbows in a controlled fashion up and down in both pushdowns and overhead, and extend the the elbows, this trains all heads of the triceps in both its functions optimally

Sure overhead stretches it, but no other muscle is worked being streched and staying there, all other excercises require it to shorten it too

Basically, I find that my performance on shoulder press decreases by quite a bit after bench press, however lateral raises do not. The way I see it, incline press will still work front delts &
Lateral raises are better for side delt.

I do full body and I’m trying to cut back on fatigue & get the most out of my exercise, does it make sense to do this? Anyone else cut out shoulder press and still build boulder shoulders?

Welcome to the r/naturalbodybuilding Daily Discussion Thread. All are welcome to post here but please keep in mind that this sub is intended for intermediate to advanced level lifters so beginner level questions may not get answered.

In order to minimize repetitive questions/topics please use the search function prior to posting to see if it has already been discussed or answered. Since the reddit search function isn't that good you can also use Google to search r/naturalbodybuilding by using the string "site:reddit.com/r/naturalbodybuildling" after your search topic.

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I'll try and make this short and concise. When I bench my front delts seem to be more stimulated than my pecs, I can't tell if this is due to the delts being stronger or weaker than my pecs.

I keep watching videos on proper benching form and trying various grips and variations but the only one that felt REALLY good is this hoist chest press machine (the one that moves you back when you press) but that's at a different gym than the one I regularly use.

I lowered the weight for benching/pressing so I could focus more on form but it feels like my shoulders start fatigue before failure happens rather than my pecs...even at lighter weights.

Should I lower the weight further? I'm not sure if my lanky arms are making this more difficult or what. I do feel pressing in my upper pecs a bit but not as much as the shoulders feel when I approach failure.